Green Homes Tour, Saturday, Sept 16th

Last Saturday, Dan and I had the opportunity to go on the Green Homes Tour, sponsored by a company here called the Environmental Building Center. We spent the whole day biking around the city, following our map to the most interesting houses we could find. Here is a sample of what we saw:

This house was tucked off the road with a beautiful garden, and it was small and very cozy. The homeowners are an older couple, and they build their house essentially in their daughter's family's backyard.









A beautiful flower in their garden:










The homeowners of this house are a pair of architects. They designed the house together, and it has a very modern feel to it. The two images are the actual house and a scale model of the house, which the homeowners have on display in the living room.
























Plenty of "green" toilet paper on hand!












These are "green town homes." When we walked inside, since we had to take our shoes off, I immediately felt warmth coming from the radient floors. They are sort of a concrete material, and underneath the floor they have hot-water pipes running through, naturally warming the whole house.









Dan and I after 20+ miles of biking around the city!!!

Part Three!!!!

Ok. I know I've been blogging all evening, but there were a few key photos that got left out of that last post due to technical difficulties...









Can you see me waving?! This is the rest of the bathroom with a nice big mirror.












The accent wall in the bedroom, further accented by the light Dan brought from Columbia. We each have a picture of us with our mom on top of our dresser. Very cute. Now the dresser...another dumpster find! Though it is missing a bottom drawer, we have really enjoyed it so far. Especially the free part.









Our beautiful, beautiful $30 desk..another Craig's list find. Also note the webcam--source of much enjoyment internet-phoning my parents. Oh!! Our good will grocery cart can be seen in the far left of the pic.









Our kitchen...in the corner is our new microwave, c/o Dan's sister Marisa and her husband Jason.













Our storage closet, which is really a sporting goods playground..tents balls frisbees yoga mats backpacks ... there is a t i n y little shelf where we keep linens ;)










Our first Portland rainy day..many more to come, but this one was beautiful!! The sun was shining behind the West Hills (background) and a gentle mist fell, giving the scene an other-worldy look.

Yay for Portland!

Our Apartment!

As requested by Jackie, here are a few photos of our new apartment:












Bookshelf: discovered in the dumpster area of our apartment building, disinfected, and promptly filled with our small arsenal of books that made the trip cross country. (If you look at the large image of this photo, please note the giraffe and dan's "fat fat" hawaii change holder)













Accent wall in the living room: note the fan from China c/o Paulette, the boomerang from goodwill, and 1/2 of the cutting board from Costa Rica c/o Mar. That bright spot is my Arizona liscense plate (I used to say I wanted to move there just so I could have the cool liscense plate, then Dan bought me one of the liscense plates, so we moved to Oregon instead). The folding table and chair set we bought for $50 from a huge warehouse-type furniture/everything store in SE Portland called City Liquidators.









This is our most recent addition: Futon from a friendly Craig's list merchant. It cost $130; not our best deal, but when we went to pick it up, we got to meet the family who had just recently bought it before they knew they were relocating East to...guess where...Maryland!!! It folds out to a full-sized bed, so we are now fully equipped to have visitors! First one here wins a special treat!!












Now we move to the bathroom where we have a world map shower curtain :) This helps when I am listening to NPR and have no idea where the country is they are discussing.

Next to the kitchen area...












Here in Portland, our recycling container is bigger than our trash. Note the beautiful flowers and sage celebrating our 2 yr anniversary ;)













Our fridge is already decorated with some pretty awesome stuff, but one thing we are lacking is MAGNETS!! If you have a cool magnet, send it to us! Right now we are holding everything up with tape which is not nearly as fun.













This is the product of Dan's imagination and his thriftiness. We crafted an enormous dry-erase calendar for about 1/10th the cost of one at Office Depot, and it is constantly full of cool stuff from our Portland papers.

From left: Hush Puppie, Oreo, Claire, and Marmot.

We're all waiting for you to come visit!!!!

First Few days in Portland

This is the first of 2 posts, the second of which will include the photo shoot I did of the new apartment.

We have kept so busy that I have neglected even my paper journal. I don't know how I'll ever catch up!! But my camera is so full that I need to put a few of those shots on the blog and see what you all think of my life in Portland!







Dan outside our apartment building in SW Portland

My job working in the box office is o.k. so far, I'm getting the hang of it and I've definitely met some cool people at Portland Center Stage. One really interesting thing is they are renovating the historic Portland Armory building I work in for a LEED Platinum rating. That is the highest certification a building can achieve as far as all the green-building/alternative energy stuff that Dan is into. It's very exciting, but it can be very loud and like a maze at times, because we are working in the building while it is still under construction.

Paulette (and dad) you'll be glad to know I press a different button for pee and poo because they have dual flush, rain-water recycling toilets. You can find out more about the theater company and the building project at www.pcs.org.


What follows are a few photos of one of the first bike rides Dan and I took through the city.















Beaver statue (OSU mascot)






















Biking over the Hawthorne Bridge.


The Hawthorne is one of 10 or 12 bridges that span the Willamette River (Wil-LAM-ette) in Portland. The Willamette divides the East and West sides of the city. The Columbia river is the northern boundary between Oregon and Washington State. I like the Hawthorne bridge a lot because it takes you to SE Hawthorne Boulevard, which is a really cool funky street with lots of shops and little restaurants and a fun, youthful vibe.

Cross Country Trip!

Although a bit belated, here are some notes and photos of our 3017 mile journey across the U.S.A.:












Nuffy wishing us safe travels














The St. Louis Arch














Baby Addison!

Hiking w/Mar and Jim in Rocky Mountain National Park:

A very scenic rest stop in Utah, not far from Salt Lake City on I-80

Picturesque cabin in the woods

WE MADE IT!!!! (note window markers ;))

Adventure Eve

Here I sit upon the eve of my cross-country trek to Portland, OR. Half of me is thinking "what am I doing? Portland is far. this will be hard." The other (larger) half is thinking "Yeah!! When are we pulling out? Are we there yet?"

I'm very proud of Maura; she is braving her lifelong fear of tornados in Kansas right now. I know she will be safe, but I am thinking of her tonight! She is paving the way for Dan and I to follow her.

Well, I suppose I have dallied long enough. Must get back to the careful, strategic work of packing my car. As my paternal Grandfather always said:

"No event is as important as your attitude towards it."

Portland Bound...

Yes! It is true! After months of considering, debating, planning, saving, hoping, and waiting, Dan and I are moving to Portland, Oregon!

We flew out last week and found an apartment:

The view from the balcony


Dan with plunger


Accent wall!

I hope to continue posting on this blog once we move, so stay tuned for news of travels, jobs, noisy neighbors and more! We will leave for our cross-country trek on August 25/26/27th; we get to visit

Marie, Devin and Addison in Kansas City, KS,
Maura and Jim in Boulder, CO,
and
Mary Mike and Drew in Salt Lake City, UT

Shark Week

It is almost Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, and I went to see JAWS tonight at the AFI Silver...but there were NO SHARK HATS. However, the Discovery building in Silver Spring is adorned with shark parts!! Fins, tail, and head (though I didn't see the head, I can't personally vouch for that). I wish I worked for that company. They seem really cool. I mean...shark parts on a building? Nobody else I know does that.

Wedding Season

These past 2 weeks have been full of wedding festivities--the best part so far:

Baby!!!

Way too cute for words.

Have you been going to a lot of weddings?

Comment.

Tell me about it.

Hyper -link-ing

scan your mouse over each segment for a hyperlink surprise...

Why is it such a pain to search for a job?

I went to the Library of Congress today
it was pretty awesome

then I went to Gallaudet and realized my signing is already slower than it was 2 weeks ago!!

the best part of the day was when it rained really really hard and I ignored it/enjoyed it

:)

I'm practicing for the daily deluges of the Pacific NW.

ASL Immersion Week

TISLP at Washington School for the Deaf
Vancouver, WA

I spent a day flying/checking out Portland, OR, and this is my favorite photo from that portion:

I think it means "bikers beware of the light rail tracks" but it might just mean "watch where you're going or you'll fall on your face."



The program was awesome--I met a lot of cool people and signed a lot. Voice off for whole week--I know many are surprised I was able to accomplish, but it's true :)

Different forms of communication:

Signing (Sharon and Anna)

Writing (Helen and Andrew)

Gestures (Betsy and Amy)

Now I'm back to the humdrum life of searching for a job.

But Dan did a great job picking me up from the airport at 6:30am (in his matzoh ball t-shirt):



And I got cool henna at the Portland Saturday Market (on Sunday):

Garlic and Scrabble

Welcome to my blog!

Today I am thinking about garlic. It is a very potent spice. Or is it a spice at all? A root? a bulb? Whatever your pleasure, garlic has a very strong and lasting odor. I made pesto for my family this evening with a recipe from a farm in Oregon, and it called for quite a lot of garlic. Also for fresh basil, which I harvested from our porch.

Vegan Pesto
with love from Kings Valley
2 c. each packed basil leaves, toasted sunflower seeds (or walnuts or almonds-yum!), and water
about 8 cloves garlic, peeled and coarsley chopped
3/4 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. olive oil
Blend thoroughly in food processor or blender

Well, that's about all for today. The scrabble board is from the game my brother and I played tonight. it was a very close game, and I came out on top 240 to 239. We used all the letters.