H&S {in seattle}: December 2007

Absent.

Been absent from here for awhile now. It's been a tumultuous couple of weeks. Shawn's illin' and I'm plain old exhausted from our trip home. More soon, I promise...

Until then, Happy New Year!

Shawn's best music of 2007.

Here it is, my long-awaited annual music review! Drumroll please...

10. Band of Horses - Cease to Begin
9. Maximo Park - Our Earthly Pleasure
8. Travis - The Boy with No Name
7. Maps - We Can Create
6. Lily Allen - Alright Still
5. The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
4. Editors - An End Has a Start
3. The Cinematics - A Strange Education
2. The National - Boxer
1.5 Mew - Frengers
This album is a classic, and would be a shoe-in for best recording of 2007…if it hadn’t actually been four years old! Released in Europe in 2003, Frengers finally saw the light of day in the US this year. One of the most glorious sets of soaring, noisy, proggy, rockin’ tunes to be recorded to disk, the 10 near-perfect tracks here are well worth seeking out. The opening salvo of “Am I Wry? No”, “156”, and “Snow Brigade” is as triumphant as any album ever, in my book.

1. Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City
AWITC turned out to be a super-confident and winning follow up, despite atmospheric expectations. There’s simply not a weak track on the record, from the opening buzz of “Song for Clay”, to longtime live staples “Hunting for Witches” and “Waiting for the 7:18”, to poppy single “I Still Remember” and epic closer “Srxt”, AWITC is an easy choice for best album of 2007.

And for the easily amused, the top 5 singles:
5. “I Still Remember” – Bloc Party
4. “A Strange Education” – The Cinematics
3. “Golden Skans” – Klaxons
2. “No Ones Gonna Love You” – Band of Horses
1. “War of the Worlds” – My Vitriol

Here's the full writeup for those who are so inclined.

Just give me moments, not hours or days.

Things are a little busy around here as we head into the remaining 7 days (!) before Christmas. We take off in a few days, as well, so in an effort to not neglect this blog, here is one giant post. =)

We finished our shopping ages ago. I hate the crowds and just want to enjoy the holiday season. This past weekend was full of good times and I was able to work on finishing some handmade gifts.

On Friday, we continued our annual tradition of attending the Christmas Ship festival. Since we moved to the northwest side of the city, we went to a new location to see the ships this year--the Ballard Locks. It was so much more intimate and extremely neat to see the ships jammed into the locks as the choir on board performed for us. The lights were fantastic and everyone was really into the spirit of it. We even saw a dude propose there!

Saturday, we held a small potluck dinner-turned Guitar Hero showdown. We ate and ate and had a good time visiting with friends. Shawn cracked out his peppermint martinis for the first time since our move here. Another first for Seattle? He busted out his guitar and played some holiday tunes. It's been awhile since anyone other than family has seen that happen.

Apparently skiing opened on Saturday, as well. We stalked the Summit's website all week (including on Friday) and nothing was ever announced. Nathan was up there snowshoeing that day and he came back with news that they had indeed opened. So, we ecstatically headed up there on Sunday only to find a power outage had shut everything down for the morning and early afternoon. Will we ever get to ski?

If neither of us check in before heading home, happy holidays to everyone. Shawn's 2007 music review is just around the corner... ;)

Beer focus group.

I recently attended a focus group for the New Belgium beer company; and yes, it was just as awesome as it sounds! I spent the evening at the swanky Edgewater hotel (in the room that The Beatles stayed in), received a free dinner, and chatted with a nice group of six individuals about what we liked about beer.

It was a blast lounging around, answering silly questions from the researchers ("If New Belgium was a person, what would they be like?"), and discussing the finer points of Fat Tire ale with a bunch of craft beer drinking aficionados. We even got free New Belgium beer to boot!

For all of my "trouble", I was paid a cool $75. Frankly, I'd attend this every week.

What I really want for Christmas.

Dear Santa,
I've been a pretty good girl this year. Won't you bring me an absolutely adorable, extremely healthy, 100% rescued Frenchie?
Just something to consider.
xoxo, h.

Finally getting a haircut.

So what do you think? Should I go for it?

Ha ha!

More holiday decor (for faraway friends).

Sharing more scenes from our tiny house during the holidays:

Our tree will only fit in the middle of our minuscule living room. Trust me, we moved all the furniture after all! We had to leave the bottom section off, as well. Do you spy something British on this tree? =)

View from the loft (which is also tiny).

Our festive bookshelf (including a lovely holiday art piece that Beth created for me last year!). Our local friends' (Andy & Elizabeth) decorations inspired me to try adding these kind of touches to our regular shelves this year. They have pretty little Christmas things everywhere you look.

Again, sprucing up something that normally sits in this spot: a collection of small white vases. I added a few glittery 50 cent sprigs from Michael's and a placemat to cheer them up a bit.

Plates we picked up at the Rosanna sale a couple of weeks ago. I love the design and colors of these.

And finally, our naked little white tree that's hanging out in the kitchen.

Handmade obsessed.

I am obsessed with Etsy. There are so many pretties at such reasonable prices. Not only is a great outlet for holiday gifts, but the site has provided me with countless hours of inspiration lately. Here are some of my favorite shops:

The list literally could go on and on... Etsy is fun just to explore.

Two more weeks.

We'll be on our way home in just two weeks. And I am anxious.

Here's a little peek at our decorations (including some new ornaments we picked up in London this summer). I need to pop on the wide angle lens to get a full-size view of the tree, though. It was tough to find a spot for it in our tiny house.

More holiday hand-craftiness.

First of all, we are a-okay here in Seattle. The Today show made the city look like a disaster zone this morning. We haven't seen any traces of sink holes, flooding, or anything else so extreme, but have heard stories that fortunately don't apply to us.

So, back to the most wonderful time of the year! Since skiing still wasn't fully operational this weekend, I had time to get a bit crafty. In addition to the Gocco invites posted yesterday, I finally had the chance to make over a really hideous advent calendar that we purchased last year. Here's how it looked before:

Truly disgusting, no? Well, maybe not for some, but it didn't mix well with our decorations at all. After coating it with a straw-colored spray paint, I took cues from these advent boxes and Paper Source's snowflake paper to create the following:

Much better. =)

Gocco-ing party invites.

As the snow came down over the weekend, I worked with my Gocco printer to create invites for a small get together we're hosting in a couple of weeks. I'm so addicted to that thing. Each time I create something with it, it feels like I'm cranking out mini gig posters. Yum.

By the way, the blob in the photo is where I blurred out our address...

This weekend, it snowed.

It snowed in the city this weekend. This is a bit unusual, but it snowed for nearly two days straight. We watched from our window as our deck and car both got buried in it. We also had a visit from some sweet little snowbirds. Then, at some point yesterday, it turned to rain and washed away.