Love is in the air...

I married an amazing man 11 years ago and we'll celebrate our anniversary in August this year. However, 15 years ago he gave me my first flower from a boy - it was a carnation, a pink carnation (which means "I'll never forget you") and I've been smitten ever since. Over the last few weeks he's been doing some amazing things around our house - created a "treasure" hunt of hearts (exactly 32 hearts for my 32nd birthday) that were hidden all over the house. Then a few days before my birthday, I came home to a house strung throughout with yarn (no pictures as a new camera was at the end of the yarn trail) and various darling treats in pretty bags scattered throughout; the kicker though was the words along the trail, 32 in all, that he felt described me. Talk about making a girls heart go pitter-patter!!

Valentine's was a love filled weekend of favorite food memories (chocolate covered strawberries, epic sandwiches, etc.), construction of a compost bin for food compost, working on my Jeep and much more...

I am so blessed to have this man in my life that sometimes I feel like my heart will burst. He is definitely "THE man". As one of my favorite bloggers said, "Now, I have my very own Valentine, and it is Mr. Tomczek (I changed the name to my honey). And all he has to do is smile, wink and slap my behind as I walk by, and I am hopelessly in love." That's real love people!!

Good Eats in Leavenworth

I had to share a few more photos from Leavenworth...

AMAZING desserts!!!

The guys decided to try chocolate dipped Twinkies while we were in Leavenworth - very hilarious!

Now that's good eats!!

Jumping through January

January came and went with an absolute flurry! Birthdays, get-aways, applications and lots of fun. Here's the list:

√ Apply to grad school; now waiting with bated breath for acceptance - stay tuned!

√ Finish monstrosity of a puzzle and vow to never do that again.

√ Start planning garden for 2011

√ Celebrate Nick's birthday

√ Celebrate Rachel's birthday with a weekend of girlfriend time (who were also celebrating their birthdays!) - spa day, lunch, lots of chick flicks, girls slumber party, dinner, shopping and winter market time.

√ Annual weekend in Leavenworth with Aaron and Connie

New Years Accomplishments

Pick a word, any word and try to live by that philosophy for a year. My word for this year is "perseverance". Dictionary.com defines perseverance as "steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., esp. in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement. Continuance in a state of grace to the end, leading to eternal salvation." I love it!! My goals this year include going back to school and completing my Masters, becoming fit and STAYING fit, re-building my spiritual life and persevering through those difficulties that I know I will face.

One thing that we persevered through and finally finished was our pantry remodel. Cabinets are finally in and all of the pantry bits that were in the kitchen are organized on the shelves and where they belong. It's beautiful!! Nick will have to make a few more shelves, we will never use this company again nor recommend them to our friends and we will probably never use this style of cabinet in our house anywhere else - but it's done and it's so lovely.



What are you persevering through this year?

Play Time

I married a man who loves toys - Legos, game pieces for computer games, computer games, Wii, cars and now K'Nex. I will admit there are times that the clutter drives me crazy, but I love this man!! I had bought a K'Nex roller coaster to put together as a family at Christmas, but also bought a 15,000 piece puzzle that we tried to put together. Neither was finished and the K'Nex was not even opened. So this last week Nick and I put together the K'Nex roller coaster. By the way, Nick has already reworked the coaster and built it with a completely new track. Yep, he's a crazy guy, but I love him to death!

Confessions of compromise

It hasn't been quite a year, but it's definitely changed our lives. It's been hard, challenging, informative, empowering, tasty, colorful and green. It has been a process of changing our minds, changing our attitudes, making informed decisions and voting 3 times a day.

It started by reading this book -

Watching this movie -

Talking to this beautiful person -

And getting support from this awesome guy -

We decided to eat locally, seasonally and whenever possible - organically; for a year. We planted a gorgeous garden - ; canned 18 quarts of pears, 34 quarts of applesauce, fifteen 1/2 pints of spaghetti sauce, ketchup and apricot jam; we filled our freezer with zucchini, squash, peaches, apricots, triple-berry jam, berries, romanesco and onions; we dried herbs, apples and tomatoes; and sand stored carrots and potatoes. No, we didn't use all of our own produce, but we did buy the produce at our favorite local farmers market. Here's a sampling of our produce production:

Spring was easy; summer was beyond simple; fall was busy, but filled with goodness and then winter hit. We stayed pretty faithful to our commitment to eat seasonally until December - the realization of not having eaten a tomato for 3 months, no lettuce, no green stuff unless it had been cooked and starches holding us hostage we decided it was time to sit down and talk compromise. Our burgeoning waist lines and cravings were begging us to come to our senses and adopt a more "less harm" attitude.

I don't know how Barbara Kingsolver's family stuck with it through the winter months, but they did and for that they have my ultimate admiration. Nick and I have decided that hard-core seasonal eating is not the best choice for us. Will we stick to this idea as closely as possible - yes. Did I buy tomatoes in January - yes, but they were from California and organic; not from Mexico and raised in a hot-house. We've decided that while eating seasonally is an awesome achievement, we're going to aim for eating in a less harmful manner and as close to seasonal as possible. Part of the rationale for this is that we're also trying to eat healthy, lose weight and get in shape. We're back to buying veggies that may not be seasonal, but that are raised within the U.S. (preferably West Coast) and organic, we're still only buying fruit in season or eating what fruit we've put up and visiting our local winter farmers market.

This process has been so empowering and informative for Nick and I. I think about what I'm eating; where I'm buying my food from; how my decisions affect the environment/farmers/ community/etc.; and how much change I can make in the process of food policy. We intend to continue eating locally and as seasonally as possible; there will be another garden this year, more produce will be put up and further change will happen.

This decision feels good and right for us. My Seeds of Change catalog came in the mail - believe it or not, next month is the start to getting ready for gardening season!

Christmas in Walla Walla

We enjoyed a beautiful Christmas in Walla Walla with Nick's and my families. We spent Christmas eve traditionally with family and friends enjoying a fantastic meal of garlic soup. On Christmas eve night we opened up a crazy puzzle Nick and I had chosen to put together over the weekend; however, we did not plan for how huge the puzzle was and how little time we had so the puzzle came back to Seattle with us and is only about 1/3 finished. On Christmas day we went to church, ate dinner, opened gifts, opened stockings and ate way too much food!! On Sunday Nick and I enjoyed visiting his grandparents, having dinner with his parents and then attending a big family get-together. We made it safely home on Monday after stopping and picking up some wine at Cougar Crest and Three Rivers Winery and driving over the blizzarding pass.

We hope you had a beautiful Christmas and are looking forward to the New Year!!