Archive for February, 2010

February Goals recap:

February 28, 2010 - 12:00 am 2 Comments

Here are my goals for 2010. The ones in bold are ones I’ve begun working on:

1. Paint pottery in Olympia for my apartment.
2. Get eyes checked and get NEW GLASSES! Done! I found a new optometrist, who I really like, just a block away from my house. I was right, time for a new prescription. My left eye had worsened, although my right eye stayed the same. After he told me that, I felt all lopsided until I got my new glasses, which I pretty much love. I like that I can cross this off my list. DONE!
3. Reorganize storage in my apartment for maximum efficiency. Again, not much progress on this one. I’ve done some casual rearranging, but what I need to do is a major, all weekend overhaul. I want to go through my closets, and toss, toss, toss things that are needing to go!
4. Reconnect with local old friends. Nothing new this month. I’ve been too busy rushing from family event to family event!
5. Dallas in February! Well, Melissa, Karianne and Natalie all met at Kelly’s house in Texas, but I was unable to go. Not enough money. Boohoo.
6. Take more weekend mini trips. No new weekend trips, but I did spend a weekend in Seattle for Onnie’s birthday. Doesn’t really count, because I drove back to Tacoma each night to sleep.
7. Lose 24 more pounds. New target: Lose 11 more lbs. Excellent.
8. Take yoga or toning class for Hawaii.
9. Buy a cute bikini!
10. Hawaii 2010!!
11. Begin plans for Iceland 2011.
12. Sew at least one apron and some curtains for my room.
13. Learn to crochet.
14. Be more “Mad Men”. This month this is mostly manifesting itself in more clothes for work. Yay.
15. Go camping.
16. Get a new passport.
17. Find a sofa that fits my style. Working on it. Probably gonna take Dana’s when she gets a new one.
18. Frame Weezer’s print.
19. Find a classy, inexpensive headboard.
20. Buy one piece of original art.
21. Start searching for new cars!!! Ugh. I’ve started searching. Looking for a new car is emotionally draining and bad for the soul. It makes me want to cry all the time. And I’ve only been looking for two days. Boo.
22. Scrapbook journal monthly, at least. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna amend this to be regular journaling, instead of online. Having a hard time remembering the scrap journal, but I’ve been working on writing in my normal journal, purchased this New Year at the local drugstore, at least once a week.
23. Take more pictures. I’m on a roll. Of course, my zoom on my camera? Broken. And if I buy a new car? Can’t afford to buy a camera. God, money is depressing. But I’m still taking pictures more. Took tons when Onnie and the family were in town.
24. Become a regular at my neighborhood businesses. Doing a lot more local shopping, and the girls at Corina bakery remember me and my regular order. Kinda cool. Also branching out to new local businesses, like my optometrist at the Downtown Vision Center.
25. Pay off one student loan. My smallest loan has between 6 and 7 hundred on it. My goal is to have this paid off by December 31st.
26. Shop vintage more. This month I bought a vintage apron, as well as some salt and pepper shakers for my mom, who collects them. Gosh, that seems like it happened forever ago! I can’t believe it’s only been a month.
27. Sign up for Happy Mail.

Feeling good. Feeling like I’m right on target for my weight loss goal, which is awesome. I hadn’t realized what a busy month it’s been! Hopefully when I do my March recap I’ll be able to report the purchase of a new car! (Eek.)

Inspire.d.

February 27, 2010 - 7:30 am 1 Comment

Today was a crazy day.

I test drove a car, and am having a credit check done for another. It was/is stressful, this waiting game. This buying a car game. Oh, being a grownup….

Tomorrow I am driving Bryan to the airport. In March he will be deploying for Afghanistan. I will love and miss this brother of mine, and waiting for him to come home is going to suck. Please pray for his safety.

Love my Brother.

Other Brother says my eyes look like peaches. That’s funny. Love him too.

I’m overwhelmed, already, and nothing has happened yet. Nobody has left. No loans have been denied, or approved with high interest, or approved with wonderful interest. No money has exchanged hands. No wonderful new cars have been driven home. No relationships have ended, although some have been tested to a point where things may never be the same again. My little family has had challenges this week. But I am at home on a Friday night in my jammies, after dinner with my mom. I am caught up on Lost, and I have a book to read in bed. My bathroom sink is only spitting out steaming hot water, and the cold is not working at all. But I have a bathtub that works, if I need to wash my face, and I can brush my teeth in the kitchen.

I leave you with inspiration.


Images from weheartit.

This month is almost over. And then I guess the countdown begins till the Brother comes home. Which do you think will make it easier? Counting down the months, then days? Or pretending he’s just really busy in San Diego, and he’ll call when he finds the time (in 9 to 13 months)?

Happy Birthday, Mama!

February 25, 2010 - 5:06 am 2 Comments

Today is my mom’s birthday. She turned 31. (Which is a funny joke, because I stopped counting her age when she turned 31. This joke gets funnier the closer I get to 31. This year my mom is 4 years older than me.) Happy Birthday, Mom!

We went to dinner at Moctezuma’s in Gig Harbor. It was mostly fun. It’s been kind of a rough day. But I love my mom.

*****

Chris came home with me tonight, for reasons unimportant, and we are having a sleepover and watching 500 Days of Summer. I love Matthew Gray Gubler.

Tomorrow I am taking him to the train station on my way to work.

*****

By the way, a big thank you to Lindsay over at Pixies and Bears. This Monday I had the honor of being featured on her blog. Read it here! Again, thanks Lindsay!

Forget the couch. My tv is about to die!

February 24, 2010 - 3:05 am No Comments

Tonight I am watching Big Love. I enjoy this show. There’s this one character whose name I’m not sure of, but her twin sister almost married Bill’s brother. Anyway, I’ve never really paid her any attention before, but she’s proving herself to be someone worth watching. I admire strong women.

I miss my brother. Which is retarded, because he’s in Gig Harbor, and if I got in my car I would be there in like fifteen minutes. Or twenty. Or something. But I’m feeling bad because he’s leaving (on Saturday, I think), and then after he gets home he’ll be leaving for Afghanistan pretty soon, which is soooo scary.

I haven’t taken any pictures this visit. Now I can’t decide if I should, so I have recent ones, or if that’s bad juju. When did I become so superstitious?

I am a little bit frustrated right now. I feel like I have been trying to set very clear boundaries with someone who is continuing to disregard them and not take me seriously. And I feel like in the past, when the roles have been reversed, this person was not very understanding of me. Which is fine. Because I should have been respecting their boundaries to begin with.

It’s not rocket science, people.

My TV is probably ten years old. I think my parents got it the summer after I graduated high school, 2000. And it’s starting to show it’s age, as it goes through phases where it starts to make buzzing noises and flash purple for a minute. Last year, in the weeks surrounding my move, I discovered that my TV, which I had been storing in Joe’s room, had been destroyed (by his rat, ew!!!), my laptop monitor fizzled out, and then my DVD player stopped reading discs. I found myself in a new apartment, frantically borrowing appliances from people. I don’t want to find myself in a situation like that again, so I am searching for a good deal on a new TV. It will be exciting to have a flat screen, because I’ll be able to hang it from the wall, which gives me sooo much more space (for that new couch I’m dreaming about!) I’m guessing a TV will be my next big purchase.

It’s like 9th grade all over again.

February 23, 2010 - 5:55 am 3 Comments

Lately, while listening to the radio on the way to work, I’ve heard so many songs that remind me of being in highschool. Particularly the first couple of years. These songs are all songs that remind me of an awkward, yet kind of wonderful time in my life, and truly, when I get nostalgic about my highschool years, it’s not usually for junior or senior year, where I had lots of friends, a job and a really cute boyfriend. It’s freshman, or even sort of sophomore year, when it was all new and awkward and painful. I was a new kid in a new school in a new state, with no friends at the start, and my best friend ever was in California, and then in rehab, and everything and every feeling was so new and real and deep. I love these songs, and the memories they bring me.

This song actually came out my freshman year. I remember singing this in the locker room before PE my freshman year. It’s probably the song that I associate with this time in my life.

Another one from freshman year. The first house we moved to on Fox Island had an intercom system, and from the kitchen you could control the radio to play songs in every room of the house. When I was home alone after school I used to turn on the radio and wait for this song to come on. And I was mesmerized by Jacob Dylan’s remarkable blue eyes.

By far my favorite band of 8th grade and freshman year, I was so in love with Daniel Johns. I didn’t like this album as much as Frogstomp, but I loved this song, and played it over and over.

My dad showed me a video of this song in the 9th grade and I was sold. It might actually have been this performance, although I don’t recognize the writing in the corner. But I do remember that purple cropped t shirt. I remember thinking that because it was so tight, and she was oh so thin, it made her look like she had the worst posture. I also remember thinking her voice was amazing. I got this album while in California visiting friends late that December, and I listened to it nonstop in my room, lights low, pretending that I could ever be nearly that talented. And her bellybutton ring? Yeah. I thought it was the coolest.

This song. This whole album. My dad and I used to listen this album over and over again when he would drive me to school in the morning. But school was only about fifteen minutes away, so it was generally just the same three songs over again: Semi Charmed Kind Of Life, Narcolepsy and Jumper. Dad, this song still makes me think of you.

No music video for this one, but good song. I was in 9th grade when this movie came out, and they started promoting it heavily on MTV and in teen magazines right after I moved to Washington. I remember I collected all the postcards from Teen magazine, I believe, and pinned them onto my walls. I bought and worshipped the soundtrack, and when the movie finally came out a friend and I went to see it together at the tiny little theater in Gig Harbor. And then it snowed on the way home, which has nothing to do with this story, but DUDE! SNOW! (I’m from California; give me a break!)

Finally. This song was all over MTV when my best friend came to visit for a week from California. It was a mixed visit. Parts were really good, and parts were very painful. I remember listening to this song (on my discman, oh my word!) in my room, while she was here, and thinking I wasn’t sure we were going to survive the things that were tearing her, and consequently us. After she went home she found herself in rehab at 14, and was out a couple of months later, although those wounds between us took a little bit longer to heal. I could so relate to this then.

There are so many more songs I hear that just resonate, but these are the big ones. I hear them, and all of a sudden I’m 13/14 again, in my baggy California jeans with my baby-doll t shirts, too dark lipstick and black nail polish.

I need a couch!

February 23, 2010 - 4:40 am No Comments

Here are some that I’m in love with.

(All images from weheart.it)

The Cake Wreck, a photoessay.

February 21, 2010 - 10:51 pm 4 Comments

Straining the strawberry puree for my frosting.

Boiling down the strawberry puree for my frosting.

Making my syrup for the meringue buttercream frosting

Whipping up the meringue

This frosting is ridiculous. WTF? Where the wreck begins....

Prepping to make the batter.

The Kitchenaid, an action shot

Geoff, adding the dry ingredients

Ready to be frosted. In case you couldn't tell, our buttercream in the center? Unuseable to frost.

Lol, wow. I don't even know. There are no words.

As you can see, it was a disaster, but it didn’t taste bad. A little bit of a sugar overload, though. If I were to do it again, I’d make the cake as cupcakes, with a strawberry (no meringue) buttercream frosting and fresh strawberries on top. Way less dramatic, and I’m a pro with the cupcakes.

pretty.good.day

February 21, 2010 - 8:20 am No Comments

Today was pretty good, as the subject suggests. The weather has been so beautiful the last couple of days, starting about Thursday. I have been in just an obscenely good mood lately. Bryan is home on leave, since Thursday, and I went to my mom’s to see him for dinner on Thursday after work. Then my mom and I went to Target, where she bought me a delightful dress for Easter.

Bryan came over on Friday morning (day off of work, yes!) and we went for coffee, and then sat in my car for ages, just talking. Then I cleaned, and bought a new outfit for work, at two different Target stores, and then Bryan came back over and we watched PCU while waiting for my mom to get off work. Last night I went grocery shopping for cake baking ingredients, and then Dana came over and we had a bottle of wine and a sleepover.

This morning I woke up at about ten, to a brilliantly sunny day. Dana had left already, but the blankets she’d used were folded up and ready to be put away. The dogs and I went for a walk, and I had a green smoothie for breakfast. Geoff came over to help me make a cake that I found online and posted on my facebook a couple of months ago. I started on the strawberry meringue butter cream frosting while I waited for him to get here.

Cake making was a bit of a disaster, for which I will post pictures later, maybe tomorrow. But although the cake(wreck) looked awful, it tasted delightful, and I’m adapting the recipe in my head for next time. Either way, we took our wrecked cake and headed over to my mom’s for a barbecue. Dinner was wonderful, my family was fun, and it was a really good evening.

Bryan left to go to Seattle, Chris left to go to the mall, Grandma went home, and Geoff took my mom to see Crazy Heart for her birthday. They invited me, his treat, but I am an old lady who likes to be at home and in her pajamas at a reasonable hour. They left for Borders, and then the movie, and I packed up my stuff and my dogs to head home. I stopped at Borders on my way out of town, and met up with them. Man, I had a pretty good night at Borders, let me tell you. I went in looking for the perfect recipe book to write my recipes in, but couldn’t find one I was willing to commit to. I did, however, find tons of books!

I found a cute gift bag made out of paper and recycled flowers for a dollar. The one thing I paid full price for was apronology ($14.99), a magazine full of apron tutorials. LOVE. I found the best bake sale ever cookbook for $2.99, Sunday’s at Tiffany’s by James Patterson for $5.99, Strawberry Fields by Marina Lewycka for $1, and (yay!) Amy Butler’s Sew-It Kit for $7.99.

I am very excited to work on some new projects in the coming months, including building my tiny apron collection with some of my own creations. Now I am at home, the laundry is put away, and I am watching 500 Days of Summer. The soundtrack to this movie is outstanding.

It’s funny, I like Summer so much more when she’s being real, instead of Summer as Tom remembers her. This movie is so visually stimulating.

Margarita Cupcakes!!

February 18, 2010 - 6:09 am 3 Comments

Man, every time we make these, no matter how hard we try, they look like they were made by drunk people. What? I’m not drinking! Just because there’s tequila in the cupcakes… and the icing…. I don’t like what you are implying, folks.

I have yet to send the Kitchenaide mixer I bought Weezer for Christmas back to Nashville. Isn’t she gorgeous? Don’t you want to marry that green? I love her.

Seriously, these cupcakes are awesome. They are from the cookbook Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Seriously? This book is a dream, and these cupcakes are awesome. I was talking about them at work today, and so many people have told me I need to make them some. Some websites post the recipe online, but being as these come from someone else’s cookbook, I won’t do that here. If you want to make them yourselves, buy the book. Or, you know, google the recipe.

Here is our final, drunken product:

Extreme closeup!!!

Mmmmm!

Also, I got my new glasses yesterday. Here they are, in a not so flattering picture:

Thankskbye.

It’s funny cause it’s true.

February 16, 2010 - 6:03 am 5 Comments

Richard: “If I had 76 farm dollars I’d buy you an unwither ring.”
Me: “That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”

*****

Did you all have a good Valentine’s Day? I did. I really love Valentine’s Day, even if Richard and I don’t celebrate it together. Richard doesn’t believe in celebrating Valentine’s Day on Valentine’s Day, and gets really frustrated with the commercialism of it all. While I respect his opinion, I wholeheartedly disagree, which made for kind of a depressing Saturday, as each of us tried to get the other one to understand (so we said. I really think that we both kind of wanted to change the other’s mind).

The thing is, I am not frustrated because I want flowers, or an expensive gift. But here in the Pacific Northwest winter can be pretty bleak. After Christmas the days just sort of go gray, and wet, and colorless from January to March. Except for two weeks in February, when the world is filled with red, and pink, and HEARTS! Oh, how I love hearts. It’s too, too exciting. I love everything about it.

And it’s not just the romantic love that I celebrate on this day. I love to celebrate Valentine’s with my family and close friends as well. And with myself.

This year, to prepare for Valentine’s I bought myself the pretty purple flowered dress you can see two posts below. I spent Saturday night painting my toenails pink and watching The Time Traveler’s Wife. Love. I have actually watched lovey movies all weekend.

I slept in very late on Sunday, and then I woke up and got all dressed up. I drove down to Hello, Cupcake and bought a little Valentine treat for my mom, brother and I. I bought them each some raspberry chocolate cupcakes, and a vanilla with vanilla buttercream for myself. And, (ssh! It’s a holiday!) I may have bought a yummy coconut one for after everyone went home. Mmmm.

I cleaned my apartment to spotless, while listening to Lady Gaga on my iPod. All the while thinking of my yummy treats.

We went to the movies and saw Valentine’s Day, which was very cute, albeit totally predictable in so many ways. Who cares? Oh, how I love love! It was a good day.

*****

I am ready for the work week to be over, and it hasn’t even started. I’m making mini changes in my life to try to adapt better to my work environment. I want to start waking up at 6:30, giving me an hour and a half to get ready to go to work. I want to do two walks a day with the dogs (I’ve been lazy with the cooler weather). I would like to do some yoga or stretching OnDemand before getting ready for work in the morning, as well. I have a hard time staying centered and focused while I am at work. I think if I feel like my personal life is more centered and under control, that will transfer to my professional life (I hope!)

*****

This weekend I will be without Jude, because he is staying at my boss’s house from Thursday until Monday. Oh, how I will miss him! But…. BRYAN WILL BE HOME! So hopefully, I won’t miss him too much. I am so pleased to see my brother before he ships out to Afghanistan. I am very… sad about him leaving, but I’m glad he’ll be here, and especially thrilled he’ll be here for my mom’s birthday.

*****

Okay. That’s all for now. Night guys! Sorry so sporadic!