Today I felt like I was in a movie

You’ve Got Mail. I love that movie. Just like Kathleen Kelly, I hopped off the bus, walked into Starbucks (insert: Cherry Street Coffee), ordered a latte, walked out down the street to my independent bookstore to open up (insert: advertising company). The sun was shining the water was in sight. I had a hop in my step and a twinkle in my eye. At the end of the day, I dreamed of running into Joe Fox and Brinkley (insert: Rob, Stewie & Brian).

We are packing for vacation now. Hoping to leave at 5am tomorrow morning to get on the ferry since we don’t have a reservation. We’ll be staying 2 nights in Tofino, 1 nights in Port McNeill, 2 nights camping with the Orcas, and 2 nights in Campbell River. Maybe 1 more night, we’ll see how it goes.

Happy Canada Day!
Happy 4th of July!
Happy Anniversary to Rob & Allison (3 years, wow)!

Feeling Hot Hot Hot

Seattle doesn’t get a ton of heat. It also doesn’t have a lot of humidity, which is a good thing. However, because we don’t get a lot of hot days… nobody has air conditioning. NOBODY. Needless to say, I have been hanging in the basement where it is nice and cold and spending as much time outside as possible. I was actually excited to go to work this week because they DO have air conditioning.

We’ve been riding our bikes around a lot. You really have to hand it to the Seattle bus system. All the buses have bus racks on the front of the bus, which allows us to take it home since we live ON Beacon Hill.

Other fun things we did this weekend:
Ray’s Boat House in Ballard. A really nice restaurant with a great view. Really a nice place to bring friends and family who are here visiting.
I took a cables class at So Much Yarn. I love that shop and I am sure I will take another class there.
Shopping to get some things to get ready for our vacation. We are spending a little over a week touring Vancouver Island next week. We’re staying in B&Bs and dinky hotels and then camping for 3 nights while we are there. Almost everyplace will have free wi-fi so stay tuned for pictures and postings.

International Festival of Arts & Ideas New Haven

I have to admit I am extremely sad that I am missing the Festival this year. Last year in Feb I quit my stable full time job and decided to work as an intern at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, CT. It was a gutsy move on my part and one that I would have never made if it wasn’t for Rob’s support. I used the job as a 3 credit internship and actually wrote my Master’s thesis on the effectiveness of the website and promotional emails.

It was by far one of the best experiences I’ve had. I met some great friends and experienced things that I never would have otherwise. From that, I learned the non profit sector wasn’t for me, but also realized how hard they work to get money to put on this 2 week festival. When times are tight, people don’t donate to the arts and jobs are cut because you have to meet your budget.

The e-blasts (that I used to build and send out) are to me. When the first one arrived, I got chills. I just remember how much fun I was having last year at this time.

Some of my favs from last year's festival:

Caribbean Traffik Jam - A free concert Saturday night on the green. New Haven was hopping. My sister was there with us and we had such a blast.

Gilles Apap - Solo Violin. It was magical. Rob and I loved it.

The Brazz Brothers - They played a Sunday concert at the chapel and we didn't go because it wasn't air conditioned. I heard it was wonderful and I was so sad I missed it. However, they played a free concert the next day and it was really something. The directory of AI had just accepted a position as the head of a festival in Stavanger Norway so there was a lot of artist influence from Norway.

Projects

Oh it’s Sunday night and today has been so relaxing. We had a really fun weekend. On Friday Adam & Liz came over to play Bond and Mario Kart. Gosh, it’s been years since I did that and it was great. Saturday we met with some of Rob’s old friends from grade school for dinner at Jai Thai and the drinks to follow at Kells. It was fun and lucky us, we recorded another installment of Cheaters, so we watched that when he got home at 2am. Today was a bit slower. I got in a lifer this afternoon, Born into Exile. You can never get too much Zack Morris. I also stopped back at So Much Yarn because they had a sale today. I just don’t think anything beats Seattle on a nice sunny day. I love it.

I wanted to update with some pictures since it had been a while and I have pictures of some of my completed projects.

1. A necklace – I have been really interested in beadwork and jewelry making. I think I might like to take a class. Making a necklace is easy, but I think I would like to get into more detailed jewelry making. I stopped at BeadWorld in the Maple Leaf Seattle neighborhood. The store was very cool, had a great selection, and were very helpful. When I got home, I made this necklace.


2. Sweater - This is my first Sweater from the Weekend Knitting book. I got the yarn super cheap and it is turning out OK. Looking at the sweater again... I'm really not sure when I will wear it when it is finishied. I just have the sleeves leftto go.


3. Hasana Shawl - I got this Berroco pattern for free from the website. Because the yarn is discontinued, I had to get the yarn on ebay. The problem being... I don't like the color. It turned out ok and thank goodness mom was here to help me figure out the pattern. Once I got it, it was easy.

4.Silk Scarf (Do you love my model?) - I just finished this because I liked the silk yarn. I know I will wear it.


5. Yellow Shrug - Another Berroco Pattern, . This one is also super easy. I added a button in the front and it turned out to be kind of cute. Lots of mistakes, but very soft. I actually even got a compliment from some woman on it this weekend.

6. My strawberries - They are growing so nice. I thought I could take a pictures and show them off.


7. Kitchen trim work - Rob spent a good part of the weekend cutting the bottom panels for the toe kick in the kitchen as well as the end panels for the cabinets. Just a few more small projects and we will finally be done with that project.

I am a handbag snob.

Not sure when it started. To this day I have never seen anyone with the same green coach purse that I have. That fills me with pride. I have started making some handbags and Vuala! It’s my own one of a kind handbag. My sister suggested 1154 Lill Sudio. It’s a custom handbag studio that allows you to choose your material for different designs of handbags. You can visit the actual shop in Chicago and a bunch of other eastern cities. However, Seattle doesn’t have one yet. So, I looked and looked and finally decided the Liz for myself. It looks like they don’t have the material that I chose for myself, I will have to add a pic later. About 4 weeks later, I got it in the mail and I love it, it was exactly what I needed for my day to day operations commuting to work. The problem was that I opened it when my mom was in town, she stole my invoice and claimed that she could make 10 of them for the price I paid! I guess it’s the price you pay for style. Even though she doesn’t believe me, I have received at 5 compliments on it already… so there. Anyway, they have tons of styles, so it’s worth checking out.

I had a softball game yesterday and even though we lost, I am proud that I hit a double AND I caught a pop fly ball. My husband stood on the sidelines cheering proudly. 

Cleaning Tiles

If you’ve ever been to our house, chances are you have noticed the shoddy workmanshiop on our kitchen floor tiles. This was our first adventure installing ceramic tile and it was actually quite simple until we the grout. I think I got lazy and stopped cleaning the grout. On Sunday I finally grabbed a sander, a scrub brush, bleach cleaner and a shop vac. I sanded and cleaned off every tile and to my surprise it was a mixture of the grout and the dirt that was making the tiles look so bad. Now that they are clean we can install the toe kick panels under the cabinets.


This weekend was extra special for us. On Friday I went out with my friends from work and needless to say, I was feel groggy in the morning. Rob and I had invited people over for a BBQ. We don’t have a lot of friends here yet, so we went down the list and invited everyone in the area that we knew. We ended up with a turnout of 8 people I think. It was tons of fun. People came and brought some food to add to the already large amount of food we had. Rob and I and our friend Chris and our other friends Liz & Adam stayed in the back patio just chatting away till around 11:30pm or so. It was fun. Even in Connecticut we would never have even known 8 people to invite over, so that is progress for us.

On Sunday Rob and I went down to the Pike Place Market and had an Irish Breakfast at Kells Pub. It was very good, just like the real deal in Ireland. We walked around the Marketand then I walked down to So Much Yarn, this yarn store is really great and every time I am there, I just want to buy everything. I bought some 50% off 100% silk yarn and some new needles.

Lots of stuff going on this week and it's staying light until 9:30pm!