June 23, 2015

currently.

Watching: Tomatoes ripen in the garden. WTF? I know that everything is early this year, but tomatoes in June? Get outta here.

Loving: Stella’s Elvis impression. Poor puppy has about half her teeth which makes for some ca-ute lipped pouts. Can’t get enough of her.

Listening to: The crazy amount of birds in our yard. I’ve worked very hard to keep our yard organic so as to attract beneficial birds and insects and it must be paying off! We live very close to Boeing Field and I always worried that the flight traffic would keep them away, but I guess not!

Doing: I recently spoke on a panel about non-profit event planning at the Advancement NW conference. This was my first public speaking engagement and I was HELLA nervous. I practiced for a week straight and it paid off! I loved seeing people taking frantic notes and nodding their heads as I was speaking. It was a very validating and rewarding experience!

Reading: Haven’t actually read this book yet, but I’m working on a 4,500 book mailing at work (see top left photo of my temporary book storage in our parking garage!) Not sure why I volunteered to complete this project….I don’t know a thing about special mailings and this one is a doozy. I’ll be celebrating with a bottle of bubbly when these hit mailboxes. Sheesh.

Eating: Our first batch of CSA cherries! Oh man….so glad that we signed up for a fruit CSA this year through Tonnemaker! We’re pretty good on veggies with the help of our backyard garden so having a fruit-only CSA fills in the gaps for us. They had a bumper crop of cherries so we ordered extras to enjoy this week. Yum!

Thinking about: Our upcoming camping trip to Mt. Rainier. I’m so excited to get out of town for the weekend and I haven’t been to the southern part of Rainier in AGES. Looking forward to hitting up a day hike near Paradise and the general relaxation of camping with friends and family.

**This blog post was inspired by http://sometimessweet.com/ – check her out!

May 23, 2015

currently.

Currently, Garden, Peonies

Seattle, Pacific Northwest, Peonies, Gardening

Currently in love with these peonies.

Watching: The new Kurt Cobain documentary – Montage of Heck. Didn’t get a chance to see it on the big screen, but man, pretty interesting stuff. I loved all of the footage from his childhood and seeing his art. The soundtrack was pretty amazing too.

Loving: This Seattle weather. 70 degrees in May? I’ll take it. And so will my tomato starts thank you very much.

Listening to: I should just take this off the list…music isn’t happening much these days unless it’s a lil live streaming action from KEXP. We’re headed to the Sasquatch music festival shortly and this concert goer is VERY unprepared. Not really sure who’s even playing :-/ I suspect I’ll be finding all sorts of cool, new music.

Doing: Meal planning. Now that the chaos of work has settled down, it’s back to making dinners at home and bringing lunches to work. Ahh…frugality.

Reading: My fav blogs these days – this one, this one and this one. I had a few library books on my kindle, but alas, 21 days is never enough time to finish them.

Eating: Fresh lettuce, arugula and spinach from the yard. This is becoming an every other day sorta thing and I’m digging it (literally.)

Thinking about: Our upcoming trip to Eastern Europe in the fall. We’ll be hitting up 6+ countries in 3 weeks and the thought of adapting to new cultures, languages and hell, even exchanging currencies is starting to stress me out. Not to mention only bringing a backpack.

**This blog post was inspired by http://sometimessweet.com/ – check her out!

May 13, 2015

link love.

Um What?

I finally have the time to surf/read for pleasure again. Here’s what I’ve been finding interesting these days:

I mean, why not? As a gal that used to love getting all dressed up for work, I must admit I’ve been tiring of it as of late. The time and energy it takes to find ANOTHER fabulous outfit to show off can be exhausting. This article def has me re-thinking my wardrobe.

A good, local garden blog with tons of inspiration and isn’t all uber complicated. She’s my edible landscape inspiration!

Wow, wow, wow. Jimmy Carter. Such a powerful and thoughtful message about religion.

The inside joke of biscuits during my rec softball games have me obsessing about baking some. I think this recipe will do.

May 5, 2015

so this happened.

Centerpieces, Events, Fundraising, Luncheon

I’m baaaacccckk! Did you miss me and all of my silly garden talk? Hell, I missed sharing it 🙂 Hoping to get a post or two up in the next few days! I know you all are just DYING to know how my peas are doing or how my first attempt at potatoes is working out so far.

Threw a lil event last Thursday – the annual Community of Caring Luncheon for JFS – that had been taking up a lot of my time. You know, just 1,150 of our closest peeps getting together and giving uber generously to help support our agency and the clients we serve. I spend about half the year fully focused on this event and all of that hard work comes and goes in 90 minutes. It’s kind of sad really. You bust your ass, stress out over every last guest name, put it all together then bam, it’s over.

I must admit, I go through a mild funk afterwards. But give me a week and it’ll be business as usual again. Good thing I’ve got a summer full of gardening and camping to look forward to – oh and that tiny trip to Europe. Woot!