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Hillsboro Day

May 19, 2013 by workdateknit

Ok there’s plenty I could catch up on from the last month, like our weekend trip to Astoria or our weekend trip to Lincoln City but this weekend was just so nice that I want to write about that instead.

Friday I went out with my sister and her friends to go out dancing to celebrate her 30th bday. I can’t believe my little sissyturd is 30!!!! Then, Saturday morning we went to get manipedis and eat brunch at her favorite place, Jam, which was back in my old neighborhood. Mmm loaded bowl of goodness. Lots of Portland activity but since my parents were out of town biking Reach the Beach, I was in Aurora housesitting for them. By the time Sunday came around, I had driven around so much that I just wanted to go home to Hillsboro.

Now, I recently moved to Hillsboro and it’s been a bit of a culture shock from SE Portland. People, they don’t believe in brunch over here…how do they survive without loaded bowls of goodness?? I’m slowly adjusting to the idea that this is home (maybe too slowly) but today, home felt amazing.

We went to the Farmer’s Market at Orenco and talked with a bunch of vendors. We bought some avocado, lime, and cilantro white bean hummus to use in wraps for dinner. We tasted some beer from Ambacht Brewing which is just down the road from us and is hoping to open their tasting room soon. We ended up buying a ginger beer that he wasn’t sampling but he convinced me that it was what ginger lovers have been waiting for in a beer. Nick’s making me wait to open it until we’re watching Game of Thrones tonight. I’m so excited to try it. AND! I found out there is a knitting store in Orenco!! I had NO idea. They’ve been there a year and are totally hidden. I drive past the yarn store every time I go to New Seasons and have never seen it. Plus, Nick and I drove past twice LOOKING for it, and still didn’t see it until the 2nd time. I’m really excited to go there, they have a knitting guild on Thursday nights so I’m gonna head down and make new Hillsboro friends :)

After we’d sampled everything there was to eat at the farmer’s market, we headed to the new Orenco Taphouse that just opened this weekend. It’s modeled after Bailey’s Taproom, which is my favorite bar in Portland (and where Nick and I had our first date). It was awesome!! Huge open space, plenty of seating, and 20 rotating taps that you can track online and on the huge monitor inside. Nick knows the owners since he works with one of them and I’m really excited to become regulars. We sat at the bar so we could chat with the owners and everyone around us. So happy we have a nice bar to go to!!  It’s really filling a void. That area is about to have a lot more restaurants open too, can’t wait to go to the Lebanese one.

We got home and I started making dinner from our goodies from the market (wraps with the white bean spread, veggies, and local chicken sausage) and we ate it on our brand new patio furniture!

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I love it SO MUCH. I’ve been wanting and wanting chairs and a table for our little front porch since I picture us sitting out there in the evenings and talking with our neighbors. And of course, knitting out there with some tea or a martini. (I’ve decided we’re also going to become martini drinkers at home, just need to buy the vermouth…and get more gin.)

I was so pumped from getting the front looking so cute that I decided to tide up the back patio area too:

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Still has work to do (we’re going to put in pavers) but I’m soooo in love with my yard:

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We have hood strawberries about to turn red, hops growing taller than us, flowering tomatoes, and tons of goodies growing in the garden bed. I’m so freaking happy today. Such a nice Hillsboro day and such a good home.

 

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a thought a day

April 19, 2013 by workdateknit

So I have this pretty hokey journal called “a thought a day” that I bought over a year ago.

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I got it at Powell’s on a whim. I really liked the premise, you only have to write one thought, and it lasts for five years so you can see what changes! Here, I’ll show a page inside:

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As you can see, I haven’t been amazing at keeping up with it (I bought it on January 14th last year). But I’ve started up with it again in the hopes I keep up this time and I came across entries from when I first started dating Nick which are too cute. Like this one from a few days ago:

“Had 3rd date w/ Nick :) We hiked Multnomah Falls & then had dinner in Troutdale. He finally kissed me goodnight :) :) “

And then another entry said:

“I’m trying soooo hard not to text Nick too much. Might be failing.”

Not too long after that, all of the entries stop because I entered the new relationship haze. I also probably didn’t want to be seen writing in the journal in front of him, since my habit is to write in it right before bed.

But those entries make me want to keep up with the journal even more. It’s nice looking back and remembering what you felt! I’ve told Nick to make sure I write in it every day to make me accountable. So far, so good.

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April already!?

April 17, 2013 by workdateknit

I haven’t even posted about Easter and April is half over! In my defense, my phone went kaput on me and I lost my cute Easter photos. I took tons of my little nephew running around finding eggs and stuffing his face with m&ms but, sadly, I didn’t have my phone set up to automatically load to “the cloud” so when my phone died, so did all of the pictures from the previous couple weeks. (Don’t worry, my photos now automatically upload to Dropbox.)

Ps tho?? Whose phone dies when it’s less than a year old!? Mine, apparently. I have a Samsung Galaxy SIII and I love it. Normally. But it just completely quit on me, out of nowhere, Friday morning on the way to work. It was brutal. But when I googled, apparently that’s  not uncommon for the SIII!!! Something about the hard drive? Go ahead and google “sudden death syndrome galaxy s3″ and you’ll see. Horrible. Apparently Samsung is fixing it, blah blah blah, but that didn’t help me. What DID help me was AT&T just replacing it since it was under warranty. But excuse me? I get replaced with a refurbished phone!? I was pissed. LOUD SIGH.

Oh right, back to Easter. I knit my baby niece an Easter bunny hat :)

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That’s me playing with the filter on my phone, all instagram-y without the instagram app that I’m too lazy to download.

And here’s baby Peng Peng wearing it on Easter:

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I got the urge to knit something bunny-fied Saturday afternoon when I was having a wonderful lazy day. I went upstairs to look and see what baby/bunny appropriate yarn I might have and found a stash of lion brand homespun that I decided would be perfect! Washable, soft, and texture-y. Check, check, check.

Now I want to make Cooper a similar hat, but have his be a bear.

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PSA

March 24, 2013 by workdateknit

I have a very important public service announcement: don’t drink this wine. Ever.
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I’m not a wine snob. I drink, and enjoy, plenty of cheap crap from Trader Joe’s. I love nice wine too; don’t think I’d be allowed to live in the Willamette valley if I didn’t. But I’m just prefacing this so you know I’m serious.

Granite Ridge Pinotage is the worst wine I’ve ever tasted.
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I tried to get a reaction shot of Nick drinking it but he wouldn’t let me. This is the closest one.

This wine tasted like straight up dirt. Mixed with poop. Or, to be more classy, manure. I could not believe how much it tasted like soil. I’ve had earthy wine, I know sometimes you can taste soil tones…this was liquid dirt.
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Nick checked the label to see if it listed dirt as an ingredient.

We ended up googling the wine to see if anybody else has hated it, and there was a review saying the wine improved after decanting two days. TWO DAYS. Who keeps wine in a decanter for two days? Anyway, Nick and I tried it and omg. The wine was even worse. I had to spit it out of my mouth and we poured the wine down the drain.

Don’t buy it. Don’t drink it. Or if you do drink it, do it as a prank with a wine snob and tell them it’s expensive.

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Maui!

March 17, 2013 by workdateknit

In the past month since I’ve last posted, I’ve spent a week in Maui, a weekend up on Whidbey Island, a weekend in Sisters, OR, and now we’re well into March and I’m already looking forward to my summer with a yard :) But first things first! Maui!

We stayed in Kaanapali which is on the upper west coast of Maui. We basically spent our days lounging on the beach, snorkeling, learning how to surf, and eating tons of fish. It was extremely relaxing. I finished 3 books there: Cloud Atlas, On the Island, and Freedom. All three, I would recommend (but for different reasons….On the Island is not exactly fine literature). Speaking of books, I’ve been powering through them thanks to my commute so if that stuff interests you, check out my goodreads page!

Back to Maui. What I found most surprising about the whole trip was how GIGANTIC sea turtles are! I mean, I’ve watched Finding Nemo, I knew they were larger than fish. But when I saw my first sea turtle, I tried to swim away like it was a shark. Nick just looked at me like I was crazy so I calmed down and swam back, but man. They are huge. It was really cool swimming with one! We got some fun video on Nick’s camera thingie.

Here are some travel pics:

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Look!!! Nick can read!!!!

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Near the end of the week, I got tired of putting on sunscreen every time we got out of the water/every 2 hours:

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This is us on our 11 monthiversary at Mama’s Fish House (soooo yum)

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Some pics on the beach and at our luau:

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I wanted to hug this gigantic tree:

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Then I wanted Nick to hug it too. I love his face in this picture. He’s totally humoring me. I love it.

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Finally, some proof that we learned how to surf:

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The surfing company gave us trucker hats as a souvenir. Wearing a trucker hat made me feel tough so I made Nick take this picture of me:

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I feel pretty blessed that within 2 years I was able to go to Hawaii twice so I don’t want to come off too bratty but, Kauai was waaaay better. This trip was special since it was with Nick and it was really nice. But if I were choosing another Hawaii trip in the future, I would go hands down, 100% Kauai. There just isn’t a contest. Maui was crowded, touristy, and just not as beautiful scenery-wise. I was underwhelmed. Again…don’t want to sound spoiled brat but that’s my verdict in case anybody’s taking a survey. Next year, Molokai!

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Oops

February 17, 2013 by workdateknit

So…about that posting once a week thing New Year’s Resolution. Let’s go ahead and call that post once a week-ish. Apparently moving in and getting all unpacked/set up was time consuming. But it’s official!! (And has been since the 31st). Here’s my empty apartment to prove it:

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Not going to lie, leaving on the 31st after my final walk through was very emotional. I burst into tears and couldn’t stop crying almost the entire way home. I’m EXTREMELY happy to be living with Nick, but I’ll miss my apartment and living in Portland. I didn’t realize how bummed I was about moving out to the suburbs until I started crying. Then a light bulb flashed above my head and I realized “ohhhh that’s why you’ve been such a brat all week!!” Nick made it better by cooking me an amazing dinner for our first official meal together. It’s chicken mustard milanese with arugula and fennel salad (from Smitten Kitchen‘s new cookbook):

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I don’t usually take pictures of my food (since I eat too quickly) but it looked too good not to. And I appreciated that he picked a recipe out of my new cookbook :) It was AMAZING. So so so so yum.

It’s been wonderful living together. We make dinner and eat it at a table together (I have a table!!). And I really love having 1.5 hours total in the day for reading on the Max to and from work. I could start knitting in the mornings since I always have a seat in the morning, but so far I can’t tear myself away from the dedicated reading time. I finished my George R.R. Martin treasures, read Super Sad True Love Story, Gone Girl, and now I’m in the middle of Cloud Atlas.

The cats and Nick are adjusting too. Nick is wonderfully patient with Harold.

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The fact that Harold was in that position long enough for me to take a picture tells you all you need to know about how patient Nick is haha. Before I took this, Harold was just laying across Nick’s hands as Nick played his soccer video game. But by the time I got back with my camera, he’d adjusted to just headbutting Nick.

Nick and I had our first Valentine’s Day. I told him I didn’t want to do presents or anything (and meant it). I’ve never really cared about Valentine’s Day. We stayed home for dinner, I made french bread pizza with heart shaped turkey and mushrooms and then a side salad with heart shaped cucumber and red bell pepper. I might have had too much fun with my tiny heart cookie cutter. And Nick got me pretty roses:

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I feel like I haven’t been knitting much, but here’s the scarf progress so far:

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Based on the picture from the pattern, it looks like there are 12 snowflake repeats. So I’m almost halfway! I might also just make this as long as I can until the yarn runs out. I prefer longer scarves.

In other, BIGGER news. I am an aunt again!!!! My sister had a successful VBAC on her exact due date and it was so amazing. I’m so proud of her!!! Being forced into a c-section with Cooper, my nephew, really brought her down. She decided to go to OHSU since they have such a solid VBAC program but they joked that they couldn’t take credit for her VBAC since she labored for 8 hours at home, checked into the hospital at 9:30am and my niece, Penelope Robin, showed up at 10:34am. Annie only had to do 7 minutes of pushing!!! SO AWESOME!!! Cooper’s entrance into the world was much much much more difficult. Penelope looks identical to how Cooper looked as a baby, it’s so funny.

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I love her big ol’ cheeks. She’s so pretty :) Here are the proud grandparents:

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Ok! I think we’re all caught up!! Now I’m just trying to decide what knitting project I’ll bring to Maui with us. We leave on Wednesday :) :) :) :)   I can’t wait!!!! It’ll be so hard to focus at work tomorrow and Tuesday. We’re in Maui for almost 8 nights (our last night, we leave at 11pm on a red eye). If anybody has suggestions for fun beaches, snorkeling, or awesome food places, let me know!! I’ve already made us reservations at Mama’s Fish House for our 11 monthiversary.

Posted in knitting, life | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

Who gets laryngitis??

January 27, 2013 by workdateknit

I’m writing this on my phone because I’m too exhausted to get out of bed and write at the computer, so hopefully this doesn’t end up looking wonky. Long day of painting my apt!

I’ve been sick this whole week, gradually getting better, but today I woke up and had completely lost my voice. My throat still hurts a little but it’s a pain in the butt not being able to talk! If I put a lot of effort in and try to talk loud, it comes out a raspy whisper. Otherwise, I’m just quietly whispering. It sucks. Especially when your boyfriend is “helping” and puts your mud boots on top of your home spun yarn. Whispering does not convey anger adequately enough.

In other news, I turned 31 on Tuesday. Wasn’t as exciting as turning 30. And the night of my birthday is when my sore throat hit and I woke up the next day witch a fever so…I’m glad I didn’t care about this birthday much haha. Nick got me flowers, spicy green sauce from my favorite food cart, and this:
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I love his handwriting so much. We haven’t gone running together since October because I hurt my foot after our 5k so him getting me running shoes that fit properly is very sweet. I did tease him about calling me fat tho. Running shoes?? Ballsy.

My mom made me a rug!! She used Pendleton wool and wove me a  rug that looks perfect in the living room. She’ll get mad I’m posting a picture with the hand braided fringe not all straight, but, again, I’m tired and this is best I can do:
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Best birthday card award goes to my friend, Amanda. Made me laugh so hard:
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Ok! Cross your fingers that my voice is back  tomorrow! I don’t want to have to whisper at work. I leave you with Harold and Cooper loving each other:

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