Slow and Steady

This morning, I just want to lay in bed and stay under the blankets a little longer.  I want to let warm dogs put heavy heads on my legs and dream a little later.  Or maybe I'll take a hot bath.  Or stay in my Penguins Hockey shirt and eat a lot of cereal in front of the TV. 

Its been difficult getting into a routine here.  Most of us can blame it on the weather, which has been a disappointing mixture of left over snow and schizophrenic rain.  It makes me tired and less incline to do anything significant.  However, when a sunny day presents itself, I'm not exactly motivated either.  I'm sure its all part of transition. 

Or, maybe its because our days have been full. Lots of playing outside, unrestrained, with the dogs.  Lots of cooking complete meals.  Lots of driving around, watching K get his bearings.  Lots of quality time with best friends, looking for local adventures.  Lots of ending the day with achy muscles, and discussions of how tired we are. 

I will say that I do miss Pennsylvania.  It is a part of our relationship, but more than that, I am discovering it is a part of me too. The people, the hang outs, the farms, the style of houses, the explosion of Spring this time of the year, these are the things I miss.  I won't trade my mountains again, but its comforting to know that I am a little bit of an East Coast girl afterall. 

I know that its going to feel out of body sometimes.  I know that its going to be painfully slow sometimes, trying to get a sense of normal back.  It will take awhile to find jobs, and even longer to find an apartment, and then more time after that to fill it with our things and make it a home.  We will find a new normal, and then one day we'll visit Pennsylvania and that will seem a little weird, but we'll find our old selves there too. 

I worry about K to the point that I project my own feelings of insecurity and assume that he's miserable.   But, he's not at all, he's adjusting.  He's doing more than I am.  Maybe its a clean slate for him and its not completely for me. I did live here.  I come back different and this place is a little bit different too, so I have to find meaning in all that.  I have to figure out where I belong and what I'm suppose to do.  And how that all translates into a new wife. 

In the meantime, we'll get out of bed and try a little bit harder everyday.  The temperature is rising a degree a day and there are more partly sunny days than partly rainy.  I have seen Mt. Rainier this week already.  Next week, mom is on Spring Break and we will make a couple of day trips.  I hope the tulips are ready for us.  And, we have some celebrating to do next week in the form of Easter and a six month anniversary.  

Life is good, we just have to sort it out a little sometimes. 

Spring List!

Here's last year's Spring List.

Which is hilarious, because I'm pretty much in the same situation.  But, with less anxiety.  Except about the kid part. 

Also, I miss my mattress so much.  Do you know what its like to sleep on a futon every night with your husband and two, basically fully grown labs?

I broke off tree branches today and brought them inside. 

Revlon nail polish sucks. 

I still didn't finish the Washington book.



I can do better this year.




Here we go. 



Plant lettuce, peas, beans, onions, beets, and herbs. 

Make one of those pea vine teepees.  Even though you're too tall to fully enjoy it. It still looks cool.

Read this book.

Get a legitimate pair of rain boots.  Not from Target, those ones don't keep their shape well.

String lights in the backyard, like you use to back in PA. 

Spend an entire day at the Tulip Festival in Skagit County.

Have a date with the city, all by yourself.

Take her hiking,she's ready. 

Take her to the water, she's so not ready for hiking.

See this movie on your birthday.  Don't judge, that shit is adorable.

Read this book.  Actually, lay on the porch swing and finish it in one afternoon. 

Finish late wedding present thank yous.  And move on with your life.

Make a new Easter tradition.

Have an epic wedding video showing in April.

Veto any future showings of this.  Enough is enough.

Participate in May Day.  For the first time. 

Fill the room with lilacs.  (That may be for the Summer List ).

Start making a name for this new blog. 

Meet my best friend for a dog park date or dog walk once a week.



That's a good start. 

Anatomy of a Weekend: Love Day and St. Patty's Redux

We celebrated two holidays in two weeks.  Back in December, while the Christmas lights twinkled around us, I dreamed of paper hearts and a disgusting amount of pink and red.   We knew we were moving, but couldn't nail down a date.  So, I went ahead and went out on a limb and said we'd be there by February, surely by Valentine's Day.  Our moving day was pushed back a couple of times, and we missed the 14th by a few weeks.  Still, we wanted to celebrate our Love Day.

While it wasn't fancy and didn't feature a single strand of hearts like I imagined, it was still pretty great to celebrate.  Most everyone wore red too.



I don't want this blog to turn into a "I did this, and then we did this, and then someone did the funniest thing."  The nice thing about blogging is that it really does become a journal of your life, no matter what angle you choose to write from. Last weekend was about love and about finally getting a chance to do the things I'd dreamed about.  This weekend was about fitting as much time as we could with friends.


Friday:  Pull tabs, lumpia, and tater tots

We found our newest favorite bar, won $105 on a pull tab, and dined on lumpia and tater tots.  I haven't had a lumpia in about eight years, so it was a good night. 



Saturday:  Queen Anne, Top Pot doughnuts and coffee, cherry blossoms, and snow.

Our first trip to the city since the move happened this weekend.  I purposely did not bring my camera because the day was dreary and there would be nothing to take a picture of.  We drove around Queen Anne, which happens to have a Top Pot.  I thought about how weird it is that the trees were blooming and it was snowing.  I keep telling K and his mom that this weather is not normal.  I don't sound convincing.  Also, a blond girl, dressed in a puffy white coat and Burberry headband freaked out at us at a stoplight because our car was slightly in the crosswalk.  That's normal because Seattle pedestrians generally suck.  Oh, and we ate brunch at Dahlia's, which ironically, I don't have a good picture of.



Saturday night: Bestie, green enchiladas, mojitos, and movies.

The boys went out and the girls stayed in.  We drank hard apple cider instead of mojitos because mint isn't available yet.  And the enchiladas were bangin. Chocolate covered pretzels were also involved.



Sunday: Game night, homemade mac n cheese, and zombies.

I'm a big fan of the Walking Dead, so we ate dinner at six because you just can't eat during that show.



We're starting to get in a groove here.  I'm starting to realize that I can do whatever I want in this great State now.  If nothing else, we're eating well. 

Dear Tom Douglas Blog,

I've been meaning to write this post for awhile, but that whole living in Pennsylvania aspect of my life complicated things. 



Dear Tom Douglas Blog,

I know that a lot of people contribute to your blog.  I know you guys work really really hard.  But here's the thing: your food is spectacular and a lot of the times your blog pictures are not. Let's be honest, most of the time the pictures are awful.  Now, this isn't a recent development, as I've wanted to write this for a long long time.  But, I lived in Pennsylvania and was far away from your restaurants.  On another note, why did you have to open so many restaurants while I was gone? 

I'm not going post any of your pictures on here because they're not mine.  Tom Douglas Blog, you can do so much better though.  They make really good cameras now a days.  You're located in Seattle, why don't you have an iPhone to help you out? Why not pretend to be great photographers like all of us and use Instagram?

That's your monkey bread and caramel sauce.  See how good that looks?

Oh wow, those garlic breakfast potatoes look so good with that omelet.

God damn that was so good. 

So was that....

That one was from our wedding.  I know, right?




I'm losing my thought here.

You all produce amazing food.  The best I've ever had.  And the pictures on your restaurant websites are up to par.  But, your blog. Oh, your blog.  Something must be done. 



And, I'd be glad to help!  I didn't mention that before?


Most Sincerely,

Catherine at imwashington.com

I'm Ready/Anatomy of a 1st weekend

We officially have an area to call our own, even though its my brother's old room in my parents house.  His stuff still occupies 1/4 of our closet and contains things like a denim childhood dragon, a remote control car circa 1996, and a blinged out goblet from his fraternity days, which I can only describe as a pimp cup.  Somehow, I arranged the closet to contain most of our belongings and put everything else on a $50 Target shelf that's really suppose to be in your pantry, hence the wire shelving.  Luckily, my dad has a lot of wood planks just lying around in the garage.  What I'm trying to say is, I have a place to blog now. 

I like this little area. 

The wood adds a nice touch. 

Although, I'm fairly certain that my dad will come home anytime now and need each plank back for a project. 


I also have a nice view, which will surely inspire many many intellectual and thought-provoking posts, in which readers will finish each sentence in breathless wonder.

No really, I'm going to talk about the same things, and probably about my dogs a lot more now. 

But mostly, what I appreciate about this space above anything else, is that I stuffed every cord that I would possibly need in a jar next to my computer.  Never again will I have to scramble and personally curse myself out for disorganization.  At least for cords.




This was our first weekend in the great Pacific Northwest as residents. 


And man, we did good. 

Friday night we met our moms and our besties at the shittiest hotel lounge in the area and then proceeded to listen to the shittiest karaoke in the world.  No, I'm serious.  Not because of the participants, no they sang Deperado and Red Neck Woman like champions.  But, the DJ was awful mainly because he enjoyed bashing everyone who passed by.  He was so bad that we mentioned him by name the next night at bowling and the DJ there asked why we were at that hotel.  "It had a cool retro vibe last time we went there," wasn't justification enough.  We should have known better.  The guy had more Sugar Ray songs than The Boss. 


On Saturday though, we redeemed ourselves in the form of a birthday bowling bonanzaa.  N &T both have bdays in February and the move took over both of their days, so it was only necessary to try a repeat celebration.  They are a big reason that we moved, along with family and the mountains.  Its still not sticking in our minds that we don't have to cram everything in a week or say good-bye in a couple of days.  This.Is. Like. Permanent. 


In order to pace ourselves, the Adventure Board was born.  Yeah, that's my handy sticker-letter work. 

K and T added video game related adventures to spaces 8 through 11. 


We ended up bowling about 37 minutes before they shut the lanes down for the next segment of rock 'n bowl, so we had to turn in our shoes and head out like all of the other 14 year olds did.  So,we did what any other 26/27 year olds would do and went to the bar.  Each of us thinking "pinch me" as we sat and talked, a little about the past but mostly about the future, drank and breathed it all in. 


On Sunday, true to my teenage years, we did yard work.  

The dogs didn't mind. 

My favorite pictures of the weekend:

As I waited for the photos to load, I realized its Wednesday already and the weekend is fast approaching.  We are going to have our post-poned Valentine's dinner on Saturday and probably more yard work on Sunday.  It is so good to be home.  Its good to be around friends and to be able to see family everyday.  Its good to watch dogs run across mossy grass.  Its good to have a space that though small, is filled with things that we brought with us from PA.  It is good to have plans and to realize everyday that we can do what we want now, not next time.