Bright

The always delightful Beth over at Wino Rhino gave me an award! Thanks, Beth! Beth's blog is all about the joy of wine. She fully appreciates the artistry that goes into wine making and I love her reviews because they are informative without being pretentious, like so many wine critics can be. She's currently conducting an "Around The World" wine study where she tastes and reviews wines from all over the world. She's awesome.





Ok, so here are the rules:

List 10 things that make you happy.
Try and do at least one of them today.
Tag 10 bloggers that brighten your day.
Link back to the person that tagged you.

Here we go!

1) Snuggling up to my kitties as soon as I walk in the door from work.
2) Hosting dinner parties. (Don't have much room for it now in our smaller apartment, but I still enjoy cooking for others whenever I can!)
3) Swimming. I am pretty sure I was a fish or a whale or a tiny plankton in a past life. I just love the feeling of being totally immersed in water. It is so relaxing and revitalizing.
4)WINE! I don't think I need to elaborate on this one.
5) People watching. People are SO interesting! It's amazing how many people we see each day and each and every one of them has a story. I don't have a car so I ride the bus everywhere and BOY do I get some good stories when I ride.
6) Laughing. I absolutely love to laugh. I will laugh at anything. I especially love those unexpected, uncontrollable belly laughs that cause you to almost pee your pants and cry your eyes out.
7) Catching The Scientist mid-air guitar in front of the mirror, wishing with all his might that he was a real rockstar.
8) Making new, totally awesome stations on Pandora.
9) Being nerdy. Crosswords. Sudoku. Biology. Chemistry. Spending my birthday Barnes and Noble gift card on a MATH BOOK. VOLUNTARILY. Hi, I'm Stephanie and I'm a nerd.
10) Cheese!


Tag. You're it.
1. Meghan!
2. Amy!
3. Ashley!
4. Maggie!
5. Artemisia!
6. Tabitha!
7. Erika!
8. Rachel!
9. Ari!
10. Becky!

Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With Strings

Like most women, hell, most PEOPLE I know, I have a totally inappropriate love affair with Crate and Barrel. Their products are well made and they completely fit my style. And their sales are INCREDIBLE!

Every year I look forward to their Christmas catalog arriving in my mail box so I can spend hours drooling over the wonderful holiday items with which they tempt me. I have the big catalog, but yesterday I got one of the mini gift guides and flipped through it immediately. Most of the products were familiar, but there were a few items that popped out at me that I must have previously overlooked.

Here are a few of my favorite things:

LOVE these sparkly little numbers! I would love to throw a small holiday dinner party using these. I don't actually own any napkin rings, but I love the way they can bring a table setting together.


These are just so dang cute. And still pretty simple and classy. I actually have a centerpiece that sort of matches.


I have a zillion candles and candle holders. I must add these to my collection. I think it would look really pretty with blue candles inside. Red and green would look nice, too, but the blue would work well with the snowflake motif.


Um. Cutest ornaments ever.


Love these little birdy plates!


I NEED this apron.

What about you? What are some of your favorite things this holiday season?

Giving Thanks?

This year I'm spending Thanksgiving at my dad's house in Southern California. I haven't spent Thanksgiving with him since 2003 and really the only reason I'm going down there this year is because my younger brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew are coming out from Hawaii and I'm going to surprise my brother by showing up on Thanksgiving morning.

My father and I don't have the best relationship. I'm not going to get into the details too much in this post because WOW. There's a lot to say about that. Another post (or 12) for another day. Basically, he and my stepmonster are pretty selfish people who think they are the greatest people to walk the earth. That may sound harsh, but it's true. There are some things I absolutely love about my dad, including his sense of humor and crazy cooking SKILLZ, but over the years I've come to accept that we will never have a close relationship. I'm totally ok with it.

While I'm excited to be heading down there next week, as usual the drama has begun. Since my sister-in-law and I are plotting the big surprise for my brother, we've had a plan set in place for a couple months. My flight arrives at 9:30 am, she was going to slip out with my niece to run some "errands" and pick me up at the airport. Well, we told my dad this and since he is not a part of this plan at all, he decided it wasn't going to work and is now planning on picking me up in his stupid Smart Car. I'm sorry, I'm all about the efficient gas mileage and low emissions, but have you SEEN those things? They are like DEATH cars. There is no WAY I'm getting in one. So I mentioned to him that he should probably talk to Megan about it since, you know, she was really excited about picking me up. He responded and basically said that Megan isn't smart enough or a good enough driver to figure out how to get to the god damn airport (even though my dad has an f-ing GPS).

I'm also making a delicious yam dish for Thanksgiving dinner (I'll post the recipe one of these days!) that involves fresh, real yams. Not the kind in the can which people use to make those disgustingly sweet yam casseroles with brown sugar and gooey marshmallow topping. Blech. So he sent me an e-mail asking what the recipe calls for so he can pick it up at the store and he said "How many cans do you need?" I told him very specifically I needed 8 to 10 REAL yams and what did he do? He bought CANNED FUCKING YAMS.

My father is also a career Navy man and a staunch Republican so I know he'll be chiming in on all things political. Luckily he'll be surrounded by a table of democrats who will have no problem shutting him down.

I'd like to say that I'm looking forward to this trip. And I am to a certain degree. My stepsiblings and their spouses and children will be there and I enjoy their company. Having my brother and his family there will also be wonderful. I just hope that the joy of Thanksgiving won't be clouded by my father's behavior. I also hope there will be valium.

Reading Is Sexy

The Scientist and I don't have cable in our apartment, so we find much of our entertainment on the internets. A site that I visit on an almost daily basis is TED.com. It's basically a bunch of lectures about every possible subject you could think of. Astronomy, art, environmental science, sex, food, politics...the list goes on.

One of my favorites is this talk about the Seattle Public Library's new central branch (it opened in 2004 so it's not THAT new). For those of you who have been to Seattle and have seen this building, you know that it is a truly unique piece of architecture, and for those of you who have never been to Seattle or have never seen this building, here is a picture:


Pretty crazy, huh?

It is one of the COOLEST buildings I've ever seen, and not just because of the way it looks on the outside. If you don't want to watch the video, I'll give you a few highlights:

*The entire building is made of glass, so the whole library has a bright, airy feeling and every room is filled with natural light.

*The main floor has a little cafe and lots of tables and chairs and is basically supposed to act as a gathering place to read, socialize and bring the community together. No prudish librarians Shhhh-ing you in this area!

*The reference section is several floors that are built on a continuous spiral. It's really hard to explain, and even seeing it in the video doesn't quite get the point across, but trust me when I say it is REALLY cool.

*At the very top of the building is an atrium like room that is basically a reading room. It's a quiet room for reading, reflecting and staring in awe at the genius of the building. Here's a picture of that room:


See the black chair thingy that looks really hard and uncomfortable? It's actually made of a memory foam like substance and is SUPER comfy.

*There is a giant lecture hall where I have seen several world renowned writers talk about and read from their latest works.

*The children's section! OMG it's WONDERFUL!

If you ever visit Seattle, I highly recommend adding a visit to this library to your itinerary. You won't be disappointed.

6 Degrees

I often find myself in situations where I realize just how small the world is. I recently discovered that a high school acquaintance lives about a mile from me and shops at my local grocery store. There is a new addition to my monthly book club who grew up with, and is still friends with a close friend of mine. I almost always see someone I know at the airport and have run into a friend or acquaintance every single time I've been to Disneyland (which is many, many times).

Since The Scientist and I started dating over a year ago, we've discovered several ways in which we are connected, and have been connected since long before we met.

Example 1: Up until my early 20s I was actively involved in church (not so much anymore). My church held a waterski camp in Eastern Washington every summer and when I was young, I went as a camper. After high school, I went as a counselor. As a counselor, there was a regular group of us who were there every summer. This group included Tyler, Ingrid, Mindi and Teri. We spent a lot of time together each summer conducting team building exercises and planning out our "curriculum" as counselors. We also spent a lot of time just hanging out and barbequeing at Mindi and Ingrid's house. As it turns out, The Scientist's older sister went to high school with Teri and is SUPER good friends with that whole clan. She attended several of the same barbeques that I did, and The Scientist was with her on more than one occasion.

Example 2: The night The Scientist and I met, he was in my neighborhood returning something that he borrowed from a friend of his, Dirty Ken (I have no idea why they call him that. He doesn't shower? He's creepy? Who knows). Dirty Ken lived close to the bar where we met, which happened to be The Scientist's favorite bar, and one of my favorites as well. I didn't think anything of Dirty Ken's name until a couple months later when I met two of The Scientist's good buddies, E-Money and HoJu (seriously, they ALL have nicknames). They asked how we met and I told the story and then they were asking me where I grew up and went to high school. Turns out, Dirty Ken and I were band nerds together in high school! Also, E-Money didn't go to my high school, but he grew up hanging out with a bunch of my high school acquaintances.

Example 3: As mentioned previously, I spent a lot of time at church as a kid. Youth Group in High School was my main social outlet and we did a lot of fun stuff. (Waterski camp, snow skiing trips, barbeques, bike trips, hiking trips, etc.) Included in these fun activities were a lot of concerts. We saw all the hot Christian bands from that day, like Jars of Clay. One concert I vividly remember was Pedro the Lion. They were playing at one of the big churches in Seattle and several other youth groups were attending. The Scientist was there. I very likely talked to him that night.

Another, totally unrelated example of how small the world is: Last night I was at my monthly book club meeting, and one of our newer members and I had recently become Facebook friends. I noticed that we were both friends with Melissa. Melissa and I know each other through Melissa's cousin, Becca. Melissa went to high school with the gal from my book club, and Melissa's brother is dating another new member of book club!

I am always blown away when things like that happen.

Back On Track, Sort Of

I've been a bit absent from the blogosphere lately. A lot's been going on, what with my trip to Hawaii, my birthday, Halloween and just being generally busy, but it has also been difficult to post on a regular basis because The Scientist and I have been sharing a computer. Add my addiction to Farmville on Facebook to the mix and it just leaves zero time for this space.

But! The Scientist got me a new computer for my birthday and over the past 2 weeks has been trying to get both our computers networked and hooked up to the internet and he finally accomplished both this weekend! So now I have my own little corner in the apartment all to myself.

In other news, one of my dearest friends had a little baby boy on Thursday morning. She and her husband (who shares the same name with The Scientist) live less than 5 minutes from us so I'm in baby heaven. He is the cutest dang newborn I've ever seen. He was born via c-section so he doesn't have the oddly shaped conehead thing or the smooshed face thing going on. He's perfect. He looks like a little old man.

God Loves A Terrier

This is dedicated to LiLu. She knows why.