Hello from The Vale

>спални, it has been another month since I last posted.  I guess that is better.  At least it was in the same season of the year.  Wendy and I have been working full time and it has been extremely warm here.  Just no energy left to update this blog and think of a discussion topic.

We did make a trip in June to visit our friend in Olympia/Tumwater.  The friends from British Columbia came down and joined us.  We managed to visit the Pike’s Place Market in Seattle, the same day as the Seattle Marathon.  It was amazing seeing all those runners on the blocked off section of the Alaskan Way freeway.  Then, due to street construction, we did not make it to the Seattle Underground but we did get to the Space Needle and visited the Science Fiction museum.  The Science Fiction museum had a great traveling exhibit on Jim Henson and the Muppets.  It was the weekend after Michael Jackson’s passing so the Experience Music exhibit was filled with Michael Jackson music.

We miss everyone in PA and LA, drop us an email when you get a chance.

I fully meant to update this blog every week once I got it back up and running.  Time just seems to have gotten away from me.

We are coming up on the 4th of July holiday.  I hope everyone is doing well at this time.  Wendy and I are both working “full time” at Villas.  Wendy still does a day or two each week at Target also.  We just took a brief trip to Olympia to visit our friend, KC who is not doing all that well healthwise at the moment.  Did a lot of visiting and watching videos with her.  Next week we will be going back up to see her but also to meet our friends from Burnaby, British Columbia.

Looking forward to doing some sight seeing in the Seattle area.  All the years we lived in Washington we never made it to the Space Needle.  Also hope to see the Science Fiction Museum and a long delayed visit to the Fish Market.

In the meantime, I would like to leave you with a quote I found on Beliefnet recently.

FASCINATION/CURIOSITY

“Fascination is one step beyond interest. Interested people want to know if it works. Fascinated people want to learn how it works.” – Jim Rohn

Here is hoping that everyone enjoys a truly wonderful Valentine’s Day.  Wendy will be working and I will be playing with one of the granddaughters.  Not sure yet what she is going to want to do, maybe a movie.  Will have to wait and see.  In the meantime, just wanted to touch base with everyone and let them know we are doing pretty good.

Miss all of you and hope to be able to visit soon.

I took the blog down last fall because of a trojan somehow being loaded.  I have been through all sorts of search looking for it and hope we have found it.  Therefore, I am uploading again and hope to the blog running regularly now.

We miss all of you both in Port Angeles and other places we have been.  Wendy and I are settled into our townhouse and both working at the same place now.  Wendy is keeping her other job one day a week just because she likes it.  Things have been very busy here over the holidays and this past month.  Just got time to finally upload and try out the blog page again.

Let me finish loading everything to make sure it works correctly and putting the updated blog link on the home page.  Talk to everyone soon, I hope.  My cookbook is almost ready for publication…..maybe in the next week I can announce that it is finished.

>may get different backgrounds when you check the blog.  It is still having problems retaining the background I want to use.  This seems to be an inherent problem in the software.  We are trying to work out the bugs so please keep watching.  Let me know what background you are getting when you check the blog.  It should have a small clover in the top left corner and three columns in the body.

For some reason the old “default” background of a dull blue top and missing right hand column still seems to try to load instead of the one I want.  I would be happy if I could get the teddy-bear one to register.  Anyway we are still working on that part of the problem.

Hope everyone is enjoying the Olympics.  Man, the US women’s gymnastic all-round final last night was riveting.  Congratulations to Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson for their gold and silver medals.

We are spending our evenings watching the Olympics.  We are real fans of the swimming and gymnastics teams so this past 5 days has been a real feast for us.  We wish the diving teams had done better but they were still great to watch and China has definitely got terrific teams.

Hope everyone is enjoying the Olympics along with us.  Once they are over it will be back to our own Olympic sport ….. unpacking the boxes.  We have been in our own apartment since June 28 but with our work schedules (I worked off a full time two weeks notice at one job and changed over to my new full time job in town, Wendy has been working all sorts of shifts at Target and now she has started part time at the same place I am working), it has been very difficult to open up boxes and decide what to do with things.  Especially with all the furniture still up in Port Angeles.

Love to all and drop us a note now and then.

Over the years I have heard many statements about calls to the Help Desk at places of work.  Most of the time they seemed to be very accurate about how instead of being the “Help” desk, it should be called the “helpless” desk.

HOWEVER, this time the report is very positive.  I want to sincerely thank the HELPFUL DESK at my hosting ISP.  In the 5-6 years (possibly more) we have been hosting with them, the technical support people have been extremely helpful, and very responsive to any problems I have experienced.

The Help Desk people at ApolloHosting.com are truly wonderful people who have solved my blog problem.

I should be able to post much more frequently now that the software problem has been fixed.

Wendy has started training at her new job and we will have more to report in the very near future.  I know I love working there and I am sure that Wendy will as well.

Please bear with us.  We have only sporadic contact with our logon link.  There seems to be a problem with my template.  I am working to resolve the issue so please be patient.

In the meantime, Wendy has a second part-time job, working at the same place that I am now at.  She will be working weekends and fill-in for the night receptionist as needed.  I will try to post more again in the near future.  It will depend on the ability to log in and write a note.

What is the world coming too? I figured that since I can still log in I will take advantage to help spread some wonderful news I heard yesterday for all those Harry Potter fans out there. I am sure that most of them received the news the same way I did but here goes.

It was announced yesterday on JK Rowling’s site that the special little book she handwrote last year and gave to 7 people, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, will with the permission of the 6 people who received a handwritten copy and the 7th who bought it at a charity auction, the book will be published and released on December 4. That means that ll the fans can read the book for themselves. For more information you can check out any one of several Harry Potter sites but here is a link directly to the article on The Leaky Cauldron site. http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2008/7/31/j-k-rowling-s-charity-to-publish-beedle-the-bard-in-december

Leaking Cauldron advised that:

According to a post on JKRowling.com, the book will have commentary by Dumbledore (it was “discovered in his papers after his death,” including historical notes, personal reminisces, and insights into the most mysterious branch of magic, wand lore). The tales were “translated from the original runes by Hermione Granger” and have illustrations by J.K. Rowling.

I can hardly wait for December 4th to come. I am going to pre-order our copy as soon as payday rolls around.

I am sorry to be so long between posts. I have been having trouble with this software. It seems to lose the login link so I have not be able to login to make a report until now.

I have a wonderful new full time job as the Business Office Coordinator for an Independent Living Senior Community. The residents are all very patient with me learning their names. The other staff are great, the atmosphere is open, warm and like working from home.

Wendy is still at Target and getting quite a few hours in.

We have a townhouse of our own now. We moved in the end of June and since that was when I started the full time job, we are having a slow time unpacking all the boxes. The townhouse is very low on cupboards in the kitchen so we are having to put together cabinets that can stand alone. Hopefully I will be able to post more often now. I will keep trying to figure out what is wrong with this software so that I can get logged in more often. In the meantime, we are reachable by our email addresses. We would love to hear from all of you.