Sunday Fun Day

More like Sunday fun day morning.  I think it's safe to say that Cecilia was blessed with a bout of beautiful weather for her Portland trip.  I was so excited to wake up to some sunshine this morning.  I walked to Cecilia's hotel to pick her up and then we hopped on the streetcar and got off near Powell's.  I was hoping to take her to Blitz for a yummy and inexpensive breakfast.  Apparently they don't open very early on Sunday mornings so we started walking east figuring we'd keep our eyes open for a coffee shop.  Just a few blocks later we came across Fuller's Coffee Shop and figured it would suffice.  They boasted house-made bread so I splurged with a half order of French toast.  I was unimpressed, but I think I'm starting to realize that I'm not a traditional French toast fan.  The best French toast I have ever had is at the dumpy-ish Cardinal Lounge in San Jose.  Their French toast is loaded with cinnamon & sugar and drizzled with caramel.  Yum.  But I digress.  Eggs & bacon were great and Cecilia ordered a side of their plain toast which said was really good.  I should try their bread plain next time rather than try to gussy it up into French toast.

I wanted to check out Saturday Market so we walked towards the waterfront after breakfast.  Yes, I realize it is Sunday, but Portland's Saturday Market goes both days.  It was already 10:00 but most of the booths were empty.  Vendors were still setting up and not ready to sell anything yet.  We did a quick walk through the area then got on the waterfront trail to walk home.  It was such a gorgeous day for a walk.  We had a few minutes to spare so we snapped a few quick photos on the river.

I had such a great visit with Cecilia even though we didn't actually have a lot of time together.  We made the most of it though.  I was sad to have to leave her to go to work, but I couldn't have asked for a better way to start my day.

I do have some work news to share.  This will be my last Sunday working for Soléna.  Some of you may know that I was hired to work full-time for a book publisher in Portland.  Unfortunately things have not worked out so well there.  But last week I applied for a full-time position with another winery in the area and was hired by them.  I will be starting at Trisaetum in less than two weeks and can't wait!  It's similar to Soléna in that both are small, husband & wife-owned wineries.  I haven't even met everyone at Trisaetum, but everyone on their team has taken the time to send me an email welcoming to the team.  I have a great feeling about this new position.

If you haven't noticed, I've been doing a lot of reading lately.  I just haven't been in the mood for TV or movies so I've been able to spend my downtime plowing through books.  I finished another good one today - Raymond Khoury's The Templar Salvation.  For some reason my library keeps displaying templar mysteries that catch my eye so I pick them up and try them.  I was bummed to realize that this book is the second in his series, but I still read it.  I'll just have to read the first one later.  This novel seemed pretty similar to the Paul Christopher templar novels I've been reading lately, but I think this one had a little more action in it.  Not sure which one I actually like more, but I know I'll be reading more of Khoury's series in the future.