Seattle

was awesome. The end.

Just kidding. I have lots of details and photos to share - I know this post is a bit overdue, but I haven't been exactly sure if I should break up our trip or just go for one long mega-post.

Mega-post it is.

We arrived on what I'm told was one of the first nice days in Seattle. And it was so nice. Coming in on the plane, there was a beautiful view of the mountain (and what a lot of snow it had!), the sound, and the Olympics. Everything was so green. And blue. And sparkly.

I was on the ground in Seattle for approximately 1 hour before cupcakes were consumed. Outstanding. This was followed by a very nice dinner with some of our closest Seattle friends. How I'd missed it all - the friends, the food, the trees....

On Sunday, our very good friends Scott and Meredith threw us a super-awesome baby shower. They truly went all out - someone described the event "like Martha, but without all the pretension." The food was amazing, the shower game (matching children's books and their main characters) fun, and the company outstanding.Monday, Mike did his song and dance at the University. I didn't attend, but all reports indicate that it was a glowing success! I did attend the dinner in his honor that evening; it was so nice to see some of his advisors again and to see how proud they were of him.

Tuesday, Mike worked in the library. But, first, we went for super-yummy brunch with SYL and Cee. Here's a photo taken post-brunch (I had a big breakfast, to be fair).Wednesday, we left on our little side-trip to Leavenworth. For those not in the know, Leavenworth is a small town on the eastern side of the Cascades (up over Steven's Pass). The town has a Bavarian theme to it; it's very popular for Octoberfests (and the week after we were there, they were planning an accordion festival - so sorry to have missed that!).

Leavenworth is a little kitschy, but being nestled right in the mountains, it's also totally beautiful. We stayed at this lovely B&B on the outskirts of town. Here are some pictures taken at the B&B (the first two show the view from our room).The B&B also had, of course, a pet goat.I cannot stress enough how idyllic and tranquil and green Leavenworth was. Part of what made it so beautiful were all the mountains. The mountains, however, did not make for easy hiking (which, alas, was the only kind of hiking I was up for). We did manage to find a one-mile flat nature loop, though.What else was there to do in Leavenworth? Well, German towns aren't known for their vegetarian-friendliness. Luckily, this was a German-ish town near Seattle, so there was, in fact, a very good vegetarian sausage to be had.So good, in fact that one of us went back to the sausage restaurant and had the same thing again for dinner. I won't tell you which one of us, but I do think the picture above speaks for itself.

Another low-impact activity we did was to play mini-golf at the Bavarian-themed mini-golf course in town. Mike won, but I did give him a good run for his money.Friday morning we drove back across the pass.Friday afternoon I got to hang out with Jen Em and Daisy. Here are a few Daisy shots:And then Friday night was book club. Here are the book club ladies.Book club also featured a very special dessert made by Meredith: whoopie pies. They were good.Saturday morning we got to spend some time playing with Zachary.The rest of Saturday featured a trip to Green Lake, more cupcakes (hooray!), and a very nice farewell dinner with Bee & Cee and SYL (although Kris was missing).So that was our trip. It was good - so good - to be back in Seattle. We had a wonderful time; we really do miss our friends and it was so great to be able to spend time (although not enough) with so many of them. Thank you, friends, for re-arranging your schedules to see us!

We also appreciated the trees, the cooler temperatures, and, yes, the rain. Although, just to make sure we weren't getting too sad without any rain, we had a massive storm here last night - complete with hail, power loss, lightening, etc. Take that, Seattle!

Etc.

We didn't do much last weekend. Saturday was graduation, so Mike did that while I ran various errands around town. Sunday, we just hung out at the house.

Since Sunday was Mother's Day, one of our friends gave me a very nice cookie.And Mike also assembled the changing table/dresser and a bookshelf in the baby's room. Pictures to come once we get and assemble the crib and once we hang some stuff on the walls. Even though we haven't done any of that yet, the room is still sort of starting to come together.

And last night we went to a baseball game. It was our first game here in Texas (and possibly our last for this season, given the rising temperatures and impending summer plans). The stadium is actually really nice, but, alas, the team from the city of Starbucks did not triumph (despite a certain someone wearing his rally cap).
Saturday we're off to the land of cupcakes, Thai food, and our friends for a week. I can't wait!

New Items

Well, we're making some progress around here.

First, we did manage to go furniture shopping this weekend. And we picked out a sofa. And it was even slightly under our budget. Hooray for success!

We went with this one:(This picture seems excessively orange-y; the sofa is much more cranberry-y / darker than this. Also, those pillows are not going to be in our living room - we'll be going with dark blue and beige pillows, I think.)

To be fair, this wasn't one of the choices on the great sofa poll post. But it was the one we liked the best in the store. We did seriously consider the red microfiber one (this one is a tightly woven chenille), but I was a little weirded out by the suede-y feel of the microfiber.

We got a matching loveseat and ottoman. And we got the stain protection on all the pieces.

The furniture arrives Thursday. Yay! Now all we need are some bookshelves (and to get our books out of Mike's office at work) and we'll be in business!

In other news, Mike's department hosted a shower for us last Thursday. It was really, really sweet - especially since we've only been in town for such a short time.

Here are a few pictures from the shower:In addition the above-pictured rocker and many small items, we were also fortunate enough to receive our stroller. Here's a picture of the stroller:Again, I swear I am not turning into red person. I still like blue! And purple! And green!

We also picked up some of the baby furniture this weekend (this furniture is also part of a very generous gift from Mike's family). We had ordered it from JC Penny a few weeks ago and we'd selected the shipping option where they send it to the nearest store rather than to your house (this was a serious savings). The first part of our order came in last week.

We'd planned to go and get it on Saturday afternoon. Alas, there was an extremely intense rainstorm. First, we lost power, which meant that we were essentially locked in our house since our garage door opener wouldn't work (of course, we could have manually opened it, but that would have been a lot of work - and then we'd have to figure out how to close it securely). Then the power came back on, but it started hailing! This was only my second time ever in a hailstorm, so I wasn't even really sure what the sound was at first (now I know that that sound is property damage). Luckily, our house and windows seem fine; some of our veggie plants look much the worse for wear, but hopefully they'll pull through. So, finally, we accepted that driving around was just not in the cards for us on Saturday afternoon.

On Sunday morning Mike picked up the changing table and the rails needed to convert the crib into a big-kid bed (the crib itself is back-ordered until the end of the month). Here's the changing table (although ours is in a darker wood):

Busy weekend!

First, thanks for all your helpful comments on the couch situation. We didn't go furniture shopping this weekend, but that's on the agenda for next weekend. So we'll take all your thoughtful suggestions and combine them with our own experience of actually sitting on the couches to make, hopefully, a comfy and stylish decision.

So, if we didn't hit furniture stores this weekend, what did we do? Lots!

First, we had our good friends (and fellow left coasters) over for dinner on Friday night. Mike made a bunch of yummy Middle Eastern mezze and then we actually dined outside on our back patio. It was really pleasant. I think we might need a larger table, though - the little outdoor table that we had was perfectly sized for Seattle decks, not Texas backyards!

Saturday morning we were up early to make it to the plant store. I had wanted to go last weekend, but forgot to check the store's hours - it ended up being closed on Sundays. So this Saturday it was. We were off to buy veggie starts and some flowers for my hanging baskets.

We spent about an hour at the plant store, picking out lots of things (hope springs eternal, no?). And then we came back, showered, and got ready to go on our first ever Dallas excursion. Yes, that's right, we've lived here nearly a year and haven't really been to Dallas yet (I've been to Love Field once, but that doesn't really count).

Our first stop in Dallas was to visit a friend of Mike's from high school. This person moved to Dallas right around when we moved to Fort Worth, but we hadn't had a chance to connect yet. Mike and I had planned a late lunch at the restaurant he manages. See how I made that sound all casual? Wrong! This guy trained as a fancy chef and now works for the Ritz-Carlton managing the flagship restaurant for the entire Ritz-Carlton hotel brand, Fearing's (In case you are keeping score at home, Dean Fearing is the guy who made southwestern cuisine a thing way back when).The hotel was, of course, beautiful, and lunch was very yummy, too! One thing that really impressed us was that the restaurant actually had a meaningful vegetarian menu, not just steamed broccoli on pasta or other lame veggie choices (which are all too common here in Texas, even in really nice places). We even got to try the vegetarian version of the signature tortilla soup. Delicious! Mike had halibut and I had salmon, and then we had the butterscotch custard and the strawberry shortcake for dessert. Totally, totally amazing!

(As an aside, we made plans to hang out with Mike's friend again, but there's no way we'd have his family over for dinner - my ideas were the Japanese garden or a picnic in a park. We're good cooks, but, um, not Ritz-Carlton level. And that's okay.)

After our late lunch, a tour of the hotel, and some visiting, we headed up to North Dallas to attend a lecture by a professor from my college. This was an event sponsored by the local alumnae club, so it was great to meet some other women in the area.

The lecture - about Latin America - was also really interesting. It was given by a political science professor, though not someone I had known from my college years. After the lecture, we were invited to join the speaker and the club's host for dinner at a Cuban restaurant near SMU. We were still a little too full from lunch to truly appreciate it, but dinner was also tasty!

And then, exhausted and stuffed, we drove home. All in all, Dallas seemed fine - the area where we had dinner seemed like it had a lot of promise in terms of coffeeshops and culture (although we didn't really explore). We'll go back at some point - although it feels far, it really only is an hour away; it's just hard to find reason to go when everything you need can be found so much closer!

Sunday morning we were invited to a brunch party. This was part a we-haven't-seen-each-other-in-so-long kind of thing and part a celebration of the end of the semester (Mike's last day of classes is tomorrow). Brunch was yummy! I made my standard lemon-buttermilk blueberry muffins - only I used blackberries, since they were what looked best at the store.After brunch, we went to Home Depot to buy the rest of the items needed for our garden project. As new homeowners, we didn't have things like shovels, trowels, clippers, etc. We also needed to pick up some soil amendment and some mulch.

And then we planted! We've put the garden in the raised bed (we tore out some sod to do this) right in the center of our backyard.Here's what we planted:
tomatoes: Early Girl, Golden Girl, Brandywine, Sweet Million, Sweet 100, Roma
bell pepper: chocolate beauty, and a sweet yellow variety
basil: sweet, thai, and spicy
eggplant: ichiban
chili pepper: anaheim
mint: regular, orange
oregano
rosemaryWe'll see what takes - one of the tomato plants is already looking a bit sorry, but hopefully it will revive with the rain we've had yesterday and the sun we'll hopefully get today (I am also prepared to hand-water the plants, but I don't think the problem with this particular plant is a lack of water). At this point, I just really hope that something takes - I know that we don't have the best soil, so that could be an issue. Also, these plants are going in the ground a tad late - I hope there's time for them to flower and fruit before the big heat of the summer sets in.

For the hanging baskets, I did a mix of petunia, verbena, and calibrocha. Now I just need to decide where these baskets should go!

Design on a dime?

This is really more of a collecting-my-thoughts-in-one-place post than anything that might be actually interesting. But so it goes.

So Mike and I are going to buy a couch. Our very first grown-up, non-futon couch. We want it to be comfy, and we want it to be somewhat durable and somewhat stain resistant (you know, given our forthcoming addition and all). This isn't our "forever" couch - we've decided that will wait until any mini-people are past the super-stainy stage. So this is, like, a beater couch. But, in theory, a better beater than what we have going now.

This is our living room now - pretty bland, not much color, mostly a blank palette.

This is the only object that we are sort of trying to match in the living room - it hangs above the fireplace in dark brown frame with deep red undertones.Here are the sofas we are considering. Keep in mind that we are probably going to buy a sofa plus a loveseat/chair/chaise. I'm not super into matchy-matchy, but I do think the room will look better (and less graduate student haphazard) if the main pieces (at least most of them) are part of the same set.

The first is this red deal. I am SO not a red person - my prior two futon/couches were blue. But, lately, I've started to think that blue ends up looking sort of denim-y and thus frat-y. On the other hand, blue does match the picture quite nicely. But maybe red is good? A change? Some contrast? And certainly very forgiving on the stains (also, this set is very forgiving on the wallet as well). And then we could pull the room together with some navy and butter throw pillows on the couch/chairs? (thereby matching the colors from the picture.)

I don't think the woman comes with the sofa, thankfully.

Here's the red set as a room:(keep in mind that we're only buying the stuff you'd sit on - not the rug or tables or lamps or pillows) (But maybe red couches only belong in brothels?)

Out other options are a little pricer, but a little more of my "traditional" style. But maybe I should do something a little different? Or maybe I'll end up regretting taking the risk?

This is the same sofa, first in twill oliveThose pillows would have to go, obviously. I think we'd still be looking at some dark blue and yellow pillows. The green is nice and inoffensive (although in this picture, it seems awfully light for an olive - obviously, we're going to see it in person before purchasing.). I don't know, though, that the green is better match with the picture than the red. The picture has some green, but not a lot and it's not likely the same shade of green.

Here's the same one in twill indigo. This is closest to what we have now (minus the pillows, which would, again, have to go). But I worry about the whole frat house look. I also don't want the sofa to look like a giant pair of jeans. But it does match the picture quite nicely!

And then in brown microfiber:Brown is fine, and safe. Our house already has a lot of brown, between the floors, the stair banister, and the kitchen cabinets (all of which are visible from the living room). We could put any color pillows on this and probably be fine. The dark color would forgive stains, and the microfiber is also supposed to be stain resistant. The microfiber is polyester and feels like suede; I have heard mixed reviews on the durability of microfiber, but these are coming from a store with a well-known name. With it coming in brown, though, I worry that our sofa might look like some furry beast, or something. Brown also doesn't do a lot for adding color to the room - but maybe that's what accent pillows and book spines are for?

I know this is sort of a lame comparison since I don't have room shots of all the sofas. Here's a sort of generic room picture of the style of sofa of the last three:


But, well, internets, what do you think? And, please, vote since I can tell you that one of us has no real opinion beyond "comfortable" and the other one of us doesn't want to make the wrong decision for her first big new-house purchase......

[Also, it's not like these are the only choices on earth, but these are the leading contenders. The blue-and-yellow store is out, but stores like this and this and maybe this are our speed. Yes, we know about craigslist. However, the transporting-a-couch-yourself-thing seems a little daunting right now. Yes, we also know about consignment stores. However, given my allergies, it's often tough to buy used furniture, since pet dander has a way of creeping inside things and settling there. Our goals for this project are a) affordable, and b) easy.]

Florida Report

This post is a bit late in coming, since it's hard to come back from vacation on Sunday and plunge right into the workweek. Tasks like "grocery shopping" and "laundry" kept getting in the way. (Also, "walking", but that's another story we'll get to in a minute).

So, overall, Florida was awesome, beautiful, relaxing, fun, and lovely. It was really nice to see Mike's family. I'd go back! In a heartbeat!We stayed on Lido Key, which is close to downtown Sarasota, but far enough away that it felt beachy and peaceful. Here are some obligatory beach shots:Mike's aunt and uncle also winter in Sarasota, so we got to see them. We were also joined by Mike's cousin from Buffalo and her family, including her two adorable kids (some of you may remember the older child who was about four months old at our wedding):We had lots of family hang-out time.We also ate Key Lime Pie (a staple in my understanding of Florida cuisine).Equally wonderful, there were loquats!(I should also mention that I just got a big shipment of loquats from my grandmother. If were feeling inspired, maybe I'd try something like this. But that seems like a lot of work for something that isn't even chocolate!).

The only complication came from my left foot (ha, ha, right?). It was swollen and painful and became more so while we were there - by Saturday night it was pretty painful and I couldn't put any weight on it. I was afraid it was a blood clot. Luckily, it wasn't. After spending some time in the Sarasota ER (accompanied by the ever-patient Mike and his father) and then seeing my own doctor here, it seems that the likely diagnosis is torn ligaments/tendons or a stress fracture. I don't know which one it is, and it doesn't really matter since the treatment for both is the same [and apparently both are more common in pregnancy - who knew?]. So, basically, I'm trying to walk less, wear comfy shoes, and hope it heals soon. It has gotten better since we've returned, but it still has a while to go.

That blue-and-yellow-store-from-Sweden

Last Saturday we went on a excursion. I know that some people might say they they went "shopping" or that they "popped out to get a few things." They'd make it sound casual, fun, convenient.

Alas, for us, the store in question is too far to make it a routine, regular event. So all last week we steeled ourselves for the trip. Mike almost had me thinking it wasn't going to be too bad. Almost.

It's about a 1.5 hour drive from our house, northeast of Dallas. Really, we'd have no reason to go there but for a retail establishment offering cheap furniture.

The shopping part goes fine: after some brief debate, we manage to pick out what we'd come there to get (bookcases for our living room that match our TV cart) and a few other things we needed (shelving for the baby's room, a nightstand for the guest room, etc.). We even stopped to have lunch in the cafe. Mike ate the gravlax. I was disgusted by this and ate salad. I'm still shocked he didn't get food poisoning.

The trouble comes when we enter the "self-service" part of the warehouse. I guess they call it this to distinguish it from the rest of the store where people are just tripping over their feet to help you.

First, the location given in the upstairs showroom is not the location where the bookcases are found. Second, when we finally do find the right spot, the bookcase now costs $30 more. Apparently, different colors are different prices. Of course they are. Third, they are out of our desired color. No, there are none in the back. No, they don't think they'll get any more in for at least three weeks. No, they can't call us when they come in (oh, but we can call them!). No, they won't deliver if we pay now. No, they won't offer us a discount since we just drove 1.5 hours only to figure out that they don't have our items in stock.

And, this, dear readers, is the part where I'd like to say we broke up with Eye-KAY-uh and left the store never to return.

Except, no.

We picked up the rest of our items, including a very nice desk for me. You know, now that we had space in the car....
And then we left. And we have broken up with said store. Seriously, I never want to go back. I also never want to assemble my own desk again: the screws were so cheap that the threads shredded when you screwed them in, and the unfinished pressboard sides gave me splinters. Oh, I am so, so over it.

(And, just to stress how far the drive was , driving home we both realized we were thirsty. And we were so far from home that we actually had to pull over and stop at a store to get something to drink, since it would be, like, more than hour until we got home. We stopped at a grocery store. And, because it is Texas, this grocery store had a walk-in beer cooler. I cannot tell you what a good idea that seemed like at that moment.)

Also, we still don't have bookcases. And the likelihood that we'll be able to find something that matches our TV cart is pretty slim (after all, the TV cart came from that very same store and was bought my first year in Seattle). So it's onward and upward for us, to the big-kid furniture stores. Or at least the next step up.

The good news is that we are off to the Sunshine State tomorrow, so I'm thinking that this weekend is bound to be better than last weekend.....