ooops i'm back + sourdough

I really did mean to keep writing in this after I got my job. It's just that I got busy! Weird how that happens.

Today is the end of 2009. This was a rough decade, so I'm playing it out by making sourdough bread, to exorcise the sourness out of my memory of the Naughties. A former coworker of mine gave me a 90 year old starter earlier this year. Her grandmother started it when she was nine, and I think that just about works out to... somewhere around 1920. After grandma died, my coworker's family kept feeding the starter, dividing it, passing it out to friends, to keep her grandma's memory alive in bread form. Here's my favorite recipe for sour dough french bread. I'm not a great big fan of the actual *taste* of sour dough, but I like the idea of it's being a living thing, so this is a good one for me. Low on the starter content.

First off, get the starter out of the fridge the night before and stir it until it's smooth. Let it sit on the counter over night. In the morning,

Mix together:

1 pkg yeast

1/4 C warm water

Mix dry ingredients:

4 C flour

2 T sugar

2 t salt

Add wet ingredients:

yeast you started already

1 C water

1/2 C milk

2 T oil

1/4 C sour dough starter

Knead until smooth. I like to knead regular breads by hand, but this recipe works well with the kneading arms on my mixer. As it's kneading, add in another cup of flour, 1/4 cup at a time. This should get you to that nice "smooth and elastic" consistency after 8 minutes or so. Set it in a warm place to rise until doubled in size, like 45 minutes, depending on how fresh your yeast was.

Punch it down and split it into 2 halves. Form each half into something remotely loaf shaped, and put in greased loaf pans to rise again. If you want to get fancy, make a few diagonal slash marks with a really sharp knife after they have risen, and brush with water to get that nice frenchy crust.

Bake at 400 for 25 minutes.

Today I'm getting creative. My little sis gave me a clay bread pan for Christmas. I've been liking the idea of trying out some clay baking (it's the most ancient baking method, you know), so this is a great time to see if it really makes a difference. I'll be putting one of my loaves in a clay pan, and one in a Pyrex pan. Can't wait to eat it!!!

last one from the summit

I gotta say, the way Blogger rasterizes photos for web is terrible. These are all much more awesome than they look. The color is horrible too.

Anyway, here's the whole lot of us on the summit.

And looking back, what we had to scramble up to get to the top! You can see the tiny people along the route.

We all had a really great time climbing this mountain. For Bill and I, it was our second time, but only our first with a view. Last year was cloudy. The rest of our crew were first timers. I was proud of my parents keeping up like they did too! They really handled it. We had so much fun that we are already considering which mountain to do next year. Perhaps Adams? It looks pretty smooth, just very big and long. We will see!

St. Helens climb summit

Finally, here are the summit photos! The first one below is of the lava dome, growing in the center of the blasted out volcano. Someday this will be a new summit. It's been 29 years since the mountain last erupted, and the dome is getting pretty large. You can also see Spirit Lake in the background. My dad says this used to be a beautiful, pristine lake at which he and his family used to pick huckleberries. It's now not only in a new location, slightly to the east, but is half-filled with logs left over from the blast.

The West wall of the volcano. You can see some of the striations, as this was a composite cone.

Kind of a dramatic look at the steepness of the drop into the caldera, looking east. Mt. Adams in the distance.

Bill on top. He got here first, of course.

Looking north toward Mt. Rainier.

more!

My cute boyfriend Bill 3/4 of the way up

Jeff, not looking too enthused about what is ahead of him. A bit piqued I'd say.

St. Helens climb Part Deux

Here's a few more photos from our hike up St. Helens. These are from the top section, in scree. Or is it skree? I don't know. Anyway, after going through the boulders I posted pics of yesterday, we got to the loose ash section of the mountain. The climb is up the south side (the side which didn't explode). This side has been relatively untouched by recent volcanic activity, although the ash did seem pretty deep toward the top. It was a long hard slog up the final part of the ascent.

This next one is a terrible picture, but it's part of our group (Mom, Milli, Bill) getting ready to start the final climb.

Apparently, this past year people have been leaving rocks on top of this other rock. This wasn't here last year.

More to come, of the summit!

St. Helens climb

Here's a few pictures from the start of our climb on St. Helens this past Friday. I climbed with Bill, my parents, and friends Milli and Jeff. We made it to the top in about 4 hours. It was a tough climb, but felt really good! These pics are from the very beginning of the hike. I'll post more later.

frustration/happiness

Things around this country seem really bleak right now. The other day, I was catching up on the news while riding the bus. There were just so many depressing stories out there. I don't understand why we are incapable of having a rational discussion in this country about anything. All you see on the news is scandal and screaming. I don't even actually know what's in this health care bill (is there one even?), but I know people enjoy acting like a mob over it! I have no idea what the Republican alternative is (or if there is one), because it's not covered on TV. How am I supposed to make up my mind if I like it or not without being informed? Isn't that the job of the media? The loss of public airwaves has striped networks of their responsibility to truly inform and act as the 4th estate. As a person who has been denied health coverage in the past, I think reform is definitely needed. I just don't know if the things being proposed will work.

So then I read about this crazy thing that happened in Florida last week. A woman was gang raped in the secure parking garage of her hotel in front of her children. The hotel immediately issued a statement saying it took no responsibility because the woman didn't do what was necessary to keep herself safe! Excuse me? You can say you don't take responsibility because the hotel had nothing to do with the act, but you don't blame the victim! It's just terrible!

So after a few stories like this I decided to turn off my phone. The next stop I come to, 2 little families get on, a Latino woman and her son, and a black man and his son. Both kids were about 3 or 4, and neither spoke the other's language. They had apparently befriended each other at the bus stop over a shared love for Thomas the Tank Engine. These 2 adorable boys spent the rest of the bus ride playing together and blabbering on to each other in differing languages, seemingly having the times of their lives. Seeing this made me happy. I think kids can teach us somethings that we forget. Perhaps we could all benefit from being more child-like, and less immature. Anyway, it's trite, but true. Kids are sweet, as long as they belong to someone else. :)

Yay, I finished the floors! It took a couple days, but I've got the carpet out and the floors washed and waxed. They look great; I'm really happy with the outcome.

It's really amazing how much warmer the room looks now. Plus, as an added bonus, I can now use the front door! Or not, since I put the table in front of it. Now I guess I just need some real chairs instead of these Ikea foldable things, haha!

Fir flooring

The other day I decided to take a quick peak under the carpet and see what I could find. I found hard wood floors! Well sort of. They seem to be fir, which is an odd choice for flooring because it is on the soft side of hard. I learned this morning that I can't sand them down because they will get gouged. A regular sander won't work. I have gotten half way through ripping out my ugly carpet, and the floor is quite pretty, but could really use some TLC. Does anyone out there have any experience with this type of flooring? I'll be heading to Home Depot soon to ask them. I'm hoping that I could wax them up real nice and they will do for now, but eventually I think they'll need more love.

Also: anyone need a perfectly good, almost new piece of carpet measuring 30'x15'? It's got a real nice pad too. Just not my taste in color. It's multi colored, mainly blue. Lemme know, it will probably end up at Habitat for Humanity.

Some shots from Yellowstone

This is the first place we camped in Yellowstone. Really incredibly beautiful, but we didn't get to enjoy it much. There were grizzlies all over and a half-eaten carcass near by, so we were pretty freaked out the whole time. Didn't stay any longer than we had to.

This next shot it from the Lone Star geyser. Our second night in Yellowstone, we got rained on mercilessly. But in the morning, on our way out, we finally found the sun, and an erupting geyser in the back country. Pretty sweet.

Couple more from the weekend

Punchbowl Falls, from this past weekend.

the post that should have been named after my vacation

After I finished up my stellar morning, I decided to take a nice hike. I had driven all the way to Hood River for a 20 minute interview, so I needed to make it worth my while. I hiked up Eagle Creek (along with every other person in Oregon who was going for a hike). It was about 95 degrees. I should just preface with that. Cause it was dang hot. I also did not bring any food. And I was starting my hike at 11am.

So now that you have the setup, I will demonstrate how irrational I am when it comes to punishing my body. Ever since I was a kid on swim team, I have had this thing about punishing my body when it wants to quit on me by working it even harder. Basically I beat myself into submission, so that I no longer feel the pain in my muscles. Unfortunately, this lack of muscle pain is often simply an occurrence of a greater pain in a joint somewhere that makes me forget about the muscle thing.

My plan had been to hike up to high bridge (formerly the suspension bridge, but it's not that kind of bridge anymore.) Well, when I got to the bridge, I thought, this isn't actually far enough. It had been 4 miles, and I still had to walk back. I am out of shape and it is hot. I am also starting to get hungry. Most people would probably have decided to turn back at this point, follow the original plan, right? Go get lunch for goodness sake! Well not me. I reasoned, well it has already been 4 miles, so what is 2 more? I can make it to the tunnel falls, which I hear is pretty cool. Don't listen to that voice that says, "actually, that's an additional 4 miles, cause you still have to get back, you know." It is now time to prove to myself that I can hike 12 miles in the heat without food. So I convinced myself to go on all the way to the last waterfall, six miles from the trailhead. I came thisclose to heading back like 2/10 of a mile from the falls, but I didn't! So glad I went all the way, or else my future pain would not have been worth it. Here's what I saw when I got to the falls:

Anyway it was really beautiful. But the really nasty part was the walk back. I was starving, but that faded quickly and was replaced by exhaustion from the heat and sunburned shoulders. I was surviving ok at least until about mile 9. At that point, my ankle issue decided to come back. I had this achilles problem that my boots caused me when I was in Yellowstone, and it is now confirmed that I must buy new boots prior to climbing St. Helens. At Mile 10, about punch bowl falls in the northerly direction, my knee when out. So about the last 2 miles I was basically limping. I was awesome. But, hey, I made it! I can indeed survive this crap I put myself through. No reason for this, but I feel good that it's over.

Next hike is Sunday at Silver Falls.

What I did on my summer vacation

Today was an awesome day. Super awesome, kind of. It started out with my NEW WASHING MACHINE being delivered actually on time this morning! Yay! I am washing load after load right now. So many dirty dirty clothes on my floor in my room, all soon to be hanging clean in my closets. The second the washer was delivered, I had to run out the door to get to an interview with Dakine in Hood River. This was for a 6 week gig making them a pretty catalog for their winter season. Interview went great, in fact, they basically gave me the job right then and there. To avoid the nasty commute, they will put me up in a hotel during the weeks I'm there. Sounds fun!

Well, to my surprise, while I was driving to the interview, I got a call from Filter. Looks like Lacrosse Footwear wants to give me a job too! So I had 2 job offers by 11am! And a washing machine! Amazing. I am so glad I didn't freak out for the last 2 months, but enjoyed myself instead.

The Lacrosse job is a design job, temp for the first month or so, then hired on as long I don't screw anything up. So this would be the preferable job of course, but Nike taught me not to trust anyone when they say "temp to hire". So I need to find out how serious they really are before I make my decision.

been a while love

Oh hi again blog. Remember me? I was supposed to write in you pretty much every day. But I was cheap and didn't want to pay for internet service. Believe me, I recognize now that this was a terrible mistake. But never fear, I've corrected said mistake now! Thanks to ClearWire, I can now write in you whenever I want.

So maybe, dear Blog, you're wondering what I've been up to these past weeks. Well, you, lots! I took some time to think about things, went to a wedding in San Diego and for hikes in Montana and Wyoming. These days I'm just trying to put things back together. Getting my portfolio ready for a big interview tomorrow.

Thanks right! and Interview! And I had hardly even tried to find a job!

Tomorrow I'll be meeting with 5 people from Lucy activewear about a senior design position. I really hope I get it! I'm tired of having to watch my monies. I'd much rather get to spend what I got from Nike on some great stuff, like a new gutter system for my house, or a trip to Beirut. So here I go! Gotta get my stuff together for the next big step.

the after photos

So! I've finally gotten my house up to speed. Neighbors walk by pretty much every day now, commenting on how much better it looks. I like that. Last week I had 4 yards of garden mulch delivered to fill in that now-empty deck space I mentioned before. Veronica was sweet enough to bring me some chicks and hens to put in there, and I've reserved a big chunk of it for raspberries. I can't transplant those until the fall, however, so it will have to sit empty for a bit. Here's what it looks like now:
Much nicer than tired old decking which would never be used. I threw some herbs in there that had been in pots, along with the 2 tomatoes I still hadn't found a home for. Looking good!

I also wanted to share some after photos of the house now that I've managed to spruce it up a bit. Here we go!
The beautiful bouquet comes from Mai Kong. Her parents own a flower farm in Canby, and she picked and arranged this gorgeous beast for me. Thanks MK! This room is the farthest from being done. It's already looking messy too! Parden the Kitty butt in the lower left.I can see I have a light out. The kitchen is 90% finished. Bill was sick all this week and couldn't come up to help me finish painting the parts I can't reach. Hopefully we can get this done Thursday.Here's the living room, both ends of it. My big future project will be to tack drywall to the ceiling in here. I do like the blue, but unfortunately one can see directly into the attic through those boards. The insulation is non-existant. I'm hoping to get this part done by the end of the summer, so I can be warm in the winter.
And here's the whole picture! Cleaned up yard, car, and all. I think it looks pretty cute, and it's come a long way from where it was. I'm just so proud! :)

come to my house warming!

Ripped out the deck!

I've been busy! This morning I ripped out the deck on the side of my house. I've ordered some garden mulch to be delivered tomorrow morning (4 yards of it). This should be my final project of this phase. Once I get the dirt into the area that used to house the deck, I'll plant some yummy berries and call it good! I'm having an open house this weekend, so I've given myself a deadline. Here's the deck:
And I've also finished my fire pit! The cat promptly took a pee in it as soon as it was finished. How awesome.
That's all for now, I have to go eat something. The Nike peeps are throwing a little goodbye thing this afternoon I need to get to. Peace out.

working on a new identity for my freelance

This might be just dumb, I can't tell yet. I'm working on a new identity for Bodega Creative, my freelance entity. I need to have something solid by next week to hand out to people at the Coroflot Creative Employment Confab. Does anyone know what "confab" actually stands for? I mildly hate that word.

Flowers done! (May 30)

I got my flowers planted! I also mixed in some Bok Choi, lettuce, and 2 more tomatoes what hadn’t been transplanted yet. While I was doing this, 3 of the neighbors came over to thank me for fixing up the yard. I guess I’m raising their property values as well! It was unfortunately late in the day before I finished, so the picture is a bit dark.

the devil bush

Today I put in a good 5 hours of hard labor. Don’t let anyone tell you unemployment is relaxing. I planted my main vegetable garden yesterday, three rows of corn, zucchini, peppers, celery, tomatoes, strawberries, and cucumbers.
Now, with today came the hard part. I need more sunny space. I still have loads of plants that need a home in the ground and no sunny areas to put them in. This is tough to understand, because my yard is HUGE. But it's so overgrown and has so many ridiculously placed trees that there is very little square footage that receives 6 hours of light per day. I identified some space in the front that I could make into something resembling a garden. This is it:
At first glance, this seems like an unassuming pile of shrubbery. It is actually on top of a mound of dirt, so it’s not as thick as it appears. However: this plant has sprung straight from the jaws of hell. I discovered after the 4th hour of chopping that it was something called a Cotoneaster. Sunset’s Western Garden book informs us that there are some 3 dozen varieties within this family. This is the worst of the lot. It has a horizontal habit, creeping quietly along the ground at a rate of nearly 3 feet per year in all directions. As it grows, it sends down roots from its branches. This allows the plant to have a maximum branch length of about 15 feet. It also means that the root ball is not isolated to the original planting spot. Instead, every single freaking branch has it’s own root ball. When this was planted, the home owner had made a feeble attempt to contain the monster. She put weed barrier down around it. This beast actually managed to send roots through the barrier, making pulling it out even harder! I had to pull, dig, cut weed barrier, clip with shears or saw off with a hand tool, yank some more. I had imagined that if I just at least sliced through all the main branches, the smaller ones, cut off from their nutrition source, would die and pull out easily. But once I recognized its rooting strategy, I knew this was hopeless. After 6 hours, this is what I have:
Oh snap! Is that a rhododendron? Where was that hiding?
My task for tomorrow: get those last stupid roots out and plant something pretty in there.

Oh and here's the best part: on the other side of that rhodie, the devil bush extends across a space of 30'x8'. I haven't even started thinking about that stuff.

Spider massacre (May 26)

OK, today I did something really awesome. I vacuumed out my studio. This might seem like a small feat to some of you, but for me, this was a major accomplishment. You see, I have a massive, irrational fear or spiders. This might make my buying of a 1926 home seem odd, but never mind that. I think my spider fear stems from their ghostly appearance. I tried to analyze myself as I vacuumed (good distraction) and this was my conclusion. I think the really ethereal, insubstantial spiders seem to have come from another, evil, dimension. The fat ones big, swollen abdomens appear to have sucked so much blood they’ve become engorged. I read once that spiders move their legs by pumping blood rapidly into their limbs, causing them to become taught, then releasing the blood to pull themselves forward and contract their legs. I highly doubt that this is true; it would seem a highly inefficient and frankly dizzying way to propel oneself. But it won’t get out of my mind! So I especially hate the spiders with the thick legs. I would estimate that about a baker’s dozen of each of these varieties had made it’s home in my studio.
Today, I managed to work up my courage enough to actually stand upright in the spider-haven and run the vacuum. I sucked up everything I could find in there. I am now terrified to empty the vacuum, because it has countless creepy things in there and I don’t absolutely know that they are all dead. But! I am quite proud of myself for overcoming my fear for at least 15 minutes and getting that done. Now I can confidently paint in there without flinching every time I have an itch.

oops a few more photos

I totally hit send on that last post before I meant to. Here's a couple more "before" photos.
Another kitchen shot.Main living area, pellet stove and french doors.
I've got a great back porch. Unfortunately, the realtor, who said the chairs came with the place, took them.