Cake for November!

I found this picture on a wedding blog awhile ago, I wish I knew which one. All the cakes look so delicious, and gorgeous on their beautiful cake stands. So today I'm attempting to make the yummy devil's food cake I saw on the Martha show yesterday. It's cooling right now so I'm planning on having pictures to post tomorrow.

BOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy official Halloween!
For awhile now I have been saving images that I find interesting from the internet, so I have decided to start posting them and share with you the things I find pretty, colorful, crazy, original, and just plain fun. In honor of us almost having a first home of our own, here are some pictures of Gwyneth Paltrow's Hampton home. I love the fresh, clean look. I don't know if I could actually live here but it sure does look nice.

I would love to have a kitchen like this, but with a little more color. The chandelier is amazing. I have some plans for some not-yet-purchased chandeliers of my own.


The print and patterns are so visually appealing. The crown is very Queen of Hearts, or London whichever you prefer.

Happy Halloween........

Well almost. We went to a party Sunday night, this is me as a nerd or as some people like to say as myself. I'll take that as a compliment, thank you. We had so much fun, our friend who had the party went all out on the decor. His whole house was a big spooky cave with scary spiders and skeletons around every corner. Everyone really did a good job with their costumes, I almost won for the funniest but was beat out by a keg, well someone dresses as one anyway.
In other fun and exciting news, we just found out this morning that our offer on a condo was accepted so it looks like we will be having Christmas in our very own place. NO more looking and wondering and hoping, it's finally here. I'm just so excited, all the years I've been thinking and wanting a place of my own now it's really happening!
I thought I would share this hilarious picture from Thursday night. It was my friend Amanda's birthday in the middle and we went to a female impersonation show at Darcels in downtown Portland. It was so funny, all thesse big men dressed as women would come out and sing songs, or rather lip sync to them. Darcel who is on my left did all the comedy. It was fun to hang out with the girls and I mean ALL the girls, I couldn't stop laughing the whole time. We were seated at the very front just inches from the stage so to say the least we got a lot of the guys I mean girls attention.

Has it been 4 years already?

Wow how time flies. We just got back from the Edgefield where we got to celebrate 4 wondrous years. It was so nice to get a little ways out of town and we had never stayed there before so it was really fun. It's awesome in the Fall all the trees were so pretty in all the different colors. This is were we'll be staying after the wedding. After we checked in we headed to the bar at the bottom of the Hotel where they have pool tables and darts and all the good bar type stuff. Scott tried to teach me how to play pool, but I think he was getting frustrated because I totally stink at that game. We moved on to shuffleboard because it's even playing fields, I won of course. (No Scott didn't let me, but that's what he says)We then had a nice romantic dinner at the Black Rabbit restaurant, and it was so yummy we couldn't stop eating. I can't wait to go back and stay again. Now that Scott works for McMenamins we get a discount, yeah!
The House hunting is coming along slowly. We found an awesome townhouse we really liked but they didn't accept the loan we're using so I guess it wasn't meant to be. Hopefully we'll find and even better one soon.

Happy October!

Wow, where did Summer go? I can't believe it's Fall already! I feel I had no warning, no time to ease into the new season. One day it was a hot, perfectly blue sky no cloud day, then the next POW it was Falls here and Summers gone for another year so-how-do-you-like-that? I'm kinda glad it's Fall though, now I have an excuse to go buy some warm weather clothes and a new winter coat (I'm thinking red, that sounds like a good winter coat color).
I found the picture or rather the 1970's ad in last months Portland Monthly magazine and just loved it. First of all it's my favorite color so right off that caught my eye and secondly I loved the simply graphicness (if that's even a word) of the design. The issue was all about "How we lived everyday life from 1869-1980" it was really interesting to see what was really going on more than 100 years ago and how it has transformed into the Portland today.

After a 50 year hiatus the Portland streetcar is back, and the color is great. 135 years ago the first horse-drawn trolley appeared in 1st Ave. and now it's coming over to the SE. Right down the street from us theres tracks being built for the streetcars to come to my part of town. I can't wait, soon we'll be able to jump on and ride downtown or other hard to find parking areas without the hassle of driving.

My very first project.................

........that I have every done on my own, on the sewing machine. Isn't it great, I'm so proud. My mother use to teach a kids sewing class when we were younger, so I have sewn some shorts, a pillow, a simple drawstring bag, but nothing like this. This sewing machine is one of the machines we used in the class. It's been sitting in a storage room at my dads for years. When I mentioned I was saving my money for one he told me he had this old one just sitting around. I was so excited, it even looks cool with it's vintage style and color. I finally went and picked up some fabric yesterday, and whipped up a pattern for this purse I saw at a store awhile ago. I tried to find a pattern but couldn't find the perfect one, so I just drew the shape I thought would work, made it a little bigger on top to accommodate the pleating and blindly jumped in. The sewing isn't very neat, and the stitches are showing right below the bias tape because I stitched to low, but it was a good first try and learning process. I had a little trouble threading the machine, the pictures in the manual were a little confusing, but after I finally got it working it didn't take long at all. I can't wait for the next project.
These shoes were also something I picked up yesterday. They were a steal at TJ Maxx. I love Nine West shoes, and the price was so good I couldn't pass them up.

In this months Blueprint there is an awesome article about transforming thrift store finds. I loved the look of these old frames hung without any pictures in them. I picked up a few at the Goodwill yesterday and I was thinking of hanging them above the bed like a headboard. I'm not sure what color to paint them yet, but I got some good ones.
I like this one the best, it's going to look really great once it's painted a not-so-classic color.

What a crazy month!

Wow, what a month we've had. Our friends from San Diego came for a visit and it was on. First we went to the Oregon Coast which was absolutely gorgeous, I love it there. We picked up some crab and some clams at this place and had a feast!

That night we all went to the beach, which was only across the street from where we were staying. It was such a beautiful night and the tide was so far out we thought if we walked out to the edge of the water a shark might swoop up and get us. I have never seen the tide out so far ever, on any beach.


Later that week we made a trip to Multnomah Falls and went on a huge hike that was probably about 10 miles (my legs were killing me the next day).

I think we saw about 15 water falls. The water was so cold, we kept filling up our water bottles so we could drink it and stay cool.
There have also been so many Birthdays this month it seems at least 2-3 a week so it's been one big Celebration around here.
I hope soon to get a bike and go riding all over town. Scott got one for his birthday which was, you guessed it, August. He's been waiting for me so once that happens we'll off like the wind. I just hope it's before the rain.