Thursday, August 16, 2012

A Collection


I've been a little all over the place as of late. Paul and I took a spontaneous trip to Portland and I haven't documented much, other than what we ate. The day before we left, we got brunch at PartyCart, because it's the only place we ever go to get food. First was a fried egg grilled cheese with tomatoes on zucchini bread. Talk about comfort food. Also Paul took cleaned off his glasses and looked pretty cute.


Then we had pickled blueberry crumb cake and a basil and caramelized onion biscuit egg sandwich. The amount of tasty food we get at PartyCart is ridiculous and it's really no wonder why they are the main provider of any meal we don't make ourselves.


Then very late the next night we decided, since we had three days off, why not go to Portland? We wanted to spend our days off sightseeing in our old city. It was fun, but kind of bittersweet. We ate a lot of delicious food, such as this brie and cucumber sandwich, but after spending two years in Eugene, I've fallen in love. Portland is much bigger, much more stylized, much busier, less homey, and honestly less fun than I remembered. Paul and I had a great little vacation, but Eugene really has my heart.


Despite my love for Eugene, Portland did contain these two pistachio treats. I'm a chocolate fan, the richer the better. Growing up, if dessert didn't have caramel, peanut butter, chocolate, or all three, it wasn't worth it. Pistachios were certainly on the unacceptable desserts list. However, my recently enlightened palette loves the little green guys. Paul and I enjoyed a pistachio and orange danish, which tasted like a Moroccan paradise, and this pretty strawberry and pistachio cream cake layer thing. I'd still take ice cream any day, but it was fun to experiment while we were exploring.


Another aspect of our Portland trip was using up an art store gift card Paul received for his birthday. We got lots of pastels, thick drawing paper, and some new paints. On our second day in Portland we went to Sauvie Island and spent some time on the beach. We brought the paper and pastels along and I whipped up this not super great mermaid while we were lounging in the sand. Paul and I are going to dedicate a wall in our house to our pastel creations. They don't have to be good, and they can be of anything, but they have to use all the colors we got and the whole paper has to be filled up. As long as they follow those rules, it doesn't matter how much I like or dislike each individual piece, because they'll be a part of our experimental pastel collection. It will be interesting to see our progress, as we get more comfortable with this new medium.


I had never been to Sauvie Island before, even after 13 years of living in the Portland area, so this was definitely on my Portland bucket list. I was excited for an excuse to wear my swimsuit, but unfortunately I fell asleep on my belly before I applied sunscreen and I got a little burnt. It's only on my bum and the scoop of my swimsuit, but it now hurts to sit, which is rather terrible. I got to hang out at the beach all day though, so that makes up for it a tiny bit.


Our last day in Portland, because of our sunburns (Paul got all red too) we visited Paul's aunt at her house on Lake Oswego for a nice relaxing day. We took a quick spin on the paddle boat, but then spent most of our time playing with Porter. I call him Porter the Persistent. He could play fetch all day long. He kept dropping the toy in the lake, jumping in to get it out, and then fetching it from the dirt, and sprinting back to me. This resulted in quite a bit of mud all over me. Paul told me rather gleefully, "You look disgusting!" He was right, but it was fun. Now Paul and I are back in Eugene, trying to do as little as possible in this awful heat. We're having corn on the cob, kohlrabi, and green beans for dinner, so it definitely feels like summer time over here. This post was a big mess of things, mostly food, but that's how my life has been lately: eating, sleeping, crafts, and then eating some more. 

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for stopping by my blog- I'm so happy to know about yours now! It's a little slice of home for me! I wish I would've known about Party Cart when I was in Eugene, sounds amazing but I'll have to remember next time. I always end up visiting old favorites but wonder what new stuff is there. Your hair is really cute :)

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