Crafts

I apologize for the lack of posts in the last few days. After we got back from Multnomah Falls, Andy and I got sick with horrible head colds. Thankfully Andy wasn’t as sick as I was so there was someone to make dinner and bring me cookies while I laid on the couch whining like a two year old. It’s been awhile since I have felt that terrible.

Anyway, we are feeling better now. I have picked up another hobby: painting creepy ceramic animals. I’ve bought some of the tinest paint brushes that Michael’s sells and am plugging away. By the way, these aren’t done yet. I’ve also looked into doing decoupage too. Also just in, Andy got an A in his chemistry class. He’s on Spring Break this week but Spring Term starts next week and he’s taking Microbiology (lab+lecture), Statistics, and Chemistry (lecture+lab+recitation).

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Multnomah Falls

Andy and I decided to go hiking today. Despite living in Portland for all these years, I have never made it the 20+ miles to Multnomah Falls. I have however, driven the 40+ miles numerous times to hang out at Silver Falls. Andy has been to the falls but its been a few years. I’ve been a little worried because we’ve had so much rain and so many nasty days complete with hail and wind lately. But today we got a break and it was beautiful.

On our journey to Multnomah Falls, we decided to take the scenic highway and stumbled upon Vista House. It’s this super cool building that has the most amazing view of the Columbia River.

We drove on the scenic highway stopping occassionally to look at the view and of course take photos:

We stopped at Wahkeena Falls (Wahkeena is a Yakima word that means most beautiful) and hiked a mile or so up a nice but somewhat steep trail.

For those of you who have never been to this area, this is a HUGE cluster of beautiful waterfalls that is partially fed by the melting snow (there is a large spring that contributes to them year round). There are numerous waterfalls and its absolutely spectacular. Usually its packed with tourists but being midweek and in March, the traffic was pretty light.

We headed over to Multnomah Falls after grabbing some water and trailmix. We had all ready decided to trek all the way up to the top of the mountain where there is a cool observation deck that looks out over the rushing water that is the beginning of the Falls. It is a pretty good hike. Expect your heart to pound and sweat to drip down your back. But it’s worth it.

The top of Multnomah Falls was very impressive but there was another trail that led off into the unknown that Andy and I decided to check out. The view of the icy roaring river looked like it was from the Coors commercial but more beautiful because all of the trees and surrounding rocks were covered in bright green moss.

Around every bend, there was another beautiful scene in front of us. We saw snow, gorgeous old trees, and even some type of tiny forest mouse.

It was a great day and I’m glad we got to spend several hours hiking through such beautiful terrain. Continue checking on this post as I will be adding more photos in the coming days.

Dinner Disaster

For all of you who compliment my cooking, I wanted to let you know that I too have my share of disasters. Really. Last night I wanted to make enchiladas thanks to my brother who kept talking about them on the phone. And I wanted to try something different. For several months, I have had a can of pink salmon in my cabinet. Many of you are all ready groaning as you know what’s coming next. Yes, I thought I would whip up that canned salmon into the filling for enchiladas.

Andy and I discussed the fine art of trying to make the canned salmon less fishy. I decided to saute onions and green chili first. I then added the salmon and mixed it with liberal amounts of salsa warming the mixture. It didn’t smell fishy well okay maybe a little bit. I tried a spoonful and even recruited Andy to try some. We both agreed that the fishyness was under control.

I prepared my enchiladas casserole style that is to say I didn’t roll the mixture in the corn tortillas. I decided to stack the corn tortillas. It was about this time that I started to get a feeling this wasn’t going to work. I noticed that there was a box of macaroni and cheese and a can of tomato soup-just in case!

After twenty-five minutes, I pulled the enchiladas out of the oven. They came out of the pan looking beautiful. The layering and liquid absorption was absolutely perfect! Really. I served it up with some vegetarian re-fried beans and rice. Andy and I sat down for our dinner. I was the first to try and noticed that the fishyness had grown exponentially. I couldn’t believe it. I tried to spoon some enchilada sauce over the salmon and then take a bite. But no, the fishyness was so strong that it overwhelmed everything. Yep, it was gross.

Andy was really sweet and reassured me that the enchiladas weren’t a reflection of my culinary skills. He said that canned salmon sucks and is still wondering what the heck you use it for. I gotta say, I’m right there with him. What the heck do you use canned salmon for? Cause it ain’t enchiladas, my friend.

Glitter Stamping and Other Fun Crafts

Last week I hung out with my friend Amy, another ‘lady of leisure’. We talked about the various activities we had been doing (besides the job search) to keep ourselves occupied. Besides the volunteer work, compulsive house cleaning (Amy just moved so she’s been unpacking), and reading, Amy mentioned that she has been doing some light crafts.

I’m not a super crafty person and have oodles of unfinished projects that I will probably never finish. So I didn’t want to buy something that I would play with once or twice and then discard like a petulant three year old. Yesterday I found a really cool book at the library that among other things, has you do cool little crafts. So when I went to Wal-Mart to buy more shampoo and cat litter, I visited their craft section. Although I ended up buying these creepy clay cats that I can paint, I did see a whole display dedicated to Glitter Stamping!

Glitter Stamping is pretty much what you think it is, you create stamps of glitter. You can put these stamps on cards, invitations, and scrapbooks. I personally love glitter and cannot think of another more fun (or annoying) than creating a bunch of something that has glitter on it.

Gotta run. I have some cats to paint. After these cats are painted, I think I will go back and buy that starter kit. Look in your mailbox soon for something leaking glitter everywhere.

Reemployment Orientation

About two weeks ago, I received a letter from the Employment Department stating that I needed to go to the SE Works Center on March 12th at 1pm for “Reemployment Orientation.” The letter stated that if I wanted to continue receiving my unemployment benefits that I needed to attend this 3 hour orientation! The letter also stated that I needed to bring my resume and that this orientation would help me with my job search. Honestly, I wasn’t completely sold on the idea that they could help me. I’ve been on unemployment before and never had to do anything like this. But when you receive a summons…you must go.

On Monday I talked to my friend Amy who went to her Reemployment Orientation. She filled me in on the process. Basically the Employment Office was ensuring that people were filling out their iMatch (a software program that identifies your skills and matches them to available jobs) profiles and were taking tests to determine whether participants needed to work on their basic math and reading skills. Amy said that the whole process wouldn’t take 3 hours.

So with my summons in hand, I headed over to the newly renamed SE Works Reemployment Office. Inside a tiny makeshift waiting room sat 8 of the most unhappy looking men I have ever seen. The cramped office was jammed with desks, bulletin boards layered wtih fliers, notes, and other advertisements and surely looking volunteers.

I sat in one of the only available seats next to a man that smelled not so fresh, I have never been so uncomfortable in all of my life. I would have rather been enduring a yearly physical than be there. The men were an odd collection of blue collar workers and one guy looked like he was going for an Edward (from Twilight) look-a-like contest. (I swear to God!)

We were called into a room filled with computers, given folders filled with information on the services SE Works provides, and asked to fill out some paperwork. As we we handing our ID’s over, I noticed that my hand was the only one that wasn’t trembling. Based on the amount of coughing,nose action, and general antsyness, I’m pretty sure the guy next to me was high on meth.

We were then asked to take a series of tests to determine if we needed help with general reading or math skills. The questions were pretty easy except for a few. Math isn’t my strong suit and asking me to determine how much it will cost to make a sidewalk based on some crazy dimensions, is not really my idea of fun. Ask me lead times to produce copy for websites or the best way to promote a new product. Why do I care how much it will cost to lay bark in a flower bed?

Anyway, I was the first one and the SE Works Center lady told me I had done really, really well. I bit my tongue because I didn’t really think she wanted to hear my thoughts on this ‘test.’ She looked at my iMatch profile which I had completed and uploaded my resume to several weeks ago. I could tell that she was impressed with the quality. She saw that I had a Bachelors degree and pretty much let me go home.

Well at least I got a blog post out of the experience.

Twittering or twattering? Our survey says… – iMediaConnection.com

I posted this article link because I thought the article was pretty interesting. There are so many people who profess not to ‘get Twitter’ or don’t understand the value. I think it depends on what examples you are looking at. Some people on Twitter only worry about pure numbers: how many followers they have, how many people they are following, and how many tweets they have posted.

I think with that mindset, Twitter makes no sense. Twitter is an interactive microblogging site that lets people all over the globe network with each other. You can share photos and ideas virtually. Because it restricts tweets to 140 characters it allows its members to receive and send quick pieces of information.

During the election, I could see what people all over the world were saying. Sometimes I have a question about a specific topic and can quickly and easily send that out to my followers. 95% of the time, I get an answer from someone who is almost an expert in that field. I can share links to recipes, promote my blog, and perform research on companies all over the world-for FREE!! I love technology. Please click on the link below to read the article.

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Blogging: What I’ve learned.

Since starting this blog a few months ago, I’ve learned some things. I guess I came into the blogging world with a lot of misconceptions about how it was going to work and what people are interested in. Here’s my list:

1. People like pictures of food
2. What you think is important or cool or interesting, is probably not as interesting to your readers
3. Keep your posts short (I’m obviously still working on that one)
4. Keep your posts interesting by writing about what you have done not will do
5. Visit other people’s blogs and provide comments
6. Don’t take yourself so seriously-it’s a blog not a manifesto on something ground breaking
7. Humor works so make fun of yourself
8. Be kind to others

I can think of many other things that I have learned but I am trying to follow #3. If you have any thoughts, submit them please.

Andy

Andy

On Saturday Andy had his last brewing class which ended at Bridgeport Brewery. I was in the midst of scrubbing floors on my hands and knees when he called asking if I’d like to come pick him up and maybe have a pint. The only word I really heard was pint so before you could say Spic-n-Span, I stuffed my sweaty, unwashed hair into a hat, washed my smelly hands, and was on my way. (Please note: my plan had been to clean the house and then take a shower however Andy called me about an hour before I anticipated so I wasn’t finished with the cleaning yet.) This is also the reason why is are photos of Andy but not me. No one really wants to see you when you’ve been cleaning.

Nothing tastes better than a pint of good beer after you’ve been cleaning your house. That amber tasted like nectar from the gods. I did get to meet one of Andy’s fellow students; a nice man by the name of Cliff. Cliff was fairly excited that the class had been let out earlier than he anticipated so this gave him time to drink beer and chat with adults about beer. And his wife wasn’t expecting him home for awhile so he could do this guilt free.

We drank our pints and then went home to enjoy the french onion dip I had made. Neither of us eat a lot of chips but something about the Tim’s Low-Fat chips with some homemade french onion dip just shouted “Happy Hour!”

Well, time to go make some tacos and get ready for Fox on Sunday night line-up. Cheers!

Tamale Pie aka Tamale Casserole

Tamale Pie aka Tamale Casserole was a dish that I believe my mother first made for me. If you’re not familiar with the dish, its a tomato based sauce with onions, garlic, corn, beans, and sometimes ground beef or turkey. The saucy goodness goes into a casserole dish and then a corn meal mixture is placed on top. It bakes for about thirty minutes or so and well there is no photo of mine, because its that good!

I first start out with onions and garlic sauteeing in a pan until they are soft and fragrant. I add a can of diced tomatoes and green chili and a healthy amount of cumin. I let this cook for a couple of minutes stirring the onions and garlic into the tomates. Then I add a can of tomato sauce and tomato paste. Once again letting this mix with the other ingredients.  It should be a simmering when you add the can of black beans and corn. At this point, I grab my Jiffy cornbread mix and whip it up in a bowl setting it aside once it is ready to pour. I add tvp (textured vegetable protein) and turn down the heat to let it gently simmer while the ovens heats up to 350F.

Once the oven rings that it has achieved the desired temperture, I generally give it another five minutes just to ensure its good and ready to go. I pour the saucy tomato/bean/corn/tvp concoction into a small casserole dish (I always spray it with nonstick spray first) and then gently spoon the cornbread mix onto it. At this point the cornbread mixture has risen a bit so you need to almost fling the dough on top. I usually end up using a knife to ensure that the topping covers the entire casserole.

Pop this dish into the oven, set the timer for 30 minutes, and salivate while its cooking away. It does make the entire house smell pretty good. When you think its done, grab a knife and test the middle to ensure that it is indeed cooked all the way through. If you would like your topping a bit crustier, kick up the heat to 375F or 400F for the last 5-7 minutes. Please let this cool before digging into it. The cornbread mixture does hold in an incredibly amount of heat so proceed with caution.

Andy update

Yes, Andy is still alive. I apologize for not posting photos of the master in action. You can say that I have been pretty focused on myself lately.

If you haven’t heard yet, Andy was accepted into Oregon State University. Being that Andy wants to work with yeast in a brewery, this is the college for him. Oregon State has been working with hops for years and have developed new varieties by crossing different kinds.

Now we haven’t completely worked out all the kinks on how this will ultimately work but are exploring all of our options. Maybe we move to Salem and we both compute to work/school (Andy to Corvallis and Aleta to Portland).

But for now, we’re staying put and Andy is busy with his chemistry and brewing class. He’s also in the process of trying to get our home computer back up and running which judging from the angry calls to Microsoft and Semantic is much harder than it looks. Thank you for the hard work, Andy!