Introducing Thirty Things

Hello.  Life happened *forcing* me to take a 16-month hiatus from blog writing.  It was probably a good stopping point as I don't think "New to Oregon" is an appropriate blog title for someone who had been living in the state for more than a year.

But I digress.  What brings me back?  Well, a lot of reflection on life.  I am turning 29 next month which has gotten me thinking about the big 3-0.  I've wondered if I've been doing everything I can to live a fulfilling life up to this point.  And I realized there are some experiences I have missed out on and one thing led to another and I started thinking about composing a bucket list of thirty things to complete before my 30th birthday in 2013.

So I put my thinking cap on and tried to compile a list of trips, activities, must-see local things, etc... that would be super cool (and feasible) to do.  I have come up with twenty-two(ish) things - some more meaningful than others (getting a stamp in my passport is more meaningful than going to a drag show) but I need your help rounding out this list.  I have tried to produce a balanced list of travel & local activities, expensive and free, thrilling and chill, etc...

And now I turn to you for your input.  Put your thinking caps on and get creative!  What should I try to do in my twenty-ninth year to make it meaningful?  Learn a new activity?  Try a new sport?  Take a special vacation?  Try yoga?  That one's for you Mom, though it probably won't make my final cut.

I promise to have my complete list of thirty things on or before my birthday this year.  The catch?  I won't actually share it with you then.  I will update this blog as I cross items off this list so you will only learn about them as I complete them.  Sounds fun, no?

So start thinking about this and let me know what your ideas are.  I am very excited to get some new perspectives on my bucket list.

Thank you!  :-)

Have You Forgotten?

Not much to say about tonight.  I had to work a full shift today so I didn't get to spend too much time with Mom & Kiki.  They dropped me off at my winery and did a quick tasting before heading out to the coast for the day.  They picked me up at the end of my shift and then we met Eddie at Hopworks Urban Brewery.  We actually ate here for my birthday the last time my mom was in town but she liked it so much we wanted to go back tonight.  Dinner was great and came with some surprising news...  The TVs around the bar announced the death of bin Laden.  It was very surreal getting that kind of news at a bar.

We made a quick stop at Voodoo Doughnut for a fun dessert before heading back to the hotel.  Eddie joined us at the hotel where we sipped on some wine and watched the breaking news unfold.  Oh.  And Kiki gave me her old iPhone so I started setting that up.  It's definitely going to take some getting used to, but I think I might actually learn to like it.

If you're curious about the doughnuts...  From left to right:  Eddie's Voodoo Doll; my "no name" (raised doughnut w/ chocolate, Rice Krispies, & peanut butter drizzle); Kiki's plain sprinkle; and Mom's chocolate & peanut butter (not sure what the name is).

My media mention is a show Eddie and I finished a couple weeks ago.  Top Chef All Stars was great this season!  I was bummed that Casey & Jen didn't make it further in the season, but I was pleased with the outcome.  I wish they would have let the final face-off include the final three chefs because I would have loved to see what Antonia could have come up with.  I think my favorite part was watching the reunion show with Andy from Bravo.  I had no idea Antonia was so cursed when it came to her teammates!  Hilarious.  I also loved the Marcel auto-tuned clip.  Very funny stuff they put together.

Visitors

I had a great time tonight!  Just a few weeks ago Mom & Kiki planned a trip to Portland for a quick visit with me.  I was excited to have them fly in tonight.  They took an early evening flight which allowed me to work a full day before picking them up.  I wish I could have taken the day off work, but I think we managed to do a lot of stuff tonight.  After checking into the hotel (totally cool that they upgraded us to a huge suite), we walked to Mama Mia Trattoria for a beautiful dinner.  I ordered the pizza because I was dying to try the house-made mozzarella.  Delicious!

We walked around after dinner and found ourselves at Barrel Room.  We really enjoyed the dueling pianos show.  We didn't stay long, but they played some great songs.  The crowd was really going wild during Cee Lo Green's "F*** You."  This was my second time checking out their show...  It's still not my favorite for dueling pianos, but I love that they have a guitarist and drummer to call on stage to perform more rock-y songs.  That makes it fun.

I don't remember the name of the place, but Mom got a coffee at one of the food carts with late-night hours.  I'm not a coffee drinker, but I need to go back to this place because they serve Belgian waffles.  It smelled so delicious.  :-)  Our evening ended at Henry's Tavern with a final round of drinks and a cup of soup for Kiki & Mom to split.  I have to work tomorrow so we don't get to spend the day together, but I'm looking forward to the evening...

Finished another mystery today.  Shocker, I know. This one was John Sandford's Rules of Prey the first in the Lucas Davenport series.  One thing I really appreciated about this book was Sandford's attention to police procedure.  I think those details are often overlooked in mysteries - especially in popular television programming like CSI.  I also enjoyed the characters so I wouldn't mind picking up the next book in the series to see where it takes me.

Quick Update

I am loving the new winery so far!  They let me take my first Saturday & Sunday off to give me time to explore wineries in the area.  Since I had just been out tasting the Ribbon Ridge AVA with my friend, Laura a few weeks ago, I wanted to focus on wineries I had never been to.  I spent Saturday visiting the places on Worden Hill Rd.  One of my favorite stops was the Black Walnut Inn.  They are not normally open for wine tasting but since there was a weekend passport tasting event, they opened up their patio for passersby.  What made this tasting so unique was that they offered a full lunch.  Granted, it wasn't a big menu to choose from, but they had three different entrees.  I ordered the burger & fries knowing I could enjoy it with a glass of wine on their gorgeous patio.  The owners were so cute when I explained my picky eating; they brought me upstairs to sit in the kitchen and personally direct the chef (their son).  It was awesome chatting with him as he prepared my custom meal.

Last night we got our friends together for a beer club meet up.  Basically it's everyone at Eddie's winery who likes beer plus me.  We had the first meet up about a year ago at our Tualatin apartment.  Unfortunately we're only able to find the time to get together every few months or so, but it's always fun.  We pick a different theme for the type of beer everyone should bring (last time was all about stouts) and then we drink and have fun.  Eddie scored a free room at the Hotel Monaco through his work so we decided to meet there.  The theme was "anything goes" so we had quite a variety of brews in the room.

After hanging out for a while, we were starting to get hungry.  Someone mentioned poutine which seemed to stick on everyone's minds.  We knew we were just a few blocks from The Original which serves the dish.  Then I piped up that I'm on their email list and just received a blast about their new poutine eating challenge.  That pretty much sealed the deal so we packed up and walked the few blocks to the restaurant.  Everyone at the table placed an order for poutine while I had a bacon & egg breakfast. Davin went balls-out and went for the poutine challenge - five pounds of fries, gravy, and cheese to be consumed in 30 minutes or less.  When I saw the plate come out, I was actually hopeful for him.  Five pounds of fries didn't look as big as I thought it would.  In the challenge of man vs. poutine, poutine won.  I honestly believe Davin could have done it if he hadn't just spent the last few hours drinking beers.  It was still fun to watch and the restaurant gave him the free t-shirt in the end.  

I got to finish my book before everyone arrived at the hotel last night.  Paul Christopher's Michelangelo's Notebook reads like his templar novels.  Fast-paced mystery with similar characters.  I think I need to force myself to read at a slower pace though because all the books I've been reading are starting to blend together.  They all follow similar plots and have the same flow.  And then the characters & love interests in all these books are so similar.  It makes it really hard to keep each book separate in my mind.  That being said, reading his books is an enjoyable way to pass time.  I'm sure that a month from now I won't be able to recall any specific details of this book, but at least during the hours I spent reading this I was entertained.

First Thursday

I love having great weather when fun things are happening downtown.  Every first Thursday of the month, art galleries in Portland stay open late and pour free wine for people like me who can't afford art but like to look at it.  Eddie and I did the art walk a few months ago, but we didn't really know where to go and kind of missed out on some things.  It was still fun, but I was eager to get out and try it again.

We started out with a round of happy hour drinks at Three Degrees.  I just learned that their happy goes until 7pm which is great since most happy hours end too early at 6:00.  This place is at the end of the line of shops on the river by our apartment and we hadn't checked it out yet.  I gave their burger a try since it's half off during happy hour - and unfortunately they didn't have a discount on their mac n cheese.  Their mac is topped with goldfish crackers.  It sounds cute and yummy so I'll just have to bite the bullet and pay full price for it one day.  Anyhoo...  I was not impressed with the burger.  I've had fresher and better.  I certainly wouldn't pay full price for this, but $6 for a full size burger & fries is not bad.

Next we headed toward the art galleries we saw a few months ago (on 1st St. just south of Burnside).  I was sidetracked by the beautiful sunset and insisted on snapping a few photos.  This is a picture of the Hawthorne Bridge.

I was so happy to find the Attic Gallery open to us again.  This was my favorite stops the last time we went out because I fell in love with Lilli Faville's sculptures.  I think they are so fun and funky.  These ceramic dogs were on display again tonight. I don't think I'll ever get tired of looking at them.

One of the galleries was closed when we walked by a few months ago but they were open tonight so we went in.  It's actually a chiropractor's office that apparently doubles as a gallery.  They were featuring illustrations from Dan Murphy-Hecht.  Eddie enjoyed these more than I - baby bottles & diapers meet war.  Interesting concept, but not my cup of tea. I just checked out the artist's website and he has an impressive resume - he's created some designs for the Rockband games and Guitar Hero II.  This was also a cool spot because Eddie and I were given free back & shoulder massages which felt so nice.

I was ready to head to the Pearl to visit the galleries up there because I had been told that's where the main event really is.  Eddie and I cut over on Everett St. and stayed there the rest of the night.  There were so many galleries back-to-back within a few blocks of each other on Everett.  My favorite stop in this string was the Werks Gallery.  They were featuring Chris Cole's Oceanic show mixing abstract art and kinetic sculptures.  This gallery was packed!  Everyone seemed drawn in by the kinetic sculptures.  If you click on his link, you'll get an idea of what they were like.  Every piece in the gallery fit in with the "oceanic" theme.  The sculptures were cool because they were interactive designs of fish with hand cranks that allowed the viewer to get involved and make the fish move.  Pretty cool.  I felt dumb though because it wasn't until after we walked around the whole gallery that I finally realized all the paintings I just saw contained fish.  Eddie got it right away, but to me these colorful works reminded me of old pog designs.  I just didn't look closely enough.

We finished checking out the galleries on Everett and decided it was time to head home.  We took our sweet time and meandered around the downtown streets.  We found a few fun things to take pictures of; notably the umbrella statue Eddie wanted to kiss.  Needless to say, it was an entertaining walk home.

I have another library book to review for my media mention.  I wish I had enjoyed the story as much as the cover.  That sounds rough, but Hillary Davidson's The Damage Done was not a polished story.  I understand that it's her first novel, but it had a pretty simple plot and tried too hard to hide the ending.  I think when the author tries too hard to cover their plot twits, it only makes it easier to guess where they are actually going.  It didn't help that I never grew attached to any of the characters.  That usually makes the story more interesting to read.

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.

A Year In the Life

Today marks a special anniversary for me.  Eddie and I have officially been in Oregon for one year.  I cannot believe how quickly this first year passed.  Exactly one year ago Eddie and I were unloading our U-Haul in very cold weather and got slammed with some hail.  I couldn't help but feel nervous; thinking maybe we made a bad decision.  But we took our first walk to the nearby grocery store and fell in love with our apartment and surrounding area and knew that it would be good for us.

One funny note about our move.  We left California on March 31 and spent that night and the next (April 1) in hotels.  A census was conducted in 2010, but since we were technically homeless on April 1st which is the date the census form went by, we never filled it out.  I went on their website but never found specific instructions for how to handle our unique situation.  I just didn't know if they'd want to count us as Californians or Oregonians.  A month later a census worker knocked on our door and was confused when I explained our situation.  She wound up counting us as Oregonians.

I just took a few minutes to look at my photos from the last 12 months in iPhoto.  Here are some of my favorite moments from the year:  our first hike in the gorge, finding Simpsons references around Portland, my Seattle & Forks adventure with Kiki, flying in a helicopter, checking out the Oregon coast, visiting Twin Falls, visiting with Shaunna (and her mom) before she moved to Guatemala, going to Texas with my mom and meeting my family there, spending a few days in Lake Tahoe with my family, Sean & Heather's wedding in Lake Elsinore, getting a winery job, exploring Portland with Bree, going to free Yelp events, hosting our annual Thanksgiving dinner, enjoying downtown / waterfront living, the Sokol Blosser Christmas party with Eddie's karaoke, spending a day in McMinnville, spending a night in San Francisco with my mom & Kiki, donating my hair, exploring Hood river, and more!  In some ways I feel like I haven't done much this year, but looking through the photos reminds me that I really have gotten out and done quite a bit.  Makes me look forward to my second year here.

Anyhoo... today is also special because my dear friend, Cecilia, is in town with her fiancee.  They stopped by my winery with their friends for a quick visit.  It was really nice to see them and share some wine.  We made plans to see each other in the evening for dinner.

Eddie and I had a little free time before meeting Cecilia and Anthony so we stopped by Chris & Melissa's house to visit with my family.  It was a very full house with the Maciejewski clan and Heidi & Baron and their boys.  Even though it was a brief visit, it was so nice to catch up with everyone.  And to have some Texas sheet cake.  :-)

Cecilia and Anthony met us at our apartment.  I gave them a quick tour of the walking path on the river and a peek inside our apartment.  Then Anthony drove us all to Yakuza; a place highly recommended by their friends.  Eddie and Cecilia tried the more adventurous spicy drinks which seemed fun, but I don't like hot things.  I had their burger which was good, but I think they put some spice in there besides pepper because my mouth was tingling for the rest of the night.

We were all pretty tired after dinner so Anthony and Cecilia dropped us off then checked in to the hotel on our block.  I'm winding down now because Cecilia and I made plans to meet early for a little breakfast before I have to go to work tomorrow.

Not to end on a sad note, but I got some bad news today.  Two of my family members received heavy medical diagnoses this week; one endometriosis and one breast cancer.  I don't pray but both of these women have been in my thoughts all day.  So if you are reading this and you are the praying type, everyone in my family would appreciate your support for my Aunt Danielle and cousin Patty.

I really hate brining up a media mention after such heavy news, but I'm too OCD to skip the media mention.  I finished one of my "Lucky Day" reads from the library.  This time I scored with Ann Rule's In the Still of the Night about Ronda Reynolds' mysterious death.  I always love the way Ann Rule tells her stories because she is so tactful in the way she handles the facts of the case.  One thing bothered me about this book though: there was no answer.  We still don't know for certain what happened to Ronda the night of her death.  I feel like I didn't need to read a 300-page book to tell me that; reading the dust jacket would have sufficed.  But still, if you're an Ann Rule fan, you'll enjoy.