While the husband is away.....

So how much money have I spent in the almost one week Tom has been away. Let's not discuss that. It's not that he's away....a waxing was calling my name. And while I was there I think it's totally ok that I spent a small fortune on Dermalogica lotion and face wash. I mean come on people - Neutrogena just doesn't do it for me anymore. And I think it's totally normal that I scheduled a facial to treat myself on Wednesday when I have the day off from work. It's just money right?

I have sadly discovered - or realized that I am officially a brand whore. Now I am a BARGAIN brand whore, but nonetheless, a brand whore I am. I was walking Harper and realized I was wearing my Hunter rain boots and my Mountain Hardware fleece and my Patagonia rain coat and my Citizens of Humanity jeans and you get the picture. I was somewhat disgusting by myself, but then I realized that almost everything I was wearing was bought on a SUPER duper sale. Does that excuse it?

In other news at a consignment store in Phinney today I bought two sweaters (one was Cashmere and $25) and a pair of unworn cords. Who knew that private school classrooms would be a full 20 degrees colder than public schools rooms. I am used to teaching in the "tropics" and now I am teaching in the Tundra...ok maybe the Taiga (yes I am planning a biomes unit... hence the vocabulary). I have been buying cute t-shirts and cute short sleeve button downs for all of my teaching and now I need freaking long underwear as well as at least 3 layers on top or I might freeze to death. I might even start wearing gloves to work soon.

What else is new in Seattle. Hm...I met a nice girl at the dog park today who gave me her number so we could walk sometime. Yeah friendly people! I met a friendly old woman (like 80) walking her dog today and chatted with her until I knew a lot about her. Met a friendly mom and daughter with their dog too. Apparently our new neighborhood is super friendly.

Unfortunately the herd of elephants that live upstairs (not big people.... just loud) still bang and slam and clomp around. I was awake on this lovely Saturday morning at about 7am. I pretended to sleep until 8am, but it was not real. It is driving me insane. For instance to try to help I am playing music so loud that I can't hear myself think. It is helping! The worst part is that Harper just cries and whines everytime they make lots of noise. That is almost worse than the noise. We thought (so we heard) that they were moving out this month.... but I'm beginning to fear that will not happen. I have dreams of a quiet couple moving up there and going to sleep at say 9pm and waking up on the weekend at perhaps 10am. Is that asking too much?

Had a yummy lunch in our neighborhood with Lauren (Tom's boss' wife). We ate at Santa Fe Cafe. It was super cute and we had yummy chips and queso and large bowls of soup. Cute cute cute place. Will definitely go back to check out the "main" food.

Sitting by fire enjoying super loud music. Afraid to cook dinner because the fire might go out, and I just can't bare to start another one. It takes way too much time and effort. But it is 4:50 - I should make dinner so that I can go to bed by 8am - that way I can at least get 11 hours sleep before being woken up by screaming children from above my head. Sad what my life has become.

TV TV, We finally have a TV

So we bit the bullet today and bought a sweet new tv for ourselves.

We used all sorts of amazing wedding gifts to buy ourselves a Samsung LED LCD tv. The LEd means that it is backlight with LED lighting rather than florescent lighting. This supposedly means it burns less electricity than a normal LCD tv. Who knows if that's really true?

We almost got the new Sony Bravia Eco tv which has some new funky kind of florescent backlighting. However Samsung in general just gets way better reviews. Also the Samsung tv is 1.2 inches thick. SOOOO skinny it's ridiculous.

We had to rearrange the living room to fit the tv. It doesn't have as great of a flow as it used to, but I'm getting used to it. It does mean that now both couches get more of the warmth from the fire - so that's nice.

Now when Tom goes away to Brazil on Monday I will at least get to watch tv for two straight weeks.

My dog is gross

Ok so after making a fantastic fire Tom and I noticed a stain on the rug in front of the door. Strange that we didn't notice it before, but we are not always as observant as we should be. Tom looked at it and announced that Harper had obviously peed. I was hesitant to believe this seeing as Harper has not peed in the house since he marked on the Hodgman's couch because Tom's cousin's dog was over. That was over 4 years ago.

Not one to be grossed out by dog bodily functions, I got down at nose level and sniffed the spot. Pee? Nope. Puke spot? Yes. And where might that puke have gone you ask? Back down into Harper's belly of course. If it comes out looking like food, you might as well snarf it back down again.

With that said it brings to mind the disturbing fact that Harper continues to randomly puke. I was trying to describe this to someone yesterday (I'm sure they were NOT interested), and I realized that he hadn't been making that awful retching sounds that dogs make when they puke. You know, when you can actually hear their stomach swaying back and forth like a stormy ocean. So I decided (stupid) to look this up on the internet.

Now I have been bombarded with information categorizing Harper's "pukes" into regurgitations which are potentially caused by such a variety of diseases and problems that I will be unable to sleep tonight. My hope is that it is some stupid piece of bone that will dislodge itself. My fear is that it is something awful, or god forbid operable (this would make operation #3).

To make matters worse, after discovering this possible life-altering information, Harper happily chewing on his mini-kitty glow ball (if you don't know what that is only ask me if you want the 45 minute story), suddenly just ATE the freaking ball. He has been playing and chewing on it for about a year and never once seemed interested in eating it, but tonight of all nights, he just up and SWALLOWED it. Tom was incredibly unhappy and said, "BAD!" to which Harper replied by licking his face.

I would say there is a 99.9% chance of puking or regurgitating or whatever the hell it is in the next 24 hours. Will keep you posted.

Moving South...23 Blocks

So yesterday we moved. I might say that it was one of our smoothest moves. I'm not sure if this is because we have now officially moved (if you count anything after graduating from Wesleyan) 7 times in the past 6 years. Yikers.

We had helpers (thank you helpers), and they were fantastic. Tom made me move two couches with him before any strong people arrived. That was painful, but I did it with minimal complaining. Then the ladies and I filled our cars with the random stuff and the men carried heavy things.

Now I'd say - 24 hours later (ok maybe 28 hours to be exact) we are about 85% moved in. I think we have just been SOOO ready to settle into something that we were way too excited to unpack the kitchen and all the other stuff that we have only 1/2 unpacked until now.

We have a wood burning stove which is ridiculously exciting for Tom. He had a cord of wood (4 ft by 4ft by 8 ft) delivered today and stacked it all while I was cleaning the old house. Now he is attempting our first fire. It sounds nice, but I don't think it is burning correctly b/c Tom has not left it, and it was orange two second ago, and now I see nothing. The question is, when Tom goes away in 2 weeks will I be able to make a fire by myself????

In other moving news - not sure if it is stress related or not, but Harper has now thrown up his food three days in a row. Always at a different time, never with much warning. And you know how dogs normally make that weird seasick sound where their stomach heaves? His has NOT done that. He will just look at you, go to the door, and then bleh - puke. He is eating and drinking and running. So I am not taking him to the vet because I know they will ask those questions, and when everything is normal they will not know what to say. I think it's stress or maybe too much cat poop eating, or something else gross.

Ok so the new house is cozy and cute. It's got two nice bedrooms. One bedroom has another little office off of it. The kitchen is cute - slightly awkward at times, but cute nonetheless with a little eating nook and built in table. Fun sparkly chandelier in the dining room. The neighborhood is already super friendly. We have been invited to borrow anything (eggs, sugar etc) from our next door neighbors. The next next next door neighbor has two sons, and one of them (in 7th grade) came over to help Tom stack wood. His mom apparently said she would buy us bagels next time they get them. Nice. The upstairs family seems nice too. We are a hop - skip - and jump from a soccer field at Woodland Park which until we get arrested or fined will be very nice for fetching Harper.

So Happy Days right now. This is by far the most relaxed I have felt since perhaps our honeymoon.
Oh yeah and I forgot to say that off of our porch (if you lean right), but more safely from our sidewalk you have a view of the ocean and the Olympics. Sweet!

Bagels are Yummy

I have been delinquent in blog posting.

Tom and I have successfully made bagels!!! It was last weekend, so I supposed I'm not tooooo late in posting.

We found that the smaller bagels were better than the giant bagels. The big ones got too chewy, and the small ones got nice and crunchy on the outside.

We dabbled with sesame seeds, cheddar cheese (yum!), a little salt, and some caraway seeds.

Our next plan of attack is trying everything bagels, pumpernickel bagels and rye bagels.

One day we will open a store - just you wait!

Fall is here

We had a beautiful weekend, and I think it might be the last bit of sunshine and warmth we see for quite a bit.
It was in the 60's and sunny and just wonderful.

We went for an awesome hike (ok I'm not sure if I thought it was awesome at the time....I mostly just complained about how I hated going straight UP the whole time. I might have even said that I like jogging more than this hike - and for those that know me, that is saying a LOT.) We ate smoked salmon, amazing goat cheese, drank wine, and had homemade cookies. It was a gourmet hike.

After the hike we headed to Columbia City and ate amazing chicken teriyaki at Bob's house. We also picked some of his and Aileen's sungold tomatoes (yum).

Sunday we saw a bunch of somewhat gross apartments for rent. Then we went to an open house of a house for sale and fell in love. We seriously considered putting an offer in, but then after lots of talking, decided that we will rent. We are crossing our fingers that the house we like with the wood burning stove will be rented to US and not someone else. If it's gone we have to start from scratch again, because we didn't see anything else that was just quite right enough for us.

Oh wait, and on Sunday we had amazing sourdough bread from Le Panier near Pike Place Market. DELISH!!!

And on a random note...did anyone see that Gourmet Magazine is going to stop being printed!! WOW and I've only just begun feeling comfortable making things from it. Darn!

Babies Babies Babies

I am now officially an Aunt. My brother and his wife gave birth this weekend to what appears (over pictures sent through email) to be a beautiful baby girl. Can't wait to see her!!!

Funny enough, the next day Tom's cousin gave birth to a beautiful baby girl too.

What a baby weekend!