My White Christmas

My house is covered in snow.

Let me repeat that.... my house is covered in snow!!! For those of you who do not live in the Pacific Northwest, this is extremely unusual! And incredibly cool!!!!

This is my first white christmas... EVER!!! And while I must say that I enjoy it, I am also glad that this is not every year!

Perhaps if our city didn't shut down at the mere thought of snow, and perhaps if they used salt on the roads instead of sand, and maybe if people (including myself) knew how to drive in snow, then maybe maybe maybe that would be alright.

But we don't and because of this I almost got stuck at my little apartment all by myself on Christmas! Thankfully we had a break in the weather on Tuesday and my papa came in his four-wheel drive SUV and rescued me!!

Now I am with my family and we have been working hard! If you look at the picture below you can see how much snow has fallen over here. I also encourage you to notice our driveway and the fact that you can see the pavement. Yes, that is right.... yours truly took part in making that possible.

My driveway is steep. Some of you know this. At the time that my brother and I shoveled it the temperature outside was below freezing. So you can image my brother, in shorts and regular shoes, and myself digging under the snow only to find ourselves standing on a mound of ice!! Needless to say, we both took a couple of good falls!!

And now, to get you further into the Christmas spirit.... here is a video of my brother getting a beat down from his big sis! Enjoy!!! I know I did!!! :)

My Next Adventure

There is a new idea on the floor.

After reading my blog, Buckles had an interesting proposition for me. He thought that I should also write a bit about places that I would like to travel to in the future. Since I am now back at home and reasons to write become fewer and far between (let’s face it daily life just seems dull when you are stuck in it), he thinks that I should start looking for my next adventure.

And I support him on that idea! So here we go:

PATAGONIA: Los Glaciares National Park & Ushuaia

Ushuaia es una ciudad de Argentina y es la zona mas austral habitada del mundo. Whoops I mean.... situated on the Beagle Strait, Ushuaia is the largest city in Argentine Tierra del Fuego and arguably the southernmost city in the world.


Although it seems to attract many tourists, I think it would be amazing to see how a city that far south functions and what kind of customs have sprung from this factor.

After exploring Ushuaia, I would want to take a plane or a tourist bus (note: there is no public transportation around Tierra Del Fuego) to El Calafate, a town that sits right on Lago Argentina. It is the main attraction of this town, 50 miles away, that is the reason from my curiosity in Patagonia in the first place.



The Perito Moreno Glacier is supposedly one of three glaciers in Patagonia that is still advancing. It is famous because it is dynamically changing which produces a cyclic phenomenon of forward and backward movement, with spectacular ice falls from its front wall.


I think it would be phenomenal to stand on a peak looking over this monstrous glacier carving its way down the mountain, moving with such force that it actually losing pieces of itself along the way!

So what do you think? Anyone interested in a journey south?

Introductions

This is incredibly nerdy and thanks to facebook almost too easy. It may even be a little bit creepy to some but oh well.

I was thinking that as I progress down the road of bloggerdom, recounting tails of my crazy adventures for friends far away, I am not doing a good job of developing the characters for my audience. That is why I decided that as I go along I will include posts that introduce any new players in the game of Meg's Life. Now who knows how it will work but I am going to test it and go from there. Deal? Deal.

Alright, here is goes.

As you may know, I play volleyball. Although I never appreciated it in high school, it was my saving grace while studying abroad. From that experience, I learned that the best way to meet new people was to hop on a court and start swing away (or I guess I should say "set away"). I returned to Seattle to finish college but upon graduation the majority of my college friends moved out of the area. Alas, I was stuck in the same predicament that I had found myself in two years ago in England. Fortunately, I knew the secret.

I start showing up to the Ballard open gym almost a year ago. Every Tuesday. I was there. I went out afterwards. Stayed up past my bedtime. Often felt hungover the next morning. But in the end, I found myself surrounded by a fine young group of people that I now call friends.

So without further ado, I would like to introduce you to the Tuesday crew:



Jessica - Now you might not be able to tell it from this particular expression, but this girl is the loveliest girl on the face of the planet. Such a genuinely kind person, she was the first person to approach me on my first day. She greeted me with a cheery smile and is the reason I returned the next Tuesday.

Alicia - Also, incredibly kind and generous, you would never have guessed that this girl has done every job from training monkeys to teaching ESL. She also loves her Apple Martinis! Hehehe


Sarah - My most favorite yoga buddy, who lives right around the corner from where I used to live. She is outgoing, witty and never leaves home without her enormous laugh. She also never lets me leave volleyball without stopping at the bar for at least one drink. :) The sign of a true friend.


Chris - Sarah's fiance, is equally as witty as his lady love. He is a riot, dancing to his own tune... literally! He is the reason that the bartender at the Wingmaster gets off the phone from time to time. "Oh hey Jim the volleyball team just got here. Gotta go."

Kristie - A wild child from the East, this lady has a motorcycle, a dozen tattoos and an adopted great Dane named Rupert (who is my god dog!). She is my partner in crime although now that our schedules are completely opposite I barely ever get to see her. :(


Jon -Hmm what can I say about Jon? Only he is a nut. Don't leave him around a volleyball net alone. And never ever play him and his girlfriend at Shuffleboard!


Libby - An Oregon Duck from Alaska, she can drink me under the table and ironically, reminds me a lot of another certain volleyball lady from the very northern hemisphere. It seems that either time I am out with these ladies, I always end up a little more "happy" than I anticipated.




Buckles - Yes, that is right Buckles. Which is derived from his name, Buckley. I know. Crazy. He is also a Duck, and friend's with Libby from College. Don't let his rugged, mountain man features fool you, really he is just a huge teddy bear of fun and giggles. And yes, I said giggles.

Alright so that is it for now! Those are just a few of the people I play volleyball with on Tuesday evenings. Now whenever I write stories about volleyball evenings (Sarah's bday party is happening this weekend), the hardcore followers of this blog can use this as a reference. Plus when some of you come back to visit me, you will probably be forced to hang out with them. So you can put a name with a face before you even see them in person.

Creepy. :)

My Grandma's Trip to Africa

My 86 year old Grandma recently returned from a three week trip to Tanzania.

First of all, I just need to say how awesome this is! Go Grandma! I hope that I am still traveling around the world with friends when I am that age!

My Grandma wanted to show the family all 300 of her pictures from the trip. So on a Sunday, Cole and I went over to my family's house for dinner and the slide show.

Grandma had some amazing pictures of the people she met, the places she stayed and or course, of the animals she saw. One particular set of images captured the mating rituals of a group of lions (insert brother's giggle here).



Now this is not exactly her same picture but a similar image proceed all of the mounting images. At which point, my grandma decided to explain to my whole family and Cole that "she [the lioness] is lying like that so the semen doesn't come out of her."

WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?! Did my Grandma just say what I think she just said?

Yes she did! Cole and I exchanged glances and then the whole family burst into laughter.

I was a great moment!

I wanted to share this story with everyone because it cracked me up and I hope it made you smile too!

I appreciate my Grandma more than words can say and I am glad she continually surprises me! I would not have it any other way!

Love you Grandma!

My New Apartment

I live with a boy. A very, very clean boy but still a boy.

For those of you who don't know, Cole and I moved in together this November.

We moved to a neighborhood called Phinney Ridge, which is on a hill in between Greenlake and Ballard.

Thanks to Google (scary), I can offer you a pretty cool tour of our neighborhood. I am starting you off at the Red Mill burger & Starbucks coffee shop where the road turns from Phinney Ave N to Greenwood Ave. Go north and check out the Stumbling Goat Bistro on 67nd and Greenwood Ave N‎ where I like to go to dinner with my friend Darlin. Then, go south to check out Sully's Tavern (on the corner of 62nd and Phinney Ave) where Cole and I play Trivial Pursuit Sports Edition from the 1960s!


View Larger Map

Our apartment used to be a one-story house that was split into a duplex. It is two bedrooms, has hard wood floors and a little area out back for a BBQ. We are still trying to work everything out, like getting a carpet and coffee table for the living room, but all-in-all it is a pretty cool little space. I will put up pictures when I have them.

If you want to see an exact image of the house and where it is on the block (yeah Google has that too!), email me and I will send you the link to check out!

I am really excited about this apartment and making it my own. I hope you all can come visit me sometime and I cannot wait to have my first party here. Yes, you heard that correctly. Meg will be throwing a party! Crazy! I know.

Enjoy the tour!

Oh and for those of you who have never meet Cole, here is a great little picture of him.... feeding a monkey!



Man, is he going to kill me! :)

A New Job

Many of you know that I was looking for a job for what felt like an eternity. After a month of searching, anything was going to be better than nothing. However, I got lucky. At the end of September, a larger Seattle company decided that they wanted to try me on for size.

I am now working for them as a Web Content Producer. Sounds vague and frankly, it is. But I will attempt to describe what it is I do for all of you curious folk out there.

I work in a division of said company* that manages an ecommerce website. I am part of the Traffic Team for that site. What does that mean you wonder? Just as it sounds, my team’s goal in life is to drive as much traffic as possible to our little site. It sounds kind of silly but it is general enough where I get to deal with multiple facets of the company’s business. Marketing, syndication, strategy, etc.

Obviously, I do a lot of boring stuff. Pull Omniture reports (what an f***ing awful tool compared to G.Analytics!). Update information on the website via HTML. Write copy for promo material (what a joke… have you seen my spelling?). And general administrivia work regarding server organization and our archival process. Fun.

Overall though, it is pretty cool. And definitely a huge change from the 20 person company I used to be at. I am happy that I am here and looking forward to seeing how my time here works out.

*There will be no mention of the company name or of the channel that I work for due to security reasons. I am not planning on slandering the companyr, I just want to be extra cautious and stay off the big brother radar. You know how it goes.

And the blog continues on….

I know it has been almost two months since my last entry but I can explain:

Finding a new job, finding a new apartment and getting cable set up at said new apartment takes up a lot of time!

But now that the storm is somewhat behind me, I can recount all the crazy events and news for you! 

…Oh lucky you!

Coming soon - New posts :

1.) The New Job

2.) The New Apartment

3.) Introductions

Hope you enjoy!