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Best Day in June!

Yesterday was the best day I've had so far this month. I was to help volunteer with Friends of Trees at Portland Sunday Parkways up in North Portland. I just got a new helmet and have been wanting to ride Eleanor more and so it just felt right to bike up there and back from home - a 16 mile ride total. Longest ride I've done since 2010! (I need to make longer rides happen more, but I also need a different saddle. More on that in another post.) This was my day!

















All in all, it was a GREAT day and I had a ton of fun!!

P.S. Jenny has since updated the Friends of Trees Flickr with the photos we took yesterday, so I thought I'd link to them. Such happiness in all of them! What a great day for everyone! She got this shot of me giving a sticker to a little girl on her mom's bike. I love it!

Wishing For More, But Today is Not the Day

This post is not going to be everything I was hoping it would be. I'm just going to tell y'all that now. There is so much I want to say, but I have had some internet troubles (again) and don't have the time that I was hoping for tonight (writing this on Thursday night). I went over the downloading limit for the house I am staying at, so I can't use the internet there for awhile. I went to another place in town to try and use the internet there tonight because I wanted to upload the Diana Mini pictures I received today in the mail and scanned tonight, but it was kinda not to be. It was taking forever for my photos to upload and it was just a pain in the butt. So I am currently at my friend Brian's house, using his internet and snuggling his dog, so this is much better! Plus, he has plied me with Swedish Fish and wine, so I'm doing pretty good. ;o)

Quick P.S. I am now not at Brian's, but using the internet at the university. So this makes place #3 to use wifi tonight. This is how much I love you. I had many more plans for the internet, like I said, but today is not the day.

I am so excited to share a few of my Mini photos with you that I've taken since making my way toward Alaska! You can check out all of the photos here, but I have limited internet right now, so I'll just post a few.





Ta da! I hope you like them! I'm having such a good time playing around with my film cameras here in Alaska! I'm really looking forward to going to Anchorage and the Interior here in two weeks to visit my mom, because I am sure there will be lots of photo adventures there, as well!

Someone near and dear to my heart has been having some frustrating life issues lately. It is just about Stina's birthday and she's been having some frustrating times. Right now she is offering code "PARTY20" to get 20% off anything in her shop! Between her puppy having an emergency vet appointment and her MacBook's hard drive dying before she had a chance to back anything up, LET'S MAKE HER BIRTHDAY WONDERFUL!!!! Please visit her shop and check it out because We! Love! Stina!!!

I'm going to sign off for now. I still have more to say but hardly any battery life left, so I think it's time to call it a night and head home (where I will set up my new portable hard drive and do a Time Machine update on Mackey - woo woo!). I hope everyone has an AWESOME weekend and we'll see you back here on Monday, hopefully with a little bit more, due to some better internet. Wish me luck on my kayak safety class on Saturday!

Bike Rides, Celebratory Beer, and Harriet's First Lemon

I can't believe I've been back in Ketchikan for two full weeks now. I have done SO MUCH! Every day is a new adventure!

This weekend's main adventure was riding from Tongass Trading to the end of the paved bike trail out south. I have never done this, although I've wanted to. It got paved after I moved to Portland so I've never had the chance to ride on it until last night! As of right now is supposed to rain today so I just wanted to make sure I got in some good exercise before that happened. Not that rain will stop me, but I really wanted to ride Eleanor. It's been over a month! From going to riding her five times a week as a bike commuter to basically zero, I've been itching to ride her again. Finally! My friend Brian went with me, as he hadn't gone on the bike trail yet either.

First Pictures From My Diana Mini!

Okay, some of you may not care an ounce about this, but I ran my first roll of film through my Diana Mini and I'm really pleased with the results! I already own a Diana, but I like that the Mini uses 35mm film, which I could have developed in town when I'm in Ketchikan. I still plan on taking my Diana, but will have to send the 120 film to Citizen's Photo. Plus, I'm kinda of anal about the Diana's care, but I really like how small and portable the Mini is. After seeing these photos, I'm loving it!













I've been trying to document a lot of the "Portlandy" things that I love so that I can look at the photos when I go to Alaska (and it's raining sideways). Portland is sooo beautiful and I'm really, really thankful I live here now, but I'm going to miss it for those five or six months!

What a Week!

Whew, what a week this has been! I feel like a had a lot to do every day. Hopefully this week will be a little more laid-back than last week! I made an important executive decision last week that helped in my amount of free time. Since failing statistics and this meaning I will not be graduating until next year, I decided to put off doing my senior project until probably winter term next year. Since I only have one more month of being in Portland before going back to Alaska I wanted to enjoy my time here, not be stuck doing hours of paper writing. Since my paper also has to be on something anthropological, I am going to talk to my anth teacher in AK and some native elders about things and get some ideas there.

Anyway, so that's something that's been on my mind!

With all this free time I've been making a lot of soap! I've been trying to get as much made as I can so that by the time I get to Ketchikan I have a lot made up and options for people! I've gotten a few more in the shop lately...






It's been so much fun making all of this! I have so many more ideas for soaps that I want to make, but I only have so much time right now. But I really just want to make more and more!

I got my schedule from Steve for the coffee shop and it's looking like I'll be working around 50 hours a week. Yeah! Very excited about that. Gotta make some money!

On Saturday Jonathan and I went to OMSI, which is the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. The new exhibit was about Egypt and had a bunch of cool artifacts and we got to see a mummy, which was pretty cool. Every time we're at OMSI I also have to go say hi to the fish aquariums and see the fossils. They have six king salmon (Chinook!) smolt there. So cute!

Sunday afternoon Jonathan and I rode our bikes to REI, which was sooo nice. I haven't been somewhere on my bike other than to and from work in so long, it seems. The weekend weather hasn't really been conducive to wanting to get out and about with Eleanor, so I'm thankful I finally got to! Jonathan has been wanting to get me a bike jersey but I haven't really seen anything that I like until today! I now own the cutest bike jersey in the world AND I found a cute pair of action skorts to wear with it. Now if we only had some warm weather I'd be totally set!

Things I'm loving lately

In recent past there have been several things I've been excited about. (I'm always excited about *something* but this is worth extra excitement.)

Excitement #1: Lavender lemonade

I had my first lavender lemonade at the Dog River Coffee Company in Hood River, OR, last Saturday. It was AMAZING! It was so good that I knew I had to make some for myself. It was the perfect refreshment for a hot summer day. I found this recipe and decided to try it out the other night. I had bought some dried lavender a few weeks ago to make some lavender ice cream, but that hadn't happened yet, so lemonade it was!

This is my awesomely crappy cellphone picture of the process. I have the lavender steeping, while the lemon juice is getting nice and cold in the ice.

I'm going to mention now that I don't measure things, although I did measure the sugar this time. (Well, I do when I'm baking, too, but I digress.) The recipe calls for 1/4 cup of lavender, but I think I may have used more like 1/2 cup. Also, I put about the correct amount of lemon juice in at first, but then ended up adding more because I LOVE lemon flavor! So it was pretty lemony. I highly recommend trying this recipe and then playing with the amounts yourself!

Excitement #2: My bike

This bike has been in the process of being made for well over a year and, as of last week, it is finally done!!

I moved to Portland in August, 2008, with my bike Matilda. She was beautiful in a way only a bike mother could love. She had been bought at a police auction by my friend Joey, then fixed up well enough to ride around Ketchikan. He then bestowed her upon me. I spray painted her gold. Like I said, she was beautiful. My friend Kate and I rode bikes almost every day when the weather was cooperating (basically, not raining sideways - it IS a temperate rainforest, after all). When I moved to Portland, I brought her with me.

Unfortunately, the problem with free bikes is that sometimes they're not completely worry-free. Jonathan (dear boyfriend and quite knowledgeable about bikes) took one look at her and proclaimed her a little unsafe. To be more precise, the fork was bent and she was so rusty that he was afraid she would fall apart under me while I was riding. So Matilda went to live in the spare bedroom and that was that.

Enter Jonathan building me a new bike. It took over a year and lots of saving money (we had a bike fund that direct deposited a set amount from my paycheck into it), but as of this month my bike was finally completed!

He knows more about the details than I, but, let me tell you, this is a *nice* bike. I love her frame (Soma's Buena Vista mixte that is the perfect size for my height), the color (the EXACT color I wanted), the Brooks saddle, and (possibly my favorite thing about her) the custom cherry wood fenders, handmade for me (made from recycled hardwoods!) by Woody's Fenders in Bend.

This bike is a dream to ride. I had never once thought I would have a bike made custom for me, but Jonathan did just that. He is amazingly talented!

My new bike's name is Eleanor. Why my bicycles have old lady names is beyond me, but I like them and they seem fitting somehow.



This is the only "good" picture of Matilda I could find. After Eleanor was finished we took Matilda to the Community Cycling Center to donate her. She was a great bike! I would say "while she lasted," but Jonathan would debate that statement. :o)


Excitement #3: Ethiopia Harrar Longberry


Right now I'm drinking a cup of one of my absolute favorite coffees, which is also the coffee of the month at my coffee shop. It's Ethiopia Harrar Longberry and it is DELICIOUS. I first had Harrar seven years ago this very day (not kidding). I was at the Blueberry Festival in Ketchikan and found a guy selling coffee and had samples of this coffee that had hints of blueberry in it, in honor of the Blueberry Festival. I tried some and was immediately hooked. I bought a couple bags and was so happy.

I was working at Tongass Business Center at the time. This man, whose name I found out was Steve, would come into the shop to buy office supplies. I constantly bugged him about coffee. It turns out he was going to have a little coffee stand at the college, which was perfect since I was starting school again later that month. I bought coffee from Steve all throughout fall and spring semesters and when it was getting to be toward the end of spring semester I told him if he ever needed help at his shop that I would love to help. Eventually he did and in April, 2004, I became a member of The Green Coffee Bean Company!

So that's how this very coffee got me to where I am today, still working for The Green Coffee Bean Company, although as the Field Agent, versus the other hats I have worn there (manager, barista, gopher, office person, etc.)

Excitement #4: Dog River Coffee Co. tiny coffee mug

I drove to Hood River last week for the main reason of picking up this coffee mug:
I first saw it three weeks ago when Jonathan and I were heading back from a camping trip in Washington. We needed more coffee than we had originally made at the campsite and I had remembered seeing the Dog River Coffee Co. sign in one of our previous trips to Hood River. When I saw this mug I immediately fell in love, but I didn't buy it right away. I don't really NEED any more thermal coffee mugs, but there were a few things about this mug that I really, really liked.

• It is only 10oz. I liked the tiny size. Small things are cute, right?
• They have Lewis & Clark on the label. One thing you will soon know about me is that I am a huge Lewis & Clark nerd. Total 100% nerd-dom. I read books, go on Lewis & Clark site adventures (road trips to sites where they stopped), research them, etc. If it has to do with my history homies, I am all for it.
• I love Hood River because it reminds me SO much of Ketchikan in Oregon, so I like supporting it.

I was supposed to do a food foraging workshop on Sauvie Island last week, but the time changed and I didn't find out until it was too late, so I had a whole day ahead of me. I decided to go to Hood River and pick up this coffee mug! (I also went to the Double Mountain Brewery in Hood River to enjoy one of their crazy fabulous IRAs and fill our growler up with the stuff. Lemme tell you, that stuff is SO GOOD OMG. One of my all-time favorite beers, but you can only get it in Hood River. I dream about it.)


So that, my friends, are four (five if you count the IRA) of the things I have been super excited about lately.