MAJOR FUNK ALERT

Want to know something? I'm sitting in sweat pants, Long sleeve shirt, sweater over that and thick socks with slippers.

I'm not sick, I'm not being lazy...So what's wrong with this picture?

Answer:

OREGON. That's what's wrong with this picture.

It's so freaking cold, and rainy and the hail, my lord the hail. It wont stop falling out of the sky . And i'm convinced I've forgotten what the sun feels like.

I know this is probably my fault, because you see; Last year in May it was ungodly hot. And we had just moved here away from the consistent 110 days of California sun, so I was looking for a change in weather. But within 2 months of being here it was hotter then California was. And to make matters worse, we don't have air conditioning, but we live in a 3 story house.

We bought 2 Ac units, and snuck into the swimming pool at a local apartment every day for a month.


So there you have it. Oregon weather can suck it because i'm tired of this crap! I wouldn't even mind coldish weather as long as the flooding rain stopped.


To try and change my mood, I decided C and I are having another date tonight. Instead of going out though, we're going to pick up a pizza and watch a movie and play a little wii.

And tomorrow i'm going to take my aggression out in boot camp. Which is sort of ironic because tomorrow is suppose to be the only non rain day in the next 5 days.


I hope everyone else is enjoying Winter Summer

SPRING SHOWERS

Is it STILL Spring? I mean, really? Because we haven't seen one day of sunshine in nearly 2 weeks. And I'm not just talking slightly cloudy skies, I'm talking black, hail falling, non stop raining skies.

I decided I was tired of being trapped in the house, so I opened all my windows and blinds ( even though it was chilly) and aired out the house as much as possible. I don't know how much good it did for our home, but it did help my soul a little.

In the meantime, I had planted a few flowers and herbs a few weeks ago.  I had them sitting on our porch, but with the massive rain fall they started flooding. So I brought my babies in! (It's the small things , people )



I have itty bitty sprouts after only 2 weeks and I'm so excited. I think I'm going to keep them on my window seal for another week, and hope this crummy weather will clear itself up ( or else me and the man upstairs will be having it out!)  We planted : Chives, cilantro, flat leaf parsley and basil and then a mixture of poppy's and garden flowers.

I have zero experience with gardening, and truth be told, there isn't much space around here to do any, but I've decided to start small, see how I do and go from there. Here's to hoping my red thumb turns green very soon!

In addition to gardening and doing a whole lot of nothing, because we're stuck inside, we've been trying to get everything cleaned up. In less then 3 weeks we'll be heading down to California for the first leg of our business year. We'll be gone nearly 3 weeks doing our 4th of July festival, hosting a garage sale, securing a building for our Halloween season and hopefully securing a house to live in for 3 months. I hate leaving our house, but in all honesty, it will be nice to enjoy summer weather and see our friends. Bringing in some extra money doesn't hurt either.

All the while cleaning isn't going great. You see, with the rain, and a dog who LOVEs being outside I keep running into this issue...



Did you get that? If not a closer look...


Muddy wet paws all over my freshly  mopped floors. I can't seem to win the battle!


I hope you all have a fabulous weekend. Sparky and I are headed to a festival, and hopefully having a date night!

NO PROGRESS...HMPH!

I guess you might be wondering why I haven't updated you on the weight loss. Well truth be told I haven't lost one single lb for 3 weeks. I'm getting so frustrated with it yet, It makes me work even harder.

This last week I seriously worked my tail off in the gym, proportioned all my food, made sure everything was healthy and still. The scale would not budge! The only thing I can think of is I'm gaining muscle weight, because in reality my stomach is starting to look a little more toned and my pants are a bit looser.

I've decided for the next two weeks I'm going to skip the scale. I'm going to continue working as hard as I can and eating right, and if in two weeks that scale hasn't moved down I'm going in for lipo! ( kidding! ) I'll probably talk to the nutritionist and a personal trainer.


So no picture for 2 weeks. Bare with me ;)

In other frustrating news. I made a hair appointment at a new salon, and had to wait a grueling 3 weeks. I forgot to write down the appointment but didn't fret because they said they would call to remind me. Well I knew it was coming up this week, so I gave them a call today to confirm which day. Turns out it was for TODAY and in 20 minutes. My drive to the salon was at least 30 minutes without traffic. So I let her know as much and asked why I never got a phone call. They said they think they left a message on Saturday but guess who never got it? So I ended up showing up about 25 minutes late and right as I got there she said she just took in a walk in and had an appointment in 2 hours so she had no time for me. I was not a happy camper. Unfortunately I have a gift certificate so I couldn't say or do much and refuse to never come back. So I opted for a "squeeze in" appointment tomorrow. if she doesn't do an amazing job, I'll be  contacting the salon owner.

It's raining. Surprise surprise. All over my facebook account I had friends ( mostly in the mid west/east coast) exclaiming how sunny and hot it is. Well I guess they get to start summer early because there is no sign of warm days ahead for at least the next 10 days. And the only thing that makes this better is that California is getting the same rainy weather, so it's not just an "Oregon" thing.


This last week we've tried a few new recipes. Since I can't do much else around here these days I'm going to get them posted on the blog!

WOW, I'M FINALLY HERE!

Okay, so I know I've been slacking. But almost a month of no blogs? Seriously? My time is going by SO fast. It's nearing towards the end of May which means starting in June my busy season starts. It means we'll actually have money coming in instead of going out. It means we can afford to live without having to watch every single penny ( although we always have a budget). You get the idea... We only make money 6 months out of the year, so it's always nice when that time of year rolls around again.

So what have I been up to?

Well I know I need to do a big recap of our vacation, but truth be told I haven't even gotten the pictures off my camera yet!

As soon as we got home we had to deal with Spencer. He somehow cut his paw open right before we left C's parents house. the poor guy wasn't happy and kept trying to lick it which resulted in loss of fur on his paw. It was a horrible situation. All is well now, and it's healing great!

Then we had various appointments with a new business opportunity we came into ( I can't disclose info on it right now, but soon enough!)

Of course there was mothers day. Again, I need to do a recap on this and get those darn pictures of out my camera!

Leading us to a very hot weekend in Oregon. I'm talking 90 degrees hot so C and I decided to go on a fast little boat ride!



We rode on  Willamette jet boats. It was a spur of the moment decision to go last Saturday but we just wanted to get out of the house. We actually ran into a little problem as we arrived. Apparently in order to reserve a seat you should call a few days in advance, which we didn't (obviously) so we had to wait until everybody who had reserved their space was seated to see if there was enough room for us. Luckily they had 2 seats left.


Once on the river, they took no time to get that boat going at speeds over 40. The breeze was nice, but within the first 5 minutes the boat slammed on it's brakes drenching every single person on the boat. It was really fun although the first taste of river water wasn't pleasant.


( and just a side note, I was more worried about my hair, as I had just took the time to dry and straighten it mere minutes before! ugh!)


The trip lasted a little over 2 hours. There were lots of e-brake stops and quite a few spin outs. it seemed like just when you were starting to dry off and get warm the guy would get us all wet again. Toward the end I was really starting to freeze and actually began getting pissy that he needed to stop doing that since the sun was going down and the weather was changing.

The scenery was amazing and only viewable by boat. We passed some huge mansions on the water that i didnt even know Oregon had! What's even more amazing was that in 1996 Oregon experienced the worst flood of it's life time and most of the homes




Can you imagine your 15 millon dollar home under water?  Or how about your grocery store?






It was amazing hearing about it, and still being able to see some of the damage that was never fixed. What was even more amazing is the addition to the river are river houses.






I don't know about you, but I don't think living in a state where water falling from the sky seems to be endless, all the while sleeping on a river that is known to flood. And these houses aren't cheap! I can only imagine their home insurance is through the roof!

Anyhow, the experience was awesome, and we'll absolutely be taking some out of town guests on it again this summer.






I'll try to be a better blogger here the next few days as I have a small break from work.

WEEKEND RECAP

 



The week I had was exactly like The week I had before. It has seriously not stopped raining for 12 days straight. And i'm talking massive down pours, hail storms and feet upon feet of snow in our mountains.

We had a really mild winter, with very few freezing days and only 2 days of actual snow in Portland. But I think it's making up for it in Spring....I know I'm doing quite a bit of complaining about the weather, and normally I LOVE rain, but I have stuff to do people, and when my tulips are dying because I can't get them planted, or when I can't vacuum the massive amounts of hair out of my car because i'll get drenched I become an unhappy camper.

And to tip the cow, Mm nieces and nephews are in town, over at my moms, 3 hours away and over 1 mountain that just so happened to get almost 10 feet of snow during the week. I was hoping to spend Easter with them, have a little family get together since we can never seem to have everybody in the same place at the same time. But nooooo...Mother nature can suck it!


Okay, okay on a happy note..

I made C an Easter basket. I usually do every year, and this year being no different. I got him a few of his favorite goodies and the new Super Mario wii game. He was pretty stoked!

While browsing our local thrift shop, I also came across a first edition Stuart Little book. I snatched that baby up for $ 2.00 and got home, looked it up, and found out it's worth almost $1000. They have quite a few for sale right now, so I'm going to hold out for a few years and see if the value will increase more. But still, talk about a great find!

Since it's been crummy weather I've been doing quite a bit of cooking. You'll be getting lots of recipes and pictures this week! I hope you'll give them all a try, because every single thing I made turned out awesome!


Only 3 weeks until we leave for Sunny Southern California. We'll be spending 3 days at Disneyland and 2 days a little more south ( I can't mention the second location yet, because it's a surprise for C!)


I hope everyone had a great weekend and very happy Easter!

WHAT A WEEK!

Okay, so I know I've been MIA the last week but it was to your benefit that I was. You see, The night C left was the night my hormones decided to act out and I became the moodiest, unpleasant, and flat out bitchiest person around.

It's not as if I wanted to be that person, but I was stuck in our house, alone (well, with the pup) for 7 days. I couldnt sleep, I couldn't eat, I was crying, I was mad, I was just not good with life. There is an explanation for all of this, but really, I can't go into details right now.

Moving on, C is home and all is well in my world. I lost 11 lbs in 7 days (go me?!) and I'm finally sleeping again.

Today was amazing. The weather topped out at 75 degrees, and we got up early and spent every minute we could outside.

In Portland they are pretty well known for a "Saturday Market". They have it every single Saturday and I guess they added Sundays too. Basically, it's crafts, food, games and live music. Much like a festival. We had never been so decided to check it out. Can I just say; I've never seen so many hippies in my life. Portland is pretty know for their weird folk ( not kidding!) and certainly have a huge hippy following. But when it's the norm to just casually ask if I have a joint, or feel out of place because I don't have dreads or birkenstocks on, I'm immediately questioning our decision to go.



None the less, we had fun people watching, and enjoying the sunshine. Will we go again? Probably not unless we decide to smoke the green stuff or buy into blown glass.( which kind of go hand in hand, LOL!)



You see the brick building that says VooDoo Doughnuts? This is Portland's claim to fame. This place seriously has a line of 25 people (if not more) at all times. They have the famous bacon maple donut. We tried it last yearwhen we first moved here and found it to be too sweet and not our style but apparently all the stoner's   locals love them.


There was seriously SO many people there. It was hard to walk side by side and most of time I was holding on to C's back pocket for life so we wouldn't loose one another.


And just because I think he's cute....




And notice his black jacket? I seriously have NO idea why he had that on. He is the one that likes to sleep with the window open and the fan on in 30 plus degree weather, but yet he was sporting a jacket in 75 degrees. I digress....



So overall we had a great Saturday. Tomorrow we'll be spending some time at home, cleaning, doing some laundry, hanging out and hoping the rain stays away ( although word is, we'll be back to showers. booo!)

Spring Has Sprung!

You know what the best part of all the rain is? The beautiful flowers that are blooming.







We have had GORGEOUS weather the last 3 days. It's been around 65 degrees, the flowers are popping out everywhere, the trees greener then ever and everything just feels fresh and not so gloomy. Of course, I better not get too excited just yet, we apparently have 4 long days of rain coming.*sigh* at least we enjoyed it while it lasted.






My mom is in town for a few days, so we decided to head out to the Oregon coast for the day.





There were even kids swimming in the water. I have NO idea how they could stand it, because while yes, it was spring "warm" it wasn't summer warm and even in the summer that water is barely stand-able.


We decided to take a tour of a very well known cheese factory.








If you have never had Tillamook cheese, RUN to your grocery store now and pick up some. It's been a family favorite since as long as I can remember, and still is.







Those are HUGE blocks of cheese that haven't been cut yet.





It was fun and very informative. The samples were even better.



We're heading into downtown tomorrow with my mom to finish up the weekend and enjoy the sunny weather. I hope you all have a great weekend!

OH, HAPPY DAY!

The sun is shining after 3 long weeks of non stop rain. I threw open every single window, curtain and shade in my house to let as much air and light flow through. January is the only month I get tired of winter. Funny thing, I don't mind winter in February, or even March, but something about the dreary skies of Janurary just makes me cringe.

More news. I have been stocking a few of my hot spot thrift stores for the last few days looking for a few items, and I found a really great piece. I haven't started the project yet, but will in a few days, which of course ill then post pictures and a recap.


After a stop and go basis, I've finally got the motivation and desire to go to the gym. In addition to me going, I've motivated Sparky as well. I can't wait for some kick butt work outs!


The dog has a new horrible habit of running in muddy puddles. Every single time we take him for a walk, he heads into the biggest puddle he can possibly find and jumps right in. SO annoying and SO funny. I wouldn't have a problem with this if it wasn't a) 30 degrees outside and B) we didn't have white carpet. Oh well. It's not the end of the world, and obvisouly we'll be buying a carpet cleaner.


And last but not least. My long time blog friend is having her baby today! I'm so excited for her and her husband and cannot wait to find out if it's a boy or a girl! Run over and check out her nursery ( or house for that matter) it's awesome!

ONE WINTER DAY...

I live in up state Oregon. We get rain. A lot of rain..I'm talking at least 5 days out of the week Fall through Spring rain.

I love the rain. I love green grass, green trees. I love the smell, and the freshness in the air.


I also sort of love the rain attire. They have the cutest rain boots now days, and of course this season, being my first winter up here I had to spluge and buy some!


Purchased at target

I've always wanted a pair, just for pure cuteness but never needed them in California.


Now...you know what I hate about the rain?

The fact that when I walk our dog to the field to use the restroom I have to watch every single place I step because of the invasion of slugs. There are seriously thousands of them. GROSS!


And that folks, is reason enough to buy rainboots :)