Our Spring Flowers!

healthy snax

I tried having a healthy snack (carrots and hummus) during my 3pm snack time craving. Instead of clearing the urge for cookies, it just made me hungrier! Hmmmm...

The Blossoms of Our Labor

Remodeling the master bedroom, bathroom, and office are our priority projects for this year, so naturally, we spend the weekend outside! After a week of rain, we were in much need for some outdoor time. A worked on the rainwater catchment system, putting together some very impressive plumbing. We acknowledged that all of his time playing with Legos as a kid, has prepared him for these moments of putting together fittings from the big wall of parts at Home Depot.

I tackled the front yard planter box. I removed all of the weeds, rocks, and may, unfortunately, have damaged a few underground critters in the process. A's help was crucial with some of the big strong ivy roots. We picked out some flowers and a dogwood tree! Thank goodness for A's strength in digging a hole deep enough for the tree. That ground gets tough down there. I planted primrose and tulips on either side of the about to blossom dogwood and re-organized the rocky border. Plopped some mulch over the top, and it looks like a well groomed patch of yard!

Someone wrote that gardens are a luxury, not a necessity. I'm very proud of our hard work to bring this luxury to the front of our house. We are looking forward to the spring blossoms!

Rain, rain, much needed rain

I'm very happy for the much needed rainstorm this week. The snow pack will help us alleviate drought conditions. The wet wild lands will help us reduce wild fires. Thank you, Mother Nature for the rain storm. I just have one question.

Why start a weeklong storm right after I was both of my cars? I could've left them parked outside and let you do the work this week.

Even from inside the super insulated freezer, I can hear the Thin Mints calling me. So desperately wanting to be eaten.

Real Life Angry Birds

I'm dressed in green, but I'm not an egg-stealing pig. I guarantee it. However, I must've confused a little yellow birdy this afternoon. Someone hit the "zoom" for him and he crashed right into my window and hit the ground hard. If he were animated there would've been stars circling his head. As it was, he apparently did not have the powers that the yellow Angry Birds have, for he did not penetrate the glass. He left a few feathers on the window and sat on the ground twitching for a while.

We didn't interfere, but rather watched from inside and cheered him on as he tested out his legs and twitched. It was a sad sight, but I'm happy to report that the little birdy was up and bouncing around within a few minutes. We put some fresh bird seed out to fuel him up.

Let's hope that more birdies don't get confused between video game powers and real life.

Apologies, Wiggles, and Seals

Apologies
Please accept my apologies. I blog in my head, but you can't hear it. I'll try to be better about using one of my many internet connected devices to post the ever-entertaining thoughts that appear between my ears. Warning: some are quite random and you may wish to avoid trying too hard to link the thought to a rational context.

Wiggles
Our house wiggled yesterday morning and woke us up. We are thankful it was a wiggle and nothing compared to the tornados in the mid-west. People in the news called it a jolt, but I heard a loud boom and then felt the bed wiggle.

Seals
A's brother, also with an intial A, has encouraged us to Run for the Seals. If you'd like to support the swimming wiggly creatures, they would much appreciate your donation to The Marine Mammal Center. You can support our participation in the Run for the Seals event by looking up our names at this link:
http://tmmc.marinemammalcenter.org/site/TR/Events/General?pg=pfind&fr_id=1050

Doesn't every seal pup deserve a fish milkshake?

Off to a Good Start

Following some fairly wild New Year's Eve festivities, A road-tripped with his brother down to the Rose Bowl game. They were at the stadium today to watch the Ducks win their second Rose Bowl (last win was in 1917). Go Ducks! I looked for them in the crowd on TV, but it appears that all Ducks fans look alike and I could not spot them.

I had a most glorious quiet day at home catching up on things and getting organized (mostly work related) for the New Year. I finally watched the movie Bridesmaids, and even exercised. I'm feeling rested and energized for a great 2012. Perhaps I should take down the Christmas ornaments so we can put the dead tree out. Maybe next weekend. (oh wait, is that a little bit of new year procrastination, already?)

Cheers to 2012!
Let's get this party started.

P.S. We met the deadline of finishing all of the homemade Christmas treats before the New Year. That way, the Christmas calories don't count!

Settlers of Catan

One of the things I love most about the holiday season is having time to play board games. It feels great to sit around a table of family and friends in a warm cozy house, perhaps even by the Christmas tree. This year, Santa's elf (aka my Sis) put the game Settlers of Catan under the tree. A and I used to play this game with our pals in Boston and are having a lot of fun with it again. It's been great taking time over New Year's weekend to play Settlers of Catan.   It might be that it replaces Risk as the game of choice in this household. We'll just have to see.

Of course, we didn't completely ignore the modern world this weekend. We did have some Wii fun too.

Here's my take on Settlers of Catan.

 It's a strategy game that everyone can play. The rules are not complicated. You spend your time gathering and bartering for five resources: sheep, wood, brick, grain, and rock. The goal is to build roads, settlements, and cities working your way to ten victory points to win. There are dice involved which means most of your fate rests on luck. But, you have to be ware of the robber.

He's pretty good at keeping you from your resources.

Happy New Year! May the time for board games be plentiful in 2012.

Deer Update

Spoiled. That's me. That's us.

A and I definitely have more than we could ask for. We are happy just being with each other. These days we look around and think "wow"' we are two lucky people. We have good jobs, our health, each other's love, and a more than comfortable lifestyle.

My friend Sam likes to pick a word for each year. I'm not one to commit to one word for the whole year, but have been thinking about the word "spoiled".

We've worked hard, set priorities, and have a long term plan, so I guess we are deserving, but it still feels like we are extra lucky. The other day, in the spirit of Christmas and thinking about the things I am thankful for, I told A that I'm still enjoying last year's present of a new house. For that matter, I'm still exploring the benefits of the Kindle Santa brought me last year.

This year, we bought a new car. Our first ever brand-new-right-off-the-lot-super-shiny car. A house and a new car and a kindle. What more could a girl ask for? Well, Santa kicked it up a notch and put an iPad under the tree for me. This is my first blog post from the iPad. I'm sure I will find a million uses for this right sized handy machine. I'm looking forward to my first Skype session, and to being one of those corporate folks taking notes in a meeting on a iPad. Can I Skype into the meeting and take notes while looking at the folks on the other end? The opportunities are endless.

I want to point out that an iPad was not on my wish list. I didn't think I needed one. However, I'm super excited about it and have been glued to it since Christmas night. What it helped me realize is that technology is improving fast and even though some of us may like the way things are with old fashioned email and phone calls (as opposed to texting), technology is bound to find us at some time. Can you remember what life was like before cell phones? Before email? Before texting? Before google maps? I'm sure I won't know what to do without my iPad soon.

Back to the word "spoiled"... A and I are looking forward to a great year of continuing home improvement projects. Santa also brought a few Home Depot gift cards that will help the year start off well. A new bathtub for the master bathroom has been ordered, and next Christmas I hope to be enjoying long hot baths in it. Are there water proof covers for iPads so I can blog and bathe?

Happy post-Christmas! Remember, Christmas calories don't count, so finish all those goodies before New Year's Eve when the exercising and eating healthy resolution kicks in.

Reflections

Fall is in the air. It rained for the first time since spring and the yard feels fresh. I’m inspired to reflect on this past summer’s scrumptious explorations.

 

Thanks to M&D’s generous time share gift, we kicked off summer with a weeklong trip to Whistler, British Columbia in May. The snow was still ski-able, but that wasn’t our purpose. We went to relax. Whistler and the surrounding mountains are absolutely breathtaking. We saw 13 confirmed black bears (and several unconfirmed). We visited some of the Olympic facilities, hiked The Stawamus Chief, toured the mining museum, successfully made it through the Lost Woods without getting lost, and did some great relaxing.

 

If you’re a fan of the trail up to Yosemite’s Half Dome, you will love The Stawamus Chief. There are three peaks so you can “choose your own adventure”. Each of them (I’m told) involve chains, ladders, and other climbing features. It’s not nearly the time commitment of Half Dome, but arguably more vigorous. We were very pleased to have stumbled onto this adventure and earned the post-hike Oreos.

 

We spent a day in Vancouver, what a beautiful city, and stopped in Seattle to experience the home of the Mariners. When we got home, the months of June and July were busy with house projects. We did have some graduation, bachelorette, and birthday fun during those months too. After our relaxing vacation, we were excited to get back to work on the house. Our motivation was the July 30th BBQ we hosted. It was our first shindig in the house and are looking forward to many more.

 

After the BBQ we entered “project appreciation mode” and dived back into the house projects a couple weeks later. This leads me to the house status report.

 

Inside Status:

• The Living Room is no longer being used for storage. We purchased a giant comfy couch from our favorite store (Costco) and have a REAL living room. Suitable for hosting guests! (Clearing out the storage involved putting the bookshelves together and actually unpacking the boxes. What an idea!)
• “The Construction Zone” is still in full effect, but much progress has been made. The exterior walls in the office are insulated, sheetrocked, mudded, and primed. Ready for paint! The radiant heating leak is fixed with shiny new pipes and ready for the concrete pour. Then we can re-build the wall we took down and actually put the office together!
• We got a new tankless water heater / radiant heating boiler installed and are looking forward to all of our floors being warm this winter.

Outside Status:

• We let ourselves be distracted by outside projects during the warm summer weather.
• The oak tree stump is cut down to the ground. All of the wood rounds that were strewn across the patio are neatly cut and stacked into a custom (hand crafted) bin.
• The overgrown vines are slashed and gone which means, our yard has been less appealing to the deer, but they still come through.
• We’ve got patio tables, chairs, and a BBQ. It was great fun entertaining in the back yard this summer.
• A worked hard to re-build the outside of the family room. He had a minor trip up with some wire mesh resulting in six stitches, but that area of the house is now stucco instead of mismatched rotting plywood and looks great!

It’s been nine months of home ownership and we are still in love with our house. We are also still Giants fans and had a great time watching their games this season. Although they are not in the playoffs, and I’ve been working too hard the past few weeks to watch baseball, I’m looking forward to some quality October baseball. The Giants had a great season and will come back stronger next year.

 

Other summer highlights include:

• Visiting the Jelly Belly Factory
• Touring the Budweiser Factory (right around the corner from Jelly Belly, so why not?)
• Wedding fun in San Luis Obispo
• Betting on the good looking horses at Golden Gate Fields while eating food truck yumminess.

I welcome Autumn with open arms and look forward to our first holiday season in our house.

 

An Ode to Home Ownership: Part 2

We have been proud home owners for 4 months. The projects continue to grow and the fun never ends! We've slowed down on the inside work since we're living comfortably and the weather lends itself to outdoor projects.

Inside Status:

fully operational and stocked kitchen;

home office/ guest bed set up in the family room;

complete and furnished bedroom in which we sleep (future guest bedroom);

complete dining room;

living room being used for TV watching, bicycle repair, and storage;

Two bedrooms are cordoned off as "The Construction Zone". Amazingly, the dust never escapes from there into the rest of the house (ha!). (These are the Master Bedroom and future home office)

The bathrooms are funky but after the replacement of one toilet and a full bottle of draino down the bathtub in great working condition.

Outside Status:

A has been hard at work organizing our outside storage capacity in the car port, the side storage shed, and the garage
I've been hacking at the vines invading from our neighbors' yards.

A is in the midst of patching tar and painting the roof before we add more gravel
Upcoming: pressure wash and paint the house!

A continues to cut and stack fire wood from the oak tree. We've still got the stump.

Here is our first Before and After picture:

Behind the slatted louvers was a screen covered by plywood. No insulation. Now, we've got matching siding, and an insulated wall!

Other highlights from our home:

• We washed the car in the driveway (that's a true benefit of being a home owner!)
  



• I walked into a web of baby spiders trying to clean up the bushes in the front of the house.




• We found the nearest Papa Murphy's and confirmed that a pizza fits in our funky, old, wall oven!




• We're procuring patio furniture and looking forward to some back yard summer BBQ fun.




• The deer continue to visit our back yard. They are adorable.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

I am convinced it was the cupcake, not the claritin, that cured my allergies.

Who said the world does not revolve around cupcakes?

Celebratory Bin Laden cupcakes...and a news article discussing the phenomenon

 

 

 

 

a spider crawled on me today and I did not die

Giants vs Nationals

Nats Town is apparently not called Nats Town any more, but that is where I was today. I was proud to be one of the many Giants fans in the crowd. Our loveable team brought a lot of money into the Nationals Stadium. They should thank us.

Some of the food vendors sold out of food before the seventh inning stretch because they aren't used to having that many people.

It wasn't the best pitching performance by J. Sanchez, but thankfully the Nationals starter, Lanan, was just as bad, if not worse. The giants squeaked out the win with a walked in run. We got to see Posey playing first base, taking a break from catching today, which left Whiteside available to hit a game tying home run! Wilson gave us the true Giants torture in the bottom of the ninth inning by loading the bases with walks.

It was an interesting game, with some rare features (Posey playing monkey in the middle) and a beautiful day in DC.

Cross-Country Dining

I may have invented a new sport today. I'll let my meals over the last 24 hours do the talking:

 

Tuesday: Dinner in San Francisco

Wednesday: Breakfast of Champions at JFK airport (chocolate croissant and orange juice)

Wednesday: Lunch with colleagues in Boston (sandwiches and cupcakes at Flour)

Wednesday: Dinner with colleagues in DC (Four Sisters vietnamese)

 

How many different states can you eat in during one 24 hour period?

 

 

It all started with a plan to ride the red-eye from SFO to JFK connecting to IAD (Washington-Dulles). Well, apparently there was fog in Boston which made the plane arrive in SFO late and I missed the connection in JFK. The next flight to IAD wasn't until 5pm and it was currently 8am. They put me on a flight to Boston with a quick connection to DCA (Reagan International). Well, as soon as I boarded the Boston flight the pilot announced that we would probably taxi for 30 minutes due to the long line of planes set to take off. Needless to point out, I missed the quick connection in Boston. I opted to stay until the 4pm flight and use the opportunity to visit my pals for lunch. It is super easy to hop on the Silver Line from the BOS airport. We indulged in chit chat, sandwiches, and cupcakes. There could be worse travel stories. Par for the day, my flight to DC was delayed by half an hour, but I arrived. I walked out of the airport into a torrential rainstorm with a tornado watch in effect. I arrived at my dinner plans a little soggy from the rain, but laughing about the events of the day. Phew!

 

All in all, the Jet Blue staff were very helpful in booking me on all these various flights. I'm proud to say that I've been to four airports in less than 24 hours. Now, I just need my luggage to be delivered.

 

 

Vote: Indulgence or The BEST Indulgence Ever?

A colleague (and friend) of mine just sent this. (We were pondering about cupcakes, and I mentioned I didn't think I'd stumble upon one this weekend, but I have Thin Mints.) Here's the recipe. You tell me if you think it's worthy of the title.

 

The BEST Indulgence Ever

1. Get a box of thin mints.

2. Get a bowl of bryers mint chocolate chip ice cream. (why do we have to use a bowl?) 

3. Do NOT get a spoon.

4. Use thin mints as a scooper.

Heaven!

An Ode to Home Ownership

I’d like to take this moment, not to make an acceptance speech for winning an Oscar, but to acknowledge two months of being home owners. In these two months we have enjoyed many “firsts” and conquered our first several challenges. An ode to home ownership:

• First cooked brunch: French toast with blueberries
• First felled tree: a rather large oak; only one broken window, no injuries
• First baked item: brownies (gotta test the oven somehow)
• First baked dinner: lasagna (yum)
• First kitchen sink clog: A plus snake plus many hours equals a sink that drains!
• First detected radiant heating leak: pending resolution
• First art project(s): painted cupboard doors (and coordinating dresser)
• First breakfast guests: deer in the back yard, munch and rest all day long
• First construction zone: master bedroom and office

We are cherishing the firsts of many things: painting walls, laying bamboo flooring, installing new toilets, watching the sunset over the fabulous view, finding the mail in our box wet from the rain, being invaded by ants through the kitchen window, meeting the neighbors, hiking on the nearby trails, walking to 4th street for dinner, etc.

We love our new ‘hood and love our house projects.