less plastic in my pocket

I just cancelled 3 credit cards. Like that. That feels good. What's even more awesome -- in the process, I reduced the APR on a current travel credit card and got more flight credits added. See, I have 2 Chase credit cards. It's totally unnecessary to have both, so I called to cancel one. In the process of doing so, to keep me as a customer for the other one, they reduced the APR and gave me 2 add'l flight credits. Yay. As for the other credit cards, quite frankly, I barely use them. For one, my last purchase on it was January 2004! I'm happy as one of my New Year's resolutions was to cancel unnecessary credit cards....which got me thinking, what are other resolutions I want to make? Well, here goes:

• Get more healthy/Lose weight. I lost an incredible amount of weight prior to the wedding, which I was very proud of; however, I immediately gained it all back within a few months after the wedding. Boo. I just let go of all the good habits I had started developing pre-wedding. It's time for me to get back on that wagon.
• Learn pilates. I'm signed up beginning tomorrow at Element!
• Become more of a morning person. I say this every year. I never really get any better but it's still a lofty goal. I made my pilates appointment at 8:30am, so hopefully that will be a starting incentive to help me become more of a morning person.
• Travel somewhere I've never been. Hopefully, if all works out, this year it will be to Iceland. This is also a resolution I make every year---last year, I made it to Tahiti :-)
• Make an investment. I cashed out my remaining Amazon stock last year and the money has just been sitting in my Charles Schwab account since. Now, it's not a ton but I could be doing something with it other than having it sit there. I've been meaning to re-invest it into something long term.
• Take the bus more to work. In the brief time in which my eyesight was bleh at the end of last year, I was taking the Commuter/bus to work, which was great. Since, I've gone back to driving in again all the time. I'd like to make it a goal to bus it in more often. Save the environment. yeah.
• Get my taxes done on my own. Okay, I'm married now. We should file jointly. I get my taxes filed by the family tax attorney every year. Yeah, it's convenient...but it also means I know nada about taxes.
• Finish changing my name. My maiden name is still on a number of documents...and hopefully I can switch everything over by the end of the year.

Okay, that's probably a good number of things.

fresh delivery

Sure enough, at precisely 8:02am, the phone rang with the Amazon Fresh delivery (I scheduled it for between 8am - 9am). Moments later, Dirk, the delivery guy, showed up with a big smile on his face and all my groceries. He quickly offered to bring everything into the kitchen and had me sign a sheet before taking off. Everything was in my order including the very late night order of skin cream, just to see if I could really add something to my order at midnight the night before. As a pleasant surprise, I even got a bonus free bag of produce, which included a bell pepper, carrots, snap peas, orange, tomatoes and an apple.

So far, I'm a happy customer!

weekend recap

Saturday evening, we had dinner over at the Plambecks in Issaquah along with Matt and Asayo. It was like...a real adult-like dinner in the sense that Suzanne went all out with great appetizers (like apricots topped with goat cheese and roasted pistachios) and serving delicious grilled shrimp and rack of lamb with arugula pesto. It was great to catch up and also see their kids, Matthew and Thomas, who are quite energetic lil' boys! We walked in around 7pm with the 2 boys running around like crazy and yelling...Chris turned to us and said "this is what it's like every day I come home from work. It's insane!" Ha Ha. Anyhow, great evening.

Today, we headed over to Pierre's for a Superbowl get together. He and Matt Joe went all out with a meal fit for carnivores: cocktail shrimp, pate, beef tri-tips, and a delicious pork rack of ribs. The game was crazy exciting to watch even though it ended with a shocking upset (not surprisingly, the Sousa household is a Pats one). I have to admit--even though I'm not really one to watch football, my eyes were very much glued to the TV in those last 5 minutes of the game. My jaw dropped when the Giants made that touchdown with only 30-something seconds left. I couldn't believe it...I thought for sure the Pats had it. Boo.

Tonight, I decided to try out Amazon Fresh. We had talked about the service a little bit over at the Plambecks and it peaked my curiosity. It's a little odd for me to use this service considering we're all of 1 block away from the nearest QFC. I guess it saves the hassle of waiting in line at the store. I can't really tell how comparable the prices are--one savings was that Amazon paid for the sales tax, which was super cool. The delivery is tomorrow morning so we'll see how it all turns out. Meanwhile, I'll comment on my first shopping experience thus far---first the good:

• As mentioned, they pay for the sales tax. It seemed to be an "introductory period" sort of thing so I don't know how long this will last. For the mean time though, I like it
• Delivery is free after spending $50 -- that's because I need to have an in-person type of delivery living in a secured access condo; otherwise, if they could drop it off, the price point for free delivery would drop. Either way, this wasn't hard to reach as there were a ton of things I could buy.
• Overall, site usability was great. Adding items to the cart didn't require a refresh of the page.
• Explanation of the potentially-confusing delivery service was clear.
• I liked how after I made my purchase, I could keep adding to my order if I wanted to. This made it convenient when a couple hours later, I remembered something else I wanted that cost maybe $2. It was nice to just add it to my existing order.
• I think the prices are fairly comparable.
• Decent selection...reminded me of what I could get at QFC but not at Whole Foods.
• It seemed somewhat hooked to my Amazon.com account in that it automatically pulled in my credit card information when I checked out. That was convenient.

Things I would like to see:

• Better selection of cheese. I mean, I want a Whole Foods sort of selection. That's part of the reason I go to Whole Foods.
• No wine. Boo.
• The ethnic food section sucked. I looked at Asian foods and it was the basic run-of-the-mill Joyce Chen type of stuff. I'd be impressed if this went beyond the QFC selection.
• I wish I could buy things in bulk, like my cereal or paper goods.
• I wish it would list the price breakdown based on unit (i.e. $0.57/oz.) so I could comparison shop
• Why not add reviews? Good way to expose myself to new foods...especially the deli or pre-prepared meals from Amazon Fresh.
• I'd like to see Nutrition Information since I often look at that when grocery shopping.

Weekend on Whidbey

Our weekend on Whidbey Island was awesome – I love that it’s so close to Seattle yet feels like it’s so far away (I’d say the same thing, frankly, about any of the islands up there). We took off Saturday morning, driving up to Mukilteo and catching the ferry to Clinton:

We then drove into Langley and got some lunch at the Village Pizzeria. After lunch, we wandered around the various cute shops, like the Star Store and Chef’s Pantry. In the afternoon, we checked into the Inn at Langley which is situated right on the water, each room’s balcony with a 180-degree view of the water.

The jetted tub

Our balcony

In the evening, we enjoyed the 6-course meal by Matt Costello in the Chef’s Kitchen at the Inn. Literally, the kitchen was right there so we could watch the chef prepare our meal. The meal was delicious!

The next day, after checking out of the hotel, we drove up to Coupeville, which is situated right on Penn Cove so we could enjoy a lunch of Penn Cove Mussels! Pretty lip smacking good….

We continued our drive up and walked around the beach in Deception Pass State Park before heading over to the scary bridge to walk across. The pedestrian part was only 3 feet wide as cars zoomed past us! Nevertheless, the view was breathtaking.

Check out the rest of the photos here...

Happy Birthday to my husband...

Happy Birthday to my dearest husband! I decided to surprise Matt for his birthday last night by preparing an extravagant dinner. Knowing that he had class, I knew I couldn't plan to take him out to dinner as reservations would be rather late...so I decided to have a nice meal at home. Then I had the idea of shipping overnight some baked stuffed lobsters from the Venus de Milo restaurant in Swansea, MA---a favorite of his parents and a place we always go to whenever we visit. I ordered the lobsters and some clam chowder and secretly shipped it to a neighbor for me to pick up after work. On top of that, I decided to whip out some table setting wedding gifts that we had yet to use: new placemants and napkins, our fina china, the crystal Tiffany's candlestick holders and the Waterford chardonnay wine glasses.

The meal was a success! I started off serving the clam chowder. At first, Matt thought I got it from Legal Seafood. Then he started scratching his head and guessing restaurants in Seattle. It wasn't until I brought out the lobsters that he figured out the mystery restaurant.

Man, it was a delicious meal! Heavenly in fact! Here are some pictures...


Preparing the dinner table


Setting the mood


The baked stuffed lobsters


Closeup of the lobsters

In addition to the lobster dinner, I'm whisking him off for a short, relaxing getaway for the weekend up in Whidbey Island, staying at the Inn at Langley. We're really looking forward to it! I've also made reservations at the Chef's Kitchen restaurant at the hotel---will review it when we return!

Escaping the cold

Man, after all my complaints about returning to the cold after spending a glorious week of sun and 80-degree weather in Florida, there were record lows that suddenly hit Southeast Florida yesterday. In Tallahassee, it was 18 degrees, 25 degrees in Jacksonville and 30 degrees in Fort Myers, which is the closest town to where we were staying in Florida! Today, high temperatures went back to the 50's and tomorrow it will head back up to the 70's and then finally back in the "norm" of the 80's. I can't believe the 50-degree drop...crazy.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!! We got back from Florida in the afternoon and by the evening, we were in sequins and suit, having a delicious meal at Qube. We topped off the night by attending a party with friends at Barca.

Photo courtesy of Matt Hallett