YARRRR!

So...sad to say, we are no longer internet pirates. We lost the unsecure signal that we used to get at the apartment. I'm updating from work because I got here super early. Good news though! I am in early discussions with the Team Leader at Kirby to come back onto the team some time in the near future. I'm really excited!!! Amy and I are going to San Francisco in a few days for a whole week and we've made an agreement that when we return to Portland we are going to focus all of our energy on getting back to Texas. We'll try to post more when we're in SF. We're staying with Amy's cousins so we'll have legit internet access! Hooray!!!

Much love,
Amanda

Inspiration!!!

So, if you are at all interested in interior design, we highly recommend that you go out and pick up the Domino Book of Interior Design. It has so many great ideas, much like the magazine of the same name (Domino) that I only recently discovered has now gone under. This past issue of Domino is, disappointingly, their last. One of the best tips that the book has to offer is the idea of gathering anything at all that might inspire you. Make a file and include anything in it that you find interesting, inspiring, or just flat out gorgeous. Then when you're ready to design a room, you can pull from all of your resources in the file and find any sort of theme or common factor that you admire about the pictures and design the room accordingly. As Amy and I are quite picky in our choice of decor, and both lacking in long term memory, we figured that this would do us a GREAT favor when we finally decide to plant our roots somewhere and buy a home (which at this point both in our lives and in the economy is seeming more and more like a joke!). Either way, my plan is to make a post as often as possible and include at least one picture that possesses some quality that I admire and would be willing to include when determining how to decorate our home in the future. Today the picture is one that I've found through a blog called Black*Eiffel:



Things I love about this pic:
The clawfoot tub as a planter!!! Absolutely gorgeous!
The light fixtures hanging from the ceiling
The blue tile used as flooring

Off to watch Nightline and help Amy finish a Times crossword puzzle. We bought a whole book of them today on a Powell's City of Books excursion. (An aptly named bookstore that we adore and is luckily only blocks away. Seriously...one could spend days in this shop and still not have seen every title they have to offer.)

Oh yes...I also intend to post which books I'm reading. Today I picked up a book called The Urban Homestead. It's basically a starting point for living a more sustainable lifestyle even when you don't necessarily have the resources that you would were you living in the country as opposed to a big city. I'm really enjoying it so far and it's sparking lots of little ideas for projects that I would love to take on once we're back in good ol' Texas!

Nights,
Amanda

New Bike Day

A while back I decided to take Amanda's wheelset and use them for my own which left her bike sitting in a corner with no wheels. Since moving to Portland, Amanda also decided she no longer wanted to ride "Fixed" anymore but wanted to ride "Free" instead. I had a spare Velocity 36hole Aerohead wheelset laying around so I decided to use this wheelset on her bike. Her original ratio was 49/18 and was pushing about 73.5 gear inches. Since Portland is somewhat hilly I decided to lower her gear ratio to 49/19 which pushes about 69.6 gear inches. The only problem was I needed to get a 19tooth freewheel cog. Taking the advice from my friend Ben, I went down to 21st Avenue Bicycles. Man! That place rocks! Everyone there is really nice, especially Hugh. He helped me out this whole weekend with parts and explaining tricks of the trade to me. Anyways, luckily 21st Avenue had a 19tooth freewheel cog in stock, yay! While Hugh was taking off the previous cog and installing the new cog I decided to look at some tires for Amanda's new build. Her previous rims, the one's I stole, were bright blue. I wanted to stick with the blue theme and came across some blue tires which were perfect as well as some matching bar tape for the handlebars! Since the bike is now a freewheel bike I needed to get more housing and cable for the brakes. The bike already had a front brake but I wanted to put a rear brake on to ensure the safest ride for my one and only true love! The bicycle chain however needed 3 links added to it because of the bigger rear cog, Hugh was awesome and hooked me up by finding and old chain and adding the links for me! I really suck with the chain breaker tool so I'm glad he did that for me. Anyways, there are still a few things I need to work on such as the rear cable line which I have excess of and needs to be cut down (it's very apparent in the picture)and buying a new stem because the one I put on there I got from a dollar bin. Other than that, I think the bike looks good for a quick build up! Here is a before and after of the bike! Enjoi!
- AMY!

Before:



After:

Clean Day!!!

Much to my enjoyment, Amy and I spent the majority of yesterday planning, organizing, and executing our Spring Cleaning project. Amy isn't a big cleaning fan so this basically consisted of Amy organizing some drawers and stuff while I cleaned. I realized just how much alike my mother and I are in that we don't really like to have people around while we clean. I'm entirely too scatter brained and move from one project to the next without finishing it but with the intention on coming back to it in a minute. We have our ways! Don't even get me STARTED on how to correctly fold a towel. Regardless, I had a pretty large list and am surprised by how much we actually got accomplished. We eventually succumbed to "taking a break" which meant a lot of internet browsing and Tetris playing, and never returned to our cleaning list. So...I woke up early today, had a (veggie)sausage and biscuit, glass of oj, and pot of coffee and got back on track. There are quite a few things left to do (mainly sorting through piles of clothes!) but am pleased with the progress made today. I'm hoping that Amy will come home and be soooo excited that she will work her way through the rest of the list. (Hahaha...jk babe! I'm sure you have about 6 or 7 tabs already set up that are eagerly awaiting that left click button!)
Anyway...here are some pics that I decided to take since we have yet to post any of our home.


Traded in the bleach for my new fave cleaning products!


Our small but functional kitchen!(stove not pictured, but I guarantee you, like any good Mexicans we have the comal sitting on the burner. I never learned the english term for it so you'll have to "spanish to english translation" that one. Viva la raza!)


Our dining room used to have a dining table that we never in 6 months of living here have used. So we set up the desk yesterday. I love that it's facing the window.


The living room


I love the lockers that our '08 stimulus checks stand on!!!


Our very cluttered yet much loved books in all their glory. (Can you tell we love IKEA?)


We try to use our shopping bags as much as possible to reduce the amount of bags we waste/use. But we gotz ta look fly while we do it! Keep it Gangsta! HTX represent!!!

There are more but we'll forgo the bathroom, closet, and bed areas for now. I suppose I should try to finish things up a bit. Maybe walk down to Zupan's to pick a nice bouquet of flowers up for my lovely lady.

Skibs not ribs!
Amanda B.

Early Birthday Present!

Let's see. Amy's birthday is at the end of this month so I've been trying to think of great gifts that I can get for her. The one obvious gift is something bicycle related as that is easily her second love. (Only behind ME of course! Hehehe!) As everyone knows, Portland is a pretty bicycle friendly city and the people here always have the neatest bike accessories for Amy to drool over. Oddly enough, at work the other day this guy had the COOLEST messenger backpack and I was able to ask him a few questions and forced him to let me look in the bag. Amy's rrrrreally picky about her packs so I figured this would be a good way to get some input from another cyclist. We went to River City Bikes today so that Amy could check it out and get a chance to try it on. Turns out she loooooves the bag and I ended up buying it for her for an early b-day present...along with a helmet so that she can be safe when she commutes now. We also picked up an awesome organizer that fits right in to allow for easy organization for locks, keys, brass knucks, etc. Enjoy the pics!!!

First up, Amy's bikes:


Amy with new pack:


Inside the pack:


Inside the pack with handy organizer:


Amy not being too happy about looking like a dork with the helmet:


Love, Amanda!