Never enough time

What a whirlwind...can you count 20 days a a whirlwind?  Somehow it felt like it was.  I've just returned from visiting family in Washington for the holidays and I have the post-holiday blues.  It's a very strange thing to have the important people in your life split on separate coasts of the country.  Every time I go back to Washington, I spend the first week missing New York, then the second week soaking up my friends and family (namely my mom's babysitting), then the third week, I'm ready to go back to New York but simultaneously miss my family and friends already.  It may be some form of mental illness.  lol.  

I think this time was particularly hard because of the job situation.  Being in between jobs meant that I had plenty of downtime to see everyone, but the uncertainty also means I don't have a planned return trip, and this will probably have been my last 20 day trip. While my last job wasn't ideal, it meant that I was able to work remotely, so I could take these long trips without having to take vacation time, but it seems unlikely this will be the case in the future. 

Enough of the sap, I had an amazing time!  Here's a quick recap of what I've been up to the past month or so: 

As soon as I got back to Washington, my mom and I went into full Christmas mode!  She had already decorated just enough so it felt like Christmas when I got there, but we usually do most of it together so she saved a bunch...

Of course we had to have Christmas (or music) movies on while decorating...this year she graduated us all to small stockings, and J got his own, too! I guess I have to keep him around.

My brother was in desperate need for an Ugly Christmas Sweater, so I whipped this puppy up for him.  It was pretty amazing, all of that garland made it weigh a million pounds, and I sewed bells in it so when he shimmied it jingled.  haha...does anyone have any ideas how to make homemade ugly Christmas sweaters my livelihood?

I squeezed in as much Goodall time as possible.  First Kaitlin and I had a wild night on the town, which in our world means a dinner out at a wine bar, and a tasting flight of "bubbles." It was so good to reconnect and gossip like we don't live 3,000 miles apart.  I got my usual favorite, flat bread with roasted figs, goat cheese, honey, and pistachio.  It's the perfect balance of sweet and savory.

A couple of nights later I headed back over to the Goodalls for our annual gingerbread house building. Sweet little Lila got in on the action this year, and probably ate just as much candy as she put on her house, but she was so proud of herself and for the record, some of the candy did make it on her house.

My mom and I did our normal holiday bake-a-thon but she had to work throughout the holidays so we had to seriously scale back the variety of cookies.  We still made chocolate crinkles, sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, peanut butter, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, fudge, and rice krispie treats, so I don't think any of our recipients really noticed. 

If you look closely you'll see Humphrey hoping my dad will share some of his sugar cookie with him...poor neglected Humphrey.

The Monday after Christmas both of my parents had the day off from work so we all went to this little Bavarian village on the side of the mountain, Leavenworth.  We indulged in bratwurst for lunch, spiced German wine, beer, and wandered through some of the cute little shops.  Living so close to it, I never thought about the history, but J was asking how it came to be...upon googling it was literally developed to be a tourist trap.  In the 60s the town wasn't doing well economically, so they decided to create a faux Bavarian village, and voila! Success!

Then came New Years...J and I couldn't decide what to do for New Years Eve.  As much as I love my family, we decided we should do something other than stay in with my parents so we went down to Portland for a couple of days.  We lucked out and found this really cool "speakeasy" style party, and spent the night dancing and drinking...So fun!

We had a few low key days with my family, and then headed to the airport early on the 6th.  I didn't cry but I did a little on the 4th.  To make coming back feel more monumental, there was a snowstorm in the morning that meant an extra 2 hours on the plane with Humphrey.

Happy New Year Portland!

What a year! Last year for New Year's Eve I stayed home with my parents and went to bed around 11pm.  That sounds terrible, but I really didn't mind.  Also around this time last year had been living in NY for about 6 months, and had just met this guy, J and wasn't sure how any of it was going to work out.  

And then this year, J was with me, and we were running around Portland together.  So strange, but so fun!  We were only there 2 nights, and 1 full day, so it seems like we did more eating and drinking than anything else but who's complaining? 

After spending New Year's Eve morning at Powell's Bookstore (the nation's largest independent bookstore)...you can take the professor out of the classroom...or something like that.  It was enormous.  We could have spent so much more time there, and money, but we decided to get out while our basket was still manageable.  

Then we hit up Rogue for a delicious lunch and a tasting...

Some of the beers were better than others, but overall delicious.  They had their bathrooms listed as Hops and Barley with no idication of which was men & women.  When we asked the waitress she answered as if it was a dumb question, "Barley is women because they make women sweet, Hops is men because they make beer bitter." Duh (we added the duh in our heads because she really was quite nice).

Then we walked to the Japanese Gardens which were much further than we thought, and everyone who heard we walked remarked that we really were New Yorkers. lol

We continued the Japanese theme into dinner and stopped at this amazing Japanese place.  We both ended up getting something other than sushi on a whim, and then the table next to us ordered a bunch of sushi and thoroughly out ordered us.  The restaurant even had chopstick cases hung on the wall for VIP customers. We may have split a bottle of saki, too.

After a couple of hours at the hotel we got all fancied up and went to a Speakeasy party at Red Star Tavern in downtown Portland.  They have this private room behind a hidden bookshelf door that they have special events in.  I have no idea how they made money on the event because it was an open bar (with high quality alcohol), and was only $40 a person! I think there was max 100 people, but probably closer to 70.  They had a live jazz band, a tiny crowded dance floor and we danced and drank all night! It was the best New Year's Eve I've had in a long time.  It was so much fun, I only took 3 pictures...a selfie, a picture of the 2015 ice sculpture, and a picture of empties (they weren't all ours). 

Unfortunately New Year's Day was a little rough.  Thanks to the aforementioned copious drinking I did, I was sick sick sick, and J and I may have checked off another relationship milestone...the one where he has to pull the car over on the highway and rub my back while I vomit.

Can you believe it's 2015?! I hope you all had a happy and safe New Year's Eve and that it is the start of the best year yet!