with two cards, like they've never met

Because it is currently the most beautiful day OFMYLIFE outside and I am stuck inside staring at the computer screen, I would like to leave you this tidbit of information:

In the most basic of senses. You're welcome!

(also, this explains to me why I like French Dressing: all the sweetness of ketchup, with the vinegar cut out by the mayo. And, why I don't like Tartar or Thousand Island: pickles!)

pretty pretty please

You guys, I don't even know what to do with myself.

I saw all the cries of Blogger being down, but since I haven't done anything except 1) use the full-body motion machine at the gym (awesome!), 2) eat, 3) work and 4) sleep, I wasn't really all that put-out by the fact that it was down.

My life is real boring and I am not ashamed.

But seriously. I was feeling slightly under the weather for the past couple days, so last night was the first time I'd been to the gym since we signed up. I used one of the full-body motion machines instead of the treadmill and y'all -- I am NEVER going back. I'm not really a runner anyway, but this machine can transition from stair stepping to elliptical just by how you move. It's fantastic. I burned 300 calories in 30 minutes. Then I had a big dinner and went to bed because I was pooped. I'm still pooped today. Just shows me I need to go to the gym. And maybe drink more water.

Today it is freaking gorgeous and outside, which is awesome except that I'm inside and the weekend is supposed to be crap weather-wise. I think Seattle should make their weekends revolve around the weather. No, hear me out: if there are two days of sunshine next to eachother, that's your weekend. So our weekend would have been Thursday and Friday of this week, and we'd work Saturday and Sunday. I don't really care what two days I have off, just as long as they are two days right next to eachother. It can be our flex week. And it only comes into effect when the weekend does not have at least one not-rainy day. I'll start a petition.

Hah.

In any case, I walked around for half of my lunch today just so I could get out in the sunshine. I'm also going to walk downtown to meet Nate after work (shh, don't tell him) and try and convince him to let us get sushi, since we got paid today. Well, I got paid today, I'm not sure if he did. I love getting paid every week =)

I have a headache which is either from dehydration or the fact that my ponytail is too tight. Or possibly from the fact that my TMJ is mildly acting up. I think that's my cue to stop chewing buckets of ice a day. Funny how it's my jaw, not my teeth, that started complaining first. Take that, dentist-man!

the only exception

I don't even know where to begin. Let's try...Friday.

Friday, I met Nate after work and we decided to find some dinner. We wandered for a while, tried to get into a highly recommended sushi restaurant, Japonessa, but their wait at 6:30pm on a Friday was an hour and fifteen, so we decided to hit up our new favorite Irish bar, Kells. We were hungry but not starving, so we decided to sit by the window and try out the Irish Cheese Plate and a few Pasties. They were good, but not excellent -- the cheese plate was better than the pasties, but that could just be my cheese-lovin' tummy talking. While eating "dinner," we decided to see a movie and checked out the listings. We decided to see Insidious, but the next show wasn't until 9:25, so we headed over to Gameworks to kill some time. They had a 2 hour unlimited play for $22 deal going up, but since we only had an hour and a half before we had to go the theatre (which was right next door,) we decided to just get $30 worth of credits for $24 (a different promotion they were running.) We played DDR, Jurassic Park III and one of those coin dozer games to our little hearts content. The coin dozer game froze up in the middle, so we got 40 extra plays, which was exciting! We used the tickets we got to buy ourselves snacks for the movie.

Which. Was. HORRIBLE. Seriously, don't see it. It wound up just being strange and not really scary. The special effects were bad, the storyline wasn't very good and the acting was horrible. And I'm all for bad scary movies, but this was...just a bad movie.

Saturday, Nate had to work during the afternoon, so I stayed home and played Facebook games and watched National Treasure for the umpteenth time before meeting him after work, again! We wandered around to find somewhere to eat and decided on Blue C Sushi, since it was still happy hour for them. We got drinks, four rolls, edamame, gyoza and cream puffs for $25. It was awesome! The vibe is really cool, plus they have a conveyor belt, which we both want to try, but wasn't included in happy hour, so we put it off 'til next time.

After Blue C, we went home for a quick stop before meeting Meghan & Matt (our new Seattle friends -- Nate knows Meghan from college) at 88 Keys, a piano bar in Pioneer Square. It was fun and loud, and we made friends with our waitress, Andrea. It was her first night, and she was running around like a chicken with her head cut off, but she did an awesome job! We sang very loudly and laughed and tried to talk, in spite of the noise level. Afterwards, we hung out at our apartment for a while and had nachos (which nobody wanted when Nate asked, but everyone ate when they were placed on the coffee table,) and smoked some hookah. And got into arguments about which ways to point the wheels when parking on a hill. It was fun.

Sunday we got up around 12:30pm and made it out of the house by 4:30...ish. We walked down to Sur la Table at Pike Place to try and find a sugar bowl. We didn't find one (that I liked enough to buy,) but we tried the $5000 espresso machines and decided that they are awesome. We also checked out the soda makers, which I think are cool and would like to get at some point. We hit up Ross afterward and got a new shower curtain liner, sheets and an ice cream scoop before heading home.

Monday morning it was difficult to get up, and I wasn't feeling well most of the day, but Nate got out of work at 1pm and saw my tweet about wanting a bagel and a smoothie, so he brought me a "smoothie" (aka a gelato milkshake with strawberries and coconut. That counts, right?) and a beautiful bouquet of flowers because it was our Two-Year Anniversary.

We didn't do gifts because we've been spending too much money lately -- and there will be plenty time for gifts -- but we did make a reservation to eat at Japonessa after work, so he met me at 5pm and we walked over.

The food was uh-maze-ing. We had Tempura Brie with a Raspberry sauce for our appetizer and two rolls for dinner: Seattle Crunch and Super Bad Boy.

I liked the Seattle Crunch a lot, but the Super Bad Boy was too spicy for me. It tasted good, but my mouth was on fire. And Nate laughed at me, because to him it wasn't spicy at all. Boo.

The rolls were both super rich, so we have leftovers. Nom nom nom.

We watched 'Love and Other Drugs' when we got home, which was ok. It was cute, and there were some good moments, but not great. I did laugh quite a bit, though.

There's sun on the horizon, at least for a week or so, which is fine by me. I hope it stays sunny for this weekend, so I don't just get to experience it from the conference room window.

I'm jamming out to this song today:

-C

a feast and harvest

Here's a few pics of how this weekend went. This pretty much sums up the whole weekend, except that we did a million things other than eat sushi. We just didn't take any pictures of anything else. I'll update soon!

{Blue C Sushi}

snacktime!

alternately: foods I should be a spokesperson for

Utz Potato Chips
-Specifically, the Honey BBQ brand. They are the best chips I have ever tasted. So much, in fact, that we made it a priority to visit the factory when we were on our road trip. And then bought, like, 20 mini bags at the factory outlet store because we really like Utz chips and we were going to be driving out of their shipping radius. WE ARE THOSE PEOPLE. If you can find them, try them. And then try them mixed with Mac 'n Cheese. Holy deliciousness. Dot com.

Sunbelt Granola Bars
-Another sometimes hard to find snack. Case and point: The closest store that carries them to where we live in Seattle is 15 miles away. That isn't that far, unless you don't drive places. Which we try not to, unless it's absolutely necessary. And we think that going to Target <10 miles away isn't always necessary, so...yeah. This is another snack we stocked up for the trip. And then we had no air conditioning, so they all melted. And still tasted super. Especially the Oats & Honey. Noms.

Crystal Light
We go through this stuff like it is going out of style. We spent extra money on it the last time we went grocery shopping, because it was on sale. We bought four large tubs. That will last us maaaaaybe a month. Maybe.

That's probably about it. Actually, no it isn't. But the other things aren't specific brands, just generic foods. Like brussel sprouts, green beans, stuffing...etc...etc...

I'm so ready for it to be tomorrow night! I'm excited about traveling =)

-C

just listen for the lark

Hi there!

I'm so tired, my eyeballs feel all scratchy and I think I'm that guy at work because I'm having problems keeping my eyes focused on anything. Especially tiny, 10-point font. Gah. But this weekend was fabulous, so I'll sit here and sketch out for a while and not complain too too much.

Friday night, walking home from work, I ran into a lot of things having to do with the Sounders that was happening later. I got a free energy drink and saw a giant soccer ball!

I also found some pretty cool graffiti along the way.



I don't really remember what I did Friday night, but it must not have been too terribly exciting.

Saturday was a lazy day for me. Nate had to work from 10-4:30, and then they wound up keeping him until 5 after telling him he could go at 2 and it wound up being a huge 'I don't know when you're coming home so I'm hungry but I can't make dinner yet' fiasco. FIASCO!

Actually, it wasn't that bad. But it was kind of touch and go there for a little while.

Saturday night we went to Kells, which is in an alley way in between the stores on 1st and Pike Place Market that we didn't even know existed, to meet Nate's friend from college, Meghan, and her husband, Matt. We drank, ate, talked and listened to some fantastic live Irish music. After about a bottle of wine each (for the ladies) and a couple pints of Guiness (for the men-folk,) we decided that it sounded like a good idea to go over to Meghan and Matt's apartment to play Monopoly. Until, you know...2AM. Which is fine. Except that it's way past my bedtime, and we were all, uhm, slap-happy, to say the least. It became increasingly harder to do math, as it got later and later. So Nate and I finally called it quits, took leave of our gracious hosts via a cab. Once we got home, we promptly passed out as soon as our heads hit our respective pillows.

Sunday morning was a little rough, but we managed to be up and out of the house by 12:30PM, which is decent if you take into account that we didn't get out of bed until 11:15 or so. We found some coffee and some Jimmy Johns (and some ibuprofen -- hah) before I sent Nate off to Molly Moon's for his website meeting. I, of course, went shopping. What else do you do with a tax return? I got a couple pieces from H&M, but I also had a giftcard from my Aunt for Victoria's Secret, so I got some new undies while I was out, as well, since they are having a 7 for $25.50 sale right now, and my wardrobe from American Eagle boyshorts is getting kind of old and well-loved. So I picked up a couple different kinds, including their hipsters and boyshorts, to see what I like best so I can use the rest of my giftcard. They were running this promotion where you get a giftcard with your purchse worth between $10 and $500, so I'll have to go back in April and see what I get! Knowing my luck, it will be $10, but you never know.

We also went grocery shopping Sunday afternoon/early-evening. We spent more than we meant to, but we got everything from Safeway, instead of splitting it up between there and Uwajimaya, and most of what we bought we stocked up on, and bought more of than we normally would, because it was on sale! Like Crystal Light and Veggie Ritz. Plus we needed things like spices and household items, which are always makes things more expensive.

Sunday night we had homemade pizza for dinner, with an appetizer of stuffed mushrooms.

I love stuffed mushrooms because they're so super easy to make. The filling is basically whatever you have hanging out in your fridge! This time, it consisted of cream cheese, ranch dressing, parmesan cheese and an Italian spice blend, whith a Veggie Ritz cracker crushed and sprinkled on top. Pop them in the oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes and they are golden brown and delicious! I love mushrooms, can you tell?

We also bought our tickets and hotel room for my friend Catherine's wedding in Atlanta this weekend! We're leaving at 8:20PM on Thursday night and taking the red eye, so we have Friday to be there and sleep (and hopefully get me an appointment at the eye doctor -- I haven't found one in Seattle yet, and I am in desperate need of new contacts,) Saturday for Wedding-ness and Love, Sunday to hang out in Atlanta and Monday to get back to Seattle in one piece. And it's nice flying out this way, because even though we don't leave until 5PM, it's eight hours of flying, we get in at 10PM (which will feel like 1AM -- blech,) we can still get a regular night's sleepy-times. I'm so excited!

-C

one more night

Recently here it's looked like this:

And it's been 60 and just lovely. It does rain off and on, but for the most part, it's sunny and beautiful and warm enough that you really just want to go hang out on a blanket in a park somewhere.

Nate and I went to Fado, and Irish Bar, last night for dinner. We had Bruchsetta and Harp Battered Onion Rings, which were ok, but not great. I'm a fan of my Bruschetta being not soggy, and having a little more cheese with it. Nate loved the onion rings, but they weren't my cup of tea, because the batter was so pepper-y. Although, I did enjoy the Guinesss mayo. We had the 'Gourmet Burger' for dinner, which was excellent, except that it was -- like the Onion Rings -- too spicy for me. Nate was in burger heaven, however.

For dessert we had a delectable concoction -- a Brownie with Guiness Ice Cream, whipped cream and chocolate sauce.

6 minutes later, it looked like this:

All gone!

 It was also supposed to come with pecans, but we asked for it without, since Nate doesn't like them in his dessert. Our waiter came back out to ask if he had a nut allergy, at which point we struck up a conversation with him. Turns out he's from GA, and just moved here recently. So we talked about that for a while, because we're going to Atlanta next weekend!

This will be the first trip we've taken since the end of our big trip. I can't say I'm excited to be on planes for almost 12 hours, but I am excited to see some familiar faces. Unfortunately, we won't quite be close enough to Tallahassee to visit back there (since it's a 5-ish hour drive -- eww,) but I'm excited to see friends.

We haven't been up to too much else. None of the sites or programs I need to work at work are actually working on my computer, so I'm stuck checking every ten minutes to see if they've fixed themselves. Shakey fist!

-C

i've made up your mind

Holy Cow, y'all! I've had 52 pageviews so far today. I was excited that I was hitting 20-something the other day. I still only have three followers...I'll have to figure out how to remedy that. (I feel a giveaway coming on!)

In any case, I'm gonna have to try real hard not to have the whole blog be memes, since I love filling out forms/answering questions. Seriously? If I ever qualified for any of those surveys the "get paid for taking survey" websites use, I'd be rolling. Cause I'll fill things out all day long. No joke.

For now, I'm trying to figure out what to make for dinner. We have chicken thighs and ground pork, as well as yummy veggies - brussel sprouts, baby spinach, sweet potatoes, yellow onion, celery, white mushrooms...maybe carrots? I don't remember. I also have a shallot sitting in the bottom of the crisper that I haven't quite figured out how to use yet. Any recipe involving it would be greatly appreciated, because I've been out of ideas for a while. I'm so tired when I get home these days -- my own fault, I simply don't put myself to bed early enough on weekdays -- that I haven't been feeling terribly creative. Oh, for carbs I have spaghetti, white rice, brown rice and baking potatoes. Maybe we'll have baked potatoes tonight! Hmm...

I wish Instagram had a feed you could follow online, like Flickr or Twitter. In any case, my boyfriend is having fun walking around downtown Seattle, taking pictures of things as he meanders his way toward a coffee shop for the rest of the afternoon. They're all posted to his Twitter, so you can check them out here!

-C

i'm falling forever

Ten on Tuesday: Food! Hosted by Chelsea, at one of my favorite blogs to read (though I don't think she knows that, cause I've never talked to her. Hi Chelsea! I like reading your blog =)

1.  What condiments are always, always in your fridge?
Mayo. Hot sauce and/or salsa for Nate. But for me? Mayo. I don't like ketchup, mustard, relish (aka pickles) or most salad dressings, so it's really the only one left. Unless cream cheese counts?

2.   How do you like your steak cooked?  Your burgers?
I don't much like steak, but in the form of carpaccio, I'm ok with it. So...raw. But if it has to be cooked, probably medium rare. My burgers I like basically steamed, so that they're fully cooked all the way through, but are still super tender and moist. Mostly I eat them medium well, though, since you have to be careful with ground beef.

3.  What’s your favorite use for fresh tomatoes?
Another thing I'm not terribly fond of, because the acidity hurts my tongue. But I do like a nice fresh slice of tomato on a sandwich.

4.  What’s your go-to dinner when you haven’t planned anything in advance and you don’t feel like going out?
Pasta. Usually with pre-made sauce that has extra veggies and/or meat added in. With cheese. Lots and lots of cheese.

5.  What’s your favorite snack food lately?
Cake? Erm...I've also been eating a mix of almonds, chocolate chips and dried coconut.

6.  What’s your favorite weekend breakfast to make at home? 
I actually don't make much breakfast on the weekends since we got to Seattle. I think because I'm sleepy and don't get up, and then it's lunch time. Or because the dishes in the sink are still dirty from dinner the night before because I hate cleaning. But if I do make it, eggs, wheat toast, cheese grits. Potatoes if I'm feeling fancy.

7.  What’s your favorite thing to grill?  How do you do it? 
I'm not a huge fan of grilled flavor, and I also don't grill, so that kind of puts a damper on this question. But I'd have to say salmon. Or hot dogs.

8.  What’s your favorite wine for under $10? If you’re not a wine person, what brand of beer is your favorite?
Yellow Tail Whites are pretty delicious. There's also this Green Apple Wine that The Winery in Tallahassee makes at their vineyard that's under $10 a glass, does that count? (This wine always makes me think of my friends Leslie and Jessamyn -- specifically the night Jessamyn and I decided to get completely wasted have a little too much wine sitting at the bar in The Winery and talk about a lot of things that I don't remember now. We also may have then gone over to Waterworks. What?)

9.  Give us your most delicious cocktail recipe.
Vanilla Vodka and Root Beer. Alcoholic root beer float! I'm also a sucker for coconut rum and pineapple juice.

10.  How do you like your eggs?
If they're scrambled, dry and dead and smothered with cheese. Otherwise, Over-Medium. I can tell you the different between all the over-'blanks,' if you care to know. I worked in a breakfast restaurant. I don't like the texture of the yolk when it's cooked -- though, for some reason scrambled is fine -- but I also don't like my egg whites runny at all. So I'm Over-Medium all the way =) Whites fully cooked, yolk fully runny. It's the hardest way to make eggs -- leaving the yolk runny, without breaking it, while cooking the whites all the way through. This means I am pleasantly surprised when they can get it right at a restaurant.

-C

Big White Room

I've been listening to five tracks on my new Jessie J album kind of constantly:

-Price Tag
-Do It Like a Dude
-Who's Laughing Now
-Mamma Knows Best
-Who You Are

Big White Room is growing on me, but I feel sometimes that the recording (that's on the CD, I haven't listened to any others,) is slightly contrived. It's such an introspective song, I kind of want to hear it devoid of runs, repeated syllables. Without her all-out, girl-power, let-loose voice. Just...the song. Calm. And sad. Because really, that's what it's about. And maybe it's just me, because I don't do runs or girl-power shouting (up in that range.)

However, I really find it interesting that there are all these songs that are going along with the 'yourself is beautiful/good enough' movement coming out now. Born This Way and Who You Are, which are the two that come immediately to mind,  both speak to staying true to yourself and knowing that you are beautiful and good enough, no matter what other people say. I find it kind of disheartening that it has come to the point where we need to send specific messages via music, text, videos, etc. to reverse all the body image damage pop culture has done to our psyches. But that's what has spawned this information-age purge and re-assignment, via people like music divas, video vixens and CaitlinHTP's OperationBeautiful.

Enough heavy stuff, let's talk about the dinosaur cake Nate made me this weekend!

Yeah, my boyfriend made that. That most awesomest of cakes. He's legit.

He also stayed up until, like, 1:30AM on Saturday making it. Granted he didn't start until, like, 9PM, and then had to wait until the cake had cooled to start frosting, but I couldn't quite make it up that late, because I'm an old lady. So I didn't see the finished product until the next morning. Which was awesome!

What was your best birthday cake?

-C

just the way you are

You know what's even better than oatmeal with almonds, peanut butter and shredded coconut? Oatmeal with almons, peanut butter, shredded coconut and chocolate chips. I love chocolate with everything breakfast. It makes it feel that much more decadent!

Yesterday's feast of crock pot Corned Beef and Cabbage was absolutely delectable, and it's sitting in my bag, waiting to be consumed again for lunch. I would say we'd probably eat it for dinner -- I'm kind of an addict -- but I think we're going up to the University District to see a play put on by the theatre company that Nate is re-doing the website for, call 'The Happy Ones,' with free food and open bar afterwords. So maybe we'll just need a snack of corned beef and cabbage beforehand. Le yum!

Stop! Cabbage Time.

...sorry.

I am in love with my new iPod Nano. It is adorable and functional. And green. And it has a touchscreen, and I am a sucker for Apple products. I am also in love with the jewelry my sister got me:

Love.

-C

Olibgatory Irish Post

Despite the fact that I look like this:

(a redheaded step-child, with the crazy 'I-burn-in-30-minutes-and-never-tan-only-freckle' fair skin and bright blue eyes, who looks best in kelly green,)

I'm actually only 1/4 Irish. (I know. GASP!) But seriously. Everyone assumes I'm Irish, because of the coloring, but I come from a very mongrel (albeit very Western European/Palest People in the World) background. My mother's parents were Irish (O'Neil, which was actually Nee before Ellis Island -- how you get O'Neil from Nee is beyond me. Kinda seems like somebody just wasn't paying attention.) and Polish (Marszalek -- coincidentally, Marszalek gets anglicized into Marshall. Did you know? Google is fascinating.), and my Dad's parents were English (Nelson) and German (Stelzriede) (with some other Western-European people mixed in there, like Dutch, Irish and Scottish -- so I guess if you count that, I'm just a little bit more than 1/4 Irish, but whatevs.)

Despite my lack of full Irish heritage, I feel very Irish. And not just on St. Patty's Day, when everyone is Irish! But also on the in-between days. Especially on the days when I'm listening to my various connection of jigs and reels (or any other Irish music for that matter.) You know that music that just feels right? That's Irish music for me. I am sadly into Riverdance (probably as much as I'm into Phantom of the Opera, but that's a story for another day.) I'm pretty sure I bought the entire Border's collection of Irish CDs at some point. I took a trip to Ireland after I graduated high school, and stepping off the plane, even just standing in the airport, and seeing all the green makes me feel at home. It could be all just in my head, but for me, it feels magical. And I'm okay with that.

That being said, I'm not a big beer drinker, so I can't get into that; I have on more than one occassion enjoyed a delicious Shepherd's Pie, and I am all-up-INS the corned beef and cabbage. It's sitting in my slow cooker at home right now, and I'm really hoping Nate doesn't get called into work, so we can enjoy it together. Because it's St. Patrick's Day, and what says 'celebration' better than a ridiculously salty, corned piece of meat! (Can corned be a verb? Oh well.)

So there's me. I'm redheaded, I like Irish music and I have a penchant for potatoes. Plus I look good in green. That's gotta count for something, right?

On March 17th, everyone's irish. But what do you love about your heritage?
-C

you only bring me your funny papers

Last night's dinner was excellent. EXCELLENT!

Let me go backwards. We had already made plans to go dinner (which I've mentioned,) but Nate surprised me at lunch time with some flowers and a balloon. Thank goodness our OM wasn't here, because it meant I didn't have to wear the hideous birthday hat, once everyone in the office besides Brian found out it was my birthday.

He took me to Jimmy Johns for lunch and it was delicious. Because it always is.

After work, I came home to Nate baking banana bread, because the pan that he ordered for my birthday cake still hasn't arrived and we have two bunches of overripe bananas that need to be used. It works out better this way, anyway, because we will be able to eat the cake when it's fresh! It's white Funfetti cake, with chocolate Funfetti icing.

We went to the restaurant for our 7:45 reservation. It's basically above one of the Public Market buildings on Pike and 1st, so we followed the signs upstairs, around corners and down hallways until we found it. The space was tiny, but the wall facing the Sound had huge bay windows, which made it feel bigger. I would love to go back when it's nice outside, and you can actually see out across the water.

First course was Raw Oysters and Beef Carpaccio -- because apparently these are our staple appetizers, now -- and they were excellent. The oyster appetizer came with two different toppings: preserved meyer lemon and cucumber with salmon roe. The second was my favorite, because the roe was giant and salty, and paired perfectly with the fresh cucumber and the fresh oysters. I am a sucker for super-fresh, raw food.

(all the pics at dinner were taken by tealight)

Second course was Pan-Seared Halibut Cheeks with Potato Confit, an Apple Parsnip Puree and Lentil and Wilted Green salad, which was very good, especially when you ate the potato, halibut and puree together in one bite. Our other entree was a Strip Loin Steak with green beans, baby carrots and potatoes, which was also good. I am not a fan of steak, however, so I preferred the fish =)

Dessert was a Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee (served cold with flambed top -- I can't understand why they don't serve hot cremem brulee, but maybe that's just me) with berries and a Bitter Dark and White Chocolate Mousse Cake with a Raspberry Sauce. They were gone very quickly.

Nate saw them put a candle in someone else's dessert while we were eating, so he had them put one in my creme brulee, which was very nice of him, though the waitress said she was going to do it anyway, since she saw my birthday when she checked my ID for our wine pairings. They also gave me two chocolate truffles to take home in celebration.

(see? tealight)

FedEx came this morning with my present from my Mom!

Yay for Apple products! Except that I have to hide them away while I'm at work, because I'm in Microsoft land.

See? It came in a little box. A perfect disguise. I also got my birthday present from my Aunt yesterday in the mail, a giftcard to here. Wooh, wooh!

Nate also packed me enough banana bread to feed a small country this morning for breakfast.

Which is really just fine by me!

Don't forget to check out A Mess of Dresses, or my new list of fave blogs (on the right-hand side of the page.) It's gorgeous outside, so I hope if it's nice where you are, you're going out to enjoy it after you read this post! Because I can only watch from the conference room window.

-C



I need you so much closer

It's my birthday! I'm officially twenty-five. I'm also sitting at work, munching on my maple & brown sugar oatmeal with almonds, coconut and Justin's maple almond butter (first try -- I'm hooked.)

There's is apparently a Birthday Hat here in the office, but since our Office Manager is out sick and I have the key to her office, where the Birthday Hat makes residence, there will be no hat. I'm not that good of a sport. I even had to wrestle the key away from one of our AV Managers, because it was sitting on my desk and our Accountant, Brian, tried to get her to commandeer it. I won. I'm spritely...or something.

I haven't written in a while, but I had a good weekend. Friday evening Nate and I decided to make pizza, with our 79 cent box of Jiffy pizza dough mix and various toppings. It turned out DELICIOUS.

 (pre-baking. There's mushrooms and onions under there, and I had to fight to get the spinach put on.)

The crust was thin and crunchy, and just the right consistency. And it had plenty of cheese.

...I like cheese. It's a sickness, really. In any case, we grabbed the pizza, some Mike's Hard Cranberry Lemonade (well, I had that, Nate had Vanilla Rum with Crystal Light Fruit Punch as a mixer,) and watched Let Me In. It was kind of boring. I didn't think the story flowed very well, but some of the effects were pretty cool. And Nate gave me my birthday present early (which he never does) and it was Just Dance 2 for the Wii! I've been wanting it for a while, but it's hard to justify spending $40 on a video game instead of food or clothes or paying off debt. He gave it to me on Friday so we could play over the weekend, since that's more fun than getting it Tuesday night and not being able to play a lot. It's hilarious, and we already have our favorite songs. Not to mention songs that he's better at than I am, and vice versa.

(singing while making dough)

Saturday we stopped by Express and used some free knit coupons Nate got from work plus a little discount to get some clothes. With no food in the house, we stopped and had a Kobe burger with sweet potato fries for dinner and a giant brownie with vanilla ice cream for dessert. The menu didn't say it had walnuts in the brownie -- which is fine for me, but not so much for my weirdo boyfriend -- so Nate was slightly unhappy. He ate it anyway. Yum. Sunday was dark and stormy, so we made it a point to do nothing and ate mostly pasta all day.

Monday night I had plans to go to bed super early, because I couldn't fall asleep Sunday night, but then I came across a 25th Anniversary Concert of Les Miserables on PBS and I just couldn't tear myself away from the fantastic singing. It was basically the show without the set, and it was just so very well done. Minus Nick Jonas as Marius. I don't have a problem with the Jonas brothers, but you put a pop singer who's had a few voice lessons up against world-renowned Opera singers and people who have played title characters in the show on Broadway or in the West End multiple times and it just isn't going to hold up. He's was definitely the weak link, and it was kind of depressing. (I'm only slightly judgemental.)

Tonight we're going to dinner for Dine Around Seattle. I'm excited, it should be very yummy!

Thanks for reading!

-C

on the first page of our story

This is probably my favorite part of having a little corner of the internet:

(and, you know, a stats page!)

I hope these readers come back -- if you are one of them I'd love to hear from you! Actually, I'd really just love you hear from any of you, whoever you are. I think some of you are my family and friends (HI!) but I think some aren't, and that's super cool!

It's trying really hard to be sunny here, after raining hard enough this afternoon to cause water to leak into the windows of the building I work in. Not my windows, but our GM's windows. And apparently westward-facing windows on every floor in the building. Whoops.
In other news, it's my BIRTHDAY soon! I'm gonna be a quarter-of-a-century old next Tuesday. It's also a kind-of 'restaurant week' here in Seattle for the month of March (I think their actual restaurant week is in October?) called Dine Around Seattle, where a bunch of restaurants in and around the city have fixed 3-course menus for $30 (or lunch for $15,) so Nate and I are going to Chez Shea next Tuesday for birthday dinner. The fixed menu sounds excellent. I'm excited.

On a less happy note, Bobby McFerrin has laryngitis so we didn't get to use my winning tickets to go see him in concert last night. A major bummer. And of course, it's the ONE time I win something. Go figure. So we have to talk to the theatre about getting our tickets exchanged for the rescheduled concert -- whenever that is.

I made a decision the other day to do WiiFit at least three times (hopefully more like five times) a week from now on and I'm sticking to it! Today will be my third time for this week, so that's good. I love the Routines part of WiiFit Plus that allows you to just go from one yoga or strength pose directly into the next (in an order that they suggest or you set up on your own,) because it's pretty much what was missing from the first iteration of the program. I'm also hoping that someone gets me Just Dance 2 for my birthday, because I think it's going to be a fabulous way to get in some cardio without running. Because I hate running and I can't afford a gym membership.

Time for my afternoon snack! Nate is working tonight, so I'm on my own for dinner. Which probably means it will consist of pasta with some Prego sauce beefed up with mushrooms, onions and baby spinach. Because I'm lazy when I'm cooking just for me. Dinner last night was pretty, because of the purple cauliflower and mashed sweet potatoes.

I took the second pic with the macro lens. So cool looking. And pretty in purple.

(All I can think of when I say the word pretty with an extended 'e' -- ooh, preeeeeeetty -- is that scene in Devil Wears Prada when Anne Hathaway's character gives the freebie purse to her friend, and when discussing why women need multiple bags, she says 'and it's preeeeeetty.' Yes? No? Is that just me? Ah well...)

-C

numb, numb, na-na-na-na-na numb

Seriously, what gives Nickelback to right to keep writing the same song over and over and over again. I mean...take a break. Write something different. It can't be that hard, can it?

Anyway, I think the spider crisis has passed, and hopefully the dishwasher is getting fixed today, so that will be all set and things can go back to semi-normal.

It's beautiful outside today, but it's supposed to rain tonight. It was actually nice this weekend but of course I a) didn't leave the house on Saturday and b) it was mostly cloudy when we walked around on Sunday to go grocery shopping (but bright -- I wore my sun glasses.) We went shopping at our neighborhood Uwajimaya, and their chicken was on sale for almost as cheap as the tiny Dong Sing market we normally go to for meat, so we just decided to do all our shopping there. We got:

1.5lbs of brussel sprouts @ $3.49/lb
2 large sweet potatoes @ $1.39/lb
1 medium yellow onion @ $.69/lb (or each? I can never remember)
1 head of broccoli @ $2.49/lb
1 head of purple cauliflower @ $2.49/lb (I'm so excited!)
a packet of hawaiian sweet rolls
4 large chicken breasts (I'm not sure what the poundage was) for between $5-$6.
1lb of salmon @ $6.49/lb
1 14oz bag of tortilla chips $2
1 (small) bag of dried, unsweetened coconut $.89

for about $40. I especially consider this a steal, because of the price of the chicken. The pound of salmon and the brussel sprouts were probably the most expensive things...also the most delicious. I feel like uwajimaya is a secret place, where only we and every person of Asian descent in the Seattle area shop.

I cooked about half the chicken last night, and we had half of that for dinner and the other half became chicken salad, which is lunch today. I have to say, the quality of this chicken versus what we normally get is way better. As Nate says, "It tastes way more normal." I can't wait to cook the salmon. Mmmm.

On a completely different note, I'm sorry, but I didn't realize 'Love Don't Cost a Thing' by J-Lo was still a Top40 hit to be played on el internet radio. I'm apologize, I will make a note. Not that I'm complaining.

I have to find boxes to send out all of the Christmas gifts we've been hoarding putting off saving to send out until now.

It's my birthday soon, and I get to see Bobby McFerrin in concert tomorrow. Wheee!

What's you best kept grocery secret?
-C

everything is going to the beat

Haven't blogged recently because I've been exceptionally tired. And I've been working on putting this together:

A Mess of Dresses

It's geared towards helping designers get their products out there, and toward helping you find the perfect dress. I'm still working out the kinks, such as how to use the hashtags to be able to find dresses by color, length, etc., but I've got lots in the queue already. I'm strongly encouraging people to submit dresses they find, and I'll even put YOUR dresses up there if you just submit your website.

So follow away! Tell other people! Help me get this off to a great start. Because unless you love countless hours of Googling (uhm...excuse me while I raise my hand) to find the perfect dress for Saturday night, you can just look here.

In other news, I've there are bagels leftover from a meeting this morning and they are SO GOOD. And I've had two today. Hello, my name is Caitlin, and I'm a carb-a-holic.

Plus, the cream cheese is whipped.

Ugh.

-C

p.s. the dishwasher is for realz broked, and has to have the motor replaced, so...we have no dishwasher until that can happen. except our hands. have I mentioned I hate washing dishing? That's why Nate does it. And why I ampersandheartssemicolon him. Beam.

always giving her attention

It's sunny!

Unfortunately, it's been alternately like this and dark, storming and POURING rain. It comes in cycles.

I didn't get a chance to eat my oatmeal this morning, so I'm eating it now, since 'I didn't get a chance to eat my oatmeal this morning' actually means 'I didn't get a chance to eat anything this morning.' So I had my leftovers from dinner, bagel thin and a granola bar for lunch. I was still hungry, but I told myself to wait and see if it settled. It did, but I'm  still hungry. So I'm having my cinnamon roll oatmeal, coconut and peanut butter concoction.

Doesn't it just look fabulous? Actually, it looks kiiiind of like vomit mush. But it tastes delicious. It also means the end of the peanut butter, so it looks like I'll be grinding some peanuts in our mini food processor tonight.

 In addition to being hungry, I'm also sleepy. I wish Starbucks delivered (new business idea, anyone?) but they don't, so I'm taking advantage of our Tully's Coffee Machine.

The coffee isn't great, but I'm a big fan of the mocha button. Plus, it's a whole mug for fifty cents. You can't really beat it.

Bad news: our dishwasher is broken, but good news: it should be fixed tomorrow. Unless of course, the repairman can't fix it, for some reason.

And see? In the time it took me to write this entry, it's back to being dark and cloudy again. Hmph.

-C

somebody just like me

So, my life is really boring. So boring that I haven't really had any inclination to write down anything that I've been doing in here. However, Nate and I did decide to explore and (gasp) go out to eat after he got off work last Saturday. We hit up one of the two wine bars/restaurants we've been itching to try downtown, The Purple Cafe. We had a local wine flight and a couple apps off their tasting menu (which we promptly destroyed before I got a chance to take pictures of them) before my stomach started acting up and we decided to head home (this was totally not the restaurant's fault, by the way. I chalk it up to the fact that I don't drink EVER anymore, and that I ate three pieces of bread with copious amounts of butter at around 8PM, and we went to the restaurant at around 10:30PM.) I have to say, unfortunately (and somewhat fortunately, because it's free!) my favorite part of the meal was possibly their fresh bread and whipped butter. Although, we had crostini and white bean spread and beef carpaccio as our apps, and the carpaccio was mui, mui excellente (I have no idea if that's how you spell either of those words.) I wish I had taken pictures of the inside of the place, because their wine storage/bar is this awesome column-esque structure in the middle of everything with a spiral staircase going around it alllllll the way up to the ceiling.

(pic credit goes to their website)

The rest of their menu was large, in charge and looked varied and superb. They have a little bit of everything, and we will definitely return at a later date (and an earlier time.)

We're planning on going to Sip (the second of these purported wine bars,) this weekend for the second half of our belated Valentine's Day celebration. I ordered some presents for Nate, but they haven't come in the mail yet (one of them probably won't, but I'm hoping the other will, since it's supposedly 2-3 day shipping and I ordered it Monday. But this is the USPS we're talking about, so...you never know.) He got me things on actual Valentine's Day, namely a box of chocolates -- the true way to my heart, no doubt -- and a lavender-scented massage candle. I had totally forgotten we used to have JimmyJane (yes, I know it's a sex site. But really? The massage candles are SO awesomely wonderful.) massage candle samplers I got from my old job in Boston, and we had just used up the customized fragrance bottle of massage oil I got free from Aveda last year for my birthday (they were not skimpy, it was a large bottle,) so it came as a welcome surprise! I can't write what I got him here, since he reads, but I'll post after I give him the gifts, and let you know how it goes ;)

Last night's dinner was brown sugar salmon, brown rice and roasted brussel sprouts. This is the first time I've roasted brussel sprouts, and I have to say, I enjoyed them immensely. The outer leaves get crispycrunchydelicious, plus, I bought parmesan cheese at Target the last time we went grocery shopping, and it makes all vegetables that much more delicious. Because it's cheese, and cheese is good. I also roasted some zucchini and yellow squash the other days (one time with and one time without parmesan cheese -- it was good both times,) and I enjoyed that also! And roasting is super easy, because you put them in and leave them alone and I like it. I'll start taking pics of things and posting recipes again when I start being creative and making things I haven't made a million times in the past several months.

We did some major grocery shopping last weekend, and yet still have nothing in the house for lunch. Ok, so that's not true, we just haven't been very good at portion control with dinner lately, so I haven't had leftovers to bring. And I'm too lazy in the morning to make a sandwich. Yeah, I really am. (I'm also too lazy, lately, to get up in time to put on make-up, but that's another story...) In any case, we got a (manual) juicer at Ikea when we were there a little while ago, and we bought a bunch of lemons and a bunch of oranges to make juice with (or smoothies, should be feel so inclined. I do love my Magic Bullet.) Unfortunately, we keep making our regular juice -- aka Crystal Light (knockoff) -- in our one and only pitcher. It will happen soon! Or I will buy a carafe at Uwajimaya. For serious.

In other news, I won tickets to go see Bobby McFerrin at The Paramount from Seattle Weekly via Twitter. Apparently, online social media is the only way I win things, because I have -- honest to god -- never won anything before in my life. Ok, so maybe that's a lie. I won a Vera Bradley purse from Project Graduation in high school. (But to be fair, there were only 300 other people. The odds are much better that way.) And sometimes I win things that I actually have te be vaguely skilled at something to win. But for realz, y'all, I WON! Plus, I won tickets to go see Bobby McFerrin, which is awesome, because he is the king of singing. Nate went and picked up the tickets, and we're in row H. It's gonna be pretty cool. So you should follow them on Twitter so that, if you live in the Seattle area, you can win things to.

One more thing for this morning: we sold most of our seating! The couch and coffee table were sold earlier this week! They even came and picked them up during the day, while I was at work, so when I got home, there was just this big empty space in the wall, since Nate didn't have a chance to move anything before he left for work. So I shoved our chair in the corner, moved the little Ikea loveseat to the wall where the couch had been and voila! We have seating for people other than ourselves. That doesn't smell like cat pee. It's ever so exciting. I haven't taken pics yet, because I'm still contemplating moving the furniture more. Plus, I want to get some accessories. Namely, a throw and pillows for the love seat, and something similar for the Poang chair, to tie them all into one color scheme. Because we have a (strange) gray chair, an off-white loveseat and a sage green over-sized chair. I will make this work. (If you have any suggestions, I'd be GLAD to hear them. I'll post pictures later, of all three furniture items together, because apparently the Klobo loveseat is the only thing that Ikea doesn't make a slipcover for, and I don't think they make this particular cushion for the Poang anymore. Oy vey.)

Ok, I lied, this is the last thing. We're trying to the sell the car, but we haven't had much luck so far. Some guy offered to trade us for a Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible. This is funny, because Nate sold his Eclipse so we could drive across the country (though, this is a 2G and his was a 3G and blah blah blah, I don't care about cars, so I'm pretty sure y'all don't care about cars, so Nate is the only one that cares about cars, sorry, Boo! If you really want the specific differences, ask him. He would be glad to discuss it.) It requires us to do some thinking, because it's possible that we could sell this car (now or later on) for more money than we could get for the Xterra, but we'd have to factor in (probably) higher insurance costs and feel we would need to garage it, because a convertible is more likely to get broken into, especially considering the number of cars we see smashed in near our apartment building. In any case, we're going to see it this weekend.

The Boo is meeting me for lunch in about an hour. But first, I have to sort through this pile of receipts to try and find one specific charge. Sweet.

-C

i think she knows

Hey-o!

It's been a little while. Unfortunately, I don't have anything too terribly exciting to report. So...Happy Valentine's Day!

Those are my flowers from my booboo. He sent them to me at work. He's a very nice booboo.

Let's see. Here is a recap of the past couple days:

Wednesday it was beautiful outside, and I had delicious Jimmy Johns for lunch.

Thursday wasn't anything too special. We had a delicious casserole with egg noodles, cream of mushroom soup, onions and cheese for dinner. Noms!

Friday I have no pictures because I spent all day at "showsite" for TechReady12 learning more about what my company does. It was pretty cool, but it involved a lot of walking for the whole day. I did get to have sliders and sweet potato fries for lunch, though. Yum!

Saturday we braved the outdoors and went to Pike Place Market to do some long overdue Christmas shopping. Hopefully we'll be sending out presents soon! The shopping is mostly done, which is good. But it started raining not long after we got to the market and poured until about 6PM, which was the majority of the time we were out. Of course. Before it started raining, we stopped and got lunch at a little deli/store called 'Pear' across from the market. It was delicious. I discovered Kettle's Sweet Onion chips. They taste like funyons, only less like death and preservatives (ok, so that's a lie -- I love funyons) and more like deliciousness!

Sunday we couldn't decide what to do. It was vaguely nice outside, so we were going to go walk around, but decided to drive down to Ikea instead. I'd never been to an actual Ikea store, and I didn't know what to expect. Nate was shocked and so we did the whole experience -- shopping and eating. The food wasn't great -- it wasn't horrible -- but it didn't cost a whole lot. We got the pasta marinara combo, and the garlic bread was delicious. Plus, they have the best ice. Besides Sonic ice. Ice is an important part of my meal! Leave me alone...

Today is Monday and Valentine's Day. It's dark and gloomy outside, but at least it wasn't full on raining when I had to walk to work this morning -- just misting. Plus, I'm wearing my new shoes!

So shiny. Have a great day!

-C