Genius

via DudeCraft

Purity Ring - Fineshrine

I've listened to this song at least 10 times in the last 24 hours and this video reminds me of the vivid dreams I  often have, though thankfully they don't typically involve plane crashes.

Purity Ring - Fineshrine from Young Replicant on Vimeo.

A Place at the Table

A Place at the Table

This looks like a great new documentary investigating the hunger issue in America. Nothing gets me more riled up than a good documentary about our terrible food industry...

The Weekend

Having friends visit from out of town is usually a really great excuse to spend an entire weekend eating and drinking, so of course I was happy to have my friend Steve pay me a visit. I'm not sure whether he finally decided to visit because I am fun to hang out with and he missed our days of playing Settlers of Catan at Portland pubs and Tuesday night karaoke or... he just really wanted to eat some free chocolate at the Chocolate on the Beach Festival.

After I took him on a walk around my historic neighborhood to stretch his legs after his drive up from Oregon, we grabbed my friends Eric, Nikki and Henry and headed for Pacific Beach. It's about a 40 minute drive from my house to this little beach town on the North Coast, so when we arrived, we were hungry and excited to get some chocolate! I tried chocolate granola (yum) and some dark chocolate bits from Blissful Wunders truffles (bonus - Steve bought one of the giant truffles and shared). There was also a booth that had Lavender Raspberry syrup... it was super delicious.

We hopped over to Seabrook to get dinner at Mill 109. They were pretty busy, so we took a walk around the new beach town... well, new-ish... the paint is starting to peel on some of the houses.... After dinner, we cruised down to Ocean Shores to taste beer at the Elk Head Brewery Taproom and we each guzzled a pint and snacked on some of their complimentary pretzels.

Steve, enjoying his brew from a tiny mug.

Leave it to my friends to spend most of the day discussing what we would make if we were hosting a chocolate festival. Some ideas: a chocolate salad, chocolate burger, and a beer with a chocolate bar in it.

Eric's rendition of the chocolate bar beer... our new chocolate gang symbol. We also had to give our gang a name. B.E.N.S.H. (Britta, Eric, Nikki, Steve, Henry). Srsly... we are so fun. Right?

We had planned to have a karaoke night, but we were still craving chocolate, so we ended up heading back into town and stopping at the grocery store for chocolate wine, chocolate Chex Mix, 50% off Valentine's Day candy and Salsito's (it's like a chip and salsa COMBINED). Then we spent a few hours snacking and watching videos of goats yelling like humans and cars doing tricks.

On Sunday, we managed to visit Billy's for lunch (because it was a major breakfast fail.. can we get a place that will serve me some eggs after noon?), Tinderbox Coffee for an afternoon pick me up, Westport Brewery for some more beer tasting and Trivial Pursuit, and Thai Carrot for dinner all within about 8 hours. Not bad.

Wine + Music = Best Decision Ever

I am of the belief that many of the best decisions I've ever made were made in a very short amount of time. I think this is one of them: I just bought tickets to Bottle Rock Napa Valley!

I'm pretty much dying for a vacation and Napa Valley is one of my favorite places, so attending this festival just made complete sense to me. The Sasquatch music festival has been such a topic of conversation lately among my friends who hope to go as well as those of us who have gone before. The lineup was tempting, but the thought of spending 4 days in the desert with a heavy crowd of drunk teenagers... not so much.

So, when my friend Nikki mentioned this, I was ready to hit the road! Too bad I have to wait until May because I'm ready to go now. Can't wait to drink wine, lounge on a lawn with my t-shirt quilt and listen to some awesome music. Most excited to see these guys:

Hope to see you all there... cheers!

Local Zine

All y'all should get yourself a copy of this sweet zine, Tumblehome.

Why Aren't You Here Right Now?

Gray's General Store

520 Simpson Ave

Hoquiam, WA 98550

Let's Be Awesome.

Dream House

I have found my dream home. It's small, clean and has a nice view.

via You Are My Fave

Just Living: Step 3

Hopefully you've got your priorities and values all figured out (or at least have given it some thought, let's be real), because it's time for the next step and its a doozy.

Taking inventory.

Yep, you have to make a list of EVERYTHING YOU OWN. Down to that last bar of soap. The easiest way to do this is to create a spreadsheet where you can list the item, the location and how often you use it.

The key here is to make the list and then set it aside. We'll get back to this later.

My old, incredibly tiny studio apartment in Portland. Who needs dresser pulls that actually attach or art in their frames?

Good luck!

Worry Less

 

Aimless Radiance / Champagne Princess / Arch Daily / Black and Type

The Plague of Bad Customer Service

Warning: this is a rant. I don't believe ranting to always be an acceptable form of writing, but sometimes I feel so strongly about something... I can't help it.

Within the past few weeks, I've had some interesting, nay, unacceptable experiences at local bars and restaurants and it has led me to the conclusion that we have a plague of terrible managers among us.

I believe this plague infects managers of eateries to completely ignore the fact that they work in a customer service based business. They begin to see the customer as the enemy... Someone who seems to come in asking for a glass of water, but obviously is really there to take the staffs' happiness away. Once a manager is infected, it will inevitably seep into the rest of the employees and will leave customers feeling uneasy and... quite honestly... ripped off. Terrible Yelp reviews may be a side affect.

Just a few things I have observed in my small town within the last two weeks:

Sudden changes to prices and offerings without notice
Continually increasing prices and decreasing food portions
Cooks walking out in the middle of dinner/happy hour
After cook returns, offering happy hour prices but then actually just charging the regular price anyway
Unresponsiveness to customer complaints
Charging the price of an entire bottle of wine for just a glass
Ignoring customers for lengthy periods of time
Never ever smiling or saying thank you
Inconsistent food and drinks
Saying the words "I have no idea what that is" when asking about a menu item

Often customers will put up with the occasional bout of this sickness, but after recurring troubles they are likely not to return. No matter how good you think your fries are.

I don't want to speak poorly of businesses online (though I have no trouble of telling you my experiences in person) but I will tell you that there are some places locally which have not been infected and I would hope that you might give them preference when deciding where to go in the near future, because they are welcoming and believe that the customer is always right.

Lunch
Ann Marie's
Billy's
Mazatlan
Ocean Palace
Luna Rana
Thai Smiles
Taqueria el Jalepeno
The Oriole
Viet Hoa
The Seagate
Casa Mia (late addition, by request: I actually rarely eat there because I'm not a big fan of Italian food, but they are good people)

I believe these businesses are worth my time and money. Eating out is not cheap and I don't feel like giving my money away to people who don't seem to even want it. If there was a restaurant that had the most amazing food in the world, I might put up with terrible customer service... MIGHT. Probably not. Sometimes I think I'd rather go to McDonald's and get a smile with my cheeseburger than put up with some of these things I have seen recently. We live in a small town and a fragile economy. I do not want any business to fail, so ultimately it just makes me sad to see the poor judgement of business owners and their employees.

Please note: I have yet to find a bar that I actually want to hang out in very often. A place without live music (I don't hate it, but I often go out to talk with friends), decent prices on drinks, dark and loud enough to give you a little anonymity, the potential to become a "regular," no tvs, and comfortable seating. If anyone wants to open a place like this, I will do your marketing in exchange for a bar stool with my name on it. I'm not kidding.

Mountain Climbing

A few days ago, I launched this project of introspection in the pursuit of justice. I'm hoping you've decided to at least consider your answers to the challenges I'm putting forth. As a reminder, here's what I posted up a few days back.

Step 2: Become aware of your Core Priorities

What do you spend your time doing weekly? Daily? Hourly?

Thinking back over the past 2 or 3 years, what are your top 3 priorities?

Who are the most important people in your life?

What would you stop doing, if you could?

What is one thing you would never stop doing?

What are the top 3 or 4 values you hold about life and living?

I've had a couple of really interesting conversations in the last few days that have actually left me a bit more confused about my priorities and values, so I decided I better actually answer these questions for myself. Here's what I've decided.

I like mountain climbing.

Not actual mountain climbing (in fact, please don't take me anywhere that requires real hiking boots), but figurative. I like challenges and it's my main motivator in life. I think it might sound weird, but that is my priority... keeping myself challenged. This probably makes my life difficult and I often choose the hardest way just because... not always the smartest decision, I suppose, but it's how I roll.

I value living an authentic life. I don't want materialism or my pride to ever be my source of happiness because it can so easily fade away. I value creativity and new ideas. I also value the people in my life and surrounding community. I stay up nights thinking about how we can make our community a better place to live, work and play. And nothing frustrates me more than people who are careless with the people and environment around them. This is important because I think ultimately, it will determine where I finally settle down (hopefully where I am now, but this depends on how much progress can be made in the next few years).

Of course, I have very tangible priorities (my business, becoming financially stable, simplifying my life) and I am constantly trying to find new ways to improve these things, but ultimately I can only continue these things as long as I feel challenged and the freedom to create.

(art print via Leah Flores)

Web Design and SEO

Is there any more daunting task than trying to build an entirely new website? It needs to be visually appealing while also inserting all of the necessary info in order to maximize SEO while ALSO making the point of converting website visitors into sales.

So, I'm drinking some wine tonight and working on all of this.

Some helpful links for those working on their own web projects:

15 Point Conversion Checklist

BoostSuite

Just Keep Livin

Sometimes I'm amazed at how much clutter I allow into my life. I KNOW that it makes me miserable and anxious, yet I still leave the clean clothes in a pile on my treadmill (hmmm excuse to not workout much?) instead of hanging them up in the closet.

A few years ago, I met up with a few friends of mine weekly to run through some exercises in living a more socially, environmentally and personally just life. We used a guide called Just Living, which is based in spirituality, but I believe can be valuable to people of any belief system. We ended up calling our group Just Keep Livin', a sort of joke based on Matthew McConaughey's clothing line.

It helped me immensely to get my priorities in order and let go of materialism and the idea that being "busy" is a positive thing. Judging by the pile of clothes on my floor at this moment, I think it's time to revisit this program. Plus, I'm hoping it will give me some wisdom and a new perspective on global issues of social and economic justice.

I'm hoping others will join me as I post up weekly questions based off of the Just Living program. I'm sure everyone has a variety of motivators to do this, but I personally hope to figure out what I can cut out of my life to make it more enjoyable and what I can do to be proactive in my pursuit of social justice. There are technically 14 steps, though I might play with this a bit. Today, I'll do the first two.

Step 1: Commit

Step 2: Become aware of your Core Priorities

What do you spend your time doing weekly? Daily? Hourly?

Thinking back over the past 2 or 3 years, what are your top 3 priorities?

Who are the most important people in your life?

What would you stop doing, if you could?

What is one thing you would never stop doing?

What are the top 3 or 4 values you hold about life and living?

PS - If you are a blogger and would like to write about this along with me, please comment below with your webpage address!

Lovely

Wit and Delight - Design is Mine - Frolic Blog - The Sartorialist

Weekend

Spending my Saturday at Gray's General Store. Drinking coffee, listening to music, making stuff.

Spring Memories

Anybody else around here ready for spring to be here? The sun was, sort of, shining here today and, well, sun can be deceiving because it was also very cold. Something about that combo reminded me of a trip I took the the UK a few years back with my friend Rachel.

We took a fairly spontaneous flight over to London (how could we not? I think it cost us $450 round trip from Seattle) and spent 10 days travelling from London to York to Edinburgh to Auchterarter (??) and back to London. My goals for this visit were few, mainly: look at some really old stuff, hang out with my friend Kaija who was living/volunteering in Scotland, see a highland cow, and eat a lot of pasties. Successful on all fronts. Bonus: We stayed at a b&b in York that is also frequented by fellow Pacific Northwesterner, Rick Steves.

Tower of London

Big Old Fireplace

It's not an adventure until you try the street food.

Greetings, from the Steves Family.

If I ever owned a bar, it would probably look like this.

I listened to the album Re-Arrange Us by Mates of State on repeat this whole trip. Still takes me back to hear any of their songs. Also, why are the convenience/train station groceries in the UK so awesome? Can we get that here please?

Possibly the best moment of the trip... climbing to the top of a tower in Northern Scotland in the middle of the night.

The farthest point of our excursion: St. Andrews, Scotland. Walked on the beach. Gawked at rich college kids eating breakfast in their pajamas. Walked on ruins.

I'd like to go back. very. soon.

Happy New Year!

via gabba gabba go

What's Up?

New classes at Gray's General Store.

Queen B Quilts is getting some much needed updates.

I was interviewed by the local newspaper.

Visited this super great coffee shop in Astoria, Oregon.

Did the DIY Blueprint Cleanse and I'm trying out the gluten free lifestyle.

Making a more serious effort to pay off all my debts and save up to buy a house.

Distributing more Li'l Hip Pocket Guides around Grays Harbor.

Trying to clean and organize my life, basically. Hello 2013!

Follow Your Donut

I realized that this past Saturday marked the 1 year anniversary of my moving back to my hometown of Aberdeen, Washington... though technically, when I arrived, I didn't necessarily plan on staying for long.

My college friend and bestie, Lisa, and I embarked on an adventure last year beginning in September. For six weeks, we cruised around the country, visiting 33 states, hearing a lot of "you've gotta try the donuts here, they're the best" and diving deep into the old CD collection for such hit makers as NSYNC and the Coyote Ugly soundtrack for entertainment while driving through some dark and empty parts of the country. I figure, today I will present you with some previously un-published iPhone photos from this trip.

On Day 1, we loaded up and headed out. Driving away from our homeland of the Pacific Ocean - not to be seen for months to come.

Montana - This about sums it up. (JK JK MT, I heart you.)

Colorful Colorado! How lucky were we to get to stay a few days up in the mountains near Aspen! I was awestruck by the rocky cliffs and rushing rivers, but I spent most of my time there with my eyes peeled for b-list celebrities and wildly ravenous bears looking for a soggy northwesterner to eat.

I got my first taste of mid-west chocolate milk, straight from the farm. And it only took us an hour of driving up and down the SAME ROAD in Missouri to find the place. Then an hour of us standing awkwardly in their shop area while they gave samples out to a parade of girl scouts - meanwhile kind of ignoring us onlookers/creepers. We eventually got what we came for.

In Chicago, I came as close as I'll likely ever be to a marathon. We admired the runners as they crossed the finish line while lounging on the grass drinking beer.

IHOP in... Cleveland... maybe? Pro tip: Don't eat at IHOP even if you are hung over and McDonald's stopped serving breakfast already.

Niagara Falls! This is a really creepy place. Another Pro Tip: bring your passport and cross the bridge into Canada. Our brains were not fully functioning on this day and we didn't even think about doing this. Let me break it down for you. Niagara Falls, Canada = Las Vegas while Niagara Falls, US = Reno... or more like a boarded up Casino in the mid-west.

Vermont! We ate cheese! We sampled maple syrup! We screamed with delight every time we saw an old person walking down the little streets or another old building or a white picket fence or a cow or a colorful tree or...

Though it wasn't on our original tour plan, we drove over to Portland, Maine just so I could say that I went from Portland to Portland. Get the lobstah roll. You'll love it.

Though we were truly blessed with beautiful warm and sunny weather for 99% of our trip, our time spent in New York City was very very very wet. Also, I wore sandals the entire time. Have you seen how dirty a New York City puddle is? Thankfully our friend Steve took us on his "Free Tour of NYC" which included an elevator ride in a Times Square hotel. Surely, our fellow passengers thought we were clinically insane. Had they never seen three soaking wet 20-somethings giggling while facing backwards in a glass elevator so they can watch as the floor rushes to meet them?

I died and went to heaven in Philly. Playing jenga in an indoor/outdoor German style beer garden, just after our visit to Barcade, a bar full of video games and nerds (yay) and just before our visit to the 700 Club - basically an old upstairs apartment turned super nerdy dance club.

Me and Lincoln.

The car started to become unrecognizable as such... started to look more like a giant rolling suitcase.

I may or may not have placed stickers of my face all over New Orleans/this country. I'm watching you AMERICA!

When in Austin, do as the Austiners do... eat Queso and see a show at Stubb's.

Hollywood. Your bright lights drew me in, but your $9 cans of Rainier left a bad taste in my mouth.

Lucky to be in San Francisco! Even luckier there was only one small earthquake while we were there and I was the only one who didn't feel it - yet I also seemed to be the only one who maintained a high level of anxiety about this for our entire three days there.

After an afternoon of wine tasting and "walking it off" in Napa, we were back in the PNW! Got out of the car at the California/Oregon border to touch some snow. It was very dark and very cold and the mountains there are insanely huge and menacing looking at night.

After a day in Oregon, we trecked it back in the dark to my old hometown of Aberdeen. Filled with my new knowledge of "America: The Backroads" and more time spent in a car than I ever cared to experience again, I gladly unpacked my bags. Somewhere along the road, I realized that all of these places are unique yet the same. East coasters don't know what an Americano or a pumpkin patch is. West coast people don't know how to pay tolls. Midwesterners love frozen custard. But I'm here to say that we are all united by... donuts. Everyone thinks their town has the best donut (or whatever you happen to call those fried pieces of dough covered in sugar).

With this realization, I decided to stay in my hometown, because obviously our donuts are the best.