I love plants. I love planting plants. Today I discovered a new heaven in North Portland. I went to Pistils Nursery on Mississippi. It's beautiful. I can't even describe how happy that place made me and I'm even happier that it's really close to my house. They sell all sorts of cool plants, indoor plants and outdoor plants and air plants and garden stuff and chickens and everything. They even teach classes on keeping chickens in the city and Vermiculture and beekeeping! I think I'll start small, vermiculture for sure and MAYBE beekeeping......
We got started on some major yard work this last weekend and I am now a woman possessed. We moved our 4 blueberry bushes from the middle of the yard (not the most convenient place, not very Rosie running or soccer ball kicking friendly) to a lovely patch on the side of the yard. We made a little area next to them for an herb garden. Today I got strawberry plants (I showed great restraint, that is ALL I got at my new heaven) and I planted them around the blueberry bushes. I think I'm going to plant some asparagus and some rhubarb on the other side of the blueberries from the herbs. I think if we keep the butterfly bushes under control then the plants should get enough light there. They had some really nice asparagus crowns at Pistils, big ones. So maybe we'll only have to wait 2 years for a harvest.
In other news, I got a part time job to ensure some consistent income. It's intense, but so far it's going well. I work in an office in Multnomah Village for a Commercial Real Estate Broker and Investor, he also manages properties and assets. I've been writing up a lot of commercial leases. Our office is right next to a really nice yarn shop, so that could be trouble.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
Time for a Promotion
Ok here it goes, shameless promotion! I helped my dad set up some websites for their condo in Roatan. Please Please PLEASE take look and link to us!
InfinityBayCondo
RoatanCondoRental
They're both the same content, just different web addresses. If anyone has feedback/suggestions/advice it would be much appreciated.
There is a link to our flickr site on the sites,
and here are a few other pictures too:
These are of the beach and ocean on a stormier day, usually the water is flat and clear as glass.
Silly parrots!
Snorkeling
Oh Brothers
The Fam represents
Friday, February 15, 2008
quick visit
Anatomist and Jack stopped by for lunch on their way to Eugene. I had a lot of work to do, but that didn't stop me from doing some baby holding.
VDay
I had a great Valentine's day. I've never been a big fan of the holiday, so expectations are low, but I've gotten over hating it too. My gorgeous man friend brought me a 10 lb pag of oranges and 2 six packs of yummy beer. I was quite thrilled! We had some friends over for dinner and some trivial pursuit, it was a lovely time.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Pulling Teeth
Emme had this really loose tooth for quite awhile..... so the other night we tied a string around it and she pulled it right out. Pretty exciting stuff! It was the second tooth she has lost.
Bday Party Weekend
Last weekend I attended Pulpshopgirl's Dead Celebrity Party
I went as Keiko, who just happened to be the only non-human dead celebrity in the "Gone Too Soon" Publication
I had the pleasure of socializing with Anna Nicole Smith and Natalie Wood
and enjoyed some easy cheese and snacks with Patsy Cline and Sonny Bono
Saturday was Emme's 6th birthday.
We made two elaborate pirate cakes
We had a party at the rollerskating rink, and an after skate party at a pizza parlor
It was a weekend chock full of succesful celebrating!
I went as Keiko, who just happened to be the only non-human dead celebrity in the "Gone Too Soon" Publication
I had the pleasure of socializing with Anna Nicole Smith and Natalie Wood
and enjoyed some easy cheese and snacks with Patsy Cline and Sonny Bono
Saturday was Emme's 6th birthday.
We made two elaborate pirate cakes
We had a party at the rollerskating rink, and an after skate party at a pizza parlor
It was a weekend chock full of succesful celebrating!
Monday, January 07, 2008
Oh Bloggie Blog
Dear Bloggie Blog, I apologize for neglecting you. It is one of my New Year's Resolutions to update you more frequently. I'll try to be a better blogger. other resolutions: get up early and walk Rosie every morning. work smarter and harder. make more money. go out more. (that will be easier if the money one pans out, and when winter starts to ease up. I hope.)
Roatan was awesome, I am currently constructing a blog for my Dad for my parent's condo, I'll let you know when it's more presentable. It will have it's own flickr site, and lots and lots of pictures. I think I took about 400 when I was there.
I went snorkelying, and Aubry and I saw a turtle and a big spotted eagle ray. The ray was a bit scary, at least when it turned and started swimming our way!
The holidays were a whirlwind, lots and lots of fun.
We had Emme on Christmas eve and day, Christmas is a lot more fun with little kids involved. We went to th eBlazer's game on Christmas with our neighbors, it was great. It was their 11th win in a row, and lots of people think thats pretty special.
New years was fun, Kungfuramone was in the PDX, and we had a bloody mary shindig New Years day at our place with lots of fun peeps who I like a lot and don't get to see enough.
The week after New Years was fun, I worked a bit and did house stuff, but Jeff wasn't working and we didn't have Emme so we pretty much holed up and watched a lot of "The Office" in our basement.
That's all for now folks.....
Roatan was awesome, I am currently constructing a blog for my Dad for my parent's condo, I'll let you know when it's more presentable. It will have it's own flickr site, and lots and lots of pictures. I think I took about 400 when I was there.
I went snorkelying, and Aubry and I saw a turtle and a big spotted eagle ray. The ray was a bit scary, at least when it turned and started swimming our way!
The holidays were a whirlwind, lots and lots of fun.
We had Emme on Christmas eve and day, Christmas is a lot more fun with little kids involved. We went to th eBlazer's game on Christmas with our neighbors, it was great. It was their 11th win in a row, and lots of people think thats pretty special.
New years was fun, Kungfuramone was in the PDX, and we had a bloody mary shindig New Years day at our place with lots of fun peeps who I like a lot and don't get to see enough.
The week after New Years was fun, I worked a bit and did house stuff, but Jeff wasn't working and we didn't have Emme so we pretty much holed up and watched a lot of "The Office" in our basement.
That's all for now folks.....
Monday, December 24, 2007
Back Home
I'm back fom Roatan. I had a great trip! It was crazy to be in a one bedroom apartment with my entire family for a week. That's the first time all 7 of us have taken a vacation together. and we actually got along ok...... We had many adventures,
Friday, December 21, 2007
Roatan, Honduras
I am on the island of Roatan, off the coast of Honduras. Staying at Infinity Bay where my parents bought a condo. It's really beautiful here, and it's really wamr now that it stopped raining. I'm going to spend today snorkeling and laying on the beach.I head back to Portland tomorrow, so I need to soak up as much sun as possible before going back to the rain.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Plumbers in Training
I've had many adventures over the past few weeks, some good, some not so good.
Believe it or not, this was one of the better ones..... We had a new hot water heater put in, (Yay! tankless! Endless hotwater, it's AWESOME!) but changing out the hotwater heater kicked up some sediment and clogged the hot side of the faucet. We didn't have any water pressure with the hot water in the kitchen, not even enough to keep it running hot. So first we took apart the hot water valve under the sink, because it wouldn't shut off all the way. So we turned off the water to the house, assuming the hot water valve was goign to be our problem, took that all apart and cleaned it out. Got the wire brush stuck and had to take apart more of the valve to get the valve out, then finally put it all back together to have nothing different. though we did have a great time turning the water on and off to flush out the pipes. Jeff didn't quite believe me that it would come shooting STRAIGHT out of the wall.
Next, we took apart our faucet. We disconnected the whole big ugly old thing. Only to find out that there was no way to clean out the little pipes where the clog must be. Now since we couldn't turn our hot water valve off at the sink, since it wouldn't turn off all the way, we had to re-connect our faucet, just to leave it dangling there under the sink, so that we could turn our water back on. Because, by this time, it was late and Home Depot and Lowes were closed.
In the meantime, we also realized that our P-trap was leaking. Very poorly put together, the plastic piece going up into the first pipe that comes down from the drain was not actually secured, just kind of shoved up there...
I go to Home Depot the next day and buy a new faucet, a new valve and a new p-trap. We also had this weird water filter thing in our sink that we didn't use, so we were going to take it out. The filter dispenser was at a fourth hole, so I assumed it was a regular 4 hole sink. So I bought the faucet with a sprayer. We go to install our new faucet, and remove the water filter only to find the hole for the filter is teeny tiny. So Jeff goes ahead and manages to cut the hole big enough for our sprayer. Yay! We install the faucet with much success.
On to the P-trap:
we discover we have two, I guess I will call them female ends though its kinda hard to figure with plumbing..... two female ends that meet where there should be some sort of male end.
Another trip to Home Depot, in the meantime we have a 5 gallon bucket under the sink as our drain.
After some good advice and some cheap parts from the Depot, we manage to put the whole thing back together. And it doesn't leak!
I got to do the laundry basket full of dishes and put the garbage back under the sink, it's all much better now. It was fun, we learned a lot and it was a funny interesting debacle.
on the side of bad adventures, Rosie got in a dog fight and I owe some people a lot of $ for vet bills. That's not a fun story though. Plumbing is much more entertaining.
Believe it or not, this was one of the better ones..... We had a new hot water heater put in, (Yay! tankless! Endless hotwater, it's AWESOME!) but changing out the hotwater heater kicked up some sediment and clogged the hot side of the faucet. We didn't have any water pressure with the hot water in the kitchen, not even enough to keep it running hot. So first we took apart the hot water valve under the sink, because it wouldn't shut off all the way. So we turned off the water to the house, assuming the hot water valve was goign to be our problem, took that all apart and cleaned it out. Got the wire brush stuck and had to take apart more of the valve to get the valve out, then finally put it all back together to have nothing different. though we did have a great time turning the water on and off to flush out the pipes. Jeff didn't quite believe me that it would come shooting STRAIGHT out of the wall.
Next, we took apart our faucet. We disconnected the whole big ugly old thing. Only to find out that there was no way to clean out the little pipes where the clog must be. Now since we couldn't turn our hot water valve off at the sink, since it wouldn't turn off all the way, we had to re-connect our faucet, just to leave it dangling there under the sink, so that we could turn our water back on. Because, by this time, it was late and Home Depot and Lowes were closed.
In the meantime, we also realized that our P-trap was leaking. Very poorly put together, the plastic piece going up into the first pipe that comes down from the drain was not actually secured, just kind of shoved up there...
I go to Home Depot the next day and buy a new faucet, a new valve and a new p-trap. We also had this weird water filter thing in our sink that we didn't use, so we were going to take it out. The filter dispenser was at a fourth hole, so I assumed it was a regular 4 hole sink. So I bought the faucet with a sprayer. We go to install our new faucet, and remove the water filter only to find the hole for the filter is teeny tiny. So Jeff goes ahead and manages to cut the hole big enough for our sprayer. Yay! We install the faucet with much success.
On to the P-trap:
we discover we have two, I guess I will call them female ends though its kinda hard to figure with plumbing..... two female ends that meet where there should be some sort of male end.
Another trip to Home Depot, in the meantime we have a 5 gallon bucket under the sink as our drain.
After some good advice and some cheap parts from the Depot, we manage to put the whole thing back together. And it doesn't leak!
I got to do the laundry basket full of dishes and put the garbage back under the sink, it's all much better now. It was fun, we learned a lot and it was a funny interesting debacle.
on the side of bad adventures, Rosie got in a dog fight and I owe some people a lot of $ for vet bills. That's not a fun story though. Plumbing is much more entertaining.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Xmas tree adventures
tree cutting
tree carrying
Emme's a tree!
Rosie helping
ornament hanging
We got our tree out on Sauvie Island. I chatted with the tree farmer for a little while. He bought the place in the 70s with his wife and their 6 kids. They went on to have 2more kids. This last spring he fell out of one of his tall trees, really tall trees, and fractured his skull and broke his back and pelvis and other things, all in multiple places. He said that was it for his wife, and they've sold the farm. So this was their last season. He was telling us that Anthony Keidis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers flew outa few times. He didn't know who he was, he asked keidis what he did for aliving and he said "I write and sing songs." i guess keidis didn't buy the farm, he bought a downtown condo for his dad instead. Some people from California bought it. It's highly unlikely they'll be farming Christmas trees on it though.
tree carrying
Emme's a tree!
Rosie helping
ornament hanging
We got our tree out on Sauvie Island. I chatted with the tree farmer for a little while. He bought the place in the 70s with his wife and their 6 kids. They went on to have 2more kids. This last spring he fell out of one of his tall trees, really tall trees, and fractured his skull and broke his back and pelvis and other things, all in multiple places. He said that was it for his wife, and they've sold the farm. So this was their last season. He was telling us that Anthony Keidis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers flew outa few times. He didn't know who he was, he asked keidis what he did for aliving and he said "I write and sing songs." i guess keidis didn't buy the farm, he bought a downtown condo for his dad instead. Some people from California bought it. It's highly unlikely they'll be farming Christmas trees on it though.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Thanksgiving and more!
here's a brief recap of the highlights of the last couple weeks:
We had a nice visit with Anatomist and baby Jack, Jack just loved Emme, it was the cutest thing. Whenever she would get in front of him he was all smiles!
(sorry I didn't rotate this picture, I'm lazy)
We visited Silver Creek Falls, looks like this is where we're going to have the wedding! We're going to see if we can rent out their Youth Camp for a weekend in September of '08.
Thanksgiving dinner at the fam's! We spent a couple of days down in Eugene, it was nice and relaxing. Just hanging around not doing much of anything. Except eating. and eating.
We had a thanksgiving sequel at our house with Jeff's family, it was fun. Kids playing Twister! it's funny to have to tell them which is their right and which is their left every time.
here's me, Emme, and a very sleepy Rosie.
We had a nice visit with Anatomist and baby Jack, Jack just loved Emme, it was the cutest thing. Whenever she would get in front of him he was all smiles!
(sorry I didn't rotate this picture, I'm lazy)
We visited Silver Creek Falls, looks like this is where we're going to have the wedding! We're going to see if we can rent out their Youth Camp for a weekend in September of '08.
Thanksgiving dinner at the fam's! We spent a couple of days down in Eugene, it was nice and relaxing. Just hanging around not doing much of anything. Except eating. and eating.
We had a thanksgiving sequel at our house with Jeff's family, it was fun. Kids playing Twister! it's funny to have to tell them which is their right and which is their left every time.
here's me, Emme, and a very sleepy Rosie.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Halloween addendum
For those who didn't know and couldn't tell - I was dressed as Inside Out Girl. "I've got what every kid's got inside: GUTS!"
Monday, November 05, 2007
Halloween
Here are some pictures from Halloween. It's been a long time since I've gone trick or treating!
We had a good time chasing a group of 5 year old's around the neighborhood in the dark for almost 2 hours.
We had a good time chasing a group of 5 year old's around the neighborhood in the dark for almost 2 hours.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
squirrel jerky
This morning Rosie was out in the backyard chewing on something. I saw that she had this large black thing, and I instantly knew it was something old and dead. Emme said it looked like a big piece of bark. I got some newspaper and retrieved it from her. Thankfully she let me take it. It was indeed a dried out mummified, and I assume, was a squirrel. Or a giant rat. But they're pretty similar anyway.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
what a weekend!
Friday morning I got up early and made my way up to Seattle for a brief visit.
I hung out with Sydney
I finally got to meet Anatomist's baby Jack! Here he is sporting the baby bolero I made for him. The sleeves are extra wide to accomodate the big biceps he's working on. This was also the first time he held a toy!
The impoetus for my trip was a baby shower for Ms. Khya, here she is sporting Jack on her shelf.
Khya and her baby daddy have a ghosts and monsters theme going on. So I designed a little hat.....
Here's it's close up
the shower was fun, I wrote some haikus:
Khya once lived a
life of booze and partying
that is now over
Baby bumps are hot
Celebrities say it's so
Khya's bump is best
I took off shortly after the shower and headed back to Portland. I got home and started cleaning.
Today I have been super duper productive! besides lots of cleaning, organizing, and tree trimming, Jeff and I went to Costco and got a Costco membership! We bought way too much food of course. Should last us through the winter...... A few weeks ago a co-worker gave me a little freezer. It's really the perfect size for an extra freezer, it's shorter than me and not too heavy. So I finally cleaned it up and we got it into the basement. To put our frozen Costco goods in of course. I suddenly feel very grown up. Like all the other stuff, the career, the homeowning, the PTA meetings and step parenting, none of it quite did it. It was the Costco membership and the extra freezer.
I hung out with Sydney
I finally got to meet Anatomist's baby Jack! Here he is sporting the baby bolero I made for him. The sleeves are extra wide to accomodate the big biceps he's working on. This was also the first time he held a toy!
The impoetus for my trip was a baby shower for Ms. Khya, here she is sporting Jack on her shelf.
Khya and her baby daddy have a ghosts and monsters theme going on. So I designed a little hat.....
Here's it's close up
the shower was fun, I wrote some haikus:
Khya once lived a
life of booze and partying
that is now over
Baby bumps are hot
Celebrities say it's so
Khya's bump is best
I took off shortly after the shower and headed back to Portland. I got home and started cleaning.
Today I have been super duper productive! besides lots of cleaning, organizing, and tree trimming, Jeff and I went to Costco and got a Costco membership! We bought way too much food of course. Should last us through the winter...... A few weeks ago a co-worker gave me a little freezer. It's really the perfect size for an extra freezer, it's shorter than me and not too heavy. So I finally cleaned it up and we got it into the basement. To put our frozen Costco goods in of course. I suddenly feel very grown up. Like all the other stuff, the career, the homeowning, the PTA meetings and step parenting, none of it quite did it. It was the Costco membership and the extra freezer.
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