updates and forwardlookings and other things too

When they said that 1L bores you to death, 2L works you to death and 3L scares you to death, they were mostly right. But I also think that 2L is a culmination of bores and works and 3L is a culmination of all of the above. Busy busy and sort of bored (with school) and also scared ish-less of this whole bar/after graduation nonsense. Oh man, this bar stuff (bar applications which are due Monday and bar loans which are SO stressful), and this job stuff (I probably won’t EVER have one **said in my most dramatic voice), it’s overwhelming. That’s what I’ve been worrying about this past week. Bar bar bar, scared.

Oh and also I’ve been worrying about the rat that decided to die in my bathroom under the tiles that cannot be removed. We’re currently waiting for it to decompose. Our landlord dropped off some air fresheners today. Now our house smells like a meadow with a dead rat rotting in the middle of it. Not cute. SO not cute. (also I’m sorry if that was too graphic)

But in the midst of all of that, I do have some exciting things to look forward to over the next few weeks (and that means fun things to blog about, right?). I’m about to tell you about the things I think of when I’m showering and wanting to vomit at the same time:

Law school prom is next Saturday. Dustin is going as my hot date (obviously). We’re staying downtown the night of. All will be good next Saturday evening. First I just need to find a dress. Once this post is sent, I’m going shopping. Which is great, since I’ve been having major shopping urges lately. I think it’s the changing seasons? Hopefully this dress shopping will cure all my urges, and things.

Also, in April (less than three weeks, EEK) Dustin and I are going to Vegas for his friend’s wedding. He booked us a room at ARIA (which supposedly has a rad pool) and it’s supposed to be 80-ish-degrees. I can’t wait for sunshine and warmth and time spent somewhere other than Seattle. Hopefully this makes up for my snowy spring break. I have a feeling it just might!

Oh and also, I went to a long, lazy breakfast at 5 Spot on Queen Anne this morning with my roommate Erin and our sorority sister Kate. I got the smoked salmon and cream cheese scramble. It was good. I recommend for sure.

After breakfast we walked down to Kerry Park (which is like 1/2 block from Kate’s new apartment). It was super gorgeous. I’ll leave you with some pictures of Erin and Kate (from left to right) at the park:

I’m off to go shopping! I hope you all are having wonderful rat-less weekends.

Spring Break 2012

This past week I had my very last, EVER spring break. I feel like I kind of blew it, but the week off was nice regardless.

3L-itis is kicking in, hard.

Anyway, let me show you what I’ve been doing lately:

Monday I worked. And I hung with Battle Cat. Catz need love too:

And for my big spring break trip, I went home to White Salmon & Hood River Tuesday-Thursday.

Tuesday night was definitely the highlight of my whole spring break. It went like this: dinner at Henni’s (SO tasty) with Beth and Marissa (bestfriends), packed Beth for her NYC adventure, then went to the trillium, took jello shots and got everyone in the bar to shout “whoooo spring break!!” with me. But really, the whole crowded, karaoke night bar. It was fun, let me tell you! Nights out with those two are always my favorite nights out.

I don’t know? Don’t ask. Hash tag totes cute.

But while I was inside the spring break bar, pretending it was tropical and amazing, this is what things were looking like outside:

Except not daytime. This was the next day. It was filled with unwanted snow accumulation, which during spring break = NOT CUTE!

Anyway, Wednesday I got my hair cut (thank you Kalyn!! I love) and then I babysat Tot (my favorite little cousin). He’s a day short of 4 months here and he is a rad baby. We bonded:

But after a while of us snuggling (aka me carrying him around the house and looking out all the windows and bouncing him and taking this picture of us hah) he got sleepy and THIS happened (OMG I die, those leg rolls, that fanned out passed out position…):

 
After he woke up I went to dinner with little Rogue (AKA tot) and his parents (my cousins Chip & Katie). Dinner in the Dalles = amazing sweet potato fries and a tarantula I STILL think is crawling on me. GROSS!

After that I met up with Marissa for a drink and some PIE and some friend love at Brian’s Pourhouse (I love LOVE that place – I used to work there and it makes me really happy). Coincidentally it was PIE DAY! Pie on pie day? We’re so cool.

Then the next day I drove back to Seattle.

After deer for breakfast with my parents, of course. (marissa + dave, I don’t want to hear it)

In Seattle I worked some more. And I hung out with Battle Cat some more (did I mention Dustin was in Iowa all week? Lamesauce).

But that meant that I got a rad facetime in with him after he had gone out with his coworkers, and during the chat he made me this (and I thought it was cute of him, even though I look cross eyed – I wonder if my eyes will permanently go like this from looking at my phone so much?):

Also after I got back to Seattle, while Dustin was gone, I sat around his house and then decided to make these and I almost ate them all because I was alone with a cat and I missed my boyfriend and my friendz and my spring break didn’t involve a bikini so there was no good reason not to, right? But then I controlled myself. A little. But between the two of us, they all got eaten this weekend. Don’t you worry about wasted treatz. Rice Krispie Treats are SO good. They’re definitely one of my favorite desserts of all time:

Oh and when I got back into the city (that wasn’t completely covered in snow), the flowers were starting to bloom. And I felt like it was almost sort of spring. Then I saw some completely closed daffodils for sale at Safeway while I was getting supplies for my treatz. So I bought 10 for Dustin (well for his apartment so it looked extra fancy when he got home). But I think I liked them way more than him. Daffodils and tulips = amazing. They mean spring is on it’s way. And here in Seattle, that’s a big deal:

Anyway, the rest of my week off was spent relaxing with these two (glamour shotz can be seen below). We didn’t even go out on St. Patrick’s day (well, I guess we did go out for some lunchtime double mountain beers but we didn’t go out at night because, well, those beers made me REALLY tired). 

Now spring break is over. It was SO hard to go back to class today. SO HARD!

But now that spring break is over, I think I’ll begin looking forward to a wedding in vegas in a little less than a month (average temp in april in vegas is 78degrees said Dustin today). Sunshine + wedding with my favorite boy? GAH! Can’t wait!

Oh and I’m laughing at this little St. Patty’s day GEM:

Well friends, I’m sorry this post was so long. I just wanted to update you on SO MANY THINGS (my parents surprising me with no internet at their house wasn’t really conducive to the blogging I had planned for Tot’s nap – oh well)!

Before I go, though, one last thing: I finished & sent in my bar application AND I did my taxes this evening. I didn’t do much homework, but I figured that both of those are more important, right? Right.

Ok goodnight friends!!

three things

ONE:

Saturday I had my very last transition to practice class. Saturday classes are such a bummer. Especially when it’s a sunny March day in Seattle (which is so rare). I would say never again, but I’m done with school after this semester (YAY), so I won’t have another chance, unless I decide to go back #nothappening

Because it was all sunshiney outside and I was so happy to be done with my Saturday class, when I got out I decided it would be fun to go walk walk around U Vill. I went to H&M and Sephora where I found the most PERFECT red lipcolor Bare Escentuals, Pretty Amazing lip color in Stregnth. Guys, it’s good.

After that I enjoyed some drinks and some Neapolitan style pizza at Cornuto (which is apparently owned by the same people who own Via Tribunale and Cafe Vita, who knew?) with Dustin and friends. Things got a little crazy there for a second.

Needless to say Dustin and I were home by 11:30 to watch LeLo on SNL (I was a little disappointed. Did anyone else watch? Thoughts?). #exciting

TWO:

Sunday I lounged around, took another trip to U Vil with the BF and then spent 4 hours making this chili which turned out to be WAY too spicy for me, and in the process I got burned by jalapeno juice on my nose and underneath my fingernails. I will NEVER again touch a jalapeno or eat anything with jalapeno in it – apparently I just can’t handle it. #miserable

On the bright side Dustin liked it. He will be eating chili all week.

And while I was chili making, these two lounged in the sun coming through the window (Dustin and Battle Cat are my favorites):

THREE:

Today I’ve had the MOST productive day. I woke up early. I went to the grocery store early, where an old woman randomly came up to me and shouted at me about how if people are going to work at the grocery store they should know how to speak English. It was too early in the morning to be shouted at by strangers. I just stared at her and said “oh” then walked away.

Next in my productive streak, I OCD cleaned our kitchen and at the end of that found a NASTY dead rat in a trap in the wall. SO gross. The exterminators came and took care of it. Hopefully they will be gone for good in the next few days.

That was followed by school all day, me getting REALLY ambitious in Constitutional Law of Terrorism and volunteering to talk in class for like a 1/2 hour, some more school then the gym. I am tired now. I wore myself out and probably won’t be productive for the rest of the week (let’s hope that isn’t true).

Oh and did I mention, when I woke up this morning at like 7am (what the what?) I looked out the window and saw this SNOW on my neighbor’s roof?:

I contemplated not leaving the house all day, because apparently that’s legit when it snows in Seattle? I’m glad I did though.

Good story. The end.

Oh and P.S. Hi Brittan!

Native American Food & Fancy Hair

Recently something wonderful happened: a Native American food truck called “off the rez” opened in Seattle!! It changes locations depending on the day and time, but yesterday it was parked in Wallingford near my house. Obviously I text Dustin to ask if that’s what he wanted to have for “date night” dinner (I had also rented “the Rum Diaries” from the RedBox – we had been trying to rent it for a few weeks but every time we checked it was gone so when I saw it yesterday before class I picked it up) – I figured take out and a movie sounded like the perfect date night after a stressful week. He agreed, so I picked us up some food and headed over to his place.

The food was amazing. We had fry bread tacos (pork and chicken), which were like really good regular Mexican tacos, but on fry bread instead of tortillas. Along with that Dustin had a plain fry bread and I had one with Nutella (OMG just thinking about it…) on it. SO good. And I’m not even just saying that because it’s the food of my Native American PEOPLE! I promise. Dustin liked it too and he’s super white ;)

I can’t wait to eat at the truck again soon. If you’re a Seattle resident I highly recommend you check it out.

After inhaling my food (no pictures, too busy eating and YUMMMing), we watched the Rum Diaries which wasn’t what I was expecting. Which led to me being mildly bored during parts – I think because I was expecting more of a comedy and I kept waiting for the comedy, but it never came – but reflecting back, it was pretty entertaining. Have you guys seen it? What did you think?

Overall though, last night = another date night success!

This morning I decided to get all fancy for work. Not really fancy. More like I saw some easy looking braided hair style on pinterest (yeah that’s right, I was so bored in class yesterday I was actually looking at the pinterest website – even though I usually just use pinterest as a pretty bookmark page for all my recipes and things) and I wanted to try it, so I braided and twisted and this is what happened in about 5 minutes:

 
To do this I just parted my hair into thirds in the back and made three low braids. I then rolled the middle braid into a bun and secured it with bobby pins before making the other two into buns, securing them with more pins and tucking their ends under the first one (on the bottom). Then I pinned my bangs (can I even call them that anymore? They’re pretty grown out) back and called it good. Fancy pants, right? And totally simple.

Anyway that has been the last 24 hours for me. Now I’m home from work and planning on doing some homework for the rest of the afternoon then hopefully relaxing a little later (a glass of wine or a beer sounds really delicious). I think it will be another low key night because I have class all morning tomorrow – but on the bright side, it’s my last Saturday class and if I can manage to show up (on time) tomorrow, I’ll have successfully completed 1 credit this semester. Yay!

I hope you are all having a lovely Friday and I hope that you have a few fun plans for the weekend. Cheers!

sickness is cured by chicken and dumplings, fact

Something terrible happened last night. I was sleeping all nice and having nice dreams then out of nowhere in my dreams I started having difficulty doing things, and my dream stomach started to hurt. So bad. Then I woke up and my awake stomach hurt SO bad. Like, worst stomach ache of my whole life bad. On the top part of my abdomen. I had convinced my 4am, sleepy self that I had an ulcer. It had to be. Nothing else hurts that bad, right?

So I got up and went to the bathroom. Then I curled onto the bathroom floor. Then I vommed my guts out.

But here’s the thing, it wasn’t from alcohol. And it was just so miserable.

My stomach still hurt. I still feel a little nauseous.

I called in sick to work. I couldn’t make it to class. I just couldn’t. The thought of vomiting in front of my peers at school was just too terrifying.

But one thing I did manage to do today was make myself chicken and dumplings (it was sort of delirious, the cooking). But they were delicious! Chicken and Dumplings is one of the things that I make well. Everyone seems to like them. And they just happen to be the perfect sick/comfort food.

Here is how I make my Chicken and Dumplings:

Heat up some olive oil (butter works too) in a big pot (like quart size probably), add 1 chopped onion and sauté over medium heat for about 7 or 8 minutes, or really until the onion bits become translucent and soft. Add a clove of finely chopped garlic. Stir that around. Next add some chopped up celery and carrots (I added 3 big peeled and chopped carrots and three big celery stalks). I let those new additions sit in there about 5 minutes – or the time it took to chop up about a pound of chicken breasts into small pieces. Then you add the chicken to the pan. And immediately after adding the chicken, add some chicken stock. I used one of the big cartons of it. Then I added some water. Enough so that the liquid was covering all the goodies with a little extra to spare (some liquid will evaporate and some will be soaked up by the dumplings). While I was bringing that to a boil I added a bay leaf, some dried basil and some thyme (to taste). I also added some pepper and some salt. I then reduced to a simmer and covered.

Next, I went into my room and watched a couple episodes of Friends on my laptop while laying on my heat blanket on my bed. I also drank some ginger ale. All super pathetic and feeling sorry for myself, of course.

After about 45 minutes of the pity party, while the soup part had been cooking over low heat, I dragged myself out of bed to check and make sure everything was tender and cooked and things. It was. So I mixed up the dumplings. I combined 2 c. flour, 3 teaspoons of baking powder, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Next I added 4 tablespoons of melted butter and mixed that all together. Then I added 1 cup of milk and stirred it up until it was combined. And then I decided that the mixture, it was a little too gooey. So I added about a tablespoon of flour. It was still sticky (not dry at all) but wasn’t runny or overly sticky. Then I just took a tablespoon spoon and glopped  parts of the dumpling dough into the soup mixture. It wasn’t pretty or measured. But I dumped the mixture in spoonful by spoonful until all the dough was on top of the soup (and at this point the top of the soup was basically completely covered by dumplings). Then I covered the pot let everything hang out and cook on medium/low for 15 minutes. When I took off the lid, magic.

I felt a lot better after eating my delicious chicken and dumplings. You should make them someday. You will like them. Or you’re weird. True story.

kitties and ponies and creatures of the sea

Remember that one time when I was gifted a GIANT heart filled with goodies and I was all “I’ll tell you about it later” and then I didn’t? Yeah, whoops!

Well, I’m telling you now that this GIANT heart was filled with some GEMS! And it was adorned with some too (pony and kitten stickers ALL over? Check). Let me show you what was inside:

 Random cat figurine? Yep.

 Kitten BFF candy? Double yep. We decided I’m the kitten on the left and Dustin is the one on the right because he is bigger and fluffier and clearly I have been snacking on something because my mouth is all dirty. I’m always hungry. Fact. This has all been deeply contemplated ha.

Getting jealous yet? I would be…

also in the box: pony toys, lots of candies (I’ve basically devoured all the reeces PB cups because I mean, how could I not?) a hot wheels rapist van, bubbles (BUBBLES!!?) $1.99 sexy time dice (ex: “make out” “in the closet” = yeah that definitely happened) and other TREASURES!

Also that night we had a rad dinner (you’re welcome boyfriend) – in case you were wondering. You were, right?

 I forced Dustin to shuck the oysters because that’s MAN WORK! And also the shells smelled really gross. But the insides were SO good.

 We ate Skillet’s Bacon Jam – which was jammy and bacony and weirdly good. Like BBQ Bacon spread? – that I gifted to Dustin

 And also we ate lots and lots of crab and we drank champagne and it was delicious.Even if I did get a $44 parking ticket while I was inside the seafood market. WHATEVER IT WAS ALL FOR LOVE!

Anyway, I hope your hearts are satisfied now that you know what was in the box (that’s what she said?).

I’m going to go finish getting ready for work and ask the mice men (exterminators, whatever) when they’ll be done catching mice so I can go to work.

Oh and PS HAPPY FRIDAY LOVELIES! 

canadian tuxedo + law school prom dress = awesome wedding

Last Saturday Dustin and I left at 7am to drive to Hood River for my friend Jessica’s wedding. It was totally worth it.

When we got into Hood River we first stopped at the Hospital to see my mom (she works there). Then we immediately went to New York City sub shop to get some lunch (I was basically starving). Then we had planned to go to my house and see my Fluffy cat and my dad, but my dad had gone to The Dalles for lunch, so we decided to pit stop at Double Mountain for a beer.

Things I like: 1. Dustin, 2. Double Mountain Beer

After our beer we headed to my parents’ house so I could see my favorite kitty and get ready for the wedding (side story: Dustin was already ready for the wedding. He text me as I was on my way to pick him up early that morning asking me if he could wear a Canadian Tuxedo to the wedding… I couldn’t say no, so that’s what he wore. It was cute.).

After I was finished putting on my law school prom dress and fixing my hair (low side bun with a braid running through? semi-win even though it didn’t hold up very well) we headed to Stevenson for the wedding.

Beth, Me and Heather at the wedding

Another one of Dustin and I at the wedding:

Me, Jessica (the bride) and Beth

Dustin and Tyler (the groom)

Jake and Heather enjoying some cake:

After an awesome dinner, some beer brewed by the groom, friend time, toasts with champagne, and wedding cake made by the made of honor, Beth, Dustin and I headed back to Hood River.

The three of us pit stopped by the Hood River Hotel and then promptly went across the street to Celilo where I played catch-up with a grey goose martini complete with like 10 of the best olives I’ve ever tasted (DD status, but not anymore). After our fancy drink in our fancy clothes (my law school prom dress, Beth’s awesome silk find and Dustin’s Canadian Tuxedo, yep!), we headed to Double Mountain where we saw some friends and had some love and beer and things. After our drink there we walked up to the pub to grab some other friends and make our way down to Jack’s where we danced the night away. Obviously.

It was such a good time.

The next morning Dustin and I had breakfast with his parents and then headed back to Seattle. It was a good 24 hours at home.

I want to go back.

Oh and P.S. congratulations Jessica and Tyler!!