embracing the last days of winter

Thank you all for your wonderful comments here on the blog, especially on this post! I love reading your thoughts and ideas, I feel so grateful for having such thoughtful readers! Last Saturday I woke up in the morning and felt like I really needed to go outside. I didn't want our regular coffee shop date, no lemon cake, no road trips, no shopping - I just wanted to go walking in the woods and mountains. I really miss summer and all the fun hikes, picnics and adventures. 

I put on Ben's wool sweater that my parents gave him for his birthday a year ago. It brought back so many good family memories. We walked on a snowy trail, no one was around, it was very quiet and calm, and smelled so wonderfullн! When we came home I filled our bath with hot water and lavender foam, lit a candle, grabbed a book and took an hour alone. Ben played some nice music and even brought me a glass of wine. It felt pretty good and recharging. I hope to go more outside every week, we're thinking of taking Sonya bunny on walks again as it gets warmer.

*are we friends on Instagram? find me at @chestnutmocha*

K9 Keg Pull at the Sandpoint Winter Carnival

Have you ever heard of a "Canine Keg Pull"? I hadn't until I moved to Sandpoint. It's an annual event here that's fun for local dogs, their owners and everyone who is up on Sunday morning in February to watch! Dogs of all shapes and sizes participate in the event pulling appropriately sized “kegs”: the big dogs pull (empty) kegs, while the little ones pull beer cans. All entry fee proceeds go to the local animal shelter.

Ben and I got up pretty early for Sunday and first headed downtown to have breakfast with Ben's mom. We went to the Readery - one of the rare places in Sandpoint that is wisely open on the weekends. I had eggs Benedict, Ben had a breakfast burrito and his mom has a sandwich. I really liked their coffee.  I had my first cappuccino in 6 months, it was pretty strong, and good. 

After the breakfast we walked a few blocks up and joined the crowd at the race.

This morning on Facebook, somebody commented that the keg pull is cruel to the dogs... Later many more people replied saying that their dogs participated and they all had fun and got toys and treats at the finish line. I personally didn't feel it was cruel. It's all for fun and there's no pressure. Some of the dogs got really pumped up at the start and ran so fast that the MC had to warn people to step away from the tracks. Other pups were more interested in the crowd and the other dogs, they would stop in the middle and go say "Hi!" to everyone.  Either way it's OK.  Also, there were no dog fights or any conflicts at all, which was kind of surprising because there were so many dogs there. What do you think? Would you participate? 

Lomography Monday: Ansco 1090 AFS

Surprised, aren't you? It's Lomography Monday again! I know, I haven't posted any film photos in awhile.. too dark in winter to shoot film and I was pretty busy to develop any of the old rolls. Today I'll show you some of the photos from Ansco 1090 AFS.

It was a random purchase. In September. Ben and I were driving around looking for garage sales on Saturday. We noticed a sign pointing towards a cute neighborhood and we drove there. Then suddenly there were two kids with big posters "Garage sale!!" jumping in front of us and trying to make us turn the opposite direction. But we already saw the sale we had planned to go to, so we kept going towards the big yard full of junk. The kids followed us. The yard didn't have anything interesting and we left pretty quickly.  The kids with the posters were waiting by our car and they started running ahead of us and calling us to follow. Well, we did and after a few turns on different streets we ended us at the kids' house, where there was also a garage sale. They didn't have anything very interesting either, but we didn't feel like disappointing them, so we bought a camera from the 80s to reward them for the hard work. This is how Ansco joined our camera collection. 

I shot a little bit with it in September before I left for Russia, and then finished it in winter. The camera has flash which is powered by batteries, it also has fixed focus, which is why most of my pictures had fuzzy objects/faces. Good to know :-) I like the photo of Sam dog, he has a very strange smile there.. It's also nice to see all the green grass on the pictures - It's been snowing non-stop this weekend and I can't wait for it to melt and become sunny again! Come back next Monday for the second part of the roll featuring snowy days of early winter.

On being my real self

*it started snowing last night and it doesn't stop*

*the streets are turning white again*

*a very entertaining book: light and funny*

I've been feeling very weird recently and I finally decided to address it here. I don't feel like myself and I'm not even sure what myself is anymore. There were so many changes in my life in last 6 months and it seemed like I was going through just fine.. till now. I blame it on the end of winter, I finally exhausted my energy and motivation to keep myself up and running all the time. It's like I'm questioning everything now trying to see whether I'm sincere or not. And I can't find the answers. 

For example, with the blog.  Ben and I started it back in 2011 when we finally got together after doing a year of long-distance relationship. We both loved photography and wanted to document all the little moments of spending time with each other. It was all fun and exciting, Ben's parents were happy about it, too, because they got to see all the photos and read about us more often. Last year when we made our grand move across the continents I was mostly blogging for my parents. I was trying to take a camera with me everywhere and show my family how and what I was doing here. Right after I clicked "Publish" I would immediately email the link to my parents and brother. We used to Skype a lot, too. It really helped me not to feel too homesick and lonely. I also got to know more and more fellow bloggers online, read their stories and see how the blogging community develops. Of course my blog and I started absorbing ideas and "rules" from the new-to-me world. And it was a fun and interesting adventure. 

But recently I've started feeling more and more down about everything I do and about myself. Now I'm not sure where it is me and where it's some ideas from outside. It's pretty hard for me recently to be as excited as before about blogging. I still like it a lot, and I'll never stop taking photos (I fell in love with photography loooong before I started posting anything here), but I want to figure out how to find my voice again. I want this blog to be what it was meant to be at first: a place to share our creativity and document all the moments we spend together. This is why I feel bad when I catch myself planning to go to some specific place wearing a specific outfit to take photos for the post. I feel insincere when I do it... Maybe I'm wrong but I'm having a mental battle with myself about it right now. I like dressing up and I like taking photos but when I do it I want to be doing it because I like it, not because I am planning a blog post, you know? And it's not just about the outfits, it's about everything. I question every single thing I do right now, trying to figure out what comes first when I consider doing something: blog or life. I want my blog be about my life, not my life developing around the blog. I hope I didn't bore you too much, but I feel like this is a big part of me right now and I had to share it here.   

Katie

popcorn: 3 perfect recipes to surprise your friends

I cooked lots of popcorn and wrote this post for Kitty and Buck recently. 

And today I decided to share my  home-made popcorn recipes with you here. 

16 cups popped popcorn
4 oz white chocolate baking bar
6 oz white chocolate chips
1 drop pink food coloring

Using a double boiler (or something that works the same way), melt the chocolate. Add 1 drop of food coloring and mix through. Pour the chocolate over the popcorn and mix it through. Set aside until chocolate sets and serve.

16 cups popped popcorn
1 1/2 cups dry-roasted peanuts
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup corn syrup
1 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine sugar, honey and corn syrup. Bring the mixture to a boil and stir constantly. Do not boil too long or your popcorn will be rock hard. Remove from heat.

Stir in peanut butter and vanilla. Immediately pour over popcorn, mixed with peanuts, and stir to coat. Serve warm or at room temperature.

2 tbsp. butter, melted
2 tbsp. honey
sea salt to taste

Melt the butter. Add in honey and stir until combined. Add a couple dashes of sea salt. Pour over freshly made popcorn. Stir well. Taste and add more salt if needed.

Enjoy it!

PS: Don't forget to enter our $300 giveaway!
And share the news (and popcorn!) with your friends! :-)

more moose on the streets of Sandpoint

Remember I posted photos of Molly the Moose in our backyard? She spent almost a week under our window eating frozen apples. But we haven't seen her for a few weeks already. Yesterday  at lunch I got a call from Ben's dad: he told me there are two moose on their street! Ben and I immediately ran over with all our camera equipment and this is who we met:

*looking into the neighbor's window*

*chewing the trees*

*baby moose crossing the street*

*mama moose*

road trip and food

First of all, I wanted to say "Hello and Welcome!" to all our new readers and friends. It's so exciting to have you on our blog! I hope we get to know each other well and you enjoy coming over!

We had a long and adventurous weekend, full of food, driving and thrifting. It all started on Thursday with (yes, you guessed!) Valentine's Day! After work we hopped in the car, drove across the lake, witnessed a gorgeous sunset and had dinner at Forty-One South. It's a great restaurant not too far from our town, we've been talking about going there for a long time but never actually made it before. Ben surprised me with a reservation he made there for our romantic date, and I couldn't be happier. No, actually, I could - I was ecstatic when I discovered duck in their menu! Duck is my  favorite, it's not in the photos though. It was pretty dark there, candle lights don't work well for cameras. You can see Ben's steak at least, and Ben's happy face:

It was kind of hard to work on Friday.  The office was empty (due to a Winter Festival in town over the last few days), it was sunny, and the road was calling us. We left a bit early and took a trip to Spokane, WA. It was wonderful: we stayed at Courtyard Marriott downtown (and forgot to go to their swimming pool even though we brought the swimsuits!), we discovered the best cafe in town: Kim's Korean Restaurant (ate there twice and wished they'd move to Sandpoint!); we shopped at the Asian Market and at Kiev Market, stocking up on all the essentials for homemade bibimbaps, kimbaps and Russian tea parties.

We also spent lots of time thrift shopping, found an old film camera, a fencing foil, cute picture frames and a Mexican painting! I guess I'll make a separate post about those. Overall the weekend was very romantic and nostalgic, Ben got to use some Korean he remembered and I met a couple of nice Russian ladies.  We drank lots of coffee. I hope you all have a great week and I can't wait to catch up on all the emails and blogs!

Bugogi (marinated meat) with lots of side dishes. 

Bibimbap. So good! We made it at Ben's parents again last night after the trip.

I have no idea what it is and why. Some things in thrift shops are so strange.

Ben's favorite Russian food "Bychki" - fish in tomato juice. His happy face is adorable!

And one last thing: have you entered the giveaway yet? Hurry up! Lots of cool prizes are up for grabs! I wish I could enter... :-)

Share the Love Giveaway!

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm so happy to introduce you to some really awesome blogs and shops today! They're all getting together to share some love with you and offer one lucky Chestnut Mocha reader lots of prizes! Somebody will win $300 in different goods! What's for grabs:

I love you Deer message box//Rainbow Star Felt Garland

Pink Heels Pink Truck Blog Upgrades//8x10 Watercolor Splash Heart Painting Set

$20 to ModCloth//Grumpy Cat Brooch

Hedgie Wood Pin//Rain Printed Leggings

Disco Ball Bracelet//Ubtan, Eye Cream and Hair Oil

Large Ad Space on Chestnut Mocha for 1 month!

Just use the Rafflecopter form below to enter and good luck! The winner will be announced in a week, the giveaway is open internationally!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

things I do and things I like

*bathroom feet//onesie feet//view from our bathroom*

Today's randomness:

Does anyone else watch The Office? We saw the latest episode last night on Hulu and I'm pretty surprised at how some characters have developed recently. Is there anyone else who got upset about what happened to Andy?? Ben thinks I'm silly but I feel like they changed Andy's character a lot lately and it's too bad he's not with Erin anymore.

Today I got all nostalgic and looked through our posts from last year. I found our love story that Ben wrote here on the blog and our adventures on Valentine's Day! It's so crazy how much happened over just a year, but I'm very happy where we are at now.

Right now I'm making lots of different popcorn for a guest post on one of the other blogs and I'm really excited to share it with you soon!
Have you entered a giveaway that we host on JessicaWho? You can win a super cool book "Instant love" about polaroids and instant photography!

Don't forget to come to the blog on Thursday for a big surprise! (pssss! gifts are included!)

More things I like:

*^this pug pancake by Laura*

*Anna moved to the dark side! I love her new style so much!*

*learn how to make these instagram photo cubes with Jesse*