How I know I live in the PNW

1.  I made coffee in the tea pot after my French press broke. 

2.  I am wearing this outfit. 

It will be warm with a raincoat and it will keep my feet dry. 

3. I go stuff in the damp that I never would in GA. 

Although, I forget to put my kids in boots.  A mistake I hope not to make it again. 

4. Cold is relative. I have been keeping heat at 66. And I am now used to it.  When I go other places where the heat is higher, it feels too hot. 

5.  I get to mail in my vote!  

One summer day

Today was a pretty good day. 

We had an appointment with the doctor for Fred's well baby 18 visit. And he is healthy and still growing but thankfully not as fast as before. I am not sure if the new office takes more or less accurate measurements but his clothes are pointing to the fact that he isn't growing as quickly. 

We ate lunch and watched FROZEN. I think I like movie as much if not more than the kids. However, we have only seen it 4 times so I still might get sick of it.  

Now we are doing one of the many shaving cream inspired Pinterest has. 

Food dye and dollar store shaving cream.   Originally, I thought I would be the one to mix the colors but thought the kids would  like the experience and texture of doing it themselves. 

And they did like it. 

I even got in on the action. 

The kids are now playing in the wading pool.  And I am glad it is summer. 

Some recent clothes

Some recent things I have been wearing

A Recipe

Umm..  Yeah.  I have been doing stuff.  And uh... it's been nice?  And the weather is great (mostly) and I've started to meet people.  And the whole homeschooling thing is not my bag and if I ever really thought about doing it with Oliver, this Spring has shown me that I am not the best parent teacher.

At any rate, here is a recipe.

Saucepan Brownies*.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
2 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
2 eggs slightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 F

Melt butter and chocolate together
Add sugar.  Let cool completely
Add the eggs, vanilla, flour, and nuts.  Mix together until there are no lumps

Pour into a greased pan either (8x8 or 9x9)
Bake for 25-30 min.


*  I am sure that this recipe is already floating around the internet.  However, it is the recipe that my mom got from my grandmother, who probably got it off a box (or something).  And this is the recipe that tastes like home.  Just like I only make the pancake recipe from the Joy of Cooking 1972 edition.

Check In

There are some really positive things going in my life right now:

Phil is potty trained.  And boy was that HARD!  It was months of false starts and me thinking he was ready when he really wasn't.  And then in the past month: BOOM.  Potty trained AND (mostly) night trained.  It is awesome.  I am sure that as soon as I hit publish, he'll regress.  But I doubt it, because it has been almost a month and he's pretty good.

I've lost 10 lbs since moving out here.  If I had realized what my daily Coke and weekly fast food habit has doing to my waist line, I would have stopped long ago.  And would never have gained the weight.  I'm hoping that my continued success at limiting sugar will last for a long time and with some excerise I'll be a weight I haven't seen since college.  I doubt I'll ever be high school skinny again, but I'll accept junior year skinny.  And healthier too, because I'll be able to run a 5k without stopping.

Generally, I feel really good about my life.  Except sometimes, when it gets overwhelming.

Since this a blog:  I leave the bad things to:

I am lonely.  I miss my family and friends, I miss dropping the kids off at school, and I miss that my kids used to get a lot more interaction with other people.

Just once

Just once, I'd like to leave the house wearing my bra correctly. Perhaps when I stop breast feeding.

Seattle Bucket List

Believe it or not, I actually have some "fashion" posts coming up, but right now I want to talk about Bucket Lists.  Normally, I think that Bucket lists are kinda lame.  But since we moved to Seattle and I bought a travel guide for Seattle, I've been thinking that maybe creating one would be interesting.  

This list is not complete.

Space Needle (Competed Jan 4, 2014)

Aquarium (Completed Dec   28, 2013)

Pike Market (Completed Aug 2014)

Woodland Park Zoo (Completed July 2015)

Watch Salmon run (Completed April 2014)

Go Whale Watching

Alki Beach

Discovery Park  (Completed Feb 22, 2014)

Gas Works Park (Completed July 2015)

Seaward Park

EMP  (Completed September 2015)

Botanical Gardens (there are two.  One is in Seattle and one is in Bellevue)

Seattle Art Museum

Frye Museum

Science Center (Completed June 2015)

Children's Museum

Olympic Art Garden

Native American  museum

Asian Art Museum

Pioneer Square gallery

A show at one of the early venues Nirvana played at

Kurt Cobain pilgrimage

Visit Jimi Hendrix's grave

Eat Geoduck

Visit the first Starbucks. ( Completed July 2014)

Major sporting event

Wander around Fremont and find: the troll, Lenin, the rocket, and other street art.

Visit Mt. Rainer, the Olympic Mountains, and the North Cascades.  (not in the same trip though).

There are some things I'd like to add: like find the good restaurant, the main road race for the city and participate, and some of the other pop culture stuff, find a really awesome coffee place, and shop the more interesting boutiques.  These ones are more nebulous but when I figure out what the are I'd like to do them.   

On a happier note

On a somewhat happier note:  Back in November, I wrote that I wanted to stop drinking soda.  And generally I have.  As a result, I have lost almost 10 pounds and all but one pair of jeans don't fit.  I am really excited about this weight loss.  And it makes realize that if I just hadn't started drinking soda how much better my weight always would have been. 

Now, it I could just not drink or eat as much sugar and carbs.  

A little late

Warning: Thoughts on a tragic event.

Last week I went to the information session for the school that Oliver will most likely go to in the fall.  It is a good school and I think that he'll be fine there.  

One of the very first things after the introduction of the principal was a discussion of safety during the school day.  For the most part, it was there are badges and the principal usually knows the people in the school and pretty much everybody will stop and ask you who/why you are there from a "friendly" standpoint.  But sitting there in the school library I just felt the magnitude of Newtown in a way that I hadn't before.  And I know that there has been plenty of real and virtual words that talk about it, but it hit home soo much clearer than before.  And my heart broke again for the teachers who risked their lives, the students and teachers who lost their lives, and the parents who will never watch their children go into second graders, tweens, adults.  And I almost started bawling right there.  

Intellectually, I know that Newtown is an isolated event.  I know that in the course of the 15 years that my sons will be part of the public school system, the only reason they will (most likely) on "lockdown" is because of over-zealous principals and police.  But I can imagine the fear and worry that some principals must have because of these events.  

May our children be safe.

An update

I just downloaded the blogger app and I am using my phone to update right now! I know that the font and the tags won't be there but I am tired of having to be annoyed when I use the big desktop. I prefer to use it but right now it isn't worth the hassle. 

Moving In

We have a (rental) house! And we are moved in!  Now if I could get the kids bedroom and the playroom organized, fixed up and tidy we'd  be all set!

It's nice to be in a bigger place with more room, but I really hate the toy explosion and the crap explosion.  I know that most of it IS stuff that we use, but it generally feels like things that we don't need.  Just stuff everywhere!  And I haven't figured out where to put it yet.  And when I do put it away somewhere, it gets pulled out like 5 minutes later!.  It is pretty annoying.  This annoyance goes back to the idea that maybe I should have purged everything before we moved except what we got for Christmas and Fred's birthday.  

I think once we get used to the house and really have everything figured out to where it goes it will be nice to be here.  

Shoulda/Woulda/Coulda

I have never moved across country before this move, and for whatever reason I did not research it.  Part of it was a certain amount of naivety on my part and part of it was that it completely didn't occur to me that it was something I should have researched.  

So here's my list of things that I should have done:

1.  I wish we had sold/donated all of our stuff as if we were going to be living in a ridiculously small 2 bed room apartment.  I did clean out (diaper) several boxes of toys and got rid of quite a bit of baby stuff, but it still won't be enough.  The garage stuff now has no where to go and there really isn't much of a need for it either.  I knew that we should have sold the weight stuff, but I guess I was hoping that there would be garage here, and at least at the places we've looked garages are a rarity.  I do realize that if we had gone farther into the suburbs, we would have garages, but the commute would have been too long.

2. I over-packed.  I should have limited everything that the kids and Ib  would need to two suitcases.  Instead we had three big suitcases and several carry-ons.  It was a bit silly.


3. Speaking of the plane trip: I should have had one carry-on for the kids total.  I had to much stuff and it was difficult to keep up with it.  And they were happy with one toy and they did a great job of sleeping on the plane.  

4.  I should have shipped the cats separately from us.  My dad was keeping them and I'm sure that the cats would have been fine going as cargo once we got settled into our permanent address.  With extra cost of a larger rental car and the annoyance of carrying them through the airport, I would have spent the same amount of money just to ship them.  It's been nice having them here, but the majority of the time outside cat is starting to lose her mind with being cooped up inside the apartment. 

5.  I would have done better at finding property to look at.  Overall, I did okay, but I feel that the pretty unicorn of cheap and big enough is still out there.  

Some Pictures

We've been to a lot of parks. 

We've also been looking at a few different houses for a permanent place to live.  This part has been both fun and frustrating.  Fun because I love looking at different houses and trying to picture me, my family, and all of our stuff in one.  However, it has been frustrating because we have a lot of stuff and houses in our preferred commute zone and school level are much smaller than we are used to.  In hindsight, I wish that we had sold/donated almost all of our furniture and stuff back in Atlanta.  We have found at least three candidates that are really good and two that would be adequate if the first three don't work out.  We have put an application in on two of the three and will hopefully hear back in a few days.  The Seattle rental market is tough/tight and it's really tight since winter is not when sane people move.  Hopefully, we'll be in a place for a longer term than just a year.  

Not dead

But the blog sure is.

It's not really a New Year's Resolution to work on this again, more like really committing to the time and writing and publishing what is going on.  Again, it is hard because as soon as I go near the computer, Fred starts crying.  And yes I know that most people would tell me to suck it up and let him cry, but at least for me it doesn't work that way.  I do when it is really important to use the computer.

At any rate, we've moved!!!  We're no longer in the Atlanta suburbs but have moved out to Seattle for a new job with Amazon.  Yay!  (or something).  I know that I was the one who pushed Matt into to taking the job, not that he really needed the pushing but needed the reassurance that it would be okay.  It will be, but again right now is stressful.

I should probably detail it out, but honestly it has been an adventure with hopefully a good outcome maybe not all of the treasure in world like Bilbo, but a positive outcome.  The kids have mostly seemed to adjusted to the time shift and that is good.  The first night they went to bed at 9pm Seattle time and woke up 3;30 Seattle time, so not enough sleep and then they were cranky.  But I think that they're finally on the right time.  Thank goodness!

I have pictures and will post them soon.  I think once I get settled into a real house with my stuff, I will either start to love Seattle or I'll have a really strong episode of homesickness.  I was sad when we drove to the Atlanta airport, and I had to tell myself that I can do this.  Once we got here (after the day of travel) it's been fine.  Mostly.  Thursday, I got my car back and I re-did my presets on the radio.  I almost cried over that, it makes it seem so much realer than just having the kids and even the cats here.  It's acknowledging that it is unlikely that my car will go back to Atlanta, and certainly not anytime soon.  I know that we'll visit every year, but still it won't be the same.

Let's not let this die again.