Pro-Soup Propaganda: awesomeness

Showing posts with label awesomeness. Show all posts

Monday, December 30, 2013

Pro-Soup Propaganda's 2013 Year in Review

Oh, 2013, what a funny, weird, great, horrible year you were.

I did some pretty awesome stuff this year.

*I did a fair amount of hiking! I did some nice walks at Mt. Tabor, other hikes around Portland, went to some parks, hiked up Multnomah Falls, and hiked (and camped!) in Central Oregon's high desert, to name a few.

*I met Lil Bub, Internet Cat Sensation!

*Jonathan and I finally kayaked and it was awesome!

*I got laid-off from my "main" job and all of my side-hustles soon became my job! Luckily I am making a bunch of money and am able to put a ton of it into savings.

*I saw Michael Pollan speak for the second time.

*Jonathan and I went whale-watching at the coast and it was awesome!

*I had a great, well-earned sandwich at the top of Mt Waynapicchu.

*I went to Ketchikan to work a lot and saw some bears, went to Easter Island and saw a lot of moai, saw the Nazca Lines, hiked the Sun Gate Trail, was forgotten by the train in middle-of-nowhere Peru and hiked back to Machu Picchu Pueblo in the dark (still one of my top favorite travel memories!), explored Machu-freaking-Picchu!, and explored Cusco.

*We adopted the weirdest member of our family, hands down. Welcome, FunCat, we are glad to have you, even though you may be a small evil orange wizard, but we are glad you live in the Fortress of Joy with us!

*I made a packing list of my carry-on bag for my three weeks in South America. Maybe it will inspire or help you?

*Amy and I had some amazing conversations.

*Jonathan and I only snowshoed once this year. We tried to go again last week, but Mt. Hood doesn't have enough snow on it. Boo!

*I thought I helped co-create #slothing but apparently it's been the rage on the internet already.

*I fulfilled some Gob Bluth wannabe-ness and rode a Segway!

*I cooked some of my favorite recipes that I still love to make: Chicken Vegetable Soup, Thai Coconut Soup, Basil Garbanzo Beans and Quinoa, Curry-Fried Quinoa, and the best Chicken and Veggie Noodle Soup ever!

*I visited a U-Pick farm with Amy and look forward to returning!

While there were more many happy memories this year than not, this was a really painful year in parts. I had some personal life issues that took several months to deal with. I'm still dealing with them, really. I'm doing my best to focus on the now and look forward to healing and feeling better, but sometimes it sucks. I feel kind of lost and floundery sometimes (like I'm floundering, not like this guy, cute as he is). I know things will get better and I'm doing the best I can, but I am really excited to go to Antarctica and focus on me for a bit. I have been working my butt off the past two months and am looking forward to reaping the benefits.

This was my list of 2013 Resolutions. While I actually did pretty good on that stuff (yay reading lots of books and saving money!), there is stuff that didn't really happen (going to the Japanese Garden and yoga).

This new year is going to be called "Year of the Radical." (2013 was "Year of the Waffle." It was a delicious year.) There are going to be some radical changes. Things are going to be shaken up. Amy is going to be moving in with us quite soon, which will help both her and us with our respective money situations. I will be going on my big adventures. Jonathan and I will both be getting mountain bikes. We want to go on more bigger adventures together. I no longer need to totally kill myself with trying to earn money to pay for my trips. I will still be hustling but I would like to think that now I don't have to drive myself crazy with Making All The Money, but, who am I kidding myself, it IS nice to have it. ;o)

Brendan Leonard's post "Do Things And Make Things Next Year" really resonated with me. His goals for next year? "Do Things" and "Make Things." After being SO busy this year and having it jam-packed with everything, I am looking forward to a little bit of downtime. I want time to do stuff and time to make stuff. What will those things be? I don't know, but I look forward to finding out.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Saving Money and Having Fun: Visiting a U-Pick Farm in Portland

Thank you, Amy, for the cute pic of myself!

On Friday I got to do something that I've only done one other time since I've lived in Oregon, which is visit a u-pick farm. What's a u-pick farm, you ask? Well, it's a farm where you get to go pick all the fruits, vegetables, and flowers you want and it's cheaper that way because you're doing the work yourself! I coerced Amy to go with me right when Sauvie Island Farms opened because I wanted to get out there and get pickin' before the sun got super hot. Luckily she was game (after a yummy coffee) and we had a great time!

My main goal was to pick a bunch of blueberries, but I was open to getting other fruits or berries, as well. Jonathan makes smoothies every morning and fruit really adds up in cost! Since it's something we use daily I wanted to stock up. Blueberries, marionberries (a kind of blackberry that only grows in Oregon), and blackberries at the farm were only $2 a pound! We also ended up getting broccoli ($1/lb), kale ($3/lb), beets (don't remember price), corn on the cob (25 cents an ear), and more! We spent four hours at the farm and picked.....

wait for it.....

35lbs of berries!

After getting home I began the task of cleaning and processing everything. This has taken a few days, because it takes time to freeze things in batches. You have to freeze the blackberries and broccoli on cookie sheets and then transfer them into bags or containers because otherwise you end up with a large chunk of plant matter frozen together and it's hard to get it out later for use. Also, vegetables contain an enzyme that makes the plant mushy if you don't blanch them before you freeze, so I've had to do the corn and broccoli in small batches because there is only so much room in our freezer. But Amy and I had a great time and I'm happy to save money and do something fun with my friend!

Back at home I processed the berries first since they are the most delicate. Sunday afternoon I started in on the broccoli. I had to trim all of it and clean it. I ended up only being able to blanch and freeze one bowl's worth, so I'll have to do the rest later.

This is what our freezer is currently looking like. It's getting more and more filled and soon will be lined with containers full of fruit and vegetables and in a few days I'll be stocking up on chickens and those will be in the freezer as well!

Everything I bought ended up costing $66, which sounds like a lot until you think about how much this can all cost at the grocery store. Blueberries are usually $4-6 per pound, broccoli is usually a couple bucks, and those are foods we eat quite a bit. I have bought several 2lb bags of blackberries at New Seasons and Whole Foods that are in the $9-10 range! I'm hoping to go get more fruits and veggies later but will have to see how full our freezer is first.

Have you ever done a u-pick farm? Would you ever do one?

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

World Domination Summit: Are You Going?

This weekend there is a conference happening here in Portland that I have been looking forward to for a very long time. Perhaps you've heard of it? It's the World Domination Summit. If you're not sure what it is, my friend Kathleen of Frugal Portland summed it up best: "The World Domination Summit is a conference for people who are in industries that don't have conferences." There will be all sorts of people there. Bloggers, travel hackers, financial folk, and people who might be living a more unconventional life. So many people I follow online went last year and it seemed really life-changing and there was almost an electrical buzz with how excited people were after they went. I want some of that! I'm super excited to be going with Amy, as well! If you're going and see me there, come say hi!

P.S. I'm back in the states! I got back on Sunday and it's been busy-busy ever since. I'll hopefully have blogs about my trip for next week, but until then you can check out some of my photos over on Flickr.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Dana and I's Downtown Portland Segway Tour Adventure

Yesterday I got to mark something off my bucket list. I got to ride on a Segway!

I've been wanting to ride one of these since I first heard of them. I remember reading about "Ginger" and was so curious about it. I always thought it would be cool to ride one, but, living in Ketchikan, didn't know how I could ever make that happen. It seemed like something weirdly fanciful so I put it in the back of my mind. Last year when I was working at the Saturday Market I noticed a pod of grinning people riding Segways through the crowds and they looked like they were having So Much Fun. I looked it up, but it was around $75 for a two hour tour. Since I was trying to save so much money for my trips I just kept it in the back of my mind as something I could some day do, but now I at least knew I *could* do it in Portland.

Enter Jonathan emailing me that there was a Groupon for it! My friend Dana had been nice enough to house my kayak for a few days. (I had decided to sell it, as I've owned it for two years and haven't ever used it. Some of you may recall summer of 2011 where there was a lot of kayaking planned and none of it ever happened. Well, it worked out that my friend Bekka in Ketchikan needed a kayak, so she bought it from me and some friends of hers picked it up. So, in thanks, I bought Dana a Groupon to go with me on this tour! Jonathan thinks it's too dorky and wouldn't do it, so I'm so happy that she said yes. :o) She was a little hesitant at first but then ended up having a great time! The weather was perfect and our tour guide, Jered, was SO nice! I highly recommend Portland by Segway and would love to do this again!