A view from the top

Last week I got to finally get out of the Seattle airport and actually get to the tourist spots that I've always wanted to. We had a meeting in Bellevue and needed to arrive the night before, so I decided to take advantage of the 8 hours I had in my PTO and take the day to see the sights of Seattle. I've been through the airport many of times, but this was the first time I've seen it from the ground.
I rented a car and turned down the GPS thinking I have it on my phone and plenty of maps (bad idea). First, I got lost just in the rental car parking lot, as they just generally point you up a floor and then when I got on the right floor of the garage, I didn't find the Avis section. Then once in the car I followed another rental car and somehow missed the exit sign from the garage and ended up in the section where they wash the rental cars and had to pull a U-turn while several other lost rentals followed me around. Once out of the parking garage it got much easier.

Famous Pike Place Market

I made it downtown quickly, luckily it was a drizzly Tuesday afternoon, so not a lot of traffic. I guess I didn't realize Seattle was a bit hilly, luckily I had an automatic and made my way down to the Pike Place Market. I found parking pretty easy for only $4 an hour. Now I've only seen Pike's Place on TV and you know when you see something or a celebrity in reality and you think Oh really that's it, well that was my thought. First I thought it was like Pier 39 and right on the water, it's not. It's actually elevated as Seattle is a bit more hilly than I thought. Another similarity to San Francisco is that the market is filled with lots of over priced vendors hawking their goods, from of course fish to olive oil and candles. Unfortunately as it was the middle of the week there wasn't much activity going on and they weren't throwing fish around so I only ended up staying for a half hour, before heading over to the Space Needle.

Famous Pike Place Fish
(where they usually are throwing the fish, but not today)

I found my way to the Needle as luckily it's an easy landmark. Again it wasn't crowded at all and I was the only one in the elevator to the top. I'm sure if it wasn't overcast and drizzly the view would have been a lot better, but again I only there about half hour. I did go out into the rain to get better pictures than all those standing inside the glass and taking family photos from the inside. I'm just glad it wasn't really windy as I don't think I would like to be up that high with strong winds. And not to sound like I didn't enjoy the view or anything, but I think the one in Vegas might have a better view, at least at night. But it was worth seeing and would do it again on a sunnier day.

Space Needle (like you really needed that caption)
View of Downtown Seattle
View of Bellevue across the water

View from the bottom

The Music Experience at the Needle Park

Monorail to the Space Needle

After that I decided to drive to a little park I read about online that gives great views of the downtown and Space Needle. So I found what I thought was an easy route to Kerry Park, but no this is where that GPS would have come in handy as I spent 40 minutes driving in the wrong direction, down dead end streets and probably causing many people to curse my driving as I would stop in the middle of a green light to try to find out where the hell I was. And then again when I finally did find the park, a little disappointed with the view as the overcast skies covered up the pretty snow covered mountains in the back and made everything look gray. But I was happy I actually found it as I would have wondered what I missed out if I didn't.

Views from Kerry Park

Luckily from the park it was easy to find my way into Bellevue as I knew now what streets to avoid. The next day all my sight seeing paid off as I knew all the trivia questions that were given at the meeting. I also got a compliment from the locals for being able to find Kerry Park.
I definitely think I could enjoy Seattle more if I had a navigator and it wasn't so dreary (but than again it is Seattle). Maybe I'll try going back during summer and see it all in it's splendor and maybe even buy a cup of Starbucks from the first one off Pike Place (that was on the quiz).

Book Review

Ok, I know it's been awhile since I wrote on my blog. What can I say I got lazy, haven't been cooking, taking photos or anything much but spending my weekends on the couch watching a lot of CSI and Law & Order marathons (thank god there is only about 100,000 different episodes for me to watch). Also with the weather being rather gloomy for the past month, it's been part of the reason I've spent the last month or so on the couch. And of course the only weekend we seemed to have gotten any decent weather I spent it pulling the 1/4 acre of weeds that have appeared on my yard over winter and suffering from sore hamstrings and back muscles.
But I have kept up with my reading. As usual the gift card I got for Christmas didn't even last a full week in my wallet. I promptly went to Borders and roamed the aisles for about an hour trying to decide which books where worthy of my gift card. I finally settled on one that I've been wondering about for a while and one I've come across in a magazine as a suggestion.

Let's first review the Happiness Project. It was coming up on the New Year, a good time for reflection and new attitudes. I saw several reviews in a couple magazines about this book and then did a bit more reviews searching on Amazon. There were mixed feelings on the book, some thought it was genius, others thought it was to simple and obvious. I tend to agree with the latter. It's not that the book wasn't a quick read, but it wasn't something that was going to rock my world and make me think how can I be more happy. I think most of you who know me would already agree I'm a happy person (some would say too happy), but hey there is always room for improvement and there are always aspects of my life I would wish to improve. I looked at this book as an inspiration to make me come up with my own list and find ways to be "happier".
Now the book is a quick easy read, maybe because sometimes I found myself skipping ahead avoiding the pages filled from her blog. If I wanted to see what was on her blog and what people responded to I would just read her blog and not buy a book. She divided the book into 12 Chapters, one for each month of the year with a new set of goals to becoming happier. Most of these goals seemed fairly obvious and actually quite boring. Example: First Chapter January - Boost Energy. Her goals to do this go to sleep earlier, exercise better, toss, restore, organize, tackle a nagging task and act more energetic. Hummm, that seems simple enough and not something I should pay $19.99 for.
I think this book might be more useful to someone who is maybe say a mother of young children and working who need to find time to step back and take care of themselves. But for me I found the ideas nothing new, but the overall message was good. I mean who doesn't want to be happier?

Ok, next book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I've seen this book more than I can count in Borders and have been drawn to it, but since I try not to read a lot of fiction unless it's been recommended or passed on by someone else. But I figured this was a gift card to me to buy something I probably wouldn't normally buy myself so I figured why not, it's gotten a lot of good hype and looks interesting. If I'm going to read fiction it's usually a mystery book (I guess that is the same with TV shows; Lost, CSI, Law & Order seeing a pattern here...)
Before even getting into the book I read that the author Stieg Larson had passed away shortly after finishing the 3rd novel in the series (oh I LOVE series), so this intrigues me even more.
The book starts a bit slow with a lot of information regarding Swedish money. Now I don't really know why it does, but once you get passed it the book picks up pace. It quickly jumps back and forth between two characters who will eventually get intertwined in the story. Now I won't give away anything in the book itself in terms of the story, but I stayed up many nights pass my usual hour read in bed to see what would happen in the next chapter. Then somewhere along the second half of the book it takes a very dark turn I wasn't expecting. I know mysteries usually are very dark at some point, but this book took it to a different level. All the sudden I felt a bit like I was seeing the movie Hard Candy in my head while I read (now if you haven't seen the movie, it's a very, very dark, sick movie with quite the twist).
After this one particular chapter it's obvious this isn't your normal hunt down a killer from the past story. It had some really good twist in the book, but it was sort of hard to get pass all the incest, torture, rape and murder of young girls. In the end I felt a little dirty for even finishing the book. It's definitely one that stays with you after you put it down, especially if you are trying to go to sleep right after it. But I think the thing that disturbed me most was the brief excerpt to the next book in the series, The Girl Who Plays With Fire. Again it opens with the kidnap and torture of a young girl of 13. Now I see where he is trying to create this character Lisabeth Salander, but I'm not sure I want to read another book with the rape, torture and murder of young girls.
So reader be warned and I'll be spending my next gift card on a couple of lighter subjects that I picked out while searching for these books: Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog and the Recipe Club.

Well Christmas day fun came and went as fast as this last year has. The holiday started on Christmas Eve where I spent 4 hours wrapping presents that took less than 2 hours to actual destroy while watching the hangover (too damn funny ) and A Christmas Carol (a classic). My mom came down the night before and we took the dogs for their annual Christmas lights tour of the Fab 40s, so on Christmas Eve I was preparing to make my desserts for the big day.
As I gathered all the ingredients out to start baking I noticed I was missing something quite important for my Chocolate Ricotta Tart - the ricotta cheese. Apparently the grocery store did not feel the need to put it in my grocery bag after I paid for it. So here I was on Christmas Eve at 8pm (I know I should have started it earlier) without ingredients to make my dessert. Luckily I had a back up dessert to make but unfortunately it wasn't chocolate like what was requested by the family. So I decided to improvise and combo both desserts into one - Chocolate Cheesecake.
Christmas morning started off with the dogs opening their gifts and playing with them for about a half hour before falling back asleep on the couch and looking bored as usual.

Charlie enjoys his chew toy

Maggie enjoys her dental toy (hoping it helps her breath)
Charlie fast asleep on the couch
Maggie bored with her toys already

I gathered my famous shredded cheesy potatoes dish (recipe below) and my 5 pound chocolate cheesecake and all the presents to head up the hill to my sister's. I arrived right on time and surprisingly my sister wasn't in the shower and actually had appetizers out (OK, probably because mom actually brought the appetizers). The living room quickly filled up with presents, even though this year was supposed to be low-key.
Jasmine was already playing with her newest toy, Wii Fit. I figured I wanted to try it but didn't know the damn game was going to end up insulting me. According to the game I'm considered obese and quickly made into a fat little Wii person. I no longer wanted to play. I did try a quick game of snowboarding before my person ended up crying in the snow because I was so bad. Luckily it was time to open presents.
The few hours it took to open the presents was mostly drama free. We of course had a few unmarked presents from grandma but luckily since they are always wrapped in bags themed for another season it's easy to know who they are from. Fonda didn't get her yearly black sweater but now was upgraded to Christmas kitten sweatshirt from Grandma (her sweatshirt matched the sweatshirt Grandma was wearing that day, lucky girl). Mom got a like a little jacket that probably was made in the 80s (it included shoulder pads) and so small it wouldn't even fit Jasmine. Dad and I got into a giggle fit over this gift as we weren't quite sure how grandma thought it would one fit mom or that second she would need a cropped business jacket for the job she doesn't have..... So as you can imagine I was quite nervous when it came time for me to open my gift from her, luckily I got new set of dishtowels and a periwinkle turtleneck, compared to years past this was a good thing. Jasmine got more games for the Wii including another guitar and a quilt my mom knitted for her.

Jasmine gets Band Hero for Wii which will be played all night
Dad gets some framed photos of 3 beautiful girls!!!
Jasmine's new quilt
Fonda's new matching kitten sweatshirt
Our annual stairway photo
Dad, Cindy and Jasmine showing some Christmas cheer
Fonda and Jasmine looking like Santa's helpers

After the hours of unwrapping, oohhh, aahhhs and THANK YOUs it was dinner time. Cindy cooked a yummy tender Tri-Tip, mom made her yams with marshmellows, my potatoes and Fonda's green bean casserole and grilled zucchini. Of course we can't forget Cindy's famous onion bread. Everything turned out delicious and i was good not to over stuff myself as I knew there was a game of Band Hero ahead of of me and didn't want to get a side cramp.... Jasmine and I quickly started a long marathon of Band Hero and finally got someone other than Fonda to sing. Grandma pushed her store bought sugar cookies on everyone right after dinner and my cheesecake was forgotten until almost the end of the day, just meant more left overs for me.... All in all it was a good day with lots of family fun. I look forward to challenging Jasmine to more Band Hero at New Years Eve, where hopefully we can talk my mom into singing otherwise it means more tone deaf Fonda!!!!

Cindy, Jasmine and I rock Band Hero

Wanda's Potatoes Recipe
(don't know who Wanda was as this is a recipe passed onto me from someone else)

1 pkg frozen shredded potatoes
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/4 cup of butter
1 pt of sour cream
1/3 cup of chopped onion
1 cup of shredded cheese

Heat oven to 350. In a large saucepan melt butter and stir in cream of chicken soup. Add in sour cream, cheese and onion, stir in frozen potatoes. Make sure all the potatoes are covered with the mixture. Pour mixture into a buttered dish (I find a shallow cake pan works best). Top with extra cheese (or corn flakes mixed with melted butter for added crush). Bake for 45 mins.

Seeing Red

As we draw closer to the Christmas deadline, I ventured out into the crowded territory known as Target on Arden and Fulton. Whenever I know it's going to be super crowded in the parking lot I usually end up parking closer to the garden center as it's always less crowded there. As usual I was right. I got in and out in no problem, even spending under $40 for last minute supplies.

I then pushed my luck and went to Cost Plus. That's where the real damage began. First I spent a good hour wandering the store wondering should I get this or that, even though all my Christmas shopping has been done and looking for a box for a gift. Instead I end up spending close to $50 in there. While trying to pull out of my spot a HUGE truck decides to squeeze into the compact spot next to me, leaving me little room for error. It's times like today in the parking lots where I was cut off 3 times by people who then in return gave me dirty looks when I tried to remind them it was my turn and parking so close that you have to get in your car through the passenger door that you just want a big piece of crap car to just run into other people and not care. But I finally made it home to unpack, eat lunch and then make some cupcakes for the potluck tomorrow at work.
Now I've never made Red Velvet cake mix before and after today not really sure I will again. I've heard many people tell me it's their favorite, but I think this was the first time ever that I didn't lick the bowl clean. It looked like a bloody mess and that just isn't appetizing. Plus it doesn't really taste like chocolate or anything else. It's its own unique taste, one that I didn't really care for. But haven't topping it with cream cheese frosting and cake sprinkles it had more of an appeal. I'll bring as many as I can fit into the cake tin to work and the other to my neighbors, thanks to these handy little boxes I found at Cost Plus.

I think it also didn't help today that I dyed my hair Egyptian Plum and when rising it in the sink looks like I was trying to commit suicide instead and filled the bowl with blood red water. Even though it turned out like I wanted (dark brown burgundy) I think I will stick with color and taste I know, like Dark Brown haircolor and Devil Food's cake mix.