My 2016 Firsts!!

It's been a couple years since I've put up one of these posts...it's something I try to do for myself whether or not I post them here but while in the middle of our Trip to Croatia, I realized I hadn't started this year's list yet and there were so many things that were new experiences for me this year and it was only April!  On the ferry back from Hvar Island, I grabbed a notebook and started jotting things down.  So, fresh off the heels of an incredibly cool vacation, I figured I would share my list after settling back in to the daily routine.  I decided to start with the very first day of the year so my first item technically was...

My first New Year's Day in Paris!

First visit to Mont Saint Michel.

First trip to the Brittany Coast.

First time to Disney Studios Paris.  

First (and last) time trying Andouillette!  Trust me on this, people, andouillette and andouille sausage are not the same thing.  I was so proud of me for trying something new that I didn't know anything about and I barely choked down the first bite.  Kris sent it back to the kitchen, told them we'd pay for it and we ordered me much more agreeable plate of fettuccine.  Kris was telling coworkers about it the next day and one guy was like "Well, it must not have been cooked right," but I can't imagine that any of it being cooked any differently would have encouraged me to take another bite.  It's pure evil.  

Moving on!

First time witnessing a wedding by a French official.  Here, everyone gets married in city hall.  You can do a traditional church ceremony after the fact if you want, but legally, you have to get married in an official (but lovely) setting.  Our friends had a lovely ceremony and a serious party to celebrate and it was a blast.

First plane flight out of Paris (to Croatia.)

First time to Croatia!  We went landed in Zagreb, went to Split, Plitvika, Dubrovnik (Better known as King's Landing for all us GoT's fans), and Hvar Island.  

First time in Bosnia.  Our route to Dubrovnik took us into a corner of the country for about fifteen minutes of driving time easy way, long enough to get passports stamped to mark the occasion and pull over for a coffee and bathroom break, but we got stamps, so I count it as a thing, though I'd never have guessed that in all my travels I'd ever be able to say that.  But it simply reinforces the knowledge that you can drive all day and not get out of California but drive half a day here and cross a country.

And on that note, we thought Croatia was not in the EU but a couple years ago it was added, so on entering Bosnia, it was officially our first time leaving the EU while living here.  

First time on a car ferry!  The island of Hvar is large enough to drive around so we took our rental with us and followed our own little guide.  I've been on ferries before, of course, but this was the first one that hauled cars that I've ever been on.  

First ferry ride on the Adriatic Sea and the first time seeing the Adriatic in person!

First time speaking Croatian! (Just 'Hi' and 'thank you', but it counts.  It's 'bok' and 'hvala', by the way.)

First time tasting Croatian wine and Algerian wine, beef cheeks, and black cherry grappa and honey grappa.  We picked what turned out to be an amazing restaurant for dinner in Old Town Dubrovnik and everything there was amazing, and the grappa was graciously on the house with our dessert.  

First time leaving Croatia by bus.  And what was apparently out first time riding through Slovenia on route to Venice.  

My first visit to Venice!!  Kris has been there twice before but it was so amazing to see it in person!  It was so nice to be back on Italian soil with the laid back atmosphere we came to love living in Lugano and visiting Milan and Rome.  And along with that, it was our first visit to the Hard Rock, Venice, and my first time on a water bus.  Venice has boats, just like any other city has buses or a metro, that run back and forth along different routes and different stops along either side of the canals.  So very cool.

Traveling firsts aside, this year was my first time bowling in Paris, first time living with an inflatable couch, and as of later on this year it will be my first time as a matron of honor in my Best friend Kelsey's wedding, and my first time in a wedding party, so I'm super excited and very honored to be involved.   It's going to be a whirlwind of a year, but that's just how we roll on our adventures!

Cheers!

Allie H.

Our Productive Weekend in Paris!!

Fun filled weekend!  Saturday was our "get everything done day" and we left the hotel shortly before 9 am....six hours later we'd been to three banks, the third of which handled new clients and opened new accounts on Saturdays and didn't care where Kris's first paycheck was from, so they got our business!  We got an account with debit cards, we got local sim cards for our phones so we have service and WiFi for maps and such.  Next, we headed off to Porte d'Vincennes and found a case for one of Kris's hard drives, wandered into a cave in search of a good bottle of tequila and found one.  Asked and was recommended a nice bottle of red for just shy of ten euros, so bottles in pack, we finally settled in to a very late lunch, but well worth the wait.  We both had what was basically a very large slab of bacon with crispy skin on and a little meat sandwiched around pure fat, fries on the side...to die for.  Found fresh limes for our tequila on the way home.  The tequila was quite inspired by our first visit to the Mexican place near our hotel....pre-mixed margaritas.  Not at all what we were hoping for, so we decided to grab the ingredients and do our own.  We mixed up a first round yesterday after bike rides but decided we needed simple syrup or something to blend the lime and ended up with Orange Fanta.  Not quite orange liqueur but an improvement!  Took everything home after a stop for coffee at a usual cafe and then melted onto the couch and had some late snacks while perusing housing choices.  

Sunday we slept in....Poor Chloe was so patient waiting for anyone to get up to take her outside and once we got up we took her on a big walk around the Sunday marche (farmer's market), found some nice cheese and bread to go with our bottle of red, stopped at a cafe for coffees and lunch and met the neighboring table who have been transplants in Paris for about five years now.  Nice to catch up with someone in English for a minute!  While wandering about, we got to see what Kris calls the French pastime....Sunday mornings, I think the first of the month, everyone brings stuff out from their apartments, offices, houses, wherever, if they don't want it, they toss it in neat piles on the street corner or around various benches on the sidewalks.  Books, area rugs, clothes, furniture....all unwanted out on the street.  And people walking by go through it all and grab the things that they want and the rest of it is left for the trash trucks to pick up, and they do.  This morning it was all gone like it had never been there!  Back at the hotel we napped out for awhile and then rallied to get the bikes out and go for a ride!  We were so focused on making sure the bikes were ready to ride that we forgot our bread, wine and cheese.  Tucked Chloe into her basket and had a nice hour and half ride through the Boit (forest) behind the Chateau d'Vincennes.

Cheers!

Allie H. 

Honey Garlic Chicken Made Easy!

I've been wanting to try this recipe ever since I came across it, and since, a couple weeks back when we went to the store, we've had a tray of chicken thighs tucked away in the freezer waiting for us to polish off leftovers and work with the fresh ground beef in the fridge.  And yesterday, we finally got around to it.  I consulted a handful of websites for cooking times of frozen chicken since I threw it in after lunch when Kris said, "Hey, we need to do something with that chicken," and so I pulled out the crock pot and did.  There's more than a few different recipes for Honey-Garlic Chicken but I picked one, tweaked the measurements a bit because I had probably twice the chicken, added a sliced up onion in the bottom of my crock pot before putting the chicken in, , and letting it do all the rest of work.  I wanted to lick the marinade off of the whisk when I was done putting it all together!  (It smelled like something I would have made homemade jerky with when I was a kid in 4-H.)  

Kris came home and it had about half an hour left so we went on our walk and came back to find out that our new crock pot DOES in fact kick over to warm when the timer goes off, so had part of a nice meal waiting for us.  We pondered and decided noodles, so he set the chicken aside, we added some hot water and tossed some pasta into the sauce, turned in back on high for thirty minutes and ran down to the bar for a quick drink and the beginning of the soccer game between Manchester and PSG, excused ourselves to come home and chow down on chicken and sauce coated noodles before going back to the game.  The chicken fell right off the bone.  Picking up a piece the skin slid right off and came away with the tongs.  It was perfectly done and the flavor is amazing.  I didn't so much care for the texture of the sauce on the pasta, that whole "one-pot" texture that happens with pasta that normally I don't always taste, but there was just enough to cook and coat the noodles.  I should have taken before-pictures but the finished product was much prettier by far!  

So, Honey-Garlic Chicken!

4-8 Chicken Thighs (our tray had seven and I threw them all in)

Half a cup of soy sauce, and a little extra

One third cup honey

Half a cup of ketchup, and a bit extra

4 cloves of garlic, minced

2-3 teaspoons dried basil
One medium onion, sliced

Onion, chicken, marinade whisked together and poured into the crock pot.  Couldn't be easier and after five hours on high, it's done!  Next time I'm definitely cooking the noodles separately to avoid that texture, but this recipe is a keeper.  IF any of you try this, please let me know how your cooking times worked out and what you served with it!
Happy Cooking!

To The Seaside, Hoo Hoo, By The Beautiful Sea

Spring in France is beautiful!  Especially on the coast.  We took a little weekend trip to Mont Saint Michel in Normandy a couple weeks back and got to skip over to the ocean-side of things in Brittany and we realized that we missed the ocean so much, and it was so pretty to see.  Being to ocean, it took our breath away...and it took Kris's hat!  The wind kicked up and whisked it right off his head and into the surf.  

Mont Saint Michel was equally as breathtaking!  While it was cold, gray and rainy much of the time we spent there, plenty of people were out to see it, and while wandering through the little town, because it is in fact a town, and technically an island, which is so cool.  The minor 9 euro cost to enter the abbey is well worth it.  It goes on and on for days and the views out over the bay are amazing.  We lucked out with a sunny first day and got to see sunset, having the dog with us couldn't enter the abbey so went back the next day and left her tucked in the nice warm hotel room for a few hours.  We did the abbey tour, warmed up with lunch and asked our waitress how we could move there and she told us if we managed it, we should come back and see her, but it's pretty impossible.

We later found out from the owner of the hotel why it was so tough.  The population of the town is about 45 people, made up of three families who run all the shops and restaurants, and while the abbey and the town is a UNESCO World Heritage site, the abbey is cared for by a community of monks and nuns who replaced a group of Benedictine monks in the sixties.  So it's really, really tough to move in, and we'll just have to settle for visiting it every chance we get.  Which is totally fine with us.  Once it warms up a bit more we have to go back to the ocean and spend a few days, because Brittany, too, was so very cool.  We got our plethora of ocean views and waves crashing on the rocks and along the beaches and grabbed lunch and a little silver sailboat souvenir to go with a glass one that we have before heading back home again.  Quite the weekend!

Au Revoir, California! Bonjour, Paris!

It was only a matter of time...We've moved to Paris!
After all my non-blogging, why not jump back in with the new adventure?!

The opportunity came for us to pick up and travel and go somewhere new and see new things and re-immerse ourselves into a type of culture that we love so much.  Kris has switched jobs and is now working for Ubisoft, the company that produces Assassin's Creed and so much more.  He's the mobile lead for games, so he'll be in charge of the systems on the back end of the mobile game division, so, for example, when a new game comes out and 10 thousand people jump and download it all at once, he's responsible for making sure all those systems run efficiently without incident, processes like that.  He's excited, and I'm happy he's getting a change of pace that will be a boost to his skills and his career, in Paris of all places.  I love being back in Europe!  I love all of the different little neighborhoods.  I love that having a pocketful of coins can buy you a beer or an espresso or a pre-made sandwich (with meat and cheese and greens you know are fresh!)  I really kind of love that there seems to be a sushi joint on every other block.  I'm still dismayed that there's a McDonald's tucked into every area populated with grocery shops, bakeries and cafes.  There's a Pizza Hut across the street from our hotel.  With all the epic cheap mom and pop pizza shops, somehow, there's a Pizza Hut.  Le Sigh.  I love that there's a castle right down the street from our hotel and I'd really love to live in it but maybe I could settle for being a tour guide for American tourists.

The atmosphere is different and lovely.  There are people bustling everywhere but it's not at all rushed or strained unless it's anywhere near the exact minute of commute hour on the metro.  The people are very nice, the coffee is what I've been missing and the food, so far, has been wonderful.  We had a quiet dinner in hotel our first night in...the receptionist sent us up a nice welcome package that had pasta, a little jar of sauce, chocolate, tea, coffee, snack mix, two waters and some packaged soup and all we had to do was go to the store, grab some beef and bread and we had a quick bite before we crashed from a long day of travel.  We went from Oakland to Salt Lake where we had an eight-hour layover so we could give the dog a rest between flights and grab lunch at The Red Iguana, sure to be the last real good Mexican food we get anywhere for awhile, chilled out with family and a friend of Kris's for a moment, then got back on the flight from Salt Lake straight to Charles De Gaulle airport. 

Kris was smart and upgraded us to economy comfort over the pond, which was a bit more room, and while the flight attendant said we couldn't put Chloe's carrier on our laps when we asked, they didn't show up for two hours into the flight to offer us something to drink, then dinner an hour later, then nothing until breakfast, so we got away with it anyway.  We just opened her carrier enough to let her pop her head out and covered her with a blanket.  As usual, take-off and landing was not fun for her but this was her best flight yet, despite not having been on a plane for a couple years now.  Such a pro traveler.  We landed to a rainy, gray Paris morning and even though we hadn't slept much and were sore and exhausted, all three of us were so happy to be in a taxi with our bags and our bikes and on route to our hotel, our home for the time being until we find something more permanent.  We've been lusting over a particular river boat but admittedly have been looking at others and we may be close to finding something perfect for us, and an apartment wouldn't be out of the question, either, depending on where it is and how much it goes for.  We'll have it figured out soon.  After all our stressing and re-packing and waiting for paperwork and then rushing to have everything done once paperwork was a go, it's nice to finally be here after months in the making of a new chapter.
More to come, I promise!
Cheers,

Allie H.

Time Flies!

Has it really been this long since my last post?  Yikes!  Suffice it to say we've had a busy summer!  We finally tried the oven and while it takes forever to cook two mini pizzas, it does in fact cook food quite well!  So far we're tried mini-pizzas and an entree for two, but we've been playing with the grill as well.  I've been getting into the habit of cooking an entire package worth of pasta so that I have cold pasta for a couple of days for lunch, or if we make it for dinner there's leftovers for Kris to take to work since he can easily reheat them. Though I am quite excited...our neighbor had an extra small crock pot in her possession that she gave to us!  We had dinner with her and her nephew one night and it was shredded pork tacos from the crock pot.  She'd found a package of six pork rounds that she threw into her crock pot (1.5 qt) and it was enough food for her and Jimmy to have two tacos each the night before and for all four of us to have two more that night with sides.  I'd seriously been thinking about bringing our huge one here because it would be so easy to make dinner and four or five leftovers for Kris, and then to prep food for our next dock party/barbecue but I really had no idea where I'd be able to put the darn thing, since it's so huge.  Solution?  Free small kitchen appliances from friends.  I'd started shopping online when Lindi came by to tell us that she'd found the one that her mother had owned at her brother's house and that she'd bring it to us.  I'm imagining slow-cooked pasta sauce and all I have to do is cook pasta when Kris gets home, or hot-dip appetizers for crowds, shredded chicken....I'll let your imaginations run away with you.  So I've been searching for smaller crock-pot recipes and ways to cook staples like rice and beans and realizing that all you have to do is cut those big recipes in half!  Small batches of tortellini-tomato soup? Done!  Best of all, it can be tucked away under the settee when not in use. Not that I've done that yet.  I keep staring at it, imagining the smells I've been missing of all-day cooking without the hassle.  Whoever invented the crock pot was a genius. 

Kris has been full-tilt at work and so usually by the time he's done, he's ready to relax!  We come home, catch up with the neighbors, have a drink, dinner or nosh, watch a movie, and chill.  We still go play Ingress occasionally...we've been getting a little lax on it the past month or so.  He's been installing a new system, including all the prep work, running cables and the like, testing, troubleshooting, and getting the machine up and running so between that and actually having some issues to deal with during on-call weeks, our free time is lazy free time!  Though we have done a few evening sails, a nighttime sail last month, and we took a class to help us prep for taking the test to get our radio operating license for the boat.  (We scheduled to take the test this weekend, so wish us luck!)  

Family and Birthdays!  Kris's step-dad Roy found himself with two tickets for the Brit Floyd Concert in Utah and no one to go with him, so Kris took a couple days off work and we drove to Salt Lake City for a long weekend.  Kris got to go enjoy Floyd with Roy and we got to catch up with family and friends, see our new baby niece Willow (who slept the whole time everyone passed her around!), and enjoy the beautiful drive home again.  My family and our friend Kirby came up to celebrate my birthday and the dock turned into a last minute dock party, which was a blast!  We went down to Monterey to Allegro's for a late lunch for my brother's birthday, went to Santa Cruz for the annual Portuguese Sopa Feed with Ralph and Sabi, which we've been missing, had Kirby here for Kris's birthday weekend, and finally went down to Monterey last weekend to see my mom for her belated birthday, have dinner with the folks, and spend Sunday with friends.  And I got my hair re-dyed red again while we were there.  We planning on seeing Kris's cousin Josh soon...he's got an interview with a company in the Bay Area so we should be having a guest on the boat for a couple of days.

Summer has been in full swing on the dock!  Neighbors we've not seen during the winter season come and go, and we've had a handful of new people in the area with their boats, with lots more people going on on the weekends to sail or hang out in the area to watch the America's Cup festivities.  Chloe's jealous of the new puppy our neighbors have but she still gets plenty of love and pets when she wanders up and down the dock or when we take her to the club on the weekends for brunch or the like.  And we found bikes!  We've been waiting, budgeting, and a very affordable pair of Trek's popped up on craigslist.  We bought them, bought a bike basket for Chloe, and I've been re-finding bicycle muscles that have been out of use for awhile.  Note to self: work out more often!  But it's awesome!  So far we've biked to CVS to get a tire pump and an extra bike lock, down to the Italian place for takeout dinner, a few times just out and back, and every time that we let Chloe out of the doggie basket she goes absolutely crazy running in figure-eights on whatever lawn is closest.  She tried to jump out the first time she was strapped in and it didn't go so well so I think she's learned to stay in, even when the bike is not in motion.  I signed up for my first class on coursera just for kicks...and I'm working on stories!  Life is good.  Loving the sunny, beautiful weather in Alameda and enjoying our adventure.

Enjoy your adventure!
Allie H.

Errands and Galley Appliances!

It's Errand Day! PO box checked, gas tank filled, various and sundry items taken to storage, grocery store raided for our supply of instant mashed potatoes and a couple other necessities, trash from the car & the boat tossed, and now I'm debating whether or not to prep chicken salad for lunch tomorrow so it's nice and cold.  It's probably going to happen.  

Updates!  Strictly Sail Boat Convention was this weekend and all the yacht clubs were out promoting.  Our friend Anita is a member of Encinal Yacht Club and she invited us to take a tour of it Sunday morning when we ran into her and so we went to take a look.  It's right up the street from our gate and it's amazing!  It's got a pool, sauna, beautiful bar and dinning room, event rooms, monthly racing and cruising events that the members help organize, and unlike most of the yacht clubs around here, we don't have to spend a certain amount of money there over our monthly dues at the bar or for the brunches and dinners, so that's cool.  And in honor of Strictly Sail, they're waiving the usual initiation fee if we signed up this weekend.  So we did!  They're meeting Thursday to discuss all the new applicants so we should know and be official by Friday.  We stayed for the pasta dinner as Anita's guests, which is so fun if you've never been to one.  They have a salad bar station and then the pasta station, where you pick everything you want and hand it to the chef who cooks it up and you choose what sauce and pasta you want it with.  One of Kris's coworkers is actually a member too so it was good to meet him and it's nice to know that we know someone in the group!  It was so much fun and we met a few more of our neighbors, and we think it's going to be awesome to really be a part of the sailing community up here and to get to help out with the activities.  You can even reserve the club to have your own private parties, so we may have to have to take advantage of that!  Also, on our last minute trip to Strictly Sail, we got sailing gloves, ordered a life jacket for Chloe, and drooled over all the pretty 35 and 50 foot shiny boats for sale.  

We also figured out that our galley stove/oven actually works!  We asked a neighbor about it since he has the same style stove he told us that his is in the same condition as ours was and to try it out!  We went and got the fuel we needed to fill the canisters and tried it out.  And we made quesadillas for dinner!  I put the electric burner away yesterday and last night we tried both burners at the same time last night and it's so nice to be able to cook two things at the same time!  We have yet to try out the oven but we'll have to figure out something to make for our first use.  It's not huge, but I think I could fit in a 9x11 pan and that's more than we need.  We now need to repair the stove-side slide on table leaf as a prep station.  I may try re-configuing the outlets because everything's plugged into the power bar that hangs over the sink, which is serving as our liquor cabinet since we hadn't needed to USE the sink.  Without the support-brace underneath it folded out, you slide it on and it literally just falls right off, which it's not supposed to do.  Another project for the list!  But we did figure out that our bilge pump was only clogged and not actually broken, so we took the replacement kit that we bought back to West Marine.  We shifted a bunch of DVD's to a case and I took all the plastic ones to the storage space today, along with the clothes we traded out for the warm weather ones I grabbed the other day.  We picked everything up off the floor, swept, mopped, shook out the floor rugs,  figured out the trick to flushing the toilet when there's no back pressure...and more!  All in all a productive weekend that we hadn't planned on having and it was awesome!  Functioning on the boat day to day is really coming together and I'm so happy.  Every time we re-organize and put supplies we're just going to make it better and better and once we get into our list of projects our boat is going to be stylie.  
What are you looking to accomplish that's going to make your daily life better?
Happy Project Listing!
Enjoy,

Allie H.

The Live-Aboard Life...and Updates!

We are settled in to the Bay Area!  We paid our LAST rent check to Miami last month and just got the news that we would be getting back most of our deposit, which was surprising because the management company sent us the checklist saying we'd be charged like, $300 for pet cleaning, etc.  And they're only keeping about $85 bucks.  So we're stoked.  We're thrilled not to be paying money for an apartment we're not using anymore and we're stoked that we can catch up on a few things around here, start a couple projects on the boat, and not have $2K a month just going out the window!  It's awesome.  And it's time for an update!  

Kris is digging in at his new job, working with two new hires and settling in with his coworkers, been given a few projects and next week he starts being on-call to monitor the systems after hours from home should any alerts find him.  He's gotten some updates from friends of ours in Lugano who have moved on to better positions and we're so happy to hear some news from there from time to time.  My laptop crashed and had to be rebooted with Ubuntu and hopefully that's the last of that problem.  Kris put not the most current but the more stable version as he's been having issues with the most current version he updated his personal laptop with so we're trying to make sure mine doesn't have the same issues as well, which is nice. :)  He also downgraded himself to a cane after about 7 months on crutches and having to travel with them when he went back for work training in WI for a couple weeks.  His leg has been doing really well even though he's turned into more of a human barometer than me and my knees when a low-pressure front comes through, but that's to be expected.  Otherwise, he's walking pretty well.  We'll eventually go get another set of x-rays to get the official word but considering how many months of his life he's spent on crutches he's got a pretty good idea of when he can start using it more.  We're planning to find a pool so we can both get back to swimming and getting back in shape.

As for me, after seeing a few quotes I've liked lately, and looking around inside the salon of our boat, I've decided that life is terribly uncomplicated when you live on a boat.  The interior/exterior home repairs take the same amount of time, money, and planning.  You have just enough room for the basics, and the basics are all you need, really, and we're doing pretty good getting by with them, for the most part.  I do admit to missing my crock pot but since our fridge isn't big enough to hold all the leftovers that come from cooking in a crock pot, and not to mention I have no clue where I'd store it when not using it, or the amount of power it would suck up, the problem sorted itself out.  Not to worry, I'm still pinning all sorts of delicious sounding crock pot recipes to my Pinterest page for when we eventually do get around to getting a small apartment and cooking for the holidays.  Try as I might, I cannot imagine a turkey stuffed into our little galley oven!  I went to the storage space yesterday to retrieve a handful of things, shorts, bathing suits (as it's getting particularly gorgeous in Alameda) and, more specifically, our big saucepan.  I found it and so I threw out the cheap frying pan we bought when we first landed in Miami in the trash.  It was one of those sets that work in a pinch but that tend to scorch and warp after a long period of use and it served us well, but was too small for homemade spaghetti sauce and barely big enough for a big quesadilla so it needs to go.  It will also replace the current need for a bigger saucepan as we can actually cook more than one serving of pasta in it without boiling over and it will actually fit where the current pan one is residing.  Plus, I really just missed it and I can justify it's presence on the boat over the crock pot.  It's the big non-stick saucepan I bought at Safeway when I first moved out of my parent's house and I've loved it ever since, and it's been serving me well.  That's right, it moved from Monterey to Switzerland to Miami and back home to California.  It's a well-traveled pan.  I don't know too many people who can say that their kitchen utensils have made two ocean crossings.  I'm looking forward to having it back in my arsenal of cooking weapons as I figured out long ago that I can make a whole entree in it, one pot style, depending on the ingredients, and even rice, if I pay attention, so I love it.  

We went to Costco a couple weeks bag and stocked up with our usual snack foods and then soups, pasta sauces, tortillas, Mac and Cheese, canned chicken.  I made the decision a few weeks ago to just go ahead and turn on our fridge, so we've got that handy place for our butter and milk for Mac, cheese for tortillas, refrigeration for when I make chicken salad (honestly, what better way is there of covering up that canned chicken taste than smothering it with mayo and spices?), and the promise of putting a few more fresh veggies back into our meals.  We've been eating WAY too much fast food while resettling in a new city and not having a full kitchen to cook with.  While I love just grabbing a pizza, my stomach has been having an issue with it and we need to cook more at home and have more food options on the boat that aren't all processed or can be be made from a box or can but healthier.  We'd initially worried that it would have too big an effect on the house batteries but after having it up and running for an hour it figured out it's power cycle and everything else we've had plugged in doesn't seem to be bothered by it so I think we're good.  Our neighbor suggested that we could just hit up the ice machine in the laundry room every couple of days and put enough ice in the fridge to keep it cold so we could not turn it on but the thought of taking everything back out to re-do the ice every couple of days honestly makes me lazy.  It's small enough that if we set the bucket of ice on the shelf, it would cut down our refrigeration room by quite a bit so it would have to just be poured into the space under the shelf...thus not wanting to take everything out and put it all back in again all the time when not rearranging for a carton of eggs.  That's all you need, right?  Eggs, quesadilla supplies (all of which, when mixed together give you the most simple of breakfast burritos) and bacon. There's always room for bacon : )  And the occasional six-pack of cider.  I'm pretty sure, to everyone in line with us at the grocery store, we look like college students when we're not re-supplying our fruits and veggies.  Eggs, shredded cheese, Ramen noodles, three bags of chips and alcohol.  Yeah.  I'd look at us funny, too. :)

Weekends when we haven't made any plans we wake up, get bagels for breakfast and sit out in the sun reading away to our hearts content.  We're currently reading the Dresden Files series.  If you've seen the show but not read the books, I'd highly recommend it!  I'm also a serious chunk into the second book of the Game of Thrones series so I'm slightly behind the new season but as Kris says, I read faster than he does.  No worries here.  We've done a couple more sailing runs, in and around the estuary but we need to repair a back-stay so that might have precedence over the next trip out.  Every few weeks we get down to Monterey and see Kirby and my folks.  When Kris was in WI I spent tons of time with my mom, got my hair re-done red and chopped it all off (which I'm happy about now that the sun is out in full force) and saw my brother and his girlfriend for dinner one night with my Dad, which was good.  At Christmas, Dad bought  us all gift certificates to the shooting range and ammo for our particular guns so we need to plan a weekend where we can all meet up and go hunt some pesky clay pigeons.  We're making boat neighbor friends, Chloe's charming everyone and their dogs around the marina and the currently the bathrooms at our gate are going to be shut down for renovation starting Monday.  They're bringing in those trailers with the showers and nicer portable bathrooms and the main gate bathroom will still be open, as they're rotating their renovation schedule, but it's going to make parking fun.  And this just in!  Our friend Carla from Miami is visiting San Fran next month and we look forward to spending some time with her.  Wish we could get back to Miami for a visit but it won't be any time soon, for sure, and so it'll be nice to see her.  And our friend Bethany, from Lugano, is back home and about a half an hour away from us and it's ridiculous that we haven't seen her yet, but we're making plans.  She grew up in the same town as my parents and actually vaguely knows my cousins, as my aunt and uncle are still there, which was a fun thing to learn when we met her halfway around the world in SW.  And the annual Oakland Boat expo and seminars are kicking  off here pretty quickly.  This was were we did the Offshore Sailing seminar a couple years ago and I was told by one our neighbors this morning that there are a handful of free seminars you can sit in on so we might have to go look those up and see what's going on.  

People to catch up with and spaghetti to cook!  (A few recipes I've found including eggs cooked in tomato sauce and served over noodles...Yum!)
What are you catching up on this month?
Happy Plannings!

Enjoy,
Allie H.

2013 Edition of Firsts!

So I tried this last year, keeping track of all my "firsts" for the year and I'm going to keep it up, and expand my list!  So far, notably, we're starting with the obvious:
1. Living on a boat full time, with live-aboard status at one harbor!
2. Indian food!  I've had some before but specifically, tonight, we ordered Lamb Palak, which is lamb in special creamy spinach sauce. I don't know what makes it special but I'm going to find out when it's delivered :) A few weeks ago we had Tikka Marsala and I believe I've tried that before but I'm trying new things!  
3. Boat repairs! We had a couple electrical shorts over the last couple weeks, separately, and the first time it happened overnight during the week and so spent the day without power.  Luckily, our neighbor, who is a contractor and had redone his entire boat, was around in the morning as we were leaving for work and was around well in time to help me make the repairs before I had to go pick up Kris.  He took a look at the electrical panel and figured out where the problem was, and we went to the hardware store where he has a discount code and we got what we needed.  He showed me how to strip a wire and crimp it to a new connector to stick it back on the bus bar.  Voila!  We plugged everything back in to shore power and gave it a try, and it worked!  The next time it happened we were able to borrow his tools but we pretty much knew what we needed to do.  Go me!  I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of these firsts because we have an ongoing list of boat repairs that need to be done, including replacing the head (toilet, for you landlubbers), replacing the curtains, repairing the cushions in the salon, fixing the stove/oven so we can cook more effectively on the boat...you get my drift. Lots o'stuff needs our attention!  As well as eventually rewiring the whole boat.  
4.  Okay, I don't have a four yet.  But we just bought an electric one-burner hot plate last night so I imagine cooking an omelet on a boat is in the near future :)  We've been trying to do well in our eating as our only cooking facilities on the boat has been a gas grill, but now, we will be able to get a few more homemade meals in, which would be awesome.  We also grabbed a plastic measuring cup as I've been not wanting to have the pyrex aboard the boat for it to shake loose from a cupboard and possibly break while tacking out on the bay.  I love my pyrex measures so I'd like to keep them intact! I've had cooking utensils on the boat for stirring instant mashed potatoes and such so we're ready to make more meals at home, which I'm looking forward to.  
Next week's adventure is going to be spending some time with my folks!  Kris is being sent to WI for training for his work for two weeks and so it's time to take the next wander around my hometown.  Oddly enough, everyone keeps asking if I'm going with him, but it's two weeks, in snowy cold weather, in the middle of WI, where I'm not going to know anyone or have anything to do while Kris is training, so no: I'm staying where it's nice and sunny and fairly warm!  I'm going to hang out with my mom, watch Skyfall with my dad (because we just watched it and oh, I'm so willing to watch it again for him), possibly get my hair re-dyed by my Jovita, maybe go visit some of my favorite high school teachers as I've missed doing while traveling the world, maybe sail with my dad, maybe sew something with my mom, who's going to help with my sewing machine as last time I used it, it was having some bobbin tension issues like it frequently enjoys having with me.  (I have a tote bag strap to repair, so this might be the time.)  Things to do, people to see!  And maybe another first.  We'll see.
Keep checking, and I'll keep updating!
Happy Plans, Everyone!
Enjoy,

Allie H.

Home Sweet Home!

Before and After photo time!  And news time.  We weren't approved for a slip agreement at the marina where the boat is currently residing because of our credit but the second marina we've been talking to, Marina Village Harbor, has slips available.  And, in meeting some of the locals, we were directed to a particular person at Marina Village to request live-aboard status even though there's a wait list.  The only difference between the wait list and status is an extra fee per month. We drove by on the way to work this morning and told the guy that we'd much rather pay more and be there full time rather than go by the rules and move between harbors twice a week so that we're respecting the rules of the harbors while not having live aboard status.  He said yes!  Kris is getting his travel reimbursement this week and we'll take care of the details on Friday so it's pretty much a done deal.  In the meantime, in and around the holidays and visiting home, we've gotten the boat to be nice and homey.  I finally found the other bath rug so most of the floor is covered and Chloe can jump down and not slide and it's a little extra cushioning for her, and for us when we wake up in the morning without socks on.  I also found our slippers so we can kick off our shoes at the end of the day and relax.  
Here are the before shots:

 Recessed quarter berth.

 View from the hatchway into the boat, galley on the port side.

 V-berth

Galley complete with stove-top oven, sink, fridge compartment.

And here's the after, with our our stuff moved in and mostly arranged!

 

 Chloe watching Mom take pictures.

 So the galley is a little messy, but only when I don't put away the electric tea kettle.  Or the extra water bottle.  Or the orange juice and the huge plastic cups....well, you get my drift!

The closet for our overflow of cold-weather layers!

I'd say the place is coming along, don't you think?  We still need to replace the window drapes, as they've fallen into some disarray, and Kris found an article about a couple who'd replaced theirs with mini-blinds so that's a project that's going to be coming up at some point.  But it's coming along fabulously!  DVD's are tucked onto shelves, extra sweatshirts have a place in the little closet and we found out that the fridge not only works but is on DC power so we can keep it on while we sail if we have a couple days for of steaks for the grill.  We're also thinking of getting a small microwave.  Those microwaveable Kraft Mac & Cheese cups?  Turns out thinking that using boiling water and letting them sit for the cooking time instead of following the directions with a microwave is not good thinking....The noodles mostly cooked but it was more like cheesy noodle soup instead of pasta.  Not so good.  A small one would suffice for that sort of thing and we can mix healthier meals with cheap meals.  We still haven't stored most of the clothing in our suitcases anywhere other than in our suitcases as we have a slight leak problem in the compartment behind the settee under the DVD's that we need to fix but otherwise everything else is pretty much squared away, and the suitcases fit in the recessed quarter berth.  We shift the suitcases out every couple days to put some clean clothing closer to hand, the shower bag stays in the trunk so it's easier to access, and we don't need any of it on the boat.  Kris found a manual online for the oven and so we now know how to clean it up and work it properly.  We made our first payment for it to Mark and got the pink slip, all sorts of manuals and all the papers that came with the boat on our trip last weekend to celebrate Kirby's birthday.  I've been scouring the internet for blogs from other live-aboards on how they manage their galley and their storage space and finding recipes for easy cooking when you've got a cache of canned and a few fresh ingredients.  Chloe has been settling in pretty well.  She's figured out that if she comes to the bow-end of the settee on the port side, she can jumped into the v-berth by herself, so she comes and goes in the middle of the night when she needs water or we're rolling over her.  When she wants to play, she brings me the ball and I throw it into the v-berth so she jumps and brings it back to me over and over again for about ten minutes or so, getting a little bout of doggie exercise while she plays.  I leave her to go take a shower and I don't go the same time every day, so she's never sure when I'll be back, but the past week or so, I've not heard any crying until I step back into the cockpit.  She's such a faker.  She did the same thing with Miami-she's figured out it's her home and that she's okay to be alone for a few minutes and that I will be back eventually.  Every time we sit and look around, we feel the boat to be roomier, homier, more comfortable, working better and better.  It's good to feel more at home in our space.  We were invited last week to join a group of locals who do a barbecue every Wednesday in one of the shop spaces up in the warehouse and so we scrambled up some cookies from Trader Joe's and took along the bottle of homemade lemoncello my mom sent us home with and met several of the locals, one of whom was a gal named Wendy who lives in Marina Village and lives on the dock we'll be moving onto and was the one who told us who to talk to in order to bypass the waiting list for the live-aboard status.  She's already offered to dog-watch Chloe if we need someone!  Looking forward to not having to move the boat every few days and to be in a permanent spot that's five minutes closer to Kris's work and our storage space, literally right down the street from a Lucky's grocery and CVS, and pizza.  Yup, pizza's important.  (And yes, a few seconds ago I mentioned homemade lemoncello.)  Mom's been making it and giving it as Christmas presents and I intend to make some with her at the end of February when I hang out with her for a couple weeks.  Kris is going to be doing some CRAY training in Wisconsin and so I'm going to take over her kitchen and help her make more.  I'm also interested in trying orangecello, raspberry infused vodka, etc.  I've been collecting recipes on my Pinterest board.  I'm all for trying new recipes and I'm looking forward to this one!  

Happy experiments, everyone!

Enjoy,

Allie H.

A New Year, and a Different Dream

It's the beginning of another year, and the dream of my adulthood has changed significantly over the past few years.  I used to dream, when I was a teenager, that I'd be highly successful in publishing a handful of novels by the time I was 25 and that breakfast would be enjoyed on a balcony table in Paris with a view of the Eiffel Tower off in the distance, having already traveled to exotic far off places like Egypt.  Today, I can imagine nothing better than wracking my brain over a piece of writing while the boat gently sways with the slightest of harbor currents, keeping hot water for tea and having new ideas while the sun begins to set in the early afternoon, sailing every possible weekend and becoming an expert at it all.  I'm still not published, I'm still working on second-drafts of things, but the fire is still there.  The scenery is new, the boat is a symbol of possibility, my husband is still the breadwinner while I search for employment opportunity, and the dog is curled up at my feet.  At fourteen or fifteen, I honestly didn't even imagine a dog.  I pictured a husband somewhere in the middle of it all, and I got the best one, ever, but the entertaining child/poodle is a daily delight I hadn't even pondered.  Now I can't imagine living without her.  A little furry face who loves us unconditionally because we fell in love with her and brought her home with us.  I could never have imagined that by the time I was 28, I would have gotten married and moved from one continent to another and back again within the first two years of marriage, not to mention relocating to another state by the end of the calender year.  A whirlwind that made me giddy; new sights, new places to explore, new people to call our friends.  We say it a lot, every time we move and get re-settled, but we're kind of amazing.  We truly rock at this whole “shift again” lifestyle.  When we decide that we're going somewhere, we shift into high gear.  Clothes get washes, sorted, packed into boxes or designated into suitcase piles, the apartment is half in limbo, our heart rates go up and every morning we wake up with a new “to-do” list but by the time we land where we're supposed to be, we're breathing again, we're excited, we've stopped worrying about half the little details and life is awesome.  We downshift, we acclimate, we get it together, and it works.  And yes, there are always little issues that come up and we somehow are blessed with the kind of good luck that gets us through them.  Knowing we're going to be settling in for a time is helping us to shift our focus on being thrifty and financially stable, and looking into the future a bit more definitively.  Being so close to home, being back in California, is the place to be.  In a few months we'll own the boat we're living on, in a year, we'll have a small apartment somewhere close by and I'm imagining go-bags constantly prepped and hanging out in the truck of the car so that we can spend a week on the boat at any given moment.  In Miami, it was good to be at least back on home soil.  Monterey is our heart and our home, and it's a wonderful feeling to be back near it as we settle here in the Bay Area.  Driving back and forth the couple times we've done in the past four weeks has been the most amazing feeling, knowing we can be there in a couple hours on a whim, if we like.  I'm no longer one to make New Year's Resolutions, as I hardly keep to them, like most human beings, but since we're back here and now living the boat lifestyle it's in my head to learn as much as I can about living aboard and figuring out as much as I can to make it as successful as possible.  I'm also wanting to work, at least part time, to keep writing, and spend more time with my family as I've been away from them for two years.  Life shifts in funny ways.  Kris is fond of saying that the universe gives you exactly what you ask for even though it never looks how you'd expect it to look.  That has certainly been true of our adventure thus far.  You can have dreams, and they will come true if you keep them in your heart.  You might not recognize them but if you find yourself happy one day, guess what, your dream has aligned with your life and your goals.  It's a nice feeling to be in a position to see that one of your milestones is just up ahead of you by a few paces.

Hope everyone's New Year is off to such a re-energized, positive start!

Happy 2013!

Enjoy,

Allie H.

This California Girl Returns Home!

This Cali Girl is back on her home soil!  (Well, close enough, anyway.)  A change in jobs brought us back to my home state and to the Bay Area.  Kris is now working for the CRAY installation in Oakland, associated with the UC Berkeley Campus.  The whirlwind world tour whirled again!  Last Thursday morning, we got in the car at zero-dark thirty, as my father would say, and left Miami, ending up at my folks house very very early Saturday morning.  Talk about a long drive!  We carved out 1200 miles in the first day, cut across a corner of Alabama, finally stopping for some sleep in Shreveport, LA.  We spent dinner and the next night at my grandparent's house in New Mexico, where we got to see my Uncle Jeff and my cousin Jesse and his family for a couple hours, stopped off at the Grand Canyon to spend a few hours with Kris's Uncle Steven, who works there so showed us all his favorite vistas, and lit out before sunset to land home.  It was a long trip for us, a very long trip for the monster, who handled it very well from her perch in the back seat on top of all the pillows and blankets, and it was so very awesome to cross the border into California and know that we only had a few hours left before we were home.  We spent two nights at my folks' house and got to see my brother and Rachel, Ralph and Sabrina, and Kirby before we relocated to a two-week Extended-Stay America to stay at while we find a place to live.  We found ourselves right on the Alameda Marina and also found that there are currently a couple of houseboats for sale....Hmmm!  One hour wandering around town by our lonesome after heading back up and picking up Kris from his first day, we met a gal and her dog on a little walk who revealed that she lived in the marina on her boat with her husband, she told us who to talk to about the marina and the houseboats, etc.  One hour and we'd already met boat people!  We get lucky.  We're so thrilled to be able to start putting away a little savings towards a boat and being able to spend weekends sailing down in Monterey and being closer to both our families.  During his interview trip, Kris went out and found a pizza parlor and had already made a few friends who remembered him upon our visit last night for a couple beers and some pizza to unwind.  After Kris's first day of work we really just only wanted to grab some fast food and call it a night, after finding a few Ingress portals, of course!  But last night was awesome, to meet the people that Kris had told me about and try the pizza, which was awesome, and get a feel for where we're going to be living!  I was extra excited this morning to realize that we'd be living back in a big city that was full of so many different cultures with so many different cuisines.  I like the idea that we're going to be living right near San Francisco without living in it directly, as the traffic coming up here was just interesting enough not to want to do every day.  I'm so excited to be able to see Alcatraz and Angel Island, the Navy Pier, all the museums I went to as a kid, Chinatown, and everything!  It's going to be such a blast to re-discover everything and to show it all to Kris.  
Our Miami friends sent us off in style, with a little WOB party, new glasses and shirts to take with us, and we decided to pass the WOB cape along to mini-Chloe, otherwise known as Mila.  Her owner, our friend Joaquin, wanted me to make her a cape as well, but I had no idea how I was going to make a cape for a four-month old fluffball of a poodle who was going to grow so I decided that she could grow into the original and that I could make a new one for Chloe with the shirt that Eileen had given me a while back.  So we had a changing of the WOB dog ceremony and little Mila was paraded through the bar.  We're going to miss everyone there, our friends Yvi and Andres and everyone else we met, who were so totally awesome and of course we're going to visit with our WOB shirts in tow as often as we can, of course.  Miami was fun to move to and explore and make new friends in, as we seem to make the best friends wherever we go, and to make the holidays so much easier to visit family.  My dad was about to send my mom out for Christmas as we were deciding to make this transition so I had to tell him to hold off on buying the plane tickets and since I haven't been home for Christmas in three years, it's going to be good to be there.  Relocating is always interesting but we seem to be off to a good start already, and I'm looking forward to finding a more permanent place to actually unpack and organize and do it all again.  I'm pro at it, at this point!  
On with the day, but of course there will be more news as it happens!  Have a great week! 
Happy Positive Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes, everyone!
Enjoy,

Allie H.

More Red Beans & Rice!

I tried this recipe again today and I wasn't so much focused on the finished traditional product as I was just getting the beans right this time.  We've tried them twice, and they've still somehow come out almost crunchy.  No bueno.  I actually followed the package directions on the kidney bean bag (funny how that works!) and guess what?  They came out lovely.  The package told me to soak a one-cup bean to 3-cup water ratio for 6-8 hours or overnight.  I ended up soaking them for about 18 hours since I didn't want to fuss with cooking them last night.  I checked them occasionally, and while a few of them were splitting, they seemed to only be getting a tiny bit softer.  But I guess that's just the way they work because right around 9:15 this morning, I drained them, rinsed them, put them back in the pot with 4 cups of water per cup of beans soaked this time, brought them to a boil, lowered the heat, put the lid on and walked away for two hours.  Okay, I hovered for the first fifteen minutes or so because the residual heat was so much that with the lid on, there was still a steady boil going on even though the heat on the stove was all the way down to 2.  It finally calmed down and I could move onto more immediate tasks like clearing my email inbox and showering.  Somewhere around 30 minutes left I decided to season a bit (which I probably should have done at the hour mark, but oh well.  Next time.)  I threw in a bunch on minced dried onion, garlic powder, two beef bouillon cubes and a couple splashes of Liquid Smoke.  I know my measurements were probably a little off to the amount of beans but they came out pretty decent, I think.  Last minute rice and heated up the pulled pork I did in the crock pot yesterday afternoon and that was lunch!  I've never "pulled" a piece of pork before and it was interesting but after a few minutes I got the hang of it, under the watchful eye of the puppy, of course, hoping I'd drop a piece on the floor for her.  Next time, for the beans, I think I'm going to throw in actual chopped onions, seasonings, bell peppers and let the simmering process cook them to a perfectly soft texture and a little bit of hot sauce.  See if I can't get it a little more authentic to the flavorful recipe.  But at least now I know how to get the beans cooked right!  No more crunchy, chewy kidney beans for us :)  It's going to stay on my go-to budget recipe that's easy to prep and easy to cook.  

Oh!  The pulled pork.  My mother-in-law, Toodie, showed me when she was visiting last time what she does to make a quick meal while you're out running errands all day-she puts 1-2 pork butts on a plate, sprinkles both sides with Lowry's Seasoning Salt, puts them in the crock-pot and pours 1-2 cans of root beer over them and lets them cook on low for 4-6 hours.  Mine was 1 pork shoulder, so a little less meat, and we didn't have root beer but we did have just enough Coke and I found a few recipes that accepted that as a substitute, and also called for a tablespoon of Liquid Smoke (Toodie's method may have called for that as well but I can't remember..I should have written it down!)  Somewhere around the four-hour mark I pulled it it, cut it up into a few pieces, shredded it apart with a fork and dropped it back into the crock-pot.  If Toodie's feeding a huge crowd she leaves the BBQ sauce on the side  but if it's just the family crowd she pours in some Sweet Baby Ray's, buys some soft rolls to toast and make sandwiches with and calls it done.  Since I was going with Mexican style today I left the sauce out but of course, tasted it, and it was a teensy bit dry but when I reheated it today it was pretty good.  It's so easy.  Let your appliances cook for you!  :)  
What has everyone else been cooking lately?  Share!
Happy Cooking!
Enjoy,

Allie H. 

Solar Powered Steampunk Makes the World Go 'Round...

I received a neat little package today in the mail when I immediately recognized the handwriting I couldn't wait to open it!  My super glam girl  Rachel at Patina Perfected sent me quite possibly the most awesome earrings I've ever owned, ever!  I'd sent her these cool bottle caps from World of Beer a while back asking, pretty please, would she make me some sweet earrings out of them because they have the coolest sunburst design on them with their logo for the beer and I am so ecstatic at the result!  I'd merely asked for her to make them long and match any jewels or baubles to the beer caps and they are PERFECT! I love, love, love them.  She also included a handful of her business cards because she does, and they look like little Patina Perfected Trading cards (the easier to pimp out her business with-I've been handing out my business cards with her info on the back since I'd run out of hers!)  The front of them proffer pictures of her various creations and the back has all of her contact info and shop listings on Etsy.  She touts her jewelry line as "Romantic Whimsy with a Steampunk Twist" and these new earrings definitely fit the bill as they're so sweet and funky!  She can be found on Facebook as well and if you "Like" and follow her you can get special offers and sneak peeks.  It's worth the look, at least.  All of her creations come in cute little boxes nestled carefully in a sweet little bag that you can use to store them in or recycle for whatever you like.  Considering I've gone the purple route lately they might be cute to keep my store of business cards in...Hmmmm...Check out the unveiling process below!

 Here, when I saw the little light bulbs through the bag, I literally squealed like a little girl.  Thank goodness the guys had already come for lunch and gone again! 

 And here they are, looking fabulous!

Her photo-finish Perfected business cards.  Adorable, right?!

I never even thought to incorporate the energy theme and she added these sweet little light bulbs.  I'm freaking out, they're so cute!  It's official, I now have WOB earrings with a cool twist :)  Dare I wear them with my new shimmery skirt?  They're at least going to ROCK with jeans and a tee.  It's the little things in life that make me happy~

What new little surprises in your life have you received lately that have made you giddy?  Please share!

Happy Treasures, everyone!

Enjoy,

Allie H.

P.S. Come look!  It's Patina Perfected's contact info, all right here! Check her out and say hi :)

Here's My Skirt!

I don't know anyone who can take a cell phone photo of themselves without a full length mirror and have it come out good so I waited for Kris to come home and had him take one for me.  The first is, of course, so you can see where the skirt hits and the second one is how I'm wearing it today!  I know it's a little blurry but I'm feeling very shimmery today :)

 

Happy Shimmering, everyone!

Enjoy,

Allie H.