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Debbie twisted and twisted my arm until I finally gave in and we had some interior painting done! We hired it out due to the height of the ceilings in our living room which were around 20 feet or so. If you have read my previous posts, my tendency to fall off things and injure myself made this a no-go proposition. They also did the dining room and kitchen as well. Debbie had previously painted the downstairs bath closet in the darker paint you see in the following pictures. We also updated the lighting while we were at it. We changed the wall color from a yellow to a creamy off white and the accents from gold to a dark urban bronze. Have a look below. We think it turned out quite awesome!!
Filed under: Vanilla | Tagged: color, decor, decorate, dining room, Givens, home, interior, kitchen, lighting, lights, living room, paint, painting, Snoqualmie Joe, updates, upgrades, Washington | Leave a comment »
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…..and Seattle, King County, and Puget Sound!
Back in 1973 or 74 I moved from my home state of New Mexico and we headed to the big city of Seattle, Washington. I had no idea what I was heading into because at that time in my life, I had hardly ventured out of my home state! Growing up in the dry desert heat, it was a wondrous sight to come over the Cascades into the sea of green trees, cool clouds, and mist! I fell in love with the area immediately and settled into an area of south of Seattle. My stay there only lasted two years and then was off to various locations for the next 15 years but vowed to one day return.
My life journey finally landed me in Southern California in 1978. There I would be for most of my 20’s and early 30’s. I had a career in sales, had tons of friends, and made decent money. It was a great place to be when one was in their youth, but the longer I stayed there, the more I wanted to leave. The constant brown everywhere, sky, mountains, landscape was depressing. I hated “smelling” the air on a daily basis and the damn weather never changed! Each time I left for a vacation or to visit family out of town, I hated coming back. My yearning to return to the Pacific Northwest was growing like a long forgotten seed planted now starting to sprout. Finally, in 1989, while visiting family in New Mexico and Oklahoma for the holidays I made the proclamation that I was going to move back to Seattle by the end of the following year! That was met with disbelief, laughter, and “yeah we’ve heard it before”. My mind was made up and I would soon be working on my plan to get there.
I started subscribing to the Seattle Sunday Times by mail to read up on what was happening up there. Even back in the late 80’s Washingtonians were crying about the onslaught of Californians moving up there and things haven’t changed much today. Californians are leaving their state in droves to here, Idaho, Texas, Oregon, and even Montana! Ruinous bastards…….okay…..okay I was one too, BUT I can say I “returned” to Washington. I started to put the pieces of my relocation plan into effect. I reached out to my manager of my desire to transfer to the Seattle branch and he thought I was nuts. I assured him I wasn’t and after much persuasion trying to get me to stay, he gave in and contacted the Seattle manager of Kraft Foodservice and let him know there was a potential new sales person from the LA ranks that wanted to join forces in Seattle. So in July I took a vacation to the Emerald City, stayed with a former coworker who just happened to have moved there, met with the sales manager, and sealed a relocation deal. On September 1, 1990 I rolled into Seattle and my dream had finally come into fruition!
As luck would have it, my former coworker had decided to go back to Alaska for another fishing boat gig and I sublet his place in the cool and funky neighborhood of Wallingford. From my bedroom window I could look out over Lake Union right at downtown Seattle! I was in absolute heaven and happy as an Ivar’s clam! Unfortunately, not everything was as rosy as it could have been. Once October came, I discovered never ending gray, torrential sideways rain, and a career that began to stumble. During the beginning, bouts of depression came over me and I really started questioning the decision I had made. I always had an open door to return to LA and go back to work down there, but knew that was not an option for me. Once I realized what it all was for, my head cleared and no matter what happened to my career, I was back in Seattle where I had longed to be and was home! I worked hard and gave it all I could, but a year later parted ways with my career in sales and would be moving on in a totally new direction in life, and boy was it ever!
In those subsequent years I met the love of my life and married her, became a stepfather in the process, did a brief stint in real estate appraisal, bought my first home, ended up in a new career driving public transit for King County Metro, and settling down in a small burb near the foothills of the Cascade Mountains called Snoqualmie. In the beginning it was an idyllic life. The small community was growing thanks to a new development “up on the hill”. We loved it even though there were hardly any services and you had to drive a few miles to get anything done, but for us, it was no problem. We bought a beautiful house which I loved, started making a few friends, and were enjoying life as “empty nesters”.
Our Snoqualmie Home!
So here we are, 17 years down the road, and it’s time to move along. The once small peaceful town has burgeoned into a bedroom community way bigger than we had expected or hoped for. It’s now full of yupsters, soccer moms, and helicopter parents. We find ourselves surrounded by people of totally different thinking and values than ours. We have a very tight small group of friends that would have our back at anytime, but for the most part, many others would just stab it. Until the COVID pandemic, traffic around the area had slowed to an intolerable crawl even during the off rush hours. Property taxes have surged beyond affordable. The once beautiful city of Seattle, has turned into a sewer being lead by idiotic progressive liberal leadership. We have had enough!!! Debbie retired last year, and I have finally driven my last bus trip, going a bit early. We have packed up and moved to our paradise on the Olympic Peninsula. While we will return to Snoqualmie from time to time, we are glad we are leaving and starting the “retirement chapter” of our lives. Seattle and the rest of King County can pound sand!
Filed under: Cafe Mocha, Rocky Road, Vanilla | Tagged: bus, bus drivers, family, Givens, King County Metro, Kraft Foodservice, move, Olympic Mountains, Olympic Peninsula, Port Angeles, retire, retirement, sales, salesperson, Seattle, Sequim, Snoqualmie, Snoqualmie Joe, SnoqualmieJoe, Washington | 1 Comment »
So after 33 years at the Port of Tacoma, Debbie has finally closed the door to her office one last time! She started as a computer programmer back in 1986 and finished up as Director of Systems and Business Process. She was also the Public Records Officer for the Port and Northwest Seaport Alliance. During her tenure at the port she oversaw and implemented many projects, processes, and upgrades to the port’s systems. Her career there had her managing most of the port’s internal systems, to then managing the IT department team. She guided the big Y2K brewhaha which went without a hitch and implemented a big systems change that kept her away from home for days once! She climbed the ladder all on her own and we are very proud of her! Now she gets to enjoy the next chapter in life which leads to who knows where. One thing is for certain though, she will not just sit in a rocking chair on the front porch watching the world go by!
Filed under: Cafe Mocha, Vanilla | Tagged: bye bye, cargo, Debbie Givens, everyday is a holiday, IT, life is good, no longer working, port, Port of Tacoma, ports, retire, retirement, Tacoma, The Northwest Seaport Alliance, Washington | Leave a comment »
Part two of our main vacation was not as fun, full of hard work, but very rewarding! After our big camping trip to Oregon and California, we cleaned up the trailer and then shot up to the Island cabin on San Juan Island to get the rest of the flooring done! We had to clear out all of the rooms of furniture before the installers showed up, that was the extent of our work. They installed and then we put the place back together! It turned out fantastic!! We couldn’t have picked a better color and type for the cabin. It also smells much better in there now that the old dank musty carpet is now out. Now we will turn to the bathroom flooring and the “Man Cave” out by the garage! Slowly we are turning our ugly duckling into a swan!
Filed under: Blueberry, Vanilla | Tagged: carpet, carpeting, floor, flooring, Friday harbor, Givens, Island cabin, new, remodel, San Juan Island, Snoqualmie Joe, vacation, Washington, work | Leave a comment »
We have been working and a working on our little get away in the woods. Below are some before and after pictures of our handiwork so far!
Living Room Before
Living Room Before
Living Room Later
Living Room Latest
Kitchen Before
Kitchen After
Bathroom Before
Bath After
Bath Before
Bath After
Laundry Room Before
Laundry Room After
Laundry Room Before
Laundry Room After
Guest Bedroom Before
Guest Bedroom After
Master Bedroom Before
Master Bedroom Later
Master Bedroom Latest
Main Bath Before
Main Bath After
Loft Before
Loft After
Filed under: Chocolate Swirl, Vanilla | Tagged: cabin, Friday harbor, Givens Grove, paint, painting, remodel, San Juan Island, Snoqualmie Joe, Washington | Leave a comment »
Our little cute rescue cat Patience has a new home! After trying for two and a half years of trying to battle her peeing in inappropriate places, we had to give her up. We tried everything possible. She began by peeing on our bed when we first got her. She even pee’d on Debbie while she was in the bed. We then kept her out of the bedroom when we weren’t home. I then discovered she was peeing in my office against the wall and onto the carpet. The carpet was saved, barely, and I had to close the office door to keep her out of there. Then she would squirt on things left on the floor…..shoes, suitcases, etc. We had tried everything possible, different litters, catboxes, she had her own space to do her business, even an animal communicator. After the communication session, we thought we had it licked. Debbie was saying she kept smelling cat pee. We thought it was just the litter box and tried to keep it as clean as possible. Then the other day, she came home and started looking around in the living room and discovered about five feet of base board and carpet along it saturated. Also soaked in pee was a leather chair, which luckily was cheap. Thank God she spared our $1400 leather sofa! This was the last straw. There was no way to keep her out of the room and now, no way to keep her.
We contacted Best Friends Animal Sanctuary which was where we got her. They have a policy that they will take the animal back for any reason we could no longer care for the animal. I had also put up a message on one of our local message boards to see if anyone would take her, not really expecting to get a positive result. Boy were we surprised when a very kind-hearted woman near us offered to take her in understanding all her issues. We met, introduced her to Patience, cleared the adoption with Best Friends, and she went to her new home last night.
Meeting her new cat friend and checking out the new digs!
Playing and adjusting!
Settling in!
We are so happy to have her nearby so we can visit her and hopefully she will have more social time and may stop with her bad behaviors. Meanwhile, Cordell is doing just great! Now we have some home repairing to do. Wish us luck!!
Filed under: Chocolate Swirl, Vanilla | Tagged: animals, cat pee, cats, ruined carpet, Snoqualmie, Snoqualmie Joe, urine | Leave a comment »
Finally we are looking at a wintry wonderland for the first time this season. It would have been nice if this had happened at Christmas and up until just now, we have had a very uneventful winter this year! La Nina didn’t sock us into multiple snow storms like last year and I am kind of glad because I am driving articulated buses now and they are horrible in ice and snow. This wintry weather is supposed to last the next four days and I am not looking forward to going to work tomorrow!
Our Holidays were nice. We hosted Thanksgiving at our house and our friends Larry & Lynette hosted Christmas. So it was a family affair on both occasions. For New Year’s we headed up to our long time friends the Hillstroms in their brand new home on San Juan Island. They have a beautiful waterfront home overlooking the sound. We have always loved the San Juan’s and Friday Harbor and have thought about maybe retiring there among the other places that we consider. Well we have taken the first step into making that possibility a reality. We were walking about and found a wonderful smaller home we are calling “the cabin” for sale. We contacted a realtor we know there and had him come open it up and show us. We decided it was a deal we couldn’t pass up and made an offer a few days later after we returned home. After some offer counter offer volley, we came to an agreement with the seller and are now moving through the financing process. Until we have the keys in our hot hands, I hold off on providing the details until later but we are very excited!! I am also working on possibly what will start out as a side career that I am hoping flourishes into something I can do full-time! Again, I’ll hold off on the details until I get a better idea on how it is going to work out but I think 2012 is going to be a great year…..(knocking on wood)!
Filed under: Vanilla | Tagged: Christmas, family, football, Friday harbor, Givens, holidays, San Juan Island, Snoqualmie, Snoqualmie Joe, SnoqualmieJoe, snow, Washington | Leave a comment »
Filed under: Green Tea, Vanilla | Tagged: animals, compassion, Cordell, dogs, Givens, human, kennel, rescue, sanctuary, shelters, Snoqualmie, Washington | Leave a comment »
Life At The Givens Estate 