New dog

Chloe adopted a dog today! A pug. I think she's naming him Karl Pilkington. He's 7 years old and overweight but very relaxed and loveable.

Back!

I still don't have my laptop and probably won't for another week or so, but I found the blogger app for the iPhone which makes it slightly easier to make posts. So, I'm going to start by posting pictures from the camping trip I took to the San Juan islands a few weeks ago as well as random photos of things that I've been doing.

I'm not sure how this gets formatted so I can't really explain the photos. Anyway, not a whole lot is happening and it's hard to type for a long time on the phone, so I'll write again soon!

Moving in

Hello all. It's Monday the first of August and I'm sitting in my new bedroom in my new house.

It's nothing great yet but it's getting there! All I have so far is the bed, which Tim was nice enough to sell to me for rather cheap and is letting me pay in installments. It's not a huge room (I'm standing in the doorway while I take the picture) but it has two closets with plenty of room for all of my clothes. I need some kind of dresser drawer set for odds and ends that don't have anywhere to go, and against the wall where the door is is enough room for a dresser drawer, so I am going out today to look for a cheap one.

There's this cute little inlet against the wall by the bed and a small wall shelf below it. Right now it's covered with random things that don't have anywhere else to go, but it'll eventually have books and other small decorations on it. And of course, pictures of baby nephew.

Getting the bed from Tim's to my place was quite the adventure! We had to strap it to the top of his Prius since neither one of us knew anyone with a big enough car that was available yesterday. It worked out fine, but he tied the string through the doors, so him and Steve had to climb through the windows to get in and out of the car!

Luckily it's only a 10 minute drive from his place to mine. They were also nice enough to put the bed together for me while I went to work for a few hours.

On most Sundays my housemates have a bad movie night, where their friends come over to watch a bad movie. Last night we watched Samurai Cop which is probably the worst movie I've ever seen! It was fun though, not a lot of people came over, just Chloe's boyfriend, their friend Andrew and then Tim and our friend Sam. I think it's going to be really nice to live in this house. Seems like there's plenty of opportunity to hang out and meet people but also the room to do my own thing.

Our landlord lowered the rent! Only by $12 but it's still better than nothing! He also has a cabin on an island off of Washington coast, on the San Juan Islands than he lets us use whenever we want, so next week a big group of people are going camping there. I'm pretty excited! I've been wanting to go camping for a while and this is going to be a good trip.

Other than that, my month is going to be pretty slow. I got a second job as a nanny that is 2 days a week, but that won't be starting until the 29th of August. The other job I have, on Thursdays, I am not so sure about. I watched the kids yesterday and it didn't go very well, but we'll see how it goes this Thursday.

More later!

T-minus 4 days!

Well it's Tuesday morning of my last week of working for this family. Hopefully it won't be a long or bad week. Yesterday we received the last shipment of their stuff from the Netherlands so I've been keeping busy unpacking and trying to organize what I can.

On Saturday I went on an interview with another family for a M/W nanny job. I'm going to be looking after their kids (2 month old girl, 3 month old boy) this Saturday for a few hours to see if it's a good fit and if it is, then I'll have a second job and won't have to be too stressed about money for a while! I am still wanting to get another part time job working with adults, but at least I'll be making enough money to cover my bills for the month.

My weekend was pretty laid back - I did some biking around and spent some time reading and napping in parks. I went to a pick up soccer game with Tim and Sam, but didn't end up playing. I thought it was going to be more casual, but it was very intense! We did get some free pizza out of it and met new people. Otherwise it's been pretty low key around here. I'm just going to be spending my nights packing up my things so I can move them on Friday night and I'll also be helping Tim with some yard work. He's redesigning his back yard but hasn't gotten much done yet, and since his house is full again and I'm over there enough, it'll be nice to have his yard in better order so we can start cooking out and having fire pits!

Well, it's back to work for me! The weather over the weekend was really nice - in the 80s - but now it's back to cloudy and highs of mid-70s. This weekend will be back to the 80s though!

More later!

Count down

Those of you who read this blog already know what's going on with the work/living situation, so I won't go into much detail about that. Last week was a really hard one to get through, with little sleep and very high anxiety, but I got through it. When Friday night came along I was all geared up to go camping with Tim and his friends (I was invited but kind of re-invited myself for an excuse to be away from the house for the weekend!) but the weather was so bad and unpredictable that the trip got cancelled! :( Tim was still cool enough to let me crash at his place for the weekend and we ended up going to a housewarming party and then hanging around his place with my friend Sam who also happens to be Tim's housemate. It was a relaxing weekend, much needed to unwind before another stressful week!

I had an interview on Sunday for a part time nanny job with what seems like a really awesome family. The mother was so nice and friendly and works with kids with autism and teaches classes at Portland State University. They have three kids, 11, 5 (I think?) and a 20 month old girl who is just so cute and fun and playful. I was offered the job and think I might take it, even though it's only one day a week with the chance of more days on occasion. It's not the ideal job but it's something and considering that I do not want to do child care five days a week, this leaves room open for another non child care related job or even another child care job that is only 2 days a week. I've been applying to jobs of all kinds every day but haven't heard anything back...

As for apartment hunting, I'm waiting to hear back on a room I really want with three girls all my age. Tomorrow I'm going to look at a room available for 2-3 month sublet just one block over from where Tim lives. Ideally I'd like to find a permanent place but if that's not going to happen then a sublet will have to do.

No pictures or anything this time around! I haven't done anything new or exciting that was photo worthy and ma just trying to get through the days until the end of the month! But don't worry, I'm doing just fine!

Danielle

Donuts, street fairs and food.

Last week was pretty busy, as was my weekend, so I'm updating early Monday morning as Cayden rides his cars over my legs aka "bumps".

Mary Beth's parents were here all last week which did give me the opportunity to skip out on work early one afternoon afternoon to go swimming with Tim and his dog Dean. We drove 30 minutes to Sandy River, walked a bit only to find out that the river was still flooded, so we weren't going to be able to swim. We walked for a little while more through the woods and found a shaded spot to have a picnic.

Tim's roommate Lori is in culinary school so she is always making food, so she packed us a pretzel and some bread which were delicious! We stayed out there until 9pm when we noticed that Dean had taken advantage of our distraction while playing Pictionary to run away! We found him not too far from where we were and headed back to the car. We ended up going back to Portland for dinner at Bar Bar.

Last Sunday I went out to Mississippi in NE Portland to visit some shops and ended up buying a bike!

It's a 2 speed cruiser from the 50s with back pedal braking and gear change. It was $175 dollars and is oh so adorable! I finally got a lock and lights for it and just need to get a wicker basket for the front. Since I have no use for the bike where I live (it's far too hilly to even consider biking and I'm far enough from downtown where it would take too long to bike) so I'm leaving my bike at Tim's since N/NE Portland is generally where I'm hanging out. We're all going to go in on a communal bike rack in his driveway so I won't have to rely on him or his housemates to let me into the garage to get the bike.

I've been doing a lot of experimenting with cooking. Lately I've been into making fruit salsas! I made some cherry salsa the other day and it came out great!

The cherry is so subtle (especially when you eat it with chips) and mixed with tomatoes, onions and cilantro, it makes a great, light summer snack. I'm going to make some watermelon salsa this week. I also made strawberry rhubarb popsicles which were pretty good, if not pureed enough. This week I'll try kiwi popsicles and/or blueberry! Or maybe watermelon!

Friday night I went over to Tim's for dinner and a movie. We went to see TrollHunter which is a Norwegian mockumentary about a group of students who meet up with a man who hunts and kills trolls. It was pretty funny but really long and I think both Tim and I fell asleep during parts of it!

Afterwards we were meeting his friend Jon who is from Canada and touring the US. We went to Voodoo Doughnuts, which is a Portland staple that sells some pretty standard donuts but also some pretty disgusting ones loaded with sugar. For example:

That is a bacon maple donut off to the left that Tim bought. There's also donuts covered with different kinds of sugary cereal and peanut butter and bubble gum.

Had to get a picture with the big pink box of donuts outside of the Sandy Hut.

Saturday I met up with Tim and Jon again to go to the Mississippi street fair. It's a giant fair of local artists with their stands, food, and 5 stages where bands play. All the shops on Mississippi also have stands advertising their stuff, trying to bring in business.

We were there in the morning for a couple of hours, then headed back to Tim's. He did some work, I took Dean for a walk and then we all went with the dog back to the street fair. There was suppose to be some weird costume wrestling in compost but it didn't seem like it was happening, so we went to dinner instead and got some ice cream.

So, all in all I had a pretty eventful weekend! Now it's back to working long days and long weeks!

Three day weekend

A few things have happened since my last post, some exciting, some important, some not! I guess the most exciting thing for me is that I now have an iPhone 4G!

I've been playing with it pretty much nonstop since yesterday morning. I love it! There is an application that I downloaded called Hipstamatic which is pretty much an app for the camera, where it changes the look and quality of each picture. You'll see some of the different options as I continue posting. The only downside is that the battery life is not super long. I'll be okay as long as I can charge the phone every night, but if I forget to or don't get a chance to, it'll die on me. I bought a car charger, but the thing you plug it into isn't working. I guess it's a matter of finding if it's a fuse that's broken, which should be easy for someone to do. I don't know when I'll have the time to take my car in somewhere for that, but I wouldn't mind being able to charge the phone while driving.

The other big "purchase" is that I got a credit card! The Chase Freedom card, to be exact. I went to the bank to make a deposit and they told me I was pre-approved for that card. I was a little hesitant at first because of my last experience with a credit card, but I am definitely in a better, more responsible place in my life financially. The card has a $700 limit and the guy told me that if I want to build up good credit, I should spend only 25% of that $700 which comes out to be $175 a month. It's a small amount but I'm glad he told me that. Since I do have a pretty high interest rate, having that small number in the back of my head as a spending limit will help me be responsible.

The weather is finally nice summer weather here in Portland. I snapped this shot in an attempt to get the background view in the picture as well.

Yesterday I went on a hike/walk with a friend Steve at Mt. Tabor which is more of a park than a mountain. It is a very nice place to get to after having to drive through the city at the tail end of rush hour. After that we met a bunch of people at a bar in the NE called Prost! which is a German bar. Tim was there as well and we ended up leaving to go get some food at a place called Bar Bar.

The worlds best veggie burger. Seriously. I was in heaven while eating this!

Tim and I at Bar Bar. We were messing around with the Hipstamatic app, trying to take a picture of ourselves, but the only bad thing about the app is that you need to be really far away to fit everything on screen. Anyway, someone offered to take this picture for us, and it came out nice!

This morning we walked 20 blocks to have breakfast at this dog friendly placed called Tin Shed. It was pretty good food, nothing special, but it has a really cool atmosphere.

This is what we saw while eating.

This is Dean looking like an adorable little puppy.

Other than all of this, everything has been pretty normal. Dave and Margie (Cayden's grandparents) have been having a good time being able to spend time with Cayden. Dave is a handyman so he's doing a bunch of stuff around the house, including power washing and restaining both porches. They're also going to put down some dog training pads so get Scout to go to the bathroom on the porch in on area, so I don't have to worry about getting peed on if I'm using my porch downstairs.

I think I'm going to go for a long walk in the woods this afternoon, and possibly go out downtown tonight. I have no plans yet for the 4th, but hopefully something will come up!

More later!

A weekend off

Hello again! It's Sunday night here in Portland and I'm just settling down for the night and getting ready for the long week of childcare ahead! I had an enjoyable weekend, but before getting into that, Mary Beth is back from Europe! That meant Thursday and Friday last week were pretty low key, because she was with Cayden most of the time.

Friday night I went to a BBQ that my friend Ron's housemates were throwing. It wasn't anything great and I ended up leaving pretty early and heading to Tim's house. We were planning on maybe going to watch pedalpalooza but ended up going out to eat and then playing Wii with his housemate Keenan. Since it was about 1:30am when we finished playing and I was practically falling asleep anyway, I slept on Tim's couch to avoid having to make the drive home being unsure of where exactly I was going! The next morning we walked to breakfast at this place called Muddy (or Muddy's, can't remember) which had some pretty decent food, 90s music and Baby Boomer's Trivial Pursuit at the table! Afterwards we walked around a little more and came across this tire swing in an empty lot.

Here's Tim being a goof:

Here's me having a good time:

Afterwards I headed home and ended up taking a nap and wasting most of the day. I did end up going out for dinner with a friend at a nice little restaurant in the area called North 45, but didn't stay out late.

Today I went to a picnic at Laurelhurst park. It was the annual Couchsurfing picnic so there were quite a few people there. I gave a ride to a woman named Marcela who is living in the SW. Most of Portland is a grid, it's fairly easy to get around and find your way back if you get misplaced, but the SW is like Rhode Island - no grid-like roads, lots of one ways and diagonal streets. Anyway, I thought she told me she lived in the SE, so I got directions there, only to realize that I was on the complete opposite side of town! Luckily Tim was able to give me directions and I found her relatively quickly. Finding the park took a little while, but it was worth it. Met a couple of cool people and my friend Sam who I know from another blogging website.

Here's a funny story: when Sam showed up he told me that he had to go to a house at 7pm to check out a room that he's interested in renting. When he told me it was in North Portland, knowing that Tim is in North Portland and renting out his basement room, I asked him what the name was of the guy he spoke to and, it turns out it was Tim! Such a small world. Tim ended up coming to the picnic with Dean and got to meet Sam a little early. My mind is still blown by how random and happenstance that is.

Mary Beth's parents are flying in on Thursday night and staying for about 10 days, so while they're here I'll have a bit more time to myself since they'll want to spend time with Cayden. I also have the 4th of July off so I'm hoping there will be some cookouts or something somewhere. Things are also progressing with the downstairs to make it more livable. Brad and MB bought a toaster and microwave for the kitchenette and they said I could take a small grill down there for the weekend and those nights I'm not eating with them. We'll also be getting in some dishes and pots and pans and other small things once the air shipment arrives, so it will feel more like a space that I can live in. It'll be good to be able to have that separation from work, and be able to live and entertain downstairs without feeling like I'm intruding on Brad and MB's space. They're both really cool about me having friends over, so I'm looking forward to being able to do that more! I'm also getting some new patio chairs for the patio downstairs, but until Scout learns how to pee OFF the balcony, I'm not sure how much I'm going to be utilizing it! Last time I was out there, Scout peed around the table I was sitting at 3 times! Just too dangerous right now... but I guess it comes down to me to train him where to pee!

Anyway, I'll update more later and maybe have some pictures of the house. Take care!

Zoo and granola

This has been my first week alone with Cayden for the whole day. It's gone pretty well, he's turning out to be a pretty well behaved boy, minus the expected terrible two tantrums. We've started introducing time out which seems to be effective. We haven't found where to put him when he's in a time out - we've tried different closets around the house (don't worry, the closets here are very big! The size of another room!) but don't really like the idea of shutting him in somewhere, but I don't know if he'll really understand that he's being punished if we just put him against a wall or in a corner. I'm also trying to teach him what "I'm going to count to three" means, but he doesn't really get it yet!

Anyway, yesterday we went to the zoo! It was a nice day, kind of chilly and overcast but not too bad. Cayden mostly liked the ducks,

giraffes,

and hippos (not pictured). Otherwise he was more interested in the balls that the animals had in their cages to play with.

Today I decided to experiment with making granola. I found an easy recipe and tried to take some pictures of the process, but I've never taken food pictures before so they didn't come out that great. I really should document all the cooking I'm doing; I've been making a lot of good meals!

Here's the final product:

I ended up baking it for about 12 minutes. The recipe called for 25 but it was already starting to get brown on top. I think next time I'll do a no bake recipe. As it is, I put this in the refrigerator in the hopes it'll harden a bit so I can make them into bars. I don't think they're moist enough, but we'll see. They still taste okay, if not too heavy on the honey!

Mary Beth comes home today which will be nice since Brad is away for business until tomorrow night. We're also getting another shipment of things for the house today that flew over from The NL. We'll get the last one next month maybe and then we'll FINALLY be done with unpacking. Of course then the new baby will be coming so.... it's going to take a few months before things start to settle down and level out.

More later!

Happy Father's Day!

In honor of Father's Day, here is a photo of my dad and me at my graduation.

It's actually Saturday evening but since I have time now, I'll make an update! Brad's mom left early this morning so it's just me and Cayden and Brad now until the end of the month when Mary Beth's parents arrive for about five days.

Last night I went out to a big Portland meet up (around 15 people or so) at the Vino Paradiso downtown. It's a ritzy wine place that is overly expensive, but it was pretty good. The company was okay, some very nice and interesting people. After that bar we walked around the Pearl District to the Canvas Art bar which is this small bar out in the outskirts of Portland with open mic nights and figure drawing and crayons at every table for adults to use to draw! It was a chill atmosphere but I was getting pretty tired of being around people by that point. A friend Ron and his friend Nick met up with us there and then we three headed to McMenanmin's which is a sort of chain bar. There are McMenamin's all over Portland, they are pretty cool places. The one we went to was the Tavern and Pool one, so, naturally, we played pool and naturally, I lost! It was a fun evening though!

There is something called Pedalpalooza that is happening in Portland right now and tonight is the naked bike ride! People ride around on their bikes naked, or in body paint or for the less brave of heart, in clothing. I am not partaking in this event nor am I going downtown to witness it! Maybe next year... tonight I'm just going to stay in and maybe watch a movie. The media room is all set up so there is a big screen and projector for movie watching. Just like being at the movies!

My car finally arrived yesterday! With the rest of my clothing and other goods. The car is running okay, except the RPM gauge is all messed up. The needle points backwards which often obstructs the MPH gauge so I don't know how fast I'm driving. It's not a big problem and probably an easy fix, but I've felt uncomfortable driving, mostly because I keep glancing down at the gauges every other second to see what's going on! Either way, it's good not to have to think about whether or not my car and all of my belongings are going to arrive safely or not!

I went on a trip to Ikea earlier today with someone that I met last night at the meet up. I ended up with a new duvet cover and pillow cases but no sheets because I could not find any Egyptian cotton or sateen sheets! I'll be going to Target tomorrow to see what they have, otherwise I'm sure there is a Bed Bath & Beyond around somewhere. Anyway, I also got a cute rug on sale for my little kitchenette downstairs, a picture frame for my adorable nephew's 1 year birthday picture, and a super cute gift for him! I wish I could give it to him in person... :(

I'll write more again in a few days. Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

Running errands

Sunday was Cayden's 2nd birthday, so we whipped together a little party. I baked this cake, which wasn't very good because we don't have any type of measuring utensils yet so I had to eyeball some of the ingredients. It served its purpose though!

He had a few gifts from mom and dad and grandma, mostly cars and markers and some lovely window markers that I get to clean up after! I got him a bag of rocks, which he was very excited about. His two favorite things: rocks and cars.

I've been venturing out little by little. Yesterday I did a big food shopping trip but still in the NW area. I was able to open a new bank account at Chase and got a haircut by a cute old Japenese woman named Suki! Today we all drove downtown to the Lloyd Center, a shopping mall in the NE downtown area. I went to get a jacket (success!) and so Cayden could get a haircut (success!).

Anyway, I've been driving this 2010 Corolla rental until my car arrives and I kind of love it! I want to keep it! Or at least my next car will be a Corolla... or a Yaris. I've been looking at those too. I'd love a Prius, but they are a bit too expensive.

This is another shot of our view with the clouds cleared up a bit so you can see more of the mountains in the distance. Very nice. Had a drink out on the porch last night after Cayden went to sleep. It was very peaceful, if not a little chilly.

More later!

Travel woes

Today is day 2 in Portland. Getting here was next to a nightmare though. Brad, Cayden, Scout the dog and I left Naarden at 6:45 am on Thursday and headed to Schipol airport in Amsterdam. We were suppose to get on a 10am nonstop flight to Portland with Scout in cargo, but as we're checking in with Delta we're informed that they don't ship dogs between April and September, but Brad was still able to make a reservation for the dog, so he was considerably and understandably upset. After some time we were going to get on a flight at 1:25pm that connected in Vancouver, but that didn't work out, so we got on a 12:50pm flight that connected at Washington Dulles and would take Scout the dog.

The flight to Dulles was okay (last minute though. After everything was said and done and Scout was checked we were the last people to get on board the flight!). We had a 2 hour layover in DC where we took Scout out for a while (in nearly 100 degree weather) and got on the plane for last leg of our journey.

Well, 3 hours later we're still sitting on the plane in Washington! There was a storm coming from the west that was causing delays so after we got on the plane it was pretty much a waiting game. The storm was moving east and heading towards us so we had to wait for it to pass. Initially we were going to be rerouted on a southern route that would have potentially taken 8 hours, but we ended up waiting so long that the storm passed over us and we were able to make the 5 hour flight to Portland. Of course because of the 3 hour delay we weren't expected to land until after midnight.

When we did get to PDx, we had to stop at the car rental place and naturally none of their computer systems are working so it took forever before we could get the car. We finally made it to the house and had to set up the air mattresses that someone had dropped off for us to use. Once that was done we noticed that there was a periodically beeping noise coming from somewhere in the house every 4 minutes. We spent about an hour looking for that while Cayden was bouncing off the walls and finally decided to move the beds into the only part of the house where we couldn't hear the beeping. It was 3:30am by the time I fell asleep and 6:00am by the time I woke up! (FYI, the beeping was coming from inside the refrigerator. It needed to be reprogrammed or something).

The next the movers came with some of the stuff that Brad and Mary Beth had in storage and the day was spent unpacking. A fitness room was installed which I am really excited about with some weights and an Elliptical machine. Brad's mom, Dawn also arrived on Friday to stay for a week to help me while Brad is away on business. Since then we've pretty much been unpacking and setting things up around the house. Brad has been showing me around while we've gone out to run errands. Forest Heights is a nice little area, very suburban. It's not biking or walking distance from downtown Portland (or I could bike but it'd be all uphill on the way back) but it's a relatively quick drive.

Speaking of, I'm driving a Toyota Corolla until my car arrives and I really like it! I don't know the year but it's fairly new, probably no earlier than a 2009. Maybe that'll be my next car!

I'll write more later. Dinner is nearly ready and the dog just ate food out of Cayden's plate!

Visiting the Hagenaars

Yesterday I went to see the Hagenaars, my old host family in Nieuwegein. Of course, not before getting lost trying to find the train station in Naarden! I walked around for an hour and forty minutes and couldn't find a street I needed to turn down, nor did any of the people I asked know where it was. Thankfully Piet came and picked me up which saved me an hour and a half more of travel. It was really nice seeing him and Tammie and the kids. Isabella is three years old now, turning four in October and Johannes is 28 months. They're both so big and cute! The family had some good news also, that they are moving to the US for three years. Maybe I'll be able to see them again in the states!

Jos picked me up from their house and we went into Naarden and found a small pub to get a drink at. Naarden is a pretty rich town so it was actually hard to find somewhere to go and the bar we did find was very nice and posh and closed at 11pm.

I haven't been taking any pictures unfortunately. I wish I was better at remembering to take out the camera. The next couple of days will be spent with the family watching Cayden and helping them pack and get everything ready for the big move on Thursday.

More later!

Dani displaced

Here I am in Naarden, The NL! It's my second night here but I'm still very jet lagged. When I arrived yesterday morning (NL time) Brad picked me up at the airport, then we stopped at their home to get Mary Beth, Cayden and Scout (the dog) to go for a walk and then to lunch. Naarden is a very old fortress town, and very expensive, but really pretty. I don't have any pictures of it though.

Scout the dog.

Today I took the train into Utrecht (where I used to spend a lot of time) and met a friend Jos. We walked around the city and had some lunch (Mario broodjes [or sandwiches] which are unique to Utrecht), then some dinner (chicken tandoori, which was something I LOVED to eat when I lived here before). When I came home I spent some time with Manilyn, the current au pair, and Cayden before putting Cayden to bed. So far the family has been really nice and welcoming.

Tomorrow I'll be spending the day with Manilyn and Cayden, but will see Tammie and Piet and the kids at night. The next few days here will be very busy, packing and getting everything in order!

Manilyn and I spent some time out in the back yard today chatting and a family of swans came swimming up to the dock (yes, their back yard opens up to a canal).

Please excuse the poor writing, I am still very tired. Until next time!

xoxo Danielle