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. 

Almost

Why doesn't the Blogger app let you type sideways?

Tomorrow.....tomorrow. We're spending the night near Portland tonight, so that we can arrive home in the afternoon tomorrow. So we don't have to go right to bed when we arrive and we can spend the day watching the dogs figure out their new surroundings. I'm so excited. I just feel like we're on the cusp of something really grand and that we're going to thrive big time.

The last two days have been of flat lands to rocky walls. Our road wide with prairies that went on for miles and miles. Then, without warning, mountains emerged and rocks became red and jagged and I realized we had arrived to the other side of the country. Tonight, I do a silent jig, because we are indeed in the Pacific Northwest. I can feel it on my skin, in my lungs, in my soul. I feel different. I feel whole.

Tomorrow, we will be surrounded by friends and family and things will start coming together. I'm going to take a couple of days to relax, to recover, and then get in a routine. Then, I'll start writing again.

Pennsylvania is far away now, but it's still with us. I don't want it to be out of my life and I want to see glimpses of it everyday that we live in Washington. I'll write about that more too. For now, it's important to just take it a day at a time.


Oh the air. It makes all the difference. How I missed it.

Road Blogging

The plan was to write on the last night in Harrisburg.  I ran sentences in my head, about how much I grew in the last four years, about how much I learned and gained, about the things that I would miss and take with me. 

But, moving is really hard and things didn't work out the way that I planned.  I also planned to write each day on the road.  But, we got in late the last couple of nights and stayed in hotels with curtains that don't function correctly, nevermind even thinking of Wi-Fi.  I romanticized it all.  In reality, there's nothing really to write about each day because you do the same thing as the day before.  Drive, yell at the dogs to lay down, stop for chips and soda, and occasionally call each other because of something that is already a mile behind you. 

Each day is getting better and I think adjustments are already in place. 

So far, we spent the morning of the move laying down on the pavement in front of our POD, trying to pry the door open so we could pack some last minute things.  Maggie ate 3/4ths of a piece of hotel soap (with no consequences so far).  And Lilly laid on the horn with her backside at a Nebraska gas station.  Most of our space bags have lost air and ripped open, scattering clothes all through the cars.  I am covered in dog hair of various hues and the backseat of my car is covered in Diet Coke stained blankets. 

We have had snow, high winds, tumbleweeds, sunshine, and starry skies.  We've gone through eight states and are well over half-way to our destination.  The day after tomorrow, we'll be in Seattle. 

There has been a lot of reflection, but mostly a lot of driving and some puppy Valium mixed in.  

I saw some mountains today. 

We're almost there. 

Late Night Blogging

Gosh, its late. 

And, I'm so so so so so very tired.

I knew this was going to happen. 

We are four days away from hitting the road, so I guess you could say it is officially crunch time. 

I'm exhausted already. 



This is that point when you are so tired that you can't get yourself to fall asleep.  So, I flipped open my computer, as if it is the equivalent of warm milk or something.  In reality, the glare will probably mess up my internal sleep center even more.  Still, I will probably only get to write in this basement, late at night for maybe one more time, so I'll stop complaining.  The dogs are asleep, taking turns having puppy nightmares, kicking and whining in dreamland.  We spend our day constantly taking packing material out of one dogs mouth, while the other dog senses the change and responds with vomiting.  Even when you try to act like nothing is wrong, dogs can feel your real feelings.  I am tense, I am nervous, I am stressed, and I am walking around with a clenched jaw.  Moving sucks. 


I have a problem of failing miserably to live in the "now".  Instead, I worry about how the now living will interrupt future living, to the point where I miss moments all together.  K has been with me for six years, and constantly has to remind me to slow down, pay attention, stop thinking.  Right now is one of those times.  I have not thought about how wonderful it will feel to see that "Welcome to Washington" sign or breathe in the mountain air, because I'm too concerned with how awful it will feel to see "Welcome to Ohio."  Although, that may be a common concern when visiting Ohio. 


Moving across the country creates more stress than it does resolve.  For the next six months to a year, we will feel like we're in limbo, out of body in a way, because we'll be searching for our bearings.  Already, the lack of routine and the heaviness of "what next?" is becoming overwhelming.  Hence the late night writing.  Of course it will be that way though; this is a normal experience with this kind of life changing event.  Sometimes I have to metaphorically slap myself across the face so I will pay attention to what is in front of me. 

We will be back to Pennsylvania, many many times.

We will find new friends and places to visit in Washington. In Oregon.  In Montana.  Hell, in Canada.

We will fill our new home with mementos from here.

We will redefine ourselves as a couple and individually with this move. 


I know these things.  They are true.  We will also struggle.  We will fight.  We will be frustrated and lost for a little while.  And, that's okay too.


It has not hit me that I will be pulling into my parents drive-way a week from Saturday.  It hasn't hit me that I will watch our dogs run around in their backyard.  Or that I will get to build a fire next Saturday night.  Or that I will be able to go to the grocery store anytime and get a pound of clams for dinner.  Or go to Point-no-Point again when I need to breathe. 


It may not hit me until Sunday or a week from then, or in the middle of the Summer when I spend my day barefoot in the grass. Maybe not until we sit down to dinner in our own place someday, evergreen trees outside, but a picture of yellow stadium chairs hanging on the wall.  Or maybe not until we visit Pennsylvania again, and we take our children back year after year so that they can soak up their heritage.  I don't know when it will hit. 

All I know is that the only thing that is hitting me are my old license plates from Washington, which I keep trying to pack.  They were unique reminders of where I was back when I first moved here.  Always in view.  From the car that brought me here.  Its second nature to hold onto them tightly.  And yet, I don't need them where I'm going.  Boxes are packed and I know that we're moving, but I don't feel it creep in until I look at those plates. 

And then this warm feeling comes over me.  A giddiness.  An excitement.  Of what is waiting for us, who, what experiences, what challenges, what opportunities, what life that we will create and share. 



So yes.  Its stressful right now.  I'm very tired.  I will be for quite some time. 

But, the boxes will be packed soon.  Everything that needs to get done will get done. 

It will all work out. 



We just have to keep reminding each other what we're moving for.