goodstorysarah

last night i was in the kitchen…minding my own business making homemade soft pretzels when we heard a grinding noise and a loud crash. before running to the window, i said “that’s my car.” and i called that one! i looked out the window to find a huge chevy van over the side walk and pushed up against my car.

the cavalier was pushed over into the parking space next to me. thankfully no one was parked in that spot and thankfully no one was hurt in the accident. eric and i went outside to find out that the guy driving the van had an anti-theft device on his brake (worst idea ever!) and forgot to take if off before driving. he could stop so instead of just going straight apparently decided to hit my car.

the cops were called and came to assess the situation. the officer who came to the apartment ran our driver’s licenses only to find that tony, the man who hit me, didn’t have a valid driver’s license. he also doesn’t have car insurance. he got a hefty fine from the seattle police and gave me his word that he would pay me as much money he could as often as possible. i didn’t think that would happen seeing that he was living in the van that hit me.

thankfully i have uninsured driver’s insurance. i only have to pay a small deductible, but the rest will be covered by my insurance. i took my car to my mechanic this morning to show him the damage and so he could recommend a body shop. his reaction when he saw my car was…”holy shit!!” he said that i will need a new bumper, bumper cover, quarter panel, truck cover, and some work on the passenger door. he also said that i’m looking at anywhere from $3,500 to totalling the car. not good. i’d rather not have the car totalled since it has low miles, a great interior and overall it’s in good condition. i take my car for an estimate tomorrow. i’m sure there will be updates as soon as i find out what’s going on with my car!

June 29th, 2009 by sarah | 3 Comments »

i leave tomorrow for pennsylvania. i’ll be spending roughly two months there to work at all sports. i don’t want to leave seattle, but right now it wouldn’t be wise to not make some decent money while i can.

the past two days have been really really fun! it’s been a great way to spend my time here before hitting the road tomorrow. i’ll probably be stopping in montana for the night. and i sure hope i have internet access to post some photos and some notes about the trip.

ryan from WV and jason from NY are in seattle now for jaime’s graduation. jaime actually graduated from bastyr last night! congratulations to dr. jaime!! yesterday morning, ryan, ryan, jason, eric and myself went to mighty o’s for donuts, then i stayed at ryan and jaime’s to watch the kids while the others went to jaime’s graduation ceremony. when dr. jaime was dubbed dr. we went to bamboo garden to celebrate! yes! i’m really happy i was able to go for donuts and chinese balls before heading back to PA.

we hung out at ryan and jaime’s house with everyone until about 10pm last night. ryan from WV made mexican snickerdoodle cookies. they were amazing! he used cayenne pepper in them which i thought was going to taste odd for cookies, but nono, they were amazing!! it was bedtime for the kids, so ryan and ryan came back to our place to watch a movie and to talk funny stuff. we were up until 3am and i cannot tell you the last time i was up that late. it had to have been my last semester at bloom, but i really can’t remember.

this morning hercie made breakfast and i packed my car for the long haul to the east coast. i’m hardly taking anything with me, which is a good thing. there was a low tide today at carkeek park at 11:30am, so eric and i went to see that. it’s really fun to see the extremes in the tides. after the park we went to the grocery store. i’m going to miss carkeek park and i’m going to miss grocery shopping with eric. it’s fun to buy food and we see so many weirdos at the store.

tonight we’ll be going to gas works park with the other friends to fly some kites. it should be a great little evening. i am a little excited for the trip back because i will be doing a little bit of touristy stuff in south dakota. but i really wish ASA wasn’t on the east coast. and i wish hercie could be with me!

June 23rd, 2009 by sarah | 3 Comments »

my parents made the long haul to seattle this past week! their plane arrived in seattle on the 13th and they left on the 19th. i wasn’t sure how this trip was going to go. they’ve never really explored a big city like we were going to do, and they never flew. it was a lot of firsts for them. all in all they had a great vacation.

when they arrived on saturday, we went back to the apartment and had some pasta. we then went to carkeek park to watch the sunset. sunday we went to mighty o’s, archie mcphee’s, fremont’s farmer’s market, and yen wor chinese in greenwood which surprisingly had really really good tofu! that evening we went to gas works park to watch some kite flying and to see the skyline of seattle. monday we headed downtown on the bus. we went to pioneer square and to the seattle underground tour. we then walked to the piers and checked out the ye olde curiosity shop. my parents weren’t a fan of riding the bus. but we did see a man in a cape with many layers who rode our bus in the morning and the afternoon. eric promptly dubbed him “mangoat.” tuesday we went downtown again. this time we went to the market and had some vegan cinnamon buns and other fun things. i bought a cute print of a cat and the space needle…i’ll post a picture of that later. we then walked to the monorail station and took the monorail to the space needle. after a short walk to bamboo garden and some great vegan food we headed back to the space needle and went to the observation deck.

eric was kind enough to post photos from the beginning of the week. here they are!

wednesday was a long day. a long long day! a 15 hour day to be exact. the plan was to go to snoqualmie falls and then to the coulees and surrounding area in central washington. we saw some amazing stuff that day. my parents were thrilled to see the different landscapes. i think that was their favorite day of their trip, which surprised me since i wasn’t expecting them to be happy sitting in a car all day!

eric posted photos from the wednesday trip too! click here to see them!

thursday i took my parents to kuan yin teahouse in wallingford. i love that place! we walked around wallingford a bit and then i showed them around ballard. eric rested at home before his doctors appointment in the afternoon…more on that later. we ended the day with a quick trip to carkeek. my parents had to catch a late morning flight back to PA on friday, so we met up with ryan, jaime, the kids, and jaime’s moms at might o’s for some donuts. busy busy!!!

i’m pretty beat from all of the touristy things we did the week and the long day on wednesday. naps were in order yesterday and today! the past few days haven’t been so fun for eric. he had to have hand surgery on thursday to fix a broken pinky finger. it seems like it would be kind of minor, but the bone was broken in four places and he now has four pins sticking out of his finger. poor little guy!

i feel really bad about eric’s hand. especially since i leave on wednesday to go back to PA for two months. i’m not extremely happy about this. i’m going back to work. it’s just for the summer and i’m coming back to seattle as soon as possible. i feel bad leaving right after he had this surgery. ryan is more than willing to help eric while i’m gone, but i wish i could be here to help. i want to take him with me!!

June 20th, 2009 by sarah | No Comments »

apparently june 7th is freedom of the press day. i’m pretty ok with that! i bought this fun little printing press block a few months ago to commemorate the day.

i’m not really sure what i’ll do with the printing press block though. i’m sure something fun will come of it, especially if i can use the block without having the date there. you don’t need a special day to have freedom of the press!!

print on printmakers!

June 8th, 2009 by sarah | No Comments »

summer paid us a short visit this past week in seattle! it was wonderful! the kids were outside all day at the day care which was wonderful as well. the kids got to play outside and swim and i was able to sit in the sun. i have a nice little tan and freckles to prove it!

the high temperature this week was on average 85 i would say. ryan told me that THAT was our summer. we might have another week of high 80’s at the end of the summer, but that was basically it. that’s just weird since most of the summer in pennsylvania is humid with 80 degree temperature. eww.

eric, ryan, the kids and myself went to carkeek park last night. carkeek is right on the sound with a little playground and a great beach to hang out on we are usually at this park in the morning, but it was fun to see the park at night. it’s great that seattle has these little places that are kind of a get away from the city traffic and noise. the only bad thing about carkeek is that the park seems to have it out for ryan’s son taviri. every single time we’re at that park taviri falls, and that’s pretty much the only time he falls! last night was no exception of course…and he has the scraped elbow to prove it! there are also pesky crows who like to try to open your bags you take to the beach with you to steal your goods. move it biiiird! my parents will be flying to seattle next week and i’m sure we’ll be spending many mornings and/or nights at carkeek.

as it stands now, i’ll be in pennsylvania for roughly two months this summer. i’m pretty bummed about leaving seattle since the sunny weather is apparently here to stay. i’m also bummed to be leaving ryan, jaime and the kids. they’re a great little family and seeing them is usually one of my favorite parts of the day. it’s going to be a hard adjustment to not being seeing them almost everyday. it’s going to be extremely hard if eric can’t come back to pennsylvania with me too. sad smartz.

here are our photos from carkeek last night!!

June 5th, 2009 by sarah | 1 Comment »

today i attempted to make vegan peppermint patties. the attempt was successful!! it’s been almost 2 years since i had peppermint patties and it was awesome!

here’s what you need to make such a wonderful thing…
-1/3 cup brown rice syrup
-1/4 cup of Earth Balance vegan butter
-4 cups powdered sugar
-1 tablespoon peppermint oil/extract
-vegan chocolate chips

-mix together syrup, butter, and peppermint oil. i mixed these ingredients together by hand, but i’m sure a mixer would have been quicker. when everything is mixed together, a hard and crumbly ball of dough should have formed.
-press into shape the dough and lay on a cookie sheet with parchment paper. place in the freezer to harden when you’re done forming the patties.
-while the patties are in the freezer use a double boiler to melt the chocolate. the amount of chocolate you’ll have to melt will vary depending on how much you want to use to coat your patties.
-unless you have chocolate making tools, it might be a little difficult to dip the patties in the chocolate. i used a metal corn cob holder. the thin prongs worked well for the job, but professional tools would have made the process a little simpler!

-this recipe makes around 50 patties

-preparation time is about 2 hours

yay! enjoy!

May 21st, 2009 by sarah | No Comments »

May 19th, 2009 by sarah | No Comments »

last night i went to see the new star trek movie with ryan and eric at the neptune theater in the university district of seattle. i wasn’t sure how much i’d really enjoy the movie, since i’m not a star trak fan, but i was pleasantly surprised! the special effects were great. nothing really seemed that wonky about them even though they were pretty out there. if there were other star trek films or shows with this high quality of special effects, i bet i’d watch some more!

i enjoyed the spock character too. he was calm and quirky but he had his funny moments.

i was just a little lost through out the movie just because i didn’t know anything about star trek, but i think i was able to fill in bits and pieces as it went along. maybe someday i’ll read some star trek to fill in the gaps. maybe.

May 9th, 2009 by sarah | No Comments »

i don’t usually understand or even catch pop culture references or references to people in songs and movies. today i was listening to the new pet shop boys album and i heard a reference! i was kind of proud of myself.

in the lyrics they say…”you need more than the Gerhard Richter hanging on your wall…” do you know who Gerhard Richter is? i doooo! he’s an important photorealism painter of the 20th and 21st century. photorealism is a genre of painting where the final painting appears to be a photograph. they’re very realistic.

this is a painting that Richter did of a candle. it’s not a photo…it’s a painting! i think it’s pretty fun.

the new pet shop boys album is pretty amazing by the way. i really really liked their last record…but i might like the new one better. i’ll need to listen to it a little longer to decide that for sure though!

April 8th, 2009 by sarah | 3 Comments »

i haven’t posted too much this past week. i really haven’t had much to say other than not so nice things about my car. i’m still not too happy with my car. i spent waaay more money than someone should have to, to fix a cavalier. not fun.

yesterday was the kind of day i needed though after a pretty crappy week! eric and i took a day trip through washington to do a little exploring of the yellowstone trail. it was soo nice to be out of the city for the day. we agreed that it was nice to be able to come back to seattle. we saw a long stretch of brick road in king county, snoqualmie falls, 5 foot snow piles on back roads going through the I-90 mountain pass, 2 story snow mounds at a ski resort, a herd of elk, some dirt squirrels, 40 miles of dirt road, fun towns, and i pressed two souvenir pennies!

eric did a fun write up about yesterdays trip and he was also kind enough to upload and caption all of the photos from yesterday, so take a look at his page please!

enjoy the photos!

March 28th, 2009 by sarah | 1 Comment »