To the city

Last week I spent one and a half days eating and exploring my way through a few blocks of the Seattle waterfront and Belltown. Change of scenery is so great. The weather 3 hours to the West felt downright balmy. The flowers in the planter boxes downtown were blooming.

In February. Crazy! 

Here's what I loved about being the city:

Walking. I smiled at strangers. I looked in shop windows. I read posters on street corners. I took in the fresh air. My normal routine is to go from house---> to garage---> to car---> to destination. The feel of wandering a little bit to get where I was going was nice.

Good food for cheap, and on every block. Top Pot had the most amazing cappuccino and cinnamon/sugar old fashioned doughnuts. Ivar's felt like a must. $3 for a cup of chowder. $4 gigantic sausage and ricotta pizza from Rocco's. 

Diversity and culture. I like variance. People watching is fascinating. Sometimes living in a smallish town things can feel very mono-the-same. I listened to a little G Love at the Crocodile. This was my favorite song of the night. 

4.) Sounds. The bustle of traffic, loud construction, sirens blaring, I felt like a small piece of something big with a lot of moving parts. The sound of seagulls woke me up in the morning and fell asleep to the rain. 

5.) Going home. The city is enlivening, however, it is definitely not my natural habitat. It's fun to visit, but after two to three days I'm overstimulated and ready for the quiet of my little valley.

We had a super low-key weekend with a few chores, a trip to the park, and some pink heart pancakes. On to the next! Here comes Monday. 

heart swell

Besides the usual grocery shopping, house cleaning, and crossing things off on the dreaded "to do" list...

 Some weekends also unfold in the perfect proportions of dinner with friends, frothy cappuccinos, filtered foggy sunlight, crunchy winter walks, and warm afternoon sunbathing on beaches buried in snow. 

*Sigh* Heart Swell. 

Happy Monday. I'm going back to work tomorrow. Hooray! So thankful.

nothing artificial

A colorful start to the day today. I need vibrant foods like this. 

I am a complete freestyler when it comes to making juice. I just start grabbing fruits and veggies from the fridge drawers or the bowl on my countertop. Sometimes it turns out incredible. Sometimes I choke it down. Either way it's so good for me to drink in all that color!

I want you to know that I burned dinner while writing my last blog post. It also seems fair to tell you that there is a massive pile of dirty dishes in the blurry background of that picture above. I don't air all of my dirty laundry here because it's not always appropriate, but I want you to know that I have plenty of it. Piles of it. I'm living inside of a real life with all kinds of beautiful chaos. 

Just because I publish a blog and post pictures here doesn't mean for that for one second I profess to be perfect. I want to make that perfectly clear. Nothing artificial. I am a human. I am learning. I am laughing at myself. I am screwing up. I am simultaneously hurting and loving people. Naturally, I am keeping some things private. The messy stuff, the stuff that doesn't fit inside any kind of socially approved or acceptable box exists around here. Frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way. If you don't raise a few eyebrows every now and then, you're probably living life on someone else's terms. Not for me.

It's Friday. I'm happy for that. If you need a little timeout I'm collecting pretty things over here:

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