Mega Brain Fart

We all have them. They occur at the most inopportune times and make us look like idiots.

Brain farts.

Usually they can be overlooked without much embarrassment or without making you look like a fool.

Not today.

Thursdays are my day off to catch up on school and housework. I went to do the grocery shopping and first minor brain fart came when I realized I forgot to grab a coupon sitting on the kitchen counter. No big deal, I can just pick up the grocery item next time I go shopping.

I go grocery shopping couponless and ring up my groceries. I slide my debit card to pay and the words "Enter PIN" flash across the screen. I casually enter a few numbers only to find that I must reenter my PIN. Major brain fart. What on earth is my PIN number? I reenter what I believe to be correct PIN numbers until the machine finally accepts one. I look to the screen to print my receipt only to find the notice "Attendant has been notified to assist you" appear. She runs my debit card as a credit purchase and advises me to contact my bank immediately. I awkwardly thank her for helping me through my brain fart, but I am still no closer to remembering my PIN.

Upon unloading groceries I get a flash of brilliance (ok, maybe not brilliance, but whatever the opposite of a brain fart is). I remember my PIN! I repeat the number multiple times as I make lunch and feel positive that it is secure in my head, never to get lost again.

After bringing and eating lunch with Husband (and having quite a pleasurable time), I continue my shopping at the Costco near his work. I weave through the crowds, passing up the unnecessary calories in the free samples, and make my way to the checkout only to realize that this particular Costco does not have self-checkout. I wait in line and ring up my groceries and slide my card and carefully enter my rehearsed PIN. Invalid PIN, Reenter. I reenter my PIN, knowing full well that this is the correct number. PIN entered too many times. Invalid. I am escorted to another room where an employee attempts to ring up my PIN getting the same messages.

And then it hits me.

Remember how you tried entering your PIN 4 times earlier today and you had to run it as credit? Remember the lady helping you awkwardly? How could you forget that?!

Mega brain fart. The kind employee holds my cart until I can find a way to pay for my items. I call Husband. Husband calls bank. Bank put my debit card on a 24-hour hold. Must be run as credit for card to work. I relay this information to the kind employee only to find that this particular Costco is not equipped to run debit cards as credit cards. No checkbook in my purse. I must return to Husband's work to use his debit card (and yes, I remember his PIN better than my own).

My brain farts today taught me a very important lesson: Go to the Costco that has self checkout and lets you pay with credit cards.

Autumn

I love Fall. It's such a great time of year when the air gets chilly, cocoa mugs are dusted off, sweaters are worn again, and, the best part of all, you get to crunch all the leaves on the ground.

Unfortunately, in the Northwest, Autumn is a little bit different.

Here, October marks the beginning of the rainy season. Now, I was forewarned about this, and fully prepared for the frizzy hair and wet socks. What no one told me was that all of the leaves get wet too. What is the point of having all of the leaves fall off the trees when you can't crunch them?! They are soggy leaves that never fully dry out. Instead they stick to your wet car, your wet shoes, and your wet porch. No pleasurable crunching sound. Instead all you get is a wet shoe (and potentially sock depending on the footwear).

I think I'm going through leaf crunching withdrawals.

Seattle and Snoods

This weekend Tyler and I went up to Seattle to visit my brother Derek and his wife Nicole. We crossed this bridge to get there (see above image). The bridge used to look like this:

For a cool video on watching the bridge sway before the collapse, click here.

But I digress. We went to see Nicole's play Little Women. She was Meg and she was phenomenal! I have such a talented sister-in-law! Here she is with her "sisters"



For the play they went all out with hoop skirts and snoods. (Note, a snood is "a net or fabric bag pinned or tied on at the back of a woman's head for holding the hair." Yeah, I didn't know that either until Nikki told me). It was very well done and I can't wait to head back up there for more plays (and hopefully they'll have more snoods).

We primarily came up to see the play and visit with them. It was so nice to get out of town for a while and we really enjoyed the trip. Tyler hadn't really spent any time with them and they were able to get to know him a little better. We also had fun with Winston, Derek and Nicole's dog. He is such a cuddly little fireball! How can you not love a cute face like that?

It was a great weekend of visiting with family. We were glad we had the opportunity to go and view the beautiful autumn trees. We were especially glad the bridge didn't collapse on us too.

Zoo, Cheese, and Beach

Having lived in Oregon for a few months now, we've seen a few of the sights the Portland area has to offer. We made a quick trip to an airplane museum and here is Tyler standing next to an F-14. Note the "rescue" arrow pointed at him.

A quick trip to the Oregon coast on Labor Day weekend. It was a beautiful day with gorgeous weather!

Apparently these rocks solidify that this is a true Oregon beach, not just any beach. The rocks I've seen in California would have been clearly, uh "marked" for lack of a better word, by the seagulls.

Here we see the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Unfortunately, they were out of squeaky cheese that day. Did you know that they process 8 million gallons of milk there per day?

For Tyler's birthday we went to a Portland Beavers game. It was lots of fun, especially since it was Boy Scout night and cub scouts in uniform were all around our area. See the kid in uniform in the picture above? Note to self: never waste money on a polish dog again.

At the Portland zoo now. Sporting our Cougar pride. . Go BYU!

The chimpanzees were just so darn cute! Look at that face!

The giraffes are my favorite animal at the zoo. Unfortunately, my camera was unable to capture the true height of said creature.

We've really been more places, we just forget the camera. There are more airplane museums in our future and there better be squeaky cheese next time we hit the cheese factory.

Time Management

So it is the weekend, and while I should be studying for my three tests coming up next week (yes, you read right, three with two of those being nursing tests on the same day) I decided that the most effective use of my time would be to create a blog. This has been a topic of debate for a while now, but at last, here she is.

Oh the first of many more marriage compromises.