30 days

That’s how long I have until I leave for Sweden. I’ve got my ticket, my passport and visa, and a giant, brand new suitcase. I just paid my deposit for the first month’s rent. I’m not positive this is the exact building I’ll be in, but I think I will be staying here:

I so hope that’s my apartment building! The painted doors are adorable!

I am starting to get a little worried about how much stuff I am going to need for the apartment, though. I will have my own kitchen, which means I need to either bring or buy dishes, pans, and utensils. And of course all my bedding. I love shopping for home goods, but I really don’t want to have to buy repeats of stuff I already have at home, or things I will have no use for when I get back here (like twin-sized bedding) And things are so expensive in Sweden! I’ve decided that I will try to get some cheap (hopefully plastic) plates and cups, and a small frying pan and saucepan and other really necessary kitchen utensils at Goodwill, and take them over in my suitcase. When I come back, I can just toss them to make room for all the fun things I will be bringing back.

I think I will buy all my fabric things in Sweden, because have you seen how cute Scandinavian textiles are?!? Tea towels, oven mitts…maybe even splurge on a shower curtain (love Marimekko, of course). I’ll probably stick with a simple white comforter, but I will make myself some pretty pillow covers to take with me. The one thing I know I can’t take with me that I wish I could is my sewing machine.

On the one hand…

…I asked J.Crew to stop sending me catalogs on April 28th using this website, and it’s annoying that they keep sending me stuff.

On the other hand, if they hadn’t sent me this catalog, I wouldn’t have been able to sigh wistfully over their gorgeous new jewelry this season:

This necklace just screams Sarah! For the low, low price of…$228. This is why I don’t need the J.Crew catalog. Looking and dreaming is nice, but they don’t need to kill trees for it, because it will be a long time before I can afford their stuff.

highlights

So far, here are the highlights of the New York trip:

Empire State Building…from the bottom

…and the top

Figuring out the subway

Italian ices from the Lemon Ice King of Corona in Queens. At the family gathering, my cousin Tony took us out for some delicious, authentic Italian ices

The Met! We could have spent hours and hours in here! If I lived in NYC, I would definitely look into getting some kind of pass so I could come back all the time.

We also took a 2-hour cruise around Manhattan.

Tomorrow is our last full day, and then we fly back to Seattle early Monday morning. More photos and stories when we get back, then!

zoo!

This weekend has also been great. We went to the end of the year concert at the symphony with friends on Thursday. The music was awesome and we got into the sweet afterparty with Daniel’s grandparents, who are also big symphony-goers. On Friday we had friends over, and on Saturday my girlfriends and I saw a movie together.

On Sunday, in the 90 degree weather (this is about as hot as it gets in Seattle) a bunch of us went to the Woodland Park Zoo. Daniel wants everyone to know that he took most of these pictures.

I made friends with a goat at the petting zoo.

Here we all are: Toby, Pam, Aaron, me, and Julia. (Daniel is behind the lens).

The new flamingo exhibit was pretty cool. I was surprised at how fake real flamingos look!

You can buy popsicle sticks with birdseed on them and feed the budgies! Daniel even got one to hop onto the stick.

Tomorrow I’m leaving for New York with the entire West Coast part of my mom’s family to visit relatives in New York and have fun over the Fourth!

news!

Darn it, I mean to publish this post on Wednesday!

Spring quarter at school is always stressful. Is it just me, or do everyone’s grades slip from autumn to spring? I know I have sadly neglected this blog, but now that summer is here and I only (!) have to work every day instead of juggling school AND work, I want to get back to blogging.

This summer has gotten off to a good start, despite the fact that the weather in Seattle was freezing cold until a week or two ago. Right now it can’t decide whether it wants to be sunny or cloudy, but at least it’s 60 degrees out. Anyway, I had a great weekend. On Friday Daniel and I went out to a new (to us) place called Pies and Pints. Tiny little pot pies and beer–how awesome is that? It was delicious, and I’m sure we’ll be back.

On Saturday I spent the afternoon at home rearranging some things - it was very relaxing. You see, I haven’t just been neglecting the blog these past few months - the apartment has been at a standstill too. For 4 months my favorite print was hanging uncentered and too high on the wall, because I was too damn lazy to hammer in a new nail. I wasn’t happy with the grouping over the TV, either. So on Saturday I spent a couple of hours arranging new groupings and hanging a bunch of stuff that had just been sitting on bookshelves for months. It makes me much happier to walk in and see all my favorite art finally on display. Unfortunately, the apartment only gets really great light in the morning, when I’m running around trying to get ready to go to work, so pictures will have to wait a few days.

I also have some very exciting news–in August I will be traveling to Sweden for 5 months to study abroad! I’m going to be taking classes at Lund University, which is in southern Sweden, and I will be coming home just before Christmas. I am going to miss Daniel and all my friends and family very much, but I am so excited to be able to go! I’m planning to blog as much as I can from Sweden so that everyone can see what I’m up to.

welcoming in summer

I suck. But I’m easing back into blogging (and into summer) again. Yesterday Daniel and I picked strawberries at Remlinger Farms, so that helps.

Stay tuned for some exciting news!

21 today

Today is mt 21st birthday. I just spent a few hours at the DOL getting my new license. In Washington, your drivers license is printed sideways (portrait vs. landscape) until you turn 21, when you get a new one. Of course, I had to stop at the liquor store on my way home, too. Anyway Daniel and I are going out for a nice dinner tonight, but I promise that tomorrow I will be back, because I need to post about all the great thrifting I’ve been doing lately!

new year, still here

Well, we’re almost 2 weeks into 2008. I hope you all had a great new year’s eve; I certainly did! Daniel played a gig at his grandparent’s house early in the evening and then we went home, got into our pajamas and played gin-rummy until 12am. New years day was great too…and then I got the Cold From Hell that put me flat on my back for the rest of winter break. I started winter quarter at school this week. I’m taking some really cool classes.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this here before, but this autumn I took Swedish 101. Everyone at UW needs a year of a foreign language to graduate. I took three years of Spanish in high school and even earned some college credit for it, but it’s been three years, and I wanted to learn something new. I’m not entirely sure why I chose Swedish, but I’m so glad I did. The language is gorgeous and really fun to learn (although infinitely less useful than Spanish). Yesterday, I went and declared a Swedish minor, and on Tuesday, I have an appointment to speak with my biochemistry professor about possibly studying biochemistry in Lund, Sweden next fall!

So that’s what’s been going on in my life in the past two weeks. I’ve been away from the computer so much that I still read any of my RSS feeds past about January 3!

the day after Christmas

Sorry posts have been so sparse lately. I remembered to pack my camera bag…but the camera wasn’t in it. And I really like to post pictures with my entries. Here are some things I might have taken pictures of, had I remembered to bring the camera:

the delicious sushi rolls I made for Christmas Eve dinner
my beautiful dogs whom I love and miss so much
the chalk drawing my niece couldn’t wait to draw on the easel I got her for Christmas
the decorated gingerbread and sugar cookies I made with my niece and siblings
and much more…

BUT, I can show you the art prints my parents got me for Christmas, because they bought them off etsy! Poppies, edition one and edition two, from YumiYumi’s etsy store. They will look great in the apartment…I’m thinking the red tones will look good in the bedroom, which is warm orange and red.

And oh! I forgot to show you the art that Daniel bought me for our anniversary/Christmas (we exchange Christmas presents on our anniversary). A beautiful screenprint of a bird from Pushmepullyou design! Right now it’s hanging in the living room. I love hand-screenprinted things, because I really love the craft aspect to art. There is the artistic process, where the artist takes a vision and puts it down in ink (or clay, or paint), and then there is the physical process of printing the art that is so personal and organic. I value them both.

Anyway, I will be returning to Seattle on the 30th, so until then, picture-less posts!

Merry Christmas

All the presents have been opened and Christmas dinner eaten, and now we’re all playing games together. Tomorrow, of course, I’ll hit the after-Christmas sales. Hope your Christmas was restful and fun!