new project:

sneek peek....

business trip:

in the wee hours of last thursday morning i flew to baltimore for a recruiting event at the national swe conference! … in thinking about this post i must share this thought: i never thought i’d find myself at an engineering conference of my own accord, and even less, as an engineering recruiter at that!.... i felt as though i was the lone secret righty in a sea of left-brainers. infront of an interview panel, they seem to be in many ways just as predictable as us rightys; flushed, wringing their hands and offering the occasional nervous giggle. :) i don’t consider myself a particularly intimidating person, and in all reality i was the intimidated one- you should have seen these resumes! yikes! it got me thinking…hmm. what have i been doing?!

the evenings were occupied by a couple pleasant dinner outings with my hiring manager, fay, and one adventurous trip up the eastern coast to Philadelphia to visit the headquarters (!) of my favorite store. after a 2 hour drive and 45 excruciating minutes looking for an inner city parking spot i arrived! once parked, i managed to get lost on foot to a near hopeless degree (dang useless iphone gps!) before arriving at their door half an hour before closing time. here are a few shots:

in baltimore i also managed to squeeze in a few minutes at an architectural salvage place i found through this site. the store was an early 1900’s brick gas line pump house & incredible. (sorry for the few blurries!)

the trip concluded sunday morning with a trip out to frederrickson md to visit dear friends, mike & stacia & their littles. (incidentally, it was a hours long drive! i didn’t know you could drive an hour & still be in maryland! –that just tells you how skewed my east coast sensibilities are!) it was a deep blessing to be in their midst, sit in the pew at their church & chat over breakfast. god is good. :)

in the midst of fall:

(ah! i wrote this post at the end of october & somehow it never got out of the draft gate! so here's a little look back to the start of the fall...)

oh, october, where have you gone? it has been a fairly hum-drum month in the lloyd household, or perhaps is has just settled down to a new norm as compared to the upheaval of the move and the crazy busyness of summer. either way, there is a certain calming predictability that has settled in in the past few weeks and it has been a somewhat comforting source of pattern & order: wake up in the dark, drive to the sterile office cube, count down the hours until 4:15, & eagerly await the after-work activities.

the most brilliant event to happen has been watching the full flush of fall well up and wash over the city. it has been the most brilliant fall in recent memory. perhaps this is merely due to the time we have taken to deliberately make note of it’s magestic arrival...


we have fittingly taken part in a few fall festivities which have included a late night trapse through a corn maze. our group had the option of going for the “haunted” option, but after 45 min in line hearing the screams and intermittent chainsaws we opted for the “un-haunted” version. with the thick fog, new moon, and absence of a flashlight, it was scary enough. :)

my latest crafty urges were invested in costumes for the “reformation day” party thrown by our parish group. i went as the rough draft of martin luther’s 95 thesis (um... i couldn’t think of a female connection to the reformation…and i have an affinity for costumes fashioned after inanimate objects), chad went as the church door the thesis was nailed to. :)

then scattered about throughout the month have been the various concert goings of us two dinks, which have included chad’s van gross & the gypsies concerts at the mars bar, justin timberlake cover night, no less! & a night out at the triple door main stage to see jubilee with cassie.

we’ve also taken part in “a day in the life of a wedding coordinator”…. it has given us a new found respect for our dear friend blythe. here is a pic at the event which was done up in the colors of fall & chihuly glass:

last but not least, i must comment that the house hunt marches on! if it is falling apart, mold infested, 80 years old, pre-foreclosed & in seattle, we’ve probably seen it! :) we go out again this afternoon… the forcast is for a 90% chance of heavy rain; it is getting down to the few, the determined, & the desperate… & it is all good news to us buyers!