Tag Archives: wine

The ABCs of 2013

I saw this idea on the Carrots ‘N’ Cake blog and thought it would be fun to do as well. It also helps that I can use it to procrastinate from cleaning the house while I wait for Greg to come home with dinner.

A – Alfred growing up. It’s sad that this has to be first, but I’m really excited for Alfred to go from puppy to dog and be just a little bit more calm.

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B – Bar-B-Qs. Our new house has the most entertaining-friendly front yard and I can’t wait to use it once summer comes around.

C – CrossFit. I’m back and more obsessed than last year. The Open starts in March and I can’t wait!

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D – Documenting. I am loving Project Life and trying to keep up with my One Line A Day book. I’m keeping it to a minimum this year.

E – Eastern Washington weekends. Summer can’t come fast enough and I’m excited to spend many weekends visiting Ken and Cathy and soaking up the sun.

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F – Futbol! The Sounder’s season starts the first weekend of March and we are ready. We have six seats this year and it’s going to be a blast with the Kays and Tupling-Irvines.


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G – Getaway. We didn’t do a winter getaway last year. We learned our lesson. We’re spending a long weekend in Phoenix in March.

H – Happy first anniversary. I think it’s so fun that Greg and I will get to celebrate our first anniversary this year… and hopefully somewhere fun!

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I – Ice cream! Our friends Kevin and Anita gave us an ice cream maker for a wedding gift and I’m looking forward to try out some fun (coconut milk) flavors.

J – Journeying to South America. I have always, always wanted to go to South America and it seems like this might be the year. Not for sure yet, but I hope so!

K – Kitchen time. Besides the ice cream maker, we got many other kitchen gadgets and I’m looking forward to using them all and keeping up with cooking most of our food.

L – Little Smithski. It’s not every day (or even every year or decade) that your BFF has a baby; I’m co-hosting a fun shower in April and then meeting the little guy or gal in July. Yippee!

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M – Martin Family Golf Tournament. I’ve missed it both years and I’m so hoping timing works out this year.

N – New York. Spring in New York visiting friends, a new baby, and my BIL. My life is good.

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O – Offal. I’m going to eat offal this year. Ugh.

P – Pull-up. I’m going to do a pull-up this year. It’s going to happen.

Q – Quiet time. I’m loving that we are following through with ‘relax’ being our word of the year. We’re having lots of fun and have many plans in the works, but we also have low key nights at home that are much needed.

R – Reading. Four books down, how many more can I fit in this year? I hope my love for books never wanes.

S – San Francisco. Almost two years to the day from when I left I’ll be back for the wedding of good friends.

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T – “Tacos”. When I first went Paleo I was obsessed with lettuce tacos. I sort of forgot about them, but now I’m remember how easy and awesome they are.

U – Update the office. The office is our favorite room and where we spend the most time together. It’s going to be the first room we work on in the house.

V – Volunteering. I’m hoping to find an organization to volunteer with, it’s been too long.

W – Weekenders with the Collins. It’s not secret we spend a lot of time and money visiting my family, and I’m very thankful we can. We already have two weekends on the books and I’m sure there will be more.

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X – Xploring Washington. I hope we can get out more this year and see new parts of the state.

Y – Youngsters. Besides the four currently in my family, two new babies are being born to close friends this year. I’m loving getting to be around so many little ones these days!

Z – Zoom zoom. I’m still loving my little Mazda 3 and it’s coming up on it’s first birthday. I still find it totally enjoyable to drive to and from work in it. Maybe I’ll keep this one ten years, too, so my next new car feels as awesome!

Wrapping up a Crazy Summer

I can’t believe I’m sitting here on the couch with my HUSBAND next to me. Where did the summer go? This seemed like a good time to look back at the Summer Bucket List I wrote way back in May. It turns out I love a seasonal bucket list (shocking, I know). This worked so much better for me than setting New Year goals that I forget about by Valentine’s Day. I think I’ll keep borrowing Holly’s idea, but I have a few tweaks to make for a Fall list. First I am going to pack and head to Mexico for a week. 🙂

Social

Host a wedding wine tasting party – Success! We had a lot of fun with friends (12 people showed up!) and actually found that a few of the pricier bottles were really not good, while the house cab took second place overall. 

Have friends over for a BBQ – It’s kind of cheating because our good friends Talia and James moved into our building at the beginning of the summer, but we all got together for a few BBQs, so it was a success. This particular BBQ was the weekend after we picked Alfred up from Spokane and if I remember correctly they hadn’t quite moved in yet, so it totally counts as having them over. I don’t even remember Alfred being that small.

Beauty and Style

Wear a dress/skirt to work everyday for a week – I have worn a ton of dresses and skirts, but haven’t managed to do it for a full week. And it probably won’t happen since I won’t be back to work until October.

Buy and wear white denim – Done and done, and I love it! I got a dressier pair of white pants and love them so much I tried to find a more casual pair too, but never found any that fit well. Next summer for sure.

Start wearing glasses more than contacts – I pretty much wear my glasses Monday – Friday and sometimes even on the weekends. My eyes feel so much better, totally worth it. At some point I’d like to get a second pair of glasses, but probably not until insurance will pay, so like in two years.

Travel

Go to my BACHELORETTE party! – It was awesome and you can read about it here.

Go on my HONEYMOON! – Countdown: one day!

Visit LA for my bridal shower and Becky’s baby shower. – Done and done. I would say I will post about it, but probably not going to happen!

Day trip to somewhere new in Washington State – We visited lots of new parks with the puppy, but we never left Seattle for a new-t0-us location.

Weekend trip to Lake Chelan – We spent the weekend in the Chelan condo for Labor Day, after thinking we wouldn’t make it out this summer. It was super relaxing and we did pretty much nothing but read, watch TV (his dad has cable!), and play with the puppy. We aslo did do a weekend trip to Wenatchee earlier in the summer as well.

Home

Plan and throw a WEDDING! – I’m Mrs. Martin! I even have the tote bag to prove it!

Get a PUPPY! – We did, and boy has it been an adventure. Here’s the adorable Alfred monthly from May – August. 

Food

Pick berries at a U-Pick berry farm – Nope, not even once have I contemplated going.

Make something preserved with the berries – Hard to make anything with berries you didn’t end up picking.

Make a new cocktail with each of the herbs growing on the balcony. – Over the course of the summer I made strawberry infused vodka sodas with mint and spiked basil lemonade. 

Enjoy outdoor brunch at a new restaurant – We tried a new brunch spot (Local 360) that was tasty, but sadly the morning we went it wasn’t quite warm enough yet to eat outdoors. They have a great patio, so it wasn’t for lack of trying! 

Fitness

Run a half marathon – So we paid and trained for this, but it didn’t happen. Talia got injured in a soccer game two days before the race, and when I woke up on race morning to pouring rain, well… there was just no way I was going to go do 13.1 miles alone in the cold rain. My heart isn’t in running like it used to, so for now I’m retired. I had a good run with two full marathon and four halfs. I enjoy walking and hiking with the puppy and doing CrossFit at home these days. Maybe I’ll get back into at some point, but for now I’ve promised Greg I will not spend any more money signing up for races. 

Beat my 2011 Warrior Dash time – I really thought the two fitness goals would be the sure things. Funny how that works. By the time Warrior Dash weekend came around we were just too tired to drive the hour each way and participate. It had been a long week for everyone, including Alfred who got stuck in his crate for a good portion of it. Last thing we wanted to do was leave him home alone for a good chunk of Sunday, too. We went on a family hike and finished up with push-ups at home. Again with the promise to not sign up for races. 🙂 

Bachelorette Party

I had my bachelorette party down in Sonoma the last weekend of July. Vanessa, Kathy, Lauren, Talia, Alyssa and Julie all joined me and we had the most relaxing, fun weekend. It was fun to have a mix of college, San Francisco, and Seattle friends to celebrate with.

I got very excited a few weeks before when this arrived.

I had my bride goblet to drink wine out of while we were at the house all weekend.

Dessert on Friday night was one of my favorites – carrot cake. This just happened to be a bright pink one with Greg lying seductively on it.

We spent Friday night relaxing, drinking wine, making a Mexican fiesta (it was all my favorite food!), sitting by the fire we lit, and catching up. And taking (not very good) self time photos.

Saturday day was for wine tasting with our old pal John (he also drove us around for Vanessa’s 30th two years ago).

Saturday evening we did more of the same. And I got to open presents. My friends are so sweet. Until I almost went through security with a few items that would have been on the humiliating side.

This weekend was perfectly planned by the best friend and MOH a girl could have. THANK YOU!

Cheers to the best weekend! Can’t wait for an excuse to do it again – and there are a few good excuses coming up soon!