My Single 2015 New Years Resolution

I don't really set New Years Resolutions.

I used to do the X before X to try to motivate me to accomplish some personal goals each year for my Birthday. You can see my failure here, Meaning...I don't do well with things like this.

I see the value, don't get me wrong, but I am just not a list driven person is what I've decided. How I manage projects for a living is beyond me. 

However, in an attempt to live in the moment. Embrace the experience, and not get caught up in the "how I think it should be" whirlwind. I've made ONE. SINGLE. RESOLUTION!

I will not be Christmas shopping on December 24th unless I am assisting a family member in finishing their shopping. 

Every. single. year. I am shopping on the 24th. Sometimes it is worse than others. Last year was... well... an exception to every year so that doesn't count. But I am horrible and being prepared; and satisfied with my Christmas gift and always look back and wish I'd spent more time with my family vs shopping for them.

So this is my ONLY resolution. I think I mean this is a big deal I can pull this off, but I figured putting it out here was one more level of accountability.

Does anyone have any foul proof methodologies for getting it all done in time? Any great gift ideas people want to share already??

I am Thankful for Snow, Peanut Butter, Family and Lattes

(Not in that order, and not and not an all encompassing statement)

Like last year, the BF and I skipped out of DC for Thanksgiving and opted for some early season skiing, peanut butter pie, and a potato product for our Thanksgiving meal. It is like a tradition of sorts. We went to Utah last Thanksgiving and decided to do a repeat this year.

This year we arrived a bit earlier in the day, and while we still had some hashbrowns at the hotel bar, we were able to have a restaurant Thanksgiving meal at Faustina. We also were able to have my parents come join us the day after Thanksgiving which made the trip really special for me.

The day my parents were driving to Utah to meet us, we skied Alta so we could get our ski legs under us. We had some amazing weather, decent early season snow and ended up running into people who were on our same flight!

That evening we met up with my parents for dinner at Squatters, where they have the most delicious peanut butter pie! We knew we were going to have to back back after having it last year! (Their beer is really good to, but man oh man, that pie!).

The next day we decided to ski Solitude, which I really enjoyed last year. In turned out to be sunny, warm, and the perfect terrain for all of us to warm up our legs!

That evening we checked out a local pizza place, Davanza's, and they had the most amazing walls covered in cans.

The boys were into watching the football games and recaps, while my mom and I were intrigued by all the different can designs.

The final day of skiing out my legs to the test, and I can say I am happy I have been hitting the gym a lot recently!

The BF couldn't join us on our last ski day, so it was just my parents and I. After a lot of indecision we decided to go to Snowbird, which we had last skied at about 12 years ago! We lucked out with some sunshine, moderate temperatures and some great laps on the tram.

We skied until our legs fell off. Well, we stopped just before that, but we skied a full day and cheersed each other with some brews at the base.

With a snow storm rolling in, my parents got an early start the next morning to head home while we broke out the laptops for work.

I discovered a lovely bookstore/coffee shop that made my mornings. We got to do a bit more exploring:

Then to top off the food for the trip we went to an awesome pasta place that was just a hop skip from our apartment which was perfect since the snow had really started to pick up.

After dinner I braved the blizzard that had set in and went and picked up two more pieces of that peanut butter pie for us to enjoy in the warmth of our hotel.

Yes that is PB pie in bed while I read a novel on the iPad.

It was a great Thanksgiving and I was lucky to get to spend it with some of my family.

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A Modern Christmas

I am attracted to pretty much all things Christmas when it comes to decorating. Growing up, and even now, our house was always decorated very well. My mom always has the inside feeling festive with the main floor of our house full of centerpieces, garlands, nutcrackers and all sorts of festive decor. My dad takes on the outside, and always has one of the classiest and most attractive light displays in the neighborhood. 

See? Classy, AmIright? (This also makes me really miss Theo as he would pee on the reindeer and sometimes almost electrocute himself by aiming for one of the electrical plugs...such a crazy dog)

I don't buy a tree out here in DC. Mainly because I don't stick around for much of the holiday season, and I am sure like anything else here, they are crazy expensive (I also don't do fake trees...I just don't). I do try to bring some festive to my apartment regardless of being sans tree.

Last year I did some ghetto-esque decorations, that certainly not up to standard of my childhood roots, but I guess that is what you get living on a budget in an apartment (and last year I lived in a room, not an apartment, just a single room that functioned as my entire apartment). 

This year, I got a jump start on a few ideas I had for holiday decor. I am currently on the hunt for some sticks so I can attempt to make something similar to this.

Source: Anthro? But Unknown

I also wanted to do something a bit more more visually attractive than the tiny handing ornaments I did last year. After thinking it over for awhile, I decided to try to make some of my own. They are a work in progress, but I have big plans for these.

Stay tuned for the final product!

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Happy Halloween Friends!! I hope you have some spooootacular plans today!

One of my closest childhood friends had the mom who always had some homemade something around the house. Many of these treats were holiday traditions, or things she would make for special occasions. Considering I practically lived at their house in elementary school ( think America Girl dolls, Beanie Babies, Salute your Shorts, and old school Nintendo) I in affect adopted a love for many of the treats her family had, in addition to my own family's food themed traditions. One of my favorites that I adopted and made my own parents incorporate into our own holiday tradition repertoire was roasted pumpkin seeds. It was the perfect food tradition to tie with carving pumpkins every year.

Considering how serious I take my holiday traditions (I may or may not be a bit of a holidayzilla) this year I knew that carving a pumpkin meant I had to do it right. Now, I think I nailed the pumpkin I was going for using some power drills. So I was pretty thrilled when I ended up having enough pumpkin seeds from tha adventure to warrant making a batch of roast pumpkin seeds just like when I was growing up.

Normally one pumpkin isn't enough to get enough seeds, but I had picked a particularly seedy one which was great. Typically I would recommend to plan on having at least two pumpkins to gut to get enough seeds for this.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

2 cups fresh, raw, straight from the pumpkin seeds
1 teaspoon Worester Sauce
1 teaspoon Salt
3 Tablespoons Butter, melted.

You are going to clean off those seeds until all the guts of the pumpkin are off. I try to clean off as much gunk as possible as they are coming out of the pumpkin and then use a colander that has bigger drain holes to wash them for dayz. Then you are going to boil them. Ten minutes. Just plop them into salted boiling water and away you go.

Now you need to get them good and dry. Like NO moisture, or the salt will clump up on you. I put to paper towels on top of a grated drying rack and move them around for a few days until they are dry. If the paper towel holds any moisture, you'll want to change that once a day. Mine took two days to get completely dry.

Once dry, mix the melted butter, salt and Worcester sauce. Include the pumpkin seeds and stir to coat.

Heat oven to 225F. Spread seeds out on a pan and roast for 1-2 hours. Mine typically take 2 hours. Take them seeds out to check for burning and to stir on the pan every 20-30 minutes.
Voila! Amazingly tasty roasted pumpkin seeds!

**As a side note, if you want to make these without the pumpkin mess, or in say, like July, check out the option to order plain seeds that you could just start at the step where you throw them in the mixture. 

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Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms, grandmas, and soon to be moms! I wasn't lucky enough to spend the day with two of the best moms that I know- my own mother and my sister, but I am so fortunate to have such wonderful examples of strong, compassionate, and loving moms in my life.

Like Grandma- Like Granddaughter with the fuzzy hats!

Happy Mother's Day to the best Mom and Sister! I love you both so so very much!

Utah Ski Vacation

To back track a bit, lets focus on Thanksgiving for a moment before we talk Christmas.

I was all set for a East Coast Thanksgiving, a few days out of DC meeting some more of the bf's family, some food, relaxation, you get the idea. I've kind of become immune to being away from my family on Thanksgiving as it is a very rare occasion that I can be in Idaho for Thanksgiving and then come back a month later for Christmas. (Particularly when I take three week Christmas Vacations ;)!) So needless to say, while I would love to be home with my family having a traditional Thanksgiving, I have certainly learned to adapt and have a non-traditional thanksgiving without much pause.

So we are all set for Mass. when the bf comes over one evening and says:

"I have a question."

Gulp. Internal monologue kicks in "oh myyyy gooood. What did I doooo? Oh wait, is this? Does he have a small box? Nope. No box. Ok. Was I mean lately? No. Well I don't think so. Oh my. Am I getting disinvited from Thanksgiving?!? Is he going home without me?!? Ok. ok now. Calm down.

I mean....how funny would that have been! You know. If I thought like that, or anything. But I don't think like that. Or at least I tell myself so. Ha!

Anyways, I respond with a " yea?"

Which I got a question and response that was far from what I expected!

The bf had figured out a way for us to stay in Park City over Thanksgiving and hit up the open ski resorts. BUT only If I wanted to go...

I don't think it was any surprise that I jumped on that plan pretty quickly.

So we spent Thanksgiving in Utah. Just the two of us. Or maybe I should say the four of us.

Oh yes...it gets better this surprise the bf put together.

He put skis on it!

With new skis, boots, and the whole kit and kaboodle I was excited to get on the snow! Our trip started out with a Thanksgiving morning brunch with some good friends and their adorable daughter, who was born around Thanksgiving last year. We cooked up a frittata, holiday rolls, a fruit platter and some mimosas. Since we were going to miss the bebe's birthday party we got to give her our gift early which was fun.

We packed up and headed to the airport where we dined on some fast food for a pre-flight meal.

After a painless flight we picked up our rental car and headed into Salt Lake to stay the night before driving up to Park City.

Slightly hungry, we ended up eating some baked potatoes and drinking a night cap of beer at the hotel.

The next morning we headed up to Solitude for the inaugural voyage for the skis. It was beautifully sunny, warm, and complete with a pretty empty mountain.

We did pretty well. Only stopping for a morning break and lunch and then skiing until about 3.

We then headed to our hotel in Park City, which was really a timeshare resort, which came complete with families of 13 and an event schedule that was similar to a Ledo deck on a cruise ship. We were exhausted and naturally took awhile to relax before heading out to dinner.

We also got to spend a day walking around Park City and stumbling upon a perfect Saturday date night activity....

The PBR was in the next town and we knew we had to go!

We had a romantic date watching some bull riding, drinking cheap beer and munching on hot dogs and red vines. It was perfect.

The next day we headed to Alta. Skied our legs off again. Finished the day off with some awesome beer and a peanut butter mouse (errr...did I say mouse? Let's try mousse) pie and a neighboring room full of loud women drinking far too much red wine. (Needless to say we opted to switch rooms to ensure some sound sleep.

Due to an awesome deal on Liftopia we decided to squeak in a final day of skiing before catching our flight and checked out Brighton.

After skiing to the point of barely being able to walk, we packed up the skis and headed for some food before the airport.

This is where things got a teensy bit rough. Our flight out of Salt Lake was delayed and we were going miss our connection in Chicago. The bf needed to get back so we flew a red eye that dropped us into DC right about the time I would be waking up to get to work. It was an ugly day at work. However, we survived and that night I was asleep by 6.

Phew that was a novel of a story!

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Surprises

I love a good surprise. I don't need them all the time, and they hold a level of specialness if they are kind of rare.
 
There are some marked moments in my life where someone really knocked my socks off and here they are with my latest surprise that is beyond exciting.

The first surprise that makes some of my top lists was an Easter morning when I was maybe 6/7 (maybe younger?). A week or two before Easter I had been at the Albertson's (Boise's main grocery store when I was a wee little one) and up near the cash registers there were stuffed animals hanging from poles where they had the magazines, gum and all that good stuff. There was a GIANT yellow bunny, that was holding a bright orange carrot. For whatever reason I was enamoured with this fluffy monstrosity of a rabbit. Sadly, despite my pleading, bargaining and possible tantrum (mom I hope I wasn't that bad!) we left with only groceries and no bunny. Pretty sure I would never see him again, I moved on.

Easter morning came around and in my family we get some pretty elaborate Easter baskets. Candy and a few gifts from the "Easter Bunny". My sister had gotten a pretty awesome gift (maybe shoes? maybe a sweatshirt?) and I had finished opening my basket so I headed off to the TV room. I came around the corner to sit in the chair I always curled up in annnddddd..... THERE WAS THE GIANT YELLOW BUNNY!!

I grabbed that giant bunny, trucked on out to the dining room with a huge smile and felt like my little child heart would just burst with love and delight!

Now I still have the giant bunny, so clearly this surprise really stuck with me!

Much later down the road I was gearing up for that epic birthday where you cross the threshold into complete freedom and become a legal, card carrying, alcohol purchasing 21 year old. Originally my sister and I had talked about her flying to Seattle to possibly celebrate with me and for whatever reason, plans kind of fell through and I planned a big shindig with 20ish of my sorority sisters, friends, and business school peeps. I was kind of sad Nicole wasn't going to be there, but I also knew I had tons of great friends to celebrate with.

A huge group of people came (which was horribly flattering!) and we started to take seats around the various tables that had been reserved just for us. There was a chair in the middle of the table that I decided to take, and when a friend asked if they could sit next to me, my sorority sister, Carly, practically jumped out of her chair with a "NO! We are...umm...putting gifts there". I was like " Say whhhhaaatttt?". Regardless, I just started to get settled in for a yummy dinner and while finding a place for my purse I caught a glimpse of someone familiar walking into the room. Then it hit me! It was NICOLE!

Carly had contacted my sister after I had told her I was bummed that I wouldn't get to have Nicole celebrate with me and they crafted a very sneaky surprise to have Nicole surprise me. It has gone down as by far one of my favorite birthdays.

Now these have both been some of the best surprises, for various reasons, but lately someone else added to my list of great surprises people have done for me.

It was a few Saturdays ago, and I was in the mood to just be kind of alone and opted to camp out at my favorite coffee shop for the morning. N had mentioned heading to REI that day, and I was dragging my feet as I was just enjoying some of that quiet time and feeling a little homesick by myself. After a sufficient amount of time sipping coffee, reading blogs, devouring a cupcake and people watching, I finally let him know I was headed home and would be up to go to REI if he wanted. He said he was and that I should come over and meet him at his apartment.

When I arrived, he let me get down the hallway from his entrance and then says "I have a surprise for you, but you have to close your eyes". So I squeeze my eyes tight, and he steers me into his room, for me to open my eyes to feast on these beauties:

 
 EEEEK! I still can't get over it! I love them so much! When we went to Colorado last year to ski together (btw...huge step in a relationship :) ) I got to demo these for a day and I loved them. For months I had tried to find a pair I could afford, and sadly just couldn't squeeze them into my budget. Lucky for me, I have a very very very thoughtful, and loving guy in my life who even wrapped them in a big red ribbon and bow. Oh! Did I mention he had my family ship my new ski boots out and he put my favorite candy (nerds ropes!) in each boot! Ah-mazing! Talk about a Merry Christmas for me!

What have been some of your favorite surprises? Do you like surprises? I can say that some people reallllly don't like them.

If you want to read about a blog friend's post on surprises today you can check out Newlymeds and her experience with a surprise party for her sister!

ps. When I am home I will try to take a picture of the bunny. He is REALLY epic.

I Wish I Had A Mouse in my Brain

Or a mini monkey. Perhaps a possum? (No those are gross looking) Small bunny perhaps. I guess anything that could take notes on my thoughts when I am walking to work and could then send me a memo later in the day so I could remember all those brilliant, hilarious and perfectly worded blog ideas I had.

I had inspiration hit for a post today when I was like 2 blocks away from work. I kept chanting the post title as I walked into the building, rode the elevator and walked to my office. Then I was bombarded. When I finally could sit down with a notepad to document the inspiration. Poooof! Gone. Like a fart in the breeze. No way to recover it. (Unlike the fart, I wanted to hold on to this thought). All I remember is something to do with the idea of when do you fully commit to a relationship. I mean obviously, no one puts all their cards on the table (or rather shows their partner all their cards) before they are sure that they want them to be involved in their game of poker. That moment. When is it? When is it appropriate? When is it way past the point when both parties should be doing that. (Ahhh, yes. It is all coming back to me now). I'll get this into another post for another day. Meanwhile, if anyone knows were I can buy a small animal to put in my head that will help me remember all these brilliant thoughts, let me know. I am in the market to purchase one.

In other remember news. I dug out my few Christmas decorations I have ( a few more purchased this year from trusty ol' IKEA) and spent a few hours last night hanging garlands, lights and ornaments around my room (remember I only have 415 sq feet) to ringing in my favorite time of year. I resurrected my Christmas Camel I bought last year at Mount Vernon, put out my sequined squirrel my sister bought me a few years ago. I named him Nibblet. I woke up this morning, and was so thrilled to see all the festivity going on in my small space. I can't tell you how excited I am to get home this year (and never ever come back...ok not really, but one could wish) and get my Christmas on.

Perhaps someone will buy me my mini head bunny that I need this year!

How does everyone else stay organized and on top of making sure their blogspiration doesn't just slip on out of their heads?

Happy Easter Weekend

Well this is a bit belated but...Happy Easter Weekend everyone! I hope that you all got to enjoy treasured moments with friends and family and to share in the joy of such a special day.

Holidays, as I have learned in being far away from the people who I love to celebrate with, are all about creating what you want out of them.Growing up my mom made every holiday completely special and memorable. From decorations, to meals, to gifts, to photos--she really went out of her way to make sure holidays always were special. My family is also big on certain traditions. We always dyed Easter eggs as a family and I always enjoyed seeing the different kits we would get each year. Living on my own, and clear on the wrong side of the country I have tried my best to keep up with the egg dying. Last year I missed the eggs. But the year before Ben and I did some pretty awesome eggs. My first year in DC was another good egg dying year as well. Complete with using natural ingredients like wine as dye!

This year, I decided to take a solo Saturday night to make some eggcelent creations! I only did a dozen eggs this year (6 for me and 6 for my protein needing bf) and my level of Martha Stewartness caused this process to take over 2.5 hours to do just 12 eggs! I even ditched my complicated idea to make some eggs based on some things I found on Pintrest!

Sunday morning I woke up, met the bf and we walked down to meet Ben to head to a Methodist church near my old apartment. The scene at church was crazy! Straight up Royal Wedding style with women rocking fascinators, men in an array of pastels and little kids decked to the nines. The service was pretty good. Now let me tell you what really rocked our worlds....iPads in the church. Yes. iPADS!! The pastor had to swipe and enter a password to read his sermon. We were all a little taken back by 1) the thought that church money was spent on iPads and 2) Isn't the Bible what you should read scripture from? We were laughing and couldn't help but talk about it for the rest of the day.

After church we headed to Starbucks and enjoyed some sunshine and coffee before walking home. Before heading over to Ben's for an Easter linner the bf and I exchanged Easter Bags. I got spoiled with my favorite candy in the entire world (Nerds Ropes), lots of candy, cute cupcake/muffin holders, cupcake liners AND being the best bf ever....he got me the third book to the Hunger Games. (But I can't read it until I am caught up on my studying for my PHR class...he is making sure of that!)

The rest of the evening was spent hanging out, watching Mad Men and making chocolate mouse from scratch!

Hope you all had wonderful a wonderful Easter and a great start to your week!

Jingle All the Way

En route back to DC as I type. As usual, last night was rough and the first leg of my flight was a big tear laden and snot filled. Always hard to leave loved ones and head back to reality. My vacation was fairly relaxing. I did catch a cold which hindered my plans that I had in mind for this holiday season, but there was also a lack of snow and open ski resorts this year, so I wasn’t missing much when I was home feeling a little less than stellar.
First stop was in Seattle to see many of my amazing friends. I was able to squeeze in a few nights of going out, a run around Greenlake with Sara and Carly,dinner at Cactus, bonding sesh with Monica, shopping with Sara, brunch with the PC, dinner with Brooke (meeting Pearl, seeing her adorable abode and wedding chat!), a real cup of Starbucks and then my first Seattle lightrail experience. Seattle was wonderful and I am so blessed and thankful to have the chance to stop of there on my way home for Christmas. Naturally I hardly took any pictures when I was there (tres sad).

View from Sara’s office

PCO’Flare Brunch. Everyone was a bit sleep deprived.

Pike Place Market at Sunset.

Chowder Lunch with Sara.

Monica bough tequila. Oh. No.

I flew home mid-day and was able to grab dinner with my dad before heading home to say hello to my favorite poodle.



As usual I had to cram all of my Christmas shopping into the few precious days before the 25th and set out to get some of it done as soon as I could the next day. After running around and accomplishing some shopping I got to head home to see Nicole and Wyatt who had driven down from Sun Valley. Wyatt has gotten cuter (if that is possible) and has a vocabulary like no ones business.

Playing with Gramps train under the tree

Getting a little hair cut. Curls didn’t go away!

Tickle. He asks you to tickle him.

Sadly both my mom and I came down with some nasty colds/sinus infections/etc. and we ended up being home bound many of the days I was home. I did get to spend lots of time with Wyatt and Nicole. and some how managed to finish all my shopping with a little bit to spare.
Christmas eve was spent at my aunts doing our traditional dinner, drinks, gift game and presents event. It is one of my favorite nights of the entire year and I am always looking forward to seeing my cousins, aunt and uncle.

Opening one of the first gifts of the traditional gift game. Lotter Tickets of course.

Drawing the next name. Drinks.

Ham.

Playing race with his cousin.

Reading the new Brown Bear Brown Bear book with cousins.

Opening Idaho gear. Complete with beer of choice.

Christmas morning was complete with rolls stockings and getting a start on opening gifts. Wyatt had even more than last year and I kid you not when I say we were still opening gifts at 9pm! Wyatt enjoyed taking his sweet time and wanted to play with each gift as he opened it…so it took awhile to get through the pile.

Thomas, the remote controlled train.

Opening his fire truck. (This is Christmas evening when we were in different jammies and STILL opening gifts).

Wyatt loved the chocolate peanut butter balls and even helped himself to another bon bon.

Theo was chewing his paws….so Wyatt decided to too.

The last few days were spent exchanging gifts,baking, taking naps, cuddling with the poodle, walks with Wyatt, gingerbread house decorating (Wyatt’s First!) watching movies, grabbing lunch and brunch with friends.

Wyatt’s first gingerbread house! He was more into eating the candy and licking the frosting off the house.

Needless to say. The house was a masterpiece.

Go Caps!

Brunch with some of my favorite people in Idaho.

The return to DC came all too quickly and I am not looking forward to returning to work or the reality of bigkidlife.
On my flight to SFO I had to really think of things I am looking forward to to distract me from being too upset and scaring the person next to me with my tears. I did come up with some great things: I am looking forward to seeing the man, having a three day weekend after a short Friday at the office, taking an art class with Ben, catching up with friends. And longer term I am looking forward to a ski trip in March, my second niece/nephew’s arrival in April, and Brooke’s wedding in May.