now what?

This is my timeline for all Ke$ha's songs:

1) Song comes out. I hate it on principle.
2) I hear the song a couple more times, and kind of start to like it. It has a good beat.
3) I now know all the words to the song and dance around every time it comes on.
4) I've now downloaded it and listen to it several times a day.
5) I watch the video and go WTF, James Van Der Beek?

I do have to say, however, that I discovered 'Take it Off' on her album before it was released as a single and figured eventually it would be on the radio, so I shut that one down before it could enter the timeline. Boo Yah.

-C

'long as the room keeps singing

Alternately Titled: I may have watched the entirety of an awards show for the first time in my life last night.

(But that one doesn't roll off the tongue as easily.)

So I've dicovered two things:

1) I could get used to this Cinnamon Roll oatmeal and peanut butter thing. Who KNEW. Then again, peanut butter can make just about anything better.

2) Awards shows are much more entertaining and inviting when they don't keep you up until MIDNIGHT on a Sunday. The West Coast has got it right -- let's start the Oscars at 5:30PM! They're over by 9PM, and you still have time to finish drying that last load of laundry. It's incredible.

So we watched the entirety of the Oscar last night! I'm not much one for fashion, but I hated Jennifer Hudson's dress (weird boobage issues,) and loved that you saw Anne Hathaway walk in wearing an awesome red dress and immediately thereafter saw her on stage in a black and cream one with creepy crazy feathers all up ins. Maybe there weren't feathers, but the dress did make her look a million miles wide, which is a ridiculous statement in and of itself. So there.

Also, James Franco is constantly high. Did anyone else catch his strangely loopy interview with that woman I've never seen before in my life Robin Roberts before the show? He just laughed, the whole time. What's so funny, creeper? (Ok, the fact that he's a creeper doesn't stop him from being attractive, and I understand that. But...creeper.)

In other news, who knew Zachary Levi could sing? Actually, probably everyone except me, since probably everyone and their mother has seen Tangled. Which I probably will watch at some point, even though Mandy Moore's singing completely turns me off (I don't mind her acting, really.)

And maybe it's just me, but when is the rest of the world going to realize that we're just indulging Gwyneth Paltrow's fantasy of becoming a country singer? Granted, she can kind of sing. But as much as I don't love country, the country songs I know and like feature one of two kinds of voices: sweet and sultry or large and in charge -- and kudos to the singers who can do both. Gwyneth...does really have either. Her voice is just there. And I don't connect with her lyrics or her stage presence. Isn't it strange how someone can be a formidable presence in one artform and not even capture your attention in another? Seriously, that's why we even have "triple threats." True ones are few and far between. Let's demand some real singers up in here, y'all.

Speaking of country songs, I justed discovered this Leann Rimes song, and I kind of like it. And by kind of, I really mean I like it a lot.

(Nate liked the little wrist-flicking dance towards the end.)

Also, watch Peter Hollen's new video! (I find the turn around on this song kind of sickeningly fast.) And if you haven't watch his other a cappella covers, you should do that, too. He's my a cappella friend by six degrees of Kevin Bacon separation. Plus, you may have seen him on that little show called The Sing-Off on NBC. Yeah.

There's a 50% chance of rain or snow all day today, but right now, there's actually blue sky outside. Plus, it's Jeans Week at work, which makes my life. Or at least my week. I'd rather be in jeans than anything else.

What did you think of the Oscars? Did you watch the whole thing?

-C



make things that are good for you

It's been an excellent past couple days.

Friday night Nate had to work, so I went to Uwajimaya and bought a juice container so I could squeeze the oranges we bought last time we went to the store.

Juice makin' supplies!

I learned a few things about making orange juice:

1) it's hard. these orange did not want to be juiced. plus, the halves of the oranges were slightly larger than the middle part of the juicer, so you had to kind of shimmy them around in a circle, so that you got juice out of all parts of the orange.

2) the juice will not cooperate. it wanted to go everywhere except into the container. it felt like there was more juice coming out of the orange when i cut it in half than when i was juicing it. 

All of this was a little misleading, though, because I actually got almost half the container's worth of juice out of the five oranges. 

Tada! It is delicious. I love oranges, and citrus in general, but I also have this thing called a Geographic Tongue, which makes it uncomfortable to eat lots of acidic or spicy foods (this is partially what I contribute my dislike of hot/spicy foods to, on top of my Dad's tabasco sauce story, because the parts of the tongue that are "denuded" are super sensitive to these types of things.) So after juicing and munching on oranges for twenty minutes, my tongue hurt. The skin of my face is also supersensitive to citrus juice, so I kept having to pause to rinse around my mouth. Doesn't all this talk of rinsing my face make you picture me juice shoving myself headfirst, into a pile of orange rinds? Well...it isn't too far from the truth. The aftermath:

Hehe. Anyway, I'm having fresh orange juice with my coffee this morning. I also decided to try this crazy thing that I've been seeing all the healthful/running bloggers I read eat, which is oatmeal with a bunch of other stuff mixed in it. I had a Cinnamon Roll oatmeal packet (hey, the package says it's Heart Healthy,) supplemented with a bit of quick-cooking regular oats with the end of a bag of walnuts, a spoonful of peanut butter and some unsweetened, dried coconut mixed in. 

OH. EM. GEEEEE. It was so delicious! I am not a fan of oatmeal, most of the time (every once and while, it sounds okay, ) but this may have converted me. Time to start buying crazy amounts of fresh fruit to shove in there, also. And, since we have a water dispenser for hot water at work, I can just pack all the dry ingredients up in a to go container and mix it up when I get to work. Cause ya know, I just can't eat first thing when I get up in the morning. 

Enough about breakfast foods. Last night, Nate and I went to Sip (as promised in this post) for the third (and last) part of our Valentine's Day celebration. We both liked in a little bit better than The Purple Cafe, even though it was slightly more expensive and had slightly less choices on the menu. The atmosphere was completely different, and it was considerably less crowded when we got there at 6PM, as opposed to our 10:30PM date last Saturday. I tried to take pictures of our food and such, but the light was so low my iPhone couldn't even distinguish between the wine glasses and the background of the restaurant, so I gave up on that pretty quickly. They have this awesome outside terrace that looks like it will be amazing to enjoy during the summer when the weather is nice and warm. 

In any case, we started with a Pinot Flight and decided to get several small/appetizer plates because it was still happy hour and so they were $3 off! We started with a half dozen raw oysters. They came with a trio of sauces: a spicy cocktail, a reduced olive oil vinaigrette and a raspberry champagne ice, which was my favorite and honestly, I could have just eaten it. I had it on every one of my oysters. The oysters themselves were SO GOOD. So fresh, nice and salty...they just slid down your throat. Oh man, they were awesome.

Second course was sirloin sliders on Hawaiian sweet rolls with cheese and a small dab of horseradish (I think) mayo. They were excellent as well. Cooked to perfection, and the sweetness of the rolls made them extra delicious.

Third course was a cheese plate with a selection of four cheeses: cow, raw organic goat, goat & sheep and just goat, with some crostini and a cherry jam mixed with a fruit gastrique. The cheese were so interesting. The raw organic goat, sheep & goat and the last goat were creamy and fairy mild tasting, just with different textures. The cow cheese, which I personally though would be the most mild tasting, actually had the most flavor. A flavor which was reminiscent of actually being on a farm with farm animals and the smells that accompany that. Now, I know taste and smell are linked, but I have never encountered (nor expected to encounter) a cheese that tasted reminiscent of manure. It was interesting, to say the least. 

We also had a flight of Chardonnay to accompany our cheeses, and halfway through the meal, our waitress brought out bread and butter. The bread was both fresh bread and crackers, both with rosemary baked in, and their fresh-made butter than was made with goji berries and marsala. Also delicious, but more like a cream cheese spread than a butter. I am NOT complaining.

For dessert, we contemplated Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee, but it was served cold, not hot, so we opted for the Hot Chocolate Cake and a small French Press (16oz) to go with it. The cake was uh-MAZE-ing: a super moist and rich chocolate cake, topped with toasted mini marshmallows, hot chocolate fudge sauce and a whipped creme fresh topped with a shortbread cookie. Holy CHOCOLATELOVER. I am one, but it was so rich, we literally couldn't finish it. 

We spent three hours there, and pretty much talked the whole time about Nate's new job, friends, and the city, among other things. We were pretty much the first people there, and stayed after almost everyone we saw come in and eat dinner. It was an awesome night. I also gave Nate his Valentine's Day presents. I got him a small heart with chocolates in it, a keychain philips and flat head screwdriver from Vat19 and a Macro/Micro lens for the iPhone from Photojojo, which hasn't arrived yet.

The other thing that hasn't arrived is my order from ModCloth. Le sigh.

Today is grocery shopping day and then we're checking out the Eclipse that we'll possibly trade for the Xterra.

In other news, our TV remote is dying and would not let us change the channel from GoodBurger for a good 30 seconds. Of course, we're too lazy to get up and the change the channel. Heh.

-C

i'm back!

So, one quick thing.

ModCloth is having a Cabin Fever Sale, so I bought this dress:

And this necklace:

because I have this horrendous love for all things dinosaur related.

But I was looking today (because I am a glutton for punishment,) and this dress -- which I had been eyeing, and decided I could find as an outfit of separates for cheaper (probably from Forever21) -- is now on sale for $13.

Thirteen dollars!? Even at the beloved 21, I don't know that I could buy a gray tank and rouched fuschia skirt for $13. Ooooh, I just waaaaant it. It is my lover.

Ugh.

-C

somebody just like me

So, my life is really boring. So boring that I haven't really had any inclination to write down anything that I've been doing in here. However, Nate and I did decide to explore and (gasp) go out to eat after he got off work last Saturday. We hit up one of the two wine bars/restaurants we've been itching to try downtown, The Purple Cafe. We had a local wine flight and a couple apps off their tasting menu (which we promptly destroyed before I got a chance to take pictures of them) before my stomach started acting up and we decided to head home (this was totally not the restaurant's fault, by the way. I chalk it up to the fact that I don't drink EVER anymore, and that I ate three pieces of bread with copious amounts of butter at around 8PM, and we went to the restaurant at around 10:30PM.) I have to say, unfortunately (and somewhat fortunately, because it's free!) my favorite part of the meal was possibly their fresh bread and whipped butter. Although, we had crostini and white bean spread and beef carpaccio as our apps, and the carpaccio was mui, mui excellente (I have no idea if that's how you spell either of those words.) I wish I had taken pictures of the inside of the place, because their wine storage/bar is this awesome column-esque structure in the middle of everything with a spiral staircase going around it alllllll the way up to the ceiling.

(pic credit goes to their website)

The rest of their menu was large, in charge and looked varied and superb. They have a little bit of everything, and we will definitely return at a later date (and an earlier time.)

We're planning on going to Sip (the second of these purported wine bars,) this weekend for the second half of our belated Valentine's Day celebration. I ordered some presents for Nate, but they haven't come in the mail yet (one of them probably won't, but I'm hoping the other will, since it's supposedly 2-3 day shipping and I ordered it Monday. But this is the USPS we're talking about, so...you never know.) He got me things on actual Valentine's Day, namely a box of chocolates -- the true way to my heart, no doubt -- and a lavender-scented massage candle. I had totally forgotten we used to have JimmyJane (yes, I know it's a sex site. But really? The massage candles are SO awesomely wonderful.) massage candle samplers I got from my old job in Boston, and we had just used up the customized fragrance bottle of massage oil I got free from Aveda last year for my birthday (they were not skimpy, it was a large bottle,) so it came as a welcome surprise! I can't write what I got him here, since he reads, but I'll post after I give him the gifts, and let you know how it goes ;)

Last night's dinner was brown sugar salmon, brown rice and roasted brussel sprouts. This is the first time I've roasted brussel sprouts, and I have to say, I enjoyed them immensely. The outer leaves get crispycrunchydelicious, plus, I bought parmesan cheese at Target the last time we went grocery shopping, and it makes all vegetables that much more delicious. Because it's cheese, and cheese is good. I also roasted some zucchini and yellow squash the other days (one time with and one time without parmesan cheese -- it was good both times,) and I enjoyed that also! And roasting is super easy, because you put them in and leave them alone and I like it. I'll start taking pics of things and posting recipes again when I start being creative and making things I haven't made a million times in the past several months.

We did some major grocery shopping last weekend, and yet still have nothing in the house for lunch. Ok, so that's not true, we just haven't been very good at portion control with dinner lately, so I haven't had leftovers to bring. And I'm too lazy in the morning to make a sandwich. Yeah, I really am. (I'm also too lazy, lately, to get up in time to put on make-up, but that's another story...) In any case, we got a (manual) juicer at Ikea when we were there a little while ago, and we bought a bunch of lemons and a bunch of oranges to make juice with (or smoothies, should be feel so inclined. I do love my Magic Bullet.) Unfortunately, we keep making our regular juice -- aka Crystal Light (knockoff) -- in our one and only pitcher. It will happen soon! Or I will buy a carafe at Uwajimaya. For serious.

In other news, I won tickets to go see Bobby McFerrin at The Paramount from Seattle Weekly via Twitter. Apparently, online social media is the only way I win things, because I have -- honest to god -- never won anything before in my life. Ok, so maybe that's a lie. I won a Vera Bradley purse from Project Graduation in high school. (But to be fair, there were only 300 other people. The odds are much better that way.) And sometimes I win things that I actually have te be vaguely skilled at something to win. But for realz, y'all, I WON! Plus, I won tickets to go see Bobby McFerrin, which is awesome, because he is the king of singing. Nate went and picked up the tickets, and we're in row H. It's gonna be pretty cool. So you should follow them on Twitter so that, if you live in the Seattle area, you can win things to.

One more thing for this morning: we sold most of our seating! The couch and coffee table were sold earlier this week! They even came and picked them up during the day, while I was at work, so when I got home, there was just this big empty space in the wall, since Nate didn't have a chance to move anything before he left for work. So I shoved our chair in the corner, moved the little Ikea loveseat to the wall where the couch had been and voila! We have seating for people other than ourselves. That doesn't smell like cat pee. It's ever so exciting. I haven't taken pics yet, because I'm still contemplating moving the furniture more. Plus, I want to get some accessories. Namely, a throw and pillows for the love seat, and something similar for the Poang chair, to tie them all into one color scheme. Because we have a (strange) gray chair, an off-white loveseat and a sage green over-sized chair. I will make this work. (If you have any suggestions, I'd be GLAD to hear them. I'll post pictures later, of all three furniture items together, because apparently the Klobo loveseat is the only thing that Ikea doesn't make a slipcover for, and I don't think they make this particular cushion for the Poang anymore. Oy vey.)

Ok, I lied, this is the last thing. We're trying to the sell the car, but we haven't had much luck so far. Some guy offered to trade us for a Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible. This is funny, because Nate sold his Eclipse so we could drive across the country (though, this is a 2G and his was a 3G and blah blah blah, I don't care about cars, so I'm pretty sure y'all don't care about cars, so Nate is the only one that cares about cars, sorry, Boo! If you really want the specific differences, ask him. He would be glad to discuss it.) It requires us to do some thinking, because it's possible that we could sell this car (now or later on) for more money than we could get for the Xterra, but we'd have to factor in (probably) higher insurance costs and feel we would need to garage it, because a convertible is more likely to get broken into, especially considering the number of cars we see smashed in near our apartment building. In any case, we're going to see it this weekend.

The Boo is meeting me for lunch in about an hour. But first, I have to sort through this pile of receipts to try and find one specific charge. Sweet.

-C

victorious

It is absolutely beautiful here in Seattle this morning, but they are -- of course -- predicting rain for later today. And snow/rain later in the week. Waaaaaaaaaah.

Last night, Nate and I decided to have an adventure, because you know...that's what you do on Tuesday nights, especially when you haven't had time to adventure recently. Because our trip to the market on Saturday in the POURING rain and our trip to Ikea on Sunday weren't adventuresome enough.

Let me first say this: we have a hallway full of seating.

We now own one ikea poang chair with footstool, one blue oversized chair that folds out into a twin-sized bed, one ikea white loveseat, one green oversized chair, and (not pictured) one ikea computer chair, one small wooden chair with an ugly cushion and an 8' brown microfiber couch. Ack! They take up pretty much the entire apartment.

We have all this seating because we decided to sell the couch and blue chair (and small brown chair with ugly cushion) for various reasons, along with the glass-topped coffee table and get different furniture. The blue chair was sitting the corner of our bedroom in a spot now owned by the desk, so it needed to be moved. Well, it isn't very comfortable, and before we moved apartments and inherited the couch, there were always fights about who got to sit in the green chair and who got the blue one. So we decided that we'll sell it off, along with the couch (because the couch is HUGE and kinda smells funny) to make room for some different seating. It has been ridiculously difficult for us to get anything we actually wanted via craigslist, so we weren't expecting to actually get the seating I found on Monday but...we did. And we got exactly the ones we wanted. Hence our hallway of chairs.

In any case, Nate picked me up from work last night and we stopped by Home Depot to grab some screws (forgetting that we also needed an extension cord. Boo.) before heading out to pick up the love seat. We got there, got the loveseat and put it in the car without too much trouble -- we did have to stop to take the legs off, but that was a minute detail. We stopped for dinner at Wendy's, then found the place we were picking the chair up from no problem. Grabbed the chair, headed outside to put it in the car.

Which we tried unsuccessfully to do for an hour. AN HOUR. During which time it was windy, cold and raining on and off. It just wouldn't fit in the Xterra with the lovseat in there, too. After about an hour, the husband of the woman who had sold us the chair came out to see if we needed any help. We needed allen wrenches (the favoritist tool of Ikea,) which he, amazingly enough, had (Nate has these too, so we could put the chair back together when we got home, but we don't usually carry the tools around in the car.)  We took the seat off the base and FINALLY the chair fit inside the car. We then spent another fifteen minutes or so trying to figure out why the back door wouldn't stay closed (as a sidenote: we have to ratchet it to the bases of the front seats, because the locking mechanism is broked and electric, so we can't even manually lock it. I've never more appreciated why my mom hates electric locking mechanisms on cars.) Then we managed to fit me and the frame for the footstool portion of the chair in the front seat and we went home.

Ok, so here's where the story gets kind of weird. We had been waiting  for a girl who had a rug listed for $5 (on the beloved Craigslist,) to get home from class at 9PM. We dropped the chair and loveseat off and home and headed out to find her apartment. It took a little finagling, but we finally got there around 9:45PM and buzzed her. A very confused voice came on the intercom and said, 'Hello?' Nate said, 'Hi, it's Nate, I'm here about the rug on Craigslist?' There was a very long pause and the girl said, 'I don't have a rug, that was a fake post.' Nate and I looked at eachother questioningly, and took a pause before Nate said, 'Oh, ok.' The girl goes, 'What?' and Nate goes, 'Oh, nothing. I was just saying ok. And sorry.' And she goes, 'Oh, that's ok.' And we left.

WHAT?!

Why would anyone put a fake posting, with pictures, of furniture on Craigslist and just pick a random address to be the butt of their practical joke? Like, seriously? Do people actually do that? We concluded that maybe she wrong someone and they wanted to get back at her. You know, by...selling all her stuff on Craigslist. And telling people to not come until after 9PM. Uhm...yeah. Sure. Ok.

So, our adventure concluded and we drove back home. Luckily, we managed to find a very-rarely-open parking spot right in front of the apartment. Here's to hoping Nate sells off the furniture today, so we no longer look like an orphanage for chairs!

Have any of you ever had any weird Craigslist stories? Or creepy stories? Ooh...I shudder at the thought.

-C

i think she knows

Hey-o!

It's been a little while. Unfortunately, I don't have anything too terribly exciting to report. So...Happy Valentine's Day!

Those are my flowers from my booboo. He sent them to me at work. He's a very nice booboo.

Let's see. Here is a recap of the past couple days:

Wednesday it was beautiful outside, and I had delicious Jimmy Johns for lunch.

Thursday wasn't anything too special. We had a delicious casserole with egg noodles, cream of mushroom soup, onions and cheese for dinner. Noms!

Friday I have no pictures because I spent all day at "showsite" for TechReady12 learning more about what my company does. It was pretty cool, but it involved a lot of walking for the whole day. I did get to have sliders and sweet potato fries for lunch, though. Yum!

Saturday we braved the outdoors and went to Pike Place Market to do some long overdue Christmas shopping. Hopefully we'll be sending out presents soon! The shopping is mostly done, which is good. But it started raining not long after we got to the market and poured until about 6PM, which was the majority of the time we were out. Of course. Before it started raining, we stopped and got lunch at a little deli/store called 'Pear' across from the market. It was delicious. I discovered Kettle's Sweet Onion chips. They taste like funyons, only less like death and preservatives (ok, so that's a lie -- I love funyons) and more like deliciousness!

Sunday we couldn't decide what to do. It was vaguely nice outside, so we were going to go walk around, but decided to drive down to Ikea instead. I'd never been to an actual Ikea store, and I didn't know what to expect. Nate was shocked and so we did the whole experience -- shopping and eating. The food wasn't great -- it wasn't horrible -- but it didn't cost a whole lot. We got the pasta marinara combo, and the garlic bread was delicious. Plus, they have the best ice. Besides Sonic ice. Ice is an important part of my meal! Leave me alone...

Today is Monday and Valentine's Day. It's dark and gloomy outside, but at least it wasn't full on raining when I had to walk to work this morning -- just misting. Plus, I'm wearing my new shoes!

So shiny. Have a great day!

-C