What's Going On

Nothing exciting is going on with us - making it difficult to come up with something to post.  I've got two months left of school.  It will not come soon enough.  For Spring break I went to Oregon.  It rained a lot.  One morning I went on a very short hike to the Salmon River.  Of course as soon as I got there it started pouring.  We've just been doing all the day to day things.  We are looking for a new place to live.  We've been in this townhome for almost four years and Amy wants some land and I'm tired of hearing my neighbors snore.  Our lease is up at the end of June - so we are hoping to find a house to rent by then.

Melody

Steps for planning a trip

I'm hoping to take a trip to New Zealand in 2013, so I've been taking some steps:

1.  Start saving money.
I put all my extra change in my handy dandy New Zealand bank! 
(Thanks Macs!)

2.  Get some travel guides
I probably won't need them because I have my own personal guides!
(That would be the Macs!)

3.  Get a Valid U.S. Passport!
It arrived today
(Thanks City of Issaquah & the U.S. Government)

I still need a lot more money in my bank, but I'm hoping 2013 is the year I fly to the other side of the world!

Snowpocalypse 2012

Remember ages ago this post & this post & this post & don't forget this one

Well it's happened again.  Last week I didn't have to go to work.  Why?

SNOWPOCALYPSE 2012!!!!

So here we go:
1/17/2012 Day 1 - It did't snow at my house until early the next morning, but it did snow in my school district.

1/18/2012 Day 2 - The snow begins

6:30 - my car is the second one from the right

9:00 am our patio railing

9 am beyond the patio

looking out the front door - my car's the first one on the right

11 am - Amy's Car (mine is just barely visible) 

11/19/12 - Day 3 - The worst day of snow & the ice storm

8:30 am - the end of snow and the beginning of the Ice/Snow/Ice again

Can you see the ice beginning to build on Amy's tomato cages?

Ice layer on top of snow and the build up around the top of the pot is ice covered with snow

1/20/12 Day 4:  The snow & ice ends and the warming begins.  It started to rain early morning, but still some ice/snow.  We ventured out to get butter and saw the ice destruction.  Boeing had tons of trees down/ branches broken along the road.  In our complex two fir trees just bent over due to the weight of snow & ice. 

1/21/12 Day 5:  Rain continues - but the snow is still covering roads & our balcony, but my car was snow free

1/22/12 Day 6:  What's left at our house:

When I got to work on Monday - Issaquah still had lots of ice, and trees were down everywhere.  Areas were still without power, but school started again and we had to begin finals today - one week late.

Dinner with Pinterest

Recently, I have joined the many who have been sucked into the pictures and boards of Pinterest.  I love it!  All of it.

About three days into my obsession, my sister shared with me this quote that I believe she found on Pinterest:

Pinterest: A place where women go to plan weddings they'll never have and decorate houses they can't afford. 

Though I laughed along with her at the time, the thought has crossed my mind many times as I've continued my obsession with my many pins and boards.  Last week I made a decision:  That is not going to be me.  I will plan and gather pictures and ideas, but more importantly, I will do them.  My plan for this year is to be more real, do real things, experience real things, have real relationships and complete real projects.  I don't want to collect a bunch of dreams and ideas that I don't do anything with. 

With that in mind, this week is "Cooking with Pinterest" week. 



Recipe 1:  Crockpot Honey Chicken

Link:  http://pinterest.com/pin/83527768058666887/

Super easy recipe, cooks all days in the crockpot, hardly any work.  AND, it was tasty.  I loved it.  Great with rice and broccoli.  Will do it again for sure.

Recipe 2:  Waffle Brownies
Link:  http://pinterest.com/pin/33495590948295626/

Thought this would be so fun!  Any excuse to use one appliance to do multiple things sounds good to me.  However........ it didn't work out so well.  It might be better with a Belgin Waffle maker, but with my flat square one.  Yeah, not so good.  The "waffles" didn't come out of the plates very easily, despite my spraying them with baking spray ahead of time.  I did like the crunchy outsides, but there just didn't seem to be enough substance to it.  Not going to try it again. 






Point of the story.....  I can dream, collect pictures and plan.... but I'm going to do something about it!  This will be the first of many Pinterest posts of my many REAL adventures of the year.  Fun times!  :)