little black journal

After our low-key but just-right 2010 Valentines Day, spent eating cereal for dinner while watching Project Runway episodes, Shane decided to put aside our home-body-ish, old couple-ish tendencies and make reservations for us at a cozy little Seattle bistrot.  Cafe Campagne is our little slice of Paris in the Pacific Northwest, and though it lacks French-speaking waiters and a view of the Seine, it still ranks pretty high on the romance-o-meter.  We were seated at a little candle-lit table at the back of the restaurant, handed a wine list and a menu, and the rest is a euphoric blur of rich foods, bubbly champagne, and great conversation.  There was escargot, there was Chevre-topped salad, coq au vin, creme brulee, espresso, oh. mon. Dieu.  And there was talking, about travel and friends and the prospects for the 2011 Giants.  It was perfection.  So, Happy Valentine’s Day, Mr. Schnell.  Je t’aime de tout mon couer.

We returned this afternoon from a super-quick trip to Portland, to spend some time with family and pick up a couple of things at West Elm for our new dining room.  Our time there was short, but it was so good to catch up with my brother and sister-in-law, and dote on the darling nieces.  Morgan is 6 weeks old, and much changed since we saw her at Christmas.  She’s looking around a lot now, loves to be held and cuddled, and looks like a perfect little angel when she sleeps.  I spent much of last night and this morning with her tucked into my arms – I am decidedly in love with this little girl.

Elise is also changing with each passing month, becoming more independent and coming into her own as a grown-up little girl (where did my baby niece go???  sigh…).  Favorites include cartoons, cream cheese (I discovered at breakfast this morning that the bagel is only there as a surface for the cream cheese to be scraped off of), and living room blanket forts.  It took her longer than usual to warm up to us this time around, but Uncle Shane was able to wriggle his way into her good graces this morning, with a ride down the playground slide.

It’s so hard to say good-bye to these little girls each time we leave, knowing that they will be growing and changing so much between visits. But then again, it’s ok – I have visions of taking Elise shopping someday, instilling in her my appreciation for a good deal and comfortable pair of heels, working on art projects with Morgan, smearing paint on canvases together while we chat about school or family or her favorite books and TV shows, and having the girls up to Seattle for a sleepover with their Auntie.  So I can look forward to that, deal with the changes, and revel in the amazing little people that they are quickly becoming.

I have come to believe that three-day weekends should be the new standard (as opposed to the one-day weekends I’ve been having for the past month or so).  And so I took today off as a post-deadline stress-detox kind of day, to get some rest and catch up on a few to-do’s.  And it was lovely.  I started the day off with a solid workout, came home just in time for an appointment to have our windows measured for blinds (part of our dining room makeover), got our dinner into the crock pot, cleaned up the house a bit, made myself a yummy-but-healthy lunch, and then had every intention to continue my productive streak by painting the dining room and attacking the mound of laundry that has begun to crawl out of our closet.  But then I sat down on the couch, and sitting turned into laying, and laying turned into napping, and I figured I’d had just about enough ‘to-do’-ing for one day.  There’s no shame in some hard-earned relaxation.  I rolled off the couch mid-afternoon and realized I still hadn’t had my celebratory day-off latte, so I got in the car and made the trek up to Queen Anne to check out Le Reve – a French bakery that I’ve heard some buzz about and wanted to check out.  I can’t give this place a solid two thumbs up, since I’m not a fan of their ‘no laptop’ policy, and my eclair was served more chilled than I like it, but nonetheless, with my book, my coffee, and the knowledge that on any other typical Friday afternoon I’d be plugging away at the office, I couldn’t complain.

Ten minutes after getting back to the house, Shane called me from his way home and asked if I wanted to meet him for a drink at St. Dames – a neighborhood joint that recently opened and shows definite promise as our personal ‘Cheers’.  I have already taken a liking to both their head server/owner and their Happy Hour Cabernet, and it’s exciting to have a cozy joint like this one just two blocks away from our house.

We ended the day with a rousing game of Settlers with Jason and Nance.  Once I was able to tame my losing-and-bitter-about-it attitude, the night ended up being lots of fun, with plenty of laughs and homemade cake and the joy of just chillin’ out with good friends on a Friday night.

It was a great day.  And the best part?  The weekend has just begun…

When Shane and I moved into our house nearly four years ago, I was quick to slap some paint on the walls and scatter them with photos and artwork, overjoyed to have a place where we didn’t have to answer to a landlord.  For the most part, we’ve been pretty happy with the decorating decisions we made in the midst of our new-homeowner eagerness.  But now I find myself getting a bit antsy, ready for a refresh.  With very minimal arm-twisting, Shane has jumped on board, and we’ve decided to to tackle our little dining nook.  I no longer love the light green color of the walls, our old rectangular dining table has never fit quite right in the space, and the rug isn’t large enough for four chairs to rest on it.

So we’re doing a wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling update (a belated Christmas gift to each other), with a new table, new chairs, a new rug, new paint, new window coverings, and new artwork.  Whew!  Thankfully, it’s only a 9′ x 9′ space, so this can all be accomplished with relatively minimal time and money.  I’ve been scouring our favorite furniture stores for a round dining table and new chairs, I’ve ordered a slew of rug samples from FLOR, and have tacked several paint chips on the walls.  Here’s what we’re thinkin’…

table: Grace dining table from West Elm;  chairs: Klismos dining chairs from West Elm or Norvald dining chairs from IKEA;  rug: Feelin’ Groovy tiles in Earthen from FLOR;  paint color: October Bronze by Valspar;  accessories: Liquid Organic serving bowl from CB2 and White Wall Clock from West Elm;  artwork: ’Porto’ by yours truly…

‘After’ photo coming soon!

I woke up this morning feeling a little antsy, so I turned to Shane over our breakfast and said, “Let’s have an adventure today.”  Now, considering our January routine of hunkering down inside on the weekends, spending Saturdays napping, reading, and watching football, even a walk around a block could be deemed an ‘adventure’.  It being our month of frugality and all, with no non-essential spending allowed, we haven’t made it out of the house a whole lot.  So we threw around a list of ‘free dates’ and decided to drive 15 minutes south of our house to check out Kubota Garden – a Japanese garden we’ve been meaning to visit since we first heard some friends talk about it a couple of years ago.  I had my thermos of hot tea in hand, my coziest scarf wound around my neck, and we were off!  I was thrilled (seriously, if you knew how many hours I’ve spent on the couch over the last couple of weeks, you would think I had a case of either agoraphobia or mono).  The second we got in the car, it started to rain – bummer…  But I convinced myself that it might not actually be raining 5 miles south of our house, and rain always seems to be falling harder than it really is when you’re driving through it, so we pushed on.  And…we pulled up to the garden entrance and found that it was indeed raining in Renton.  Go figure.  But I was determined to have my adventure, dammit, so I coerced Shane out of the car and we did actually enjoy a pleasant (but wet) stroll through the garden.  I was able to snap a few pictures, breathe some fresh air, and do something out of the ordinary, which was really what the day was all about.  Plus, after our chilly little outdoor bout, my special spot on the couch felt so much warmer, and the hot chocolate I made tasted so much sweeter.  So it was worth it.

Yes, the past several days have been filled with a heaping helping of Holiday comfort and joy.  Last weekend, we participated in our C-group’s 4th annual fondue party, complete with gluttonous amounts of melted cheese and chocolate, a white elephant gift exchange in which everyone unloaded their tacky, odd, or just plain laugh-able belongings, and, of course, our 12 Days of Christmas sing-along charade (I played the part of the French Hen; Shane starred as the Drummer Drumming).

The next morning, Shane and I gathered with the tried-and-true few to run our 3rd annual post-fondue 5k, making at least a small step toward offsetting the previous night’s caloric overload.  But any caloric burn was then offset by a post-run brunch at Both Ways Cafe.  Ah, well, we tried…  Much of the remaining weekend was spent enjoying the warmth of our home, watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy, doing a little baking, and reading by the light of our Christmas tree.

Last night, Shane and I shared an epic steak dinner with Jack and La Verne downtown – three hours after we set foot into the restaurant, we rolled out of there, fatter, happier, and brimming with thankfulness for good food and good friends.  I left work early today to come home and whip up another batch of Christmas goodies, get the family’s gifts wrapped, and generally revel in the joy and anticipation that is Advent.

I will admit, as the wrapping paper littered the living room floor and the batter-caked mixing bowls piled up the sink, my pre-Christmas comfort and joy temporarily turned into pre-Christmas frazzle and backache.  But everything eventually came together, my to-do’s got done, and I’m enjoying the chance for a quiet moment to sit down and re-read the Christmas story.

“The angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.’”  - Luke 2:10-11

Joy, indeed.

Oh, my, it was a full one but a good one…the highlights:

watched our dancer-friend Donna perform an amazing piece entitled ‘Paper Chase’ at Velocity  |  drank wine, ate cheese, and had a very involved discussion about cars at the Tin Table with Shane, Jack, and La V  |  cut down and decorated what I think might be our best Christmas tree yet  |  ate cherry pie at a little ho-dunk diner in North Bend  |  made egg-nog, spiked it, drank it  |  attended a lovely choral concert at St. Mark’s cathedral  |  ran myself ragged trying to get all 13 of my little preschoolers to assemble ‘Advent paper chains’ in Sunday School this morning  |  sat in a cafe and scribbled in my sketchbook  |  unwound from all the busy-ness with out latest Netflix pick and some quality couch-time with Shane.  and…whew!

I volunteered on Saturday to lead a little art workshop for kids at the cafe connected to our church, as a way to reach out to the community and give parents a chance to enjoy a latte on their own while their little ones made a mess under my supervision.  I settled on Cubism as the subject matter, thinking that would lend itself to a good one-style-fits-all project, and I didn’t know whether I’d be working with 3 year-olds or 12 year-olds.  I showed the kids several examples of Picasso’s portraits, with their offset eyes, bright colors, and angular features.  I then encouraged them to paint their own portraits, taking advantage of the freedom that Cubism allows, without having to focus on exact proportion or shape.  I had eight little artists under my watch, and all of them exceeded my expectations.  It was inspiring to see kids in the act of art-making – some focused on coloring inside the lines, while some splattered paint with total abandon, but all of them walked away with a masterpiece of their own.

I am often on the look-out for a reason to gather our friends for a little par-tay, and when I realized that my birthday, Shane’s birthday, and our good friend La Verne’s birthday all fell within just a couple of weeks of each other, the scheming began.  Shane and I were into the idea of a little celebratory getaway with the gang, and when we casually mentioned the idea to Jack and La V, they nodded their heads, their eyes got bright, and I knew:  this would be good.  Very good.

We all started scouring the internet for ideal party-house rentals, and Jack stumbled upon a sweeeeet water-front home on Whidbey Island with ample room for all of us.  Thus, Schnell-La-Palooza was officially booked!  And after much anticipation, we all boarded the ferry on Friday afternoon, ready for a weekend of eating, game-playing, hot-tubbing, and generally livin’ it up.  I will admit, I feared that the house might not live up to our high expectations, but I was wrong to worry – nestled into the woods, perched just above what felt like a private stretch of beach, it was perfect.

The entire weekend was fabulously chill, as we strolled on the beach, soaked in the hot tub, and got some serious mileage out of La Verne’s new X-Box Kinect (imagine Dance Dance Revolution meets Nintendo Wii, then triple the awesome-ness).  There were times when I enjoyed the quiet of curling up in the sun-room and reading Harry Potter, and there were times when all 14 of us sat around the dining room table together and laughed hysterically.  It felt very much like being on a family vacation – we were all free to do our own thing (a tree pose on the beach, in Shane’s instance), but at the end of the day, we all really wanted to share a meal together and just enjoy each other’s company.

Shane, Jordan, and Bees did a little beach-combing, and came back to the house with a dead jellyfish and a piece of driftwood shaped like a Moses staff.  One ocean’s trash is another man’s treasure, I guess…

The hot tub was a favorite hang-out for a few of us.  102-degree water with a view of the ocean and a beer in hand – life does not get much better…

I think La Verne took the X-box prize as dancer with the most style.  Jason took the prize for ‘most animated’.

When Jack mentioned that he had something special in mind for our birthday dinner, he wasn’t joking – hand-made pasta, topped with a perfect ragu (imagine little strands of heaven wrapped around a fork…).

After our perfect meal on Saturday night, we sat at the table for another couple of hours, playing a rousing game of True Colors, where we pinned people with title’s such as ‘best character for a scorchy romance novel’.  It’s been awhile since I’ve laughed so hard for so long.

We awoke to rainy skies on Sunday morning, which I suppose was appropriate, as I was seriously bummed to be packing up our things and bidding farewell to our cabin in the woods.  **Sigh.**

And so…Schnell-La-Palooza (dare I call it the first annual???) came to a close…  As if the weather gods knew I needed cheering up, the clouds parted as we crossed Deception Pass, giving us one final, beautiful view of the island.