Minnesota, here I come!

Yay, the countdown has finally come to an end. I will be getting on a plane in four hours, and I will be back in Minnesota in 8 hours.

I will have a busy weekend back home, spending as much time as possible with my family, singing with the GA choir on Saturday night at Mass, and meeting with the new renters of our Chaska place to sign the lease and finalize a walk through. All in 36 hours!

I'm very excited to see everyone...now I just have to pack!

-SKH

Twitterati

I have decided to plunge fully into Twitter. Crazy.

Follow me at http://twitter.com/samanthahensch.

Be prepared for 140 characters of fun.

-SKH

Great Music for Great Cathedrals Seattle 2009

If you are interested in attending a neat concert/performance, mark Friday, February 20 or Saturday, February 21 on your calendar.

The St. James Cathedral Choir (of which I am a member) along with all of the other cathedral musicians (choirs, brass, soloists, organs, et al) will be performing the annual program entitled Great Music for Great Cathedrals at St. James Cathedral in Seattle. This is my first year participating, but according to the press (and choir members who have been involved in the past), it’s really awesome. (Check out this article about last year: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/classical/304189_james19q.html)

St. James Cathedral presents

GREAT MUSIC for
GREAT CATHEDRALS
February 20 & 21 8:00 pm

LIGHT t SOUND t MOVEMENT t POETRY t CHOIRS t BRASS

This popular Seattle tradition returns with the renowned Cathedral Choir of St. James and Women of St. James Schola leading an evening of sound, light, movement, poetry and above all—MUSIC, with all of the Cathedral choirs, 16-member Cathedral Brass, and three pipe organs. directed by James Savage. Jeff Robbins, lighting designer, Kitty Kavanaugh, scenic designs.

Suggested donation $25.00, students and seniors pay as able. 206-382-4874
INFORMATION & RESERVED PASSES

www.stjames-cathedral.org/music

-SKH

Pirate Update: Ahoy, Matey!

I'll be in Minnesota for the weekend of February 28-March 1! Why, you ask? Other than I desperately miss my family, I am also bringing a new little family member back to my parents.

No. I am not preggers. (Lisa, I am telling you that on MySpace someday. If our MySpace accounts are still active then...it may need to change to Facebook.)

I am bringing the kitty I rescued back to Mama Bear!! I took Pirate to the vet tonight, and it got a clean bill of health and a bunch of vaccines. It's officially a girl, and other than being on the skinny side, the vet said she was just fine. Travis is now miffed with me because I have let it into the house (only into one of the three bathrooms in the house!) until next Friday night, when I take the red eye to MN.

Who knows, Travis may relegate it to the garage again...but at least it won't go to the out outside...I picked up a cheap litter box for Pirate, and technically, we would put that in the garage and keep the garage door all the way closed.

But for now, Pirate is living in STYLE.

-SKH

PS. I personally vote for the Pirate name to stay. Though Aunt Sandy did come up with a cute name with Abby. Luna, you always have good names - any ideas???

Made me laugh

I saw this on a blog, and it made me laugh out loud:

Edward Cullen vs Harry Potter.

Let's view the pros and cons.

Edward Cullen.

Pros - Very handsome. Can save you from ultimate danger.
Cons - May crush you and is prone to bite pillows

Harry Potter

Pros - Can save you from the evil Voldemort. What? He's already dead? Then why's Harry good? Oh, yes. Potter has good character. Have to admire that character...
Cons - Can kill you with a stick if angered


Hehe.

-SKH

FOUND: Cat in Kent, WA

So when Travis moved the boat to our house in Kent, he discovered that he would need to make a very small modification to the garage to make the boat fit. He hadn't made that change yet, so the garage door had been open about 6 inches along the bottom for the past few weeks. Last week, I discovered that a stray kitty appeared to be hanging around the house, and yesterday, I confirmed that the kitty has been staying in our garage.

The kitty seems really friendly and comes right up to us and meows pitifully at us. It's clearly starving; when you pet it, you can feel all the ribs of the poor thing. It seems to me like it was somebody's pet...its fur is pretty thick, and it's pretty clean overall. It also seems to really like being around people. We set up a little towel bed next to the furnace in the garage so it could stay warm, and gave it some food and water (which it CLEARLY appreciated...it had tried to get in our garbage last night before we discovered it really was sticking around our garage.) Now that it has been fed, and has a little bed out of the cold rain, it's a very purr-y kitty!

We don't intend on keeping this cat, even as an outdoor cat (though I did give it a nickname...Pirate!) - I will have to call the Humane Society this week to figure out what to do in this situation. I wonder if it is microchipped. It doesn't have tags, but like I said, it seems like it at least was someone's pet at some time. I REALLY hope that someone didn't just get sick of having this sweet kitty and toss it outside, but in all likelihood, that's probably what happened. :(

Anyways, here are a bunch of pictures of the cat. If you know whose cat this is, please email me at samantha.hensch@gmail.com. (Who knows, someone might find this blog post because they were searching for their lost cat near Kent, WA!)

This cat really chowed down on the food and water I gave it.

The kitty cried - "I'm hungry and cold and wet!"

Kitty sitting on the rocks next to the garage.

Wandering near our garage door.

Walking towards me - it seems to come when you call it. (a la "Here kitty, kitty")

It really is a pretty cat. It has gray, black, orange and white markings.

-SKH

Visit to Charlotte, NC

I was lucky enough to be able to extend my business trip to Charleston, SC so that I could stay on the East Coast for the weekend. I took the opportunity to drive up north about three hours to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins who live in Charlotte. So now I can say that I have driven through the Carolinas (Charlotte is really on the southern border of North Carolina, but I am counting my sojourns through Charlotte as counting towards "The Carolinas")

It was awesome to see Doug, Nicole and Lexi and then to meet the newest addition, Spencer. He's only six weeks old. He's so adorable! Despite having the cold from hell, I powered through and had a great weekend. I got there around 8:30 or 9 on Friday night (I got lost when I got close to their house, it added a half hour to my drive time), and Nicole had made a delicious pan of lasagna for us. After the late dinner (sorry I was so late, guys!), Lexi and I read from the American Girls books that I got her for Christmas. I got her the Kirsten series, and I was very impressed with how well Lexi was reading. She was comprehending the story as well, which was great to hear. Once Lexi had read for 15-20 minutes, she was allowed to stay up extra late to watch a movie with me. She picked out Bridge to Terabithia, which is really a sad movie. Of course, Lexi fell asleep in the middle (it was midnight, and she is six, people) but we still had a fun time.

The next morning, Lexi desperately wanted me to wake up, and kept tiptoeing in my room to check on me. She'd shut the door quietly, then sort of yell to her dad, "Everytime I go in there, she's still sleeping, but she keeps rolling over!" Hilarious. I got up around 9 or so, and we hung out during the morning. In the afternoon, we went to uptown Charlotte, which is their "downtown" type area. That's where the majority of the city's banking industry is. We did quite a bit of walking around, saw that there was a circus in town, saw some horse-drawn carriages and went to Imaginon, which is this neat children's theater and library. We stopped at a Baskin-Robbins on the way back home, and enjoyed a little ice cream treat.

That night, Doug, Nicole and I went out to an adults-dinner in Charlotte. We went to a place called Encore Bistro and had a really good time. We got an appetizer platter, salads/soup, main course AND dessert. Yum! After dinner, we went to a place that is sort of like Dave and Buster's - it's an arcade/bowling alley/general fun place, and played some games. We initially wanted to bowl, but the wait for a lane was almost two hours! We said no thanks to that, and ended up playing some mini-bowling, air hockey, skee ball, basketball and even a little Dance Dance Revolution. We had a really fun time, probably better than if we had just bowled.

We went back home after that and just hung out. I had to leave for the airport this morning around 8:30 ET, so didn't want to stay up too late. I had so much fun in Charlotte, and was really excited to see the entire family. Great times were had by all!

Now I am back in Seattle, and it was really nice to see Travis for the first time in ten days. (He was in Minnesota and didn't get back until I had already left for Charleston.) I'm not sure why I missed him so much this trip, but I did, so I am glad to be home with hubby.

We're watching the Super Bowl now, and then it is Vick's VapoRub, here I come!

-SKH

PS - I will post pictures at some point, just not tonight. The ones I have are on Facebook, and Nicole will be sending me hers sometime soon, too.