tell us of the night

One of these days I'll stop being a lazy bum and start writing regularly again so I don't have to lump our giant weekends o' fun into one long and slightly boring post. Ah, well. A girl can dream.

This weekend was one of the most gorgeous times I have seen in seattle. Friday and Saturday were both super sunny, and Sunday was marginally sunny, so Nate and I took full advantage and walked around for a total of 13+ hours from Friday night to Sunday night. All our pictures are on the real camera -- we took the real camera out, aren't you proud of us?! -- so I don't have many to post here today, but as soon as I can muster up the energy to steal them from Nate's computer, I'll post our marathon walking tour.

Friday evening we walked downtown because a) it was nice and I wanted to get some exercise but b) Nate was still a bit of a sicky, so we weren't going to submit the gym to his snot just yet. We walked down to Pike Place and got some awesome shots of Rainier over Qwest.

The crazy-ass giant volancomountains is one thing I will definitely miss whenever it is we decide to scurry back over the east coast. I love the Appalachians, but there's really nothing like craggy, snow-capped peaks in the distance. It's one of my favorite things around living in Seattle, for realz.

Friday night we watched The Fighter. I though it was good, but I really have no love to give to fighting -- it just isn't really my sport. I don't like watching people get hurt. Nate said he thought it wasn't as good as he thought it was going to be.

Saturday we woke up at a vaguely reasonable hour, got ready and set out to find breakfast. We had yet to find a decent breakfast place and upon some further inspection, discovered a diner, Planet Java, right on the waterfront, a straight shot down Washington from our house! It's super cute and has that old-school, 50s diner vibe, including the music. There's vintage Coke and diner paraphernalia everywhere, but the most ridiculous thing is that the entire place is covered in clocks. Most of them are cool. Some, like the scary clown clock, not so cool. But the vibe and food (and our waitress) was AWESOME and just what we wanted.

After eating, we were going to wander down by the waterfront (along with everyone else who lives in and/or was visiting Seattle,) but we got distracted by the ridiculously loud sounds coming from Qwest, so we walked over there to check it out. There was a U2 concert on Saturday night, and they were setting up and sound checking while the Mariners game was happening at Safeco right next door, so we were not alone. (When we walked home later, I got an awesome shot of Lenny Kravitz -- their opening act -- using the digital zoom on the camera and focusing in on the giant screen above the stage. It almost looks like we were there! ;)

Afterwards, we headed to the waterfront, and walked and shopped and took pictures for the rest of the afternoon. We ate dinner at Contour, where they have a $2-5 happy hour menu until 8PM with some really delicious food. We also got a free round of drinks because they neglected to tell us until much, much later that they didn't actually have the fried calamari we ordered. Oops. Free booze!

I wound up getting a little sunburned from walking around, but considering were out for hours and my chest is just a little pink, I'll take it. Saturday night we watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. It is kind of horribly depressing, but really really good. Beautiful cinematography and music (by James Horner,) but man, I did not see that ending coming. You should see it. And then be kind of depressed for a while.

Sunday wasn't as nice, but we went a-walking anyway. We would up at Planet Java for breakfast again before heading downtown to do some shopping. Originally we went for cologne for Nate, since he's almost out, but we wound up with six pairs of shoes instead. Hahaha. Hah. Ha. Oops. =\ But we needed them, and we got rid of some shoes that were really quite past their prime (which the shoes we bought replaced) when we got home, so it wasn't completely frivolous. Nate replace his semi-dressy black shoes, his gym shoes and walking sneakers and I replaced two pairs of casual walking shoes and got a pair of wedges for work. See, see?! We needed them. Neeeeeed. I mean, yes. Plus, they're having a BOGO sale until July 4th. Totally justified.

I also got this awesome ceramic owl at UO.

Technically he is a piggy bank, but since we keep out change in a Cafe du Monde tin near the door, he is simply a decoration on the window sill. He was on sale for $1.99, how could I say no?!

TGIF and all the goodness

I'm so glad this was a short week because I. Am. Beat.

I had my first two free personal training sessions at the gym. The girl was very cute and nice and I hurt all over. We did arms for 45 minutes on Tuesday and legs for an hour on Thursday. I'MSOTIRED. Working out is hard and stuff. But now at least I know how to use the machines and don't feel as awkward about it. Holla. My trainer is also trying to get classes for the evening to happen at this gym location, which I am all for. Some people live downtown and only have one gym membership. Hmph.

I'm also crazy excited about the fact that next week this time I will be in BOSTON! Granted, I don't get to spend much of my time in the New England actually in Boston -- I'll be in Maine Friday night/Saturday and in New Hampshire on Sunday -- but that doesn't make it any less exciting. I am returning to the land of Dunkin Donuts and Chik-fil-a. It's a dream come true.

You guys, I'm looking forward to fast food chains. This is my sad, sad reality.

Not that I don't love Seattle, especially right now. It's beautiful here, being able to live right on the water without paying exhorbitant prices is pretty freakin' cool (cooler if we could see the water from our apartment,) and the whole Pike Place/Space Needle area of downtown is really, really nifty. But I am affected by sunshine, or lack thereof, and I just can't handle it being 45 and drizzly most of the year. If it's going to rain, I'd rather have crazy thunderstorms that last for an hour or two than constantly being spit upon by the overcast sky. Personally.

Did you know Seattle is the birthplace of Starbucks and UPS? Nathan discovered UPS's Waterfall Garden right downtown near my work today.

It's also the birthplace of grunge.

You know what Boston is the birthplace of? Awesome.

But seriously, I'm glad to be here for the time being. I am embracing the newness of it all, even 8 months later.

(also, I got a new follower! Helllloooo, new follower! =)

as you like it

It is a beautiful, goreous, warm day here in Seattle and I am very happy about it! I woudl be happier if I could just go find a patch of grass to lay a blanket on and read my kindle all day, but I'll take what I can get. It's actually supposed to be sunny for the next five days, until Sunday (including yesterday.) It's a reason for celebration! ::dances::

I'm in a pretty good mood, cause I'm down another .8 pounds this morning, which puts me at a weight loss of total of 5 pounds! And I'm certainly off to the gym tonight after work to keep that number dropping.

Also, I bought a new pair of sunglasses last night from Forever 21.

They -- and Instagram -- make me feel fancy! They're also awesome because they have this detailing on the inside:

The first pair I bought fell apart literally two minutes after walking out of the store, so I went back and finagled (and by finagled I mean, I asked the nice sales lady) myself another pair. Normally their accessories policy doesn't allow return or exchange, but they let me do it since less than 5 minutes had passed since I had purchased them. The screws holding on the arms were just loose, so we went back upstairs and found a pair that had tight screws and were on our way.

They also had these awesome linen pants in their Heritage 1981 line that I want, because they are only $25 and work-appropriate, but they didn't really have my size.

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I tried on a 29, which is apparently too big (I still don't understand Euro sizing, considering the rule of "adding 28 to your regular size" means I would be a 34...) and the next size down they had in the store was a 26, which would probably be too small, though I didn't try those on. I think I'm going to watch them (both in-store and online) and wait until I get my weight a little closer to what I want it to be. Online the largest size they have is 28, which is probably the size I need right now...but we'll see. I'm a gym go-er, you see. Imma lose me some more weight. And hopefully inches.

I also tried on this, and I like it, I just can't decide if the flare at the waist is right for my body.

Envision with a pink or red tank underneath. Also, please ignore the fact that I can't take a picture of myself in a mirror with my iPhone to save my life. You can see the shirt, that's all that really matters.

We stayed up to watch The Voice last night. It was over very fast and not terribly memorable, which doesn't necessarily bode well. Here's what I thought:

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(this is THE VOICE! Ugh, I hate their tag. Couldn't you have come up with something catchier than four notes that doesn't include anything more than seconds and a minor third?)

Team Adam: This pairing is unfair for anyone, but especially unfair because I really like Angela Wolff and wanted to hear more of her voice. But Javier is a singer. A SINGER. How can emphasize this any more. He SANGS. His control over his voice really is incredible, and Angela didn't sound terribly in control of hers last nice (to be fair, you'd probably be nervous too, singing in front of everyone in a boxing ring like that. I would be.) But she's just so adorable! I want to be her friend.

Team Blake: I'm sorry, but I hate just don't Jared Blake's voice. There isn't enough tone for me to dig my greedy little substance-searching fingers into (and ok, wow, it sounds like I'm on drugs.) He did, however, sound way better last night that during either of his blind audition songs. I also have to say that it's weird to have a duet as 'The Voice.' It isn't 'The Voices' or 'The Group.' That being said, I love Ellenowen's sound and will probably go download their cd later. They will probably make it on their own, because they are beautiful people. (I loved their blind audition song -- Falling Slowly.)

Team Cee Lo: This was really a tough call, because both of these guys have killer voices. I don't know if I think Cee Lo made the right choice, but going with the more unique voice is probably more what the show is about. I can't really get into the gritty, classical rock and roll voice (Nakia = Bob Seger, in my head) as much as the smoother R&B these days, but I can see the appeal of both. (as a side note: Cee Lo cracks me the hell up.)

Team Christina: I disagree with this choice. You give two people a song that clearly plays to the strengths of one and expect to be so impressed by the one whose strengths it doesn't play to and expect to be so completely blown away that you don't go with the first? I think that's a horrible strategy. I also think that Justin has way more flexibility and coachability than Beverly; his voice can do multiple genres. I guess maybe it's like the Tje and Nakia dilemma -- I'm just not that into the old rock voices. I mean, give me some good '80s Bon Jovi or Journey any day, but current Bon Jovi? Not so much. That ship has sailed.

All that being said, I would want to be on either Adam or Blake's team. This is kind of shocking to me, since I'm not a country fan, but I would want Reba's coaching, cause she is an awesome lady in the singing department. I also think it's very smart of Adam to have Maroon 5's musical director on-site to help him out. The man coaches Maroon 5...what else do you want?

What did you think of all this jibber-jabber? Do you watch The Voice?

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!

acceptable lies

I find it acceptable when the weather channel says it's going to be rainy, but in actuality, it's sunny and bright with fluffy white clouds.

Yesterday, though, it was really strange. It was sunny and raining (as a sidenote: Apparently that doesn't happen here. Florida, though? It happens all the time. It's called a sunshower and I've known about them since I can remember being aware of water falling from the sky. Who knew they don't happen everywhere?) for about 10 minutes before I left work, stayed completely clear long enough for me to walk home, and then promptly started raining again. Not complaining, just interesting.

In other news, our $10, no-frills coffee maker we bought from Target when we first got here crapped out yesterday morning. It made coffee for me Monday morning, but then wouldn't heat up the leftover coffee for Nate when he got up. And then it just didn't even try yesterday. Sad face. So now that Nate's feeling better, part of his job for today is to get a new coffee maker. Hopefully we can get one with a timer on it, so the coffee will make itself in the morning and give me one less thing to do. We had a coffee maker (well, Nate had a coffee maker) like this in Medford that we never used, but that's because we were not trying to hold on to as much money from each paycheck as possible and also because the draw of awesome Dunkin' Donuts iced two blocks from work in one direction and an awesome little one-off coffee shop with my especially favorite Spanish Lattes one block in the other direction was just too great. If I had thousands of dollars to spend, I would totally get one of the capuccino makers we saw at Sur la Table the other day. But seriously? You can buy a car for what one of those babies cost. And really, I just can't imagine taking out a loan (or having a payment plan) for a coffee machine. If you can afford that, can't you afford to go to (your choice of coffee shop here) and have them make it for you every day?

{via}

Fancy.

I've also decided I want a grill pan (although, come to think of it, does anyone know if you can use those on electric burners?) because pictures of grilled veggies on the blogs I read always look so delicious. I'm not usually one for grilling, but I think a grill pan would be the perfect combination of regular cooking and actually using a grill. It'd be a nice change from roasting and steaming all our veg.

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Someday, I am going to have entirely too much fun putting together a wedding registry. For serious.

-C

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

feel the fire burning

So, my hips and thighs are driving my insane this morning. To explain, I think I have this thing they call 'RLS,' except that while the actual sensations sound similar to what I go through, the way that it effects my body doesn't sound typical to anything I read, mainly because it doesn't disrupt my sleep, it actually goes away when I sleep -- and sometimes sleeping is the only thing that will make it better. There were rare occasions when I used to work retail and I was REALLY tired where I'd get the sensations while standing, but that's another time and place. It isn't usually enough to interrupt my daily life, so I haven't spoken to el doctor about it, but it canmake long movies and/or long plane/car rides somewhat uncomfortable (e.g. back when I was in college, that 13-hour flight to China was a doozy! It's a good thing we could get up and walk around for most of it.) It's probably caused by the fact that I don't get enough iron, which I used to take supplements for, but I got lazy and now I don't. Go figure.

In any case, my sister sent me these tweets:

Hilarious.

Yesterday night, Nate and I checked out Trader Joe's and Safeway for some groceries. We spent too much money, but we got some yummies, including some new stuff we haven't tried before and some different snacks than we normally get. I also discovered the brussel sprouts are cheaper there than at Uwajimaya. Too bad they're both too far away to walk from our current location, and they aren't in the free ride zone. Boo.

I really wish I could go to NYC this weekend for ICCA finals, but even if I could, they are sold out! Yay for them, bad for me. Oh well.

It might be sunny more than rainy for the next ten days! Score!

-C

concrete jungle where dreams are made

Empire State of Mind always reminds me of my friend Zoe. She's from LA, but moved to Boston for a year or so (where I met her,) before she moved up to NYC. Now she works for Food Network (! -- that exclamation point represents my seething jealousy.) And she does a mean Alicia Keys impersonation.

Last night out before Nate and I left on our adventure!

We are both from non-snowy places, so we get real excited about snow.

I've decided that there's no point in checking the weather for any reason other than the temperature here in Seattle, because it was supposed to rain all day yesterday and it didn't do anything until about 6PM, when it decided to thunderstorm and hail, as Nate and I were walking home from the grocery store. Today was supposed to be mostly sunny, and it's been raining since I left the house at 7:45 this morning.

I love grocery shopping, but sometimes going to the grocery store (especially on Sundays, when it's a made house) makes me feel like this:

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Hehe.

In any case, we made burritos last night for dinner, because our fridge is malfunctioning and likes to freeze things. So I asked Nate to put the chicken that was in the freezer in the fridge to defrost and it didn't. So we used the ground beef we got, instead. I cooked up some mushrooms, onions and yellow corn to put as the filling (Nate added green peppers and jalapenos -- so spicy!) and we stuffed it inside burrito shells with some iceberg lettuce and cheddar cheese. It was super delicious, and there was plenty left over, so I have the makings for a taco salad for lunch!

In other news, I got my beauty bag from Target! Free things rock my life.

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You can never have too many small makeup bags! I also love the book of coupons and the extra moisteurizing chapstick and lotion (because I am always extra dry-skinned.) The only thing I'm not positive I'll use is the hot pink lip gloss sample. My lips are naturally pretty pink, so I don't like to add a whole lot of color to them. (And by 'not use,' I mean I'll probably put it on at home, decide it's way too much color and take it off before I leave the house.)

Also, I always read about people bookmarking things, and I'd like to take this time to mention my favorite way to bookmark: SVPPLY

Basically, it's like a feed for your 'want to buy's, with an easy-to-install bookmark app that allows you to add things from outside sources to your feed. You can also follow people and see what they're adding, and add them if you like their taste! I can't share my feed on here, because I use it to keep track of things I think would make good gifts for people, but I did find that grocery bag on the site. So check it out! (and if you really want to see my feed, you can e-mail me.

-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

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



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

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

so much better

How to Make Parmesan Crusted Salmon without Hot Oil

(because if you're like me, heating oil in your skillet scares you.)

Pretty much, here's the deal:

1) Take salmon fillets and douse them with some olive oil
2) Cover them with a mixture that is one part cornmeal to one part parmesan cheese (the grocery store, circular container kind is just fine,) and mix in whatever spices you want. I use a hefty amount of garlic salt and basil. You want them to be completely coated, but not lumpy or thickly coated.
3) Meanwhile, heat up your skillet on medium-high heat.
4) Once it's hot, spray the CRAP out of it with cooking spray. I use butter-flavored. Yum =)
5) Place the fillets in the bubbly, already hot cooking spray. Spray the whole operation with cooking spray.
6) Wait a minute or two, then flip the fillets over and spray the whole operation again. Wait another minute or two before flipping the fillets over one more time.
7) Turn the heart down to medium and cover the fillets, cooking for about ten minutes and turning them every so often. You can spray more cooking spray at this point, if you feel like it.

Once the salmon is cooked all the way through, you eat them. And your boyfriend marvels at you. Oh, and you accompany them with angel hair pasta and roasted brussel sprouts. SOGOOD.

It's wet and disgusting outside, and I actually had more work than I could finish before lunchtime, which is kind of exciting, considering how slow the winter was. With any luck, I'll need to start blogging when I get home!

Also, the other day our fridge crapped out for a brief second, and everything started melting and we freaked out and called/texted/emailed (yes, all three) our landlord. But then we turned up the coldness and it kicked back on and it's been working fine, since. However, last night when we decided to the run dishwasher, it decided to make this high pitched whine-filled clatter about halfway through its cycle. So...now we get to call the landlord about that. Our landlord loves us. Good thing he's a 20-something, pothead. No really...it's a good thing.

Nate's Macro/Wide-Angle lense from for his iPhone (part of his Valentine's Day gifts) from PhotoJoJo came over the weekend -- I had it sent to work, because I'm sneaky! -- so I picked it up yesterday and brought it home for him. The Macro lense works like a charm. Unfortunately, I didn't read the FAQ, and the fact that the iPhone 3G/S is curved on the back causes you to be able to see the Wide-Angle lense in the lefthand bottom corner of the photos when you attach it. Fortunately, it's a miniscule amount of black and my boyfriend can fix anything in Photoshop. It attaches by a small magnetic ring that you stick to your phone, and it comes with two rings, so we will be able to use it with both our phones. All the pics he took are on his phone, so I'll post one when I can get ahold of them.

I got this 'Txting Kills' thumb ring from Allstate Insurance in one of my freebie emails a little while back. You can get up to five, so I got one for me and one for Nate. I like it, partially because it actually fits me (they have different sizes) and partially because it's something I believe strongly in. Phones are hazardous to driving.


Also, I was looking for a water bottle for a while and bought this one (by Aladdin from Target) a little while ago. I really like it, because I can drink out of it like a water bottle or like a cup. And I can fit regular ice in it, because the top unscrews. It's genius!

-C

'long as the room keeps singing

Alternately Titled: I may have watched the entirety of an awards show for the first time in my life last night.

(But that one doesn't roll off the tongue as easily.)

So I've dicovered two things:

1) I could get used to this Cinnamon Roll oatmeal and peanut butter thing. Who KNEW. Then again, peanut butter can make just about anything better.

2) Awards shows are much more entertaining and inviting when they don't keep you up until MIDNIGHT on a Sunday. The West Coast has got it right -- let's start the Oscars at 5:30PM! They're over by 9PM, and you still have time to finish drying that last load of laundry. It's incredible.

So we watched the entirety of the Oscar last night! I'm not much one for fashion, but I hated Jennifer Hudson's dress (weird boobage issues,) and loved that you saw Anne Hathaway walk in wearing an awesome red dress and immediately thereafter saw her on stage in a black and cream one with creepy crazy feathers all up ins. Maybe there weren't feathers, but the dress did make her look a million miles wide, which is a ridiculous statement in and of itself. So there.

Also, James Franco is constantly high. Did anyone else catch his strangely loopy interview with that woman I've never seen before in my life Robin Roberts before the show? He just laughed, the whole time. What's so funny, creeper? (Ok, the fact that he's a creeper doesn't stop him from being attractive, and I understand that. But...creeper.)

In other news, who knew Zachary Levi could sing? Actually, probably everyone except me, since probably everyone and their mother has seen Tangled. Which I probably will watch at some point, even though Mandy Moore's singing completely turns me off (I don't mind her acting, really.)

And maybe it's just me, but when is the rest of the world going to realize that we're just indulging Gwyneth Paltrow's fantasy of becoming a country singer? Granted, she can kind of sing. But as much as I don't love country, the country songs I know and like feature one of two kinds of voices: sweet and sultry or large and in charge -- and kudos to the singers who can do both. Gwyneth...does really have either. Her voice is just there. And I don't connect with her lyrics or her stage presence. Isn't it strange how someone can be a formidable presence in one artform and not even capture your attention in another? Seriously, that's why we even have "triple threats." True ones are few and far between. Let's demand some real singers up in here, y'all.

Speaking of country songs, I justed discovered this Leann Rimes song, and I kind of like it. And by kind of, I really mean I like it a lot.

(Nate liked the little wrist-flicking dance towards the end.)

Also, watch Peter Hollen's new video! (I find the turn around on this song kind of sickeningly fast.) And if you haven't watch his other a cappella covers, you should do that, too. He's my a cappella friend by six degrees of Kevin Bacon separation. Plus, you may have seen him on that little show called The Sing-Off on NBC. Yeah.

There's a 50% chance of rain or snow all day today, but right now, there's actually blue sky outside. Plus, it's Jeans Week at work, which makes my life. Or at least my week. I'd rather be in jeans than anything else.

What did you think of the Oscars? Did you watch the whole thing?

-C



victorious

It is absolutely beautiful here in Seattle this morning, but they are -- of course -- predicting rain for later today. And snow/rain later in the week. Waaaaaaaaaah.

Last night, Nate and I decided to have an adventure, because you know...that's what you do on Tuesday nights, especially when you haven't had time to adventure recently. Because our trip to the market on Saturday in the POURING rain and our trip to Ikea on Sunday weren't adventuresome enough.

Let me first say this: we have a hallway full of seating.

We now own one ikea poang chair with footstool, one blue oversized chair that folds out into a twin-sized bed, one ikea white loveseat, one green oversized chair, and (not pictured) one ikea computer chair, one small wooden chair with an ugly cushion and an 8' brown microfiber couch. Ack! They take up pretty much the entire apartment.

We have all this seating because we decided to sell the couch and blue chair (and small brown chair with ugly cushion) for various reasons, along with the glass-topped coffee table and get different furniture. The blue chair was sitting the corner of our bedroom in a spot now owned by the desk, so it needed to be moved. Well, it isn't very comfortable, and before we moved apartments and inherited the couch, there were always fights about who got to sit in the green chair and who got the blue one. So we decided that we'll sell it off, along with the couch (because the couch is HUGE and kinda smells funny) to make room for some different seating. It has been ridiculously difficult for us to get anything we actually wanted via craigslist, so we weren't expecting to actually get the seating I found on Monday but...we did. And we got exactly the ones we wanted. Hence our hallway of chairs.

In any case, Nate picked me up from work last night and we stopped by Home Depot to grab some screws (forgetting that we also needed an extension cord. Boo.) before heading out to pick up the love seat. We got there, got the loveseat and put it in the car without too much trouble -- we did have to stop to take the legs off, but that was a minute detail. We stopped for dinner at Wendy's, then found the place we were picking the chair up from no problem. Grabbed the chair, headed outside to put it in the car.

Which we tried unsuccessfully to do for an hour. AN HOUR. During which time it was windy, cold and raining on and off. It just wouldn't fit in the Xterra with the lovseat in there, too. After about an hour, the husband of the woman who had sold us the chair came out to see if we needed any help. We needed allen wrenches (the favoritist tool of Ikea,) which he, amazingly enough, had (Nate has these too, so we could put the chair back together when we got home, but we don't usually carry the tools around in the car.)  We took the seat off the base and FINALLY the chair fit inside the car. We then spent another fifteen minutes or so trying to figure out why the back door wouldn't stay closed (as a sidenote: we have to ratchet it to the bases of the front seats, because the locking mechanism is broked and electric, so we can't even manually lock it. I've never more appreciated why my mom hates electric locking mechanisms on cars.) Then we managed to fit me and the frame for the footstool portion of the chair in the front seat and we went home.

Ok, so here's where the story gets kind of weird. We had been waiting  for a girl who had a rug listed for $5 (on the beloved Craigslist,) to get home from class at 9PM. We dropped the chair and loveseat off and home and headed out to find her apartment. It took a little finagling, but we finally got there around 9:45PM and buzzed her. A very confused voice came on the intercom and said, 'Hello?' Nate said, 'Hi, it's Nate, I'm here about the rug on Craigslist?' There was a very long pause and the girl said, 'I don't have a rug, that was a fake post.' Nate and I looked at eachother questioningly, and took a pause before Nate said, 'Oh, ok.' The girl goes, 'What?' and Nate goes, 'Oh, nothing. I was just saying ok. And sorry.' And she goes, 'Oh, that's ok.' And we left.

WHAT?!

Why would anyone put a fake posting, with pictures, of furniture on Craigslist and just pick a random address to be the butt of their practical joke? Like, seriously? Do people actually do that? We concluded that maybe she wrong someone and they wanted to get back at her. You know, by...selling all her stuff on Craigslist. And telling people to not come until after 9PM. Uhm...yeah. Sure. Ok.

So, our adventure concluded and we drove back home. Luckily, we managed to find a very-rarely-open parking spot right in front of the apartment. Here's to hoping Nate sells off the furniture today, so we no longer look like an orphanage for chairs!

Have any of you ever had any weird Craigslist stories? Or creepy stories? Ooh...I shudder at the thought.

-C

get ready

...cause we have FURNITURE!

King-Sized Hopen Bedframe! (From Ikea, purloined from Craigslist for $40) Did you know Ikea has all their instructions on their website? Unfortunately, the little pictures are kind of hard to decipher when you don't have all the pieces labeled with the little stickies. But we managed to put it together with only a few setbacks.

Bookshelf! ($30) To cover where the cable outlet comes out of the wall. Where it's positioned makes NO SENSE, so we figured we'd just cover it up. You can still see the coaxials running in either direction -- toward the tv to the left and the bedroom/internet to the right,) but Nate nailed them to the baseboards, so they are not so noticeable. It's also actually two smaller pieces, which we considered splitting up, but I forced  convinced Nate is looks better this way. Teehee.

Dresser! ($30) We decided we don't like it so much next to the bed, because it means Nate is sleeping almost up against the windows, so we're working on a plan to move it from its current location onto a different wall. We have to get one more power strip first, though. To Target!

Desk! ($30) Unfortunately the drawers are kind of rickety, and the pattern on the chair (conventiently covered by one cherokee blanket -- a present from my Dad) is HEINOUS and matches absolutely nothing, but it's at least a place to sit and do work on the computer that doesn't involve a couch. Or being in front of the television. Yay!

Ok, so the last picture is of stuff we've had -- our little key hooks with mini-drawers (under $10 from Ross. I freaking love Ross.) for coupons and our catch-all basket that came with delicious Wine Country treats for Christmas (from my Dad.) But this little corner is probably one my favorite decorative places in the house, so I thought I'd show it to you. (What you don't see is Nate's Patriots calendar hanging directly above it. I didn't want it there, but I really didn't want it in the bedroom, so it's a compromise.)



Pair these things with out free couch (in the apartment when we moved in and smells, so we'll probably get rid of it when we find a loveseat/oversized chair to replace the seating we'll lose) free loveseat, free oversized chair-that-turns-into-a-twin-bed, free coffee table, free mini-armoire and our free mattress/boxspring set and we paid $130 (plus an $8 decorative pillow and a $60 memory foam mattress topper, on sale from, like, $350) for all of the furniture in our apartment. It makes me feel accomplished. We win!

I made a variation of my Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Onions last night, because we only have grains in the house, but the veggies looked and tasted delicious! We only had a half a sweet potato left, so I augmented with carrots. I was a little afraid they wouldn't roast up like the other veggies, but they were sweet and juicy and paired perfectly with the onion and potato. Noms!

With a little basil on top!

I baked it for a little too long, though, so the chicken was kind of dry and tasteless, because it was smaller than last time. There were also portions of it which tasted wonky, so we only ate about half the piece. But over tri-colored couscous, the veggies were delish.

It's is beautiful, sunny and COLD today. I'd much rather it be like this that kind of warm and rainy, though. So no complaining from me!

-C