French-y food cont.

Yeah so I have been promising Stefan at Starbucks that I would make gougère's for a few weeks now. They are basically the cream puff recipe, but instead of baking them plain, grated Gruyère cheese is added to the dough and then chilled for a period of time and then baked up to a golden deliciousness that is beyond words! I baked up a bunch for general consumption here at home. Tomorrow morning I'll bake up the rest and bring them to Stefan...Mr French man should be happy, as I have had a couple of good reviews from Tom & Mary and since I made them they SHOULD be good...ha! I think I'll be keeping a steady supply of butter, cheese and flour at all times! OH MY...

Seriously, why have I not heard of these before?

Decent Weekend

Spring has arrived and so have the showers...good ol' Pacific Northwest! I shouldn't complain, there have been plenty of good days for rides and I have ridden more so far this year than in past years by the first of Spring.

Having had some churchy responsibilities to take care of this weekend, but we kept an eye on the weather and decided that dry roads equal ride time! So an easy, quick 12 miles yesterday and also today. It felt good to get out and I am looking forward to the next organized ride which should be the Monster Cookie Metric Century which starts in Salem; then the following weekend is the RACC...

cycling season good!

Driving and Cell phones

(Click Comic to Enlarge)

Back to the Grind...

Last week was a nice relaxing week, but all good things must come to an end...oh well.

Spent a couple of days with Tom - we went to Cannon Beach for lunch at Cranky Sue's and visited a couple of favorite spots before heading home. Tuesday was the big ride into Portland on Tom's route to and from work.

The rest of the week was spent pretty leisurely, with coffee with my friend Cathy, a ride (a little bit of a challenging ride) with Kristen and then some down time just relaxing and riding with Tom after his day at work both Thursday and Friday.

All good days, but I would have to say that my favorite day was Sunday - after spending the morning at worship we zipped out after class and made our way over to the Portland Art Museum for a Rick Steves Lecture. As a member of OPB my contribution "gift" was two tickets to this talk. Rick Steves shared his trip to Iran last Spring during a time where the political climate was even more iffy than usual. This trip was not about politics, bur rather about the culture of the Iranians/Persians and it was very fascinating. His point was to humanize the culture and not make them out to be monsters...to help others understand who they are as people and what they do and what their likes and dislikes are - they really are no different than Americans in that they enjoy family, friends and simple pleasures like going out to eat, have coffee...shopping etc. Also, he shared that they are fascinated with Americans in general and was curious as to why he and his crew spent days documenting their lives to educate people outside of Iran.

If I ever have the opportunity to visit a country such as Iran I think that I would go just to experience the people, just like going to Tijuana (even though it is just across the border) was all about going to connect with the people and to learn about their culture.

It amazes me that culture differences can vary greatly just across the border as close as Mexico or Canada or on the other side of the world or even in our own backyards.

This Rick Steves Lecture reminds me that I need to be open minded and understanding of the people that appear to be different than me - there is a lot of world out there!

The tickets that OPB members received

A cool shot of Persian school girls along with Rick Steves

Rick Steves at the end of the lecture

Vacation Week cont.

It's already Thursday! It has been a pretty good week and I'm looking forward to hanging out today and tomorrow. I'll be meeting a friend of mine for coffee at Peet's and a visit then home for the rest of the day until Tom comes home - we'll go for a ride this afternoon! We plan to do the route that Kristen and I rode yesterday only in reverse...it's EASIER!

This whole not going to work thing is growing on me....

Vacation...

Today was Day 1 of vacation away from work. Don't have plans to do anything special, but just hang out and chill and not think about work stuff.

Tried to run this morning, but it was a little cold and made it hard to breathe so we cut is way short and did about 2 miles total. I'll go back out on Wednesday and see if I can get 3 miles in.

Tom and I went to Cannon Beach to have lunch at Cranky Sue's and both had the crab cake platter. It was as good as I remember from my trip with Robin last June! Really, they are the best! Very crabby and very good. I also wanted to introduce Tom to the Sleepy Monk for coffee, but they were closed :( So we stopped at Center Diamond and I found a really easy pattern for a table runner that I could easily make in one day - another project to work on!

The weather was definitely crazy today with snow coming down during different times of the day and even on our drive home there was still snow spittin'...

Tomorrow Tom and I will ride to his office so that I'll know how to get there if I choose to do so...via bike? We'll see.

Another famous self-portrait...

We finally arrive at Cranky Sue's

Mmmmm, crabby cake

The alternative to the Sleep Monk Coffee Shop

bike commuting

Yesterday I finally mustered up enough motivation to pack the dreaded backpack and rode to work for the first time this year. I had forgotten how much I have to schlep to work with me - it's still fairly chilly and I look forward to when things warm up and I can pack clothes that are not as bulky like skirts and easy breezy tops. Had a good ride though and coming home was the best - flying down Hazel Dell Avenue and then climbing the hill into Salmon Creek on Hwy 99...pretty fun! My average was pretty good for a first bike commute home of the year too 15mph...things can only get better!

Here's to another season of bike commuting!

COUNTDOWN MODE

I'm in countdown mode to my week off from work! I don't have any plans for my week off, but I do know that going to work is not happening. Actually, I have a wine shipment coming and it will be shipped next week. EVERY single time I'm off work, my wine gets delivered - well, not every time, but half the time. So I'll have to drop by the office (in stealth mode) to pick it up, if I'm lucky UPS will come before lunch and I can sneak in while everyone is out!

Depending on how the weather turns out Tom may be showing me how to get to his office via bicycle...that should be interesting. Then I could ride to his office whenever the mood strikes - I am having a hard time seeing that happen, but who knows I might. We also plan to go to the coast and visit Cranky Sue's for lunch - BEST Crab Cakes...hands down! This will be Tom's first time at CS, I've been there a few times with my bud Robin. I'm drooling just thinking about it.

There are still 8 hours plus some minutes left of work for me and believe me I'm going to be counting down every single minute that goes by! I am so ready to not be here, people are starting to drive me crazy!

I think I will bike commute tomorrow - should be decent.