Some serious R & R

Are the boxes unpacked?
No.
Is that drawer in the kitchen still scary to open?
Oh yeah.
Am I still missing a box of shoes?
Pretty much.


But for now, that doesn’t really matter (well, the shoes yes, but I’m pulling a Scarlett O’Hara on that one and will deal with it later), we’re off on an impromptu trip to one of my happy places! We’re heading to my family’s place in Cascade for some much needed R & R for a long weekend. No relaxing could be done at the house until the last box was unpacked, so we’re avoiding it all by leaving town for a few days. I’ll be recharging my batteries on the deck, soaking up some sun, catching up on my reading, enjoying the company of my family and just watching life go by.


(Editor’s note: If you’re one of my many Idaho friends who I haven’t had a chance to call and tell you I’ll be in town, sorry about that. But you know where you can find me. And you know there’s always an extra seat on our porch and a cold beverage waiting for you if you stop by!)

A quick update: Surviving the move

I thought I’d share a few insights I’ve gathered in my vast 5-days of being a true homeowner:

• No matter how big the space seems when it’s empty, it’s never big enough when your stuff gets moved in, i.e. my new closet.
  
• After years of living on 4th or 5th floors of downtown apartment buildings, you forget how many spiders do get into your home.
  
• Career note to movers: if you don’t like lifting heavy objects, find a new job!
  
• In the past 4 days I’ve made more trips to the following stores than I truly care to admit: Sears, Home Depot, Fred Meyer.
  
• The hubby is amazed that I haven’t even touched a box in the craft room yet. Honestly, it’s a bit overwhelming and frightening (pic to come later on that one).
  
• Despite the boxes, the mess and the general unorganized chaos that is my home, our garden and back patio are in perfect working order. A sanctuary if you will. And trust me; it’s well needed and used.

You say goodbye, I say hullo...

Tomorrow is the big move. We'll be officially out of rental land and into our new home.

We'll be saying goodbye to our condo and our lovely view of Lake Union. We've enjoyed the years watching the 4th of July fireworks from our living room, the weekly Duck Dodge (the Tuesday night sailboat regatta) and just the general day to day sail boat watching, sea planes coming and going and kayakers.

But, in my opinion, I think our new view is going to be even better.

(Sadly, I'll be going off line for a while. We haven't been very happy with our Internet so we're taking this opportunity to find a new provider. I just hope it doesn't take too long!)

Seattle's newest Farmers Market

The Pike Place Market Express is now set up for the summer every Tuesday from 10 am - 2 pm at the City Hall plaza. It's right outside my office door! And it was a hit today! It's starting out small but organizers say they are going to get bigger as the summer progresses. And with the lines today, I can only hope they start getting bigger next week!

I wasn't able to get out to the plaza until ll:45 am and already things were sold out! I did manage to snag two things of raspberries, a bunch of romaine lettuce and some broccoli - all locally grown.

I think I'm going to enjoy having a farmers market outside of my office. I just need to get out there earlier. Hopefully work won't get in the way of my local produce shopping!

Go Local Challenge 2009: My garden

How does your garden grow?

Hopefully, pretty damn good.

We got into the house this weekend. And while the big move isn't scheduled until next Saturday (I originally had to work this Saturday), we were able to get in clean, move a few things in, and most importantly, work in the garden.

This is what I showed up to on Saturday morning:

Yep, it was a mess. A woefully neglected garden. Those really tall weeds that were basically my height turned out be carrots. Really old, neglected carrots. I pulled up about 1/2 a dozen of them along with some really old radishes. After a while in there, I finally had it garden ready.

So we headed out to Home Depot to get some goodies. One of the best things about moving to a new neighborhood is exploring and finding new haunts. On our way to HD, we found the West Seattle Nursery & Garden Center. We pulled in and I quickly met Kathy, my new garden BFF. She was very impressed that by 2 pm on the day I moved into my house I was out shopping for stuff for our garden. She gave me some advice, a fabulous selection of greenery and sent us out the door with the confidence not to kill everything.

Back at the ranch we started planting. Here's what it looks like now:

We've got tomatoes, corn, 2 types of squash, carrots, onions, radishes (the last three are all seeds) plus basil, chives, rosemary for my herb pot. I also transplanted the kale and lettuce starts from my bucket, but I've got to be honest, I don't think the lettuce is going to make it. I'm also a little worried about the transplanted tomato. Fingers crossed!

We also bought a raspberry plant and I've got my eye on two blueberry plants back at the nursery center. I'm also hoping to get some zucchini, spinach, more lettuce and a few other things, but I'm not sure what yet. Any suggestions? (You can't say strawberries. the hubby thinks I may have pulled up a strawberry plant in my zest to weed out the garden. But in my garden, strawberries are weeds!)

A little help from Linnea

I finished the baby cardigan but I'm a little concerned that's it's a bit small. I opted to make the 0-3 month size instead of the usual 6 month size I generally give as gift.

At knitting the other night, we had a special guest who offered to try on the sweater for me.

Linnea is 2 months old and the sweater was a little small on her. Her mother assures me that Linnea is big for her age and that yes, babies are that small. I'm thinking of skipping the buttons and opting instead for a pretty purple ribbon to tie it off.

I'll have a different picture of the sweater once it's blocked and finished with the tie.

Two Years

Two years ago we said I do. Now we're getting ready to move into our first house. The adventure continues...and so far....it's one great journey.