I got a sweet push from Danielle that I should post an update, and I’m happy to oblige.

Portland’s January has brought the rain as promised, but it hasn’t bothered me. The tales of weeks below freezing in St. Louis while it’s rarely cold enough to see our breaths here might help a bit :)

Around the homestead I’ve been focused on self improvement. It wasn’t intended as a new years resolution thing – I don’t believe in those – but I guess the timing matches up.

Fitness

After a month or so of downtime, I’ve started running again. I stayed active on the elliptical during the down time but running requires a different flavor of endurance so I’m behind from my previous progress. I have my sights on the Portland Shamrock Run in mid-March. My goal is to do the 5K. It would be my first race ever and I am exhilarated just thinking about it. More exciting still is that I want to use this race to help decide whether I want to take a really HUGE plunge and join Portland Fit. It’s a 6 month program that starts at the end of March and trains weekly to build you up to… a Marathon.

Right now I feel completely intimidated to even think I could do a Marathon.. Today I couldn’t finish a 5k without a couple of walk breaks. But wow, it would be an accomplishment I’d be proud of forever. So I’m considering it. It’s a big commitment so I will have to re-evaluate where I am in life and work as I get closer to the sign-up deadline.

Healthy Eating

For budget and health reasons I started doing meal planning for Peter and I a few months ago and it’s going fabulously. My favorite source for recipes is Eating Well. We are both feeling better, eating better and losing weight. By planning the week’s meals in advance everyone always knows what’s for dinner and I only have to grocery shop once a week. Unfortunately this means we haven’t gotten to try very many Portland restaurants but I stay on Yelp to plan for our indulgence meals to be well-spent :). Instead of making a huge Christmas Dinner we ate like normal that day and the day after Christmas had an amazing meal at the Screen Door. Highly recommended.

Couponing

The past month I have gotten into couponing! It all started after I saw this video:

I decided it sounded worth looking into. It’s a lot of work at first and a little confusing but once you get the basics it’s downright fun. It has changed the way I shop, though. I affectionately refer to the coupon pros as the “crazy ladies”, and they like to take photos of their awesome hauls. I’ve started doing that too, you can view some photos here with info about how much money I saved. A lot of people are skeptical about couponing and want to know what my “secret” is. The “secret” is using coupons when an item is on sale at its lowest price, which often means you get it for free.

And no, it’s not stealing! Thankfully with the internet you don’t even have to figure out how to match coupons with sales on your own.. there are several blogs that the crazy ladies run where they figure out the deals of the week for you. Anyway the starting point for me and what I recommend to others is The Krazy Coupon Lady blog. Specifically her KCL 101 tutorial.

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In other news, Peter’s friend John has been visiting us from St. Louis for a couple of weeks and will be here for a couple more. I am crossing my fingers for some clear days this week (supposedly we will have them) so we can show him some of the beautiful sights.. maybe a wintery jaunt to the coast, a hike around Mount Tabor, maybe Multnomah Falls or Mount Hood. I hope so, I am starting to get a little cabin fever.

My roommate Jeff and I participated in North Portland Santacon (NoPDX Anticon) this year. Often mistaken for “Official” Santacon, Anticon is a mass gathering of Santa-clad revelers spreading merriment from one dive bar to the next in North Portland. “Official” Santacon is, apparently, not pub-crawl focused. What the focus is, I could not tell you. The creators seem to want to make it difficult to know what it is or to participate. So we opted not to do Santacon.

Anticon was a blast, however. Photos:

Jeff & I on the MAX riding to the meeting point (Paul Bunyan):

One of the Santas gave the Santas on our train Santa name badges. You know. So we don’t get mixed up.

Duct Tape Santa

Thirsty Santas

My friends toward the end of the night:

This day last year Portland was covered in snow. We weren’t here but I heard all about it – “The Snowpocolypse”. Christmas this year in Portland is cold but sunny and beautiful – a very clear day. Peter and I went to pick up a fire pit I bought on Craigslist and we gasped as we drove up a hill and the view revealed itself. We have been in Portland just over six months now and the mountains are still quite magical to us.

I have been pretty unmotivated to do Christmasy stuff. Not because I don’t like the holiday but.. I dunno, it just wasn’t in my heart this year. We’re away from family and not exchanging gifts. We did finally get the tree up and as we unpacked decorations found this note:

Last year as we packed away Christmas stuff Peter slipped in this note, knowing the next time we unpacked these things would be in our new home.

Here’s the humongous tree:

I bought it off Craigslist last year in St. Louis. I am seriously considering getting a real tree for the first time next year… because they are SO cheap here! I guess it makes sense – Christmas trees are grown in Oregon and Washington and shipped to the rest of the country. There are so many neighborhood tree lots selling trees from $10 up. No kidding. I love the smell of real trees but they always seemed like a lot of work and I grew up always having a fake tree. But I might take the leap. For that price I might just get a little tabletop tree for our office to make it smell great.

Stockings on the fireplace… I kind of threw all the Christmas stuff up on the mantle, didn’t feel like putting nails in the wall since we are still figuring out the layout of this room.

A really creepy ornament my grandma gave me:

One of my favorite ornaments from one of my best friends Stephen:

(I adore Day of the Dead)

Finally I got a little crafty this year. Inspired by this Eddie Ross Tutorial, I made a wreath with $10 in Ikea ornaments and a coat hanger.

It needs a ribbon but I wrapped a mardi gras necklace around the hook because that was what I had on hand.

I am going to try to comb clearance after Christmas this year for colorful ornaments and make more wreaths on the cheap.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday. Lookout for a belated post about my adventures at Portland’s Anti-con next.

Peter and I celebrated birthdays in November (mine the 23rd, his the 24th!). My gift to him was a custom-stitched house scene by the super talented Melissa of Little Pink House.

He loved it. And so do I.

Compare to a photo:

She even stitched in Lucy peeking out the door!!

Peter and I are fans of coffee… Peter even has a dream of opening a coffee shop someday. So when I heard about the Coffee Fair going on this weekend (Nov. 7-8, 2009) I knew we must check it out!

The Fair was held at the World Forestry Center, which I didn’t even know existed. It is nearby the Children’s Museum,  Portland Zoo, Japanese Gardens and many of the other attractions in Washington City Park.

The Coffee Fair this weekend featured lots of coffee vendors giving samples and discussing their product and techniques. It was interesting and I got some yummy samples, but the most interesting part of the Coffee experience was the part that will be sticking around; Coffee: The World In Your Cup is a special exhibit that will be open until January 10, 2010. It is a self-guided walk through the life of a coffee bean. They even have live coffee plants. I thought I knew about coffee but I didn’t realize how much human labor goes into the process. It was fascinating!

I also enjoyed the variety designs of burlap coffee sacks and consumer-marketed bags of ground coffee.

A bonus of attending the fair or the exhibit is that your admission gets you into the World Forestry Center permanent exhibits as well. I will admit while I love trees, this is probably the last museum I would have visited of my own choosing. Forestry sounds mechanical and boring. But the museum was actually really cool. They have a lot of interactive exhibits. Peter found a wood instrument to bang on:

And there was a nearly 700-year-old tree.

Impressive! Although it made me wonder how old the big tree was I saw in North Bend, Washington this past summer:

Anyway… The World Forestry Center is worth a visit for sure. It’s kid friendly but there is plenty for adults to enjoy too.

Admission is $8/adults, $5/kids. Which I think is kinda steep for a museum so I would recommend going when a special exhibit is happening that excites you so you can get the 2-for-1 deal.  They are having mini-tasting “Coffee Weekends” in the future as well. And if Coffee is not your thing, the next Fair might be… It’s the ChocolateFest that will be open January 29-31, 2010. The accompanying special exhibit, A Chocolate Story, will be around from January 30-April 25, 2010.

Note: Some of the links in this post are time-sensitive and may not be correct in the future.