Saturday, October 11, 2008

Updated wish list from 2006

1. go to New Zealand Did go to Australia...kinda close...
2.visit Athens and Rome going to at least ONE of these in 2010
3. go Scuba diving umm...watched mom scuba dive??
4. ride in a hot-air balloon
5. become a good IV-putter-inner
6. take pictures that people want to pay for
7. become a charge nurse
8. give Ethan a gift that is so perfect, it makes him speechless
9. have babies (only 2)
10. watch the Seahawks win the Superbowl well, watched them GO to the Superbowl11. buy a house with a big yard and plenty of space got the house and the space...not so sure I want the big yard anymore
12. cook dinner * every * night, and take leftovers to work for lunch
13. buy a teeny tiny SUV for more car room
14. keep a clean house
15. take more diversity classes at UW
16. catch something BIG at work, and help save a limb or life Well....our secretary had an anaphylactic reaction to a medication and I am the one who noticed she couldn't breathe, got her oxygen and called the rapid response team who came up to whisk her to the ER and intubate her.. Sorta counts
17. have a photography studio set up in my garage
18. get another kitty for Shadow and Boo to play with
19. go to Hawaii DID IT!
20. teach my kids to accept people for who they are
21. learn to sew clothes for my kids
22. finish my quilt!!!
23. get back a body I can be proud of
24. watch every episode of Little House on the Prairie
25. scrapbook *all * of my old pictures
26. Watch the Sonics win the NBA championship sadly enough, this one is no longer a possibility
27. take a Caribbean cruise
28. take some geography classes
29. win a photo contest
30. visit the Smithsonian with mom
31. learn to like seafood, at least SOME of it!!
32. figure out how to not be scared of people
33. inspire someone to be a nurse
34. make up a recipe so good, people pester me for it I have a couple now...
35. raise polite, respectful kids
36. go back to Alaska to see more glaciers and icebergs
37. go on an overnight hike on Mt. Rainier
38. be a wonderful wife
39. go parasailing
40. take some history classes
41. get my annual holiday language wall made into a permanent ‘welcome’ display
42. watch all the Star Wars movies back to back
43. take a vacation somewhere warm with the entire family
44. hike all the trails in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness
45. get professionally fitted for a bra (hey—Oprah says to!)
46. buy a boat
47. go camping on Orcas Island
48. stop at an accident scene and help someone
49. be part of another study that saves lives
50. learn how to pick a lock

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Our new favorite place on the web

Ethan found this website, and we are now quite hooked. It is a secure website that you can get to access your online accounts and show you exactly where you stand. We have our retirement, bank accounts, credit cards and mortgage tied in. One place to go to see all our financial info at once.

There is a really cool 'trends' section where you get a pie chart showing where every dollar you spend goes--transactions are put into different categories. You can go in and edit which category something goes into. For example, even though we went to Safeway in Maui, we wanted that charge to go in as vacation, rather than as groceries. You can really play with it.

You can also set up alerts so that you are emailed if a large transaction goes through, or if a bank account drops below a certain amount. Very cool

We are uber concerned about finances right now with the financial market as it is. That having been said, it is a great time to get IN to the stock market a bit--things really can't go down much further. We decided to double our retirement contributions (403b, similar to 401k but through the government) to 20% of our pretax income. Maybe a bit high, but we can always go back and bump it down if we need to.

Anyway. Check out mint.com! It has been all over the financial magazines as something that is going to put Quicken and the like out of business. So easy--it does all the work for you!

Friday, October 03, 2008

Moving right along.....

We watched the debate last night, as did pretty much everyone else in the country. Ethan and I played Palin Bingo with homemade cards I copied from a website. I totally won, with my final square being "Special Needs". I also got Maverick, Alaska, God, Al Qaeda, Hockey Mom, Terrorists and a bunch more that I can't remember right now. Oh, and Energy Independence--that one came up a BUNCH.

Overall, not impressed. She didn't answer the questions--just stuck with her talking points, whether they had anything to do with the questions or not. I especially liked how when she was asked what her Achilles heel might be, and she started talking about how much executive experience she has as a former business owner and mayor. Did not even remotely answer the question.

Anyway. People generally don't vote based on who the vice presidential candidate is, so this really doesn't count for much.

No plans for this weekend for the Amersons other than rest and relaxation and a full day of football on Sunday (away Seahawks game).

You will be pleased to know that the Amersons have decided that 2010 will be the year of Europe (as opposed to Australia). Ethan wants to see London again at a slower pace. Other than that, we are definitely going to spend a night in Paris (see the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre), but the rest is open. I would love to see Rome, but Ethan was already there and I don't want him to do an EXACT repeat of his 2006 trip with Toby.



Maybe Athens...although I REALLY want to go to Croatia to see the Plitvice waterfalls. SOOOOO beautiful!! I am totally sure that we will plan an amazing vacation with oodles of sights and sounds and memories made.