Snow: Love it & hate it

So, here's the deal. I didn't mind the snow for most of the day. I enjoyed it and tried to make the best of it. But it started to get under my skin tonight when I had to do actual work in it. You know, like change a flat tire.

We carpooled with another couple to bible study tonight and made it there problem-free. We ran into problems on the way home. I pulled into the Costco gas station and while I was pumping gas I noticed that the rear passenger tire was completely flat. When I told those in the car that the tire was flat, they thought I was joking. They were convinced once they saw it.

I'm pretty sure I changed it in record time with Daniels help, but it wasn't much fun. It was cold and the ground was covered with slush. Laying down in the slush with white sneakers, jeans, a hoodie and no gloves just isn't fun. Fortunately there were no cars at the pumps and I was able to change the tire right there under their lights, and mostly out of the way of the deeper snow. It could have been a lot worse. God was watching out for us.

We made it the rest of the way home just fine, even though we had to drive through the snow and ice with a tiny spare tire.

I'll post some pictures of the snow tomorrow.

Happy 30th Mom and Dad

I just wanted to write a short congratulations to my parents. Tuesday, Feb. 24 is their 30th wedding anniversary.

Congratulations, Mom and Dad. I'm so proud of you. Wow, 30 years! And to think, you survived all those years of fighting between me and Chandra. I'm thankful to have such wonderful parents to look up to. Hope you have a fantastic anniversary!

Exercising every day

Abby is on this kick to exercise every day. It has something to do with some wellness committee at her work. Though I had zero desire to head outside today for a walk, I went with Abby just to make her happy. It was cold outside and all I wanted to do was lounge around the house. We ended up at Lake Padden; one of our favorite walking spots. By the time we were half way around the lake, I was glad that she got me outside. We were having a great conversation and the lake was gorgreous. It was so nice, in fact, we decided to do two laps around the lake. We walked a little over five miles together.



It's hard to tell which is more beautiful, Abby or the lake. I'm going to say, "Abby is."

I wonder if the neighbors will notice?

I wonder if my neighbors will notice that smell rising from my garden. I took my compost pile and distributed it throughout my raised beds. It had a nice pungent, rotten, musty smell to it. The kind of smell that makes you turn your nose up, and that seems to cling to you and make you wonder if it will wash off. It's also the kind of smell that makes your garden grow like the bean stocks from the children's cartoon Jack and the Bean Stock.



I put all my grass clippings, leaves and other random compostable material in a composter. I had at least a year's worth of compost that was just begging to be spread out. It was slimy, gooey, steamy, stinky and full of worms. My boots were covered with the goo and made it feel like I was walking on banana peels. There were so many worms that I couldn't believe the birds weren't attacking me for them.

(A close-up shot of the compost.)


I know it's only February, and, technically, it's still winter. However, it's really hard not to work in the yard/garden when the weather is so fabulous. I'm just trying to get a jump start on my gardening this year.

(Nothing growing yet, but give it another month and I'll be back in business.)

Griffey's coming home

Take a good look at that poster of Griffey. Now that's hope, isn't it? None of this political mumbo-jumbo hope. True, unadulterated h-o-p-e... for the Mariners. The Kid is coming home.

I don't know about you, but I can't wait for The Kid to return. He's hands-down my favorite baseball player of all time. Seriously, he was my childhood sports hero. I literally have hundreds of his baseball cards, signed pictures and plaques, and other random paraphernalia. His posters adorned the walls of my bedroom growing up, and they're gracing the walls of my garage right now. Griffey is easily the biggest news we've seen in the last couple months. I. AM. SO. EXCITED!



Here's one sports fan that will tune into the Mariners this year simply because of Griffey. I'll even attend games too. Can you believe that the Mariners sold 16,000 tickets the day after they announced his return?

Things are finally turning around for Seattle sports. The Huskies' mens beasketball team is ranked and in first place in the pac-10, we've got a Major League Soccer team - Sounders, and now Griffey has revived Mariner's fans. Things are almost back to normal again. Ahhhh.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that Griffey hits a homerun on his first at-bat on opening day. I'm so optimistic about it that I placed a bet with a coworker. Going, going, going... gone. Fly away!

We're making new friends

Remember how I had stated “I need more friends” a while back? I had just created a Twitter account online and wanted more friends. Most of you, if not all, were like, “Huh? Who/Where/What is Twitter.” Despite the fact that my blog post didn’t inspire any of you to join Twitter, I didn’t let that stop me.

Abby and I did something last night that was a first for us. If you had asked me a couple months ago if I’d ever do anything like that, I probably would have laughed and made some joke about being white and nerdy.

Are you ready for this? We spent Thursday evening at Boundary Bay Brewery meeting 20 +/- people we’ve never met before. Technically, I’ve talked with most of them on the computer, but never in person. We attended what’s referred to in the Twitterverse as #BhamTweetUp. It’s probably better described as a meet up for those who use Twitter and live in Bellingham.

We had a good time. It was far less “nerdy” than I was expecting. Most in attendance were quite capable of social interaction. It was nice to match a real person to their Twitter avatars. (What’s an avatar? Essentially it’s your icon that represents you, or a picture of you in Twitterville.)

Two things happened last night that I wasn’t expecting. One lady told Abby and I that we looked really familiar. I don’t remember how we got to this point, but we figured out that she had seen pictures of us on Taylor’s photoblog (http://www.taylorswedbergphotography.com/). We had a good laugh about that. She is engaged and had been surfing local photographers’ blogs trying to find a photographer to met her needs. We highly encouraged her to go with Taylor. (You’re welcome, Taylor).

I also was surprised to learn that my @terpening avatar makes me look significantly older and heavier than I really am. Apparently most of the tweeples (twitter people/users) at the tweetup were expecting me to be 55.

I have two Twitter accounts: http://twitter.com/terpening and http://twitter.com/theterps. In Twitterverse users are referred to like this: @terpening or @theterps. My @terpening account is for work, and I use it to plug road related stuff. Abby and I share @theterps. We keep @theterps relatively private and tweet only with close friends. I’ve have nearly 100 tweeples following @terpening.

Abby helped represent @superfeet (http://twitter.com/superfeet) last night. Jessica, whom Abby works with, was also there and is the main tweeter for @Superfeet.

I had a good time and will definitely return to another #BhamTweetUp. I know, I can see you all putting your fake hand-glasses on right now to mock me and my ever-growing nerdiness. Bring it!

Snowshoeing at White Pass

One of our favorites things to do each year is escape to Matt Metsker's parents' cabin in Packwood, WA. Matt's family is kind enough to let him and his friends take the place over. And, when I say take it over, I mean take it over. We squeezed 13 people into the three-bedroom cabin. There were enough beds for 11 of us, and we brought an air mattress along for the last two. The cabin is nestled in a quaint community near the base of White Pass.

We made it to the cabin on Friday night around 9:30 p.m. Not bad, considering almost all of us worked on Friday and had to commute to the cabin from Bellingham, Bellevue, Seattle and Tacoma.

Saturday was a blast. The weather was gorgeous, as you can see from the pictures below. We went snowshoeing at White Pass and the weather was almost warm enough for us to hike in our t-shirts. After snowshoeing, we enjoyed each others' company at the cabin while watching movies, playing cards, eating dinner, dancing and talking.


(The lot of us stopped for a picture in front of Mount Rainier, on our way to the hiking spot. Left to right: Tim, Jessica, Dustin, Abby, Peter, Ingrid, James, Mindy, Taylor, Matt, Chelsea, Holly, Corey.)


(Abby and I posing for a picture.)


(Most of the 601 crew. Left to right: Tim, Peter, Taylor, James, Dustin, Matt, Corey.)


(Isn't she gorgeous?! Look at those blue eyes!)


(We hiked around and on a lake. Here we're standing in the middle of the frozen lake.)


(We paused halfway around the lake for a picture. Background almost looks fake.)


Check out this video (click on it to watch). I lucked out and caught Peter tripping in his snow shoes. What fortunate timing. Beyond Peter tripping, you can see the lot of us tromping through the snow.


This video is pretty funny too. Peter and Tim were racing in their snow shoes.

I am very thankful for a wonderful group of friends. God has truly blessed Abby and I.