Sinner!

So I did it. I performed the ultimate blogging sin. ABANDONMENT.

Bloggers and friends, it's been a few months since my last blog. I know it was wrong and that a person who starts a blog should not commit this atrocious act. Will you forgive me?

I've been thinking about this blog and posting for a while. I even have a quote to go along with that statement.

"The wise man does at once what the fool does finally." -
-- Niccolo Machiavelli

I like this quote quite a bit and try to recite it in my head every time I start to procrastinate. Obviously - for those who know me - this quote is a fairly recent mantra of mine!

So where was I all this time? Well, I fell in and out of love, I finished writing the first draft of a really cool book on truffle farming, I went home and visited Canada for 6 weeks (p.s. I had a rocking time at home! Woot!) and now..... I live outside of Portland in the aptly named town of Boring. Really. However, hooray for Portland! This city rocks!

More to come, very soon - I will be posting pictures of my new surroundings and awesome times!

How to do things a compendium of new and practical farm and household devices, helps, hints, recipes, formulas and useful information from the Farm journal

A piece of 1919 clip art from: How to do things a compendium of new and practical farm and household devices, helps, hints, recipes, formulas and useful information from the Farm journal. Would this be a cool tattoo or what?! I'm totally inspired right now.

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MY best cake THUS FAR!

Dearest Amanda aka yeah-yeah;

Happy belated 23rd birthday!!!!!! And thanks for loving my cake so much!

To those of you up North, this is the cake I made for Amanda, I was so proud of it that I just had to share it with you! This is by far the best(est) cake I've made and I think it's got something to do with making it for a special buddy. Now let me tell you about it......



It's an oatmeal stout cake with an old-fashioned buttermilk frosting and a bavarian cream filling. On the top are hard sugar daffodils and buttercream lavendar. This cake combines a few of my favorite things: oatmeal, beer & frosting! What a delightful combination!

100 feet under the sea

This past weekend I went scuba diving! It's been a while (July '08) and despite being completely terrified beforehand; I HAD A WICKED TIME!

I went up to a little place called Mike's Beach Resort which is a little resort (And it's not fancy at all which is how I can afford it!) on the Hood Canal that caters to scuba divers. It's located just North of Lilliwaup on the olympic peninsula in Washington.

There I got my Advanced Diver Certification from PADI and completed five dives which included:

• Search and Recovery
• Underwater Naturalist
• Night Diving
• Underwater Navigation
• Deep diving
• Plus, I am now certified to dive with enriched air that contains a higher percentage of oxygen (32% to 36% compared with normal air that has about 21%)
  

The dive that made my heart beat fast and my palms sweat just thinking about it was the deep dive. It was our first dive on Sunday and I was worried that I would be so nervous I'd puke into my regulator. However, I sucked it up, was internally grateful that I had my very own scuba instructor to take me down slowly so I could have lots of times to equalize the pressure in my Eustachian tubes, and together we went 100 feet below the surface of the Hood Canal! If you're familiar with diving you may have heard of nitrogen narcosis which is the mind altering effect of nitrogen that occurs during deep dives. It's not the same for everyone, some are paranoid, some become euphoric, some become angry and so on. Me, I'm the paranoid one!

All in all I noticed a considerable improvement in my skills by the end of the weekend and if it wasn't for the chilling 44F water; I probably would've stayed!

Who doesn't love cake?

So, if you know me, you know that I love baking and cooking. One day I dream of having a big funky kitchen with a large aqua KitchenAid mixer, brightly colored walls, highly organized cabinets with everything in it's most efficient and effective place, big windows looking onto my garden and a vintage table with sparkly formica, chromed edges and squishy, diner-style vinyl chairs (yes, the kind with sparkles in them too). But enough about that! Let's talk about what I've been doing in the kitchen lately. I recently enrolled in a cake decorating class taught by a lovely lady in Albany with decades of experience. I am having SO much fun decorating these cakes and am thrilled to have a creative outlet that also lets me have fun in the kitchen! The next class is wedding cakes which I plan on taking as well because I hope to be lucky enough to have clients that will want me to make them birthday cakes and wedding cakes too! Check 'em out dudes! And as the classes continue be sure to check for updates!

Late night googling

I haven't posted in quite a while and I was feeling bad about it (no, not really - I lie) so I decided that I wanted to share a little quote from Romeo and Juliet that was quoted in an essay I was reading just a moment ago. I was googling the duality of man and came upon oh so many interesting things that if I didn't have a textbook full of soil science waiting for a spot of pre-bedtime reading; I would happily sit here and pour myself into my findings! However, I've prioritized and interactions between soil nutrients comes first! But here is the quote, since I'm kind of a fan of the plant kingdom this little excerpt really caught my attention and now I'm sharing it!


"Within the infant rind of this small flower

Poison hath residence and medicine power.

In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;

And where the worser is predominant,

Full soon the canker death eats up that plant."

- Friar Laurence in Romeo & Juliet - William Shakespeare



Also - I signed up for a birthday cake decorating course and I'm so excited I could just pee a little! It starts next tuesday and be on the look out for future postings of my creativity with all things sugary!

- Until we meet again...... ;)

Oi, computers!

Oh boy. This week the monitor on my laptop decided to buy the farm. Now, at first this may not seem like such a big deal. At a second glance - my computer is my world. Sick? Yes, it is my life, it seems almost completely dependent on this black, 5 lb chunk of technology. I use it for work, communication, photo editing, geeking out, recipes, meal plans, cool workout moves, and it is my constantly evolving jukebox too. Most importantly though, I use it for work. Without work I can't afford all that other great stuff!
So here I am with a broken outdated computer and looking for a replacement. Who wants to spend all that money fixing a monitor when I will be looking for a new computer in a year anyways? It seems silly. So I start my search for a new computer. I have had my eye on a mac book for a while now - so why not? Since the new models have arrived 'the older model' (Is it funny that I am now relating this new model - old model thing to "The First Wives Club", mid-life crises, and planned obsolescence?) is now a whole car payment cheaper than it's new fancy version! Hello new computer!
One thing I hadn't accounted for was the fact that I have no credit rating here in the U.S. - I can buy a car, get a credit card, maybe even a few, have a credit line, student loans that I pay regularly and a good credit rating. What does all that count for here? Nothing! Darnit! I can't even get a high interest credit card, I need a co-signer. Problem is that getting a co-signor sounds a lot easier than it has been for moi. Balderdash.
So since I have been searching and shopping, hunting, begging and pleading - I am still left wanting. Through a lucky stroke of genius HP has now decided to fix my computer for free. Go figure! Awesome right? It is, however, if for some odd reason they can't fix it then I won't know about it until I return back to the U.S. from Canada - the only place where I can buy a computer without paying for it all at once. So now - do I buy one or wish, hope and pray that HP fixes it? I sure would like it if they could, and then, it better last for another year or two!

On the other hand, I've been using my roommates mac book and it's kind of annoying, I don't like how every time you go to the edge of a monitor something pops out at you! Sure it seems really cool at first, but then it's just plain annoying. And also, all those features that I work with on my pc - I like them, there are pro's and con's of both mac and pc - maybe I don't really want a pc after all. It would be a lot easier if I knew of a pc with a battery that lasted as long as the mac book battery does!

So, all in all, what I really have to say is: HP Pavillion dv2020 - I miss you. I took you for granted. I sure would like to watch a scary movie on netflix before I go to bed - remember those good times we used to have?