Sunday events

Started my day off at the Kitsap Pride festival.  It was a great people-watching venue.  I also met my friend Virginia's parents, who were visiting from Alaska.

They invited me out to lunch, where we had Korean BBQ.  I've never eaten Korean before.  Virginia's parents are world travelers, and I was educated on (many things, including) the Korean food experience.

Appetizers.  Dad - I had Kimchi!!  The spinach in the lower right was my favorite.

I can't remember what this was, other than meat served on a hot cow plate.

This evening I went to visit my friend Kristen.  She and her husband just bought an awesome house (20 minutes closer to me than before!) that includes over 5 acres and 150 feet of shoreline. The trek down to the water was a little hairy - the trail was a steep incline and was completely overgrown.  I was also not dressed for the occasion: in shorts and slip-on shoes.  

Anyways, I made acquaintances with the stinging nettle.  It got on both my knees, my left ring finger (random!), and the underside of my right forearm.  I guess it's not so bad - it's like a low-level burning (like when you first scrape your knee on the sidewalk), only it doesn't go away.  Actually, I take that back - I'm on about hour 5 and it's actually really really irritating. Supposedly it'll go away eventually.   

The trek was totally worth it.  Look at this view.  Between the land on the left and right is West Seattle.  It shows up in person, just not in the picture.  

They're planning on clearing out a lot of the brush, improving the trail down, and setting up a place to camp and have campfires on the beach.  I'm excited.  I have no problem inviting myself over.  

We took a walk down the beach.  The neighbors are few and far between.

The freaky looking barnacle encrusted crab shell.  Made me laugh. 

Kristen's neighbor has a mansion and puts on weddings.  We spied on this wedding through the trees.

 

I wish this had turned out.  Mt Rainier was in the distance.  

Not bad for a random Sunday in July.

The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea.
~ Karen von Blixen-Finecke

This is what happens when I decide to socialize...

Poulsbo farmers market with my friend Tracy.  We shared a vegan pizza for breakfast and I stocked up on more fruit, cheese, and bread.  

More wisdom from my fruit connection:  "Remember, you are what you eat, so wouldn't you rather be a blueberry than a head of cabbage?"

 Beerfest with a bunch of girls.

I tried both raspberry & coffee infused beers.  Ehh.  Think I'll stick with cider.

El Salvadorian for lunch.  YUM.

 Apparently these two  beer bottles go around to all the beerfests to post for pictures.  They don't do it for money.  They do it for beer.

Came home, mowed the lawn, talked on the phone for an hour, then texted another friend til about 1 in the morning.

Now it's Sunday, and I have two twelve hour shifts to start my week.  I call this the new normal.

It simply isn't an adventure worth telling if there aren't any dragons.
J.R.R. Tolkien

Live as you can

So today my before-work nap was interrupted by a neighbor kid who saw a dog stuck in a culvert and thought it might be mine.  It wasn't (whew!), but I spent the next 30 minutes helping get the dog out (who was scared of me and scared of water, not a good combo when its just me, rocks, briers, and run off water as your surroundings).  Thankfully once the dog was out the kid and his mom took him to neighboring houses to see if anyone knew who it belonged to.  I am nursing scratches on my feet and arms from the briers (I had to go barefoot for most of it because my shoes wouldn't find purchase on the mud).  Oi.

Anyways, after 2 weeks of miserableness, I'm feeling much better, had an awesome spectacular weekend, and am not entirely dreading my 3 days left at work this week.  That's positive, right?

Oh yeah, I made these last week.  30 minute no-rise soft pretzels.  Not bad for my first time.  And being lazy.

Saturday I spent most of the day with my friend Kristen, in Tacoma.  We went to a movie, dinner (at Dirty Oscars - recently featured on some sort of TV show), casino (where I won back all the money I spent AND MORE!).  Fun.

Sunday evening veggie sandwiches and dark cider.  

Add trivia and desserts, and it was a pretty spectacular evening.  Oh, and we won the trivia  contest....although I only contributed to like 3 answers.  Apparently I do not know any useless facts.  

"The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you.  Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision.  So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can."
~ Neil Gaiman

65 extra pounds

This post comes to you from a 1-handed typer as I have an entire load of Atticus laying on my lap and demanding immediate attention.  Makes me wonder what's going through his head.  He totally skipped over running after the tennis ball and went straight for the lap. Hopefully it's cause I spoiled him with attention this past weekend, not something else...

Anyways, here's a pictorial of the latest happenings...

We had a beautiful Easter weekend.  I mowed my backyard on Sunday, took a nap in the sun...

....fired up the backyard firepit...

...and had another small Boggle tournament.  I won.  

My seedlings are growing!

Food roundup....cauliflower fried rice.  No, it doesn't taste EXACTLY like rice as the post says, but it's pretty close.  Pretty delicious.

I want to say these are black bean pumpkin patties, but since I substituted almost everything in the recipe, I can't.  They're more like "another version of a bean burger, this time using pumpkin".  I used white kidney beans instead of black beans, purple rice instead of brown rice, season-all instead of the list of spices, used rolled oats instead of panko, and cut down the scallions to 1 instead of 3.  So, its almost like it's my own recipe....

"Green" themed potluck at work tonight.  Top down:  spinach artichoke dip, zucchini whoopie  pies, and chicken pesto something or other.  Two days worth of calories in one meal, and all of it absolutely yumm-o.  The zucchini whoopie pies were a huge hit, and they are all gone now (luckily - otherwise I would eat the rest).  

I have 2 weeks until I have a 5 day weekend in which I'm going to visit a friend in Utah.  I can't tell you how excited I am.  It can't come soon enough, as I realize I'm nearing the burn-out stage at work.

I love sleep.  My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake.
~ Ernest Hemingway

How to have a good Sunday in 10 easy steps

1.  Get your toilet fixed by your landlord.

2.  Go to the gym.

3.  Enjoy a spaghetti lunch, support a local charity, and drink some hard cider.  Buy raffle tickets.

4.  Go bowling.  Finally bowl over 100!

5.  Go buy some A&W fries.

6.  Sneak said fries into a movie theater.  See a really boring movie.  (Oz.  Don't bother.)  Eat a stale soft pretzel.

7.  Go back to the charity-bar and drink some more hard cider.  Fail to hear your raffle ticket number be called.

8.  Go out to a diner.  Eat french fries and drink coffee to make up for the fact that you fell asleep early last night and you stopped counting calories after the spaghetti.

9.  Go back home.  Play 18 rounds of boggle.  Kick some serious word-butt.

10.  Cuddle up with your dog.  Watch some Hulu and catch up on internet world.

So there you have it.  I'm determined to find every spaghetti feed possible this summer.  Only good things come from them.  I think it's a pretty good goal to have.

Talking about our problems is our greatest addiction.  Break the habit.  Talk about your joys.
~ Rita Schiano

The weekend in color

First, I've been listening to the Decemberists a lot recently.  I thought that was ironic, seeing as they were just promoted by the Schrute family on a recent episode of The Office.  So feel free to listen to this song as you read the rest of this post.  It'll be like we're listening together.




Here are some weekend highlights...

Met up with my friend Michelle on Saturday.  I haven't seen her since Christmastime.  It's funny how time gets away, especially when something is always getting in the way of making plans.  We ate at a fancy-type bistro.  In the middle of our lunch, someone came through the restaurant with a huge container of mini-cupcakes (probably for the St Paddy's celebration that night).  We inquired of our waiter the possibility of getting a mini-cupcake for dessert.  Although he had  been a little aloof and snobby the entire time we were there, he brought us out 4 mini-cupcakes.  For FREE.  What a guy.

On Sunday, I volunteered with Habitat for Humanity at the Kitsap County Home Show (at the local fairgrounds).  They were having a building supply surplus sale, and on Sunday everything was half price.  

To be honest, it was one of the more interesting experiences of late.  Not just interacting with the public in a face-to-face kinda way (I almost miss that), but I could joke around with people and just wander.  To be even more honest, the volunteer program is highly un-organized, but it all worked out.  

I know I don't talk about men on here very often, but I have to tell you a story.  I told my friend Jermaine about it this morning, and he laughed for about 20 minute straight.  

So....I'm wandering around warehouse sale and someone asks if he can get a better deal on a bunch of air filters.  My response?  "Let me see if I can find someone who has been on the job longer than 30 minutes to help you."

So the guy ends up getting a good deal.  I pull out my little receipt book to write him a receipt.  I ask his name (cause I'm supposed to put it on the receipt, then put it on a "sold" slip and put that on the air filters.  That's how complicated this job was.)  He joked that he wasn't going to give it to me, so I just wrote "anonymous" on the receipt.  That's what I do at work, I thought nothing of it.  Well, that started a conversation, blah blah blah.  He walked around a bunch more and I wandered in search of more people I could write receipts for.  Masking-taping "sold" slips to things is pretty fun.  Weirdly fun.  

Anyways, Mr. Anonymous, who is at least old enough to be my father, finds me later to get his receipt slip cause he's done looking at things.  He asks my name, which I give him, and then he says his name is Dave.  So, I pulled out my receipt book and write "Dave" next to "Anonymous".

Dave says, "Do you need my number, too?"

Me:  "No, not necessary."

Dave:  "Well, can I have yours then?"

Me:  *mortified*  "Um....no?"

There was no way of getting out of that conversation quickly, so I endured 5 more minutes of that before I was rescued by someone who needed help.  

I hope you all find that funny because I wasn't going to tell you.

A high-school acquaintance who I actually talk to a lot on Facebook came to Seattle for the weekend.  I told her to look me up, so Sunday night, she and her husband came over to this side of the water and we went out for drinks and to catch up.  I was a little apprehensive about it, just because you know, high school and all, but the 3 hours we spent together we talked the entire time.  We actually have quite a few things in common.  I really enjoyed myself, and am glad I didn't pass up the opportunity to see her.

We went to my recent favorite place so I could eat a soft pretzel and hard cider.  

This morning (Monday) I woke up late morning and was just into about the second half of my cup of coffee when my friend texted.  Apparently he just bought a car last week and some engine light went on (never buy a Mazda!!!) so he brought it in to be serviced and had no ride and nothing to do while he waited.  Enter me, who lives just down the road.  We ended up coming back to my place and drinking coffee and chatting and venting for the next 4 hours.  I called it super-helpful therapy.

I consider him one of my very few work friends (if I introduced him to you, I'd call him a friend and not a coworker.  That's kind of a big deal in my personal world bubble.)  Of course by the end of the four hours I had drank so much coffee I was itchy.  Also probably because I only had a few hours to cook my week's worth of food before I went to the gym.

Paleo-friendly fudge.  Really simple to make.  Not too bad to eat, either.  I was able to use my date syrup as well (to replace the honey).  Needs a little something more though.  Salt, maybe?  

These originally were to be "pumpkin cinnamon rolls", but due to many reasons, I have changed them to "protein pumpkin rolls".  Or "another way to use my protein powder".  See recipe, below.

As usual, I have altered a recipe based on available ingredients in my kitchen.  Plus, who buys cinnamon roll flavored protein powder?  Definitely not this girl....

I used 1/4 cup pumpkin puree, 1 scoop RAW protein powder, 2 Tbsp flour, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice, and a couple dashes of cinnamon.  I baked it according to the recipe.  Makes 4.  (I ate one, then took the picture.)

Not too bad.  Pretty much covers up the taste of the protein powder.

Afterwards I made a big baking dish of cut up tiny potatoes (you know, those little red and purple ones), with 3 strips of bacon and baked it all for 45 minutes at 375.  I had to force myself to stop eating the potatoes when they were done so I'd at least have some for work tomorrow.  I didn't even eat the bacon...I gave that to Atticus.  (win/win!).  

And there you have it.  More than you ever wanted to know about me.

Back to graveyard shift tomorrow.  4 hours of it by myself.

I am enough.
I am full of sparkle & compassion.
I genuinely want to make the world a better place.
I love hard.
I practice kindness.
I am not afraid of the truth.
I am loyal, adventurous, supportive, and surprising.
I am a woman.
I am enough.
I make mistakes, but I own them and learn from them.
Sometimes I make a lot of mistakes.
~ Molly Mahar

Impromptu

Today I had planned to wake up early, see an afternoon movie with a friend, and basically spend a lazy day doing nothing.

But it was too nice of a day to spend entirely indoors.  And well, once I'm up, I'm up.

Breakfast:  a YMCA charity fundraiser at the American Legion.  MMM...mass produced spaghetti.  Perfect.

A drive up to the northern coast to Point no Point.  The lighthouse.

The clouds.

The view across the water to Whidbey Island.

The view down the beach.

A stop at the Flying Pickle Cafe.  Awesome!  

Chief Seattle's grave.  Suquamish nation.

Some sort of ritual offerings (??) in front of Seattle's grave.

This makes my feminist gene roar.

Sad.

Sadder.

Afterwards, a stupid comedy, the largest movie coke ever, and a soft pretzel.

A fun day, inspired by spontaneity and the sun.

A little nonsense,
now and then,
is relished by
the wisest men.
~ Willy Wonka

Graveyard and trapezing

This has been a long week.  I forgot how hard it was to completely change one's body clock to the graveyard shift.  Especially for 10 and 12 hour shifts.  That, and its even harder to change your DOG's body clock to a graveyard shift.  I would go to bed at 8 or 10am, and within an hour or two, Atticus would wake me up every hour or so.  Five or six hours later, I would give up on sleeping.  It was ugly.  I started doing Pilates exercises at work just to stay awake.

The first day of my weekend I slept and slept til I couldn't sleep any more, hit the gym (only 45 minutes because I got there too late and they were closing!), then went home and cuddled with Atticus and some hummus and pretzels.  I think I fell back asleep only 8 hours after waking up.

The second day of my weekend, I did this...

Trapezing!

After the initial scariness of the first swing was over, I considered this the worst part each time - getting off the giant ladder onto the tiny platform.

Can't believe these are so blurry!  Mariah and I, who I convinced #1 - to buy the trapezing coupon on Groupon, and then #2, convinced her to buy two more classes for us to do in the future.  She's such a good sport.

Two of the three handlers.  Hard to make them out.  Stinking blurry photos.  

If you want to see video, Mariah put them all on my Facebook page.  I'm super sad I was the only one (of 5 who qualified) that didn't get caught, but my second attempt was really close!

So yes, super fun!  I couldn't believe how cool it really was.  My ribs are bruised today from the safety belt that you had to wear (no, I'm not complaining I had to wear it), and my back is sore, but otherwise I'm good.

Bought a vacuum this morning as well, all from the comforts of my living room chair.

One day left in my weekend, before another grueling week of graveyard.

Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.
~ Ray Bradbury

What makes me happy part 1

Local festivals, homemade blackberry chip ice cream...

...and old men wearing tie-dye dancing to live bands.

Don't ask what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
~ Howard Thurman

Weekend Photo Dump

Pictures from my long weekend and before...

Meet Kristen. 

It was her bachelorette party weekend. 

She wanted to go camping in Ellensberg.  I came a day late because I had to work, but luckily got to join in the funnest actvity ever - floating down the river.  We all hooked our tubes up and spent 3 hours floating the Yakima River.

I am super awesome. 

Some views from the middle of the river...

Ahh yes...and a fire I built.  One thing I feel I can do successfully. 

Got back from camping Friday.  Saturday we volunteered as zombies in a fun run - called, appropriately, "Run for your Lives!". 

We're slightly attractive zombies.  Kristen is on the very right.  We like to do fun runs together.  Her sister-in-law Corrie is in the middle.  She's pretty neat - I admire anyone who roller derbies.

The grossest wall ever.  Getting fake blood pitched at you.

Kristen and I are pretty convincing. 

The wrench in my weekend....I ran over a nasty rock on my way back from Ellensberg Friday.  Saturday afternoon after I arrived at Kristen's, my tire finally decided to go flat.  Thus entailed a long drawn out ordeal of AAA, tow companies, spare tires, etc.  What a pain.  This is a poor picture, but it shows my vehicle being loaded on a tow truck.  My tire and car are all better now, thanks for asking.

An easy version of jelly.  I loosely used this recipe.  And I mean LOOSELY.  Basically I threw a bunch of almost expired fruit into the crockpot - it included raspberries, cherries (pitted), and blueberries.  Then I threw in some sugar (I didn't even measure), and some lemon juice (I didn't measure that either).  A couple of hours on high, then a quick circuit through the food processor. 

It doesn't have the same consistency as jelly (obviously, because there's no gelatin in it), but it is DELICIOUS.  Its easy to spread, which makes my morning toast all the more exciting.  Did I mention it's delicious?

And I finally have my FIREPIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Hopefully gonna test it out this week!  Thank heavens for friends with chainsaws.

The last resident here left a hummingbird feeder hanging off the front eaves.  I noticed this morning a hummingbird going for it.  I had no idea there were hummingbirds here.  I whipped up some hummingbird food and put out the feeder again.

Ahh yes...I started having to mark my canning jars with sharpie paint markers.  Lest I mix up the hummingbird food and the simple syrup.  Same concept, different amounts of sugar.

It is HOT here.  I only managed to mow the front yard before I gave up due to the heat.  So then I washed my car.  No pictures of that.  Maybe tomorrow I will be able to get started a lot earlier and get more done outside.  I had planned to plant my lavender this weekend as well. 

I picked up an overtime shift tomorrow night - otherwise I'd still be rocking my long weekend. 

Oh well....pretty soon time to shower off the dirt and sweat of the day and watch another couple episodes of Hulu.  One more week of work before my vacation!

Re-examine all you have been told.  Dismiss what insults your soul.
~ Walt Whitman