My baby turns 3!

Dear Blog,

Today my little baby Bella, the namesake of Bellafrench, turned THREE! We celebrated with a trip to the dog park on Saturday and a new toy. I cannot tell you how much joy that little pup has brought into our lives and I would highly recommend one if you have the time and money. Because they take both.

This week brings lots of updates. I'll be training for my upcoming new blog-venture and will make sure to keep you all in the loop.

Right now I'm watching some crazy, crackhead movie with Maggie Gyllenhal called "Sherry Baby", I'm not sure I would recommend it. It's a little rando.

Last weekend, Aaron, Bella and I went to Portland, OR for the weekend to celebrate Valentine's Day. It was so fun to get away, even if just for a night. The weather was beautiful and we always love exploring a new city. You wanna know what's best about Portland? The fact that the shopping is tax free. Everything is tax free, meals, Starbucks, CLOTHES. Even though it's only saving like 8% or so, you feel like you're saving a fortune. I would come out of Starbucks exclaiming to Aaron that I only spent $3.50!!! Wooooooohhhh, an even number. That was really fun for me. I also came out of Portland a pair of jeans and some Tory Burch ankle booties in the good, Aaron got himeself two pair of jeans and a wallet. We like us some Portland. Bella likes Portland too, especially because she got to sleep on the bed in the hotel room (Portland is very pet friendly, even in nice hotels!).



On a more serious note, Aaron and I have decided to give up caffeine. Siiiiiiiiigh. It has not been easy. I'm on day 5 sans caffeine and I would be lying if I said that I didn't have a headache every single day since THE SWITCH to decaf. Upon telling one of my besties that I've given up coffee, he promptly told me to move back to the East Coast. Alas, I have not turned into an organic eating, composting all my extra waste, non-caffeinated, green tea drinking, Pacific Northwest bona fide hippie. Aaron found out that drinking caffeine would worsen the state of his sad kidneys, so we decided to stop drinking caffeine. I'm hoping everyday will get easier but dang, why it gotta be so hard? So, if I seem a little bit out of it let's just blame it on that.

Lastly, in the world of big updates Aaron and I are running the Seattle Rock 'n Roll Half Marathon! Did you hear that Drew?!? The Ron and I are runnnnang. This is the first year the Rock 'n Roll Marathon is in Seattle so we thought it would be fun to participate in some Seattle history. Sunday was my first foray in running since October 22, 2006 when I ran the Chicago Marathon. Granted, we only ran 1.5 miles but it felt pretty good and we will continue to run until we conquer those measly 13 miles.

That's all for tonight!
xoxo,
Alison

A Million Little Pieces

Dear blog,

There's this plague going around Facebook where everyone is telling 25 deep, dark secrets about themselves and then tagging 25 of their closest friends to do the same. When I saw the first persons list I knew it was only a matter of time before I got tagged. I got to thinking about what I would want to put on my list of 25 things that people don't know about me but are innocent enough for me to put up there? Because you don't really want to put the things that people don't know about you up there, or else, they would already know them. Or is that flawed logic? I read others' list to see a sample of what they were writing and a lot of them went a little something like this;

"I love my friends more than they know, I hope they love me back"
"I have the best boyfriend/husband/girlfriend/wife in the world!"
"I love Disney movies!"
Who freaking cares??
Many lists held trivial facts and other generally banal things that didn't really hold my attention.

There were a couple of lists that I did enjoy reading and you could tell the writer put some thought in their lists, one was a high school chum and how they came out to their family and the other was a friend who said it is possible to be single and happy. (I loved that one!!)

Really, what this proved to me was how much people are just craving to talk about themselves. People are putting their heart on their proverbial sleeve and telling such secrets as "I like the crust cut off of my pb&j". Maybe to curb the insatiable need for people to write lists about themselves, we need to actually start listening. Just think about it. You go to work and something SO funny just happened on your way to work, say the carhop at Sonic asked you if wanted salt and ketchup with your Diet Coke, and you can't wait to tell your coworkers about it and get a good laugh. Nine times out of ten, before you can get to the punchline the person on the receiving end of your story is already thinking of a story that will be funnier than yours. It's a little game I like to call topper. Who can top the other with a more outrageous story? The next time you feel the need to talk about yourself when someone is talking to you, just bite your tongue and acknowledge the other person. You'll be surprised at what you might learn.

That's all for tonight folks.
xoxo,
Alison