Summertime and the living is easy

Mmmm this weather's been so nice. I love summers in Washington.

Well I've been working part time at a massage studio my friend owns and helping out with random business stuff. Perks for working at a massage studio... FREE MASSAGES. Oh yes, hehe it's a beautiful thing.

Yup but aside from work, I've been getting back into a lot of ol hobbies I haven't done in YEARS, so many years.

I discovered recently that an elderly neighbor across the street from us double majored in Art and Engineering. I got him to trade services with me; I bake him cookies, he gives me art lessons. So I get art homework every week. We're starting with drawing. Rendition after rendition of PITCHERS! I'm so sick of them. Morandi can keep the pitchers. But, my neighbor says I have to draw well if I want to be a realist painter. So more pitchers it is....

Another fun thing I've been re-visiting is Ballet. I took it many years ago with my sister. We'd gone as a family to see the Nutcracker and I fell in love with the dancers. So Laurianne and I signed up! We only danced for a couple years, but we were able to get up on pointe shoes in that time and do a lot of fun performances. One of the masseuses at the massage studio tipped me off about a place in Belltown that offers adult ballet classes for a very decent price. So last Friday, I attended! I never realized how much I really loved Ballet and the good work out you get from it until I went to this first session. I was dancing circles in the streets after the lesson. I can't wait for this Friday.

Boating! Got up on water skis for the first time the other day.

And HIKING! Can't get enough of it. I go once a week with a friend. We've done Rattlesnake Ledge, Little Si, Mt Si and this week's hike is Otter Falls, a good 10 miler.

Gotta love the Washington sunshine, that's all I have to say :)

Fragrant Flowers

Opps missed a couple months here.

So Korea hasn't happened yet. BUT! It's still a high probable future...be watching and waiting.

I had an interesting gardening experience the other day. My mom and I had these weird shrubs that were growing in between our Rhododendron. They looked like weeds. SHORT, UGLY, WITHOUT FLOWER and FRAGRANT-LESS!

I told my mom we oughta dig 'em up and send them out! But they still hadn't flowered yet, so we decided to wait a while and see if maybe our eyes were just being mislead...

Boy were we wrong about those shrubs:

They were actually peony bushes.

Peonies (as you can see) are BIG, BEAUTIFUL, HIGHLY FRAGRANT flowers. Nothing at all like weeds. So it just goes to show. You never can tell. Don't judge a book by it's cover. People (Plants?) are like onions (layers, layers, layers)..

So if you ever find what you think is a nasty weed in your yard, wait a couple weeks. You never know, you might just have a stunning peony bush!

FYI Peonies really are beautiful and very fragrant. I highly recommend them.

Happy Gardening!

New opportunities! a new obsession

It's 1:18am. I've been up for last the two hours emailing and having late night interviews.

Figured since I'm on a roll with the late night productivity, I might as well do a March blog post.

So, the latest and greatest...lol I was let go about a month ago. But had my last day of work this last Friday (they kept me on for the last month but with whittled down hours, gotta love that) and I've NEVER BEEN HAPPIER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <----notice the extreme emphasis. This is a GOOD THING<---again notice.

But yes I mentioned late night interviews...sounds like something shady (lol) but it's actually a call I got from a recruiting company that sends ESL teachers to South Korea. It was a good interview and it's got me pretty excited. So who presently loves Korea? I do, I DO. And I'm doing my research. I've got plans to watch a Korean film tomorrow night, I'm making myself a korean pancake for breakfast and I'm pretty sure the communication with my ol Korean, half Korean, any percentage of Korean friends in the last couple days could be termed spam. I'm buggin people but if feels so good.

Anyway, so I'm counting this as a new obsession. If did teach over there, contracts usually run 12 months, so adios folks. I'd be SO GONE.

If you want to partake of the obsession, look what I have for you:

http://www.mysoju.com/a-moment-to-remember/ Watch this Korean film, it's a tear jerker.

Lefse and tapping into my roots

My mom and I went out this last Saturday morning to Sons of Norway Bothell lodge to make the traditional Norwegian flat bread made of potatoes, butter, sugar, salt and flour known as Lefse.

This two dollar class gave me great insight into how much hard work my Norwegian ancestry put forth just to make a meal. Lefse, though it may look simple, actually takes two days to make. There's quite a bit of prep work involved with those spuds prior to mashing them up with the butter and sugar. I'd never in my life heard of 'ricing potatoes.' Now I know what it means and that there is such a thing as a 'ricer'. If you imagine a massive garlic press with holes on all sides, well that's what a ricer is. You're basically taking the cooked (and peeled) potatoes and sending them through a sieve so that they come out like little potato noodles.

They don't stay in that shape though, oh no they most certainly don't. They're mashed with the butter and sugar and everything else. But Norwegians are detailed people and they're all about quality. No lumps aloud in the lefse!

So here's my mom and I rolling out and frying our lefse.

(that stick I'm holding is a lefse stick and is used to flip the lefse)

And here is a lefse

Lefse are traditionally eaten with butter and cinnamon and sugar on them and accompanied with a cup of coffee. In certain parts of Norway they also use lefse as sort of a hot dog bun. They'll wrap it around sausage and eat it that way. It was really fun to be able to go and get some cultural enrichment in a tasty way!

Tusen takk to Bothell lodge for having the class.

BEST Valentine's weekend ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey for someone like me who is constantly working, working, working 6:30am to 5pm every working day of the week, a break is so much appreciated. And boy did I get one wonderful break this weekend.

Friday my mom and I cut out oodles and gobs of construction paper hearts for mischievous plans (well put two and two together, what else do you do with a bunch of paper hearts)

We also made oodles and gobs of cookies to accompany the mystery plans. I quickly remembered why I prefer cooking to baking, I'm not a patient person. Waiting for each tray upon tray of cookies to get baked started to wear me down ;)

K but now here Saturday is where you really see why this was the best Valentine's weekend ever.

So quick history, back in December for Christmas I gave my sweet mother a spa package to a spa over in University District. (I also gifted one to myself so we could have mother-daughter spa dates) So Saturday we went for our first spa date to get massages.

SO GOOD! I love massages, masseuses and the whole world of massage therapy. It is a wonderful, wonderful thing! That half hour was a little piece of heaven for me. I had no idea my body was so cramped up. It felt SO SO GOOD! If I'm making you jealous, just save up some dough and do it, just do it. Get a massage NOW!

Oooo and if that massage wasn't good enough, after that my mom and I picked up my sister and we all went out and got manicures and pedicures.

Basically I was pampered this weekend. So very pampered. And that's a rare thing for me to be pampered. So yea, that made it the best Valentine's weekend ever!!

Oh and my sis and I went out to see Valentine's Day. Cute movie. I thought they did a good job with the casting. I absolutely loved the end with Julia Roberts character. I won't spoil anything for y'all by saying, but yea it's a sweet ending. Go see it. It's worth checking out.

Hope everyone gave love this weekend.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2010 and I'm already slacking...

Hey, hey well it's already February!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So just to catch up quick, here are just a few events worth mentioning from the start of this year:

Hiking! This early spring weather is taunting me! A group of friends and I went and hiked Wallace Falls a couple weekends ago. Had a nice picnic lunch at the top. The weather was a bit chilly but it so didn't matter to me. I can't wait to do more and more hikes as the weather improves...OOO and then it's on to CAMPING!

Jazz Alley: Had never been before and then a friend invited me out the other night. LOVED the venue. I've decided it's my new favorite place. It was one of the classiest places I've ever listened to music in. The band was really good too. They were straight up funk! It was a eight or nine member band with brass instruments and piano and then of course the amazing vocalist, Larry Braggs. I swear his voice brought me to tears, it was just so good. And the bands beat was so effective, it went through the floor boards and you couldn't help but feel it. I was wondering why they had us sitting at tables. I felt like we should be dancing. The band's name was "Tower of Power" Here's a link to one of their songs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t2g28y7_gM

When in Rome: Caitlyn Quist and I went out and saw this. It was adorable! I loved it. And the soundtrack was great. Jason Mraz had a new song on it that I'm definitely buying. It was a refreshing romantic comedy. I highly recommend it.

So there's my quick recap. Happy New Year!

Eric Tingstad and Nancy Rumbel

Christmas time, Christmas time!

That means Christmas concerts! My parents and I went out last Saturday to such a concert being put on by Eric Tingstad and Nancy Rumbel: professionally known as "Tingstad & Rumbel" on their Cd's. They've been doing music together for 25 plus years. Both went to school for music. Eric plays classical guitar, Nancy plays the ocarina, english horn and the oboe (and a lot of percussion instruments, she pretty much plays everything) and the combo of the two of 'em makes for very wonderful background Christmas music for hanging stockings, trimming the tree, wrapping presents, sitting by the fire etc..

Tingstad & Rumbel, Mannheim Steamroller, A Carpenter's Christmas, Motab and some of the classics (Frank, Ella, Bing) was pretty much the x-mas playlist in my house growing up.

The concert was great! I've never seen someone play the oboe so well. Nancy makes it look so easy. And Eric is an amazing classical guitarist, I got dizzy watching his fingers move so fast.

And now it's official! Christmas time is here

I hope everyone has a great Christmas!