Seattle Archives - Page 18 of 20

This old house

February 4, 2007 By Paola 5 Comments

Oh, but I’ve been neglecting this blog recently.

Partly because I’ve just been really busy updating the site with new products and photos, partly because I’m in the midst of researching more new products for Spring and Summer, partly because Living Gorgeously has got off to a really successful start and has been keeping me busy cooking and making things, and mostly because I’ve been spending every other waking moment househunting – either searching for properties online or visiting them.

When we first came out to Seattle our intention was to rent, but after speaking to a few people it became clear that by remortgaging in the UK and taking out a new mortgage here in the US, we would be able to buy something here. And I would be able to fulfil my dream of doing up a ‘fixer’.

Well after a lot of looking it seemed like we’d found it. The above image is of the main rooms which were loaded with beautiful original features. But the upper storey was completely clad in pine and looked like a sauna, the kitchen needed replacing, the bathrooms needed updating, the basement needed finishing and the garden needed landscaping. All in all perfectly habitable, but with the perfect amount of work I could do to turn it from something great into something spectacular. It even had a wonderful roof terrace with views out over the Sleepless in Seattle houseboat lake and the downtown area.

So we put in an offer and then hit a hitch in releasing the funds in the UK. And so our offer wasn’t accepted and they’ve now accepted an offer from someone else.

And I’m really, really gutted because I doubt very much that we’re going to be able to find something that perfect again.

Unfortunately it seems like we’re not the only people who have been househunting.

Why oh why did the Beckhams have to follow me over here? And how come there is so much hype surrounding an (admittedly handsome) bloke who plays a game that nobody here watches, a has-been popstar who can’t sing and their Scientologist friends whom nobody likes?

SAM I am

January 23, 2007 By Paola 6 Comments

A very wondrous thing happened in, and to, Seattle this weekend.

We are currently lucky enough to have a view looking out over the newly-constructed Olympic Sculpture Park – a branch of the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) – and on Saturday it was finally opened to the public.

The Minx and I have been taking a keen interest in its construction, as we are able to walk there very easily and she is fascinated by the proliferation of diggers which can be observed from the perimeter fence.

It truly is a marvellous space. The landscaping is superb and wonderfully integrated into the urban environment, with a path zig-zagging down over a busy road and railway (the Minx and I are both entranced by the incredibly long freight trains which trundle constantly to and from Canada) over a bridge and past a fountain which are works of art themselves, down to a small beach. There is a lot of immature planting as well, and it will be great to watch the park grow and mature through the seasons.

The sculptures themselves are fascinating and have been sited to create fabulous vistas against the backdrop of the Sound and the mountains, or the Space Needle and the downtown cityscape.

The park is also a magnificent example of urban renewal. The land used to be a fuel dump and was heavily contaminated, and it has taken a huge act of will and a huge amount of money from private benefactors to create the park and to save the space from being turned into yet more soulless apartment blocks (like the one we’re currently living in).

So Seattle also threw a party to celebrate the Minx’s ‘birthday’ and we are so looking forward to exploring (and photographing) every nook and cranny together over the next few weeks while we still live in this apartment. (Househunting is proving er, interesting and will be blogged about forthwith).

Oh dear

January 18, 2007 By Paola 3 Comments

So it’s back.

I always get completely addicted to this show in its later stages but am getting sick and tired of the long drawn out ‘bad audition’ stages.

In fact, more than sick and tired – tonight’s programme felt a bit like an end-of-the-pier freak show, and at times made for uncomfortable viewing.

But view it we did, because tonight’s auditions took place in Seattle.

Suffice it to say that I doubt very much whether American Idol will ever return here. Blog readers in the UK, if you watch the ITV2 highlights show you’ll start to understand what I’m up against here.

Oh dear

January 6, 2007 By Paola 2 Comments

According to my daughter, this looks like me.

I think resolutions need to be made.

Back in Seattle. Up at 1.30 am with Minx. Currently 9.30 am and have just put hysterical-through-lack-of-sleep baby down for a nap. How I love jetlag.

And a time for making new friends

January 5, 2007 By Paola 2 Comments

Father Christmas made a special visit on Christmas Day, courtesy of our friend’s father.

So we’re off back to Seattle tomorrow.

We have had a magical Christmas. There’s nothing like being in the country for only a limited amount of time to make all your friends eager to meet up, so we’ve been having the most incredibly social time and meeting up with different people morning and evening, for lunch and dinner. I’m twice the size I was when I arrived, utterly exhausted and my liver is screaming for mercy.

The Minx has had the most fabulous time. It’s amazing to see how much she remembers – she has been thrilled to see all her little friends and her favourite animals, playgrounds and parks. Every day has brought a new treat, and it’s been gorgeous to see her literally dancing and clapping her hands with excitement.

Which is all making me feel like the world’s worst mother taking her back to Seattle. We haven’t made that many friends there yet – certainly none to rival the group of babies that the Minx has known since very soon after she was born – and life is rather more sedate and much more mummy-centric than it is here.

I think we’re going to have to come back very soon.

I’m absolutely dreading tomorrow’s ten hour flight and the subsequent jetlag – though for me the journey will finally mark the end of the old year and the beginning of a new one.

We’ve had a pretty tough time for a variety of reasons over the past few years, but 2007 is currently seeming pregnant with potential. I can’t wait to see what the next few months bring.

Nutcracker March

December 22, 2006 By Paola 3 Comments

One of the holiday activities the Minx and I have been most enjoying has been Seattle’s ‘Nutcracker March’.

The Pacific Northwest Ballet’s version of the Nutcracker appears to be a pretty big deal round these parts and to celebrate they have commissioned sixty large Nutcrackers which have been decorated by local artists and are dotted all over downtown. They are then auctioned off on eBay to benefit local charities.

Hunting Nutcrackers has been a great excuse for the Minx and I to explore the area, and the Minx now shouts out excitedly when she sees one in the street, walks up to it and pats its feet.

Here are the thirty-two that we managed to photograph.

We saw a few others when we didn’t have a camera, but the geeky side of my soul is now regretting that we didn’t make more of an effort to ‘collect’ all of them while we had the chance.

Tomorrow we’re flying off to the UK for Christmas. Half of me is really looking forward to catching up with friends and family, but the other half is wondering why we’re putting us all through jetlag again when the Minx has really only recently settled into a proper Seattle routine.

A very Merry Christmas to you and yours and thank you so much for all your comments and good wishes throughout the year.

There’s a pot of gold

December 22, 2006 By Paola Leave a Comment

at the end of the rainbow.

And it can be found buried in the soon-to-be-opened Olympic Sculpture Park.

Let it snow

December 15, 2006 By Paola Leave a Comment

Remember these?

The Minx and I were trapped inside the apartment today by torrential, unremitting rain.

All I can say is thank goodness for the CBeebies website, which has loads of Teletubbies pictures to print off and colour in. We also quite enjoyed making these (well, I did). You can join in the fun yourselves with this nifty little bit of computer jollity.

In a return of the ‘Seattle Daily Weather Forecast’ we are apparently tonight expecting hurricane force winds.

Christmas cookies

December 14, 2006 By Paola 1 Comment

We weren’t going to put up a tree this year.

All the Christmas decorations that we have carefully collected over ten years of marriage are still on a ship somewhere and it seemed somewhat extravagant to start buying them all over again.

But after seeing the Minx’s joy every time we saw the ‘pitty tree’ down in the lobby of our building, we decided that it had to be done.

After traipsing round loads of shops being rather appalled by the kitchness and cost of most of the decorations we saw, we managed to find some basic gold and ivory baubles in the local drugstore and some surprisingly cheap rolls of wired cranberry and gold ribbons, so that became our colour scheme. (It was surprisingly liberating to have one’s colour scheme dictated by circumstance and surprisingly appropriate since that is mirrormirror’s Christmas wrapping scheme this year.)

A huge box of red and white candy canes and some big wired ribbon bows later, and the tree was looking rather gorgeous-if-I-say-so-myself, though a little ‘corporate’ and lacking in the personality that only comes from lots of different individually collected baubles, each with a story to tell.

So I decided to become an all-American girl and add life to the tree with homemade cookies.

I never really realised what a big deal cookies were in American life. The supermarkets are full of trays of special occasion cookies and the wonderful bake shops here carry hundreds of different cookie cutters in every imaginable shape.

I looked up recipes for ‘sugar cookies’ and found there were hundreds online. I sourced cookie cutters and sugar sprinkles and writing icing in tubes. And then I remembered I didn’t have a rolling pin, so went out to buy one of those. Until finally I was ready for the great cookie bake up.

I chose this recipe, and they tasted delicious to me, though obviously I’m not a cookie aficionado. I then opened up my tubes of writing icing and found that I was supposed to have bought special nozzles to attach to them.

Which is why I ended up icing them using a Ziploc bag with the corner cut off and which is why they look like they’ve been iced by a drunk monkey wearing ski gloves.

The ones in the picture are the only ones that were just about pretty enough to use on the tree. I have omitted to photograph the rejects, which look like they were iced by the Minx.