My life.

Today was interesting, to say the least. I woke up to a man name Sherman in my room. He was not as friendly as I thought he would be. Although he did tell me the secrets of the universe before he punched me.

Phase two

While this podcast we've created might not be the most entertaining thing for other people, it has made me very happy. Not only do I get to hang with a good friend, but I get to giggle and be ridiculous with the slight hope that someone else thinks I'm funny. Enjoy episode two!

One of my Winter Projects

Is starting a blog with my friend Drew, and here's the first episode.

these people

are more than my roommates, they are my best friends who make me soup, carve pumpkins with me, and rub my back when I'm crying.

Also they adorably match without planning it.

best friends

they are those courageous soldiers who sick with you at your worst and your best. they know when to claw you out of an emotional cave that is littered with chocolate posters and jeff goldblum pictures, or when to buy you another shot of tequila. i am insanely grateful for the love these people choose to envelope me with. oh yeah, here'e two of the beauties now!

tiny dogs who accessorize properly

haiku

tonight i have fun
its not what happens but its
what occurs after

Reasons to Visit Florence

i found this gem while rummaging through the book collection at goodwill. page 58 had the italian translation for i want to go where there are no tourists.

The Secret Of Success

Is to do what you love. i have always been creative and productive, but never in a million years would I believe that I could profit off my art. this up coming thursday might turn that notion upside down when my good friend austin and i attempt to sell off prints of our film photos. now, my commrade is a photographer, his forte is taking the most luxuriously seductive photos that leave you wanting more. then there's me, i went to europe last year equipped with a diana mini toy camera and snapped some surprisingly beautiful shots. here's a taste of my work that i might sell. worst case senario i'll have to give away the stuff i don't sell to my unexpecting friends and colleagues.

It's a beautiful world when

Even though you come in last place at your race you still end up getting third and seeing this

breakfast sammich

Made with eggs from happy egg laying chickens, organic tillamook sharp cheddar, local baguette, and truffle salt. life is good would be an understatement.

I've been working six day weeks lately, and due to my over zealous work schedule i have discovered that the things that keep me sane are food related. nothing zens me out more than making a cake, even if J thinks that it tastes like dirt. or opening a box of csa and figuring out how to use the cutest rainbow carrots in my cooking. or making barbeque chicken pizza TWICE in one week, and from scratch no less. my bf is one lucky duck, and so is my stomach and mind.

As the weather turns for the better, so do my spirits and my clarity. even though i've been through some rough patches over the past few weeks, i feel everything changing. it's kinda like with the coming of spring the world is giving me a thumbs up that its all going to get better.

out with the old

and in with less bedding. last night was our last night with ye olde pendelton, hallo real warm open windows spring!

its real

now that we have our tickets to EUROPE, i can do what i do best. plan plan plan plan.

they say

the challenging things you must go through often shape the best things about life. i've have a bout of the former lately, the highlight of that being my first ever trip to the ER. that fun five hour event was followed by some bad decisions and a busted up face. on the bright side of all this i have rediscovered friendship love and am more appreciative than ever of the people that surround me. there was a common streak for a while of me hating people in general, so maybe this was a wake up call? then again, maybe it was just being being an adolescent and wrestling when i shouldn't have.

i'm getting better at finding myself within a space, and recognizing certain aspects that need to be fixed. it's challenging to walk away from trauma and realize it's all going to be ok without doing some soul searching and meditation. it is for me at least.  the key words i've found in this past week are reliance and humility.

hey you

start following my tumblr, as i may entirely switch over.

i am

quite possibly the coolest and most fashionable person i know, just sayin'. on the other hand i don't know that many people soooooooooo, yeah.

this is what I like to call old man chic. pants I've owned since high school, first shirt i ever took from a free pile, an h&m lavender cardigan, and brown leather oxford shoozies. i've also given up bangs, it's been a good run, yet its time to suck it up and become the hippie i really am inside. i have no idea what that means so let's just leave it there. i've been taking plenty of pictures of daphne, so be prepared for that.

i want to go back to hawaii as soon as possible.

one of the many

Reasons I love Portland is it's free piles. Now I've been know for quite some time to appreciate the freeer things in life, but I am always amazed at what people give away. With the general mentality of PDX being more liberal than my hometown I have definitely acquired more than my fair share of shit and gold over the past few years. Thats how the stuff from free piles usually boils down to either gold or shit. Here's some gold that I found right in my own backyard behind the dumpster.

Heck yes, free green Doc Martins straight from the UK that fit like a glove.

its happening

 

Springs here y'all!

once upon a time

I went to the coast once, twas a tiny coastal town with one of my dear friends. We ate, took pictures, and philosophisied on small town life/meth. Here's what we did.

 

The salmon and I were destined to be lifelong friends.

I don't think that making faces with my leftover food will ever be anything less than hilarious.

It's the subtly satisfying things that make you unaware of the time ticking by.

 

lucky portland

Well call me a loon but this Winter Hell hasnt really been that terrible. That being said I'll proabbly jinx it and we'll have a March full of nothing but rain, wind, and cold. With all this frolick inducing weather around I have been running more frequently, crafting, and cooking. On one of my runs this week I smelt my first daphne of the year, and then saw some daffodils popping up! If you've never had the chance to smell daphne it's has very citrusy floral perfume that comes from tiny clusters of purple-white trumpet shaped flowers. They bloom only once a year, and when they do I just want to surround myslef with their heavenly scent.

I got my first CSA box yesterday from hood river organics, and its fantastical! I've seen most of the items before, but I have never been adventurous enough to use them in my cooking. In that thar box up above is a half dozen eggs, four beets, three leeks, two bags of saute greens, one bunch of radishes, one box of micro greens, one brown bag of portobellos, raw herbed cheese, once baguette, eight carrots, seven potatoes, three turnips, and six pears. Whew! Thats a whole lotta organic stuff!

I figured that I should make something for dinner using at least two of the above ingredients, but pysch! I ended up using five! Holy balls batman, what could I have made???

 

Soup of course! The weather hasn't been that great. I also wanted to make something that could use up a good portion of the box o' produce on my kitchen table. So I started how I always do, with a glass of wine and a wondering eye. This night I ended up flipping through my Polish cookbook and using this leek soup as a platform for my csa soup spectacular. Oh and speaking of batman, that's me in high school when midriff was kind ok, especially when I weighed half of what I do now!


Polish Soup
Serves 2-4
Cook Time 1 hr(or so, depends on how much your drinking)

4 cups veggie broth ( beef would be good too)
3 leeks
4 potatoes
3 carots
1 Tbs butta
1 cup h20
1/2 green cabbage
1/2 tsp dill
sliced smoked kielbasa(optional)

1) In a smaller saucepan place 1 cup water, butta, and sliced leeks. Bring to a soft boil and let simmer.

2) In a larger soup pot saute kielbasa and carrots with a bit o butta. After those two get a good brown on, add the cabbage+dill and saute for a few seconds, then add the broth. Bring this to a boil and add the peeled cut potatoes.

3) Add the leek mixture to the big soup pot. The liquid should have reduced to about a half cup, but it should be extremely fragrant and the leeks soft.



4) Let this stay at medium heat for about 30min to get everything all nice and soft. I really wanted the potatoes to break apart and make the soup a bit thicker but we got hungry so this soup was on the fast track.

5) Serve and add salt to taste!


We ate cheese and baguette with this soup, and even went back for seconds! I have a feeling that the yum level of this soup would be amped up with a dollap of sour cream. It would also make it that much more polish.


xxoo

sf through the years

It seems that everytime I have the pleasure of visiting san francisco its for a little bit longer than the last trip. My first encounter with the city was driving through on our way up north, the next time was for a full twenty four hours, and the next two whole days. Taking this as a challenge my last trip spanned four whole days, and with no agenda. Yep, that's most definitely how I roll. Traveling for me isn't about seeing the things you are supposed to see when visiting, it's about creating your own experience. That can be food based, people oriented, or just plain random. More often than not I base my travels on visiting people I love and then possibly having one objective or goal. Lets take a trip back to the start of my love affair with the city on the bay.

 

 Throughout college one of my best friends from back home went to school an hour away from me in Oregon. At the end of a summer spent in sweltering Arizona we would make a road trip back to our respectable universities. We took a different route every time, and the last trip we made would be the first time we stayed over night in the bay. After driving 27 or so hours straight from AZ through Yosemite we were sleep deprived and in desperate need of an abode and our friend's sweet ass apartment by the stadium was perfect. After staying up for an extra twelve hours we fell asleep, only to be awoken by the sound of seals in the bay!

 

After a few months of being in Portland I headed back to the bay with two of my girlies for an epic long weekend of celebration for love fest. This is wheere I met the coolest kid in the world.

There were also plenty of sweet signs and costumes aplenty.

A few weeks ago I went down for one of my most important SF trips to date, a sort of memory mission if that makes any sense. I was there to rekindle the friendship flame, and also give hugs to those I love. Here's one of those bastards:

 

 We spent our time walking around rich people neighborhoods, eating chocolates shaped like mushrooms, and giggling like a bunch of fourteen year old girls.

that's a toy helicopter, GD rich people!

After I had my fun in the bay with family and friends who are family I headed down to a sweet ass little town called Mountain View to visit one of my favorite bitches.

I'm pretty fond of her owners too. It might be love, but then again it might just be arousal! To end our sweet embrace session we went into the city and did the only logical thing we could. We ate and drank to our hearts content.

 pumping iron

So fuck yes San Francisco, I do love you, and I will be back.

san francisco colors

I think I'm getting better at packing. That is, I have started just throwing a bunch of clothes that have been getting a lot of wear into a big pile. Then I make interchangeable outfits et voila, perfect travel packing.

 

 Just a little pop of red to an otherwise blue based existence. I'm also going to be bringing my cheap ass jacket cause even though its going to be 65, this little lady gets chilly. 

ES EF HERE I COME!!

oh the places you'll go

 On the same vein of showing other people's stuff, here's a video that a high school friend made. It kinda make me want to go to Burning Man, but then again it also just makes me want to start an Etsy shop selling fur accessories to burners. Enjoy.

PS Are all people who go to Burning Man good looking? This video is probably quite misleading.

i love my coworkers

From the master of disaster, Jake, pizza delivery boy extrodinaire! He made this in his spare time just because, and thats why I stay slinging pizza.

chamomile infused rum

 

May I present you with a simple solution to the daily dilemma of how to getting rid of(drink) the random the booze I have but don't usually like to drink; infusion baby. Infusion is a special word for putting some crap into other stuff so that the stuff can absorb the essence of the crap. To put it directly and delicately I shoved some tea bags into rum, let it sit, then drank it. Drank waaaaay too much of it.

Fancy Pants Chamomile Infused Rum

Serves 1-whoevers left standing

Ingredients:

Rum, one 250ml bottle

Chamomile(or other delightful tea), Four bags

super sweet special infusion bottle

Step 1: Empty contents of tea bags into your SSSIB. You could always go greener and just get the tea bulk, that way you don't have to make mother gia cry by throwing away those now useless tea bags.

Step 2: Pour rum over tea. Swish it around a bit, don't be afraid to make your own sound effects.

Step 3: Let this stuff marinade, get to know each other, allow proper osmosis. I let mine sit for about 15 hours, but I'll bet you could get away with only a few if you're that type.

Step 4: Pour this stuff into a chilled glass, squeeze fresh blood orange juice, maybe add a spritz of soda water and you're ready to party hardy.