Pro-Soup Propaganda

Low-Key and Great: My Weekend

2012-02-13T11:48:00.000-08:00

Despite the relative stress of this past week, I still had a great weekend! I was told to not come into work on Saturday, so it gave me an extra day of puttering and cleaning.

Saturday

Jonathan and I found out that there is a trail around the golf course by our house! We decided to take a walk to get out of the house and headed to the park. We followed a smaller trail and then I think I said something about, "Wouldn't it be neat if there was a trail around the golf course?" and then there WAS! It was a nice walk. We saw a bunch of tiny brown birds, a scrub jay, and some crows. Artoo had a great time, too! I can't wait to start walking over there more often. When we got back Jonathan figured out that we walked 1.64 miles, which is pretty awesome, as well. This pic of Artoo was taken when we got back home and Jonathan left to go check the mail. Artoo was so concerned about where his dad went! (But was also tired from walking, hence the head slump.)

Saturday night Jonathan took me on a date to North. Since I have been working very part time, all of the money from our combined account goes toward bills. In the past when we have gone out for food or drinks we'll use the money from that shared account to pay for things. Now that there isn't any extra money for things like that we haven't been going out and I have been going a little stir-crazy, because I spend most of my time in the apartment. We made a decision to do a weekly date night to get out of the house and we will take turns sharing the costs from our personal spending money. I don't mind doing this because, hey, I'm spending time with my boyfriend and I think that is an important thing! We have so far been correlating our date nights to happy hours and other cheap events, which is nice because then we're still getting out of the apartment and still saving money! Anyway, Jonathan had procured us some online deal to get our first round for $2 at North, so we went out and it was really nice. :o)

Sunday

On Sunday we had some errands to run. It is finally warm enough again to wear all of my flats that I can't wear with socks! (Oh, being a girl sometimes... ;o) I totally love my little Merrell boat shoes and was happy to wear them for the first time this year! Yay, colorful feetie tattoos that I can see again!

Oh, good lord, last night was hilarious. It was Theresa's birthday celebration and we went to My Brother's Crawfish for Cajun food and good times. Ooooohhhh, lordy. Ladies were wearing the crawfish necklaces all night! (Also, Theresa was wearing the most awesome Dr. Seuss tie ever.)

(I got to wear one, too!)

I was given a mission, based on a conversation had during dinner, that I needed to smell Artoo's feet. Apparently, a dog who is healthy should have feet who smell like Fritos. Not generic corn chips, but FRITOS. This is what happens when you get a bunch of people together who work in the veterinary community! I can't say I have ever smelled Artoo's feet, but you betcha I went home and smelled them and, thank goodness, they smelled like Fritos. (I think. I haven't eaten Fritos in a LONG time, but they smelled corn-esque, so I think I'm okay?) He did thwack me twice in the face with a pink Nylabone while I was trying to smell them, because he hates to have his feet touched, but I think things are fine.

And that, my friends, was my weekend.

My Week In Pictures

2012-02-10T21:40:00.000-08:00

I'm still here. I'm surprised I still have followers. What a bunch of hooey this week has been. Lots of good stuff going on with only a sprinkle of crappy stuff, which is nice. Still.

Remembered I mentioned I was cleaning a house? The people who were renting it left a bunch of garbage out that I thought I was going to have to deal with, but didn't end up having to. Yay! That saved me a lot of time and headache.

I got to dog-sit for my two whippet friends, Dee and Lou! They are the sweetest, funniest, goofiest dogs ever. I love them. Dee seems especially drawn to me. We are BFFs. This picture is a face I often saw. Dee in my face, wondering what the heck I was up to.

Lou Dog! Sleepies. He is so sweet.

For some reason, Dee kept wanting to check out my left eye. I joked to Krissy (her mom) that she could probably smell cancer in it. The debate is out. If I get left eye cancer when I'm older I'm going to shake my fist at foreshadowing.

I did some extra volunteering with Friends of Trees last Wednesday. We apparently got in a huge donation of yummy Kind bars from the company, which is AWESOME because they are sooooo good and have no gross, icky stuff in them, so FoT wanted to do some photos of us with the Kind bars out in the field. We took some other truly amazing photos, but this one cracked me up. I didn't realize no one else was doing anything "sassy." So, yeah. Story of my life, I think. (This photo is probably property of Friends of Trees and is theirs so please don't steal it because we just wanted to thank Kind bars for being so awesome and you should probably go buy a Kind bar and hug a tree.)

Harriet has a flower! We love Harriet in our house.

All I have to say is, "MINXIES!"

I bought gin 'n' juice makin' supplies because we don't want to spend the money to go out but we also don't want to spend the money on PBR all the time. This is the next best thing. (Texsun is the best grapefruit juice ever. It tastes like the juice I drank in Russia, which was amazing. Texsun is also crazy cheap so you should just drink it.)

Jeremiah Johnson loves gin and grapefruit juice.

A-O River! I finally put art up at my workspace last night. When I got home my calendar from Amy had fallen down, so it must be put back up again tomorrow. Stupid cheap Freddie's brand Scotch tape. (I love you, Freddie's, but this tape needs a little more sticky.)

Today the first ever meeting of "Adventurers Who Love Cats 'N' Cocktails" met at Uchu Sushi. Much sushi was eaten and adventures discussed. It was a very beneficial meeting to those who attended, which were Amy and myself.

And that is basically my week. How was yours? And what cool stuff are you doing this weekend?

My Head Contains a Mishmash

2012-02-03T22:31:00.000-08:00

Of all sorts of stuff right now.

I need to take my wrist's advice. Or, the Hitchhiker's Guide, that is.

Written in large, friendly letters.

Note: this is your warning of a random blog post that is somewhat stream-of-consciousness. I have all this stuff rolling around in my head and need to get it out so that I can mentally move past it.

The next two weeks are a flurry of:

*Homework, of which I have a lot of questions from chapters 8 and 9 to finish by Thursday and we just started doing the harder stuff.

*Finishing cleaning a house I was hired to do, which means I need to drive quite a ways on Monday to load my car up with junk and find a garbage dump to take it to. Luckily, my time, energy, and gas is all being paid for, but I was really looking forward to having one full day of Nothing, since I was going to be so busy on Sunday. Monday isn't the day either, I guess!

*Loads and loads of laundry while I house-sit my friend's place. Everything I can possibly think of to be washed is going to be washed, to take advantage of not having to shell out $1.50 per load. (Thank you, Krissy!)

*List a BUNCH of stuff on eBay on Sunday so the auctions can start Sunday night (and make sure everything is washed!).

*Finish going through my dresser in the spare bedroom so that Jonathan can move his clothing from his dresser into mine, so that we can give his away on CraigsList, as it barely works. This means I will need to make places in another magical location for my few things that are in this dresser presently.

*Once Jonathan's dresser is not in this room I will need to get some sort of thin bookshelf or something that I can stack my soaps on to cure.

*I have some random things that I've tried getting rid of on CraigsList, but no one is biting, so I will probably just have to donate them or give them to friends.

*Make time to pick up some money from a friend who bought some of my things so I can put that money into savings.

*I have a friend staying with us for a few days in the middle of the month and I want to have the spare bedroom in somewhat good order before she is here. Also, I want as much homework and such done beforehand so hopefully I have more time to hang out with her!

To counter my mental craziness right now, here are some awesome things that have happened lately or are happening soon:

*I have a new friend and she is awesome! We met while mulching at Friends of Trees on Wednesday. We've already hung out twice and I'm looking forward to hiking and adventuring with her.

*My new trekking backpack got delivered yesterday and it is pretty!

*I bought my climbing permit for Mt. St Helens on Wednesday! Viva la June 16!

*I have sold a lot of things online and have been doing fairly well with getting rid of clothes I do not wear and clothes I don't see myself wearing this summer as they're not really "me" anymore. I did allow myself to get a pair of black Merrell Micca sandals today, even though I already have them in brown, because they are my favorite summer shoe of all time. Plus, I found the black ones on eBay for $50 and free shipping instead of $80 everywhere else. Saving $30 is a win!

*Because I am going to be doing more multi-day backpacking trips my mind really, really wants me to go out and buy all the cool gear that I've been lusting over for a couple years now, like titanium cookware and an ultralight stove. However, realistically I won't be needing this stuff because my other friends who camp already have this gear, so I don't need to rush out and buy my own. On one hand, this is great, but on the other hand my mind really wants to look at all this stuff on eBay. However, I did buy a pair of MICROspikes because I will probably need them for our Mt. St Helens trip and I will be getting this titanium mug and spork so that I can at least eat from my own setting when we camp.

*Lots of money-making things coming up! House-sitting, cat-sitting, the cleaning, selling stuff online and on CraigsList, hopefully selling soap at a local shop, and hopefully helping my friend at the Saturday Market.

*Jonathan is buying me some Teva ballet shoes to replace my janky, icky black shoes that make my feet stink, don't breathe, but are supremely comfortable. have worn through the soles! I will soon be wearing these lovelies. I am so happy it's not even funny. I have been looking for black, semi-sporty ballet flats for several months. I kept finding shoes that were *almost* what I wanted, but just weren't perfect. My friends, I will soon have super comfy Tevas. I wear my Teva Montecitos alllllll the time right now since they are cute with all of my skirts and dresses and they are probably some of the most comfortable footwear I own.

*I am going to be able to volunteer more with Friends of Trees now that I found out I can volunteer on Wednesdays, which are a much better day for me than Saturdays. Like I mentioned earlier, I got to mulch this week, got a great workout, met some awesome people, and saw my first wild snake!

I just spent a good ten minutes looking up pictures of me adventuring in all of my different North Face jackets, because this picture STILL cracks me up and it's been days since I first saw it:

I find it so funny because I actually DO adventure in North Face jackets! All of my jackets except for my Marmot Sassy jacket are NF and, had their Grace rain jacket not looked absurd on me, my dressier rain jacket would have been NF, too. Their gear works and fits tiny people well. Love 'em!

Okay, I'm done rambling on this Friday night. Peace out, homies!

Climbing My Own Mountain

2012-01-30T11:11:00.000-08:00

Image via the USGS.

It was decided last night that June 16 was the day my friends and I were going to climb Mt. St Helens. It seemed like the day to most work within our schedules and, because they had done it in May of last year, they were thinking that June would be a better month to do it in. I didn't work on the 16th, so that day worked for me. I have been super excited about climbing Mt. St Helens since there was first talk of this. I mean, climbing a mountain that's new to me! And a volcano, to boot! Cool! I was excited because a date was decided upon and so at 9am on Wednesday I will be anxiously awaiting purchasing my permit to climb that day in June.

It was only when I lay in bed last night that I realized something important... June 16 is the date that I am planning on graduating with my bachelor's degree. I mean, June 16 is the date that Eastern Oregon University is graduating people on and Jonathan and I were planning on driving to La Grande, a place that I have never been, to visit the school that I have never seen, and I was planning on walking with the class of 2012. As far as I know, no one from my family was planning on attending (I know my mom has previous plans and I don't know if my dad knows about it?), although I think Jonathan's family was thinking about going (which makes me feel all gooey inside :o)?

If you don't know already, the story of why my bachelor's degree has taken me a decade to get (some people become doctors in this time!) is that I graduated with my associate's degree back in 2003 (I think?) and, because I love to learn and because the University of Alaska Southeast is so AWESOME, I just kept taking classes and learning new things. I took all the math they had to offer, including petitioning to have trig (even though I was one of two students - really) and calculus (which I got such a low score on the first time that I took it AGAIN). I took both Russian and Spanish at the same time, which made me feel so good to exercise my brain and speak to people in a new way! I ended up going to Russia in 2005 for awhile to speak Russian and take Russian history classes at the University of St. Petersburg. Going to Russia is one of the most important and cool things I have ever done in my life.

Anyway...I digress.

When I moved to Oregon in 2008 I thought, "You know? I bet I have enough credits from Alaska that I have most of a bachelor's degree by now" and, because AK does semesters and OR does quarters, I had something like 200 extra credit hours or something crazy like that. Basically, I just needed to do 45 credits for EOU to get my bachelor's of anthropology from them. So I've been working on all the classes from them that I've been needing to do. Last year I took statistics at PCC to transfer the credits over and then I was going to do my senior project and graduate in 2011. Well, that didn't work out and life got all goofy, and I went to Alaska for six months, and now I'm back in Oregon and I'm now doing statistics for the THIRD time, people. I am effing doing this class again and paying for it myself again and I am going to kick the tail out of statistics this time. And after I do that this term I will just need to do my senior project, which is supposed to be a 25+ page research paper on god-knows-what, and then I'm supposed to graduate on June 16 with the rest of my class, albeit one year "late."

Except last night I agreed to climb an active volcano on that day. Oops.

I hadn't even put my graduation date into my iCal.

I realized this as I was in bed, all cozied up, and going to bed LATE because Jonathan and I had had some quality time on the couch, talking about our Un-Valentine's Day plans (going to the Observatory on the 9th!!) and enjoying our living room's new setup (we rearranged it around yesterday), and then I'm all, "I'M HUNGRY!!!! Let's make popcorn and watch some Michael Palin!" because his travel shows are only on Netflix until the 31st, which is SOON and I dearly love me some Michael Palin travel shows. So it was only when I was fiiiinally in bed that my brain went, "Excuse me, Brittany? You're supposed to be in Eastern Oregon on June 16, wearing your cap and gown. You said last year that it was Really Important that you walked this year and you cried about it last year that it wasn't going to happen. Just sayin'." (My brain is a little snarky sometimes.)

So. I am now climbing a mountain on a date that was so important to me at some point, because it represented this Final Thing. I am getting a degree from a college I've never been to, but I am actually the very first person getting my distance anthropology degree from them because it was a brand new degree offering when I started! And so I thought it would be cool to go there and be all, "I'm the first person getting this degree from you and it has taken me ten years to get here and yeeaaahhhhh!!!" and now I'm going to be spending that day hiking very steeply up a national monument and have my picture taken at the top, probably with other mountains in the background.

And, so, I think it is fitting that I am now climbing a cool mountain on the day that signifies me completing another "mountain" in my life - my degree.

Spending Fast: Day 27

2012-01-27T10:23:00.000-08:00

Image from Izismile. :o)

Sorry I haven't really updated on the Spending Fast. We've been doing pretty good. It's relatively easy to not go wild at spending money when I have to tell myself that we don't really have the money to spend. On the other hand, we have been eating the same thing for days now and it would be nice to have a wee bit more spending money for that, but I'm fine. I do find myself eating a lot of toast and PB&J sandwiches on homemade bread. Filling and cheap! (And delicious!)

We did go over on our gas budget this month because we went up the mountain twice for playing in the snow, but I was able to save money in other areas, so it made up for it. I contacted both Progressive and Comcast about lowering our rates and it worked!

Also, since we recently got our electric bill I took a peek at it compared to last year at this time and I'm shocked! Last January we used 838kwh and this month we used 489. Quite a difference! I'm curious to see how it looks next month, too, since it will be a more complete month of usage (I technically started the spending fast about a week into January, I think). One thing that we still have to do fairly frequently is use the dehumidifier because our apartment gets really damp. I just noticed this morning that I need to leave it on more because there is a layer of condensation going about 1.5" up every window in the apartment. Not okay! So the dehumidifier is back on.

With the spending fast, it's still nice that I have my own spending money so I don't go completely crazy. It's nice that I've been able to treat Jonathan to beer a few times. I also just finished paying off my credit card bill (from buying some bras and my REI Endeavor pants) and can now start hoarding money for my trip again. I've managed to sell quite a bit of stuff on eBay and Amazon in the past couple of weeks and am going to be pet-sitting for two different friends in the next two weeks and am also hired to clean a house that some renters just moved out of so that it can be rented out again!

I also will soon be selling soaps at a shop here in town! More details to come as soon as they are figured out. I will also hopefully be helping a friend who has a booth at the Saturday Market during the weekends this spring and summer. I'm working really hard to come up with $6,194.84, which is the difference between how much I have saved now ($4,805.16) and $11,000, which is about how much paying for the preliminary part of my trip is going to be. Once I get it paid for I can know that I'm ACTUALLY GOING OMG and can then worry about the plane trip, travel insurance, and food/spending money later. (I have also been in contact with one of the travel officers for the trip and there are still lots of camping and kayaking spots available!)

But now! I need to get ready so I can head to work. I hope everyone has a great weekend and has lots of fun stuff planned!

My South American and Antarctic Adventure!

2012-01-24T10:26:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd share the details of the trip I'm planning on taking. I'm going to do the "Patagonia Experience and Quest for the Arctic Circle" and the "Easter Island Pre-Cruise Extension" tours through G Adventures. I have several friends who have done tours with G and they had great trips. I'm hoping to magically somehow be able to do the trip happening in February of 2013, but I'm fine if I don't have the money saved up (soon!) in order to at least book the trip. There is a fair amount of hiking, camping, and kayaking on this trip, which is why I chose it!

My trip will start with me flying into Santiago, Chile, and hopping on the boat to take me to Easter Island. I really want to go see the moai!

Image by Wiki user Aurbina.

I'll spend six days on the Easter Island expedition and will then head to Buenos Aires to then meet up with the rest of my group in Ushuaia.

The second day we'll be hiking around El Chalten, Argentina. There's lots of mountains and glaciers in the area.

Image by LongHornDave.

Fun fact: the mountain skyline in Patagonia's logo is of Mount Fitz Roy in Patagonia. I'll be looking at it here!

Image by Martin St-Amant.

Image from Oregon Wild.

Hmmm...I guess I can see it...

We'll then be heading to the Moreno Glacier in Glacier National Park, Argentina.

Image by Wiki user Marianocecoswki.

We'll then spend a few days in the Torres de Pain National Park in Chile.

Image by Wiki user Miguel.V.

The three towers are the most famous pieces of the park:

Image by Wiki user Stevage.

We'll also be seeing the Grey Glacier in the park:

Image by Wiki user B1mbo.

We'll then head back to Argentina to Ushuaia to get ready to get on the M/S Expedition to head for Antarctica! We'll spend the next twelve days in transit. We'll head to Drake Passage, the Antarctic Peninsula, the South Shetland Islands, cross the Arctic Circle, and then head back to Ushuaia!

Photo by NASA.

During the Antarctic part of the tour I will be signing up for kayaking and camping. EXCITING!!! Not to mention the hoards of penguins, minke whales, leopard seals, and a bajillion types of birds that we'll be seeing!

Can you see why I'm so excited for this trip? :oD

I just need to work my tail off and get at least $11,000 before the last quad-cabin room fills up on the M/S Expedition (there are currently five left). I'm thinking I have maybe four months in which to do this. I also don't know if the camping and kayaking spots have filled up, because there are limited spots and they can go quickly. If there is no chance of kayaking or camping and I don't get one of the quad rooms I will wait until 2014 to do the trip. If I am spending the bucks to make this a huge month-long trip then I want to do it right and do everything I want to do!

I'm trying to save up as much money as I can, so if you live in Portland and know anyone that needs pet-sitting, house-sitting, house-cleaning, manual labor, errand-running, WHAT-EVER! Let me know. :o)

Frank wants to go to somewhere, too. Doesn't she deserve that?

An Adventurous Weekend!

2012-01-23T17:57:00.000-08:00

Guys, I had the best weekend ever, hands down. No, really. On Saturday I volunteered with Friends of Trees and helped plant nine trees on Gladstone. I then went home and spent the rest of the night in my minkie pants, snuggled up on the couch. Yesterday Jonathan and I went with several friends to the mountain to snowshoe. We went down part of the Pacific Crest Trail and did about five miles of snowshoeing/hiking overall. Plus, it was snowing pretty hard, so it was absolutely gorgeous!

Here's some of the pictures I took this weekend:

Starter holes for us to put trees in

All of our trees to plant

Showing the volunteers how to plant the trees

That is a good-looking moat

The Tuffies got a little dirty

Getting ready to use the stake pounder. Gotta wear the hard hat!

Close-up of the roots of an Autumn Gold Gingko

And then Sunday's pictures...

This is the same place where Jonathan and I took the lower picture just a few weeks earlier!

Hey, mountain!

This is how tall the snow is over the road.

All of Saturday's pictures are here and all of Sunday's pictures are here. Needless to say, I didn't feel like getting out of bed this morning for lack of energy and no coffee in the apartment, but I made it up and got a ton done today! More about that later...

What did you do this weekend?

For Sale on eBay

2012-01-20T18:42:00.000-08:00

I've got a bunch of stuff listed on eBay and CraigsList right now, so I thought I'd share some of it in case anyone was interested. The money goes straight toward my trip fund, which I'm actually going to talk about next week because I'm changing it just a little bit and hopefully going SOONER!! If you see something you like that's not on eBay let me know because I will happy ship my CraigsList stuff! Also, if you want something that I have listed on eBay that doesn't have any bids on it, make me a reasonable offer and we'll go that route!

Here's a link to everything I have listed on eBay right now.

20lb Scuba Diving Weight Belt

Prana's Jenny Skirt in a size small

Locally-made skirt, size 4-8 or so? It's made to fit a range of sizes.

It has a BUM RUFFLE ON THE BACK!!!

North Face Summit Series boy's track jacket, size medium

(Also fits small ladies. ;o)

Black Kobo Touch, new in box!

(There is a whole Kobo saga about me getting a Kobo.)

(My silver sparkle princess Kobo will be here Tuesday!)

Sperry Pelican rain boots, size 6

Argoflex 75 camera

Old Navy wool jacket, size small

iPhone/iPod speakers that are either AA battery or AC plug

I've been selling a bit of stuff lately, but it's slowed down a bit. I think a lot of what I have listed on eBay will sell, though. I also am selling my Kitchenaid mixer and the ice cream attachment, so if you're interested in that let me know!

I'll have more posts next week. Not much has happened this past week and I've been busy with statistics homework. This weekend I'll be planting trees with Friends of Trees and snowshoeing with friends! Should be a good time!

Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge

2012-01-17T00:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Jonathan and I walked around the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge for the first time. It was so pretty! We were specifically on the lookout for herons, but never saw any, although we saw lots of ducks, nuthatches, and lots of teeny little brown birds that we are thinking are virios or kinglets. They were so cute! The weather was mostly sideways snow/rain and so was pretty wet and cold, but it was nice to be outside! All photos are here...

This is apparently the outside to an old mausoleum?

The anthropologist nerd in me is wondering, "What was on these pilings? Was there

an old building here once?"

Colorful trees

He humors me. :o)

All in all, it was a great day and it felt awesome to get outside again! We had made an REI run beforehand so I could pick up their Endeavor pants, which are freaking amazing. Oh, man. New favorite pants. I have been wanting some hiking pants similar to these for a couple of years, but have never bit the bullet. After finding out that I was going to be hiking a LOT more in the near future, I decided to just go for it. I already want the black pair, too. These pants are awesome! Windproof to 30mph, water beaded up on the outside and then dried quickly, super comfy, and, most importantly, my butt looks good. ;o) I can't wait to do a lot more hiking and traveling with them! Also, the petite size fit my Hobbity inseam perfectly. To not have to hem a pair of pants and to be able to wear them out of the store is an extreme rarity for me. Seriously. Buy these pants. Now.

More hiking will happen soon. I wonder where we'll we go next?

My First Big Hike of the Year!

2012-01-16T00:01:00.000-08:00

All I have to say is, "Yeeeaaahhhhh!!!!"

Yesterday was the first big hike of the year and it was AWESOME! Me, four other friends, and SEVEN dogs hiked from Wahkeena Falls to Multnomah Falls. It's about a 5.5 mile loop and most of it is a steep up-hill, full of switchbacks. Artoo was a champ throughout almost the whole thing and had a GREAT time with the other dogs, except for the last mile he was completely dragging. He has been on some long hikes in the past, but I think today was just too much for him all at once after not doing anything really active for so long. But I am proud of him! The weather was gorgeous and there was a ton of snow out. Here's some of the pictures I took, but all of the photos are in this album!

This last picture was Artoo and I waiting for our ride. He had gotten to the point where he could just Go. No. Further. He actually managed to pick a pretty good spot to be done in, since we were right at Multnomah Falls Lodge. We stayed behind while everyone else hiked back to the car and came to get us. I was totally bundled up and was trying to get him to snuggle with me to keep warm, but I think he was just too concerned with people-watching to realize that he was cold and tired. And, of course, as soon as he got into the car he was totally fine.

Today Jonathan and I are going to do the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge hike, which sounds pretty, so pictures of that to come later! What did you do this weekend?

Spending Fast: Day 9

2012-01-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

Our new desk!

Well, we are now just over a week into our spending fast. Those of you who pledged to do it with me, how are you all doing? I am finding it easy to do it so far, just not fun. Using the thought, "I currently only have a $40 a week grocery budget" is quite the motivator, though!

As mentioned previously, I said we would still be getting a desk for me to do homework at. This happened, but we had to take $50 out of savings to pay for it. The good part is that I got it used on CraigsList by a family who lived a mile from us. The bad part is that I don't anticipate being able to put that $50 back into savings soon, unless someone buys our old desk, which will help.

I am curious to see how much our internet bill will be for the month. It has been $72 or so for quite awhile, but I recently talked to Comcast and they said they would give us some sort of promotion for six months, and our payment would drop down to somewhere in the $50 range. I don't know why they randomly gave us a promotional discount and I am still not *really* expecting it to be there, but if it is I will be pleasantly happy and that extra $20 will go into savings!

Jonathan and I decided that we would give up beer during weekdays and only enjoy it on the weekend to help save some money. This is a sad, sad decision for me because I think you all know how much I like beer. :o) But it is only temporary! We do still have some home brew that I made last spring that we aged and are currently working through, so at least we technically have some free/cheap beer.

A friend (you know who you are - THANK YOU!) gave us some coffee, so we're still caffeinated, at least. I was going to be pretty sad if I had to wait until I was at work to have good coffee, but, luckily, I think we'll be okay for a bit yet. Whew!

We are going to have to forgo getting a cat for a little longer, which suuuucks. It makes me sad, but we really don't have the extra money to pay for food, litter, and flea meds for her so we will probably have to wait on the cat, too. Maybe Cat Adoption Team will have another cat sale sometime in the next couple months. :oD

I am thankful that I still had a whole chicken from the last big Whole Foods sale. I'm also thankful for our crockpot. I have been making some yummy and filling soups the past few days.

I decided that I was going to not do a daily shower and use my dry shampoo a few times a week. The first time I used it was the first time the can had been used since last spring and so there was a little explosion of dry shampoo when I used it last week. My hair looked pretty Muppety. I have been doing daily rotations of shower, use dry shampoo the next day, wash hair under tub faucet the next, and then do another day of dry shampoo. That way I'm showering every three days, which is still not *that* bad. It's not like I get really dirty during my usual days! We'll see how long that lasts. I think I am putting too much thought and words into this now and you are bored. Sorry!

I was able to sell a surprising amount of books to Powell's for virtual credit, which I will be buying eBooks with to replace the ones I got rid of. I don't know why I thought it was going to take about $250 to replace my books, because it's really going to be a lot less, but I am also thankful for about $60 in virtual credit to help with that! I finally finished going through my books on Saturday. It feels weird to have so many less books in the apartment, but I think it's a good thing, since SO many were books I hadn't read in ages, if ever. (I used to go through the "literature" section of Waldenbooks in Ketchikan and just buy books for the heck of it. This is why I have Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" - although I do like the stories I've read from the book...that I read in high school - and "Silas Mariner.")

How is everyone else doing now that it's been the first week?

Things We Want To Do in 2012

2012-01-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

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!

In no particular order, here's our list (so far)...

*Go back to Crater Lake
*Go to Cape Disappointment
*Go back to this year's Little Woody Festival in Bend in August
*Go back to Hood River for the Mount Hood Cycling Classic
*Take a kayak safety class with Jonathan
*Kayak in Waldo Lake
*Go back to the Cape Meares Lighthouse and giant octopus tree again
*Junction City's ScandiFest in August

Portland-based things to do:

*Have a drink at HUB's bike bar (conveniently located a couple blocks from where I work)
*Watch the adult soap box derby in August
*Check out the World Forestry Center

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!

Spending Fast: Day 4

2012-01-04T09:22:00.000-08:00

I just added up our projected income for the month and subtracted all of our bills and it leaves us with $40 a week in groceries and no money to be able to put into savings. I'm not even sure we can eat on $40 a week. I guess we're going to have to try, though. I sense a lot of oatmeal, beans, lentils, and potatoes in my future, and probably not many fresh fruits and vegetables, which kinda sucks and I'm not looking forward to.

We are already living pretty frugally, but I guess it's time to tighten our belts a little more. I just turned the air purifier off and turned the heater down even more (which is almost off). Maybe I can start using my dry shampoo more instead of showering to cut down on our water usage. Anyone else have any other ideas on how an already frugal family can cut down even more?

I did find out that the desk that I have been wanting to get on Craigslist is going to be OURS!! I will finally have a study space! YAY! I also am selling some stuff on eBay, if anyone would like to check it out.

Also, if you are in the PDX area, I would still love to clean your house. ;o)

For the month of January I'm having a sale on my soap. Use code "SUNSHINE" to get 10% off your order in my Etsy shop! Any soap sales help us be able to put money into savings. Tell your friends!

Our January Spending Fast

2012-01-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

The last month has been a doozy, money-wise. I had to pay for school, do the Christmas present thing (even though I made gifts there was still a bit of money involved), gas for the car so I could take care of some of the extra errands (re: hauling stuff around, otherwise I would have biked), friends in town, etc etc, the list goes on!

I made just over $800 last month (yeehaw! ha ha) and we just barely covered expenses for things. We haven't been able to put any money into savings since I got back to Portland two months ago and it sucks. Therefore, one of the things Jonathan and I discussed while we were doing our coast trip is to do a spending fast. For the month of January we are only buying necessities. Heck, we may even end up doing it for an extra month or two, I don't know. What I do know is that I like regularly putting money into savings.

So. This means not going out for drinks (which I don't feel like we do hardly ever, but Mint.com told me otherwise for December), no random food bought out because we didn't plan ahead/were too lazy to prepare snacks/whatever, no buying anything other than what we absolutely NEED.

Exceptions:

*I have been looking for a large desk with an overhead shelf on Craigslist for the past month because I would like a workstation to do homework at. Our current desk is not much bigger than our computer, which means if I need to go to a quiet place to do my statistics homework I have to sit on my bed, which is not my ideal studying location. It is too easy to slack if I am too comfy. Therefore, I am going to continue my daily search for a desk with a shelf to put the printer on.

*I'm still going to be selling my books and buying the eBook version (if it is a book I want to keep) because there are not a whole lot of books I really want to keep. I currently keep 20% of my paycheck to do whatever I want with (J and I both put 80% of our paychecks into our shared account), which works out to about $150 a month, not counting any income from selling things online, the amount I get to keep per bar of soap sold (my cut is $1, baby!), or anything like that. I'm estimating it will take about $250 to replace my books with eBooks, which average $9.99. I'm trying to downsize my stuff still and so while I could technically wait to buy the eBooks until after the spending fast, I know it's money that would still be spent and I have totally rocked putting money into my Antarctica trip fund so I am not worried about $250 not going into there. I have been Turking my butt off to get money to put into that savings fund, so I think I'm doing fine. After the books are replaced I'm just going to return back to funneling all my money into my savings fund, so no biggie.

*We are getting a cat this month. A cat is a necessity for my mental health and general happiness. (Finnegan didn't work out with our family. He was waaaayyyyy too rambunctious and he was too much cat for our tiny apartment. Luckily, the other family who wanted him still wanted him so he is doing great with them.)

*I will still pay for film processing. I got three rolls processed last week for a grand total of $8. I scan film myself to save more money (see where I'm going with this?). It's $2 a roll for 35mm film and $4 for 120 film at my camera shop. That's pretty cheap. I don't use a super ton of film, so I will allow myself to use my film cameras normally. I would have to try pretty hard to spend $10 a month at the rate I'm going.

I don't forsee any other exceptions. That is that. I am looking forward to seeing how a "normal" month goes in funds for us!

Have you ever done a spending fast or cut yourself off from buying things for any length of time? How did that work out?

P.S. I got the idea of a spending fast from And Then She Saved, a blog I love reading because Anna is upbeat and doesn't make not spending money sound like a horrible thing. Plus, there are a lot of other readers in the same boat as me right now! Join us and sign the pledge! :o)

How I Spent New Year's Day

2012-01-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

This is the official post of how we spent New Year's Day! I gave you the preview in this post, but here's my favorite photos from Ecola Park and Fort George Brewery. I put all of the photos in this album here, if you want to check 'em out! (Yesterday's post actually had more info about what we did. Oh, well! Enjoy!)

The canning machine. We're never seen one before!

Stout being aged in Maker's Mark barrels from Kentucky.

All in all, it was the best way to ring in the new year. I was happy to treat Jonathan to a great day!

The Preliminary Post of 2012

2012-01-01T19:24:00.001-08:00

We are currently driving back from Astoria and I am blogging on my phone. Today was the best first day of the year I've had in the past few years. It totally rocked. I had told Jonathan that I would treat him to a trip to the coast with some of my Christmas money. We were planning on snowshoeing today and doing this trip later in the month but his leg was a little achy from yesterday so we decided to do this trip today! It was so, so much fun. He is the best fellow adventurer! I'll have more photos up soon, but here is a little hint of what we did today.

We went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory to get some of their yummy ice cream. We saw the Loaf Love van! I've seen it before in downtown Portland. Pretty cute!

We went to Ecola Seafoods for lunch. Ecola Seafoods has the best seafood in Oregon, I'm pretty sure. Plus, they're really nice! I had a salmon taco and Jonathan had crab cakes with shrimp salad on the side. Everything was delicious!

After Ecola Seafoods we went to Ecola State Park. This is my favorite state park in Oregon! Right now the blue whales are migrating so everyone is looking for whales. We didn't see any, though!

SO BEAUTIFUL!!! I love this park. :o) This is the beach that Captain William Clark and twelve other men discovered natives butchering a giant whale on in 1806. Remember how I'm a big Lewis & Clark nerd? Yeah.

Tuffie love!

We had our first beers at Fort George Brewery. Everything was fine and deliciously dandy and then we had two people tell us the brewery tour was starting in a few minutes. Don't need to tell us twice! It ended up being so, so awesome and we got to explore an upper part of the brewery building that isn't usually part of the tour. Those pictures will come with the next blog posting!

They had a bunch of stout aging in these bourbon barrels from Maker's Mark in Kentucky that they'll release at their annual stout festival in February. Sounds pretty fantastic to me!

And that was our day! I'll go into more detail soon. I just had to get this out. I'm so excited about this year and what to expect! Jonathan and I also had some good talks during our drives and I feel pretty hopeful and confident that 2012 is gonna rock some socks. I hope everyone else had a great first day of the year, as well!

How I Spent New Year's Eve Day

2011-12-31T17:26:00.000-08:00

Today Jonathan and I spent the day snowshoeing! It was pretty awesome. It was a great day to be outside. It was Jonathan's first time using the gear set-up that my dad got him for Christmas two years ago. It sucks that it has taken us this long to go out and do something that is one of my favorite things, but sometimes in life you have to wait for the good stuff.

So, with no further ado, this is what we did today!

Snow peas in the snow. :o)

Frank was there, of course!

Tonight's big plans are to wash dishes (when I am done on the computer - yippee), make nachos, watch a movie(s?), drink champagne, play with Artoo, and attempt to stay awake until midnight. Tomorrow's big plans are to get up and go snowshoeing again!! But then I am taking Jonathan to Double Mountain (IRA on tap...I am so, so happy) and that will be a nice, mini celebration. :o)

I hope everyone has a fun and safe New Year's Eve!

December's Lomography Photos

2011-12-30T09:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I scanned the negatives from my last batch of photos taken with my film cameras. Here's some of my favorites!

LCA+ Photos

(taken with expired 200 film, hence the color)

Diana F+ Photos

Diana Mini photos

(again, expired film)

People With eReaders, I Have A Question For You!

2011-12-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

(Or people without them, what do you think you would do?)

Today (!!!) I will be picking up my Kobo Touch, which, as I mentioned before, I'm pretty excited about. What I'm curious about is how many of you have been getting rid of your physical books and have been buying eBooks instead? Two months ago I started pretty heavily going through my books (and other things) to get rid of, since I hadn't really done it much before. Now that I'm getting an eReader, I'm pretty excited to have my library on it and in digital format. I am slowly selling off the books I know I either re-read fairly frequently or I definitely want to keep (as opposed to having to hopefully get it from the library, borrow from a friend, etc).

Are any of you switching your books over to the digital format? Part of me feels a little weird because I am using money (which would otherwise go into my Antarctica fund, which I am at 22% saved for now!!) to buy books I technically already own, but then the other part of me feels like I am doing the right thing because I am letting go of things, which is in line with my trying to be more of a minimalist. Is there a happy medium? eBooks average $10 each, so I am spending about that on each book I already own. Is that silly? I guess I'm just curious what other people are doing.

Maybe I also feel better spending a little bit of money on eBooks because, between my birthday and Christmas, I was able to put a large chunk of change into my travel fund and so it's less of an issue to spend a couple hundred dollars to streamline my life?

What do you think? Thoughts?

Edit:

IT'S CHARGING!!!! It's sooooo cute!

My Minimalist Christmas

2011-12-26T10:47:00.000-08:00

I've got to say, this has been one of the best Christmases in recent years.

Jonathan and I spent the weekend with his family. We were able to visit for two days instead of our usual one day this time, which was really nice. Artoo and I took a long hike around their property on Saturday. It was gorgeous out! I used up the film in both my Diana Mini and my Diana, which was nice, because I think the photos on the rest of the film are from when I was in Alaska still! I also took a good amount of pictures on the LCA+. I plan on dropping off my film today at Hollywood Photo, so hopefully I get my negatives back in the next few days so I can scan and share them!

I was really happy in the presents department this year. There really wasn't anything I wanted, other than some money to put into my Antarctica fund. I'm happy to say that I got a nice amount between my parents and Jonathan's family and will be able to put several hundred dollars into savings! We also got some yummy food from Jonathan's parents. His mom works at a Market of Choice, which I gather is something like a Whole Foods or New Seasons. We got some Indian simmer sauces, different noodles and rice, some pasta sauces, olive oil, wine, champagne, and more. I don't think I'll have to do any grocery shopping this week, other than for vegetables!

From my bosses at Mr. Green Beans I got a $50 gift certificate for Cellar Door/2nd Story!! Jonathan and I like riding our bikes to Cellar Door in the summer to get iced mochas. They are one of the only coffee places in town that I've tried where their coffee is consistently delicious and their baristas aren't snooty jerks. I've been wanting to try 2nd Story, but we haven't really had the money lately. Now I'm happy to be able to treat Jonathan! Thank you, Ginny and Trevin!

In my stocking I had some winning lottery tickets with a grand total of $3 won!! Better than last year! ($0)

All in all, it was an excellent Christmas. I am so happy to have gotten exactly what I wanted! Just about everything I gave this year I either made by me or was something I found locally. I gave lots of consumables this year! I'd put exactly what I made but not everyone has received their presents from me yet. (I am BAD this year.)

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! What was your favorite part, gift received, gift given, etc?

New Soaps!

2011-12-23T04:22:00.000-08:00

Well, not *really* new, mind you. I haven't had these soaps in the shop for several months now, but I finally had some time to make them earlier this week, which makes me happy!

(I need to update the photos, too. This will also happen.)

Rain-Dogg - made with Rainier beer (to nourish your skin) and orange essential oil (to provide a happy, sunshiney feeling whenever you use it. :o)

Cafe Au Lait Goat's Milk and Coffee

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas holiday! I look forward to hearing about what everyone did sometime next week. We are heading to Jonathan's parents' house tonight to spend the weekend. I can't wait! Lots of family time, reading, playing outside, and festive drinks. (Oh, and laundry. We have laundry to do, too.)

Happy holidays!

Sorry, Kindle, I Ordered A Kobo

2011-12-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I finally did something I have been waiting anxiously for for over a week now. I have been wanting to order an eReader and had originally had my heart set on a Kindle Touch, as stated in this post. However, then my awesome friend Kim alerted me to the fact that I actually could still buy eBooks from independent, local bookstores, which is what I had been *super* bummed about beforehand if I was going to buy a Kindle. Don't get me wrong. I love Amazon, but why would I NOT want to support local?!

In looking at the bookstores in Portland that I could buy eBooks from (Broadway Books! Powell's!), I realized that I couldn't buy a Kindle and had to think of something else. I started researching the Kobo Touch and immediately fell in love. It was everything I wanted in an eReader and was just like the Kindle, but better. Expandable memory? Check. Ability to download Google eBooks, of which there are over twice as many as Kindle books? Check. Ability to buy from my local bookstore?! CHECK!! The evidence was there and it was clear - I wanted a Kobo, not a Kindle.

I had been *anxiously* awaiting the receiving of my trade-in books to Amazon, thus giving me a gift card that I could use on my Kobo. Every day, multiple times a day, I was tracking my box of books that I'd sent to Amazon in receipt of a gift card. This was $60 at stake here! Plus, I still had $6.50 from previous trade-ins. I have been hitting the Mechanical Turking hard lately, because I figured that it didn't make sense for me to pay for the balance of the Kobo with real dollars. Why not just spend several hours Turking and make that money on my own? And so I did just that. But then I still had to wait for Amazon to officially receive my trade-in books and authorize my gift card amount.

Yesterday was the day!!

As soon as I refreshed the trade-in page Monday morning it said it was verifying my last mailing of books. Then I received the email that I'd been waiting for. Amazon had officially received my books and given me money - more money than I'd expected! - and I was able to use that money to order anything from their site. Well, I'd had a used Kobo in my shopping cart for about five days. It was used, but in "like new" condition, and it sounds like perhaps it was a store demo model. Plus, it was silver! It will match Mackie, my beloved MacBook Air. (Yes, I name my things. Yes, I am dorky in that respect.) The silver Kobos retail for $129.99, but I got mine for $95, which is awesome because I could have gotten a black one for $99 or I could have gotten the color I wanted - silver! - for the same price. :o)

I even splurged an extra $3.99 on expedited shipping! I'm a crazy girl!

As soon as I receive my Kobo, which should be in the next week, I will report on how I like it. I've Turked enough to have some money to buy a few books with. I really am curious on how it will react since I was initially pro-Kindle and didn't know anything about any other eReader.

Do you have an eReader and how do you like it?

We Have A New Cat!!!!

2011-12-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

If you are friends with me on FB or follow me on Twitter, you know that yesterday we got a new cat and I am REALLY excited about it! A friend messaged me a few days ago and said that she could no longer give her cat a good standard of care, due to life events. Because I have been talking about needing a cat in my life and being friends, she knew I would probably give him a good home. I grilled her with all the important questions (neutered? claws? health problems? food allergies? okay with a dog?) and he sounded like a perfect fit. (I seriously wanted to say "purr-fect" fit, but I didn't....OH, but I DID!)

This is the photo she texted me:

So handsome!!!!

Yesterday at 1pm we showed up and met him. He was immediately receptive to Jonathan and I and I could tell my friend was relieved that he was great with us and that we were super excited to bring him into our family. We brought him home and he was such a trooper. He explored "his" room (we don't let Artoo into our spare bedroom) and then left after a few minutes to move onto the rest of the apartment. He spent the evening either quietly exploring the back of the apartment or coming out to see what Jonathan and I were doing in the living room.

And so now I present to all of you... Finnegan Sebastian Catkins Hassell-Jayne!

Sneakin'

Always on the move right now

I love pictures of cats looking concerned and slightly pissy.

Prairiecat. :o)

As of yet (5pm on Sunday night) we have not yet let Artoo out, to give Finn a little bit more time without pug craziness, but I honestly think he will be totally fine. He's pretty rambunctious and I think he and Artoo will be friends eventually. Baby steps! We are so happy to have a cat again and I think he will be a great fit, once he figures out his place with us. We love you, Finnegan!

Making Toothpaste at Home

2011-12-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

I have been looking forward to making homemade toothpaste for quite some time now. Neither Jonathan nor I like the foaming action of other toothpastes and he had bought a toothpaste last time that contained foamers. As for me, when I was in Ketchikan I couldn't find any toothpaste that wasn't exactly what I wanted. (And when I returned from KTN I realized that he and I had bought the same toothpaste. :o) I had experimented with making a small amount a couple weeks ago, but Tuesday morning we officially ran out of the "other" stuff and so I could finally test out a new recipe! I used this recipe for homemade toothpaste by Crunchy Betty as my base, but I altered it a little bit.

The good part about this recipe is that it's made with coconut oil, which is really, really good for you. It is like doing oil pulling on a very small scale, as well. This also probably cost 40 cents to make or something like that, too. I always have coconut oil around because it's a main oil in my soaps, so why not try it out? Needless to say, I am very happy with the results. My mouth felt very clean and not in a weird, fake way. Also, Jonathan told me after he tried it for the first time that he really liked it, too, so it's a win!

Got my supplies out. You will need baking soda, coconut oil, peppermint oil, and a jar to mix things in.

I measured out three tablespoons of baking soda.

I measured out three tablespoons of coconut oil.

I mixed it all together with a fork...see how easy this is?

I put in one teaspoon of peppermint essential oil. Ta da! Toothpaste!

I did not add the vegetable glycerin or stevia, as mentioned in Crunchy Betty's post,

although I bet it would be good.

Edit: Vegetable glycerin makes it WAY better! More toothpaste consistency and easier to brush with. Add about 1 teaspoon and see how that feels.

I scooped a little blob onto my toothbrush.

(Blob.)

And then I got myself some clean teeth!

I'm linking this post to "Make Your Own Monday" and "Living Well."

Hiking at Powell Butte

2011-12-13T20:44:00.000-08:00

I know I have pictures from this weekend to post, but I had such a good day today that I just had to share these pictures first. :o) Nicolle and I went to Powell Butte to hike around for a bit and we had a most excellent outing! It was really great to have some Girl Time with her, because I think we both really needed it. Love that girl! :o)

Here's some of my favorite photos, but all of them are in this album. It was a GORGEOUS day to be outside! I used up a roll of film in my LCA+ while we were there, so I'm pretty excited to drop the film off to be developed.