Bound for Dallas – I hope!

So today, if all goes as planned, I will be jetting off to Dallas to hang out with my sweet cousin Kelli. Kelli is a flight attendant with American and I am flying standby as her guest. Unfortunately Seattle seems to be a difficult place to get out of on standby and the last time we tried this it didn’t work so well. Actually, strike that, it worked out great, just not as planned.

Summer before last Dave and I planned to fly to South Carolina for the wedding of our dear friend Kate. Kelli offered to let us use her guest passes so we were flying standby. We were at the airport for about 10 hours before we figured out this absolutely wasn’t going to work. At this point we had a dog sitter arranged, a weeks vacation and a want to go somewhere. So we purchased two tickets to Hawaii and began the scramble to figure out where we would stay once we go there and find a car. It was such a great trip and Kelli flew in to join us for much of it!

When live gives me lemons I mix up a pitcher of some yummy tropical drink!!

So, I may not be the best blogger over the next few days but when I get back I will have plenty of photos to share and who knows where they will be from!!! My only request ist that wherever I end up it is sunny and warm!

Wailua Falls

Sunset from the condo

Kauai Rooster

Admitting you have an addiction is the first step to recovery….

Except I am not sure I want to recover! But I admit it. I am addicted to pintrest.com  If you haven’t checked it out you should – or maybe you shouldn’t because it is addicting!

As I’ve sat here at my computer pinning ideas to my lovely virtual bulletin boards I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to just collect ideas, I was going to actually use them! Well so far I’ve done pretty well.

• I created flowers out of the bottoms of plastic bottles and “upcycled” the top to re-seal an open bag of chocolate chip.
• I tried four new recipes over the weekend – eggs cooked in a bell pepper ring, homemade apple fritters, cheddar/kielbasa soup & beer bread.
• I sprouted green onion!

On Friday night Dave made chicken adobo and I asked him to not throw out the onions when he was done using the green stems. The ends were so small that I use a shot glass for them and wasn’t sure if it would work with so little to start from. Sure enough, by Monday we had new stems spouting! So cool!

Green Onion Spouts

Happy Birthday!

Today is my Mom and my Aunt Ethel’s birthday. Two special ladies who were always there for me growing up. Man this picture brings up so many memories. I think I was about fifteen when it was taken and this is at the Jeep races which was a big part of my life. That is my mom on the left, our friend Linda next to her, my Uncle Rich, Aunt Ethel and that is me with the awesome feathered hair!

Jeep Races circa 1986

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Last night Dave and I ventured down the hill to the Seattle Elks Club. We have applied to become members and this was our first activity at the club. We arrived just in time to see the new officers be sworn in and then headed downstairs with everyone for the traditional St. Patty’s day fare of corn beef and cabbage. The food was good and the people were great.

The club is working to attract a younger group of members and there was a wide range of ages present. One of the “older” members we spoke with told us that there is another club much closer to his home but he prefers this club because it is where all the younger people hang out. LOL  Young and old they were all friendly and fun.

After dinner the band started up and the most talented balloon man I’ve ever seen went to work. This is his only creation I got a photo of but he was making shamrocks and attaching them to headbands for the ladies, created a super cool birthday cake hat for one lucky lady, made a giant shamrock face that you could put your own head inside of and wear around and – while slightly off topic was still cool – made these funny alien guys with traditional green alien heads inside of a clear bubble. I loved this beer mug though.

Balloon Beer Mug

A green & white St. Patrick’s Day!

If I would have remembered to post a picture yesterday it would have been this lovely picture of the daffodils blooming in my front yard. They are mini daffodils and I have a few clumps of them brightening things up.

A bucket of daffs

Of course I totally forgot to post anything last night – I was wiped out after a very busy week – so now you get bonus pix of those daffodils, now covered with snow that has managed to blanket my neighborhood this morning! What is with this crazy weather??

Poor snowy daffs

It’s sticking!

Snow in mid-March?!?

View from the top!

When I can get off work on time, have remembered to pack my walking shoes and am not being lazy or afraid of the cold, wet weather, I walk home with Dave. From the bottom of the hill to the tippy top! Not an easy walk but a nice way to wind down after a long day at work. And when we get to the top we are rewarded with the knowledge that we just got in a nice little workout and we are treated to views like this!

Top of The Hill

Spring is in the air!

Tonight my friend Kelly and I walked down to QA Ave for dinner. Although is very wet and very cold, all along the way we passed flower coming into bloom. In my own yard there are bunches of daffodils brightening things up. I don’t know why I have never managed to plant them but the crocuses are the ones I really love and I couldn’t walk past these beauties without taking a picture. I love how the droplets of water really show up in the photo – I didn’t even notice them when looking at the flowers in person.

Signs of Spring

Yesterday

Oooops I did it again!!! Missed a day! I even took pix yesterday but got home late and before I knew it, it was Wednesday morning and I hadn’t posted. So today you get a double post!

Tuesday morning I had the pleasure of starting out the day on Seattle’s waterfront enjoying breakfast with a group of co-workers and a much larger group of people supporting the University of Washington’s School of Social Work and their scholarship program. I didn’t realize until I got there that my friend Gloria is one of the recipients. Very cool!

I was really excited to be down on the waterfront and get a great picture for the day. Unfortunately yesterday was the day of insane weather – rain, snow, hail, wind, grey & sunny – and during the time I was near the water if was simply grey and not very interesting. However as my friend JJ and I walked back to the car we crossed the railroad tracks and I managed to get this photo which I kind of liked and then used the Instagram app to fix it up a little and make it even more interesting. Hope you like!

Train tracks

Catch a wave!

Doh! Second day in a row to recycle old pix rather than adding a new. Hopefully you will agree though that the oldies are goodies. 

Winter has never been my favorite season but particularly the past few years I have begun to not enjoy winter and the cold weather. So, the cold wet weather we have been living with recently has me thinking back to sunnier days and one of my favorite sunny days of all time was in August of 2010. Dave and I took a surprise trip to Hawaii and ended up staying on a day longer than we’d expected. We spent that day laying on a very small, very quiet beach; relaxing, soaking up the sun and having a wonderful time.

I love waves and love taking pictures so of course I enjoy taking pictures of waves. I haven’t quite figure out how to really “catch” a wave but this is my favorite of many wave pix I took that day. If you’d like to see some pretty spectacular shots of waves though you need to check out Clark Little. This guy is crazy and crazy talented. I was lucky enough to see a display of his work here in Seattle and look forward to checking out his gallery next time we are on Oahu. Seriously, check this guy out he is awesome!

Catch a wave!

Alki

Today’s picture isn’t new but it is an old favorite taken at Alki Beach. When the tide is out, go down past the light house and you will see some pretty amazing things.

Low Tide