Thursday, April 30, 2009

beach






Fun times with Steph, Scotty, and Don.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

my sinuses own me

Since Monday I have been feeling the allergy blues. Lewis, are you out there? Do you feel me on this one? Ugh, it's terrible. It makes me want to run to the beach. I think we're going to wait until tomorrow though so we can be there when the sun is shining.

Yesterday was the worst. It all caught up with me. I didn't do anything productive after 2pm. Donovan made dinner, cleaned the house, took care of me, and even made rhubarb pie before our strawberries went bad. Isn't he the best? I got to eat rhubarb pie in bed, it was fun. Although I would rather have a new and not congested head so I can go run and play and bike. I think it's the perfect storm of my bad allergies, reintroduction after two springs of living in LA where my allergies were better, and current stress (including my earlier in the week battle with the dog hair in the car, bad idea!).

I found this helpful website to let me know which days are worst than others for allergen pollutants. You can click on your state and enter your zip code and it's like a weather page only for allergens (from low to high rating for the day). I also heard about sublingual immunotherapy for the first time. I'm interested in learning more and possibly going to a naturopathic physician since medications have never worked well for me and the neti pot was already a wonderful introduction into natural medical remedies for my allergies. Finally, this article is the one that really helped me last night feel like there are still options that I can try so that I don't have to be in bed until summer comes. I hope this is of some use to allergy sufferers out there. (As a side note: Lewy, what are you going to do on the PCT if you have allergy problems?!)

I think through living in Portland and working in the "wellness" sector I am becoming more aware of eastern medicine, natural remidies, and better eating habits. Can you tell I kinda love Portland? It breaks my heart to think that many people like me end up moving away because this is one of the worst places in the nation for allergy sufferers. I don't want to live in a nearby coastal city, I want to live here.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

busy weekend


My dear sweet friend Lindsey who I met in Uganda came to visit this weekend. We had so much fun and time went by so fast. Here are a few of my artsy pics (I'm getting more and more into photo apps on my iPhone) from our time together. Two days weren't enough for long talks, bike rides, exploring the city, slow walks, and many consumed coffees... although we do similar things every time we're together. Now I owe her a trip to Seattle, which I don't mind at all. I'm hoping to go visit sometime this summer before she leaves for a year long mission trip to Uganda.




The day that she left I also hosted 12 ladies at my house for a lingerie party for my friend Kari. Kari is such a wonderful woman and it was so good to get together and celebrate her life and her future years with Peter, who I love. It was so good for me to see many ladies who I went to college with and catch up. Here are couple pictures I captured in the midst of being a busy hostess...

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

april happenings

Wow, spring is going by fast. I have a back log of some great pictures and memories to share with my blogging community. I hope you enjoy it. Today will be mostly the last two weeks of fun family and church things that we have been able to do, most of it in some amazing weather!

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My dad worked for PGE for over 30 years. As a gift to us surviving women my dad's work partner gave us sweatshirts of the recent storm (the storm which kept him busy Christmas day 2008). It's pretty funny really because he had so many of these cheesy PGE storm memorabilia things around the house: mugs, shirts, etc. This is us pictured on the day we divided his stuff wearing the sweatshirts and his old PGE glasses (just for fun).
One day my mom, Melissa, Don and I went to the mountain to get in a beautiful day of skiing. It was so refreshing and reminded me why I love living here. Don learned how to ski in just one day and did such a great job on my dad's skis. Way to go Don!



We have a tradition with Rod and his family (wife and three kiddos) to go on adventures around the Portland area. A couple weeks ago we went to the Tulip Farm and had a really fun time. Kids can be entertained by the simplest things like water in a bucket. I love it! This is Kate, she is such a sweet girl.
A few days ago Steph and Scotty invited us to go to the Japanese Gardens. There was a special event and they got us on the guest list with free tickets. The gardens look so beautiful now in the spring and we enjoyed seeing them, meeting their friends, walking in the gardens and eating Japanese food and trying some good sake!


Most weeks we go to Small Group on Wednesdays and see our lovely big and little friends from one of our two church communities. This is Ella, she's such a happy girl.
And JJ, her brother. We are great friends! I have never seen such an extroverted child, and that's a lot coming from me.
On Easter we visited our second church home because family plans and our new nightly church schedule conflicted with each other. So we went to the Japanese International Baptist Church and we helped the two year olds with their egg hunt after the service. They were so confused, it was so cute! This is Cedo with his egg finds: green tea and sushi plastic toys. How fun!

I love the blossoms in Portland this time of year. There are some really interesting colors. Donovan and I continue to be amazed and we realize that we have only been living here since the trees have been bare. So we are always finding new colors and being touristy and taking pictures. It's so funny!

Happy Spring!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

new space

Our offices were recently remodeled. Now that the construction is done it is so nice to be able to enjoy having twice as much space as we had before. Here is a picture of the lobby area. I love the new office that I use twice a week, lots of natural light. There is a bit more sound (car noise mostly) then before but I think the light makes it worth it.


I am so blessed to work where I do... it's a beautiful part of town and my favorite coffee shop is the next door down! Also, it has been really nice to simply pay rent and watch all of this beautiful work unfold. The owner is so talented at coordinating complicated schedules and decorating!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

if i was a twitterer

if I was a twitterer yesterday I would have said...

9am... nothing is quite as sad as going to GI Joes and hearing all the little girls scream "daaad!"
10am... my phone was lost but now its found (the culprit? the bottom of my purse)
11am ... the star my barista made in my hemp vanilla latte if almost as fabulous as the drink itself
11:30am... Andrea warms my heart and makes me enjoy myself more
12:30pm ... tulip trees are magical, almost a reason in themselves to live in Portland
1pm ... white girls love boba too
1:30pm ... probably the weirdest text I've ever sent: "what size of underwear do you wear?" (context: I was planning a close friend's lingerie shower)
2pm... sometimes real estate agents suck
2:30... should I buy the creepy green glass vase with a beautiful shape from the vintage furniture store or not?
3pm ... why do I live so far away from SE Portland?! I want to explore vintage stores all day!
4pm.... early Israeli dinner with my honey, yum!
5pm... Israeli is fattening, I'm off for a bike ride and frisbee with Don
5:30pm... spring is glorious
6pm... we still have one hour of sunlight left! (little did I know it's really 2 more hours now!)
7pm... cheap pub theater, gelato, or painting a wall tonight? hmmm.
8pm.... off the Joanne's then Gelato
10pm.... I love my husband. And I love my city.
12pm... good night fellow insomniacs

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

mess

Hey friends,

So with the weather being amazing I have been skiing, playing Frisbee, running, happy hour-ing and cooking. Too busy to even clean my own house and get chores done. Plus today is the first day my computer is back to life. I dumped a big glass of water on it a few days ago and it needed to dry out, oops! So this is a short post to say I will spend the day cleaning and doing chores and hopefully have some pics up soon of my new home decor finds!

Friday, April 3, 2009

home-y

Today I considered either going up skiing by myself (can't find any to join me) or going on a home decorating adventure. Although Ikea and thrift stores can be pretty scary (I'll bring my baby wipes) I thought skiing alone may be a bit too risky, so I chose a decorating adventure. Donovan and I decided on $200 as my spending limit for the day. I'll have to let you know what treasures I find and post some pics after my journey today. I'm having a bridal shower for 30 guests in two weeks and it has motivated me into getting this place looking a bit nicer! Wish me luck!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

hemp milk

I found a lovely local coffee shop next door to my work. The barista is from the East Coast and although it took him a while to warm up to me, I think he enjoys talking to me now. We got on the subject of soy milk vs hemp milk after he introduced hemp milk to me and I loved it. On his suggestion I did some research online about soy milk and discovered that it is really not so healthy for you. I was surprised! Soy milk may increase heart disease, cancer, and osteoperosis and decrease one's sex drive, yikes! For all of you that know me personally may know that I can't drink milk because of my recently developed lactose intolerance (it's actually been about 4 years now, wow!).
Hemp milk has a more balanced ratio of oils as seen on the chart at the bottom of this page: http://www.worldpantry.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ExecMacro/livingharvest/hemp101.d2w/report.
So after some research and some very superior hemp vanilla lattes (to my normal soy vanilla lattes) at my local coffee shop I went on a hunt for my own hemp milk at home. I didn't find it at Trader Joe's or Safeway so I went online and found out that a lot of natural food stores hold it. I ended up buying chocolate and original, although I haven't opened the chocolate one yet, so I'll have to let you all know how that goes. It's really good, and actually a nice change because it is not as thick and creamy as soy and much more like cow's milk in consistency and taste (according to someone who hasn't drank a glass of milk in a long long time).
I thought I would bring this to the attention to my blogging community because it was something new that I learned and I know so many of us consume soy on a regular basis. Here are a few more websites that might be helpful to learn about soy and other alternatives to milk:

Mercola
Healing Daily
The Healing Crow

The only problem that I'm having is that very few coffee shops in the Portland area provide hemp, the only one I've found so far is this local coffee shop I've been speaking of: Seven Virtues. Yes, even the famous-but-overhyped Stumptown does not offer hemp yet.