three day weekend

What kind of a person spends their three day weekend mostly at home throwing away things?

Apparently me, and I am thrilled to finally be doing it.

The truth is that most of what I have been going through is paper. I love paper, I collect papers, I make zines, I pick up free magazines, newspapers and brochures wherever I go. I squirrel these items away, thinking that I may need them, when in reality, when I need something I look it up on the internet. I am still collecting things like it's 1997 and my habits haven't caught up with reality. Until now, hopefully.

I have recycled a big blue recycle bin full of magazines and papers this weekend. I am making piles of zines to donate. I have shredded pay stubs that go back to 1999!

It's feeling good, but still so much to do.

In my files (I cleaned out my file cabinet and reorganized), I found the 8x10 photograph that inspired and was on the first issue of my first zine ever - Frank, Jasper and Me. I don't remember where I got it, but I am guessing the Oakland Flea Market that took place in the Laney College parking lot, but it may have been at an estate sale in Mountain View. Anyway, it was one of the first old photographs of people I don't know that I collected. Of course, now I have tons more.

Someday, when I find all 7 issues of Frank, Jasper and Me I'll post the covers. I really liked them. Each issue had an old pic of two men and a woman. I have tons extra that I never used because friends used to find them for me everywhere!

The zine was just a general pop culture /personal zine and I don't think I ever did more than 75 of one issue. Frank and Jasper were my imaginary co-writers. I really liked having other people to assign stories and "true stories" to. I started FJ&Me in 1994 and did the last one in 1998, I think.

Here is my newly reorganized file cabinet. This is where the mighty archives of the original issues of all Portland created PonyBoy Press zines reside. Behold the majesty:

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend! Back to the shredder.

summer, it'll be nice to see you

This weekend is usually considered the beginning of summer. Here in Portland, we've had a sunny day and then a grey rainy day - or two. That suites me. I will enjoy the summer when it comes - for a while. I personally think summer is about one month too long.

I hope you all get to have a nice long weekend. Maybe you're going to the beach. I had my beach vacation last week. The mister and I went to Newport, Oregon and stayed in a nice hotel, did some sight seeing, but mostly stared at the ocean a lot from our room. I love the ocean air.

We did get out of the room a bit. Including two visits to my favorite restaurant, Local Ocean Seafood. Their tuna kabobs are my favorite thing to eat.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, folks!

spot me a fiver

A couple months ago I wandered onto a website called Fiverr and was completely enthralled.

Fiverr is a site where people buy and sell services for five dollars. It's been around for a while, I guess. Their website lists some of the high profile newspapers and magazines that have mentioned them. But, somehow I managed to never hear about it until recently.

I spent a couple days going back to the listings seeing all the stuff that people were listing. It was so entertaining. There were lots of business type services: voice overs, seo help, html code, photoshop help, video testimonials, logo and banner making. Some of these seemed pretty good for someone who really knows nothing about setting up a blog or making a slideshow. There were also people to pass out flyers in certain towns which seems like a really valuable thing, since no one in any organization ever wants to do that part.

Some especially interesting things I saw the people were selling for five dollars:

• Someone who will tell you what outfit to wear
• Someone who will call your phone to get you out of a date or make some jealous
• Someone who will take a picture of anything you want written on a sign in a number of places: paris, new york subways, hollywood, pittsburg...
• Someone who will call someone and sing them a song in many different voices, or make a video
• Someone who will be your friend on facebook or like something or do youtube comments
• Someone who will do any kind of new age reading you can imagine
• Someone who will do all kinds of weird performances on video, like singing anything you want or saying anything you want while in a clown costume, with a sock puppet...
• Someone who will worry for you
• Someone who will tell you the meaning of life

It's pretty endless what people think up and the entrepreneur in me really loves it and wants to try selling something, but I got enough on my plate. So, instead I bought some things.

I bought a fix for a scratched old photo. The fiverr seller did a good job, the photo is of my great grandparents and it was a copy of a photo and the scratches were beyond my control. I was really happy with the results. And for 5 bucks!


I also bought a numerology reading. The reading was okay. There were lots of things that didn't apply, but one that was really spot on. So, still seemed like a success to me. What'dya want for 5 bucks, right?

I also had a drawing done for me of me. It was done by this artist. Pretty good for five bucks, huh?
I did all of these in March with the idea of doing this blog post and it's taken me this long to do it.

Now looking over the fiverr site I totally want to buy more things. maybe a past life reading, a postcard from some exotic place or some custom fortune cookies.

I love that people can find some niche and supplement their income. And for five bucks it's easy to take the chance on buying something. Let me know if you buy or sell anything. I am fascinated with this website.

spring countdown

It's been a busy month for me and you may have gathered that by my absence from the blog. My day job has been extremely busy and the weekends have been devoted to other priorities.

But, now it is spring, and even though the sky is still grey here I see tulips and daffodils everywhere and I am getting that restless spring feeling. Any minute it's gonna be sunny here in Portland and although I am not one to complain about the rain in Portland (I moved here for it), it will be nice to see some sun.

An aside: This town is wacky for "good weather". Friday night it was about 55 degrees and the skies were gray. As I drove by the park at about 6:30 pm I noticed that it was filled with people just hanging, playing games, lounging - as if it were 80 degrees. In Southern California they would be making soup with weather like that. Ah, Portland, you're cute.

Here's a short list of my favorite things right now:

1. Spring flowers! This image is from an issue of Ideals magazine from The 60's. And My neighborhood looks just like this. (not really)

2. Stamps! These pretty new stamps for Chinese New Year - Year of the Rabbit - are so lovely.

3. California Strawberries! I am am eating them everyday at lunch and I put in salads for dinner. Strawberries and smoked salmon is a good combo for a salad.

4. The Webfooters Postcard Show and Sale! I'm a member of this Postcard Club. I've been working on this for the last month, working on publicity and creating the new Member Roster for the year.

The show is this coming weekend, April 16 & 17th. There will be lots of vintage postcards and photographs and all kinds of things. Come on down and see the neat stuff.

5. Wii Resort! I got a Wii for Christmas and I adore the resort game. It ia a bunch of sports that all take place on this island. My favorite is flying the airplane around - but almost everything is great. Last night we had bicycle races around the island.

6. Vacation! The Mister and I are going on a short vacation to the coast in May. I will go the Oregon Coast Aquarium for the first time. Looking forward to the ocean breezes and maybe a meal at Local Ocean Seafoods.

7. Bald Eagles Nest! I've been hooked on watching the Bald Eagle's nest from Decorah, Iowa. There are 3 little ones and it so amazing to watch and listen to. You'd think I would have seen enough eagles feeding young in my life, but, I guess not.

8. This video! A cat and a dolphin playing - awesome.

I'm going to end this at 8 because I've had to redo this post too many times due to either blogger or my computer or who knows what.

Anyway, I hope you are all having a great time enjoying the arrival of spring!

tastes

I made Colcannon for St Patrick's Day on Thursday. Colcannon is a traditional Irish meal which is basically mashed potatoes mixed with cabbage (or kale). It was quite good.

When I was a kid my mother used to make Corned Beef and Cabbage most years for St. Patrick's Day. She would always love to put scoops of horseradish sauce on her plate to eat with her cabbage and meat. It seemed so gross to me - as gross as the cabbage.

I got the idea to make Colcannon from this blog (picture courtesy of said blog) but really just used the recipe as inspiration - in the end I just kind of made it up as I went along. I boiled about 5 medium potatoes while I steamed half of a sliced cabbage. After it was done I added some milk, butter, green onions and then also some sharp white cheddar (from Ireland, of course) along with salt and pepper.

It makes a great easy comfort meal. It was especially good once I added the horseradish. That totally made it for me. I found myself making the same kind of satisfied sounds my mother used to as I reached in for more horseradish sauce.

It's weird how your tastes grow up and change. When I was younger her favorite foods were things like spinach, cabbage, horseradish sauce, pickled things, Tabasco, brussel sprouts - all things that totally grossed me out, but that I love now. I even tried some cole slaw the other day and liked it for the first time in my life!

What things do you like now that you didn't used to? I wonder if it'something I've been avoiding. I'm in the mood to try some new things....but I really don't think I will ever like black licorice, I don't care what you all say.

from the nest

I've been busy staying in - watching shows, working around the house and just plain working a lot. Not lots of new stuff to say, but I wanted to pop in the olde blogge and say a cheery hello to you.

I do regularly add things to my pinterest boards, come by and visit, why dontchya. I am pretty fond of Pinterest. It's the ultimate in short attention blog "reading". I do however have a really hard time saying it. I always say "pin interest". Which is not the name. But, that's what I want to say.

be mine....but not in a possessive way...

Hey, Valentines Day is Monday! Have you gotten your loved ones a card or a lovely little something. I am off to make something for mine right now. Usually I send out cards to friends, but this year it just kind of snuck up on me.

I had a co-worker recently express surprise that I like to celebrate Valentines Day. He seemed to expect that because of my natural rebellious nature and unconventional leanings that I would just ignore it as a day that was invented to blah blah blah, you know the rest.

It's a good guess from someone who knows me only in a work setting, but he has no idea how much I love paper sentiments and little handmade pretty things. I'm very old fashioned like that. I've always felt like Valentines Day is about just giving sweet surprises to the ones you love - and for most of my life that was friends only. It's nice to now have a romantic valentine (well, actually it's been over 7 years), but I've never thought it was necessary to celebrate Valentines Day.

If Monday snuck up on you, too. never fear. There are lots of handmade projects and printables available out there. Here are some of my favorites.

You could make some lovely fruit themed stickers and place them on your Valentine's fruit. Pack them in lunches or leave on the breakfast table. Super cute idea from Twig and Thistle.

I'm a fan of glitter and I'm a fan of banners, so this is a win win. Easy tutorial on the Lovely Indeed blog via Creature Comforts.


There are some really cute free printable valentines at the blog Gifts.com from Hello Lucky.

Also check out the great printable Valentines from artist Amy Rice. I really love her work.

There are also more ideas that I like on my Valentines Pinterest board, including this cute Valentine award seen above made from cupcake liners.

And if you need more ideas, here's my Valentines Day post from last year.

Okay, I gotta get going on my own Valentine making. Happy weekend!

nice smells

Don't you love yummy smelling soaps? I don't mean perfumy stinky soaps like you often find at at some chain stores. I mean rich earthy smelling soaps made from natural oils. But really, how often can you go through those soaps? It takes forever and I actually don't even use soap as much as shower gel, so then I have an abundance of soaps (especially if you are also gifted with lots during the holidays).

My favorite thing to do with them is distribute them in drawers and linen closets and between sweaters and all over. The smell seems to last even longer than sachets and you get to keep the soaps in their lovely packaging.

There's something about holding a bar of soap in nice packaging. It's smells nice, looks pretty and feels good in the hand - like a rock covered in fabric. Is this just me? I'm kind of weird that way.

I love opening up my linen closet and having the most wonderful scent come out.

These small Sweet Petula soaps are some of my favorite to use for this purpose. I just love the way they look, too.

Do you have any tips for making the closet and things smell nice? I would love to hear them. I am in serious cleaning/reorganizing mode these days. Nice smells make clean closets even nicer.

Happy February!

wintering

I have come to really like winter and look forward now to the quiet months of January and February. I always have big plans for what I will do with those months. Somehow, with the holidays over and it being winter it seems I have more time to do these things. However, I'm still working full time, so I'm not sure how much "extra" time I really have.

I love this collage by catwalk

So far this month I have been able to do some decluttering and reorganizing, but it has not been nearly as much as I need or want. Meanwhile, here it is Saturday and I'm doing a blog post. I'm hopeless!

I've been wanting to do a zine about winter for some time and what I like about it. Every year I do some writing, but I have yet to get it out. I need to declutter my to-do list!

Laura from the Welcome to Bend zine just made a zine about winter and her favorite things about it. It was a lovely read this morning over my Earl Grey tea. You can find it here.

Hope you are enjoying the winter. There's lots of great things about it. Someday I'll tell you more about about that. <3

Christmas in the Old West

Christmas is over and New Years has come and gone and I still have not taken down the Christmas decorations or even put away some of my gifts.

I am longing for newness, organization and redoing almost everything, but almost all I seem to be able to do is think about it. I've done a bit of cleaning out, but more of playing with my new wii (!), keeping warm by being under blankets while watching Netflix and catching up with friends - all of these include lots of tea drinking.


My holidays were great. My niece came from Brooklyn and my sister from Southern California. We have a small family and no little kids. About 15 years ago we started a tradition of having a theme for Christmas. We don't always do it for different reasons - but we mostly do.

Some of our favorites were Medieval Christmas, Dutch Christmas, Hungarian Christmas, 1960's Christmas and and last year's 1930's Christmas. We use the theme to determine the menu, activities and music. If it's a time travel Christmas we try and dress up.

This year we did Old West Christmas. This was not nearly as glamorous as last years!


My mother decorated one of the trees all in gold for the gold rush and the other tree in fancy Victorian style ornaments (like you would see in a fancy hotel at the time). We all dressed western - mostly cowboy or prairie style. We had amazing food including pan friend trout, buffalo stew and turkey (I heard the latter two were good. I myself am a pescatarian).

The dog does not eat at the table, but like those folks at the Academy Awards, she fills in the empty seats when someone gets up. She does, however, enjoy getting in costume - just like the rest of us.

Our Christmas themes are lots of fun. We all seem to share the love of a theme, which makes me very happy. It's always neat to see what each other comes up with. We don't have a theme in mind for next year, so let me know if you have any suggestions.

I hope you are enjoying the new year so far. Happy 2011!