Category Archives: random

Even More Thankful

Even More Thankful

Today is such a great day to reflect and think about what we’re thankful for in our lives.  Thanksgiving is the unofficial start of the holiday season, where the warm fuzzies start to embrace you and simple things, like pumpkin pie and Christmas lights make us happy.  There’s something different about this time of year and I wonder why it can’t always be warm fuzzy land.  Then I’m slapped in the face by work and sadness and stress.  Life.

I was recently turned on to a book called Even Happier by Dentler.  I’m not far into the book, but so far I can absolutely, without a doubt say the first chapter was the best and will probably be the most influential to me.  It’s titled “On Being Grateful” and gives you an assignment at the end to list five things a day that you are grateful for.  It could be anything.  Of course I’m grateful for my family who is forced to love me no matter what.  For Kevin who does the same (by choice even!).  My friends who are the most amazing people I know.  But what else makes me smile? Husky basketball, Starbucks serving peppermint hot chocolate, couch time and keeping this blog are among the many.  I don’t know why it was such a revelation to me.  But it works.  When gratitude is a habit, we don’t need special events to keep us happy.

So, this Thanksgiving, I’m just as thankful today as I was yesterday and as I’ll be tomorrow.  Specifically, today, I’m thankful for all these things:

Jason, who continues to invite us up to Whistler, year after year.

Thinking about Kevin getting to snowboard today with Jason.  I know he’s having a blast his first time out this season.

Being lazy and not feeling guilty because I literally have nothing to do and nowhere to be.  I was going to snow shoe but there’s not enough snow on the ground…..so I’m still in pajamas, working on picture books.

Cousin’s pumpkin bread recipe, that I’m snacking on right now.

Still getting to eat turkey and pumpkin pie with Lauren and Co., despite being in Canada, where it’s not officially Thanksgiving.

Avoiding the “Black Friday” lunatics by shopping on “Black Wednesday.” (We hit the outlets yesterday on our way up to Whistler.  We got all the deals – so we were told – and missed all the crazed bargain shoppers.)

Part of me wishes I was in Spokane right now with my people, but knowing I’ll be there soon for Christmas and knowing they wish I was there too, makes it ok that I’m not.

Happy, Happy Thanksgiving!

Cake Down

Cake Down

I’m sure many of you have heard of the Cake Wrecks website.  It’s pretty hilarious.  And sad.  Mostly hilarious.

Here’s my recent cake wreck:

This is what it was supposed to look like.

This is what it was supposed to look like.

This is what it looked like.  A big pile of poo.

This is what it looked like. A big pile of poo.

 

Luckily, it tasted much better than it looked.

The Drive Home

The Drive Home

I drive to Spokane at least six times a year to see family, probably more. I often get asked, “How do you do that horrible drive all of the time?” My usual response is, “Oh, I guess I’m just used to it. It always goes by really fast.”

Today I realized why it always goes by really fast. Like wam, bam, Mooom, I’m hooome, fast. I usually spend most of the drive on the telephone (on the blue tooth, of course!) catching up with all my besties. Well, this trip, I forgot my phone charger in Seattle so by Sunday, my phone was d.e.a.d. dead.

There are only so many hours one can belt lyrics to Air Supply and Fergie Ferg without going mad. It’s about five.

Make My August

Make My August

Did you know Big Bird is a guy in a Big Bird suit with his arm held up, above his head? His arm serves as the neck and his hand operates Big Bird’s mouth, like a puppet. Something I never really thought about before but upon seeing, totally makes sense. I wonder how his arm doesn’t get super tired?

Jim Henson’s Fantastic World is at the EMP. It’s a rotating exhibition *hurry, it ends August 16* and a fun excuse to re-discover the EMP while reaquainting yourself with your favorite muppets! If you’re not dying to see the muppets but want to check out the EMP, they participate in First Thursday’s so admission is free. Get there at 5pm – I promise, you’ll thank me later.

Other August musts:

* Raspberry Lemonade cupcakes at Cupcake Royale.

* (500) Days of Summer.  I love love love Zooey Deschanel (check out She & Him while you’re at it).  And Joseph Gordon-Levitt was quite charming in the movie. 

* John Legend at the Winery

* Top Chef Season 6

* Maris’ Blue Belle Crunch (I’ll add the recipe once in front of me)

* Mental preparation for football season with Kevin.  Is anyone else over football before it starts?!

Hot Hot Heat

Hot Hot Heat

The heat wave has reached Seattle, people! A record high of 103 today. And an overnight “low” in the 70s. How crazy is that?!

And yes, I LOVE it! What I don’t love is sleeping on the third floor with no AC. Proof positive that heat rises. It’s like a ten degree difference from floor to floor. I also don’t love the sweaty back drops. Kind of gross.

Lucky for us, our Wednesday night run has been replaced with Wednesday night Beat-the-Heat Pool Party at Mar’s parents. Yay, thanks Mars! Last night we avoided our hot box and took in an M’s game. They are taking excellent care of their handful of fans with water misters (and shade). We were cool as cucumbers and *bonus* caught a win. I’m guessing record numbers at the movies tonight!

Stay cool, Seattle! Enjoy it while it lasts because before you know it, it will be gray, rainy and more gray and you’ll wish it were 103 again. Well…I know I will anyway!

Secret Surprise

Secret Surprise

Wednesday night Kevin asked “Are we doing anything tomorrow?” I told him “No” because we weren’t. But he kept asking me, I figured to annoy me and said, “Well I’m looking at it (the Google calendar) right now and it says 5pm – Secret Surprise.”

I love surprises!

I immediatley ask “What is it?  What are we going to do?”  Well, he of course thought he’d be real cute and kept it a surprise.

So, Thursday, day of surprise, we’re chatting over email and I tried to “sneak” it in to see if he’d slip. He didn’t.  But instead, gave me THIS clue.

I looked at it, TOTALLY cheated and googled a couple of things.  Too rusty to be a radio tower.  It’s not Gasworks.  Then, it hit me!  He was so excited about though, I played it cool.  A few hours later he sent me THIS clue, attached with a mu-wha-ha-ha-ha-haaa!

It definitely confirmed my guess – and I was SO EXCITED!  Did you guess it too?

Some of you know my fascination with “World’s Largests.”  To date, HERE are the “World’s Largests” I’ve seen.  Right here in our backyard of Georgetown are the World’s Largest Cowboy Hat and Boots – and I’d never been.  Kevin took the opportunity to surprise me with a picnic at “The Hat ‘n Boots,” something I’ve been talking about checking out for over a year now.  What a good listener!

I know you’re curious, so here’s the skinny on the giant boots and hat:

“”The Hat n’ Boots” gas station was to be the cornerstone of a planned Western-themed shopping complex. While the shopping complex never came to be, “Hat n’ Boots” because of its strategic location on US 99, soon became Washington State’s highest sales volume gas station.  Construction of I-5 in 1962 significantly affected the traffic volume on US 99. Business at Hat n’ Boots went into a long decline and the station eventually closed in 1988. After 15 years of neglect and deterioration, Hat n’ Boots is now in the process of landmark designation and on the road toward its rebirth in a local park.  Thus, a story of a cowboy hat and pair of boots with a happy ending.  The Hat, by the way was the main office of the station, the Boots housed the restrooms.”  (We thought they might have been bathrooms – yes!)

The unfortunate part of the trip was the Hat was under construction and therefore covered in a giant white tarp.  We’ll have to go back.  Thanks Kevi Kev – I LOVED my Secret Surprise.  Now when can we go here?!

 

Blogging for the sake of blogging

Blogging for the sake of blogging

Most “good bloggers” are able to write about things that aren’t that exciting while still making the reader come back to their blog every day to see if they’ve wrote more.  I am one of those readers, not one of those bloggers. A good blogger could blog about anything, anytime, anywhere.  The last few weeks we’ve kept pretty busy but I really haven’t had much to write about.  Does my limited readership really care about our first surf trip of the season to Westport?  Do you really care about my new KitchenAid attachment I got through rebate?  And do you really care that baby Tyler had butt surgery?

What?! You do? Well, ok then!

I try to go home once every couple of months to visit.  This month, prime Spokompton time was while Kevi was on a baseball trip with his Dad.  Thanks Owen for coming early so Auntie Kelli could meet you AND go visit her other kiddos.  This trip home was extra important because Travel Granny recently fell and broke her hip.  She’s staying in a rehab/nursing home which was really hard to see.  Gramma seemed to be doing great and was in tip top spirits with lofty goals to get out of there as quick as possible.  I don’t blame her.  It smelled of chameleons and everyone was in a wheelchair, practically passed out.  Growing up with Ronnie, I’m used to group homes but this place grossed me out.  I’ve decided I don’t want to get old.  Someone needs to get rockin on that magic youth serum.

When I bought my KitchenAid it came with a free attachment via rebate.  My choices were a grinder or a slicer/shredder.  I opted for the slicer/shredder as I slice much more than I grind.  It is the coolest thing ever.  It kicks so much ass over my mandoline (which used to be the coolest thing ever).  We made a recipe that called for 2lbs of thinly sliced zucchini.  In like a minute, “voila,” the zucchini was sliced and ready to be cooked.  If you have a KitchenAid, you need this attachment.  It will change your life! 

Ahh, Westport.  Our favorite surf spot –  because it’s the only place we can go without having to make a weekend of it.  So cold, so rough and so fun.  Kevin’s Dad and Brother came with us this trip.  Westport is crazy because you can read the surf report and have a four star day (that’s good) and then get there and it’s crap.  But you went that far so you play in the water anyway and then like an hour later, the wind shifts and it’s the best surf conditions you’ve ever had.  We’ve never really had a bad day at Westport.  And to make things more perfect, tradition leaves us with ice creams every car ride home. *Thank goodness* Kevin has a sweet tooth too! 

Speaking of ice creams, I finally made it to Molly Moon’s.  That’s good stuff.  I wasn’t brave enough to try anything too crazy.  My raspberry mint sorbet tasted like a raspberry mojito. *yummy* The waffle cone was probably the best one I’ve ever had.  And I kind of get around.  I also recently made it to Peaks frozen custard.  I’m not sure I’m a custard fan. I think prefer one or the other, not the combination of ice creams and soft serve. Don’t get me wrong though, I would never turn it away. Ever.

Lately, Kevin and I have ate a pretty disgusting amount of cupcakes.  I’m not going to lie, it is mostly my fault.  The new cake at Cupcake Royale is quite tasty and we’ve been in the neighborhood often. (Ok, maybe we’ve gone out of our way, but only a couple of times!)  At work we had a nutritionist come in and talk to us about healthy eating. A lot of the stuff I knew, like organic foods are so much better for you, butter is better than margarine, the food pyramid is a big joke, etc.  The things I decided to implement in our diet isn’t much and it certainly isn’t giving up sweets.  I will start taking an Omega-3 supplement – it can’t hurt anything. And as much as I can, will stop eating things with partially hydrogenated oils in them (if I can’t read the labels then it doesn’t count!).  We can start shopping a little better for organic foods too. Organic is so expensive though!  I do see the value of hormone free milk and chemical-less fruits. But why do I have to pay more? You’re not using the chemicals, shouldn’t it be cheaper?! 

My four month old nephew had a Perianul Fistula.  Sounds fun, right?  Poor baby had butt surgery yesterday.  He was in and out and Mommy reports “Tyler’s already smiling again (that could be the morphine talkin).” The sad thing about baby having surgery is that we don’t know how much it hurt him, pre and post surgery because he can’t tell us (nevermind that piercing cry, he is four months old afterall). Poor little guy.

There you have it. My non-blog worthy blogging. Don’t mind me while I try to learn how to be good about talking about butts and slicers while being entertaining at the same time. Maybe I’ll just report on the cupcakes and ice creams we eat. At least then I’d have an excuse as to why I eat them so much! As it stands now, I just have a problem :)

Weekend Warriors

Weekend Warriors

At our house you can tell it’s summertime when our calendars grow exponentially. As of last weekend, it’s official, summer is here! We packed so much funness into our weekend that I am impressed with us.

This is what we did:

Went to Spencer’s little league game.
Met Kevin’s Mom and friends for ArtWalk, Part Deux.
Ate, Drank and Puffy Paint at D and Dip’s Baby Party.
Killed time at the U-District Street Fair.
Cheered for the M’s (v. Boston) with Pete and Jenn – from the front row.
Danced at Anj’s Birthday Prom Party.
Beat the Bridge with old co-workers.
Over dosed on cheese at Cheese Fest in the Market.
Tried out Paddle Boarding in the Sound. (Kevin and Ambrose were fast – I was not.  And people are actually surfing on these things off of cruise ship/tanker waves right off of Discovery park!  Crazy, I know?!)

I was so happily exhausted I felt like I needed a day off to re-coop from my days off. I gotta get back into summer shape, pronto!

My Crush

My Crush

Kevin and I went to see Flight of the Conchords the other night. It was a great show, as expected. They started the set with “Too Many Dicks (On The Dance Floor),” which is the taping we got to see when in New York last October- Sooo, yeah, we’re pretty sure that was their shout out to us- Annnyway, what I didn’t expect was to fall for the foul mouthed Arj Barker, who opened up the show.

He was Hi.lar.ious. *Swoon*