Yikes!!  I’m freaking old.  My birthday has come and gone and brought good times with good friends.  I enjoy my birthday because I enjoy spending time with friends and family but my birthday stresses me out too so in a way I always exhale when it is over.  And that I did because the weekend was a bit of a whirlwind.

Friday night Bryan and I started the indulgent weekend out with burgers at 8Oz Burger Bar.  We split two kinds of burgers and they were both just about the best burger I’ve ever eaten.  We picked up ice cream from Bluebird on our walk home from Capitol Hill and we bought a couple of books at the Elliott Bay Bookstore.  I also got my nails done and a facial Friday afternoon after work so I was half purdy and half rosy-faced.

Saturday was the big day and both Bryan and I were busy right up until 4 pm.  Bryan had his men’s group at church which was fine because I wanted to use my free barre class at the Bar Method in South Lake Union before going to get my hair cut.  Class was good and it was a beautiful sunny day for riding around to get errands done.  My hair cut took forever per usual and I came out a shade darker than going in.  Still getting to used to it and still really mixed about the color.  I picked up Starbucks on my way home for lunch and was greeted by the smell of my birthday cake and my lovely husband.  I prepped some dishes for the night’s party while Bryan went off to Lowe’s to pick up a firepit for our backyard.  We finished up with prep before heading to South Lake Union to pick up our hot tub boat.  Bryan, Philipp, Mark, Stephan and Ewelina joined me for a two-hour ride on South Lake Union in a hot tub, in a boat.  It was pretty fantastic.  The sun was out, the sunset, stopping for brewskis and chips at the market on the lake, listening to jams on the bluetooth speakers and really being the only people out on the lake.

Hot tub boat crew

The view on the way back

Our captain

After our two hours were up we headed back to our house to light up the grill and wait for the rest of the friends to come over.  We had a solid group come over for some snacks, drinks and my birthday cake.  We enjoyed both the indoor and outdoor fireplaces and our last guests left just after midnight.

Sunday morning we headed to church for a super short service so I was able to make it to the 11:15 am soccer game just a tad bit late.  It was a gorgeous day and we had subs playing that were faster and more skilled and a bunch of fun to play with.  After my game we relaxed for a bit before packing an overnight bag and heading to Issaquah for a mystery shop at the Hilton.  We checked into the hotel and then set out to Snoqualmie Falls.  Neither of us had ever been so we did the 1.4 mile round trip “hike” to see the 250 foot drop of the falls from both the top and bottom.  After our hike we had dinner reservations at the Salish Lodge for their restaurant week menu.  The Salish Lodge is known as the lodge from the 90s show Twin Peaks.  We got a window-side table and enjoyed three courses of food along with three courses of wines paired with each dish.  Together we got the spot prawn bisque with imperial rice, the beet carpaccio salad, the braised short ribs with parsnip puree and sweet potato gratin, the steelhead with roasted brussel sprouts and fingerling potatoes, and the squash panna cotta and molten chocolate cake.  The food was good, not amazing, but definitely worth the $30 experience and the wines paired with them were actually fantastic!  Leaving dinner stuffed we had plans to enjoy the hot tub at the hotel but instead decided to chill out in bed.  We got a solid 9 hours of sleep that night, sleeping in and enjoying the hotel’s made to order omelets in the morning before each heading to work.

The celebration has continued this week with lunch with the girls at work for sushi on Tuesday and the monthly October birthday cookies in the office also on Tuesday.  But I think the celebrations have finally come to an end.  Next up is Halloween!

And Happy Birthday to my grandma!!

Chelsea

Not really meant to be funny because lately I have felt the most incapable of meeting and keeping female friends in Seattle.  It’s entirely frustrating and for some reason the most noticeable to me this time of year.  Maybe it is because people, like ourselves, are more tempted to begin to hibernate and seeing anyone becomes less natural and more of a challenge.  Then you compound that basic nature of humans with the fact that it is football season and for whatever reason, my girlfriends in Seattle don’t give two hoots about football, which puts me one step into the male bracket.  Then there is the obviousness of the fact that I work with a good majority of men.  Fortunately, my surrounding office-mates are female which helps a smidge but when you tend to be more in a formal, businesslike mindset during the work day, you still FEEL like you are working with only men.  So then, when your lovely husband plans a hot tub boat party for you on your birthday, the only people to agree to boat are all guys.  Nothing wrong with that unless you want to come across as some floozy celebrating her birthday in a hot tub with a bunch of guys.  Thankfully we do have one lady coming so I fell one million times better about the guest list.

But, it’s true that I have felt very alone in this city without girls to hang out with and talk to.  Some have had serious injuries that have prohibited them from hanging out, some have had mental/emotional slips that are nearly friendship-ruining instances, some have had babies, and some are just always too busy or too flustered for me to either schedule something with them or I feel like doing so would not actually allow me the outlet and release that I need.  It’s something I’ve talked to Bryan about at times but to anyone else.

…And then the clouds parted and I could see the light.  I joined a women-only life group through church with the greatest of apprehension and nerves because of how life groups like these with women have gone for me in the past.  I had low expectations and was floored that it could actually be a big step in moving forward to finding women of similar interests and faith as well as not have to deal with the scheduling nightmare of making time to spend with one another, AND they were genuine, interesting, and also women who have struggled making friendships themselves in this introverted city.  I was overjoyed!

I should have not worried at all, but alas, that is not my strongest suit. The pastor’s wife, Sue, is leading the group and she is one of the easiest, welcoming, sassy women that I have met (not at all unlike my own mom, Sue).  She’s relaxed, she’s fun, and she owns a yoga studio.  So for our 90 minutes we girl-chatted (this should be a dictionary word), ate popcorn and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, drank pumpkin spiced tea, and then did about 40 minutes of yoga stretching that left me feeling totally at ease and grateful.  I used to admit that yoga was my church; the one way that I could actually feel myself surrender to something outside of myself and let my mind and my spirit rest and recover.  There were seven of us girls on this particular night and I’d say half were younger than me and half older.  Three are parents, five married, all active and intelligent, and most all of us transplants.  And not only transplants; we had one from Minneapolis, one from Columbus, and one from Idaho but whose mom graduated from East Lansing High School.  I felt so in common with these other girls.  I honestly can’t wait for next week and can’t wait to begin reading Present Over Perfect, authored by a woman from Michigan even.

And my shared message this week from Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not onto your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path.”  I did that.

Chelsea

Tough weekend for my teams.

1. Michigan loss to Michigan State
2. Bryan and Chelsea loss in tennis
3. Chelsea’s soccer team loss
4. Fantasy Football team loss (nail biter)

So apparently instead of getting better at winning I’m getting better at being a “good sport”.  My luck has definitely turned it seems but oh well.  At least the Seahawks and Texas won for us.  Aside from losses in sports Bryan and I have continued to enjoy the early fall weeks.  Last week we enjoyed a hilarious rendition of Pride and Prejudice at the Seattle Rep with Polly and Ryuhei.  We got drinks and dinner with them at the Tin Lizzie Lounge beforehand and enjoyed the 2.5 hour show from beginning to end.  We got clobbered in tennis on Wednesday but fortunately the misery only lasted an hour and we were soon happy and laughing over a great meal at Eastlake Bar and Grill, lakeside views at Oktoberfest dinner specials.

Thursday was a slow but chaotic and absolutely delicious night at FareStart with the Cafe Vita All Star group of chefs.  Short ribs, pork loin salad, and an apple rosemary galette to welcome fall.  We spent Friday and Saturday night not doing much at all.  We did watch The Big Sick which was incredibly good and a bit emotionally overwhelming (but in a good way).  And we also started watching Glow on Netflix which is very enjoyable…and then we decided that we need to take a break from TV.  Thus….

1. TV moved back to the workout room from the bedroom.
2. We spent Sunday afternoon going through some clutter and messes in the house (Bryan worked miracles on the workout room while I went through odds and ends that had piled up around the house)
3. We vowed to actually start reading before bed on some nights
4. We are gearing up on a new activity and exercise kick

The weekend ended quite wonderfully.  I finally got a win with the Seahawks which lifted my mood.  I played a fun soccer game but do now have a ginger and bruised ankle.  And Bryan and I enjoyed a visit to the newest Din Tai Fung in the Pacific Place mystery shopping.  Dumplings always ALWAYS make me happy.

Back to work for a week of Quality Control (aka mind-numbing tasks that annoy me so).  And the rain is supposed to start tomorrow to be here for some time so I’m less than thrilled about that.  Anyways, here’s to a good week.

Chelsea

It certainly has felt like fall here for some time now; the leaves are changing all over our neighborhood, the air is crisp although we are still managing to have some sunshiny days, and pumpkin spice everything is in full effect.  We are reconnecting with friends we haven’t seen much all summer long and we actually turned the fireplace on one night.

After a few nights last week of Bryan and I splitting ways to catch up with some friends, we had the WHOLE weekend just the two of us.  We started with some tennis drills, drills, drills to Bryan’s eagerness.  We played at Volunteer Park Friday night after work and it was actually really enjoyable if I do say so myself.  We came back home and tried the first of three meals from the new-to-us home delivery service, Home Chef.  On Friday night’s menu we had delicious steaks with demi glace, green beans and these fun yorkshire puddings (popovers in my opinion).  This all went down well with a good glass of Novelty Hill Malbec.

Saturday morning Bryan went to the church’s men’s group before returning home to make us our banana pancakes and bacon.  Neither of our football team’s were playing this weekend but we still found ourselves watching football a good portion of the day.  It had been forecasting rain all day for Seattle but the skies were blue and clear until about 3 pm so we took the opportunity to go for our favorite run:  Lake Washington Boulevard and Seward Park.  We ran the opposite direction so that after our 6.5 mile run we could play some tennis at Seward Park.  We hit some atrocious balls for about 15 minutes, fatigued from our run, before it started to downpour, something that rarely happens in Seattle.  Our whole drive home was fun in the rain; Bryan with his window down and arm hanging out the window.  Saturday night we made our second Home Chef box.  This time featured simple seared chicken with tzatziki sauce and harissa-roasted cauliflower.  Good dish but Bryan liked my homemade salad addition the most.

And to round out a rather uneventful weekend we had a mildly eventful Sunday.  We got to church nearly on time for a guest pastor’s fantastic service.  We then scooted downtown to find Bryan three new pairs of dress pants at Macy’s that had Bryan sweating by the end of shopping.  Boys!?!  We then stopped into McMenamin’s Six Arms Pub in Capitol Hill for what was a great lunch a la mystery shopping before heading home for about an hour before we dressed up and headed out on foot to the Convention Center for the annual FareStart Gala that despite being scheduled during a home Seahawk’s game (horrible mistake) still managed to raise $1.7 Million.  Pretty remarkable!  Bryan and my contribution to the gala was selling some blinky rings for the golden raffle ticket which meant that we mainly stood, smiled, and chatted with all of the FareStart guests we know while donning as many blinky rings ourselves as we could.  When our shift was over we sampled all of the fantastic appetizers, dined on the volunteer’s dinner in the break room, and then headed to the new Redhook Brewpub in Capitol Hill, on our way home, to catch the 2nd half of the Seahawk’s win over the Colts.

Me and my rings and balloon.

Bryan leaving me with everything.

And Monday was a win in the books for Chelsea’s Fantasy team (amen!).  It was a nail-biter but my team pulled it through to win by 4 points.  I did a little victory dance to celebrate (but the blog won’t allow me to post it).  We concluded our first Home Chef box with a delightfully simple dinner of parmesan panko baked salmon with an arugula and tomato salad.

Low key fall weekend if I do say so myself.  I can’t believe it is already October!

Chelsea