Seattle Bucket List Updates

It's been awhile since I posted about my bucket list updates!  Since I last posted, here is what I have accomplished:  

4.  Go camping.  I don't think I ever blogged about our trip to Shi Shi Beach on the Olympic Peninsula, but we went camping.  In the rain.  For a whole weekend.  And we had fun.  Can you believe it?  I couldn't. 

41.  Go to Victoria, Vancouver Island.  This is also on the "to-blog" list, but this past weekend my mom and I took the ferry up to Victoria.  It was gorgeous and we couldn't have asked for better weather.  More on that later this week.

42.  Visit the Olympic Peninsula.  There are still a lot of things I'd like to see on the Olympic Peninsula, but I think they will have to wait for another day (or year with the upcoming move).  However, I've been over their twice, so I feel like I can cross it off the list.

49.  Try Japonessa.  R and I went to Japonessa for dinner and drinks a few weeks ago.  We had heard that their happy hour pretty goes all night and that was almost true ... it is from 11:30 to 6:30, 6:30 to 8:00 in the bar and then from 10:00 to 11:00.  We made it during the bar happy hour and paid $22.00 for our dinner.  Total.  And we were stuffed.  It was amazing.  We then splurged on a few of their cocktails and S2 met up with us.  We had a great evening and enjoyed trying their fun cocktails.  I can't find their cocktail menu online which is depressing because they had a bunch of fun ones that I don't remember the names of now!

55.  Go to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.  Check.  And I blogged about this one already, yay!  The tulip festival was absolutely gorgeous and we picked the perfect weekend to attend.  I only wish we were going to be here next April for it!

I am working REALLY hard to try to finish up everything else on the bucket list before next March.  I will keep you posted on my progress :)

My Day in Numbers ...

1 afternoon
2 trips to Home Depot
2 bushes that were trimmed down, dug up and thrown out (good riddance!)
2 lavender bushes that were planted
6 ground cover plants that were planted
8 ornamental grasses that were planted
10 bags of mulch that were spread
14 snapdragons that were planted
1,345,543,694 old bulbs that were dug up in the various flower beds (thank you crazy bulb lady ms. georgia i.e. former owner of our home!)
COUNTLESS weeds that were pulled up and thrown out

I cannot thank my mom enough for helping me with all of this hard work today!  We literally transformed my back and side yards this afternoon.  It is definitely not something I could have done on my own (at least in an afternoon).  It also helps me feel WAY more motivated to finish the project now that we've gotten so much done and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!  I hope to post before and after pictures this week along with posts about our trip to Victoria and all the other posts I had planned for this week as well :)  

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  

Happy Wednesday!

Happy Wednesday Friends!  

My mom is visiting this week, so I haven't been spending much time on the blog :)  I will return next week with posts about what we've been up to on her visit, an update on my Seattle Bucket List progress and posts from our road-trip West when we moved last year!  I hadn't started blogging yet, so I need to get those days on the road down on the blog before I forget about our big adventure!  

Until then, here's a few pictures to tide you over: 

The Seattle skyline

Pelindaba Lavender Farm

Mount Baker

Mount Baker

The sun setting over the San Juan Islands

Deployment Goals

Hello Friends!  I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!

I promise I'll start posting about something other than deployment, but I wouldn't be a true Type A if I didn't sit down and write myself out a to-do list of things to accomplish during this deployment.  And what kind of blogger would I be if I didn't blog about it?  I've got to stay accountable! 

Deployment Goals: 

1.  Get out of bed every day (note I did not say morning, I said day).

2.  Start going to yoga 1-2x a week. 

3.  Keep running and working out. 

4.  Keep eating healthy (totally failed on this goal so far). 

5.  Finish the office. 

6.  Paint the downstairs bathroom. 

7.  Pay off my credit card. 

8.  Pay down J.'s credit card. 

9.  Accomplish everything on my Seattle Bucket List. 

10.  Get my Washington Driver's License. 

So these are the little projects I am going to be working on over the next 4 months.  I'll definitely be blogging about all of them along the way!

Deployment Update

Have you recovered from all our news?  It was a lot to take in and now you can see why I needed so long to process it all :)  

I certainly threw a few temper tantrums when I first found out the news, but I am now happy to report that I am looking forward to this adventure.  I think the hardest part for me was that J. would be deploying right away.  My biggest fear about moving to Washington and joining this crazy lifestyle was that J. would deploy and I would be stuck in a place where I don't know anyone, without a job or anything to do while he was gone.  And that came true.  We live in a small town about an hour north of Seattle and I don't know very many people who live in our town.  All of our Navy friends live in Oak Harbor or Anacortes and my other friends live in Seattle.  I don't work full-time and now that we are moving to Japan in early 2012, I don't really have a lot of motivation or incentive to take on new clients since I may have to leave mid-case. The whole deployment thing absolutely terrified me.  I am where I am because of J.  Take him out of the picture and where does that leave me? 

It has definitely taken some getting used to and I know I will have plenty of bad days over the next few months, but I think overall I will be busy and happy.  Quite honestly, I think managing our household and our lives is going to be like having a full time job.  I've never had to manage the entire household, plus the yard, plus my life, plus J.'s before.  In a nutshell, I am managing the household, two dogs, 8 bank accounts, 4 credit cards, all of the household bills and preparing to move to a foreign country.  It's kind of a lot!

And I have some pretty great friends who have kept me busy this past week and will keep me busy in the weeks to come.  I literally have not eaten one meal at home since I returned from Texas last Wednesday!  

On Monday, R. and I went to University Place and did some shopping.  I think J. is VERY lucky that we don't live in Seattle because I've gotten my shopping bug back :)  I was good though!  Then we went to dinner at Boom Noodle, which has half-priced bottles of wine on Mondays and very delicious food.  

Tuesday night, E. and CeCe came down to MV and we had a girls night at Empire Ale House.  MV does not have a lot to offer bar and restaurant wise, but the few places they do have are very good.  Plus, we hadn't seen each other since before their big European Adventure so we had a lot to catch up on and lots of fun plans to make for September! 

Wednesday night, I ventured back down to Seattle to meet S2 and R. for happy hour at Hazelwood in Ballard.  Hazelwood was the cutest little bar, with great happy hour cocktails and we had so much fun.  Afterwards, we saw The Help at the Majestic Theater which is so cute and quaint (and had the tastiest popcorn!).  I highly recommend seeing The Help -- if you read the book and liked it, you will like the movie.  If you haven't read the book, you can still like the movie :)  After that, S2 and I ventured over to Root Table to have a proper dinner (movie theater popcorn isn't considered a proper dinner?).  They have a late night happy hour (I love this about Seattle!) and we had lots of fun tapas.

By Thursday, I was exhausted.  I came home from baby-sitting and remembered that Addy and Lucy were out of food.  Ugh.  Off I went to the store so I could feed the little girls.  And then I laid on the couch and watched  Mad Men.

I've got a lot of fun things to look forward to this weekend,
but I'll wait until next week to tell you about them!

Hello Friends!

I took a little bit longer of a break than I intended to, but I have been so busy lately that I literally have not had time to sit down and write a blog post.  Or clean my house.  Or respond to emails.  Or even get a good night's sleep!

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I don't talk a whole lot about the Navy on here.  Which was pretty easy, because J. was still in training and, while he had odd work hours at times, it was easy to think about it as just a regular job.

But, that has all changed.  While I was visiting my family in the great state of Texas last week, I got some news that, quite literally, changed my life.  J. was done at the boat, it had gone well and he was rushing to the airport -- two days earlier than he was supposed to come home.

My heart sank and my stomach twisted into knots.  I felt sick to my stomach.  The Navy doesn't do anything efficiently and they certainly don't send people home early unless there is a reason.  Leaving carrier qualifications early meant one of two things -- (1) J. had DQ'd (failed) and they were sending him home or (2) He had CQ'd (passed), selected Priority A and would be leaving for deployment ASAP.  Unfortunately, since J. had told me in his text message that the boat had gone well, I had a feeling that he fell into category (2).  He told me he'd call me as soon as he got to the airport, so I did my best to think positively and go on with my day.  I was at my Aunt K. and Uncle D.'s house, with my sister and my Cousin C.  My grandma had come over to have dinner with us and my Aunt J. and Cousin T. had come over to visit as well.  We visited for a bit but my grandma started feeling sick and throwing up, so my Aunt K. took her home.  My Aunt J. and Cousin T. left as well.  When she got back, we piled into the car to go get some dinner.  J. called while we were en route.

He wanted to catch up, but I just wanted to know what was going on.

"Why'd you get off the boat early?" I asked.

"Because I selected Pri-A," he responded.

I broke down in the back of the car.  My family knew.  I'd told them our options and it was pretty clear from my reaction which one we'd been assigned to.

I'm a very private person when it comes to my emotions - which is why you read about restaurants or bars we've discovered, friends we've made, trips we've taken or hikes we've done, rather than the trials of Navy life, the reality of living somewhere so far from home and the mornings I feel so depressed I can't get out of bed - but I sobbed in the backseat of my aunt's SUV, sandwiched between my cousin and my sister.  It was a quiet but ugly sob that literally left me speechless and made me glad I had nothing in my stomach to throw up.

It was about that time we pulled up at the restaurant - remember I mentioned we were on our way to dinner?  Uncle D. made the quick decision that we should get take-out and ran inside for menus.

I literally could not speak, so I had to tell J. that I'd talk to him later.  He got home late that night and I threw my first temper tantrum.  He didn't know yet when he would be deploying and I couldn't change my flight until at least Monday because we were getting up at 6:00 a.m. to take my Cousin C. back to school in Austin.  We also had plans to visit our favorite outlet mall after we dropped off Cousin C.'s things at the sorority house.

Now, I LOVE to shop.  LOVE IT.  And I'd been told to buy whatever I wanted at San Marcos - a phrase that should have been music to my ears.  But, I wandered around in a stupor all day.  Alternating between being super hot (it was 105 outside and San Marcos is an outdoor shopping center) and feeling like I was going to vomit.  I came home with a puffy vest I'd been planning on purchasing from the J. Crew outlet near my house in Washington and some face powder that I was out of.  Pretty boring for someone who'd been given free rein at one of the largest outlet malls in the United States.

Anyways, part of the reason I waited so long to write this post and announce our news (oh I'm not done yet!) was that I knew I'd get over the initial shock and be ready for the upcoming adventure.  Plus there are all sorts of OPSEC rules that I wanted to make sure I wasn't breaking.  I'm a good little Navy dependent like that :)  Anyways, we went to San Marcos on Sunday.  On Monday we found out that J. would be leaving for deployment on Saturday - exactly one week after he found out that he would even be deploying.  He had so much stuff to do to get ready that I stayed in Texas and tried to enjoy myself until my flight home on Wednesday.

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Thursday night with some new friends and celebrated J.'s 27th birthday Friday night since he would be deployed on his actual birthday.  And on Saturday, I sent J. off on our first deployment.  I'd love to sugarcoat things and say it wasn't that bad, but it was bad.  I cried all the way to the airport.  I was so glad we weren't doing some kind of whole squadron send-off because while I've never been to one, so I don't really know what it's like, I have this picture in my head of all the wives/girlfriends/significant others sending them all off at the same time.  And remember how I like to be private about my emotions?  Well, that's hard to do when you have tears running down your face as they leave.

Saturday night was really hard and so was Sunday morning, but I got out of the house Sunday afternoon and ever since I've been better.  I'm certainly not looking forward to these next few months but I know it could be worse.  I've been so busy this week that I probably wouldn't have seen J. even if he was home and next week my mom is coming, so I am hoping that the weeks start to fly by :)

And now, for our other news ... the squadron that J. was placed in will be moving to JAPAN when they return from deployment.

I guess I better change the name of my blog ... and start practicing my Japanese.

Chaos

Things have hit the fan at my house ... I'll be back next week with lots of updates from my fabulous trip to Texas (hello summer!) and all the craziness that let loose while I was there!  

Hope you're having a wonderful week friends! 

Words on Wednesday - Week 2

Happy Wednesday friends!  Here are the words I am loving this week on Pinterest:

I love this print ... and am trying to practice the quote:

Simplicity

Love, Love, Love:

Another good one to live by:

This could be my favorite:

Be Happy:

 Darn orange juice.

Have you seen any good words on Pinterest this week?  Are you on Pinterest?  

Should I be following you?

Ten on Tuesday #23 - Laundry Edition

Happy Tuesday friends!  Things around here have been crazy.  It seems like that always happens when I am trying to get ready to go out of town.  I am heading down to the land of heat a.k.a. Houston, Texas and I. cannot. wait. to step off the plane and feel the blast of Texas heat!  

And lay out at the pool and wear all my summer clothes that are currently hibernating :)

Anyways, if you want to join in this week's Ten on Tuesday, head over to Roots and Rings to link up!

1.  Do you do laundry all at the same time or a load here and there?
I try to do it all at once but if I need something that's dirty I'm not opposed to doing a load here and there.

2.  What kind of detergent do you use?
Tide ... not sure what specific type but I always look for the cold water kind.

3.  Do you use fabric softener?
Nope, I don't get the point, my clothes seem soft enough.

4.  Do you use dryer sheets?
Yup, I think Downey?

5.  Do you iron your own clothes or take them to a cleaner to get pressed?
Well, I guess technically I iron my clothes but I don't really ever iron anything :)  I'm not very good at it.

6.  Do you like heavy starch or light starch?
I don't use starch?  Maybe that's my problem with ironing?

7.  Do you wash all your laundry at once or separate it?
Separate it.

8.  How do you separate it?  By people or by colors?
By colors and types ... darks, mediums, whites, towels, sheets.

9.  What clothes get hung up and what goes in drawers?
I hang up most of my tops ... except for t-shirts, they go in the drawers.  My jeans go in a dresser drawer but my dress pants, skirts and dresses all get hung up.

10.  Do you use plastic, wire, or wooden hangers?  Do they all match?
Plastic.  They do not all match -- most are white, but some are fun colors I inherited from an old roommate.

Nutella Puppy Chow

Yes, Please!  Another reason why I LOVE Pinterest ... all the delicious things you've never thought of but can now make :) 

YUM.