Sabbatical

I have many adventures to write about! Unfortunately I only have Internet at work until Friday...stay tuned for the most amazing D.C. adventure yet!!! (yes it really is that amazing!)

Three Clicks of My Heels

I want to go home.

Jaleo: Birthday Dinner

Traditionally I take Alex out to dinner someplace fancy for his birthday. (Years past: The Metropolitan Grill in Seattle, Grey Stone in San Diego, and my memory is lapsing for last year) but this year Alex chose Jaleo a Tapas bar. There are a few locations in the D.C. are but we headed to the one that was a short drive away in Crystal City. The restaurant is fairly large and we had no problem with getting a reservation. We did get seating in a corner which had a large curtain hanging to separate us from a till, however you could still hear all the beeping and the constant coming and going of the servers was a little strange and ruined some of the ambiance.

Alex had really wanted to try the paella, so we ordered their seafood version. They recommended that we order some tapas in addition so we started off with three delicious tapas:

Trigueros con romesco Grilled asparagus with romesco sauce and two from their specials menu. We also each ordered a glass of their sangria

The Paella was a lot of food for two people with the additions of the tapas but it was amazing! There was tons of seafood and the flavor was amazing.

We topped the meal off with a tradition flan that was incredibly creamy and silky in texture.

I would definitely go back, probably not order the paella since it is a bit pricey for your average night out to dinner. But our meal was fantastic!

A word of warning... don't wear slippery shoes. I had just bought a new pair of shoes *see earlier post, and the bottoms are supper slippery. Needless to say I almost took out a table in the bar...awesome.

Birthday Celebration

Alex's 24th birthday was yesterday. It was a pretty low key birthday, but I think he enjoyed the day. After work I went to his place of employment to join in on a happy hour event they were having, and then Alex and I ventured to the Mat Hatter bar a few blocks away to have some bar food and drinks. We then headed to Crystal City to watch the Huskies...boo that they lost!! We then came home and Alex opened his second gift...Top Chef the computer game. We have both been playing non-stop since last night. It is very addicting even if it isn't horribly complex. We also are both such big fans of the show that the "Judges Table" and characters make us laugh. Glad I made a solid birthday investment!

To back track, Alex's other gift is opening day tickets to the Nats. I am pretty excited for it...hopefully Obama will throw the opening pitch!

Re-visiting

I always read things about how it is important to revisit your goals to make sure you are progressing. I also thing it is time to evaluate how practical and realistic my 23 before 23 is. Here is the list with my comments! I still need a 23rd thing to do!

1) Lost 10 pounds- getting there
2) Get hired full time- I think this is out of my control and self-defeating (think of something new)
3) Make my 100th posting- this will be my 61st post---39 posts to go!
4) Start 52 Card Pick Up-- need some more inspiration
5) Start volunteering somewhere- got to get my act together
6) Stop biting my nails- maybe if I wasn't so damn stressed out (must think of diamond that will grace my fingers at some point!!)
7) Only drink 1 soda/week- Change to only drink 1 regular soda per week, diet is okay
8) Do not check facebook for 1 week- need to buckle down and do it!
9) Turn my cell phone off for three days- not sure if I will survive
10) Donate my hair to Locks of Love (completed- December 2008)
11) Take one photo a day for a month and make a photo album- need to set a start date
12) Go to the top of the Old Post Office Tower (November 2008)
13) Complete a scrapbook
14) Only drink water as a beverage for 1 week- lets scale back and say 5 days, weekends are hard!
15) Read 20 books- easily done, probably already done but I haven't tracked
16) Do not eat meat for two weeks- need to do it
17) No alcohol for one month, ummm scaling back to two weeks
18) Host a dinner party- too embarrassed by my apartment
19) Start studying for the LSATs- not sure I want to go to law school anymore
20) Take a trip somewhere I haven't been before- does Maryland count?
21) Send 5 friends hand made greet cards- V-day cards!! DONE!
22)Go to dinner and a movie alone on valentine's day---done
23)

The Joke is Over...I Have a Couch

This past weekend we made a crucial addition to the furniture situation in the apartment. Drumroll please....



We now have a couch. Now it isn't an incredibly attractive piece of furniture, but it is black and white (fitting my decorating scheme) and it could be worse. It also has a hide-a-bed so more places for friends to sleep if they come visit!

It feels amazing to look in my apartment and actually feel like it is a place to live rather than just a place to come at the end of the day and to store my stuff. I am really want a TV now and a dining room set to replace the desk.

I moved my big desk into the sun room, which will work until it is super hot (not good for the computer and electronics). It is too bad we don't really have anywhere else to put it since I hate the variable temperature in the sun room.

I will post pictures of the couch soon!

Target and Shoes

How is it that whenever I go to target and don't have a firm list of things I need I come out with a small bag filled with things that have set me back more than I care to think about.Granted today wasn't to awful. Part of Alex's Birthday gift, new body wash, shave gel (on sale!), makeup sponges, the rest of Carly's valentine's gift, and my new shoes (which I am in love love love with!). I justified my purchase with the following logic:

1) they are work appropriate and I will wear them all the time
2) I haven't bought a new pair of shoes since August
3) I wanted them
4) They were only $25

Anyways I am in love with them...you can check them out at Target.

A Round of Applause for my Mom!

Tonight my mom is being honored by the Boise School district as a recipient of the Golden Apple Teaching Award! My mom has been teaching for...well I am not sure how many years, but a lot. She currently is a special education teacher for K-6th grade and is long overdue for this type of recognition in my eyes!

So congratulations mom! I am so proud of you!!

Boise Mall

Now I know this really had nothing to do with Washington D.C., but this blog is about me (ha! How vain!) and I feel it appropriate to blog on where my roots are.

I was catching up on my Idaho news on Idahostatesman.com and found an article this morning about the fate of the sculpture that stood in the entry way at the Boise Towne Center (lame name for the Boise Mall). The sculpture was of two boys swinging on a tire swing. I remember the water pool below them was always filled with coins and if you were going to make a wish it was always lucky if your coin landed on the brass slab that sat just at the waters surface and held the statue up. This fountain was the place where you would meet up at the end of the day when your mom would take you and your 4 little elementary school friends to mall and would let you wander alone freely by yourself and spend your parents money in Claires. When I think back I can vividly imagine what the sculpture looked like and how it seemed quite large at the time.

Well what might you ask has spurred me to take a trip down memory lane concerning the Boise Mall? Well the statue had been removed from the mall when it went through a period of rejuvenation. Strangely, I have visited the mall many times on my trips home, and somehow managed to miss the fact that this icon of childhood was gone from the main entrance. In the article in the statesman they say that the statue has been cut up and is at a recycling center. How strange to have a piece of art go to a recycling center? Really? Way to go Idaho. The mall said they would give it to someone who wanted to put it back together and do something with it, and they had no takers. However the recycling location said that they have had people lining up to take the sculpture. Not even going to ask on what type of advertising the mall did to get people informed about the sculpture. My guess...none at all. Anyways, Tim Woodward, the columnist who reported on this, is taking suggestions for where it should be relocated to. My top three options:
Boise Grove
Boise Train Depot
Somewhere along the Greenbelt

You can read the whole story Here.

$5 Meals

Since we all know I am on a pretty strict budget one of the major expenses that stresses me out is food/groceries/meals. I was reading up one some of the blogs of note on blogger and found $5 Dollar Dinners. I haven't been able to read a whole lot of recipes and while I am not sure I will be able to make some of her recipes for $5 just because D.C. prices always seem a lot higher to me, it might be a good place to start in crating some yummy, cheap meals.

I'll let you know if I try any of her recipes, and if I can stay under $5 for them!

I Hope My Feet Forgive Me

This past weekend Mrs.. Stephanie came up from Florida to visit me. I could not have picked a better time to have one of my best friends come visit. I really needed some girl time, and with someone who I knew and had a history with. We had a whirlwind of a weekend and I am pretty sure I might have permanently damaged both of our feets!

Mrs. Stephanie came in on Friday morning, so I took the day off from work rather just switched work days, and picked her up in Baltimore. We took public transportation to avoid morning traffic, which was a bit long but not bad. We went back to the abode in Alexandria and had some delicious mac and cheese, chatted each others ears off and then took a short power nap. We then headed into DC where I got to show Mrs. Stephanie my office, introduce her to some of my co-workers and then we headed to check out the White House, where we missed seeing Obama get into Presidential Helicopter by a few minutes...darn!

We then walked to the Lincoln memorial, something I haven't seen since I was visiting D.C. in high school on a leadership trip. There were 900,000,000,001 tourists all in big groups there, it was like a zoo! (Making me dread spring time) We walked and saw most of the monuments and memorials, and ended up catching a breath-taking sunset!

Do to my lack of timing, we missed the Smithsonians, so we headed back to VA. We ventured to King Street and grabbed some thai food and the took a stroll to ensure that I could drive after my very strong mango margarita. After dinner we rented a movie, which neither of us could keep our eyes open for. Mrs. Stephanie's title for it was "Sex and the City: Menopause!".

The next day we woke up and had a delicious breakfast and then set out to take a tour of the capital. Mrs. Stephanie and I almost died laughing while watching the introductory film they show. After that we met up with Alex and went through part of the Natural History museum.

Mrs. Stephanie and I did some shopping at Pentagon City. She made some darling purchases, and I even found a very cute shirt for our evening plans.

We had dinner in Del Ray at one of Alex and I's favorite Mexican restaurants. We each ordered a "large drink", another Mrs. Stephanie quote moment "It is as big as my head". We fondly called our drinks "swimming pools".

After dinner, we did a quick hair and makeup change and headed back into D.C. to meet up with co-worker/friend (heaven forbid I ever make another friend at work that I blog about! I won't know what to call them!) for a few drinks. Sadly we were all too tired to really get our drink on, but I had a good time and it was fun to see my old world meet my new world.

The next morning Mrs. Stephanie and I thought we had died....4am bedtime, and site seeing...not a good combination.But we managed to finish off the Smithsonian's by going to the American History (the first ladies exhibit is awesome!). And then made a stop at the ADPi chapter house here at George Washington. The girls were adorable and going in the house made me really miss my days at Alpha Theta!!

The day concluded with driving to Baltimore to drop Mrs. Stephanie off with minutes to spare to catch her flight ( I really need to learn my way around!) and then I proceeded to drive back in the blizzard that hit that evening.

It was seriously one of the best weekends I have had in a long time! Now I just need to make plans to go visit her in FL and meet her adorable puppy Lila Mae!

de young

So one of the highlights of my trip to San Francisco (again, not exactly a sigh-seeing trip) was going to the de young art museum in the Golden Gate Park. My sister wanted to see it, and she had told me it was an architecturally unique building. Generally most things she finds cool, I do too, we are in-sync like that. But the de young is astonishing. Unfortunately it wasn't a sunny day, so we couldn't see the true beauty of the cooper siding. But it is still just an amazing building. It is so massive, looking back at my photos there is absolutely no way to capture the size and scale of the building in a photo.

In addition to the amazing building, we got to see some pretty amazing exhibits. Andy Warhol was a huge exhibit. Two things of particular interest. 1) His involvement in the dance world. He had a lot to do with Martha Graham and many other contemporary and modern choreographers. 2) He worked with Kenny Scharf. One of my childhood friends is Kenny's niece. His artwork used to be all over her house, which I always thought was strange as a child, but now I can see where the influence came from.

We also got to see an Yves St. Laurent exhibit, which was beyond fabulous. They had at least 100 of his couture outfits. They were so extravagant. Some were so timeless I know that I would be in love with it many many years from now.

After we did these two fabulous displays. We went up in the observation tower. While there wasn't much to see due to the fog and rain, you do get a great view of the building and a sense of how massive it is.

Went went through the modern art section lastly and there was one room that housed some of the best pieces of art in the whole museum.

One piece was very moving and also so beautiful. It was pieces of charred wood that had come from a African American Baptist church that had been burned by an arsonist. Hundreds of these pieces just floated in air, hanging from the ceiling.

Another piece was covered in junk...literally junk and then coated in glue and plaster. If you stood close enough to it you could smell its stink.

Then there was what I refer to as "The Tiffany's Art", which was only because it is very shiny and silver.

Outside there were some very amazing pieces of art as well. Nothing beats a giant safety pin....

There was also a large rock that had been covered in silver, pounded, and then polished...if only it had been sunny!

San Fran and My Fam

So two weekends ago ( February 19th-22nd) I headed to San Francisco to attend my cousins memorial service. There was a delay in when the service was, despite her passing in December. While the occasion was somber and not the best reason to be traveling, I was glad I went, and also got to spend some much needed time with my mom and sister, as well as see my aunt and her family which is a rare occasion.

I flew in on Thursday, and met up with my sister who naturally is the only person who can get off a plane having travelled all day, be exhausted, and still look cute and pulled together. Anyways, we stayed out at the airport that night and literally just crashed into bed. In the morning my mom and aunt picked us up in a ZipCar (I am totally sold on the service at this point) and we made the drive to Modesto where my cousin grew up. The last time I was in Modesto was when I was like seven and I remember wearing spandex leggings...hotness. We had some errands to run for the service the next day as well as drive up to the small town, Knights Ferry, where the service was being held. Knights Ferry is a charming one-road town with a beautiful covered bridge. It was a beautiful and peaceful place to hold the service. My aunt found a community center that really was the perfect location. That night my sister and I discovered the joy (or maybe not), of KMart and its cheap offerings. Nicole and I also made a trip to the "Seve" (Seven Eleven) for some late night snack binge eating. It was my first vanilla creme slurpee and was it tasty!

The next day was the service, and while I don't feel the need to detail that, I will say it could not have been more appropriate or probably representative of my cousin and her family. There were animals, friends, family, and a great buffet with some wine to top it all off. I was very grateful to be able to be there, as my side of the family was small in numbers.

While in Knights Ferry my sister and I took a stroll where we discovered a tiny little shop that sold the most adorable knit baby clothes (if only I thought Nicole was having a girl!) and we also wandered to check out the covered bridge.

At the end of the day we drove to Sacramento and met up with one of my aunt's sons and his wife, and their new adorable son, Mac. I was lucky enough to get to hold Mac and have him cuddle against my bear fleece jacket...it was adorable. Nicole and I will have some unforgettable memories about the hotel...the toilet, and our neighbors. It was an interesting night to say the least.

The next day we drove to San Francisco. My aunt just moved into a darling little studio just a few minutes cab drive from the major downtown area. We spent the day at the de young ( I will reserve a post for this later since the building is so amazing) and saw some amazing exhibits like Andy Warhol and and a Yves St. Laurent exhibit.

Nicole and I snuck away in the evening for a quick shopping trip, where we both came home pretty much empty handed (good for my wallet!). And then met up with my other cousin and his wife for a family dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant just a few blocks from my aunts apartment. I had an amazing seafood pasta dish and leave it to my family to pick some amazing wines!

That night also boasted some amazing sleeping conditions. A twin air mattress for my sister and me to share......

right.

I slept on a pile of pillows.

Slept was a loose term.

The next day my aunt took us to her old neighborhood in SF and we had breakfast at a crepe shop. Nicole and I ordered banana crepes filled with sugar and topped with whipped cream! The I had my first BART experience to the airport.

I was sad to say goodbye to my sister, as I am constantly missing seeing her more often. But I am so grateful for my time with her and my family!

More posts to come on the de young! Unfortunately the weather was a bit ugly for good photos but I have a few!