Swan and Lion

Snopocalypse!!

2012-02-09T18:29:00.000-08:00

Some weeks ago the snow finally came. Michael and I were sooo happy that it finally arrived. That Sunday we went to the Comet Vintage Sale but not that many people showed up. Michael wanted to watch the game and the Comet was the perfect place for it. After the Comet Dave and Victor met up and we walked over to the Garage. The Garage is Capitol Hill's bowling alley. Michael suggested it and I thought it was the perfect idea for the first snow day. We had a lot of fun and I actually had a good amount of strikes. I couldn't believe it. I have improved with my bowling compared to 2 years ago in Florida. And I actually have only bowled one other time. I think it might have to do with my streghtening and health. I had a great time.

The following day we surprisingly still had work on Tuesday. And then the Snowpocalypse came with a vengance!! While we were sleeping the snow completly covered the streets. We woke up like kids during xmas anticipating their presents. It was beautiful! And I got to stay home from work. My brother came over and Michael and I went to meet up with our friend, Thomas for sledding. On our way to the Volunteer Park we stopped at the entry. There was already a group of people at the entry sliding down on anything they could find. They were using cookie sheets and even garbage bags. It was madness. It appeared that the snow was bringing the kid out of everyone. The park was beautiful! We made our way to see Thomas and Tulli. They let us borrow their sled. Dave and Michael slid down. I went down with Michael and we were speding right down the hill. We were going so fast that I must've tried to slow down the hill with lowering my feet. By the time we got to the bottom of the hill Michael was covered in snow. Whoops! The second time I tucked my feet in and Michael and I sped all the way down the hill. It was so much fun!

We eventually got really cold and had to head back home to bundle up more. We headed over to the Bleu for some happy hour. It was yummy as usual. We ran around Capitol Hill after eating, we went and saw Denny's crazy sloop, stopped at a friend's apartment and then stopped at the Redwood for some nuts and a beer. Great times!

Juggling, Killer Young Girls and Mad Plaid

2012-01-25T20:51:00.000-08:00

2 Saturdays ago, I was extremely busy. Michael and I did our usual Capitol Hill jaunt in the morning, record store, bookstore and thrifstore. My sister, Ruth and the kids and my dad picked us up at the thriftstore. We headed over to pick up my brother, Dave and his son Isaac. We then took a family field trip to Guitar Center followed by the Seattle Centre area.

We luckily bumped into a juggling convention. Michael took a quick course on juggling. The kids were out of control, running around like crazy. Ruth and her kids decided to escape the madness and went to the Seattle Center. Dave, Dad, Michael and Isaac stayed juggling. Later Michael and I grabbed a slice of pizza and some salad. We then met up with the fam. Michael headed to work and I headed home. Dave stopped by and we nerded out on our labtops.

We then met up with Teal and Melissa at Michael's bar, the Upstairs in Belltown. Before going to the bar, Dave and I headed to the Roq la Rue. They normally have Friday shows but for some reason this one was on a Saturday. I loved the art from Nicoletta Ceccoli "girls don't cry" and Lynne Naylor "eros"was also showing. It was no less than amazing!! I loved it of course, especially the art from Nicoletta. It was beautifully detailed and it had the most emotional vegetables. And the cutest little girl paintings doing evil things. I wish I could've bought a piece. If only I had more money.

After the art short we enjoyed great company, delicious cocktails from my future husband and great chats. My friend Shari even came out from her sickness coma. It was a fun night and I think I was home by 10:30. Awww yeah..I love early nights.

If you have time check out the art show, do so and enjoy a cocktail at the Upstairs. But hands off my man!!

Art Fart and Margaritas

2012-01-19T13:20:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday my brother and I were supposed to be part of an art show at Ghost Gallery. There was a flood the day before and there was no time to hang it. We still went to the art opening to see the solo show. After hanging out we headed over to the True Love Art Gallery.

We try to go to support our buddy, George who owns the gallery. And the show looked especially fun. There were 4 artist, 2 girls and 2 boys. Aguilar was in the coffin show last year and I always like looking at his crazy Mickey Mouses. Ksera was a fun addition to the group. I found her art to be the most up my alley, with furry rabbits and donut hiding raccoons. Battershell had the cool skater mummy and camping werewolf. Some of our other buddies, Brian and Jeff were also there. I love it when an art show begins to feel more like a party with cool art surrounding us.

George gave us the best surprise too, he let Dave and I know that we will be in the upcoming March group show. Ahhh...yeah! Can't wait. I have been brainstorming already. This show needs to be perfect.

After our great news, we headed over to the Thowbacks to check out Duffy solo show. It had a sporty theme that went well with the vintage sports shop. I could only hang out for a minute and then I had a cocktail date with Kyle and Gary. Poquitos was a mad house, 30-40 min wait for a table!! I was early and watched the bar like a hawk for the first table opening. I only waited 15 minutes and found a table. I had a great time catching up with Kyle and Gary. It was the perfect ending to my evening.

"A" is for Art

2012-01-18T00:08:00.000-08:00

I am very excited to be part of the Vermillion Art Sale in February. I have a Valentine's mode kicking in. I love Valentines because it has all the hearts, chocolates, pinks and reds and it's all lovey dovey!! I can't wait.

Then I saw the poster!! And guess who's the "A"?!?! Yeah..it's me:) How cool is that?!

Hope to see you all there! February 5th at the Vermillion from 3pm -8pm.

British Adolescense and Americans in Paris

2012-01-17T23:59:00.000-08:00

Here are some more movies I am excited to check out. Hopefully they won't let me down. I seem the be drawn to movies about adolescence romance. And how can I resist a current Woody Allen movie. I know there are not big fans in my generation but I love a little neurotic wackiness now and then.

Retail Temptation

2012-01-17T23:51:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I see things I really love but for some reason hold back from buying. Every once in awhile these beautiful things go on sale, I sometimes buy the used version or I always remember them but never had the priviledge of owning them.

Here are a couple things I have been drooling over.

Going back to school

2012-01-14T19:29:00.000-08:00

I have been enjoying gouache a lot. And the theme I have decided for my new gouache miniatures is high school year book photos. I have been sketching a lot. I used my own yearbook for reference. And I have decided people I went to school with were lame! And didn't dress very cool. I am now hunting sixties or eighties school pics. I hope to work on more detail and expressions. This will be good practice for future art pieces.

The Cupcakes in Disguise

2012-01-14T19:26:00.000-08:00

My co workers all know I am obsessed with baking and all things sweet. This week my co worker Leanndra brought in a book "What's New Cupcake". It had all kinds of fun ways of making cupcakes into different animals or creatures. There was cute apples, fun flamingos and adorable squirrels. There was a dark side to these cupcakes, dancing skeletons, feisty rats, spooky haunted houses and disgusting roaches. A very fun approach to cupcakes. I am glad my co worker brought it in.

The authors, Karen Tack and Alan Richardson have come out with a new book called, Cupcakes, Cookies & Pie oh my! I took a quick peak today and it was just as cute as the other books.

Back to the Movies - Anderson Style

2012-01-14T19:04:00.000-08:00

Awww! Wes Anderson has done it again! I am so very excited to see his new film "Moonrise Kingdom". It already looks like an instant classic. However, Michael and I are already Anderson nerds and own, Royal Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic and Darjeeling Limited. And the Rushmore soundtrack. Nerdz is right :)

Art night - Gouache is my new fave!!

2012-01-13T20:27:00.000-08:00

Tasha and Dave came over last week to have an art night. I had some sketches I made on post it notes that I wanted to paint. We had a very productive evening. We painted all the way until 10 pm and we started like at 6. It was so fun! We had wine and dinner.

And Tasha gave me some awesome presents!! She bought me matryoshka measuring spoons and an oven mitt. It was funny because I had seen the oven mitt at the store earlier and I was chasing Michael around with it and talking in a funny voice. Michael was not amused.

A very fun, productive and artsy night. And I even made oatmeal, chocolate chip, coconut, walnut and orange flavored cranberry cookies. :P They were a hit!!

Bizarro that it's Busy

2012-01-13T20:20:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday Michael and I finally made it to Cafe Bizarro. We had seen it on the Food Network and we had heard good things. We were very excited to go. That morning we checked out the vintage Fremont Market. It was a little too cold to fully enjoy. Michael had to go to the vintage mall and the record store. I had a couple shops I always like to see as well. When we finally finished the day had gotten away from us. The Cafe opened at 5 and it was getting close.

We jumped on a couple buses with a quick detour to Archie's and off we went. There was already a line out the door. I guess, Sunday is meatball night and always very busy. When they finally opened, the line still moved slowly. The people around us were definite regulars. They were already drooling in anticipation of their pasta bowls.

I loved the space, it was inviting but not as warm as I was hoping. The place filed up pretty quickly. Our server was a little speedy. We did get delicious focaccia and some water. took awhile for drinks. Michael ordered the elk lasagna and regretted not getting the meatballs. I ordered the seasonal kale pasta and regretted not ordering the forest forrager. My dish was just too spicy and a little greasy. I love me some butter and olive oil but not a puddle. And Michael's dish was a little dry. It was too bad. We did have nice salads for starters that came with the meal.

A pricey dinner for not the most underwhelming pasta in town. I am glad we have La Spiga on the hill. No need to leave the neighborhood. Or how can you beat Tavolata's pasta. in Belltown. It's amazing! Well I wrote you this to save you the trouble and money. If atmosphere is all you care about go to Bizarro.

I did however, enjoy the bathroom. There was the coolest 60's girly kitschy art. I found it very inspirational.

Delightful Day Off

2012-01-13T19:55:00.000-08:00

The one good thing this year was that the holidays were resulting in Mondays off. Which means, Michael and I actually get to hang out together. Michael also has Sundays off so we had 2 days to have fun.

Sunday morning I went to a coffee shop and quickly sketched the Bride of Frankenstein. I want to practice drawing monsters. I specifically want to make a series of Universal Monsters. I decided to draw at the coffee shop to let Michael sleep in. He had to work late the night before. Michael woke up and wanted to meet with Teal and Melissa.

I then walked home and Teal and Melissa picked us up. We went over to Discovery Park for a nice long walk. It was beautiful out! We had a great time. I think everybody had the same idea in Seattle. There was tons of people out enjoying the atmosphere.

After our long walk we headed to Fremont for some dinner. We grabbed some grub at the Red Door and then grabbed some drinks at the 9 Million in Unmarked Bills and lastly, the Dubliner. It was a fun night with the girls. We had really long chats about family, marriage and cooking. It felt good to be able to spend quality time together and catch up, just the four of us.

Gouache-ing the Parents

2012-01-13T19:35:00.000-08:00

Michael and I have literally been on opposite schedules since, he started working at the Upstairs cocktail bar. And when he's not around I begin to get my artsy fartsy on. I recently started working on a portrait of my parents from a seventies picture I have a copy of. I first started working on sketches and then experimented using gouache. Gouache is like acrylic but can be transformed to be more watercolor like. I love working with it and have made a tons of new small paintings using gouache. Mom and dad were very happy with their painting. I finally finished and gave them the painting this week.

Bert and Ernie Trees

2012-01-13T18:53:00.000-08:00

Finally there's a reason to go to Pioneer Square. I normally avoid the square since, Elliott Bay Book Company has move to Capitol Hill. And sometimes I go to Grand Central Bakery. I haven't been in forever and I was craving a vegan lemon poppy seed donut from Mighty-O. They have them in a coffee shop in Pioneer Square. My buddy Ken and I went over there in the morning. And as I was making the turn into the bum park I walk right into a sea of Bert and Ernie like trees. They are amazing!! Bright candy colored striped sweaters decorate the trees in the bum park. It made me so happy looking at the fun colors. I was able to take a couple pics with the instagram and the colors really popped. The trees are definitely worth checking out but please go during the day.

Shane's Visit and Victor's B-Day

2012-01-02T23:48:00.000-08:00

Our friend Shane was in town from New York for the the holidays. We went out one night with him and met some of his friends. We hung out a different night and Dave and Tasha also hung out. Victor and Rick also showed up. It was Victor's birthday that night after midnight. A couple nights ago, Michael, Dave, Tasha and I did a drawing series. This night we all started drawing everyone. There was an entire series of Shane drawings. Victor did a spot on drawing of Michael. It was interesting how everyone could be seeing the same person yet draw them entirely different. We also played some pool and celebrated Victor getting old.

Portland Comes to Seattle

2012-01-02T23:31:00.000-08:00

A couple days later Michael and I went to see the Portlandia tour. The show had been sold out and Michael managed to find us some tickets. It was a full house and full of ex emo kids. We had no idea what to expect. Michael was a little late meeting up from his work. We missed like 15 minutes of the beginning. They were talking about emails and then they moved into they first episode theme song. Once, we arrived they were showing a new version of the theme song. Instead of talking about the 1990's they were singing about the 1890's still being strong in Portland. There was still beards, razor shaving, and pickling of vegetables in Portland. The show was off to a funny start.

Then they showed a couple of episodes from the new season through out skits. They showed an episode about the allergy parade. Another episode about bad tattoos and Eddie Vedder. They tried getting Eddie to show up but he was out of town. They still had a couple cool guest like Kyle MacLachlan and Dan Savage. The only time Michael and I were not too thrilled was when there was audience participation. It was a little embarrassing to see people represent Seattle in a bad light.

I think our favorite part was the slideshow. We loved seeing Fred Armisen's punk photos and Carrie's cryptic Mother's Day card. We can't wait for season 2 :)

Xmas - Fancy Cocktails, Yummy Food & Family Games

2012-01-02T22:23:00.000-08:00

Xmas arrived!! I gave Michael his presents, a grill pan, an ipod case, a cool cocktail shaker, some fancy candy bars and socks. Michael wasn't too excited about his presents. It was off to not a fun start. Michael had already given me the best Xmas present, with my engagement ring and he still got me a ukulele. I was one happy camper.

I was determined to have a great xmas. Michael had not had enough to eat or there wasn't as much social interaction for Thanksgiving. This time was going to be perfect. The whole meal was prepped and I had checked all my list twice. The only thing we needed were some rolls. Dave and Ruth went to the store for the last items.

When we arrived I put in the veg and one of the ten pound hams in the oven. Michael was already hungry. I took out the spiced nuts, the blueberry goat cheese and crackers. Michael was nice enough to be bartender for the day. We invited his niece, Teal and Melissa to come over. Ruth said, the more the merrier. Michael's cocktails were the Kraken Sour and the French 75. We also had plenty of beer and champagne. While Michael distracted the guests with delicious cocktails, I heated up dinner.

I had all the appetizers out. I also roasted some garlic for the apps. It was so much fun! Dave's baby mama, Carmel arrived with Isaac. Isaac was happy to have both of his parents and his cousins around. We also did a little video chat with uncle dinosaur (my brother, Dan). People also enjoyed the rugelachs with their appetizers.

I took out the ham and the veggies. I also assembled the salad and heated up the rolls. We all sat down to a delicious, hot meal. After dinner some of us had some cherry chocolate cake. Carlitos ate a whole 3 layer piece all by himself. He's one of my biggest baking fans. Others preferred the cookies since, they were so easy to just pop in your mouth.

After dinner the kids opened their presents. We also had a couple presents for the adults. We gave Baby C, a cute poodle, a candy shirt, an adorable apron and Carlitos and her shared a baking kit. Carlitos got a Cars Big Ben set. Isaac got Transformers and an Iron Man. Everybody was pretty happy. Ruth got matryoshka measuring cups and a linzer cookie cutter. We gave Dave a screenprinting book. I hope he and Tasha will be creating cool things soon.

Michael got a Bon Appetit subscription from Ruth and house slippers and a painting from Dave. Dave gave me some punching gloves and Ruth gave me kitchen towels and cupcake cups.

We then had the brilliant idea to whip out Loteria. Loteria is basically, a Mexican bingo that has been a family favorite for yeats. Michael and Carmel are already familiar with the game. Teal, Melissa and Tasha were newbies to the game. They were a little nervous at first since, it was all in Spanish but after awhile we couldn't stop. We did some speed rounds and even a full card round. It was funny to go through all the cards and see that you had actually missed one. Playing with everybody we learned that there was a lot of trees in the game, also 2 kinds of birds and 2 kinds of pots. The game could be very confusing. Michael is still one of my favorite card readers. He renames all the cards yet you know exactly what he's talking about. Like El Catrin, he just refers to him as "Fancy Pants".

I don't think Xmas could have come out any better. We ate, we drank, we laughed! It will be a xmas to remember for a long time.

Xmas Eve - Prep Work and Engagement Goodies

2012-01-02T20:08:00.000-08:00

Xmas Eve arrived and I had a long list of prep work. Ruth picked, Dave and I up in the morning. Dave and I grabbed some sandwiches from the Honey Bear Bakery. They make some really good sandwiches and they are served with chips and a pickle.

We then went right to work. I made the rugelach dough first thing. If you've never had rugelachs they're these Jewish yummy cookies that are made from a cream cheese/butter dough. Once the dough is made is is rolled out into a circle. It is covered in apricot jelly, a walnut sugar mixture and chopped up chocolate. The dough is then cut into triangles like pizza slices. Every piece is rolled in to a crescent.

After I made the dough I moved on to making the 3 layer chocolate cherry cake. I had to make all three cakes first. While the cakes baked one at a time, I worked on the pastry cream. The pastry cream was then chilled in the fridge over night. I chopped all the veggies, the brussel sprouts were all rinsed, trimmed and cut in half, the carrots were diced and the sweet potatoes were also diced into similar shapes. I then made the lemon dressing for the salad. Then I moved on and worked on making the spiced nuts for the appetizer. The last thing was the rugelachs. I made a couple platters of cookies. They were delicious.

I was exhausted!! Through out the day I received loving calls for the engagement. I got to talk to my future mother in law, Mama Swan. We were just giggling with excitement. We both can't wait for the big day. Also one, of my closest friends, Liz called and we chatted and caught up. It was so nice to talk to her. I wish she lived closer. I wish I could hug all those I love so much, that live so far away.

My sister, Ruth surprised me while I was prepping with a gorgeous bouquet, champagne, heart shaped ballons and a cake. It was sooo unexpected! I loved them! And my flowers and balloons are still doing great a week later.

I am so glad Michael proposed a day earlier since, I was exhausted from prepping that I literally just feel asleep after coming home that night.

The Future Mrs. Swan (Xmas Eve Eve Surprise)

2012-01-02T15:17:00.000-08:00

The rest of the pre xmas week I ended up getting really sick. I had a runny nose, a sore throat and sinus headaches. I was a mess. I even took a sick day on Thursday and I never call in sick. Friday Michael wanted me to meet up with him downtown. I was still feeling gross and wasn't sure I was going to make it.

I got home, took a hot shower and spent some time getting ready. I decided to wear my striped cardigan and play around with some eye shadow. The picture above, I took before I left the house. I had asked Michael if I should invite Tasha and Dave and he said no. And he wasn't going to be out of work until 10pm. I had been working a lot of overtime and Michael has been working long nights at the new bar, the Upstairs. I decided that I would come down a little early and try to do some xmas shopping. I pretty much had no luck. I was in Belltown at about ten.

I texted Michael and headed over to Shortys for a beer. He then called me to head over to the Upstairs. I headed over there and he ordered me a fancy beer. It came in a super cool, retro 60's can and tasted very European. Now that I look at the design, I think the pattern echos wheat. To my surprise, it was a local company, Hilliards. I had the Saison and I highly recommend it.

After our beer, we headed over to the Clevel Bottle. I am always happy to change the scenery. I was just going to be cheap and order a beer, Michael insisted that I order a cocktail. We sat at the bar, Michael normally likes to sit at the bar. But, he wanted to move to a table. I thought it was kind of funny. Everybody was being really nice and we were just chatting for a little while.
And then he was like....I have a question for you Carolina. Carolina will you marry me????!! I was just in shock! I couldn't believe it! It was so surreal! I found it hard to register what was happening. Of course, I said yes. Everybody in the bar was clapping. I guess everybody knew, both Michael's work and the Clever Bottle. They brought us a bottle of champagne! It was amazing! Once, the shock settled, I called my family. My parents are in Mexico, my NY siblings were asleep and my sister Ruth was also asleep. I could only get a hold of my brother, Dave and I guess he already knew. I spent the rest of the morning chatting with my sisters at 6 in the morning! Lot's of happiness and squealing!

My ring in beautiful and I was wait to become the future Mrs.Swan :)

(manicure courtesy of Ruth, thnx ruth!)

Geeks Who Drink Trivia Night

2012-01-02T14:39:00.000-08:00

We also did a trivia night with our friend's Casey and Mike. I will have to admit that we suck. Or I guess I suck. Our team name was the Gnarly Sharks. We were basically in the middle of the list until the end. Then we moved to the 6 spot away from the losers. It was terrible. A lot of our answers were just educated guesses. There would a shapes category and we would just try to think of shapes. Or there was a xmas movie category and we just knew what the popular movies would be. It was still fun and we decided we are going to travel around the city to different trivia nights.

Gremlins Know How to Party

2012-01-02T14:25:00.000-08:00

One of our favorite bars, Mario's had the coolest xmas scene painted on their mirrors behind the booths. It was a bunch of crazy gremlins and Gizmo. I loved it! I had to document! It got me is the holiday spirit for sure.

Swirl Cookie Eyes Instead of Buttons

2012-01-02T14:21:00.000-08:00

I also wanted to share pictures of my swirl cookies. Isaac and Michael loved them and fought for the last ones. Isaac and I hung out one day watching Coraline and eating cookies. I also made him popcorn. He requested the popcorn needed more butter. He's one picky little munchkin. He loved the movie but got a little scared by the "Other Mother". Still good times with lil' Isaac.

Cookies, Shopping and Xmas Lights

2012-01-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

To get in the Xmas mood, Ruth, the kids and I planned on checking out xmas lights and having cookies and hot chocolate. I had made my cookies earlier in the week as a test round. They were the black and white swirl cookies with a hint of mint. Isaac had been over earlier in the week and had given them his seal of approval. And Michael also gobbled up a lot.

That Saturday morning Ruth picked me up early since, I still needed to do a little shopping. We went to the U Village. I found a great baking pad that helps in creating recipes. I also found a beautiful red timer and a wine glass.

I had been wanting Ruth to try Chocolati forever. It has one of the best hot chocolates in town. Ruth and I went and we got hot chocolates and cookies. I got a oatmeal chocolate chip and no hot chocolate. When I had some of Ruth's hot chocolate, she insisted that she would not be sharing her beverage. She gave me her card and I went to get me a hot chocolate and a gingerbread cookie. Some how I managed to get a free cookie!! Yay!!

Carlitos ate like two cookies and an entire hot chocolate. Everybody had a great time. We went to the Chocolati in Wallingford. I also really enjoyed they're Mexican folk art on the wall. And it was all very affordable from what I could see.

After hot chocolates we went to our favorite thrifstore for their 50% off sale. I scored like crazy! I got a pair of sailor style pants, a striped cardigan, a red lace shirt, a skirt, a flower pot, 3 magazines, 2 belts, one with amazing buckle detail and a jean jacket. All for only $30. Can you believe it?!?! Crazy!

We had a long day of shopping and the day had turned to night. We drove up to see the xmas lights and the kids had fallen asleep. Ruth and I enjoyed nibbling the crumbs of cookies and looking at the festive decor.

December Vermillion Art Sale

2011-12-17T01:36:00.000-08:00

The day of the art sale finally arrived. I stayed up the night before making ornaments. I wanted to make sure I had a little something for Christmas on the table. I wanted to continue with the Latin theme. I made Lucha Libre inspired Mexican wrestlers, Frida Kahlo, a pinata and a sacred heart.

My friend, Shari came to pick me up a little after 2. We were set up in the backroom. I quickly had my brooches separated, my pink tablecloths were the perfect landscape for my black Christmas tree and coffee sleeves. I hung my paintings and set out the cupcakes. I was ready in no time. This was my third round and the Vermillion Art Sale, Arta Che. I was determined to have the best time!

Shari was only set up one over from me. I had two really cool neighbors. The art sale started at 3, at 2:59 I made my first cupcake sale. The bartender, Brian always buys my first cupcake. He said that Cupcake Royale better watch out. I was happy to hear such a reaction from my cupcakes. I was off to a good start. I was in a great mood and making sales. I got a lot of positive feed back on my table as well.

People kept getting cupcakes and the word spread of their goodness. I was sold out by 6 and the sale was until 8.The real gift for me is seeing someone's enjoyment while eating my cupcakes. I love to see their surprise when they realize that it's not your ordinary cupcake. That's the real pay off.

We had a lot of friend's stop by. Our friend Vanessa came by and bought a purse from Shari. Our other friend Mel also came by and hung out for awhile. My friend, Kyle came by to visit too. We have not seen each other in over a year. It was great to catch up. And my friend Lisa also came by to visit. She was in Texas for 6 months and has been back for 6 months. And we have been so busy that we finally got to hang out. It made me so happy to have the support from my friends. I sold brooches, a coffee sleeve and all of my cupcakes. It was a success.

It's Time to meet the Muppets

2011-12-16T23:10:00.000-08:00

Saturday we woke up at the crack of dawn. My parents were leaving for Mexico the following day and we wanted to see them before their trip. Dad picked us, Seattleites up first thing. Mom made all our favorites, eggs, beans, french bread, homemade cheese and hot chocolate. I brought a batch of dulce de leche cupcakes since, they wouldn't be able to make the sale.
After breakfast, Dave, Tasha, Ruth, the kids and I all went to see the Muppets Movie. When I was kid Miss Piggy was my favorite. She was always so fancy. I used to have a knitted Miss Piggy doll that I would hold while I watched the Munsters. Then of course, I got into the the Muppet Babies but I couldn't decide who my favorite was then. I always felt bad for Gonzo since, he was the hopeless romantic. I did like Fozzie's humour. But, now that I am older, I love the crabby old dudes.

The movie was a fun reunion of all the characters you loved growing up, Kermit, ANIMAL, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo and many more. There was also some new naughty muppets called the Moppets. And how could you not like Amy Adams, Jason Seigl and the star of the show, Walter.

The kid's loved the movie!! They started dancing in the aisles! It was adorable! I guess you can say a new generation of Muppets fans is in the making.

Release the Kraken Sour!!!!

2011-12-14T23:58:00.000-08:00

Friday evening after I was done frosting the last cupcake, Michael and I rushed to catch the last of the Tavolata happy hour. It has become one of our recent favorites. Griselda and Glenn got me on the Pinot route and Casey has fueled the fire. And Tavolata always has a Pinot Grigio for me :) We always split a salad, a flatbread and the house gnocchi. Amazing! Deee-licious! A total must! The meal ends up being a little less than $20 with tip each. Say Whaat?!? I know it's crazy!

After happy hour we met up with our friend's Shari and Byron at Michael's new sister bar, the Upstairs. It is located upstairs from Pintxo in Belltown. It is a beautiful bar, with deep red walls and vintage accents. I was recommended the Kraken Sour for my first cocktail. I was a little hesitant thinking the rum might be too sweet. It was in fact, right on the money. Yum! It was the perfect cocktail to warm me up during this cold winter. I can't wait to try what else is on the menu.

Michael gave me a tour of the back room that had a variety of art hanging on the wall. And in the entry there was very festive Christmas tree with lovely wall paper for the background. I was getting myself into the holiday spirit. Shari and Byron had ordered wine but I think they might be getting cocktails next time.

After our drinks we went to catch the end of the art show at the Roq La Rue. I don't like to miss an art show there especially not a group show. It was called Lush Life and I am glad we went. The usual suspects were there, Travis Louie and Femke. But there was also some new faces. I like the sculpture art of Jessica Joslin. I just loved the tiny bird and the squirrel!I recommend checking out her website. You won't be disappointed.

The night was not over for us yet. We stopped by the Rendezvous to visit our friend Mark. After a couple drinks and bumping into more buddies we went over to Pintxo. Shari had stayed behind and Byron had gone home. Michael and I ended up getting some small snacks. I even got a little anchovy crostini. It was almost to beautiful to eat. Almost. Shari rushed over for some bacon wrapped figs. And I was still raving about the Kraken Sour at the end of the night.

The Ultimate Dulce De Leche Cupcake

2011-12-12T23:23:00.000-08:00

Friday was wonderful. I had taken the day off to prepare for the art sale. Right after I got up I started work on re working 2 of my paintings. I also ran errands to the library, the grocery store, the sewing shop ans the art store. I made a homemade dulce de leche. If you don't know what it is, it's a caramel made out of condensed milk. It originated in Argentina and has gained popularity now in America. I love it!

For my cupcake, I wanted to develop what I look for in a cupcake. Since, I wanted to focus on the caramel I thought to myself what the best compliments for caramel are. Of course, I thought coffee, chocolate and cinnamon would be perfect. I made a chocolate cake base with hints of cinnamon and espresso. And the frosting was a cinnamon cream cheese frosting. Deee-Licious!! The I piped the frosting into the perfect swirl. I have recently bought a wider tip for my pipping bag for that perfect frosting to cupcake ratio. Then I went all Jackson Pollock with the Dulce De Leche. Aweee Yeah! They were beautiful!!

The Blitz(ed) Capitol Hill Art Walk

2011-12-12T23:08:00.000-08:00

Thursday was the Capitol Hill Art Walk. We started our adventures at the Ltd. Art Gallery. They were doing a special Star Wars inspired art show. I had noticed it before on my walked up the hill on Pike. I do love Star Wars so I thought, why not? I met up with Michael and then Dave. We walked down Pike and almost gave up hope. As we crossed the street, I looked back I spotted the gallery. We back tracked and I am soooo glad we did. There was all kinds of really cool paintings. Our favorites were the old timey versions of , Jabba the Hut, Boba Fett, C3PO and Chewie. There also special guest, Darth Vader and Storm Troopers. It was a lot of good fun!

After the Star Wars party me moseyed over to the True Love Art Gallery. They had a photography exhibit. Dave enjoyed the urinal photos as you can see below. We also nibbled on some goodies and hung out with some friends. Tasha arrived and we hung out for a little while longer.

We then made the trek to visit Dave's friend, Quincy Quigg who gave us a personal tour of his space and shared stories and accomplishments. It was cool to see how sometimes art can lead to successful career opportunities. Also it was interesting to hear how art can used more then just paintings. His painting had been transformed into a jacket.

And we were still not done with our art tour. We worked our way up to the Trader Joe's area. The Inartsnw was having a poetry reading. We checked that out for a little bit. And also did a little walk through of their shop, Bon Voyage Vintage. Michael started getting sleepy and hungry.

We had a snack at the Honey Hole and then called it a night. Lot's of art and lot's of fun. A great way to landslide into the weekend.

Cold Weather Kitchen Adventures

2011-12-12T22:37:00.000-08:00

Last week Isaac, Dave and Isaac's friend, Diego came over for a play date. I was already planning on making some pumpkin muffins and fennel, tomato, white bean soup. My friend Daja had made the soup years ago for a True Blood ladies night at the house. It was delicious. She also made the aioli that has been on my to do list. Both of the recipes can be found in Macrina's cookbook, one of my favorite local bakeries.

I was at the store when my brother called. I had gotten all my ingredients. We then all headed over. Diego and Isaac ran around the house playing. I got everything going for the soup. I now wish I would have made the beans from scratch. I can put beans on the to do list. As the soup was cooking, I started working on the aioli. The first aioli was a disaster! I did not emulsify at all. It just looked like a funky egg yolk. On my second try, I mixed the yolk, lemon juice, mustard and salt before hand and then started adding the oil a tsp at a time. You could tell the big difference right away.

I was very happy with the soup. The following day, I took the soup for lunch and made a quick salad of cucumber, parsley and radishes. I had my new favorite antioxidant salad, kiwi, pomegranate and mandarin fruit salad and 2 pieces of toast. It was just what wanted.

I made the pumpkin muffins and they were also quiet tasty. I just love them in cold weather. And when you make the Ellie Krieger's recipe, you can see the beautiful colors of the different spices.

Cookie Decorating Party!!! Sprinkles galore!!

2011-12-05T21:47:00.000-08:00

On Sunday after yoga, Ruth came to pick me up. We then headed over to grab Dave. And then we sweet talked Carmel to let us borrow Isaac. All of our ducks were lining up.

We were all getting pretty hungry. I used my super smart phone to order pizza from a local pizza place in Bothell, Sparta's Pizza & Spaghetti House. It would be ready when we got back into the area. Cafe Ladro was around the corner so Dave spotted me an americano. And also got one for himself.

We picked up the pizza. After we ate that's when the party really started!! We got busy rolling dough out and Carlitos spotted the aprons. He was like, wait a minute you can't bake without me. Isaac quickly followed to see the commotion in the kitchen. We got the cutters out and kept some of the fun non Xmasy ones, like a skull, poodle, a foot, a hand, a gnome, a squirrel and a unicorn to name a few.

The boys were traditional at first with the snowflakes, the xmas tree and then they moved into the headless gingerbread man and all the other goodies. We had an assembly line going with all trays getting ready to go in while others were baking. We were also watching the clock like hawks.

The boys took a short break. Baby C woke up and then we set up for decorating. Baby C only cared for the sprinkles. Carlitos got very creative with the writing frostings. Isaac would over sprinkle and then quickly devour his hardwork.

I think Ruth, Dave and I had just as much fun as the kiddos did. I can't wait for next year. I will be making sure we have our movies and music ready for the full ambiance.

Supporting Local Tunes

2011-12-05T21:31:00.000-08:00

Saturday evening, I was exhausted from sewing and going to the UCC. I still had to do one more thing before heading out on the town with Michael. Michael's mom shared a family recipe for sugar cookies. I needed to get my dough done before Sunday. Sunday was the actual cookie decorating event with the nephews and niece.

After making dough, we headed to a show at the Galway Arms. Colonix was the opening band and we know Pete the drummer. Hole in My Head was next and they only had 2 musicians. They kept their songs short and sweet. And the last band was Star Straps. Michael knows one of the bassists. It was a good fun, cheap show full of buddies and good times.

Expansion of a Crafty Family

2011-12-05T21:20:00.000-08:00

This year's Urban Craft Uprising was full of the usual crafty suspects. Some of my faves are Cakespy, Schmancy , Idle Hands Designs, Devout, Kelly J. Browstein Illustrations. This year I also had some new faves!! Tripper Dungan did the flyer for the art sale and his booth was awesome. He was also really niceee. His art was three dimensional and he supplied 3D glasses. I recommend checking out his artwork.

I also enjoyed Chet and Dot. They had such a whimsical set up. I felt transported in their tiny village. And I love their stitched bat.

Monkey Sock Monkey was super crowded. I did end up buying a couple cards that were too cute to pass up. One was a sock monkey style squirrel that had won a blue ribbon for baking a pie. Another card was a panda painted by Finn Lane when shes was 8 years old.

Fuzzy Ink was also fun. It was a t-shirt spot that had designs about moustaches.

I did end up talking to some of the vendors and inviting them to the Vermillion Art Sale next Sunday. I hope they will come.

My Very Own Sacred Heart

2011-12-05T20:35:00.000-08:00

I am constantly writing down little to do list. One of the brooches I wanted to make was the sacred heart. I felt it would be a perfect brooch for me. I was raised Catholic and being Mexican they almost go hand in hand. And I am also obsessed with hearts.

Saturday morning Michael had come home at 3 in the morning and then a car alarm went off at 7 am. It was a rough morning. Michael had moved his schedule around and now had Saturday night off. I had to switch all the things I was going to do that night and move them up.

I was anxiously awaiting my flyer that morning that my older brother, Dan in NY designed and was mailing to me. It arrived at 7:30. Yay!! It looked awesome.

I started working on my brooch to take to the Urban Craft Uprising:) It's perfect!!

Chicago in Seattle

2011-12-04T20:15:00.000-08:00

Friday we were celebrating my bosses, Ken and Chris birthdays. My bosses wanted to go tot Fremont to Kylie's Chicago Pizza. I love Chicago pizza even though it fills me up for hours!! I was also excited to leave the downtown area during the work day.

The pizza takes 25 minutes to cook up. Nobody seemed very excited about the veggie option so we ordered a small veggie pizza and a large sausage pizza. I could totally understand. Michael was missing the meat when we went veg in Chicago.

When the pizza arrived it was sooo yummy. I find the mozzarella reminiscent of Chicago. It was very stretchy and delicious. I loved the cornmeal on the crust. The sauce was also had good texture and flavor.

I was seriously full from 2 1/2 slices all the way until 10pm. Then I had another half slice. I stayed up late that night, hanging out with Dave and Isaac and then cleaning. I did whip up some cookies for Dave and Isaac. PS Isaac had the coolest sweater on. I was extremely jealous!

Anyways if you miss Chicago pizza or have never had it. Check this place out for sure. You won't be disappointed.

Seasonal Yummies

2011-12-02T23:36:00.000-08:00

Over the years I have struggled with food options during the winter. This season I have had a pretty good luck whippin' up some yummy seasonal food. I have moved into kale. I cook it in a pan with a squeeze of lemon. It's also satsuma and pomegranate season. I made a beautiful fruit salad and sometimes I add some kiwi too. I just loved the colors.

I also made some shrimp scampi this week and made a quick apple, blue cheese and walnut salad. Yum! I am totally on a roll this winter.

New X-mas Goodies

2011-12-02T23:11:00.000-08:00

X-mas is officially only 23 days away. I got a couple new christmasy items for the home. Joanne's Fabrics had a sale a couple weeks ago and I got the cutest gingerbread man tin. I also got some cute cupcake cups, I will be using for the art sale next weekend. And this week I got a linzer cookie cut outs from Ross along with a plaid over mitt and snowflake pot holder.

Mums the Word

2011-12-02T22:54:00.000-08:00

I am kind of addicted to this song. I am not to crazy about this video but oh well. I have to share visually!

Buenos Dias Moose!

2011-12-02T22:42:00.000-08:00

Ruth, Carlitos, Baby C and I went to brunch last weekend to Senor Moose. We hadn't been since, my birthday in June. The kids loved it!! They especially enjoyed the beans. I always love my huevos rancheros with the salsa on the side. I decided that 2012 is going to be the year I move into the world of spice. Awww yeah!! Watch out world I might be going to 2 stars. I know...I am living on the edge.

I also ordered the hot chocolate which I never do. I am trying to cut back on drinking so much coffee. It was sooo yummy and looked beautiful. Carlitos discovered it's deliciousness and chugged the entire mug.

After breakfast we moseyed over to the Ballard farmer's market. I love walking through fresh markets, it's one of my favorite things to do on the weekends. I wish I would have bought the kale. I did get some rainbow radishes and some bagels from the Grateful Bread. The bagels there are always so fresh and soft.

We also stopped at a coffee shop between Ballard and Fremont. We were misinformed that they made Mexican hot chocolates there. It was a premade powder mix. Grrrr. I needed to go to Trader Joes and we found some treats at La Rev before heading to TJ's in Queen Anne.

La Rev have some of the best danishes in the city, in my opinion. They had an apple and cranberry danish and it was to die for. I split it with Ruth and now only wished I had it all. Yum yum yum!! It was a very decadent, foodie kind of day.

Turkey Day 2011

2011-12-02T22:29:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving I decided to make a chocolate pecan pie, sweet potato pie, mashed potatoes and stuffing. Michael was really missing the traditional Thanksgiving holiday grub. I wanted to try to make some dishes he would enjoy.

Michael recently started watching The Chew on ABC . It's almost like The View but it's all food related. They have the famous Italian chef, Mario Batali, Iron Chef Michael Symon, Top Chef favorite Carla Hall, Fashionista Clinton Kelly from What Not To Wear and a new face for healthy eating, Daphne Oz. Hmmm obviously you can tell we are TV aficionados. I know the majority of these people even before the Chew began. Anyways, Michael has been dvr-ing the show. It helped to get us in the mood for Turkey day.

I ended up doing Carla's chocolate pecan pie. It was amazing! Everything you want in a pecan pie and more with that chocolate touch. My coworker, Ken ended up finishing a good amount of it the following work week.

I also made Clinton Kelly's stuffing but decided to use the Batali touch of Merguez sausage. I don't eat meat but I wanted Michael to enjoy his sides.

They had Nigella Lawson on one of the episodes and she made really yummy looking mash potatoes. I made those and even included the bacon for the meat eaters.

I made the pies the night before Turkey day. My sweet potato pie was kind of questionable. I am kind of a snob when it comes to baking. I had to do a definite redo. Michael was nice enough to get me more potatoes. I still have not perfected the pie but it was still good.

On turkey day, I was busy cooking from 9am - 2 pm. Isaac, Dave and Tasha came over earlier. To my surprise Isaac had a water color, moustache and thicker eyebrows. He also felt like a photographer and took a couple pictures of us and me. This is what I look like before make up. Kinda crazy.

Michael and Isaac also had a jam session. Michael taught Isaac how to play some guitar. It was adorable.

Ruth picked us up and we headed over to the parents. My sister made a pumpkin cheesecake. My mom made arroz con leche aka ride pudding and empanadas and bought a pie. There was more treats than food. My mom also made the turkey and Puerto Rican rice. I find the rice to be one of my holiday highlights since I became a vegetarian at 16. Now I eat seafood but I still enjoy my holiday rice. I also made myself a little veggie version of the stuffing. It was great to have the golden raisins and the caramelized apples and onions. Dee-licious!

By the time we got to dessert I felt like I was the Thanksgiving turkey. Next year we are starting a sign up sheet for these family dinners for sure. Everybody still had a great time. And Michael must've been full since, we got home and then he took a 2 hr. nap.

Almodovar - Our Modern Day Hitchcock

2011-11-27T18:22:00.000-08:00

This weekend was the perfect weather to attend the movies. I use to love to go to the movies by myself on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. When I was in high school I would seek out a new favorite indie film and ride the bus over to Seattle from Kirkland. Over the year's I have found that I get this from my dad. When he was a kid he would spend entire days moving from one movie theater into the next.
Saturday Michael and I relaxed at home and then I walked over to the Harvard Exit as he went to work. The two movies I have been tempted to watch are both playing at the Harvard Exit. The new Almodovar movie, The Skin I Live In and Lars Von Trier's Melancholia. It was a tough decision but I picked Almodovar. Even though the weather was perfect for Melancholia. I've decided I am going to start going to the movies more often this winter. I love supporting my local indie theaters.

The Skin I Live In, was definitely one of Almodovar's dramas/thriller with no comedic tones. If you are a guy, you might get a bit uncomfortable in certain scenes. The movie moves in a great pattern that you have difficulty figuring out the twist until it's too late. Almodovar is definitely the Hitchcock of today.

I find it interesting that in the Spanish title instead of live it's more like inhabit. By the title alone there's already an introduction to the separation of self and it's vehicle the body. This movie is not clean cut about who the bad guy is or if there is even a character you support. I guess in the end it's Vera you feel badly for. It's Vera who is trapped in the skin.

Vera was like the movie's onion that once you peel the layers back you have a better understanding of the truth.

Getting Crafty With it - November Vermillion Art Sale

2011-11-20T18:38:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday was the second Arta Che Vermillion Art Sale. It was my second time being part of the sale and I always get nervous. This time we had like a 5 or 6 week gap. That gave me plenty of time to find out if I could bake. I was also able to reposses my cofffin art piece I had done in March. I took the time to make more coffee sleeves and make more brooches. As I posted earlier, I had designed a sort of pattern with the brooches. I made 4 new skulls with different tattoo style designs on their foreheads like, a spiderweb, a diamond, an umbrella and a fun yellow tear drop design. I was pretty proud of my new babies. I also made more french toast and a couple more pbrs. I am such a nerd, I even did a mock up table at home the night before. I included a pic so you could see it in all it's glory:)

I am always nervous when I do art shows or sales. This time at least I felt better prepared and my friend Shari was going to be there with me the whole time.

My sister Ruth dropped me off a little after 2 and I my section had been moved to the back. I was sharing a table with my friend Shari. We had to get moved around a bit before we finally weren't in the way of the bar.

I liked the background of the brick better than the white walls in the front. We also had easy access to the bar which was nice. The bartender was so nice, he quickly spotted the cupcakes and came over to purchase one. I was selling red velvets $3 each or 2 for $5. He bought one for $5. How cool is that?! I sold some more cupcakes but I was hoping they would take off. I would like to continue to develop recipes and continue to sell baked good. Baking is one of my strengths and I want to let it shine.

People started working their way in. My friend Casey came to visit. She hung out and had a glass of wine. My brother and his girlfriend also came by and hung out for a little while. I also gave Dave a brooch I made specifically for him. It was almost tattoo style, it was a sugarskull with a sombrero and underneath it had a banner that reads Mexican and the "can" was in red to emphasize the action.

It's was nice that people came out and showed their support. I am just happy to see everyone.

Shari sold a purse and some braceltes before the end of the night. I sold more cupcakes and someone bought a sugarskull brooch. Towards the end of the night this girl from San Diego came by and bought a sugarskull coffee sleeve. She mentioned how big the sugarskull theme was in Southern California. She also seemed interested in my baking. She asked me if I would make cupcakes for a baby shower that are dairy free. I was willing to work out a recipe.

I also got great feed back on my coffin. It was a very popular piece. It's just a big complement for people to enjoy what you have created.

Happy Birthday Steve!!

2011-11-20T18:23:00.000-08:00

Last Monday Michael's co worker Steve was celebrating his birthday and having people over at his house. I asked Michael if I should eat something a little substantial before heading over and he said not to worry. I don't expect people to make too much for me. I am usually fine with picking from the veggie tray or eating some cheese. I just like to know in advance if I need to eat a little something.

Steve is actually one of the chefs at Pintxo (Michael's work). Michael mentioned that the food would actually lean more in Mexican and Asian styles and not Spanish. I was interested to see what was on the menu. When we arrived there was a spread of pan fried dumplings and a tortilla soup that you would assemble in a bowl and then pour broth over. Everything looked delicious! I came to find out that it all had meat. Steve saw me and started working on something for me. When he finished, I came to find out he had basically made me an entree. There was about 3 servings of a delicious stir fry with different types of mushrooms and bok choy and mixed with rice noodles. It totally hit the spot.I only ate 2 of the servings. I tried to restrain myself from eating it all. I couldn't believe what a nice gesture it was to make me dinner on HIS birthday. I felt very special .

We mingled with all the other guest. Steve's roommate. Tina was also very nice. Tina works at an art gallery and they had a collection going in the house. Tina also owns a dog named, Zephyr. Zephyr was really one of the best dogs I've met before. He was very alert, friendly and also had very soft fur. Zephyr only barked when he heard people at the door. Michael was soooo happy just to be around a pup and spoiled Zephyr with tons of attention.

It came out that Steve and Tina use to live in LA. And Steve had worked with Robert Lopez at the "La Luz De Jesus" art gallery. (Jealous!!)Steve said it was very Mexican oriented. And looking at the poster, I decided right there and then that I would start working on a sacred heart brooch. It became so obvious. In their living room there was even more Catholic Mexican candles and other artifacts.

I also loved this poster they had found years ago in an attic from an artist named Mark Zimmer. The pen and ink drawing looked to be influenced by Eastern European style. It was very dark and cool.

Michael and I really enjoyed ourselves, hanging out with good food, fun friends. a perfect dog and the house atmosphere. I think the birthday boy had fun too and was glad to see Michael made it out. As we were leaving Steve ran over with a hot chocolate tablet for me to try out. I can't wait to steam a little milk with that yummy chocolate!

Rock n Roll on a School Night

2011-11-20T17:34:00.000-08:00

Pierced Arrows had finally worked their way up from San Francisco and were playing the Rendevous for like $10. What a steal of a deal! The only down fall was that it was on a Thursday but I could handle one more day of work. We were easily able to get tickets and all the Dead Moon fans were there. There was a couple opening bands. I was happy to see Don't was opening for them again. I enjoyed the female vocals when we were in San Francisco. I wish I would have bought a cd.

When Pierce Arrows came on Michael and I had managed to get right up front. Michael was filled with energy and danced and headbanged through out the whole show. I had fun moving around and taking great pictures of everyone. I think I might do a couple sketches of the band. I loved the details. It was a blast! Michael's neck started to hurt pretty quickly. I guess we are just not as young as we use to be.

My inner goth teen is creepily smiling

2011-11-20T17:29:00.000-08:00

The night before we left for San Francisco, we watched the legendary, the Damned at the Showbox. We spotted my brother and his girlfriends tickets. We bumped into out friend's Shari and Mel at the show. I also saw some of my co workers, Kristin and Chris. It was a full house and everybody was excited to see them.

Dave and I had actually already seen them, I believe in the early two thousands. Dave described Dave Vanian as the gothic Ricky Martin. He was wearing some sort flamenco shirt back then. This time Mr.Vanian was really spruced up in a three piece suit and bow tie. I loved the pencil thin moustache.

When the band started we stood in front of the keyboardist, Monty Oxy Moron. He has super, curly hair that bops around when he's playing and not playing, He really got into the music when he was just standing there, Michael said he was his favorite. I always love Vanian, most likely because I was a big goth in high school and still a bit in college. I was listening mainly to the Damned, Siouxsie, the Cure the Bauhaus and anything else dark and delicious!

They played the entire Damned Damned Damned album, followed by the Black Album. It took me back to my teenage years for sure. Since, we had such an early start the following day we unfortunately didn't stay for the whole show. I would have loved to hear Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde. It was still tons of fun!

Snaggle Teeth, Nudity and Monsters in all Their Glory

2011-11-20T17:06:00.000-08:00

November 10th was the Martin Ontiveros art show at True Love Art Gallery. We want to continue to support our friends in all their endeavors. Our friend George opened the tattoo shop /art gallery a couple months ago. They continue to seek out great artist and the receptions are always fun. This time there was a dj and it was nice because it was part of Blitz the Capitol Hill Art Walk. There was a couple pieces that I really enjoyed. I found the texture and the details most impressive. I of course enjoyed all the colors as well. The show is up until December 6th. Please stop by and check it out, 1525 Summit Avenue, between Pike and Pine.

Matching Fall Foliage

2011-11-20T16:32:00.000-08:00

It's entering winter time soon but I managed to pull out a fall outfit before it's too cold. Here I am doing some of my favorite things, mixing color with pattern and adding in a girly ruffle. You can't tell from the picture but the dress has a small star pattern on it. It's actually one of my favorites. Soon I will be wearing more plaid, furs, leather, and velvet.

Steelhead Diner - Terrible Staff, Great Pecan Pie

2011-11-20T09:59:00.000-08:00

This year Michael and I went to the Steelhead Diner for our anniversary. The service was terrible and they sat us in this booth right by the service entrance. People kept rushing in and out while we tried to enjoy our meal. The prices were a little high for a dinner. However, they extended restaurant week for another month. We decided to stick with the special menus.

Michael ordered the pumpkin soup to start and I ordered a apple, blue cheese salad. My salad was huge and really tasty. Michael was not a huge fan of his soup. I guess, compared to his carrot soup, this soup did suck. We also got a bottle of white wine. Our waiter was not very helpful on picking things out. He also wasn't very good at taking plates away. The water glass staff was on top of it though. We had water the whole time and I do like that.

For our entrees I had a huge piece of salmon on a bed of polenta. I didn't get the flavor of sage but it was still good. A little too big if I wanted to make it to dessert. I saved half of it for later. Michael's tri tip steak was really fatty and chewy. Another thumbs down!

For dessert our waiter made an appearance. I asked him which was the best dessert and he quickly suggested the Theo chocolate pecan pie. Michael took the suggestion too. We were both very happy with dessert. It was very sweet and nutty and chocolaty. Those chocolate nibs form Theos were just perfection. I got soooo full I had to leave a little but I tried. While were eating we still had full glasses of wine and our waiter brought out our check. We hadn't even asked for it. I was sooo mad. How could he try to ruin this meal for us?? I tried to not let it bother me but it was just so rude.

On the bright side I made myself a great salmon salad the following day for dinner.

Catch of the Day

2011-11-20T09:41:00.000-08:00

Michael and I have opposite schedules. I work all week and then he works Saturday and Sunday. We started doing a little routine on Saturday mornings. I make us breakfast and myself a latte. We then head over to Pike and Pine. We either go to Elliott Bay Book Co., Value Village, The Lifelong Thrifstore or the Everyday Music.

A couple weeks ago the used movies at Everyday Music were half off. I keep a list of movies I want to own even though with Netflix and Cable, movies are becoming obsolete. When I looked around at the Everyday Music I actually found some of my faves, Fur and Ghostworld. Crumb I love but I find it sad. I still wanted it because I felt it would inspire me in all my future art endeavors.

This coming year I would like to continue on my creative stride.

I also found a cd of Naked Raygun, that I've been looking for too. After Everyday Music we moseyed on over to Lifelong. I sometimes feel that it's a better thriftstore since, a portion of the profits go to people living with Aids. For one, my purchases are doing good and two, people are donating better items. On this specific trip, I noticed at the corner of my eye this huge bowl with skulls on it underneath another bowl. Under closer inspection, the bowl had lilies and it looked like a watermelon seed pattern, It was awesome! And it was made in Mexico. And it was 25% off. A good day in deed for deals.

There's a Trier in my beer

2011-11-19T22:43:00.000-08:00

Everyone's favorite Danish heartbreaking director, Lars Von Tier is back! I am still sad about Dance in the Dark! His movies are always moving, beautiful and melancholy. So it comes to no surprise that his newest film, Melancholia, starring Kirsten Dunst will not be straying from the pack. I can't wait to watch it. I will make sure to buy a box of kleenex before the viewing session.

Alice Bag - Round 2

2011-11-19T22:36:00.000-08:00

Alice Bag had mentioned she would be doing another reading on Saturday at the Elliot Bay Book Co.. The bookstore is so close to the house, there was no way I was going to miss it. The night before I told my friend Shari, how much fun it was. She was shocked that more people didn't know about it. She was definitely going to the bookstore with me.

Since, I make sugarskull brooches, I thought Alice might like one. I picked out a cool green one for her and made sure to bring my business cards so that she could check out my blog. (My brother, Dave would be proud. He's always giving me a hard time about not handing out my card or "networking" with other artist)

When Shari arrived I noticed she too was wearing a leopard coat. I guess it's true what they say, great minds think a like. Alice and Robert were a little late. They were frazzled when they arrived. Everybody in the audience was patient. Alice did do a new passage and still included the section about the Germs. I am glad they sang the same songs too. I didn't want Shari to miss out. The crowd was a little bigger than the night before. It was fun to see people getting excited to ask her questions.

Through out the reading and singing you could tell that Robert looked up to Alice and kid a lot with her almost like a little brother. It was nice to get a glimpse into their friendship. How lucky for us Seattlelites, we are the only ones that were scheduled to see Alice with Robert on her book tour.
This time I bought the book and got it autographed. Alice loved her brooch and quickly put it on. It made me so happy. You can even see the brooch in the picture:)

After she show, Shari and I went and had a glass of wine at Vermillion. Shari liked the space, I told her that I actually did an art sale there. She was interested in being a part of the next sale. I was definitely going to pull some strings to get her into the sale with me.

Alice Bag Comes To Town

2011-11-19T22:13:00.000-08:00

It was good to be home. On Friday after our arrival I received an email reminder from Roq La Rue that Alice Bag was coming to town. Alica Bag is the former Chicana lead singer of the punk rock seventies band, The Bags. She would also be performing songs with El Vez, also known as Robert Lopez. (Lopez was also in a punk rock band in the seventies called the Zeros, referred to as the Mexican Ramones). Me being a punk rock, Chicana myself I had to go see her.

When I got out of work, Michael and I met at our usual spot, Shorty's. Michael was worried that the Spits show we were going to later would sell out. He grabbed my bus pass and headed up to get our tickets. By the time he came back down we went and grabbed some happy hour food at Tavolata. We shared a salad and some gnocchi. I was very impressive Italian food and affordable. The crowd however, were really pushy and rude. This lady moved my stool over 5 inches before I was able to sit down. We still tried to enjoy our experience. My brother's roommate's brother, Simon also works at Tavolata and was just in the recent season of Top Chef. I said hi and he said he didn't recognize me right away without the red hair.

We went to see Alice and she had already started reading passages from her book, Violence Girl. She red a section of when she was a kid, then the time when she met the Germs and every time she read, it was almost like you were there with her. In between songs her and Robert would play songs. They covered a Buzzcocks song, a traditional Mexican song and a Zeros song. Michael had not realized what I had signed him up to see. He loved the entire experience. We stayed until the end. And at the end Alice came up to us, she exclaimed that she had thought we were going towards her. She was so nice, you couldn't help but be drawn to her. We took a group photo. She was critical of herself, yet I thought she looked amazing. I can't believe she's even old enough to have been through such a great era in music. Alice definitely continues to be a strong woman and is still very inspirational.

We made it to the Spits and saw our friends, Byron and Shari along with a couple more buddies through out the night. Before the Spits came on they even handed out a champagne toast to all to celebrate their record release. It was a great way to return home.

San Fran - Day 5 -Goodbye!! Until Next Time!

2011-11-19T21:29:00.000-08:00

Last day in San Fran and there was still so much I wanted to see. Next time I am definitely shopping in the Mission, I am going to eat at Mijita and I am going to the Cartoon Art Museum. We decided our last day, there was a trip to the beach in order. We took the bus over to upper Haight. It was so early that not much was open. I made the mistake of eating at Red Vic and it was the worst breakfast sandwich ever. I didn't even eat it. Everybody else went to Balazo for Mexican. Mike and Casey walked to the park after we ate and Michael went to Amoeba. The time was running away from us. We went to the beach and there was a surfing competition going on. It was a little cooler than the first day we were there. It was still so beautiful. I am a little torn to not move closer to the ocean.

We said our goodbyes to the ocean and San Fran a few hours later, Until next time, I can't wait!

San Fran - Day Four - Good Food, Tasty Beers & Great Friends

2011-11-19T21:15:00.000-08:00

Our fourth day we decided we were going to be very productive. We got up in the morning and headed to Dottie's True Blue Cafe for breakfast. It had a reputation of having delicious food and a wait to match. This time we were up early and ready to go. Mike and Casey were there first. We got there just in time and we got seated shortly after we arrived. After we were seated Michael and I were mesmerized by the chanterell mushroom omelet special. We decided to split it and save some money. I was very tempted to buy pancakes but I should really try perfecting mine at home. Mike and Casey split a basic breakfast that came with a pancake. The service was amazing. They even split our orders for us and didn't charge us extra for sharing. The omelet was deelicious!! We were so happy with our order. And the bread was really a huge, unexpected highlight. The toast was hearty and just what we wanted. It put bread on my to do list for 2012. We only had half a piece and it was the perfect amount.

After breakfast we utilized our passes, jumped on the cable cars and head to North Beach. I specifically did not order coffee at breakfast to be able to enjoy another round of coffee at Trieste. I walked into my new fave coffee place and Batman and Robin were hard at work making the best lattes in town. Love love love!! It was so awesome! My latte was perfection! We then walked up to Coit Tower to see the views of the city. After walking down, there was a huge parade of kids going through the park. It was so cool to see all the different costumes. What luck to catch the parade!!

We worked our way over to the most crooked street, Lombard Street. Passing all the tourist we rushed to the top of the hill. Michael had high hopes that there would be a bar at the end of the hill but a las, no bar. Fortunately, we found another cable car headed back downtown. We caught a trolley from downtown over to the Castro. We went to a restaurant appropriately named, Milk for Harvey Milk. We had some bloody marys to cool off. We then walked from Castro to the Mission.

Since, we were in the Mission I had to stop at Ritual Roasters and pick up some coffee. Mike and Casey headed to Puerto Alegre to sit. Michael and I walked up to the coffee shop. I saw all my favorite shops when we were walking up. There was cool taxidermy shops, Mexican stores and vintage treasures. I was so tempted to stop at all of them. I finally got to the shop and Peter Pan and a Lost Boy were working. I just love this city!! I am not sure I see this much Halloween spirit in Seattle at all. I bought my coffee bag and met up with Michael and we rushed over to the restaurant.

No trip to San Fran is complete without a Mission burrito and a pitcher of margaritas. I loved it! The art on the walls were all Mexican inspired. And the chips were coming out with tasty salsa. My burrito was ridiculous!! I wish there was something so delicious in Seattle. You could taste that the beans and rice were made from scratch. And since, we were in California, I almost had a whole avocado. Yum! Our waitress was a red headed, energetic Mexicana like me, except I am no longer a red head. It was like talking to a little sister. Everybody enjoyed their meals.

After a late lunch we went over to lower Haight to drink a beer at Molotov and relax for a minute. Our friend, Chelsea was hooking us up with a tour at the Anchor Brewing Company and we weren't going to miss it.

When we arrived Chelsea was there with her boyfriend Peter. It was like a triple date. Her friend Mike let us in and we found out later he was also our tour guide. We came upstairs to the bar and there was all kinds of beer memorabilia all over the room. The bar was the real interest. We got poured anything we wanted. There was also a huge round of the tastiest blue cheese. I guess the Maytag family, owns the appliance company, the brewery and the cheese. The cheese was not like your average stinky cheese. The cheese was smooth, creamy and delicious. There was also some sesame crackers to nibble with the cheese and some hard pretzels. Everything was great and also complemented the beers.

One tour ended and we ended up getting a personal tour from Mike. I know a lot of Michael's at this point. Hopefully I won't lose you. I felt a lot like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Lucky for me I didn't end up looking like a round of blue cheese at the end of the tour. We were able to see all aspects of the brewing process. Michael who's a bartender has been on countless tours and he said nothing compared to this one. We went on the roof at the end and it was a beautiful evening. We went back to the beer room and had a couple more brews. I even tried the barley wine and it was my favorite. I am glad Chelsea suggested it. Somebody had forgotten their anchor pins and Chelsea gave them to me and Michael. It was funny since, we had been eyeballing the pins earlier.

Chelsea, her friend Mike and her boyfriend, Peter were so nice that they even waited for us to get on the bus. It was a night I will remember for a long time.

Vesuvios. It was alright. We then went to a dive bar yet the prices were not dive prices. At least there was a band but the crowd slowly became all these rich business guys. We ended up leaving and going to the Rogue bar. It was one long day. After one brew we called it a night.

San Fran - Day 3 - Baseball, Crab and Pinata

2011-11-19T20:08:00.000-08:00

Our third day was pretty low key. Michael and I went and grabbed some breakfast and then met up with Mike and Casey. Michael wanted to see the AT&T baseball field. We all headed over to the field. Only Michael and I went on the actual tour. It would have been better to go on the tour when the season was actually taking place. During that time you would be able to see clues of the players, such as bats laying around or a shirt. We will have to remember next time we go to a field.

There was a sad story told during our tour. There was a time when the team was between mascots. For a little while they had a crab mascot, Crazy Crab that everybody hated. The players would trip him and the fans would throw things at him. And at his last game, his eye fell off. It was a sad mascot story, for sure.

Michael loves baseball and even though it was pretty empty, I think he still enjoyed himself.

Afterwards we had missed every possible bus. The day had gotten away from us. We decided to dress up for Halloween on the most off night. It was Sunday and most people dressed up Friday or Saturday or at least Monday. But oh well, we were determined to have a a good time. I had spent a lot of time gluing my outfit together before the trip. I was determined to wear it and have fun. Mike and Casey headed to their hotel to get into costume. Casey was going to be Madonna and I was going to do her make up.

Michael was hungry as we waited for Mike and Casey. I found that they were giving away free BBQ at the bar next door to the hotel. Michael was a very happy camper. We met up with Mike and Casey and we gave them a tour of our hotel. Casey's make up came out perfect and it only took me 5 minutes. Michael ended up being some sort of Monkey Moose and Mike was a Frankenstein old lady.

After awhile, the rest of us got hungry and the concierge told us about a happy hour just down the street. There was cheap tall boys and cheap personal pizzas. We filled up and headed to the Mission. We totally got lost on the bus and as we tried to jump out the bus driver was like...you don't want to get off here. GAwd! I can't believe we almost got off the bus in costumes in a dangerous part of town. It was pretty close.

We finally made it to the Mission. Mike had found some abandoned roses to complete his creepy outfit. We found a bar with a DJ. We danced around. We stopped into a little liquor store and bought some shots to go. We ran around to a bunch of bars and we ended up finding a ZZ Top cover band. It was a lot of fun! They gave us a deal for being in costume.

San Fran - Day 2 - Great Latte, Shitty Transportation & Rock & Roll

2011-11-17T20:00:00.000-08:00

That following morning we decided to grab a cable car up to North Beach. I wanted to check out this coffee shop called, Trieste. I guess Coppola wrote the Godfather there. We wanted some coffee and pastries. I got my usual almond croissant and a latte. I normally ask for non fat but I just ordered it the regular way.
My latte was amazing. I had not had such, a delicious coffee since, I was in Europe. We sat at these small tables outside. I felt very European and wished there was a coffee shop like this one at home. There was a firetruck parked outside. This mouthy, eccentric grandmother told the kids that it was the firefighters favorite place for coffee. When the firefighters came, the grandma asked if the kids could get a tour of the fire truck. The firefighter was totally game. The table next to us had some local artist that somebody's son wanted to meet. I guess he was a big fan of the art. It was fun being in the middle of all the commotion.

After our breakfast we walked around North Beach. We headed over to City Lights and to the Beat Museum. I had bought a Bukowski koozie, 2 years ago and was hoping to replace it. Unfortunately the store owner told us the guy who made them was nowhere to be found.

We then went and grabbed some lunch at Nanking. We were very disappointed. We just ordered their very popular calamari. It came in a milky broth and tasted tart. It was not good. And we got some noodles and it didn't even have veg in it. It was really just noodles. It's horrible since, we specifically came with the hopes of great Chinese food.

After our disastrous meal we stopped for a quick beer at the Vesuvios. And as we are sitting there we are surrounded by other couples. One couple was from Seattle and were also celebrating their anniversary. And as we are talking to everyone the keyboardist from the Damned walked in. It was so funny. We had just seen him only the night before we left. We was extremely nice and he even let us take a picture with him. It made us forget that nasty Chinese food.

After a quick beer we headed over to the Fisherman's Wharf. It was incredibly crowded. There was no way we were going to get through those crowds. Michael decided to grab some real food at in-n-out burger. The place was a zoo. We were becoming exhausted from the crowds and the running around.

We had texted our friend, Janiece that we were in town. She told us she was working at Alembic at the Haight and to come on by. We worked our way back to downtown from the Wharf with many challenges. As we tried to manoeuvre our way through the city. Our friend's Mike and Casey had officially arrived in San Fran. Michael and I finally made it to downtown after a broken cable car and jumping onto a bus. We jumped on another bus and headed to Haight. It was a disaster!! People were yelling and swearing and there was a wheelchair being loaded. And then the bus breaks down. Michael cracks and wants to take a cab. We jump into a cab and head over to lower haight. We stop in at the Molotov. It's a pretty cool small bar. We wait for Mike and Casey. We are desperate need of some cold cheap beers.
All four us , slowly work our way to Alembic. We have a couple snacks of fancy chips and a carrot and beet salad. After catching the last of happy hour we headed with Janiece to a local dive bar. The beer there was so cheap that we just kept pouring them back. It was fun to be in a familiar style bar. I guess it's been owned by the same Irish family for decades. I also loved seeing all the costumes. I had some major costume envy. I got a good picture of a hamburglar. Janiece told us stories of being on tour and the her man torubles. After we filled up on beers we headed to the show, Pierced Arrows.

The show was at Parkside and Janiece was convinced it was going to sell out. We jump into a cab and headed over. The show didn't even have a line. But, at least we made sure we were going to the show. The opening bands were a lot of fun. There was Hot Lunch and Don't. They were both energetic and got the crowd's juices flowing. Pierced Arrows were amazing as usual. Our batteries were running low about half way through the set. We ended flying the coop and heading back to the hotels. Awww...hello nice, comfy hotel bed :)

San Fran - Day 1 - The Ocean & the Cool Kidz

2011-11-13T10:03:00.000-08:00

After the Damned we woke up at 3:30 in the morning. My dad arrived to take us to the airport at 4:15ish and we arrived at the airport by 5:00. After some breakfast we were on the plane by 6:30. Arrived at the airport by 8. Got on the BART and took a cab to the hotel. Wayyyy too early to check in. We decided to head to Haight. Still too early for anything. We went into the Golden Gate Park. We ended up renting some bikes. We asked the guide what the best route was. He told us it would take us 2-3 hrs to get to the beach and back.

We took the scenic route and saw the waterfall and the bison. When we finally arrived to the ocean, it was breathtaking. I can't believe it's so beautiful. It reminded me of being little in Southern California. We use to frequent Huntington Beach all the time.

I miss being around the ocean. Michael and I were tempted to move to San Fran purely for the ocean.

After the beach we rode our bikes back through the park. We were only gone for an hour and a half. We were certain that we had ripped the bike guy off but when I checked the time, I saw it was true. We felt we had hung out at the ocean for at least 45 minutes.

How could we top the ocean? We headed towards the hotel via bus this time. After returning to our neighborhood we noticed we were right on the cusp of the Tenderloin and Nob Hill. Tenderloin has to be our least favorite neighborhood. It's like the back park at Pioneer Square in Seattle. Yuck!. The hotel on the other hand, Hotel Vertigo was beautiful!!! Love love love! It had recently been remodeled at it was worth every penny. The colors were a deep orange and chocolate brown with white accents. Love the mix of nature and modern. The coffee table in the lobby looked like glazed driftwood. In the room there were these cool horse head lamps.

Later that evening we headed over to the Mission to meet up with our friend Chelsea. Michael wanted to watch the rest of the baseball game. We headed to Benders for a quick drink and then found a place around the corner for burgers. When we walked around the mission a lot of the homes were all decorated for Halloween. I also ended up seeing a random Mexican shop with a wall of hands like those at Planet Hollywood. After closer inspections I noticed they were all Latin singers. I specifically posed next to the Celia Cruz hands. :) We worked our way to to meet up with Chelsea at her work place, the Attic. A very cool dark bar on 24th and Mission. We had a quick drink there before heading over to the Thrillhouse, a record shop in the Mission.

Our other friend, Travis organized a concert of local bands that were doing covers for the Halloween weekend. Travis' band played oi songs, His girlfriend Michelle was doing Cure cover songs and then there was a Seattle band that was not doing covers. When we arrived another band was playing but the room was already packed. People were decked out in Halloween costumes. My favorites were the giant tiki cup, Queen Elizabeth, The Conehead mom and Igor from Young Frankenstein. There was also a girl as Brian Wilson AKA "The Beard". Michelle's band were all dressed up as Robert Smiths. That was pretty cool. She even had the high top sneakers, very nice touch.

Michael and I met 7 years ago and we attended a covers show then too. There was also a Cure cover band. We have officially come full circle. It was a night to remember to say the least. I was glad to be hanging out with friends and supporting the local scene. I wish there was more of a community like this in Seattle.

Tiny Taste

2011-11-12T12:45:00.000-08:00

I have been making felt brooches and recently made three new skulls. I really loved the color palette and the small details. I enjoyed making the spiderweb tattoo on the forehead. I will post more recent pics soon. This is just a tiny taste of my new creations.

Diving into Curry

2011-11-12T12:40:00.000-08:00

The last two years I have been concentrating on taking care of my health, while still enjoying myself. Lucky for me I love vegetables and being active makes me feel better. The one thing I have been concentrating on more is making all of my food, whenever possible. Since, I am also concerned with keeping a small budget, the best thing is to find a variety of recipes that you can use the same vegetables over and over for. I have certain vegetables that I constantly have in stock, onions, garlic, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, cucumber, bell pepper, celery and usually spinach. I try to experiment with red, purple potatoes, zucchini, red cabbage, mushrooms and fresh corn. I would like to cook more kale, leek and bok choy. There are a million veggies out there and I want to be able to know how to cook them all or at least make a mean salad. This coming year I intend to dive into more, salads, soups, homemade breads and curries. I will also be documenting my adventures.

Recently, I had an attempt of curry from Sophie Dahl's cookbook, Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights. It has become one of my favorite cookbooks. It is not in an advanced level level but it creates a great foundation for recipes. Miss Dahl even suggests creativity in the home cook. Trying out different vegetables or what have you. I made "my dad's chicken curry" and substituted chicken with sweet potatoes, spinach and red kidney beans. Not too bad for my curry beginnings. I think I prefer a little less coconut milk. I did love the Serrano chilies and the ginger.

Steals and Deals

2011-11-12T12:21:00.000-08:00

Last month Michael and I partook in Restaurant Week. It's were a bunch of restaurants create menus -$15 3 course lunch and $30 3 course dinner. During this recession, it is a brilliant idea to have restaurants get business. And who doesn't want a 3 course meal for the price of an entree. This year we decided on the Dahlia Lounge. Tom Douglas is definitely Seattle's most famous chef. And tasting the food, it is no surprise he has so many restaurants that continue to open.
Dahlia Lounge is still one of our favorites. I had some sort of cheese plate, with some greens and nuts. It was very tasty. It was followed by salmon covered in yummy chanterelle mushrooms and on top of a creamy puree. As soon as I saw the dessert options, I knew I had to get the coconut cream pie. It was perfectly sweet, airy and the coconut was dee-licious. Michael and I were very happy with our meals.

After dinner we headed to the Black Lodge to watch the Constant Lovers (Michael's friend's band) and Helms Alee. My friend, Jillian and Robyn were also there. It was a fun night. Helms Alee was a highlight to the evening.

Pumpkin Carving Party 2011

2011-10-22T12:09:00.000-07:00

Monday night we were having two of our favorite couples over for pumpkin carving. Michael and I had cleaned house. I bought some snacks from Trader Joe's. I bought edamame hummus and salsa with tortilla chips and sweet potato chips and on another plate I had goat cheese, crackers and grapes. I also bought some pinot noir and a different bottle of red. I know Casey likes her pinot :)
Mike and Casey arrived first with another bottle of pinot, cool huge pumpkins, crackers and some brie. Definite ways to our hearts! And they had super sweet Halloween t-shirts. Dave and Tasha arrived with some more tortilla chips. They all brought some beer too. I felt like a vino only kinda night. We were going to order some pizza but not until 8. We got the newspaper set up in the living room and sharpies. Everybody cut out the lids and gutted their pumpkins. It was a lot of pumpkin guts, too many to be digging for seeds for.

That reminds me of when I loved in Germany, they didn't celebrate Halloween. My friend Alison and I were home sick and decided to carve pumpkins. I had a little Glamour magazine and it had a chocolate, pumpkin cake recipe. It literally said pumpkin meat, so I used the guts to make the cake. It came out awesome! Really delicious!
Back to our pumpkin carving of now, Mike and I went and picked up the pizza. When we returned some people were done with carving, We were able to use the tools to continue carving our pumpkins. Mike got super creative. His cat pumpkin now had ears and a tongue. I also like how he designed the eyes. He did some nice surface carving to create a white part of the eye. Michael cut out a cool bat from his pumpkin. Casey, Dave, Tasha and I were feeling the skulls that night. They each had their own personality. Luckily, I remembered that I gave Michael some cinnamon toothpicks as a little gift. We needed some to hold certain parts up. We unfortunately did not have any more tea lights. I would've loved to see all the pumpkins lit up. Next year we will be even more prepared for the carving bonanza.

Michael had a bunch of scary movies on in the background. We watched night of the living dead and some Halloween remakes from Rob Zombie. They were pretty entertaining. I forgot I also made a salad, peanut butter cookies and ginger molasses cookies. It was a fun night, full of yummy food, pumpkin masterpieces and great people. I can't wait for next year.

Date Night, Art Night

2011-10-16T14:12:00.000-07:00

Friday we had a double date with Tasha and Dave. I had told Tasha about our favorite gallery in Seattle, Roq La Rue and there happened to be an art show this Friday. The featured artist are Andy Kehoe and Charlie Immer. I remember seeing Kehoe's piece during the Krampus show. His work has a lot of nature and these furry, Sasquatch like creatures with glowing eyes. Michael loved some of the pieces. I found them wonderful and was amazed at the detail work.

We were all gathered around the one of the paintings, trying to figure out how the artist did the crackling effect without touching the painting. Along came this guys and he was pawing the painting. We couldn't believe it. It was actually Andy Kehoe himself. He was like, I can touch them 'cause I painted them. :) He hung out with us for a little while too. I asked him all kinds of questions about art school and painting. Eventually, he and Michael had a sport man talk. We also met Andy's girlfriend and she was very nice. Only at Roq La Rue have I ever got to meet such impressive artist. (excluding local artist of course)

Charlie Immer's works are bright and colorful mixes of creatures and skeletal bones. Dave made a point that the art was reminiscent of Adventure Time. After he said it I could totally see it in a variety of the pieces. They had that crazy horse skull that reminded me of my favorite Adventure Time episode. I blogged about it .

Inspirational Errands

2011-10-16T13:21:00.000-07:00

After the party I had to run some errands in Ballard. I want to perfect my coffee sleeves and work on more sewing projects in the future. I had to get a mat to cut on and a rotary cutter. The mat I was looking at was over $25. I got lucky at Jo-Ann's their was a super cute one on sale at half off. I also found a rotary cutter at 40% off. I got some more felt for more frenchies and some glue.

At the corner of my eye, I spotted a book called "Zombie Felties". It's totally the same idea, I do with the brooches. The little zombies were amazing, detailed and inspiring. I will have to see if the library has this creative little literature piece.

I stopped at a new housewares shop. It was a mixture of modern items and antiques. I loved their potted plants and I think I am going to try to replicate some of the arrangements for the house.

I then needed change to get on the bus. I went in to Cupcake Royale for a tea and found a new cupcake flavor. Tiramisu!! One of my favorite flavor profiles. I bought one for the road. I knew Michael would like to partake in the taste test. Cupcake Royale also had a cool art show. I took a quick snap of MJ.

Halloween Baby Bonanza!!

2011-10-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my friend Daja, her husband, Joe and their baby Bennett threw their annual Halloween bash. It took a little while to get out there but it was great to see the babies. I guess Bennett is not really a baby anymore, he's getting so big! Elana and Jim were their with the twins Ronan and Sawyer. And then Elizabeth and Baby David arrived. David had beautiful long lashes, he is sooo adorable. I left with a little baby envy :)

The costumes were all really cute. Daja was dressed as a bowling ball, Joe was a bowling pin and Bennett was the dude. We also saw a little otter and Dash the Incredible made it to the party too. Daja made these cute little party favors and had a large spread of goodies for everyone to nosh on. Michael was pretty happy to see some barbecued ribs.

Become An Art Collector

2011-10-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

Thursday Dave and Tasha came over. It was the same night I made the peach cake. She was loving the aromas in the house. Unfortunately, they didn't get to eat any of it since, it was the Capitol Hill Art Walk, Blitz. Dave and I had noticed that Ghost Gallery was having a cool Halloweenie exhibit. The featured artist are Marc Tweed, Kat Houseman and David Choe. My favorites were Kat Houseman beautiful warm and dark paintings and David Choe tattoo style pieces.

There was lots of other artist up on display that are always part of the gallery. Corey Urlacher had some amazing three dimensional art pieces hanging that were mixed media, skeletons, bug pieces and religious items. They were definitely amazing.

There are the "miniature art extravaganza" were there were obviously tiny paintings from various artist. Michael and I really enjoyed Joe Vollan's sea captain painting. Kelly J. Brownlee had some adorable food miniature paintings, like a ballerina chocolate and a taboo whipping cream. Sarah Gramelspacher also had some food pieces but mixed in adorable animals, like chubby little piggies.

You should stop by and see the show. Maybe even support an artist and buy a mini piece for your personal art collection :) BTW my little brother should submitting a miniature piece soon too.

Fall Kitchen Fun!

2011-10-16T09:32:00.000-07:00

This week has been pretty relaxed. I just started making brooches again last night. I am going to start working on making a binder of my new favorite baking recipes. I also don't want to forget to cook more. When I gave up sweets, that's what I really started enjoying was more cooking. This week I made a lentil soup and a stir fry. I found that the 4 best ways to use up my vegetables are salad, soup, stir fry and tacos. Last week I even made broccoli and cabbage tacos and they were delicious. I had never had broccoli in my tacos until we went to Baracuda, a local taco restaurant that opened this year.

I also bought a large box of peaches. Michael wanted me to make some type of dessert. Even though we ate the majority of peaches, we had just enough for a fresh peach cake. It was super moist and delicious. And the house smelled like carnival elephant ears. the cinnamon and sugar caramelized the peaches and added a little crunch to the top. And the peaches were also in the inside of the cake too. Michael was one happy camper. Thanks Barefoot Contessa for another tasty recipe :)

Busy Little Baker

2011-10-09T22:41:00.000-07:00

This weekend I got up early on Saturday and made two banana bread loaves and a dozen red velvets. After baking, Michael and I went for a walk around to our usual spots. We went to some thrift stores and swung by the Cafe Vita for tea. I was able to use my fancy coffee sleeve on my tea cup. At the thrift store I found these really great juice glasses.

We got home later and I piped the frosting on the red velvets. I was happy that I recently got Halloween wrappers and decor for cupcakes. The cupcakes looked amazing! Perfect for the Casey and Mike party I was going to that evening. I also had one banana bread loaf that had no nuts or coconut. I gave one half to Kristina who was giving me a ride and the other half for Casey. They had both mentioned their love for my treats but the strong dislike for nuts in treats. One of the loaves I kept with nuts and coconut. The party was a lot of fun. There was a great variety of people and everyone was friendly and outgoing.

This morning I made breakfast for Michael, Dave, Isaac, Tasha and my dad. Technically, I guess dad only had a pancake and coffee and Isaac only had a cupcake. I thought it was funny since, Isaac is usually a chocolate only eater. He was a big fan of the cupcake and was already eyeballing the last cupcake.
The night before I made the pancake batter. This morning I made a shiitake, goat cheese and tomato frittata. I roasted a mix of red, purple and baby potatoes. I kept the pancakes warm in the oven. I even cooked up some turkey sausages that Michael picked out from Trader Joes. Everybody enjoyed their breakfast.

Unexpected Find

2011-10-09T21:59:00.000-07:00

I recently found a beautiful blouse at the Old Navy. By just looking at it you would never guess. It is beautifully sheer and has bell style sleeves. I wore my trench coat and it made me feel very French.

My first Vermillion art sale

2011-10-09T00:29:00.000-07:00

The art sale finally arrived. Ruth, Carlitos, Baby C and Isaac picked me up with the table chairs and art. i was pretty compact. I made felt brooches, coffee sleeves and paintings for the art sale. I was very proud of all I could get done for the show.

Ruth, the kids and I went to Cafe Vita for a quick beverage. I set up shortly after, it didn't take long for my table to be all set up. I loved all the colors my section had. next time I will have to have some sort of portable wall i can hang my art up on.

The show was officially 2-7 at the Vermilion on Capitol Hill. I did love the intimate space. There wasn't too much foot traffic. Michael eventually came by and hung out. I had to woo him with $2 Rainier tall boys. Molly and Casey also came to check out the show. Molly bought my matryoshka brooch and my favorite sugar skull brooch. Casey had mentioned that Mike would also want a Rainier brooch. I made sure to perfect my beer can brooches for the show.

Dave and Tasha also came to the show. Tasha was able to find a pair of boots at the sale. As the show progressed I was a little more out going to talk to more of the foot traffic. There was one guy who had a sandwich character in a ziploc on his t-shirt. I knew he had to buy Frenchie. He loved Frenchie but had to get the green light from the misses. I think he was really happy to be taking Frenchie home. Then Floyd came around and he instantly saw Frenchie and he quickly whipped out eight bones. I thought only girls were going to like my stand but it seemed that my audience was a lot larger than suspected.

Pumpkin Patching 2011

2011-10-09T00:09:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went pumpkin patching with the kids. Unfortunately everybody was running behind schedule that Michael wasn't able to make it. Ruth, JC and the kids picked me up. We headed over to Fall City Farms. We choose Fall City because it was closer and we wanted Michael to come.I thought it was nice to change it up even though there was less activities. It was very old school, one could say classic. The parents, Dave, Tasha and Isaac arrived shortly after us. The kids were so excited.
We arrived to the farm and it was pretty small. They had a great pumpkin display. And you could already smell the freshly fried donuts. Somehow a bag of doughnuts magically appeared. They hit that sweet tooth spot.

We went on a hay ride. The kids quizzed our guide on his favorite superhero movies. The hay ride did not lead us to the pumpkin patch but we did learn about the farm. My mom asked the guide if she could keep the squash blossoms. He was like sure.My mom filled up an entire paper bag full of blossoms.

We had great time, I just wish Michael could have made it out

A Stew to Remember

2011-10-08T18:23:00.000-07:00

Michael and I were able to squeeze in a date during the week before the art sale. Michael took me out to la Spiga. It is one of his favorite restaurants. I sometimes find it hard to find something I crave. This last time I found a seafood stew on the specials menu. It had all kinds of seafood, scallops, shrimp, squid and more. When it arrived it was just how you see food in magazines. It was so beautiful! Almost too beautiful too eat. I enjoyed every little morsel! :)

Brooches in Progress

2011-10-08T18:03:00.000-07:00

After the amazing visit, it was back to work on my brooches and paintings. Frenchie is my favorite brooch and it seems to be everyone's favorite too. I made some funny little versions of him. I think of them as his dopplegangers. They are sooo funny and cute. I just loved that I created an upset little french toast into a brooch.
I am also working on a brooch that was originally my brothers painting. It 's coming along perfectly, all I need is the googly eyes and he'll be done.

Dinner with the Familia

2011-10-08T17:57:00.000-07:00

Michael made carrot soup for the family one evening. We invited Teal and Melissa over. We also extended the invitation to my parents and siblings. Unfortunately Ruth was busy and couldn't make it. My mom had to work too. My dad came solo. He's known to be a little shy. It was very sweet to watch him warm up to everyone and get comfortable and tell his stories. He always gets animated and laughs a lot. I am glad my dad came. Everyone had a blast. It really felt like the families were becoming one.

Dave came over too and then Tasha came. I made the salad for the dinner. I also sliced the olive bread and walnut bread. And I wiped up some red velvets for dessert. They were a hit. Michael was not too happy to see only 2 left and 1 was reserved for my work buddy.

It was evenings like this that made me wish everyone lived a little closer

The day before Michael's mom and I made a trek up to Trader Joes and walked back to our house. We had the best evening. I made us salads and toast that we smeared with hummus. We drank a bottle of 2 buck chuck. We talked about everything from food, exercise and loved ones. I felt very much that evening, that I was such a lucky person to have 2 amazing moms in my life. I couldn't ask for anything more.

Pub Crawling with Mama Swan

2011-10-08T17:42:00.000-07:00

One of the nights we went out with Michael's mom for happy hour at Maximillien. One of our new favorite summer happy hour places (thanks to Casey & Mike). Even though it's no longer summer and we had to wear our jackets, the view was just too nice to pass up. I met up Michael and his mom after their duck tour and then Dave met up, and along came Victor. We all went over to the restaurant and got a great table. Tasha met up with us shortly after. We ordered a nice bucket of Kronenbergs. We ordered the mussels, bread and frites. They have two yummy sauces for the frites too. I love mussels. I can't believe I was missing out for so many years during my strict vegetarian years.

Victor, Tasha and Michael ordered some Absinthe. Victor tried the pate. Victor was raised in Switzerland and was familiar with all the menu. He liked everything but the pate. Victor still prefers his brothers pate the best. We paparazzied that sunset half the time we were there. We almost had a Steven Spielberg look alike take our photo but his wife was one step quicker.

Our evening ended up being a little pub crawl. We had another couple drinks at the Alibi Room and ended the night at the Smith. It was a lot of fun.

Fall has arrived!

2011-10-08T17:31:00.000-07:00

It is officially fall, time to pull out the leather boots, the plaids, the tights, the scarves and so many more fall goodies. I have to admit I am excited about the new outfits. It has become a little trickier with the dark hair but I am managing to pull out a couple outfits so far. I got a lot of good feedback on this one.

Oktoberfest with a couple of Swans

2011-10-08T17:28:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has taken me so long to write once again. The rest of Michael's mom visit was so much fun! On Saturday we went to the Italian Festival by the Seattle Center. We saw the cool car show and enjoyed some food. Afterwards we migrated over to Fremont and partook in Oktoberfest. For $30 you got 10 mini little steins of beer. It was quiet the opposite of our Sloop experience. Specifically the size of our beers.

I am glad we got there early before all the Neanderthals were pushing their ways through the lines. Mama Swan and I had a tough time figuring out what beers we were going to try. Of course, Michael being a bartender and all, new exactly were to go. We tried some of German beers of course. Mama Swan and I had to try the lemon grass beer. We had no idea it was the beer with the highest percentage at the festival. There was a reallllyyyy long line for that one. I thought it was pretty good but not something I would drink too much off.

As we got closer to the end of our tickets Michael was rushing us. We could barely hear the Cars cover band, the bathroom lines were long and by the end of it, we just didn't want to wait any longer for our brews. Mama Swan and I responded quickly to "no line, come over here",

The food options were horrible at the festival. There was a giant block of fries, pretzels and candy. I was looking more for spaetzle myself. After we finished all our mini beers we went over to the 9 million in unmarked bills bar. Mama Swan and I ordered some super tasty grilled romaine salads. Michael ordered the sliders and we "shared" the truffle mac and cheese. I am glad we didn't eat too much at the festival. We shared one pretzel. After our apps we headed over to the Dubliner and Casey and Mike met up with us. We hung out for a little while but Mama Swan and I got a case of the doldrums. It was time for a nap.

From triple to quadruple chocolate cookies

2011-09-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

I make a lot of recipes from Ellie Krieger's The Food You Crave. When I was off sweets Isaac still wanted chocolate. He helped me make Ellie's triple chocolate cookies. He loved them and I did even get to try them. Last week I decided I was going to whip some of these cookies up. Funny enough, I had everything I needed at home, milk chocolate, dark chocolate and cocoa powder. I also had white chocolate, I thought, what the hell, what's one more chocolate. And the walnuts were a perfect balance for all the chocolates. They were perfect right out of the oven. yum!

My sister, Ruth is going to make them and substitute the milk and white chocolate with more dark chocolate and cherries. I hope to taste the results.

Spring it up before fall

2011-09-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

I have been scoring some pretty cool items from the thriftores recently. I love finding unique detailed pieces. Some pieces are great for work and some for my home attire and if I am lucky I can use the item for both. This cardigan I got from the Ballard thrifting day. I love how the detail looks like feathers on the purple cardigan. I was trying it on just in front of a mirror since, the dressing rooms had really long lines, This random lady was like, oooh how pretty. And when stranger ladies complements you, it's a pretty good indication that it does look nice (unless the lady is crazy of course). I whipped up this pretty spring looking outfit one morning. I have to squeeze as many of these fun colors on before plaid season. :) Even though I do LOVVVVEE fall clothes!

The Swan Has Landed

2011-09-24T09:43:00.000-07:00

We have been looking forward to Michael's mom's visit forever and last week she finally arrived. The first night we just kept it relaxed and went to a Captain Blacks, Redwood and Broadway Grill. The following night we had all had lunch at Collins Pub. Teal and Melissa met up for lunch too. Everyone but Michael ordered the tuna sandwich and loved it! yay! We are spreading the word about this sandwich.

At night we had to show Mama Swan our new favorite hang out and get her sloooooopersized! Yeah! We also invited our good friend Casey to meet up with us. We had a great time talking and pounding down the cold ones. Michael's mom was impressed on how easy I could carry the 34oz. with one arm. Yup, that's how I really get my work out in Seattle via the Sloop. Hee hee hee. We moseyed over to one more bar and then called a night.

I took Friday off and I am so glad I did. We all met up at like noon and headed over to Pesos for some lunch. I had the salad soup combo and it was dee-licious! My salad had shrimp and avocado and a perfect sherry vinaigrette. I am going to have to figure out the recipe. And my soup was corn and black bean, it reminded me of my veggie chili. Then we headed over to the zoo.

The zoo was a completely different experience from last time when my older brother was in town. When Dan was in town we had the 5 siblings, 4 grandkids, 2 grandparents and Michael. I think we lost the grandparents more than the kids. And somebody kept wanting ice cream. And we had to rush because Michael had to work. This time, it was 5 adults, during the work week and school was in session. It was spacious with a couple kids. And we arrived just in time for the feedings. We saw the penguins eating and the giraffes. The zoo was letting you feed certain animals at $5 a pop. Woah! This economy is so tough the zoo has to pimp out the animals.

Michael's mom wanted to see the otters. They were so beautiful. I loved the flow of the two otters in the water. I also enjoyed seeing the penguins, the tropical birds and the flamingos. It was definitely a great day for the zoo. After the zoo we headed to Ray's Boathouse for happy hour. We got there just in time before the crowd got there. Michael made a friend at the bar from NY. And now it sounds like we are going to have to go to Peter Lugger's next time we are in NY.

We finished up the night at the Lock and Keel and the last spot was King's Hardware for some burgers. A great visit and we still get 4 more days!!

The Lightbulb Is On!

2011-09-19T23:03:00.000-07:00

At the very last minute I had a brilliant idea on Thursday. I LOVEEEEEE SUGARSKULLSSS!! For many many reasons, Michael and I call each other Sugar, I also love to bake, I also wear a lot of skulls, and they look very punk rock and the obvious reason, I am a mexi-CAN. So my brilliant idea was to make a painting of a sugar skull made out of candy. I sketched out my idea and have been working all weekend. It is not done at all but I wanted to share my progress.

New Hair meet New Coffee Sleeve

2011-09-19T22:51:00.000-07:00

I proudly took my new coffee sleeve out to the streets today. I also happened to toss on a pretty cute outfit today. I had seen this skirt at anthropologie and then it went on sale but I hate spending too much moola. And then I found it at the thrifstore. Ha! Score! Blue seems to be the color that most complements my new do. This was the best pic that showed off my new coffee sleeve.

Coffee with Personality

2011-09-19T22:43:00.000-07:00

After hanging out at the Greek festival, Ruth dropped everyone off and I quickly started working on my coffee sleeves. It took me a couple bad sleeves before I figured out my technique. It's funny how my favorites are the shark and the space one. I did keep my french fries and junk food sleeve for myself to sport :) I am pretty proud of what I have made so far.

Take us to the Greek

2011-09-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning was another bussssssyyy morning. I woke up and went to yoga. Made me some breakfast and met up with Ruth and the kids. We headed over to the fabric store. There was a bunch of old ladies that work there and it took forever to get anything done. I have been wanting to make my own coffee sleeves for awhile and now is the time. I had to wait in line for the batting, the inside that keeps you from burning your hand. Then I had to wait in line to get fabric cut. Then I had to wait at the register. And of course another line opens and I go reluctantly. The lady has issues getting the register to work. Then she over charges me, then she under charges me, then she figures out what to charge me. Grrrrrr. All this for coffee sleeves. Then it's off to Target to scope out the Halloween stuff. I see some inspirational Halloween design for sure.

I call Michael on the way back. we pick him up, then Dave, Tasha (the birthday girl) and Isaac (in an Iron man mask and glove) and we all head over to the Greek Festival. Ruth finds rockstar parking. Michael is reminded of the good times he had in Michigan at the Greek festival. Michael wants to stay longer but he has to work. The kids start dancing right away. Everyone there is enjoying themselves. The lady next to me tells me that one of the dances is for a wedding. And it means that the couple will have plenty and bread and food. Yes, please!

The dancers are dressed up in traditional attire and they do a variety of dances. I especially love the musical chair dance that replaces chairs with ladies and the empty chair is a broom instead that you have to dance with. Michael found the Taverna right away. Everytime I saw him he had a new goodie in hand. He especially enjoyed his kabob. We have to come a lot earlier next year for sure and we have to bring the parents. They would love it!

Waking up on the hippie side of bed

2011-09-19T22:25:00.000-07:00

Saturday, we had the whole gang, Michael, Ruth, the kids, Dave, Tasha and I and we headed out for brunch. I had been up early cleaning house in anticipation of Michael's mom's visit and working on my painting at the same time. We went to the Sunlight Cafe for some good ol' hippie food. It was crowded but they formed us a section. The service was really slow. If the Euripides wasn't so tasty I am sure we would have not returned. They also have some other tasty morsels.

After breakfast we all went different directions, Dave and Tasha went to Oh Bella, Michael and I went to Cloud 9 and Ruth and the kids went to the bank. Cloud 9 was a cross between a thrifstore and a vintage shop. I found a fancy sequined tank that I loved right away, even though it reminded me of something my mom would wear. hee hee heeh. I also found a kid headband I liked for a dollar. Everyone working there was like 80 so it took forever to get anything done. While it the store my dad called me because he just bought the entire Beatles collection for $5 at a garage sale. He sounded like a little kid getting his favorite toy. It was very sweet.

We then went to the Goodwill in Ballard. I found a super cute dress and the perfect velvet blazer. Thrifstores are not as cheap as they use to be, at all. Even the this Goodwill, I remember buying a dress for half the price but I guess they other one was a little eighties. My hair is really dark now and the dress goes perfectly with the dark hair. You will have to wait and see in future post. And expensive thrifting day.

Very Clever Indeed

2011-09-19T22:04:00.000-07:00

Friday Michael and I had a little date night. Even though I secretly wanted to do some volunteer work. With all the art, baking, cooking and sewing. My soul needs a little exercising too. I am looking for the right volunteer place for me. Let me know if you guys have any ideas for me.

Back to our date...Michael and I met up at Shorty's for a quick beer. We then rushed to the Wasabi for some sushi. The happy hour there is stellar. We went last week and the had the Seattle roll and the Las Vegas roll. It was a great balance of clean/fresh versus decadent/rich. We also have some dumplings. This time we decided to skip the dumplings and have the mango tango roll. I loved the cilantro accent. And the three rolls were only for $13.

After our bellies were full, we had a quick one at Michael's work. We were racking our brain's trying to think of a new place to check out. I suggested the Clever Bottle since, there happy hour was still going. When looking from the outside, I always thought the place was going to be tiny. It was huge, cozy and very inviting. I loved it right away. The decor was very simple. The place smelled like a variety of fresh herbs. You could here everybody was buzzed, happy and chatting. I can't wait to go again.

The cocktails were only $5, why not? All the cocktails looked amazing, there was a great balance of flavors. I had a "blueberry basil spring mojito". Michael had the "Irish godfather", scotch, bitters, amaretto and an orange zest. Michael took a photo and you could almost taste it.

After looking over the menu the business shows a great appreciation for the Market and local businesses. I wish more places were like the Clever Bottle but until then this place is officially on our radar!

The World of Hot Chocolates

2011-09-19T21:37:00.000-07:00

So I've love going to all the coffee shops by my work and I try to avoid Starbucks. Every once in awhile I will indulge folks with a visit. Well, I consider myself a hot chocolate connoisseur and the Chocolati in the Central Library had a really tasty hot chocolate. They have two kinds of melted chocolate they use. And the whip cream is marshmallow like. It is dee-licious!

I can't believe I had not had one there before. They also have a Darth Vader, a dark hot chocolate, a Peppermint Patty, the minty hot chocolate and even an Aztec cinnamon almond hot chocolate. I know where I'm going to be this Fall :)

Mariner's Best Game So Far

2011-09-19T21:25:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday we went to a Mariner's game with Teal, Melissa, Casey and Mike. Michael and I didn't make it last time the Yankees were in town so this time we weren't gonna miss it.

We all met up at the Countour for happy hour. I tried the fish sandwich and it was just the right size for a small dinner. We drank some of our favorite cheap beers at the table from Schmidt, PBR to Olympia. We then made the usual pit stop at the Central for a quick PBR tall boy. Then ironically after having all our cheap beers we stopped at the Elysian for the fancy brew. I wanted something light and not too sweet for a change. I decided on the Saison Poivre, a peppercorn beer. (4 different kinds). It was delicious!! I couldn't stop my sips! Everybody had a taste and were surprised how peppery it was. Melissa mentioned how it would work as a marinade. And I the non meat eater was convinced it was perfect for steak. I guess I eat seafood, I could have it with ahi. :)

Michael made out like a bandit on craigslist and got us perfect seats in the 14th row right by first base. Casey and Mike got cheap seats. When we went to our row we noticed two empty seats right in our row. We did a little maneuvering and got our friends down in the game.

Of course, the bud at the game was $10, right after we had $5 fancy beers. Oh well! There was so much happening in the game. We were pretty much glued to all the action. A ball came flying at us at one point. I was more afraid that it was going to attack me. Teal and Michael dove in and it bounced forward couple rows and fell underneath a chair. This lady just picked it up and when her husband returned she showed off her ball prize.

And then the fan cam went around. Casey got to do a little dance and we squished our faces in the background. I couldn't believe we made in on the fan cam. THEN it came back for one more round. The only thing that would have made it better is if the Mariner moose was tossing one back with us ;) Maybe next time.

It was a great game even though the Mariner's lost. At least we didn't lose by much and they put up a fight. A perfect baseball night with friends and family!

A Bad Boy meets a Good/ Bad Girl

2011-09-11T21:15:00.000-07:00

I finallyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy got a bike this weekend!! I can't believe after 2 years of shopping, I have my Cannondale Bad Boy!! Right after I got out of REI, Michael and I rode our bikes to Fremont and then off to Ballard. Stopped at our fave Ballard hang out, The Sloop and grabbed some lunch. Then we rode of through Interbay towards downtown. We got our little work out that day. Michael then headed to work and I rode back up the hill:P Can't wait for more bike rides to come!

Making Broooooches!!

2011-09-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

I have also been busy sewing up cool felt brooches for the art sale. So far the sugar skulls and Frenchie are my favorites.

Art Sale Coming Up in October

2011-09-11T21:07:00.000-07:00

I am going to be part of an art sale at the Vermillion Oct. 2nd. 2pm-7pm, 1508 11th Ave, Seattle, WA. 98122. I am nervous and excited all at once. Here are some sketches I have been working on. Some of these will become paintings for the show :)

Oh Drew!

2011-09-11T20:56:00.000-07:00

So everybody knows that my boyfriend loves Drew Barrymore. This of course makes me not a fan. Except sometimes I can't help but like her just a little bit. I had fun watching Whip It! And I toatally love this music video she directed. It's so tragic/romatic. Sigh!

A Night of Horror

2011-09-11T20:32:00.000-07:00

Thursday was a busy night for us. Out friend, George opened True Love Art Gallery/Tattoo Shop. The second art show is featuring EGO (one of my favorite local artist) and JP Farquar. It was a lovely eerie art show. I loved the art pieces were the two artist collaborated.

And after the art show we made our way to the Horrors Neumo's show. We made a pit stop at the Comet and then Marios. The opening band was the Stepkids and they were awful. Before the show started Michael bumped into his friend from Zion's gate, the record store. His friend told us how he spent his entire morning with the Horrors. The Horrors had each taken a turn going into the shop and finding their favorite records. He said they had excellent, diverse taste. The band was really sweet and invite him to see their show.

The Horror's first album sounded a lot like the birthday party and their second album reminded me of Joy Division and the Cure with more keyboard. I was very happy to finally see them in concert.

Skate Time in Ballard

2011-09-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

Yessssssssssssssssss.... We ended up still returning to Ballard on Tuesday since, they were going to take the skate ramp down at the 2 Bit. This time Dave's girlfriend Tasha came and his friend Wyatt. Michael was happy it was $1 tacos and PBR's. You just don't find those kinda deals in Capitol Hill at all. Good times.

Ballard By Day & By Night

2011-09-11T20:18:00.000-07:00

The following day we had to hit up the Labor Day thrift store sales. I wanted to go to the Value Village in Ballard and Ruth wanted to go to our usual St. Vinny's. In the morning Ruth and the kids picked me up. They had already picked up Dave and Isaac. We headed up to Ballard and the lovely Henry art decorated the Value Village side wall and front.

None of the books or bric a bracs were included in the sale. I was able to find a work cardigan, a kid's baseball tee and a Lacoste black polo. Not too much but all stuff I liked. The cookbooks were not that exciting this time and I didn't find any cool mugs either. We headed over the St.Vinny's Ruth made out like a bandit. I only found a couple magazines, an awesome matador mug (Dave was jealous) and a fancy cake cutter.

After all the thrifting we still made a stop in the u-dist. for the half price book sale and the Trader Joes. By then everybody was starving. I am now obsessed with edammame hummus. I can't stop snacking on it!!

Ruth dropped me and Dave off in Belltown to meet up with Michael. Michael got off work shortly after. Michael taste for Ballard had not been satisfied. We headed over on the bus. Dave and I are always willing to check out a different neighborhood and we have bus passes. We stopped for a drink at the 2 Bit Saloon. I guess it's Metal Mondays. Dave immediately fell in love with the skate ramp inside. It was unquestionably a skater bar. They had vintage boards everywhere and a rail in the backyard. Dave forgot his skateboard. A future trip was definitely in store for us.

We walked over to the our new favorite hang out the Sloop Tavern. Our friend Casey rode down the hill to meet up for a drink. Then Michael's niece and girlfriend meet up with us. Everybody ordered their 34 oz. beers. We were Slooooopersized!! It was so much fun!!!

Dave kept getting pull tabs. That kid has always been lucky when it comes to pull tabs. He would buy them and have me and Casey pull them. I pulled one that was worth $17. Not too bad for a quarter pull tab. Everybody started getting them afterwards but nobody won too much after Dave. Dave and Michael played a couple pool games.

Casey then headed home and we proceeded to give the girls a tour of Ballard. We went to the Sunset Tavern but there were no pitchers available. There was also Snakes on a Plane showing with commentary. I couldn't believe someone was getting paid to mock a movie. I do that for free all the time. I need to start meeting the right people.

Then it was off to the People's Pub. It was not it's usual crowded fun place. The staff was really slow, bitter and creepy. The food was alright. And Teal hated the fact there was no fireball. I guess we should have stuck to the Sloop :)