Tuesday, October 5, 2010

101 Things in 1001 Days (revised)

I don't think it's in the rule books, but I am revising my 101 things in 1001 days list. Yea, I know - cheater cheater pumpkin eater. After moving to Portland I've realized that a lot of the things I had on my list were location based. So I am revising it as not to become a complete and utter failure all because I moved away. I also visited the Day Zero Project website and discovered that they now have account capabilities available, to keep a running track of lists (super cool, but I will still post my list here and blog about completed tasks). 
And yes, because I am a cheater, cheater pumpkin eater I am starting my time-line over. I'll have you know I also have 51 new tasks to complete. So, a year (and 16 completed tasks) after the first one was created...here goes my new list:

101 Things in 1001 Days, inspired by Day Zero Project

Start: October 5th 2010
End: July 2nd 2013
In Progress, Completed
Last updated: January 2, 2011

1. Complete Design Portfolio
2. Get a job (again)
3. Pass LEED AP Exams
4. Study Interior Design Books
5. Learn Google Sketchup
6. Learn (and practice) Yoga
7. Learn the alphabet and 25 common sign language signs
8. Take a photography class (enrolled! 12/2010)
9. Photograph a Sunrise (time lapse)
10. Photograph a Sunset (time lapse)
11. Photograph the Stars
12. Get a Kitchen Aid Mixer (in Boysenberry!)
13. Get a food processor
14. Learn to can
15. Make Pickles
16. Go fruit picking
18. Compile Favorite Recipes Book
19. Make Homemade Dog Treats
20. Brew my own beer 10.10.10
21. Make a Martini 12.31.10
22. Get a Wine Membership
23. Host Cookie Exchange
25. No Caffeine for 2 weeks
26. See Dermatologist
27. Get My Knees Examined
28. Get Teeth Whitened
29. Don't dye hair until July 2nd 2013
30. Update Passport
31. Update Drivers License
32. Update Social Security Card
33. Go White Water Rafting
34. Acquire a sewing machine 11.11.10 (Thanks Colleen!)
35. Learn to Sew (enrolled! 12/2010)
36. Reupholster a piece of furniture
37. Make: Pillow Covers
38. Make: Bed Linens
39. Repair: Gma Smiths Christmas Ornaments
40. Make: Christmas Ornaments
41. Have a Scrap-a-thon Weekend
42. Finish: Wedding Scrapbook
43. Finish: Honeymoon Scrapbook
44. Finish: Year Scrapbooks ('06, '07, '08, '09, '10)
45. Finish: Puerto Vallarta Scrapbook
46. Finish: Cruise Scrapbook
47. Complete two crafts per month
48. Make Pottery Barn Inspired Mirror
49. Make: Beaded Ring (or two)
50. Make: Flower Hair Clips/Bows
51. Get a Wii (again) Get an Xbox360
52. Get Wii Fit Get Kinect for Xbox
53. Get a new lens for Camera
55. Get entertainment unit/living room storage 12.05.10
56. Get bedroom furniture 10.23.10
57. Get 5 year Ring from Hubby
58. Get a Carpet Shampooer
59. Get a Dyson
60. Go to Photography Meet-up
61. Get Awesome Gift for my Hubby (I have two great ideas)
62. See Disneyland at Christmastime
63. See the Rose & Japanese Gardens
64. Go Fishing
65. Go Kayaking 11.06.10
66. Shoot a real gun
67. Attend a Concert
68. Take a Trip on a Train
69. Visit SoCal for Christmas (1/3)
70. Visit Family in AZ
71. Visit Family in CO
72. Visit the Oregon Coast
73. Visit Ireland (currently planning)
74. Visit Europe 
75. Plant an Herb Garden
76. Plant a Vegetable Garden
77. Start a Compost Pile
78. Buy half a cow
79. Pay off Student Loan (mine)
80. Pay Off Student Loan (Moms)
81. Donate Blood (if they'll let me)
82. Build a house with Habitat for Humanity
83. Volunteer in a different country
84. Become Pen-pal's with Niece and Nephews
85. Get pregnant / have a baby
86. Get a massage 11.13.10
87. Have a Garage Sale
88. Payoff our credit cards/debt (again)
89. Make a new (local) friend
90. Buy a house
91. Sell both of our cars
92. Buy one new car
93. "Disconnect" for a week (excludes phone calls).
94. Watch 26 movies I've never seen starting with each letter of the Alphabet
97. Fix my Tattoo
98. Influence a person to make a day zero list 10.16.10 (Amber Dwyer)
99. Save $5 for every completed task (11/101)
100. Send my Grandma Fall Leaves 12.25.10
101. Donate $100/year to various charities. (to date: $50)

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And in case anyone was wondering, the items I have completed from my previous list are as follows:

1. Got a job (I moved and now I don't have one again so it's a repeat item).
2. Attended a meet up for digital scrapbooking.
3. Saw a Broadway show live (Lion King)
4. Watched all current seasons of Dexter
5. Got DVD storage unit and moved DVDs to sleeves
6. Learned how to use my 4-cup coffee maker
7. Made everyone a gift for Christmas
8. Went hiking (a few times).
9. Acquired bikes for myself and my husband
10. Went camping (a few times)
11. Planned an Owens family picnic
12. Paid off credit cards (and then acquired more on them since, oops)
13.  Moved out of my in-laws house (and to Portland)
14. Saw New Moon with friends.
15. Got a new mattress (a sleep number, too!)
16. Bought a nice DSLR Camera (and am loving it)..
17. I now owe myself $80 to my savings account, per my 101st item on my previous list. :-)
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Friday, September 24, 2010

Seattle Anniversary

Raised toilet room / Underground Tour
Hubby and I spent the weekend of our fourth anniversary in Seattle! I was afraid we would get rained on the entire time but the weather cooperated for us while we were there! It rained pretty heavily on our way up on Friday and into Friday night but by Saturday morning it was bright and sunny!! We actually were over dressed and ended up carrying our jackets for the rest of the day! Our dinner on Friday night was the perfect way to kick off the weekend - sushi and sake! We went to a place called Ototo Sushi and it was by far the best sushi I have ever had! If you're ever in Seattle I strongly suggest going there!
On Saturday we started off our morning at Starbucks (not the Original Starbucks though) and then headed over to Bill Speidel's Underground Tour at Pioneer Square. Craig and I both loved this tour - we were hoping it was a but more "underground" but it was neat to hear about how Seattle was rebuilt after a fire that destroyed the whole city and the plans to raise the city from constant flooding and save it's history! This was by far our favorite part of the trip. After the tour we were hungry! A few of our friends told us about The Crab Pot so we went there for lunch - we got "The Westport" which consisted of dungeness crab, snow crab, shrimp, steamed clams & pacific mussels, andouille sausage, red potatoes and corn on the cob all steamed in a pot and then dumped on your table with two mallets! It was definitely a FUN lunch and was really tasty! 









Another thing a few friends suggested to us was the Ride the Duck tour of Seattle. It's basically a drive around the city to certain points of interest and then the vehicle drives right into Union Bay and makes a circle around the bay. Craig and I were a bit disappointed on this tour - they have you make a bunch of noise and bounce around like you're having the time of your life all while just driving around the city. Basically a crash course to orient you on where everything is - at $25 each for the 90 minute tour we didn't think it was worth it. Kind of a bummer. I did enjoy the time out in the water - we got to see the house that was used in Sleepless in Seattle (from about 2 football fields away) and I was able to get a decent picture of the city but overall I would never suggest it or do it again - not for that price, plus the noise making and quacking got a bit annoying.
 I think the duck tour was exhausting for Craig so we went back to the hotel and he took a nap while I read a tour book, we then met up with our friend Kim (who happened to be in Seattle for other reasons) and got dinner and drinks at Brouwer's (brew pub).
City view from the top of our hotel
Sunday morning we took the bus down to Pioneer Square to check out the big public market. I had been reading in the tour books to "go early" as it tended to get very crowded....so we got there about 9am and nothing was open yet. Most of the farmers were still setting up their booths and all of the specialty shops still had their doors closed. We didn't want to wait around for 10am so we headed down to the waterfront and walked along the pier down to the Seattle Aquarium. I had read about the aquarium and thought it'd be a much larger place than it was but all in all it was a worth while experience - I now want a pet otter or two (so cute!). After the aquarium we meandered down the pier some more and grabbed a late breakfast at one of the shops before hopping on the bus over to the Experience Music Project and Sci-Fi museum. Both EMP and the Sci-Fi museum are housed in a beautiful Frank Gehry building - if you don't know who he is, look him up. I absolutely love his architecture and it is so recognizably his. I think I took more pictures of this one building than I did of our entire trip to Seattle (even the space needle)!

Anyways - we slowly walked around looking at old guitars and music memorabilia (I took a few pictures of some old Fender guitars for my Dad, too) then headed to the Sci-Fi portion where we got lost in nerd-dom. We wandered around the Seattle Center a bit and snapped a few more pictures of the space needle (which we did not go up, $18 each to take an elevator? no thanks) and then headed back to our hotel to pickup the car and drive over to Fremont to check out the Fremont Troll before heading home.










We had a great time in Seattle and I would love to go back someday! I can't believe we've been married for four years! Crazy how times flies and all that we have done so far! Can't wait for whats next (whatever that may be)!!
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Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Hoyt Arboretum

Craig and I have been wanting to find nice places to go hiking on quick weekend trips, not too long and not too short and with not too much skill involved. By the suggestion from a friend we were pointed toward the Hoyt Arboretum, which is near the Oregon Zoo and Childrens Museum. Actually, it's near quite a few places of interest: Pittock Mansion, Rose Gardens, Japanese Gardens etc... With the area being 321 acres, you can imagine how many things are "nearby!" On Sunday we took the dogs there and just wandered around, checking out all of the various trees - we ended up walking roughly five miles over the course of about three hours. About half way through our time there Bender was pooped, Craig was actually dragging him at times while Ginger maintained her ball of energy personality the entire time. It was a nice way to spend part of our day and the dogs sure enjoyed the outing! We will definitely be back there again - we hardly made a dent on the trails and I would love to see what the place looks like in the Fall after the leaves have changed!

Enjoy the pictures!

Taking a break.
Craig and the pups.


















View toward the City.
Happy hiking family in Portland!


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Saturday, September 4, 2010

Hello Portland!

This weekend Craig and I decided to venture out and see a lot of the touristy places around Portland. We had been meaning to go check out all of these places earlier but with unpacking, errands, camping trips and barbecues filling up the majority of our weekends we never got around to it (but we made some new friends instead). We also wanted to make sure we still had the sunny summer weather in our favor! We started off today with a self-guided walking tour of Portland - from China Town to Old Town, from The Waterfront Park to The Pearl District and all over! We used the Frommer's Portable Portland guide book that we got from Craig's Mom which gave us a starting point, walking directions from place to place and then an ending point.

We started at the Lan Su Chinese Garden which is the largest classical Suzhou-style Chinese garden outside of china. I have no idea what Suzhou-style means but here are some pretty pictures:














 
 







Told we could get a foot massage if we walked barefoot - kinda hurt.
Here's hoping that opportunity is a JOB! :-)
When we were done strolling through the garden and it's gift shop (naturally) we walked down a few blocks and ran into hordes of people at the Portland Saturday Market which is held every Saturday and Sunday in the same place: Waterfront Park. It's basically your typical swap-meet style shopping under pop-up shade with craft vendors, food vendors, clothing vendors etc. with the main difference being several street performers. We made our way through the crowds and didn't really stop to shop - I am sure I'll be back there one day when it isn't a holiday weekend! We're not big on crowds that don't pay attention to where they are going. Neat thing about it though was that everywhere you looked, someone was walking their dog, riding a bike, or carrying around their boa constrictors (we saw a family of four in which three members had a snake around their neck - they were stopped at a booth to get lunch).  We also stumbled upon this guy (right), who wasn't too musical - he basically stood there and strummed the guitar with his one modified arm and occasionally blew in the harmonica - he's the only street performer we gave any money to (basically cause we thought he was pretty cool with his one arm). After we made our way through the market, we strolled along the Waterfront Park, passed up the Oregon Maritime Center & Museum (it looked abandoned so we decided to save ourselves the time and money of going in) and went on our way to find Mill Ends City Park (click the link and read about it, it's quite funny and interesting):

See it? It's riiiiight - there!
Ok, ok...here is me, just outside of Mill Ends Park (seriously).
We then stopped and grabbed lunch at Thirsty Lion Pub where quite a few college football games were being aired (of which us non-sports people were not really into). The atmosphere was loud, but it was still nice. We then made our way over to Pioneer Place and The Pioneer Courthouse Square - both just cool places to know where they are but nothing really too interesting. Pioneer Place is just a big mall and the Square is a place that hosts lots of conventions, free concerts and protest rallies. One cool thing about the Square is that it's all brick - just one of those neat architectural things I enjoy. We then took the free-rail over to Couch Street (pronounced Cooch - thought you should know) and checked out Powell's City of Books - you could get lost in this bookstore. They give you a map at the front that is color coded for each section of the store (crafts, technical, cooking, homemaking, fiction etc...). They also have entire buildings devoted to certain types of books, for example: the Home & Garden building is down one city block and around the corner. By this point in our day trip we were starting to get tired so we headed over to Pete's Tea & Coffee two blocks one way and three blocks another (we didn't realize that they had a location within Powell Books -oops).

While we were enjoying our drinks we saw this across the street (left). Yes, ladies that is a male model in underwear in front of the Under 4Men store. People were stopping to take pictures next to this guy who stayed in his statuesque form until the pictures were done and then seemed to be embarrassed once the people walked away. Our view was quickly taken over by four gay men who decided to sit in the window facing this fellow - giggling, of course!  The drinks we got at Pete's were nice and refreshing but did nothing to wake us up any - so we skipped over a few of the Museums & Galleries listed in the walking-guide and went straight over to Jamison Park - a good place to take your kids and let them run around in the water while you read a book and enjoy your coffee (not applicable to us, of course). Across the street from there was a neat wall that bordered (hid) a parking lot, I had seen this wall before and have wanted to snap some pictures of it so I was glad to have been passing by the area.

  
We then made our way over two blocks to Tanner Springs Park which would have been the perfect place to plop down a blanket and read a book from Powell's (had we bought one). I strongly suggest you read up about the park as it's too lengthy to add here but I thought it was a quiet and peaceful place and I enjoyed it's purpose and overall design. 
 
All in all, we had a pretty enjoyable day!
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