Waterfalls and Honey Days
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Random updates
Bun Jovi got adopted already, boo. But at least now I know I would consider a fiber-producing bunny...I hadn't really considered it before...all the fiber bunnies I've seen at shows in Oregon are gigantic scary bunnies. I'd rather have a smaller one.
We're getting a washer/dryer today, woo hoo! No more going to the laundromat!
I can't forgive Kool-Aid for the fact that they stopped making Rainbow Punch back in the '80s. That was the best flavor ever, I remember I could drink an entire pitcher all by myself in one sitting. Nothing tastes as good. Nothing.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Sunday morning coffee post
Less than 4 weeks til the wedding. Guess we better wrap up the final planning. Soon. I'm very excited about the road trip. We are taking 3 weeks off to do the whole thing, and have no concrete plans after the wedding at this time, so it's fun to have all that freedom.
My sister was vehemently opposed to me making my own wedding cupcakes. I don't think she thought my cupcakes are lousy, just that we don't need to be thinking about cupcakes the day before the wedding. She found a baker that has a reputation for making simple, elegant cupcakes, and we're looking into that instead.
PH and I were amusing ourselves by looking at the local humane society website for pet adoptions. We found a wooly bunny that I thought was very cute. His name is Bun Jovi. I have had all bad luck with pet bunnies in the past. They were always mean, they kicked and bit. I have heard of other people that had adorable pet bunnies who were box trained, but I've never seen such a thing with my own eyes. Well, Bun Jovi claims to be sweet and box trained. He produces fiber ($!) so you have to brush him every day. We are considering sponsoring Bun Jovi until we get back from our wedding and can go meet him and see if he kicks and bites. We are getting a housesitter while we are gone, but I wouldn't want to ask him to groom Bun Jovi every day for 3 weeks.
I started my coffee this morning while playing video games, so I'm out of coffee already.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Sunday morning coffee post
PH says we must reconsider our pet scenario. Meaning, we can't ever just have one pet again, because when it dies, then you have none. So, expect a menagerie someday!
It may sound strange since we've only been here 2 months, but I'm looking forward to leaving the mountain house someday. Not the mountains, just this house in particular. Living here is an excellent lesson in what we don't want. A house without a foundation or basement means SKUNKS LIVE UNDER THE HOUSE no matter what my landlord says. ("We've never seen/smelled a skunk in the last 15 years!")
The house is big, i.e. bigger than anything we've ever lived in before, so I find it hard to keep clean and warm, though perhaps if I weren't working a day job I could find the time.
The deck is huge, lovely, and uncovered! Who would do that in an environment where it rains at least 8 months a year?!? I long for a covered porch so I can better enjoy the view and fresh air without getting wet! We have a patio umbrella, but it's not waterproof...do you know how difficult it is to find a waterproof patio umbrella? It is impossible! I have been looking ever since we moved to Oregon! I will have to try restaurant supply, maybe...I know I always see them at restaurants...
And since there is no covered porch, you would think there would be a mudroom. Nope. One door opens right into our living room and the other goes right into the kitchen. I have to clean the kitchen floor every single day because in spite of the rug by the door there is still mud and pine needles everywhere. This is less visible in the living room as I suspect the carpet is hiding the yuck. There is no convenient place to stop and take off your shoes by either door. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Yes, the people who built this house are from L.A.
The land is on a forest-covered mountain, so it is not set up for gardening or farm animals - another reason we won't be staying forever.
The good news is that in living here we have seen so many rural properties for sale right here in our beautiful neighborhood. I mean just on the way to the grocery store there are currently about 10 properties for sale, and this trend continues pretty much everywhere I go in this area. It is very exciting for us, and I hope with the real estate economy the way it is that this supply will keep up through the next couple of years when perhaps we will be able to enter the market.
Today we end Daylight Savings Time and even though PH was overjoyed that he got up an hour early, he's still going to be late for work (as usual). ha
People often ask me how I am feeling. I feel fine in that I am not throwing up. However, I also feel like I have the flu at least 50% of the time in that I have an indescribable lack of energy, dry mouth, hunger combined with lack of appetite, and general aches and pains all over. All I can say is that I don't feel like "me" and it's very frustrating as I feel like I will never be me ever again. I hope that is an exaggeration but I have no way of knowing. I am starting a prenatal exercise program today and if I do not fall asleep in the middle of it we will see if that improves anything.
This impacts the wedding planning, which I'm basically doing by myself due to PH's work schedule. Thank goodness it is nearly done since it is about a month away. I am feeling some focus today, so I'm going to try to finish up the wedding budget and hope we have enough money left over to actually get to TX and back. We still have not booked any hotel rooms and I know I need to hurry up and do that before our hotel of choice is sold out.
Coffee's out, time to do chores and budgeting now.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Jack: Feb 14, 2006 - Oct 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
So simple a child could do it
I am going to make my own wedding cake.
Ok. really, I am making cupcakes. But it is one of the decisions that all the magazines and websites say not to do, and apparently is very tempting for many brides, but they say don't do it even if you are a professional cake baker. But I looked at about 50 cupcake websites for the Dallas area, and about half of them have gone out of business and the other half did not have any designs that impressed me.
And then I recalled testing cupcake bakeries in Chicago and Portland and also deciding in all cases that my own cupcakes were better.
The odd thing is that the designs I have in mind are extremely simple; so simple that I'm sure a child could decorate these cupcakes. And yet I could not find a bakery that seemed up to the task. So, I say, if a child could do it, then why not me. Why not me in my hotel room the day before the wedding?
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Wedding invitations - don't try this at home
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Here comes the rain again
I'm trying to hunker down and feel cozy, but I'm sicker than yesterday and pretty miserable. I remember a time in my life when I had energy, but it's hard to imagine that will ever come back. In the meantime, the stressors in my life just continue to pile up, which I'm sure does not help my overall health.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
I heart Carbonite
As we know, my computer had a meltdown recently. When I got it back from the computer geek I was happy to see I didn't need to reload iTunes. It opened and all my songs and playlists were there.
Or, so it would seem.
Yesterday I finally spent some time reloading programs onto the newly wiped computer, and when I was done I figured I better plug in my iPhone/iPods and get them synched with some music I'm considering for the wedding. That is when I found all of my files were actually gone. The song lists were still there, but when you clicked on a song to play it, suddenly iTunes decided the song was not actually there. First it told me there were 100 problems. Then 300. Then I realized iTunes was not being truthful with me and every single file was gone.
I went to the Apple help desk and I tried every single suggestion they had for restoring my files, and NOTHING WORKED. I was very dismayed because I had lost 2000 files, and of those, over 300 were digital purchases only. (I didn't realize how much money I spend on iTunes before now.)
I could not remember if Carbonite backed up music files, but I checked anyway out of desperation. Well, they do! And I got them all back! And all my iPhone apps! And it was easy!!
http://www.carbonite.com/
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Sunday morning coffee post
The purpose of our trip was to tell our family the big news: we are getting married in December and we are expecting a baby in May. That's right, most people drop those kinds of announcements one at a time, but we do both together!
The wedding will be in Dallas, where my sister lives. We've actually been planning a wedding for quite some time. When we learned about the bun in the oven, it forced us to choose a date right away. We talked about just getting married here, but we really wanted our families to be there and since none of them are in Oregon and most of them are in TX, it seemed easier for everyone if we moved the location. We also talked about not having a wedding at all, but it was hard to abandon the ideas that we had been planning for so long, knowing that we would never have the chance to realize them again. Some of the ideas did have to be abandoned (my dream of bringing in a full orchestra and big band (yes, we were seriously planning to do that)). But our plan was always to have a Christmas wedding, and so we find ourselves organizing and paying for a wedding in only 2 months. I see now the brilliance of having a year-long engagement - it's kind of like a layaway plan for the wedding. I suspect PH may have to go with a stand-in wedding ring until I can get him the real one he wants later.
We are looking into flying into Dallas on a one-way ticket, and then driving back home as a kind of honeymoon. We'd visit the grand canyon and Sedona and Las Vegas. Initially PH had suggested driving both ways. On this last trip (that produced the cold), we had yet another tearful incident at the airport with TSA and it was with a heavy heart that I admitted that I think I'm willing to give up flying now. PH had enough of TSA long ago. So he said, we'll fly one more time (to our wedding) and that's it. And I said, really, we don't even have to fly then. He liked that idea. But, it will take us several days in TX to get our marriage license, so we may fly anyway to reduce the amount of time PH has to take off from work. Although, he says he doesn't care how much time he takes off since he gets paid vacation. I don't know. This is something we're thinking about. I hate TSA and what it represents and what we have become. PH says he doesn't understand why everyone just allows themselves to be treated that way. I said it's because TSA can prevent you from getting to your plane on time, or at all. I didn't argue because I wanted to go home. I regret it now, but now it's too late.
Being sick when you have a bun in the oven means you're not allowed to take any medication at all. PH went to talk to Pharmacist who said he would not recommend anything except Tylenol every now and then. Since then, a couple of moms have told me Robitussin is ok, but now I am mostly better. The fever was the worst. You have to watch it, because if it gets too high then you're cooking The Bun and that is bad. But mine stayed low, but just enough to annoy the hell out of me, make me feel like my eyeballs were boiling and I was breathing fire through my nose and mouth.
We got satellite TV this week. We don't have a broadband connection here in the mountains, so our previous method of watching TV on the internet wasn't going to work here. My favorite show is LOST and I didn't want to miss the last season, which should start up in January. So we got a move-in special on a satellite dish, and it's all set. It came with a DVR. I decided I do need to learn how to use it, because there's so many commercials on TV I can't stand it. I also found that there isn't much on TV at all. I suppose when LOST is over we may just cancel the dish. I'm not sure. I thought I would like HGTV but it seems that all their shows are like lifestyles of the rich and famous, except they are marketing the shows as if we are all rich and supposed to relate to this. Remodels of 5000 square foot homes. Re-do your backyard for $40k. How to buy a vacation home abroad. etc etc. Nothing I can relate to. I loved this Canadian show I used to watch called The Painted House. And the same designer later did one called Facelift, which was like Extreme Home Makeover before EHM existed. I loved it because even though the before/after was always pretty extreme, it was also do-able for the average person. HGTV doesn't have any shows like that, from what I can see. I've also found that our local PBS is so far not as good as KCET. I suppose nothing is. But I was kind of surprised because OPB funds a lot of PBS programs nationwide, so I thought they must be kind of good.
Coffee's out, so am I. Going to try to make today a workday to make up for the week and a half that I've missed. (Well, can't say I missed it, haha.)
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
The virus that ate Windows
It was pretty easy to clean and reinstall Windows, but doing so wiped out all my software, which I now have to reinstall. This is not so easy when you can't find all the disks. I've torn the house apart looking for the software I need just to connect to my own printer, but no luck. So I have to download it from the HP website, which has literally taken all day since I don't have a good broadband connection.
All this is why I haven't posted in a while and have no pictures to share. Soon the blog will be back to normal, I hope.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
All dressed up in stardust and tinsel
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Mailbox
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
I freakin love H&YY
that's how I feel about Hoops and YoYo. They are a couple of characters featured in Hallmark cards. They are so hilarious I can't get enough of them. I first heard of them when my friend started sending me e-cards featuring H&YY. Then the other day I was in the grocery store and happened to notice they had audio cards featuring H&YY and I had to stop and open every single one and listen. I was rolling in the aisle, all by myself. I bought a bunch of them (friends, act surprised when you get them). I had like $200 worth of groceries and people were lining up behind me, but the checker had to stop and also open up every single card and listen to it. It was weird, but since I was laughing so hard at H&YY I could not glare at the checker and tell her to hurry it up, please.Saturday, September 05, 2009
Sea Lions in Salem
The sea lions and their trainers were from Monterey. I was happy to see such "famous" sea lions come to OR. I wonder how they travel. Like, what kind of vehicle.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Cheddar then, cheddar now, cheddar always
which I'd never visited in person before. I always wanted to see it since it's in the Goonies. It turns out that you are not allowed to swim out and climb Haystack Rock. A lot of animals including 8 species of crabs live on the rock. I guess that is why you're not allowed to climb it, but I'm not sure. What I do know is that you would die of exposure before you even got to the rock, and it's not even very far out. But we waded in the water and it was so cold that it made your bones ache in a very bad way. See, in this picture we are barely in the water, but this caused enough pain to make us scream, "HURRY UP AND TAKE THE PICTURE!"
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Longing for a normal day
Monday, August 17, 2009
We're on a road to nowhere
Friday, August 07, 2009
Life in a Northern Town
I spoke to him today and got everything established in about 30 seconds. He didn't want my phone number or social security number or anything. He asked me to send a check, but didn't put any restrictions on timing. He didn't want to know if I ever had utility service in my name before, or where I work. I found the whole thing amusing and bizarre. I told my new landlord and they said they call him Mark, the water dude. So I guess he is field, customer service, and the entire water district in one person.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
I think I might start with Foo Fighters' Everlong. The plugged version, of course.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
traffic noise
noisy neighbors
neighbors blowing cigarette smoke in my house
light pollution
Things we will have:
flying insects
Need to get more screen doors and bug-killing paraphernalia.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Movin Right Along (Hey LA, where've you gone?)
PH has been watching the rental ads for several months now. Occasionally, we go and look at one. It always seems nice in the ad but turns out to be infested with rats in person. A couple of weeks ago, he found another ad that seemed like what we wanted. It's 25 miles from the hospital, which is farther than PH would like but closer than we are now. And it's rural, which we really wanted. When he saw the ad relisted a couple times, he contacted the landlords to make an appointment to see the place. Sometimes he goes by himself, but this time I was able to take a few hours away from work to go too.
We drove on a rural highway past miles and miles of beautiful farms. Then we turned off the highway into a hilly area. After a few miles we found our street, headed toward mountains covered in trees. Then the street ended. We found a gravel drive that had our address on it. So we kept going. A long narrow gravel road, uphill. We stopped at a beautiful house, but that turned out to be the landlord's house, not the rental. We had to drive further up the mountain to the rental house.
When we got there, and I saw that the house was clean on the outside, I made up my mind that I wanted this place. I didn't even know what the inside of the house looked like. I just knew that there were no next door neighbors, and the house had a deck around it and it was on a mountainside with an unbelievable view on one side and literally zillions of acres of unoccupied forest behind it. I mean, unoccupied by humans, of course. The only reason I didn't offer to buy the place right then and there is that the land is not suited for gardening or farm animals. There isn't really a huge area that is flat and/or cleared. The landlords told us that previous tenants had tried gardening before, but the deer just eat everything.
We looked at the inside of the house and it was big, and clean, as well. It is a manufactured house. It's not anyone's dream house or anything, but it is clean. Three bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 dining areas. And a garden shed outside. So there is definitely room for us.
It's all electric, and they told us the power goes out every winter. It's a good thing we make preparedness our hobby. Now we will see how well we can live when the grocery store is not 5 minutes away. I wonder about the narrow gravel road. I know they obviously got the house up that road somehow. But I also know the trash truck doesn't go up there. I think about the big UPS truck and wonder if might just be better to get a mailbox rental in town. I wonder about our big propane tank and how it's going to get filled. I wonder how we're going to deal with trash, now that I think about the fact that the trash truck isn't coming. I wonder what part I will play in the network of 3 houses on the road (including ours), and if I will like my part. What is an everyday normal lifestyle for some is going to be an adventure every single day for me. It feels like a dream.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Garlic and Jelly Beans
We had heard of the garlic festival when we lived in So Cal, but never made it up that way. After driving up and down I-5 several times the last couple years, for our move to Portland, the garlic festival was given higher priority on our weekend travel list. We love garlic and it sounded yummy. When I told people we were going, I got lots of great advice from everyone who had been there before. It's a 3-day fest, from Friday-Sunday, and one of my friends recommended going on the Friday to avoid the Saturday crowds and traffic. That plan worked well with PH's schedule, and it was a good plan. Although, Friday did seem pretty packed with people. I heard one of the vendors saying that Friday is usually the "slow" day, but that this year's Friday was definitely not slow. So, I can't imagine what Saturday would have been like, and I'm glad we got there before all the food had sold out.
Our first stop was garlic bread, made with garlic grown right there in Gilroy. So, so delicious. The first thing I noticed when I looked at the garlic bread, was that the spread seemed to be an olive oil, rather than butter. The second thing I noticed was that they were NOT skimpy with the garlic. The bread was covered with crushed, soft garlic. We each got 2 slices and they lasted about 2 seconds.
Then we headed over to the next booth to get garlic steak tacos. Also delicious. I am getting hungry just writing this.
Then we headed over to "Gourmet Alley" to try some more high-end fare. We were told that the scampi was to die for, so PH ordered some and declared that it lived up to its reputation, and was worth the drive from Portland. I don't really like the texture of shrimp, but I had a bite and admitted it was absolutely delicious, if you could pretend the squishy shrimp was a squishy clove of garlic.
There were arts & crafts vendors and garlic shopping as well, of course. We bought braids of local garlic to bring home, and a souvenir beer mug. They didn't serve garlic beer. I thought they might, only because I have been to the Oxnard strawberry festival where they served strawberry beer.
People dressed up festively. Garlic Tshirts (from previous years' festivals, and a "Stinkerbell" shirt), beanies shaped like heads of garlic, garlic jewelry. An old man came dressed as a garlic bulb, wearing a cowboy hat decorated with garlic braids. It was fun to see so much love for garlic.
When we were stuffed, we left the festival and walked around Gilroy. Gilroy is full of the most polite people I have ever seen. Near the festival park, kids set up stands selling water, or sometimes just giving water away. People in their driveways said hello to us as we walked by, something that does not happen in our current neighborhood here in Portland, which we always comment as being one of the most annoying/rude things about our neighborhood.
We ate dinner at one of Gilroy's many, many, many Mexican restaurants. Were we happy to see Mexican food. It was awesome. It was early in the evening and so at the time, we shared the restaurant with only one other table, a group of locals who were exceedingly friendly and polite as were all the other locals. I guess that is normal for a small town? I am not used to it. And let me be clear, it wasn't the annoying kind of friendly where they are talking to you nonstop when you want to be left alone. They really were both friendly and polite. I couldn't help noticing it.
The restaurant was located in a section of Gilroy labeled "historic". I assume it was indeed historic, but it was strange because it was mostly vacant and there were notices taped up in all the storefronts. "No occupancy" by order of some local bureaucrat, presumably because of the separate "Warning: unreinforced masonry building" notices, which were taped up next to the cryptic "This place is important" signs. For every 10 vacant storefronts, there might be one that was still occupied. So, I wasn't entirely clear on what was going on. I wondered if the "no occupancy" order went into effect only after the vendor had moved out, due to the economy or whatever? It didn't seem like the vendors were forced out due to the URM status, since there were still a few that held on, and it didn't seem that those storefronts were retrofitted when their adjoining neighbors were not. And "this place is important". I don't remember who placed the signs, but it wasn't the Gilroy Historical Society. I thought it might have made a bigger impression if they explained why, or what the issue was. A Google search and visit to the Gilroy Historical Society website turned up no explanation as to what is going on on this street. Although clearly the depressed economy is a major factor in the huge number of vacancies, it still appears that there is some red tape holding up the seismic retrofitting or some other issue preventing occupancy. Yet the GHS website shows a meeting agenda from last month that makes no reference to this street or this issue at all.
The next day, we went to the Jelly Belly Factory and took the free tour. It reminded of our tour of the Tillamook cheese factory, but also felt a bit like Willy Wonka when we saw candies on conveyor belts traveling from who knows where to who knows where. It was pretty cool. Here is a picture outside the factory.
We bought a ton of jelly bellys, probably enough to last us for a year. But we couldn't help it!
We learned that the Jelly Belly Factory used to be in Portland before it was in NoCal. But it wasn't the Jelly Belly Factory back then. They hadn't discovered Jelly Bellys yet. They made candy corn. They had to move because of the weather, among other things. I will have to find out where the candy corn factory used to be.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Let it be me
Sunday, July 05, 2009
This here's the wildest ride in the wilderness
So on July 3 we went to the town of Hood River to go camping with PH's motorcycle gang in a cherry tree orchard. We got to eat cherries right from the tree, which we did until our mouths turned dark red.

One of the riders has a sidecar and he was letting us take turns riding.
The rider who was hosting the party lives in a log cabin that is over 100 years old.
His house is on a hill, so his yard makes for sort of an amphitheater. He built a stage and hired 2 excellent bands to play that night. There is a beautiful view of Mt Hood in the back.
He also has 2 wolves as pets.
I really wanted the wolf to look at the camera instead of the food, but I thought better of taking his food away.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Nearly Missed
I have 2 computer batteries, but neither one lasts very long. I immediately ordered a couple of replacement power cords, but it occurred to me later that even with rush delivery I am not going to receive them in time for my trip to D.C. next week. At first I panicked because I was planning to bring my computer to the DAR Library to do some genealogy research. But before the battery died I was able to copy my family tree over to PH's computer (which I'm using now), so no issues there. And I should be able to complete (limited) work on PH's computer too. So, no worries.
I'll have to post about 4th of July weekend later, though, because not all of my photos are on PH's computer yet...
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
It's not a small mountain, it's a volcano
Sunday, June 28, 2009
We're the party people, night and day
From Liberty Island, we continued on to Ellis Island. Most of the buildings on Ellis Island are closed to the public. I think the one here is the hospital, but I'm not totally sure. I took this picture from inside the huge waiting/processing room. So far I have not found any of my own ancestors that came through Ellis Island, since most migrated long before it was open. But it was interesting.
Then went to SoHo and NoLita to buy perfume. Here is the perfumer mixing fresh juice for us.
We were very impressed with the shopping in this part of town. I have never seen so many city blocks filled with beautiful things and yummy smelling food, all coming from independent stores. It would be very dangerous to live in this part of town.
It started raining, so we went back to New Jersey and got ready to go to work.
We returned to NYC on Thursday and got a hotel near Times Square. First thing we did was eat pizza.


While standing in Times Square, we learned from the scrolling headlines on the CNN building that Farrah Fawcett had died, and I looked up the details on my iPhone. The iPhone came very much in handy while we were in NYC. The "GPS" feature works really good.
After we got our tickets, we took the train uptown to the very top of Central Park. The purpose of our trip was to find the Seinfeld restaurant. While we were walking there we accidentally came across the Cathedral of St John the Divine, which incidentally is the largest gothic cathedral in the entire world, according to my guidebook. We got there about 30 minutes before they closed the doors for the evening, which was so lucky. We spent the next half hour taking about hundred photos inside. I was completely amazed by this building. It was the most awesome building I've ever seen, including anything at Hearst Castle.
Then we went back to our hotel to freshen up for the Avenue Q show. I think it was in the hotel lobby that we saw the headline that Michael Jackson had been hospitalized for cardiac arrest and had possibly died. We turned on the TV in our room and flipped the channels. Nothing had been confirmed yet. It took a few minutes to even find one of those "breaking news" interruptions and it only mentioned the hospitalization. By the time we changed our clothes and headed over to Broadway via Times Square to get to the theater, it had been confirmed. I knew it by the way people walking towards us suddenly stopped in their tracks, motionless, speechless, staring upward at the huge electronic displays overhead. People lifted up their cameras to take pictures. They were all focused on one thing. I turned around to see what everyone was looking at, though I already knew. The monitors were showing TV news with closed captions on so everyone could read that Michael Jackson was dead. It was strange to see everyone stop and read.
Avenue Q is a very funny show.
We went to dinner on Restaurant Row, then to a comedy club, which was really more of a comedy-craphole-basement. But the comedy was funny. When we got out, we walked past a subway station where a group of people were singing a Michael Jackson song and dancing. It was very festive. We headed back into Times Square to take some photos. There were still a lot of people, but it was definitely not as crowded as it had been around 7:30 when everyone is trying to get to the theater.
Here is a picture of Times Square at 1:15am. I think Melissa was taking a picture of the clock, but you can see a Michael Jackson headline scrolling on the left in blue.




