Welcome back!

Well, it has been exactly one year since my last post! I guess that's long enough. The last year has been filled with cupcakes, endless hours at the gym, and general unfulfilledness. News on the horizon: Laura's coming home! That's right, as of February 28th, my lease is over and i'm moving back up. Plans are still largely up in the air but they include- hanging out with Lily, hanging with all family, being homeless, cooking for people, and working in the san juans for the summer. Stay tuned!

And then there was snow!

So, i'm not sure i have any new pics for this post...so i plan to pull out some old ones! Congrats to Laura, who just got hired to be the full time, long term preschool teacher at the woodstock school! I start on Monday. Pics to come. In the meantime, i planned to go and visit everyone (lily) up north for my last 4 day weekend, possibly ever. Ben got up at 7 am, huge for him, and drove me to the train station. I had a big bag of train snacks, much more than i should have brought, i was feeling silly, but assured myself that i would need snacks on the way south also... There was controversy on the way up, by way of text message, about who would pick me up. I was hearing doomsday things from the island, and no one was super excited about coming to mt vernon. There was talk about a bus from mv to oak harbor, and whether or not it was running was up for guess. When the call came over the train loudspeaker that the snow and tree slide had taken out the track and the train we were on was officially annulled ( they said that!) I pretty much knew that my best option was to go home. A few hours later, buses arrived to take people to seattle to take whatever connections may be available. I made the decision to just stay on the train, which would be reversing it's direction ( two headed train!) after the others got off. It was myself and one other lady making this choice- her name was vas-something long- an exchange student from India who was here taking a quarter of painting classes at psu. She had also been here last year teaching farsi at psu and had gotten a scholarship to come back. Once everyone was gone, we grabbed our bags and headed to the big, comfy seats in business class, where we camped out for the trip home. During this trip, we both had to "get our tickets back" from the assistant conductor in order to get a refund in the Portland station. This was such a simple task- the assistant conductor was sitting at a table in the dining car with a big stack of hard copy tickets that he flipped through to find our names, one by one. I have been baffled before at the strangely old fashioned ways of amtrack, for instance, when you check in you are given a colored slip of paper with a car and seat written on it, by someone's hand (<- someones, someone's?) and you put it in a slot above your seat. Along the ride, the worker comes along and can tell by the color of the slip who is getting off where. This system just seems so archaic, with so much room for error- I would question it, if it were not for the entirely 40+ staff. I tell you what, when the next generation of amtrack workers takes over, that shit is not going to fly.

A few pics from when I went to Ashley's wedding

Super Dad!

The other night I decided to make pretzels, so Ben made brats, braised cabbage,
 and beets with mustard and horseradish. 

Happy national popcorn day! (no, seriously, it was yesterday)

North

Recovering now from a very long trip up north for the holidays- 10 days! Felt like even longer, I really had the chance to move in and make myself at home on the island. Other than Auntie Jan not making it up, I got to see everyone on my list! Lovely dinner with cindy, tea and baby time with Erin, lunch and sleepover with Deb and Denali, fish and chips and Safeway adventures with Sabine, playing house with dad and Kim, lots of great time with the Grandma and Grandad, officemax adventure with Don, Solstice celebration and bellingham time with Mom and Matt, car talks with Shannon, and lots and lots and lots of Lily! Not so many pictures this time, i guess not so many pictures in general these days, i find myself just hanging out in the moment a lot more, the need to document and report gets fainter by the day. But, quality right? Not quantity!  

Dad's christmas tree beets

Stockings!

New boat owners!

After all my huffing, shannon finally made everyone pose for a family picture. Taken by father, who refused. I like it. It has a kind of holy feel to it.

Look at Lily's eyeballs in this one! Ha!

It's not every year we get a new stocking at the farm! Yay!

Seriously. I love this one.

Orange hazelnut solstice cake! Yum, didn't manage a picture of dinner...

Ghost father

The train goes! (kind of!)

Pete's liver and hazelnut stuffed lamb leg- oh, no one told you it was liver, huh? Funny how much liver you can eat when you don't know what you're eating!

Orange vanilla baklava, my most successful dish of the season

Ha!

Pig pancakes! Yes!

Ok, so i always think it's not so many and then it turns out to be 77! Holy crap! Most of them are of Lily, though, as you may have noticed, she is just so darn photogenic, it's like the camera turns to her automatically!

What else...

Oh, yes, the felt things! After my last post complaining about being bored, my mother suggested that i try sewing little felt things like she does with her friend Georgia. So i did. I didn't want to go buy the book that she had so i downloaded free patterns from the internet- there are millions of them! I guess i gave the little duck, my first attempt, to Lily without ever taking a picture, but here's attempt number two:

Before you try to guess, i'll just tell you- it's a cupcake. I got some interesting guesses. I am currently working on a little owl, pictures to come. It is an interesting new hobby, first thing i noticed- felt is super expensive! After checking out the options, i decided to go with some of the cheap recycled squares in all different colors to practice with, maybe i'll spring for some real stuff once i get a little better. Second thing- embroidery floss is kind of a pain in the ass, and certainly not my friend. I feel like there must be an easier way to work with it but I have yet to discover what that is. I finally was able to pull two or three strings out without the whole thing getting tangled, but i still run into problems once i start sewing, it just gets so twisty and ties itself in knots. So, pointers there would be great. 

What else, oh new years! Also Ben and I's anniversary, went to a party at our friend Cassie's house in NE. It was fun, we danced and talked to people other than each other, which is great for us. And Anthony took a few silly pictures of us before we left.

I like this one cause it makes me look tall!

Oh, and there was a fabulous overnight vacation to the Hilton in Beaverton- friday night, pool, hot tub, yup. Not a single picture!

Bye!