CORRECTION

From Running- The Blaine St. stairs have 292 steps, not 270 as previously reported. I counted today.

Yum.

I made bread today. Easy peasy. Only takes 5 minutes to prep and an hour to cook. Here's the recipe for Whole Wheat Beer Bread. I used an old can of Pabst. I'm trying not to eat it all before Brian comes home.

And it seems like it's easy to change. What about trying stout? Or putting in rosemary and garlic? Or cider and raisins?

Let me know if you think of or do any other variations!

Thanks to Melissa!

I have a new favorite website. It's www.walkjogrun.net.

It calculates distances in cities for you! You type in your zip code and get some pre-mapped out routes (mainly created by runners and bikers). Or you can create your own. It's fairly user friendly and you can save your routes. It doesn't count elevation.

Our house to grocery- .3 miles all uphill!
Our house to my office-2.8 miles
My office to UW gym-1.3 miles
From the UW bus stop to the gym- .5 miles
Our house to bus stop- also .3 miles all uphill!

How far is it from your house to the grocery store? To work? To the park?

Running

I've been running more. Must be a mix of New Year's resolutions and the motivation of having our friends Melissa and Ben coming to visit. They'll be here around tax day to run the Whitby Island Marathon!

I'm starting to feel like I'm in better shape. I haven't been running this regularly since I broke my leg. It was a mix of laziness, my leg not letting me run far, and being busy with the wedding and the move. I'm trying to get ready for the Mercer Island Half Marathon on March 25. The weather helps too. Even though the weatherman keeps calling for rain, it was sunny all last week and sunny today. I've been running in shorts.

The one difference between DC and Seattle is the topography. Seattle has so many hills. In DC, it was ridiculously easy to set a flat route. Not so easy here. But as they say "hills help you on the flats but flats don't help you on the hills." There's a huge set of stairs near our house that I run up and down a few times, once a week. It's 270 stairs. The view from there is beautiful (see picture).

Brian's been running too! We did a 5K around Valentine's Day. There's an informal St. Patty's Day run on March 11 that we'll do with a bunch of his grad school friends.

Brian is still sick. sniffle, cough, sniffle, cough.

But this is fucking awesome.

I *heart* Britney Spears.

I think spring is here. The dafodils are coming up, the azaleas are almost in bloom, the cherry trees are pink, and everything is greener than ever before. And it's supposed to be 60 on Sat. Seems like winter is super-short here but spring is much longer than DC (3 weeks before the humidity sets in).

TonightFeb 14 Rain 45°
Thu Feb 15 Rain 53°/44°
Fri Feb 16 Mostly Cloudy 54°/44°
Sat Feb 17 Mostly Cloudy 60°/43°
Sun Feb 18 Showers 49°/38°

Happy Valentines Day!

In Boston, Brian had a plant. It was a baby spider plant that his roommate Frank gave him. In true Malden house style, it lived in a plastic yogurt container. I would visit Brian every few months and the plant would grow bigger. And faster. One Saturday night, I went to sleep and it grew a 5 foot flowering extension. I swear. It was coming to strangle me alive. I’ve been wary of the plant ever since.

So, Brian moved to DC and brought the plant to the yellow house. He repotted it. It grew little baby spider plants. We moved to Greg’s house and we planted the army of baby spider plants into a huge planter by the porch. And they flourished. Dozens of little tentacles tried to dig themselves into the dirt under the porch. During the first winter, we repotted some of the new babies and brought them in for the winter. And we left the mama plant out to brave the winter (she didn’t).

The babies loved the apartment. Even without a green thumb, I managed to keep them all alive. When spring came back, we replanted them into the huge planter. Again, they flourished. Winter came around again. This time, I replanted some for our house and gave some of them as gifts. They’re still living with at least Liz and Justin. Then summer came around and, yep, we put them back outside.

We moved to Seattle and left the plants. After the elections, I came to DC for meetings and stayed with Janine and Greg. I had forgotten about the plants. It was November and the weather was getting colder. But there were still lots of baby spider plants in the huge pot. I went to CVS, got some plastic containers, packed them with a little dirt, and threw them in my luggage. They all survived the trip home, the repotting (for the 5^th time), the time change, and not being watered over Christmas.

And here they are. Still alive.

I have a new job!

I'm working for a nonprofit that does fitness and health activities for women cancer survivors, called Team Survivor NW. And it's a great group of women. The office is near the university and has a small staff. I'm the office manager. So I do all of the day-to-day things, manage the volunteers, and keep the office running smoothly. So far, it's fantastic. I started last week (sorry for the late posting). The only odd thing is that it's part time (25 hours/week). It pays pretty well. I'll get a second job in a few weeks if I need to.

I've recently learned how to knit. It's actually fun! I'm not very good yet. So it's only scarves for now. Soon, I'll be onto hats!

Mountain time! Brian's been gone all weekend so I headed up to one of the ski resorts on Monday to do some cross country skiing in non-wilderness. Didn't want to get stuck in an avalanche by myself.

I headed up to Snoqualmie Pass (only an hour away!). I rented skis, got a trail map, and took the lift up to the top. They have groomed trails on the ridge and I planned to do the beginner loop. I'm a beginning cross country skier. I can move forward, get a rhythm, go up little hills and stop if I need to (more or less).

My first challenge was to get off the lift with my poles, backpack, and XC skis. And not fall. Oops. Down I go.

Second challenge is to get to the beginner loop. It starts at the end of short, intermediate XC trail. Challenging for me, but I get down it.

The loop is beautiful. Almost empty, great warming hut, good views, quiet trees.

At the end of the afternoon, I decide to follow the beginner trail down the mountain instead of taking the lift back down. Starts off easy through the trees.

Then, all of a sudden, I'm on a downhill trail! With snowboarders! And skiers! I'm the only one not wearing a helmet and I'm the one who needs it. And the sign in front of me tells me that I am indeed on the correct XC trail. And it also tells me that this is a blue downhill trail. I am a beginner XC skier. Great.

This goes on for 100 yards and I quit. My butt and pride bruised, I take my skis off and decide to walk to the next easy part. It doesn't show until the very bottom. It was a nice mile-long walk down the slope. Great views and I didn't hurt myself trying to get down.

The lodge had the best hot chocolate though. Super sweet and not too hot.

I think I'll stick to snowshoes.