Christmas 2013

...was in all ways superior to last year's. Last year, my husband was in a different state, our stuff was in a storage unit somewhere in Seattle, and I was in Boston, freezing my butt off, sleeping on an air mattress, and feeling thoroughly overworked.

Fast-forward a year, and we were together, with our own stuff and our own Christmas tree. H was visiting us for a change, as was my father-in-law, so we were able to have a family holiday while I was working. I worked a lot, but didn't feel nearly as stressed as I did last year (and made more money, too). We were able to entertain and buy presents for people, which we couldn't really do last year, and the weather was better, too. All family members had an excellent time.

Since the restaurant is closed for the next week, we'll be taking a little New Year's road trip, down through northern California to San Francisco (H will fly home from there) and back up through wine country. Last year, in January, we were wending our way cross-country; and while Utah in January was completely beautiful and completely deserted, I'm glad not to be doing it again right now.

Speaking of moving, however, we'll be moving into a new apartment at the end of January, around the corner from my work. Bigger, cheaper, and I can walk to work. I'm not especially jazzed at the idea of coming back from vacation and then having two weeks to pack and move, but hey, at least it's just across town.

Happy New Year's, everyone!

I'm back!

I feel refreshed after taking a little break from blogging (although I didn't mean for it to be an almost three-month break). I stopped because I was tired of feeling stressed about posting. Quite honestly, it was nice not blogging. I'll still be updating here, and more regularly than once every three months, but my food blogging site will remain inactive for a bit longer.

Primarily, it's because my focus has started to shift to wine. While on hiatus, I took the Level 1 sommelier exam (and passed, thanks!). Now I'm studying for the Level 2; after passing that, I can officially call myself a sommelier. But then there's still the Advanced and Master level exams, which are notoriously difficult. In fact, there are only about 220 Master Sommeliers in the entire world. One step at a time, of course. My next focus is passing the Level 2, and learning more than passing familiarity with all the wines on the wine list at work.

(But that's the fun part about learning about wine; it involves two of my favorite things! 1. Reading, and 2. Drinking.)

So my home cooking efforts have fallen to the utilitarian while I work and study. Which is fine with me, frankly. I have a large recipe repertoire to pull from, and my money goes more to wine these days. I've updated my Twitter handle--@brokefoodie--to reflect my wine tasting notes and general wine shizz.

Other news? We had our own healthcare debacle. As soon as I was eligible for insurance through work, I promptly enrolled DH and myself. Only to discover, after about six weeks of coverage and a few general check-ups, that my premiums would be $216 a month, and DH's would be--wait for it--$520 a month additional. Not including dental. Which meant we'd be paying close to $1000 a month, IN PREMIUMS. I'd be better off putting that money in a savings account every month, and declaring bankruptcy in the event of cancer. I mean, $1000 a month for insurance? That's just silly.

The upshot is that I had to drop DH (I kept him on dental). The good news is that the premiums are going down next year, so my own insurance will become more affordable.

Speaking of DH, his part-time freelance writing job should go full-time between now and March. I don't think it will involve salary or benefits, but it will be a much-needed boost of income and ego.

My own work is going well. We're in the busy season now, but I'm happy to make the money. This time last year DH and I were in different states, and I was working my butt off alone in a very cold Boston. It's much nicer working my butt off with him here. We're excited about hosting my stepson and father-in-law for Christmas (I've already planned a fancy evening out for everyone at my restaurant), and we're also planning to take the boy on a post-New Year's road trip down through northern California into San Francisco for a few days. He'll fly home from San Fran, and we'll drive back through wine country. I've got a reservation for The French Laundry; I'm excited about it, but still not sure if I want to pay that much money for dinner. I may yet decide to cancel the reservation and keep the money. More on that as it develops. (But, of course, there'll be pictures and travel notes here!) The restaurant is closed for a week after New Year's Eve, and I'm very much looking forward to extended time off/another road trip.

We may be moving to a new apartment upon our return. The lease is up at the end of January (hard to believe it's been almost a year since we moved here!), and I'd like to be closer to work. If we move to a place where I can walk to work, we'll save a few hundred dollars a month in rent in addition to vastly decreased gas (and car insurance) costs. DH will continue working from home, so that's no problem. I like my current vicinity to downtown Seattle, but not enough to keep paying the increased rent (and driving a half-hour each way to work). I'm starting to look at apartments now. It makes my head hurt, to think about packing and moving again, but at least this time it would be just across town.

And that's really about it. It's nice to be in a position to have an actual Christmas this year. We can afford presents for loved ones, we're together (it's not frigid and icy outside, like Boston was), and I feel like I'm placing myself on an upward career trajectory. We're both healthy, and caught up on dental work. I can get my hair done once in a while, and get a new pair of shoes for the work holiday party, without worrying about dire financial repercussions. People are traveling to visit us for the holidays, instead of the other way around. We're about to go driving off into the wild blue yonder again. So life is good, for now. And thank goodness for that.

A resort, a wedding, and a bear

Normally, at the end of a vacation, I don't want to come home. But this time, I was very happy to be returning.

It was a long week. I missed my husband (and his mom). It was good to see my family again, but I'm not used to the noise and bustle of small children. The high school reunion was a little surreal. My best friend's wedding was beautiful, but I ended up stage-managing a lot of it at the last minute, so it wasn't exactly relaxing. Also, she and the friend I was staying with were on the outs; so there was that to deal with.

Pluses: The resort was beautiful. I got to drive part of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which I hadn't done in years (and saw a bear cub!). When the kids weren't being a handful, they were super-cute. I discovered I'm a fairly competent emergency florist. I paid off another credit card. I'm glad to be home, and ready to work all the time and make a lot of money between now and the holidays.

In memoriam, for my mother-in-law

It's been an eventful few days. I had a great time seeing my friends and old coworkers in Boston--and now I feel no need to ever go back to Boston. I flew into Raleigh, having gotten an hour of sleep the night before, and discovered almost immediately that my mother-in-law had passed away after a long battle with cancer.

I put my husband on a plane and sent him out to Missouri to deal with family stuff. She was cremated quickly, and there will be a memorial service at some point, but no one's sure when or where yet. So I'm awaiting further instruction.

Then, of course, my twentieth high school reunion, which was ultimately fun if a bit surreal. I didn't recognize at least half the people. I did win a $50 gift card for having traveled the farthest to be there.

After that, my family went to Primland, in the wilds of southern Virginia, to celebrate my parents' fortieth wedding anniversary. We're currently in a big house on the side of the mountain, getting ready to go to the spa later in the day for massages. The restaurant here has a drool-worthy wine list, and the views from everywhere are just incredible. I'm sorry my husband has to miss it.

For a lot of reasons, of course. I'll miss my mother-in-law. She was really awesome.

A trip down memory lane

The backyard I grew up in

Tonight, I will be visiting old friends and co-workers at Craigie on Main in Boston, where I used to work. Tomorrow, I'll be in Raleigh visiting my sister. Saturday, I'll be in Virginia at my twentieth high school reunion.

Needless to say, it'll be a trippy few days.

I'll update from the road as best I can...

A high school reunion

It's been an unusually lucrative couple of weeks at work. Add that to the credit cards that have just been paid off, and I'm starting to think I might actually one day be debt free, even with losing ten days of income this month.

Next week I'm off to the East Coast--I'll see my old friends and coworkers in Boston for a night, then spend the rest of my time in Virginia, dealing with my best friend's wedding, my parents' fortieth wedding anniversary, and my twentieth high school reunion.

Naturally all I've been able to think about is the reunion.

20 years. TWENTY.

High school was the longest four years of my life, and I wasn't even there for one of those years, and yet it seems like 20 years have gone by like nothing.

I had a great time at the ten-year reunion, though I wasn't expecting to (largely because I was single and got laid, but that's another story). Most likely I'll have fun at this one, too; people are bound to have changed in 20 years. And even if not, there'll be booze and it'll be a Saturday night off work.

Nevertheless, I'm still thinking about it all the time.

High school was, hands down, the single worst experience of my life. (Second worst? Middle school.) Death, divorce, and car accidents pale in comparison. Getting hospitalized for three days for excruciating stomach pain no one could diagnose? Not as bad as high school. Being stood up, and fired, on my birthday? Not as bad as high school. Dating a guy who wanted to pimp me out on Craigslist? Still, not as bad as high school.

I was teased, bullied, and made to feel unwelcome by pretty much everyone. You name it, it happened at some point--tripped in the hallway, spit on, laughed about in the locker room, pelted with food in the cafeteria, pelted with volleyballs in gym class. If I said anything in class, someone in the back snickered. If I said hello, I usually got, "Why are you talking to me? I'm not your friend." If I didn't say hello, I got, "Why are you such a stuck-up bitch?" I was told that boys would never ask me out because I was a frigid lesbian, and they would rather get AIDS than be seen with me in public. It was a relentless campaign of ostracism; even some of the teachers were in on it. ("You'd make more friends if you just tried a little harder.")

Eventually I stopped trying. I made friends outside the school, starting dating older boys, got involved with theater so that I could hang out with other social pariahs. Midway through my junior year, I realized that if I had to put up with another year, I'd probably become a tower killer, so I exploited some loopholes and left home at 16 to start college a year early. Which was awesome--if high school was the worst four years of my life, college was definitely one of the best four.

And then 20 years went by. There are still some psychic scars--I have dreams about being forced to go back to high school to finish that missing year. I can't walk into a room full of people without mentally cringing, waiting for someone in the back to snicker. I avoid gyms, and locker rooms, like the plague. I see those people on Facebook now, living perfectly normal lives, and part of me wonders, "Do they remember?"

Will this be like walking into the lion's den, again?

No, of course not. We've all changed since then, and it'll be a fun evening of talking to people I never really got to know back then. With booze. Possibly also cool music. I hope.

I paid off two credit cards

In a week, I'll be back on the East Coast, for a ten-day vacation of sorts. I say "of sorts" because it involves my twentieth high school reunion, my parents' fortieth wedding anniversary, and my best friend's wedding. It may not be exactly relaxing. (Still looking forward to it, though.)

But in addition to stressing out about what I'm going to wear--and don't even get me started on the bridesmaid's dress--I've been stressing about losing ten days of income, across two weekends, essentially a third of my monthly income. Hubs is still unemployed, and while we've managed to claw back nine more weeks of partial unemployment, I'm still stressing about being the primary breadwinner.

Then I realized, part of my ongoing stress is due to our ongoing debt. I've been chipping away at it, but if we could pay off some stuff, I wouldn't have to worry so much about all the bills every month on one income.

So we cashed in our 401ks, and by the end of the month, we will have paid off almost $20K in credit card debt.

Since DH isn't bringing in any income, I don't think we'll need to worry about the tax hit, and why carry meager savings and large debt if we could have no savings but also no debt? This will wipe out the highest-interest cards, taking us down to one that can easily be paid off by the end of the year, which would leave us with one. One!

Plus student loans, and the car, but hey, one thing at a time. Maybe by the time we get down to one credit card, DH will have a job.

And it was a pretty good feeling, looking at those zero balances. It was stressful sending all that money out into the world, but it seems like everything is stressful these days.

In other news, the tire pressure idiot light came on in the car the other day. I checked the tire pressure, determined the two rear tires were a little low, and refilled them. The idiot light went off. A small thing, but I felt very accomplished, to have solved that problem all by myself.

Vancouver redux

The last of the day trips with the boy this summer!

The last time hubs and I went to Vancouver, it was rainy and foggy and we didn't do much other than walk around a bit and eat. This time, it was bright and sunny and you could actually see Vancouver's spectacular scenery. It made me want to hop right back in the car and drive to the Canadian Rockies.

Instead, we walked around Granville Island and Stanley Park. We took in the aquarium (expensive, but they had beluga whales), ate at Salt Tasting Room again, and wandered around downtown.

It was a magnificent day, and I think the next order of business, vacation-wise, will be to head up the British Columbian coast to see what else we can find.

Portland, OR

It's been a pretty good week with the boy. This weekend we hit Portland, OR, in a day trip, and the Cascades. We saw the Columbia River Gorge, Multnomah Falls, Powell's, and a couple of museums, and had a lovely late lunch at Tasty & Sons. The guys also got to see a couple of aviation museums in Everett, and went to The Root Beer Store. This weekend we're headed to Vancouver.

Outside of that, there's not much to report. I'm working, hubs is not, and we've stopped getting unemployment payments. Tomorrow my in-laws are renewing their vows on their 49th wedding anniversary; I tried desperately to find cheap flights to surprise them with our presence, but alas. In two weeks I'll be headed home, for a variety of events, and I'm excited about seeing everyone again. But I'm also worried about losing ten days' worth of income while I'm there.

Mt. St. Helens, WA

Another day, another day trip. Yesterday we took the boy to both Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier. Mt. Rainier was clouded over--you couldn't see the summit--and there were far too many people there for my liking (even on a Monday).

Mt. St. Helens, though, was an unexpected treat. I guess because it's not a national park, and because it's relatively remote, there were very few people there. The drive up to the Windy Ridge viewpoint was gorgeous--twisty, overgrown mountain roads, lush vegetation, we even saw a wolf. (Beware, though--because the roads are closed during the winter, they're not as maintained as they should be. There are a lot of potholes and frost heaves.) Nevertheless, the driving was fun, and I'd highly recommend committing a full day and seeing both sides, as there is no one road that goes all the way through.

Snoqualmie Falls, WA

The first of several day trips with the boy over the next couple of weeks. Tomorrow we hope to take him to Mt. Rainier!

We're not moving again (yet, anyway)

DH's phone interview with the company in southern California didn't pan out--so at least I don't have to worry about moving again. He also had an interview with a local company, so fingers crossed. We're having issues collecting unemployment, so I suspect that his days of joblessness may be forced to come to an end soon.

I've been getting some extra hours at my job this week, going in early and answering phones, helping with inventory, etc. It'll help make up for some of the lost hours of my other job. My body is starting to recover from all those months of running full blast, on my feet 16 hours a day; my back and feet don't hurt nearly as much, and I'm less crabby. I got my ass handed to me last night--super busy, and I got quadruple-sat--so after tonight, I'm very much looking forward to two days off. It'll be our last weekend by ourselves for a bit, as Stepson returns next Friday for an extended visit through Labor Day. We're planning some day trips (Cascades, Mt. Rainier, Snoqualmie Falls) but nothing like the road trip we just got back from.

I've also been debating my clothing options for my upcoming trip to Virginia next month. A short visit to my friends in Boston, my 20th high school reunion, and my best friend's wedding all call for fierce outfits, correct? I have neither the time nor the money to do a lot of shopping, so I've just been trying on different combinations of things I already have and supplementing those with sparkly accessories from the Goodwill.

Vacation aftermath

It's always a little disconcerting, coming home from vacation. I feel like my true self, when I'm having adventures. Returning to a routine after that just feels...routine. But we're all just working for the weekend, right?

This week has been especially disorienting, since I returned home to a whole pile of bad news. Not just dealing with the car's broken windshield, either; my mother-in-law is facing a whole new battle with cancer, and I'm down one job. While I was away, I was scheduled right out of my day job. It's probably for the best: working two jobs, 16 hours a day on my feet, was exhausting. I was tired and cranky all the time, and it's not a stretch to suppose that my customers (and my husband) were not being treated to my best self. The loss of income is worrying, but it was nice not being in physical pain all week.

So, I'm not sure yet whether I'll try to find a new day job. For a little while, at least, I'll work just the one job and get back to cooking more. My husband had a great phone interview last week, and we're waiting to hear whether that will lead to further interviews.

Historically, I've never been good with a limbo situation. But right now, one day at a time feels right. So, one day at a time. Today: make some tomato sauce, enjoy the sunshine. Tomorrow: unknown.

Road trip expenses and food

Gas: $330 (not bad for almost 4,000 miles)
Hotel: $799.40, for an average of $114 a night
Food: $883, which included groceries, road food, coffee, ice, and one nice dinner out every night, for an average of $110 a day total for 3 people
Souvenirs: $66 (mostly postcards)
Tickets and admissions: $62.50 (the rodeo and a tour of Wind Cave; all other national park admissions were included in our annual pass)
Parking: $14

For a grand total of: $2,155. 81 for eight days (and I'd budgeted $2,000, so yay me!), which is about $270 a day all-inclusive.

The iced coffee lasted exactly one day. Then it was back to buying crappy gas station coffee every morning. But hey, we had our own mugs, and gas station coffee in that part of the world was less than $1 each. We refilled the water bottles every night, made new sandwiches every night, and returned with nothing in the cooler except half a jar of jam.

Not included: one windshield replacement, $440. Still not sure if that should be considered a road trip expense, or car maintenance.

Road trip wildlife

Buffalo, bighorn sheep, elk, pronghorn antelope, marmots, prairie dogs, and wild horses (not pictured).

Little Bighorn National Monument and Battlefield, MT

Our last stop of the vacation was Little Bighorn National Monument and Battlefield in southeastern Montana. We ended up cutting the road trip short by a day; my husband had a phone interview he needed to get back for, and there was that pesky cracked windshield to repair. (Turns out we also had a dented splash guard underneath the car, which popped loose and scraped the highway a couple times on the drive home. Montana is not well-designed for low-clearance automobiles.) But we managed to work in everything we wanted to see, except one thing, which was a scenic drive anyway and so no great loss.

The drive home was long, but we were road-weary and butt-sore and ready to sleep in a real bed and see the cats again.

Hopefully the mental images of everything we saw will sustain me through a few weeks of working continuous doubles.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, ND

Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota is one of the least-visited national parks, but well worth the four-hour detour from Rapid City, SD. First, the drive up is perfectly straight and perfectly desolate; no towns, very few other cars, nothing but farmland and buttes as far as the eye can see. (Do be sure you pee first, as there are not many opportunities for it on that road.) Great driving, though not as scenic as Montana.

The park itself is like an older, rounder, more colorful version of the Badlands, with more greenery. And a resident buffalo herd and a few wild horses, all of which we saw.

Mt. Rushmore, Wind Cave National Park, and Badlands National Park, SD

We spent a full day exploring the Black Hills and Badlands of South Dakota. We started at Mt. Rushmore, first thing in the morning, largely so the boy could see it. The Black Hills area is generally the Gatlinburg of the West: crowded, tacky, and full of tourist traps. Mt. Rushmore doubly so. And it’s a shame, because the area is so pretty.

We continued to Wind Cave, which was a new national park for all of us. We took a quick tour underground, and the boy loved it. He ranks the geysers of Yellowstone and Wind Cave as a tie for his favorite experience of the trip. We drove through a bit of Custer State Park on our way out, and saw more buffalo and a herd of pronghorn antelope grazing by the side of the road.

I dropped the men off at the South Dakota Air and Space Museum, right outside Ellsworth Air Force Base, and loaded up on groceries at the nearest Target.

Then we headed to Badlands National Park, and during some road construction on the interstate, we took a rock to the windshield and had our first bad thing happen on the trip: a cracked windshield. We sat and watched it crack across the passenger side and I completely panicked. I’d never had a cracked windshield before, and despite my husband’s protestations that it was purely cosmetic damage and not anything to worry about, I had visions of the windshield popping out at high speed. I had to call our insurance guy, the local dealership, an auto glass specialist, and my dad before I could be convinced that we were in no immediate danger.

We cleared the Badlands and since it was crowded, we had a picnic dinner at the city park in Wall, SD, before browsing the infamous Wall Drug and returning to Rapid City for the night.

Devils Tower National Monument, WY

The posts of the road trip have been admittedly a little sparse up to now: I was generally posting something quick, with a few pictures, very early in the morning from a Motel 6 somewhere, in order to just get something up. Don’t let that fool you; we had an amazing time, and every day was a revelation. Amazing scenery, amazing driving, good family times, and all of it was pretty affordable.

After a couple of days spent in Yellowstone/Grand Teton/Jackson, WY, we headed out across Wyoming toward Devils Tower. The last time I drove across Wyoming, I remembered it being completely empty. Apparently everyone else has discovered Wyoming in the intervening four years, because it was definitely not empty. We drove across the Wind River plain and the canyons of US 16; I highly recommend both drives, especially US 16, but we were caught behind slow-moving RVs more times than I care to remember. Ditto Devils Tower: our nerves were so frazzled by the time we arrived that we had no patience for RVs, tour buses, or other people in general. We zipped in and out, got some pictures, and high-tailed it for Rapid City, SD, where we were planning to spend the night.

Verdict: neat to see, no need to stick around if you're not a climber. Cute prairie dog colony at the base, though.

At dinner that night in downtown Rapid City, we discovered yet another street fair. Not as exciting as a county fair and rodeo, of course, but still an unexpected bit of fun. We stopped into an old-timey candy store, bought a bunch of rock candy and Sioux City Sarsaparilla, and made sure the boy was loaded up with sugar right before bedtime.

A general observation: Wyoming and South Dakota have gotten very vacation-y in the summer. Everywhere we went, we were surrounded by other tourists (generally slow-driving ones). Granted, we were in the most vacation-y parts of both states. But still. Montana, on the other hand, was almost always empty-feeling and comparatively devoid of other tourists. Flathead Lake was a little touristy, but even on the interstates and inside Glacier National Park and in Livingston, gateway to Yellowstone, I never felt the kind of frustration I felt in Wyoming and South Dakota.

So. I officially revise my favorite national park to Glacier, and my favorite driving state to Montana.

Rodeo!

We just happened to hit Jackson, WY, at the same time as their County Fair. With rodeo.

Of course we had to go.

My stepson had never been--to either a county fair or a rodeo. It was exactly what you'd expect--a lot of rinky-dink rides, tons of junk food, livestock exhibitions. We ate cotton candy, rode the Ferris wheel (and watched the sun setting from the top), and bought tickets for the rodeo.

He was a little unsure ("People ride cows? What?") but he loved it. I loved it. We all loved it. I loved that the beer stand only sold Coors Light, and the guy apologized for charging me $5 for it.

Mountains, beer, AND a rodeo, all in one day!

Grand Teton National Park, WY

Grand Teton is like a breath of fresh air after Yellowstone (almost literally, given the sulfur fumes). It's less crowded, smaller, and involves only one thing: enormous mountains, jutting up from flat prairie.

It's breathtaking, as you can tell from the pictures. We stopped and had a picnic lunch overlooking Jackson Lake. The next morning, we took in the Snake River Overlook (where Ansel Adams took his famous picture) and ended the day by driving down through Idaho, on the other side of the Tetons, and back through a vertiginous mountain pass. It's a long drive (out West Yellowstone, down route 20, across the mountains on 26), but prettier and way less frustrating than sitting in all the park traffic.

Yellowstone National Park

Old Faithful

The first time I went to Yellowstone, I hated it. It was crowded, hot, full of dead burnt-out trees, and as far as I could tell was nothing but a monument to swamps and slow people.

However, I discovered the secret to liking Yellowstone this time around. First, go early. Very early. Even the remote parts will get crowded by lunchtime. Second, go to the eastern side of the park.

The western side is all geysers, fountains, burbling mud, and weird smells. Some of it is interesting--we saw Old Faithful erupt (and even got a little on us), but this is of course the most crowded part of the park. The eastern side contains the lake, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and all the bison/bison grazing fields.

Also, the drive from Livingston, MT down to the north entrance is spectacular. Especially at sunrise.

Mammoth Hot Springs

Highway 89, Montana

I just had the best drive of my life.

It was on 89, through central Montana.

89 is a two-lane road that cuts down from near Glacier National Park through Great Falls and the Lewis and Clark National Forest to Livingston. It skirts the Rockies almost all the way. The speed limit is 70. It passes through a few towns, but very few.

So it is a long, straight, high-speed road that has the Rocky Mountains on one side and plains on the other, with very few other cars. There are other cars, of course--but because the road is mostly long and straight, in a treeless country, it's very easy to pass them. To blow past them doing 95, perhaps, because what cop would sit out there to catch speeders?

And oh, it was gorgeous. Truly the best drive of my life. Beautiful, easy, fast, and clear. The topography changed going through the Lewis and Clark National Forest, of course, but then it opened back up in mountains and plains. The only problem was the relative lack of bathrooms, and the lack of good places to pull over and take pictures. It's probably just as well--I would have been taking pictures every mile or so.

And on a beautiful clear, sunny, hot day--we played the music loud, drove fast, and exclaimed over the scenery.

Spectacular. Just spectacular.