The one with paint and food

Few things in life make me happier than a) risotto and b) painting. And both happened yesterday, so I shall blog about both! AH! We'll go in chronological order, so let's start with the painting...

Thank goodness for Craigslist... It not only helped us furnish a lot of our apartment, but from it I acquired this sweet old window. $20. What a steal. It's pretty big, too-- like 4 ft x 2 ft or something like that. One of my best friends has a sweet old window in her apartment that is painted, so that was my inspiration here. The hardest thing about painting windows (just in case you decide to embark on this adventure) is that you have to think backwards... You want to paint on the back side of the panes so that it appears that you are looking through the window to the painting and it has a really sweet, smooth surface of glass instead of layer-y thick paint (which can be cool, too, but it has its place. And that's on canvas not glass windows). So when you paint on the back side, you have to start with the details and finish with the background. When you normally paint a picture you might start with a background layer and slowly get more detailed, painting in foreground and stuff. But for this you switch it. No more deciding you want to put something else on it and adding to it. Once you put another layer on the glass, you're done. The good news is that acrylic paint is fairly easy to scratch off, so if you mess up, it is technically re-do-able. I was a chicken with my decision-making so I put some cling-wrap over that sucker and tried a few different things before I settled on my final design. Anyway, I'll quit blabbing and show you some pictures...

The window originally... Do you see the awesome potential hiding in there?!

Paint: check.

Brushes: check.

Experimentin'... and being indecisive

I went with the polka-dot theme... I was inspired after the awesome fabric I re-covered our chairs in. And blue and green is kind of the theme in our apartment. Not too girly, not too manly...

Layer 1. Dots. I couldn't help taking a billion artsy pics of the paint globs in the sunlight. I'm such a dork.

Layer 2. I was originally just going to paint the entire background a solid color and keep it simple, then with the first pane, my strokes were super uneven and created this very brush-like effect. I liked it. Sooo....

I added layer 3: which was green behind the purple brush strokes. Brian says they remind him of "paths through a swamp." To me, some of them look like tornadoes, or a sunset on water, or the color scheme of Monsters, Inc. I can't decide.

And here's the final piece. It looks cooler in person.

So the plan for this is to hang it in our entry-way area. I'm thinking I'm gonna buy some hooks or just hammer some nails in the bottom and we'll use it as a coat-rack. AND, since it's glass, we also might buy a dry-erase marker and use it as a message board! Cute? Yes. Practical? Yes. Cheery? Definitely. Hoorah. Project complete. Well, almost.

Alright, on to part 2 of this blog... food. I love it. My favorite food happens to be risotto, and I made some killer risotto last night. Seriously, your mouth will be watering by the time you're done reading about it. You can do pretty much anything with risotto-- add veggies, meats, whatever. I even have a risotto cook book that has a recipe for risotto with squid ink. I kind of gag every time I see it, so I'm not sure I'm ready to get that crazy with it. Last night was risotto with butternut squash, broccoli, onions, and chicken, and boy oh boy, was it delightful... I just ate some leftovers for lunch and it was still completely wonderful and tasty. If you like carbs and chicken and feel a little guilty indulging in those without getting any veggies in, then this is the recipe for you. Brian (who historically does not eat veggies or anything besides chicken or pasta) even loved it. He didn't pick out the veggies! It was glorious! If you want the recipe, hit me up. Your life will be better for it.

If you recall a few weeks ago Brian and I blogged about our new interest in food and the benefits of eating local food. So, that's what we are going to do. We're going to eat local foods, foods with little to no preservatives, and cook from scratch whenever we can. We're lucky that we are where we are, with a farmers market down the street and lots of options available. We shop at Trader Joe's a lot, which is super fresh and free of gross-ness. For instance, I just had some applesauce from there and the ingredients were simple: peeled and cored apples and well water. Seriously, that was it. None of the ingredients that you can't pronounce or know where they came from. As far as meats go, that's where it gets more difficult and expensive, but it's worth it. No, we're not becoming vegetarians, but we are watching what we eat. For instance, no grain-fed beef, farmed salmon, or regular questionable chicken. For now, we're rolling with free-range chicken, and there are free-range organic whole chickens available at our farmers market (but there weren't any last week), and that venture may have to wait until I start getting a pay check. They are a bit more pricey.
Anyway, we watched "Super-size Me" last night. It was on the list of things we knew we should watch. It was fascinating. I recommend it.

Whew, that was a super long blog. Congrats if you read it all. :) Have a good one, kids!

Why we love Sundays

Sundays are wonderful here. I love them. Why, you ask? Good question. Really the biggest reason I love them is because Sunday means Farmer's Market, just a hop skip and a jump away from our apartment. I will explain through photos...

Dogs are everywhere at the market. All shapes and sizes. These were two HUGE Newfoundlands who were playing with each other. The one on the right had an owner who probably weighed just as much as he did. She was struggling to keep the leash.

Check out this ice cream bar. The first week we discovered this little stand at the end that sells home-made ice cream hand-dipped in delicious chocolate. We've been hooked, and it has become our Sunday treat (after, of course, buying and devouring some pesto pasta from some very nice Italian men). Brian really enjoys the chocolate mint. Last week I had mine with raspberry ice cream, but went with the espresso this week, and boy, oh boy, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to branch out from that. Deeeeeelicious.

And another reason... I'm a sucker for flowers. This beautiful bunch cost me $5, people. Amazing. I split them up into 3 different vases and they cheer up our apartment quite a bit.

Walking home... this is the little park next to our building (which is the building in the picture). It's a cute park. On sunny days it's filled with little children and parents playing in the water fountains. We also frequently see tons of cute dogs there.

And this is when Brian became my paparazzi for the day. Walking up to our 5th floor apartment... figured we'd try to work off that pasta and ice cream.

 That was our Sunday so far. Now to skype with some friends, call home, start a painting, and read a book. Maybe even catch some 24. If you've never seen that show, we're on season 5 and it's fantastic. OH, P.S., this is totally random, but last night we were sitting here after watching 24 (see the train of thought?), we started hearing a guy singing in our courtyard. We were like, what on earth? We look down to see tons of people dressed in formal wear listening to this guy on the keyboard. I stood there and watched/listened for a minute, and then saw a very white dress! It was a wedding. In our apartment courtyard. It was hilarious, because you could see the silhouettes of all the people in our building and the building across the street who were being nosy like me. I sure hope I made it into the background of some of their photos ;) Hope ya'll have a lovely Sunday.

TA DA!

Yesterday we went to the Ballard Locks in search for some sea lions and seals (we heard they hang out there)... but to no avail. We saw none. But we did see some salmon jumping the fish ladders. And we also watched some pretty cool boats go through. 'Twas a beautiful day...

Then something SUPER exciting happened! We got back and checked the mail and I had supplies for my first project! Hooray! So check it out...
We bought 4 of these pretty nasty chairs at a garage sale... Kind of gross, but they have potential. 4 chairs for $10. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Then I got this fabric... See my vision?

I know you're dying of suspense, so I'll get to it... I recovered the chairs, threw together some pillows, and voila! Lovely new cheery chairs to brighten up our space during the dreary Northwest winter. I'm so excited.

Pretty sweet, eh? This place is coming together. And I'm much happier now that I have created something. Hope ya'll are having a good one!

Long time no chat

Hey there, people.
Sorry we've been on the outs for a bit. Sad day, I know. You've probably been checking the blog hourly for updates, but to no avail. My deepest apologies. :)
Even though we don't have exciting travel news to update you on, as this blog was originally intended to do, we will be keeping up with it, letting you in on what we are up to in the far away Northwest. So we're just changing directions a bit, but we find that this is a really good way to keep all of our distant good friends updated on the goings-on of the Strickland-Swift household.

We've got our last few days of nothing-ness this week-- Brian starts doing school stuff on Thursday, meaning I am going to have to find ways to entertain myself! AH! But really, since we finished getting stuff for the apartment and doing other random tasks, we do actually need things to do with our lives. So this will be a good change. Yesterday we acquired some (really cheap) bar stools, so our home is looking even more "home-y" than it did before, which is just lovely.

We went exploring downtown last week, which was fun. We've found some good places to take you people when you visit (hint hint). Much to my little brother's pleasure, we found out that one of the fishing boats from "Deadliest Catch" gives tours during the summer time... Enticing, right? I know.

We also spent time with some new friends this weekend! Yay! We watched a Sounders soccer game with them, which was great because we won 4-0 and saw some Sounders history being made. PS, if you didn't know, I've become a pretty big fan of soccer since the World Cup. A sport I like to watch! Hooray!

Yesterday we trudged out in the rain (it's rained A LOT the past few days but it is sunny as I write this!) and went to our first church service here. Ladies and gentlemen, we are definitely not in the Bible belt anymore! It was an interesting time, but we enjoyed it. The most attractive thing about this church is that they are big into homeless ministry (which we have a lot of in our neighborhood). They run a weekly soup kitchen and have apartments built into their actual church building as part of a program to get people off the streets and into a home of their own, where they can be a part of a community and get their lives on a better track. How many churches do you know who would, instead of just giving money or food, actually give the homeless a home within their church doors? Awesome. We love it. I also just finished a book called "Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne, where he talks a lot about what the church should be. He focuses a lot on how we spend money on buildings and shiny things to attract people, but forget that God has called us to use that money for the poor far before the attractive things. It got me re-thinking the way we worship and simply live our lives, so this is a really cool thing that we will hopefully be a part of. I suggest you pick up the book and expect to change your thinking.

Speaking of changing our thinking, we have also discovered that Brian and I are such students. In our time of travel and moving and rest, etc. we have started a netflix account and used it (besides to rent seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) to watch documentaries. We've gotten really into the ones about food, which has been fascinating and inspiring. Some that I recommend are "Food, Inc." "King Corn" and "No Impact Man." If you have netflix, they are conveniently ones that you can instantly stream to your computer or tv. They've really gotten us thinking about what we put in our bodies, what it's made of, and where it comes from. Did you know that the average food item travels 1500 miles before it gets to your table?! Talk about dependency on oil. Did you also know that most of what we eat in some way has corn in it? Talk about disgusting. Anyway, in a world where diabetes is thriving and our generation is predicted to not live past our parents, we are seriously re-thinking what we eat. Not only for our personal nutrition, but for the environment. This might result in a little experiment that Brian and I are currently scheming up... So stay tuned. It could be interesting...

Oh boy Oh boy

Lots and lots has been happening! Ok, nothing like super duper exciting, but it's been a good few days since we posted last. Well, I guess getting a couch was super duper exciting, actually. We really needed that. So, yes, good news, we have furniture now! We could still use a couple more things, but we have all the essentials, and life is quite comfortable now that we have someplace to sit our rears besides the floor. Which is concrete. So big improvement! We also have had our first go at the neighborhood weekly farmer's market, where we can buy our weekly groceries, I think. You can find everything there: milk, eggs, chickens, salmon, veggies galore, berries, ice cream, flowers... Happiness. It was wonderful. And it runs all year, and is literally 3 blocks from our house. So bingo bango, that's exciting. And we saw every kind of dog imaginable, which was fun, too. We even met a "golden doodle" who was awesome, and we want one. But don't worry, parents, won't be getting one any time soon. Sadly.
Today we made the trek over to the University so Brian could get his "Husky card." Let's all note the glory in the fact that Brian continually made fun of the fact that I had a "Phoenix card" at Elon and they couldn't just call it a student I.D. Ha. He had it coming. Sidenote, UW is a pretty big school, and I realize what a tiny school I went to! Oh my. Elon was small. It was wonderful, though. I just feel like I missed out on the big university feel. Anyway, UW was very nice. We liked it a lot.
Anyway, here's what many of you have been on me about: apartment photos. Just go to this link. Enjoy.

New House

Time out.

Hey, guys. Guess what?? Now we have 2 pieces of furniture! A bed and a tv stand! Hoorah! Today was a day filled with big trips to Target and Bed Bath and Beyond. And big thanks to everyone who gave us gift cards for graduation-- we bought $500 worth of stuff for $150! Thanks, all!

Anyway, let's get down to the reason for this post... I want to take a time out in the "we're moving listen to all our changes and goings-on" to get a little real. Today was the first day I really wished I was home. Why would you want to be in the gross sweaty South instead of lovely, cool, Seattle? One of my very best friends is having open heart surgery tomorrow. And I can't be there. My reason for sharing this with all our internet followers is to ask for your thoughts, prayers, positive vibes, whatever to be with my friend tomorrow and during her following weeks and months of recovery. She's strong, she can do it, but I know any positive feelings supporting her will help a whole lot. Thanks guys, have a good one.

Home Sweet Home...

Hello, all! I'm very pleased to tell you that we officially have a home! Hooray! We moved in this morning, and it is just lovely. Granted, we have only one piece of furniture and almost no belongings, but that will soon be fixed! We are in a very cute 681 sq. foot apartment in a very lovely neighborhood. We are right on a park, a block from a library, and two blocks from the main strip that has tons of tasty restaurants, coffee shops, cute stores, etc. We think this will be a very happy place to live.
It was pretty funny as Brian was unpacking his electronics and I was unpacking my Africa stuff... we are quite different in some ways. Alas.
Also, I learned some thing else today... I never want to go back to Wal mart again. No, sir. We braved one today just to spend a gift card, and it's just not going to happen again for me. What a stressful, unorganized experience.
Fun fact: in Seattle it is apparently illegal to not recycle. And that means all paper, plastics, etc. We are hoping to produce very little trash this year and be more green. Here's hoping.
And finally, in our hotel boredom the past few days, we watched the documentary "No Impact Man." If you haven't watched it, you should. It's a very thought-provoking story about a man who decided he and his family would live making no impact on the planet for one year. It made me really think about what I consume and what I carelessly toss into the trash, which in turn affects a lot of people and communities down the road. You should go watch it. That is all!

Tempurpedic Tevyn

Sup, folks? So Katie told y'all about IKEA and all that jazz, but she left out a pretty important part of our days here at this prestigious Days Inn. We went to a store called Mor For Less, or something like that. It is a pretty nice furniture store, and we were greeted at the door by a well dressed employee named Tevyn. He showed us some couches and sent us along on our way, to which we stumbled into the bed section. There was a large display of Tempurpedic beds and pillows, so of course I tried them out. And oh nelly, that is some amazing stuff.  I will now begin piece-wise replacing everything I own with a Temp. version of that item. Only one thing could remove me from this divine sampling; and that was Tevyn ghosting right up next to me and asking if I wanted to buy it. On the spot. So now I had to roll out of this swift-in-a-blanket, and start telling Tevyn to back the mess up, before we threw down. And of course then he tells me we could sit down and work out a financing plan if that was more agreeable to me, but I was definitely gonna toss 3grand on that bed to give him the best commission he has ever seen. So I punched his face in. (In my mind) In actuality, we kinda turned and ran away from him. But of course Tevyn was no stranger to ninjas. He knew the store was a giant labyrinth (it took us like 20 minutes to find an exit while explicitly searching) so he took his hidden passage shortcut and was at the door when we wanted to leave. So Katie and I hid behind some plants (no lies) until he was tractor beaming in on some new customers walking in the door and then we dashed right behind his greasy head and took off out the door. It was insanity.

-Swift

AHHHHHHHH!

The title of this post might lead you to believe that we've been doing some super exciting things... However, that is not true. Haha. I guess the "ahhhhhhh" is more out of frustration than excitement. We are, alas, still not in a home, and have been in (very) cheap hotels since we got here. Since it's labor day and super exciting things are going on in Seattle without us, all the hotels there are either a)booked or b)super pricey. So, we've been suburb-hopping in cheap hotels. Oh well. The word on the street is that maybe we'll be moving in tomorrow.
In the past couple of days, though, we have been able to thoroughly explore the land outside the city. Kind of. We at least made it to Ikea, which might be all that really matters. We went yesterday, and let me tell you people, that place is crazy. I had never been to an Ikea. I was overwhelmed with the amount of people on a mission. I mean really, is it necessary to leap in front of me, grab the dresser tag out of my hand and start opening up drawers while I am clearly trying to check out this piece of furniture? It's not like it's the only dresser in the store. It's not like they only have one in stock. It's Ikea for crying out loud, they have a whole warehouse full of dressers! Geez. Anyway, these people were on a mission, not saying "excuse me" and were intent on getting to that dish drying rack first, darn it. At one point, we had two men behind us who were clearly trying to meet up with some people. They contemplated the map for awhile, then we heard one get on the phone and say, "WE ARE STUCK IN IKEA HELL! Oh, there's the kitchens! We'll meet you in kitchens!" It was hilarious.
The good thing about our Ikea experience was that we could reminisce upon the beautiful Ikea scene in the movie 500 Days of Summer (if you haven't seen it, you aren't my friend anymore until you do). And we also actually weren't buying anything. Who would go to Ikea and not buy anything?? Two kids from Tennessee whose car is filled with all of their possessions and who are trying to kill some time before Tuesday, that's who. But now we know what we want from Ikea! And Big Lots. We stopped there, too, and it looks like the jack pot of all jack pots. Hoorah. I never thought I would devote so much time to home goods...
Anyway... It's been nice to be out of the car and just relax a little before moving in and trying to find a job and all that jazz. Hope all is well. We'll continue to keep you posted!

2Day 2Furious

Man, today was a crazy day people. We spent the entire morning at the apartment complex
filling out forms and trying to figure out which place we wanted to rent. That is such a stressful
process. Then we just had to walk around and waste time until they got back to us at like 545 to tell us
they are pretty positive we are going to get the place. So to waste that time, we walked around a botanic garden, and went down to the locks. Those were pretty cool to watch actually. Seeing the water level shift by like 20 feet, and learning how and why it all worked out was quite fun. It was also a gorgeous sunny and 75 all day long (again). We had some lovely Thai food for dinner, and katie consumed a bunch of broccoli in hopes of relieving her bout of traveler's constipation. Well, I somehow became an old man on this trip and have been tired since 9, so I'm going to go to sleep. Ciao.

Brian

First day in the big city

Today was pretty successful!
First of all, we were blessed with a beautiful day weather-wise! Thank goodness. Yesterday's rainy mess had me worried. It was gorgeous. I even saw the Cascades and Mt. Ranier, which yesterday was greatly shielded by the fog. Also, Mom, you'll be happy to hear that sailboating seems pretty big here in Lake Washington and Lake Union. Lots and lots of sailboats.
Today we let ourselves sleep in a little, catch up after the drive, you know? Then we were off to the West (haha, I'm noticing a west-ward trend happening in our lives), where we spent most of the afternoon in a neighborhood called Ballard. We looked at a few apartments there, and even found one we really liked! We might be signing a lease soon, and maybe even in a home by this weekend! Hoorah! It's a cute little neighborhood, right on the water (but I guess most places are here). On the main strip there are tons of coffee shops, restaurants and pubs. There is a grocery store in the bottom floor of the building we might live in. It seems just lovely. So that's that. It was nice to park and just walk around. I'm hoping I won't be driving much.
After we did our Ballard stuff, we took a bus into downtown, where we met up with an Elon friend of mine who has found her way here as well and her boyfriend and a friend of hers from high school who is visiting. We went to Pike Place Market, saw the famous fish throwers and wandered around. And oh my goodness, can we talk about flowers?! There are flowers everywhere. I'm talking a GIANT boquet of dahlias, sunflowers, and other pretty things for $5 or $10! Holy smokes. I'm always going to have fresh flowers at our place. So excited.
All in all, it was a successful first day! Maybe found a place to live, survived driving in city traffic, and confirmed that we do, in fact, know some people in this big ole city.
That's all folks. And seriously, I promise, I'll go work on uploading pictures now. I know you've been waiting anxiously hitting the refresh button hoping they'd be put up.