I have lived in the Seattle area for about 3 months now, and have seen some amazing sights, including seeing (and hearing!) a seal "barking" while swimming in Puget Sound!  But what I'm excited about right now is the fact that my mother & grandmother are flying here from Ohio to visit in March! 
I'm very excited to see them, and show them around all the sights of Seattle.  There are a few things they desperately want to see, and I'm going to ensure that they do!
One of the sights they want to see is Pike Place Market, which is the 2nd picture.  I've been there a few times, and there's never enough time to see all that the Market has to offer!  I'm sure us ladies will spend most of the afternoon walking around the booths. 
Another thing my mom has already mentioned she wants to do is ride the Monorail from the Space Needle into downtown.  The 3rd picture is a photo of the Monorail's "end of the line."
I'm thrilled to show them this amazing place I live in, and I hope they like it so much they decide they must move here immediately!
It is so wonderful to live in such a place as this:  a place with mountains, water, a vibrant culture, and of course, possibly my favorite thing of all:  an abundance of coffee!  Just thinking about such things helps me remember that life really is good, after all, even when times are tough.  Life is Good!

1st Snowfall in Washington State

Ain't life grand?  Here's Levi (our pup) and my in-laws' pup, Henry, playing in the first snowfall of the year in Washington state.  They are so funny!  Levi had NEVER seen snow before today, and we were worried that he'd be freaked out or scared by it, but he LOVED it!  And, since it's wet here in the Pacific Northwest, it's the best snowball-packing snow I've ever seen!  Amazing!  What fun!  Now, if all our family can have safe travels on the roads during this snowstorm, then that will be the perfect blessing to add to this beautiful weather!

Teach a man to farm & feed him for a lifetime

I've always wanted to help people in some unique, important fashion, but I've also always never quite known what my skills, gifts, and dreams are, or even how & with what I what to get involved.  I have not felt strongly passionate about volunteering and giving my time to something in a long while.
This feeling of wanting to do something to help others, but not feeling led in any particular direction, has been difficult and confusing for me.  But now, especially since Eric & I are now living on the other side of the country, there are new things to get involved in, a smaller, more intimate church that has already made us feel welcome and loved, and more mild weather to be outside in.
I feel now that perhaps my life is heading in a particular direction that is definitely unique. What's funny & crazy in a God-given Dream, Destiny sort of way is that Eric has an incredibly generous heart and desires to help others as well.   The picture below is of our backyard in Cincinnati, and that is a wild deer napping under our maple tree!

Back while we were still living in Cincinnati, we loved the idea of planting a garden in our .25- acre backyard, to provide ourselves with healthy organic produce.  But there were two issues that caused us to do a tiny bit of gardening, but not very much.  The 1st issue is that we knew we would not be living in that house for much longer, and we did not wish to invest money, time, and energy on this garden that we would not be around to harvest and reap the benefits of.  The 2nd issue was our finances.  We did not have money to tear up our yard, buy mulch and seeds, and keep up a healthy garden.  But we still dreamed of someday having a decent-sized farm where we could grow enough organic produce to not only provide for ourselves, but also for needy people who would not otherwise have access to such healthy foods.  And now that we're now Washington State residents and have had lots of time to think about what our dream farm will look like, we now like the idea of not only growing crops, but also having some animals like chickens, goats, and perhaps even sheep and cattle.
But it really just depends on how much acreage we can afford to buy, what the rules are in the area we will live, and what the local market is for things like that.

For example, Washington is known for its apples.  Eastern Washington looks & feels like the Midwest, with open rolling farmland as far as the eye can see.  (And my eyes DID see it when we drove across the country in our moving van!)  So we may or may not grow apples on our farm, since the market may be saturated with them.
Our farm will most likely consist of 1-5 acres, depending on what we can afford.  So yes, it will be a very small venture to say the least!
And we want to live closer to the mountains, (or even in them!) which of course means it will be more difficult to find flat farmland.  But we'll see what we can get.
That is our dream.  What is yours?


image: http://wsm.wsu.edu/discovery/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/2009Aug_farm_stats2.jpg

The New Hand-Made World We Live In

This is a knitted coffee sleeve, designed to protect your hand from the heat of your paper-cupped beverage while being environmentally-friendly and not using one of those little cardboard ones from a coffee shop.  I hand-knit these and have a fairly large inventory of already-made coffee cozies ready to be purchased for the low price of $10 apiece! 
I would describe myself very much as a Beginner knitter, but I am slowly acquiring more skills and becoming more willing to challenge myself and learn new stitches & styles.  I am also thinking about adding cute embellishments like buttons or small pockets (for tea & sugar packets) to the coffee sleeves to set them apart even more. 
I recently knitted my niece a floppy, hot pink winter hat, which turned out wonderfully, and only took me about 2 days of knitting off & on (about 8 hours total), which means I am getting faster and more consistent with the stitches. 
But I forgot to take pictures of the hat, which is such a bummer, because it really was my best work to date.  Maybe I'll have my sis-in-law send me a picture with my niece wearing it, so I can post it here.
Making the hat was a revelation for me, because I had made something that was not only functional (to keep the baby's head warm), but also cute, girly, and stylish, with a bit of creative flair.  I had actually made something worthwhile, that will get used & worn.  How cool is that?  Of course, I (and a select few family members) have been using my knitted coffee sleeves for awhile now, but this hat was different.

Do any of you make hand-made items?  Do you feel the same pride and satisfaction seeing your family use & wear these items like I do?
Knitting is one of those "lost arts" of the good old days,  that are now making a comeback due to a few reasons:  the economic downturn is making folks realize that perhaps they can save money by making things that they used to buy from a store, and the "going green/sustainability" movement that has been spreading across the country in the last few year.  More and more people want to live "off the grid" as much as they can, using less resources, downsizing their homes, consuming less, contributing to landfills less, and growing their own food for health & money sake. 
This generation has re-claimed the slogan "Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle" and lots of people have made a lifestyle out of it.  A similar word, "Upcycle", has taken the internet by storm as well, referring to re-purposing and re-using a used object by giving it another purpose & look as it had in its previous life.  For example, I've seen lots of "how-to" articles on Pinterest lately about how to DIY upcycle a used wine bottle by using a method involving heat and a string, to cut the top off of the bottle, turning it into a unique drinking glass.  There are many things you can do to reduce, reuse, and recycle; and all you need is your imagination!  And maybe the internet.  And some string. 

Where are you, Daylight?

As most of you know, my husband & I recently relocated to Seattle, Washington.  We are still both out of work, so we've just been trying to hang in there and keep up hope that God will provide jobs for us, especially my husband Eric. 
But, despite our financial and job woes, we still absolutely LOVE living in the Seattle area!  The winter weather here is not nearly as cold as Ohio winters, which is such a huge blessing!  I had grown to abhor the bitterly cold Ohio winters, where it was so incredibly cold that it physically hurt to step outside.  Forget trying to actually DO anything outdoors in the winter!  It was simply too cold to spend any length of time outside.  But not so here.  Don't get me wrong; it still gets down in the low 30's here, but there's hardly ever any wind, and the sun has been shining a surprising amount lately, which helps immensely! 
The above picture was from a summer visit to the Seattle area last summer, when we drove to Mt. Rainier National Park.  This amazing valley view was along the way, and we pulled off to the side of the road to absorb the amazingness of the view.  Do you see that little blob in the upper left-hand corner of the shot?  Yeah, that's a helicopter.  Just so you understand the coolness captured in that moment.  :)
Here in the Pacific Northwest, in the winter, the sun sets at around 4:30 in the afternoon.  Yes, you read that right.  Four-thirty in the afternoon, folks.  In Ohio, the winter sun would set around 8 or so, but here, it sets almost four hours earlier!  The sun sets before dinnertime!  I'm not gonna lie; it's freaky as heck!  That is just something I will have to get used to, I suppose. 
I do wonder, though, if native Pacific-Northwesterners realize how utterly insane and unnatural it is for the sun to set that early.  In most of the country, the sun sets in an actual "evening" hour, like 7, or 8, or 9 o'clock at night.  But here?  4:30pm. 
But it IS normal for this area, and I think I understand the basic reasons:  it all has to do with the angle of the sun in the sky viewed from the Pacific Northwest.  Because this area is so far north, the sun never rises very high in the sky during the winter months, so it does not take much for it to drop back down below the skyline in the evening.  *Sheesh!*  It's weird, right????
Oh, it gets better.  In the summer months, the sun rises at around 4 o'clock in the morning.  That is freakishly early!  But at least that makes it so that the sun does not set until freakishly late, like around 10pm. 
From a Midwesterner's perspective, there is some FREAKY weather goin' on 'round here!!!
And from the point of view of someone who desires to be productive, that means that there are very few hours in the day of sunlight.  Very few hours to get stuff done that you want to get done, especially if it means being outdoors, driving, or needing the sunlight to help you stay alert and focused. 

This absence of sunshine constantly reminds me that life is passing me by and that I have only a limited time to be productive and do the things I want to do.  It's a very "Carpe Diem" mindset, I know, but I appreciate it because it keeps me motivated to "seize the day" and make the most of my time, and live in the moment, and all that jazz. 
I hear Robin William's husky voice whispering in my ear from over my shoulder, "Carpe Diem!  Carpe Diem!" 
**(extra coolness points to whoever knows what movie I'm referencing!)**
As I finish this post, it is 4:15pm, and the sky is darkening.  "Goodbye, Mr. Sun!  See you tomorrow!"  :) 

My Novel is Finished!

Okay, now that I've got your attention talking about a finished novel and all that, let me clarify. I participated in NaNoWriMo (for the first time ever!) this month of November, which happens to be "National Novel Writing Month." I finished and "won" by meeting and slightly exceeding the 50,000 word limit, submitted by Nov. 30th at midnight. I actually finished the evening of the 29th, almost a full 24 hours before the deadline! Go me!
Now, as it is with NaNoWriMo, they call any text submitted to their website that is at least 50,000 a "novel," and all the authors of such texts "authors". I do not know if I can be quite so liberal with those descriptions, because anything written during November is typically just a very rough draft of a short novel. Fifty thousand words is tough to punch out in a month, but would make an awfully small book by most standards. So, even though I am a writer and would perhaps even call myself an "author", I'm not sure I would call what I wrote this past month a "novel" or not.
I mean sure, it had a beginning, a middle, and an end, and it even had a relatively coherent storyline with acceptable dialogue that advanced the plot. And to craft this document, it required a month full of 5-hour writing sprees, locked in the office by myself. It required me to become slightly anti-social at times, to depend probably a little too much on coffee, and my back is still tight from sitting in my not-so-comfortable desk chair for the majority of the month of November. But is it worthy to be called a "novel?" I guess it depends on the definition you're using.
And I think there is something even more important than debating if my novel is really a "novel" or not. What's more important is to decide whether or not it was worth it for me to have participated in this literary experience. And the answer is a resounding "Yes!" It was fun, it was brutal at times, it required lots of sacrifices on my part, and it forced me to tap into creative stores I did not think I had. And it was SO WORTH IT! If you did not participate or if you did not meet the minimum 50,000 word requirement, I encourage you to try again next year, because it will be worth it, I promise! Happy writing!

Here I Am

Well, here I am. I am here. This is me. Right here. I'm here.

Where am I, you may ask? Why, I'm in Seattle, Washington, of course! *Insert Happy Dance here*

My hubby Eric & I finally made the BIG MOVE out to the Seattle area last week, and now that we're here, we've been busy temporarily moving into Eric's parents' house and getting settled, applying for jobs, and writing. Well, I've been writing anyway.

I don't know if you've heard or not, but November is National Novel Writing Month, and you can find info and a vast community of writers here @ www.NaNoWriMo.com. The deal is this: begin writing a novel that is a minimum of 50,000 words on November 1st and finish said novel on November 30th. Thirty days of literary abandon is what they say. If you make it to 50,000 words on or before November 30th, then you get your name published on the website. And the best part of all this is that publishers sometimes read the submissions, so your novel could get published!

I am participating in this venture, so for the next 30 days I will be a sleep-deprived, writing-obsessed, over-caffeinated psycho.

What about you? Have you ever heard of NaNoWriMo before? Are you participating? Let me know!