Pro-Soup Propaganda

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.

Local framebuilder Ira Ryan on the left!

"You didn't pass the cucumber? Drop and give me ten!"

Heading to North Portland on a beautiful morning

Trying to get a good picture of the "sharrow"

More stop sign wisdom

YES. Best mat ever!

Getting Garry Oak ready

He dances!

Have you ever seen a dancing tree?

These people loved the dancing!

Garry's first hug of the day!

Greg and I are the only two people we know with "DON'T PANIC" tattoos

Garry and I!

As some of you may have seen on Twitter the other night, Jonathan was in a bike accident on Tuesday, his 30th birthday. He had just picked up a gallon of milk from Freddie's after work and was heading down the steep hill back to our house. I guess bystanders say he had to hit his front brake because a car did something crazy and he flipped over the front of his bike on the hill and whacked his head. The ambulance wasn't going to take his bike and so a good Samaritan held onto it for safekeeping, giving the EMTs his info so Jonathan or someone could pick the bike up later. (Jonathan's bike is his BABY. I can't believe the EMTs were just going to leave it.)

I got a call from an EMT telling me Jonathan was in a bike accident and that he was okay and to meet them at the ER. I got there and they'd shown up not long beforehand. J was still in a C-collar and still very much in shock, completely shaking and crying a little bit and totally freaked out. When the nurse took him to get a CAT scan and x-rays I went to pick up Jonathan's bike. The guy was SO nice and helped take off the front wheel and load it into the car. I am so thankful there are honest people like him out there.

I got back and Jonathan had just been wheeled back into the room. He had some really bad road rash on his left shoulder and a little bit on his face and a pretty good bruise going. He had a concussion from hitting his head so hard and blacking out. He has the bruise shape of his helmet across his forehead. He was still very contussed, and kept asking the same questions over and over. We finally got to leave ER around 9pm, three hours later, went to get pizza and milk (wouldn't that be evil if I didn't even get milk?!) from Freddie's, Percocet from Walgreen's and headed home. He rested on the couch while I cleaned up the milk mess inside his bag. He had no short term memory. He would ask what happened to him, so then I'd answer him. He'd ask that he probably needed a new helmet? Then immediately ask again what happened to him. He was concerned about the same things, so when I had to leave him to clean up his bag I wrote down the answers to all of his questions, which seemed to keep him calm when I wasn't there.

I had to clean off his face and change all the bandages on him, which took quite awhile. He was a mess! They hadn't cleaned off his face at all, so he had a bunch of dried blood in his beard that was a pain to get out.

Thankfully, yesterday morning I got up because I heard him up and around and he was back to his normal self, albeit one with a bad headache and very woozy. Scary thing! I'm so glad he's okay. He probably would have been seriously injured or killed if he hadn't been wearing his helmet. I can't believe this all happened on his birthday, too. We are both thankful that we haven't had a chance to celebrate his birthday, because he wouldn't remember it! So we will celebrate tonight or tomorrow when he can really enjoy it. Some of his birthday presents were alcohol, which he can't enjoy until tomorrow, due to the concussion.

Some photos taken on Tuesday night:

Moral of the story is: WEAR YOUR HELMET! Jonathan is one of the safest cyclists I know and this still happened to him. Sometimes there's nothing you can do in a situation, which is why pre-planning (wearing the helmet) is important. We'll be going to get him a new helmet in a few days, when he feels up to leaving the house again. I'm completely thankful that he's going to be okay and that his bike is okay!

I know.

I know!

I haven't hardly posted lately.

I've been working a ton, trying to finish my senior paper so I can graduate (June 16 - holla!), and we're now long-term cat-sitting.

Whew.

All I have to say is that I'm glad it sounds like life will be settled a little bit more soon. I'm sad that my days off have been less "day off" than they usually are. They've been filled with writing my paper for hours at a time, running errands, and doing...stuff? I miss having free days to do fun adventures! I need to get to the coast sometime soon! Maybe a celebratory coast trip once my paper is officially turned in.

Anyway, enough whiny-complainy fill-you-in stuff. Here is what I've been up to lately in pictures. More fun adventures soon!

I helped Shawn of Pixel Party for two different craft shows. I honed my spray painting skillz. 

I drank a lot of iced coffee. 

I swooooooooned because my beloved Kyan Douglas tweeted at me! Sigh. He is so dreamy.

(My first celebrity tweet, I think! Aaaaa!) 

Super amazing crazy sparkly freaking awesome headband from Shana of Cookoorikoo! 

Jonathan has been working his booty off on mad overtime. While we have put almost all of it into savings, we did buy a griller pan to match the rest of our Le Creuset cookware. We had a different grill pan that we completely wore out and we had to throw it away. When it's summertime, we GRILL.

I saw Charlie's new coffee bike when he got some supplies from us at work! He did an amazing job! It's gorgeous! 

I house-sat for Shana and Shawn when they went to California for a week. Monkey and I had a great time playing hide-n-go-seek. I found you, Monkey! 

Monkey and Britt: BFFs. 

Pupper butts. 

Artoo enjoyed using Monkey as a chin rest. 

I got a Muluk hat and I LOVE IT!!! Cutest hat ever, made of recycled material. 

Katrina, our temporary kitty! A very nice cat, but likes things done her way. 

Can you spot the pets? 

I got a scarf from New Duds that I've been wanting since at least October. I figured if I still want it over half a year later it passes muster and it must be mine! I absolutely adore it! 

Amy and I's exclusive club will be having our June meeting on the 1st. 

Katrina: Queen of the Doormat.

And you! How have you been?

P.S. Did you see I am now at 40% saved for Antarctica! EEEEEEE!!!!!

While we were on our big coast drive the other day, Jonathan and I got to talking about some of the things we'd like to do this year. Since I was gone so much of last year, there is so much I missed out on that I am looking forward to doing with him this year!

I know there are many more things that we talked about wanting to do, but this is the preliminary list. I can't wait! If any readers have any ideas for fun stuff we could do I'd love to hear them!

Artoo didn't want to sit directly on the floor, so he found the next best thing: a tiny towel!

Kate visited while we house-sat!

Hot Toddies Girl Bike Gang for the win!!

We went to the coast

Halo looked bewildered...

She realized we had new rugs...

Thought about them...

Decided they were okay!

We had a neighbour pug who wanted to be friends with Artoo

Jonathan bought us matching Battles shirts for my birthday...

Yeah, we commenced dorking out. (There are other photos, too!)

(Too much rock for one hand!)

Halo was still bewildered...

I made my first turkeyloaf, back when we still shopped at WinCo.

We celebrated our one year anniversary by staying at the Edgefield!

Jonathan made me an epic birthday cake that year

It was HAPPY! (And delicious.)

(Please note my "Angler's Guide to Rockfishes of Alaska" on the fridge.)

(I am a fish nerd.)

We got our first vanity plate, because, duh, I'm Alaskan and that's what we do!

(Although in my heart my car is still ROKFSH, I admit.)

(Rockfishes, I still massively love you.)

We adopted our cat, Jeff, who we only had for eight months. He died of cancer and had diabetes and IBS. We loved him dearly.

We took our first AMAZING holiday portrait for greeting cards.

We braved Snowpocalypse 2008, which had me all excited that I would be regularly seeing snow in Portland and could snowshoe down Tillamook every year. (That was a completely random year and I have not yet snoeshowed again. Sad face.)

We celebrated the new year at North, duh!

That was my first few months in Portland! It was super fun and I love living there! Even though I'm in Ketchikan right now, I totally miss doing all my Portland-y things, just like when I'm there I miss doing all my Ketchikan-y things! When I go back to Portland I am looking forward to seeing Jonathan and the pets (duh), my friends (obviously), riding Eleanor on a mostly-daily basis like I used to, not having to layer quite as often (although I obviously am stellar at it), going to Russell St BBQ for barbecued pulled pork with double extra greens, getting dressed up for $10 martinis that are actually worth it at Portland City Grill, drives, drives, and more drives!, HOOD RIVER (!), camping at Moss Creek Campground in WA, Mount Saint Helens, Jonathan's parents and family, dancing at the Holocene, riding my bike to REI and getting adventure gear......there is so much more! I can't wait to do Portlandy things!

(And going to North on a very regular basis is also very, very high on the list, obviously.)