Why I'll be earing a back brace in the near future...

Today is the official start of "busy season" at work. It's not my favorite time of year, but every year it seems I blink and it is already spring so I'm happy for the quick passage of winter. One of the downsides of busy season - reviewing work - this is what I carried home from work today and what I have to carry with me to the office tomorrow. Apologies to the trees.

Home Cookin'

Nothing beats Cass's homemade chili on a cold, cold night. And tonight was a cold, cold night. Thanks Cass for the good eats!

Quiddler

After spending two weeks straight with family, tonight Cass & I enjoyed a night alone wearing comfortable clothes and playing Quiddler. For the record, I won the first round. Round two starts in just a moment. Thank you Kimber for the introduction...and yes world, this is my idea of a perfect Saturday night.

Resolving to Remember

I'm not one for making New Year's resolutions - mainly because I'm not really a person that follows through with many projects, but also because I've never really been inspired to change or improve something. However, this last week I have been relfecting on the past and I have come up with a project for 2010. You see, I was trying to think about all the major events, both good and bad, that occurred in 2009. I can come up with a few:

• My 30th birthday


• Trips to San Fran, Seattle, CA, IA, MI, NY to visit family and friends


• Trip to Greece & Turkey with Cass, followed by a week in Greece with some girlfriends


• The passing of Cassidy's grandmother


• Moving from Lakeview to Bucktown


• Our wedding anniversary


• Cass completing a triathlon


• A work promotion for Cass & I


• My uncle's diagnosis of brain cancer, and his passing just a few days ago

While the above events did shape a bulk of our 2009, I know there are so many things that happened that I just cannot remember. The little things, the "in-between" moments, that ultimately bring the most joy to me on a daily basis. I want to remember these little things. I want to look back at them and laugh, cry, feel the feeling I had when the little thing happened. With the passing of my uncle and while listening to the amazing words spoken about him at his memorial which occurred on the date of his 60th birthday, I realized that life is short and memories, both good and bad, are precious. I wish I had more pictures of him, and us as a family. However at most gatherings, I find myself thinking that I don't want to get out my camera and that there will be time "later" to take a picture. Well, you never know when "later" will become impossible.

So, for the new year I am going to try to post one picture every day that represents something about that day. This is my resolution. Enjoy and Happy New Year.

Today's pictures is of the three remaining Christmas cookies I have that were baked by my Grandma (Grams). As far back as I can remember, these exact cookes have been made by her. This year she kept them in the garage and I'm not kidding, any time someone came in or out, there was a cookie in their hand. We even went so far as to hide the tins from others to keep more for ourselves...and in the spirit of being honest, there were actually four cookies when I started my little photo shoot...

San Francisco, April 2009 (Days 3 & 4)

For our last full day in SF together we headed out to get close(ish) to the Golden Gate Bridge. Considering I am deathly afraid of suspension bridges and my mom isn't exactly a fan of heights or bridges, walking (or driving for that matter) across the bridge was OUT. OF. THE. QUESTION. Instead we thought we would take a nice leasurely stroll to a point that would allow for me to take some fabulous pictures. No such luck on that front because it seems that the best vantage point for a good shot is on the other side of the bridge. Sooo.... here is a picture from wikipedia which didn't involve me having to hold back uncontrollable tears and niagra falls palm sweat.


Having satisfied the need to see the bridge, we took a very long, and very steep walk to Lombard Steet or the incorrectly dubbed "Crookedest Street in the World". After catching our breath and waiting for the fire in our legs to subside (there are some serious hills around there) we began the 1/4 mile descent. Traffic was back to back and people were hopping out of their cars to get a picture of their family in their car on Lombard Street. I suppose everyone there was a tourist so it didn't seem to bother most people. Although, I have to imagine living on that street gets pretty old, pretty quickly.

All this work had us heading for some caffeine and a drink - so we had an all in one drink, irish coffees! We went to The Buena Vista, the first place in American to make an Irish Coffee. It had a really interesting history, which can be found on their website: http://www.thebuenavista.com/irishcoffee.html. We stuck around for a while to enjoy a few drinks as well as watch the process of them being made. The bartenders make 20 or so at a time and somehow manage to accomodate and remember special orders.


Post drinks and all that walking around, we hopped on a trolley back to our hotel to put our feet up and turn on the tube for one last night of girl talk and "48 Hour Mystery". Due to the crazy hills, the trolly provided an excellent location for some nice pictures of the city around us.


On our last 1/2 day before heading to the airport we went to see the "Painted Ladies" on Alamo Square. Admittedly, I was most familiar with them due to my fun filled Friday nights watching Full House and developing my girl crush on Uncle Jessie. "What ever happened to predictability? The milkman, the paperboy, the evening TV..." Anyone else know this song??? Ok, so back to the houses. They were very charming to see and I wished there would have been one that was open to the public just so we could walk through it. Since we had another hour or so to kill, we headed through the park and witnessed a dog walked with no less than 10 dogs. They all seemed perfectly under control though so he must rule them Cesar Millan style and be the true pack leader.

We walked all the way to the center of the Haight-Ashbury district. Seeing as neither of us were in the market for marijuana inspired accessories/decor/pharaphanila, we instead did some serious people watching and enjoyed the last of our time together in SF.

I look forward to another trip next year with just the two of us! Where should we go??!!

San Francisco, April 2009 (Days 1 & 2)

Waaaayyy back in April, as a gift to my mom, I planned and arranged a weekend trip for the two of us to San Francisco. Neither of us had been before so we planned a full weekend of sight-seeing. After arriving and getting settled into our hotel in Union Square, we promptly set out to explore and decided to head to the relatively close Chinatown. We putzed around through the shops, watched fortune cookies being made, and enjoyed the architecture. That evening we wandered aimlessly throughout the city and eventually settled into our beds. Thus began the "48 Hour Mystery" tradition...for each of the 3 nights we curled up in our beds and watched 2 back to back episodes while munching on cookies and drinking wine. A perfect ladies night!

Saturday morning we were up and out early for the farmer's market where we bought fresh cheese, bread, and pastries for our breakfast. We then made our way to Pier 39. On the way, we happened upon this guy:
He would sit with those branches hiding him and then jump out to scare unsuspecting passerby. My mom loved this and ran up to him to grab a picture. What ensued was a hysterical conversation in which he said "If you want to take a picture of my bush, you need to pay me!"...to which my mom replied "That's what I always say!". After that, they were like long lost best friends and we spent a bit of time chatting with him. And here's the picture of my mom in his bush (which we did pay for):


Pier 39 was nothing special...aside from the sea lions, which I LOVED! We watched some turf wars, but mostly witnessed a lot of sleepy animals. We spent a bit of time on the pier and then left to make our boat trip over to Alcatraz. To be honest, I didn't know much about "The Rock" other than its lengthy list of infamous prisoners. We did the audio tour and I thought it was fascinating. I highly recommend the trip over and the full audio tour. Plus...the views are amazing.




Our full day of walking and exploring had us back in our hotel early and settled in just in time for another "48 Hours" marathon.

Seatte, May 2009

During May and June, I spend a lot of time in Seattle for work. As I spent many a summer in Portland, I have quite a bit of love for the Pacific Northwest. I like the feel out there - the green, the natural beauty, the air, the people. Typically Cassidy makes a few trips and we get to spend some time exploring the city. However, this past trip my mom and sister Lindsay joined me for a girls' weekend. I am certain Lindsay left just as smitten as I am and there is talk of her going to work for Seattle Grace in the near future :)


Our weekend consisted of typical tourist things such as checking out Pike's Place Market and strolling through the slew of goods available for sale. And although I'm not really one to buy fish - the stall of the famous fish throwers had my entranced. And it wasn't the fish that had me...it was the little old guy who was standing behind the counter with a string tied to a fish. If someone came close enough, he would pull it, scare the bejesus out of someone, and snicker. If the man below ends up missing someday, rest assured I have him at my house and we are most likely having a carnation instant breakfast and toast.




We also went on a short ferry boat ride. We didn't really go to get somewhere, we just went to be out on the water. We were extremely lucky in that we had beautiful weather all weekend long. This meant unusually clear skies so I was able to get a pretty clear view of Mt. Rainier as well as other views that the fog would typically hide.








We rounded out our trip with Seattle's famous "Underground Tour" which is essentially a walk in Seattle's basement with a comedian who knows some crazy Seattle history. It is really entertaining and I highly recommend for those visiting - although I would give it a PG-13 rating. And obviously, what is a tourist trek around Seattle without a visit to the needle?




Hands down, the best part of the weekend (company aside) were the stunning sunsets. You just don't see this every day. But I certainly wish I could.