So, like I said, I was in California for work last week, so I had to find a substitute mirror for my weekly photo. Luckily, there's one in the womens locker room at work that did the job just fine.

We've been checking out a bunch of baby-related books from the library recently. This past week, I read The Diaper-Free Baby, which is about elimination communication. The basic premise is that babies are born with an awareness of their need to pee/poop, and an ability to communicate that need to parents (albeit subtly at first). Typically, we train them to go in a diaper, and then a few years later, we have to retrain them not to go in their diaper. Theoretically, if you follow the EC approach, they will communicate with you when they need to go, so you can have them use a potty from the start instead of using diapers.

When I first heard about EC a few years ago, I thought it sounded pretty crazy (and stressful--like do you have to spend all your time watching the baby, always poised to rush them to a toilet?), but after reading the book, I think it seems pretty reasonable. The nice thing is that there's no need to go cold turkey; you can just go diaper-free a few hours a week if you want. If it means fewer diapers to clean up, it seems worth a try. Of course, I say that now, before the baby's born. Trying EC might fall by the wayside when we're actually in the midst of figuring out how to care for a baby. But the nice thing is that you can start at any point, so we don't have to worry about it right away if it seems overwhelming.

In other news, I bought this cute giraffe, made by local crafter ScissorStitch, at Union Rose. This is the kind of thing that I would normally see and say "I can make that!" and not buy it, and also never end up making it. But this was reasonably priced, and I figured I have enough crafting projects to do, so I just bought it. It makes me happy :)

Since I was traveling last week, I don't have much in the way of food pictures to share, but we did get in a couple of meals before I left.

1. Tomato sauce with butter and onions. This was easy and tasty, as promised. I definitely plan on making it again.

2. Vegetarian baked beans (from Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook) and golden northern cornbread. The beans turned out really good, probably because of all the yummy butter and sugar that went into them. The only downside was that for the first 8 or so hours of cooking, the house smelled like cooking beans, which is not the most pleasant aroma. But the end product was worth it.

3. I had some heavy cream left over from various meals, so I used it to make hot fudge sauce (recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Baking). It hardens when you put it on ice cream, which is my favorite part about hot fudge sauce. Yum!

In other food news, I'm a little worried about the Little Blue Waffle Wagon. They've disappeared from their spot on Division Street! I know they had cut back their hours for winter, but this seems a little extreme. Are they gone for good? I hope not! In the meantime, I'm comforting myself with waffles from the nearby Waffle Window. Not a bad alternative!

Since I'm in California for work, Patrick was nice enough to pose for the belly picture this week.

He makes me laugh :) Real post and picture to come in a few days when I'm back home...

I played around with Photoshop today, trying to find some good paint colors for the nursery. I think I'd like to get paint from Yolo Colorhouse (they're local! And environmentally friendly, but of course), if they have a color that works for us. Luckily their website lists hex codes approximating each of their colors, so it was easy to plug each color into Photoshop and change the background of the photo I posted yesterday.

The bigger paint companies have all sorts of fun online tools for choosing paint colors, but I'm having enough trouble choosing between Yolo's 85 colors--I don't need hundreds more to choose from! Although Sherwin-Williams' iPhone app does sound cool.

My top five Yolo colors in no particular order:

Nourish 01:

Aspire 03:

Thrive 02:

Water 02:

Dream 04:

Yolo's website recommends blues, greens, and neutrals for bedrooms, and there is the anecdote about the color yellow making babies cry, so maybe we'll just stick with yellow accents instead of painting the walls yellow. I think that could be nice!

Week 22! All is well.

• The baby book says the baby can hear at this point, and to celebrate, we took him to a Builders and the Butchers show at The Woods. Okay, so the timing was just a coincidence. He could definitely feel and/or hear the music--he moved around a lot more than usual. I hope it was because he was enjoying the music and not because it was too loud.

  The book also says the baby can sense light, and if we shine a flashlight on my belly, the baby might move to get away from the light. That seems kind of mean, but I'm tempted to try it anyway. Maybe if we get really bored this weekend...

• I had my first charlie horse of the pregnancy yesterday morning. Woo! Apart from that, I'm still sleeping pretty well. Thank you, Snoogle!

• This morning we went in for the monthly checkup and for a quick ultrasound redo, to try and get some better pictures of the baby's heart, since it was hard to see two weeks ago. Unfortunately, the little goober was in the exact same position that he was in at the last ultrasound (sideways), so the ultrasound tech didn't have much luck getting better pictures (also, no cute profile pictures to be had, though we did get to see the baby yawning, which was fun). She assured us that the heart looks fine; she just needed better pictures to send for routine analysis. It's not clear if we'll need to come in again.

  Also, I forgot to mention that at the ultrasound two weeks ago, the tech noted that my placenta was low (placenta previa). I didn't think much of it at the time because she mentioned it so casually, but she commented on it again this time, as did my doctor. It looked like the placenta had moved up and off of the cervix a little, compared to two weeks ago, so it will probably resolve itself, but I may need to go in for another ultrasound at 32 weeks just to check on its location. I figure it's not worth worrying about at this point, since there's nothing I can do to change it. I haven't had any bleeding, so that's good.

• Last weekend, Patrick checked out the used crib a little more closely, and some of the slats on the drop side were loose, which made us nervous. He used wood glue to make everything tight again, but we were feeling generally uneasy about the used crib issue, so we decided just to give in and buy a new crib after all. (Not sure what to do with the used crib--it's hard to find anyplace that will take crib donations, because of liability issues. I was thinking I could make some sort of crib slat art with it, or use the sides to display quilts or something)

  We narrowed our options down to three cribs: the Pacific Rim Arts and Crafts crib, the Ikea Gulliver, and the Land of Nod Straight-Up crib. We liked the Pacific Rim and Land of Nod cribs because they're made in the US out of solid wood. Taking shipping into account, they're approximately the same price. On the other side of the price spectrum, the Gulliver is also mostly wood and has gotten pretty good reviews in Baby Bargains.

  We made a trip out to Beaverton to see the Pacific Rim crib on display at Segal's, and we both liked how sturdy it was. I like the color and style of the Land of Nod crib better, but we decided to go with the Pacific Rim crib because it's made in Eugene from local maple, using non-toxic finishes, etc. It just seemed like if we're going to use the resources to generate a new crib, we might as well support local craftspeople while we're at it. Plus it seems sturdy enough to last through multiple kids (assuming we have more). We ended up ordering the fixed-side version from Go Natural Baby, since they have free shipping. Now we just wait 6-8 weeks for it to arrive!

  I hope the baby likes his crib! The funny thing is that the plan right now is to have him co-sleep in our room (in an Arm's Reach bassinet or similar) for the first 6 months and then transition to the crib, so he might not actually spend much time in the crib for a while. But I have no idea how things will actually work out, and it seems like he'll end up in the crib sooner or later. Who knows...

• We've been thinking about nursery decoration (okay, that's mostly my department--Patrick is busy making sure all of our pressing home repairs are done in a timely manner). I think I want to go with yellow, brown, and gray, inspired by these two photos by Elizabeth Soule.

  

  I think the general feeling I'm gravitating toward is cozy forest--woodland creatures, wool blankets, etc. Pretty stereotypically Portland, I suppose :) The picture below has a collection of some of the things that will be in the nursery. I think the Pendleton blanket at the top of the picture fits pretty well. We bought the brown tulip print fabric in the middle to make into a Roman shade for the nursery window, and the four fabrics at the bottom are for crib sheets. I mostly picked them because I liked the fabric, not because they fit in with the grand plan. The three on the left are flannel for winter; I need to pick out a few more fun cotton prints for summertime.

  

  We decided to forego an expensive rocker/glider, since we're getting an expensive crib. Instead, we'll try using our existing Poang and ottoman in the nursery (I've seen quite a few people online recommend the Poang for nursing, though I'm worried I won't be able to heave myself out of it while holding a baby). I'm thinking of re-covering the Poang, but I haven't found the right fabric yet. It's possible I'm overcommitting myself with all of these sewing projects...

  Our goal is to choose the paint color for the nursery walls this weekend. I'm thinking light yellow, but I'm not sold on that. Any suggestions?

Foodwise, none of our meals has really impressed me this week. At least the desserts were good!

1. Pasta with walnuts, caramelized onions, and ricotta salata - This was okay, but I probably wouldn't make it again. Maybe it would have been better with the recommended whole grain penne (we used fresh pasta from our farmers' market instead). It seemed a little cheese-heavy, and not saucy enough.

2. Artichoke, leek, and fontina frittata with whole grain sourdough waffles (from Dorie Greenspan's Waffles) - The frittata was pretty good (it probably would have been just as good without the bacon, by the way), but not super exciting. The waffles were yeasted, which meant they were light and crispy, but they also got cold really quickly. They were nice, but I think we prefer non-yeasted waffles (which is weird, because a lot of people love yeasted waffles!).

3. Halibut and sweet potato chowder - This was better on the second day after the flavors had blended a little. We used half the amount of halibut called for (halibut is expensive!), and it was still plenty fishy. I liked the twist of using sweet potatoes in the chowder, but I don't think I'd make this particular recipe again (a common theme for this week).

4. Pumpkin custard (from Rustic Fruit Desserts) - This was pretty labor-intensive (because you make vanilla shortbread cookies to use as the crust), but it was tasty! The vanilla shortbread dough was crumbly and kind of frustrating to work with, but the cookies tasted good. The custard was nice and smooth and tasted just like pumpkin pie (not too surprising). Yum! I think given the amount of work involved, it would have been easier to just bake a pumpkin pie. I do like things in ramekins though!

5. Chewy almond cookie + ganache sandwiches (old-fashioned almond cookie recipe from Paris Sweets) - I had some egg whites to use up, and this recipe seemed like a good candidate. I made one batch using the standard recipe, and a second batch using the cocoa powder and cinnamon variation mentioned in the book. I liked the original almond cookies the best, but both types were yummy with ganache in the middle. Kind of like macarons, but not quite. The sandwiches ended up a little too tall to eat daintily, but they were still good. I figured the almonds and egg whites provided some protein, so they weren't the unhealthiest cookies ever!

Twenty-one weeks--the baby is allegedly as long as a (large) banana. That seems about right. His kicks are getting stronger, which is exciting! We can count on him to put on a little kicking show right when we go to bed, with a couple other appearances in the late afternoon and evening. Hi, baby!

• After moping around for a day or so, feeling kind of sad that the little girl I was imagining wouldn't be making an appearance (at least not this time around), I got over it and got on board with having a boy. I think having a son will be great! It helped that Susan brought over some adorable little boy clothes that she picked up at Children's Exchange (on the left in the picture below). The little red shoes make me especially happy :)

• Speaking of clothes, I've been trying not to go too crazy buying baby stuff, but there have been a few purchases I've felt compelled to make. I picked up some sweet German baby bunny slippers at Mamas n' Papas back in December (my first baby purchase), and then I bought a pair of corduroy overalls at Vintage Pink. And most recently, we made our first purchase of new baby clothes--an awesome pair of Hatley footie pajamas on sale at Black Wagon. How could we resist that bear print?

  

• We also made our first foray into buying a piece of baby furniture--we picked up a used crib and mattress from Baby to Baby this past weekend. It's a pretty standard crib. The only thing is that it's a drop-side crib, and we didn't read up on the risks associated with used drop-side cribs until after we'd bought it (I figured it was just a risk of pinched fingers, but it's a little more serious than that), and now we're second-guessing whether we should use the crib. Patrick's going to assemble it and check to see if there's any sign of a gap between the mattress and drop side. On the plus side, we can definitely use the mattress even if we don't use the crib, so we won't be out too much money either way.

  Edited 1/22: I spoke too soon. Apparently buying used crib mattresses is not recommended because of sanitary issues (or possibly because of a fungus that reacts with fire retardants in the mattress to create toxic gases, though that theory seems a little less mainstream). Oh, but also, new mattresses are bad because of off-gassing. Man, there's no end of things to worry about regarding babies! That's it, our child is going to sleep in a dresser drawer lined with a scratchy old wool blanket ;)

• Finding out that we're having a boy got us working on narrowing down our list of names. We're currently putting together lists of our top 10-15 names from the master list of ~130 names (plus anything else that catches our fancy), and then we'll compare to see if we have any overlap between the two lists. Fun! The Baby Name Wizard Name Voyager has come in handy in figuring out which names are trendy right now (like most other parents to be, I don't want a name that's too trendy, but I have a feeling that my taste in names is just like that of other parents-to-be in SE Portland). Plus it's just cool seeing how names have changed in popularity over time.

In non-baby news, we finished a house-related project that I've been working on since August! I sewed a Roman shade for our bedroom using hardware and directions from Terrell Designs (so helpful!), and Patrick took care of hanging it up. Even though it took me six months to finish the project, it really wasn't that hard to do; I just kept putting it off. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and it looks so much nicer than the spare bed sheet we were using as a curtain before.

We've got another shade pretty close to finished for the stairwell window, but that one is on hold because we may end up replacing the window (it's old and leaky and maybe a little rotten on the outside). I'm also gearing up to make a shade for the nursery. I'd better get going on that before too long!

And then there's the food. I'm still putting my second trimester energy to good use in the kitchen. It's good to be back! All recipes are from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone unless otherwise noted.

1. Quinoa chowder with scallions and feta. This sounded intriguing, but it turned out kind of boring. It could be that it was too light and brothy for a mid-winter soup. Maybe worth a remake in spring or summer.

2. Rice cooked in black bean broth (with 2 cups of cooked black beans added along with the broth), topped with scallions, queso fresco, tortilla chips, and our pickled roasted peppers. I wasn't a big fan of the pickled peppers, but everything else was great! It was like a burrito in a bowl.

3. Mushrooms and tofu in hoisin sauce on soba noodles, with lightly steamed shredded carrots and cabbage. This stir-fry included diced tomatoes, which made it kind of unorthodox, but it wasn't bad. The flavor was nice, actually. I'd make it again.

4. Bun-bun noodles with spicy peanut sauce (recipe from Morning Food), garnished with carrots, peanuts, lime wedges, and green onion. We had a little stir-fried baby bok choy on the side. The noodles were very easy to put together (and we had all the ingredients in our pantry). Definitely comfort food--probably not very healthy, but I'd happily down another bowlful.

5. Pepper-crusted tuna with oven fries and lemon spinach (I used tilapia instead of tuna steaks). Real Simple tends to stress me out more often than it simplifies my life, but this recipe actually was really simple! It yielded a well-rounded, tasty meal that only took about 45 minutes to put together (with 20 minutes of downtime in the middle). Cool! It reminded me that we should eat more fish--it's so easy to prepare.

6. This past weekend, I baked a batch of classic chocolate chip cookies (from Cookies and Brownies) for a bake sale to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. The first sheetful came out underbaked and structurally unsound, so I kept them for personal consumption. The cookies turned out really well. I actually liked the underbaked ones the best, so that worked out well. Man, looking at that picture makes me want more chocolate chip cookies!

7. Last night, I baked a batch of lemon poppy seed muffins (from Baking) to use up some leftover sour cream. I added a little bit of plum-amaretto jam in the middle as a little surprise. The muffins turned out super moist and tasty. Next time I'd actually omit the jam surprise--the muffins are perfect just as they are. I took particular joy in making these muffins because one of my favorite baking-related activities is rubbing lemon zest into sugar. It smells so nice!

Twenty weeks--the halfway point (give or take)! The big news this week is that we had our 20-week ultrasound this morning, and it's a boy! Whoa!

We actually had a little false start related to the ultrasound--we showed up at the doctor's office on Wednesday, and they told us to come back today. Turns out I'd written down the appointment date wrong. Bummer! At least I was only off by a day, so we didn't have to wait too much longer to find out.

The baby was in a funny position, so the tech had a hard time getting a good profile shot. We're actually going to go in for another ultrasound in two weeks (mainly to get some more pictures of the heart, since it was hard to see, given the baby's position), so maybe we'll get some clearer overall baby pictures then. We also have a picture showing pretty clearly that it's a boy, but I figured I didn't need to share that with the whole Internet :)

The tech didn't have a lot to say other than remarking on how cute the baby was (I'm sure she always says that) and how hard he was making her job by being in the wrong position. But everything seemed fine, based on what she said and what we could see. The baby has all the right internal organs and the right number of limbs, which is a good start :)

My two favorite parts of the ultrasound (apart from having the question of boy vs. girl answered) were seeing the baby's little spine and arm and leg bones (it's just reassuring that our baby has a skeleton, I guess) and simultaneously feeling the baby kick and seeing him move around on the ultrasound. Pretty cool!

So yeah, a boy! Not what I was expecting, but I'm sure having a son will be awesome. I guess ruffly pink dresses are probably out, but I think I can still have some fun with his wardrobe. Definitely lots of stripes and zig zags, and plenty of hats and jackets with ears. And maybe I can sneak in some floral prints. This is Portland after all; I think I can get away with a little bending of baby gender roles :)

I think the toughest boy-related decision we'll need to make (at this point in time) is whether or not to circumcise. If it were just a religious thing, it would be an easy choice, since we're not religious. But since it's also a cultural thing, it's more complicated. I think we're leaning toward not circumcising, but there are definitely arguments for both sides.

For some reason, knowing the baby's sex kind of drove home the fact that this baby is going to grow up to be an adult someday, and we need to figure out how to raise this little guy so that he fits in and is able to make friends, but still make sure that he's sensitive and caring and feels comfortable being whoever he wants to be. I hope we do a good job and are able to raise a good man, whatever that means. I think we can do it :)

Some other highlights from week 19:

• The belly continues to grow, which is great! My belly button won't be an innie for much longer :)

• This past weekend, I dropped off my deposit for the hypnobirthing class, and in exchange I got this book, which I read over the weekend. I was pleasantly surprised by how well reasoned it seemed. And there were no healing stones mentioned in the book (maybe those are an in-class bonus).

  The basic idea is that standard, non-complicated labor is painful because women are afraid. The author--who is a woman, by the way--offered some historical reasons for this, plus there's just general social exposure to scary birth stories, especially now that we have all these online pregnancy forums to read! This fear triggers the fight, flight, or freeze instinct, which diverts blood away from non-essential muscles, including the uterus. As a consequence, the muscles of the lower uterus tense up and strain against the muscles of the upper uterus during contractions, which results in pain and prolongs labor, since the cervix can't thin and open as effectively. If the woman is relaxed, the upper and lower uterine muscles work together, contractions don't hurt (there's still pressure, just not pain), and labor tends to be faster. So the hypnobirthing approach is to reach a relaxed state via a combination of self-hypnosis (breathing and visualization) and massage. Even though you're super relaxed, you remain lucid and can interact with people as needed.

  So I have no idea if any of this is true, but it seems reasonable, at least. I'm willing to try it. It requires daily relaxation practice (starting after we've taken the classes), so that the self-hypnosis cues work quickly and automatically when they're triggered during labor. It'll be interesting to see if self-hypnosis actually works for me. It's totally outside my scientist comfort zone to do this kind of thing, but if it works, that would be awesome!

Our house has been pretty chaotic for the past few days, because we had almost all of our plumbing re-piped. The pipes that were there when we bought the house were aging galvanized steel, so we decided to be proactive and replace them with plastic (PEX) pipe before the baby comes. And conveniently enough, our house's 28-year-old water heater started leaking this weekend, so we had the plumber replace it with an energy-efficient heat pump water heater while he was doing the other work. We knew the water heater would have to be replaced pretty soon after we bought the house, since it was so old. I'm just glad it didn't catastrophically fail and flood our basement in the middle of the night! Anyway, not a cheap week for us, but it's definitely good to get all this squared away now.

The plumbing is pretty much done (just a few loose ends to tie up after our city inspection tomorrow), and then we just have to have a plaster man close up the six holes that were cut in our stairwell wall and kitchen ceiling as part of the plumbing work (Patrick cut three of the holes over the weekend to save us a little money, and it looked like pretty exhausting work). We're actually thinking about leaving the holes open for a while longer, since we might get some rewiring work done within the next few months, and they could make that work easier. (The rewiring is another item that has been on our house to-do list since we bought it, and we're finally being spurred into action by the impending baby arrival). I'm sure we'll get used to having holes in our walls pretty quickly, but it might be unnerving for visitors!

Also, check out our new laundry sink! Patrick found it for free a couple blocks from our house a few months ago, and the plumber installed it in the basement for us and restored the faucet, since it was broken. Now Patrick has a place to wash his grimy bike hands and paint brushes and stuff. I like it!

I wanted to put in a good word for our plumber--Craig Anderson. He was very friendly and knowledgeable, and all of his guys were friendly and worked hard to get the job done on time. We definitely recommend him if you're looking for a plumber in the Portland area.

Also, I don't think I ever mentioned that our porch work is done. It was finished a while ago (back in October), but we never got around to taking after pictures because the rainy season started right at the same time. I'm sure we'll be able to enjoy our porches more once spring and summer are here! Maybe I'll post pictures then...

We also had our basement wall parge coating redone a week or two ago. That was noisy, smelly work, but it's good to have it out of the way.

We could go on like this for a long time (our housework to-do list is pretty long, since the house is 104 years old), but I think we've almost finished all of the big ticket items, and the rest can probably wait a few years.

The lack of reliable water for the past few days kind of put a damper on weekday cooking, but we made some good stuff during the weekend. We're still having fun exploring Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone--all of the following dishes are from there unless otherwise noted.

1. Spicy stir-fried tofu with coconut rice. This was my least favorite recipe this week. There was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn't super exciting. I think my main problem with it is that one of the spices that we used was kind of gritty, which made the texture of the dish unpleasant. Maybe I would have liked it better if we'd used finer spices. The coconut rice was good though.

2. Our breakfast on Saturday was buttermilk pancakes with caramelized bananas and hazelnuts. I made some modifications to the basic buttermilk pancake recipe in the book--instead of buttermilk, I used a combination of 1% milk, cottage cheese, and 1/2T lemon juice (since that's what we had on hand), which actually worked just fine. I also added chopped hazelnuts to the pancake batter, and then I mixed the banana slices with a little vanilla sugar, put those on the griddle first, and then covered them with the batter. Very nice!

3. For weekend lunch, we had golden tofu with quick peanut sauce, leftover coconut rice, and carrots with hijiki. The tofu with peanut sauce was awesome, especially considering how easy it was to make (apart from the oil splattering everywhere when I fried the tofu). The carrots with hijiki were a little too sea-vegetabley for me (never thought I'd say that--I love sea vegetables!). Next time I'd use more carrots and less hijiki.

4. Cabbage and mushroom galette with yeasted tart dough. This was yummy but not super filling. It needed some side dishes to be filling enough for dinner. I'd definitely make it again though. The yeast dough came together surprisingly quickly.

5. All-bean chili. I made this in kind of a hurry during our plumbing adventures, and it turned out watery and bland. I think part of the problem was that the pot I used was too big, which meant that when I covered the beans with 4 inches of water, it ended up being too much water. All was not lost though--I drained the beans and used them to make nachos (chips, cheese, beans, sour cream, and green onions). Yay, nachos for dinner!

6. I also made a little something from Dorie Greenspan--World Peace cookies (or Korova cookies, depending on which cookbook you use). These are among my favorite cookies, and they're pretty simple to make. I want more!

Today marks the start of week 19! Highlights for the coming week include the baby reaching 6 inches in length and the start of vernix production. Oh, and we find out if it's a boy or a girl on Wednesday! That'll be fun :)

Here are some highlights from week 18:

• The baby is moving more frequently and more emphatically. I was able to feel movement from the outside a few days ago, but Patrick was asleep. The timing worked out last night, and Patrick got to feel the baby kick for the first time. I'm glad :) It's so weirdly awesome that there's a little person inside of me! For the most part, the kicking isn't uncomfortable (yet).
• After reading more about hypnobirthing (including this account from a local couple, plus some of the stories here), we've decided to sign up for the hypnobirthing class at Zenana. I think there are some elements that will be a little out there for us (sounds like there may be healing stones involved?), but it seems like it the relaxation techniques taught in class can be useful in reducing pain even if you don't go in for the whole kit and caboodle. I guess we'll find out!
• I've definitely been feeling much more pregnant this week, what with the baby moving and the belly getting bigger. Oh, and my appetite and energy are definitely back, which is great. The second trimester is way better than the first trimester, no contest!

The return of the appetite conveniently coincided with having the week before New Years off, which meant I did some real meal planning and spent a good amount of time in the kitchen. Fun! Patrick recently bought Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison, and we're really happy with it so far! Everything we've made in the last week has been from this cookbook, and it has all turned out nicely. (We took a break from home cooking on New Year's Eve and went to Bar Avignon for the second year in a row. Good stuff!)

1. Butterflies with chickpeas (recipe): This was tasty and super fast to make (using canned chickpeas).

2. Lentil minestrone and walnut bread (soup recipe): The soup was really good--nice and clean tasting. I made my own vegetable stock as suggested in the book (hey, when you have the week off of work, why not make your own stock?), and I think it really improved both this soup and the next one. The walnut bread, though good, was not exactly what I was hoping for. The quest continues!

3. Turnip soup with gruyere croutons: The soup was sweet and mild, and the cheesy breads made it special.

4. Spinach tortellini with walnuts, parsley, and pecorino: With all the free time on my hands, I got ambitious and decided to buy a hand-cranked pasta machine and make some filled pasta! (I rationalized the purchase by telling myself that maybe when the baby's older, we'll have monthly pasta nights! Probably not very realistic, but you never know) The pasta took longer to make than I'd expected (almost 3 hours total, and it required some pasta cranking help from Patrick), but it turned out well. Definitely a special occasion dish.

5. Millet and chickpea pilaf with saffron and tomatoes (recipe): Not quite as yellow as it looks in the picture. This was not fancy at all, just nice and comforting. I made the chickpeas from scratch, and they did taste better than chickpeas from a can. The cookbook said I could freeze the extra cooked chickpeas; I'm interested to see if they're just as good after freezing and thawing.

6. For lunches this week, I made a batch of smoky black bean spread, which turned into quesadillas with smoky black bean spread and salsa (recipe). The salsa was homemade, and it was pretty mediocre (essentially sweetened tomato sauce with a few onions thrown in), but even that couldn't ruin these quesadillas. Yum! The black bean spread by itself is pretty good, but the addition of cheese definitely improves the situation.

With the return of my appetite, I've been needing more than three meals a day, so I've added in a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack. This week, I've alternated between microwave oatmeal (did you know you can make a single serving of yummy oatmeal from Bob's Red Mill thick-cut rolled oats in the microwave in about 5 minutes? The recipe is on the back of the bag. Awesome!) and smoothies.

My smoothie recipe of the moment is: 1 banana, a handful of frozen blueberries, 1/4c lowfat cottage cheese, 1 scoop vanilla ice cream, 1T wheat germ, and 1/2c fruit juice (I'm using V8 Splash tropical blend because we had some leftover from my most recent cold). Blend it all up with a stick blender, and you're good to go! I figure it has some fruit and protein, so adding a little ice cream isn't so bad :)

Ooh, and I wanted to show you a shirt I bought from Sue Bradbury (made in Portland!). Contrary to what my expression in the picture below might suggest, I'm really happy with it--it's soft and cute, and it should be wearable as maternity clothing for a while longer (and as non-maternity clothing after that). But I'm most looking forward to wearing it right after the baby's born, when apparently I will still look 6 months pregnant. This should provide excellent camouflage.

P.S. We had a crazy good dessert at Belly Timber last night before trivia. It was a parfait with layers of chocolate, peanut butter, and salted caramel. Normally I opt for lighter, fruit-based desserts, but this really hit the spot. Yum!

Okay, where to begin with the baby post? I have 18 weeks' worth of pregnancy talk that I've been saving up! This is probably way more than anybody is interested to hear, but I want to get it all written down for posterity.

Having been together for 11 years and married for 4 years, Patrick and I have been talking about starting a family for a couple years now. We were considering it seriously back in mid-2008, before we moved to Portland, and then we put it on hold while we got settled here. We figured that aiming to get pregnant in mid- to late-2009 would be ideal. Based on some big work deadlines I had scheduled for late 2009, it seemed like I wouldn't want to give birth until 2010, so September looked like a good time to start trying to get pregnant (early summer seems like a nice time to have a baby). I even wrote it in my planner so I wouldn't forget. Yes, I'm a big dork :)

I started reading What to Expect When You're Expecting this past summer (full of eye-roll-worthy writing, but also pretty informative), and based on information in the pregnancy preparation chapter, I started taking prenatal vitamins about 2 months before I planned to get pregnant. Patrick and I spent a long time staring at all the vitamin options at the grocery store and trying to figure out which we should buy, and we ended up going with the Rainbow Light Complete Prenatal System vitamins. They're big and expensive and you have to take six a day, but they've been really gentle on my stomach, so I'm happy. I'm also taking an omega 3 supplement for kicks.

I went in for a pre-pregnancy exam in August (which turned out to be unnecessary; the doctor just told me what I already knew from reading books), and Patrick and I sat down and talked about the pros and cons of having a baby and decided we were ready to start trying, and that was that--September was go time!

I had been using the fertility awareness method as a means of birth control since mid-2006, so I already knew when I'd be ovulating and all that good stuff (Taking Charge of Your Fertility is a great resource for this--I really enjoy knowing what's going on in my body at any given time, and it's such a reasonable scientific approach!). I figured despite knowing exactly when I was ovulating, it would still take a few months to conceive, but we were pleasantly surprised (and a little freaked out) to find out that we'd gotten it on the first try!

Since I was tracking my basal temperatures, I knew when I didn't see the typical drop in temperature 12 days following ovulation that something was up, but I didn't want to get my hopes up too soon. I happened to be in California that week for work, so I had to wait a whole week to get back to Portland and buy a pregnancy test to find out if I was really pregnant (I didn't want to take the test in my hotel room by myself; I wanted Patrick to be there too!). Right after Patrick picked me up from the airport, we drove to Walgreens and bought a test (only one; not a whole shelf-full like in the movies). The next morning, I took the test, and it was positive. Holy crap!

This was about 5 weeks into the pregnancy (using the wacky counting method where you get to count the 2 weeks before you even got pregnant), and my first OB appointment wasn't until 8 weeks. Waiting was kind of excruciating. I wanted some sort of confirmation that I was pregnant beyond a plus sign on a stick!

Morning sickness kicked in around week 5, with general yucky feelings, lack of appetite, and a bad taste in my mouth. Oh, and sometimes there was excessive salivation, which is kind of unnerving. Those symptoms stuck around until about week 14. I hadn't realized it before I got pregnant, but that's a long time to feel crappy! But I think it was pretty mild morning sickness (no vomiting; phew!), so I consider myself lucky. I ate crackers a lot at first, but then those started making me feel sick (I think because I associated them with feeling sick), so I had to move on to other mild foods, like oatmeal. I ate a lot of salad in the first trimester, because it was the only thing that I could bring myself to eat, and as a consequence, I ended up losing about 7 pounds compared to my pre-pregnancy weight. I'm putting that weight back on now, not to worry.

At week 8, we went to the OB, where they gave me all sorts of brochures and ran some blood tests and--the best part--did an ultrasound. The baby looked like a little frog at that point, but we got to hear its heartbeat and see the corresponding flutter on the ultrasound, and suddenly it was real--I was really pregnant! That was a pretty amazing moment :)

We opted for the First Trimester Screening, which meant we got a bonus ultrasound at week 12. The baby looked much more baby-like at this point, and the ultrasound tech even got a picture of it waving at us (we'll pretend that's what it was doing, at least). The screening results were good, which was reassuring.

I started sleeping on my side around 12 weeks, since stomach sleeping is out, as is back sleeping (so many things to worry about!). I picked up a Snoogle at our neighborhood consignment store early on, and although it's kind of cumbersome (especially when I need to get out of bed), it definitely makes sleeping on my side more comfortable.

My morning sickness mostly went away around Thanksgiving (13 weeks), though I came down with a cold soon after, followed by another cold a few weeks later, so I wasn't really at full appetite/energy levels until about a week ago. It was kind of disconcerting when the morning sickness went away, because I suddenly didn't have any day-to-day tangible proof that there was a baby in there, and it had been a few weeks since my last ultrasound. It made me unreasonably nervous. I'd keep sticking out my belly in front of the mirror, looking for signs that I was pregnant.

Things got more reassuring about a week ago (around 17 weeks), when I started feeling the baby move! (This is also known as "quickening." I wanted to go rent Highlander to celebrate, but it was checked out at our neighborhood video store. Bummer) I first felt it when I was lying in bed a little over a week ago. It's hard to describe--it was like a little pop or tickle on the inside of my belly. The day that we flew back from California, we got Lebanese food (Ya Hala, yum!) and went to a movie (Whip It at the Academy), and something about that really riled the baby up, because I felt it move four or five times that day! It has calmed down since then, but I usually feel it move once or twice a day (most often at mealtimes), which is really reassuring. I'm excited for when it gets strong enough that Patrick can feel it on the outside.

We're lucky to have two great maternity/baby consignment stores within walking distance of our house (as well as additional stores around Portland). Although it was a little early, I picked up a few maternity pieces at Piccolina before I left for California in mid-December, and I was glad I did. I splurged on some used Citizens of Humanity maternity jeans, and I have been so happy to have them, because they fit really nicely and give me plenty of belly room.

Speaking of belly, here are a couple of pictures. When I was in my first trimester funk, I didn't take any pictures, because I figured that everybody has seen plenty of pregnant bellies. But now that I'm feeling more energetic, I've decided to start documenting the pregnancy in pictures. I think I'll enjoy having them.

14. 3 weeks

15.4 weeks

17.6 weeks

(I'm sticking my belly out as far as it will go in that last picture; I don't think I normally look quite that big)

We went in for our monthly checkup a few days ago, and we got to hear the heartbeat again, which was nice. I'm really looking forward to our appointment in two weeks, when we get our third ultrasound and get to find out if it's a boy or a girl. It will have been 2 months since our last ultrasound, and I'm excited to see how the baby has grown (but I don't want a 3D ultrasound--those pictures creep me out for some reason).

We had considered waiting until birth to find out the sex of the baby, but I've found that I'm operating under the assumption that it's a girl (partly based on the timing of conception, but also just on my own unintentional bias, I think), so if it's a boy, I want time to change my assumptions. Either a boy or a girl would be awesome, of course; I think I just have a tendency to imagine our child as a girl because most of the babies and little kids I've been around have been girls. Raising a boy is kind of a mystery to me, since I didn't have any brothers, but Patrick has plenty of experience with boy stuff, and I'm sure we can figure things out either way :)

As far as names go, I've been keeping a running list of possible names for the past few years, but we haven't made much progress narrowing it down yet. There's also the question of what to do about our last names, since neither of us changed our names when we got married (and our names are too long to hyphenate comfortably). I had originally suggested that we give the baby my last name if it's a girl and Patrick's last name if it's a boy, but that would probably be too confusing. I think we'll go the least-confusing route and use Patrick's last name for all children. At least it's easier to spell than mine :)

We're planning on turning the room next to ours into a nursery, but we haven't done any work on it yet. Over the past week, I've spent an unhealthy amount of time on Ohdeedoh, which is simultaneously inspiring and stressful. Too much to think about! And as one commenter said, in retrospect she should have spent less time perfecting her nursery and more time learning about how to take care of a baby! So I'm trying not to get too caught up in nursery madness. The baby won't care what it looks like (but I would like to create a nice space, since the rest of our house was kind of decorated on the fly as we unpacked in 2008). I'm also hoping that we can get a lot of our baby stuff at our local consignment stores, rather than buying new. I think we can do it!

Speaking of learning how to take care of a baby, I checked out The Happiest Baby on the Block from the library and read it over Christmas break. Dr. Karp has some interesting theories, and it sounds like a lot of parents have found his method useful. I've put a hold on the Happiest Baby DVD at the library, since I think seeing the 5 S's in action will be helpful. I have no idea if this is something that we'll actually need to know, but it seems good to learn about it now, rather than after we've got a colicky baby in the house.

Oh, and I've just started reading about natural childbirth techniques. At the moment, my feeling is that it would be nice if I can give birth without drugs, but since I have no idea what labor is like, I'm not going to rule out an epidural as an option. But I would like to take a class in pain management. Lamaze seems reasonable (that's what my mom used when she had me), or there's something called hypnobirthing, which sounds kind of iffy based on the name (hypnotoad!), but when I asked my OB about it, she said she's seen women have success with it. I don't know, I need to read more about it.

It's funny how many things there are to think about related to having a baby. I feel like I shouldn't spend my time obsessing about all of this, but I'm not sure what is important and what can be ignored. And I'm sure all of my careful planning will go out the window when it comes time to actually have the baby. I'll definitely need to learn to be more easygoing. Being organized and planning ahead might work for us now, but it probably won't work once we have a child. That'll be an interesting change for me :)

While I'm writing, I also wanted to say how lucky I feel that this has all gone so smoothly so far. I'm really grateful that we were able to conceive so quickly and that my morning sickness was relatively mild. I know not everybody has been so lucky. Here's hoping that things continue to go well!

Okay, I think that's everything I wanted to say for now. I expect that my posts will be baby-centric for a long time to come, though hopefully I'll still have time for baking and crafts and all that good stuff. Now that my energy is back, I'm definitely enjoying spending time in the kitchen again. That's a relief. It was weird not wanting anything to do with food!

This past year has definitely had its ups and downs for friends and family and for the world in general, but we were lucky enough to have a pretty good year. Some highlights:

• We made new friends and managed to see many of them regularly thanks to our weekly trivia night get togethers. I feel so lucky to have made friends in Portland. It was one of my biggest worries about moving somewhere where we didn't know many people (especially since we're both kind of introverted), and we ended up meeting a group of really great people who seem to enjoy our company. Phew! I'm hoping to organize more social gatherings this year. It's something I mean to do every year, and it never really happens. Maybe this will be the year :)

• Excited about finally having a yard of our own, we made a pretty ambitious garden plan and stuck to it, for the most part. Our main problem was actually harvesting everything that we grew in a timely manner. Most of the lettuce we planted bolted before we could eat it, because we were too busy eating lettuce from our CSA box. We'll probably skip the CSA this year and rely on our farmers' market to fill the gaps in our garden.

• I took up running with the help of the couch-to-5k plan (with lots of support from Patrick and Star) and completed a couple organized 5k runs. It was kind of mind-blowing, since I totally didn't see myself as a runner (I still don't), but I actually started enjoying it! I pretty much stopped running after my 8k run in October, but now that I know I'm capable of it, I'm hoping to be able to start up again next year when the weather's nicer.

• We cut back on the amount of meat we eat at home, not because of any strong moral convictions, but because it seems healthier for us and better for the planet (fewer resources used to make vegetables vs. meat). My biggest accomplishment on that front was no longer buying lunch meat for sandwiches (though Patches was not happy to lose her daily turkey snack!). I still eat meat when we go out, though Patrick is pretty good about sticking with vegetarian options at restaurants. I'm not sure if we're going to become vegetarians in the future (I do love those cured meats!), but it's not out of the question. It just seems so much easier to live this way in Portland than in the Bay Area. I'm not sure why.

• I worked up the courage to try canning, and I generated all sorts of jams and pickles during the summer. That was fun, if a little exhausting. Now that it's winter, we need to get to work enjoying all that summer bounty. I would have liked to have done some apple preserving too (apple butter or applesauce), but it just didn't happen this year.

Plus we spent a good amount of time enjoying Portland and our lives in general. We're still really happy that we moved here. It was a good choice :)

There's one more big thing that happened in 2009 that I haven't told you about yet. I'm pregnant! (I know, you were probably totally expecting that after last year's post) The baby is due on June 3, and we'll find out if it's a boy or a girl in a few weeks. We're really excited :)

I have a lot to say about being pregnant, but I'll save that for a separate post. Hopefully I'll be posting more frequently now that I can talk about baby stuff. It has been hard keeping quiet for so long, but we wanted to keep it a secret until we could tell our families in person at Christmas.

We kept our Christmas gifts pretty low-key this year. We took advantage of our cabinet full of jams from this summer and gave those as presents, along with felt trivets. The trivets, based on directions in Kayte Terry's inspiring Applique Your Way, were easy to make and turned out nicely. I got the wool felt sheets at Gossamer, and they had so many pretty colors to choose from! I had a great time coming up with all the color combinations. I was too lazy to go through all the tracing steps to get the exact doily patterns from the book onto the felt, so I just freehanded patterns on the felt and then cut them out as if I was making paper snowflakes.

I did a little knitting for our two youngest sisters. I made Patrick's sister Meg a buttony hat out of super-soft Mirasol yarn and this pattern. Because the band was done in seed stitch, it doesn't really hug the head as well as ribbing, but I'm still happy with how the hat turned out, and Meg seemed to like it too. (More info on Ravelry)

I made my sister, Lianna, some stripey gray mitts out of Malabrigo. They were pretty quick to make, and they're nice and cozy. I'm tempted to make myself a pair too. (More info on Ravelry)

I also did some embroidery a few weeks ago, which is a rare occurrence for me. Lee recently started selling connect-the-dots stitch sets (great idea!), and she gave Star and me some unicorn canvases to play with. It was such a fun little project, and it was great seeing the unicorn emerge as the embroidery progressed. I embellished mine with some French knot roses.

Right now, Lee is selling the connect-the-dots sets in two themes (with five designs per theme)--cryptozoology and craft tools--and it sounds like she'll be coming out with more themes soon. Fun!

Like I said in the last post, I didn't do any Christmas-specific baking this year, but I did make some mini cupcakes to celebrate Star's birthday in early December (using the recipe for yellow cupcakes with simple chocolate frosting in The New Best Recipe).

And then I had sour cream leftover from the cupcake baking, so I made a batch of the apple streusel cinnamon swirl cupcakes from Cupcakes!, but I used the same yellow cake recipe from The New Best Recipe that I used for Star's cupcakes. They turned out really nicely--like little moist coffee cakes.

Yesterday, I had some ricotta to use up, so I made the fluted polenta ricotta cake from Dorie Greenspan's Baking (plus some mini cakes, since my tart pan was too small). I like the general idea, but the only honey we have in the house is this really strong stuff from the farmers' market (it tastes almost like eucalyptus to me, but I think it's linden honey), and it overpowered the cake's flavor. So I'd like to try it again with milder honey.

And that brings us to today. For breakfast, I made our traditional Dutch babies (recipe here), but I used eggnog instead of milk. Yum! I also made tangerine-vanilla spritzers (tangerine juice, vanilla sugar, and club soda) since we didn't have any orange juice. It was a nice way to start the year!

Happy 2010! I plan to write a post about the year as a whole, but first continuing with the catching up, here's a rundown of our Thanksgiving dinner. It was our one big holiday cooking event of 2009--we didn't do any Christmas-related cooking or baking because we were traveling.

We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving this year. Lee and Pete came over for dinner, and then Susan, Pearl, and Andrew joined us for dessert. Here's the menu:

• Roast crisped-skin turkey with giblet pan gravy
• Mashed potatoes and vegan gravy from Lee and Pete (photo by Lee)
  
  
• Simple cranberry sauce
• Golden-crusted brussels sprouts (photo by Lee)
  
  
• Pear and chanterelle bread stuffing, vegetarianized (no pancetta, veggie stock instead of turkey stock) and using pre-dried stuffing mix from Little T (photo by Lee)
  
  
• Soft dinner rolls from Little T (Patrick got up early on Thanksgiving and stood in line with some other roll-lovers to make sure we got some before they ran out)
• Chocolate-bourbon pecan pie from Susan (photo by Lee)
  
  
• Damn fine apple pie (using my go-to recipe from In the Sweet Kitchen)
• Pumpkin pie using Shuna's pie dough

Earlier in the year, I had reserved a Red Bourbon turkey from Kookoolan Farms, not knowing exactly what our Thanksgiving plans would be. As it turned out, the majority of our guests were vegetarians, so Patrick and I were the only ones eating turkey at dinner (and Andrew nabbed some turkey leftovers for sandwiches the next day). Because of that, I ended up preparing the turkey a day in advance, which made our dinner preparation much more relaxed. Because I roasted the turkey in advance, I was able to make turkey stock from the carcass and use that to make the turkey gravy. The gravy actually took the longest to make of all of our dishes, but it was very tasty.

Everything turned out great. I was really happy with our Kookoolan turkey--it was tasty, and I knew that it was treated well throughout its life. I think the only recipe we wouldn't make again is the stuffing, because it used a lot of butter, and it didn't knock our socks off.

Even though I got the smallest turkey possible, we still had plenty of turkey left for sandwiches, turkey soup (made with a combination of leftover turkey stock and leftover gravy), and treats for Patches. And we ended up with a great assortment of pie leftovers, which we enjoyed for our post-Thanksgiving breakfast (and beyond). Yum!

I'm glad we were able to spend Thanksgiving with friends. It was a nice way to celebrate!

Happy almost-New Year! I was lucky enough to have both last week and this week off from work, which has been so relaxing. I don't think I've had a 2-week-long break since college! We spent last week visiting my mom and Patrick's family in California, and now we're back in Portland (just in time to catch the surprise snowstorm on Tuesday!), and I have been hanging around the house, doing some cooking and being lazy. A great way to end the year :)

Anyway, this seems like a good time to catch up on a few of the posts I've been meaning to write. First up: our anniversary trip to Vancouver!

A few months ago, we decided to go on a quick vacation to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. The original plan was to rent a cabin in Montana in early October (it seemed like a good place to get away and enjoy nature), but I had a huge project going on at work, so we decided to put off our trip until mid-November. And since Montana in mid-November sounded like it might be a little chilly, we decided to take a trip to Canada instead. Based on this article in Sunset, we ended up spending three nights at Rockwater Secret Cove Resort (on the Sunshine Coast) and had some time to check out Vancouver as well. Patrick planned the whole trip, and it was great!

We drove up to Vancouver from Portland on a rainy Thursday, and apart from a long wait to cross the border, it was a nice drive. This was the first time either of us had been to Canada, so it was exciting crossing the border!

We had decided to spend a night in Vancouver before going to Rockwater Secret Cove, and Patrick found us a very nice hotel downtown--L'Hermitage. After checking in, we walked down Robson Street (Vancouver's big shopping street) and had dinner at Kintaro Ramen, one of three ramen places that we wanted to try while we were in town (we ended up making it to all three, and the ramen at Kintaro was my favorite--really nice noodles).

The next morning, we needed Canadian coins for our parking meter, so we headed to a Starbucks near the hotel. Although Vancouver felt a lot like Portland, there were some small differences that reminded us we were in Canada--like when Patrick asked for his change in singles (so he could pay the meter), the barista looked confused and then asked if he wanted loonies or toonies. Anyway, we got it all sorted out, paid the meter, and headed to breakfast.

My small contribution to our vacation was finding a good place for breakfast while in Vancouver, and I chose Medina--they serve tiny waffles with all sorts of awesome sauces! We were tempted to have an all-waffle breakfast, but instead we got one waffle apiece and supplemented with healthier fare (yogurt, fruit, and granola). It was a good breakfast, and the waffles didn't disappoint. I had the milk chocolate lavender sauce with my waffle, and Patrick had the fig orange marmalade. Yum!

Before I forget--at a couple cafes in Vancouver, I noticed a drink called the London Fog--earl grey tea, steamed milk, and vanilla syrup. I didn't have a chance to try one while we were there, but it sounds like just my kind of drink! I'll have to see if I can get a coffee shop in Portland to make one.

After breakfast, we explored Stanley Park for a few hours. It was a chilly day, but it was still a nice way to spend a few hours. Vancouver is a pretty city!

For lunch, we had ramen once again, this time at Benkei Noodle Shop (Portland is ramen-deficient; we had to eat our fill while we had the chance!). This turned out to be Patrick's favorite ramen of the trip.

Bellies full, we headed across the Lions Gate Bridge and drove to Horseshoe Bay (enjoying the beautiful scenery along the way), to catch the ferry to the Sunshine Coast. This was our first time taking our car on a ferry, and it was pretty cool! The ferry was well-outfitted with a full cafeteria, and the 40-minute ride was just long enough to enjoy the scenery without getting bored.

The ferry disembarked at Langdale, and we drove along the coast to Sechelt, the town nearest to Rockwater Secret Cove. We had a fine dinner at The Old Boot and then continued on to the resort.

Rockwater Secret Cove Resort turned out to be pretty awesome. We splurged and reserved a tenthouse suite, which reminded me of the yurts at Treebones, but even nicer (in-yurt bathrooms--excellent!).

The Rockwater tenthouses had all sorts of great amenities--heated floors, super comfy beds, cute little fireplaces, and huge tubs with jets and light shows and stuff. All that luxury plunked down in the middle of beautiful natural scenery (one of the days we even saw a deer hanging out right next to the boardwalk!). It turned out to be a great place to just get away from everything and relax.

The one problem we ran into was the weather. The first night we got there, it was pretty calm, but the second night it was stormy, and the tent walls flapped around noisily all night, making it really hard to sleep. I was kind of afraid the tent would blow away, it was so loud. Since it was supposed to be stormy the next night as well, Patrick asked if they could move us to a more sheltered tent, and luckily they were able to help us out. So we moved from Tent #60 (which I'm sure would be awesome in the summertime but is a little dicey during stormy weather) to Tent #53, which had a less awesome view but was way more peaceful. Phew!

We mostly just sat around our tent and knitted/read. One of the days, we drove into Sechelt and explored a little. We managed to catch a holiday craft fair, and we visited a cute little store specializing in items made by local artists (of course I can't remember its name now, but it was on Mermaid Street next to a small European market). It turned out to be a nice little town to explore.

The restaurant at the resort was nice. We had breakfast there every morning, and we went there for a fancy dinner the second night we were there. In retrospect, it would have been good to bring some food to keep in the little in-room fridge, since the resort restaurant wasn't cheap, and our only other option was driving into Sechelt for every meal.

I'd definitely recommend Rockwater Secret Cove Resort if you want to splurge on a relaxing vacation in a beautiful setting. They also offer spa services and activities like horseback riding, but we didn't do any of that. Three days was a good length of time for us to stay--by the last day, I was feeling ready to get back into the real world!

On our way back to Portland, we stopped in Vancouver for lunch at the third ramen restaurant of interest--Motomachi Shokudo. The first two ramen restaurants we went to seemed pretty traditional; Motomachi was much hipper and experimental. It was good ramen, just not our favorite of the three. Also, Patrick lost his hat there, which was unfortunate :(

So, that was our trip to Canada! I'd like to go back to Vancouver at some point (maybe on the train) and explore downtown more. It seemed like a fun place to visit.

I love Lee's new ice cream earmuffs/headband pattern and kits! The design is great, and it's even better that she hand-dyed recycled wool to make the different flavors. We got to see them in person when she and Pete came over for Thanksgiving. Super cute!

(Photo by Lee)

So, Ladies Rock Camp! This was a fundraiser for Portland's Rock and Roll Camp for Girls. It's a 2.5-day-long camp, where women who have little to no experience with an instrument learn to play that instrument (guitar, bass, drums, or vocals), form a band, write a song, and perform it at a venue in downtown Portland. It happens twice a year, in May and October. Patrick heard about it this summer and sent me a link to the LRC webpage. I thought it sounded totally awesome, especially since the enrollment fee went to a good cause! I spent a little while choosing between vocals and drums (the thought of learning to play guitar/bass in just a few days was too scary). I ended up signing up for vocals. I figured that would be easiest, since I'd been in choir in high school. It would be like playing Rock Band, but for real!

Friday, October 23

Camp started on a Friday, with a potluck lunch. After that, we spent some time doing really quick getting-to-know-you activities so we'd have some idea of what kind of music people wanted to make. There were about 30 women there, maybe half of them from Portland, with a good-sized Seattle contingent as well. There was a pretty wide age range, including one mother-daughter pair.

Eventually it was time to form our bands, which was kind of scary. We split ourselves up based on the type of music we wanted to play. The group I initially went to had two vocalists, so I ended up standing in the middle of the room, hoping that there would be other people who had ended up without a band. Luckily, the numbers worked out, and I got matched up with Angela (guitar, from Minneapolis) and Beth (drums, from Seattle). Most of the bands also had a bass player, but there weren't quite enough to go around, and we did fine without one.

After we formed bands, we split up to go to instrument instruction, so we didn't have much time to get to know each other at that point. I headed off to vocal class, with our instructor, Teri, who was great--very supportive. The first class was spent warming up, getting to know the other vocalists (there were nine of us total), and practicing our group song (the vocalists traditionally sing a song at the Sunday morning assembly; ours was Don't You Worry About a Thing).

Following instrument instruction, we had our choice of two workshops--songwriting or sound. I went with songwriting, since I had no idea where to start. The main message I got was that you can write a really simple song with minimal lyrics, and it can still be really catchy. The teacher had volunteers go on stage and form makeshift bands, and then we all worked together to make up lyrics and write a song on the fly.

Next we had band practice, which was split into quiet practice (not actually playing the instruments) and loud practice. We had loud practice first. Beth and Angela familiarized themselves with their instruments, and I worked on writing lyrics. I wasn't really sure what I wanted our song to be about, and neither of them had a strong opinion either. I mentioned that the things I like (cooking, knitting, etc.) don't typically make good songs, but then one of them pointed out that there are some knitting terms that have double meanings, and based on that, I came up with what became our chorus and first verse. We didn't get anywhere on the melody (mostly because we were all kind of lost regarding how to get started), but it was comforting that we at least had some lyrics.

During quiet practice, the three of us walked down the street to MLK Fashion Plaza, where we bought some cheap T-shirts for screen-printing the next day. That store is something else--they had a whole assortment of gold teeth, including a full set of gold vampire teeth! Not the kind of place I typically frequent.

At some point we agreed on our band name, Three-Day Afghans. Angela had mentioned that growing up, she and a friend had decided that if they had a band, they'd call it 7-Day Afghans, based on a book her mom had (possibly this one). Beth and I didn't have any other ideas, so we went with that suggestion, modifying it to Three-Day Afghans, since that's how long ladies rock camp is. It also worked with our song's knitting theme.

We all regrouped for dinner, and then it was time to head home. At this point, I was pretty stressed out, since we had to have a song written by Sunday, and I still didn't really know how to make that happen. It would have been more fun if I'd just relaxed and had faith that things would work out, but that's not really my style :) But of course, things did work out. I should have known!

Saturday, October 24

We started out the morning with breakfast and then headed to instrument instruction again. We spent a little time practicing our group song, and then we spent the rest of the class singing alone in front of the group and having Teri give us suggestions on how to improve. Even singing in front of a group of 9 very supportive women made me nervous, but it turned out fine. And I wasn't the only one who was nervous, which made me feel a lot better.

During lunch, an alumna of Rock and Roll Camp for Girls performed, and she was really good! It's a pretty amazing program, and I'm glad girls in Portland have the opportunity to have such a confidence-boosting experience.

After lunch, we did a fun screen-printing workshop, where we got to design our band logos and print them on T-shirts and paper. Our teacher had lots of good ideas for screen-printing on the cheap, and instead of using photo-emulsion, we blocked the screens by cutting our designs out of contact paper and sticking it to the screens (similar to the Tyvek mailing envelope technique that Josh and Sarah used at their Screenprinting for Change party). I ended up designing our band logo--just a simple knitting graphic. Cutting out all those zig-zags from the contact paper took some time, but luckily there were three of us working on it.

Things really started to turn around and become more fun and less stressful at about this point. We had loud band practice after screen-printing, and we came out of it with a pretty well developed song, which was such a relief! I think the key was that we had some outside guidance. There were a few coaches going around between rehearsal rooms during practices, and we managed to get two of them--Bob and Teri--in our room near the beginning of practice. They really helped us get going.

We came up with a few chords that seemed like they might work, Bob and Angela played them on the guitar over and over again, Beth played drums, and I opened my mouth and sang my lyrics, and it worked! Teri and Bob helped tweak a few notes and gave me some advice on a few things I could do to make it more nuanced (which I promptly forgot, I'm sure), and we were suddenly on our way to having a real song, which was such a relief! We figured out the chorus first, and then the verse came pretty easily after that. Here's some iPhone audio from the beginning of the rehearsal, when we had just started working on the chorus.

* Unraveled - Early Chorus

After a few hours of practice, half of the bands had a showcase run-through on the little stage, just to get some experience being on stage and performing in front of people. It was so fun to see what the other bands had come up with! We had all gone in pretty different directions.

After dinner, there was a great karaoke party, but I was lame and headed home pretty early, because I knew I would be exhausted if I didn't. Probably the right choice, but I bet it would have been fun to stay for the whole party!

Sunday, October 25

We started out the day with breakfast, and then the vocalists performed our group song for everybody else, and then we had a hair and makeup session! I painted my nails, which I haven't done in a long time. And I let Teri give me rockstar hair (teased and sprayed with red hairspray), which was a little crazier than I would normally go with, but I guess that's the point.

We had a couple more hours of loud practice, which we spent tightening up the song and going in to watch the other bands practice. We were feeling pretty confident about our song by the end of practice. Here's an iPhone recording of the full song, right before we stopped for lunch. Considering that we put the whole song together in under 24 hours, I think we did a pretty good job!

* Unraveled - Final Rehearsal

Here are the lyrics (not an autobiographical song, by the way):

Verse 1:
Stitched our lives together / So snug at the seams
Now you push me away / I'm no longer in your dreams
Gauge your feelings for me / The fiber of your love
Are the strands frayed and slipping / Or are they plied strong enough

Chorus:
Don't cast me off / I'm a pearl in the rough
Don't throw me for a loop / You've unraveled me enough

Verse 2:
Seem a little distant / Your indifference needles me
Your comments are abrasive / Can't seem to agree
Have you strayed in your affections / Has someone got her hooks in you
Have we just grown complacent / Are you dying for something new

Originally, we had agreed that it would be more fun to do an upbeat song than a slow, sad song (it is Ladies ROCK Camp, after all), but it just kind of turned out a little slow and sad. At that point, we were just relieved to have a song, so we went with it. I think the chorus breaks it up nicely, with the harder drums and tambourine (playing tambourine is fun!).

At lunch, they set up a microphone, and everybody had a chance to go up and give shout-outs to anybody who had helped them or who they thought was awesome (it was really such a positive, supportive environment. What great women!). Clearly I had not learned my lesson from camp, as I was too shy to go up and talk (as usual), but it was really great hearing what everybody else had to say. One of the awesome guitarists even gave me a shout-out for my creative lyrics. Awww :)

Then we headed to our venue (Satyricon, where Nirvana once played!) to put on a rock show! I was dumb and didn't tell any of our Portland friends about it, even though they would have been totally supportive even if I'd messed up big time. Patrick was there though, which was nice. Here's the stage:

Rock and Roll Camp for Girls knows how to put on a show! They had a raffle, an entertaining MC, and all of the tech stuff was well organized, so we just had to show up on stage and perform (no checking sound levels or tuning or anything). They printed a program with everybody's lyrics, and it just happened to have a picture of a knitting mermaid on it (drawn by Heather McLaughlin, our screen-printing teacher), which seemed like a good sign, giving the theme of our song.

We were up third (out of eight bands), which was good, since we didn't have too long to get nervous, and then we were able to enjoy the second half of the show. We got up there, got all set up (I even remembered to adjust the mic stand to the right height), waited while a little raffle business was attended to, and then it was time to play!

Here's a blurry video Patrick took with our digital camera. There will be a professional video forthcoming at some point, though I'm not sure if it'll be online. Our song will also be on iTunes, which is just insane! Two things I would improve after seeing this video: (1) stage presence, (2) sing the right words! I guess I only flubbed the lyrics twice, which isn't so bad considering how new the song was.

Three-Day Afghans - Unraveled on Vimeo.

You can see me leaning over to high-five Teri at the end. She was up there rocking out during the whole song, which was so great :) Considering that we put this together in about 24 hours, I think we did awesome! I am so impressed that Angela was able to pick up the chords so quickly (like I said above, learning to play guitar scares me!), and check out Beth rocking on the drums during the chorus! I'm proud of my band :)

I think it was during the third chorus that I really realized that I was up there, performing a song to a club full of people. It was just a really exhilarating feeling. The experience was totally worth the initial stress. Here are a few videos of the other bands, who were all great!

* Lyte Bright - The Perfect Girl
* Vega - What Do You Give (What Do You Get?)
* Saddle Soar - Hipster Cowboy
* Dollywould - My Friend the T-Rex
* O-various Artists - Sundog Solara

So yes, Ladies Rock Camp is awesome, and you should totally go if you're a lady :) It's a great, supportive environment where you can try something new, and you get to meet all sorts of wonderful women and support a great cause.

I recently started crocheting a ripple blanket, based on Alicia's blanket. I wanted to take a few pictures to post to Ravelry, but for some reason Patches could not resist the yarn! Normally she's not that crazy about yarn, but I guess having it on the floor at kitty eye level is just too tempting. I like this cat :)

P.S. If you wanted to make a bacon scarf, this would totally be the pattern to use. When I was crocheting the pink and red rows at the beginning, it looked very bacony. Luckily, that effect has gone away since I added more colors.

Hoo boy, I've been quiet for too long! Here are a bunch of things I meant to mention at the time but never got around to writing about. Still to come: Ladies Rock Camp and our recent trip to Canada!

Back in early October, we went to Kruger's Farm on Sauvie Island to check out their pumpkin patch and corn maze. We actually didn't end up going in the maze, but we walked through the pumpkin patch and ate some yummy cinnamon-sugar mini donuts (no apple cider donuts to be had, but these were nearly as good). Good times :)

Around the same time, Patrick harvested all of our remaining tomatoes from the garden, since it was getting cold. Next year, we need to thin our tomatoes so we have more ripe ones and fewer green ones!

I canned some green tomato jam (not bad, plus I got to use our food mill!) and green tomato relish (aka piccalilli, recipe from the Ball Blue Book), and I still had pounds of tomatoes left over. At that point, I was kind of overwhelmed by the number of tomatoes left, so I asked Patrick to dispose of them on the compost pile when I wasn't around (so I wouldn't have to suffer the guilt of wasting perfectly good food). That was a relief! A little later, we got green tomatoes in our CSA box, and Patrick used them in this enchilada recipe (recommended by Susan), which turned out really well. I definitely want to use this recipe again next fall.

Around the same time, I got it in my head that I needed some muffins, so I made two batches, both from Dorie Greenspan's Baking--great grains muffins and morning glory (carrot spice) muffins. Both turned out well, and they made nice mid-morning snacks spread with some cream cheese. They also both froze well, which is good, since we would have been hard pressed to eat 24 muffins before they went stale.

Back in August, I signed up for Lee's inaugural Quick Knits club shipment. It was so much fun getting my package and finding all the little surprises she had included! I knit up that month's project (a little strappy pouch) in less than a day--nearly instant gratification!

Recently I knit myself a pointy hat (from an old issue of Rebecca) using more of the bulky pink yarn that I used to make my scarflet. It was another quick knitting project--I finished it in under 24 hours. Very satisfying! (also on Ravelry)

Here's a picture of the hat in action, at one of Patrick's recent cyclocross races. Andrew was visiting us for the weekend, and we went and watched Patrick get all muddy and exhausted. I'm proud of him for trying new things! I need to make him a cool ensemble for next year's races...

I still exist! Work has been kind of all-consuming for the past month, and it will continue to be for a little bit longer. That doesn't leave much time for baking and knitting and enjoying Portland, which is why I've been so quiet around here.

I do have a few things to tell you about once I have more downtime (like how I formed a band with two women I didn't know, wrote a song, and performed it at a real live Portland venue, all in one weekend! Ladies Rock Camp is awesome!). But for now I'll just point you to Lee's post about our group Halloween costume, where you can at least see some pictures of Patrick and me high-fiving and doing fancy handshakes.

This was probably the easiest Halloween costume I've ever done. Lee and Pete did the bulk of the work, putting together a Waldo costume, and all Patrick and I had to do was be not-Waldos. I threw on some striped tights, and Patrick put on a stocking cap, and that was it. I felt kind of bad for not putting more effort into it, but there was the aforementioned work craziness. Maybe next year we'll try harder. For instance, Patrick reminded me that he was supposed to be Potato Champion for Halloween. If he does that, I should totally be the Whiffies fried pie, since they're neighbors in the same food cart pod. That would be hilarious, though very few people would know what we were. Plus I don't think I'd get much use out of a fried pie costume once Halloween was over.

Okay, more later. Bye!

I feel like it has been forever since I've updated, but I guess it hasn't been that long. I just haven't done much of note in the past few weeks. The weather turned cold suddenly last week, and I just want to bundle up in blankets, eat oatmeal for breakfast, and be lazy. And once I get tired of that I think I'll bake a pie. Somebody emailed me about the lemon meringue pie in this entry earlier today, and now I want a big slice of lemon meringue pie. It looks so billowy and delicious!

So, what to tell? Both our front and side porches are currently under construction. We're having the floor of our front porch replaced because the boards were rotting, and we're having our side porch completely rebuilt because it was pulling away from the house and generally rickety. I'll post some before and after pictures once the job's done. Patches seems happy with the progress being made on the front porch so far. Plus we know it will hold at least a cat, so that's encouraging!

This past weekend, Tree came to town to run the Portland Marathon because she's a total badass! Her sister Ashly came down from Seattle and stayed with us, and she brought us cupcakes as a thank-you gift. Yes!

Ashly and I cheered on Tree at the marathon start, and then we did the KP 5-mile run, which went along part of the marathon course. This was the fanciest organized run I've done--there were timing chips for our shoes and live bands (including the Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers!) every mile or so, and so many great volunteers! I tried drinking water while running, but that didn't work so well, and I ended up spilling it all over myself instead. And then I felt bad throwing a half-full cup of water on the ground as I ran past the volunteers, but I guess that's how it's done.

About 1.5 miles into our run, we ran past the marathoners, and we got to see Tree again and cheer her on some more! And then after we finished our run and cleaned up, we headed back to the finish line to see Tree one more time. She did a great job! We got there early, so while we were waiting, we cheered on all of the other marathon finishers. Many of them had their names printed on their race numbers, so I got to personalize my cheering a little bit. Some people seemed to appreciate having strangers cheer for them, and some just looked confused or peeved. But they had just run 26 miles, so I was not offended by any dirty looks.

Even though the 5-mile run was a little shorter than what Patrick and I usually do on Sundays, I was extra tired and sore afterward, and I didn't even run that fast! I think it was a little more uphill than our usual route. Plus we clapped and cheered for a full hour after our run. That's grueling work! I don't think I'm cut out for marathon running :)

Incidentally, Patrick didn't do the 5-mile run with us because he was doing his first big cyclocross race! You may recall that we went to a cyclocross event last fall, and I enjoyed all of the food. He went to a few more races in addition to the one I wrote about, and he decided that he'd like to try it out. He bought a cross bike (and sold his track bike, to keep the balance of bikes in the house even), went to a few clinics before the season started, and practiced carrying his bike and falling down in the park near our house. And now he's racing! Unfortunately, I haven't been able to watch him race yet because of various timing/location conflicts, but hopefully I will soon! I'm proud of him for trying something new, even if it means a few extra bruises and scrapes. I want to make him some sort of wacky racing outfit, but he doesn't seem interested :)

The weekend before the marathon and cyclocross excitement, we spent a good amount of time out and about. Patrick dropped me off at Knittn' Kitten for a little while, and I found some great things, including some classy vintage sewing pins and a bias tape maker!

We also got this cute vintage corner bookcase at Portico for cheap. I'm not sure whether I want to paint it a lighter color or leave it as-is.

That night, we biked down to Sellwood via the Springwater Corridor and Oaks Bottom Wildlife Preserve, had dinner at A Cena, and then caught a show at The Woods. If you go to A Cena in the summer you should definitely get the agnolotti (stuffed pasta with sweet corn filling, mascarpone, and lobster). The rest of our dinner was nice but unremarkable, but the agnolotti was super good. We need to get back there next summer (or sooner).

We arrived at The Woods pretty early and grabbed a seat on one of the comfy couches. We bought a goblet of snack mix (which turned out to be a boring pretzel-heavy mix; not Chex mix--a minor disappointment) and watched MBilly, Billygoat, and Frontier Ruckus perform. We hadn't heard of any of them before; I just wanted to take Patrick to The Woods since I enjoyed it so much during MFNW. Billygoat was crazy--it was two guys who had created a very involved animation, which they projected above the stage, and then they played the score to it live on all sorts of wacky instruments. Totally not what I was expecting. They were my favorite act of the night, just because they were so unique.

Seating had really filled up by the time Musee Mecanique took the stage, and I was getting sleepy, so we headed home after one song. Hopefully we'll have another chance to see them perform, since I think I'd like their music. It was a beautiful (if chilly) ride home, under the stars. Oaks Amusement Park looked pretty all lit up.

Okay, enough writing. Back to my blankets and oatmeal!

So, MusicFest NW went well. I didn't even get sick this year! I think the secret was only staying up past midnight on one night instead of four nights in a row (I don't know how I did that last year!). This is probably the last year that I'll buy a wristband, since I had the most fun at the free daytime performances sponsored by KEXP.

• We started out easy on Thursday by going to see Hey Marseilles at Ash Street Saloon. There was an accordion, so I was happy. After the performance, we headed over to Dante's to see We Were Promised Jetpacks, but there was a long line full of noisy people, and we decided to just head home at a reasonable hour.

• On Friday afternoon, I headed over to Doug Fir to see The Builders and the Butchers perform live on KEXP. There weren't that many people there, and I was able to stand right next to the stage. It was great! I'd never seen an electric banjo before--pretty cool (you can kind of see it on the right in the picture below). I also liked that their songs are so awesome that they need two drummers!

  

  Gunny (aka Jon) arrived from Seattle a little later in the day, and we grabbed a quick dinner at SubRosa before catching the bus downtown. Gunny was really excited about seeing Sunny Day Real Estate reunited, so we went to the Crystal Ballroom to see them and The Jealous Sound (another 90's band that hadn't played together in over 10 years). Since I wasn't cool in high school (or college), I hadn't heard of either band. Pretty much everybody else there was super excited to see them and had clearly been awaiting this day for 11-14 years.

  Patrick and I left about halfway through Sunny Day Real Estate's performance so we'd be able to see Viva Voce at Berbati's Pan, but Gunny stayed behind to soak up as much emo reunion music as possible. He really seemed to enjoy it, which was good :) We weren't that familiar with Viva Voce, and their vocals were kind of hard to hear from where we were standing, but I was glad to see them. They played a few songs that I recognized, including Rose City, which I like by default because it's about Portland :)

  After Viva Voce were The Long Winters, who were enjoyable. I like their album cover art, and John Roderick is a funny guy. However, I was really sleepy at that point, since it was past midnight, so I found a chair and tried (unsuccessfully) to keep my eyes open until the show was over. Add to that the fact that I was wearing practical footwear (clogs!) and complaining about how loud it was (despite my earplugs), and I think I am officially too old for MFNW. Ah well.

• On Saturday, we had breakfast at Chaos Cafe (our default neighborhood destination for healthy and delicious vegetarian food) and then headed up to N. Mississippi. I stopped at that garage sale I mentioned earlier, where I bought my very own full-sized ironing board, but no skulls or male mannequins. The ironing board is lumpy and wobbly, but I think with some love I can make it better, plus it was cheap. I definitely want to make a pretty cover for it, and hopefully Patrick can fix the wobbliness.

  

  We stopped in at Mississippi Records, where Gunny spotted the bassist from The Thermals and we picked up AC/DC's Back in Black and a Simon and Garfunkel album, plus the original Star Wars soundtrack for Susan! I forgot to tell you that we bought a used record player at Crossroads a few weeks ago. I'm afraid that buying a record player at this point makes us hipsters. Except that we don't wear day-glo sunglasses or smoke, so that's something. We just thought it might be nice to listen to records, like our families did when we were kids.

  We had a quick lunch at Por Que No, and then I headed down to Sellwood to see a bunch of bands (Langhorne Slim, The Lonely Forest, John Vanderslice, Bobby Bare Jr., The Black Whales, and Port O'Brien) play unplugged sets at The Woods, as part of a free showcase hosted by KEXP and Caffe Vita. I'd never been to The Woods before, but I really liked it! It's an old funeral home that was recently turned into a small music venue. There were lots of nice old comfy couches and chairs and a little kitchenette where you could buy cupcakes, cheese plates, and goblets of Chex mix (those first two items ended up being my dinner, but I didn't have room for Chex mix. Next time!). I grabbed a chair, settled in, and hung out there happily for the next 6 hours. The only thing that would've made it better is if I'd had my knitting and my cat (and my husband!). I'll definitely bring the knitting next time. I don't think it would be out of place.

  There was one guy on a couch next to me who stayed for the whole 6 hours too, but he ended up falling asleep after about 4 hours, and he just slept peacefully in the back, curled up on a couch, while everybody else listened to music. I thought that was nice :)

  

  Langhorne Slim's set was short but good. My favorite performers of the evening were John Vanderslice and Bobby Bare Jr. I'd definitely like to see them perform live again in the future. John Vanderslice just seemed like a genuinely nice guy, plus he sang a song about cannibalism on the moon--how innovative! He said that he lives in San Francisco, but he wishes he'd moved to Portland 5 years ago when he had the chance.

  Bobby Bare Jr. got there late, but he was totally worth the wait. He was an awesome performer, and his steel guitar player looks just like Ken Burns. Bobby Bare Jr. is really into Shel Silverstein--in fact he's working on an album of covers of Shel Silverstein songs. Sounds cool!

  When the show was over (around 9pm), I headed home and went to bed at a totally reasonable hour! I had originally planned to see Langhorne Slim and The Builders and The Butchers at Crystal Ballroom, but that would have been another late night, and I'm not really a fan of the setup at Crystal Ballroom (the three times I've been there, I've ended up in the crowded over-21 corral, smushed against a stair railing, unable to see much of the stage). Since I had seen both bands already that weekend, I decided it wasn't a big deal to miss them.

• On Sunday, I went for a solo run along the Eastbank Esplanade (Patrick and Gunny did go to the Crystal Ballroom show, so they skipped the run in favor of more sleep). Then we had a lovely morning bike ride through Ladd's Addition (perfect weather!) to Juniors, where we had a very nice breakfast.

  Later that day, I headed over to the Hollywood Library with Lee and Star to see Susan, Diane, and Alicia talk about writing craft books--fun and informative!

  

  Patrick saw Gunny off at the train station, and then we finished out the evening with a little Buffy-watching. We actually just finished our second rewatching of the entire series, so I guess now it's time to find a new TV show to watch on DVD. We have a list of contenders. I'd be interested in True Blood, but I don't know if Patrick will go for it. Maybe Deadwood?

P.S. Yesterday, while biking to trivia, I saw a parade of ~10 naked bike riders at SE 26th and Clinton. They were hooting and hollering, and everybody on the sidewalk at SubRosa and Press Club was cheering for them. It was an unexpected and momentarily shocking sight, but it kind of made my day--such a cheery and innocent display of nudity! Portland is the best :)

P.P.S. I got my information packet for Ladies' Rock Camp in the mail today! I don't think I told you, but I signed up for a three-day-long rock immersion camp in late October. It's a fundraiser for the Rock Camp for Girls program, and I'm both nervous and excited about it! I signed up for vocals, but if it goes well, maybe I'll try drums next year. The camp bands will be performing our original songs on Sunday, October 25, from 3-5pm at Satyricon, if anybody wants to come check it out. It'll be like taking Rock Band to the next level!

Some recent tidbits:

• Shangri-La, the new Indian place at SE 26th and Clinton appears to have closed (already!). Bummer--we never got to try their full menu! They've scraped the paint off the windows, and they're totally remodeling the interior. I wonder what it will be next...

• We've once again bought wristbands for Musicfest NW, which means it's time to gather our earplugs and bus fare and stay up later than usual. I'm hoping not to catch a cold this year. The acts I'm most excited about seeing are the ones that impressed me last year--Langhorne Slim and The Builders and the Butchers. There are others that we'd like to check out as well, and our friend Gunny is coming into town from Seattle, so I'm sure he'll have some suggestions.

  If you don't want to spend money, you can still see my two favorites (and others) perform for free thanks to KEXP and Caffe Vita. The Builders and the Butchers will be doing a short set at Doug Fir at 2:30 tomorrow, and Langhorne Slim will be doing an unplugged performance at The Woods (a new venue in Sellwood) at 3pm on Saturday. KEXP is the best!

• Other potential activities this weekend: crafty writers at Hollywood Library on Sunday (I'll go if I'm not totally worn out from late night music) and a crazy sounding yard sale (skull collection, male mannequins, and a papasan chair?!). If you go, please leave the ironing board for me--I've been looking for a full-sized ironing board. My tiny travel-sized ironing board isn't cutting it anymore.

• I made a batch of shiro plum and vanilla bean jam last weekend. It was based on the plum-amaretto jam recipe from Small Batch Preserving, but with half a vanilla bean added during cooking. It smelled so good while it was cooking. It tastes nice too, but not as amazing as it smelled.

  
  
  

  Speaking of jam, for lunch last week, I had pseudo quesadillas made with cheddar cheese and peach jam, and they were good!

  

• Another recent made-up lunch that turned out well: a grated carrot salad with balsamic vinaigrette, raisins, feta, basil, and pine nuts.

  

• I've been thinking about getting a food mill for a while, so when I walked by Mirador and saw a slightly used one for 25% off, I bought it and made applesauce with it the very next day (our favorite apple lady is back at our farmers' market, so I had to buy something from her, even though it doesn't quite feel like apple time).

  I used the recipe for caramelized applesauce from Morning Food, and then I specifically ignored the recipe (which said to leave the apples un-mashed) and ran half of the sauce through our food mill. It's tasty, but very thick--more like apple butter. This could be because I milled it, but it could also be because of the types of apples I used. Still good mixed into cottage cheese! Anyway, I like our food mill and am looking forward to using it more in the future!

  
  
  

• I actually made progress on our Roman blinds this weekend, but then I got distracted by life during the week. I just need to sew a little bit more, and then they'll be ready for Patrick to take care of the hardware. Must finish them!

• After over a year, we've finally bought a few houseplants! We went to both Portland Nursery locations and ended up getting a parlor palm (some cats love parlor palms, but Patches is totally uninterested) and a spider plant. I crocheted a little Granny hexagon (using old acrylic yarn and the instructions in Linda's book) to put under the palm so the pot won't scratch our floors.

  
  
  
  
  

  I also bought some ranunculus, crocus, and tulip bulbs to plant around our garden, so we'll have even more exciting flowers next spring!

When I was at Black Sheep, I bought a very large skein of pink handspun wool. My plan is to make some cold-weather accessories with it (not sure if I'd wear them all at the same time though; it might be overkill). I finished my first pink yarn project a few weeks ago. It's a scarflet knit in herringbone stitch (using absurdly large needles!).

I cast on 16 stitches and knit until it was about 22 inches long. The herringbone stitch was a little fiddly, and it’s weird knitting with such big needles, but overall this was a fast and easy project. The stitch pattern kind of got lost because the yarn alternates thick and thin; I’d like to try this again with a uniformly thick yarn.

To secure the scarflet, I sewed on two vintage wood buttons from the Button Emporium. The fabric is open enough that I didn't need to make button holes--I can just tuck the buttons in between the stitches as needed. It's nice and cozy--perfect for when my office is chilly in the mornings.

Next, I think I'll knit a really simple bulky hat with it--like this, but probably without the cables, since there's enough going on with this yarn already.

(Also on Ravelry)

Phew! August was a frenzy of preserving and trying to keep up with our garden and CSA. Things seem to be slowing down now, which is kind of a relief.

We were lucky enough to be overrun with tomatoes this past month. I stuck some in jars--as tomato sauce, mild salsa, and barbecue sauce (all recipes from the Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving). The salsa and barbecue sauce are both pretty unexciting but still serviceable.

I underestimated how many jars I'd need, so I had extra portions of both salsa and barbecue sauce to use up this past week. I mixed the extra salsa with black beans and topped them with poached eggs and cotija cheese, which wasn't half bad. Most recently, we had vegetables and tofu simmered in the leftover barbecue sauce, served on top of brown rice. Meh.

The short jar in this picture is full of oven-dried cherry tomatoes, which are awesome! I've made a couple batches so far. We made some tasty sandwiches with pesto, fresh mozzarella, and some larger oven-dried tomatoes, but the real winner was this pesto pasta salad. It was based on this recipe, but with oven-dried cherry tomatoes, roasted eggplant and zucchini, and mozzarella as the add-ins.

Continuing the canning frenzy, I also made two batches of pickled roasted peppers, one batch of sweet garlic dill pickles, and a few jars of watermelon rind pickles, just for kicks (I don't even know if I like watermelon rind pickles). We've only tried the dill pickles so far. They taste like pickles should, which is exciting!

I had some fun with stone fruit as well--I made peach and blueberry pie, lavender-peach jam, plum-amaretto jam, and honey-peach ice cream (recipe from Baking). All were good but not amazing. I think my problem with the ice cream was that I used a strongly flavored honey (it almost tastes like eucalyptus or menthol) from the wonderful old Scandinavian man at our farmers' market, and the taste overpowered the peaches. It may be worth another try with more standard honey.

All that canning kind of wore me out (though it was a great learning experience!), so I'm taking a break from the jars for now. The tomatoes have slowed down because of some recent cloudy weather, and we're finally getting some zucchini from our backyard plant (it hasn't been very prolific, since I planted it kind of late, which is fine with me!). Tonight I made creamy basil zucchini soup, using the last of the scallions from our summer garden. I threw in a poblano pepper and a cup of lentils, to add some body, and it turned out just fine.

I've also made zucchini-walnut bread and chocolate-zucchini cake. Both are yummy and moist and don't taste like zucchini. It's like magic! To avoid overloading on zucchini baked goods, I froze most of the zucchini bread, pre-sliced.

We harvested two large zucchini last week, when I didn't have time to bake, so I tried freezing them. I coarsely shredded the zucchini and mixed it with a little sugar and then froze it. This week, when I had time to bake, I thawed the frozen zucchini and then drained it for 30 minutes before proceeding with the recipe (the recipe I was using, from Cook's Illustrated, called for mixing the zucchini with sugar and draining, so I just added the freezing step in the middle). The zucchini bread turned out just fine despite my extra step. That's a good trick to keep in mind for the future.

Although we've spent a lot of time close to home this past month, we've also gotten out and enjoyed Portland. We've been to a few more movies in the park, and we went to our first ever roller derby game, which was a good time. I think it was the last game of the season, but we'll have to make an effort to catch some more next year. On a related note, I'm looking forward to Whip It next month. I'm guessing real roller derby fans won't like it because it's co-opting their sport into something mainstream, but this kind of movie is right up my alley. Plus I'm a Drew Barrymore fan, even though she's generated some movies of questionable quality recently (He's Just Not That Into You, for instance).

This past weekend, we saw the final performance of Oregon! Oregon! at the zoo, followed by a set by Pink Martini. It was a fun show--I especially liked the sets by Scrappers and the giant dancing beaver. It made me smile :) I hope they release the updated soundtrack so I can listen to it at home!

I had the opportunity to rent a few movies this week, and after reading this post about The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, I decided to check it out.

I'm not sold on the entire dialogue being sung, but I loved the clothes and interiors! Genevieve had an excellent scalloped jacket (in two colors) that she wore in a number of scenes. I would love to have a jacket like that! It actually looks like Tulle makes something similar, but not quite as dainty. If I were a better sewer, I could try to make my own jacket, but I think that might end in disappointment.

Also, it seems like maternity clothes in 1960's France were way classier than they are nowadays. That second dress doesn't look too complicated--I wonder if I could sew myself something like that when it's baby time. Or maybe one of Portland's many awesome vintage stores carries maternity clothes. That hasn't really been on my radar, but I should keep an eye out.

Finally, check out that wallpaper!

I've got a whole backlog of summer activities to tell you about (most of them involving putting food in jars). Maybe I'll have time to write a longer post this weekend!

Running

And my last little bit of news--I ran an 8k! Patrick and I ran the Homer's Classic in Silverton the weekend before last. He finished in a little under 37 minutes (wow!), and I finished in a little under 54 minutes. I was aiming to finish in about an hour, so I was happy with my time. And I was extra happy that I ran the whole thing without stopping!

After we finished the Couch to 5k program, we switched to the One Hour Runner plan. Both programs worked great for us. Hard to believe that we're running an hour every Sunday without much difficulty when I couldn't run a block back in March. I plan on continuing to run three times a week for as long as possible (I'm worried winter might derail me). I don't have any plans to do a marathon or anything; for now I'm happy with the occasional 5k or 8k. Maybe a 10k eventually...

A couple things have been important in helping me stick with running: (1) having a plan to follow, (2) having somebody to run with (the silent peer pressure is a great motivator), and (3) Shot Bloks. For the first month or two that we ran, I insisted on running first thing in the morning without eating anything, and I'd run out of energy pretty quickly. Patrick finally convinced me to try Shot Bloks, and they totally helped me keep up my energy for the whole run. It's pretty obvious in retrospect, but it took me a while to figure it out.

So yeah, I ran the 8k, and it went really well! It was the most enjoyable organized run I've done so far, probably because the route was flat and I was able to listen to music on my iPod. The scenery was nice too. I think I ran harder than I usually do, because I was pretty tired by the end. Patrick ran at his own speed, and he high-fived me when our paths crossed at the turn-around point. That was fun :) Since he finished way before me, he was able to cheer me on at the finish line. After downing a cup of water, I had some yummy watermelon and Mexican pastries. Here I am after the run (those aren't the shoes I ran in). I think the stripey socks definitely made me run faster.

We stuck around after the run for the Davenport Days parade. It was a pretty standard parade; lots of candy was thrown. And then we stopped at the Silverton farmers' market for lunch (burritos!) and then checked out the arts and crafts vendors and food carts at the festival. What we were really looking forward to were the couch races, but after walking all over looking for them, we realized that they weren't until the following day. Bummer!

After that sad realization, we headed back to our car, stopping along the way to buy some pink mini cupcakes from a cute little girl. We almost bought a cool fisticuffs whirligig at a local antique store, but we didn't want to venture into lawn ornament territory. That's a slippery slope! (But I still kind of wish we'd gotten it)

So, that's it on the running front. Our next organized run is the Portland Marathon 5-miler. Tree will be in town to run the actual marathon, so it will be fun to be able to sort-of participate with her!

Baking

We went to a fun barbecue at Susan's on Friday, in honor of Linda and Paul, who were in town for Linda's book signing. It was great meeting them! My contribution to the barbecue was a shiro plum and berry frangipane tart, based on the recipe in Tartine. The fruit kind of got lost when the tart was baked, but it tasted good. My only complaint was that the texture of the sliced almonds distracted from my enjoyment of the tart; next time I'd opt for the more traditional ground almond filling.

I had some extra pastry cream and tart dough left over, so I made mini tartlets topped with blackberries. Yum!

Part of the reason that this past week has been so hectic is that I spent way too much time planning for the Pie-Off on Sunday. I decided early on that I'd enter the CPR category (the three main pie ingredients had to start with the letters C, P, and R), since I enjoy a challenge. I spent a long time making a spreadsheet of all sorts of delicious C, P, and R combinations (the flavor pairing chart in In the Sweet Kitchen came in very handy!) and then narrowing it down based on what's in season and what I could actually imagine baking.

I was originally going to make two pies, but in the end I decided to just make one, for my own mental wellbeing. I ended up going to the PSU farmers' market on Saturday morning, buying a bunch of ripe peaches, and making a double-crust peach pie with candied ginger and rum raisins. I used the peach pie recipe from Baking Illustrated as my base recipe, adding 2T of diced candied ginger and 1/3c of rum-flamed raisins (using the method described in Paris Sweets). I used Shuna's all-butter pie dough instead of the lattice dough that Cook's Illustrated called for. And I sprinkled some big sugar on top, because you know how I like big sugar on my baked goods.

Word has it that about 70 pies were entered in the Pie-Off, which is awesome! There were about a dozen in the CPR category. Judging that many pies took a while, so we occupied ourselves with our picnic lunch (salads #1, #7, and #23 from Mark Bittman's 101 Simple Salads, plus maple-cornmeal drop biscuits and bluebarb jam) and then took a walk around the park's beautiful rose garden.

I ended up taking second place in the CPR category--first place went to a good-looking coconut pineapple rum pie. Oh well, second place isn't bad, and we got to eat lots of pie afterwards. I managed to get a piece of my pie, and it was plenty tasty, which is a relief. I should bake another peach pie just for us, before the season ends.

I feel like the other pie I considered making might have had a better shot at winning, since it was more unusual than peach pie--it was a roasted banana cream pie with chocolate-lined pretzel crust (C = chocolate, P = pretzel, R = roasted banana). But it also would have required more work, and it wouldn't have used seasonal ingredients. I might try making it this winter though--I think it sounds tasty!

Crafts

In crafty news, Linda was in town to promote Crochet Adorned, as I mentioned above. I went to her Powell's event on Thursday, as well as her Yarn Garden event on Saturday. At the Yarn Garden event, she showed us all how to crochet a flower, and it really worked! Very exciting :) I ended up buying her book, because even though I'm not a big crocheter (the last time I crocheted was when I made a granny square afghan for my mom when I was about 12), the compendium of trims and motifs at the back of the book seems like a great reference. And some of her projects are really cute and easy--like the embellished shoes and pretty petals tank top. I might have to break out my crochet hooks sometime soon!

I forgot to mention it at the time, but I went to the Black Sheep Fiber Festival back in June and bought some pretty roving so I could try handspinning. Lee was kind enough to lend me her drop spindle, and I finally got around to trying it out a few weeks ago.

I used my less exciting (scratchy) roving for my practice run, and the yarn turned out lumpy and unpredictable, as I'd expected. It's still pretty cool that you can make yarn from fiber though!

The roving (combined with my very thick spinning technique) only yielded about 9 yards of yarn, and it wasn't soft enough to make something wearable out of it, so I used it to knit a cozy for our mail slot. When we bought the house, it came with a mail slot insert with two knobs, so I just knit a rectangle with two buttonholes for the knobs (looks kind of scary in that picture!), and I sewed it around the insert. Not too exciting, but at least the yarn didn't go to waste.

I have a larger amount of my nice roving, so hopefully when I get around to spinning it, I'll be able to make something a little more useful with it. We'll see...

Wow, August is going by so quickly! We're so busy enjoying that summer that I don't have time to write about it. That's probably a good thing. Let's see, what have I been up to? I'll divide this into a couple entries for easier reading.

Preserving

I've gone a little crazy trying to preserve summer produce before it's all gone. I'm getting lots of canning practice, and our cupboard is slowly filling with jars, which is exciting! (All recipes are from The Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving)

After the bluebarb jam, I made spiced honey blueberry jam and fresh fig and strawberry jam. The fig and strawberry is my favorite so far, though they're all tasty. It's kind of appalling how much sugar goes into a batch of jam, but it's also a little thrilling dumping cup after cup into the saucepot. And delicious!

Oh, and if anybody in Portland is wondering, like I was, where to buy liquid pectin--the Urban Farm Store has it (along with all sorts of other handy canning supplies). Yay!

When last we spoke, I had just started brining my nine-day icicle pickles, and they're now all finished and tucked away in jars. It was fun taking care of them for a few minutes every day. The recipe made exactly 4 pints, so I didn't have any leftovers to sample, but they smelled good and pickle-y! Here they are at day 5, and then post-canning. Next time I'm going to try packing the pickles in the jars a little tighter, since they ended up floating to the top.

Today is our one-year Portlandiversary (and house-iversary)! It has been such a great year--I'm so glad we decided to actually move here instead of just talking about it forever. Yay, Portland!

In honor of the occasion, I've started working on a house project that I've been putting off for almost a year now--sewing Roman blinds for our windows. I'm starting with the two highest priority windows--our stairwell (which faces south and heats up the house a lot in the afternoon) and our bedroom (which currently has a bed sheet for a curtain). Hopefully I'll be showing you some before and after pictures soon!

I tried to convince Patrick to order dinner from Belmont Pearl to continue our August 10th tradition, but he's not going for it. We're going to have our favorite lasagna (zucchini and eggplant from Cooks Illustrated) and leftover lemon-blueberry buckle instead. Not such a bad way to celebrate!

P.S. I think it's funny that I described Patches as ugly in that entry from a year ago--now I think she's the prettiest kitty in the neighborhood!

I went a little crazy at the farmers' market on Wednesday and bought 10 pounds of blueberries. I froze most of them (mixed with a little sugar, which is supposed to preserve their texture better than tray-freezing), and I'm planning on making a batch of jam this weekend.

Today I baked a lemon blueberry buckle (from Rustic Fruit Desserts) with some of the extra berries. I used two loaf pans because we don't have a 9-inch square baking pan (weird!). We've already eaten two thirds of a loaf, and we're in danger of polishing off the remaining third tonight. It's tasty :)

I also bought a couple pounds of pickling cucumbers at the market, and last night I embarked upon a nine-day-long odyssey of pickle-making. I'm making Icicle Pickles (recipe from The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving), which require nine days of soaking in various brines before canning. Fun!

Note to fellow picklers in Portland: At first, I was worried about the lack of pickling spice in the baking section at New Seasons, but it turns out they have it in the bulk spices aisle, which was even better, because I only need a tablespoon or so. Phew!

Man, I meant to write about last weekend sooner, but it got so hot this past week, and I couldn't bear to have my laptop on my lap. But now, with the sun down and the fan aimed at me, I think I can manage.

We've been doing all sorts of fun summer activities lately (I suppose this includes our four nights of porch camping last week, but that was more out of necessity because our bedroom was too hot to sleep in). Last Saturday, after a haircut and a quick visit to the PSU farmers' market for one last box of pie cherries before the season ended, I headed back to SE Portland to catch the Division/Clinton neighborhood parade, which was held as part of the annual street fair.

It was a pretty short parade, but it was fun to watch. The Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers was at the front of the parade and totally made me want to take up drumming. They were followed by an assortment of people in cars, on bikes, and on foot. I especially liked the fish bike!

Next, we had an excellent lunch at Little T, chatted with Susan and Andrew for a bit, and then walked up Division to check out the rest of the street fair.

The highlight of the fair, for me, were the snow cones. I'd been looking forward to them all morning, and they did not disappoint.

Maybe it was just the hot, hot day, but we weren't that impressed by the street fair in general. There just didn't seem to be much going on compared to the Hawthorne Street Fair (Patrick pointed out that Division has a lower concentration of businesses, so that makes sense). We did have some good ice cream at Pix's ice cream social, but it was super crowded and frantic, and at that point, we just wanted to go home. Next year we'll probably stick to the parade and maybe get some snow cones, and that'll do it.

The Tour de Coops was the same day, and we decided that instead of running around town trying to see everything, we'd just visit a couple of the coops along Division after we checked out the street fair. I convinced Patrick that we should walk to the coops, which were around 70th and Division. In retrospect, it wasn't a great decision--walking 50 blocks in the heat was unpleasant. At least we were smart enough to take the bus back!

We did get to see a few good coops. This Old Dutch style coop was my favorite.

When we bought our Tour de Coops booklet, we also purchased a few raffle tickets, and we were lucky enough to win a fully assembled Garden Ark! Here's one just like it in the designer's backyard, which was part of the tour.

It's a really beautiful coop, but we're not totally sure we'll keep it. We kind of wanted to build our own coop. But it's pretty handy to have a coop ready to go in our garage! It makes it more likely that we'll actually get chickens in the spring, rather than saying we will and then putting it off because we don't have a coop built.

Later on Saturday, we biked over to Meat Cheese Bread, picked up some sandwiches, and headed over to Colonel Summers Park to watch Dirty Dancing (part of the Movies in the Park series). It was great--we had our little sandwich picnic beforehand, plus some free popcorn, and Patrick biked over to Whiffies when they opened and brought us back some fried pies, which were awesome. I had a double chocolate creme pie, and Patrick had the first lemon creme pie ever dispensed from the cart. Cool!

The movie started when the sun went down, and everybody had a good time, cheering on Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. It was so nice to hang out on our picnic blanket in the cool evening air--just a great way to spend a few hours. Afterwards, we rode our bikes home in the dark, which, I've recently decided, is one of my favorite summertime activities in Portland.

On Sunday, we had a great run along the Eastbank Esplanade before it got too hot (we're up to 54 minutes of running without stopping, as part of the One Hour Runner program--and I'm actually enjoying it). And then I made jam!

During rhubarb season, I'd frozen a few cups of chopped rhubarb so that I could make bluebarb jam when it was blueberry time (how could I resist, with such a clever name?). It turned out pretty well, though I'm not sure that I like rhubarb in jam all that much. But the jam is still plenty nice on toast.

In the afternoon, we headed up to North Portland to see Trek in the Park, a live reenactment of an episode of Star Trek. We're not that into Star Trek, but we really enjoyed it. The actors were great, and the production paid good attention to detail (like having the appropriate sound effects when the imaginary doors opened and closed). I'd definitely go back again if they put on another production.

And then there was a heatwave, and we had no air conditioning, and it pretty much sucked. I spent some time working from the basement, since my office is on the second floor of our house, but our basement smelled funny (Patrick thinks this was because of a dry drain trap). Anyway, we made it, and things have cooled down a little now. Phew!

We spent a good chunk of time yesterday getting our new chicken coop home (we had to rent a pickup truck, since it was too big for our car), which was kind of stressful, since we had to deal with U-haul. But we redeemed the day by biking over to Laurelhurst Theatre to see the new Star Trek movie (this much Star Trek in the span of a few weeks is unheard of for us!), which was fun. We followed it up with a late dinner at Laurelhurst Market, a new restaurant and butcher shop started by Simpatica's founder. I wasn't in the mood for a big piece of meat, so I ordered a few appetizers/sides instead--gazpacho with crab; grilled green beans with pancetta; and peaches with prosciutto and pistachios.

Everything was so good, and I really liked the service and overall atmosphere. I'd definitely like to go there again, but I'm not sure how often we'll get back, since Screen Door is also in the neighborhood. I sure do love Screen Door!

We enjoyed another late night bike ride last night, and another early morning run along the waterfront today. I haven't been a fan of the super sunny, hot days lately, but I'm loving the nights and mornings right now--the air is the perfect temperature and such a welcome relief from our too-warm house. Speaking of which, it's time for bed! I think we'll try sleeping in the dining room tonight--a good compromise between our bedroom (too hot) and the porch (too many bug bites). The only other option is the basement, but it most certainly has a higher concentration of spiders than our porch does.

Last weekend, Star and I participated in the Stumptown Challenge, a Portland-centric scavenger hunt run. We were hoping to win the second-place prize: a year's worth of Dave's Killer Bread (which is the best bread ever!).

We were given clues describing 12 Portland locations, and we had to solve the clues and take pictures of ourselves at 11 of the 12 locations, traveling only by foot or public transportation. The three teams that returned to the starting point fastest won. We were allowed to use the Internet and/or phone a friend to help solve the clues. There was also a brief Portland-related quiz before the race, and correct quiz answers improved a team's total time.

We did pretty well on the quiz (thanks to a close reading of the Portland Wikipedia page the night before), and with Patrick's help we were able to solve all of our location clues correctly. We brought Patrick's iPhone along, and it came it very handy--we used it to see when the next bus/MAX/streetcar was coming, so we could decide whether to wait for it or run to the next destination. Our main weakness was that we tired quickly and weren't able to run the whole time, but I don't feel bad about that. It was a hot day, and a good portion of the running was uphill. I can run for long(ish) periods of time when it's a nice cool morning in Ladd's Addition, but in a race setting I run too fast and use up all my energy right away. I should work on that.

We were given half of the clues to start, and then we had to go to a check-in point to get the remaining clues. The first six clues were all in the Pearl district, so we ran between most of the locations, but then the second six clues took us to North Portland, so we had to take the MAX/bus to get there. Waiting for the MAX was tough, because we kept wondering if it would have been faster to take the bus (turns out it would have taken about the same amount of time).

When the race started, I was hopeful that we could win, but at the halfway point we found out that 20 teams had gotten there before us, and I think that discouraged us a little. But we persevered, and we ended up coming in 18th out of 71 teams, which I'm really happy about! And even though we didn't win the bread, we did get our very own Dave's Killer Bread magnets, which is almost as good!

Click here for the clues and unflattering pictures of us at each location. I definitely need to work on my self-portrait skills. The photo below (taken in Overlook Park) is my favorite bad picture of us.

I'm really glad we decided to do the Stumptown Challenge. It was lots of fun, and I hope to do it again next year!

P.S. In case you were wondering about the logistics of getting a year's supply of bread (we sure were!), here's the scoop: Each member of the 2nd place team received a punch card good for 52 loaves of bread. They have to go to the Dave's Killer Bread store (in Milwaukie, which is just south of Portland) to pick up the bread, and they can pick up four loaves at a time. It's a good thing their bread freezes well!

P.P.S. Later that day, Patrick and I went to see The Decemberists play (along with Blind Pilot and Andrew Bird) at McMenamins Edgefield, and it was possibly the best concert I've been to. It wasn't just the music (the Decemberists are always great), but the setting was perfect--a warm summer evening, sitting in a clearing watching the sunset while listening to music we love. Not only that--Patrick brought me an ice cream cone, and there was a cute baby wearing too-big hot pink protective ear muffs. After the concert, it took forever to get out of the parking lot, so the people in the car next to us cranked up their Decemberists CD, got out of the car, and danced, and a bunch more people came over and formed a big happy drunken dancing circle (we are not dancing circle enthusiasts, so we stayed in our car and watched from a safe distance). It was just an all-around good night.

Note to self: Bread and Ink has totally awesome ketchup!

We went there for pre-trivia dinner about a month ago, and I was totally impressed by their ketchup (I think I said, "Is this what ketchup used to taste like? I feel bad for all other ketchups!"), and then I promptly forgot about it. The memory of that ketchup came back to me a few days ago, but I couldn't remember where I'd had it. Luckily, Patrick helped me remember just now. I'm making an entry about it so I won't forget again.

The other praise-worthy feature of Bread and Ink (that I know of) is their Waffle Window, but I've already written about that. Hooray for excellent neighborhood restaurants!

While I'm writing, I wanted to make note of two upcoming Portland events that I'm super excited about:

• Tour de Coops: We narrowly missed this last year, and I've been waiting patiently for it to come around again. And now it's only a week away! I'm excited to see all sorts of cool local chicken coops (hopefully they'll give us some inspiration for our potential coop), plus they're raffling off one of those awesome Airstream-trailer-style coops by John Wright. I would so love to win that!

• Portland Pie-Off: Thanks to Sarah for the tip-off on this one! We were vaguely aware of this last year, but it was the week after we moved here, so it didn't seem like the best time to bake a pie. But this year I'm definitely considering entering. I'm particularly intrigued by the C.P.R. pie category. I love a good baking challenge!

Wow, I guess this means we've lived here for almost a year now. It has been so great so far--everything I'd hoped it would be. Thank you, Portland :)

We made a quick trip to Seattle the weekend before last so that Patrick could do the Seattle to Portland bike ride for the third time, along with Andrew and Jon. I came along to help get the car back to Portland, plus I wanted one of the best cupcakes around!

Patrick, Andrew, and I drove up from Portland on Friday. We stopped in Olympia for lunch at the Fifth Avenue Sandwich Shop and dessert at Boston Harbor Pies. In retrospect, perhaps we should have skipped the pie since we had cupcakes in our future, but there's no way I can walk by a pie shop and not stop in to try some!

Once in Seattle, we made a beeline for Cupcake Royale (luckily, Jon lives in Ballard, so we were only a short walk away). Yum, yum! After digesting a little, we went to the Hi-Life for dinner. We made a last-minute Safeway trip for safety pins, and then we turned in for the night.

Early the next morning (early enough to catch a beautiful sunrise!), I drove everybody's bags over the starting line, wished them well, and then headed over to a little park in Ballard to pass the time until the U-District farmers' market opened.

I hunkered down in the outdoor living room at the park and read A Homemade Life, which seemed appropriate since Molly lives in Seattle. I've been reading Orangette for a few years, and I was excited to check out her new book. It didn't disappoint--it was funny and interesting and honest--plus I want to try all of the recipes in it!

After a pleasant hour of reading, I drove over to the farmers' market in search of pie cherries (short season, have to make the most of it!). Happily, I found one stand selling them, so I bought 2 pounds, along with a few early apricots, sour cherry jam, and some locally grown rice pilaf mix.

The cherries went into a cobbler the next day. I used the recipe in Baking Illustrated (also available here for CI subscribers), and it turned out okay, but I didn't like it as much as my first cobbler. This one was too grown-up tasting for me, what with the red wine and spices. But I'm sure many people would like this version better than a more traditional cobbler.

I considered sticking around Seattle for a few more hours, since my to-visit list is pretty long, but I was more in the mood to hang out at home in Portland and relax. So I headed back, stopping for lunch in Olympia. I stopped at the Bread Peddler, where I had an awesome morning roll (croissant dough rolled around a butter/sugar filling), rhubarb lemonade, and a wheat berry salad. What a great place!

I took my lemonade down to the water and then took a walk around the farmers' market (it runs 4 days a week!). Mindful of the farmers' market produce already in the car, I only picked up one thing--a mason bee house. I've been wanting to make one of these, and although this would be super easy to make ourselves, this is the kind of thing that would take us years to get around to making (our project list is far too long already). So now I just need to hang it in our backyard and see if any bees move in! Mason bees don't make honey, so this is just meant to provide a home for some friendly neighborhood pollinators--minimal maintenance required, and no bee suit necessary.

And then I drove the rest of the way to Portland, where I was greeted by a very relieved kitty (I wish there was a way of telling her that we're not abandoning her and that I'll be back tomorrow so that she doesn't feel obliged to ration her dry food). The next day, I met up with Patrick, Andrew, and Jon at the StP finish line in Portland. From what I hear, the ride went well. I'm totally impressed and proud that they were able to ride 200 miles in 2 days. Patrick even mentioned trying to do the ride in one day next year. Crazy talk!

More knitting completed! A while ago, I bought a skein of laceweight yarn to make some crocheted edging for a dishtowel, but that project didn't work out, so I used the yarn to knit a Swallowtail Shawl instead.

This was my first lace knitting project. There are a few obvious mistakes if you look closely, but I'm still happy with the finished product. I used Eunny's blocking tutorial, and it worked great!

I'm not sure if I'm meant to be a lace knitter, since it requires more concentration than I can usually muster while watching TV shows. But I like the end result, and it's nice to be able to make something so nice out of just a skein of yarn. Patches likes it too!

Now I just need to incorporate this shawl into my wardrobe. I haven't been much of a shawl-wearer up to this point.

(Also on Ravelry)

Patrick's family was in town this past weekend, so on the fourth of July we hosted a barbecue and then went to see the fireworks on the SE waterfront (it was very crowded, so next year we'll probably try watching from our house instead). We went to the PSU farmers' market that morning and bought supplies for dinner. I was super excited to find Montmorency sour cherries at two stands, and I bought a few pounds to make a sour cherry cobbler for dessert.

My joy was somewhat dampened by the discovery that somebody had stolen my third anniversary bike seat while we were shopping at the market. That's disappointing. But at least I still have the rest of my bike. I took the bus home, Patrick drove back and picked up my bike, and he put my old bike seat on it tonight. Not the worst thing in the world. Plus I had those pie cherries to cheer me up!

I didn't have a cherry pitter, so I used a drinking straw, which worked really well (though it worked less well when I pitted sweet cherries the next day--I wonder if sour cherries are freestone and sweet cherries aren't). I made the sour cherry cobbler from Rustic Fruit Desserts (a winner of a cookbook so far!), and it was well received. I enjoyed it a lot--full of cherry flavor, and not too sweet. I'm hoping to find more pie cherries in weeks to come, but it sounds like they're pretty elusive. I'm just glad I found them at least once this summer!

For the pre-dessert portion of our meal, Patrick grilled some red snapper from the market and topped it with an avocado-strawberry salsa. We had veggie kabobs, pesto potato salad, and green salad with roasted beets, goat cheese, and Tracy's balsamic vinaigrette. The green salad was actually the best of the sides, probably because the lettuce and beets were straight from the garden. Yum! The potato salad was good, but it wasn't amazing (maybe I didn't add enough olive oil?). My quest for the perfect potato salad continues.

In my excitement at being surrounded by Pacific NW berries at the market, I overbought, plus I had leftover heavy cream from the cobbler, so I ended up making a second cobbler the next day. This one was based very loosely on the blueberry cobbler with cornmeal biscuits recipe from Rustic Fruit Desserts, but instead of blueberries I used raspberries, blackberries, and sweet cherries, and instead of lemon juice I used lime juice. Despite all of the reckless substitutions, it turned out well, but the sour cherry cobbler was definitely the winner this weekend.

And speaking of baked fruit desserts, I forgot to mention that after the First Thursday run, we stopped by the newly opened Stone Pie Joe's on NW 23rd to check out their mini pie selection. I was intrigued by the spicy clam pies (such an unorthodox pie offering!), but we went with the blueberry pie instead, since we'd already had dinner. It wasn't the best pie I've ever eaten, but it was good, and I'm sure I'll want to stop in again next time we're in that quadrant. Mini pies are a winning idea!

I'll leave you with a couple more pictures from around our garden. First up are two pictures of our cover crop, which ended up making pretty flowers, much to our surprise. Soon we'll be digging it under so we can plant our winter garden--parsnips and kale, among other things!

And here are our beets and lettuce patch, going strong! They didn't much like the heat wave this weekend, so I think we'd better eat them soon. Pulling big fat beets out of the ground is so much fun! It reminds me of pulling radishes in Super Mario Brothers.

Part of our small red currant harvest this year. Now that I know what the currant bush is, I'll treat it better next year, and hopefully we'll get enough currants to make jam!

We had another guest over the long weekend--Susan found this excellent bouncy horse on the curb a few blocks from us, with a Free sign on it. So lucky! She wasn't able to take it home because she was busy wrangling Pearl at the time, so we stashed it in our side yard for a few days. Now that it's at Susan's house, we kind of miss it! It was such a cute addition to the yard. But I know Pearl will get more use and enjoyment out of it than we would :) Besides, Patches was suspicious of the horse...

Hey look, I sewed something! It has been a while since that happened...

When I saw Betz White's shirred pillowcase top tutorial on the CRAFT blog, I knew I wanted to try making one for myself, so I started keeping an eye out for cool old pillowcases. A few weeks later I found a great one for $2 at House of Vintage on Hawthorne. There were 2 of them for sale, but I decided to buy only 1 and leave the other for somebody else to find and get excited about!

Patrick graciously picked up some elastic thread at Cool Cottons, and I sewed this top over the course of a few hours during the long weekend. This was my first time working with elastic thread, and I was really pleased with the results. It's not scary at all!

I wanted to preserve the cute lace eyelet trim along the bottom of the pillowcase, so I ended up following the S/M directions, even though I was closer to the M/L measurements. Luckily, it fit me just fine. My only complaint is that the straps ended up a bit loose and tend to fall down unless they're secured to something, so if I do it again, I'll need to pay more attention during the safety pinning step.

Adding in the cost of the thread, this top probably cost me around $3, and it was super easy to make. I'm so pleased with how it turned out!

Yesterday afternoon, Patrick, Star, and I did the First Thursday Run despite the 90-degree weather. This is a monthly event, where they unveil a map of participating local businesses 5 minutes before the run starts, and then you run to as many businesses as possible within an hour and get raffle tickets from each. When the hour is over, they draw tickets and give away prizes from the participating businesses.

We didn't bring water along with us because we figured there would be drinking fountains along the way, but of course the route we chose had no drinking fountains. Oh, it was unpleasant. If we do it again, we'll bring a pre-printed map of the area with the locations of all Benson Bubblers marked on it.

Despite the heat and lack of water, we put on a decent showing and each got 6 tickets (from Title Nine, the National Guard, Lulu Lemon, Blush Beauty Bar, Santa Fe Taqueria, and Cafe Reese). Patrick was unfazed by the lack of water and ran up to Food Front for a seventh ticket while Star and I walked back to the finishing point, where there was glorious cold water! Hooray!

After getting rehydrated, Patrick and I split a big, melty maple bar donut from Coco Donuts, which actually tasted pretty good despite seeming like the thing you would least want to eat after a run in such hot weather. Patrick also ate a big donut before the run without any ill effects. He's crazy!

Patrick and I didn't win anything during the raffle, but Star won a card for a dozen free donuts! It was very exciting :)

Star and I also signed up for the Stumptown Challenge, which I'm looking forward to! I hadn't heard about it before yesterday, but it looks like it's some sort of crazy Portland-centric scavenger hunt run. The second place prize is a year's worth of Dave's Killer Bread, which is the best bread ever! That's an excellent prize!

Sadly, we didn't take any pictures at the First Thursday run, but there will most certainly be pictures from the Stumptown Challenge!

I spent the past week in California for work and took a few days to visit my mom, grandma, and aunts while I was in the area (it's always so much fun when they all get together!). Now I'm back home in Portland and trying to get back into my normal routine. Our garden grew so much while I was gone! Patrick valiantly ate salads every day, but he's only one man. We need to step up our lettuce, beet, and chard consumption before things get really out of hand!

While I'm catching up, here are two recently purchased outfits. I like the idea of wearing dresses and tunics with leggings this summer. It's a good combination of cuteness and practicality (this way I can still ride my bike).

These are from two of my favorite clothing stores in Portland. The first one is from Mink (leggings from American Apparel next door). I love going to Mink--everybody who works there is friendly and enthusiastic! They seem genuinely interested in helping me find clothes that I will love.

And the second top is from the newly opened Makool Loves You shop in the Ford Building (at SE Division and 11th). Anisa makes such cool clothes, and they're very reasonably priced considering that they're handmade. This shirtdress is a little bit hipper than what I normally wear, but I like it--the plaid is so happy, and the wooden button accents are great (she adds all sorts of cute embellishments to her clothes).

Added bonus: both of these tops have pockets! If I can find the time, I want to sew a few more shirtdresses, but I'm not sure if it'll happen this summer, given all the other things I want to do.

P.S. Sleeping on the porch in the summertime is great! I did it this weekend at my mom's house in California, and it was so nice to be out under the stars. I'm hoping to do some more porch-camping (or backyard camping) at home this summer. Ooh, and go berry picking and make jam and go see movies in the park! I'm excited for summer :)

Portland must be rubbing off on me, because this past weekend, I went camping and ran a 5k, and I enjoyed it! When we finished our first 5k, I searched for more upcoming events on active.com, and the Ocean's Edge run in Lincoln City sounded nice. Patrick had been angling for a camping trip for a while, and it just so happened that his new camping book recommended a campsite that was only a few miles from Lincoln City.

And so it was that on Friday, we drove out to Beverly Beach State Park. We got there after dark, set up our tent, and went to bed. The next morning, we woke up to rain, but luckily the tent kept us dry. I didn't feel particularly inspired to run a 5k in the rain, but we headed out to Lincoln City anyway.

It was cold and windy on the beach, but at least the rain had stopped. About 40 people showed up for the run, and I was the only one wearing a hot pink skirt and stripey green socks. Go figure! I got the impression that most of them were from around Lincoln City--more of a neon windbreaker crowd. The run was kind of demotivating--we started out running into the wind, on a sloped beach, and the sand wasn't packed in a few places. And my socks kept rolling down, which was super annoying! I just wasn't feeling motivated, so I stopped and walked for a little bit, and Patrick ran ahead (and made good enough time to get the camera from the car and take a picture of me crossing the finish line). I actually finished this run faster than the Starlight Run (~35 minutes), probably because it was a flat course. Still, I'm glad it wasn't my first 5k. I would have felt bad that I stopped and walked so many times after all that C25k training.

After the run, we headed to Otis Cafe to try their famous brown molasses bread on our friend Chrissy's recommendation. There were a couple other people from the run there, which was cool. I had the hangtown fry, along with hashbrowns and brown bread toast. I'm not sure if I'm a fan of cooked oysters, but the hashbrowns and toast were excellent. The brown bread was so good--kind of like eating huge buttered slabs of gingerbread (but a little less sweet and a little more bready). I'm excited that the recipe is available online. I'll have to try making it someday!

We had originally planned to get pie from Cafe Roma after the run, but luckily we scrapped that plan, since on our way back through Lincoln City, we found out that it had been replaced by a Thai restaurant. Bummer. We bought saltwater taffy instead.

Next, we headed down to Newport to visit the Oregon Coast Aquarium. They have a really cute ad campaign, so I was excited to visit. The grounds were nicely done, and I liked that some of the exhibits (like the otters and giant octopus) were outside. Although it had all of the standard exhibits I enjoy in an aquarium, it mostly made me miss the Monterey Bay Aquarium--I hadn't realized how awesome that place is. That's okay though, it was a still a fun visit.

Next, we stopped at the South Beach Fish Market to buy some salmon for dinner. Unfortunately, we weren't hungry enough to try their fish and chips, which are supposed to be tasty. In fact, we didn't eat any fish and chips on this trip. That seems like an oversight...

Back at the campsite, we showered (so nice to have a hot shower after running a 5k and driving around the coast all day!), and Patrick successfully started a campfire and made an excellent dinner of salmon, biscuits, and asparagus with sugar snap peas. And we had s'mores for dessert! We also managed to scare off a wily raccoon that was coming to raid the campsites while our neighbors were at a free lecture on how to stop raccoons from stealing your food (Lesson 1: don't leave all your food out at your campsite while you go learn about raccoons!).

One of the main drawbacks of the Beverly Beach campsite was how close the neighboring sites were, which meant that it was pretty noisy with very little privacy. Definitely not the kind of place where you can sit and enjoy the solitude of nature. Instead you can enjoy the sound of RC cars and drunk college guys cheering. But it was a really pretty setting (very close to the beach and full of lush greenery), and the bathrooms and showers were nice, so we were happy with it. Maybe next time we'll try for something a little more secluded. Some of the other sites seemed to be a little larger and more screened off by trees and bushes, so maybe campsite C27 was just a bad choice.

The next morning, we had a campfire breakfast (leftover biscuits, bacon, and fried eggs), hung around the campsite for a little bit and visited the beach, and then headed out. We went back to Portland by way of Tillamook so we could check out the Tillamook Cheese factory.

The drive to Tillamook was beautiful, and we stopped at Munson Creek Falls to spend a little more time in nature and have a picnic. We only saw a couple other people along the trail, which was nice. There were salmonberries lining the path, but I wasn't confident enough in my foraging skills to eat any. I guess that's just as well, since Wikipedia says they're "insipid." It was a pleasant little side trip on our way to Tillamook. I'm glad we decided to stop there.

In retrospect, it was a bad decision to go to the Tillamook factory on a Sunday afternoon in June, since I guess everybody visits the Oregon coast on summer weekends. It was packed! We waited in a long line for some free cheese samples (mmm, curds), took the self-guided tour, and then waited in two more lines for the legendary Tillamook ice cream (we bought our ice cream at the upstairs counter, which seemed to have a considerably shorter line than the ice cream counter downstairs). It was tasty ice cream! I had the marionberry pie flavor in a waffle cone. We ate outside and then hightailed it out of there, back to the peaceful silence of our car. Phew! I'm not a big fan of crowds, but I do like dairy products.

We'll have to try visiting the Oregon Coast again during the week or in the fall. At least we know that our tent will keep us dry if it rains.

P.S. I wanted to mention again how much we like Lori at Rainy Day Pet Sitting. Our sweet kitty had some unexpected dental surgery (3 teeth pulled because of cavities) a few days before our trip, and Lori totally took it in stride. She added extra visits and had no trouble giving Patches her antibiotics and pain meds. Plus she texted me to let me know that everything was going fine. I'm so glad to have found a reliable cat sitter in Portland!

This is Patches right after she got back from the vet, all hopped up on kitty painkillers and with a shaved area on her leg from the IV (it looks like she has a little furry go go boot on that leg!). Not to worry--she's doing much better now. We'll have to do a better job of brushing her teeth in the future so she doesn't need to have any more teeth pulled!

Here are some more recent garden pictures, for those of you who enjoy such things. It sure makes me happy to see everything growing so vigorously! (click through for more pictures on Flickr)

I've kept putting off talking about our garden because I wanted to wait until it was done, but that's silly--it will never be done. That's part of the beauty of a garden--it's always changing! So here's a quick overview of what we've done so far.

February: We made a garden plan (inspired by Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades) and ordered seeds from Territorial Seed.

March: Patrick cut down a scraggly volunteer tree in the front yard and tore out some ivy and mint, and we planted a dwarf fig tree and some dwarf blueberries from One Green World. We also planted two kinds of table grapes along the side of the house. Patrick started rhubarb and tomato seedlings in our basement. Daffodils, crocus, and grape hyacinth emerged and bloomed!

April: Tulips appeared! We tore out the vinca and old man's beard vines alongside our house (though it's an ongoing battle--they continue to pop up). Patrick planted PDX Habitat seed mix in its place. He built a cold frame out of a free pallet (from Ecohaus) and old single-paned windows from the Rebuilding Center, and we moved our tomato and rhubarb seedlings into it. He also built raised beds for our backyard, and after much debate, we settled on a configuration and filled them with 4-way soil mix from Mount Scott Fuel Co. We sowed seed for beets, scallions, chard, and lettuce. Bluebells popped up all over our yard, and our new crabapple tree bloomed. And we bought a beautiful used push mower on Craigslist.

May: We planted seeds for herbs, carrots, asparagus, pole beans, flowers, and leeks (for winter) and transplanted our rhubarb and tomato seedlings. The tomatoes had weak stems (damping off disease?), and we weren't sure if they were going to make it, but they're doing great now! I discovered the wonders of the pelargonium family and bought a rose geranium for making experimental desserts. Portland Nursery has other scented geraniums, including a lemon meringue pie geranium. Oh, the ice cream possibilities! Wildflowers bloomed, as did our roses. Seedlings emerged! I thinned our beets and lettuce, and we had our first salad from our new backyard.

June: Vigorous growth by almost everything in the garden! Things really took off within the last week or two (the picture below is from the beginning of the month; I need to post a more current picture). We've harvested some lettuce and strawberries, and I think beets will be ready shortly. I just noticed baby tomatoes today. This is fun :)