Jan. 30 - Collection

Spent the night at Casey's folks' house, where his mom has an amazing collection of blue depression glass.

Jan. 29 - Duck day!

Steamed buns. Raspberry Chipotle sauce. Duck le'Orange. Wine, wine, wine. Games.

I love duck day.

Jan. 28 - Persian cooking, pink wine

Family outing to a cooking class in Everett where we cooked Persian food, grated our own nutmeg, and used ingredients like dried black lime, rosewater and pomegranate syrup.

Food was great. Family time was even better.

Jan. 27 - Comfort zone

Even though we let him hang out uncrated in the house all day when we're gone at work, in the morning Major still puts himself in his crate and waits there patiently for a treat when he hears me get my keys on my way out of the house. It's so cute how his crate has become his little happy place.

Jan. 26 - Bluesday

This is a lazy photo out the window of my office because I didn't have time for anything more inspired today. Next time I'm feeling lazy I'm still going to have to work harder for a photo than this, because this was literally the easiest possible photo from my standard working position.

Jan. 25 - Craig is a girl

Casey brought home a kitty last night - his parents' - who we will be babysitting for the next couple months while they're snowbirding in Hawaii. Her name is Craig.

Jan. 24 - Fever

And not the Saturday night kind. Super sick. No pic today.

Jan. 23 - House calls

Spent time with some of my favorite girls today - Lindsey, my mom, Marianne and Briana - and met baby Matthew for the very first time. What a charmer. This photo has really nothing to do with any of that. It is simply a Peking duck I saw hanging in a window and thought "Hey, that's a Peking duck. Weird." *click*

Jan. 22 - At last...

Friday + awesome date dinner at El Gaucho + karaoke on a whim, just the two of us. My husband is the absolute best ever.

Jan. 20 - Mayday

Made a mayday call to Casey today from work for a quick pep talk. He obliged and that and some deep breaths served me well. Truffles and a bottle of red wine were awaiting me when I got home. Love.

Jan. 19 - Breathe

I sometimes have to remind myself. And then sometimes I'm rewarded by awesome sunrise reflections in random car windows when I do.

Jan. 18 - Confession

This photo was leftover from my voyage to our backyard garden a few days ago... but work was hectic, and the green makes me happy. So there.

Jan. 17 - The only good thing...

...about flying round trip in the same day are the little luxuries you'd never otherwise treat yourself to. Latte, un-skinny. Funny Pepto-looking gum. IPad scrabble for a whole hour, nonstop. Window seats.

Those kinda things.

Jan. 16 - Eye and tongue candy

Believe it or not, this is tea. It smells like an English garden and tastes like one too. In a really really good way. Love.

Jan. 15 - New car smell!

Went out for a test drive, came home with a new car! It's black (impractical in the rain) but I get free carwashes for life (impractical shimpractical).

Yay!

Jan. 14 - Decisions

Oatmeal, Wheat, Bisque, Linen...

These are just a few of the apparently zillion different colors of carpet.

Jan. 13 - Gray gray gray

Everywhere.

Jan. 12 - Garden, 9 months later

We planted a garden in spring and our Brussel Sprouts ended up, well, sprouting after the good weather was long gone. So we didn't eat them... but the bugs and birds think they're lovely.

Jan. 11 - Splinter

Went out to the yard for the first time in a couple months today... it was like coming out of hibernation.

Jan. 10 - Beautiful madness

Downtown tonight for an agency briefing, late. Working on an invigorating project; Many unknowns, so much riding on it... I didn't expect to be so energized by chaos.

Jan. 9 - Every action...

...has an equal and opposite reaction.

Today, we are doing the opposite of partying, equally hard.

Happy birthday, Devin!

Jan. 8 - Playoffs, Chinese food and party crashing

Killer Chili at Slim's Last Chance, amazing seats at the Hawks game (Hawks: 41 Sants: 36), and dinner at Sea Garden. We didn't touch the crabs, in observance of the sign.

An attempt at post-dinner party crashing was fortunately derailed, but not before a healthy dose of shenanigans with a touch of ballyhoo.

Jan. 7 - Unmentionable cheese sculpture

Party. Game. Cheese Whiz. Sculpture.

Jan. 6–Must drink milk within 24 hours

An employee came back from a trip to India to visit his family today – bearing gifts of a box of Indian sweets. I was especially fond of the note I found on the side of the box in which they came, which I can only interpret as the Indian equivalent to an FDA warning: “Milk and Bengali Sweets should be consumed on the same day.” 

Yes, sir. Milk and cookies in the same day. Done and done.

(They were delicious).

Jan. 5 - A workaholic's best friend(s)

Meet my favorite sidekicks at work: Scrawly pad, roller ball ink pen which I'll lose and re-find about 7 times a day, headphones and a tablet... all basking in the electric blue glow of my laptop.

Geek fest.

Jan 4 - Perspective, please.

Rough, hectic day. One of those where you're on fire from 8 am to 7 pm. No lunch, relentless and constant urgency. A day where you honest to goodness forget that it really isn't life or death. I might as well have been a brain surgeon or an ER doctor.

When I finally got home, I spent some time staring into the glass bottle full of wisdom from our friends and family, collected at our wedding, wishing I could read through the tightly coiled scrolls. Finally convinced Casey to fish one out and read it.

It made us both laugh. Good call.

Jan. 3 - Gives me paws

Major hurt his paw, and has perfected the doe-eyed boo-boo face. Vet tomorrow!

Jan. 2 - 2011: The year of procrastination?

Mailed our first holiday cards as a married couple today. The only problem is it's January 2. Hmmm. Well on the bright side, we didn't put the words "Christmas" on the front, opting instead for a more seasonally flexible "Wishing you the best this holiday season!" Yeah, that will give us fridge staying-power, right?

Argh. It's almost like I knew this would happen.

January 1 - The daunting first post.

Happy New Year! Pacific Beach, Wa. Took a detour on the way home from the store - on the beach. Plowed through a few creekbeds before being turned back by what Lily referred to as a "rushing river". Casey and Devin weren't convinced, but we turned back anyway, deciding losing a car in a river on the beach at low tide = not a good start to the year. Wrapped the day with a successful razor clam dig and rang in the new year in a karaoke bar. Happy Birthday Casey!