Medley of activities

It’s been a busy couple of weeks since Vancouver… crazy actually!   Vancouver seems very long ago and far away.

Last Sunday Mike and I ran a charity race at the University of Washington with a friend of Mike’s from work.  The weather here finally cooled down and the UW campus has giant trees everywhere so running was really nice.  Once we were done, though, I started to get cold.  I put the race day T-shirt on over my tank top, which helped a little.  But I was still chilly.  We hung out for awhile and listened to a live band that was playing at the finish line, and then Mike’s friend suggested lunch so we all headed downtown and went to a cool wood-themed restaurant named “Local 360”.  It’s name is supposed to indicate that all of their ingredients come from a 360 mile radius.  However, their menu actually states that “ideally” “90%” do.  Hmm.  So I’m not sure exactly what that actually says about their ingredients.  The food was good, but the wind down by the waterfront was CRAZY!  It was even hard to talk when one of the gusts of wind came.

Mike had some bananas that were going bad, so I also decided to break out the loaf pan and bake some banana bread!  It turned out really well, despite the fact that I was kind of freaked out about it because it caved in the middle.  Mike told me that was because I didn’t set it on the middle rack and then proceeded to talk about how the convection worked and why the middle rack was the most appropriate.  It’s slightly embarrassing that man knows more about cooking than I do.  Regardless, it tasted really good, though, and Mike said it was one of the best banana breads he’s ever had so I had a little redemption.

The veggies from the CSA are getting heavier and heavier as we get further and further into fall.  Carrying a box of lettuce home at the beginning of the summer was easy.  Carrying boxes of potatoes, onions, and carrots now is no longer so easy.  My goal this weekend was to cook up a potato-based dish for Mike because I now have a ton of potatos but it didn’t happen.

Last week was a busy week for me!  Tuesday night I went out to dinner with some coworkers.  An engineer was visiting us from India, so we all went out to dinner with him.  It was a lot of fun!  Somehow the way it worked out, all of the five people there are guys I really get along well with.  We also all have pretty comparable senses of humor so it made for a fun evening.  Wednesday my plan was to hang out with Mike, but then I remembered I had told a friend that I was going to yoga with her Wednesday night so I went to yoga.  It was relaxing and interesting.  The class was focused on commitment which I felt was appropriate for both my friend and myself since she is having a baby in January and I’m getting married in December.  Definitely a lot of food for thought throughout the class!

Thursday night Mike and I walked downtown and went to Wild Ginger for dinner.  It was such a relaxing atmosphere with the dark wood and the dim candles.  Our waiter was amazing and very helpful in suggesting menu items.  I ended up going with sauteed rapini and sweet potato soup, and Mike went with a seven spice beef dish.  Very yummy!  I don’t think I’d had rapini before (it tastes similar to broccoli) but it was delicious and seasoned very delicately.

Friday night I went to a team barbeque for work at my manager’s house in Redmond.  It was a fun evening, although there was definitely a lot of tech talk since everyone attending was an engineer.  🙂  I rented a zipcar to get there, and apparently no one else had a car either because I ended up giving three team members a ride back in my bright orange Mini Cooper zipcar.  It’s crazy how close Redmond is to Seattle.  Driving back from there with no traffic it only took about 18 minutes.  I always think of it as being so far away but I think that’s just because I don’t have a car.  🙂

Saturday I had made some appointments to look at apartments, so I rented a zipcar (the same bright orange Mini) and we headed out around noon.  Traffic in South Lake Union was really backed up because of a food truck festival happening near the Space Needle.  Apparently there were about 30 food trucks there featuring cuisines from Indian to Mexican to Cajun to standard American.  Finally, though, we broke free of the traffic and made it out of South Lake Union.

The exciting news is that Mike and I found an apartment!  It’s a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in the Wallingford district of Seattle.  The second bedroom will be used for Mike’s music studio, and it seems like it’ll be big enough for his needs.  It also has a big kitchen with an island.  Expect pictures when we actually get possession of the apartment.  In the meantime we have an apartment ready for us!  🙂  Another perk of the apartment is that there are mini p-patch community garden plots on the roof of the building, so I think I’m going to reserve one and try my hand at growing some herbs.  🙂  Going apartment-hunting was kind of an exhausting process but we still made an effort to go to Golden Gardens Park where one of Mike’s friends was attending a festival.  It was the most surreal experience ever.  Long story short is we ended up trekking through and around most of Ballard and still couldn’t quite seem to get to the park without going down the world’s most crazy flight of steps ever that seemed to descend into infinity.  Since it was already long past dark at this point and I was wearing high-heeled boots the stairs looked pretty intimidating, even though Mike helpfully pulled a flashlight out of his pocket.  (He randomly seems to carry useful items like that and pop them out at the most opportune times.)  Crazy, crazy night.  But very fun.  We took a cab home and got talking with the cab driver about art and he recommended some styles for us to look at.  Very interesting, surreal evening!  🙂

Tonight I’m going trail running with a friend from work.  It’s been a long time since I’ve run in the five-toed Vibram shoes, so we’ll see how I do!  🙂

Stay tuned for details on exactly when and where we’re getting married because we’re making definitive plans about that in the next couple days!

Also, I’m wishing Cathy a belated birthday!  I remembered your birthday but haven’t posted on my blog since then so my birthday wish is ending up almost a week late but no less sincere.  I hope you had a wonderful one!  🙂