Birthday Month

It's birthday month around here and I'm a big fan of it, I must say. I treated myself to a little crafting pre-birthday gift.It's the Bend the Rules Sewing book from Amy Karol. I've been eyeing this little gem for a while now. Now I own it and I'm still eyeing the pretty pictures. I'm hoping they will provide a little sewing inspiration as I dig around in my fabric stash and try to get creative.

Getting off the bench & into the game

I'm officially getting off the bench and signing up for Heather's local food challenge! For weeks now, I've been admiring the delightfully delicious creations everyone has cooked up. Now it's my turn to get creative while supporting local farmers.

And it's a good thing too. We've signed up for organic delivery for fruits and veggies, however they have all organic stuff but they still get stuff from Mexico, New Zealand, etc. I had to explain to the hubby that he couldn't buy anything that wasn't from Washington or Oregon (and I don't even think the Oregon stuff counts for the food challenge). In fact, on our first order they sent us a fact sheet about our food. It said that the average food travels from the fields to the table is 1500 miles. Our first order: our food came a whopping 1450. Clearly we have our work cut out for us.

Time to get serious

My third Danskin Sprint Triathlon is less than a month away. My fabulous training partner Darcy has been a great inspiration to workout with. We push each other, give encouragement and vent frustrations when a workout is very, very tough. Since this is my third tri, I'm really hoping to do well and push myself farther and harder than in the past. My goal is to do the 1/2 mile swim; 13 mile bike ride and 5k run in 1hour 45 minutes.

Better get back to training.

Tri Training, Knitting & One Less Car On The Road

In an effort to get in some triathlon training where ever I can, and to keep up with my goal of using my car less, I decided to ride my bike up to the Fiber Gallery after work to pick up my new sock book. I figured it'd be about 3 miles each way. Easy-peasy, right? Well, as you savvy Seattle knitters know, the Fiber Gallery is on Phinney Ridge. That's ridge as in big fat freakin' steep hill.

Not to be deterred, but rather challenged, I figured, why not. So I rode from my place up Fremont Ave to the zoo, then cut across to the main drag along Phinney Ridge. At about 39th and Fremont, I'm sucking wind big time. Muscles in my legs (and ass) were aching that I didn't know ever existed. So, having no shame what-so-ever, I got off and walked my bike up and even steeper part of the road. Now the thing about this road is, it's not as crazy steep as many hills in Seattle, it's a slight incline that just goes on and on (OK, maybe it's 2.1 miles, but it seemed like eternity.)

About halfway up the hill, I did get back on and power through. It was worth it. It was a beautiful afternoon and Jessica was working and greeted me with a smile. She didn't even mind that I was totally sweaty, panting, and slightly ditzy. I even couldn't remember if I needed a skein of Manos or Malibrego for a scarf I want to make.

Here's a view of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains! You don't always see that when you're whizzing by in a car!

Christmas in July

This is the year that I actually start my Christmas gifts early! And I even whittled down the list of who gets knitted gifts. This year's first project goes to my dad. He's getting knitted socks. I'm very excited about this project because I'm learning how to do socks on two circular needles and I have to say, I'm totally loving this and wondering why the heck it took me so long to get here? It's a pretty simple sock pattern (more on that when I actually buy the book - look for post to come later this week.)

But here's the reason for the socks for dad (aside from the fact that he's the best dad and deserves handknit socks from his kid). My sister and I have a running joke about who's the favorite daughter. It can be for either parent. At any time and for any reason. For example, I was talking to my dad the other day when he got a call on the other line. He went to answer it, came back and said it was Lindsay (the sister). I said, "Did you tell her you'd call her back later because you were talking to your favorite daughter on the other line?" That type of stuff.

When I was visiting the family over the Fourth of July at our place in Cascade, my dad proudly displayed his new favorite toy. It was a gift from Lindsay for Fathers Day. And I can honestly say, I've been dethroned as favorite kid. This gift freakin' blew everything out of the water. No comparison.

My dad now owns a bright orange Boise State University beer bottle opener that plays the Paul J. Schnider final call of the famed Fiesta Bowl game where the BSU Broncos came from behind in the final seconds to win the game. (I hate to do this, but to get an idea of how great this play was - in the minds of Broncos - here's a link to a crappy YouTube clip where the BSU fan actually spelled Boise wrong in the title. It's just classic.)

And the best part, she found it for 99 cents. (Editor's note: personally, I believe that's because no one would want that reminder of a game, but whatever.) So needless to say, he went around all weekend offering to open all of our beer bottles. The rest of the guests were all Idaho Vandals (for those readers not from Idaho, this is the big, massive football rival. It's messy. It's personal. It ain't pretty.) But it made my dad happy. Especially as we all squirmed when the damn thing would go off.

Now, to give my non-Idaho readers another perspective of how beloved this damn game is, it was played about two years ago and if you go into any big store that sells T.V.'s in Boise, they still replay that game on all of their T.V.'s and people still stop and watch it. Plu-eezeee, get over it for crying out loud. Move on. That's what I'm hoping these socks will do for my dad, help him move on past that damn game. And put me back in the favorite daughter throne that I so rightfully deserve.

(Pictures of these fabulous-favorite-daughter-winning socks to come later, my camera battery is recharging.)

Mystery Project Revealed

(Editor's note: This photo was totally stolen from Pike Schemes. Photo credit: Shawn)

It has finally arrived at Sara's place in D.C. A very late graduation present for finishing her masters! It's the Easy Lace Scarf pattern made from Tess' Designer Yarns Cascade Silk Worsted in blue. I know it's not scarf wearing season just yet, but I think it looks great on her! Congrats Sara!

Vacation Pics!

The view from our deck across from hole 1 of the golf course and Lake Cascade.

It was a fabulous fun time in Cascade, Idaho! It felt like I had never left. One of the many things I love about Cascade is how relaxing it can be. I did a lot of reading, hanging out with friends and family, and oh, out fishing my dad! Not to brag, but within 10 minutes of throwing the first cast I had landed two Rainbow Trout. Then it did get a little slow, then Matt caught a fish, then we headed in. Our second day out on the water, I once again, out fished dad. What can I say, I learned from the best!

Here are my two favorite fisherman....too bad I caught all the fish!
I love a good small town parade and their floats! But the crowd had gotten much larger over the years. I don't remember that many people along the street when I was a kid.


And another treat for my trip, was visits with friends who were in the area to celebrate the 4th! Like cute little Kellan, who makes a silly face on command for pics!

Summer Vacation

We're hitting the open road to take in some fresh mountain air for the 4th of July! We're heading to Cascade, Idaho to spend a long weekend with family and friends. We're going to be staying at my family's place, and while, it's not fancy by any stretch of the imagination, it's perfect to me. I have lots of happy memories of us staying there as kids, riding our bikes into town to buy ice cream, climbing on the rocks along the lake (which in hindsight may not have been the safest activity, but hey, we were young), and family visits. Then as I got older, more great memories of fun girls weekend get-a-ways with margaritas, gin and tonics, and relaxing. And in one case, a very fun game of mini golf in the front yard while we were all still in our p.j.'s. You had to be there.

I don't have a picture of our place along the lake, I'll have many to share when I get back. But for now, as we in Seattle deal with a lot of heat right now, I'll leave you with shot my dad sent this past winter. They had record snow in the area and he had to park on the street and snow shoe into our place to shovel all of the snow off of the deck and roof. He did that a couple of times.

(Yes, that is snow up to the roof in some places!)

First Crop

It seems the only ones enjoying the heat at our house is the tomatoes. I've discovered my first little ones of the season and I have to admit, I'm pretty excited to see them! Hopefully, by they time we get back from our vacation, they'll be ready to eat, along with our second round of lettuce! I do love a good container garden!

Mystery Project: an FO

The Mystery Project is finally finished! It's wrapped and ready to be given to the person it was meant for! Once it's been opened, I'll post pictures of the mystery project for all to see! I have to admit, it turned out pretty darn good!

My first local side dish

I've been inspired by Heather (and Jen's yummy dishes too!) to try her get local challenge. But I'll confess, I don't think I'm really good at eating local all the time. I try to be, but sometimes, life just doesn't lend to eating local (i.e. running late for work, grab a Lean Cuisine and a Diet Coke - although I'm secretly hoping there's a Coke factory around Seattle somewhere so that would, technically make it local. I think.) But I digress. Tonight, I was able to pull something together. While BBQing our dinner (that was somewhat local), the hubby said:

"So, do we have a salad with dinner?"

I said, "No, we're out of spinach."

He said, "Well, whats that?"

That was my lettuce in the container garden. I guess I was waiting for it to get a little bigger. I guess he was really hungry. Without any veggies to add to the salad (tomorrow is my weekly trip to the Farmers Market), I tossed in dried cranberries and feta and he scarfed it down.

It's been a year...

Since the hubby and I tied the knot! We celebrated with a fabulous dinner at Canlis. I wanted to bring the camera, but the hubby protested, so I figured, I wouldn't be that person taking pictures of her food this one time. But the food was fabulous! And the wine - fabulous! And the uber chocolaty dessert - fabulous! And for the "paper anniversary," the hubby got me a pretty leather bound journal! I love it!

Now, for those of you, ehem, Cousin Mike, who keep telling us to check the mail, this is for you.

Just like Popeye

I am officially a sailor man. I finished my SailNOW! course at the Center for Wooden Boats today under a slightly sunny Seattle sky. The winds were calm, but we did find some good patches of strong wind to set our sails! Now I can check out boats from the Center and take them around Lake Union for a spin.

But unlike Popeye, I like my spinach fresh. Not that canned crap.

Another Guardian Angel

Today Jen M. was laid to rest. She lost her very long and courageous battle with cancer last Thursday. We were friends at the University of Idaho. She was roommates with Sara and April and I was lucky enough to become her friend through them. We had many good times together. She was a beautiful and kind person. We were all very lucky to have someone like her come into our lives. She will be missed.

Family Visit + New York Heat Wave

I don't think I've ever been so happy to pull out my fleece in June as I was when I returned from NYC today! The hubby and I spent the past few days visiting family in NYC! It was quite the fun trip, however, weatherchannel.com failed to mention the HEAT WAVE that hit while we were there! I've never been so hot and miserable in my life! I truly do appreciate how wonderful/beautiful the weather is here in the West!

We got to see and do lots of fun things, but the thing I loved most about this trip was that it turns out one of my dearest friends Sara was in town at the same time! We hooked up and spent Saturday walking around Soho, the Village and Times Square! Despite the heat, we had a fabulous day! She went with me to Purl and Purl Patchwork! Here are some pics of the trip!

Outside of Purl

Me with my new yarn two skeins of Organik in Coral Reef. It's so soft and pretty.

Hmm...is Sara thinking of coming over to the way of the wool?A wall decoration at Purl Patchwork - a very cute fabric shop!

View from a hiking trail in the Hudson Valley...can't remember where, but it was really hot that day!We were able to take in a Yankees game in Yankee Stadium. This is the last year for this stadium so it was fun to catch the game. However, this was on Monday, one of the most miserable days of the heat wave! I can't even begin to describe the agony that was the heat and humidity....and really, I'm trying to block that portion of the trip out of my head!

BAT/KAT project & NYC trip

I saw this on Rebecca's blog* and it is so funny because we just decided to start doing something like this. Claudia is starting the BAT/KAT project: "Bicycling as Transportation/Knitters Alternatively Transporting Project. The goal of which is to substitute at least one bicycling/walking/alternatively transporting trip for one car trip every week."



Just on Saturday, Rebecca and I rode to University Village to run some errands. We figured it took about the same amount of time to ride there as it does to drive and deal with all the traffic. It was a fabulous ride, we did our shopping, loaded our goodies in our backpacks and headed home. The funny thing was, as we were walking around, and it was obvious we had biked to the stores, sales people kept commenting about how great it was that we rode our bikes here. It was funny. It was the best sales service I've had there in a long time!


*She has some semi-cute biking pics of us on her blog if you need a little laugh. We had a little fun at the bike shop while they installed my new bike seat.

In other news, two knitting projects are packed and ready for tomorrow's trip to NYC! It'll be a fun quick visit with the hubby's family! I've already downloaded the map to get to Purl in SOHO and Purl Patchwork! Pics and adventure stories in a few days! I'm also hoping the mold will magically clear up while I'm gone.

WTF??!!!!

We have mold. Black Mold. A lot of it. It was discovered when the dishwasher guy was pulling out the old one to install our new one. It's not only behind where the dishwasher goes, but it's also under the sink, only someone, at one time, painted over it. Yes, you read that right. Someone painted over the black mold. Again, I say WTF???!!!! I can't wait to see how the powers that be will fix this one. Until then, I have no dishwasher and a really ugly hole in my kitchen that makes me queasy just to look at it.

Cute Baby Quilt Causes Guilt

I haven't worked on my friends baby quilt in a really long, long time. I used to think it was adorable and it made me happy to look at it. Now, it makes me feel guilty. Really, really guilty. The kid is going to be heading off to junior high before I get him his quilt at the rate I'm going. So this weekend, I took matters into my own hands. I set up my sewing machine (again) and got to work. Some serious headway was made and it's looking pretty cute once again if I do say so!

Bad Knittng vs. No Knitting

Every night this week I was really proud of myself because no matter how tired I was, I still managed to get some knitting done. Just a few rows here and a few rows there. I had been so tired that no knitting was getting done at all for a while. The other night, I thought, this row looks a little off, but I was too tired to figure it out so I put it away and quickly fell into a TV coma. Then this afternoon, while waiting for a rainstorm to pass before a bike ride, I pulled out my knitting to get a few rows done. However I quickly realized that something was amiss. Instead of the 22 stitches that should have been on the needles, there were 46! Yes, more than double the amount for the pattern. How that happened is beyond me. Obviously, my few tired nights of a few rows there and few row here took a turn for the horribly worse. So I ripped back several, several rows and am now knitting with some nicely caffeinated Diet Coke.

Mystery Project....

I've started working on a new project. It's fun, it's pretty and it's a surprise for someone dear! That's all I'm saying now....