We have a yard!

Stew stopped by the house on his way home from snowboarding this afternoon and the landscapers had been there! Brett and Haley had also swung by on Wednesday so I already knew they were doing work on the stone columns out front, and then within just 24 hours we suddenly had grass, trees and plants! It's still shocking to me how fast they are getting things done.

You can see the completed stone columns here, which I think are such a nice touch.

And here is our mini front yard!
The house is situated at the front of the lot to maximize the back yard space, and that's just fine with us.

Shot of the backyard from the master bedroom window.
Our property goes up just a few feet above the rock wall at the back and that's where the fence will be.
I'm still not quite sure what I'm going to do with that upper area.

The whole backyard!
This is a panoramic shot so it's kind of distorted... the patio isn't really curved like that.

I absolutely love the back yard, but in front all I see is weeding and gardening and other chores that I loathe. So unless Jesse Metcalfe is available to become my personal gardener, I'm pretty sure we'll eventually be tearing all that stuff out and replacing it with grass that goes right up to the porch. After all, I don't want to be that tacky neighbor on the block who has a yucky, overgrown, dead garden out front. 

National Food Truck Date Day... coming up!

I recently told you about my dear friend Jeanna and her amazing project, 50 Food Truck Dates. One of the things I love about Jeanna is that she's a realistic romantic. She believes in love. "Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love."  But she also scoffs at forced, contrived, silly traditions like Valentine's Day... just like me. So when I saw her post about a fun new alternative Valentine's Day tradition I was super excited.

Let's make February 14th National Food Truck Date Day! You can read all about it at 50 Food Truck Dates, but basically the idea is to chuck this silly, commercialized holiday with ridiculous unjustified expectations right out the window. Instead, spend a little stress-free time with your favorite person or people while grabbing a meal at your favorite local food truck!


Image via the50dates.

I decided I'm definitely going to help Jeanna out with her new mini project by going on a fun and easy food truck date with Stew next week, and you can, too! Send her some info from your date and be featured on Jeanna's blog become famous!

Let's start changing the sentiment of Valentine's Day the worst holiday of the year! Love it.

Now, where shall we dine?

What are we going to do for the next seven months?

Tara featuring her gourmet nachos.
They were so delicious.

Well friends, the NFL football season has officially come to an end. Stew had to work, but I celebrated by getting together with Tara, Andrew, and a couple of their friends to watch the Super Bowl.

Of course it was bittersweet since the Seahawks didn't get to participate, but I'll pretty much use any excuse to get together with friends and eat chips and dip, so it was still a win for me.

I despise the 49ers (and especially Jim Harbaugh) even more than I hate bananas, so of course I was cheering for the Ravens and luckily wasn't disappointed. I couldn't bear to watch San Fran win the Super Bowl after we totally spanked them in Seattle.

I made Skinny Taco Dip which I haven't done since last summer and I forgot how yummy it is! Tara also made some of the most delicious nachos I've ever had (I love lots of toppings) and Marie prepared some awesome treats like artichoke Parmesan dip and BBQ chicken wings. I'm pretty sure I consumed my suggested calorie intake for the entire week.


Our partially-devoured spread.

Apart from feeling lethargic and chubby after eating so much junk, I'm also feeling let down about the official end of the season... what the heck are we going to do on Sundays for the next seven months??

PS is the Go Daddy commercial still turning your stomach? It is mine. Barf.

Bye Bye, Brooke

My darling, lifelong friend Brooke is moving back to Alabama with her family, and I'm so happy for her, but so sad for myself. She's been living in Silverton, Oregon for the past year and three months, which has made it so much easier to see her more often. We always meet up in Olympia during holiday times, and whenever I go down to visit family in the Portland area, and she's come in to Seattle quite a few times, too.

We have been friends since we met in seventh grade home economics class, and have been close ever since. I've learned that true friends can be few and far between, and I'm so happy that we've been able to maintain our friendship despite the years and miles that have separated us.

Long distance friendships can be hard, but they are always rewarding. And I know Brooke and her family will be super happy back in Alabama... and maybe one of these days I will head out there for a visit. I've never been to the South before!

I spent the afternoon with Brooke and her son, Abraham,
before they flew out on Sunday. Here's adorable Abe with
the piggy bank I gave him as a going away present.
He named him Babe... so cute!

Bye bye, Brooke, I'll see you again very soon! xoxo

My favorite room in the house.

Even though Stew still wasn't feeling very well, we went up to Snoqualmie to see the house yesterday.

It was a very strange drive up I-90. The dark, gray, foggy day inexplicably broke into glorious sunshine when we were literally half a mile from the exit to our new house. In Snoqualmie, it was a gorgeous sunny day. I took this as a good sign.

A bunch of guys were there installing the mill work, and I was thrilled to see that the hardwood floors and granite counter tops downstairs had been installed! All the tile is also done upstairs, and the master bathroom turned out even better than I could have imagined. It is quickly becoming my favorite room in the house... my own little spa sanctuary!

Lots of other little touches have also appeared that are really starting to turn our house into a home... take a look!

The concrete walkway in the front has been poured, so now we don't have to wade through
the mud to get to the front door anymore.

The garage was full of all the stuff that the guys were working on that day.
Oh, how it will change my life to have a two car garage!

The back patio! There's no longer a huge hole out the back door!
Unfortunately, they only poured the standard patio size... it seems someone missed our
request for a much larger, 12'x16' patio, so that will have to get re-done.

Our lovely granite counter tops!
They were covered with paper so we only got a peek, but I can tell they're going to be gorgeous.

Upper kitchen cabinets ready to go in.

A sneak peek at the hardwood floors, which have been installed throughout the downstairs.
Gorgeous! I'm so happy with our choice.

We have doors and frames!
And here's a quick shot of the downstairs powder room, since I don't think I've posted one yet.

The banister at the top of the stairs. Also beautiful, and I think it really gives the house some character.

Double doors into the master bedroom.

And my favorite room... the master bathroom, with tile complete!

Here are some detail shots... we're just SO happy about how it all came together.

And the floors look great next to the cabinets, too.

My own personal spa!
I think it's safe to say I'll be spending a lot of time in here...

Another shot of the upstairs media room... it's going to get a lot of light!

And the crazy tech wall which will be home to our giant new TV.
You're all invited over to watch football this season!

And the guest bathroom, which also turned out really pretty.
I'll try to make this one "spa-like" for you guys as well. :-)

Sorry if these updates are getting boring, but we've only got about four weeks to go so we're nearing the end! I am really hoping that one of these days I will arrive and they will have painted the exterior... I can't even remember what color the house will be, but I know it's not yellow!

Strange Brewfest

Stewart had to work on Saturday and I was feeling much more like myself again, so I decided to take the ferry over to Port Townsend and meet up with my family. They were there for the ninth annual Strange Brewfest, a crazy local festival featuring tons of local brewers and musicians. Our family has property in Port Townsend and we've been going there since before I was born, but this was definitely a new experience for me!

Port Townsend is a teeny tiny, sleepy town, and most often when we visit we spend our time hanging out at our campsite, hiking, walking on the beach, or wandering around the eclectic downtown shops with a half dozen other tourists. But this time when I arrived I was shocked to see that the town was absolutely packed! I actually had to look for a parking spot and the sidewalks, bars, shops and restaurants were all crowded with festival-goers. Stew would have loved it, I was really sad he wasn't there.

I didn't actually spend much time in the actual Brewfest because it was super loud and crowded. Instead we created a little pub crawl for ourselves, walking around downtown and having a beer or a meal here and there at a bunch of different little pubs and restaurants.

It was a fun, short little trip and it only took me about two hours to get there from our house, including the ferry ride. I always love spending time with my family, no matter what we're doing.

On Sunday Stew and I did a bunch of boring chores. We went up and checked on the house (a guy was there laying tile in the master bath... so pretty!) and then headed to Best Buy to look at some TVs Stew has his eye on for the living room and media room. We also took a tour of Gold's Gym in Issaquah and were pleasantly surprised! It's huge, has all the equipment Stew is looking for, and has tons of group fitness classes for me. We're still going to check out a couple other places, but this could potentially be a great choice for our new gym.

How was your weekend?

Paint and cabinets.

It seems unreal that we close on the new house in just a little more than five weeks. It seems like just yesterday that we started this process, and now here we are, almost at the end. Things are really moving fast now! Stew went up to the house this afternoon and I literally shrieked with excitement when he started sending me some photos. We'll let you see for yourself...

Kitchen cabinets going in and they are the exact color we wanted them to be.

All the main wall painting is done and we're really happy with the color. I guess these days many people choose to have the ceiling the same color as the walls, but I insisted on having white ceilings... I thought that seemed weird.

This is my absolute favorite picture of the day. I LOVE our fireplace!

Cabinets and lighting getting done in the master bathroom.

They are getting ready to tile the shower.
We picked out really light/mostly white finishes in here because I wanted it to feel like a spa.

Laundry room cabinets. We paid extra for the cupboards over the washer/dryer.
You can never have too much storage!

Tile going down in the laundry room.

Stew took this picture of the neighbor's backyard so we can get an idea of what our landscaping is going to be like. We hate all the bark and are going to see if we can have mostly grass, instead. No gardening for me, just lawn games!

Sorry for two house posts in a row, but this has been a pretty exciting week for us! We're a little annoyed about a few minor things like speakers being placed incorrectly and crooked fixtures, but I'm confident they'll get it right in the end.

We hope everyone has something wonderful planned this weekend!

Construction update.

During one of my weird lapses of feeling okay again during my kidney stone nightmare (I guess that's pretty common), we decided to go up to the house to see how it was progressing.

The tape and mud on the drywall is complete, and the rounded wall corners we upgraded to are done. This means that the texturing and painting should be done this week, and next week the fun stuff starts: cabinets, counter tops, and floors! So from now on we should see significant progress every time we visit the house.

I love going up and just staring at it, imagining how it will be when everything is all done. You can see they are starting to work on what will be stone columns around the front porch. And I can't wait until they paint the exterior; I'm not a huge fan of yellow...

Downstairs living room.

Kitchen.

Stairway.

Upstairs living room / media room.

Master bedroom.

Guest bedrooms.

Guest bath.

Gorgeous views from the back yard...

...and the front!

And the garage all filled up with exciting things like flooring and cabinets.

We also heard from our agent that there's nothing left to do on the condo sale at this point except wait and enjoy our last few weeks there, so that's exactly what we're doing (now that I'm feeling better).

What were you up to this weekend?

Diagnosis.

Well friends, it turned out to be a kidney stone, but it was quite an adventure arriving at that diagnosis.

My regular doctor ended up being unavailable for my E.R. follow up appointment, so I saw her standby doc on Monday afternoon. By that time I was starting to feel really crappy again, especially in my back and abdomen on the left side. But the doctor gave me a brief exam and told me that the pain was due to constipation caused by pain meds and possibly IBS... she prescribed Smooth Move Herbal Tea (ew, sorry) and sent me home with promises to follow up the next day with lab results and a referral to a GI specialist.

I spent that night crying in pain and taking Vicodin every three hours.

The next day I waited patiently to hear from the doctor, only to get an email in the afternoon that contained a link to some unreadable lab results and a note: "You are slightly anemic. Hope you're feeling better!"  WTF?! I was not feeling better; I was in agony and had only two pain pills left! I called the office and left a message. I called again two hours later and left another message. Finally an annoyed nurse called me back. She got me an appointment with a GI specialist for the next afternoon, and after a significant amount of arguing about the Vicodin prescription put me on the phone with the doctor. I explained that I thought I had all the signs of kidney stones and didn't think I could get through the night on only two pain pills, but she insisted that I was simply constipated and that "being uncomfortable" was normal. I should, "try a hot water bottle or some Milk of Magnesia." Again, WTF?!

Basically, she was treating me like a drug seeker and flat out refusing to refill my pain meds or consider any other possibilities about why I was in pain. I've never been so livid in my life, but there was nothing I could do. So Stew and I went to bed, terrified, at about 10:00 p.m.

At 1:00 a.m. I woke up in excruciating pain and took my second-to-last pain pill. It did nothing.

At 2:00 a.m. I took my very last pain pill as I continued to writhe and sob in pain. It did nothing.

At 3:00 a.m. we headed back to the E.R. where they pumped me full of drugs until I finally stopped screaming and puking.

Shortly after, they did a CT scan, which easily revealed the large kidney stone that had been plaguing me since Saturday morning. The E.R. doc said it had absolutely nothing to do with IBS and told me to cancel the appointment with the GI specialist. He was very irritated with the other doctor for blowing me off and planned to send her my chart so she would have it first thing in the morning (basically a "you idiot" note between doctors, he explained). I hope she got the message.

I eventually went home in a drug induced haze with prescriptions for the correct medications while I waited for the stone to pass (sorry, TMI). This luckily only took until that evening, and I immediately started to feel better.

Let me tell you... having a kidney stone is basically some of the worst pain you can experience. Many people say it's right up there with childbirth. I would definitely not wish it on even my worst enemy. Plus it is extremely scary to be in that much pain and have no one be able to tell you what's wrong. For all I knew, I was dying.

The main thing I learned from this experience is that doctor's don't know everything. In my case the doctors heard "IBS" in my medical history and immediately took that and ran with it. I knew that the pain I was having was much different than any of my typical problems, but I let the medical staff take things into their own hands because they're supposed to be the experts, right? But the bottom line is you know your body... be your own advocate! Speak up and say something when you can; it might save you a lot of pain and heartache in the end. Looking back, I should have just insisted on a CT scan at my very first E.R. visit, but  then hindsight is always 20/20. I'm just glad it's finally over!

And I do have to take a second to mention how amazing Stewart was throughout this whole experience. He calmly held my hand every step of the way and I don't know how I would have gotten through it without him. Husband of the Year Award. 

Have you ever had kidney stones?

Another holiday weekend ruined.

Swedish Medical Center in Ballard - very nice facility,
although I wish I didn' t know it quite so well...

Thank you, Dr. King, for a lovely three-day weekend. We had planned to head up to Mt. Baker with some of our dearest friends for the weekend, but instead ended up in the Emergency Room. Not awesome.

Holidays have really been a bummer this year. I caught a horrible stomach bug over Thanksgiving, and Stew and I were both very sick with head colds and sore throats for Christmas. And now we can also write off MLK Day as a loss.

We were going to leave first thing Saturday morning with Tara, Andrew, Alissa and Matt for a weekend up at Mark's condo at Mt. Baker. I was super excited because I still haven't been on my snowboard this year! But I woke up that morning at 5:00 with a pretty bad stomachache. By the time Stew got home from work at 8:00 I was literally screaming, crying, and vomiting because the pain was so bad. I was very, very scared because I've never felt anything like that before.

We rushed down to Swedish Medical Center in Ballard and were brought back right away, I'm sure in large part due to my screaming and carrying on. Staying calm and rational was not a possibility at that point.

The next six hours consisted on my part of more puking, yelling, and crying with pain. I had my blood drawn and tested, internal and external ultrasounds, a pelvic exam, and lots and lots of pain medication administered through an IV. The meds didn't last too long though, and about every hour they would wear off and I would start writhing in pain again, so they just kept me pretty doped up the whole time.

All of the tests came back normal except the internal ultrasound revealed possible early appendicitis, but they were very reluctant to do a CT scan on me because of how dangerous the radiation can be for young women. So they sent us home with four different prescriptions and orders to come back in another 12 hours.

I had a pretty bad night, still in lots of pain in spite of the Vicodin, but by the time we got back to the ER the next morning my pain was mostly gone. So they sent us home with instructions to follow up with a GI doctor as soon as possible, basically chalking things up to severe IBS. The wait list for a GI doctor is approximately one month. In the meantime I was able to schedule an appointment with my regular doctor who wanted to re-run all the ER testing to see if anything had changed, and then refer me to a different GI doc who may be able to get me in more quickly. That was yesterday afternoon.

In the meantime my symptoms have only gotten worse and I spent most of last night crying in pain and taking Vicodin every three hours which kind of helped dull the pain. I left my doctor a message a few hours ago about the test results and her recommendations (and the fact that I'm running out of pain meds) but I haven't heard anything back yet.

So... not a stellar weekend for us, and I'm afraid I may be dying... or at the very least passing a kidney stone.

I asked Stew, "Do you remember when we promised to stick by each other, for better or for worse? This is worse."

First world problems with furniture.

Going from 724 square feet to 2,510 square feet is going to be a huge change for us, and we realized a while back that we have only a fraction of the furniture we'll need to furnish our new home. However, 20% down is obviously eating up a lot of our savings, so we don't really have the luxury of going out and spending thousands of dollars on new furniture right now. But we decided that it would be okay to go ahead and focus on a few basics, one of those being couches for the downstairs living room.

I had no idea what a huge process this would turn out to be...

When you're buying quality furniture that you expect to last for 10-15 years you really want to be sure you love what you buy. So a couple weeks ago my mom and I spent an entire day visiting furniture stores and we just didn't see anything at all that seemed right, until this:


Ignore the ugly ottoman, but we really liked the style of the sofa. I also loved the pattern of the pillow fabric,
and thought this little accent chair would go great with the set. Plus, everything was on sale... Fantastic! 

Having an accent chair in the same fabric as the sofa pillows seems to be super popular right now, and I quickly became obsessed with doing it. Here are some examples we saw (ignore some of the ugly fabrics and sofa styles, but you'll get the general idea...)


An assortment of displays with pillows that match the accent chairs. Love it!

Stew and I did some research on the manufacturer of the set that I liked and he agreed that it would be a good choice for our living room. But I wanted him to see it in person and help choose the main sofa fabric, so we stopped by the store at the next opportunity. Selecting the perfect color ended being more difficult than we thought, so we decided to check out some fabric samples and take them up to the model home to see how everything would look in our actual house. This is where we ran into some problems.



Current set up in the model home.

Once in the model, we realized that we really want light-colored sofas, but the pillow print that I had previously chosen only goes with a darker sofa fabric. And upon further thinking, we actually liked the cleaner, more modern look of the model furniture much better than our original choice. So... back to square one. We figured out the manufacturer of the model sofas, looked up some local dealers, and began to track them down. I mean hey, if a professional designer put the room together and it looks great, why re-invent the wheel, right?

Eventually we found the exact match, but of course to that set it will cost twice as much as the original set we picked out. So there's the conundrum... Do we drop the cash and get exactly what we want? Or do we live with another, less expensive sofa that we found that is very similar, but not an exact match? Plus, which accent chair do we choose? Does it come with a matching ottoman or would be have to find one? Is it the same brand so we can match the fabric to the sofa pillows? Does this store have free shipping? Is that one having a sale next month? How long can we wait to decide? Ugh, it's all very frustrating and overwhelming! [FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS]

In any case, besides the dilemma of choosing the set that we want, we also need to select a fabric for the sofa pillows and chairs (the original fabric with the branches is out), and there are so many to choose from!


This is just a tiny sample of what's available. There are literally hundreds
to choose from. I actually really liked the black and white bird pattern
in the center, but I don't know if it would be too much on a chair...

The entire process has be so overwhelming that we've decided to just take a step back and think things through. We don't want to purchase something in a hurry and then get it into the new house only to find out that we don't love it after all. We'd rather live in a basically empty house for a while instead of rush into a decision about something so permanent and expensive.

But when we do pull the trigger it will take 6-8 weeks for the pieces to be made and delivered, so early guests beware... bring your own chair!