Gilbert's

I've always secretly wished I could be a food critic. I think that would be the perfect job--to get paid to eat! I had thought at one point that I would use my blog as my own personal restaurant review site but I sort of forgot about that idea...until today.

Today is our day off this week but Graham had to go into work this morning for a 7:30 AM class on how to identify patients who have had strokes. Anyway, I made the wise decision of going along with him (not to the actual class though--I just hung out, had a latte and journaled in the very nice Overlake lobby). The reason it was such a good choice to go along was because Graham took me out to breakfast afterwards which is pretty much my favorite activity ever! Yesterday, he'd discovered "Old Bellevue" which apparently was the former hub of Bellevue. "Main Street" is lined with super cute shops and restaurants that were great for window shopping. He took me to this AWESOME cafe called "Gilbert's." I think it is my new favorite place! They have these fabulous petite-breakfast specials on weekday mornings that really are far from being petite (they just aren't the oversized American portions). I ordered the egg scramble with tomatoes, spinach and feta. The guy at the counter said the scramble was known to be even better with kalamata olives which he offered to add for free--sure! Why not? The scramble came along with a fresh bagel of my choice (I chose the spinach, Havarti and garlic bagel which was the most incredible bagel I've ever had) with cream cheese and jam. All that for only $4.95! Graham ordered the petite french toast plate that came with an egg scramble of cheddar, green onions and mushrooms. We ordered one chicken apple sausage on the side to split but when the guy taking our order found out we were splitting, he said he'd just give us a second one for free. He also gave us a hand-written coupon for 2 free crepes because when we first walked in, we were planning to get crepes until be realized they were only served during the lunch/afternoon hours. The guy was great and made us feel very welcome. The decor was fun with walls painted with an Italian-style theme. We sat by the front window which was lined with fun books that entertained us while we waited for our food. We walked out of there with our bellies feeling very satisfied with less than $10 damage! We are definitely going back to Gilbert's. If you are ever on the eastside, check it out!

Gardening

Good morning fellow bloggers! It's been a busy week....hence the absence of posts. Graham and I have the weekend off so we've been enjoying some time together dinking around and wandering through Bellevue Square.

The recent realization hit me that SPRING IS COMING! When I look out my back window, there are lots of green sprigs (tulips) popping out of my otherwise dormant soil. This reminded me that it is time to plan my garden for the coming year. I've decided that this year I'm really going to think ahead, figure out what I really want to plant and order it online to get it if that's what it takes to create the look I'm dreaming up. Last year I visited many nurseries and pretty much just purchased things that I saw that looked pretty (lots of perennials). I'm hoping, for one, that they come back this year and for two, that they are more filled out so I won't have funny gaps between plants. I guess gardening is a lot like wine--it gets better with age/time and never is quite right after only one year.

Anyway, this year I'm focusing on my containers and have checked out a couple of books from the library on edible container gardening. Last year my goal was simply to grow some produce but this year I'm hoping to not only grow edible produce, but also have the pots look beautiful. One idea is to mix vine beans with sweet peas or morning glories (in the same pot), having them entwine together and work their way up a tepee of stakes. The other thing I got SUPER excited about (just ask Graham...he couldn't stop laughing at my glee) was the idea of growing my very own blueberry bush in one of my half barrels. I love blueberries and never realized how beautiful the plants are almost year round (white or pink flowers in spring, berries in summer and orange/red leaves in the fall). If anyone reading grows blueberries already, can you recommend a good variety for growing in a container?

I asked Graham yesterday if it was okay for me to buy a blueberry bush this year. He said yes, as long as he gets to buy a flatscreen tv. :o) Honestly, I'm probably about as excited about the blueberry bush as he is about the tv so it probably is a pretty even deal. Anyway, now I'm working on figuring out where I can order these exciting new seeds and plants from--what fun!

Happy Half Birthday to Me!

Today we received word that our townhouse was appraised at $25,000 MORE than what we paid for it 2 years ago---HOORAY! In fact, it was appraised at exactly the amount we'd hoped! So, it sounds like we'll be heading in for a meeting shortly to finalize the refinancing process (boy it takes a while....)

In other news, Graham baked for the first time today! The man has never in his life even made cookies but today, he dusted off the mixer and whipped up my favorite "Better Than You-Know-What Cake." I can't wait to try it!

Now I can hear him in the kitchen creating a gourmet specialty for dinner--a recipe we discovered last year--Scallops w/ a Truffle Oil Emulsion served over Pappardelle Pasta. It is absolutely divine! What a good husband I have....

Meanwhile, I am spending the day on the couch YET AGAIN with a completely new cold/virus. After being sick for 2 weeks, I had finally recovered and returned to work only to find out that my respiratory therapist office mate was sick. So thanks to him (I think), I'm sick yet again! Hopefully this doesn't last for 2 weeks again....

Junk

I went for a walk yesterday morning while most of my neighbors were spending their Saturday sleeping in. For some reason, I was noticing just how much STUFF Americans have. I passed by garages filled to the brim with junk and yards with piles of boards and toys and trash scattered around. I even passed quite a few homes where you could tell that the garage was so jam packed that they had to start stacking excess junk in piles on the side of the house. How disgusting! I wouldn't call me neighborhood ritzy but it certainly isn't the ghetto. It's just a bunch of typical American homes. I came away from my exercise routine realizing that I do not want to live that way and don't ever want to get to the point that I have so much stuff my car can't fit in the garage.
So I came home and began to clean. I only went through part of a room but was able to fill up Graham's entire trunk and part of the back seat with give aways (in addition to throwing a bunch of other stuff away). I am on a mission to go through the entire house, getting rid of stuff to keep our life simple-I don't want to look like these other Americans! Graham had me use the rule "If you haven't used it since we've been married, get rid of it" which actually worked pretty well accept for a couple boxes of keepsakes from my childhood that are here to stay. There is much more work to be done

A Terrible, Awful Sound

So we're doing it again. We promised ourselves we wouldn't. Yet here we are. That's right, we're tiling another shower! I was a bit traumatized by our last tiling experience (although I really wasn't involved in the physical labor, I certainly had to live in the mess for 2 weeks!) I don't think Graham was too excited about the whole process last time either. But, even though we were extremely pleased with the result in our Master, we decided that maybe it wasn't worth the pain and effort to want to do the guest bath, especially since we rarely use it anyway. Well, apparently enough time passed for us to forget what it was like and we got the crazy idea to tile once again. I must say that even though there have been a couple of hiccups (such as dry rot forcing us to remove the toilet and place it in the guest room and realizing the tile store did not have the tile we wanted AFTER the bathroom was already torn apart etc), it going much better overall this time around. Graham and his dad have been having a great time using a new tile saw (hence the terrible, awful sound) and installing new fixtures. All the tile is in place now and tomorrow they will add the grout. It is really going to look great!

So for all of you potential guests, please come stay with us soon and put the new shower to good use! (And be thankful that we didn't chicken out and leave you forever to shower with the ugly, cheap plastic walls that were there before).

By the way, I don't have pictures yet but I'll be sure to post one when it's done!