Oh, fudge! Fudge it. Fudge me.

Ermahgerd, I went to the Seahawks home opener on Sunday! One of my coworkers got tix as a thank you for her work on this series of articles that we've worked on the last 3 years, and she invited me to come with. It was a very cool experience to go to a Seahawks game live, even though it's harder to figure out what is exactly happening on the field than on TV. Our seats were in the 100 level, but near the end zone (kind of kitty corner rather than really end zone), so when the team was on the other side of the field, I couldn't see what the hell was going on and had to look at the big screen. Of course the Seahawks had to stretch it out until the very last seconds, just to ratchet up the drama. I brought ear plugs and had them in the whole time, but honestly it didn't seem that bad other than for really critical moments.

And Russell sprained his ankle, so yay for that... not. Not only is that bad for the Hawks, it's bad for my fantasy team, so now I have to try and get Matt Ryan back, who I had dropped for Jason Witten. Argh. But other than that, I won both of my fantasy matchups this week, which is kind of exciting. In one of them I even pulled out a miraculous win, because I was down by like 40 points and somehow came back to win it. (It helped that I had Carson Palmer as my QB and my opponent had the NE defense, so every time I gained points, he lost points. It was another scenario where I got to have my cake and eat it too, because I wanted the Cards to lose, but Carson to do well.)

My friend and I ate in the stadium, at Kraken Congee. Congee in a football stadium! How awesome is that? It's definitely a hipster variation though, because it was NOT traditional Chinese congee. It had aioli, pork belly, and crunchy corn. It was pretty dang good though, I must say! ( Pictures. )

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I now have a butter bell, and I am very excited about it.

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The lye is supposed to arrive tonight, and I'm super excited about making my first batch of soap -- I'm going to do a really standard starter soap, even though I have created my own recipe and I'm eager to try it out.

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I finished Orphan Black S4, so with that, I'm all caught up!

( Spoilers )

Have I been had? I think I've been had.

First batch of soap: made. We'll see how it turns out. I don't really have a good place for a soap lab, where I would feel safe knowing that the pets can't get to any of it. :/ I think, once K. and D. move all their stuff out of my garage, I can use that area for a small workshop. In fact, I know I can, because the former owner of this house was a very handy sort of guy, and he had a whole tool setup in there, put up extra lights, etc.

I didn't make a totally basic soap -- if you know me, you're probably not surprised. >.> I took the opportunity to try out some coloring (rose clay; it did NOT work) and fragrancing (orange essential oil; it may or may not have worked. Apparently citrus scents evaporate quickly in cold process soap).

( Other details from the experience. )

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Does anyone know anything about caring for orchids after their blossoms have fallen? I've been meaning to look it up but I feel like that will just bring me down another research hole. :)) Basically a couple months ago I got three gorgeous orchids from work that I took home. One of them got infested with some sort of bug, which didn't look like a bug, only bumps on the stem/flowers, but after looking it up, confirmed it was a bug. :/ It seemed to stunt the growth of that particular plant. And then all its flowers fell off, but it was sort of about time, because the second orchid's flowers also all fell off, even though it had been perfectly healthy otherwise (that I know of). I'm not sure if that first flower is a lost cause, and the bugs will always be there, or if now that the flowers have fallen and we can cut the stem off, we can be rid of the bugs that way?

Anyway, despite the fact that these two orchids both lost their blossoms around the same time, the third one that I kept in my bathroom was hale and hearty for weeks longer! I don't know why it kept its blossoms for so much longer, but I kept it on the windowsill above the tub with the window open (maybe it was the fresh air?), and it looked so nice. I wanted to get a picture of it before its blossoms inevitably fell, too, and I literally took this picture two days before they started wilting! Sheesh! (And then Jaime knocked the whole thing down and two of its leaves broke. :/ I hope that won't hurt it for next year. That would make me so sad.)



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Speaking of Jaime, I took this shot back in April and meant to share then, but today it is! We were looking all over for him, and he wasn't responding, and finally I saw where he was hiding, lol.



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My three mystery paintings from Afremov have arrived! I was actually kind of dreading them, because after the experience with Misty Mood 2, I was unconvinced that these would be ones I'd like, even though they're originals. But I love them! I do think it makes a huge difference when he does originals rather than replicas. I haven't decided where I'll put them yet

( Check them out! )

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In a final bit of yayness, at work we just moved into temporary digs where we have to all share this giant room (think YMCA gym) with like 75 other people. All our desks are crammed in there. I'm finally used to working in an open space instead of having my own office like I did for the first 10 years there, but this is so insane. It's supposed to be for only seven weeks, though I would be shocked if they actually finished remodeling our other space in time. To make things a little more tolerable for us while we're there, my GM is giving his team Bose QuietComfort 35 Bluetooth noise-canceling headphones, which is nice. I'm getting mine in silver.