Seattle Trip - Part Two

The Space Needle was constructed for one of the World's Fairs and is an amazing sculpture. I like to refer to it as the Seedle (Seattle) Needle. I think its catchier.

I highly recommend taking the time to check it out if you're in Seattle. We waited maybe 30 minutes to get to Observation deck and the majority of the wait is inside. We arrived at the needle just as the sun was setting. It really made for some stunning photos but some of the photo's turned out blurry. Le Sigh. I happen to love this one of me walking up to the ticket office.

Proud owner of two tickets to the observation deck!

Cool structures that are around the Needle

Same Structure but all lit up in the dark!


The view from the top was stunning! In one direction it was just the ocean and the coast

and the other direction was a lit up city. I love Seattle. It is so beautiful


A quick picture before the sun set. It was soo cold up there!

We had to get a picture of us both at the top too!

When we left the needle it was so dramatic against the very black night sky. Its really nice that the surround area isn't polluted with lights and businesses. It makes the Needle really stand out!


After we were all done in the gift shop we took the mono rail back to downtown which was only a few blocks away from our hotel!


More to come tomorrow!

Seattle Trip - Part One

Last month, Jack and I flew up to Seattle for a mini weekend trip. We celebrated our ninth anniversary! A little bit over 2 years ago we had planned a trip to Seattle and the day that I bought plane tickets I was also laid off. Needless to say we cancelled our trip so Seattle has been on my hot list for years!

We booked our hotel thru Orbitz's priceline negotiator. We "negotiated" a deal of $80 a night for the downtown Seattle Westin. I'm kind of hooked on this negotiating deals thing. It's quite fun!

We were only a couple of blocks away from Pike's Place Market and we were in perfect walking distance for a lot of restaurants, bars and events. Plus our hotel was the double round towers so it made it easy to figure out where we were supposed to be headed too!

We arrived really late Friday night so we got up early on Saturday morning and hit Pike's Place Market. We were starving so we hit up a Piroshky Piroshky for a cup of borscht and a piroshky.

Borscht and piroshky were both phenomenal!

After getting breakfast we walked into the main building of the market and looked at all the goods that people were selling!

There are a few fish mongers in the market. I wish we had a kitchen while staying in Seattle. I would have loved to cook something up on my own!


These homemade pickles looked to die for!


I'm guessing February is off season in Seattle but the market was packed wall to wall on Saturday.

We took some corny tourist pictures in front of the iconic market sign!


We also tried some of the famous Beechers homemade cheese curds.

We're both from Wisconsin and so we naturally had to see if they lived up to what we both grew up with.

They did not but the mac and cheese was the best mac and cheese on the planet. Inside the Beechers store you can watch them make cheese curds in different stages which is rad.

Seattle is a very hilly city if you're heading down to the market. I would assimilate it to San Francisco's streets. Maybe not quite as bad! Jack would stop to take pictures of the little oddities on buildings like this rain gutter with plants growing out of it

and I would power through and wait for him at the top!


I'm not sure if everyone knows this but Seattle is apparently one of the biggest chocolate shop cities outside of Europe!

I think they have something like 50 different chocolate shops! So we tried a few when we happened on them! There is even a chocolate walking tour if you're up for that sort of thing. Yum.

The first shop which I can't remember the name we ordered a little sampler platter of chocolate.


Starting with the yellow and going right was : a mimosa truffle, dark chocolate raspberry, the plain chocolate was a balsamic strawberry truffle and a gray sea salt caramel truffle.

Another one of the advertised chocolate shops was selling chocolate stuffed figs. I definitely had to try that out!


The tiny truffle was an earl gray tea truffle and the big truffle was the chocolate stuffed fig. They basically hollow out a fig and shove it full of chocolate and then dip it in chocolate to seal the goodness in. The more see thru the chocolate inside is the less fig filling there is. We had more fig/less chocolate combo.

I think tomorrow I'll continue up with another portion of our trip!

Wellies!

LA has been getting an insane amount of rain. In the five years that I have lived here I have gone a year or longer without seeing any rain. So naturally, I am a huge fan of these days of rain that we have been getting. Everything is so lush, green and clean. That's one of the things that they don't tell you about LA. It's really dusty and dirty. If I spend a day out in Silverlake I feel dirty and dusty when I leave. So I bought these Wellie's a couple of years ago from Target and I finally get to break them out and use them quite a lot in these days full of spring showers!


I love the rain!

P.S. In case you're wondering what's with the new blog look - Its a reminder. I want to change my blog and so I changed it to a blog front that I really don't like in hopes of motivating me to change it!!

Hello Spring!

Spring is officially here and I love it! Spring is one of my two favorite seasons. Partially, because my birthday is in April. I love that feeling of renewal and brand new things! Pretty little flowers blooming, rain washing away the dirt and bright green grass poking up from its Winter slumber. I love Spring.

A few images from we heart it that are quintessential Spring to me!

Like a monster puddle to splash in!


Beautiful blooming blossoms

Fun and kitchy nails

Delicate and fluffy whipped sugar



Beautiful pinks, beiges, greens and blues to highlight the natural color popping up around.

I love Spring.

101 in 1001 days -- 2/3 recap

It's been about 667 days since I first put out there what I wanted to accomplish in 1001 days. I've been pretty proud of myself. Everything in red is a completed goal! I am about half done! So I have a long ways to go in a short amount of time. Wish me luck! I'd also to love to read about your 101 in 1001 days!

Travel

1. Go somewhere that requires a passport (preferably somewhere across the Atlantic Ocean)
   
2. Visit Seattle
3. Re-visit Portland
4. Visit Canada
5. Take a road trip in the Corvette
6. Go to the East Coast
7. Stay at an Ace Hotel Property
8. Take a girls only trip every year
   
9. Take 1 pleasure trip a year with Jack
   
10. Visit Momma Lee in Mississippi
11. Go camping, not Glamping
12. Spend New Years somewhere fun

Career

1. Obtain a job in production work
2. Have my name published on a movie
3. Continue to increase Jack and Till
4. Fully commit to putting 5 hrs a week into Jack and Till
   
5. Create 1 new item a month for Jack and Till
6. Send out at least 1 resume a week until I land my dream job
7. Don't settle for a job that will leave my unhappy
8. Go to handmade craft fairs for inspiration
   
9. Get a booth at said handmade craft fairs - renegade, felt club xl etc..
10. Look into creating a business with a friend who would help to inspire and push me to do more with Jack and Till
11. Go to local businesses about selling my products in their store
    

Life

1. Plan our wedding
2. Try to buy as much local and organic foods as possible
3. Support my local businesses instead of buying from chains (excluding Whole Foods)
   
4. Organize the garage
5. Stay on top of laundry
6. Stay on top of keeping the house clean
7. Think before arguing
8. Do 1 nice thing for Jack a week
9. Make popovers 1x a month
10. Drink more mimosas aka enjoy life more!
11. Work on letting go of people who aren't important to my well being
12. Go to yoga 2x a month
13. Try to only say nice things about people
14. Go see a concert at the Hollywood Bowl before the summer is over
15. Get a game night started 1x a month and rotate people's houses
    
16. Have a summer party at the new place
    

Financial

1. Pay off my car
2. Pay off the vette
   
3. Look into buying a house (even as a rental property in another state)
4. Save at least 10% of our salary ( that stays in the account for a rainy day)
   
5. Spend less on clothes
   
6. Stop buying frivolous junk
   
7. Donate to charities
8. Eat out less, cook in more
9. See more movies at home and less in the theaters
10. Use our Entertainment Book more often to save money when we do go out
11. Stop being frivolous!!!
12. Cash in our coins and do something fun with the money
13. Pay all of our bills on time
    
14. Put an extra $5 on every bill that has a revolving balance
15. Stop using credit cards completely unless its an emergency
16. Get rid of one item when a new item comes in the house
    

Personal Goals

1. Learn En Pointe
2. Go to the gym 1x a week minimum
3. Go to 1 ballet class a week minimum
4. Ride my bike more places and take the car less
5. Try surfing 1x
   
6. Take more pictures of places and things I do
7. Call my grandma 1x a month
8. Send grandma a letter 1x a month
9. Call my mom more often/ or take her calls when she calls me
10. Organize photo's and get rid of blurry ones
11. Get rid of multiples ( old laptops, old desktops, old monitors, old chords, etc..)
12. Use the Laundry basket instead of the floor
13. Get rid of junk mail right away
14. Do the dishes everyday
15. Make a new friend
    
16. Complete my 101 goals by 4/1/2012

Blog

1. Write a new blog 2x a week, preferably more but at a minimum
2. Take pictures for my blog
3. Expand my reader base
4. Comment more on other blogs I read
5. Start back up Jack and Till's blog
6. Meet a fellow blogger - maybe AEIP
7. Support my fellow bloggers in my own blog
8. Twitter more often- it has its good points
9. Encourage 1 person to create a blog
10. Encourage 1 person to continue to blog when they've fallen by the wayside
11. Don't let this post slip into the abyss of blogging!
    

Vehicles

1. Get Hussy's window fixed
2. Get Hussy's SRS button fixed
3. Take Hussy and Sassy in for regular checkups
4. Get oil changes on a regular basis not every 7,00 miles...whoops
5. Keep the interior of the cars clean and wash them

Misc

I believe I'm about 15 short of my goal so I'm going to leave this open for goals that I come up with on this journey. After all completing all of these goals will be a big journey.

1. watch more documentaries
   
2. visit the library and take advantage of the free books!
3. participate in a cake night 1x a month
   
4. try to be nicer to people
   
5. brush the dogs every other day
   
6. pay off credit card debt
   
7. start saving for a house!
   
8. lose weight and eat healthier
   
9. commit to using my food tracker again
   
10. plan a trip overseas again!
    
11. stick to my weekly budget
    
12. take pictures with my holga more
    
13. try to look for the good in everyone
    
14. get as close to my 101 goals as possible in a little bit over 1 year!
    

and here we are again....

Mister Monday and me. The weekend went by way to fast. Jack worked on Saturday and on Sunday we spent driving around LA looking for houses that are in our general price range. We fell in love with one house but the area was not to fall in love with.

I'm going to start looking forward to Friday!

France and Belgium - Part Nine

Arc De Triomphe- is an amazing structure situated in the middle of a round about in Paris.

It's right off the Champs Elysee and you have to take an underground tunnel to get to the center so you don't die from the chaos of the cars traveling around it!


As a word of advice - Do not go to the Catacombs and the Arc the same day. They both have an insane amount of stairs that you must climb.


Its Europe so they don't have elevators in national monuments like they do here but it doesn't matter even elderly people still climb up and down. It was one of the aspects that I loved about Europe! I would see very elderly people taking the metro, walking around, climbing monuments!

The Arc is so beautiful. I'm not quite sure what is built out of but it is covered with beautiful carved stone such as this arched ceiling.


There are lots of beautiful sculptures around the base of the arc.

I was particularly fond of this man with such a concerned look.

In my mind he's saying something similar to " What! You ran out of Ham and Cheese crepes?!"

If you make it alive to the top the view is astounding. What's even more remarkable is that the top of the arc is maybe 1/3 the height of the view from the Eiffel Tower.


The arc since it sits on a roundabout offers views of Paris from all sides.


Its beautiful to see the symmetry in the roof lines such as all these clay chimney's.


We spent a good amount of time up at the top and enjoying the views of the city. We never made it over to the area that is oddly very new looking.


We took lots of pictures and video's at the top! Even managed to pose with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

101 in 1001 days!

I'm going to try and do a big recap on 3/8/11 to fill in how well I'm doing on my 101 in 1001 days. By that time it will nearly be 2/3 completed. Its amazing to see how much my goals have changed since 2009. EEK! How some of my goals we completed naturally without thinking much about the main goal.

Well if you missed it around the first time, here is list of goals.

Original 101 in 1001 Days

1/3 of the way there - 101 in 1001 Days

I'll need to do some more highlighting and hopefully fill in the remaining blank goals that I have left. Yipee!