Sprizee :: A simple girl replete with complications:

I'm headed to Paris this weekend. I've been bookmarking advice for months, but just now realized I hadn't bothered to read much of it yet. So I'm placing it all here for future reference. Good thing they have the "wee fee" (wifi) over in France. Phew!

New York Times - 36 Hours in Paris If I'll be there much longer than 36 hours but this is a good place to start.

Not Martha - My Vacation Slides: Paris Day 1 Megan wrote a whole series of posts with great practical advice. Yes!

Nazila - Paris 2010 My Take Sorry this only works if you're Facebook friend's with her. And if you're not, that's too bad because she's AWESOME. I hope you two get the chance to meet someday. Your life will be better for it.

Food Nouveau - A Food Tour of Paris Montmarte I mostly plan to walk around and eat and then walk around some more.

David Lebovitz - My Paris As a slight aside, if you haven't already read his book, The Sweet Life in Paris, I highly recommend it.

I'm also having the one single bathroom in my house remodeled while I'm gone. I'm either insane or a genius. Cross your fingers all goes well.

2010 Looking Back, originally uploaded by sprizee.

I drive to the ocean and discover that New Year's resolutions will write themselves if you let them. I learn Kung Fu. I take a roadtrip down to Portland with my mom and meet up with Misty and her sister to watch The English Department's wedding show. We ooh and ahh and then we drive home.

I help Heather and Altrooist with the 1st Annual Drunken Spelling Bee. Heather is brilliant (as always!) and talks Luke Burbank into hosting. I fly to New Orleans to celebrate the marriage of Rachel and Chris and my 8th wedding anniversary. I meet Naomi and Rocky for the first time. Misty and Chris are there too. I decide I want to take all of these people with me on all my future vacations.

I drive back down to Portland with Misty to help her pick out a wedding dress at the lovely English Department. I spend a long weekend in Astoria, Oregon. I sip coffee, chat with my mom, read a book about Richard Feynman, tour decaying museums, hike up a very tall column, visit Canon Beach and generally enjoy the drizzle.

I bike to Gas Works Park to picnic with 7 happily unemployed people and 1 adorable puppy. I attend a wedding where I dance outside in the grass in 90 degrees until my feet are so impossibly bistered that I have to kick off my shoes. I keep dancing.

Work is non-stop busy. Then Misty and Chris get married! I want to give a toast but I'm too blubbering and teary to even stand up.

I visit San Juan Island and fall in love with Washington all over again. I club a golf ball around at Smashputt! I fly to San Francisco for less than 24 hours. A week later I fly back to San Fransisco.

This time Rachel and Chris are also in town and we meet up to devour the Zuni Cafe chicken. Then they take me to this place in the Tenderloin with a secret entrance where you need a password to get in. The drinks are killer.

I give up on the summer and start looking forward to fall. I visit Coupeville on the way to the pumpkin patch with Neilson, Stacy and The Dude for our annual Farmoween trip.

My stupid inherited car finally dies. Luckily it dies in front of my house. I black out multiple teeth in the name of the dead. I go rock climbing with Misty. Indoors. With a padded floor.

I fly to Boston. I'm in love. Then I fly to New York. More city love. I have the most amazing meal at Sushi of Gari 46. I continue to have fantastic food everywhere I go, like The Spotted Pig and Russ & Daughters.

Rachel and Chris are in town too! I try to catch my flight back to Seattle and Delta refuses to let me on because I'm 5 minutes late. I cry and then I pull it together. I catch a cab back to NYC and crash with Rachel and Chris. We hit the Breslin. Life is good.

We wander around NYC some more. The weather is perfect. Blue skies and warmish. I look up and we're in Washington Square Park. It's so warm outside it feels like I'm getting sunburnt. It's the best feeling ever. Then I almost miss my flight back to Seattle again.

Back in Seattle I bake. It snows. I buy a new car. I roast my first turkey for Thanksgiving. I obsess about what to bring to Cook Book Club. I sit by the fireplace and write Christmas cards, enjoy the little things and bake some more.