A Long Update

We've been remiss in updating Tacky Magnet, but we've been thinking about posts a lot. Here are some of highlights for the last few months.

July
Hart traveled for work a lot of the month and I spent a week in Phoenix and a week in Oregon with Mindy et al. I went to Phoenix to participate in a Mayo Clinic study on my stimulator. It gave me a four-day headache, but I enjoyed chatting with my doctor and the med student working on the study.

Dave and Laura (some of Hart's Macalester friends) were nearby for a wedding and spent one day and night with us. We met some of Laura's friends, ate at a terrific hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant, went canoeing, had dinner with a bunch of Dave's friends (who had been at the wedding) and visited the fish locks. It was a short but enjoyable visit.

We also went raspberry picking with our new friends Robyn and Peter. None of us had done anything like that before and it was a blast. We stopped at a little burger joint (it looked like an old Dairy Queen) in a tiny town on the way home for burgers and shakes.

August
At the beginning of the summer Hart was told to schedule all his vacation before trips and meetings were booked. He took Aug. 8 & 9 to take an in-town vacation. This wasn't intended, but after he spent Saturday morning at the spa (his birthday gift from me) and we had breakfast at a new restaurant, a plan formed. We ate breakfast at a new restaurant every day and tried at least two new restaurants for dinner. We went to the zoo, the history museum and the fish locks. We took walks around the neighborhood, napped and watched baseball. We saw a building being torn down. It was a fantastic vacation.

Aug. 19-22 was our second annual pilgrimage to the Gorge Amphitheater. Hart graciously joined me for three shows of my beloved Dave Matthews Band. And he wasn't even bored.

Mindy and the kids came to visit the next weekend. We took the kids to the local park and wading pool, went to the fish locks (sensing a theme here?) and ate at our local haunt, 5 Spot, and at a fish and chips place. I'm drawing a blank on what else we did.

September
Labor Day weekend was busy. Friday night we had dinner with Paul and Katherine at a lovely neighborhood restaurant. We spent Saturday at Bumbershoot, a music festival, where we met up with Annie and Mark for a while. Sunday morning we headed to Portland for Franz (one of Hart's workshop friends) and Sherry's wedding. The ceremony was touching and at a beautiful garden. Franz's college friends entertained us at dinner. Monday morning Mindy and our Uncle Bill (who was visiting from Kansas) met us in downtown Portland for breakfast. Then we drove home.

After not seeing Annie and Mark for more than a month (except at Bumbershoot), we went to movies with them two weekends in a row. Not only did we see The Constant Gardener and Junebug, we went to a great bakery one day and an elegant doughnut shop/coffehouse the next. What a tasty city we live in.

Hart started my birthday several days early by saying, "It's your birthday... What do you want to do?" That was all it took for me to become Queen of All the World for the week. On my real birthday, I relaxed, read, meandered along Queen Anne Ave. and drank coffe. Then Hart and I went to dinner at a restaurant we'd never tried before.

October
Hart was out of town Sept. 29 & 30, but we threw a small birthday party for me on Oct. 1. The plan for a party originated when I saw ice cream cakes at Ben & Jerry's. Everyone we invited was thrilled to help us eat the Chocolate Fudge Brownie and Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch cake, which had brownies in it instead of cake. And I got balloons.

My mom came to town on the 18th. We had a spa day on the 19th (her birthday gift -- sensing another theme here?), had some nice dinners out, did some shopping and relaxed. She cooked chili for us to freeze and cheese soup for Hart to eat over the weekend.

Mindy came up Friday night to take us to her house to go to the Lion King musical on Sunday. It was Mindy's birthday gift to us and the kids and some friends were also going. We drove down to Oregon Saturday morning. Long story short, I felt like crap, missed the musical and Hart drove down to pick me up yesterday. My mom will be with Mindy the rest of the week.

The majority of the month hasn't been too interesting. Hart has worked and traveled for work a lot. I had a bad cold and threw my back out, so I've read and watched a boatload of baseball. I may have gotten enough to last me through the off-season.

Friday we head to a weekend-long musical festival in Las Vegas. We're actually staying in Henderson and will be taking it easy when we aren't at the festival; it won't be a Las Vegas Tourism Department kind of trip.

Maybe we'll get back in the swing of posting now. My headache blog is going great, but is also getting a lot of my attention.