Snow Day!

Snowpacolyps has sit the Seattle area again, shutting down the city.  Well, some parts of it.  Redmond, where I live, sat in a weird pocket that didn't get too much snow.  An inch at the most...but the ice it created is ridiculously slick! Weird.

So because of above mentioned snow day, I worked from home.  Stang + Snow = Me No Leave-y!  I did manage to get out a bit though as the sun came out and melted parts of the streets. Anything in the shade stayed frozen, which made for interesting driving conditions.  Why did I venture out? Because I had to mail the cookbook.  The darn thing is done.

Kudos to my personal graphics designer, Andy, for the cover.  He's super creative and I'm glad cuz I never would have been able to come up with that cover.  I'll have the books in hand in about 2 months - so watch this space for ordering options.  I'll most likely be selling them for a "minimum donation" of $10+shipping.  It contains 150 tried and true recipes.  You'll love it.

As I was sitting on my couch today working, I glanced over to my side table and noticed all the books waiting to be read.  I laughed because the side table apparently holds the "grown up" books.  I have Necessary Endings by Dr. Henry Cloud, Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, by Ree Drummond (Pioneer Woman), Promise Me by Nancy Brinker, and The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.  I also have two teeny bopper books to read, my journal, and two photography books, and one note book for, well, notes.

I can't remember why I was even mentioning what was on my side table...um...nothing.

Right, moving on.

Pookie was "helping" me work from home today.  He's a little spoiled.  Okay, he's a lot spoiled. But I wouldn't have it any other way.  I'm sure if he spoke English he'd be thanking me for all that I do for him.  At one point today as I sat on the couch with my laptop on the side arm, he hopped up and tried to get onto the laptop.  I tried to explain to him that this laptop is essentially what keeps him fed.  He looked at me in disbelief...and walked away. 

In other news, the PhotoGods are getting together this weekend to do some shooting.  I know you can't wait to see the photos.  I've been pretty good with keeping up with the Project 365, this will only help.

Life is a Highway

Oh boy, what a weekend.  Nothing overly exciting happened last week so there's no need to really comment...oh wait, something exciting DID happen.

Many of you know I'm a budding photographer, trying to make a go at a potential business.  In my attempt to get a photography business going, I've been practicing a lot and I've been trying to put myself out there in many different ways. 

Coupled with that I LOVE Pioneer Woman.   Her website not only has her story and a blog about all the things that go on during her life on a cattle ranch (after living in LA).  She's funny and she's full of stories that make you laugh and cry. 

She has two other parts of her blog, one dedicated to cooking, which is where I find a lot of my recipes. And another dedicated to photography. Its the photography page I am about to discuss.

The Pioneer Woman (PDub) has these photo assignments every couple of months.  In the past year I've submitted a half dozen photos. None of them ever made it any further past me submitting.

Her last assignment was on the theme "love".  On a whim I submitted my 3 Day photo that I'm so very proud of.

Yah, that picture gets me all choked up too. 

Anyhow back to the story.  I submitted this photo about a day into the contest.  Then suddenly I see it as a chose one.  She picks about 20 each day that she thinks represents her theme.  And mine made it in group 6. Scroll down and you'll see my photo.

Then on Friday I got a text message from my GalPal Meg-A-Roonie saying I had made it to the finalist.

Needless to say I was a little more than excited. I came home and passed the word to everyone I know to go and vote for me. 

Now I wait to see. 

It may seem like a silly little contest to many people. It's not national, it's not anything really big, but it is to me.  To me it gives me validation.  It helps my confidence to know that my photo is chosen out of more than 4,000 photos. I am one of 16 finalist.  That's big to me.

Even if I don't win, I'm thrilled to have come this far. 

So I'll wait patiently to see if I win!  I swear I'm waiting patiently.

And so....I could sing Love Stinks...

Hmmm? So it’s been a week since I’ve posted. Surely something interesting happened last week. Lemme think.

Taps head thinking…

Shifts in seat thinking…

More tapping of head…

Ooo, I know. I did and mailed in my taxes.  I’ll be getting a refund which will promptly go into “Save-Jenn-from-Starvation-during-her-3-months-off-in-June” fund. Or as I like to call it SJFSDH#MOIJ. I think I need to work on the acronym.

I also attended a fantastic Getting Started meetings. Each meeting, while the same format, is different and unique in its own way. The faces that come through the door to hear about the 3day are usually full of excitement, fear, uncertainty, and sometimes tears.  Still, the participants sit and listen to all the 3Day is and does.  Some came already registered, many leave registered.  Each meeting reminds me again why I’m involved with this special organization.  The spirit and love that surrounds the 3day is addicting. There’s so much sadness that it represents, but it also represents hope.  The money the 3day has raised has gone to fund some of the most cutting edge new treatments for breast cancer.  Seeing that treatments are “better” (its hard to say better when you’re discussing cancer treatments), more exact, and extend lives of many who may not have had a fighting chance.

I have another coming up this week too. I can hardly wait.

I also had lunch with a friend from the former employer who shall not be named.  Immediately following the Great Unemployment Adventure of 2009 I defriended her from FB.  In fact, I defriended anyone and everyone associated to that employer.  She wrote me a very sweet, nice email that said first and foremost, “I understand why…” And then she proceed to say that she hoped one day I’d reconsider and friend her again. 

I knew I had reacted harshly – considering the news.  But to see an email from her in which she “hoped” I’d reconsider, spoke volumes to me about her character and what type of person she was.  It wasn’t HER who made me unemployed. She just had the bad luck to work for the company who had.  So I added her back to FB.  And we had lunch last week and it was GREAT to get caught up with her.  We did everything we could to refrain from gossiping but we just couldn’t … okay we really didn’t even try to refrain.

Then the weekend was upon me. Saturday I spent a good portion of the day inputting recipes for this fund raising cookbook I’m doing. I need 200 recipes, have 147, and inputted 50. I thought I had put in way more, but counted wrong. Ugh!  I’m on a tight schedule now and am trying to get it done by Feb 28^th in order to save $$ on the order.

Saturday night, BigBro, Seattle SIL and I went to our favorite pizza joint, Northlake Tavern.  We barely had to look at the menu, we knew we’d order the Logger Special.  The large pie weighs 6 lbs.  We opted for a medium, which weighed in at 4.5 lbs. That’s a lotta pie.

After stuffing ourselves silly, we ventured to the Shanty Tavern to watch The Yank’s new band the Soul Proprietors play.  Interesting little tidbit about the Shanty Tavern, I’ve driven past this bar a thousand times. Every time it makes me shiver because it looks like such a dive. I imagine the type of clientele they have and just know that a bar room brawl breaks out every night. “Shots fired at the Shanty,” is heard on the local police scanners.  Turns out the little joint wasn’t at all what I expected. Clean, quite clean really (either that or they kept it dark enough for me to not notice.) Anyway, it was as entertaining of a night as any.  The band was exceptionally good. I liked all the songs they sang, and wasn’t overly surprised that I knew the words to about 80% of them.

The Sunday was Sunday dinner.  The usual suspects showed up.  Chicken Pot Pie was on the menu at Chez Jenn’s and I’ve gotta say, it was delicious. Of course it was delicious, it was an American Test Kitchen recipe…what’s not to like with them.

Today is the dreaded Valentine’s day.  Not sure if I’ll ever be happy about this day – as my mom stated, “Don’t think about it as Valentine’s day. Think of it as your sister’s birthday.” So that’s what I’m going to do.  No hearts, no love, no chocolates, no roses...just another day. A birthday in fact.

On a much happier note, BeagleBabe contacted me last night to "hire" me to shoot her husband's 40th birthday party at Canlis - one of the swankiest restaurants in Seattle. And she wants to pay me. Now I've got to figure out how much I'm worth. 

Operation: Find a Guy

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated you all on Operation: Find A Guy. Truth be told there isn’t much to update.

eHarmony seems to have really got their lines crossed with regard to my matches.  Let me ‘splain.

90% of the matches I’ve received have been “outdoorsy” men.  I’m not talking Grizzly Adams type, but men who like skiing, camping, hiking, fishing, boating, skiing, hiking, fishing, climbing big mountains, gardening, being outdoors whenever possible.

Now, I have nothing against men like that. In fact, the world needs them. Without hikers, we’d never even have the Northwest (Louis and Clark were essentially hikers). Without skiers we’d never have – well, I’m not sure what they bring to the table. Without fishermen our streams and rivers would overflow with fish.  I get that these are fun, exciting ways to pass time for most…but not necessarily for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I like being outdoors, but my idea of camping is at the Westin. Skiing as a past time I let go of some 10 years ago when falling was more the sport than skiing.  Fishing? Blech…fish…

I fought against this for years, this “need” to be outdoorsy in the Northwest is strong – it’s in almost every fiber of every Northwesterner’s being.  I’m not a pure blood Northwesterner so I’m lacking this gene…which is fine by me.

My outdoors adventure usually involves walking with my camera in hand trying to find something interesting to shoot.  On a sunny day, Seattle is the most beautiful place there is and after a long, wet, winter, being outdoors is something I crave.  I just don’t feel like I have to be outdoors every second of every waking hour.  My Seattle Sister-in-Law said it best years ago –even though it bothered me then, but she was right – she said, “you aren’t the “get your hands dirty” type.”  And that would be right.

Right, so back to the matches.  So far, I’ve sent the “getting to know you” communication to 35 men.  One has responded – we’ll call him Phil. And unfortunately I did not realize that “Phil” was 53 at the time I sent the communication or I wouldn’t have even started it. That’s too old for me.  A guy friend this weekend who’s also doing the online dating told me his “rule of thumb” for age is half his age plus 7 years.  I can’t live by that rule…because I so can’t see myself with a 28 year old.

I’m rewriting my profile with the help of a few friends.  Though I’m not sure that will do any good.  This weekend I decided I need to branch out onto more sights.  The first rule of selling anything is getting out there in every possible place you can. And so I’m “getting it out there”.

One of the sites I’m a user of now, I got matched with a guy who prefers to have his women hypnotized. Though he doesn’t say “all the time” or how often…I just found that amusing. 

Another match today I have to give kudos for being honest…admits he’s married and admits he’s only looking for an “intimate friend”. Next.

Another match likes to dress up in Renaissance era clothing. That’s it. He doesn’t actually say “and go to Renaissance fairs”…

And yet another says, “I currently don't have a car, and I've decided I just don't want to even think about meeting new people until I've changed that, so I consider my profile to be on hold.”

Alright then…moving on.

Yesterday at the All Female Superbowl party I had one of my friends asked each of us about our "type" of man.  Two of the three women in the party really prefer the athletically built type.  I believe the word "chiseled" was used.  They had other things on their list and as I sat and listened to them describe I thought, "Huh, no competition in this room for my type".

While "chiseled" and "athletic" are fun to look at, I don't really see that as a reality for me. Nor do I find myself overly attracted to those types (that doesn't mean I can't and don't appreciate a mighty fine body).  And maybe its because I've seen so many "types" online, but it seems the more natural, real looking type -you know the one's who have a few extra pounds or a little belly - seem to be the type I'm attracted to.  It could be because I'm that type too and figured I'd likely attract the same type (I mean lions are only interested in female lions - not female cougars).

It was interesting to hear their "types" and I tried to imagine each of them with those types.  One I could the other I couldn't.  I do think one of them has a Cinderella complex and wonders if she'll be able to step down from the carriage long enough to find a good guy.

In the meantime, I’m not giving up, not by a long shot, in fact, I’m rather enjoying all the “potential” fish out there…its entertaining me and giving me blog fodder…

A little this...a little that...

Whew, what a week.  It came in nice and sunny and is going out stormy and rainy. Though I’m not complaining. I’ll take our rain to hella-storm in the middle of the country. Ick.

As I mentioned, it’s been quite the week. It started out like any other week, then got progressively better because the dining out and meeting with friends ratio went up. Blueberry, ChickenLady and I met for dinner on Tuesday night.  My appetite is finally back (sadly) and so I’m starting to crave things again.  I’m not sure that’s a good thing, but when I don’t have an appetite it worries me – so I’d rather be hungry than worry.

Anyhow, at dinner Blueberry and I got in a discussion about endives.  I know, “What? Why?”.  We were telling ChickenLady about the meal we had at  Ventana on Saturday.  Blueberry made a comment that the lettuce-y stuff on our plate was endive.  Hang on there Berry…endives aren’t lettuce-y.  I tried to explain what I thought endives were, and her and ChickenLady both looked perplexed.  I took the “I’m a cook!” attitude – but neither of them were having any of that.

So I whipped out the iPhone and the Google ap and looked it up. Turns out we were both right.

This is what I thought endives are/were. And in fact are called Belgian endive. I was saying how you can peel the leaves off and use them as an appetizer dispenser (as in put the dip on the end of it). Blueberry thinking it was the other endive couldn't figure out how that was possible.

This is the endive Blueberry was thinking about. Its also known as chicory and curly endive. 



Satisfied we were both right we went about eating our Thai food.

Last night I got to meet Meg-A-Roonie for some of the best Mexican food around, Peso's Kitchen on Queen Anne.  I've been there a hand full of times and have yet to have a bad meal.  I had red chili beef enchiladas last night and OMG were they good.  I love the fact that they just serve enchiladas.  No beans or rice on the side to make you eat more.  Now, I did order a side of rice because I love their Spanish rice...but it's a small portion and so worth it. I've also heard a vicious rumor that they do one heckuva brunch on Sunday's with a dozen or so different types of - oh hell...what's it called - um - egg's Benedict. I'm not a fan of egg's Benedict, but their carne asada with eggs totally gets my breakfast crave on.

I so didn't take this photo. First...it's sunny outside and if you know nothing about Seattle in February...the sun isn't what we see much of. 

This weekend I need to get a few things done. The Superbowl commercials are on (yes I watch for the commercials) and I have to make nachos. I've been craving my chorizo nachos so I figured why not mix football and nachos. It's not like anyone else every thought of that.

I need to spend some time this weekend working on the 3Day cookbook too.  It's going to be the end of February before I know it and I won't have received my cookbooks for selling.  Get your order in early...it's going to be the hottest cookbook EVER...