Pacific

Thursday afternoon, feeling restless in the face of the new decade, I decided that we should get to the ocean for the first few days of 2010. It would be my first trip to the Oregon coast. I found the Tradewinds Motel in Seaside, OR, on VRBO, booked the next two nights, and we headed out early on New Years Day. Our room was a little studio with a bed, bath, "fireplace", microwave and mini-fridge. But most importantly, it was beachfront, and we had a view of the waves crashing just 50 feet beyond our window.

Tradewinds Motel--our room was the top left window, room 206

The weather was stormy, which only added to the huge amount of energy at the coast. We packed all of our raingear and spent large parts of our days dressed like Gorton's fishermen, walking the beach. The winds were high and sand flew past us. Seafoam rolled like tumbleweeds in the wind.

Happiness, Seaside, OR

Jarrod taking photos of Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach, OR

Astoria, OR

Proof that it did get sunny...for a minute.

Wish?

Merry Christmas, 2009.

Opening, 2010.

Happy New Year to you all. I wish you much happiness in 2010.

Christmas 2009

Some snapshots from our Christmas, featuring Jarrod's new headlamp, Pearl's Christmas "outfit" and new toy, and my attempt at making candy cane cookies.

Great Holiday Drinks

I came across these recipes in Sunset magazine this morning while waiting for my re-check at Bastyr. So many of them look delicious--I thought I'd share:

Great Holiday Drinks

On my list to try (in this order):

Merry Cranberry Margarita

Pear Sidecar

Cranberry and Spice Tea "Toddies"

The solution we've been waiting for

Remember way back when I was interested in cooking and needed a place to collect online recipes? I have found that place. Seems it was under my nose all along.

My long-standing favorite recipe website is allrecipes.com. I have a "recipe box" on that site that I can flag recipes straight into. What I didn't know is that you can also link to any other recipe on the web, or manually enter your own recipe from the same page. I've been adding recipes from Food Network.com and others just by using "weblink" and entering the url from another site. Brilliant. This is exactly what I've been looking for. As usual, I just wasn't utilizing what I had to its full capability.

Hope this helps those of you who were wondering the same.

Now--does anyone have a killer macaroni and cheese recipe to share with me? I want breadcrumb topping, and no roux. I have no time talent for roux. Send in time for Christmas Eve dinner? Please and thank you.

Blog? What?

Sorry guys. Blog?

I have three excuses. Want to hear them?

1. Still no Martha. I continue in my uninspired cooking.
2. The weather. Also uninspired. No sweet action shots of anything particularly fun. Seattle has literally been frozen for over a week now, but no snow, darnit.
   
3. My job. Don't tell, but I often did my updates from work, when I had a chance to take a break or lunch. Haven't had that lately. Too busy.

I spent Friday and Saturday of this weekend down with a migraine. Been getting too many of those again lately, so I went to Bastyr last week for their naturopathic take on things. I left with mega-doses of B vitamins, fish oil, and calcium & magnesium. I have strict orders to take those for the next two weeks and see if I notice a difference. We'll see.

Hope you all are doing well and that the amount of holiday cheer pulsing through your veins is steadily increasing...

Girls night in

Saturday was girls night, hosted by Deanne and Dip at their new house in Kirkland. Below are the best shots of baby Owen, our delicious potluck dinner, and Tubby the cat.

Jocelyn, Deanne, Owen, Jeannette, and Zeina.

Jocelyn and baby Owen

TUBS says "Look at the size of my cat hands!"

Weekend recipe idea

This sounds like an awesome recipe for this weekend:

Chicken and Dumplings

Only thing I'm not certain about is seasoning the dumplings with dill. Does that sound good/ right to you guys?