Moving to Wordpress

So... a few of you who know me are about to groan, roll your eyes, and then chuckle, shake your head and think "oh Sarah". Why? Because I'm about to start another blog :D

After I started Sarah Tones it Up, my third Blogger blog, I all of the sudden got overwhelmed with it all and wanted to go back to just one. It was too many and I wanted to streamline. I've also been wanting to move to Wordpress so it seemed like a good time. While I was contemplating the new blog, I came up with a name I liked in about thirty seconds and it was available everywhere (wordpress blog, domain name, facebook, twitter) which I took it as a sign to proceed because that just never happens!

Anyways... go check it out if you want and leave a comment letting me know what you think - good or bad or silly :)

Will Run for Pasta - adventures in life, recipes, and working out from a normal girl trying to live a healthy lifestyle.

I need a good tagline so hit me with your best idea over at the new blog - there might even be a prize involved!

Downsizing

From a 3,000sf house to a 992sf apartment.  What?!!!  Please excuse me while I cry for a minute.

Okay, I'm back.  And I'm excited.  Really!

Our lease is up the end of February so Karl and I were already considering our options and a day or two after we started discussing, the friend who lives with us gave notice that she would be moving out the end of January.  HERE'S YOUR SIGN!  (thank you Lord for making it so loud and clear!)

We could stay if we really wanted to but it's twice as much room as we need and it would not be the wisest financial decision as we are trying to save for a home of our own, hopefully in the next 9-12 months.  Depending on the housing market.  And the election in November.  Karl is keeping a close eye on both of those so we'll see what happens.

As much as I don't like packing, I do love the chance to purge the things we really don't need or use.  I tend to get into the cleaning/purging spirit in January anyway so this is nice timing and feels like a fresh start for 2012.  We're only moving the bare minimum and will put some stuff in storage and hopefully get rid of a lot of other stuff.  Like my cookbooks which will go to storage.  I have already downsized to only 30 or so but with the ease of internet recipes I haven't looked at most of them in the last year.  I can't bring myself to give them away though, no yet.  Maybe not ever.

The day after our roommate gave notice, I hopped on Craigslist and found a couple of units open at a complex in Wilsonville which is in the same development where we're hoping to eventually buy a home.  Karl and I both got off work a little early to check them out and we ended up signing papers right then and we got the keys the next day.  Their move-in special was amazing which is lessening the pain of having two rents to pay January and February so that seemed like another sign that we were making the right decision.

Even though we have until the end of February to move I think we'll try and do it within the next couple of weeks so we can stop using utilities at the house, it's expensive to heat 3,000sf!  That means I probably won't be cooking much between now and then, but then it's on!  That apartment kitchen isn't going to know what hit it!

So long nice house!

Apartment living, here we come.  Again.

2011 -- The Highlights

January:

• Discovered Pinterest
• Added a new member to the family:

February

• It snowed

March

• Went to a Once A Month cooking class with a friend and then found a great site called  Once A Month Mom with lots of recipe ideas.  I haven't jumped totally into it yet but there are certain things I'll make double or triple batches of so I'm slowly filling the chest freezer in the garage.

April

• Discovered Jalapeno Cheddar Scones at Whole Foods - can't get enough of them!!

May

• This Ultimate Dog Tease video make me laugh until I cried.
• Fell on my butt in the Safeway parking lot thanks to cheap shoes and rainy weather.
• Got flowers at work from Mr. K because he was thinking about the day we met - how sweet is that?!!

June

• We checked out Red Ridge Farms in Dayton which is a winery and an olive oil mill - I didn't even know Oregon had olive trees!
• We saw Mary Poppins at Keller Auditorium.
• I discovered dessert nachos and homemade iced coffee which we drank the rest of the Summer!

July

• The neighbors set off great fireworks. Koko hated them.
• We spent a weekend at Lincoln City and took Koko on her first hike to Drift Creek Falls, she even has a little backpack so she can carry her own water and snacks!

On the suspension bridge over Drift Creek.

• We took a quick road trip down to CA, stopping in Salinas, Cayucos, and Sacramento to visit some family. It was the first time we boarded Koko and we missed her terribly!





The Farm in Salinas

• Had dinner at The Gilt Club in Portland after seeing it featured on a Food Network TV show where they highlighted the homemade pork rinds, it was pretty good!

August

• We finally made it to the Tualatin Crawfish Festival.  I stuck with the gumbo and chowder but Mr. K really enjoyed sucking the guts out of these little guys.

• We had garage sale in August as well. The little cash bump was nice but it was a lot of work!!  Don't think we'll be doing that again anytime soon!

September

• We discovered the Tualatin Farmer's Market where we had tamales that Karl says are the best he has ever eaten
• We went to Bend to celebrate our sixth anniversary. Karl had never been before and I hadn't been in a long time so it was fun to do something new. We stayed at The Oxford Hotel downtown where the valet guy gave us some great eating advice - Tart Bistro for dinner and CHOW for breakfast! We also hiked Tumalo Falls which was four miles in and four miles back out! I can't believe I hiked that much but it was worth it, there were so many waterfalls on the way up and the perfect little stream where we took a break and soaked our feet before turning around for the hike back down.

Dinner at Tart Bistro.  He's so cute!  I'm so pale!


October

• Went to a pink kitty themed birthday party for my friend's little girl, Kylah, who turned 3!  I had the amazing privilege of seeing this little girl being born and I can't believe it's been three years already!

November

• I cooked my very first turkey which turned out really good!  The gravy on the other hand... it was more like pudding, haha!

December

• Holiday potluck at work which of course required some Cranberry Salsa!
• Headed North to see some of my family for Christmas and ended up going on a hike Christmas Eve and got this pretty view of Mt. Rainier:

 Taken with my phone, it looked a lot closer in person.

And now we're on to 2012...


(updated the recipe blog too!)

Koko Puffer Nutter

Eight months old, up to 35lbs, and still super cute!  She had just gotten a bath and was waiting for me to re-make the bed but she couldn't keep her eyes open.  I feel the same way after a nice bath, don't you?

Koko!!

This is the sweet little Aussie-mix that has been taking up all our time the last six weeks!

Koko Puff

Koko Bean

Koko Girl

Koko Loca

Kokomo

We brought her home the end of January...

And three weeks later we broke her! Rough-housing with Karl ends in four broken toes and a lovely splint:

She doesn't seem to mind it too much but we'll all be much happier when it comes off this Wednesday and we can finally got for walks again and we can start puppy training classes and go to the dog park and doggie day care and all that fun stuff!

We're got her a rain coat because they were on crazy sale at Pet Smart (haven't used it yet) and there were matching boots which were perfect for putting over her splint to keep it dry, much easier than the ziploc and rubberbands we were dealing with before!

And this would be her puppy centerfold, LOL!

New bed full of awesome smelling cedar chips, thank you Costco!

Green-eyed monster thanks to the camera flash, but she was pretty posessive of that paper towel tube.

We love her to pieces!

Cheap Artwork

12 x 12 Picture Frame (glass) from Michaels - $6.99/each
12 x 12 Scrapbook Paper from Michaels - $0.49/each
Dry Erase Markers - already owned

Cute art on the cheap that you can change in an instant - Awesome!

The one on the left was perfect for writing on the glass with dry erase marker and the one on the right is just the scrapbook paper by itself. I love that you can change these up in an instant to match your mood, your decor, the holidays, a secial event, whatever! And the uses are endless... to-do list, weekly menu, shopping list, message board, hangman, tic-tac-toe... whatever you can think of!

Everyone will start calling you Martha but little do they know... you're just about cheap and easy! ;)

Fonts for Peas

Check it out down below, I figured out how to add a cute signature!

The font is Pea Nicki from the Fonts for Peas section of one of my favorite blogs, kevinandamanda.com. She'll turn your handwriting into a font for free!! If I liked my handwriting I'd totally do it, but I don't so Nicki's will have to do. Thank you Nicki, whoever (whomever?) and wherever you are :P

Edited 1/16/11: I'm playing around with my blog layout and can't get the cool signature to automatically post so I'm just adding the link/code at the end of every post I make. Kind of a pain, but now it will show up after my writing instead of farther down after the LinkWithin widget like it was before.

I also realized I didn't post where/how I learned to do it, so you can find directions on the awesome Keving & Amanda blog here.

Oh {Christmas} Tree

We're lacking a few skills in the tree-tying department so thankfully we're only about a mile from the tree farm. Here is how it arrived home, clinging to the car for dear life, although it had just been cut down so I guess it was hanging on for a slow death over the month to come. That reminds me, I need to go check the water. Hey, have you heard about those living trees you can rent for Christmas and then they're replanted? That's a swell idea!

Of course it has to go in the middle of the windows! And even though it's tall enough as is, we decided to put it on top of the coffee table so when Kimo and Kona are doing their doggy rough-housing in the living room they won't knock all the needles off.

Chairs on either side so Mr. K and I can pass the lights around to each other. We definitely have different ideas on how Christmas lights should be strung so I did some tweaking after we were done. They're still not quite the way I want them but I've moved on to other things.

Decorated with our Walmart ornaments ($15 for a pkg of 50) which match the color scheme going on in this house but I feel like they blend in too much. I'm also thinking I need some gold ribbon or something to wrap around the tree as well, it's definitely missing something.

There's nothing better than snuggling up with your sweetie by Christmas light! And the foyer light reflection in the window just adds to the romance :P

Wordless Wednesday

A lot can happen in a month!

For instance... we moved and I started a new business venture!!

We are now in a house in West Linn with a yard and a deck and plenty of room for us and our three new roommates. Three roommates?!! Yep, our good friend Sarah (from college and Great Harvest) and her two very cute and well-behaved Labradors, Kimo (chocolate) and Kona (yellow). It’s been fun so far and great to have so much space, I’ll have to post some photos soon.

As for my new business, you may remember my excitement about Ava Anderson Non-Toxic back in April? Well, I decided that wasn’t for me. I have nothing bad to say about the company or the product, and I still feel that toxins in the products we use is an important issue, but as a business for me it wasn’t the right fit.

So a few weeks ago my friend from work, Arika, invited me to a Thirty-One party that she was hosting for her future sister-in-law, Jessica, who just started with the business. I had never heard of Thirty-One so I checked out the stuff online and thought it was cute, but I honestly wasn’t all that excited about it and basically went so that Arika would have plenty of guests and I figured I’d buy something small. I’m pretty sure everyone can relate to that and I think that’s how a lot of guests get to these parties, but what good friends we are for being supportive, right? :) As it turns out, I fell in love with the products and bought more than “something small” and was immediately excited to host a party so that I could get even more stuff for free and at a discount, and the hostess special for October was (is) a good incentive as well!

Jessica was such a great consultant and after talking with her and Arika I decided that I wanted to give Thirty-One a try and I became a consultant as well! If you’ve never heard of Thirty-One, it’s a faith-based home-business company that was started in Ohio about six years ago and is now making its way to the Northwest.

The founder, Cindy Monroe, explains why she started Thirty-One:

"Six years ago I was working full time in corporate America, trying to live life with my husband and our two children, managing work, home, church, kids’ activities and still trying to find time for myself. On top of all that, I am a girl, and girls must shop, right? My busy lifestyle made it so difficult to find time to visit all of those cute little gift boutiques where the really great products are. I decided it was time for working mom’s, single women, and even grandmothers to get a chance to shop on their terms. I had a great experience with direct selling and knew of the potential behind owning your own business and prayed diligently about offering something that would help women contribute to their lives financially and the lives of countless others. It is from this passionate resolve that Thirty-One was born."

The company’s mission is to "celebrate, encourage and reward women through offering quality products and an outstanding opportunity to become successful business owners" and I am so excited to be part of that.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

My Website - http://www.mythirtyone.com/sarahpdx31

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