Porter Time!

Just a bunch of photos I like of that guy....

 Monkey stuffed animal- the best kind of pillow

 All hail the Space Emperor! He has as regal an expression as he can make in this picture.

 Favorite way of moving through snow? Bunny style leaps. Yep, that's my dog.

Saved the best for last. That is aww worthy, right?!

Friday Fail wrap-up

Friday was busy, busy!
Porter and I finally got to go on a walk after finishing a flood of work, and I even took the camera with me. We walked to this nearby park that is just gorgeous with a Jurassic, tropical forest feel to it. I was so glad I brought the camera, as the sunlight filtering through the fog interspersed between the trees was something that just needed to be shared with all of you. I took a couple of pictures including the stream that runs along the trail and then just focused on hiking and minimizing mud accumulation. I plan on running there often while we live here. Finally, Porter and I made it back to the house and I went straight to the computer to transfer the pictures before I forgot about them. I popped open the memory disc hatch and there it wasn't.
I had forgotten to put the memory disc back in the camera after loading the first pictures of my first Friday failure of the day!
With that, I jumped in the car to get my coffee, pictures be damned.
I drove to Sur La Table and bought a new shiny Bialetti that makes 9 cups of coffee, which is 3 more than the one that was destroyed. With my purchase, I was rewarded with a free subscription to Bon Appetit and a warm welcome to Portland. From there, I picked up a couple things HB requested and met a friendly ex-Texan and then a lady who was utterly delighted with my homemade cherry earrings. Actually, every person I met with on that trip were equally delighted with me and delightful. Lastly, I had the most delicious mocha from a cafe that looked and operated so much like La Dolce Vita that I felt like I had been transported back to Austin.
So with my short shopping trip, Failure Friday suddenly had transformed into Friendly Friday. My parting thoughts on Friday are that coffee is essential to turning any day around and the Portlandians are nearly as friendly as Austinites.

Friday failure

Melted rubber for breakfast?

Lately, I've been setting up the coffee maker at night and just turning on the burner in the morning. Apparently, I did not set up the coffee last night but this morning did not remember. The results are above, along with a horrible smell throughout the entire house. What you are seeing is coffee stained melted rubber coating the inside of the coffee maker. Thank goodness Jeff was already long gone to work-now I can hide the evidence of my incompetence.

Below is what I worked on yesterday. I painted the brown deer and the rhino, and cleaned up the golden deer. These guys are going up somewhere in the house. I don't know if it is visible from the photo, but both the brown deer and the blue background for the golden deer are covered in paint dots. I love doing those dots, as it adds complexity and texture to a pretty simple project.

 

I'm hoping after my third business call this morning, Porter and I can go for a walk and get some coffee. Coffee!

Random Trip Photo- Meteorite Park

I'd also build a random window in my wall if I had a view like that

Blue skies for everyone

I was worried when people said that it is always gray in Portland, simply because the idea of a gray world was so foreign to my Texan mind. "No bright blue days? No watching the sky transition from robin's egg blue through every permutation of blue until the purple of night?" It seemed so... wrong.
Oddly enough, it took a while for us to experience a gray day due to a week of bright, sunny days when we first moved here. Locals kept warning us not to get used to it while basking in it themselves. Want to know the weirdest part of that weather? I hated it! It felt like the sun was always in my eyes. When it wasn't in my eyes, the weather was just too like Texas and would make me homesick. When the good weather finally cleared, I felt a weight lift. I was finally excited to be here!
Now after living here for almost three weeks, I can tell you that the gray skies rumor is a lie. You can see a beautiful blue sky everyday. Well, if you just get up early enough! This is outside our house at 7 this morning and it was so pretty. I kept trying to get a photo on my walk with Porter, but neighbors started looking at me weird. "I am not taking peeping tom pictures of your house, lady; Just look at this beautiful blue daybreak!"

I saw every shade of blue as the sky turned from purple to light blue. So, don't feel sorry for us as far as the weather goes. Pity instead that as we're unpacking, I'm having to re-sort through everything we moved across the country. Just way too much junk! Also, I know there is a pile of stuff HB (HusBunny) has designated, "cool, but just needs CB (me) to fix".
So my to-do list today is:
-Get out of the house and talk to somebody I'm not married to
-Go on a run on this beautiful running trail we stumbled upon/walk the trail and take lots of pictures to post here
-Make dinner (yay, Crockpot!)
-Fix/paint the stuff in HB's pile
-Clean the house
-Do my normal 9-5 job
Hmmm... It sounded like so much more things to do in my head!
Ok, off to do all that and maybe even wash stinky Porter!

Welcome to our life!

I haven't figured out what the point of this blog is yet, so am just going to go with whatever I think of until I get a better idea of format and all that junk. So, I'm not promising anything interesting-just what's going on with me.