Archive for May, 2009
Launched: New little blog project
So, I’ve mentioned earlier this week that I’m launching a new blog project with the BF. It was something that came about this past weekend – a suggestion from him, actually. Surprising since I’m the blogging whore in this relationship, and he’s constantly making fun of my Internet geekiness.
Basically, we’re always camping, going on road trips and trying out new wineries and restaurants. And when we do these types of things, we’re always reviewing and critiquing, comparing, liking, loving or hating the places we go. We thought it’d be fun to start up a review site of the all the places we venture out to. So basically, if you’re one of my readers outside of Washington state, this won’t interest you at all. But if you’re one of my friends, a family member, or someone living in Washington, this might interest you if you’re looking for a place to camp or eat. We’re only going to be updating as we go places, so not that frequently. But in the meantime, I’ve written and backlogged a few of the places we’ve gone over this past year. You can always find what I’ve posted on the site in the sidebar on this blog.
Check it out if you feel so inclined!
Oh, and happy Friday. It’s 70+ degrees in Seattle, with a forecast of 80 degrees. You bet your butt I’m going to be out partying and sunbathing this weekend – I hope you are too!
Currently Feeling: Happy, happy, happy for a weekend home in the sun. But a little guilty with how much I feel I didn’t get done this week.
Currently Anticipating: Girls night out on the town tonight, and floating and jet skiing tomorrow.
Currently Reading: The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs.
Freeze. Hands up. Keep away from that cork.
I think it’s time I grew up a little bit more…
I think I’m going to start saving “special” wine to drink at a later date rather than guzzling every bottle the day I pick it up.
I know, I know. Gasp. Big shocker.
Right now, I can’t seem to keep wine around longer than the night I buy a bottle…or two. It’s quick to get drunk, and it’s usually in the $6.99 (oh how I love you, local Chateau St. Michelle) to $10.99 range. ($10.99 if I’m splurging cause I’m too lazy to pick it up anywhere else rather than Man X – my favorite local mini mart that’s a block from my house and all the workers know me by name).
But this weekend, I went away on a little Memorial Day camping trip to Okanogan County. It was freakin’ hot; I lived in my bathing suit all weekend, and I tested out the new bike. God only knows how I managed to bike even a mile in the sweltering sun without a breeze to be had. (Not to mention helmets must have been made by the devil. Not only do you look uglier than crap, but they make your head sweat like a whore in church. Or Je in church. Bada bing. Wait, did I just call myself a whore).
So we went on a HUGE midday bike ride – we rode two miles, ok maybe one, into town to hit up the wine tasting rooms. I fell in love with a Gewurztraminer from Okanogan Estates Wines & Vineyards, so I bought a bottle to bring home. It was FIFTEEN NINETY NINE. This is a huge step up for me. And it feels sorta special, so I put it on my wine rack at home to save for a special occasion, instead of straight into the fridge to chill for breakfast dinner.
But then I got thinking… what constitutes a special occasion? Could a particularly rough week at work be cause for a celebration? I think so. But, I feel like I have those nearly every week. How about the day I outran the cops, pulled over really quick and started walking like I was out for a Sunday stroll, so they wouldn’t know it was me when they drove by? I saved myself at least a $100 from a ticket! That’s cause for celebration! Or do I actually have to keep the wine around for something big like a pregnancy or engagement? (If either of those have me in the equation, this wine is going to ferment before I get a chance to drink it).
I’m going to try to make it at least a week. It’s tough when you think everything is a “special” occasion and cause to crack a bottle of wine!
If so, where have you picked up some of these wines?
Currently Feeling: Pretty proud of my Social Media marketing presentation I gave last week that everyone keeps telling me how awesome it was. Super exciting.
Currently Anticipating: Launching a new blog project that the BF and I are working on. We’ll probably have it up this week.
Currently Reading: The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost.
Last week, I put my obsession love for bacon in a little perspective for you…
This week, I’m going to put my boyfriend’s obsession love for bacon in perspective for you. Perhaps set the stage a little bit about why I have these Saturday bacon posts.
This week I was hanging out at his house, and boy oh boy were his cupboards BARE.
Me: BF, you need to go grocery shopping! There’s nothing here. This is like the saddest fridge I’ve seen.
Him: What?! There’s stuff to eat! There’s soups and pastas. And waffles. And bacon.
Me: Soups? There’s only that crappy chicken and stars soup from Campbell’s. Seriously. There’s nothing here for dinner. What the hec are you eating??
Him: I don’t know. Yesterday I made a bacon tuna sandwich.
Me: A WHAT?!
Him: A bacon tuna sandwich.
Me: Are you kidding me? You have to be joking. Bacon? And TUNA? That’s disgusting. I’ve never heard of everyone ever pairing bacon with tuna.
Him: *Sheepishly* What? It was like a BLT, but just a B… uh, T.
Me: BF, that’s really weird. I don’t ever want a B.T. sandwich.
Not even I like bacon THAT much. Bacon and tuna?? No thank you.
Sushi 101
Sushi class last night was fracking amazing.
I arrived, hung over and exhausted from a sleepless week that I couldn’t seem to catch up from. A three hour cooking class, immediately after work, felt like someone was asking me to climb the Himalayas while stoned, with only one leg and a blind mountain guide. Basically – how am I EVER going to make it through this?!
But, it wasn’t long before the energy in the class ZINGED me wide awake. I found myself joking around with the other people in the class, laughing a lot (my favorite), smooching my boyfriend when I could sneak it in and rollin’ some of the best damn beginning sushi rolls I’ve ever seen, if I do say so myself.
The best part about our class was that it was also a sake-tasting class, so we had about 20 bottles and five different types of free-flowing sake. That stuff isn’t as bad as I remember it being after playing drinking checkers with sake bombs for Mardi Gras in 2002. (THAT was a bad night). The instructor also bumped music while we all hustled and bustled around the kitchen. Tunes from Led Zeppelin, Fiona Apple, Kanye and other randomness kept us moving while we learned how to make basic sushi rolls with some really amazing ingredients – anything we wanted out of Whole Foods, basically. Tuna, shrimp, real crab, fake crab, veggies, cream cheese, yellow tail – even Copper River salmon. We also made a number of other Japanese dishes, including miso-glazed eggplant, gyoza (pot stickers), steamed clams with sake, udon noodle soup, Agadashi tofu and a green tea shortbread cake. Then afterward there was A GREAT BIG FEAST, obvs. It was so fun.
I learned some very key tips about making sushi – like how to make the perfect sushi rice (did you know you have to add a mixture of water, rice vinegar, sugar, sake and salt to the rice??); that inside-out rolls (rice on the outside) require you to use saran wrap on your rolling mat and sesame seeds so the rice doesn’t stick; that you MUST wet your fingers down before touching the rice cause that shiz is sticky; and how to perfectly cut the ingredients.
Here are some pics:
[BTW - Did I mention this is the FIRST thing to officially cross off my Bucket List? (!!!)
Currently Feeling: SO freakin excited to pick up my new bike from REI today.
Currently Anticipating: A weekend away at Osoyoos Lake. We decided to try something new this Memorial Day – I’m looking forward to wine tasting on our new bikes!
Currently Loving: That I seem to be dropping pounds without trying too hard now? Weight lifting is the best. You burn calories even when you’re not working out!
Friendships for what they are to me, what they could be, and what they aren’t
Today I wrote a guest post for Just a small town girl… The blog author, Mandy, runs a series every Friday called “Lasting Impressions” for stories about best friends, lost friends, childhood friends, celebrating friends – basically anything you want to write about friendships. I wrote about how special my friendships are to me, and how hard they are to let go. And the dilemma I feel faced with a lot lately – How do you let a friendship be for what it is in the past and what it might never be in the future?
You can go over to Mandy’s blog to read my post, or yah know, don’t. After all, guest blogging allows me to be a little bit more anonymous, and therefore honest since not everyone reading knows me, so if you want to leave me floating in Mandy’s anonymous part of the blogosphere, that’s fine by me. 
xoxo
Je
A little pat on my back
This week I’ve been nothing short of extremely frazzled.
See, I had a huge presentation yesterday that I’ve been up late every night and up early every morning, working on it, practicing it, losing sleep over anxiety and adrenaline, counting down the moments until 1 p.m. on Wednesday.
I have this HUGE fear of public speaking. It freakin’ sucks. And it’s super bizarre cause I am.not.shy – most would call me outgoing. But you put me in front of a group of people, and my mind reels; my hands sweat. I feel like I’m almost having an out-of-body experience, like my mouth keeps talking, but my mind is going, “OMG. OMG. OMG.”
I played the piano for 13 years. Each year, we’d have a big end-of-the-year concert with every student, and all their parents, grandparents, cousins and dogs. The worse thing about it is that the entire hall was silent, and when it was your turn, you had to walk up to the front, sit at the piano in silence while everyone was watching you, and try to squeeze out the damn song while your hands were so sweaty they were slipping off the keys. Even the SMALLEST sound and mistake would ring across the room.
I hated it. I think it’s probably 75% of why I quit taking classes. I don’t know if it’s my inSANE perfectionism, but the thought of screwing up in front of a crowd gives me the heebee jeebees. (How in the hell do you spell that anyway?) I think it started during my little jaunt with piano, and it’s continued throughout my entire life. I’ve been seriously thinking about taking a public speaking class lately – sort of a “face your fears” thing.
Long story short, I haven’t been able to think of anything but my presentation this week. Thankfully, it went amazing, and I rocked it. I don’t know what I was so worried about, but afterward I felt like a 50-pound bolder had been lifted from my mind. The clouds parted, the sea calmed, the birds sang…
…and I bought shoes.
Three pairs of them to be exact.
I guess I could call it my little celebration and gift to myself for a job well done.
Currently Feeling: A little woozy and exhausted. I’m really regretting those rather LARGE glasses of wine from last night. Oh well. A girl has to celebrate sometimes.
Currently Anticipating: The sushi-making and sake-tasting class tonight with Mike! I’m finally going to learn how to make sushi! (And check something off my Bucket List!)
Currently Needing: Yet another new book. The last one was so.good that I finished it in less than a week!
All I ask is for a G.D. pencil with my name on it
At the bottom of the rather large building I work in (56 floors, and I’m on the 53rd), there is a little tiny shop named Dimples. The owners are Korean and oh so friendly. The husband stands outside the doors of the shop at around 4:45 and says, “Goodnight!” to everyone who are walking to their cars or out to hit the streets for a bus or walk home. And every time I buy lunch there he asks, “What schweet would you like?” and I get to pick out either a York Peppermint patty or a mini box of Junior Mints. (Of course I go with the latter).
The store is what they call a “sundries” shop – a little bit of this, a little bit of that – two rows of greeting cards, a rack of wine and one for magazines, soups, Lean Cuisines, daily sandwiches and sushi, medicines, candy and little trinkets, which I suppose are there to grab in case it’s Secretary Day or someone’s birthday.
I usually run down there for the 3 p.m. snack attack – or to kill some time away from the good ole desk job. This week, I noticed a rack of personalized stickers for little boys and girls in the corner of the store. My IMMEDIATE reaction was to spin the rack and search for a set with my name on it. Or at best, something near my name. Or perhaps the first letter?
Nope. No such luck. Never in my life.
See, my mom gifted with one of those names that I could NEVER find on pencils, toothbrushes, note pads, stickers, or all those random other items that are personalized, and sitting on racks and taunting little kids cause it’s THE.COOLEST.THING.EVER to have a pencil in RAINBOW colors with your very OWN NAME on it.
I was never one of those kids, and it seriously always made me feel like the world wasn’t fair. I distinctly remember more than a handful of times, spinning those racks and wondering why they never put MY name on a key chain.
And here I am, 27 and still longing for fugly sparkly bear stickers, that are made AWESOME cause they’re PERSONALIZED. Although what the hec would I do with them, but even still, that little kid in me still wants them – still kinda feelin’ like the world isn’t fair.
What is that?
I think I’m going to start a company that makes personalized items for EVERY name in the baby book! It wouldn’t be a rack, it would be an ENTIRE AISLE of personalized rainbow pencils since I think there are approximately 489,650 names out there. But at least there wouldn’t be a little girl, searching through the pencils and feeling like the world left her out!
Currently Feeling: SO relieved today is over with. Time to celebrate!
Currently Anticipating: Drinks with the Bestie tonight.
Currently Loving: The May we’ve had in Seattle! The best I can remember in a long time.
Blogs & Tea = Love
I’ve fallen victim to Etsy once again. Folks, this is only the beginning of the end, I believe.
I recently started reading quite the lovely, sincere blog called your wishcake.
This weekend she posted that her sister sent a print to her from Etsy that she fell in love with.
I followed the link, and instantly fell in love as well.
It couldn’t be more me. Each morning, I start off with a cup of tea (I don’t drink coffee, and if you’re wondering what I’m currently in love with, it’s Gypsy Tea’s Coconut Chai) and blog reading or writing.
I love the print because it’s so simple, chic and in colors that match my room. Luckily, there was one print left when I checked the site. I can’t wait to proudly display it on my wall.
Blogs & Tea. Oh how you make me smile.
Currently Feeling: A little strung out. I’m up way too late, and I’ve been working on a work project for the past eight hours. Blech.
Currently Anticipating: The fab weather planned for later this week, and my sushi making class on Thursday. (!!!)
Currently Loving: The book I’m reading. Man it’s a great, quick read.
This might put my obsession love for bacon in a little perspective for you…
This week I was pinching pennies to make it to payday without going grocery shopping. This is usually when your cupboards get down to a can of green beans, a bag of semisweet chocolate chips and that box of Tuna Helper that never really looks good enough to eat. Read: I think I’d rather starve than eat Tuna Helper.
Anywhoosit. I was so desperate for something savory and bacon-related at work this week, (I eat a breakfast sandwich every morning, usually with Canadian BACON, but was out), that I created my own little concoction with leftovers I found in my lunchbag at work.
1 half of a Thomas’ Light English muffin
1 Laughing Cow cheese wedge
1 generous shake of bacon bits=
The most ghetto bacon sandwich EVER created:
Thank God I have bacon bits. I mean, WHAT.would.I. have done?!
I WON!!!
Well this day just keeps getting better and better…
Not only did I find and buy the Holy Grail of bikes, but I was just informed that I won the contest over at Apricot Tea.! (For the letter I wrote to my younger self). How neat. I haven’t won something in a very long time – and it feels really humbling and warm & fuzzy to have something I wrote recognized.
Not to mention, I was desperate to win the book, Style Statement: Live by Your Own Design because I LOVED EvYan’s (BTW, how pretty is that name?!) explanation of it:
Style Statement helps you define who you really are, in every aspect of your life: in your relationships, in your style choices, in the music you listen to, in your favorites & dislikes, etc. This book helped me tremendously when I was on the journey of discovering my true-self. I hold onto my style statement (genuine eloquence) with absolute pride.
I’m super excited to figure out what my style statement is! And, of course, I will report back here to all of you!
xoxo
