To Kombucha or not to Kombucha

Tell me, Blog Lovelies, have you tried Kombucha tea, known many years ago as “the elixir of life”?

I can’t get over the health effects, which are AWESOME (detoxifying! cleansing! vitamins! minerals! immune-enhancing!), and unfortunately, I can’t really get over the taste either.

I’m trying. I picked up the above flavor, Apple Pie Kava, at Metropolitan Market, which was far better than the home-brewed Kombucha I bought at a local farmer’s market that tasted like sweaty socks and old cottage cheese.

If you’re a Kombucha fan, tell me the brand and flavors you love! My hippie side will be ever so grateful. Namaste.

Currently Feeling: Antsy pants – there’s nothing worse than sitting home all day watching  TV and doing nothing while sick (even worse when it’s sunny outside, something we see so little of in Seattle right now)!
Currently Anticipating: A celebration with my coworkers tomorrow, Twestival Seattle on Thursday, two dinners with friends this weekend and something special planned with my mom on Sunday. Busy busy! Hope I feel better soon.
Currently Loving: Chocolate lava cakes from Domino’s. I’m supposed to be eating healthy! Gah!

Te amo, amigos

HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO!

/From my 28th “Mustaches & Sombrero” birthday party

I wish you all the tacos, burritos, cervezas and cheese dip in your future.

Currently Feeling: A little burnt out after two bootcamps, Zoomba (which I’ll elaborate on later) and kickball in two days.
Currently Anticipating: Heading to the neighborhood Mexican joint tonight, but first – a TweetUp my company is co-sponsoring at a jewelry store.
Currently Needing: A new crush.

Happiness

“That’s the thing about happiness; you never can tell when you’ve reached a peak. You can only compare where you are to where you’ve been.”

OMG, Becky. She must be one of those rap guy’s girlfriends.

I’m alive! I know I’ve been gone for like 456,742 days, and each one of them have been agonizing.

I’d like to give a world of excuses, but one of my all-time favorite bloggers, Karyn from Pretty in the City, recently said it best:

“When you’ve been blogging for seven years sometimes you need a bit of a break…”

Just substitute a four in for that seven. But seriousry (in the words of Kim Jong-il), sometimes you do just need a break. I’ve been climbing the uphill first-three-month battle at my new job, juggled with volunteering for Girl Power Hour, friends, family, boyfriend and trying to keep my sanity. I’ve been oh so busy, but looking forward to getting back at it in 2010. I’ve recognized that I’m doing too many things at only about 75%, and not enough of a small list at 100%. Adjustments are on the horizon.

In the world of updates – I was gifted that fabulous laptop tray that’s been posted below for the last two months. Yippee! It should now be a lot easier for me to squeeze in some relaxation and blogging now since I can do both from bed or the couch. (!!!) The one downfall of having a social media job is that when you get home from a looong day of social media-ing (what I do best, if I do say so myself), you oftentimes want to unplug and not sit on your laptop all night.

But, I digress. I also have some other big life updates that perhaps I’ll share soon. (No, I’m not preggo or engaged). And I’m looking forward to doing my 2009 recap and plans for 2010.

In other words, I’ll be back. I’ve just taken a short commercial break.

Currently Feeling: Finally a bit better after a week of being bed-ridden. Of course after being healthy for two years, I get sick over Christmas.
Currently Anticipating: Hanging with the trivia team tomorrow – hope we’ll do better than second to last place this week!
Currently Reading: “The Girl Who Played With Fire” by Stieg Larsson. It’s the sequel to “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,” which is a fab book.

Happy Halloweiner!

My blog lovelies! Hope you have tons of outrageously fun and silly plans for this evening. I appreciate each and every one of you who read my rambles. I look forward to catching up with all of you on Monday, so I can share my costume and hear about yours!

PROST!

Another October, another fall, another Oktoberfest, HOLLA! For those of you who’ve been a long-time reader, you know I’m a HUGE fan of Oktoberfest. We’re lucky enough here in Washington to have TWO of the top 10 celebrations in the nation. One of them in Fremont each year, which is where I ran my first 5K race, and the other one in Leavenworth, which I attended last weekend with the BF and some college friends. I’ve written about my past Oktoberfest’s in Leavenworth here and here, but I thought I’d share it in a new way this year – through WHRRL! You know you love it.

Currently Feeling: A little under the weather, but thankfully I’m kicking this cold rather quickly. I have an immune system of steal!
Currently Anticipating: My little sister’s 21st birthday this weekend! Oh my gosh! I seriously can’t believe she’s going to be 21.
Currently Reading: Rattled, a memoir by Christine Coppa. Freaks the shiz out of me, I tell yah.

Today is a very good day

I feel like my dopamine levels are through the roof right now.

It’s only noon, and I’ve:

• Rocked my training run this A.M., pushing through my “walk” portion and running the last little bit. It felt great!
• Took the first of my (FREE) 10-week digital photography class, and it was totally awesome. I’m super excited for what the next nine weeks will hold!
• Painted my toenails in a sparkly hot pink.

On the agenda for the rest of my day:

• Pick up a Seahawks T-shirt to wear to my very first game tomorrow. (Excited to tailgate)!
• Buy ingredients for an orange-miso glazed tofu recipe I found in this month’s Self magazine.
• Head to my parents’ house for dinner and chatting (they’re awesome)!

I hope you’re having a fabulous day too!

Currently Feeling: Starving for lunch… I think I’ll make a Flatout pizza today!
Currently Anticipating: Receiving my pedometer watch in the mail. I hate waiting for packages and checking the mail every day.
Currently Wanting: This special ice tea brewing pitcher! I need!

It’s like a heat wave, Burnin’ in my heart

We hit an all-time record for Seattle; it’s never been 103 degrees here until today.

I look like I’m wearing a white string bikini when I’m in the buff. That’ just how tan I’ve become. I’ll never see my skin this color again. However, it’s rebelling against all this sunbathing – sunblock mixed with sweat is not a good combo for healthy, glowing skin.

I usually read for hours while sunbathing – but it’s too hot to be outside of the water. So sunbathing is blown. I’m officially a prune from floating in the water all day today; it’s the only way to get relief in this heat.

My apartment is 90 degrees. It’s an oven on the fourth floor with all these windows. My kitty is so miserable. It consumes me with worry. Last night she was panting, which is a very bad, no good sign when I Google MDed her. I’ve been wrapping her in cold towels and giving her cold water baths. But I can’t leave the house without thinking about coming home to her passed out from heat exhaustion.

I want to shove Popsicles in my mouth with both fists while drinking sweet tea and ice water, and I’ve contemplated how I could twist my body into a pretzel to fit into the freezer.

Last night I went to a popular water spot in Seattle, which I’ve never seen so many people at before in my entire life. It was like a beach party – an air conditioned bar or a body of water is the only way to survive right now. Stuffy apartments and fans that circulate around hot air just don’t cut it. I slept on my couch last night to escape the staleness of my room.

It’s an interesting experience, this heat in Seattle. This past winter our city shutdown because we’re not used to the snow. Cars couldn’t go anywhere. Streets, sidewalks and hills were closed. Even the transportation system didn’t work properly and most buses routes were defunct. We all complained about the cold.

I guess we got the warmth we asked for, just the other side of the extreme spectrum. Now we’re being blasted with record-breaking heat temperatures. All fans, kiddie pools and air conditioning units are sold out everywhere. And I heard word that all hotel rooms were booked tonight too.

There’s been a lot of freezing and a lot of melting this year. Personally, I prefer the latter. But I’m still kinda thinking what the heck is happening with good old Mother Nature in our little corner of the United States this year…

Seattle & Heat Wave?! Those three words don’t generally belong in a sentence together.

Currently Feeling: A little burnt out from sunbathing. Never thought I’d say that! But my skin needs a rest.
Currently Anticipating: Getting some work done at Kristen’s house tomorrow.
Currently Wanting: An air conditioned place to take my poor baby kitty so she can get some relief!

One person’s junk is another’s treasure

Oh garage sales. What a seriously interesting sociology experiment into the human mind. Someone should write a book on garage sales and what people will sell and buy – I took a sociology class in college called “Deviant Behavior” where we analyzed the social workings behind gangs, gambling and sexual deviance (David Carradine, what?!), I think that a little section there about garage sales would have been equaling interesting. Although, garage sales aren’t necessarily deviant… so that blows my whole theory, but I digress.

This past weekend, the BF and I combined piles of our junk (me from moving out, him from the divorce and general junk collecting since he owns a house and has more space than he knows what to do with. I guess this equals a lot of junk purchasing) and threw a garage sale. This is my first experience in selling my crap for others’ purchase.

I started out with good ole fashioned advertising – a Craigslist post and some neon signs that a college girl friend helped me decorate. She happens to be unemployed too, so we spent last Tuesday afternoon, coloring the signs and seriously mapping out our route for where they’d be hung. I bet we never would have guessed that four years after college, decorating garage sale signs while unemployed would be the highlight of our week. Oh how I love you, Recession.

Saturday morning the BF and I got up at a ungodly Saturday morning hour, after six hours of sleep, to throw our junk out in his driveway. I’ll let you in on a little secret – even if you put in bold and CAPS, “No early birds,” there’s always going to be some jack ass that shows up at 7:30 a.m. asking if they’re too early. And then commences the mayhem…

I was absolutely amazed at what people will buy. “One person’s junk is another’s treasure” couldn’t be more true. The items of value that I thought would actually sell – nice area rugs, a standing lamp, a snowboard and quality bar stools – remained unsold. But I got rid of a lot of stuff I thought I’d just throw out there for shits and giggles, but would never sell… half-used lotion bottles, ugly jewelry my grandmother bought me, old clothes that I thought weren’t even worth giving to the Goodwill (two pairs of gauchos that someone actually bought. Yuck!), a pink mosaic Kleenex holder, a brown juice pitcher my mom gave me for college that must have been from the 80s, a computer bag with World Vision’s huge logo on the front that I received for free when I worked there, a kinda dingy white bathroom towel, a plastic paper filer, a puff paint butterfly belt I bought at a clothing boutique five years ago and thought was cute at the time… All sold. Some guy jumped out of his car and ran breakneck speed to pick up my crappy iron for $1 that has burned junk on it so every time you iron, it leaves black goo on your clothes. Lucky him.

Seriously… who would have thought I could sell this crap? The BF thought it was so fun to make money off the junk you just kinda have lying around, that nearly the whole time we were supposed to be sitting out there together, he was going through cupboards and pantries, trying to find additional items to sell. I joked that our garage sale was like Kmart – new blue light specials added throughout the day!

And I won’t even go into the types of people who came and went… some nice little old European lady was as sweet as can be and kept piling stuff up on the table for purchase. I thought I was going to make a gold mine off her until she turned into the Gestapo and started halving all my prices, combining everything and saying, “All this – $4.” I just shrugged and let her make off with my gold teeth. (Bad joke, bad joke).

After it was all said and done, I made $100 off my junk and then turned around and posted the items that are actually of value on Craigslist. Although some have argued that $100 isn’t really worth my time, I’d say that the entertainment value alone was worth it. The $100 is just an added bonus.

Currently Feeling: Excited for my first Social Media Club Seattle meet-up tomorrow!
Currently Anticipating: Moshi Moshi all-night happy hour tonight with a big group of people.
Currently Hating: Scales. But I bought one anyway.

Shots, sake, frozen yogurt, peeing in lakes and boobs

So, the weekend was totally fab and low-key. I’ll spare a big long, boring update with name dropping of people you don’t know (don’t you hate it when bloggers do that) and just give you the highlights, in non bullet format.

First off, the weather is Seattle is so fantastically f*cking fantastic; it’s ridiculous. Usually it rains the better part of June, but it’s been in the 70s minimum for 10 days, 80-degree this past weekend, and reaching into 85-degrees for this week. I’m holding my breath; it’s too awesome to comprehend.

Friday I bought a new pair of CORAL shorts from H&M to wear out for a girl’s night downtown. They are super duper fantastic. Unfortunately, I can’t provide a picture or a link cause H&M is living in the 90s, and you can’t shop online. All I can say is that bike riding is sculpting my legs, and I felt HOT. Not to mention, I want to wear coral every day. It’s so chic, paired with a white top and gold jewelry. I’m going to make it my staple color of the summer. Here’s an example I created on Polyvore to illustrate:

Before heading out, some of my girl friends stopped by to try out the new Burst Bar Shots that were just shipped to me from a lovely person who contacted me through the blog and said, “You look like you like to go out and party with your friends, would you like some free booze?” And I was like, UM YES. (No moral or ethical obligation here). So they arrived Friday. Basically what they are is a shot in one bottle, made by DeKuyper. So instead of buying four bottle of liquor to pour shots for a party, you just buy this one bottle and VOILA. I was sent three flavors – Lemon Drop, Alabama Slammer and Sex on the Beach. The shots taste pretty sweet/syrupy. DeKuyper makes Peach Schnapps, if that gives you an idea. But they do have a kick to them, and are only $11 a bottle, so way cheaper than buying ingredients for shots. I kinda want to check out the Buttershots flavor cause that’s one of the only shots I like to take. Other than that though, I probably won’t make them a regular purchase unless it’s my last dying wish to wake up with a raging hang over from all the sugar.

For dinner, we hit-up Wasabi Bistro – my favorite sushi restaurant in all of Seattle – before heading out to dance. I’m now brave after the sushi 101 and sake tasting class I took, so I ordered sake for the first time, well, ever in my life. It was a pear sake, and opened up my world to a new alcohol I can throw into the mix. Uh oh.

Friday’s Conclusion: I spent uber amounts of money and got super drunk. Sweet!

Saturday my little sis and I floated for a couple hours on Lake Sammamish in the new float the BF and I bought last weekend. For those of you who didn’t click through to my new blog and read the post about Osoyoos Lake – we bought a stellar float that is two inner tubes stuck together with a cooler in the middle. Each inner tube has a mesh bottom, so your butt sits in the water and you can drink brewskies out of the cooler and PEE through the mesh! (No shame here). It’s genius! You don’t even have to get out to go to the bathroom! Needless to say, I’ll be spending the majority of my summer on it.

After floating, she took me to a frozen yogurt place, and I’m kinda gonna go back once a week now. I am SUPER late on this whole frozen yogurt faze like PinkBerry and CrazyBerry – I think it’s been mostly an L.A. thing. But this place, Shnoo Yogurt, is fracking amazing. It’s been voted Seattle’s best yogurt place. They have three flavors – green tea, plain and pomegranate – and a number of cereal and fruit toppings. I opted for a pomegranate yogurt with pieces of moshi, and fresh watermelon and strawberries. The greatest thing about it – it’s fat free and only ~150 calories. Um, YES THANK YOU.

Saturday’s Conclusion: I laid around and ate. AWESOME!

Sunday I went with a girl friend to a bra fashion show to benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The fashion show included bras created by local Seattle stores, restaurants, etc, PINK martinis and the opportunity to wear PINK from head to toe. I opted for a hot pink top with a short black skirt and hot pink high heels… we ate dinner, drank some libations and snagged a couple pink cupcakes while checking out other girls’ racks.

Sunday’s Conclusion: Booze for boobs! Fabulous!

Currently Feeling: A little guilty with all the stuffing my face I did. I feel great in my skin right now, but I need to get back on a strict diet/exercise plan to shed a few more by the dead of summer.
Currently Anticipating: Rollerblading on Alki tonight and checking out a new sushi restaurant – Mashiko. Review hopefully up on Caviar & Campfires tomorrow.
Currently Loving: Not feeling so super stressed and stretched thin at work. Perhaps I’m finally settled in after a year?