Enjoy :)

NOTE: Red Lines are people moving away & Black lines are people moving into

It has been a full 9 months since we bought our first home and we still have unpacking to do ;) In the past few months Janet and I decided we would try to take up gardening and just recently harvested our very first crop of radishes :)

Our garden is doing fantastic, but I think that has a lot to do with our garden gnome who watches over it…

So all in all we are happy with our decision to move here. Ya it rains a lot, this last year more than usual… but this city is just to magical for that to really get to us.

We love you Portland :)

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.

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:

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.

He loved it. And so do I.

Compare to a photo:

She even stitched in Lucy peeking out the door!!

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.

Cheery flowers now in the kitchen:

And the office:

And so it begins…

I can’t take a screenshot of it all at once but trust me, it says 10 days of rain forecasts coming up. Oh boy…

But I’m getting sunshine in my life by three close friends moving to Portland in the next couple of weeks. One of them will be living with us. It’s been a long time since Peter and I had a roommate besides each other!

Our situation with our temporary rental space is finally over (yes, we did move out over 2 months ago and were still dealing with it). If you are considering it, I would recommend against renting with the company When In Portland and owner(?) Michelle Rosa for your temporary Portland dwelling. In short: overpriced, misleadingly advertised, unclean, and worst of all slow/no communication to get stuff taken care of. Oh and we never met the landlord, ever.

Like I said I am torn to write this but when you are searching for a place to stay in a remote place sometimes all you have is Google. If any would-be renters have any questions, contact me.