Doggy Dilema

This post is courtesy of my dad who e-mailed me this story yesterday. It was so cute I had to share...

Today's story.

It's about 28 degrees out and windy. She could be inside where it's a balmy 63 degrees, on the back porch on a nice warm chunk of indoor/outdoor carpet, on the doormat at the bottom of the stairs where the concrete may be holding some of today's heat, or she could camp out on the ice covered snow covering the back yard.

Where did your goofy dog decide to chill out (no pun intended!):

Martha Who?

In an ode to Martha Stewart, Angie and I decided to try and do some more decorating at the house. At Target we spotted these adorable little trifle bowls and I thought it might be the perfect thing to fill with Holiday cheer! After we arrived home from a long afternoon of errands, we went straight to work and here is attempt #1:

My attempt is on the left, packed full and Angie's is on the right, nice and clean and simple. I of course was ready to call it a night and declare the decorating complete. However, being the crafty queen that Angie is, she continued to work with our little decorations. This led to quite the project of pulling berries off the wire "stem" as well as cutting each gold bead from the long garland strand they were on. After a break for dinner, and much picking and fiddling around with the exact placement of the berries, here is the final product:

These were a joint effort and I think the result is much better. I would say that we definitely gave Martha Stewart a run for her money and now the decorating is complete and we can sit back and enjoy the rest of the Christmas Cheer to come!

Why...

I have been tagged! However, seeing as how I only know 2 other people who blog and one of them tagged me, I can't pass it on!
Let's hope this doesn't result in 7 years of bad luck or anything too dramatic :)
Here are my 6...
1. I like describing things as "a situation"
2. My dog has a middle name, but I only use it when I am mad at her, just like with a misbehaving child!!!
3. I like to read a kids book every once in a while. They always make me smile and remind me of happy innocent times.
4. When I am driving around Seattle and I see huge gaps in traffic I always want to yell to people to "tighten it up"!
5. I would like to take a photography class
6. I can't pass up a Clinique Bonus time whether I need something or not. You can never have too much make-up it seems.

Build an Ark

Today is the rainiest day in Seattle ever! These are the kind of days that people who don't live here think it is like year round! There was literally a lake in the parking lot at work that I could have put a canoe in and paddled around for fun. It was also bad enough that I almost didn't stop in to Starbucks for my morning coffee. I said almost because it is Monday and its the holiday season. I know that I won't melt, but it was that nasty. I treated myself to a piece of Gingerbread for braving the rain. Whatever a girls got to do to get by :)

Sightseeing

Driving out to Seattle this summer with my mom we decided it was going to be a straight shot, no stopping or sightseeing. This is a typical "Volk" thing to do, goodness forbid we should actually pull the car over and see something new! However in South Dakota we decided that we needed to see the "Worlds only Corn Palace". That is too good to pass up. In the true spirit of the trip we agreed to just drive by, no going in. We followed the signs, billboards and stream of cars and there it was. Impressive yes, worth stopping? No. It was a definite "Been there, done that" moment. What made the trip truly worth the detour was what I saw next. A hot dog shop on the next block had one of the best mascots I have ever seen and I laugh every time I see it... I will let the picture speak for itself. Don't forget to check out the sneakers!

Towel Chute

Tonight as I was getting ready for bed I checked the bath towels hanging up in the bathroom and they were still damp. I don't know if it is because they are hanging and folded in on themselves or if it is because it is so much colder now that they don't dry. I like to think that some of it is because we live with Mr. Energy Conserver and we don't crank the heat up! Although Angie and I are big fans of the infamous heat lamp!! Anyways, I threw the towels in the dryer for a few minutes so that we would have nice dry towels in the morning. When I pulled them out of the dryer I put both of them around Angie who was sitting at the computer. She quickly declared that this was the best moment of her life! Who knew a warm towel would be such a hit! Then came the best statement ever, " we really need to figure out how to make a chute to get the towels from the dryer to us in the shower so they arrive all nice and warm!" I think this could be our next million dollar idea!

Football in Silence

I had to post this because I thought it was too funny. Hopefully it will come across when I write it down, things like this can get lost in translation.
So, last night Steve and I were both in the family room watching Monday Night Football and in true form I was chatting up a storm. I have to comment on things on t.v., some of you might have heard me describe it as "witty banter" or just general chatter, because there was a lot going on in the game! I asked Steve in the middle of all my talking if "he missed the days of quiet football watching all on his own?" After a few seconds he looked over at me and said "what?"!!!!
Apparently he doesn't hear any of my running commentary because he has tuned me out!! So there must be very little difference between watching t.v. with or without me! :):)

Starbucks Run

Since moving to Seattle I thought that it would only be fitting to do as the locals do and hit up my local Starbucks every morning. And since you can't go 2 feet in this area without running into one it was easy to do. That and the fact that I get up super early every morning I feel justified in getting my tall nonfat caramel macchiato everyday(Thanks, Dad!). So I have my whole morning routine timed perfectly to allow that necessary stop at Starbucks. I go to the same one every morning and lately there has been this couple there that is driving me nuts. Now I have no problem with appropriate PDA's, however there is a time and a place. This couple is older and they always come in together holding hand, he lets her order first the whole nine yards. What always kills me is that while they are both waiting for their no extra water chai soy latte not even worth the money drink they hold hands, kiss, smile etc. It drives me crazy, I mean come on it is 7 something in the morning and I can't imagine that it is in any way necessary to do that every time and every morning!! Give it a rest already, can't we just get our coffee and be on our way in peace? I actually look to see if they are there and breathe a little sigh of relief when I don't see them. That way I know that it is going to be a nice peaceful PDA free day!

Feetcakes

Ever since I have been back in Seattle I wanted to eat at the PancakeHaus, an Edmonds institution. This morning seemed like the perfect day, a cold rainy Sunday. However in a move to save money and be healthier eaters we decided to eat pancakes at home. "I will make them from scratch" was my next comment and Angie agreed to humor me and kept the Bisquick box in the cupboard. I looked up a recipe, got out the ingredients and decided to try and make 1 1/2 recipes. Mistake #1. Angie looked at the recipe and said "How do you half an egg?" Mistake #2. I proceeded to whip up a batch of these pancakes and marched over to the stove, bowl of batter in hand. Pancake number one went in to the pan and I looked on in dismay as it spread out in to what can best be described as a crepe! The horror!! Here I am trying to convince Angie of the joy of things made from scratch and it can only be described as a complete bust. She waited patiently as I cooked pancake after pancake. At one point I tried to convince her that even though they looked flat they would not "taste like feet". FEET! Who ever heard of a feetcake? This was definite cause for alarm and after trying to tweek the bowl of batter it was declared a baking disaster and the rest was dumped out. No pancakes, no PancakeHaus and yet another adventure in baking for me!

Begin at the Beginning

Hello, my name is Beth. Some people call me Elizabeth, others call me B. I am mad at my friend Angie, she calls me Bethie, but that is not why I am mad at her. I am mad that she is making me Blog... but I think this may help me get some of my anger out.

A note about the above posting! I didn't actually write that, it was courtesy of Angie who insisted that if she was going to blog I needed to join in. Something tells me that I am going to get a little more sucked into this than she will.

Already this morning when I was doing something as simple as making pancakes I thought, "Do I need to remember the funny things that are happening because I might need to write them in my new blog?" This could certainly become quite the issue!