udon with japanese mountain vegetables

(bracken, flowering fern & dropwort)

I finished knitting my scarf! I am pretty
happy with it/would actually wear it in public.

it's okay, next year Seahawks, next year.

i watched through an entire football game
for the first time! i'm proud of myself.

out on the open road

we got some stunning views on our roadtrip.

this picture cracks me up.

(zoom in and you will see...)

I just learned that my mom has not

only met Richard Nixon, but Henry Kissinger,

Nicolae Ceausescu, and the King of Cambodia as well.

N E V A D A

a weekend of wandering around a desert city,

buffet indulging, hotel fun, and other blacked out

adventures in highly gendered neon-colored spaces.

"you're a ghost

driving a meat coated skeleton

made from stardust,

what do you have to be scared of?"

f r o l i c

"If you can't fly, then run.

If you can't run, then walk.

If you can't walk, then crawl.

But whatever you do

you have to keep moving forward."

- M L K jr.

Today felt like a scene from The Wind Rises.

I laid in the fluffy grass and

watched two hawks circle in the sky.

mouskoutchou

(a north African lemon pound cake)

[butter, eggs, rosewater, honey, lemon zest,
lemon juice, almond flour, coconut flour, baking soda]

thanks to this cookbook!

I've reached the point where I can

now say "I know how to knit."

I harvested some salad I grew from seeds

& put them in my sandwich for lunch.

If that's not satisfying,
then I don't know what is.

One of my new life goals is to see as many Rothkos
as I can stumble across. But it won't be planned;

it will be more like a ~surprise* 

MoMa SF & Museum of Art in San Diego

Centre Pompidou

 Seattle Art Museum & MoMa NY

 My sister went back and photographed

the Southwest in the winter!

Bryce Canyon (UT) and Horseshoe Bend (AZ)

"I am a firm believer that every few years

one needs to shake one's life through a sieve,

like a miner in the Yukon. The gold nuggets remain.

The rest falls through like the soft earth it is."

 ~Amy Poehler

i orbited around
the sun 24 times!

callalillies + cake!
i went to a paleo birthday party after work
and it was delicious.

i brought callalillies and realized the last time i
bought flowers was in Washington.

Seattle has ruined me because nothing will ever
compare to the perfect $1 flowers at pike:

I LOVE IRISES, but only this variety:

 one day, Ashley gave me a bouquet because

i was experiencing extreme edTPA stress.

then she made us tacos for dinner :D

this was right after student teaching and i had just

eaten a matsuri hot dog from a food truck downtown.

these tulips were so beautiful...but fragile

and all the petals fell off after 2 days.

you know summer is coming when the sunflowers are out.

"they tried to bury us,

but they didn't know we were seeds."

-Mexican proverb

today felt like summer, fall and winter

all at the same time.

j.i.g.g.l.y

"I used to be a preschool teacher,
but I got fired."

“What happened?”
“Well, [....]"

i love when light floods this place and the beams
blind you in a warm, familiar "welcome back" way.

"Why are we designed to see the world as

supremely beautiful just as we’re about to be snuffed?

Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth

bite down on their necks? Is it mercy?”
― M. Atwood, The Year of the Flood

(I really like margaret atwood;
her writing always speaks to me
and there is this oozing satisfaction
to the poetry of her prose)

hip hip hooray for 2015

& cheers to the 10th running year of this blog!

to whomever is reading this:

thank you for looking at my virtually documented
thoughts and i'm sending you some positive vibes~ ~
for an incredibly happy, productive & meaningful new year.

//do something that excites/scares/inspires you//

onwards!

last day of 2014!

some highlights of this year:

~ lived, taught, learned in Seattle

~ ate gelato in Florence

~ taught kindergartners to sew, write about social
change & scientific information about sea stars

~ rowed a boat in Lake Washington

~ snorkeled with tropical fish in Hanauma Bay

~ got lost in Venice

~ completed and passed edTPA
~ lounged in Parisian parks

~ explored Casa Batllo in Barcelona

~ watched an Athenian sunset on Areopagus Hill

~ hiked up a glacier on Mount Rainier
~ hiked from Fira to Oia along the Aegean sea

~ wandered around Rome & ended up at Trajan's Column

~ ate a beavertail in Canada

~ won $13 while gambling in Las Vegas

~ river-hiked The Narrows in Utah and revisited
the Grand Canyon

~ dug for clams and oysters in the Olympic Peninsula

!i am excited for 2015!

the winds are a howlin'

this is the cutest thing

i have ever seen:

mini gingerbread houses

Ἄρειος Πάγος

 my head is blocking most of it,

but there is the Parthenon too :P

winter barbeques

the perks of having chef friends

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

picnic in a cave!

with "avocado fingers"

mops is now inseparable from his flannel blanket.

~florence city wall~

attempting to do a self-photoshoot by the Aegean sea

while walking from Fira to Oia.

to the sea!

"Looting is wrong" say citizens living

on stolen land, built by stolen labour,

powered by stolen resources from poor countries."

sometimes, we watch demon baby videos,

discuss race + racism,

wrap oblong presents until midnight,
cook amazing food, admire hauntingly misty tall
dark mountains on the toll road,

and make DIY ugly christmas sweaters.

bumped into a fellow husky

stranger at the mall today :)

go dawgs~

"DO NOT TELL THE OPPRESSED HOW TO
REACT TO THEIR OPPRESSION."