lovely times in seattle

Working in Seattle for two weeks allowed me to spend some badly needed quality time with Jamie! I do not get to see her nearly enough, considering the mere 3 hour drive between us. Jamie is so cute and fun and we had so many good times together in Provo. She was seriously THE reason I survived the accounting program at BYU!

We decided our dinner needed a substantial amount of greens. Here is Jamie prepping the asparagus.
I'm working on the roasted broccoli-- I'm totally obsessed. It was so nice to get a chance to cook at home after my many weeks of traveling.
All so we could justify eating cupcakes and ice cream for dinner! Dinner for winners right here. I can't remember the name of the cupcake shop, but it was darling and they were seriously delicious. Somewhere in the Queen Anne area of Seattle-- ask Jamie about it. :)
Are you as impressed as I am at the damage we did?? So delicious.

d.i.r.t.y.

This morning I opted not to wash my hair and threw on one of the large crocheted headbands I picked up in UT over the holidays. This happens all the time, as I am fairly religious about not washing my hair everyday, NBD. (I do, however, shower regularly. I find the distinction great and important.)

But, this afternoon, I sat here trying to think of the last time I did wash my hair. I'm pretty sure it was Thursday or Friday, but I can't remember exactly and I pray it wasn't earlier in the week than that (I know for sure it wasn't later on Sat/Sun/Mon). It's most definitely Tuesday. Umm, wow. Not cool. Not cool at all, Courtney Kay.

Is this something I can blame on living in Oregon??

a valentine's day how-to

I really love Valentine's Day. Pink and red together, plus candy, plus celebrating all the people you love-- fabulous! After seeing this post on Design Mom, I decided to make flower pins for some of my pdx girlfriends.

I started with 2 pieces of ribbon, each a yard long, and sewed them together with two lines of basting stitches along one side (shiny sides out). I used hot pink/brown and light pink/grey as my color combos. But my imagination is already running wild for the next time I do this craft project.
Then I scrunched the ribbon up really tight.

The next step was to wind and glue the ribbon together in a little circle (flower). The directions suggested sewing or gluing the flower, so I of course chose the hot glue gun method over the hand-sewing method. After that (not pictured) I glued a circle of felt on the bottome to cover all the messiness, then glued the flower onto a clip. You could glue them onto a clip or headband or anything you want!

Then you have super cute flower pin Valentines to deliver to your friends and girls you visit teach and what not.

They can wear them in their hair as shown, or clip it onto a necklace or purse or shirt. (Or politely say "thank you" and never wear it anywhere, there are no rules here.)

I also made giant chocolate chip cookies for the boys, because I knew for sure they would not like the flower pins. I think the rubber stamp I found to make the Valentine's cards is so darling, there will probably be many repeats of this design in the future.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

dear spring:

Feel free to come anytime now, because I am ready for you. In the meantime, these delightful spring-colored cardigans will hang in my closet as motivation, and beacons of hope for a brighter (literally) day.
Tonight I finally experienced the Nordstrom flagship store in downtown Seattle. It was fabulous.

I found so many cute things, which has restored my faith in Nordstrom. After the big flop of an Anniversary Sale last summer, I am ready for us to rekindle our flame. :)

weekending in wisconsin

This past weekend, I decided to visit Anna and Tim in Milwaukie! I was already in the middle of the country working in Kansas, so seeing them was the perfect thing to do before heading back to the west coast.

They took me on a tour of Marquette. It was such a beautifel campus. Here are Anna and I in front of the large chapel on campus:
This is the Joan of Arc chapel. It was originally built in France a long time ago, then shipped to Wisconsin.

Inside the Joan of Arc chapel.

Seeing this watermelon shack made me want to come back in the summer, and visit this shack, in the nicest area of Milwaukie.

Waiting for our tour at Sprecher Brewery-- a Wisconsin must-do.

All you can drink soda tasting. We liked the rootbeer, cream soda, orange cream, and kind of the cherry cola. We did not like so much the ginger ale, puma cola, and red. All their sodas are made with honey as the primary sweetener, which is kind of cool.

Lake Michigan is enormous. You can't see the other side. It's like staring at the ocean. There were some really beautiful old houses along the river-- it was such a cool area.

Here is the Wisconsin cheese I brought home with me. I'll cook something with it, someday when I am living in Portland again.

Anna and Tim-- thanks for such a fun weekend! It was so nice to see you, and get a tour of Wisconsin from locals!

hello, old friend

While visitng relatives in St. Louis, we always grab some pizza at Imo's. Always, no excpetions. It's so delicious with their thin crust and mystery cheese. (Well, it may not be a mystery. I just know it doesn't taste like mozarella and I'm too lazy to google and see if someone else know what kind of cheese they use.) So imagine my delight when I realized they have Imo's in Kansas City!
I love that they put sizeable slices of bacon on their deluxe combo pizza. It was so good, just as good as I remembered it. I just wish the Colemans were all there eating with me. :(

"Courtney, how much of this pizza did you eat by yourself?"

Uhh, err, I can really remember. Shifty eyes...

i don't think we're in kansas anymore

Ideal weekday evening: the perfect combo of room service and "30 Rock." I wish this option were available when I'm not traveling for work! BTW, this is like meal 7 in a row with red meat. There's some really delicious beef to be eaten in the midwest!
Kansas is flat and cold. But actually a little bit pretty with the snow dusting.

If you walked out of work to this sight before your 50 mile drive to the airport, would you feel panicky? Because I sure did. Luckily, the roads were totally clear. I miss the days when I could enjoy snow, rather than worrying about it interrupting my travel plans.