August So Far

August has been a busy month. And you know what? A hot one too. It really felt like summer! It's only in the last couple days that the clouds have come back and the evenings gotten a chill. Here's a rundown of what I've been doing.

- Garden Harvest: I've been eating kale for months, but finally started getting other veggies like potatoes, squash, beets, and the first few cherry tomatoes!

Then I thought, "Could I make a well-rounded meal using food entirely from the backyard?" So I put together this dinner using our chicken eggs, beets, beet greens, onions, garlic, thyme, rosemary, mixed salad greens, cherry tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, and cucumber. It was the first time I had ever made or eaten such a local meal, all raised about 30 feet from where I sleep.

- I've been doing a lot of other summery cooking and eating. When blueberries came on I went U-picking because I love to freeze them. I've been throwing blueberries into smoothies (usually with yogurt, banana, and peanut butter) and also discovered this phenomenal Lemon Blueberry Buckle.

Before blueberries when there was cherry madness, I made this Cherry Salsa. It was a totally new idea to me, to add onions, cilantro, mint, jalapenos, and lime to make an actual salsa. It is delicious! I ate a bunch just with corn chips, and froze the rest to use as a sauce on pork or chicken. 

- I went to a Pie Party/Competition. It is such an epic event that the couple only holds it every two years at their house on Eastlake. The categories are for Most Delicious Pie, Prettiest Pie, and Best Art Pie.

My boyfriend, who took me to the party, said, "Amber, you're a good baker, but every one brings such amazing pies that another good pie will just get lost in the shuffle. If we want to stand out, we need to do an art pie, a conceptual piece."

His idea was to do a "honey pie" featuring live bees! I told him we could use my bees, only if they were well-treated, meaning: contained but have enough air flow, have access to eating sugar water, and be returned to the hive a couple hours later. I baked a real pie shells and the we filled it with comb from a friend's hive, honey, sugar water, and flowers, collaborating with another friend.

I took a frame out of the hive and gently brushed the bees onto the pie, then covered it with a glass lid that was slightly propped-up for air circulation. Voilà! Our honey pie was complete with bees buzzing under the glass, and we very carefully drove to the party.

There were so many pies it was overwhelming. The many pies were divided up by category, and left untouched for only the judges to try while the rest of the guests ate the catered dinner and planned which ones to have for dessert.

Some of the ones that caught my eye: Rum Benedictine Blackberry Cheese Pie, Yin and Yang Peanut Butter, Smoked Salted Carmel Pecan, Kentucky Bourbon Chocolate Walnut, and a cousin of pie, a Peach Oregano Manchego Galette. One of my favorites was Bourbon Cherry Fernet Cheese Pie. What?! So good.

As if all the pie eating wasn't reward enough, our Honey Pie won first place in the Art Pie category! Apparently my bees did a great job looking all bee-ish, buzzing around in the glass cake lid, expertly clinging to the side. I'm convinced it's their performance that made us win. I got them home after their wild evening out of the hive in time to tell stories to the others and explain to the queen why they shirked their work for the day.

- Speaking of bees, I added the 4th box (or hive body) to the hive a few weeks ago. Here's what the hive looks like now.

I also took a beekeeping class on how to harvest honey and how to winterize the hive now that colder weather is just around the corner. Did I mention that I am learning everything about beekeeping as I go? I had no idea how to harvest the honey. I didn't even know how to calculate how much honey they've made! Basically, you have to figure out how much honey they've made, how much they need to survive the winter, and then you can take whatever the surplus is.

 Here's what I do know: There are some good-looking frames inside here! Here's a frame that is partially full- the covered or "capped" comb cells are full of honey, and the open ones are where the bees are still working.

Here's what a frame looks like when it is completely full of honey. It's heavy too! I have about 5 of these frames total.

Now is the ideal time to harvest honey, but I just don't have time right now. The last couple weeks have been pretty hectic getting ready for Burning Man, so I am just going to think about any honey harvest when I get home.

-Burning Man! When I decided to go in July, it pretty much changed the face of my summer. Suddenly, there was a ton to do to get ready, and I was always preparing in different ways. It's never ending. It's sort of like having a homework assignment that you feel like you are always procrastinating on, because you are never really finished until you finally go to the event.

"Why is there so much to do?" you may ask. First of all there's the packing- costumes, desert goggles, proper tent (or RV?), shade structures, mountain bike, costumes. Here's Matt's packing list (the abridged version!) which we combed through several times. Then there's the helping with your theme camp- camp work parties, meetings, emails to read and respond to, more work parties, cooking meals in advance (Matt and I made 9 gallons of chili one day that we then vacuum sealed and froze), and the final truck load for the transportation team that leaves first. Also there is figuring out all the logistics- How to get down there, how much time to take off work, and just a ton of reading online. I'm finally feeling ready, which is good because we leave tomorrow! I just have a few sewing projects to finish in the car.

Friends at Ross, Alone at Desolation

My friend Katie's family has taken their yearly family vacation at Ross Lake Resort for over 30 years. Ross Lake is a 20-mile long lake off Highway 20, with Diablo Dam at its south end and the North Cascades National Park surrounding it everywhere else. The resort is a row of floating cabins only accessible by boat or hiking over a mile from the parking lot. The family spends a week hanging out with friends, fishing, hiking, swimming, playing games, and cooking lottttssss of food. Last year I was lucky enough to be invited to join and definitely didn't want to miss it this year.

Last year was also when I learned that Ross Lake was where the trailhead was for Desolation Peak. Desolation has one of western Washington's many historic fire lookouts, but was made famous when Jack Kerouac stayed there as the lookout in the summer of 1956 and went on to write about it in his book Desolation Angels. As a Kerouac fan in high school, I had vowed to someday go there.

My "someday" finally came! I arrived at the lake resort in the early evening, with enough time to catch up with every one, eat a delicious dinner, and enjoy the fading light from in front of Katie and Alan's cabin. Here you can see the wooden skiff that the resort rents to guests, plus the dam and the beautiful peaks in the distance.

The next morning was warm and clear. We swam, drank rounds of coffee, ate berry pancakes, and indulged in the guilty of pleasure of celebrity gossip magazines. (Katie Holmes had just left Tom Cruise, it was big news!) My friends had already been to Desolation Peak, so it turned out that I was going to be going up alone. I didn't want to hike on an exposed trail in hottest part of the day, so we decided that I would hike up in the afternoon/evening, set up camp, and come back the next day. They were kind enough to take me up the lake to the trailhead, which is quite a ways (nearly an hour) from the resort. If you charter a boat I think they charge you $100, so I was incredibly grateful for the boat ride.

We took our time getting up the lake, taking side trips up a little river mouth with narrow canyon walls, and to a swim spot where we could watch fish and jump off small cliffs.

We pulled up to the trailhead a little after 4, which was nothing more than this small dock in the expanse of forest. I put on my heavy backpack and agreed on a time for them to pick me up the next day.

The hike up was beautiful. It was forested a lot of the way, but then I would come out of the trees to see Ross Lake getting smaller down below, and numerous peaks of the Cascades poking out all around in the muted evening light. It was also really hard. It's been a long time since I've backpacked alone, and I had forgotten just how much weight it adds to not have multiple people carrying group gear such as the tent, stove, cooking pots, and water filter. Also, I had a required bear canister which was incredibly heavy.

I don't really mind backpacking alone... in fact, I think it's really good for the soul once in a while. And it felt freeing to have so much wild space around me, and know that I was the only person on the mountain. I had to get a permit at the ranger station in Marblemount to camp at the campsite just below the peak, and there is only one site. The permit is first-come-first-serve and I was lucky enough to get it, so I knew for sure that there was no one else camping there that night.

There was only one moment when I felt a little scared. I was on the way up, and passed a tree that looked like a Ponderosa Pine. "Wow!" I thought, "Is it really a Ponderosa? That would be weird to see one on the west side of the Cascades." I walked up to inspect the bark more closely, looking so intently at the colors that it took me a second to notice the HUGE BEAR CLAW MARKS on the trunk. My heart started pounding but I reminded myself that I've never seen a bear in the wild and probably wouldn't today. I did start singing though since I had no one to talk to and making noise I'd be less likely to catch a bear unawares.

I made it to the campsite which was a gorgeous spot with a view, two tent pads, a pit toilet, and a separate cooking area. I made dinner in the little kitchen area and then called it a night.

The next morning I woke up to crazy fog. Like, only about 15 feet of visibility. I was so bummed at the thought of not having a view from the top. I did some reading in the tent and made breakfast, and by then the fog was burning off a bit. I left all my gear at camp except for a day pack, and headed off to hike the last mile or so up to the peak. The morning suddenly got really hot, and mostly cleared up except for some flat layers of clouds.

In Desolation Angels, Kerouac talks a lot about Hozomeen mountain...

"Hozomeen, Hozomeen, most beautiful mountain I've ever seen, like a tiger sometimes with stripes, sunwashed rills and shadow crags wriggling lines in the Bright Daylight, vertical furrows and bumps and Boo! crevasses, boom, sheer magnificent Prudential mountain, nobody's even heard of it, and it's only 8,000 feet high, but what a horror when I first saw that void the first night of my staying on Desolation Peak waking up from deep fogs of 20 hours to a starlit night suddenly loomed by Hozomeen with his two sharp points, right in my window black..."

It was epic, jutting out of the clouds like something out of Lord of the Rings, not resembling other peaks around Ross Lake. I'm so so happy I got a view of it. Here's the fire lookout, with Hozomeen in the background.

I hung out on the peak for awhile, enjoying the serenity and solitude. I wish I could have stayed longer, but I knew if I wasn't back to the dock on time, Katie and Alan would worry. I headed down the mountain and got back to the dock with minutes to spare. The timing worked out great and I'm really glad they didn't have to wait on me at all. They had brought snacks and cold beers and we chatted about the past day. Did I mention how awesome those two are?

Back at the resort we started an "experimental happy hour" in which we amassed all our various liquors and mixers, and the proceeded to try brand new cocktails. The only rule was you weren't allowed to mix a drink you had ever had before. Some terrible and brilliant concoctions were born, and either way it's a game that comes highly recommended.

Then there was dinner, a dance party, hula hooping, and a fairly early night to bed. I left the next day, very happy to have a vacation with both time alone and time with such wonderful people.

Mount Adams

On Thursday and Friday before leaving, I told some people I was going to climb Mount Adams that weekend. "Oh... Where's that?" was the most common reply. Which is crazy because at 12,281 feet, it is the state's second highest mountain, after the much more famous Mount Rainier. I realized that unlike Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, and Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams is not visible from the highway so many Washingtonians have no idea where it is. In fact, the only times I've ever seen it have been from the air, before landing at Sea-Tac airport on a clear day.

Yes, it is wayyy down there, almost to Portland and much farther east. Even driving there is tricky, because the shortest route is on backroads, even down to unpaved forest service roads. If you want to stick to the faster freeway route you can go to Oregon and Hood River, but that adds 100 miles. 

Matt and I opted for shorter, slower, and scenic. We left after work on Friday, and after getting through city traffic, stopping for dinner, and driving on wash-boarded back-roads in the fog, we didn't reach our Trout Lake hotel until after 10:30pm. We repacked our bags for the hike the following day and went to bed around midnight.

We had originally planned to do the climb as a 2-day backpack- arrive Saturday, hike up about 3,000 feet to a campsite, stay the night, summit on Sunday, then hike out. Unfortunately, the weather forecast for Sunday was looking pretty bad, so we decided to do the whole hike in on Saturday. We woke up at 5am Saturday morning, got permits, and drove to the trailhead. As we passed this view of the mountain, I couldn't help but be amazed that it was actually possible to climb in one day. Really?! We are going to be on top of that?!

We did the South climb from the Cold Springs trailhead which starts at 5,600 feet. There was no snow on the trail for the first 15 minutes or so, and then we came out of the trees onto snow into bright sunlight and a clear morning. The idea was to ascend about 6,600 vertical feet to reach the summit- the most elevation gain of any day hike I've ever done.  I was determined to not make the same mistake I made last time I hiked on a snow field to Camp Muir- sunburning my ears. I slathered them with sunscreen AND covered them with a bandana. (Fool me twice, shame on me!)

Slowly but surely we pushed upward, checking the altimeter as we shaved thousands of feet off the hike. We thought we might need crampons, but the snow was so soft that they weren't necessary. It was a beautiful day and we had sweeping views of Mount Hood, Mount Saint Helens, foothills, and the dry expanse of eastern Oregon. There were great campsites along the way, on exposed soil nestled between rocks.

After the Lunch Counter camping area at about 9,500 feet is when the trail started getting really steep. And it was over 10,000 feet that I started to feel the altitude. It was a slow, sometimes meditative, sometimes discouraging tromp up. At that point you see what looks like the summit, but it's actually a false summit. We finally reached the false summit around 3pm and stopped to rest on some rocks. A lot of other people were hanging out there, some on there way up, some on their way down. We could see the real summit, over a mile away and about 700 more vertical feet.

Unfortunately, it was already sort of late in the day. We were tired, and we figured that by the time we made it to the summit and back down, we wouldn't get off the trail til after 9. I really really really wanted to reach the top, but the smarter decision was to listen to our bodies and limited daylight. It was still a phenomenal hike and I would just have to come back someday, either climbing it as a backpack, or camping at the trailhead and waking up much earlier. For now I was just happy to enjoy the amazing glissade back down. Where it was really steep there were fast, established runs and of course stellar views.

I had brought a large black plastic garbage bag and made myself a glissade diaper, partly to protect my pants and partly to go faster. In some sections it wasn't steep enough to glissade, but for the most part it was a quick and and absolutely giddy slide down the mountain.

It still takes effort to get back down though- to pick a good chute, maneuver curves, hold your feet up. Sometimes when I got going too fast I used my ice axe as a brake, and sometimes when I was going slow I used it as a paddle to push myself. Unfortunately, at one point I didn't make a wide enough arch with the axe and ended up stabbing myself in the leg. It tore my pants but it didn't hurt that bad and I didn't think much of it. 

We made it off the mountain tired but very happy, and the next day had a mellow day exploring the area. The mountain mingles with the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, which has tons of great hikes, lakes, waterfalls, lava formations, ice caves, and huckleberries. The berries were just getting ripe and you can find different varieties in the same patch of forest! It was a great weekend and I even had an ice axe souvenir to take home with me.

Harvest and a Quote

I came across this quote on my friend Lydia's blog today and it really struck a chord in me.


“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on Earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree, and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.”

From The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich

In other news, I finally got around to thinning the carrots and beets in my garden yesterday, and was happy to see the pretty rainbow carrots doing well. I got a bunch of beet greens, which is as much my draw for growing beets as the root, and we just finished off the last of the garlic scapes. I'm trying to plan and plant for my fall/overwintering beds, and as always, I wish I had more time to spend in the garden. Now it's a sunny morning, and I just fertilized everything and gave it a good water, and am loading up the car to head to Ross Lake for rest of the week. Excited to see how things have grown when I get back!

What We've Been Waiting For

Seattle gets 150 days of rain per year, 300 days of overcast skies, and almost non-stop cool temperatures. So when we finally get nice weather after July 4th, it's a pretty big deal. Every one is outside, giddy with sunshine and the sparkling beauty of Pacific Northwest. It's like we put up with 10 months for the 2 somewhat-reliable months of summer.

That's not completely true- we get some gorgeous, warm days sporadically all spring, and September is like the forgotten summer month. And our penchant for fleece and gor-tex and boots helps us get out even in the drizzly grey. But there is a certain magic this time of year, when the days are loooong, when you can swim after work, when cherries and raspberries are rolling into the markets and the promise of tomatoes and basil and squash and peppers just around the corner. People can finally plan BBQ's, camping trips,  and weddings in this narrow window when it's warm and dry. Consequently, there are tons of trips and activities crammed in to each summer.

I for one already have every weekend planned until September 15th. Crazy! The past month has been a manic frenzy of work, gardening, volunteering, socializing, and getting out of town every weekend, and shows no signs of slowing down. I try to make sure I get enough down-time to cook good food, sleep, and keep my life organized. But at the same time, when you're excited to do something, do it! If you keep putting it off, it may never happen. For years I have wanted to see the fire lookout on Desolation Peak, peer inside Mount Saint Helen's crater, and hike in the Enchantments. I'm tired of putting those things off and am totally committed to doing them this summer. Carpe Diem!

My English teacher my senior year in high school was a truly incredible teacher, and I remember her giving us all little valentines with an Annie Dillard quote. It's about writing, but it makes me think about life in general, about trusting in abundance, and living to the fullest in these rich, vibrant summer days.

“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.”

Another summer event I've wanted to go to for YEARS is Burning Man. I've never been able to go for a variety of reasons, but it is still there in the back of my mind. The man I'm dating has been going for most of the past decade, and seeing his amazing photographs made my interest resurface. Unfortunately there was a huge fiasco with the ticket sales this year and it's sold out. Just when we wrote it off as impossible to get tickets and had let go of the idea, two tickets basically fell into our laps. It seemed too serendipitous to pass up, but I had my doubts. Maybe we should wait until next year- it would give us more time to get ready. But I don't know what will happen next year! What I do know is that Burning Man would be a completely new experience and it's in my heart to go. It may not be the most convenient, restful, inexpensive, physically comfortable, or predictable way to spend the first week of September... but I suppose the best things in life never are.

Tiny Problem in Paradise

The 4th of July was a little strange this year, falling smack in the middle of the week. My sweetie had the day off so he suggested I take the day off too and that we head up to Mount Rainier for a hiking mini-vacation. Tuesday after work we drove up to the mountain to stay at Paradise Inn. The inn is a beautiful wooden lodge built in 1916, sitting at over 5,000 feet above sea level with a stunning view of Mount Rainier from the parking lot. I have a vague memory of being in this parking lot when I was about five years old, but other than that have hardly spent any time in the national park. We had been checking the weather for the past week desperately hoping that the clouds would pass in time for our ascent. After days of bad weather, we woke up on the 4th to sunny, blue skies and clear views!

The plan was to hike up to Camp Muir which is the basecamp for climbers attempting to summit the mountain. It's about 5 miles from the parking lot trailhead, and you gain 5,000 feet of elevation in the snow-covered hike. It was truly a gorgeous day, with clear views of Mount Saint Helens, Mount Adams, and Mount Hood to the south.

It was my first time ever getting up to 10,000 feet in Washington- I've been that high in the Andes in Peru and Ecuador, but never in my home state. We were super prepared for the day in what we had packed. We had the 10 Essentials for hiking, plus more snow clothes, trekking poles, and ice axes. I had slathered sunscreen on my face and arms and reapplied several times when we stopped for a snack.

We saw a lot of other hikers and skiers tromping up the mountain. We saw about 15 marmots which I thought were really cute. It's pretty amazing to see them appear out of nowhere and scurry straight up a vertical snowy bank.

As we got farther up the mountain, we had great views of several glaciers, namely Nisqually and Wilson. Did you know Mount Rainier has 26 glaciers, which is more than in any other single-peak system in the continental U.S.? In the hot, early summer weather things were warming up fast and more than once we heard loud cracks and saw an ice fall. You can see a little of the snow cloud here.

We made it to Camp Muir in the early afternoon and enjoyed lunch as we put more layers on. I looked out over the expansive view and felt so grateful to live in such a wild, beautiful place. This was my type of Independence Day, my own feeling of freedom and appreciation for this land.

Going down was much faster then coming up because we were able to glissade at least a couple thousand feet! If you've never heard of glissading, it's just a fancy word for slide down the snow on your butt. Since it was later in the day, there were some good glissade tracks already established. After we got below 8,000 feet or so, the snow started getting too soft to get much momentum so we had to walk. Then toward the bottom when we thought the fun was over, there were a few really steep, deep glissade runs.

By the time we got back to the parking lot, it was early evening. I was a little tired, but more just felt drained. I felt sort of dehydrated, even though I had been drinking plenty of water. It wasn't until I got home and felt my hot skin that I realized I was very sunburned in two totally new places. First was my knees, between my shorts and gaiters. I had forgotten to put sunscreen there, and now it hurt to bend my legs at all. Then there were my ears, which have never been sunburned in my life. By the next day they were completely swollen and forming blisters.

I realized that any time I'm ever in snow, I usually have a stocking cap on- not a sun hat where my ears are exposed. In all of our planning and preparations, I overlooked this detail.  I had to spend the next few days slathering on aloe and covering my burnt skin. Granted, it was a small problem in the overall scheme of things, and otherwise we had had a unique and incredible Fourth.

Goodbye Spring

Happy Solstice everyone! My season-changing festivities mostly took place last weekend, going to the Fremont Fair and Solstice Parade. The highlight of the Parade is of course the naked bike ride, where hundreds of painted cyclist kick off the parade. Luckily for them and all of us spectators it was a warm, dry day.

I'm really excited for the upcoming summer but it's been an awesome and productive spring. The last few months I've been working full-time, and also took a Master Composter training, went morel hunting near Leavenworth, started keeping bees, took an aerial arts class, helped in community gardens, went to concerts, visited friends in Portland, went to Breitenbush hot springs, and started dating a really sweet man. I ate out at some great restaurants in Seattle, like Delancy and Blind Pig Bistro. I also ate a lot of good home-cooked meals, like nettle pesto which was my kick off to spring, and more recently salmon with nectarines in one of our houses first outdoor meals of the year.

And I tried to get out into the backyard garden as much as possible. There is always so much more I want to or should do, but I suppose gardens always feel that way. The solstice harvest was kale, spinach, snap peas, and strawberries so I'm just going to be happy with that and not think about all the other things that could be growing. Luckily, there is still the whole summer to do work in the garden!

SWS Cooking Program

As the school year winds down, so did the after-school cooking program I've been volunteering with since September. It was an awesome program on Friday afternoons for middle and high school students from the Seattle World School. The SWS is a unique educational setting through the Seattle school district where recently immigrated youth can work on their English, get accustomed to the US, meet with mentors in their native language, and in general just be in a supportive environment for 1-3 semesters before going to a regular public school. Currently, most of the students are from Mexico, Vietnam, Mongolia, Somalia, Ethiopia, and China.

The class was held next-door to their school at the Miller Community Center on Capitol Hill, and it was there that Full-Circle Farm would drop off two boxes of organic produce and then the madness would commence. Sometime the menu was planned ahead of time; sometimes it was created on the spot based on what was in the produce boxes. Here were the main goals of the program:

* Work on English vocabulary! We would cover the names the of fruits and veggies before using them. Many foods I'm sure would have been new to a US-born student of the same age, such as kale, kohlrabi, and chard.

* Use proper kitchen etiquette and knife-handling techniques.

* Practice making vegetable-based, from-scratch meals. We wanted to students to realize that just because they were now living in America doesn't mean it's okay to eat primarily packaged or fast-food. We occasionally used flour, pasta, and meat, but for the most part meals consisted of fruit, veggies, whole grains, and legumes.

* Spend some time in the garden, identifying plants and seeing what they look like when growing. Luckily, there was a community garden right there at Miller Community Center that we partnered with. We would harvest foods such as beets, carrots, and spinach, and help students become familiar with using foods in the the kitchen straight from the garden.

* Encourage students to share recipes from their home country. Most students come from rich culinary traditions using local, whole ingredients, and especially the females have been cooking with their families since they were little girls. They had an incredible amount of comfort, intuition, and experience in the kitchen- a level that I personally probably didn't reach until the end of college. One week one student showed us how to make sambusas, and she had an expert proficiency at making dough and also how much filling was needed for the number of people.

* Let students get creative, even if the ingredients or dish is not something they are familiar with. They were always so enthusiastic and willing to just jump in. Of course this sometimes ended up with uncored apples in a fruit salad, or raw zucchini in a green salad, or lettuce on pizza, or a bit too much salt on roasted potatoes. But we let students experiment within reason.

* Just enjoy hanging out, cooking, and eating good food. I really loved being in the kitchen with all the students, and I think they did too.

House Dating

This post is a little late in coming, as I've been in my new house for a couple months already. But I have to write something, because house hunting for a rental in Seattle was quite an interesting process.

I had decided months back that I was ready to stay in the city for awhile, but wasn't really looking forward to the legwork of finding a place. See, in over a decade of paying rent, I've lived in a good variety of homes. I've lived in houses with anywhere from 2 to 5 roommates. I've house sat a cabin with a huge garden and two arthritic dogs. I've lived in an off-grid yurt in the woods with an outdoor kitchen. I've lived in trailer on on farm hidden under kiwi vines, in a friend's basement, and in a studio apartment in South Korea. I've lived on a sailboat in winter where we had to keep heaters on all day for it to get tolerably warm, then had to open the windows at night for ventilation for the alcohol stove.

Needless to say, I had a pretty clear idea of what I was looking for- a house so there would be yard/garden space, no more than 3 roommates, bedroom not near the kitchen, clean and tidy, bike storage, and in the Greenlake/Wallingford/Ravenna area. I was most drawn to Wallingford with its great location, cute houses, and solid commercial district. Then I remembered that I was born in a house in Wallingford, and maybe I was unconsciously trying to come full-circle in my life for my Saturn Return. How fitting would it be to have lived in so many places, only to move back to Seattle a mile from where I was born?

I started doing the Craigslist scouting, and over a couple months saw about 8 houses. There was always something that wasn't quite right. Maybe the house was beautiful but too expensive. Or there was garden space but the kitchen was a sickly green and the flat-screen TV was right next to the bedroom. Or the house was great but the roommates seemed odd. Or the roommates were nice and there was a hot tub but it felt too much like a college house. Several times I debated if I'd be comfortable living with the homeowner.

It was fascinating to see little glimpses into all these strangers' lives- but also tiring to not find what I was looking for. Then it hit me: finding the right house was a lot like dating, with roommate posts being like life personal ads! We are trying to match up the right age, lifestyle, hobbies, ideals, budget, and aesthetic appeal. In a way, looking for a house was even more intimate than dating, because how often in the first half hour of meeting someone do you directly ask them specifics about their hobbies, job, diet, sleeping habits, relationship status, and how much furniture they own? Then I realized that if you are incredibly drawn to a house post, you might be drawn to one of the roommates. I looked at one house that was awesome, but I just knew it wasn't right to move in. Turns out one of the roommates and I had a crush on each other, and started dating! It was sort of funny when people asked us how we met. Awhile later, I was at a house party and started talking to this cute guy. He said I looked familiar, so for about 10 minutes we did the name game of listing places we had lived, things we do, and people we know. Finally he goes, "Wait! You interviewed for a room in our house a couple months ago!" I ended up getting his number but we never went out. Maybe he was still miffed that I had decided not to move in.

In March I saw a post for a 4-bedroom house in Phinney Ridge. It had hardwood floors, lots of sunlight, roommates about my age who were into the outdoors, lots of basement storage, and was on a double lot so the backyard was big. They already had chickens, a garden, and a giant trampoline. Sounded great, so I went to check it out.

I walked up the stairs of a well-kept yard and knocked on the front door. A small sliding window on the door opened and a suspicious looking elderly woman glared out at me.

"Uh... I'm..." I stepped back to double-check the house number. "I'm here about the room... the Craigslist ad." My hopes of a wonderful house were fading fast.

"One block down!" she motioned with a jerk of her head and slammed the window shut.

Turns out that in some poor city planning, there are two houses a block apart with the same house and street number, the only difference being that the street changes from N to NW. I hoped for better luck the second try. I walked into the house, where 3 friendly faces greeted me. They gave me a tour of the house, then we sat in the living room to chat. The weird thing is, I already felt like I was at home. The house was definitely mostly what I was looking for, though not perfect. But for some reason, because I knew the house was a good fit overall, the minor details didn't bother me. This is also like dating, being able to overlook imperfections when you know you have something great. And so I'm now in a committed relationship with my home, falling in love more every day as I garden in the backyard, take care of the chickens, and hang with awesome roommates.