Postcards To Home ♥

It was a lazy weekend for me. I didn't do anything special so there is not much to write about. Friday night I went out with a few friends for happy hour at Fidos and then we had dinner and drinks at cyclops. I love that little bar and the fact that its so close to my apartment. Tonight I had court side seats to the Sonics Basketball game. I am truly thankful that Wongdoody has season tickets and lets their employees sign up to go to a game an enjoy the free food and drinks. I took my friend Leanne because she is a great friend and now a co-worker. Basketball use to be a big part of my life growing up. I don't follow it anymore nor have the desir to play but absolutely love going to the games, especially when we have good seats where I can see every play close-up. I wish I could have season tickets in one of the first 14 center rows. That woudl be sweet! Cathy, videos should be fixed. Let me know if you can't get it to work.

Carrie and Michael sent a few of us this adorable video.

I got an ADORABLE message from Marissa today. Enjoy!

Its a dreary Saturday in Seattle. Nothing new to report. My group at Wongdoody gave ourselves Gladiator names since the show is back on TV. Mine is D I E S E L . urban dictionary definition: Awesome or strong, as in physcical power. Also - great, cool, or sexy. so its funny in the a scenario like the following. Man says to another: "Yo man, you don't want to mess with Diesel" ... and then little me comes around the corner. And then I say..."Don't mess with Diesel!" Yeah I'm tough. ha ha ---------------- Now playing: Muse - Starlight

I sent this e-greeting to Mike for his 31st birthday. http://www.egreetings.com/ecards/display.pd?bfrom=1&prodnum=3077018&Searchstr=leslie&path=36012&st=t Its Leslie and the Lys. A friend showed me the following video a few years ago. She's a wierdo!

My mind is now damaged from viewing these after Mom and Mike Kobel mentioned it.... okay not really, it was entertaining but boy that show knows how to market and grab an audience. I actually teared up over two of the auditions. I also know a lot of it is staged but I won't bore you with the production stuff or ruin it for you if your little heart loves the show. Um yeah, so I'm still not a fan.

ah shit Originally uploaded by ::: a i m e e ::: Jessica's last day at work was Friday, January 11th. (She is the one in the red hair.) I had met her prior to joining the Wongdoody family and she is someone who has made Seattle feel more like home. Also known as JoJo Stiletto – roller derby/burlesque superstar, she has been a great friend and co-worker. I'm going to miss her in our crazy cube world. After a formal send-off at the office, a fun crowd headed over to Highway 99 for some drinks. After a few hours, people arm wrestled and the camera came out. We then ventured to the Nite Lite. Some of us making a pit-stop at the Alibi room because Dave insisted he order us a round of shots. Very, very fun night sending JoJo off in style...with a hangover! Click here to see a slideshow from the evening.

As I sat in the coffee shop today, a little girl ran up to the fixings counter and gathered ALL the fixings of cream, sugar, powder, chocolate powder, chocolate marcels , honey, and cinnamon and put them to one side of the counter. She climbed up on the counter and poured the entire cream container into her empty Odwalla bottle and then added every item to her drink. She put about 1/2 a cup of honey in her cream! Is this cool? I know she wasn't causing any harm and she's just a kid but would you let your kid do this? Maybe her folks should have bought her hot chocolate or gave her something to do so she wasn't running around and climbing on the counters. Well she just came back up for her 2 nd or possibly 3rd round without the barista noticing. I snuck a snapshot.

For the last few years, I volunteered at events for various Seattle organizations through Beanonline.org. This year, I want to focus on one cause and get more involved in that. The cause: Teaching Empathy to Children With everything going on in Kaitlyn's world, my experience growing up either being bullied or sticking up for others and Wongdoody's involvement with Seeds of Compassion , I want to focus my volunteer time on teaching empathy to children. Kids can be cruel and we need to teach them to practice love and kindness. I was bullied by a a girl or two in grade school. I didn't think it was a big deal to tell my folks since I knew others were picked on too. But at the same time, I was taking my anger out on my younger sister and cousins...treating them the way the girls at school treated me. Pushing, telling them to shut-up, acting like "Angelica" of the rugrats. It wasn't until years later that I tied the two situations together and realized how the neg

Click here to see 2007 – Home for the Holidays Slideshow Click here to see New Years Eve Slideshow

How do we continue to donate to the causes we want to support without getting a trail of mail afterwards from every non-profit in the world? The "2 strikes and your out" experiment The amount of mail with stickers, cheesy return address labels and literature is dis-heartening. Especially from groups that I have never donated to or who keep sending the same things over and over again. This past year I kept a separate pile of all the mail from organizations asking for donations. I am getting too much mail from the same organizations and want to get off their mailing list. I understand they need to reach out for funds but there has to be another way besides clogging our mailboxes. After dinner last night, I made a list of all the organizations in the pile. If a group sent me more than 2 mailings, I sent them back their donation slip with the request to remove me from the mailing list. I did not donate anything but I made a note to myself to donate to some online. the test: 1.)

I love short weeks. Work was surprising slow the last few days. I prefer when we are busy. Last night Nathan picked me up from work to go see "Walk Hard – The Dewey Cox story." It was a funny movie with a lot of great cameos. For some reason I thought it was PG-13 so a couple scenes surprised me. Definitley not for Kaitlyn's eyes. Afterwards we went to Amore, the Italian restaurant near my apartment. My neighbor Shaun works there. They had a silent Betty Boop flick playing and the food was yummy. Then we hung out and watched silly stuff like these GI Joe re-makes. I planned to go to the market today but it was yucky outside so instead I did various things in my apartment. I'm going to run downstairs to pick u a few things to make dinner and then have a low-key night.

Me Minus One T Originally uploaded by ntisocl I'm so proud of my co-worker Scott. In the course of a year, he has lost 120lbs which equals 1 Tanya. (Thats Tanya on his back) Scott is a great role model for working hard and not giving up on goals no matter how impossible it may seem. He looks great!!! Here is a link to some before and after photos.

My trip home to PA was well spent with family this holiday season. Sorry to all the friends I didn't get a chance to meet up with. For all I did get to see, I love you and so glad we got to spend time together. I'll post photos and videos soon! It was a wonderful holiday with lots of gatherings at the Hossler household. • Mom made a few delicious meals. Call the presses....Claire made SEVERAL YUMMY MEALS in the same week! • My dad & I took part in my mom and Toni's annual Christmas Eve's midnight phone call where they do a shot of Amaretto. • I made my folks proud by rocking out on the FAKE guitar for the video game "Rock Band" with Kyle on drums. • Had many, many funny moments with Jake & Marissa. • Along with myself...Kurt, his girlfriend Stacie and Ryan were all home in Philly which has not happened in years! So Mike had us all over so we could all catch up. • Andy gave me his CD which is very nice and relaxing. Good job Andy....I'm still your #