Friday night grateful list: Spring Break edition

Ha. I typed the words "Spring Break edition" and instantly had Girls Gone Wild images flash through my mind. Ha ha. Not even.

This week, following the festival that was Grandma's 95th birthday, Seth and I put husband on a plane home and trekked off over the mountains, down I-5 and had a few days of looking around colleges, educating ourselves on a few local-ish options. We both learned a lot, about the process of applying to colleges, about the various campuses themselves, and what environments felt more "Seth" than others. We have the advantage of having friends who either are or were in the college admissions game; their advice has been invaluable. And I know we'll be back for more, friends. Prepare yourselves.

I am so grateful to have had this week with Seth. He and I have road-tripped many, many times over the years, all over the place. We have listened to many audiobooks, sung many songs together at the top of our lungs, and eaten more than our fair share of completely unhealthful food too. I am grateful for Seth every day, but getting to spend multiple days together is always special. Even when we got on each other's nerves, or one or the other of us missed the right exit and we had to backtrack, we still had a really excellent adventure.

We had really great tour guides, for the most part--extroverted, engaged young men who were pretty passionate about their college experience. It was good to see. The bottom left photo is Seth telling me to stop taking pictures and stay with the group. As if. You'd think he'd know by now...

I managed to keep on top of work emails while I was away, by borrowing a Surface from work, instead of the usual laptop. I am a complete convert. Seems odd to sit and type away on a Surface, referring to my iPad while I do that--I was working on one of my nonprofit volunteer projects while I was away, and had documents I needed to read on one device, while recording notes in a spreadsheet on the other. I thought Bill Gates and Steve Jobs would appreciate my ambidextrous approach to technology, but mostly, I was just grateful to be able to get things done. I'm not sure I will actually give the Surface back, I like it that much. I think one of the reasons it works so well for me is my love of all things touch-screen. But transferring back to my laptop, it's hilarious how many times my hand reaches up to swipe something on the screen. Creature of habit...

We came home to a yard that is bursting with springtime energy. That is to say: green! I was thinking today while pulling weeds, why can't we pull them once and then they'll never come back?! I agree, it's a little early in the season to be thinking like that! Ha. Seth and I got a couple of beds cleared of the winter leaves that blow through, and picked up potting soil and a few plants to start the flower pots. I am always so grateful for spring, but for some reason, I am ever-so-much-more-so this year. Why is that? It wasn't a hard winter, here in Washington. If I were on the East Coast, it might be more understandable. But we had it pretty mild.

Look what I found: lettuce, reseeded from last year!

Listened to (and inflicted on Seth!) some great work-related podcasts while on the road, and now that it's yard season, I'll be cranking up the audiobooks too. Nothing makes yard time go by faster than listening and learning. Happy me! I'm so grateful for technology (well, other than that dang Heartbleed thing. Blech.).

The whole of the Pacific Northwest put on a glorious sunshine show for us. It was most pleasant. I got to have breakfast with Jen on the morning we were in Portland, which was lovely; it was especially lovely to walk together to breakfast without an umbrella!

When we were at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, walking down the hall in the English department, I saw a bunch of photos of various poets, and the tour guide said something, "blah blah blah, photos all taken by William Stafford blah blah blah." What? How did I not remember that William Stafford taught at L&C, years ago? 

I was first introduced to William Stafford as a poet in 1991, while I was in college, and I even got to hear him read that year, too. I have always appreciated and enjoyed his writing. He died in 1993 and I just read that he wrote the morning he died: "You don't have to / prove anything," my mother said. "Just be ready / for what God sends." Wow. That'll stick with me for a bit.

The bottom photo has Galway Kinnell in it, another poet I have appreciated.

I'm so grateful for poetry. Can't be said enough. :)

Tonight I'm especially grateful to be home, with husband and Seth, with the sliding doors open and the spring air so fragrant. I'm grateful that the weekend is ahead, and while I'm sure there will be work of both the work-work and yard variety, there will also be sleep, joyous sleep, and relaxation, maybe another brief road trip, some good food, laughter and love. Yeah for weekends.

Hope your weekend is "yeah" too.

Peace.

Friday night grateful moment

Tonight I'm telling my week in photos, mostly...

We had a lovely time in Arizona with Ma and Pa. Sightseeing, good food, nature, sunshine, more good food, maybe a nap or two, and Mexican train dominoes. All essential to a little down time! (More pics in the Instgram feed to the right.)

For the first time in a long time I didn't watch the Oscars. Just didn't care about it enough to stop what we were doing, or prioritize watching. But truly, I didn't feel like I missed anything--you can see everything you'd want to see via clips online, etc. My favorite variation on the Ellen selfie thing involves a corgi (of course!). And my John Travoltafied name is Sebastian Crawzford. Awesome.

Ma and I reviewed Oscar dresses on my iPad, with our thumbs up and down. My very favorite dress is the one below. I'm not the biggest Zooey fan (but not a hater, either), but that dress has my name on it.

Leaving Arizona and coming home to spring-like temperatures here too, I got even more in the mood for color and sunshine and more color and green sprouty things coming out of the earth. More and more every day...

Inspiration came from Facebook... (I need that fabric in my life!)

 And Etsy... (I feel a crafty project coming on!)

From Instagram... (I love a good word-art combo!)

On Thursday night we got to watch the young gentleman of the household be inducted into the National Honor Society. That made our hearts very happy, for him. A great thing to be a part of for his last couple of years of high school, I know he'll be glad to have participated.

Peacefulness is very present in our home tonight. Quiet, except for some doggies making soft snoring noises. I'm so grateful for a jam-packed week with work and play and travel, sunshine and rain, love and laughter. Blessed and happy and tired and so so ready for the weekend.

Wishing for all the above for you, as well. Have a great weekend.

Peace.

Friday night grateful moment

We're in a phase (well, more precisely *I'm* in a phase) where the weeks fly by and the blog sits quiet. I make food--even shareable food, lately. I have thoughts, ideas, inspiration--some of them even worth sharing, maybe. But. Then. It doesn't happen. Life goes whirling by and I wish for more hours in the day...

The Friday habit, however, appears unbreakable. Famous last words, I know. It does seem, though, that when Friday night rolls around, wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, whatever the week has held, I'm able to pause, breathe, reflect, appreciate. And I'm grateful for that. For the habit and what it brings into my life.

This week was a wild one, with work-work and a heavy dose of volunteer work, and then leaving for a few days to visit my parents in warmth. It definitely felt like a giant zoom, whoosh, splat. Well, the splat might be a bit dramatic. We've landed in sunshine, with some peace and quiet and laughter and good food and (maybe) a bit of relaxation. Given that today held more activity than either husband or I have had in quite some time--those desk jobs, even with stand-up desks,  don't exactly provide much of a work out--we will hold out that relaxation will come tomorrow.

I'm grateful for my parents; first, that they're still on this planet, alive and healthy. I'm grateful for their spirit of adventure, for their shared aesthetic sense--not that they have the same one, but that aesthetics are important to them both, for their love for each other and their family, and for their willingness and ability to laugh!

We saw some really interesting natural beauty today (check out my Instagram feed, I'll keep posting there), lots of scrub brush and cacti and all kinds of prickly, wild things. There's definitely a beauty in the landscape around Tucson, but it's also a little ugly (to me). I'm a Pacific Northwest girl at heart, apparently. Give me forests and trees, oceans, rivers, fields and meadows... I definitely saw things today that made me stop and say, "cool, wow, different," but it all feels pretty foreign. Go figure. I am grateful for the diversity in this country, even if it pushes my comfort zone.

We have excellent house-sitting help while we're away, for which I am ever-so-grateful (I feel the need to post that for the robber-types that troll my blog, ha ha). The pups are well looked after, too. That eases my mind, even as a big winter storm is supposed to roll through. Husband said to me tonight (he knows me so well, sweet man), "I'm sorry we're going to miss snow." That made me laugh, as he said that completely for my benefit. I am the first to say that I need to see snow to really feel like I've had a winter, but now that we've had it, I've seen it, I've even skiied in it, I'm good. I was in heaven today, in shirt sleeves, wandering around in the sun, feeling my freckles pop out. (What insanity is it that still makes me believe that "just a little sun" is fine, no sunscreen for me, thanks? It's skin cancer insanity, that's what. But a little sun on my cheeks makes me happy!)

Technology always makes my grateful list, even if I don't always articulate it. Being able to connect from afar, to work or to loved ones (Seth!), makes all the difference in the world. Texts, Skype, whatever = yeah!

Tonight I will be grateful for sleep. Nothing like a bunch of activity to bring out the sleepiness in me! I'm grateful for a cozy spot to lay my head, and not too much on the agenda for tomorrow. I hope wherever you are tonight, it's cozy there too! (And not much on the agenda for tomorrow!)

Peace.

Friday night grateful moment

I'm still rather undecided what to do with this space on Friday nights, whether to continue as is or adjust or stop altogether. Sometimes a reboot is the best way to get at the best new view on things, but nothing has miraculously revealed itself to me as The Next Big Thing for Gratitude, so here I am.

For tonight, I offer this:

The whole time we were gone, it was foggy and cold in Walla Walla, but today the skies opened up and look at the color that greeted us in our driveway! I was so happy to see sunshine and endless blue as we came up out of the Gorge and went into the stretch across the barren flatlands between the river and home. 

Ah, home. Grateful for that too. Love our cozy space, and the fact that the tree is still up (though I'm not thrilled at the prospect of undoing Christmas... that will have to wait a few days) and the Christmas presents are ready for actual use! When you leave the day after the holiday, it's like Christmas all over again upon return.

I'm grateful for the time we had away. It was difficult to truly unwind from the year-end stuff at work and holiday festivities, but by the end of the week I think we were both there... one more week would have really sealed the deal! I need to do better at just walking away; it will be there when we get back (just like Christmas presents!)... something to work on in the coming year.

Wherever you are, I hope your grateful list is long and your heart is full of possibility in the new year!

Peace.

Sept. 9: Monday morning inspiration + blog challenge: Fantasy time!

The challenge for today is: what would you do with three months off as an escape from your current life?

This one is not hard in the slightest. Didn't have to think for more than one teeny tiny second.

I would travel. I would take husband, we would pack up a couple of bags apiece, and we would hit the road.

Month 1: Road trip around the USA.

I have always wanted to do this. Back and forth and all around. In an RV, one of those really big road-hogs that guzzles gas. With slide-outs and satellite TV and everything. I know, pretty gross (in a green/climate concerned sense), but also, how fun! Ha. And one month. What can one month hurt? I would want to zig zag around the country, hitting some well-known spots (Grand Canyon, ) and also some out of the way places I have always wanted to see (Florida Keys, Maine, etc.).

We could take this:

futureliner

Or this:

sustainability

Or--how fabulous, this beauty:

airstream

Month 2: Europe.

My mom and dad did a few weeks in Europe this summer, some by boat, some by land. Check out their blogs here: ...And the Livin' is Easy & Shower Wisdom. There's lots of inspiration there, in their July and August posts, about a variety of places around the Mediterranean.

My must-sees in my month abroad:

London

Venice

Florence

Mykynos

Those fabulous five villages in Italy

Paris

Instanbul (how could I resist this picture, really?)

Month 3: Beach time.

By this point, I think I'd be tired of traveling, to be honest, and ready to just park it on a beach for a while. I am flexible on where the beach is, but I do know that I have always wanted to spend some time in the Maldives.

So before the oceans rise and swamp all those beautiful huts over the water (I have been reading too much about climate change recently, it seems), I would spend a month looking at this:

beach

I would occasionally hang out here:

hammock

On an especially energetic day, we might go for a helicopter ride and look down on our hut (it's the second one in on the right):

view

Or maybe a bit of a swim:

pool

On a quiet night we might eat out on the dock:

dinner

I have a feeling we would come home very rested.

Right about now I feel like a selfish ninny for plotting three very ME ME ME months. Alas, that is what the challenge called for, and I responded!

What would you do with three months to do whatever you wanted? (I assumed that meant cost was not an issue, so you can play by that rule too!) Where would you go? What would you do?

Jen and I (and now my mom and Lisa too!) are blog challenging throughout September. You can catch her blog over at Stuff Jen Says. If you want to write along with us, give me a shout and I'll send you the blog prompts.

Friday night grateful moment

There was this thought, while I was on the road, that I might actually blog... seems almost humorous in retrospect. My days away were filled with meetings, learning, listening, absorbing. The evenings were filled with walking and eating. Blogging? Just didn't fit into the mix, especially with lack of pre-planning.

But I am here to share tonight! And looking through my pictures was a quick walk down recent-memory lane. You know that feeling, when you're home only 24 hours and it's like you were never gone? Trip? What trip? Yeah, that. That's where I am tonight...

But entirely grateful to be here--home, safe and sound!

This week held a great deal of interesting talk about all things "client." If you're in business, you have clients. And they have an "experience" with you. What is that experience, and how can you make it better? (Gone are the days of just calling that customer service, by the way.) Just when I thought (at the end of day two) that we couldn't possibly peel that particular banana any more, in unique ways, there were interesting and thought-provoking presentations on day three! Go figure. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to listen and learn, and to be reminded that the work I get to contribute to is quite interesting, in the spectrum of industries. Working for a big conglomerate making widgets, running call centers all over the country (or India)? Not for me.

Had to share this picture of the group we shared some space with on Wednesday:

Didn't actually see any men in black, though...

In the evening my work colleague Molly and I walked and talked and walked some more. And ate. We looked at a hundred (really) different menus online and on the sides of restaurants, looking for interesting, healthful food. I know, healthful? In New Orleans? Fresh ingredients don't just grow on trees down there, apparently. Or if they do, they drop directly into a deep fat fryer on their way to your plate! Our persistence (or was it pickiness?) paid off and we had really good food.

We went to Mr. B's Bistro, a little French restaurant with a sweet courtyard called the Grapevine, Cafe du Monde for beignets, and of course, Emeril's. Everything was entirely yummy.

A few of the sights we took in:

We took a streetcar out St. Charles Ave., to see beautiful old houses and ride past Tulane and Loyola. But about halfway out, the streetcar stopped, and the conductor told everyone to get off, that he wasn't going any further as there was work being done to the tracks out ahead. Meanwhile, we could see the other streetcar ahead of us, continuing on... something didn't add up. But when the guy tells you to get off, you get off. And catch another streetcar back into the city. We chuckled and thought he made a pretty good example of what not to do, from a "client experience" perspective...

I took quite a few pictures of houses as we zipped along in the streetcar, but when I went back and looked at them, they all looked the same. Essentially, part of a house (never got my trigger finger timing down perfectly) with trees and sidewalk, and the houses are very similar: most have columns, are taller than they are wide, and on narrow lots, with porches and shutters. I felt a little like we were in the middle of a movie set for something like In the Garden of Good and Evil, which I barely remember, and it's set in Savannah, not New Orleans. But, still...

I came home Thursday from an oddly quick-but-long day of travel to flowers from my sweet husband (he missed me!), a clean house and the anticipation of Seth coming home this afternoon. Grateful grateful for my guys. I am blessed.

And, pretty much immediately upon touching back down in the Valley, I stopped by the Blue Mountain Humane Society and picked up a little furry friend who had been waiting to come foster with us this weekend.

Meet General:

General is a seven-year-old Corgi who was surrendered by an elderly woman going into assisted living care. He's sweet as can be, and best of all, Chief seems to like him pretty well. There's the usual need for reassurance and affection, but no real overt snipping and jealousy. They seem like they will get along and become buddies, and it already feels pretty natural to have General here. I'm stepping out in saying that, as we're not being all official-like until the weekend is over, so keep your fingers and toes crossed that all will go well. So far so good, and whoo-hoo for not having to go through the puppy stage; I'm very grateful for that! 

I hope your grateful list is long as you head into the weekend! May you find rest and peace and anything else you're looking for! I will be looking for some extra zzzzzs to catch up on; travel is never kind to my sleep schedule.

Peace.

A-Z blogging challenge: X is for Xenodocheionology

The list of X words is, well, short.

But when I saw xenodocheionology (love of hotels, pronounced: zen-o-do-key-o-nol-o-gy), I thought, I can get on board with that! I wouldn't put me in the must-have-the-best-hotel camp, by any means, but there is something about staying in a nice hotel that is a little bit fun, a little bit luxurious. Someone else is going to make my bed? OK. I can call and have food delivered? Well, if you insist.

I was trying to remember the first nice hotel I ever stayed in... it might just be one of the Outriggers on Oahu. I have very fond memories of ordering up a lot of breakfast via room service there, and thinking, truly, this is the life. Funny what makes a 10 year old feel special.

I am pretty sure the most expensive hotel I ever stayed at was bunking with (code for: someone else paid) my brother while he was working/staying in LA, at The Peninsula. Quite a place! I think his favorite celebrity sighting there was Snoop Dog? I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong.

Husband took me to NYC during our courtship (doesn't that sound romantic? It was.), and he booked us at the Lowes Regency. It was close to the park, close to midtown, and had great beds and pillows (very important in my hotel experience). When C and I went back last fall, we stayed at a little boutique place, the Carvi, also in midtown. It was tiny, but clean and decently appointed, and easy to walk everywhere we wanted to. Most important, it had free wi-fi. Who pays for wi-fi? Not me.

I read through Travel&Leisure's top hotels of 2012 and finally, at Number 43, I saw the one that makes my heart go pitter pat: The Four Seasons in Bora Bora. Wow, is all I have to say about that. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of other out-of-this-world places on the list, but I have to say the hut-over-water thing gets me every time. Definitely on the bucket list.

What's the nicest hotel you've ever stayed at? Would you go back? And what's on your bucket list?

What's this A-Z business about? Check out my kick-off post. And stay tuned for the random joy and nonsense I concoct during the month of April!

A-Z blogging challenge: T is for Travel

Right now I have the Travel bug.

I stood in front of the board at Sea-Tac last Friday and thought, Oh! Where would I like to go?

Granted, I was in the local-regional terminal, so the dreaming was pretty limited. But still. I am ready to plan something grand.

It doesn't have to happen soon(ish), in fact, planning is half the fun. Goodness knows I love home, but sometimes seeing the sights makes you remember why you love home so much--maybe I'm in need of that reminder, right about now!

So... where should we plan to get to, in our Next Big Adventure?

Where I've been:
*Malaysia
*Singapore
*Hong Kong
*Australia (Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne)
*Hawaii
*Marshall Islands
*Saipan
*Mexico
*Canada (does that count, since I was raised there?):
*NYC
*Washington, DC
*Alaska (cruisin')
*Disneyland/world

Where I want to go:
*Venice
*London
*Europe, in general...
*Early Christian church tour of Turkey/Greece
*Africa: a safari...
*A cruise!
*Anywhere!

Kauai double rainbow.

Road-trippin' to Canada.

Lady Liberty.

Hawaiian sunset.

I think *this* is the feeling I'm craving right about now.

Is there anywhere you're hankering to get to? Tell me where!

What's this A-Z business about? Check out my kick-off post. And stay tuned for the random joy and nonsense I concoct during the month of April!