Time for another update, huh? Somehow I've got a backlog of six weekly Felix pictures to share. The weeks just keep passing, whether I write about them or not! At 36 weeks old (way back in mid-Janu...

Here are pictures of our freshly painted house. I'm sure the chartreuse door isn't historically accurate for a 1906 Craftsman bungalow, but I sure do love it! Here's the front of the house, before ...

One more Aviatrix, plus a sneak peak of our new door color. I love this yarn color; I'm hoping there's enough left over to make myself a hat with it. I should really be working on sewing Arlo...

Wow, six new orange chair photos to share? I guess it has been a while. At 17 weeks old, Felix found his big kid voice, and he started hollering for fun. I don't remember Arlo going through a loud ...

Happy September! Here is Felix at 13-16 weeks old, making pretty much the same face every time (I swear, he smiles a lot too!). And here's his sweet little almost-bald head at three month...

What a crazy week! My sister Lianna came to visit at the beginning of the week, and unfortunately, Patrick and I came down with a cold almost as soon as she got here. Luckily, she was still able to ge...

Wow, it's March already! Arlo turned 21 months old last week. As you can see in the pictures, his hair has been getting pretty crazy, so a few days ago, I decided to try cutting it myself, ra...

Arlo turned 16 months old a little over a week ago. He's getting so big! In the past month, he's gotten really good at climbing down from things on his tummy, feet first. He can climb down fr...

As of Monday, Arlo is one year old. Wowza! We had a nice, small birthday party on Sunday. The overcast weather kept us inside (the curse of having a Memorial Day birthday in Portland), but we s...

Hmm, somehow it has been three weeks since I last posted. Arlo turned 10 months old on Friday! I have lots to share, including three weeks' worth of orange chair pictures: First, the State ...

Thirty-eight (and a half) weeks! Sorry to keep you in suspense by being quiet for so long. The baby is still in the belly, though he did drop last night when I was getting ready for bed. I felt some b...

Hello! Not quite time yet for a belly picture this week, but I figured I might want to do more frequent posts now, since the baby could come at any time, and I'm sure I won't feel like writing a post ...

Thirty-five weeks! As Patrick pointed out, the expiration date on his yogurt is now after our baby's due date. Not much longer now... Our pre-baby education continues. This weekend, we went...

Thirty-four weeks! We are definitely shifting into baby panic mode at this point, working hard to get everything ready before he shows up. We're making progress, which is satisfying. Regard...

Thirty-three weeks! Can you tell I was tired when I took this picture? I'm not too tired in general; this was just during a post-lunch slump. I took a quick walk in the sunshine a little later (with f...

Thirty-one weeks! Actually we're at 31.5 at this point. Patrick was out of the house this weekend enjoying some pre-baby hang-out time with friends from college (they rented a condo downtown for the w...

It took a little work, but we have obtained a dresser for the nursery! Yesterday, we went to five consignment/vintage stores (Consigned Home Furnishings, Rerun, I Heart Retro, Shag, and Hawthorne V...

Wow, 30 weeks! Three-quarters of the way there. I'm definitely starting to feel a little unwieldy, but it's not too bad. I've been feeling fewer sharp kicks recently, which is consistent wi...

Twenty-eight weeks! We've made it to the third trimester. Good job, baby! Here's a bonus family portrait to celebrate (we tried to get Patches in there too, but she wasn't interested). We had...

I played around with Photoshop today, trying to find some good paint colors for the nursery. I think I'd like to get paint from Yolo Colorhouse (they're local! And environmentally friendly, but of cou...

Twenty-one weeks--the baby is allegedly as long as a (large) banana. That seems about right. His kicks are getting stronger, which is exciting! We can count on him to put on a little kicking show righ...

Twenty weeks--the halfway point (give or take)! The big news this week is that we had our 20-week ultrasound this morning, and it's a boy! Whoa! We actually had a little false start related to the ...

I feel like it has been forever since I've updated, but I guess it hasn't been that long. I just haven't done much of note in the past few weeks. The weather turned cold suddenly last week, and I just...

Some recent tidbits: Shangri-La, the new Indian place at SE 26th and Clinton appears to have closed (already!). Bummer--we never got to try their full menu! They've scraped the paint off the wind...

I had the opportunity to rent a few movies this week, and after reading this post about The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, I decided to check it out. I'm not sold on the entire dialogue being sung, but I ...

Baking We went to a fun barbecue at Susan's on Friday, in honor of Linda and Paul, who were in town for Linda's book signing. It was great meeting them! My contribution to the barbecue was a shiro ...

Today is our one-year Portlandiversary (and house-iversary)! It has been such a great year--I'm so glad we decided to actually move here instead of just talking about it forever. Yay, Portland! In ...

Man, I meant to write about last weekend sooner, but it got so hot this past week, and I couldn't bear to have my laptop on my lap. But now, with the sun down and the fan aimed at me, I think I can ma...

I think I'm more aware of plants now that we live in Portland, both because we have a garden and because we walk and bike a lot, so we notice our surroundings more often. Right now, lilacs are in bloo...

We've been having a good time in Portland, as usual! Let's see... We went on a moss and lichen nature walk at Tryon Creek State Park a week or so ago. I learned so much about moss and lichen (not a...

I just bought a letterpress card with this Dylan Thomas poem on it: "I love you more than all the flannelete and calico, candlewick, dimity, crash and merio, lussore, cretonne, crepon, muslin popli...

We were running errands on Hawthorne this morning, so we stopped for brunch at Belly Timber. It's located in a nice old Victorian house, and I liked the way they combined embossed wallpaper with paint...

Hmm, it appears that I haven't written in a while, based on my backlog of food photos. Let's see... We had a nice, low-key New Year's Eve. We went to Bar Avignon (a cozy bistro/wine bar) for dinner...

Since Portland is moving into winter, Patrick and I decided it was time to invest in a good comforter. We chose a Wul comforter, which I had read about in Sunset a few years ago. We also got a nice du...

We woke up early on Saturday morning to the first frost of the season. We layered up with lots of Smartwool and headed over to a church in the Richmond neighborhood for our Friends of Trees planting d...

Guess what! I'm writing this post on my new laptop. Her name is meringue, and she's a refurbished MacBook. My old laptop stopped working about a month ago, and we waited until the post-Thanksgiving sa...

What a good 4-day weekend! We managed to get a few things done around the house. We had been wanting to frost the lower panes of our downstairs bathroom window for a while, and I finally did it using ...

We had a good weekend! Yesterday, Patrick attended training to become a Friends of Trees crew leader, and I went shopping on Alberta Street (that's how it always seems to happen--Patrick does the manu...

I bought some nice fall/winter clothes yesterday! My original plan was to stop by Pin Me to buy some Orla Kiely rain boots at 25% off (there seemed to be lots of big sales this weekend), but the boots...

Another good (and busy!) weekend in Portland. On Saturday, we went to the Screenprinting for Change party that I mentioned earlier, and we had a great time! I need to get more involved in the Portland...

Man, Portland is great! I'm glad it has lived up to my expectations so far. First of all, check out the beautiful produce I bought at our farmers' market! That's not even all of it! I also bought a vi...

We still haven't gotten to any big home improvement projects, but we're making headway on the little things. Earlier this week, we replaced our original (cracked, painted) Old Portland house numbers w...

I didn't do the project I had originally planned for today (painting two rain barrels for our yard) because it was cold and drizzly, which didn't seem like ideal spray-painting weather. Instead, I unp...

Last Sunday, we stopped in at the Polish Festival and waited in long lines for pierogies and potato pancakes. And then I made Patrick go furniture shopping on Mississippi Ave., even though he probably...

Last Friday night, we went back to Doug Fir to take in a show (that's what people our age are supposed to do, right?). We were there to see the second band of the night, A Weather, but we were very pu...

Patches came back on Saturday! We bought her some kitty treats to celebrate. I'm glad she turned up. Here are a few pictures from this evening. The sunset was really pretty, and weather was balmy. I s...

We just found out that you can buy pudding at the farmers' market! Jacob's Creamery sells containers of homemade vanilla and chocolate pudding, alongside a nice assortment of cheeses. Totally awesome!...

Some of my coworkers wanted to know what my home office looks like, so I put a few pictures on Flickr (click the picture below for a couple more). It's pretty basic, but it works. I am especially exci...

It has been raining off and on today, but the weather was nice yesterday, and we spent most of it riding around Portland on our bikes. In the morning, we rode across the bridge to PSU campus, to check...

Today we found out that Patches the cat has an owner and is not homeless or starving at all. What a sneaky kitty! Also, I found out that Patches pooped under our lemon tree at least twice in the past ...

Whoa, dude--we just met our next door neighbors, and not only are they young and cool--they are also the owners of Tart (the frozen yogurt shop on Division that we visited earlier this week)! It's lik...

It has been hot for the past few days--like record-breaking hot! I'm glad it's not always like this. We have been staying inside during the day, for the most part, and only venturing into the garden i...

Yesterday evening and this morning we spent a good chunk of time in the yard, pulling weeds and pruning our plants. It's satisfying work. I have been working on deadheading our two rose bushes, which ...

Oh my god, our new neighborhood has an ice cream truck! It has a painting of a dragon eating ice cream on the side. I'm stoked! (Our neighborhood also has a scary war veteran house that is very pla...

We made it to Portland! We are excited about our house, even though our to do list is steadily growing. Let me recap... On Saturday morning, I got up early and made a batch of blondies and some lem...

We are now the proud owners of a house in Portland! The title transferred today (as did the down payment--gulp!). I guess it's time to start packing for real, since we'll be moving in less than two we...

Well, Robbie finally gained admission to the mysterious detached garage at our new house, and it turned out that it was just a normal garage--no pot plants, no freezers full of dead bodies, nothing at...

I do believe we bought a house today! We worked from home this morning (well, Patrick did; I couldn't get my VPN working), then went to the bank to get a cashier's check of staggering proportions. The...

House buying is back on track and moving along quickly. The second appraisal came back fine, and it appears that our loan has been approved. We're scheduled to sign our closing papers on Friday! We re...

Things are going smoothly with our second lender so far; hopefully we'll get a good appraisal this time. I suppose the first appraisal wasn't necessarily bad, but we're hoping this one will allow us t...

Home-buying update: We made it out of the inspection period and came to a good compromise on the two things that we want fixed right away (properly supporting the basement door and fixing the retainin...

We're about halfway through the home-buying process at the moment. We're getting to the end of the inspection period, though we're still going through some negotiations on the retaining wall repair. N...

Two things that I meant to mention in my last post but forgot about (and a third thing for good measure!): 1. The inspector told Patrick that if he (the inspector) were the one buying the house, hi...

We're feeling better about the house today. Robbie called and gave me a pep talk about how this house is actually above average considering its age and price. He acknowledged that reading through the ...

Patrick flew out to Portland for a few hours today to attend the home inspection. The inspector was awesome and really thorough (we definitely recommend Owens Inspection Services if you need a house i...

Mmm, the multi-bean salad recipe in The New Moosewood Cookbook (similar to this one) is really tasty. I made mine with black-eyed peas, green beans, and three kinds of beans from Rancho Gordo (eye of ...

We're still buying the Portland house, as far as we know. For the past few days, we've been working on gathering the financial documents required by our lender, and Patrick is going to fly back out to...

I think we may have bought a house today! We made an offer on it yesterday, and the seller accepted it this morning, so barring problems with inspections or financing, it'll be ours on July 18. I don'...

I have majorly fallen off of the interesting cooking wagon since our trip to Portland and Bend. We've been eating a lot of salads (nothing wrong with that!). I think this is partially because it is su...

Some bits and pieces: We went to the Menlo Park Connoisseur's Marketplace a few weekends ago. My coworkers said it was one of the best art and wine festivals in the Bay Area (I didn't realize ...

I took last Friday off to get some errands done, and I had lunch at Shiok in Menlo Park. I'd known about it for a while, but we'd never gotten around to going there. I sat down by the window, read m...

I had a good birthday weekend. We headed to the East Bay on Saturday, stopping by Romolo's Spumoni and Cannoli Factory to pick up some cannoli for our picnic with Tree and Andrew. I read about Romol...

Patrick made some good soup for dinner last week--Lentil Soup with Balsamic-Roasted Winter Vegetables from Cooking Light. I made a salad of Belgian endive and radicchio with an orange vinaigrette to ...

We went to Straits (in Palo Alto) for the first time last weekend. It's Singaporean food heavily influenced by other Asian cuisines. Everything on the menu looked really good! We started by shari...

I haven't mentioned our garden much this summer, but it's doing well. I've taken pictures of its progress every so often. If you like that kind of thing, click the flowering Thai basil. I've given ...

A few nights ago, Patrick made us breakfast for dinner: Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes, grapefruit, and Tomato and Chard Frittata (from Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites). I thought the frittata was ki...

I was happily domestic this weekend. Patrick spent a good chunk of the weekend in San Francisco with Nat, Sara and Andrew, drinking beer and eating meat at all their favorite places (Suppenkuche, Tor...

Tonight we had Fish Tagine with Chermoulla (from Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites) and Trader Joe's Brown Rice Medley (on my mom's recommendation). Not very attractively plated; my apologies! I rea...

I'm too busy enjoying life to write about it! Not much new to tell; like most weekends, this one was spent eating sushi at Akasaka, staring at our garden (only I do that), eating pastrami sandwiches ...

We will have lived in this apartment for a year come September. It's a wonderful place, and I love almost everything about it, including the seafoam green bathroom. We renewed our lease today, and...

I kept meaning to write something this weekend, but it was just too nice lounging around instead. Here goes with the update... This past week, Patrick took a big step forward in organizing our tri...

Curtain Hanging Phase 1 is complete, thanks in large part to Patrick. Our kitchen window now has roman blinds that filter the light nicely (from Ikea, of course). I like them! There are so ma...

Happy spring and everything else! We're not doing anything Easter-related today, but I think we're going to hang some curtains. I've been wanting to put up curtains since we moved in, but it j...

I did all sorts of little productive things this weekend while Patrick was in Palm Springs riding his bike really far along with Erin, Tree, and Andrew. I wish I could've joined them (not in the bike...

I got my new bike yesterday. It's so pretty! Tomorrow I'm going to ride it for the first time. Every Sunday, part of Canada Road is closed to cars, and only pedestrians and cyclists are allowed on ...

Today, we bought a vacuum and toaster oven! We found what we wanted online, but both were Walmart exclusives (I don't know why GE will only sell their toaster ovens there), so we had to go to Walmart...

Last night, we had a hankering for ribs, so we went to Austin's for dinner. It's not awesome food, but I liked it better this time around than last time. I had a combo plate of St. Louis ribs and br...

We went to the beach today, as planned. It was wonderful. We took the scenic route there, taking the 84 and then Highway 1. It looks like the farmers around Half Moon Bay are already gearing up for...

I just haven't had it in me to walk around and take pictures of our apartment (the heat just sucks all the energy out of us!). But here are a few I took the other day. Better than nothing! Here's...

Patrick and I have resolved to work hard all day tomorrow, then go to the beach on Thursday, to make the most of being partially unemployed (we're not fully unemployed, since I have my part time progr...

Our apartment is almost ready to have pictures taken of it. There are still a bunch of things we want to do to improve it, but it has all the essentials now. Our couch arrived today from IKEA. We e...

In an attempt to get rid of all the nasty stranger hair matted into our carpet, we bought a One Sweep broom at Walgreens today (apparently buying it online is a gyp). It works pretty well. It seem...

Ah, we finally have Internet access in our apartment! The cable guy was six hours late, but it was worth it. It was so weird not being able to check online to see where the nearest Target is or see ...

The apartment is ours! We signed the lease and got the keys today, and tomorrow we'll pick up a big truck and move everything over there! I also lucked out and found out that my CyberSense boss has ...

After finding out that we'll most likely be getting the apartment we want (I can't wait for Tuesday!), we realized that we have very little furniture, and soon we'll need more. Right now, we have a f...

Yesterday, we gave our applications and credit reports to the cool landlady, and she called us this morning, saying that everything looks good! We have an appointment to do another walk through and s...

We only looked at 7 apartments today, but it felt like way more than that! Lots of driving around and talking to building managers. By the end, we couldn't remember which apartment had which feature...

I spent some time today reading more about making your own sourdough bread. It sounds exciting to have your own starter--like having a pet! Except instead of being entertaining and lovable, it just ...

Last night, Z took Patrick and I to Mi Piace in Pasadena. It was to thank Patrick for helping do a colloquium on short notice; I just tagged along. It was really nice! And the prices started at Oli...