Birthday Week!

At least that's what I keep telling Baby Girl - it's birthday week & everyone is ready/excited/dying to meet you so don't be late! Her due date is this coming Saturday, Oct. 8. Which also happens to be my sister's birthday. And as you can imagine, all she wants is a healthy new niece to share it with. However, I'm beginning to think she's going to be late. Hopefully Lindsay will like the necklace and bag I gave her instead.

So in honor of birthday week, and to help encourage her along her journey, I've decided to share pictures of the nursery! Since it's so cute - and I tell her this all the time - I thought you'd like to see them too!

This is a wall hanging my mom made. I picked out the pattern & fabric and totally love this!

This mobile is from a woman who sells them at the Portland Saturday Market. She also has an Etsy site (which for the life of me, I can't find right now.) I have to admit, it's one of my favorite things in this room!

A bookshelf that my dad made for the baby's room. As you can see, this was a family affair!

Three Years

June 16, 2007

The adventure begins.

April 2010 (take on a weekend get-a-way at Lake Quinault)

Three years later,  the adventure is still going strong.

Yarn Storage

When my parents visited a few weeks ago, they brought up my college graduation present from my grandmother. It's not like she didn't get me anything when I graduated, oh, so many years ago, it's just that I didn't really have a place to put it. I was in the post grad stage of constantly moving from one crappy apartment to another and I didn't want to move it around as it was a piece of furniture that didn't require assembly (something very rare for a post grad).

So now that I'm a homeowner, my father delights in bringing me item of my past that have been stored in the garage/attic/former bedroom/etc. This last trip brought me this:

It was my great grandfather's trunk. It had been living in my grandmother's garage for years and she thought I might like it. And I love it! My father, the creative, handy guy that he is, refinished it for me and added this delightful element:

Removable and slideable drawers! Perfect for organizing sock, lace, worsted, etc. You get the picture.

(Clearly I was so excited about the yarn storage/organization system that I didn't even notice the picture was blurry.)

And the best part is, now I have way more room for my yarn! Time to go shopping!

Easter Treats

I love Easter. I always have. I'm not sure why, I've never been able to pin point why its do dear to me. Maybe it's the all the spring flowers that are beginning to come up in my favorite shades of yellow, pink and purple. Maybe its the promise that spring is really just around the corner. Or maybe its just another excuse to eat chocolate and other good food with family and friends. Whatever the reason, I hope your Easter was a lovely one!

Some Easter Flowers

Our friends Jon, Sara and their dog Tug look for the beers the Easter Bunny left in our yard.

The Hubby was the big winner finding most of the beers.

For dessert I tried something new, a raspberry blackberry custard. The thing I loved about this dessert was the fact that is was made in the blender!

Isn't sweet how Martha watches me?!

Looking back*

It doesn’t seem like we’ve come to the end of a decade, but it’s all about 2010 now. And I thought I’d look back at the decade that has been the most meaningful to me. I can’t really remember everything but here are some of the highlights, and sadly, a few lowlights.


2000: While everyone I knew was out partying like it was 1999, I was in the Fox 12 News room in Nampa, Idaho waiting for whatever Y2K would bring us. If the world was going to meltdown, computer crash, ATM’s stop working, I was going to be there to report about it. Well, as you recall, it was a pretty uneventful night. The rest of the year was pretty much the same, but if I recall, a few friends and I had some pretty fun times!


2001: Of course this year is seared into all of our memories. 9/11 changed a lot. Even in Boise, Idaho. The economic impact from the attacks reached to the television world and the show I produced was cut, I was moved to part time back on the main news show I had started on. While I felt this was a setback in my career, a funny little thing happened along the way. Now that I was back on the night shift, I began a real friendship with the woman who had earlier replaced me on the main new show. She had been moved to reporter/anchor.


2002: This was the year that things began to change. One night after work, my new friend said, hey let’s go out for a drink. I of course, said sure! Then she added, my fiancé is going to meet us out and he might bring a friend, is that ok? Sure why not! And you guessed it, that friend of a friend would later become The Hubby. The year ended on a very sad note with the passing of my dear college friend Brian Ellis. He lost his life long battle with Cystic Fibrosis. Every time I go back to visit my old stomping grounds of the University of Idaho I think of him and all the fun we had there. I cheer extra loud at our football games to make up for the loss of his voice, but I know he’s cheering on from Heaven.


2003: A pretty good year, treasuring friends and having fun with the Boyfriend.


2004: This is one of the most impactful years of my life. After being with the TV station at a job I loved, it came to an abrupt and somewhat painful end on July 1 (I remember that date clearly because it was day one of the Golden Birthday Month, I was turning 29 on July 29th. Ironic I know.) It turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. After spending a fun summer hanging out with my friends, hiking, going to our place in Cascade, Idaho, and of course doing a lot of knitting, I took a leap of faith in myself, my boyfriend and our relationship and I moved with him to Seattle, Washington that fall. It was a place I had been to twice briefly and where I knew no one and didn’t have a job. Shortly after we moved, I got a job offer from the Fox station in Seattle, but it wasn’t the job I wanted. After a lot of soul searching, I turned it down, hoping it wasn’t the end of my TV career. The fall brought new adventures as we explored our new city. Oh, and I found a knitting group online and decided to just show up and see what happened. I still show up every Monday night. Monday is now one of the best days of the week for me.


2005: This was the year I turned 30, took my first trip to Europe with a visit to London, Bath, Brussels, Belgium and Paris, France. And it won’t be my last. We were world travelers this year with a fall trip to visit family in the Grand Cayman Islands. Seriously, this is the place to have family to visit!


2006: On my birthday, the Boyfriend became the Fiancé. It was a great birthday as I had already planned the event. My friends were meeting up at the Fremont Outdoor Film Festival for a sing along showing of Grease. It was a great night. This is the year that I found my current job, back in TV, doing what I love, only at a much, much better schedule than working nights/holidays/weekends like a traditional TV station. I am very thankful for it and feel like I should enjoy my holidays for my TV friends still working/living that lifestyle! This was also the first year that I'd participate in my first triathlon! It was challenging event and I loved every minute of it. I went on to do event for the next three years.


2007: On June 16, the Fiancé became the Hubby. It was beautiful wedding and all of our family and friends made the trip to Seattle to celebrate with us. Then we spent a week and a half in Nassau, Bahamas on the beach. Not a bad way to celebrate the beginning of our adventure.


2008: The first year of marriage was a great one. A few trips here and there. We went back to NYC for a surprise trip for the In-laws wedding anniversary. Turned out it was the very same weekend Sara (now living in Washington, D.C.) was in town. It was great to meet up with her and spend a day in NYC together. Unfortunately, it was a sad visit, as our college friend Jen(and Sara and April’s college roommate) had lost her very long and very brave battle with breast cancer that very same weekend.


2009: Started with a fabulous once in a lifetime trip with my mom and sister to France! We rented an apartment in Paris and took in the sights and lifestyle. We visited Arles, Aux en Provence, and Nice. It was a trip like no other. A trip we will all cherish forever. My dad was sure we’d come back not speaking to each other, and while there were squabbles along the way, there was a lot of fun, laughter, wine and crème brulee. Shortly after my return, the Hubby and I found what would become our first house on Easter Sunday. By Memorial Weekend it was officially ours and we were in by the Fourth of July. The summer and fall sped by with gardening work, trips to the Oregon Coast, Priest Lake, Idaho, Cascade, Idaho, Boise, Idaho and then back to Post Falls, Idaho. Twice. It’s been a busy year. A busy decade for that matter. But a great year and decade.


I can’t wait for what 2010 has in store for us!
 For my house to yours, I hope you had happy holidays and here’s to a wonderful 2010!


*I’m pretty sure these events happened in these years, but no promises! It was a long time ago!

Happy Birthday to the Hubby!

Today is the hubby's birthday!

But what do you get the guy that eats your "experimental" recipes; puts up with your vegetarian/crazy hippie cooking; installs a new headlight in your car that turns out to be way more complicated than we both thought; doesn't mind when we go to a bar to watch football and I bring my knitting and helps clean the house on a regular basis?

Nothing but a little hand knit love in the form of a new hat:

And an XBox 360 football game. But shhh....it's a secret!

Pattern: Kim's Hats from Last Minute Knitted Gifts in men size
Yarn: Dream in Color Classy worsted in Jungle Cloud

Some are keepers; others go straight into the compost

For the past few months I’ve been loving my new subscription of Everyday Foods by Martha. I read it on the bus (yes, that’s how much of a cooking nerd I’ve become, I read cooking magazines on the bus). I’ve tried dozens of new recipes and they have all been delicious and quite easy.


So imagine my surprise when I tried the latest one from the November issue called Beef Stew. As you know, I’m a sucker for a soup recipe and I figured I’d try a meat one for the hubby. But I gotta say, I had my doubts from the beginning.


Now I will admit here, that some of this is partly my fault. I forgot to take the stew meat out of the freezer before going to work that day. I tried to thaw it out before I started cooking it, but I only got part of it thawed and it was getting late. The recipe does take a while so I figured what the hell, and just started cooking. That wasn’t the only problem. The stew base was really a soup base and just so watery. I tried adding garlic. This recipe didn’t call for any garlic and that should have been my first clue. I’m always skeptical of any recipe that doesn’t have garlic because it’s so good….why not have it? I also tossed in some of my standby soup seasonings. Nothing. Didn’t help.


The hubby came home. I explained my concern. He was now concerned as he’d never really seen me this concerned over a meal that I hadn’t even eaten yet. We talked about alternatives. There really weren’t any and besides, I was determined not to let this recipe get to me. I powered on and made the rolls to go with the stew. The same rolls I make all the time. For some reason, they turned out not finished on the inside, and after tossing them back in the oven, I nearly burnt them trying to finish them.


We sat down to eat dinner, both of us filling up on the unburnt portion of rolls. The stew meat was chewy and bland. The “stew” was even blander. The hubby dumped a bunch of his favorite seasonings in his bowl which didn’t really help my self esteem. Or the soup.


In the end, we called this recipe not so good to say the least. Neither of us finished our helping. I was feeling bad for all the time, money, food spent on the recipe, but really, it wasn’t good.


But I managed to cheer myself up with a big bowl of popcorn and by watching Glee that night. And those two things made for quite the tasty dessert.

Out of whack

The work life balance has been a little out of whack lately to say the least.

But, my big work project that has consumed my life for the past month is finally finished and behind me (and it was a HUGE SUCCESS if I may say so)!

Now, it's time for a little R & R, catching up with old friends that luckily are very patient with me and understand when my life gets ahead of me. It also happens to be getting into one of my favorite times of the year: holiday season. I'm ready to cozy up on the couch with a warm blanket, a cup of hot chocolate, my knitting and the hubby (ok, so he really doesn't like to get cozy when I'm knitting....something about errant needles....).

I'm ready to get back in touch with my life, my family, my friends, my knitting and my home.

Thanks for your patience everyone.

I've missed you.

Weekend Highlights:

My parents came for a visit to see the house for the first time. We had a fabulous time hanging out and enjoy the beautiful fall weather.

With the help of my dad, we finished up a few odd projects around the house.

The Idaho Vandals won another football game, making them first in the WAC - yes, first place. As in better than the BSU Broncos.

I beat my hubby in our fantasy football league landing me in first place.

I'm back to working on socks for the hubby and am nearly at the heel.

All in all, a prefectly wonderful weekend!

Bringing in the heavy artillery

I know spiders are a good thing. I just can’t wrap my mind around that fact when they seem so confident strutting through my TV room. Or bedroom. Or bathroom.

They are really big ones too. Seriously freakishly big. And I’m done with them. Tomorrow, the exterminator arrives to help me rid the house of these unwanted arachnids.

And they really have no one to blame but themselves. The other night, as I was getting ready for bed, you know where this is going right? Right, as I was getting ready for bed, something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. It was brown and moving and on my bed. I screamed and grabbed the comforter and flipped it off the bed. Of course, in doing that, I also flipped the spider. But I couldn’t ever find the spider. And we looked. And looked. And shook out the bedding. No luck. It was after 11 and the hubby was tired of indulging me and went to bed.

And so did I. The next morning I found – what I’m telling myself – is the same spider in the bathroom, and squashed him and flushed him. I killed three others just like him that same day. Seriously, this is stopping.

To illustrate this post, I thought I’d share a few photos of some of the spiders that have taken up residence outside. While they’ve never made it in the house (yet) their friends have entered, only to never be heard from again…..

About ready to throw up the white flag

Remember my first post about the new house? Remember how I mentioned there seemed to be a lot of spiders? I didn't want to spray any type of chemicals in my new house so we opted for another measure. We bought these Black & Decker things that you plug into the wall and they "emit" a high pitch noise that only spiders can hear. It's supposed to run them off. We've got them placed in the TV room, our bedroom and the kitchen.

It seems to be working. I think. Or so I thought. Now, I'm not so sure. I think the spiders may be mocking me.



I went to grab my favorite water bottle to refill it last night. I left it out on the counter to dry out from Tuesday's workout. I had just pulled off the top, which was just leaning on the rim, when I discovered it: there, in my favorite water bottle was a spider! One that had been in it long enough to spin a web. Seriously, these little buggers work quickly! As I started yelling (OK, swearing) the damn thing started crawling up the web as if to attack me. So I drowned the sucker. It was purely a defensive move.



If anyone has any other ideas on how to deal with spiders that don't contain lots of chemicals (although I'm willing to compromise here), I'm eager to hear them.

Knitting funk/unpacking mess

I haven't been knitting in what seems like eons. I've carted my projects around from room to room, trying not to think about the unpacking mess that is slowing driving me bonkers.

But that is about to change.


How you ask?


1. The hubby and I have decided we're sick of the mess and this weekend we're finishing up all the unpacking/organizing/cleaning/etc even if it kills us.

2. I've treated myself to some soft and lovely yarn. Because I deserve it.

This should do the trick!

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!)

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 productive weekend

After last Sunday's post of how overwhelmed I was with all my projects, I thought something really needed to happen this weekend. Actually, it was really when the hubby said, "Um, it seems like you have a lot of little projects all over the place."

That's when I knew, my weekend of quilting and knitting needed to be sideline so I could de-clutter the serious clutter.

So I sucked it up and took care of things.

Done:

- Reorged the knitting bag in the living room that held about 7 projects or the goods for 7 projects even though I'm only working on 2.

(The hubby wasn't sure how this new mess was part of my organizing/cleaning day. I assured him it was. Really, it's a small miracle that I didn't start another project while I was sorting.)

- Ripped out the hubby's socks and the Spring Time Bandit Scarf (needs bigger needles).

- Cleaned up the sewing area - got it organized and off the dining room table just in time for my folks to visit next weekend.

- Finally got rid of all of the boxes from last month's charity auction so my parents can stay in the guest room

- Cleaned the house.

- Finished quilting the baby quilt. (Ok, got in some quilting).

Um, is it time for another weekend?

Sold!

We are officially grown up! OK...not totally officially...we sign the papers in a few days, but the sign says it all!

The hubby and I have bought our first house! It's perfect and we love it! It's a lot bigger than it looks in this picture. It has three bedrooms/2.5 baths, a big yard and two raised garden plots just waiting for me to get in there and plant lots of home grown goodness! It has a detached two car garage with lots of storage and an artist studio! It's in the neighborhood we really wanted. And within walking distance of shops, restaurants, the farmer's market (a long walk), parks and the beach! (Keep in mind, it's the Seattle beach on the Puget Sound so we're not talking spending lots of days lounging in the sun running into the water to cool off. This is Seattle after all.) So it's fitting that the garage has a huge rain barrel to collect rain water to water the garden. And the previous owners set up a compost bin. Now I just need to convince the hubby that composting is good and not another of my, quote, "Crazy hippie ways."
(The garden plots. Don't they just look like they're ready to be planted?!)

We actually don't get to move in for another month. The sellers need to rent back to us in order to get their new living situation squared away. That gives me plenty of time to mentally decorate my house. We'll have a couple of empty rooms for awhile so I'm taking one and making it my craft room that I've always wanted. I may not have enough furniture for this house, but Lord knows I can fill a craft room before the hubby can finish unpacking! I'll also be doing lots of reading on what to plant that will still grow in late June.

(This is the 2 car garage and artist studio. We're not really sure what we should do with the artist studio space right now. We're taking suggestions.)

If you have any planting tips, or any good homeowner advice, I'd love to hear it! This is a new adventure for us and we're ready to take it!