Oregon 2011 - Day 3

After having the [new] house all to ourselves for a few days, it was nice to wake up to a full house. My parents and both my brothers had come up to spend the weekend with us (in actuality they came up to spend it in the big house and to see their friends). It was nice to just spend time with everyone and catch up.

After breakfast, I busted out a batch of my famous Oreo cupcakes. Only this time, I made them sans eggs. A friend of mine is allergic to eggs. I could not find egg-free substitute (egg beaters are 99% real egg), so in the end I just called uncle and went with applesauce. Hey, do not knock it, it works.

For lunch, the entire family gathered around and feasted on hot pot for a couple of hours. Let me back up and explain, hot pot is Chinese fondue. Instead of cheese or chocolate, soup is used as the base. Assorted meats, seafood, tofu, and veggies are thrown into the pot. Some of you may know it by it's Japanese name, Shabu-shabu.

Left column (top to bottom): Fish balls, veggies, sliced beef.
Middle column: Fish cakes, part of the spread.
Right column: Jake and Dad chowing down, the pot filled with with yum. 

After we hung out with the fam during the day, for dinner we took a long drive down to Corvallis to see some old friends that I had not seen in awhile. Unfortunately, one of them had to stay home with icky bronchitis. The rest of us chowed down on pizza and microbrews at American Dream Pizza, a local college hangout across the street from my alma mater. I've been dreaming about American Dream's jerk chicken for years. Years, I tell you. Oh and their chocolate chip cookie.

I'm such a dumbass. I had my cookie all wrapped up and was saving it for later. Well, guess what I did with it. Nope, I did not eat it. I. LEFT. IT. ON. THE. TABLE. I just about died when I realized what I had done. You do not understand. I have not had one in almost 5 years. These are the thickest, softest, tastiest cookies EVER. They are seriously THAT epically good. At least I took a bite of Jake's cookie before I let him have it.

Top: Jerk chicken salad with honey mustard dressing
Middle: Broccoli, cheese, and pineapple. Seriously, soooo good!
Bottom: E and A with their egg-free cupcakes

*All photos by me. Please excuse the crappy cell phone pics, I totally forgot to bring my camera with me.

Did you miss a day?
Oregon 2011 - Day 2
Oregon 2011 - Day 1

Oregon 2011 - Day 2

Day 2 was fairly low key, just as the previous day. We found little things to explore around Portland. We found a cute cafe nearby to grab yummy breakfast. Arleta Library Bakery Cafe. Along the way we spotted a a moss covered roof that had Jake giggling about for 15 minutes.

Clockwise from top left: Menu, Pane Dolce - Pearl Bakery brioche with whipped honey butter, organic maple syrup and seasonal fresh fruit, Portland’s Best Biscuits-n-Gravy - Thinly sliced house-roasted pork loin nestled between two savory biscuits and smothered with peppery rosemary sausage gravy; served with Library Fries, Jake not too excited about being photographed before his coffee.

I think this is the restroom building at the Mt. Scott Park.

Jake likes to troll around real estate websites looking to see what his money can buy him in different neighbohoods around the world. Yes, world, not just country. He had found a handful of homes in the West Hills area of Portland. West Hills reminds us of Beacon Hill in Boston. The homes are all within arms distance of one another and are very narrow, you can literally see through the entire house from the street. The only good thing about these homes is that they sit up on the hill overlooking downtown Portland. I tried to tell Jake that the homes were older and that the homes had no land, but there is no getting through to that guy once he has made up his mind. So we drove through the area to check things out and pull his head out of the clouds so to speak.

While the weather was cold and rainy, your typical winter day in Oregon, (it was sunny and mid-40's the day before) we took to trapezing around Pittock Mansion. In all the years of my life, I never knew this place existed! We are going to have to go back on a clear (and warm) day just for the views.

Top row, left to right: Creepy dolls in the children's room. Old school intercom system. Moss covered wall on the property.
Second row: View of downtown Portland from the property, note it was a cloudy day otherwise you'd see Mt. Hood. Signage.
Third row: (top) Ceiling in one of the side rooms. (bottom) Music/sitting room. Sweeping stair case. Foggy, moss covered trees.
Bottom row: View of downtown Portland. Pittock Mansion from the back side.

That night we were going to meet up with friends for sushi and drinks. I thought one of the girls was bringing her husband, but he had plans for guys night out...down the block. The smart thing would have been to leave Jake with the boys after dinner, but they were pretty hammered. But it all worked out. I got my girl time and Jake was there to see how much I missed them, how much they missed me, and how much fun I've been missing out on.



Me and my girls at Bartini. They have THE best pomagranate martinis!


*All photos taken by me, except the last one, Jake took that one.

Did you miss a day?
Oregon 2011 - Day 1

Ikea + paint = new hobby

I have watched a lot of HGTV in the past year. I have a learned a lot of tricks to decorate or redecorate on the cheap. I have learned that one can upcycle a cheap furniture find.

I love Ikea stuff because it's CHEAP, but sometimes, I just do not love the colors or the hardware they provide. Granted, you can always buy it, sand it, paint it, and change out the hardware. But we do not have a garage or a shed or even a backyard for me to properly set up for sanding and painting. Not to mention, I would have to get a bunch of stuff (like sandpaper and a mask) and be OK with being covered in wood particles.

So bottom line, the idea of sanding has stopped me dead in my tracks. Then I found this article last week by Caroline at Armelle Jewelry. Caroline painted the dresser WITHOUT sanding it down!

Ikea



Source



How awesome looking is that dresser after a coat (or two) or paint!?!? I might just have to try this sometime soon. Oh wait, maybe I should wait until this whole wedding business is over with.

Meltdown #1

I think this might be my first official bridal related meltdown. I seem to recall a previous one, but I'm far too lazy to search through my previous posts to find mention of it, let me know if you remember it.

I'm running on 3 hours of intermittent sleep. For the life of me I could not fall asleep last night. But when I finally did, oh say around 3am, I could not stay asleep. What's eating me? Well, ready yourself for a not so peppy post.

Weddings planning is not rainbows, puppies, unicorns, and sparkles. There are people that LOVE wedding planning. You people are whack. You are probably on crack or something. You have to be. (*disclaimer - I still love you guys, I just think you must be smoking something. Maybe you should share.) I HATE wedding planning. And I'm a person that plans EVERYTHING.

We are 2 days shy of the 5 month mark and I feel like NOTHING is done. I had hoped that by this point all of our vendors would be lined up. I had hoped that I would just be working on DIY projects in my spare time. I had hoped that we'd be all laid back and zenned out. Instead, I'm lying awake last night, stressed out, and FREAKING out about everything.

What's wrong?

• I cannot find frog buttons for my Chinese dress. Who freaken knew that they would be this stupid hard to find? You would think that living in Boston of all places, you know a city with a large Chinese populations, that I could find buttons. What about New York City...nope, I struck out there too, what the crap?
• I realized at 10:30pm last night that I had completely flaked on returning the contract to the hair and makeup vendor. It stated in bold and underlined words that the contract was to be signed and returned within 7 days. Here I am at 9, 2 days overdue!!! And to make matters worse, I can not just print it out, sign it, scan it, and email it back right then and there because our internet is broken and I'm out of printer paper. (Update, I took care of it this morning at work and all is good.)
• At 5 months, we do no have a videographer contracted. We are not even in communication with a single videographer!!!! Seriously, how did it get to this point. I was yelling at Jake last night that we are not going to be able to have a videographer, one of the caliber that I want at our wedding because we waited this freaken long. Why did I wait on this? I knew better. Venue, photographer, videographer are 3 vendors you get upfront so that you get what you want when you want it. UGH!!
• Flowers...let's not talk about center pieces. The sheer thought of the topic just makes me want to throw a traditional Chinese banquet so that we do not have to even deal with this.
• The groom. Oh where do I start with this one? He sees wedding planning as a chore, like taking out the garbage. Such a thing he couldn't be bothered with. WHAT THE CRAP?!?! Poor Jake, I spent a good 15 minutes last night blaming him for all this stress. I've said it before, if it were just up to me, we would go to the courthouse and have a backyard BBQ afterwards. But noooooooo, Jake wants a *shiny* full blown shindig. Him and his bright ideas. He said let's get married and then must have thought that fairies would come out of the woodwork and make it all happen. Maybe they will pee rainbows and poop sparkles while they are at it. (But everyone knows that unicorns poop rainbows!)
• Me. I cannot half ass anything for the life of me. I am an all or nothing kind of gal. Either I do it and I do it right, or I just do not do it at all. I wish that I could just stop caring and outsource everything, but I cannot. Have I mentioned that I have a full time job during the day as well?!

That's enough venting out of me for now. Sorry guys, I just could not pretend to be happy-go-lucky this morning. Maybe if I get some sleep...

Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum...

...I smell a DIY project brewing.

I just purchased chalkboard contact paper, foam board, and chalk.

Any guesses as to what I'm up to?