A Mother's Day Miracle

In honor of mother's day, I thought I'd blog about baby birds.

My regular and attentive readers will remember a few short weeks ago when I was all a twitter about some robin's eggs next to my porch.

4-20-14

Well, after that discovery I began to torture the poor mom bird on a daily basis, as I had to check in on the status of her eggs. She really didn't have much of a defense mechanism. I would peer into the tree and she would run (uhm, fly) for the hills, leaving her little eggs on their own, completely defenseless. But it's mother's day, far be it for me to criticize the robin mother who was probably holding down two jobs to make ends meet all the while providing warmth for her poor little eggs.

Anyhow, it wasn't long, before those little eggs turned into three teeny birds. And here is the amazing part!  It was even less time before the teeny tiny naked birds, turned into large flying birds!!!

5-2-14

5-6-14

 (Hard to see in the 5/6 picture, but they are sprouting tufts of feathers)

5-8-14(ish)

5-10-14

5-11-14

A couple hours after I took that last photo, I went and checked on them and caused quite a commotion. I think they must have just started flying because I saw one juvenile bird that startled and headed for a tree and a bunch of adults, who for the very first time actually wanted to attack rather than running away when I appeared!

I find it amazing. I don't know if they were born on 5-2, but I know on 5-2 they were tiny and feather free. By 5-11 they were ready to leave the nest!  How can that happen so quickly?  I am assuming they flew off and are now happily living a little robin life. I looked all around and found no little birds on the ground, so I am assuming all was well.

Nice job, robin mother. I will never again doubt your parenting prowess!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Just likeToll House.

This blog is dedicated my oldest (oops, wrong term) longest (?) friend Jen, with whom I made about a zillion batches of cookies.

For much of my life, chocolate chip cookies were my very favorite things. As a kid I made endless batches of Toll House cookies. I knew the recipe by heart. I knew exactly how to make them the best -

1. margarine not butter (too crispy with butter), 
2. the margarine needed to soft but could not be melted (you were totally screwed if you hadn't though ahead and taken margarine out of the fridge ahead of time), 
3. the batter needed to be stirred and not mixed in a blender. 

I ate such an huge quantity of cookie dough as a child it's amazing I wasn't huge, or diabetic, or something equally terrible. Shoot, it's amazing I didn't get salmonella with all the raw eggs consumed. I did occasionally eat the cookies, but it was really the dough I loved. 

As an adult, I learned that making cookies was a bad idea. I would still eat lots of dough and as good as it was it always made me feel extra ill (duh). I'm sure I felt extra ill as I child too, but somehow as an adult I was a tiny bit smarter. (Smarter in that I could decide to not make them, not smarter in that I could limit my consumption if I did make them.) This didn't stop my love of these cookies (and really these are the only type of cookies one should eat). Instead of making them, I would buy them. Not packaged grocery store chocolate chip cookies (yuck). They had to be perfect. Crunchy chocolate chip cookies are waste. Certain companies had (have) great ones, and probably got way too much of my money.

When I went paleo, I stopped most sugar except for some dark chocolate. And with that change, my love affair seems to have dwindled. Now, when I have the very occasional (once a year or so) cookie, they are much too sweet and I don't really enjoy them. 

Today, I have a couple parties to attend and since it's hard to split a salad, I decided to make some cookies to bring along. Let me tell you, the paleo version is an entirely different animal. The cookies I made today just had eggs, almond butter, chocolate, vanilla, sugar, salt and baking soda. Super easy and completely margarine free (can't even imagine margarine these days). The dough was less tempting. But the cookies are still extra delicious. (And extra pricey.......

Almond butter (do you have any idea how expensive almond butter is right at the moment? Well let me tell you the cheapest kind was $15 for a small jar!)

Coconut sugar (this stuff is like $6 per pound and really sugar is sugar is sugar, but whatever when in Rome....)

Theo's 85% cacao organic chocolate (okay, this was on sale and would be worth every penny no matter the price).)

Even in their new (healthy??) version, they took me on a walk down memory lane. I feel like running down Howe street and giving some to Jen. And maybe saving some for my mom for mother's day (I'm sure those were a present for a year or two (or three). 

Vacation, All I ever wanted.

Tonight marks the end of my birthday vacation week. The end of nine glorious days of sleeping, socializing, and basically doing a lot of nothing!  I had house plans. I had to do lists. But not much of that got done. Somehow I was way too busy. Allow me to give you some quick, day by day highlights. Apologies, in advance for the pictures, which seem to revolve primarily around the animals. When I was around people I was too distracted to take pictures.

Day 1.
Okay, day 1 I actually worked like a dog. I had some people over to celebrate so I spent the day cooking and cleaning. I made the most INSANEly delicious 'paleo' fudge with almond butter and coconut oil. Then it was onto the balls and sauces.  The party was a huge success! I drank most of a beer and got 'drunk', the company was great and I only broke one of my presents before I opened it!

Before

During

After

Day 2.
Day 2 was my birthday and it was actually pretty quiet most of the day (as I recovered from my 'most of a' beer). In the evening I met up with two great friends for a little spa time. We spent several hours steaming and soaking and freezing and chatting and steaming again. All that was followed by a sugar scrub. Then dinner. Then the most brilliant nights sleep ever. (Sorry, no naked lady photos).

Days 3-4
I headed up to the cabin with three of my favorite beings - Otto and Daisy and my mom. There was some hiking, thrift storing, cooking, reading and sunning going on.  Daisy rocked the trip much better than her first time (Daisy Adventure).

Brave cat. 

Otto was brave during the day but took to the closet at night. 

This is 50% off on tuesdays!

Relaxin' in the car.

Cat ear, knee and steering wheel.

Day 5

Oh No, half way through!  I returned from the cabin around 3ish. Headed to the gym for a work out that nearly did me in because ITWAS80DEGREES!!!!! Yes, during much of my vacation week it was over 70 and sunny!  Workout was followed by dinner with a friend.

Day 6. 

No rest for the weary. Physical therapy appointment (where I almost graduated from physical therapy!), an awesome workout that involved carrying large weights up and down the street (repeatedly through a food truck line), lunch with people from my gym, AND drinks with a friend.  And 86 DEGREES!!!

Day 7

What did I do this day? Oh, yes, this was the last day of sun so it was lots of yard work (okay I lied a bit about doing nothing), then a trip to the gym and home to relax. And I met these guys.

Baby birds! (see previous blog for them in a future life.)

Day 8

Trip to the gym. Lots of slacking and some watching True Blood. Followed by a delicious dinner with a friend I haven't seen in way too long. 

Daisy helps me watch tv. 

And finally, Day 9. 

House work, farmer's market, cooking, hanging with a friend, BBQing the best pork chops ever and rain.

OMG. How does one go back? It's been 9 days of amazing and relaxing and warm and happiness.  Happy birthday me!

Half full?

Sometimes, despite my very best efforts, that glass just forces itself to be half full.

There was a lot of bitching and moaning this morning. I was out in the yard and, okay, don't get me wrong. I love spring. April is my favorite month. And Seattle foliage is so insanely beautiful right now there aren't even words to describe it or pictures that fully capture it. But, it's also a ton of work, especially with the combination of 70 degree days followed by rain followed by 70 degree days. It is the invasive species version of heaven.

Let's make a list of the current nonsense I'm thinking about:

1. The 110 foot long laurel hedge that I can't really do justice to and keeps creeping higher and higher. (Project Hedge)
2. Weeds, an infinity number of weeds
3. And because they deserve their own line, there are even more dandelions than infinity and their roots are so damn long you'll never kill them.
4. Grass that is so happy you can SEE it growing (I kid you not)
5. Blackberry bushes not so slowly inching their way into my garden
6. Ivy doing it's best to race the blackberries to take over the flowers.
7. Rodents digging trenches in my yard, plant roots AND eating my tulip bulbs

As I was toiling away, dreaming of the day I would own a condo or be rich enough (or less cheap) and hire someone, when suddenly I realized I was hearing a flutter every time I was by my rhododendron and I thought......nest.....?

Right in the middle you can just barely see the mom on her nest!)

How awesome is that!  Between that and all this......

(This tree I've been trying to capture in a photo for weeks, but it's so much better in person!)

How could anyone be grouchy?? Well, except for Otto, he's looking a little grouchy. (I may have decided he wanted me to nap next to him and that might not have been true)

I did not ride my bike into this hole.

But I've certainly been thinking about it. Each and every day as I barrel down this hill on my bike at 6.15 in the morning, I get to this spot and suddenly remember to avoid this ever growing hole. This hole which would be exactly in the path I would ride my bike if I was just not quite awake one morning.  And each and every morning I think, man, it would suck to ride my bike into that hole with that slowly sinking cone.

For the two months or so the hole has been growing......

This afternoon this happened!

Tulips! (Wait, what...?)

Last fall, for the very first time in my life, I planted tulip bulbs. I was very excited at the idea of forgetting about them all winter and then without any work from me, getting beautiful flowers.

Here is the picture I posted on instagram at the time labeled 'spring tulips'!

Fast forward 6 months of patiently waiting.

What? Exact same spot (and no, those leaves in the middle are not tulips!). The question is where the @&$$(#*@ are my tulips!  

Here is the other spot I planted them!!  Not ONE tulip!

I even tried digging up where i planted them to see if maybe I planted them upside down and THE BULBS AREN'T EVEN THERE!  What? A rat?  A neighbor?  I am sure that somewhere there is a guilty tulip  thief who dug up my very valuable tulips bulbs in the dead of night. 

And speaking of tulips in the dead of night.

This is what everyone else's tulips look like right now.

But not to leave this blog on a downer note. Here is what Seattle looks like these days - take that midwesterners.

And to those of you non midwesterners, enjoy your tulips and be nice to me when I walk by your house drooling!

SPRING!!!!

OMG OMG OMG. Somehow after a couple weeks of super nasty weather, too much, very stressful work, and general grouchiness, the world has emerged to spring and sunshine and happiness. I guess it's just proof if you're patient and you plod along one foot in front of the other, you just might get to where you need to be.

Yes folks (particularly you that live in the god forsaken spots), it's spring time. The sunshine is out. The flowers are blooming. And life is looking just a bit brighter. As I mentioned, I had a tough couple weeks at work - too much stress. Too many hours staring at tedious testing details. Not only hours at work, but hours in my sleep as I relived the tedium. So, with the forecast of a couple sunny days and a break in my work load, I told my manager I was taking a couple days off!  And the world has become a new place.

GIVEN THE 65 DEGREE WEATHER!!!!,  I hit the yard!  Ignoring the nightmare laurel hedge and the weeds taking over most of the property, I focused on the easy to fix veggie beds. After a winter of growing cover crops they were ready for some tilling.

Robust cover crops will (hopefully) bring happy veggies.

In a couple months these will be all ready for their crops.

In the meantime, I had some tasty bone broth bubbling on the stove. This extra super duper gelantinous bone broth has since turned into a beyond delicious batch of Silky Gingered Zucchini Soup. (Yes, that is a lot of superlatives. You would have similar enthusiasm if you were at my house eating my soup.)

And the fun didn't stop there, a great workout, an afternoon of shopping (didn't actually buy anything, but fun none the less), some nice dog walks, a delicious dinner and margarita, some productive house projects and many episodes of Dexter. Utter bliss in a change in weather and a couple days off work. Happy springtime everyone!

And, so perhaps you all can share in the joy that is (at least temporarily my world), I will share some animal cuteness.

They too find pure bliss in the sunshine.

Animals + shoes + and legs.

Pretty view from the backside of Beacon Hill.