You should eat at Shalimar. It may be dirty, but it's dirty good.
I know, I know
I've been a bad blogger. Sorry. I only say sorry because I hate when other people are bad bloggers. I went to Hailey's dance recital. I had NO idea how much I could love a straight faced, nervous little girl standing on a stage. That's all for now, stay tuned. I will be back with a vengeance. Well, not really, but I'll probably be blogging more.
Ho Ho Ho
There are a few things I really like about the holiday season. One of them is listening to this song on repeat, although semi depressing for a Christmas song, it is beautiful. I also REALLY enjoy when Bret and I exchange gifts. Here is a little sampling of things we have given to each other in years past:
2007
Bret for Whitney: a small branch like structure and an alarm clock
Whitney for Bret: socks and a gift certificate to a strange grocery store
2006
Bret for Whitney: a harmonica
Whitney for Bret: a cassette tape called "5 minute mysteries"
2005
We were broken up
2004
Bret for Whitney: a thermal shirt
Whitney for Bret: a pair of school shoes
The gifts Bret has given almost top the year that Lindsay gave me a frozen dessert cake for christmas (does anyone else remember Vienetta? I loved that stuff).
The picture is from Christmas 2007. This year our tree is the previously mentioned branch sculpture.
2007
Bret for Whitney: a small branch like structure and an alarm clock
Whitney for Bret: socks and a gift certificate to a strange grocery store
2006
Bret for Whitney: a harmonica
Whitney for Bret: a cassette tape called "5 minute mysteries"
2005
We were broken up
2004
Bret for Whitney: a thermal shirt
Whitney for Bret: a pair of school shoes
The gifts Bret has given almost top the year that Lindsay gave me a frozen dessert cake for christmas (does anyone else remember Vienetta? I loved that stuff).
The picture is from Christmas 2007. This year our tree is the previously mentioned branch sculpture.
Thanksgiving Whirlwind
I wish I had pictures of Thanksgiving, but I don't. I was too busy jogging the turkey trot, loving Nevada City, chatting with my cousins and family, watching my Aunt and Uncle make a gourmet meal, and eating.
We spent the day at my cousins house in one of my favorite cities, ahem towns, in California. To see a not very good picture of Nevada City, click here.
Then we were off to Newport Beach to see this girl get married.
It was wonderful in every way. I have more pictures of this, but I don't look good in them, and who wants bad pictures of themselves posted on the internet? It turns out my home done hair cut doesn't look so good in pics. It was a whirlwind trip and we spent the night in three different locations in four days and drove for approximatly 22 hours. Our thanksgiving was wonderful though and over the course of the weekend I got to see some of the people I love most in this world.
We spent the day at my cousins house in one of my favorite cities, ahem towns, in California. To see a not very good picture of Nevada City, click here.
Then we were off to Newport Beach to see this girl get married.
It was wonderful in every way. I have more pictures of this, but I don't look good in them, and who wants bad pictures of themselves posted on the internet? It turns out my home done hair cut doesn't look so good in pics. It was a whirlwind trip and we spent the night in three different locations in four days and drove for approximatly 22 hours. Our thanksgiving was wonderful though and over the course of the weekend I got to see some of the people I love most in this world.
12 year old asian
At 7:30am on Saturday I woke up and decided to get my fabric scissors out and give myself a haircut similar to what you would see on a 12 year old Asian. Or a lampshade.
Drum Roll Please
As promised (to my parents)click HERE to see all the pictures you could ever want to see of us in the South
Food Tour 08'
Here is a collage dedicated to the food establishments we ate at on our 3 day tour of the South. We explored every type of fried food there is... fried green tomatoes, fried okra, fried chicken and waffles, you name it, we ate it. My question is, is do people in the South really eat that much fried chicken? Every where we went there were billboards for different fast food places and restaurants all advertising fried chicken. I think that was the most surprising thing of the trip, oh and that so many people smoke... did no one get the memo that cigarettes turn your teeth yellow, contaminate your lungs, and slowly kill you? There were entire families smoking, like teenagers and their parents.
Other than the cigs, everything about the trip was wonderful. The fall colors, the accents, the charming towns with incredible architecture, we loved every second of it. I'm still working on uploading the rest of the pics, because I know everyone is just dying to see just albums of me and b.
Oops
Sorry I kept the Ode to Myself up so long with out any new updates, but Bret and I were out of town. Thank you for all the birthday wishes, it felt really good, even if I did request them myself.
Out of town you say? Well, yes. We spent 3.5 days traveling in the Dirty South mainly Raleigh, Atlanta, Savannah, and Charleston. We spent a lot of time in the car eating fried chicken while driving to various destinations. I'll post more about it tomorrow when I have uploaded the pics.
Out of town you say? Well, yes. We spent 3.5 days traveling in the Dirty South mainly Raleigh, Atlanta, Savannah, and Charleston. We spent a lot of time in the car eating fried chicken while driving to various destinations. I'll post more about it tomorrow when I have uploaded the pics.
yay life.
I'll probably spend most of the day doing this (pictured above) and celebrating life, because today is my birthday. Now don't feel obligated to fill my comment box with birthday wishes (although I never mind a comment), but I just really love my birthday, and I like to blog about happy things (if you couldn't tell).
Today I will celebrate how grateful I am to be alive and healthy. I think if no one acknowledged me on my birthday, I wouldn't mind, I just love that everyone gets their own personal holiday, and today is mine.
So maybe today, for my birthday, all you out there who read my blog and never comment, maybe as a special gift, you'll leave me a comment and we can become cyber friends, in a non-creepy way. Or maybe not, it's up to you, I don't mind either way. I'm just grateful that in a world filled with a lot of suffering, illness, and uncertainty there are people who do wonderful things and care deeply about what is going on around them and that I get to be a part of it all, and for that, I celebrate.
I like face paint
I think when I have kids it will be more likely for them to have their faces painted then not painted. I love face paint. It's just so funny and it makes everyone happy when you go out with it. (Except for the huge scary beard that Hailey painted on bret's face and when we went to the park he scared all the kids and they went to the other part of the playground).
I think I inherited this love from my mom, who also happens to be an amazing face painter. Well, an amazing painter in general and can translate it onto a face canvas. A few weekends ago we went up to Truckee and spent most of the weekend eating junk, going to the park, and getting our faces painted by Hailey.
I think I inherited this love from my mom, who also happens to be an amazing face painter. Well, an amazing painter in general and can translate it onto a face canvas. A few weekends ago we went up to Truckee and spent most of the weekend eating junk, going to the park, and getting our faces painted by Hailey.
Sunol
We went to Sunol Regional Park, I'm not really sure where it is or if it could even be considered a hike, but it was sunny and that's all that matters. Our weekends consist of three things, trying to spend time in the sun, eating donuts, and talking about the barn that we'll one day live in and all the logistics of it. They usually consist of other things that we have to do because we are adults, but they're not nearly as fun to think about as sunshine, donuts, and barns.
RIP Talay 2
I realize that there are kids in a 5 mile radius of my house that probably go to bed hungry and there are people that live in war zones and people who have recently lost their homes because of natural disasters, but as vain as I sound, I can't help but mourn the lose of my beloved bike.
I thought my "get things stolen from me" quota was full for this year, but it wasn't. Some poor, unfortunate soul decided my bike was too desirous and didn't realize that I work full time to afford a few luxuries in life, like a beautiful schwinn, and they jacked my chain and stole my bike.
*two of the pictures above are actually of Talay 1, which was replaced by Talay 2, two years ago.
Now We Can All Feel Jealous
Below are pictures of Bret's commute. Amazing.
Have you ever seen break lights? That's my commute. You don't need pictures, just imagine me in the mazda nissan, sitting in traffic in the east bay.
Have you ever seen break lights? That's my commute. You don't need pictures, just imagine me in the mazda nissan, sitting in traffic in the east bay.
I'm Back
Me being tired translates to me not posting. But I'm awake now, and I'll be posting. Sorry for the bad lighting in the pics, I'm occupied during daylight hours. We found this great mirror (correction, bret found this great mirror) at a garage sale and anything with a new coat of shiney, red paint makes a world of difference.
Full Disclosure
The locket I wear around my neck might not be real gold and it might have hot glue instead of a picture inside of it.
thomas time
I've had the same best friend for 22 years, 10 months and 2 days (or since the day I was born). Well 23 years ago today she was born. I think if we stopped speaking today and in 45 years someone asked me who my best friend was, I'd say Monica. Happy Birthday MonBon. Go get that 20 piece chicken nugget.
Mr. and Mrs. Columbus
A couple of weekends ago Bret and I had the official kick off to Year of the Explorer. We decided to explore parts of Northern Ca that we had never been to before. The trip started by driving up the coast. Most of the trip went like this...
Whit: Whoa those are huge sand dunes
Bret: WHOA
Whit: Want to stop and go jump down them
Bret: Yes...
That conversation took place a lot and usually started with "whoa that looks weird..." .
We kayaked, biked, and hiked our way through tons of little towns filled with weird things that dot the Northern area. Our favorite town was Healdsburg that had the best pastries and pie ever. We will be returning there shortly. Healdsburg is also a part of wine country, so we biked through 20 miles of the most beautiful vineyards. I think anyone that lives in the area should go take a peek up there, it is spectacular. We also went to Guerneville, which has to be the wierdest place, this is the conversation that took place:
Whitney: "Where are all of those people going?"
Bret: "Want to go follow them..."
and so we did and sure enough they were ALL going to a river that had a small beach-I use the word beach lightly, it was a beach in the sense that it touched the water but it was all rocks and dirt, which didn't stop hundreds of people in acting like it was hawaii. So we acted like it was hawaii too and put down our towels and hung out at the beach. Here are some pics of the explore-cation.
Whit: Whoa those are huge sand dunes
Bret: WHOA
Whit: Want to stop and go jump down them
Bret: Yes...
That conversation took place a lot and usually started with "whoa that looks weird..." .
We kayaked, biked, and hiked our way through tons of little towns filled with weird things that dot the Northern area. Our favorite town was Healdsburg that had the best pastries and pie ever. We will be returning there shortly. Healdsburg is also a part of wine country, so we biked through 20 miles of the most beautiful vineyards. I think anyone that lives in the area should go take a peek up there, it is spectacular. We also went to Guerneville, which has to be the wierdest place, this is the conversation that took place:
Whitney: "Where are all of those people going?"
Bret: "Want to go follow them..."
and so we did and sure enough they were ALL going to a river that had a small beach-I use the word beach lightly, it was a beach in the sense that it touched the water but it was all rocks and dirt, which didn't stop hundreds of people in acting like it was hawaii. So we acted like it was hawaii too and put down our towels and hung out at the beach. Here are some pics of the explore-cation.
Year of the...
Well, as of today, Year of the Granola is complete. It was quite a year and I think Bret and I both found our inner granola. We never got into vegan food (I had one of their cookies, and it was awful), we never grew dreads, we never did drugs, and we never grew our own organic crops. However, I still feel the year was a success. We hiked, we climbed, we camped, we drank our water from nalgene bottles, bret has been playing a banjo, we ate 52lbs of trail mix (this is a true number, derived from an actual mathematical equation I did), and we spent a good amount of time in Berkeley which is like granola people mecca. We even read some granola books (the making of cliff bar, into the wild, etc. etc) and ate a lot of vegetable dishes (veggie chowder, veggie lasagna, and broccoli in our mac n' cheese). Mother nature was good to us this year. Karma wasn't, but we've survived.
Today is our anniversary and so we left Alameda to celebrate our new theme.... Year of the Exploration. We went on an explorcation, the only type of vacations we will be taking this year, vacations to unknown destinations, places neither of us have been.
We will be doing a lot of exploring this year, exploring new food options (Ethiopian, Creole, Himalayan), exploring possible further education, exploring factories where they make things, exploring new haircuts, exploring Russian literature, pretty much getting into things that we know nothing about. We'll read books about explorers and explore new types of music. I think you get the point. If you have any good ideas of things we should be exploring, let me know. Oh and I will post more about our explore-cation and all of the exploring that went on.
Today is our anniversary and so we left Alameda to celebrate our new theme.... Year of the Exploration. We went on an explorcation, the only type of vacations we will be taking this year, vacations to unknown destinations, places neither of us have been.
We will be doing a lot of exploring this year, exploring new food options (Ethiopian, Creole, Himalayan), exploring possible further education, exploring factories where they make things, exploring new haircuts, exploring Russian literature, pretty much getting into things that we know nothing about. We'll read books about explorers and explore new types of music. I think you get the point. If you have any good ideas of things we should be exploring, let me know. Oh and I will post more about our explore-cation and all of the exploring that went on.
Fish Eye
Bret got a fish eye a few months ago... so you can expect more pics like this in future posts.
Weekend Warriors
After a long week, came the WEEKEND. Bret and I have started treating weekends like holidays. We eat whatever we want and act like we have nothing important to do. This saturday I woke up to this...
Then on to breakfast...
Then up to Pt. Reyes for hiking, swimming, rope swinging, and trail mix. The trail got kind of long, hence our faces in some of the pics...
The only other place in the whole world that I would have rather been was at family camp.
Oh and for those of you wondering what I now do for my real person job, I work for a non-profit children's mental health agency. Basically, it is an organization that gets hired by different counties in the bay area to provide foster care, residential treatment services, community wrap around programs, and counseling for children with mental illness. Before you start thinking that I'm a great person, I don't actually do any of the things listed, I just organize it all for the do-gooders.
Then on to breakfast...
Then up to Pt. Reyes for hiking, swimming, rope swinging, and trail mix. The trail got kind of long, hence our faces in some of the pics...
The only other place in the whole world that I would have rather been was at family camp.
Oh and for those of you wondering what I now do for my real person job, I work for a non-profit children's mental health agency. Basically, it is an organization that gets hired by different counties in the bay area to provide foster care, residential treatment services, community wrap around programs, and counseling for children with mental illness. Before you start thinking that I'm a great person, I don't actually do any of the things listed, I just organize it all for the do-gooders.
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