honesty is hard

I always told myself that since no one really reads this except the people I care about, that I would always be completely honest. It's weird because I find myself falling into the same old habit of trying to be the person I want people to see instead of just being myself. So, in the interest of being honest, it's about to get real in here. As of this weekend Jared and I will be filling  for divorce. It's something that we have been threatening each other with during fights for over a year, and things finally came to a head about 4 months ago. I moved out, and we've decided after having this time apart, that we've become too different and that the marriage is not going to work. I've had most of the things that I'm judgmental about promptly blow up in my face, this being no exception. I'd always been skeptical of couples who sited 'irreconcilable differences' for their reason for divorce, thinking, 'yeah right, they just met someone else and have no willpower.' which is most decidedly not the case here.
Anyway, I feel cautiously hopeful about the future, and really want Jared to be happy as well. My biggest issue with our relationship (or what it had deteriorated to) was that we were both supremely unhappy, and clearly not wanting or being able to meet each others needs. The more we separately sought out personal happiness, the farther we drifted from each other, and once the friendship goes, the respect goes with it, so here we are.
So alone again. but never lonely. I have the most supportive friends and family that a person could ever hope for, and that is the real blessing, I believe.

He's baaaack!

Jared just arrived home from his other-side-of-the-world adventures! can't wait to hear all about Australia, New Zealand and Japan! Sounds like a really amazing place! Still kinda on a wonky schedule but I'm hoping things go back to normal soon. We'll see though. maybe this will be the thing to finally turn him into a night owl, haha!

storage farm

Our farm is officially in storage now! We got it all packed up with help from our friend Paul before we headed out for our vacation. There it will stay until we figure out where we're going to settle.

this is from when we got started, I don't have a picture of it, but the unit is now packed to the edges. including the loft.

Jared and Paul figuring it out

Abbey's a big help, as usual... ;)

christmas and what not

Jared and I took a trip down the 101 for a pre-holiday vacation before he had to head off to Australia (where he is now). It was a great trip! Jared got a great deal on a surfing sweatshirt,

 We stopped at the dunes on the way to gold/nesika beach...

we also stopped to visit the dinosaurs (more on this in a separate blog)

There was great surf, and the beach was sunny and deserted. We played on the beach every day with abbey,

(we lost abbey's ball at one point...)

 and watched the sunset from the hot tub. We got a great deal on a rental house that was beautiful.

we even drove down into California for the day and saw a bunch of seals sunning themselves.... awesome! (sorry about my thumb in the pic)

all in all, it was a very relaxing and fun trip, and I'm pretty sure I want a farm by the ocean now....

Jared's home!

Jared is back from Europe tonight and will be home through Christmas, and I'm so glad! We have a lot of transition happening right now, and I'm really needing him here to help me get things squared away and make some of the big decisions. Abbey has grown increasingly aggressive due to the fact that she's not fixed yet. We wanted to hold off until she was 3, which she is now, and we're really in no position to be breeding her, so that's one decision I hope doesn't take too long to come to (my opinion: snip snip little one! get ready for head cone pics!)
Also, we need to finish getting the farm stuff buttoned up, and we will definitely need a bigger storage unit if that's the case, but do we stay at the current place, or look for a cheaper/better place elsewhere? decisions decisions...
I hope to get these issues as well as a few others cleared up over the next few weeks...stay tuned!

Husby's home!!

 I'm so glad to have Jared home safe! He was only gone 3 weeks this time, but this last trip was a bit harrowing for him. Most of the time when he's in Europe, I don't hear from him much due to the time change. This time, I'm glad he was keeping me informed, since there were riots in London (the city he flew into, the riots started the day he got there) and the band he works for was scheduled to play at the Pukkelpop festival in Belgium the night that the terrible storm hit. He said the storm hit right as they had finished setting up their gear for sound check around 6pm and it hit like a switch going off. They had to quickly tear all their gear down and get it packed up so that none of it was destroyed (they were successful, due to the fact that Jared is CRAZY and not really afraid of anything physical, which, according to him, included standing in a sideways rainstorm holding an industrial drier in order to dry off the cover for the audio console that they had brought while everyone else was running for their lives) 71 people were injured to varied degrees, and 5 people confirmed dead (3 died at the scene) here's a link  to the news story and some pictures. There's a couple of pictures there that show the trees that were uprooted, the tent where Jared was setting up was directly on the other side of where that happened, and one of their guitar techs was like, 4 feet away from the trees as they came down. cray cray.
So he's home now, and will be for the next 16 days. Fortunately for me, he'll be in the US for the next run, so you will see me at both paramount shows here in Seattle, and at the Austin city limits festival, if they'll have me, of course. :)

*UPDATE: Jared informs me that in addition to it being the CRAZIEST storm he's ever seen, the entire duration of the storm was LESS THAN 2 MINUTES. woah.

Faux-versary

This weekend Jared and I went up the peninsula a bit to Sequim for a weekend away, and to kind of celebrate our anniversary (since Jared will be on the road for our real anniversary). We've been curious about the area for a while, so it was cool to get to do that. We had dinner at one of our favorite dinner spots, Ajax cafe, over in Port Hadlock. It was amazing as usual, but we didn't get to the rental house until late on Friday so we couldn't really see the view, but, holy moly! It was so nice to wake up across the street from the ocean!

this is where Abbey decided to sleep...

We went to breakfast at a great local place then headed out to check out the Sequim Saturday farmers market. Sequim is the 'lavender capital of the world' so we picked up some loose lavender, as well as a few other treasures there. We went out to port Townsend to try and hit up a couple of favorite spots, but ended up 'killing' too much time at the coffee place. We missed our window for lunch and didn't feel like waiting for dinner, so after a little shopping (the fabric store there was having a huge remnant sale!), we went back to Sequim and ate at a great little hole in the wall Mexican place. Not quite as good as Cazadores, but it's hard to hold a candle to our favorite restaurant in Poulsbo!
We finished out the evening at the Dungeness spit, it was a bit windy, but man, what a view! You can literally see Canada! There's a 5 mile walk out to the light house there, but since it was pretty late in the evening, we decided to save that for another day. We couldn't bring the dog out there, so we brought her back to the rental house and played with her on the private beach there, it was pretty heavenly :)

 Dungeness Spit

it was pretty cold

the little sign next to the diaper says biodegradable diapers take a year.

they had this posted, what a great reminder!!

Sunday we had breakfast at the house before we checked out, then headed up to the sol duc hot springs. We soaked for a while up there and took a break for a lunchy snack, but when we got back the tub we had been enjoying was closed for a cleaning cycle, so we headed back to Port Angeles to check out a couple of shops and find a dinner spot, and boy did we! We ate at Michael's Steak house and it has definitely made our top 10 northwest best restaurants. Maybe it was because their menu seemed to be reading my mind (cucumber infused vodka bloody Mary? smoked salmon Alfredo?! chocolate mousse banana parfait??! where has this place been all my life?!?!?!?!!YES PLEASE!!) I don't remember the last time I ate that much or felt that painfully full, but it was SO WORTH IT. Thank you, Olympic Peninsula. once again, you didn't fail us, even though the weather kinda did. (65 and cloudy Sunday. meh.)

thank you oly penn!

on me own for a bit

Dropped Jared off at the airport yesterday for another 5 week run. 3 weeks in Europe, and 2 weeks (or so) in the US. I'm really hoping to meet him out on the road this time, either Chicago or Denver, and planning to drive down to Edgefield for the last show of this run too. Cross your fingies for me!
I had a great time last night with my Dad, step mom and sister for a late dinner/happy hour for Fathers Day! Who would have known that fried mac and cheese dipped in spicy ranch was EVERYTHING! Good call Brianna!
I'm getting together with two of my friends that I've known the longest for dinner tonight and I have a feeling Jameson and Poutine are in my future...yesssssssss

my favorite part of spring

So, let it be known, Summer is my favorite season up here in the stage left corner of the US. Spring is usually cold, rainy, windy and sometimes snowy.  However, my favorite part of spring is seeing all the new plant growth, especially flowers! Tulip trees are one of my faves, and I saw one just starting to bloom on my walk to work this morning

 so pretty!!
I also love gifts, I mean, who doesn't? Gifts of clothing can be tricky but when executed precisely, it can be wonderful, which brings me to my jacket today! Jared bought it for me when he was in Europe with Menomena a few years back, and I absolutely love it. It's 3/4 sleeve, burnt orange and has a sort of hippyish flowered trim complete with ties in the front and at the end of the sleeves at the elbow. since it has a unique color, I don't get to wear it much, but I try to work it in whenever I can, and the weather permits (lol)

 jacket: numph, dress and leggings: forever 21, belt: j crew, shoes: Calvin Klein

The boy definitely loves clapping now! It's his new favorite thing, although, he won't do it on command, yet, much to our chagrin ;) It's very serious business to him...

Now we're working on waving, need to get that one down!
I think he's starting to pick up on the fact that solids (baby food) will satiate his hunger as much as a bottle, so he's going along with it a lot more readily. Actual solids on the other hand.... not so much. here's a pic of him having just passed his teething biscuit off to Stella...

Busy hard workin weekend!

Jared and I (with Abbey's help of course) moved all of our strawberries to the Lincoln property this weekend! We are in the process of moving out of the property on Hwy 3 that we have tended for the last 4 seasons and will be focusing on just the one property over on Lincoln in Poulsbo, WA. All of the chickens and remaining ducks are over there, and now that the strawberries are out, that just leaves the sunchokes! Then we have to move the bird houses and remaining fencing and we're outta there! We hope to have all of this complete before Jared has to be in Seattle for a couple of the band rehersals in two weeks, so we'll see....
Here's the husband, hard at work!!

 here's what a truck load of strawberries looks like... we had 2 by the way...

 here's a few more, see I work too!!

It was sunny most of the day on Saturday, and rained most of the day on Sunday, but we got it done! I think that it would be realistic to say that there are close to 1000 plants that we moved. (we originally planted 300 2 years ago, and we kinda just let them go.... until now) I'm so looking forward to fresh strawberries!!!  Abbey was a very good girl too, she had fun chasing the chickens around and was very respectful of the bashful ducks. (one was nabbed by a bald eagle last weekend, we scared the eagle away just in time, and it only got her leg, so she's mostly hanging out in the chicken tractor while she's on the mend) There's 4 survivors from our original flock of 20, 3 years ago.

So me and my sore muscles are back to Seattle and back to work today! Managed to get the boy out for a walk right after nap #1 today, and it was a success! We walked up to Trader Joes, and wandered around the neighborhood for a bit while he had a bottle, made it back home for some down time and 'solid' food before nap #2, no melt down mid walk! yee!

I also wore one of my favorite outfits today! My style is pretty casual, obviously, and I have this great vintage sweater that it's a struggle for me to NOT wear every day. I got it last year on a camping trip Jared and I took to Port Townsend.  I also was able to mix it with my favorite sweat pants too. I try not to wear sweats out too much, since being a nanny can be a slippery slope fashion-wise, I do have a few pairs that aren't too shlubby to mix in.  This top is one of my faves too, it's this super soft muslin-y square necked number with mexican style embroidery=l.o.v.e.

 

hat: Jessica Simpson, Top: vintage, sweater: vintage, sweat pants: forever 21, wing tips: Dr. Martens

I will be working a full week this week and next week, and I'm really looking forward to it. I can't believe it's almost April already...wowzer