Safe to Put our Coats Away?

Today's photo: A Sign was my attempt to capture the gorgeousness of DC today - although unfortunately  I had to be inside most of the day. All I wanted to do was go for a nice long bike ride - maybe along the Potomac... luckily the weather forecast is upper 70s all week, so I think I'll have to make time for a bike ride soon. Today was spent on my computer, a combination of Helsinki Library stuff and portfolio. I think I may be getting close (fingers crossed). Evan, Chloe and I did make a point of eating our lunch outside in the park next to the Key Bridge. I think all three of us fair-skinned friends got a little red. But it was nice. And I introduced them to T. Sweets after work. Nothing like a little bit of Gtown nostalgia on a sunny day like today!

Sweet Indulgence

I just got home from an amazing dinner with Robin. She's moving this weekend back to Texas so we thought it would be best to have our "last supper" at a place we had always wanted to try: Coco Sala. Which worked out perfectly as today's word is fork (I will also add my Internet has been out basically since Friday hence me being MIA- I'm writing this post from my phone and I'm already getting annoyed correcting my typos). So I'm going to keep this post short and sweet (yes pun intended). Robin and I both love chocolate so we had pretty high expectations, but they were definitely fulfilled and then some. We started the night with cocktails - she ordered a malted chocolate martini while I ordered a coco-jito (chocolate mojito), both were delicious. We split a few savory starters to save room for dessert - tomato and buratta salad and bacon mac and cheese (with a piece of chocolate covered bacon on top!) - the later actually ended up being my favorite dish of the meal. But yes onto dessert. We split the trio of hot chocolates as Robin had heard the peanut butter hot coco was great - I think it had been written up about in the Washington Post? It basically tasted like someone melted real peanut butter into hot chocolate - amazing! But somehow the salted caramel (with marshmallow topping) one topped it. Then we split a sticky toffee pudding concoction with ginger ice cream. The ice cream was crazy good. I kept saying it could have been a topping for sushi (like how Chef Elizabeth Falkner made ice cream for savory dishes on The Next Iron Chef). Oh, and we ordered a chocolate mouse with a salty caramel filling that was delicious. I can't remember ever eating that much dessert in my life but well worth the splurge. Luckily we walked the two miles back to my house, and I take after my dad in being a human garbage disposal ;-). Such a great meal with such a great friend. I keep thinking how much I'll miss Robin, but once I move back to California, she'll actually be much closer to me in Texas so I guess I can't complain...

Shop/Window

Even though I'm not working full time, sometimes I have a hard time keeping up on here. Yesterday was Kacy's birthday, and we spent most of the day working in the wood shop at CUA trying to get her thesis model finished. It's spring break this week, so it was so nice having the building virtually empty (and the shop to ourselves). Here's yesterday's something you wore. I feel like I'm the poster-child for a California native in this pic - Tom's, blue jeans, a white t-shirt and a hoodie.  I have a nice layer of sawdust appearing on my shoes as well. I think someday I'm going to have to have a mini-shop in my garage (you know, when I have a house with a garage when I'm like 65). It's been pretty cool learning how to use all of the machines over the last few years, so I think I'm going to need to have a jointer, planer, table and chop saws at some point...

I was back at Travis's office today working on the Helsinki competition, and captured this window from D&D - somehow I find myself in there almost every Tuesday/Thursday. I figured it was a pretty nice one, though. And a much needed coffee escape as well.

Now I'm just waiting for the arrival of my friend Sean who's staying over tonight for a job interview he has in the morning (pretty nice that I have an extra bedroom here). It will be nice to catch up with him and just relax for a bit. Tomorrow morning I'm off to get my hair cut, then finally planning to get back to my portfolio in the afternoon. 'Til tomorrow!

Around Town

I'm dying to crawl into bed, so I'm going to keep today's post short and sweet. I left Georgetown right at 5pm so I could meet my Uncle Bruce for dinner downtown. We had a nice dinner at Fogo de Chao and he filled me in on his and my aunt's ongoing process of renovating their house in Pacific Grove. They have decided to make it a passive house, so it was interesting hearing about his forays into this endeavor - and he said he'd pass along some of the research/companies they've looked into, which will be a great resource for me as school leaves you in want of some actual applications, not just the theoretical stuff. I included a pic from our walk together to the capitol after dinner, and then my walk home along the water. Got to get some rest - working in the wood shop tomorrow morning with Kacy, and we have the quarter finals of our volleyball league tomorrow night. This week is racing by!

Monday Momentum

This smile is a tribute to my super productive day! Thankful for a snowy forecast (which of course didn't happen), I rocked some sweet sweatpants and my Uggs all day and sat in front of my computer screen. I not only finished my entry for the DC AIA Unbuilt Competition (I submitted my thesis project - wanted to upload a pic of my board as well, but couldn't get it to work on Blogger - I think the file is just too big?), but I also made a dent (hooray! a dent!!) in my portfolio. It's amazing the things you can get done when you put your mind to it. Still have more to do of course, but I think today's effort is going to give me some momentum. 

Now if only I could get rid of this nagging sore throat and cold. Although, the sore throat justifies eating limitless ice cream, right?

How Time Flies

I drove out to Ashburn to see my Aunt Cheryl today. We had a nice lunch together, and then we "got down to business" discussing plans for remodeling the bathrooms in her house. We've been vaguely talking about this for a while now, but it wasn't until tonight when I went to look back over what we had started that I realized just how long we've been "talking" about this project. In fact, I posted about it almost a year ago today! Sometimes I don't recognize how everything really was put on hold while I was in school. But I'm excited to get back into this project with her while I'm still on the East Coast. And Cheryl doesn't really have any specific ideas for the bathrooms as far as colors or finishes, so I think over the next few days I'm going to put together some idea boards for her with different looks. Just the thought of doing a real project - even if small - is pretty exciting. I have missed this stuff a ton.

Anyways, I thought today's challenge of bedside was pretty appropriate. Just crawled into bed with a pile of magazines to start looking for inspiration!

Night Out

Just leaving my new neighborhood to metro to my old one. Panpan's in town and I couldn't be more excited for the Gtown reunion ahead.