on memorial day...

We cherish too, the Poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led,

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies.

-moina micheal, 

who began the practice of wearing a read poppy to honor those who died serving our country

is it spring yet?

snow-covered plains

snow-sprinkled hills

snowy ground (outside my window in westchester county, new york)

the calendar says yes, but the pictures say otherwise.

the dog is in love

this is what happened when the geek put scrambled eggs in the dog's food dish...

in her excitement to get to the scrambled eggs, she planted a paw her water bowl. she left it there until she finished eating all of her eggs. i take this as evidence that the dog is madly in love with scrambled eggs. when scrambled eggs are around, nothing else matters.

2013

it may seem that i'm late to the resolution party. i probably am. so instead of a resolution, i'll just make some plans for what i hope to accomplish this year.

this is something the geek suggested i do a couple years ago. instead of focusing on changes i wanted to make, he said i should focus on what i want to do, see, and eat. the outcome was more interesting than successful...while i didn't accomplish many things from the list, i did enjoy reflecting on my optimistic plans and intentions from the start of the year.

this year, i hope to look back in amazement at how much i've accomplished. i'll cheer as i triumphantly check items off the list.

a more likely scenario would find me, at the end of the year, scratching my head and wondering what i was thinking when i wrote some of the items in the first place.

1. spend an afternoon exploring a new seattle neighborhood with the geek.
2. take a weekend trip to canada.
3. go on a hike.
4. learn to brush the dog's teeth.
5. learn to make butter mochi.
6. get out the ice cream maker and make a batch of ice cream.
7. invite friends over for a shabu shabu party.
8. cook something southern.
9. find a way to make brussel sprouts delicious.
10. sew something. anything.
11. purge my closet.
12. learn to use chopsticks with my left hand.
13. go to the zoo.
14. go to a festival.
15. curate my bookshelves.
16. decorate a wall.
17. plant a tree. or bush. or shrub.
18. read the odyssey.
19. organize the pots and pans.
20. try a new cuisine.

with only 342 days left this year, i better get to work on these right away!

foggy night

last night, we got in the car to drive to the grocery store.

when we pulled out onto the street we could barely see through the fog.

after rolling down the street, we turned around and came home.

definitely a night to stay in.

how can you tell your dog has been up to no good? #2

you come home to find your bathroom and hallway have been tp'ed. 

we've since gotten better at closing all bathroom doors before going out!

what does a 17 year old dog look like?

she looks like this!

she had a little less white in her fur a few years ago.

today is her unofficial birthday. so, how does a 17 year old dog celebrate her birthday?

she wakes up when her most favorite food magically appears, groggily steps on the plate, gobbles up the food and licks the plate clean.

happy birthday diggity dog.

happy new year too.

goodbye 2012

dear 2012,

here we are on your last day and i've been thinking about all the fun we've had. you've been a year full of grand adventures and simple moments and i'll always look back on you fondly. you were a year where i...

....went whale watching at sunrise off the coast of kona...

...rode a taxi in mumbai...

...stuffed my face with delicious food in sao paulo...

...minded my head in beijing...

some of my favorite moments though happened right here at home, like staying warm while watching the falling snow...

...taking the wonder dog for walks around the neighborhood...

...and enjoying a near-record 48 days of sunshiney goodness.

you've been a really great year, 2012. thanks.

<3, 

k.

how can you tell your dog has been up to no good? #1

you come home to find her walking around with a look of innocence on her face and the evidence of her mischief stuck to her paw.

the dog loves trash. she can't help herself. she loves to pull trash out of cans and scatter it about, searching for tasty snacks. she especially loves greeting cards, tissue, and paper towels. she's even been known to eat them off the coffee table.

we try to set her up for success. we use a tall step can in our kitchen and put all room wastebaskets up and out of her reach. 

apparently we left one on the ground, because we came home to find her obliviously sporting a baggage tag on her front paw (thank you british airways for having a really sticky adhesive).

upstairs we found a variety of tags, bags, and wrappers strewn about. and we won't even speculate on what she ate.

merry christmas

the dog graced our holiday cards this year.

while she may look happy to be sporting a bow, trust me when i say she most certainly is not. 

i have what seems like a million other photos to prove it.

{final wonder in tomato from tinyprints.com}

hello mt. rainier!

one of my favorite sights has got to be mt. rainier on a clear day. more often than not, it's hidden away, behind the pacific northwest weather- clouds, fog, rain, mist, or the like. so when mt. rainier says hello, it does so on days when the skies are clear, the sun is shining, and the city sparkles. i love those days.

the geek and i enjoyed one of those days as we drove down i-5 towards the airport. for a moment,  we got to fully appreciate the day with an unhindered view of the mountain.

unfortunately, by the time i got my camera out, our view was interrupted by semis and freeway ramps, so i never got a clear shot.

i had a window seat on my flight from seattle to dallas, so i made sure my camera was close at hand. the flight path took us past mt. rainier and i was able to get my picture after all. yay!

snow days

the forecast predicted a weekend of snow...a few inches, a white weekend, yay!

the white weekend, turned into a white week as the snow kept coming.

we haven't been able to leave the neighborhood for a little over a week. we're not complaining though. except for briefly losing power twice and a day or so of no directv, we're doing just fine.

hooray for a stocked freezer and pantry!

happy new year! happy birthday!

since the dog was adopted from an animal shelter, we don't know her actual birthday. the veterinarian lists it as january 1, 1996, so today we ring in the new year and celebrate her sweet 16!

it's hard to believe that this spunky dog is 16 years old. she still spins in circles when it's time to go for a walk and pounces after her toys like a jungle cat.

happy 2012 and happy birthday diggity dog!

the making of our chistmas card

every so often, the dog gets to be the star of our holiday card. 2011 happens to be one of those years.

plan a: take a picture of her in our new home so we can use it as a moving announcement/holiday card.

plan b: use this picture of her from the last time it snowed. hey, it's wintry and seasonal!

we tried to get a shot of her coming out the front door...

the 'i'm blinded by the seattle sunshine' shot...

we tried to get her to sit in front of our new house.

the 'i'd rather be sitting on carpet' shot...

we decided to go in a different direction after she started wandering down the block and the geek had to go after her.

we thought it might be cute to get a shot of her with her 'christmas' toy.

the playful shot...

unfortunately, her 'playing' usually consists of tug of war or thrashing the toy around...not very peaceful and holiday-ish, and very blurry given the indoor lighting.

 we finally just sat her in front of the tree and hoped for the best.

the 'whatever' shot...

the 'i don't want to be here' shot...

the blurry 'i think i see a treat' shot...

and at last, the winning shot...

merry christmas!
(and thank goodness for digital cameras!)

moving: packing for the road trip

when we decided to drive cross country for our move, the geek made it clear that he did not want the car completely stuffed. that made sense considering we would have to unpack/repack everyday as we moved on to the next hotel. since the dog was coming with us, we also wanted to leave most of the backseat open for her. that basically left us with the trunk and the foot area in the back.

our goal was to bring what we needed for the trip and for our first few days at the new house (just until our stuff arrived). here's what we brought with us...

moving: lessons learned

things i'm glad we did...

• hired professionals to load and unload our pod. it was way cheaper than the quote we received for a full-service move. (despite needing an extra pod...see below)
• ordered our bedroom furniture before we moved. we verified the measurements against the room dimensions prior to ordering and the furniture arrived within our first week in the house.

things i wish i knew before we moved...

• once the dining room table is gone, you will probably walk into the hanging light fixture. it hurts. put a chair under the light fixture to spare yourself the headache.
• hold on to those 'donate' dishes until right before you move...in our overzealous-ness to purge, we gave away our random dishes too early. once our boxes were packed, we had to use paper goods. sorry earth.
• if a large moving pod holds "3 rooms' worth" of stuff, one of those rooms is probably the bathroom. our two bedroom townhouse required about one and a half pods (and that's without the master bedroom furniture).
• pulling out a refrigerator will most likely dent your hardwood floors; put down cardboard first.
• when packing your keurig coffee system, make sure the internal (not just the external) reservoir is empty OR be sure to keep the machine upright during transit or you'll flood the little display screen.
• if you've never owned/maintained a lawn, ask for advice before you mow and do permanent damage to your yard (it's probably a good thing that our yard is tiny).

moving: the dog factor

the decision to drive cross-country came down to this: would the dog be able to travel with us?

when the geek and i got married, i called her my part-time pet because although she primarily stayed with us, officially she was the geek's family's pet. after years of having her with us though, we couldn't imaging moving without her.

we knew that flying would not be an option for the dog...not only is she old, but she's flown cross-country once and it did not go well. we decided to ask the vet for a recommendation. if a cross-country road trip would prove too stressful, the dog would stay with the geek's parents. if the vet deemed her fit for travel, we would drive cross-country.

not only did the vet declare the dog able to travel, the vet recommended the dog move with us. the vet felt it would be more stressful for the dog to be separated from us after living with us for years.

to prepare for the roadtrip, we had to solve the backseat problem. you see, the dog is not a fan of the car's backseat. she doesn't like the leather and she really does not like the shape of it. while it may be contoured for a passenger's behind, it makes for an uneven surface for the dog to lie on. unless we had a towel down, she never seems comfortable- continuously sitting and standing and stomping around.


we ended up getting a doggie car seat cover and strategically placing folded towels to level out the backseat. considering she slept most of the trip, i'd say we successfully solved that problem.

in addition to the seat cover, we also invested in a food vault. this was more to spare us from having to smell the dog's food than from protecting the food from the dog. we kept a sandwich size gladware of food and a small gladware that could be filled with water in the car for in-transit meals. we used larger gladware for food and water in the motel rooms.

prior to leaving, we refilled all the dog's prescriptions and got a copy of her medical file from the vet.

since we planned to stay in economy motels, we got the dog a small travel bed that was machine washable. it was convenient because once folded in half and buckled, it took up a lot less space than the dog's normal poofy, cushy bed. she liked the travel bed enough; however, it could not compete with her normal bed. she was a happy pup when the moving containers arrived with her bed.

here they are, reunited. it doesn't matter that she's in a strange house. or that there are boxes everywhere. she has her bed back, and life is good.

(not sure why the carpet looks pink...)

moving: cross-country roadtrip!

this is our packed car, recently serviced and ready to go. look at how sparkly and clean it is!

the geek, the dog, and i left raleigh, north carolina on a rainy tuesday. six days, 2900 miles, countless tolls, and 4 audiobooks later, we arrived at our new home. 

the dog was probably the most comfortable one in the car. while the geek and i took turns driving, the dog snoozed in the backseat, occasionally waking to eat, drink, or explore a rest stop.

a google map of our trip:

day 1: raleigh to dayton, ohio via west virginia

since we were traveling with the dog, we stayed at pet friendly hotels. while a number of hotels are pet friendly, most charge a fee. having just made a down payment on a house, we decided to stick to places where pets stayed free...motel 6 and red roof inn.

when we arrived at our first motel, we were informed that we would not have any hot water. yay! the ceiling paint was falling down...no problem! the towels were tiny, no biggie, it was $35 a night! we were only on our first day of travel, so we were still optimistic and enthusiastic (and remember, pets stay free!). the geek took pity on me and got me a good bbq dinner from company 7 bbq. it was delicious and left me with an overall positive impression of dayton/englewood, ohio.

day 2: dayton, ohio to madison, wisconsin via indiana and illinois

in indiana, we saw the longest trailer ever. it had police escorts that completely stopped traffic so that it could use multiple lanes to navigate the bends in the road. luckily, we were able to get ahead if it between traffic stops.

illinois = tolls. it felt like every 20 feet, we'd stop to pay another toll. i was afraid we'd run out of coins and small bills before we left the state. 

in madison, we stayed at a red roof inn. dog-wise, the motels worked out well. we were usually able to get rooms with outside entrances, on the first floor, near the ends of buildings. probably not the safest for a single traveler, but ideal for people with a dog like ours.

day 3: madison, wisconsin to fargo, north dakota via minnesota

we stopped in minneapolis for lunch with a friend at joe's garage, a great restaurant that was known for it's dog-friendly atmosphere. unfortunately the dog was not in a friendly mood despite getting her own little water bowl. :( she had to take a time-out in the park. apparently, her little hissy fit tired her out, because as soon as we were back on the road, she zonked out.

day 4: fargo, north dakota to billings, montana

see the smudges in the pictures? those bugs splats are starting to get really noticable. :P

it was pretty bizarre to plot our drive for the day and see that our next turn was in 606 miles. i don't think i've ever driven that far on a single road. we've been stopping every 2.5 to 3 hours to take turns driving. so far that's been working out well. the dog tends to sleep while we drive, so at the rest stops, she gets to run around, eat, drink, and do her business. the most scenic stop on the trip was the painted canyon lookout near the theodore roosevelt national park in north dakota.

best quote of the day (spoken by a girl upon seeing the dog): "Is that a dog or a bear?"

due to the scenery, this was probably the busiest rest stop we visited. as a result, it's the rest stop that the dog got the most pets and love from other travelers.

day 5: billings, montana to spokane, washington

in billings, we stayed in a motel 6 that was directly across the street from a motel 6. who knew there was such a demand for motels in that part of billings!

the dog's least favorite rest stop was in montana. the designated 'pet area' had a bunch of prickly spurs in the grass that poked her paws. :( she typically does not like her paws touched, but she was very sweet and accommodating as we checked them to make sure all the spurs were removed.

day 6: spokane, washington to our new home

this was our shortest day of driving, so we aimed to get on the road by 9. we were so excited though, that by 7:30, we were packed up and heading west. i had forgotten how flat eastern washington was. we drove along fields, reading signs that told us what crop was planted there...alfalfa, corn, sunflowers, potatoes (might have made that one up). the columbia river gorge was even prettier than i remembered it. i was probably annoyingly giddy all day long.

when we arrived at the house, the dog promptly investigated everywhere, decided that she was not a fan of the hardwood floors, found her bed, and went to sleep.

warning: kinda gross picture. this is what the front of our car looked like by the time we reached our final destination. :P 

sorry to the bugs that crossed our path.