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Falling into place. Thursday, August 6, 2009

Humph. It's been a while. Maybe I should just give up on trying to regularly update.


I think the biggest reason I haven't been updating is that I've been really freaking busy the last few weeks, and before that I was in Boston for a week for cousin's wedding/ family reunion. And before that I was preparing for Boston, and blah blah blah.

Why the busyness? I'm kind of hella employed, but almost completely by accident. It's not like I went out an submitted applications and begged corporations for a job, I just kept saying yes to small jobs that quite rapidly added up to something significant. I've been tutoring for ages now, but it's slowed down for the summer due to summer camps, conflicting schedules, vacations, kids needing a break from math for serious. Now that the beginning of school is in sight, I've picked up a couple more clients and suddenly my goal of having 3-4 hours/clients of tutoring a week isn't that unreachable any more.

Then about a month ago I put up an ad on Craigslist advertising myself as an artist/artistan assistant, hoping I could re-live the glory days of my job senior year of high school. I got a couple of not-so-serious responses (some guy asked me if I was single, ew, then said "if not, I have some piece work you could do". No.) and a response from a professional and established fine-artist who relocated to Portland a few years ago and was looking for a studio assistant. And so there I was. I've been working for him for a few weeks now and it's working out great. So that's another 10 hours/week, give or take.

Then there's our friend from church. The Hillsboro church, which we only attended for a few months and then decided it wasn't for us. We kept running into eachother coming to or from Fred Meyer, since she lives right around the corner from us. One of those times she asked if I'd be interested in helping her organize her photos (50 years of photos!!), and that she'd absolutely pay me because it's going to be a big job. I said yes, and suddenly that's under 5-7 hours a week. And this 50 years of photos to be artfully put into albums so... it's kind of a continuing thing.

Just a couple of weeks ago I felt unemployed and extremely scared of my rapidly diminishing savings (Summer tutoring has brought it barely more than $200/month, which is definitely not enough to cover rent, utilities and student loan bills). But suddenly it's not so bad. And even if any of these opportunities fall through (if the artist can't continue to pay me, if we finish the photo project early, if one of my tutoring clients stops calling) I've seen just how easy it is (finally) to make ends meet through several small jobs. I'm only working about 20 hours a week, and I'm not going to say how much any of these particular jobs are paying, but let me say that it's absolutely enough.

But not only am I just employed now, we're also moving! We're escaping the suburbs, sprawl, strip malls and Starbucks, finally. We found an apartment in close-in southeast Portland, in the vicinity of Hawthorn and Belmont. The rent is double what we're paying now (but keep in mind we're not paying much right now), but we'll be close to EVERYTHING. Within a mile and a half of our apartment there is a farmer's market, downtown, Hawthorne, Belmont, a co-op, a New Seasons, a library, a park, excellent restaurants and food carts, and more pubs and coffee shops than you can shake a hipster at.

We drew a rectangle on the east side of Portland, representing where we would like to live. The western edge was at 12th and the eastern edge at 40th. The northern edge was Burnside and the southern edge was Division. This rectangle (the magic rectangle, as our future landlord calls it) is teeming with life and people our age. It's not up and coming like Albina or whatever, and it's not new and trendy and expensive like the Pearl or NW 23rd. And it's definitely not far away from everything like Sellwood or St Johns. It's just... there. Right in the middle of everything. Our apartment is situated firmly in the middle of that rectangle.

The rent is definitely reasonable for it's location, the apartment is cute and not too small. For the rent, it's actually pretty big. It's only one bedroom, but it has a walk-in closet in the hallway that can be Rob's music room, and lots of room in the living room for me to have my art-crap. Basically, it's way too perfect. The oven's got to be shitty, or the management will be overbearing or something. Whatever the un-perfect-ness is, I hope it's not too bad. We get the place a week from tomorrow and have until the end of August to move in, thanks to overlapping leases.

EVERYTHING IS FALLING INTO PLACE AND I ALMOST DIDN'T SEE IT COMING!

Experiments part 2. Saturday, June 27, 2009

Experiments update:
I'm not sure if anyone could have guessed, but I sort of gave up on jogging. My hip kept giving me grief, and then I got out of the habit for a couple days and then... well, that was a month ago. We'll see what happens in the future, but for now... yeah. Lazy butt.

Sourdough also didn't go anywhere, but I finally managed to bake bread this last Tuesday (Tassajara basic bread recipe with half wheat/half white flour) and it turned out as good as it did in my bread-baking heyday when I was making bread every 10 or so days.

Still doing OCM, not quite daily, (more like every fourth daily?) and my skin seems to be enjoying it.

Business Saturday, June 13, 2009

http://www.7printciples.com

Same stuff, new and easier to remember address!

Vegan Tom Kha Mushroom Soup Friday, June 5, 2009

6 cups veggie stock (I use the Veggie Better Than Bouillon goop. It comes in a little jar in the soup aisle at Freddie's)
2 cans coconut milk
2 whole stalks of lemon grass, cut into 1/2 inch pieces with bottom, top and outer layer removed
1 medium galangal root (cut into about 12 slices)
6 kaffir lime leaves, hand torn
4 large cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 medium onion, cut into long, thin pieces
4 spicy Thai chilies (also have seen them called Birdseye chilies?), cut into easy to find chunks
2 tomatoes, cut into big chunks
Juice of 2 limes
1 tsp brown sugar
6 or so stalks of cilantro, hand torn
Whole lot of crimini mushrooms, quartered (maybe 4 cups all cut up?)
~1 tsp chili paste

Boil veggie stock, then add lemon grass and galangal root. Let boil while you prepare other ingredients, then add lime leaves, chilies and garlic. Add mushrooms and onions, then after about 5 more minutes add the coconut milk, lime juice, brown sugar, chili paste. Let simmer until all the flavors are nicely mingling, like pretty ladies at a cocktail party. About 10 minutes before serving add the tomatoes and cilantro and let cook a little bit longer. Serve hot, and don't eat the lemon grass or galangal root - think of them as bay leaves!


Pretty much one of the tastiest things to ever come out of my kitchen. Totally vegan, and tastes as good or better than restaurant variety Tom Kha.

Some days I feel like this. Tuesday, June 2, 2009

nataliedee.com

Experiments. Sunday, May 31, 2009

I am undergoing several experiments at the moment.

1) Exercise.

Anyone who's known me for a while knows that I am notoriously un-athletic, but, as most do, I have a desire to be in shape. I'm just lazy and have hip problems and don't have proper shoes and don't have time and don't have blah blah blah any number of excuses. I've decided that June is going to be the month when I make an effort to jog or walk every day. I'm starting off slow - just a mile a day for the first week until I get used to it. I got lost on my loop yesterday and ended up going almost 3 miles. I am extremely sore today.

2) Oil cleansing method - OCM.

I have never had problem skin, and I'm not a big fan of talking about beauty procedures in public forums (besides hair dying... that's different!), but I read something online recently about the Oil Cleansing Method for face washing and I was intrigued.
Here are the steps:
Make a mixture of castor oil, extra virgin olive oil, and maybe some other oils/essential oils. My mixture is 50% castor oil, 25% extra virgin olive oil, and 25% grapeseed oil, with some tea tree oil added.
Rub this mixture on your face.
Get a washcloth wet with hot water and lay it on your face, let it cool to room temperature.
Rub in the oil again.
Washcloth steam again. (repeat these last two steps as many times as you want)
Get washcloth wet one last time and gently wipe away all excess oil.
Rinse face with cold water to close pores.

You're supposed to do this anywhere from twice a day to a few times a week. I'm going to try it every evening and see what happens. Supposedly it's lifechanging or something? Also, it's cheaper than facewash, more gentle, and way greener.

3) Sourdough.

I still haven't made my old bread recipe since my sad experience a few months ago. Heidi, my sister-in-la-la (I challenge you to tell me a better term for your sweetie's sibling's sweetie), gave me some sourdough starter last week at Folklife and I tried it out today. I used the Tassajara recipe and it was ok, but it came out really, really dense and I was expecting something a little... fluffier.



Today is day 2 of both OCM and excercise. I'm feeling good. My skin feels excellent and my legs are hella sore.




I've decided I want to post more recipes I use or make up here. Let's see how that goes.



Also, I can't stop watching West Wing. I can't believe I never watched it before now.

toothpastefordinner.com


tee hee.


Folklife was fun. Now I am exceedingly tired and not desirous of living a real life.

Live music! Thursday, May 21, 2009

John Vanderslice show tonight! I got to preview his new album (which came out on Tuesday) and it's fantastic. I only really know two of his other albums, but all the reviews I've read say it's his best yet and I wouldn't doubt it. Also, there are supposedly going to be copies of Moon Colony Bloodbath (the EP he recorded with the Mountain Goats earlier this year) available and I'm hella excited for that too.

And Folklife is this weekend! We went the year before last, when Rob was still living in Port Townsend and I was in Portland, working at Lewis and Clark for the summer. The festival is in downtown Seattle and runs Friday through Monday of Memorial Day weekend. I got up to Dev's house Friday night, and Rob had work and was supposed to join us Saturday. He even requested work off. And then they didn't honor his request because they were lame, and he didn't think he could drive to Seattle after working a full shift... so I took the ferry to Port Townsend, picked up Rob at 11pm, and took the ferry/drove back to Dev's. We didn't get to go last year because I got really sick at the last minute and was just miserable. So this year we're going for reals and I'm excited and I haven't been to Seattle in forever.

I made the best lentil chard soup EVER the other night. Absolutely delicious. I followed this recipe and added some cumin and pepper (and obviously used veggie stock instead of chicken stock).

Catch-all. Tuesday, May 12, 2009

I've been sick since last Thursday. That was five days ago. What is up with this cold? Just let me gooo! I guess five days is actually a pretty standard length for a cold, I'm just ready for it to be over.


I've been exceedingly lazy and out of my element since con. I've had a hard time finding the energy to do my usual activities and have had the need to push myself back into them. Make an awesome dinner, even though I'd rather go out. Garden, even though I don't feel like it. Clean, even though I'd rather just sit on my butt. I'd been getting back into it slowly, and then I got sick, which threw a total monkey wrench into the machinery. Who wants to cook when they're coughing and sniffling all up in there? And we've gone back to buying Dave's Killer Bread. I messed up the baking time the last time I made bread and it turned out awful and underdone. I haven't made bread since then. I really just need to push myself back into it, and I thought this would be the week I would do it. We'll see. It might have to be next week.

Part of the problem is that I've lost my good bread baking window. I've been helping out at an urban farm in Sellwood that has work parties Wednesdays and Fridays from 9-1pm, and I've had a regular tutoring gig Mondays and Wednesdays at 5:30pm. And I have class Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1-4pm (but because of the bus schedule, it's more like 12-4:30pm). Baking bread takes a really big window - something like 5-7 hours, but I've never timed it. The time I made the awful bread, I told myself I could do it on a Wednesday between garden and tutoring. I was wrong :(. And I'm rarely in the mood to do it Mondays or Fridays. Luckily now that the big work is done at the farm, we're only going to have work parties on Fridays from now on. There's 3 of us regulars, plus the guy who's spearheading, and just not enough to do to meet twice a week. So perhaps Wednesday will be bread day from here on out.

And then, of course, everything will change as soon as school lets out.

It's been really eerie seeing all the "woo I'm graduated!" posts on Facebook from my friends a year younger than me at LC. Did I really graduate a year ago? Well, no, I didn't. I walked a year ago. I finished my classes at the end of June last year, and my diploma date is August 31st, 2008. But that whirlwind of graduation activity and parties and goodbyes to friends and moving in with Rob and Peej - that was a year ago. Wow.




On another, craftier note, I've been working on a lace crochet hat for the last month and a half. I wanted a light cotton hat I could wear when I wasn't ready to shower, but my hair was greasy enough for me to be self conscious*. At first I worked on the hat feverishly. Then sporadically. Then sluggishly. Luckily, getting sick (and discovering the HBO series 'Big Love') kicked me back into overdrive and I finally had the will to finish the project through to the end. And here is the final product! I'm particularly pleased with how the top turned out.

(sidenote: holy crap my hair is long! No one ever notices because I almost always wear it in a ponytail - but really, when was the last time I was able to wear my hair in a ponytail??)

In other news, Cubby has been sleeping in a tiny box. It's extremely cute.

And finally - Beaverton Farmer's Market has started again! My life is complete!




*I've been showering every 4-5 days. Partially to conserve water, partially because the less you clean yourself, the less you need to be cleaned. As I pointed out the last time I did this, it's like the chapstick cycle. The more you use, the more you need.