When Will Seattle Restaurants and Bars Reopen? - Eater Seattle

when are the restaurants going to open in washington state

when are the restaurants going to open in washington state - win

Guys lets help each other out by honest opinions

So a lot of us will be moving OOS for colleges and uni so i wanted to know and share a little about places/cities everybody is going to live in.
Anybody who lives/ lived in any of the following cities please comment ABOUT what is living like in these cities as a teen or young adult and i ll edit it in andalso if you wanna add more cities , please lemme know:
NYC : NYC- FUCK THE MTA. Thats it.
local food joints are a lot cheaper and far more worth it. try going to parks if the ones around you are safe (yes, there are a lot of parks in nyc. playgrounds and small fields and whatnot). learn how to walk fast because people will be very annoyed at you (rightfully) if you walk slow
DO NOT BE TOURISTY YOU WILL WASTE SO MUCH MONEY (and im 99% sure that 99% of us will be broke college students)
I kind of only have subway advice from the days before the plague lmao but: No need to fear New Yorkers, just put on your lost tourist face and almost anyone will help you out with directions or whatever. The subway fare recently jumped an extra dollar to $3.75 which really really sucks, but most colleges are located in Manhattan so you can probably just walk to a great deal of places. Ignore the rats and they’ll probably run away; your bigger problem is dick pigeons that have no fear and stare you down in the middle of the street til you walk around them. Also, generally speaking you’re better off (more comfortable) just standing on the subway than squeezing yourself in the middle seat. Also if you’re on an evening rush hour subway packed like sardines and the poor tired conductor is yelling at people trying to get on that there’s another train right behind this train, they’re usually telling the truth. Just get off and wait, because that next train is usually so empty you can even sit down. For Christ sake don’t lean on the poles, and it’s ok to stand by the doors as long as you get out of the way when people are trying to get off.
washington DC : georgetown is lovely! there’s so many fun things to do around here and during spring when the cherry blossoms bloom it’s absolutely gorgeous! the museums are super fun (i recommend the spy museum!) and the zoo gets new baby pandas every 2 years!!!! if you’re a poli sci major or business major, the internship opportunities are endless! DC has such a vibrant community and it’s such a fun place to live. there’s never a dull moment. make sure to stay out of some more dangerous areas downtown, that’s the only thing i would say is an issue. you can take the train anywhere you want, and basically everything is accessible. the food is so great too!
I'm like 15 minutes away but im still there a lot
the metro's pretty expensive for what it is, but you can get around most of the area pretty easily without too much hassle (esp compared to trying to drive into the city)
there's a bunch of free stuff to do! all of the museums are awesome (esp the botanical gardens & the sculpture garden nearby, they have ice skating in the winter!)
there are always a ton of tourists and families around the mall (at least precovid)
some parts are actually so poorly designed and really difficult to navigate, but that's mostly the richer residential areas (almost cried doing a driving lesson there)
food's pretty good but a lot of places are crazy expensive
there are some places you should definitely avoid but it's sometimes hard to tell that you're headed into them esp if construction's going on
if you are going to georgetown uni, pls pls pls try and get out of georgetown/NW DC and explore more of the city! Georgetown (the neighborhood) is expensive af and if you spent all your time buying 15 dollar salads and shopping from the boutique stores there you will be bled dry come the end of freshman year. Seriously, DC has so much culture that isn't captured in the racially and socioeconomically homogenous region of NW DC (Adams Morgan, Georgetown, Chevy Chase, Kalorama).
Highly recommend exploring all the museums (they're free) like National Gallery of Art, Natural History Museum (a classic😌), Museum of the American Indian, and Newseum (gotta pay for this one but it's worth it imo). After the museums, check out the U Street, Shaw, Logan Circle, Petworth, and Columbia Heights neighborhoods. There're a lot of cool murals that celebrate the black history of the city (DC used to be called Chocolate City). There's food from all over the world: delicious Ethiopian food in Silver Spring, MD and literally Georgian, Uighur, Uzbek, asian fusion, mediterranean, etc. restaurants all around the city, you just gotta go look for them. Eastern and Union Markets are good places to explore with friends, as well as the Wharf (go to the fish market for hush puppies and clam chowder instead of the developed area). There're a lot of great coffee and music places (Tryst, Songbird, Black Cat, Velvet Lounge, basement concerts) for like 18+ and 21+ year olds. Idk if you like clubbing Ultrabar allows 18 year olds but there are also 40 year olds who frequent those places so watch out? You can kayak at the Navy Yard, go to Zoolights, get food and walk around the city (its a pretty walkable city) if you're going on a date.
Know that DC is very much a city that's tailored towards 20 year olds. There's animosity between locals and transplants (a lot of people from around the world not from DC live in DC) because gentrification is pushing a lot of black and brown folks into the edges of NE and SE and SW. Everything around the National Mall/GWU closes after 7pm (when all the commuters from the burbs go home from their day jobs). GET OFF THE RED LINE AND EXPLORE OTHER METRO LINES PLEASE.
Seattle: if i’m being honest it really has gone downhill in the past few years, and a LOT of people are moving out of the city to get away from it lol but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some perks! the downtown area is nice by pike place and on the water, and there is some great shopping/small businesses. the area by UW’s campus can be sketchy but U-Village is a super cool area for shopping and dining!
LA: as someone from california who has spent a lot of time in LA, i personally hate it . it’s nice if u like the city and don’t mind smog and traffic but personally, i love open spaces and nature. also a lot of LA is dirty imo and it’s very expensive
You don't have to pretend to like boba if you move to southern California. The ones that always make a big deal about it are typically the ones that do it to compensate for their lack of personality from my experience.
LA is a car dependent city, and it's pretty limited where you can go using public transit depending where you go, and what area you live in. Also be mindful of where you are going, avoid places like the "jungle" or the "projects".
Food can get pretty expensive, so try to balance it out with cooking your own food or food from the dining hall if you have a meal plan. But also check out areas like thaitown, koreatown, little tokyo and other similar areas.
If you're from out of state, stay at the dorms first, and ask other people about which apartment options are the best and affordable. But this also applies to people instate as well.
Pittsburg:
(I don’t go into the city itself much but I live in the region so I’ll give this a go) I like it but I’m kinda biased. I’ve noticed a strong sports culture and good food, and quite a bit of city pride. Driving in the city is a pain from my experience (which, admittedly, isn’t frequent), but public transport isn’t great either from what I’ve heard. Has nice parks, and if you go to CMU you get free visits to the Carnegie museums. Lastly, avoid Homewood.
Edit: forgot the weather. Yeah, not the best, it’s pretty gloomy but I’m used to it, take that as you will.
Edit 2: I’m going off of both my experience and general impressions, like how I many not go to Homewood, but have heard about it on the news for crime more than some other areas and have been told to avoid it by others.
Southern California:
Wildfires are getting worse and worse every year. Before, we would only see them on the news; now we evacuate. Even if you don't have to evacuate, the bad air quality makes it horrible.
As far as the beach goes, it can get super crowded during the summer, but honestly that doesn't bother anyone too much. If you know the right places/the secret beaches, you can get an entire beach to yourself. Honestly, the beaches here are so beautiful (except for the ones that have too much seaweed :/) and I'm going to miss the beaches so much next year when I go to college :((
There are boba shops everywhereeeeee. Everyone loves boba. Even if you don't, pretend you do.
We go crazy when it rains!!!
One critique of LA specifically: the city plan is wack in terms of public transportation. The city is too spread out to make public transportation feasible, but the streets are too narrow for traffic to be avoided. There's basically traffic all the time.
SF: you WILL need a jacket, it doesn't matter that it's the bay area, the fog is cold. Also ridiculously expensive. Still, it's really close to a lot of gorgeous areas and great hikes. There's definitely a lot of homeless people, that part isn't exaggerated. The food is the BEST, there are so many options. There's so many fun things to do in the city and nearby and you definitely won't run out of ideas.
Born and Raised here and can say I throughly enjoyed it. I will be do my best to honest about my city. There is a thinly veiled facade of anti-racism here. While there is little hate crime or overt racism, this is a city where 5% of the population is black yet 30% of the homeless population is black. The working class struggle against the rich who stagnate progress on issues from housing to policing. It is absolutely expensive here, especially if you are not local and don’t know where to find cheap food and goods. Homelessness and crime is a problem here, though not quite as big as the media portrays it. The crime and homelessness is centralized in a specific area, which is avoidable and I would absolutely not recommend going to. Beyond our faults lies an amazing city, however. We value community based organizations and locally owned business. There is an incredible amount of things to do here, as well as in the rest of the Bay Area. San Francisco has all major sports teams, and an incredibly active population. Out here, We run, we hike and we bike. We enjoy the luxury of being able to be active in such a breathtaking area. Whether you want to surf in Santa Cruz or hike in Muir Woods, they are both an hour and a half away from San Francisco. Finally, the locals love the Bay. If you want to blend in, buy a Ben Davis jacket, San Franpsycho t shirt and SF Giants hat. I hope this helped and I hope you come and make your mark on this amazing city.
Also dont call it "frisco".
BOSTON: Honestly it’s a very solid college town. Perfect size and everything. Students can easily hang out with students from nearby Universities, and it’s super easy to get around with uber and the MBTA.
Boston is very public transport friendly. Great boba/food. Easily walkable too imo. Good shopping/things to do in general. Pretty expensive in the Financial District where I lived. I never felt unsafe walking alone at night in the Financial District at least.
CHICAGO: Chicago: Love the heart of downtown and has many solid things to do, good food(absolutely love the pizza) , good people, good times, good food. There are a lot of homeless people on the streets which might seem scary at first but they won't bother you if you don't bother them! It can get a pretty sketchy in certain areas, but most of the schools truly downtown are pretty separated from it all. I absolutely love the Chicago suburbs, while it might seem like some of the smaller towns don't have much to do, its usually a quick trip to the city or larger towns.
In Chicago, there are these golden weather periods where everything is perfect and the trees are green and everyone's out (even during the pandemic, albeit safely) and I think "man, this is the best city in the world, why do I wanna leave this place" and then November hits lmao
Also, go to a Cubs game. Wrigley Field is an experience you will remember.
TORONTO: UofT is so so nice! It's got an old campus feel with nice old architecture and all but the buildings are spread out throughout the downtown area so you never feel secluded at all. Everything is within walking distance but there are also subways and buses and streetcars running everywhere if you need (although waiting for them can be a major pain sometimes). The city is so multicultural so there's every kind of food from every country you can imagine! Museums/shopping/parks/restaurants are everywhere so you'll never get bored. Winter is horrible though, it's super cold and just depressing while summer is terribly hot and humid. Toronto's pretty expensive though, depending on where you're coming from.
Vancouver: This city is actually so nice but pretty expensive. You've got the mountains, beach and big city all in one place making it perfect to do outdoorsy activities but also just wander around town. UBC is kind of isolated but there are buses that take you everywhere and it just makes it feel a bit more like a campus. Definitely some areas are a bit sketchy but overall it's a safe city with tons to do and amazing food. It rains a ton here but the temperature's mild year round.
-The UBC campus is super nice! it's really pretty and the weather there is pretty mild, both in summer and winters, although it does end up raining a LOT during winter. HUUUGE asian community, especially in the richmond area, but that also means REALLY good asian food. a lot of the recreational stuff in van is like hiking/going to the beach/biking etc, since vancouver has forests, mountains and ocean, so be prepared to be active. public transport is pretty extensive, although sometimes you end up waiting 25 minutes for a bus. downtown is also pretty nice, but there' certain areas/streets (hastings, etc) that are quite sketchy. avoid those. living costs are also quite high tbh.
Montreal: love this city so much. Awesome size, affordable, diverse. Great bike infrastructure, restaurants, summer festivals, amazing Metro system. Beautiful architecture, very LGBT friendly. Downtown is very bilingual. Lots of clubs (drinking age 18), incredibly low crime rate, lively downtown, such a happy feel everywhere as soon as the weather warms up at the end of April and the terrasses open and everyone's eating outside in their jackets loving the sunshine. Winter's cooooold, ngl. You've gotta embrace it and skate outside on campus, on the river in old Montreal, in the parks, cross-country ski on the mountain, or just hunker down and study for 4 months.
​
MIAMI: Miami is both amazing and horrible. The weather can be fabulous and the nature is so vibrant. When the sun is out it feels like you're living in a "indie" snapchat filter that raises the saturation. So much diversity; the cultural melting pot of America. If you want to meet people from around the world and see more cultures then come here! You better know some Spanish, because now more people speak Spanish than English down here. If you like the beaches and you can deal with the heat then Miami is perfect. Also get used to rain and you have to be comfortable with nature; ants and lizards and bugs and roaches will come into your house. Also a great place if you like art as we have many large art festivals here.
BUFFALO
ROCHESTER
ITHACA: I was born in Ithaca, but it’s been a few years since I’ve visited so take this with a grain of salt.
First of all, it’s gorgeous. Even though the town lacks in accessibility (it’s at least an hour away from major cities), it has some of the best scenery I’ve ever seen. There’s waterfalls (yes, waterfalls!) nearby and it borders Cayuga Lake as well. It gets really cold in the winter, but summers are literally perfect.
Ithaca is dominated by people associated with colleges (students, professors, etc.), and the town reflects this as well. I remember there being a lot of restaurants with options ranging all the way from vegan to Greek and there’s a pedestrian mall called the Ithaca Commons. Overall, the people are super nice, and if you decide to come here, it will definitely be 4 of the most memorable years of your life.
NEW HAVEN
ATLANTA: One thing I will say is that the roads are absolutely CRAZY. they'll be 5, 6 lane roads just running through the city and its a nightmare when you arent sure where you're going.
AUSTIN:
Austin is cool, but so many people have expectations that are just way too high. If you go and look up “best city in America” I guarantee that Austin will pull up on at least one. Austin isn’t bad, but it isn’t the idealistic wonderland that it is made out to be. It’s a real city with real issues, and just because you went for SXSW doesn’t mean that you will love it.
The Awesome: lots of interesting food choices, live music if you’re into that, excellent job opportunities after college, like a combination of Nashville, Seattle, and Texas hill country
The meh: housing prices aren’t necessarily terrible compared to places like DC or NYC, but it is much much more expensive here than in the past. Almost everyone’s houses have doubled in value in the last ten years. Do not come thinking you’re getting a cheap experience. Definitely more expensive than Houston and Dallas. Another thing that isn’t awesome is people tend to be pretentious, but not like in Dallas. It’s more pretentious in a hipster way, whereas Dallas and LA are places that are pretentious in regards to money.
The awful: traffic is terrible, because the population growth has far outpaced the infrastructure development. Another major issue is the homeless downtown. If you go to UT, expect to see several homeless people on and around campus. They are trying to solve this issue, but the crisis is worse than almost anywhere else not names Seattle or Portland. Also, tons of people wear UT merch despite never have attended the school. THE WEATHER SUCKS, in august almost every day is over 100 degrees. Winters aren’t even that mild a lot of the time like some would expect (Although it’s been warm this January). Weather is not like Miami.
Other things to know: overwhelmingly liberal downtown, suburbs tend to be mixed. Dallas, Houston and San Antonio are pretty close by, but leaving the state of Texas from Austin is at least a 5 hour affair.
DENVER
DALLAS: Uhhh Dallas is not public transport friendly at all. You need a car on campus. The DART tram goes through downtown but it can feel sketchy at times if you're alone and the stops aren't super conveniently located. Parts of Dallas also have really high crime rates but downtown and uptown aren't so bad. Oak Lawn is also a great location for nightlife/convenience in general but far ish from the universities. Rent is increasing at a relatively fast pace. Increasingly diverse foodie scene. Dallas suburbs are a better mix of lower rent but still good access to entertainment/shopping/food if you have a car and can drive (especially Plano/Frisco/Carrollton)
**PHILLY:*\*Philly is a beautiful city. If you’re going to Upenn please don’t walk off campus too far. If you’re going to Temple, rip. Go to magic gardens, every indie trendy philly teens home. Living in philly shapes you as a teen, it really is kind of like a culture. Don’t get a cheesesteak from Pat’s and don’t tell anyone you aren’t an Eagles fan.
Baltimore - The bad reputation we have is completely overblown; Baltimore is a really fun, charming quirky city that has a very distinct underdog personality to it. Charles Village, Hampden, Mount Vernon and Station North are all fun areas to explore—lots of vintage and thrift shops, trinket stores, places to eat, etc. All of these neighborhoods are extremely walkable as well. Once COVID goes away it’s always fun to see movies at either the Charles or the Parkway Theater in Station North or visit the BMA, AVAM or Walters Art Museum. Public transit isn’t great, but if you don’t have a car either the bus or the light rail can take you to the places that have the most action going on. No one goes into the Inner Harbor except tourists. Areas around JHU are completely safe as long as you aren’t doing anything stupid like looking at your phone at night with headphones in while walking around. Please make sure to be careful when you’re around roads though! We’re known to be absolutely terrible drivers haha.
Blacksburg, VA (V tech): I sent a summer on campus at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg Virginia and staying there was so nice. There are so many activities to do and on the weekends people and families visit campus to play with their dog or hangout downtown and the vibe is so amazing. There are farmers markets, hiking trails, so many farms for fruit picking. It's a college town in the middle of no where so there is just so much for Blacksburg to offer!!
ETC.
P.S all of these are comment additions so not my experiences.
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Vintage Celebrity Gossip - 2000s

Well last week's celebrity gossip got dark, so to lighten things up a little bit I thought we could do another round of vintage gossip?
Previous Vintage Gossip: 1990s

2000s Vintage Gossip

Decade History
Some Music Gossip
Britney Spears
Justin Timberlake
Men who need to be cancelled - You know, I thought the 2000s would be fun but it's got dark stuff too, so I've spoiler tagged this so you can skip it. If you're discussing this below, can you spoiler tag too?
Michael Jackson - Died on June 25, 2009. There is a documentary on his sexual abuses and honestly it's horrifying and I'd rather not snark on it but it needs to be mentioned.
R. Kelly - The 35 year old man was indicted then acquitted on child porn charges. There is a documentary on his sexual abuses and honestly it's horrifying and I'd rather not snark on it but it needs to be mentioned.
Phil Spector - convicted of murdering Lana Clarkson and did a lot of other bad stuff including emotional, sexual, and physical abuse of musicians, children, and partners.
Chris Brown - When the pop couple were a no-show at dress rehearsal for the Grammy Awards on February 8, reports quickly surfaced about an altercation between Chris Brown and Rhianna. Brown was charged with assault and making criminal threats, and at a hearing in LA on June 22, the singer pled guilty to felony assault. I hate that he's still popular and have mixed feelings about the two still making music together.
Aaliyah Haughton
TLC
Run DMC
Other Celebrity Musician deaths
Madonna
Kelly Clarkson
Glee & American Idol & Britain's Got Talent
Taylor Swift
Some Movie & TV Gossip
Christian Bale
Winona Ryder
BRADGELINA
Paris Hilton
Sandra Bullock
Martha Stewart
Mel Gibson - He's since had a comeback! My parents loved Hawksaw Ridge. But in 2006, he was pulled over for drunk driving and said anti-Semitic and sexist remarks.
Just a reminder to use spoiler tags for the not fun stuff to keep this a light hearted.
Roman Polanski - was arrested for rape in Switzerland in 2009. Polanski was defended by many prominent individuals, including Hollywood celebrities and European artists and politicians, who called for his release even though the general public thought he should be in jail. In 2010, the Swiss released him and his movements are limited to France, Switzerland, and Poland.
Some Sports Gossip
Some Model and Fashion Gossip
submitted by overcommunikate to blogsnark [link] [comments]

I am 35 years old, make $56,000 ($231k combined), live in Seattle, and work in higher ed administration

Note: I was technically supposed to post this earlier this week, but noticed that no one was signed up for today (plus I was super busy earlier), so I'm posting a bit late, under a throwaway account! Fair warning: I'm VERY verbose, so this will be long!
Section One: Assets and Debt
As I mentioned above, I make $56k per year as an administrator in higher education. My husband (K) just got a raise to making $155k per year. He works as a lawyer, has been in the workforce for about 12 years. I won't get into too many details but he works for a small boutique firm, not Biglaw. He also sometimes gets a yearly bonus of around $10k-20k but it's not guaranteed or anything like that. K and I have totally combined finances, so the below numbers are for both of us. I have a humanities PhD but I decided to leave academia and find an alt-ac job. My current position has good work-life balance (I never work past 5 pm), but pays terribly and my university is very badly run. I'm hoping to leave higher education all together in the future and am currently enrolled in a certificate program to try to make a career transition to instructional design.
The big elephant in the room is that my husband, K, makes a lot more money than me. When we first met, he was paying off massive amounts of student loans and making much less, and I was debt free with a lot of savings, so we both spent about the same amount. Now he makes 3x what I make and we are both debt-free, so the difference is much more noticeable. We do argue about money sometimes (more in the past), but the reality is that I have a humanities PhD and will likely never out earn him, and he knew that when I married him, lol. Because of all the labor I do around the house and in our lives to support him as he works a much more intense job, I was very clear that I believed we should split our finances equally as soon as we got married. We don't have separate accounts and we generally check in with one another whenever we are planning to spend more than $100. This system works for us for now.
I also want to address the question about parental or family support. Although I technically paid all of my own bills since I got my Bachelor's degree, my parents supported me a lot by paying for my flights home to visit at Christmas or in the summer as Xmas presents/birthday presents. My parents also paid for my undergraduate degree (and K's parents paid for his undergraduate degree as well). They also gave us about $15k to pay for our wedding.
Finally, my parents recently gave me $20k as an "early inheritance." They told me they plan to do this every year (depending on the stock market). We put this money into a brokerage. I don't consider my parents rich, as they both worked hourly jobs in health care my entire life (as a nurse and respiratory therapist - both with only associate's degrees). We never owned a new car, when we went on vacation we stayed in hostels , and shopped almost exclusively at Goodwill. But they scrimped and saved and now they have over $1 million in a retirement account. So I want to acknowledge my financial privilege in that I came from this kind of background. K's parents are similar.
Retirement Balance: $186k (combination of 401k, 403b, 457, 2 Roth IRAs, and taxable brokerage account).
Equity: None, we rent.
Savings account balance: Approximately $45k.
Checking account balance: Right now, around 8k.
Credit card debt: Right now, around $3k. But we pay it off each month with our checking account balance.
Student loan debt: $0. We finally paid off my husband’s law school loans (around $130k), last year. I didn’t have any student loans from undergrad (parents paid) and my MA & PhD were fully funded.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I’ve been working in my current field for 3 years. I started off making about $53k and got tiny 2% “merit increases” twice. Then in July my payroll title was changed, which triggered a required raise of about $2k. (I am dramatically underpaid).
Before my current position, I was in academia. I worked as a visiting assistant professor for one year at my alma mater (made $50k for 9 months of work) and before that I was a graduate student for 7 years. I was paid $18k-21k in stipends each year and my tuition & benefits were covered. Luckily, I lived in a very low cost of living area and this was enough for me to live on without going into debt. I got my PhD in 2017. Before I was a graduate student, I taught English in Japan for three years and made around $36k per year. In high school and college, I had random jobs that provided grocery/spending money, but I was lucky enough to have parents that paid my tuition and my rent in college.
I’m currently trying to make a career change (as you will see in my diary) and enrolled in a certificate program which runs from Autumn 2020 to Spring 2021 in order to help with that.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $7,634. This probably seems low relative to our joint income, but we max out our 401k (K) and 403b (me). I work for the state government, which means I’m also eligible for something called a Deferred Compensation Plan (457b). This is basically the same as a 401k but you can withdraw contributions and gains from the account at any age without penalty (of course, you still have to pay taxes). I also max this out, and the limit is the same as a 401k/403b - $19.5k. Also this number is before K’s raise is accounted for. It won’t increase until his end of February paycheck.
Other deductions - I have health insurance taken out (about $80 a month for me, K’s firm covers his premiums) and taxes. WA has no state taxes, so it’s only federal taxes. I used to have to pay $50 / month for a bus pass (K's was free), but I don’t pay any longer because I’m working from home during COVID.
Final note - the sum I mentioned in the headline includes a variable bonus my husband gets. My base pay is $56k and his is $155k (as of February 1). This year he also got a bonus of $20k, which is set up a bit strangely. About $4k of this was structured as a 3% matching contribution to his 401k and the rest was taxable income. In small law firms, it’s unusual to get any 401k match so this was nice.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: None.
Any Other Monthly Income Here: We get some interest from our savings account… like $25 a month.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: Rent comes to approximately $2,050 total for a one-bedroom apartment. Rent itself is $1886, then we have pet rent ($25 per month), bicycle parking ($15 a month) and water / sewage / gas, which is usually $120-150 (variable cost).
Renters insurance: $157.76, paid annually. $13 a month.
Retirement contribution: In addition to the 401k, 403b, and 457, which all come out before taxes, we max out our Roth IRAs. That means $500 each per month per person (for a yearly total of $6k each). As I noted up top, we match out our 401k and 403b (19,500 each) and our 457. My employee also offers a 7.5% match. K's employee offers a 3% match but it is included in his yearly bonus so it's not guaranteed (confusing).
Savings contribution: We put $500 per month into our emergency fund. We also put about $860 a month into our “sinking fund,” which covers large and small annual or sporadic purchases such as vacations, gifts, Amazon Prime renewal, car insurance and renters insurance, etc.
Investment contribution: $875 per month into a taxable brokerage at Vanguard.
In total, we save about 47% of our gross income. We can do this because we keep our housing cost low relative to our high income, we don’t have any debt remaining, we don’t have any kids or parents who need financial support, and we’re very privileged in a lot of ways. We are hoping to FIRE within 10 years.
Debt payments: None.
Donations: We budget $100 per month for donations, which includes one-time donations as well as some reoccurring donations. My husband does pro bono work as well. I would like to increase this by quite a bit, but I still have a hard time budgeting for donations because I spent 7 years living on approximately $20k a year. To go from that to making more than 10x that amount within 3-4 years is obviously something that I am very privileged for, but it is still hard for me emotionally to comprehend at times.
Electric: ~$50-100 (billed every other month)
Wifi/Cable/Landline: An extortionate $87.12 for slow internet that only works for Zoom calls about half the time. Do I really live in one of the tech cities of the future?
Cellphone: $170 (This includes both service and paying off two new iPhones. We could have paid them off up front, but it was actually cheaper by like $50 to go on a payment plan.)
Subscriptions: BritBox ($7.70), Spotify ($16.50), HBOMax ($16.50), We Hate Movies Patreon (my favorite podcast - $8.81). My parents pay for Netflix and my sister pays for Hulu, and we all share.
Gym membership: None. K and I both run and do yoga with YouTube videos. Before the pandemic, we went to yoga classes pretty frequently in person. I’d like to do some online synchronous yoga classes but find it hard to make time.
Pet expenses: Varies, but I budget $50 per month and also include an emergency fund for my cat’s vet bills in our sinking fund. She’s 11 years old and probably asthmatic, so I know her vet bills are going to increase over time.
Car payment / insurance: We own our car outright. Insurance billed yearly is $2,097, about $174 per month.
Regular therapy: $0
Paid hobbies: Nothing regular, sporadic language classes and art supplies.
Other expenses: Right now I’m doing a certificate to hopefully help with a career change. The total cost for tuition is about $5k and we already saved it up (included in our 'sinking fund') basically through spending less during the pandemic. I’ve paid two quarters so far, and the last quarter (due in March) will be a bit more - about $2.3k.
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Day 1
Morning: I wake up at 5:30 am. Ever since the pandemic, my sleep schedule has been shot. At first, I was so happy not to have to leave the house at 7:15 for my 45 minute bus commute and I slept in a lot. But the stress (and maybe getting old?) has made me an early riser, no matter how much I try to sleep in. I do value my early mornings with just me, my cat, and my coffee, though.
I start work at 8 am and begin by triaging my emails. I have a bunch of deadlines this week, so it’s busier than usual. My job tends to be very seasonal, and sometimes I have a ton of work and sometimes I have none and can work on other longer-term projects. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and place a Whole Foods delivery order for the following day at 10:30 am. We made a meal plan and put everything in the cart the day before ($117.36, including tip).
Afternoon: I have my lunch break from noon to 1 pm. It doesn’t really matter when I take my lunch break, since I’m salaried, but the others in my office are hourly so in the before times we used to always close our office during the same time. I have a piece of leftover delivery pizza and some spinach risotto that I made a few days earlier. I also have half a brownie – the last one from a batch I made a few days ago (K gets the other half). He also has leftovers for lunch.
I should say at this point that both K and I are lucky enough to have been working almost entirely from home since early March. An area near Seattle was one of the first places to get hit by COVID-19, and my state and both of our employers have been taking it very seriously ever since. Working from home hasn’t always been easy since we live in a 600-square foot apartment. Also, there is a three-story townhouse being built directly next door to us and I can hear the pounding in my dreams at this point.
Around 2 pm, I go for a 2-mile run. I feel like some money diarists tend to toss off things like “oh, I went for an easy 7 mile run,” at the drop of a hat, so I want to be clear – running for 2 miles isn’t easy for me; it’s exhausting, annoying, sweaty, and generally gross. Also I am very slow. But it has kept me sane during quarantine.
Meanwhile, my husband goes to our local pet store to get an enzymatic cleaner (our cat peed in one of our suitcases… I think it’s probably a lost cause, but it was basically brand new, so worth a try) and special weight-loss cat food. Our cat is an 11-year-old rescue from the Humane Society and she is a chonky girl. We had to sign a waiver when we adopted her, saying that we understood that she was very overweight, lol. Our vet recommended a special diet food, rather than just restricting her intake as we have been doing, so we will give it a try ($78). My husband also stops buy our local wine store and picks up two bottles. We’ve been doing a dry January, so this will be our first drink for a while ($27.53).
I have a phone interview scheduled for 4 pm – just a preliminary interview with an internal recruiter. It’s the first ‘corporate’ job interview I’ve ever had, since I’ve been in academia my entire life. I’m trying to make a pivot into instructional design / training and development. I’m just excited to get an interview. It seems to go pretty well, but who knows. They tell me they will probably get back to me by the end of this week.
Evening: My husband whips up a random meal of fridge remnants – pesto pasta with sausage and a fridge salad with feta and bell peppers. It’s pretty tasty with a little Sauvignon Blanc. During dinner, we play a card game we call gin rummy, although it bears no resemblance to the actual game. After dinner, I make a chocolate cake with orange buttercream frosting and we watch Cobra Kai.
Daily total: $222.89
Day 2
Morning: Up early again, a piece of toast for breakfast (very exciting). We’re out of eggs until our Whole Foods order arrives. I’m working on creating some tedious but necessary spreadsheets this morning.
Noon: Our Whole Foods order arrives around noon. Excitement! They’ve given us a half-rotten bag of romaine lettuce and substituted pecans for hazelnuts. I should probably just double mask and go to Trader Joe’s myself (our regular spot, only a 5-minute walk from my apartment). I’m just getting anxious about these new variants.
I have leftover meatloaf and spinach risotto again for lunch. Lots of meetings and more organizing spreadsheets in the afternoon. Around 3 pm, I go for my daily ritual - a 20-minute walk around my neighborhood. It’s still raining slightly but I need to get out. Halfway through the walk, I get an email from my apartment manager telling me the apartment will no longer accept debit card payments, direct deposit, or credit card payments for paying rent. In other words, only checks or money orders (?!). Ugh. Our lease is up in 4 months and we will not be renewing our lease. Our last apartment manager was a gambling addict who may have been stealing people’s identities, but by God, he kept things working. Ever since they fired him, this place has been going downhill.
Evening: I check my bank statements to update my budget spreadsheet and realize that I have been billed the wrong amount of rent. They actually charged me less than they should have. I don’t trust my apartment manager not to start charging me a late fee or something for this, so I call them up. They are baffled by how to fix this, which you would think would be the one thing you would want to get right, if you’re renting out apartments.
K cooks dinner – steak with a Roquefort sauce and glazed brussels sprouts. It’s from a French cookbook we recently bought and it is delicious. I work on classwork for my certificate program while he cooks. After dinner, I do the dishes and buy the 13th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I watch the first episode – lots of shocking twists and turns! I’m planning to watch the rest of the episodes together with my younger sister, M ($22.01).
Daily total: $22.01
Day 3
Morning: K has an 8 am dentist appointment, so he takes off early. He already paid for the work last month, so there’s no charge. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and get to work checking my emails. It’s 8:20 am and the construction crew building a townhouse next door is blasting mariachi music. I’m glad someone is having fun. At least the sun is coming out.
Someone at work has made a critical error, but it wasn’t me, thank God. I was the one who found out about it, but it’s still going to cause a big old headache for me. I’m ready to be done with this job. K and I go for a run so that I can exhaust myself enough to no longer be furious about said careless error.
Noon: I have leftover spinach risotto and meatloaf again – exciting. I’m busy at work but frankly, not a lot going on other than that. Still no word about fixing my rent payments. I’m not really willing to pursue this any further at this point.
Evening: I start making chili (Turkey Chili from the NY Times) and cornbread (from my new cookbook, Jubilee). K is doing some work on our investments when he announces that, somehow, a transfer was scheduled from our checking account to our savings account of $55k (?!) We obviously don’t have $55k in our checking account, so we start frantically trying to figure out what’s going on. Numerous phone calls later, we still don’t know if that was a hack, if my husband somehow mistakenly scheduled the transfer himself, or if the bank messed it up. Either way, it doesn’t seem like any harm was done since the bank with our checking account just declined the transaction. But it seems really strange and worrisome. We get to work changing the passwords on all of our accounts, just in case it was some kind of hack.
After dinner (and chocolate cake), I have a Zoom happy hour with a local friend. We occasionally see each other outside but it’s nice to have a longer chat from the comfort of our living rooms. We both love murder mysteries, so we signed up for a service where a company sends us letters with clues and we try to solve the mystery together. It’s a fun way to stay connected and look forward to something during the pandemic. The service costs about $15 per month, but I paid for it in lump sum for 3 months, so it’s not included in my budget above. I drink some wine and we vent about work (we work at the same place) before getting started on the puzzle.
Daily total: $0
Day 4
Morning: I sleep in a bit, which is nice. Get up around 7 am. My parents are both getting their 2nd vaccine today – they’re both in their 70s and I am so relieved. I send my mom a “congratulations on being vaccinated!” text and we chat for a bit. I have leftover cornbread with honey and butter for breakfast – soooo good.
Work is not particularly exciting today, but someone sends me a last-minute request for something that does not need to be so urgent. I feel annoyed. Still no word from the interviewers on Monday, and I’m beginning to suspect I wasn’t selected to move forward. Too bad. K pays for a Wordpress website for the year (it’s a work-related website, but sadly his work doesn’t reimburse him). It costs $92.48.
Noon: The mariachi music is particularly loud today. I stand out on my balcony in the sun for a while and watch the workers. It’s been interesting seeing a house go up next door in real time, especially since I’m at home all the time. The workers are balancing on the top of the third story wall without, as far as I can see, anything like a safety line. It seems unsafe, but I presume they know what they’re doing.
We booked a cabin for the upcoming weekend in the Hood Canal region of Washington to do some hiking and birdwatching. I want to be as safe as possible and not go to any grocery stores or risk spreading COVID in any way while I’m there, so I place another grocery order with Whole Foods just for some special treats for the weekend. The cabin has a small kitchen and a grill, so we’re planning to make a fancy steak salad on Saturday. I order chips and hummus, some fancy cheese and meats, Tate’s cookies (I’ve heard a lot of good things about these), a baguette, and the ingredients for the steak salad. I also order a few staples I forgot in our last order, like sweet potatoes, more coffee, and half and half. It comes to $87.41, including tip, but that does include like $30 worth of steak. For some reason, I can’t order a small amount of steak online, so I’m planning to freeze half of it for later. (I include this purchase in our vacation fund budget, rather than under our regular grocery budget).
Around 2 pm, K makes a quick trip to our local wine store to buy an Oregon pinot noir and some port to enjoy at the cabin ($59.45). This store has an outdoor walk-up counter where you can tell the owner what you’re looking for, and he brings you some options (the store is way too small to allow customers to enter during Covid). It’s fun to chat with another human being, even briefly.
Evening: After work, we spend a little time rebalancing our investing and retirement accounts. We decide to put more money into bonds and a little bit into REIT’s as a hedge against a potential crash or recession in the future. Then I start making dinner – Broken Eggs (Huevas Rotas) from the NY Times cooking site. You basically cook the potatoes in a skillet in water, spices, and olive oil, and then sauté them to crisp them up once the water evaporates. Then you add onion, lots of garlic, and finally some eggs. It is delicious. I eat it with leftover cornbread while watching RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13 with my sister – we watch the first two episodes. It’s full of twists and turns. A note about this – we have an elaborate procedure for watching shows together developed during quarantine whereby we start the show at the same with an earbud in one ear, while FaceTiming. I also have chocolate cake, of course.
Later, I get an email that I’ve signed up for HBO on Amazon Prime. I definitely have not. I text my mom, who shares my account, and she tells me she signed up by mistake. I cancel right away and luckily they won’t charge us for it.
Meanwhile, K is doing an online Japanese language class over Zoom. He’s been interested in learning ever since we went to Japan last January. I lived in Japan for 3 years so I was able to take us around to a lot of more obscure places and he really enjoyed the trip – it was a blast.
K starts a YouTube yoga class (from Do Yoga With Me – my favorite channel) and I join him for part of it before bed around 10 pm.
Daily total: $239.34
Day 5
Morning: I get up around 7 am and we go for a run first thing. I prefer running early in the morning because there are fewer people to avoid during COVID. We do a different route today – it’s longer (3 miles) but has fewer hills. It’s a slog, as always, but I feel good when I get back right around 8 am. I jump straight onto my computer to start checking work emails and my husband makes us avocado and egg toast for breakfast - it is absolutely delicious.
We talk about how our bathroom smells distinctly mildewy (yay for being a grown-up because I guess this is what we talk about now) and we buy two big buckets of DampRid on Amazon ($26.60). I’ve found this to be a necessity in Seattle. Mid-morning, I take a break from work and start packing for our trip to the cabin.
Noon: I have leftover potatoes and cornbread for lunch, and my husband has the leftover chili. We finish getting ready to leave and head out right after lunch, taking a half day. The only problem is that I have attend a meeting at 3:30 pm, so we head out hoping to get there in time. Our cabin is near Quilcene in the Hood Canal region of Washington, about a 2 hour drive or a 2 hour ferry ride + drive. We are initially planning to take the ferry both ways, but realize that we mistimed the ferry departure, so we drive the whole way instead. Luckily, there’s little traffic mid-day, and we arrive at our Airbnb around 3:00 pm.
The Airbnb is beautiful! It’s a small cabin handmade by the owner, whose house is next door. It’s very rural, with a beautiful view. It’s tiny, but has a little kitchen and a waterfall-style shower with river rocks on the floor. It’s a great place to get away for a short time. Luckily, it also has good reception and I’m able to sit in on my meeting with no problems. My husband also does a little work, and then at 5 pm we’re free!
In our planning, we decided to get takeout on Friday night, since the little kitchen isn’t designed for any serious cooking. We call ahead to a local restaurant to order burgers (one of only 2 restaurants in the whole town). It’s around 5:30 pm and the place is deserted. It’s a microbrewery, but they tell us they haven’t been making beer since COVID-19 hit. None of the workers are wearing masks when I walk in, but they put them on when they see I’m wearing one. I pick up our order - a few bottled beers and burgers and fries ($49.52 including tip).
Back at our Airbnb, we watch Big Trouble in Little China and enjoy our very messy, but delicious, burgers (it costs $4.39 to rent). The movie is very campy but fun. I love silly action movies, as you will see with my other viewing choices. We wrap up the night in a very exciting fashion, eating chocolate cake and watching old episodes of the original Star Trek.
Daily total: $80.51
Day 6
Morning & noon: When we wake up around 8 am, the weather is looking thankfully clear and even sunny! We were expecting rain, so we’re really glad. We decide to go hiking today, and we head out before even having breakfast, with snacks and lunches packed. Our first destination is a hike called Mt. Zion, but unfortunately, we run into enough snow 2 miles before the trailhead that we decide to turn back. We don’t have any traction for our Subaru and don’t want to risk getting stuck on a very narrow mountain road. Instead, we drive another hour or so to the Lena Lake trailhead, a very popular and less strenuous trail. It’s about 7.5 miles roundtrip with 1200 feet of elevation gain.
By this time, it’s around 11:30, but luckily there is still parking. It’s a great hike up, and we run into relatively few people. We always mask up whenever we pass anyone, as does about 50% of the people we meet. The others… not so much. Around a mile from the lake, we start to run into snow. It’s turned into a beautiful sunny day, and I’m loving seeing all this snow! It’s a bit slippery, but not too bad. We make it to the lake mid-day, and it’s super jammed – there’s only a small viewpoint accessible, so everyone is crowded in there. I feel a bit uneasy with all the unmasked people, but we manage to find a spot away from the crowd and sit down to eat our lunch of apples, chips, and energy bars. There are a ton of robber jays there (Canada Jays) which try to eat our chips. It is fun watching them, but I’m annoyed to see some kids feeding them – it’ll just make them that much more aggressive. Bad trail manners.
On our way back down, we get stuck behind a group of 5 unmasked adults, who refuse to cede the narrow trail to faster hikers. I’m a slow hiker myself, so, to be clear, I’m not angry at slower walkers being on the trail but have some self-awareness and let people pass! especially if you’re going to go hiking in a big group during a pandemic! We finally get back down and head back to our Airbnb.
Evening: Back home, we explore some of the trails our Airbnb host has set up around his extensive property, and then relax on the deck. The sun is breaking through the clouds and it feels wonderful to sit out in nature and feel the sun on my back. We open up a bottle of wine and have a few pre-dinner snacks (more chips and hummus). For this night, we brought ingredients to make a steak salad. Our Airbnb host has kindly set up a charcoal grill for us, so we grilled the steak and toast some bread on the side.
We eat dinner while watching the truly terrible Jean Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport and finish up the very last of my chocolate cake. It’s amazing that anyone ever let Van Damme act… or should I say ‘act.’ I also have a Tate’s chocolate chip cookie or two, accompanied by a little port. My husband and I are truly very old people at heart, so we finish up the night watching a few episodes of Columbo.
Daily total: $0
Day 7
Morning: Unfortunately, K had insomnia last night, so he sleeps in pretty late. I drink coffee in bed and enjoy looking at the view out our big windows. Once he’s up, we get packed up and write a thank you note for our host. It was a great stay.
One of my big hobbies is birding and K enjoys wildlife photography, so we go out to look for some lifers! (The first time you see a new species of bird). Did I mention we are very old people in (relatively) young bodies? We first go to Dosewallips State Park and see some bald eagles, great blue herons, lots of various ducks, and a flock of Canada Geese, which, strangely, includes a domesticated gray goose. He’s much larger than the Canada Geese and seems to be watching over them. It’s kind of cute. Unfortunately, a lot of the birds are too far from shore to be seen clearly.
Our next stop is Point No Point (I love all the sad & disappointed names that early Westerner explorers gave places in the Washington/Oregon coast), a popular birding spot. We see a ton of birds here, and I can understand why it’s so well-known - Red-Breasted Mergansers, Western Grebes, Common Goldeneyes, Pacific Loons, and a few others I can’t identify yet. Most excitingly though, we see a whole pile of otters! They’re lounging around together on a rock just offshore and a ton of people are watching. We watch as they all slip off the rock and go hunting in the shore. It’s my first otter sighting in the wild, and it’s so cool! We also see some seals and possibly a sea lion. It’s a great spot for wildlife. We eat some snacks (hummus, chips, some sliced meat & cheese) before we head out.
I really want to come back to this area another time and explore further, but K has decided that we need to get back home in time for the Big Game. We take the 3:00 pm ferry back to Seattle ($16.40) and get home around 3:45 pm. I veg out at home while my husband watches football. He’s a Patriots fan but he still loves Tom Brady (??) so he’s happy to see Florida win. I don’t understand sports team loyalties at all, but whatever, I’m glad he’s happy. We order from a new Indian place called Spice Box and get vindaloo, roganjosh, and vegetables pakora – so tasty ($53.96). Happily, there’s enough left over for lunch the next day, since I have no plans for what we will eat yet!
I’m really dreading work the next day, as I know that it will be obnoxious. I want to get out of my job so badly, but it doesn’t look like I’m going on to the next interview stage for the job I interviewed no back on Monday. I’m feeling kind of down about it. I try to stay positive and promise that I’ll apply for at least 2-3 new jobs next week. I bake up some frozen cookie dough I had in the freezer and feel sorry for myself. We end the night by watching another episode of Columbo.
Daily total: 70.36
Food + Drink: $395.23
Fun / Entertainment: $26.40
Home + Health: $26.60
Clothes + Beauty: $0
Transport: $16.40
Other: $170.48
Grand Total: $635.11
I think this week was pretty normal for us. Obviously we spent a bit more than usual due to the weekend cabin trip, but nothing outrageous. Our largest consumer spending category is definitely food and drink – we live in a very busy area of Seattle with tons of restaurants and bars so believe it or not, we actually used to spend even more on eating out. We still try to support our local places by getting takeout or delivery during the pandemic and even occasionally getting a few drinks outside. I spent more than usual on groceries due to stocking up for the weekend away.
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What happened to Autumn Lee Stone? The 23-year-old mother of two was strangled with her own shoelaces in a crowded Seattle park in 2019

August 30th, 2020: The Body in the Lake
It was the last balmy Friday of August, and Green Lake Park in Seattle was bustling with families enjoying the late summer sunshine. The park, located in a dense urban area in the north end of the city, features a large lake ringed by a 2.8-mile bike path as well as multiple playfields, a boathouse, and several docks that are popular amongst fishermen and swimmers.
Shortly after 4 pm on August 30th, 2019, a paddleboarder on the north side of the lake discovered the body of a young woman floating around 20 yards from the shore. After checking the body for signs of life and finding none, he called 911. A police officer and firefighter quickly responded, bringing the corpse to shore and wrestling with the vest she wore zipped all the way up. The respondents noted that the woman had two pairs of shoelaces wrapped tightly around her neck. Although she was fully dressed, she was barefoot, and police located her shoes a short distance away in some bushes. The laces had been removed. Police also noted that there were no apparent signs of a struggle and quickly concluded that the woman “had no defensive wounds”, although an image from the scene reportedly shows minor scraping on the knuckles of one hand. Nearby, police found a notebook that contained a handwritten prayer. Within an hour of her death, a spokesman for the Seattle Police Department told the Seattle Times that Autumn Lee Stone, a 23-year-old mother of two, had died by suicide.
Who Was Autumn? A Devoted Mother Facing Troubled Times
By all accounts, Autumn was a loving mother who was close to her family and adored her two sons, ages five weeks and three years. In the summer of 2019, she was engaged to marry her fiance, Tyler Washington, and had recently given birth to the couple’s first child together. They lived together in Autumn’s grandparent’s house in Everett, a city north of Seattle. That summer, Autumn was excited about her upcoming wedding and her family later stated that they’d never seen her happier.
Then, tragedy struck. On August 21st, 2019, only a week before she was found dead, Autumn left her two sons with her fiance while she picked up food from a nearby Jack in the Box restaurant. When she returned a little over ten minutes later, Washington and Autumn’s grandparents were frantically tending to her infant son. He was limp and gasping for air; the baby was rushed to Seattle Children’s Hospital where doctors saved his life. However, medical staff determined that the infant’s traumatic brain injury and broken ribs could not have been accidental. Two days later, child welfare workers informed Autumn that they would be taking custody of her children pending an investigation. They believed that her five-week-old son had been abused, and suspected that Washington may be responsible.
It was not the first time that Tyler Washington had been involved with the child welfare system. In 2014, he’d pleaded guilty to shaking his infant daughter, leaving the child with permanent brain damage. Although he’d initially attempted to convince authorities that the injuries were accidental, he finally admitted to abusing her after failing a polygraph. Washington told police that he’d “just snapped”. He was sentenced to five years in prison but was released after serving only two. Washington had never told Autumn about the conviction. When state welfare workers informed her of his past, Washington stated that he’d hidden the truth from Autumn and her family because he was afraid they wouldn’t accept him if they knew he’d served time in prison for abusing a child. He also told her that he’d pleaded guilty in 2014 in order to protect his family but insisted that he hadn’t abused his daughter. Autumn, however, was devastated by this revelation. She broke off her engagement to Washington and changed the locks after he moved out. Although police assured Autumn that she wasn’t a suspect in her infant’s case, social workers and lawyers had told her that her parental rights were on the line. Despite the impending criminal investigation and possible loss of custody, Autumn was cooperating with authorities and was reportedly determined to get her children back.
Autumn’s Death and Investigation
On August 30th, Autumn told her mother that she was going to Seattle to get a pedicure and then take a walk around Green Lake Park. That morning she chatted on the phone with a friend, telling her about Washington’s deceit, her child’s traumatic injuries, and her struggle to regain custody of her sons. Despite the devastating situation, Autumn seemed determined and told her friend that she was “going to get some answers”. She arrived at the park around 11:30 am, parked her 2013 Hyundai near the Green Lake Community Center, and called her mother. Her mother stated that the conversation didn’t feel “like a goodbye” and that Autumn didn’t seem depressed or distressed. She had plans to visit her older son, who was in his father’s custody, later that day. Around 1:30 or 2 pm, Autumn texted her son’s father to confirm the visit.
At 3:30 pm, two young girls paddleboarding in the northwest area of the lake commented on what they thought was a turtle in the water. Thirty minutes later, their father would realize that the ‘turtle’ was actually Autumn’s body.
Although Seattle police quickly ruled Autumn’s death a suicide, there were several details that didn’t add up. The first officers to arrive at the scene were unsure how Autumn had ended up dead in the water with no one seeing anything--after all, it was a warm Friday afternoon in one of the busiest parks in the city. How had Autumn managed to strangle herself with her shoelaces without anyone noticing? The firefighter who helped pull Autumn from the water later stated that he did not believe “anyone could have done this to themselves”.
When interviewed by police, the paddleboarder who had found Autumn’s body stated that he’d seen a man sitting on a bench nearby. The paddleboarder’s wife corroborated this and told officers that she’d seen a man, approximately six feet tall with a salt-and-pepper ponytail, quickly leave the area when he heard sirens approaching. Police were unable to find anyone matching the description and were unsure if the paddleboarder and his wife were describing the same person. The only other individual in the area was a 47-year-old man who had been relaxing in a hammock when Autumn’s body was found. He had multiple protection orders against him and an outstanding warrant for a misdemeanor domestic violence charge, but officers did not believe that he was involved in Autumn’s death and allowed him to leave.
Four days after her death, detectives questioned Tyler Washington’s whereabouts on the day his ex-fiancee died. He told police that he’d been at his mother’s home in Bellevue, across Lake Washington from Seattle, all day on August 30th. His mother later verified his claim. Washington also denied communicating with Autumn on the day of her death and gave detectives his phone to be analyzed. However, police noted that there was no location data on Washington’s phone after August 10th. Washington later told a Seattle Times reporter that he believed that a stranger, “maybe some crazy dude”, had killed Autumn. Detectives attempted to obtain a warrant for Washington’s phone records but were unable to as no crime had been established. Despite their earlier statements that Autumn had killed herself, it seemed that Seattle police were beginning to consider that her death may not have been a suicide.
After her body was recovered from the lake, King County Medical Examiner conducted an autopsy and reported that they were unable to conclude whether Autumn’s death had been a suicide or a homicide. They did note that her cause of death had been asphyxiation and that no water had been found in her lungs or stomach. This indicated that Autumn was dead prior to entering the water. There was another piece of crucial evidence revealed during the autopsy: the medical examiner had recovered sperm cells from inside Autumn.
Despite the fact that investigators were unable to determine whether or not Autumn’s death had been a suicide or a homicide, the Seattle Police Department closed the case two weeks after her body was found. Autumn’s family was upset that detectives had closed the case and left them without answers as to how the young mother had ended up dead in the lake. They hired a private investigator and continued to pressure on the Seattle Police Department to reopen Autumn’s case.
In early February, six months after Autumn’s death, Seattle police sent the results of her vaginal swab to the Washington State Patrol crime lab to be analyzed. Even though her case was no longer active, detectives wanted to see whose DNA was inside Autumn. The WSP crime lab was unable to identify any semen or male DNA from the swabs and told Seattle police that the provided sample may have had too few sperm cells to be analyzed. However, the King County Medical Examiner still had the original slides containing the semen harvested from Autumn’s autopsy. They are considering sending the sperm cells to a private lab for analysis in the hopes that DNA can still be harvested from the sample. Meanwhile, Autumn’s parents are plagued by questions that have few answers.
What Happened to Autumn? Theories
How did the 23-year-old mother end up dead in the middle of one of Seattle’s most popular parks on a warm weekend afternoon with no witnesses? Was it truly a suicide, as Seattle police initially stated? Or was Autumn the victim of homicide?
Although Autumn appeared in good spirits the day of her death, she was undoubtedly distraught by Washington's deceit and the fact that he’d likely physically abused not only one but two infants. She was also devastated by the loss of custody of her sons and was upset that social workers would not allow her to visit her youngest in the hospital. Additionally, only days earlier the father of her oldest child had told her that he was filing a petition with the courts to have her visitation status changed to ‘supervised visits only’, which he reportedly felt that child welfare workers had strong-armed him into doing. A notebook found near Autumn’s body contained a prayer she’d written in which she stated that she would do whatever was necessary to ensure that her children had good lives, which police initially interpreted as a suicide note. Were they correct in that assumption? It is possible that Autumn, distraught over the thought of losing both her fiance and her children, wrapped her shoelaces around her neck and strangled herself before collapsing into the lake. However, her vest was found zipped all the way up to her neck, meaning that she would have had to either strangle herself underneath it or zip it up after strangling herself which would be extremely difficult if not outright impossible. An additional but bleak consideration is that there are many other places in Seattle that would likely be more appealing to a person who wanted to end their life, not least the numerous high bridges and cliffs in the city. A busy park on a summer weekend seems to be an unlikely choice for someone who was considering completing suicide, although people in states of emotional duress often make irrational decisions. It doesn’t appear that Autumn traveled to Green Lake Park with plans to kill herself; if she did die by suicide that day, it was probably an impulsive decision made in the face of overwhelming challenges.
However, the facts of Autumn’s case indicate that she may have in fact been the victim of a homicide. The most likely suspect is Tyler Washington, a man who had physically abused two infants to the point of brain injury and then lied to his fiancee and her family in order to cover up his criminal past. Autumn reportedly told her friend on the morning of August 30th that she was “going to get some answers”. Was she perhaps planning to meet up with Washington and wrestle the truth regarding her son’s injuries from him? If so, Washington could have strangled her at the park and disposed of her body in the lake. Although Washington had told police that he had been at his mother’s home all day on August 30th, his phone’s location was turned off and Autumn’s cell was too water-logged for any messages or data to be retrieved.
Autumn’s ex-fiance claimed to believe that her death had occurred at the hands of an opportunistic stranger. The shoreline where Autumn’s shoes were found has areas of dense foliage that could conceal an adult man; it wouldn’t be impossible for someone to hide in the bushes and attack a passerby. Women have been attacked at Green Lake before, but these assaults have occurred mostly at dawn and dusk when the park is less populated, and none of them have occurred in broad daylight only yards away from a busy bike path. Although semen was found inside Autumn’s body, there was no evidence that she was raped. All things considered, it seems unlikely that Autumn was attacked and killed by a stranger. If she was indeed the victim of a homicide, she was probably murdered by someone she knew.
In 2020, a year after Autumn’s death, the Seattle Police Department officially re-opened Autumn’s case. As previously stated, they are considering sending the DNA from the sperm sample to a private lab for further analysis. Investigators have requested a copy of the notebook that Autumn wrote her final prayer in so that they might better understand the context of the writing she left behind. Police are also working with the US Secret Service to retrieve the contents of Autumn’s water-damaged phone. Still, many questions remain unanswered about what happened to Autumn on that sunny Friday in August. Her family has issued a plea to anyone who was at the north end of Green Lake on August 30th, 2019; they believe that someone may have captured something in a photo or on a smartphone that could help the investigation into Autumn’s death.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/nov/22/undetermined-a-suspicious-death-at-seattles-green-/
https://projects.seattletimes.com/2020/undetermined-autumn-stone-death/
https://www.reddit.com/UnsolvedMurders/comments/jzcqn5/aug_30_2019_autumn_lee_stone_is_found_strangled/
submitted by -lemon-pepper- to UnresolvedMysteries [link] [comments]

Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update January 28, 2021

Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update January 28, 2021
Notes by mr_tyler_durden and Daily Update Team
Watch here:
Headlines
Full Notes
(continued in stickied comment)
submitted by mr_tyler_durden to Coronavirus_KY [link] [comments]

Moving to Roanoke FAQs

Someone suggested making a moving to Roanoke guide to help newcomers with general questions, so I decided to take a stab at it. I'll edit and refine this over time, so please comment or PM if you have suggestions.
This is a mix between past threads, external resources and my own hot takes. Here is a link to any and all "moving to Roanoke" threads from the search results. In an effort to narrow it down, I've pulled some of the best discussions and inserted them into the guide below.

Housing

Moving resouces from city website
Roanoke has many bedroom communities, so you can either live within the city or in a surrounding county and still have a short commute depending on traffic. I will mostly focus on city living, but here are some other nearby communities to consider, of varying distances: Salem, Roanoke County, Franklin County, Botetourt County, Montgomery County.
The city itself is basically divided into four quadrants, vertically by the interstate and horizontally by railroad tracks. This is most commonly how people refer to general locations. Roanoke remains a segregated city, both racially and socioeconomically, and each quadrant has very different demographics (more on that below.)
Is it safe to live in x neighborhood?
This is difficult to answer because everyone has a different definition of "safe." Even crime maps aren't a perfect tool because they can be misleading. The best advice anyone can offer is to visit said neighborhood both day and night and see for yourself. If possible, talk with neighbors.
A quick note on crime: By and large, the vast majority of violent crime seems to occur between people who know each other through drugs or gangs. Use common sense, but you aren't going to get murdered just walking through downtown at night.
Which neighborhood is the best?
That's going to completely depend on your budget and what you're looking for. Again, the city is normally talked about in terms of quadrants — NW, NE, SE, SW — but those are broad terms. Actual neighborhoods are much smaller; take a look at this map. In fact, contacting one of the groups listed may be a good way to learn more.
I won't do a full rundown on each quadrant because I haven't lived in all four, so I don't think I could give a fully objective analysis. What I will say is that Southwest, and more specifically, Grandin, is frequently suggested as the best place to live. It's a lovely place. But in doing that, sometimes I worry the implication (inadvertent or not) is that other areas in the city aren't safe, and that's not true. Northwest, for example, is stereotyped as a "rough" part of town because, yes, there are a couple blocks where crime consistently happens. But there are definitely nice, safe neighborhoods in NW Roanoke. Also, let's be honest...saying NW is "rough" is definitely a dog-whistle to some extent — it's the most diverse quadrant of the city.
What's the COL like?
Again, this will depend on what you're looking for, but studio-1 bedrooms can be had in the $400-$800 range, and 2 bedrooms can be found in the $700-$1100 range. Houses can be rented for <$1200, although bigger ones will cost more. Those figures will shift depending on what amenities/size you want. There are many apartment complexes, and it's also very common for houses to be repurposed into apartments. It's harder to give an estimate for buying, because you're looking at a lot more variables, but it's very feasible to buy a home on a budget. I see many listings below $130K, and occasionally even below $100K. The lower you go, the more likely it'll need TLC, which you may/may not want to do.
I have pets, will that be an issue?
The consensus seems to be that there are plenty of landlords who accept pets (usually with a nonrefundable deposit and sometimes monthly pet rent), but that it can be more difficult if you have many pets and/or a large dog.
Housing/culture/general moving to Roanoke reddit links
What do you love/hate about the city and surrounding area? (culture)
Roanoke's local culture for a possible transplant (culture/diversity/general)
Can y'all tell me which of these neighborhoods are good or which ones to avoid? (housing)
Housing/general comment from longtime Roanoke resident
Considering Moving to Roanoke (culture/general)
How accepting of the lgbtq+ community is Roanoke? (culture/general)
Moving To Roanoke (culture/housing)
Property rental companies to support? Avoid? (housing)
Trustworthy landlords (housing)
Moving to Roanoke soon, where do the Black people live? (diversity/housing)
Opinions on home buying in the Valley? (housing)
Help me move to Virginia! (housing/jobs)
SoCal transplant (culture)

Jobs

OK, you've found a place to live. Now you need a job. What do people do around here?
Roanoke used to be a railroad town, and some might tell you we still are. But as the Norfolk and Southern jobs have disappeared, the city's been reimagined into a center for both medicine and the outdoors. For anyone interested in a bit of Roanoke's history, this Politico read is interesting.
Carilion Clinic is the largest employer in the Roanoke Valley, providing health care to folks across western Virginia. There's also LewisGale, which is for-profit. Needless to say, there are plenty of jobs if you work in the health care sector. Of course, they also need people of all skillsets, from IT to security to administrative work.
In addition, there's a fair amount of retail and restaurant work to be had, although maybe less so with the pandemic still in swing. There are also IT/software development jobs independent of the health care sector; I believe this is a growing field around here. A word on internet: If you're working remotely, pandemic or not, be aware that certain places outside of the city still struggle with broadband.
Job links
Software Engineer ISO Job in Roanoke
Who is hiring? What’s the job market like?
Healthcare job market
Looking for a new job
Trying to gauge the job market in my field
Any Ideas RE: Teacher Hiring

Weather

You're ready to move to Roanoke, but you're from [insert far away state] and have no idea what to expect.
Fear not, weary traveler. We get four distinct seasons. A lot of people swear up and down that the pollen is awful in the spring, although Wikipedia disputes whether that is factually true. In the summer, unfortunately, it does get hot and muggy and pretty buggy. Beware of ticks, especially when hiking. The leaves get crisp and crunchy in the fall, and I strongly encourage you take a trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway. And winter, well, here's an example as of this writing: It snowed 4-6" last weekend, and that was the most we received in two years!
The last BIG storm was December 2018, when we received 18 inches. We do get snow nearly every year, but certainly not enough to warrant snow tires. Often it'll only be a dusting to 2". Usually schools will close at least a couple times a year, but if you're from the Northeast or Midwest, you'll be strongly disappointed in what warrants a closure.
Temperatures
This can fluctuate depending on your elevation; plan for it to be a least a few degrees cooler — if not more — when going up to the mountains. During the summer, we're usually in the upper 70s to low 90s, and lately it seems like 90-degree days are more common. Occasionally we'll break 100. Winter: We're usually somewhere in the mid 30s to low 50s during the day, although we also get our fair share of teens and 20s.

Things to do

If you are coming from a big city, Roanoke may seem small, but I personally find there's plenty to do. And we're not far from other places when you want to venture out for a day or weekend trip.
Outdoors
One of the biggest draws to Roanoke.
We have a large greenway system for running/walking/biking, and many neighborhoods are also walkable/bikable. Well-known bodies of water include the Roanoke River, James River, Pigg River, Carvins Cove, Smith Mountain Lake and Claytor Lake. The Blue Ridge Parkway runs through Roanoke, and the Appalachian Trail also crosses through. We also have a few nearby state parks.
I could write a lot about the outdoors. This is a very abbreviated version. Suffice to say we've got you covered when it comes to hiking, biking, running, canoeing, kayaking, fishing, swimming — you name it. I think the best I can offer is the Roanoke Outside Foundation's website, which has a massive amount of information.
I'll also put a plug in for the state parks' website, which is somewhat clunky but has good info. You can get an annual pass for $75 (and discounts/freebies for certain groups).
Distance to...
Shenandoah National Park: 1 hr 30
Charlottesville: 2 hrs
Greensboro: 2 hrs
Raleigh, NC: 3 hrs
Richmond: 3 hrs
Asheville, NC: 3 hrs 45
Washington DC: 4 hrs
Virginia Beach: 4 hrs
OK, so what's even closer?
If you want to get out of the immediate Roanoke area but want to be somewhat nearby, I recommend the following, in no particular order: Floyd (a true must-visit), Blacksburg, Smith Mountain Lake, Rocky Mount, Lynchburg, Farmville, Danville.
What else is there to do that's not travel or outdoors-related?
First and foremost, here is a massive to-do list megathread, which also includes resturants. It's 5 years old, so I guarantee several places on that list are now closed (rip), and new places that have since opened.
A few in particular that I'll highlight:

Food

Last, but certainly not least: Eats in the Star City.
While we are in southwestern Virginia and people like to bemoan our relative lack of food choices compared to big cities, I personally think we have plenty to offer (still on the hunt for the perfect pizza, though.) Roanoke has a large immigrant population, so we do have food from many, many countries. The trick is you have to go beyond downtown, which many people don't. There's a bunch of authentic resturants along Williamson Road, for example, including Mi Tapatia, which is a favorite of many people on this subreddit.
I'll let the lists do the talking. Again, here's that megathread of food + other things to do; disclaimer that some listings might be outdated.
Links below include both food and general activities because a lot of threads don't differentiate.
Things to do/food reddit links
General
Update to things to do in Roanoke (food and activities)
Black Owned Businesses in Roanoke?
Fun things to do in Roanoke
Things to do on a date-night this Friday?
Map: Roanoke things to do/places to eat/etc.
Local Restaurant Recommendations
Local shops and restaurants
List of my favorite restaurants in town
What do you think is the worst barestaurant in Roanoke?
What restaurants/bars have the best happy hours for drinks and appetizers?
Specific cuisine/interests
Gluten-Free -friendly Restaurants
Meat markets/butchers
Any good authentic Chinese in Roanoke/Salem area yet?
Best most authentic tamales in Roanoke?
Authentic Mexican
Why is a pizza so difficult
Roanoke's best pizza. Let the battle begin!
Best place for a late night hotdog downtown?
Good deli places in Roanoke
Best French Fries in Roanoke area?

Misc.

Libraries
Roanoke, Roanoke County, Salem and Botetourt County each have their own libraries, but they also share in a library system called "Roanoke Valley Libraries." This means you can use any of them. (The South County one is the fanciest.)
Grocery Stores
General shopping
Movie Theaters
submitted by electrical_yak_ to roanoke [link] [comments]

Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update February 8, 2021

Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update February 8, 2021
Notes by mr_tyler_durden and Daily Update Team
Watch here:
Headlines
Full Notes
(continued in stickied comment)
submitted by mr_tyler_durden to Coronavirus_KY [link] [comments]

when are the restaurants going to open in washington state video

The reopening of restaurants could begin as soon as June 1. For restaurants offering dining-in service, they will now have to keep a record of patrons' phone numbers, email addresses and time in The state Department of Agriculture ordered Angelo’s near Washington to close on Dec. 18 – one of 40 restaurants in the state – but that didn’t stop owner Michael Passalacqua from defying that mandate. Last Wednesday, the restaurant was packed with people, including several customers sitting at the bar enjoying drinks and their meal. Seats sit empty at The Waterfront Vancouver on March 16, 2020. Clark County could soon see restaurants and bars reopen, if the county is cleared by the Washington Department of Health. This state-by-state guide offers a status check on whether restaurants are allowed to be open for dining in (indoors and out), or whether delivery and takeout are still the norm. Keep in mind that local (county, city, and town) guidance may differ from the state, and that many restaurants may not reopen right away even if they are able. A Washington state Senate bill that would move all counties to Phase 2 reopening will have its first public hearing Wednesday.. The public may testify at the 8 a.m. hearing remotely from their Whenever restaurants and bars do return for dine-in service in Washington, Seattleites should still expect significant changes to the way things were before. As Inslee mentioned in his plan, physical distancing will be required for all industries, and the state will set guidelines on rigorous cleaning, screening employees for illness, and providing personal protection equipment. On January 5, Governor Inslee announced the Healthy Washington - Roadmap to Recovery plan, which lays out the process to safely reopen Washington state. The plan includes guidance for certain businesses and industries to help protect Washingtonians and minimize the spread of COVID-19. The full Healthy Washington phased chart is available here. News > Business New COVID-19 rules give some Washington restaurants ability to open inside dining (but bring a coat) Tue., Jan. 19, 2021. Jim Rhoades, owner of Rock City Grill, 2911 E. 57th Ave Gov. Jay Inslee announced Tuesday a two-phased plan that will eventually allow businesses like restaurants to open back up once the state gets a better handle on the coronavirus pandemic. Inslee announces plan to reopen Washington state restaurants, other businesses based on COVID-19, hospitalization rates in regions Jan. 5, 2021 at 3:03 pm Updated Jan. 5, 2021 at 8:55 pm

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