Just a hint

There's not a whole lot to this trailer, but still worth watching...

Where are my Tic-Tac's!!!

I shouldn't have to tell you what movie that incredible line is from, but I will anyway. It's from one of my all-time favorites, You'ev Got Mail, during the scene when Tom Hanks and Parker Posey get stuck on the elevator. I bring it up, because I had my own little similar experience, with someone who would be a kindred spirit to Parker Posey's formiddable character. There I was, going down to grab some lunch when the elevator gave a little lurch and made a odd groan. I looked at the only other patron in there with me, a man in his 40's or 50's from one of the law offices upstairs, who immediately revealed himself as a loud, type-A from Jersey and subsequently starting ringing the emergency bell and yelling through the little intercom thing at whoever would listen. We were only in there for about a half hour, an interesting half hour to be sure, but certainly not a harrowing tell of claustrophobia or panic. I guess I can just chalk-it-up to another new experience.

Experiences

"Some people feel the rain, others just get wet." - Bob Marley

When Brody and I decided to move to DC, we did it in part because we wanted to have an adventure. We wanted to get outside our comfort zone and see what life was like outside the bubble. And in the last week, we got more than we bargained for :) What are the odds of an earthquake and hurricane striking the same week? (really though I would be curious to hear that statistic) and during Brody's first week of law school no less?! It's actually been a great week, we got really lucky with Irene and didn't even lose power. Last night we decided to take a little walk to the fountain to see what the weather was like..

The rain was actually lighter than normal, but there were some powerful gusts of wind.

It was weird to see the fountain completely deserted. Normally it's a feeding ground for homeless, activists, bucket drummers, lovers and everyone in between. It was eerily quiet but kind of fun to be the only ones there.



Brody is doing great in school so far. The amount of reading was a little overwhelming at first but he actually enjoys the subject material.

It's been an exciting week to say the least!

The Map - How To

Okay this project was super super simple and you will be thouroughly UN-impressed when you are done reading :)
I was debating for some time what I wanted to do above our bed. I was toying with the idea of more photos, but didn't want to spend any more on frames and frankly I was too lazy to paint anything. So, thanks so some pinterest inspiration photos, mostly via Restoration Hardware (above), I decided on the triptec-map idea.

1. I love using a series of 3 so I "upcycled" some canvas paintings I had done a few years ago that I was sick of looking at. It might sound crazy but I painted over them with some cream-colored latex wall paint we had in our pantry. Once that was dry, I searched online for an antique map that had the dimensions I needed. Real prints are ridiculously expensive and I wanted this to be as cheap as humanly possible, so I decided to just print my own.


2. So I did like I always do and just google-imaged "Vintage Map of Washington DC" and picked the one I liked the best that had the highest-resolution. Then, I just pasted it into microsoft paint (no really, I don't have photoshop anymore) and stretched the image a little to make it wider and fit the dimensions I needed. I just eye-balled it, but if you want to be super fancy and precise you could measure and then apply that ratio to the picture.


3. Then I opened up a word document, made the margins super small and basically 'selected' sections of the image and printed them from the word doc. I did the images in sections, four sheets of paper for each canvas. I gave myself a little buffer of overlapping to make sure they lined up. Once I had printed them all out, I just modge-podged them on the canvas so that the lines and pictures on the map lined up. I had to trim a lot off the bottom sheets of paper but it actually worked out well. The modge-podge made the ink run just a tad but it ended up adding to the whole antique effect.


4. Once that was dry, I decided it needed a little more tailoring so I just taped off the borders and painted them all black with some acrylic that I already had. And voila, a triptec vintage map of DC! It's definitely not perfect but it literally didn't cost anything and I was pleasantly surprised by how it turned out. It spans almost our entire Queen-sized bed and is a nice focal point since we don't have a headboard.

Earthquake

So I just experienced my first earthquake. I was sitting quietly at my desk at work when I heard a rumble and felt a slight vibration. My first thought was that it sounded like a huge group of people on the floor above me must be running down the hall. But it got stronger and the whole building started shaking kind of violently and I realized it was really an earthquake and I had that oh crap moment of this is real. my family will be so sad if something happens to me.

okay. remember back to elementary school when they taught us what do to in an earthquake....get under your desk, or is it a doorjamb? Or do I put my head between my knees? I felt my desk to feel how sturdy it was and decided to go to a doorjamb of one of the surrounding offices as I heard various expletives from my co-workers down the hall, and heard something fall from a shelf in a nearby office. And then the shaking got softer and turned back into a slight vibration. And then it stopped, and I could still see a street lamp out of the window swaying. It lasted maybe 45 seconds. We all looked at each other with a wow that really just happened expression, not really knowing what to do. I texted Brody to see if he was okay (he was of course), and then the building manager came down the hall and ordered everyone to evacuate. It was kind of crazy to be looking up and down K street and see everyone on the street, cell phones in hand, texting and tweeting away. In a matter of seconds we figured out that people had felt it all the way from Connecticut to North Carolina (thanks to facebook). Gotta love technology in times of "crisis".

It was quick, and really not too bad, I don't think any buildings were damaged and I don't think anyone got hurt. The media is totally blowing it out of proportion, this made me giggle

the extent of the DC Earthquake devastation :)

Happenings

Here are some highlights from our life the past couple of weeks:

Brody started school today! It's so crazy that after so much build-up and anticipation it's finally here and so far he is really enjoying it. The reading assignments they have are really interesting...even to me. I'm hoping to hear some juicy Socratic method stories tonight over dinner

We have learned to check the weather every morning before leaving the house. If you are caught without an umbrella (or in the wrong color top, this hasn't happened to me I've just seen other unfortunate women on the street) just imagine dumping a giant buckets of water on your head. That is what you'll look like.

Shopping using the metro is a good way to curb your spending. You can't buy more than you can carry. Literally.

I saw the greatest thing ever at Target. The store here is two levels and they have this crazy escalator thing for your cart! and you ride ride next to it on the normal escalator. I had to take a picture, I couldn't get over it.


When I was coming home from Target I got caught at the Dupont Metro in a downpour. I had an umbrella, but also two big shopping bags worth of things that couldn't get wet. So I waited, with about 50 other people, while a street performer serenaded us with Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" and an 80-year-old man starting hitting on me and telling me he liked my new lampshades (you can actually see them in the picture of my cart). Is there anything more awkward than inching away from a person only to have them inch closer? I eventually just called Brody who saved me by bringing a plastic garbage sack for the Target stuff and we ran home in the rain. Umbrella's are really only good for keeping you dry from the waist up in that kind of rain.

I got crafty and mod-podged a vintage map of DC onto some canvas to go above our headboard-less bed.


Brody's bike got stolen out of a garage, where it was locked and chained. ridiculous. The good news, if there is any, is that it really only cost us about $65, and supposedly there is video surveillance of the garage. So we are hoping our building manager can find our the culprit because it has to be someone with access to our building. So sad, but could have been worse.

My lovely friend Patricia and I stumbled onto a charming little second-hand bookstore in my neighborhood and I may have found the perfect present for my mom for Christmas.

On that same jaunt with Patricia I though I was going to witness my first mugging, when we heard a deafening bang! but it turned out that a girls tire had just blown out on her bike, just as we were passing this flower street vendor.

We found out that if Romney gets elected in 2012, he will be in our ward because technically, the White House is in our boundaries.

I found out that to get my hair done at a beauty school here, a cut is $18. Awesome. Highlights? $70. Pretty ridiculous for a student haircut. I don't even want to know what a salon would cost.

We finally figured out how to hide certain individual's wall posts on facebook without actually un-friending them (thanks to Bill). How did I not know this before?!

I think we live in the hipster mecca of DC. A guy was acutally handing out free stick-on mustaches the other day at the metro. They try so hard to seem like they aren't trying at all don't they?

Bobby

Speaking of delicious food, today was the grand opening of Bobby's Flay's Burger Palace, just up the street from my office and a couple of the attorneys in my office bought a bunch of us lunch and it was wonderful. I got the Napa Valley burger, which had fresh goat cheese, watercress and Meyer lemon honey mustard. SO so good, and the sweet potato fries were fantastic as well.

The cherry on top? Bobby was there, in person, for big grand opening. You know I love a good celebrity sighting!

Delicious DC

I am one of those people who would like to be a foodie. If I had the budget, yes. I would be all over that. But alas, we are not at a stage in our life when we can really justify that lifestyle. However, we do love trying new, delicious food and DC has certainly provided wonderful new places to delight our tastebuds. On one of our first weekends in the District, two cute couples from our ward invited us to go to dinner with them at 2Amy's. An amazing, neopolitan-style pizza place that is just up the street from the National Cathedral and it was incredible. I got one of the specialty pizzas--a chantrelle mushroom creation that was really yummy, and Brody got the Norcia (Tomato, salami, grilled pepeprs, fresh mozerella and grana), I must admit-- his was better and SO good. We will definitely be going back.

Last weekend, we were again invited to go to dinner with the cute Ali and Brian (who are also from Salt Lake) to Zaytinya's and it was SO good. It's a tappas-style restaurant but they call them Mezze's because that's the middle-eastern word for it. We got four little dishes overall and they were each really tasty and totally different. First was a delicious tapia of feta, tomatos and peppers (so good), then we got the Falafel (a new favorite food of mine thanks to my lovely and amazing friend Patricia), this UNBELIEVABLY delicious lamb. It seriously melted in your mouth and was served in this thick, creamy sauce that was to die for. Seriously. And then a chicken kabob dish that was also really juicy and yummy. They also give you delicious pita bread, hot and fluffy, right out of the oven.

Afterwards we headed over to Good Stuff Eatery in Capitol Hill and got the famous toasted marshmellow shakes that were just the right amount of thickness and flavor. It was fantastic and we can't wait to try more!

Busy Bee

Brody was at scout camp all last week which was an interesting experience for me. Not because he was gone, but because it was the first time I was really on my own here. In a city where I know very few people. And although I wasn't thrilled about him being gone for his birthday, I kept myself very busy...

After getting off work each night I would come home and get the itch to do something around the apartment, you know when you just get an idea in your head and can't rest until it's done? So, on Monday night I painted the rest of our kitchen--the previous tenant had painted one of the walls grassy green and the rest were a light buttery yellow (so ugly) so I painted them all a nice light greige that we had used for the rest of the apartment. We used the paint/primer and it worked like a charm, we only needed 2 coats to cover the red and purple.

Tuesday night I went and got some paint at a hardware store in capitol hill and painted our Ikea rug we got a month or so ago. After about ten minutes of the guy at the hardware store looking at me like I was crazy to paint a rug, he finally sold me a quart of Benjamin Moore's Newburg Green, which is actually a really nice blue color which I used to paint a lovely striped pattern (surprise, surprise) using this Lands End rug as inspiration.

Wednesday night I decided I couldn't live with the grassy green color of our bathroom from the previous tenant so I just mixed some of the paint in our pantry from the previous tenant, mixing purple, green and a light cream color) it turned out to be a nice chocolately-milk color (and it was free which makes it just that much better).

I didn't take a picture of the green bathroom, but it's the same color as this wall in the kitchen

Thursday night I painted all of our mis-matched dining chairs with a base coat of more of the cream color from the pantry, and Friday night I painted them all white (which I again found in the pantry) and switched out the upholstery to some burlap I had. And by the time Brody got back on Saturday, just in time for our anniversary, he came home to a very different apartment :) Of which you will have to wait and see the full glory of the before and after photos, but here are some ugly before's

The horrific green in the kitchen, and the entire bathroom was this color too


The ugly red/ buttery yellow bedroom


And the purple/red living and dining room.

A Kindred Sprirt

I'm always on the hunt for a good design blog and I found a gem today, A Life Design, has gorgeous photos and inspiration for interiors, exteriors, architecture, etc. And her style seems to be very similar to mine -restrained, balanced - modern casual/coastal/country chic, if that even counts as a style. I love all the design blogs out there but sometimes it's nice to see more than ikat pillows, a chevron rug and a suburst mirror ya know? It's a little less trendy and a little more timeless which I love. As designer and architect John Saladino said, "I like to imply rather than be explicit. When you do that, you're hopefully designing somthing that won't embarrass you in 30 years."

The Golden Mean

I remember sitting in a history class in high school learning about Aristotle and his theory about the Golden Mean, which is essentially the "desirable middle between two extremes". I think it was Mr. Haye's class, and unlike so many other lessons from high school, this one has always stuck with me. I have always remembered it and tried to keep my action, opinions, etc. within that golden realm. Tried being the keyword there (not to mention the golden ratio, which is also key for design and photography, but that's a little off topic)...
Living in Washington, particularly this week with all the craziness around the debt deal, and working with highly educated, extremely well-informed individuals, I've learned to appreciate just how right Aristotle was. I've also learned that when it comes to politics/policies/parties/etc. there is no "good guy". I've never had good feelings for politicians and in the past, and have really just tried to stay out of it altogether. I still hate politics, but living here you really can't get away with 'staying out of it'. You live in it.

That being said, it's really become clear to me there there is no right and wrong, there is only bad and worse. No one party or piece of legislation is all good or all bad. For example, I love the environment, I'm all about re-usable energy, recycling, all of that good stuff. But I also drive a car, use electricity constantly and really don't want to pay more than I already do for those goods and services. So you have to compromise. Just like those fools on the hill have to compromise. And luckily they finally did, and as disheartening and sometimes scary as extreme partisan politics can be, it's comforting to know that, that is how the government is supposed to be. The founder's set up the Constitution to purposely make it difficult to change or enact new laws, so that one party or person doesn't have more power than they should. They did that so that things would usually have to fall within that golden mean to get passed. And that makes me feel a little better.

And because, what would a blog post be without a pictures, here are a few snapshots from around the city I've taken with my phone over the last couple of weeks

Dupont Circle on a Friday night

Chinatown

Reagan airport

Capitol Hill/ Eastern Market neighborhood