Weak Sauce

I heart Ballard, but we always get the weak sauce weather. Come on, bring on the snow. I have 3 days off and want to play in the snow!

Grove Holiday Party

This is what happens when you give me 4 martinis and an iphone camera.

Yeah for snow!

It's snowing in Ballard! I should take pictures before it's all over tomorrow. Just got back from a fabulous Christmas party at my friends who I first met as customers at Bambino. It was fantastic and it snowed the whole time and now I have to go to bed because I have to work at 6:30am and it's 12:30am right now. Oh the life of a Barista.

Now at Aster Coffee Lounge

I quit my job at Bambino about a year too late. Don't get me wrong, it was a great job, awesome customers, amazing co-workers, but having mean and unappreciative management can be a deal breaker. My last day was on Thanksgiving!

When I quit I decided to take a few months off to clear my head and re-evaluate my position in the service industry, see if I really wanted to continue with it.

Then...my barista who works at the coffee shop down the street from my house got into a nasty cycling accident and broke her elbow and is out of a job. So having extra time on my hands I stepped in and am now working 4 days a week at Aster Coffee Lounge. It's an awesome place, amazing coffee, the worlds best cinnamon rolls (rivals the Stehekin Bakery), good beer and wine and will soon be featuring some of my famous soups. I don't know for sure how long I'll be there, who knows it could end up being a full time thing, but I am enjoying helping out and getting to learn a lot more about coffee. Oh yeah, we are the only ones in Ballard that has a Clover machine too, and the hype is all correct, it's the most awesome drip coffee maker ever!

Oh what it is to be a Scorpio.

I always new Scorpios were different. But, I don't have asthma, guess I'm a lucky Scorpio.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/health/research/09asthma.html?no_interstitial

Back to the real world

Yeah, yeah, yeah I am absent again and I said I wouldn't be. Well I'm back, I've got a shiny new iphone to help me keep connected to the world 24/7. WhoHoo! I am also back to being creative and selling my handyworks on etsy. Check it out if you have time and give me some feedback.






See I have been in a whirlwind the past few months, the photo doesn't lie.

I finally got my tattoo...

Yeah, I finally gathered up the courage to get the tattoo I've always wanted. There is a lot of special meaning for me in it. Most people say, "Oh, you got a tree," well yeah I got a tree, but it's so much more than a tree. It's the Katie Tree of Life. The trunk of the tree represents myself with the branches being my close friends and family, the roots are my parents and my sisters, and each of the leaves/dots are an important accomplishment that I've completed thus far in my life. So far there are 16 leaves and I hope to add more to the tree as I get older.

I'm such a lier.

In my last post I told myself and you that I wouldn't slack. Well, here I am slacking and there is so much to update on. So one post at a time I swear I'll update from the beginning.

Where does the time go?

Boy oh boy, I told myself I wouldn't do this and I did. I didn't post in a whole month. What was I thinking. Apparently I wasn't thinking for a whole month.

So what have I been up to. Absolutely nothing. For reals. I have been working, running, working, and then running some more. I am training for more marathons this summer! Who Hoo, I'm excited as if you can't tell. I bought my plane ticket for the first one. The San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon. It sounds like it will be a blast. 14K people, music every mile, a huge concert at the end, free booze and swag, what more could you ask for really. I was going to run the Maui marathon September but was lazy and didn't book my accommodations in time and now have no place to stay. I think it was fate telling me to stay closer to home, save money and explore Portland instead. I'm gonna run the Portland Marathon instead in October, seeing as I don't hurt myself before hand. Knock on wood.

Other than that, I've been pondering what I'm gonna do with my life. I applied for a teaching position at FareStart but they were already hiring for the job when I applied. So sad. I was excited about the prospects of combining my two passions, coffee and helping others. Oh well. I guess it wasn't the right time for this position. I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason.

Hey Babe, where do you Caucus?

Rob and I participated in our first caucus today. WhoHoo! I couldn't believe how many folks were at our meeting. We had a 130+ turnout in our precinct (only a few blocks of Ballard) and most of those were first time caucus voters. Everything was completely disorganized because there were so many participants. There were too many people to fit in the cafeteria, so we split up and half of the precincts went to the gym, where we were crammed in like sardines. All in all it was fabulous. I wish there would have been more of a chance to discuss more with our neighbors, but with so many people you could only talk to the person sitting next to you.

I Really Want One

Anyway we can get one of these for Echo?

Take that cheaters!

Now on to baseball!

More Disneyland Pictures

Don't ride the teacup ride after eating shitty hamburgers and french fries.




The Disneyland must have photo in front of the castle, which turned out to be 75% smaller than I remembered as a kid.

Disneyland

We just got back from a trip to LA to visit friends, eat delicious dinners and we couldn't miss the chance to go to Disneyland. Both Rob and I haven't been since we were really little so this was the perfect opportunity to relive our childhood.



We started the day at California Adventure. We rode the screamer roller coaster twice in a row. It's always good to start the day off right being dizzy.



We had a blast. Rode all the rides we could, ate churros, watched all the suckers with their tired screaming children and got our picture with Eyore.


We also had a fabulous 9 course wine tasting dinner with 27 of Rob's poker buddies. It was amazing. I was most impressed of how well the food paired with the wine. I wish I had that ability to know what tasted good with what. All I know is that garlic tastes great with everything, even ice cream (thank you Mallards).

I told myself I wouldn't

I told myself I wouldn't care. I even bought a t-shirt to let everyone know that I really didn't care (see above). But, things happen that are beyond your control. I rented the whole series of "My So Called Life" and have been enjoying them as much as I did in the early 90's. But too much teenage angst takes me back to my high school days and with my 10 year high school reunion coming up this year, I am already reminded of high school and all the drama. So, I turned off the DVD and changed channels to see what was on and damnit I got stuck on the New Hampshire debates and actually watched the whole thing and cared!