Halloween Party @ The Laseter's

Jim and I went to a Halloween party on Saturday night at Dave and Tina Laseter's place in Salem. We met Dave and Tina and their son Dustin about 2 weeks after they moved to Oregon 13 years ago. The party started around 9:00 pm and so we started up the freeway around 9:30. Jim's comment to me as we were leaving Albany was that it had been a long time since we were heading anywhere but home at that time of night. Which is soooo true... But since I have been feeling so much better now that I am on the right medications, I have a lot less social anxiety and I actually feel like socializing and going out with my hubby again! Better Living Through Chemisty!!!

We had an absolute great time and stayed way, way, way too late. (Actually it was early Sunday morning when we finally left...). The only negative was that there were lots of people there and lots of communal food bowls (i.e. chips, pretzels, etc.) and I am usually very careful about eating from communal bowls (especially when there are kids at the party), but I wasn't as careful as I should have been and ended up with a stomache bug. Yuck! I was out Monday and Tuesday this week. I hated to take sick leave so soon after starting a new job, but I thought it would be worse to come to work and give the puckies to all of my new co-workers.

Happy Halloween!!!

Jim and Dave
JayLene and Jim
Tina
Isn't Tina Gorgeous?
Tina and JayLene
Tina and Jim
Dave Jammin

Roller Derby Road Trip

On the 13th, Jim and I along with 3 other couples made a road trip to Springfield, OR to see our friend Megan in her debut roller derby match w/ her team "The AndromeDolls". It was awesome! I remember having a real love for watching roller derby on TV back in the "olden days" and I am so excited that it has made a comeback - especially among women! Megan's team ended up losing by only 2 points. It was so exciting... and it only took me a few minutes to remember and pick up the rules of the game. If you have a chance to go to a match in your neck of the woods, definitely go!

Megan aka "CosmoNaughty"

Jim and JayLene - Waiting in line

Jim, Scott and Deana

The Gang!
Scott, Deana, Cathy, Quinn and Kathy

The Gang (minus JayLene)
Back Row: Don and Jim
Front Row: Quinn, Kathy, Cathy, Scott and Deana

The Charms of Tea

It all began when I turned 43. As part of my birthday celebration, Tania and I went and had afternoon tea at a quaint little tea shop (The Charms of Tea) located in downtown Albany. The Empress Tea - our personal favorite - consists of multiple courses: sorbet, soup, savory finger sandwiches (3 different ones), a sweet plate, including a traditional scone with jam, lemon curd and clotted cream, and a pot (or pots) of your favorite hot tea. The tea shop is decorated in a Victorian style and is nice and quiet. It's the perfect place to sit and enjoy a couple hours of slowing down and relaxing. This has become one of our favorite things to do for special occasions, but especially for birthdays.

Since Tania's birthday was on October 7th, last Saturday, October 6th, me, Tania, her girls, Gabby and Bridgette, and our friend Wendy met to celebrate Tania turning 32 and to enjoy afternoon tea. It was, as usual, just lovely. And, the scones (my favorite part) were absolutely delicious. Especially when they are fresh from the oven and slathered with clotted cream with just a dab of lemon curd. Yummo!

Here are a few pictures of the girls - As usual, I was taking the pictures and so I am not in any of them. I need to remember to hand the camera off to someone else occasionally, don't I?

I'm already looking forward to my birthday in February when we will do this all again.

My best friend, Tania and Wendy

Gabby enjoying a gingersnap.
(Tania's oldest daughter)

Bridgette wishing I would just put down the camera & drink my tea.
(Tania's youngest daughter)

Any Computer Geeks Reading This? I Need Help!

Okay, I am so frustrated!

I went to download the photos from my digi camera yesterday using the same software I have used - without any problems - every single time and I am getting an error message that closes the program and I can go no further. The message I am getting is this:

DIGIMAXMASTER caused an invalid page fault in
module GTCODEC.DLL at 0167:042163c3.
Registers:
EAX=00000280 CS=0167 EIP=042163c3 EFLGS=00010246
EBX=00970330 SS=016f ESP=060cfd38 EBP=0096696c
ECX=000001e0 DS=016f ESI=00b82b7a FS=73b7
EDX=0004b000 ES=016f EDI=009701f4 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8a 14 56 88 54 24 18 8b 57 08 85 d2 7d 04 6a 77
Stack dump:
0000400d 0096696c 060cfdf8 00970330 04211380 00000001 00000000 00970330 00b82b7a 00000000 00000000 ffffffff ffffffff 009701f4 05ed0000 00000000

I have no idea what this means. I tried to troubleshoot the problem myself. First, I shutdown and restarted my computer. Nope. Next, I performed the "repair it" feature from the software CD. Nope. Finally, I uninstalled the program completely and then reinstalled it. Nope. &%$@&&!!! Anyone have any suggestions? This is so frustrating. Especially since I have blog entries waiting for some of those pictures. If you can help, please comment. Thanks!

Yay! Jim was able to fix the problem! Pictures coming soon