Goodbye 2013

The last day of the year and the first day of the year inspire looking back over the time that has passed. In thinking back on my 2013, I realize that I spent a lot of time in the backyard gardening and on the couch reading, knitting, and viewing TV shows and movies.

I didn’t really blog too much this year. In fact I had the fewest posts in 2013 than I have in the past five years of blogging. But when I did post things, I covered hiking, some running, making pasta, knitting (hats mostly), the garden (of course), and travel to both the east and west coasts.

You might be asking yourself, “What’s left to review?” Well, I’ll tell you:

Hanging out with Emily and Archer. I have spent several happy Saturdays or Sundays in the company of these two and 2013 wouldn’t have been the same without them!

 

Cookie day with Lisa. While we traveled to California and had several dinners and a few drinks this year, “cookie day” with Lisa was a pretty memorable time. Only one photo from that day though.

Knife skills class at Cook Street. Seth and I spent a cold February evening learning how to hold knives and cut various things uniformly. They also wanted us to debone a whole chicken. I had to draw the line there. I know, I eat chicken, but I’m one of those hypocritical meat eaters – I sincerely dislike handling raw meats of any kind. And dismembering a chicken carcass is completely out of the question.

 

We ate dim sum in Denver. There may be no better way to spend a snowy morning than to get Asian food off of roaming carts. We usually go to Superstar Asian and love it.

We (mostly Seth) fixed up the back room. This involved all kinds of work – framing windows, hanging drywall, picking colors and painting, making a counter top, laying the floor, finding furniture, etc. But it turned out quite well!

I ran my first half marathon – the Colfax Half Marathon. It wasn’t too bad. The training was a 14-week program that eased me into the longer and longer distances. It does take a bit of discipline and perseverance to get there but in the end I ran the entire event – no walking, which was my goal (not to walk). While Seth was hanging around at various spots on the course, I never saw him and we didn’t really get any photos. I did poach one from the race site though! I’m bottom center in the orange shorts.

In September we got engaged! So, part of the last portion of the year was spent looking for a wedding dress, visiting ceremony/reception venues, and picking out invitations.

We celebrated my birthday by having tea at the Brown Palace. Pricey but a cool experience with the ritual of tea and the little tea sandwiches and desserts and so on. We got the kir royale tea program (comes with champagne!).

Otherwise, we did a lot of regular and not-very-exciting things. One Sunday that I documented shows the Costco shopping, the thrift store searching, the having coffee, and the search for couch pillows.

Happy New Year!!