Is anyone still reading this?

Things I'm loving lately:

- PBS Masterpiece Classic Downton Abbey. A british period drama set at the beginning of the 20th century, follows the lives of an earl and his family and their servants. I find it fascinating to see how people in different times/countries/social classes lived. There's something particularly enjoyable about the language and manners from that time. For all the advantages of living in the modern age, I do wish we were a classier bunch.

- Chocolate-covered banana slices from Trader Joe's. Why did I not know about these before now? They are delicious.

- Classical music. I'm enjoying the works of Chopin right now. I think it's a sort of musical rebound; born out of listening to entirely too much pop/radio music. Not sure how many hours of classical piano will purge "Pumped up kicks" and "Moves like Jagger" from my brain, but it's a pleasant process. As someone who literally always has music playing inside my head (and which spills out in the form of humming or whistling if there isn't music audibly playing outside my head), classical music as a background to whatever mundane thing I'm doing makes me feel somehow...classier :)

- Jigsaw puzzles. I seriously enjoy puzzles more than someone still in their twenties should. It's probably the false sense of accomplishment you get finishing one. Really? Congratulations, you just put a bunch of tiny random cardboard pieces together to make a picture which, let's face it, isn't very impressive (artistically speaking). But it feels like you just climbed Mt Everest or something.

- Queen Anne. The current neighborhood I'm living in. It feels like the best of many worlds. I can walk down the hill and over the bridge and be in Fremont (artsy, hippy, free-thinking types...although it fills up with your typical college crowd on weekend nights) for shopping, coffee, lots of great restaurants and bars, a Sunday farmer's market, and the trail I like to go running on along the water. Or I can walk up the hill to Queen Anne and find more great restaurants, boutiques, several grocery stores, and lots of big houses that I'll never be able to afford, with spectacular views because you're at the top of a giant hill. I may have to stay in Seattle longer than I thought so I can finish my tour of all its neighborhoods. Where shall I live next? Perhaps a high-rise with a view of Puget Sound and the Olympic mountains...

- Cooking. One of my favorite things about the gray season. I overdid it on quinoa (eating it for lunch every day for a year, until one day my brain would not let my hand move the forkful of quinoa to my mouth), and now I'm enjoying coming up with new and creative menus for lunches. I also loooooove my new pizza stone, which allows me to make a gluten free pizza that almost tastes as good as the original. One of these days I'm going to try and make a gluten free focaccia on it.

Catch up time

Here are some pictures from my visit in Minnesota with Jeremy, Shannon, Irene, Isaac, and Swiffer. I had a lot of fun hanging out with all of them! Highlights: playing in the 'cover cave' and other fun silliness with Irene & Isaac; attending a Christian rock concert with Jeremy; just sitting on the couch catching up with Jeremy & Shannon; and Shannon's stellar crock-pot chili!

Brave boy only wanted to go down the tallest slide!

Generation tech. It's scary how much better with technology this 3 year old is than me.

Cupcakes are delicious! This picture is my the new screen saver on my phone :)

Youtube videos are like kid crack. Seriously, Isaac would casually sidle up to my laptop when it was closed and sitting on the side table, and just start touching it while keeping one eye on me to make sure I was looking somewhere else. It was funny.

Reading is fun!
Swiffer and Isaac enjoyed a lovely stroll around the backyard.

Thanks for having me, brother!

Other stuff:

- Haunted houses are not as scary (or as enjoyable) and they were when I was younger. I went to one with some friends from work a few weeks ago, and was underwhelmed by it all. Perhaps it's because the things I fear now are traumatic brain and/or spinal cord injuries, fractured pelvis(es? pelvices? pelvii?), burns, and necrotizing soft tissue infections. A scary clown with a chainsaw just doesn't bring on the adrenaline anymore. I guess I could try skydiving if I really wanted a thrill, but I have no desire to...

- Bank of America is losing me. I've put up with their sneaky little fees and assorted annoyances for years because of the convenience of having branches everywhere. But this $5 monthly fee to use my debit card is the end of the line. I'm in the process of switching to a credit union, and the inconvenience factor is completely cancelled out by the (anticipated) satisfaction of walking into BofA and closing my accounts :)

- I love autumn!

- I never thought I would enjoy going to the beach and needing to wear a sweatshirt, but I actually like the beach more when it's cold out. At least in the Pacific Northwest, where the water is too cold to swim in regardless of the air temperature.

Things I'm thankful for

1) Airplanes, which allow me to travel to far-off cities like Chicago for family picnics. Where I get to see...

This baby boy:

And this baby boy:

And this little girl:

And these two goober boys:

And my three lovely sisters-in-law:

And the rest of my big, crazy, wonderful family. (Thanks to Sandy who took most of those pictures.)

2) September in Seattle, which is the best month in this beautiful city. I've gone for two long runs in the past 3 days, and stopped to pick blackberries on my way up the Doom Hill back to my apartment. Fun fact: blackberries are both delicious and full of antioxidants, and help reduce inflammation (which my body appreciates after I force it to run 5 miles).

3) Boats! I took a ferry to the Bremerton Blackberry Festival with some friends on Saturday. My favorite part of the day was the hour-long trip each way across the water. The festival itself was fun, but also hot, crowded, and crowded. And I got poisoned with gluten by the fair food, in spite of my best efforts to avoid it.

Sunlight on the water is bliss.

What's New

So, summer's sort of here in Seattle. We've had a total of 8 (maybe 10 after this weekend) full days of sunshine since January 1st. It's kind of a sore subject around these parts.

I got to go sailing with Jon and Kara and some friends of theirs a few weeks ago, and it was great to be out on the water. Here's my excited face:

Roommate bonding (probably one of the last pics of Kara & I as roomies, sad):

And then the wind died, and we had to paddle back in.

So Jon and Kara are expecting their first baby in the next couple of weeks. As much as I love babies, and the 'community experiment' was a success, we decided to part ways when our lease ends at the end of this month. I have a friend from work, Wendy, who was also looking for a roommate, and we found a place that is both 10 minutes from my old apartment and directly above some girls from my church (and where my small group meets). I have spent the last week settling in, and so far I'm quite pleased.

We have three big windows...which bugs and birds, on occasion, fly into.

Our lovely and comfortable couch, chair, and chaise. We sat on what felt like a thousand couches before picking these.

This is the dining recess and media storage area. The second, smaller table is temporary. There's a covered patio that gets some sun in the evening.

The kitchen's pretty standard. The oven has convection capabilities, but I'm not sure what one uses a convection oven for.

My landlord was dragging his feet on getting window screens, and I need the window open to sleep (I find 65 degrees to be the optimal sleeping temperature). So I went to Lowe's and bought a screen making kit and a hacksaw. And made my own window screen. It's not pretty, but it's functional.

I needed to augment with tape where I bent the frame....must keep out all bugs.

I got some new shoes and took them for a walk around my new neighborhood today. I found a park with some swings, tennis courts, and a track and field. I saw many flowers that were so beautiful and multicolored they didn't seem real. I passed a house with a pool in the backyard (kind of rare here). I experienced being outside and not hearing a single sound but my footsteps (don't think I've ever had that happen since I moved here). And I found a house for sale down the street from me: 4 bedroom, 2.25 bath, remodeled craftsman home for $939,000. Who wants to be my neighbor?

Kitchen adventures and other stuff

I believe everyone in America is familiar with the charming green-clad girls who come around this time of year peddling their overpriced cookies to a nation of dangerously overweight people. In the past, I've particularly enjoyed supporting the Girl Scouts by eating Samoas and Thin Mints. Sadly, my new gluten free life put an end to such treats. So yesterday I attempted to make a batch of gluten free Thin Mints. I found the recipe here (http://totallytogetherjournal.com/homemade-gluten-free-thin-mint-girl-scout-cookies/) and thought it looked promising. A little snafu; who knew that wax paper and parchment paper weren't the same thing? I noticed smoke billowing out from the stovetop, and sadly the cookies were unsalvageable. I learned an important lesson about wax paper though. Won't make that mistake again.

A plethora of life circumstances has left me feeling quite tense lately. Firstly, it's been quite rainy here which means I haven't gotten out for a long run in awhile (amazing how much running loosens everything up). Secondly, I have some temporary extra responsibility at work while the nurse in charge of the spine service is serving with Operation Smile in Rwanda for a couple of weeks. Attempting to fill his shoes is challenging and brain-draining, but also pleasant, in the way that stretching yourself outside your comfort zone can be. Anyway, these things = tense me, especially in the upper back and shoulders. Fortunately, my roommate has magic hands, and a light work schedule this week...so I got a fabulous massage yesterday. I asked her how much she wants to get the massage she gives, and she said she would pay hundreds of dollars to know. In my highly relaxed opinion, the massage she gives is worth hundreds of dollars :)

I just jumped on the Words with Friends train, and love it! If anyone else out there is playing, my username is riwaszko.

I guess that's it for now.

Auntie Rach

It's great being an aunt, and my tally of cute nephews just increased by one! Welcome to the family, Noa (who I have no pictures of yet, but have seen pictures and he's a cute little guy). Irene and Isaac have relocated to St. Paul, MN with their parents, which means they are now a 3 hour flight away...and I'm planning to visit them during the warm months :)

Xavi is becoming quite a chatterbox (and a handy recorder/repeater of the unlikeliest of phrases), although I still can't understand his language entirely. I skyped with him briefly last night, and he told me many things. Several times he said, 'baby out' translated to "I'm ready for my mom to give birth to my brother now." After I joked that he might someday want the baby to go back in, he loudly proclaimed "baby, back! baby, back! baby, back!" When Xavi was done with our conversation (and ready to watch a youtube video of The Wheels on the Bus), he said "Rach go...Rach go...Rach go" and then closed the laptop :) The kid is nothing if not persistent. I'm so thankful to live in this age of technology, so I don't have to miss all the cuteness of my nephews and niece.

Catching up...

I think we can all agree that I've become a total blog slacker. Really, I think about things to blog all the time, but lack the discipline to make it happen. Let me try and recount things that have happened since my Maui trip...November: Went to St Louis for thanksgiving, where somebody in the family was a diabolical vector of gastrointestinal distress. I spent 36 hours in bed, with periodic trips to the bathroom for emergent evacuation of everything I had ingested over the last week.

December: The holidays were low key. My roommates went out of town, so I was kitty sitting. I went up to a friend's house for chili and a candlelight service on Christmas Eve. I worked 12 hours on New Year's Eve, and consequently fell asleep at 10 pm and stayed asleep through the midnight ruckus...no regrets there. Santa brought me a nook! I love it...makes buying and reading books so easy.

January: I flew to St Louis again for my sister-in-law Johanna's baby shower. It was fun to hang out with the fam, and nobody infected my gut this time :) Got to hang out with Xavi, who is talking up a storm these days and super cute. He calls me Rach, though it sounds more like 'H' and I love hearing his special 'Tom' voice ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/talking-tom-cat/id377194688?mt=8 )

One of Xavi's favorite activities, doing dishes:

My roommate Jon's company gave him this enormous box of Godiva chocolates for all his hard work. It was both majestic and delicious.

I used the bow to decorate Jack. Such a pretty kitty, with murder in her eyes.

My cell phone busted the same week that my hard drive crashed. Thankfully my computer was still under warranty, so I have a shiny new hard drive. And my contract was up, so I also got a shiny new phone. I'm still trying to figure out all the cool things this phone can do.

I guess that's it for now. Will try to update a bit more frequently in the future.