Bean Collins

All's well that ends well.

2010-11-01T13:04:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends and Family,

It's been fun.

But I'm afraid that I am feeling the need to mothball this here blog for a good while. I just want to live my life for a bit without feeling the need to write a post about it. But I am sorry for the pug stalkers who won't be able to get their electronic pug fix...maybe it is time to take the plunge and get a real live pug! I can give you the name of my breeder. Just make sure to never leave a butter-crock lying around where a pug can get to it. :-)

So, take care. And don't forget to call or write.

(I am continuing to post on my jewelry blog....I'm sure there will be some pug spillover over there....)

Friday-the goodness edition

2010-10-15T08:50:00.001-07:00

Right at this moment I can hear my faithful kitchenaid kneading away at the Friday challah. This time I used a bit of mollasses in place of honey (maybe a tablespoon and a half?), but it made it a really nice brown color. I'm excited to try it. (Don't tell J, but I also substituted 1/3 cup whole wheat flour!)

I'm sipping a delicious spicy cup of chai that I made with milk, black tea, and spices. It is fancy, and almost a breakfast in itself. Which is good because there isn't much to eat here in the house. (or as J said "we are low on edibles....but not on grains and beans and barleys.) Which is true, we have plenty of pretty jars of dried beans and grains....but not a lot of things that you can just take out of the package and eat. Which sure is virtuous, but not that convenient. (Speaking of virtuous, I just contributed to our public radio station because I just couldn't stand the guilt any longer).

The pugs are snuggled together in an armchair, looking as deceptively sweet as only pugs can look. I'm sure you all will be interested to know that the Demon-pug has recently made a reappearance. He has discovered that he can make it onto the kitchen table by jumping onto the bench first. So we can now no longer leave anything edible up there. He indulged himself in a bagful of plums a week or so ago, which first alerted us to the problem, so we had been diligent about clearing the table top (which is very annoying and inconvenient since we have a small kitchen and it was nice to store some fruit on the table...). But the other day (Sunday?), I received these two photos as texts from J who had just returned home:

Can any of you guess what these things are? No? Well, it was my new(ish) french butter crock that I blogged about here. I had left it on the table from breakfast, never dreaming that Dieter would think to get into it. How could he, I thought. Well, perhaps pugs are as smart as monkeys or crows, or maybe pushing it off the table to remove the hard "outer shell" was just an accident.

It was empty of butter by the time we found it, of course. But the butter holder half was covered in tiny little pug face hairs, stuck in a layer of pug slobber. And now I have to go to the kitchen gadget store and get a new one...woe is me (what other sweet kitchen trinkets will I find there!?!?)

How do I know it was Dieter and not Gunter? Well....Gunter can't jump. Well...he can sort of jump, but he would never, ever, never, ever attempt to jump onto a narrow wooden bench and then from there onto a table top. It would never even occur to him as something that was within the realm of possibility. Poor little earthbound Gunter.

But what makes this Friday especially good? The fact that my sweet littlest niece was born just a couple of days ago! And she is the cutest little eskimo baby ever to grace the earth. And I get to see her in person in about a week. I am so excited! Cutest thing ever (besides all of my other nieces and nephew(s), who are of equal cuteness). Pictures to follow soon. (I want one! I want one!....but not yet.)

An an un-baby topic, I got new glasses:

Ummm...are they too hip? (Just one gear on my fixy bike!) Or just a flash back to the glasses I had in the 6th grade:

(6th grade? I can't remember. Poor little thing, she would never survive in the bullying climate of today's schools. Actually, she probably would since she never gave a sh*t about what any body thought, starting in kindergarten. That is also my hair au naturel, for those of you who are curious.)

I'm not sure. I don't want to be too hip, but I needed bigger lenses since I am blind as a bat naturally and when you are incredibly blind, small frames just make you feel as though you are looking out of a tiny tube. (That is how I feel anyway.)

Okay! What a long rambling disconnected post! One other thing on my mind recently:

1) I love fall. I love the cool air and the spiders webs and pumpkins and dew on the grass and the lovely crisp evenings. Probably my favorite season. (Except for spring, summer, and winter. I love them each the best when they first start...)

Have a great weekend! I know I will, I see a pumpkin patch and caramel apple in my near future.

A post I have been meaning to write for a while

2010-10-11T09:48:00.001-07:00

Dearest readers,

When you have curly hair, it defines a far larger segment of your personality than, say, straight hair or wavy hair. I'm sure I will be stepping on some toes here, but those of you with what I would term wavy hair....I'm sorry, that is not curly hair. It never will be, and you have no idea what you are talking about. If your hair doesn't form ringlets and/or lift off of your head with a mind of its own, combined with frizz and static, you don't have curly hair. If you can use a brush to brush your hair when it is dry without too much trouble, you don't know what I'm talking about. If you don't have to comb out your hair in the shower with copious amounts of thick conditioner, you don't know what I'm talking about. I

And then, there are those of us who have what I like to call Frankenstein curly hair.

My hair, brushed when dry, and partially straight from being pulled back the day before. This was after I removed 2-3 bobby pins from their secret nests hidden deep within (lost from the day before). I am constantly finding bobby pins secreted away in the endless depths.

And that is it.

Summer's Final Huzzah!

2010-10-05T08:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been meaning to share these pictures with you of our (only) summer camping trip, but moving and re-moving got in the way. But, I finally found these photos on J's computer and have a moment this morning to blog them.

We had been planning to do a lot of camping this last summer, we talked big talk, but in the end we had to settle for a one night rushed trip to the coast. There was so much going on every weekend during the summer (and the summer didn't even really start until the middle of July) that it is hardly our fault. We are neither of us Boy Scouts ( J especially is a city boy...I love you sweetie!), so camping under our own power is a different experience entirely from camping as a tag along on other people's trips. We did manage to get a nice fire going later in the evening, but we couldn't figure out the camp stove. It might be broken, so we ended up driving down the road to eat the worst hamburgers of our lives in some po-dunk coastal town. But that was all made up for by the delish s'mores that night.

(Sunning with Dieter at Honeyman Beach Park, one of my favorite places on earth.)

(Double pug.)

(See! The pugs aren't always cute. Especially when they sneak over to the neighbor's

camp and eat their chili on the sly and then have horrible pug farts all night long.)

(Argh! Pirates?)

(Scenery, or as J likes to call it: Beanery)

(Heceta Head, another of my favorite spots. J said everywhere in Oregon must

be my favorite....It's true.)

(Double Pug.)

The Eagle Has Landed

2010-10-04T08:39:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness. I can't even begin to describe how nice it is to be in my own house again. I celebrated by cooking up a storm (corn chowder, tzatziki, hummus, tabouleh, roasted veggies...) on Sunday for dinner and for lunches during the week. J and I have decided to be virtuous and pack our lunches. (You might remember my new lunch box, purchased expressly for this purpose?) Otherwise he would buy lunch (and what a waste of money!) and I would go hungry because I couldn't break away from whatever I'm doing at the time (or I would go and buy a burrito! Oh cha cha cha!)

Okay! I'm not quite ready to reveal the after pictures (the window molding in our room doesn't go back up for a couple of weeks, but I do have some (very poor quality) before pictures for you:

There was much painting and rearranging done, but it is finally coming together. I'm especially pleased with the kitchen and the living room. I might be able to do some after photos of those two rooms this week. Yay! I'm home!

This is what happens

2010-09-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

when you leave a camera lying around:

Alas! Alas!

2010-09-29T09:32:00.000-07:00

Readers. We were supposed to be moving back into our condo today. Just like we were supposed to moving back into the condo last week. And like last week, it is just not going to happen. I can't even explain how frustrated (and distraught) I am. I HATE being in limbo like this. I HATE living out of a suitcase, for a month now.

This is how I feel:

And poor Peanut, who feels bad about putting me in this situation and is extremely frustrated and I'm sure I'm not helping by being so upset. And really, should I be upset? Not really, we are staying in a very comfortable house and everything is great otherwise. I just feel so disconnected from my normal life and I feel stymied. I have no access to any of my art books or art supplies. And I feel like I haven't been able to eat properly. Even when a kitchen is well stocked and there is every sort of gadget you could want, it is not the same as being in your own kitchen. I'm sure that this is all in my mind. But I'm dying to sleep on my tempurpedic mattress. But most of all, I wanted to be out of the house before J's parents returned from vacation. I know that after a long vacation all I want to do is return to normal, and they can't really do that when there are two pugs (adorable as they might be) squatting in the laundry room and a messy future daughter in law camped out upstairs (sorry guys!).

Anyhoo. No need for you to feel sorry for me....I feel sorry enough for myself to cover it (plus some). Now, I just need to quit whinging (since we will be in this Friday).

Dressers, pulls, colors

2010-09-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

For those of you out there who read both of my blogs meticulously, along with watching with rapt attention to the videos posted on my work blog (I know there has to be at least one of you out there, stalker!), you will know that due to moving and various furniture swapping (work dresser/cabinet now in the living room, bedroom dresser now at work), I have no dresser, and for the short time I was at Jonathan's (a week maybe?) all of my clothes found a place on the floor. (How was that for a run on sentence? Suck it 4th grade language arts teacher!)

So to remedy this, I was drooling over dressers at Room and Board. If only I wasn't (comparatively) poor. Who can afford these?

http://www.roomandboard.com/rnb/product/detail.do?productGroup=3094&catalog=room&category=rm_bedrooms&subcategory=dresser

I want this dresser with a passion. But my passion doesn't extend to spending that much money on a piece of furniture. So I bought this one instead:

It was on sale at the unfinished furniture place here in town. I forget what wood (ash?), but it has cedar lining. I plan on finishing it with the baltic green color below:

I love colors more than plain wood anyway. It's not as stylish, but I can live with that. I also plan on switching out the pulls to these:

Or maybe these ones:

Either way, it will be nice to finally have a functioning dresser. I can't describe how excited I will be to not be living out of a laundry basket!

Oh Pugs! And Apartments...

2010-09-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

(From the NE apartment, to be known in the future as the Old World Charm)

Dearest Gunter,

It has been an epic adventure....moving into J's condo, and then moving again a few days later to J's parent's house. You have been a champ. Except, of course, that time you "marked your territory" on that bag of stuff after Rosh Hashanah brunch. In front of the whole family.... But besides that, you've been great.

Dearest Dieter,

You've been great. Stay out of the bathroom garbage. That is all I have to say.

p.s. We will finally be moving back into the condo this Wednesday...knock on wood. I also have big plans for a dresser we bought and unveiling the changes that we've made to the condo. I hope to have before and after pictures up soon!

Good Gravy!

2010-09-06T16:38:00.000-07:00

(this exact post is also posted on my studio blog, sorry jewelry fiends,

I'm still too busy to blog regularly. See below for details.)

I'm sorry folks. Most of August feels like Wedding D-day in the singleB studio. There are so many weddings happening over Labor Day that all I do is work (at least that is how it feels to me!) And there are always a few last minute rush projects for people going on vacation or visiting with family etc. and they NEED to have a ring by then. And as much as I love them, rush jobs make my life hell. I'll be honest. I'm not the most organized of people (truly). I just tend to rely on my giant brain (ha! Better keep popping those fish oil supplements!) to keep track of everything, instead of having a system in place to keep track of things for me (like what an organized person would do....I'm not even sure what that would look like. Sticky notes? File folders? Spread sheets?) It has worked so far.....I haven't missed any weddings.....yet. (Fingers crossed, knock on wood!)

But besides being the busiest business month out of the year for me, I also had my brother's wedding, a visit from my sister, and worst of all, a move. The studio is still in the same spot, but the cute little apartment that the pugs and I inhabited was left behind for a cute little place that has room for me and the pugs and the Shop Monkey. I'm sure I speak for many when I say that I HATE moving with my whole soul. (Can I get a show of hands?) I swear, every time I move I think "I'm never buying a single trinket ever again. I'm done. I hate you Amazon!"

Now that the move is over (almost a week you say, from the 1st, which surely was the date your move finished?) you would think things are going to calm down. Sure. Except that a good friend of mine from my Navy days got married on the 4th, and that wedding was in Maryland. So the Shop Monkey and I packed our bags and traveled across the country for a lovely wedding (where I had waaaaay toooooooo muuuuuucccchhhhh to drink. A flash back to my Navy days as well?). And then when we arrived back in Portland (which, by the way is much better than any other place on the planet. Our tap water is the best in the country. This is true, google it.), we had to repack the things we had just unpacked a few days before in order to move to the Shop Monkey's parent's house while our condo is torn apart in order to get rid of mold in the walls of the two bedrooms. Good Gravy! I actually RAN to work today in order to get away from the chaos that is my life at home. And now we* will be staying at the parentals for who knows how long. As much as I hope they like me now (hi Fanny!), I hope they will still like me after their house has been invaded by me and the pugs.

So, dear and gentle readers (including you, Nancy!), I will be back to regular (and by regular, I mean random) posting soon. Just as soon as I am not living out of a suitcase/plastic bag, perhaps.

*and by we, I mean me, the Shop Monkey, AND Gunter AND Dieter. Poor Shop Monkey parents.

Wedding

2010-08-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

One of my younger brothers (I have 3) got married this weekend (Bride: 19, Groom: 22) . There is not much to say about the wedding* so i will just post some pictures. I really wish them the best of luck, they are going to need it.

My older sister came out for the weekend and we had a good time together doing Portlandy stuff. We also got a haircut (we seem to do a lot of hair based activities together for some reason. Probably because both of us loath getting our haircut...when you have special needs hair it is hard to find someone who can cut curly hair without mutilating it. We both have the same terrible stack of layers. One giant shelf at chin level and the rest of the hair just hanging below it. Terrible. Our hair is straightened here, only the hairdresser can get it that way).

Terribly washed out. Thanks Shakeitphoto! No wrinkles and/or chin!

*If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

Friday, the moving edition

2010-08-20T10:07:00.000-07:00

Shabbat Menu:

Roast chicken or fish

cucumber salad with onions, dill, and red wine vinegar

purple potato rosemary parmesan gratin (whipping cream is key here)

fresh baked challah

cold green bean salad(??)

Moving is moving along apace (hehehe...moving is moving. Noun and verb!) Jonathan spends 4 nights of the week here and so in the morning he takes a couple of boxes with him when he goes home. Which makes it easy for me.

Ah, cookbooks. I love to read cook books at night in bed.

Is that weird?

Ceramic China-men antique lamps. Should they stay

or go to the goodwill for some lucky hipster to find?

Almost empty bookshelves. Do you see that little squat,

dark wood statue? That is my pygmy. When my older sister

was on her honeymoon in S. Africa, I told her all I wanted

was for her to bring me a pygmy (a real one, of course) and she

didn't, but she did get me this cute carving of one.

The goodwill box.

What has been happening this morning? (Besides making challah, which is right now rising (at least I hope it is rising, this batch seemed a little reluctant to rise for some reason, maybe I put in too much salt or sugar? Ay!)

For the pug lovers, pug sunbathing.

When a loaf of this bread costs more than 5 dollars, I should be more

careful about toasting it.

Fruit! Glorious fruit from my CSA box. Midway through, I decided to add

the fruit share to my box, and I am so glad I did. I love fruit! A disproportionate

amount of my grocery budget (ha! Like I have a grocery budget!) goes towards

fruits and berries all summer long. I think that is because my mother

never bought the expensive fruit, or at least not very often. We ate a lot of red and green apples

and oranges at my house growing up. I remember one of the first things that I did

when I had a little money of my own was to buy pounds of cherries and gorge myself on them.

Things are pretty much still like that.

This weeks CSA box included a pound or so of tomatillos. So I decided

to make salsa. Broiled the tomatillos, a bunch of cilantro, white onion, jalepeno,

tad bit of vinegar and voila:

And the 2nd piece of burnt toast of the morning. I got distracted by

facebook. My lovely friend Annie announced her engagement this

morning and I totally forgot about the toast.

Have a great weekend everyone! I know I will, my sister will be in town from Reno and my younger brother is getting married!

August.

2010-08-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

The time is quickly approaching when the Peanut and I will be joining households. We've already been moving some stuff from my little place to his place, and my apartment begins to look empty. Nothing like taking down all of the art on the walls to make a person feel sad.
(And leaving my light-filled old world charm/wooden floors/built-ins/subway tile/white molding/fireplace/antique chandeliers apartment for a more modern and carpeted condo makes me nervous. And there will now be 4 animals and two humans living in one little space. It will be like a pet circus all day long. Well, I hope not. I hope that after a while the pugs and kitties will get along. Plus the pugs come to work with me. The no sidewalks is also a bit of a worry. But there is a big park nearby. And we will be really close to the JCC gym. And Barbur World Foods is close. I hope that will make up for losing my New Seasons. Anyway, I can't think about it too much. I've only ever lived in NE, so SW is going to be a bit of a change for me, but I think I can adjust. If anyone has any clever lighting tips, or sources for nice lamps please let me know.)

Not that I am sad to be moving in with J. Just sad to be leaving my little apartment and a certain time in my life behind. I loved living alone. I will be honest, I like having my own way about things. Luckily for me, my boyfriend is the most accommodating guy in the world....Me: "What do you think of _____, or maybe blue ______, what about something like _______? Him: I don't care. I just want you to be happy." Nice, yes? I'm totally fine with him not caring about the color of the walls or whatever. Because I care and I like to make things happen. I think perhaps some of the stress that happens between people in a couple is because one person cares about XYZ, but the other doesn't care one way or another, but the first person expects the second person to make XYZ happen for them anyway, even though they don't really care/it doesn't make a material difference in their happiness. Well, not me. If I want XYZ, I will make XYZ happen. And that isn't to say that J isn't involved in making the new place* nice...as we speak he is going to look at a kitchen cart/island thing from craigslist and he has sanded and painted and run errands and all sorts of stuff. He's about as great as great can get.

I realize this post is confused and a bit contradictory. But I guess that happens when a big event fills you with both excitement and apprehension. Mostly excitement, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't a tad nervous too. Not about living with J, not at all. That will be great, I know it. But living in a place/neighborhood so totally different from what I am used to. That makes me nervous. But it isn't permanent, we will probably be looking for a house in the next year and half or so, and I can make it through anything for a year and half (I managed 5 years in the Navy after all.)

We will be Beanifying the new place* in the next few months, so there will be updates. Hopefully with lots of before and after pictures. (If I can remember to take before pictures. I never do.)

*and by new place I mean his current condo that needs a lot of a help from a lady.

New Time Magazine cover

2010-08-09T11:12:00.000-07:00

At J's suggestion:

Instead of:

My new lunch box

2010-08-03T10:58:00.001-07:00

Since I moved into the new studio a few months ago, I've really been struggling to eat well during the day. I'm no longer a short walk from my favorite burrito place, so I've generally been skipping lunch everyday. Which I know is bad for me. So when I saw this fancy lunchbox at New Seasons, I snapped it up. I had been looking for a Japanese style box for a while, but this one is just so cute and I love that it is all made of metal!

Finally.

2010-08-02T15:40:00.000-07:00

My spice cupboard was something that made me ashamed of myself every time I opened it. It looked as though a box of (dirty) plastic bags had exploded in there. I would dig through this mountainous pile of wreckage, searching for the coriander or the white pepper, cursing (myself) the entire time. And I finally snapped. Witness below what a case of 4 ounce class jars purchased from a container store on the interwebs will do in the space of an hour or so.

TAA DAA!

I seem to have checked out

2010-08-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

of this blog last week.

What have I been doing?

Cooking.

Baked halibut with zhoug (a delicious sauce with hot peppers and cilantro. Anything with cilantro will be my favorite thing in the world. I'm still talking about this cilantro and peanut salad I had one time in China, 3 years later).

Hummus (not exciting, but I've finally figured out how to cook dried beans! The secret is a little baking soda in the water and soaking them for a day and half. We will see if it helps with other beans as well. There are many things I want to love but don't/can't. Recycling, vimeo, halva, cooking with dried beans, body lotion, CSAs, multivitamins, and nancy's plain yogurt to name a few. Maybe this baking soda thing will make me love dried beans).

Roasted vegetables (zucchini and onions, with some olive oil, salt and paprika, then some fresh chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon when you pull them out of the oven).

Pita. (This list is not exhaustive, obviously.)

Reading.

(And the Sookie Stackhouse novels.)

Watching:

Making.

Loving.

St. Cupcake cupcakes. And especially the peanut who brought them to me as a surprise, telling me he was just going to run to the new seasons for icecream, when really he was driving across the river to NW to get these! (We spent the evening eating popcorn and cupcakes and icecream for dinner. I love being an adult.)

Because my tiny niece

2010-07-30T12:14:00.001-07:00

is the cutest thing ever. Happy Friday!

Friday, the goodness edition

2010-07-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

Don't these look tasty? They are, I can tell you. I got into them last night, even though they are not quite done pickling. They are sort of a North African version, with turmeric and ginger and hot peppers. The veggies are radish, turnip, sugar snap peas, cabbage, carrots and plenty of sliced garlic. The brine is just water and salt and some rice vinegar. They will be featured on my table this evening as the star of the show.

Other supporting characters to be found this Shabbat are:

Olives

Lemon and allspice potato salad

Borekitas de Beregena (eggplant and feta in tiny little pies, sort of like empanadas)

Aliyah (a Georgian stewed chicken dish with tomatoes, cilantro, and tamarind)

Lemony sponge cake! (pan d'Espanya)

Okay, have a great weekend everyone!

Dieter and other miscellanea

2010-07-21T10:18:00.000-07:00

Where the tiny pug likes to hide during breakfast.

I went to the best wedding this weekend! My friends Chad and Sarah got married out at Allie Park in Washington. (Chad is my bestfriend Kellie's older brother). It was lovely. The weather was lovely. My friends are lovely. And I finally got to wear this bright yellow dress I'd been saving for the weddings (plural) this summer. Yes, I will be wearing the same outfit to all three. I don't even care.

Bloomed

2010-07-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

These finally faded away. I love this type of lily, but I am getting a little tired of the same flower week after week. There was no CSA box this week, but I think things will get back on track from here on out. Hopefully there will be a different variety of flowers soon.

What I've Been Reading (The June-July Edition)

2010-07-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

In order of appearance:

Weekend Round Up

2010-07-12T08:32:00.000-07:00

I have to really love pugs, otherwise this would be get really old, day after day. The pugs aren't generally on the couch unaccompanied, but early in the morning they like to get up there while we are still sleeping. The sun shines in the front windows right onto the couch.

But who can stay mad at faces like these:

And the cutest thing ever:

Gunter, the true Oregon Outdoorspug.

The rest of the weekend sort of went by in a flash. After we came back from the river, J and I washed the pugs and then rode our bikes to the Kennedy school and ate hamburgers and played scrabble (...cognates, triple word, 50pt bonus).

Sunday I met J and his brother for breakfast. Then me and Dann (the brother) went dress shopping. I have a couple of weddings coming up and I sort of hate shopping. But we finally found something. It's a canary yellow dress with crossing straps in the back and full skirt. Super cute! Just have to figure out the whole undergarment dilemma.

After shopping and cupcakes at St. Cupcake (cupcakes!) J and I went to the gym and played a rousing game of racquet ball that ended in a tie. Then we went to our favorite Japanese place and had ramen while sitting on their patio (playing scrabble). They had this fabulous drink made with plum vinegar and ginger ale. Fantastic.

And that was the weekend.

Why today is good

2010-07-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

On the menu:

Wine braised brisket, served cold with mustard (it is hot here!)
Fresh challah
Chilled green beans in vinaigrette
Something with figs and goat cheese (??)
Olives

(On the menu last week was chicken adobo with white rice and a cold cucumber and onion salad)

Figs! I love figs! I love pulling them warm off of a tree and just biting into them. So soft and delicious. These are from New Seasons and I've had better, but they are still figs.

I had to photograph them all close up, because the rest of my kitchen looked like this:

Which isn't exactly picturesque.

Have a great weekend everyone!

哎呀

2010-07-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

Aiya (eye-yah) in Chinese is exclamation sort of like oy vey. Think of the different ways you will say "oy vey". There is the "oy vey!" and the "oy...vey...." I can't really think of a good way to explain it. But it is suitable for me to use right now in all of its forms.

There is a heat wave in Portland right now, which I loooooove, but the Peanut hates. Last night was sizzling. Poor man. My apartment has no air-conditioning and it is on the second floor. Consequently, it is super warm. I have no problem with it, but J needed to lay flat on the couch in his underwear eating a fruit icee and being periodically spritzed with a water bottle in order to endure. The pugs were also trying to escape the heat any way they could (which mostly involved lying like pug-cakes on the floor).

Okay, why do I say 哎呀?

1) Dieter, last night, discovered the extra bag of dog food stored on his crate and ate as much of it as he could pack into his little sausage self. He did this stealthily, there were no telltale sounds. J and I were watching a movie (mama mia, which was terrible, btw) and I was wondering where the Demon pug had got to...I discovered him lying prostrate on the bathroom floor. His belly was swollen up so that he was a solid tube of pug. Normally he is lean and leggy, but at that point he was so large that I was wondering if he could breath. He had done this once before, down at my mom's, and I knew what would follow...A terrible poop hurricane in the middle of the night.

(Please notice the distended and swollen belly. Contents of which are waiting to be deposited on my floors)

He did not disappoint. I didn't know what to do. Should I have locked him in his crate? It would have been a sh*t coffin in the morning, I knew. So I left him free, and put some paper down. (I think we can all guess where this is going...)

In the morning, I came out to discover that a pug-poo tornado had touched down in my living room. (Thank g*d for wood floors). The one spot that had been left untouched was, of course, the paper.

Aiya.

Nothing like pulling on a pair of rubber gloves at 8 am.

(For those of you who would remember...Kellie....Mary...this really had nothing on the Zoe Poop-a-poolooza at the 14th street house.)

For those of you contemplating adopting a dog, let me just remind you that it is not all charming walks and cavorting in the dog park before you go home to snuggle on the couch. No. It is giant piles of hair under the couch and poo-fests and fishing moldy chicken bone fragments out of their mouths with your bare hands. Be warned.

Unless of course, you have a pug like this one:

Virtual Pug

2010-07-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are pug-less, for whatever reason, this weekends post is for you. It is a virtual pugfest.

Odds and Ends

2010-07-01T10:17:00.003-07:00

So this week I picked up my second CSA box. This is the first time that I've subscribed to a CSA farm, and I'm liking it thus far. I'd always wanted to join since I first started reading about it years ago, but I was never settled enough. But now I finally have a routine (of sorts) and that makes it easier to remember to pick the box up and to cook regularly.

So, as I've been writing, this summer took FOREVER to get going. Gloom and clouds straight through to the end of June. Since my little farm is located nearby, just over the border in Washington (it's a little organic farm run by two women), it has gotten off to a bit of a late start in the veg department. Last week the first box contained radishes, arugula, 2 small heads of butter lettuce, chives, 3-4 garlic scapes, chinese broccoli, and a small pint of watery strawberries. I was a tad disappointed, but I understand. The NW has been under a cloud of grayness and drowned in water, so everything is growing slowly. It is actually a nice reminder that food actually comes out of the ground and is affected by the local weather. I know that with 2 New Seasons (the greatest grocery stores ever in the world) just a few minutes away, I get to feeling like I should have just about anything in abundance any time that I want. And that is not the way to cultivate gratitude for the food that you eat. So am I am glad to be paying a little bit more for organic food grown nearby. (At least that is what I keep telling myself. :-) This week had carrots, lettuce, chives, arugula, cilantro, and a big bag of apricot/plum things. Yay! (I see a galette in my future! Maybe for Shabbat!)

But it really is nice to have someone else choosing your produce for you. I don't know about you, but I tend to buy a lot of the things I know I like (zucchini, kale, tomatoes). So it is nice to have different things in the fridge to inspire me. I've been eating great salads at work. See below:

It is made mostly from my recent box. Lettuce, tiny heirloom carrots, arugula, chives, radish (from last week), onion, zucchini, canellini beans. The container on top has a fantastic blue cheese dressing that I made last week for shabbos from the stinkiest, grossest blue cheese ever, shallots, chives, champagne vinegar, garlic, parsley, basil, smoked salt, and sour cream (of course).

With each box, I get a big bunch of flowers. It has been asiatic lilies the last couple of times. Absolutely gorgeous. (These are last weeks, they last forever! It's like a fireworks show as they open up.)

And while I'm here, I got this awesome little blue gee-gaw from this tiny shop in Cannon Beach called The Butler Did It. It is made from french blue glass. I. Love. It.

The sweet little fu-dog tea light holder is from a little place down the street that is chock full of cool junks. And it is only open on Saturday.

These are this weeks flowers:

I've very excited to see them bloom. Yellow!

Wordless Weekend

2010-06-28T12:15:00.000-07:00

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Drarweens

2010-06-23T11:32:00.003-07:00

The Longest Day of the Year

2010-06-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

This weather is killing me. Sure, it says you can see the sun. But really, that just means that it isn't pitch black here. Those little suns, partially hidden by clouds, indicate that it isn't a perpetual midnight here, even if it might feel like it. That is all. It doesn't actually mean sun. As far as I know, there isn't a sun. There is just an oppressive light gray humming light, occasionally broken up by larger, darker, more well defined clouds.

It is June. The summer solstice. The longest day of the year. And it feels that way.

Sunshine. I want it. I need it like a hungry pug needs a treat. Coffee is no longer cutting it. (I've even switched to the real deal after drinking half-caf for several months, still to no effect.)

Maybe my doom and gloom comes from finishing this book this morning:

It wasn't a spirit lifter, that's for sure. But it was compulsively readable. A first person narrative of a year spent in Nazi concentration camps. It was so interesting how he describes how something that horrifying can happen in incremental, reasonable sounding steps. I suppose I had always pictured the camps as their totality, complete and terrifying all at once. I couldn't see past the furnaces and the gassings. But he tells the other stories of the camps, the hunger, the boredom, the random strangeness. The details are amazing and the way he deals with his return to Hungary after the war ends is fascinating. It was just so different from other books I've read on the subject and provided a new perspective for me.

Anyhow, it is a little gloomy here in the House Of Bean. I'm going to have a second cup of coffee and see if that helps.

Friday, the goodness edition

2010-06-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

My neighborhood rose garden:

Dieter:

My Bedside Table, a still life

2010-06-17T19:49:00.000-07:00

Sour Cream Love

2010-06-15T13:05:00.000-07:00

This morning, I told the peanut I loved him a lot (not Alot), and he replied:

"I don't love you a lot,
I love you supreme,
Which is love with
a dollop of sour cream"

This is funny for two reasons, actually 3. First, it rhymes. Second, it references a burrito from Tacotime. 3rd, I have been involved in a passionate love affair with sour cream for many years now. So I can see how love with sour cream is better than plain love. It's true.

When I was a kid (and not a little kid, high school age), my mother wouldn't let me serve myself sour cream on burrito nights. She had to ration it out to me, or I would have hogged the whole container.

These days, I can have as much sour cream as I would like. Which is nice. My favorite is Daisy brand, although any brand without guar gum and starch will work for me.

I wanted to take a photo, because the pugs had decided that they both needed a spot on my lap, which doesn't happen very often, but I couldn't get a good shot. On an unrelated note, Gunter has decided that a good place to nap while I am gone is in the bathtub.

Poor Pug

2010-06-10T11:18:00.000-07:00

Poor tiny pug. Has to come to work with me today. Gets to eat part of my lunch and go for an afternoon walk. Poor little pug.

Oh Poppies!

2010-06-09T14:05:00.000-07:00

This is why I love Oregon (and also why I hate it).

I love the summer in Oregon. Oh, the sunshine. I love the sunshine more because it is so often cloudy and horrible here. But it sweetens the sunshine, the gloom.

Why today was good

2010-06-04T18:49:00.000-07:00

The pugs love the BFF (aka Auntie Kellie).

I'm seeeck

2010-06-02T11:53:00.001-07:00

Curse you, cold!

I haven't had a cold since last Halloween, so I guess I'm doing ok. I don't really get any other maladies, so I suppose I'm lucky. One or two colds a year can be tolerated. My colds generally come from flying on an airplane (at least 75% of my colds are travel induced).

But it sure is miserable. I hate having a cold, it makes me slow and cranky and out of it. When I'm working I need to be focused. When my face is stuffed full of dense (and yet fluffy) clouds of terribleness it is hard to focus on work. incredibly hard. I just want to go home and drink tea in front of my giant computer screen passing the time reading blogs or watching streaming netflix. Any netflix users out there than have recommendations? I'm looking for a new series.

And it is Wednesday already! It's like the week is gone before it even began. What happened to today? It's already 12:22.

Ok, enough about my woes. Here is a brief roundup of what I've been doing/reading/eating etc.

1.) Check out this fantastic blog. I love this girl, Allie Brosh, she is hilarious.

click here:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

If you are feeling generous you can donate so she can continue drawing funny pictures and not starve to death.

2.) I can never remember how to spell the words convenient, guarantee, or bureau. But I can spell definitely and dining. I think it is hilarious how people spell dining table, dinning table. (I always hear it in my mind rhyming with tin. Dinning. (Definately, defiantly.....hehehehehe)

3.) This is where the Dieter Pug has decided his new favorite spot is. Needless to say, I'm not overly thrilled.

4.) This is what I was doing this last weekend while I wasn't busy being sick.

This tiny one wasn't super happy with my interference. She lost her mind when I prevented her from going over the other side (which was even more precarious than this one).

The conversation:

AB: B come here little tiny, I want to squeeze you and try to get a good picture of myself squeezing you.

B: Okay

AB: *click* *click*.....wait, wait. That one wasn't very flattering, just a couple more...

B: ..... ..... ....

AB: *click* Darnit, my eyes were closed. Just a second and you can go back to your sandbox. ....

*click* *click*

B: Come on strange woman, let me go....

AB: Hold on...*click* *click*

B: Quit touching me! Can't you see I was trying to eat sand. LET ME GOOOOOOO!

AB: Okay, okay. Fine.

And that is it for now. I have to go back to nursing my cold.

The Pugs love the Peanut

2010-05-27T09:43:00.000-07:00

More than they love me. It's true.

And now today

2010-05-19T11:30:00.001-07:00

After all of that glorious weekend weather, this. I did a little creative adjusting in iphoto, I wanted to give the feeling of the reality here, not the actual reality. Rainy and gloomy, as only Oregon on the verge of summer can be.

If you weren't born and raised here (or maybe Alaska or some place far north in Canada) I wouldn't recommend moving here. This place is only for the hardened professionals who can tolerate low levels of sunlight and happiness. Coffee is the artificial sunlight here, and I'm out the door to get some. Cheers.

The Peanut is the best!

2010-05-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

Not the best picture of me, but I love it anyway. This is from a weekend or two ago. We had gone to J's parents to do yardwork. It was hard and dirty, but lovely just the same.

Weekend

2010-05-17T08:53:00.000-07:00

It is Monday.

Monday means work work work.

But before that, let me tell you a little bit about my weekend.

Friday night, I had a lovely evening with J. A relaxed shabbis dinner, with roast chicken, fresh pasta, fresh baked challah and a crispy crunchy cabbage salad. (A little bit different from my regular cabbage, cilantro and rice vinegar cabbage salad. This one had radishes, chives, thin sliced celery and a buttermilk dressing. Lovely!)

Saturday morning, we had bagels with the gravlax we had been preparing all week. (Fresh salmon+white pepper+dill+salt+sugar+mustard seed+6 days of waiting=delicious!) Then we tried to go estate sale shopping, but that was a bust. From there we went to the American Apparel rummage sale, which, to be frank, sucked. Thanks, I don't really want to fight teenage girls and hipsters for some poorly made cotton clothing. Normally I like a some American Apparel stuff, but this was all tights and mustard yellow hoodies.

The we took the pugbutts to a new park:

It was super warm, and we ran around and did cartwheels and handstands (not the pugs....me and the Peanut), and then we walked to the the Lucky Lab and sat outside with Gunter and Dieter and shared some beers and a salad (again, not the pugs...me and the Peanut). It was gorgeous. I got a little sun on my shoulders and it looks like spring/summer is really here. After an Oregon winter, summer is always a revelation.

Saturday night, the pugs and I had a sleepover at J's house. We watched a strange movie called Ink. I liked it. Breakfast at Marco's. Breakfast cake! (i.e. Belgian waffle.) More dogs and the park. Then a 4 mile run at the gym and a competitive game of racquetball against the Peanut (it was a draw). Then a calm sunday dinner (steamed artichokes, chicken salad in lettuce wraps).

A still life of my bedside table:

And now it is off to the studio for me. So much stuff to take care of, so little time. Can't wait for next weekend!

Shabbas Dinners

2010-05-10T18:55:00.000-07:00

Challah, steamed asparagus in redwine vinaigrette, garlic roast, colcannon (mashed potatoes and kale),

and gravy of course.

Wow. It's already Thursday. The weeks just seem to disappear between work and pugs and working out (at my new fantastic gym, i.e. the JCC). How is it that time goes so much faster the older you are? My personal opinion is that since you already remember so much and have seen so much time go by, the span of a week seems vanishingly short. Or maybe it's because as an adult you have so much to do, and that makes time go by faster. Or maybe it is both? Most likely.

So Friday night is now my favorite night of the week. I look forward to it and I enjoy planning for it. It's like a tiny holiday every week!

This week will be roast chicken, homemade pasta coated in the juices from the roasting pan (don't knock it until you try it! It is the most delicious chickeny thing you can eat. Seriously. It is essence of chicken!), challah, wine, maybe green beans? Maybe cilantro cabbage salad? Maybe mashed cauliflower? I can't decide on a vegetable. Creamed chard? Braised greens? When I go grocery shopping tomorrow I'm sure something will pop out at me.

And for the pug lovers out there:

Friday

2010-04-30T10:35:00.000-07:00

Friday mornings are my favorite. The week is almost over (even if I will be moving my studio Saturday and working on Sunday.... still, it feels like Friday is an event), it's time to enjoy the day etc. I love Friday mornings.

The daily fruit smoothie, about to be whizzed into smoothness by my handy immersion blender (thank you PPP1!).

Ah, coffee. The elixir of life. (Stumptown blend, half to 1/3 decaf).

Challah, in production. I use my mixer so much. I don't know what I did before it. I love it. I would really like to get the kind with the bowl that lifts up (it's better for bread dough, apparently), and mine just hasn't been the same since it took a disastrous dive off of the counter headfirst....

Ready to rise into sweet white bread perfection.

New reads from Powell's, scored yesterday night. Peanut and I went to see his youngest brother get auctioned off for charity (he went for 75 bones...I feel that he was super brave to put himself out there like that. It was also awesome to see his parents there as well). The event was held at this place in NW that was just full to the brim with douche canoes. (P and I decided that out of 10 douche canoes, at least 7 are also ass-hats (foul language courtesy of The Bloggess....douche canoe is now my favorite insult)). I hadn't fully realized until this year why Kellie always despised going to the west side. Now I know why: douche canoes.

But Powell's in on the west side. And Powell's is probably one of my favorite places on earth. I would buy a perfume if it smelled like the inside of Powell's. New books, old musty books, leather bound books, with a slightest note of coffee. The smell alone makes me relax. More books than you could ever read in a lifetime. A full city block of books. It's heaven.

Ok, enough for now. Have a happy weekend everyone. I know I will....Kellie is in town from Phoenix!

The Demon Pug Returns

2010-04-29T08:04:00.000-07:00

We had, for a short while, thought that the Demon Pug had vanished, leaving us with only the Dieter Pug to love and squeeze. But we were wrong.

Apparently, it was only the calm before the storm. He had been doing so good with his housebreaking etc. (Except, of course, the time last week where he took a deuce on my bedroom floor while we were laying in bed....but that wasn't his fault, the pooping schedule was off and I had just switched food to boot). But he really had been being so good. I was patting myself on the back, thinking "wow, this pug is so much better behaved than even Gunter at this age..."

But recently, Demon Pug has decided that the witching hour is sometime between dawn and and when I get out of bed. Today it was my bag and my lip balms, yesterday it was Jonathan's shoes and my house slippers (he didn't do any damage), the day before it was the new pillows for the couch, before that a packing box filled with styrofoam peanuts and newspapers, before that an electrical cord...

He's still a sweetie, but I'm hoping this won't continue, otherwise I will have to crate him for the night. I think things will get better when he can come to work with me, instead of being in the crate for a good part of the day.

Shabbas Dinners

2010-04-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

I've decided to keep a diary of the dinners I make for the Peanut (AKA Shop Monkey) on Friday nights. We have a nice little thing going, involving a bottle of wine, candles, and a quiet evening together. I love it!

I'm not really a chicken person. In fact, I'm not really a meat eater. I like it, sometimes. But I made the BEST chicken ever last Friday night. Seriously fantastic chicken. My own creation.

I'm not a big measurer of ingredients, so you just have to go with what you feel is right.

Fresh thyme (a good small sized half handful of leaves and tender stems)

Fresh oregano (1 medium to loose packed tblsp leaves)

Fresh rosemary (3 to 4 good pinches of fresh needles)

juice of one half lemon

lemon zest from that half lemon

olive oil, maybe a quarter cup?

sea salt (a tsp or so)

sugar (half a tsp or so)

2-3 fat cloves garlic

red pepper flakes

Grind all of these ingredients together in a big mortar and pestle. You want to end up with a fine paste. Use a food processor if you have one. Squish all this paste together with the chicken slices in container and refrigerate for a few hours. You will also need of course:

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch or so slices, lengthwise

Paprika

Move an oven rack to the top portion of the oven. Turn your oven on to 500 deg. When it comes up to heat, switch it to broil.

Fold chicken slices into flat S shapes, and push 4 or 5 slices together (flat) on a cookie sheet. I'm not sure if that makes sense? Just pretend you are making chicken skewers without the skewers. Sprinkle with the paprika.

Cook for 3-4 minutes and flip over. It will cook super fast, so watch out. I just put it all in a bowl and served it with tabouli and hummus, with pita and tzatziki.

Bean's Hummus (I'm just guessing on the salt, sugar and cumin, you will need to adjust to your own tastes):

2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tsp smoked salt (plain sea salt is fine too)
1 tsp+ ground cumin
1/2 tsp sugar
5 fat garlic cloves, crushed
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup tahini
1/2 cup warm water (you might need more, I just add it until I get to the right consistency)

I put all of these in my blender, and mix until super smooth and creamy. Easy Peasy! Some people say to add lemon juice, but I think it isn't really necessary and can make it really sour. Maybe a squeeze, but that is all.

Why housekeeping is so hard for me

2010-04-22T11:58:00.001-07:00

See these adorable pugs:

They are the most adorable things that you will ever see. It's true. They are even cuter than your baby. I'm sorry to say it, but it is a fact.

I'm posting these pictures because I want you, the audience reading at home or at work, to understand the depth of my devotion to these small monster like dogs.

See Gunter, on the left, all blurry? That is because he is getting ready to do a small shake. Or he might even be in the midst of the shake at that moment. Who knows. But please see below:

What I would like you to notice about this picture (you can even click on it to see it larger) is all of the floating hair and dog dust that was released by that minor shake. Imagine what it is like if you have a small sprinkler of hair going on 24-7. I sweep almost everyday, and each time I pick up enough pug hair to make a new pug. Seriously. While pugs are the most awesome dogs ever, think about them shedding their own body weight in hair every few days before you go to adopt one.

This a public service announcement.

And yes, I let my pugs lick the beaters. So if that is a problem for you, don't dine at my house.

gunter and whipped cream from Justine Collins on Vimeo.

My Shakshuka

2010-04-14T17:25:00.001-07:00

didn't turn out as pretty as Smitten Kitchens, but it was still delicious. Note to self: Do not touch poaching eggs in the future if you would like the whites to stay together.

Pug-tastic

2010-04-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

The Kitchen of Bean

2010-04-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if this will interest anyone, but since this is my blog I will do what I want.

So here is a post about my kitchen. The pantry and the butter crock, to be specific.

I like my butter to be of a nice consistency, not hard from the fridge, but not liquid. I'd been wanting to get a butter dish, but those long rectangular ones always seem dirty to me. I don't know why. So when I found this one, it just did it for me. It's hi-low-tech, if you know what I mean.

Let me explain how this works. The butter gets squished into the rounded crock part, and then you set it upside down in the second piece. When you put an inch or so of water in the bottom the water seals the butter from the air, and your butter stays fresh! I'm convinced that it also has a mild cooling effect as well, from evaporation. I love it.

Next, the pantry:

Do you see those giant mason jars? (Actually they are Bell, but everyone knows these jars to be mason jars, it's kind of like kleenex or Q-tip). I got them at the hardware store, they are gallon canning jars, but they are perfect for holding quinoa and dried beans etc. You might also notice those little bags of black beans? Those are beluga lentils and black (!!!) chickpeas. I can't wait to make hummus from them!

On the menu tonight:

Shakshuka from Smitten Kitchen.

I will also be making homemade pita, which I think I do once a week or so. Half of the recipe can be eaten by two people and the other half of the dough can be stored in the fridge and makes a terrific thin crust pizza dough. Recipe stolen from Gourmet via Epicurious.

Whole wheat pitas:

1 (1/4-ounce) package active dry yeast (2 1/2 teaspoons)
1 teaspoon honey
1 1/4 cups warm water (105–115°F)
2 cups bread flour or high-gluten flour, plus additional for kneading
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon salt

Stir together yeast, honey, and 1/2 cup warm water in a large bowl, then let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. (If mixture doesn't foam, discard and start over with new yeast.)

Whisk 1/2 cup flour (either whole wheat or bread flour, doesn't really matter, just remember to adjust the total in the final addition of flour) into yeast mixture until smooth, then cover with plastic wrap and let stand in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled in bulk and bubbly, about 45 minutes. You can let this sit for several hours with no ill effects. Really, I let mine go from breakfast until lunch, when I can get back home to add the rest of the ingredients.

Stir in oil, salt, remaining 3/4 cup warm water, and remaining 2 1/2 cups flour mixture until a dough forms.

Turn out dough onto a floured surface and knead, working in just enough additional flour to keep dough from sticking, until dough is smooth and elastic, 8 to 10 minutes. Form dough into a ball and put in an oiled large bowl, turning to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rise in draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour (again this can sit for several hours without any issues).

Punch down dough and cut 2 pieces. Put one ball in plastic bag in refrigerator (for making pizza with later in the week). Cut remaining piece in to 4 pieces and roll into balls. Flatten 1 ball, then roll out into a 6 1/2- to 7-inch round on floured surface with a floured rolling pin. Doesn't have to be perfect, just make them pretty thin. Transfer round to 1 of 2 baking sheets lightly sprinkled with flour or cornmeal. Make 3 more rounds in same manner, arranging them on baking sheets. Loosely cover pitas with clean kitchen towel (not terry cloth) and let stand at room temperature 30 minutes. I do all of this on one of those perforated pizza pans, and then just put the pan in the oven, but the rounds do transfer easily, so don't worry about it.

Set oven rack in lower third of oven and remove other racks. Preheat oven to 500°F.

Transfer 4 pitas, 1 at a time, directly onto oven rack. Bake until just puffed and pale golden, about 2 minutes. Turn over with tongs and bake 1 minute more. Cool pitas on a cooling rack 2 minutes, then stack and wrap loosely in a kitchen towel to keep pitas warm.

Puggery

2010-04-07T09:43:00.000-07:00

puggery from Justine Collins on Vimeo.

Bodi, Protea, pugs, and CM's

2010-04-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

These crazy flowers are a love offering from my Peanut.

He knows that I love crazy flowers, the crazier the better.

I finally feel that spring is here. The most dangerous part of winter is over (post holiday to pre-spring, approximately Jan. 7-March 27th). No major grey-blue funks to be combatted , a slight light blue funk was felt during early Jan. through middle of February, driven off by Hawaiian sunshine, then reoccurring again for almost the entire month of March. But I am confident that the funk season is over. Daylight savings really helps me, and I feel like when the days finally stay light into the evening time I am safe from a funk attack for the rest of the year.

My smart little niece, Bodi-kins. So adorable! I just want to squeeze her.

I adore this pug. (The pug pictured above, not below.)

Liquid pug.

March (the cruelest month?) Retail Therapy

2010-03-22T09:57:00.000-07:00

I can't wait for these candlesticks to arrive (super find on etsy!!)!

Lately, I've been feeling a little bit blue. Work and pug care has got me a bit stressed and unhappy. I had to do a little bit of retail therapy to keep my spirits up. This is the worst time of year for me, right before spring. So, I thought a little nesting was in order. Kitchen stuff makes me happy.

To skim jiaozi out of boiling water with. Next version will be ginger chicken!

To make raviolis with! I think I will make shrimp and scallion filling, and serve it in a curry lemongrass soup/sauce.

Oh, homemade pasta how I love thee! I loved thee enough to purchase you the perfect colander, because trying to use tongs to remove you from boiling water was getting old.

Crepes, baby!

Heavy cast iron dutch oven. To bake breads in, to roast chickens in. To do so much in. I baked dutch babies in it this morning!

Granite mortar and pestle. To make pesto, guacamole, grind spices.....!!!!

And everything (except the colander and the skimmer) was a super deal on amazon, so I don't feel (that) guilty.

Amazing Baked Flan

2010-03-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

My bestfriend came into town for a visit this week and I decided to host a little dinner party while she was here. We made chicken molé tostadas with guacamole and cabbage cilantro slaw, but the best part of the meal was probably these homemade flan. So good and so easy.

The Goods:

2/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup water
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
5 eggs
Seeds from one vanilla bean, or 1.5tsp vanilla extract

The Deal:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a small nonstick saucepan, heat the sugar and water over medium heat. Stir occasionally until sugar is dissolved and begins to brown. You want a nice deep amber color. Spoon a small amount into eight 4 ounce ramekins. Swirl to coat bottom.

In a large bowl, hopefully one with a pouring spout and handle (like a batter bowl), combine sweetened condensed milk, cream, milk, eggs and vanilla. Pour custard mix into ramekins over the caramel.

Place the filled ramekins into a larger pan and add 1 inch of HOT water to the outer pan. Bake in preheated oven for 50 minutes, or until set. Half way through cooking you might want to cover with a cookie sheet if the tops of the custards are getting too brown. Cool in refrigerator until chilled. Use a butter knife to cut around edges of each ramekin to loosen custards and turn out onto plates.

Winston Pug

2010-03-17T12:31:00.000-07:00

We have a new (and hopefully) temporary addition to the House of Bean right now. His name is Winston Pug (aka Crazypug....we now have Demonpug, Crazypug, and (thank goodness) Angelpug). He will be staying with us for an undetermined amount of time and we hope his craziness will wear off a little bit. It already seems to be getting better. Dieter is still as demonic as ever, but compared to the Crazypug he is a little angel. It is constant Puggery around here and I'm not sure how much I can take. But I am chugging along with the help of J, who is the Patron Saint of Pugs. Saint Peanut. (see below)

Pugs are good for naps:

Orange couches are good for pugs:

Pugs are good for sunshine:

Crazy flowers are good for the soul:

Dieter the Cat

2010-03-12T10:55:00.000-08:00

Hawaii Highlights, 2010

2010-03-10T09:29:00.000-08:00

Peanut and Bean Escape to the Islands:

(I apologize for the massive amount of photos, I couldn't resist! There are more, but I will wait....)

Home Baked Challah

2010-02-22T09:49:00.001-08:00

This last Friday I decided to tackle Challah. I like to bake bread in general and I thought it would be nice to have a fresh loaf for dinner. I cruised the internet looking for a recipe with good reviews and finally settled on a mix of two different ones with a few tweaks of my own.

4 cups flour (2cups AP, 2 cups bread flour)
1 tblsp yeast
3/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup honey, or 1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup veg oil

Turn oven on at 170 (or whatever is the lowest setting on your oven), let it get warm for a few minutes and then switch off. Mix salt into flour.

Mix together 3/4 cup warmish water, sugar or honey, and yeast in bowl of stand mixer. Let stand for a few minutes until slightly foamy. Lightly beat in eggs and oil. Using paddle attachment or wooden spoon, gradually add flour until shaggy dough forms. Switch to dough hook and knead (adding water or flour as needed to arrive at correct consistency ) until dough is smooth and elastic (it is okay if it is a bit sticky). Coat large bowl (I use a big wide salad bowl) with some vegetable oil and place dough ball (rolling to coat) in bowl loosely covered with plastic wrap into turned off (but still warm oven), let rise for a couple of hours. Punch down dough and return to oven or warm spot for a couple more hours. When dough has re-risen, gather together and cut into three equal pieces. Form into small balls and let these rest for ten minutes or so before shaping. Roll each piece into a long snake shape, slightly larger in the center than at the ends. Starting with two lengths of dough in a loose X shape on your baking sheet (I oiled mine but you could use parchment), place the third length down the center. This will start your braid in the center. Braid down each end, just as if you are braiding hair. Tuck ends neatly. (I made a mistake of making my braid too short and fat. When the bread rose during baking it sort of spread and tore and my braid lost most of its pretty shape. Make your snakes longer and thinner to avoid this, but allow the middle of the snake to be slightly thicker than the ends. Cover with a wash of beaten egg. If you don't have a brush you can use a paper towel dipped in the wash, which is what I did. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise for a while. 30 minutes should do it. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat loaf in egg wash again bake for 40-45 minutes. This makes one LARGE loaf. Lately I've been dividing the dough into two parts and making two smaller loaves.

If you want to make kosher Challah (besides cooking in a kosher kitchen with kosher ingredients!) you also have to set aside a small piece of the unbaked dough to be burned in the oven after the bread has been baked. :-)

Pug D-day

2010-02-19T08:26:00.001-08:00

Last weekend, J and I took the pugs to the Oregon coast. One of my favorite places ever. Apparently it was Dieter's favorite place as well.

Pug action shots are my favorite! I really recommend clicking on this photo so you can see the look on his face. His two back feet are both off the ground as well.

And after the cold and windy beach:

The dangers of not having someone else make the coffee

2010-02-16T10:04:00.000-08:00

In this dramatic reenactment, you, readers, will experience first hand the horror and dismay that comes with spilling half a pound of expensive Stumptown coffee all over your kitchen floor. Beware, this post is not for the weak at heart.

(I thought about sweeping it up and putting it back in the bag..my floor is clean after all, right? A little bit of pug fur never hurt anyone, right?)

The Return of the Demonpug

2010-02-10T09:19:00.000-08:00

This morning I summoned all of my willpower and crawled out of bed and snuck off to the gym early, leaving the pugs nestled in their beds, sound asleep. (I normally would never go to the gym early in the morning, but I have a trip to Hawaii coming up and I have purchased a new bikini. The kind that the sales description states has "minimal coverage" for your tush. Yes, I just turned 30 and I am now attempting to wear the sort of swimsuit I would never have tried to sport in my early (and super fit) 20's. Ah, youth. It really is wasted on the young.) And so, I'm desperately trying to rid myself of any outward signs of my devotion to cake. But this post isn't about a futile attempt to reclaim my 23 year old self. No, this post is again about the Demonpug.

I was gone about an hour. It wasn't even late in the morning when I returned to find the sleeping crate (where I put the Demonpug away for the night) empty, the door of the crate swinging on its hinges. The house was ominously silent.

Gunter, awakened upon my arrival looked at me with a face that said "I had nothing to do with this, I am the Angelpug. Please do not punish me with the Demonpug."

The Demonpug was nowhere to be seen. The house quiet and peaceful. I approached the back part of the apartment with dread, remembering that when I left I had failed to secure the bedroom door, knowing that the Angelpug would never intrude on that holy ground.

And that was indeed where the Demonpug had repaired to after his cunning escape from the crate. And inside this hallowed sanctuary was to be found another, even more sacred space. The shoe closet. As readers will remember from previous posts, the Demonpug has a particular fondness for shoes. And he did not disappoint! A big pile of warm Demonpug poo was found to be reclining upon my chaco sandals.....which are, luckily enough, totally washable. It could have been worse. There was a pair of purple snakeskin Via Spiga 4 inch heels perilously close (another remnant of my early 20's)!

Readers, do you perhaps know of a farm that is looking for a pug? A Demonpug perhaps?

All that's left

2010-02-09T20:30:00.000-08:00

of the delicious gingerbread cake I made the other night for Jonathan (and when I say Jonathan, I mean me). Fantastic cake, with a little bit of whipped cream on it. I have plans to bake 3 in my spring form and make a layer cake, with some lemon curd spread between the layers and a cream cheese frosting. Maybe for Valentine's Day. The recipe is from here. I would use a little bit less salt though, next time, and maybe brown sugar instead of white and slightly less molasses.

Dieter (aka Demon Pug)

2010-02-02T10:42:00.000-08:00

Oh, Dieter! If you were not so cute I would post an ad on craigslist that went like this:

I am a 9 month old brindle pug. I am looking for a good home. I am looking for a place where I can poop inside without being yelled at. A place where I can take 1 hour outside to find the perfect place to pee, even when it is pouring down rain, without being cursed at. I like to eat nasty stuff out of the bathroom garbage, so an open trash can in the john is a must. I sleep most of the day, when I am not sleeping I need someone (a small child, or maybe a patient older dog) to harass. Name change is negotiable. I think I am more of a Matt or a Tim than a Dieter. Thanks for your consideration. (Please note: I will only go to an Angel-Pug free home.)

Ooooh. Peanut Butter!

2010-02-01T11:52:00.000-08:00

You must make these cookies.

The Goods:

1 cup smooth peanut butter

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1 tbsp flour

The Deal:

Heat oven to 350F. Mix all ingredients together. Roll dough into small balls (about the size of a cherry) and place on cookie sheet. Add traditional crosshatching to top with fork. Bake for 11 minutes. So delicious! Especially good with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce (i.e. chocolate chips melted with water).

Bodi Beautiful

2010-01-31T12:10:00.000-08:00

Finally! I can now eat my fill of jiaozi

2010-01-23T12:24:00.000-08:00

without having to go to China for them. This isn't the greatest picture, but they were delicious.

To make dough for the wrappers:

2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup boiling water

1/2 tsp. salt

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a regular mixing bowl) whisk together the dry ingredients. With the paddle attachment in place, turn mixer on to speed 2 or 3. Add boiling water in a steady stream to the flour. Keep mixing until flour comes together in a ragged dough (sort of looks like sugar cookie dough at this point). It won't be formed into a ball. Remove dough from mixer and knead by hand (it won't be overly hot, don't worry) until dough comes together and is elastic (around a minute or two). Place ball of dough in plastic bag and seal. Let dough steam and rest for at least 15 minutes.

Filling:

1/2 pound of ground pork (not lean)

1 cup very finely chopped chinese cabbage (Napa cabbage). You can salt this and let it weep for a little bit and then squeeze it to remove some water. Don't squeeze out too much though. If you do this, maybe adjust the salt you add later. You want this to be almost minced.

2 tbsp toasted sesame oil

1 tsp. fine sea salt (or to taste)

2 large garlic cloves, crushed

1/2 tsp. white pepper (or to taste)

1 tbsp. ground fresh ginger

2 green onions white and light green parts, finely chopped (almost minced)

(I'm sort of guessing on these proportions because I didn't measure anything when I made them. I would suggest cooking up one or two and tasting them, you can then adjust the filling accordingly.)

Add seasonings and oil to ground pork. Stir with a large spoon until meat sort of breaks down and becomes sort of smooth and mushy (I hope that makes sense). Add cabbage and mix well.

To form wrappers:

On a smooth non-porous surface, smear a little bit of vegetable oil into a thin layer over a small area. Oil up your hands and fingers as well, but don't make them too oily. Pinch off a small amount of dough and roll it quickly in the palms of your hand until it is a rough ball shape. Should be about the size of a large cherry. Place ball on oiled surface and press and stretch it until it forms a flat circle around 2.5 in diameter. Take a teaspoon or so of the filling and place it in the center of the circle. Sort of pat it down with the spoon (this just makes it less likely to move when you fold the wrapper). Pick up the side of of the circle farthest from you and fold it over the filling, pressing dough edges to seal. Try to avoid including a lot of air. Pick up dumpling and finish sealing the edges. It should be a fat crescent shape. Dip the bottom lightly into a small pile of flour and set onto a plate or cookie sheet. If you are worried about the completed dumplings drying out, you can cover them with plastic wrap as you work.

To cook:

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add salt. Drop dumplings in one a time until you have enough to cover the bottom of the pot. Stir to break dumplings up (they will float). When water starts to boil again, add a little bit of cold water to reduce boiling. Cook until all dumplings float on the top. Take on out and test to see if the dough and filling are cooked. Don't over cook.

Dipping sauce:

I like to have a small dish of mashed garlic and salt to dip the dumplings in as well as a dish of vinegar sauce. Mix rice vinegar (white is fine, or dark brown chinese vinegar is also good. Malt vinegar is also an option) with a little bit of soy sauce, sesame oil, and ground chiles. You can just make this to taste.

Ok, enjoy. My favorite filling is lamb and cilantro, or egg and zucchini. I'll blog about those fillings some other time.

Oh, the fun that can be had with photobooth.

2010-01-21T10:08:00.000-08:00

All hail Craigslist!

2010-01-20T10:37:00.000-08:00

Dearest faceless masses,

For the great many of you who read my blog in order to cyberstalk my pugs, you will be glad to know that they now have not one, but two couches to lounge on. As my home enfurnituration project nears completion, I have been searching for the perfect little loveseat to complete my living room. I searched and searched, visited many furniture shops with my bff while she was here over the holidays (and also backed into a car that was poorly parked behind me whilst doing so, a car that was overlapping my pullout space, and this little accident severely cut back my furniture budget by around 800 dollars. Sweet. But I'm over it. No, really. I am totally over it. G*&da&%ni$!)

I had a specific couch in mind. It couldn't be puffy. It couldn't have cloth on it anywhere. I have a phobia of cloth upholstery and carpet. So it needed to be leather and not puffy. And not 80's style (but I think no-puff requirement covers that).

I searched and searched. I perused craiglslist using a fancy craigslist app for my phone. I've found that you have to be dedicated in order to find things on craigslist. And you need to be ready to buy the item that you find that very day. Be as nice as possible to the people selling, tell them your name and ask theirs. That way they will remember you and be more inclined to get back in touch...etc etc etc. Basically, it boils down to being super sweet and nice and being willing to go and pick up the item ASAP, that is what will help you have craigslist success. That, and constant and eager perusal of ads.

I have had a fantastically good craigslist year. I moved back to Oregon with zero (zero, zero, zero) furniture, besides my jewelers bench and desk and chair for my office. I've found almost all of my furniture on craigslist. My kitchen table, bed frame, mattress (I know some of you might think this is gross, but a queen size tempurpedic mattress doesn't come cheap, even used, and I'm not from NY, so I'm not worried about bedbugs), dresser, couch one and couch two....and I'm not even including all of the stuff I found for my workspace (which I can't help but enumerate here...I love a good deal....rolling cart with cabinet underneath (25$), huge work bench (50$), smaller table (40$), cabinet (35$)) Everything except my bookshelves, a little doorway table (antique store), and the kitchen benches that J and I built came from craigslist. And the pièce de résistance!?!?!:

Ooooooh, cream colored leather couch, I loooove you! You're not perfect! But you're close! And so creamy and stylish! Now I have enough seating for many guests because you so willingly provide a soft down-filled cushiony seat for them! And you were so economically priced! And you fit into the back of my wagon even! This is why I love craigslist.

On Pugs

2010-01-15T09:37:00.000-08:00

(don't let that face deceive you)

Now, I'm sure that all of Dieter's faults are somehow my own. I don't blame him for being the wickedest pug that's ever trotted sideways over the face of the planet. No. I lay the blame directly where it is due. Poor little Dieter. The deck was stacked against him from the beginning.

(angel pug)

From the first he had to compete with what I like to call the Angel Pug (aka, Gunter....also known as Angel Face by his Auntie Kellie). Just look at his little face, all he wants to do is please and snuggle (and fetch his squeeky toy from across the park....this dog is a serial fetcher. No throw is too far, no time is too many. He's like a stupid lab that way). Gunter had everything that a spoiled first child of an attachment parenting organic waldorf school co-sleeping mama could give him. Hours of my undivided time, walks, treats, pats and pets, attention attention attention. Poor little Dieter doesn't get half of that. Instead of being an unemployed student during his puppyhood (a la Gunter), I'm running my own crazy business and have very little time for him. It's terrible. And I already feel like a slave to the pugs whenever I have a free moment. But it's just not enough.

(criminal)

Dieter had a very bad day yesterday. It made me want to start looking for a farm that might be one pug short. I think country living would suit him. I hadn't let him be free in the kitchen for a while, and so, last night when J and I went to eat pho (most likely my favorite food ever) I left the pugs gated in the kitchen. What harm could he do right? He was well stocked with toys and Gunter.

Lest you sympathetic readers out there feel sorry for the tiniest pug, that chewed up corner is on not one, but 2 benches. Both benches were chewed up. And I just made them! Like 3 weeks ago at the most. The second little gift he had waiting for me required these two things:

But I won't go into detail. Suffice it to say, I was incredibly unhappy about it. My jacket and scarf had been pulled off of the kitchen table too (luckily enough he hadn't peed on them....).

Why is this pug:

so much wickeder than this pug?:

Why does the tiniest pug do wicked bad things? Why does he eat the entire contents of the bathroom garbage? Why does he chew on the woodwork and refuse to poop poop outside? Why can't he be more like this?:

Of course, the fact that Gunter is almost 5 doesn't help Dieter any. I've already forgotten any of the bad stuff that Gunter did. And Dieter is only 9 months old. I should really cut him some slack. And he's not as bad as I make him out to be. He's really doing quite well. But compared to Gunter, he's a demon pug. I can't wait until he's reached the mellowing stage....two years is a long way away.

What I Will

2010-01-12T11:39:00.000-08:00

And will not do this decade:

1) I will do more of this sort of stuff:

Designing!

Doodling!

And less of this stuff:

1) Whining
2) Surfing on the internet
3) Eating out
4) Drinking caffeinated beverages.

And I will do these things:

1) I will buy a new camera for work. A nice one.
2) I will go to yoga twice a week. And lift weights twice a week.
3) I will keep groceries in the house.
4) I will ride my bike to work.
5) I will save my money, instead of spend it on things like lip gloss binges. (Kellie can relate?)
This resolution has multiple parts, let me break them down:

A) I have obtained an app for my iphone that helps with this budgeting endeavor. It is called Budget, aptly enough. And it works great so far.

B) I want to buy a house. To this end, I will buy fewer shoes and put my shoe money into an account titled: House Fund. Right after I get these (which is another, separate resolution detailed below):

6) I will dress better. I hate wearing a pair of jeans, some hiking shoes, and a northface jacket every day to work. It makes me feel frumpy and old. So, from now on, starting tomorrow, I will at least make a partial and weak effort to be stylish. And I will buy more socks.

Ok, I think that will be it for now. I think it really just boils down to: cooking more, dressing better, spending less time on the internet, drawing and painting more, saving money, and working out regularly. Yep, that should cover it. And my perennial new year's resolution, as always, is to be kinder to everyone (including myself).

I don't want to be one of those blogs

2010-01-08T13:49:00.000-08:00

You know the ones, that have various lists of things to buy, with titles like "Table Love" or "Curtain Love" etc. But I do really want this chest:

or this one!

Love it.

2009 - A Retrospective

2010-01-06T09:39:00.000-08:00

(My boyfriend's house has carpet, so they finally got a little bit of traction. I always think my pugs are a little bit clumsy, but really they are crazy athletes who just can't move on slick wood floors very well.)

This video is actually from 2010, but I felt I needed to include a pug video right off, for those of you who read the blog just for a pug fix. Feel free to navigate away now, I'm probably just going to get a little bit maudlin and go on and on about how great my life is.

2009 was a big year for me. I started my company, singleB, in February. It took off like it had a jet pack attached and became almost more than I could handle. But I've really enjoyed seeing it grow, and I'm so thankful that I have a way to support myself that doesn't include working for someone else. I'm not really good at taking orders (despite my 5 years in the Navy, go figure). So it really suits me to be the boss. It's also been really nice to see my skills increase. I'm a perfectionist (recovering), and it's been incredibly satisfying to see how my work has improved and become easier. It's been really instructive to flip back through my design book and see how my aesthetic has developed along with my skills. Sometimes a new idea doesn't appear in my mind until I know how to make it.

In May I decided to end the relationship I had been in for two years. It just wasn't giving me what I needed, and I couldn't be/provide for him what he needs. It was a hard decision, but in the end I felt that I had made the right decision. I was also miserable in California, too many people, too many strip malls, too much type A competitiveness.

In June little Dieter came to live with me. Turns out I had forgotten how much work a puppy can be. But he is finally becoming a real pug, so that is a bit of a relief. He's going to be a super handsome little man when he finishes growing up. Crazy tic-tac teeth and all.

In July I returned to Portland. I had never intended to move back here, but I'm so glad I got over that silly rebellion and came to my senses. Portland is awesome and I couldn't be happier about my decision.

In September I moved into my new studio and also into a new apartment in Portland. It was so nice to get my workplace out of my living space. It increased my stress, because now I had two rents to pay, but I think it was a good decision. It gave me the space to expand with new equipment and I'm excited to see the new things I will be able to make with it! My little apartment just keeps getting better and better (slowly). I finally have a grown up couch and a kitchen table with seating:

(My boyfriend and I built these benches and I'm still extremely enthused about how they turned out.)

In September I went out on a date with this guy to OMSI. We met on Match.com. He sent me a long sweet email and I couldn't say no.

Who can say no to a face like this one? Not me. This is the kind of guy who bakes cupcakes for his girlfriends birthday. And sends texts like this one:

Meeting him was the highlight of 2009. Nothing is certain, but I'm giving us good odds for happily ever after.

Another best part of 2009? Being in the same geographic location as my lady friends:

Of course, Kellie is missing from this photo, but she turned up later in the new year's weekend.

Well, that was 2009. 2010 will be even better!

Revealed

2009-12-28T21:50:00.000-08:00

I shed a couple of tears when this came off the other day. In order for you, the reader, to understand why, let me illuminate you.

I own this t-shirt:

If you can't read the print, it says "Beards are sexy". And they are.

When J and I first started dating, before the L word had passed between us, I sent him drawings like this one:

That's me, with the crazy hair and the bouquet. That is J, as a peanut with a beard. The bouquet is a love offering to the beard.

Since I've known him, he has had a full (to crazy full) beard. I have to admit that his beard single-handedly earned him a second date. The beard and the sweetness.

I think I cried mostly because it was so shocking to see his face for the first time. (That, and the thought of looking like an old lady next to him. Someone might arrest me for robbing the cradle. I am two whole years older in the first place.)

And that was the end of it. I felt like I had a new boyfriend. One that was just as nice, but who was now colder in the middle of the 30º weather we are now having. Poor little beardless peanut.

2009-12-16T08:31:00.000-08:00

I'll admit this just now, I stole this video from Cjane's blog this morning. But I never watch tv so how else am to find things like this? Enjoy.

It's gorgeous. I love dance, of any sort really. I use to watch the Merry Monarch festival (hula) for hours at a time when I lived in Hawaii.

Today I Turn 30

2009-12-11T09:11:00.000-08:00

When you are 14, 30 seems so far away. You have such big ideas for your life and who you will be at that point. I figured I would be married (and super succesful, of course). At 28 actually, that way I would have two years of marriage and have my kids starting at 30. I had everything planned out.

When I was 22, I had a full set of silverware. And a complete kitchen set up, nice pots and pans and everything. This morning I mangled one of my 3 (total) spoons in the garbage disposal. Witness the pathetic evidence above. Now, I could use this as a metaphor on how life never turns out how you would like. But I'm not going to do that. Because that would be depressing, and not at all how I view things.

When you are a teenager, and share a room with another teenager, it is impossible to like that other teenager. But when you get older those things fade into the distance. And if you are lucky, you find a friend. A best friend.

The friendships formed in the crucible of middle school are not often lasting. But if they do last, you are given the gift of someone who knows you like no one else can. This person was a witness to your transformation into an adult, and you are the witness for their life. This person has seen your heartaches from the inside.

They love you, even through your difficult and unhappy early 20s.

You can spend all day with this person and not speak a word (although, that would be a little weird). You have stories and a shared history that create a sense of foundation. If everything goes wrong in your life, you will know that this person still thinks you are the greatest thing since stinky cheese.

When Gunter was a puppy, he chewed up my glasses. When I came back into the room and saw the destruction that he had wrought, I wasn't angry, not even for a second. Because I loved him, and realized that he didn't know what he was doing. Having Gunter made me more forgiving. Being responsible for another life, even one so small and silly as a pug, helped me to grow up. I could stay out late and party, but if I did that I couldn't remain the person I wanted to be in my eyes and in the eyes of my dog. If I neglected him, I would be the type of person that neglects a small helpless creature, a creature that depended on me for everything in his life. It was easier than I thought to be a good person. (It's harder with the second pug for some reason, perhaps I am meant to only have one child.....?)

If you aren't lucky enough to find the love of your life in grade school, we all know that it can be years adrift on a "sea of heart break" (to quote Johnny Cash....lost love and loneliness....sea of tears...). You can spend all of your twenties, breaking your heart over and over again. I suppose you can spend your whole life that way. But with each bruising, I think that we get smarter. That we refine what we want in another person. And we definitely become less tolerant of bullsh*t. I thought about posting multiple pictures of the different people I broke my heart over. But when I uploaded them, I realized that it made me look like a tramp. So I decided to post a picture of just one...as of yet, heart still unbroken.

My life is nothing like what I had imagined it would be ten years ago. And I'm glad. I think the person that I wanted myself to be would be an unhappy, snotty person. Somehow, the strange twists and turns and hard knocks of the the last ten years have saved me from myself. Funny how that happens.

Colder than (blank)...please fill in.

2009-12-09T14:39:00.000-08:00

(that's frozen ice crystals on my windshield)

(19degs....coooooooold)

But pugs don't feel cold apparently. They get so excited to go outside to go potty that they don't want to come in. Poor things, I just can't take them to the park when it's under 30 degrees out. They would love it, Gunter would anyway, but it's kills me. Even if I'm wrapped up, my back gets so tense from the cold that it causes big problems. So the pugs are trapped inside for now. Poor pugs.

Dieter is ready for his close up

2009-12-03T12:18:00.000-08:00

Housekeeping

2009-12-01T15:59:00.000-08:00

Lest you dear readers think having pugs is a walk in Cuteness Park all day long, let me educate you.

Pugs shed enough to make another full pug out of the hair approximately every two weeks. If you ever adopt a pug, be ready to never have a clean house ever ever again. Just in case you didn't get the scale of the pile of hair pictured above, I made Gunter pose with it to give you some idea.

On another front, I'm trying something new. I'm so busy that I've found myself subsisting on burritos from ChaChaCha. Which is perfectly fine with me, seeing as I looooove mexican food. But it's not terribly healthy. I thought about joining a CSA, but I didn't want to have to deal with 5lbs of turnips every other week. So I decided to try the online shopping and home delivery that New Seasons offers. (New Seasons is this awesome grocery chain we have here in Portland. Think Whole Foods meets small co-op, times that by an awesome factor of 10). Turns out it's fantastic. I can shop online for every food item I could ever want, specifying the weight of the veg I want, what size of bulk cheese, etc. And then someone goes and collects it together and brings it to my house. How great is that?!

It cost 9 dollars. I figure if having groceries in the house keeps me from eating out one time, I will have made my money on it. Love it, love New Seasons, love Oregon. (But for all of you right coasters who think moving to Portland is a good idea...you will never make it through 9 months of gloomy rain. Trust me. Stay where you are.)

And they gave me a carton of ice cream free.

Pugs+orange couch+bearded man=happiness

2009-11-24T09:46:00.000-08:00

I've been reflecting lately on my move back to Portland. And it seems to me that I've reached a certain level of contentment with my life. I think it has a lot to do with having my own place again (the home is a sanctuary), and with my little business that is going so well. I really like the freedom of being my own boss, although when you are in charge the stress and worry all ends up on your shoulders as well. But for now I seem to be handling it pretty well. I'm excited to see how next year works out (David Yurman had better watch his back!).

The littlest pug has finally started to calm down, though pee in the shoes still happens occasionally. And he still likes to chew on my hands. Unfortunately, when he lost his baby teeth, his mouth decided to keep his little demon canine fangs, so he now has a stacked set of canines....the devil teeth and his regular angelic tic-tac pug teeth sitting behind them. The dental ways of pugs are inscrutable to humankind. Gunter, of course, continues to be the most awesome dog ever.

So, all in all, life is pretty darn fantastic here in the House of Bean. I baked a great batch of cookies yesterday evening, I'm having coffee (!!!) with my best friend (ever!) Kellie today, which will be followed by more baking and wine drinking at Sally's with Mary Mo. Then it will be Wednesday, and then Thursday. I'm really looking forward to this Thanksgiving, I feel like I have a lot to be thankful for.

Random 5 things I'm thankful for at this moment:
1.) Awesome lady friends
2.) Beards
3.) Pugs
4.) Wood floors
5.) New sheets

Just the thing to drive away the NW gloom

2009-11-20T12:33:00.000-08:00

Monday morning, prezactly

2009-11-16T09:01:00.001-08:00

Take a wild guess

2009-11-13T14:13:00.000-08:00

Home enfurnituration almost complete

2009-11-11T08:57:00.000-08:00

Aren't they lovely? Love them! Should have bought three. Super sturdy all beech (or something like that) leaning bookshelves from Crate and Barrel. Of course, I really wanted these:

Solid walnut leaning shelves from Room and Board, but I couldn't even buy one for the price that I got two for. But I love them, and at some point in the indeterminate future I will buy some. Walnut is my favorite wood.

On a related note, I will probably never ever buy anything from Crate and Barrel ever ever again. Completely incompetent.

But you know who isn't incompetent? This guy:

Award Winning Couch Moving Assistant turned Award Winning Shelf Assembler Extraordinaire!

What do I still need?

1) Desk for my fantastic new computer.
2) Coffee table (for the coffee I am no longer drinking. Day two.)
3) Dining table and chairs
4) Love seat
5) Area rug
6) Not technically furniture, but it would be nice to have more than three spoons. Silverware.

Reno, baby, Reno

2009-11-09T12:24:00.000-08:00

Pug Stalking

2009-11-04T11:22:00.000-08:00

Canadian Lumberjack Vampire meets Super Heroine, lovefest ensues

2009-11-03T09:56:00.001-08:00

Giving up coffee: Attempt number 10 to the nth power

2009-10-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

For me, giving up coffee is going to be harder than getting off heroin is for a junky. Not that I would know, since I've never done smack, but my love for lattes is bordering on obsession. I didn't have a cup yesterday, since I was sick (seeck!) and I was trying to be healthy in order to recover in time for Halloween. All I could think about was walking to Ristretto's to get a coffee....ALL DAY LONG. Then, this morning, I woke up in a crazy good mood (this is what happens when I give up coffee, I feel freaking fantastic and more creative and balanced) but it was a huge struggle to not make coffee/buy a latte. Seriously, I can see Ristretto's from my studio. It calls to me. It's strange, I was never a coffee drinker until I was like 25, I didn't really drink it while I lived in Hawaii. I think it was the snow storm of 2004 (my first year back in Oregon) that drove me into the warm and stimulating arms of a chocolate latte from Full City (Full City! Portland awaits your first shop! Please, please, please move up here! No one makes a mocha/chocolate latte like you. The ganache! The ganache!).

I really would like to not be chemically dependent. I would, truly. But I don't hold out much hope for this attempt. These are my mobile uploads to facebook:

Who takes pictures of their coffee? Me. That's who. I loooooooove it.

Pumpkins, Pugs, and Dastardly Mustaches

2009-10-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

Doom and Gloom Monday

2009-10-26T12:31:00.001-07:00

The real reason I bought this couch

2009-10-23T10:05:00.001-07:00

I LOOOOVE This Boo Boo

2009-10-22T15:26:00.000-07:00

This dog owns me. Owns me. Poor little Dieter, he never had a chance.

2009-10-18T15:24:00.000-07:00

Screaming Monkey

2009-10-15T13:45:00.000-07:00

Empty bowl of pho....

I was so out of sorts on Monday (?) that I had to go and eat a bowl of pho at like 3 in the afternoon. It cured me, though, so that's good.