Japanese Garden

So what do you do when it's late November and the weather is unseasonably warm?  You go exploring!

On Wednesday, Ben and I decided to drive over to Washington Park and poke around.  Our first planned stop was the Japanese Garden, which neither of us had ever been to before.  We almost made an unscheduled stop on the way when we passed the sign for Pittock Mansion.  We pressed on, though, deciding we would return to the mansion at a later date.  It was a good decision - perhaps we'll visit the mansion on a rainy day.  Yesterday, overcast but bright and dry, was perfect for visiting the garden.

Now, I didn't know what to expect from the Japanese Garden, having never been there before, but I was very impressed with it.  It's a beautiful section of Washington Park.  There are so many fun plants and decorative things in there, and all these little winding trails.  Well worth a visit - Ben and I were both happy that we went.  We spent a couple of hours there, even retracing our steps to enjoy the scenery a second time.  Here are some photos, which really don't do it justice:

This little pond was gorgeous, even with all the bare trees.

These lacy leaf maples are always so cool.

This was a great waterway with tons of multi-colored Koi in it.

Biggest of several little waterfalls.

This stone path led to the pond in the first picture.

Beautiful color on these trees.

Stone bridge over a brook.

The rock garden, seen from above.

Got to love the ripples.

Awesome tree behind the pavilion.

Enjoying the view: Portland and Mount Hood.

After the garden, we made our way downtown for a delicious lunch at Deschutes Brewery and Public House.  We both had the elk burger, which was amazing!  They make a pretty good house root beer, and we had a sample of the house ginger ale, which was amazing - and I don't even like ginger ale!

Elk burger!

And that was pretty much our day.

Yesterday, of course, was Thanksgiving.  Ben and I made a nice fruit salad and headed over to Aunt Debbie's for dinner with family.  It was great seeing everyone, and the food, naturally, was fantastic.

I hope everyone had a great holiday.  Today it's absolutely pouring down rain, so I'm glad we went to the Japanese Garden on Wednesday!

Oregon Wine Country

Yesterday, Mom and Ben came and picked me up, and we set out for Oregon Wine Country.  It doesn't take long to get to if you live in the Portland area - there are tons of vineyards and wineries.  When I was a kid, I don't remember there being *any*, but it's a booming business now, and it's easy to see why.  We went out to Newberg and Dundee to check out a few of the local wineries.

I tend to despise whatever alcoholic beverage I'm tasting, and I've never been a wine person.  In addition, this area is known for its pinot noirs, which is not Mom's type of wine - she was going for the pinot gris some of the wineries make.  Therefore, wherever we went, we just shared one wine tasting flight.

Before we started sampling wine, we had a nice lunch at Red Hills Market.  If you ever go there, you have got to try the roasted filberts* with bacon and rosemary.  It's delicious, and just so very 'Oregon'.

Yum.

First, we went to Sokol Blosser, where we tasted a couple of white wines, including a chardonnay that I was shocked to find was to my liking, and several pinots (gris and noir).  Mom and Ben were after the 2012 pinot gris, which they'd just had a bottle of recently, and they got the very last two bottles.  Good timing, I'd say.  The tasting room at Sokol Blosser has a great atmosphere, very Pacific Northwest, and the staff were approachable and friendly.  We enjoyed our tasting there.

Vineyards at Sokol Blosser

Next, we went and found Evening Land's tasting room, where we sampled really good locally made wines out of grapes from Oregon, California, and France.  After that, it was off to Panther Creek Cellars.  We just tried their pinot gris, which was fabulous.  Our last stop was Argyle Winery.  We ended our wine tasting with their sparkling wine flight.  I have to say, the Knudsen Brut that can't be bought in stores was excellent.

I wish I could tell you all about what distinguished the various wines, and what I liked about the ones I liked, but I'm no wine expert.  The Sokol Blosser chardonnay was mellow and the Argyle Winery Knudsen Brut was tangy, but that's about all I can tell you.


Now in possession of all the wine we'll drink in a year (or more), we made our way to Oregon City to have dinner at the Stillhouse Scottish Pub.  I had a traditional beef pasty, while Mom and Ben went for fish and chips.  We shared sticky toffee pudding for desert.  The food was great, and the atmosphere was pretty awesome, too.

Beef pasty with coleslaw

All in all, while wine tasting would not be my activity of choice on a normal occasion, we had a really great day.  I may even do it again next year!



*Filberts is the local word for hazelnuts.

No-Stress Dinner Party

The books are all over the place, there are a couple of unpacked boxes, and my fridge was pretty much empty.  But hey!  The furniture's all here, the kitchen's operational, and it was high time I invited a few people over.  Dinner party, anyone?


Question: What's the first thing you do when you want to have friends over for dinner and you're not a foodie?

Answer: Call and get a simple but delicious recipe from Mom.


You see, my Mom is an outstanding, fabulous, amazing, unbelievable cook and baker.  Seriously.  It's a little ridiculous.  We grew up referring to her food as 'Penny-made' (her name's Penny), and if I had a nickle for every time someone said she should open a restaurant or a bakery or a pie shop, well... I'd be several dollars richer.*

The two best soups that Mom used to make for us were beef stew and corn chowder.  I made the stew for the first time just a few months ago, before I moved out of my house in Georgia to start my cross-country trek back to Oregon, and it was amazingly delicious.  However, I knew the stew would take more time to make than the chowder, and I also knew that my friend J isn't a huge meat and potatoes fan.  In addition, both of my college friends who came to dinner had eaten Mom's corn chowder before and loved it, so I knew it would be a good choice.

I'd only made the corn chowder once before, a long time ago, so I called Mom up to be reminded of the recipe.  Which, by the way, is award-winning.  Which is why I'm not putting it up.  It's a family secret.  I will, however, give you a hint: it has corn in it.

Recipe:
Classified.

Spoiler-free Instructions:
........
........
........


So there you have it!  An easy, surprisingly quick meal.


But Rachel, are you saying corn chowder is a complete dinner party meal?

No, no, no.  Nothing of the sort.  But remember: Not a foodie.


I don't multitask very well in the kitchen, you see.  I'm too inexperienced - I do everything kitchen-related about ten times slower than your average home chef.  There was no way I was taking on more than one dish and coming out the other side with everything unscathed.

But there's an easy fix to that: have a pot-luck!  While I, as the hostess, made the main course, I asked my friend E and her husband to bring a nice salad (it was fabulous - spinach, apples and nice cheese of some sort with a homemade dressing), and I asked J to bring her famous Dilly Bread.  I stopped by See's Candy for desert.

The dinner was fantastic.  :)


Again, I don't do a lot of multi-tasking while cooking, so I'm afraid I didn't take any photos while I worked.  I took a few for you today, though:

A couple of the raw ingredients (more recipe hints!).

Terrible photo of the delicious finished product.

Dilly Bread!  Unfortunately, no photo of the fabulous salad.

Now, trust me: If I can make this corn chowder, you can make this corn chowder.  It's delicious, and perfect for winter time.  Super easy.  All you have to do is become a close family friend to get the recipe.



*Because honestly, nickles don't add up all that fast.

A Productive Day

Some of you must have been praying for my time management!

Yesterday I had a great, productive day.  I worked a full day during fairly normal hours, making myself take an actual break for lunch, and making myself stop at dinner time and take a dinner break before moving on to whatever I felt like doing, since my work day was officially over.  Naturally, having been productive all day, I felt like working some more.  :)  So I did!

So what did I do yesterday?

1. NaNoWriMo, obviously.  I'm almost all caught up on my total word count!

2. Work-related reading.  (It's not my fault if it's also enjoyable...)  I'm doing some editing with Ashberry Lane Publishing,* a local Christian small press.  I'm reading through the first three books in the Thistle Series by Dianne Price, so I can help edit book #4.  I've really enjoyed the reading.  It's set mainly in Scotland during WWII, in the Hebrides Islands, and the characters' dialogue is all spelled accordingly - it's smooth reading, because the author eases into the spelling, and it gives you a great sense of the accent.

3. Correspondence.  I didn't get it all done, but I did write to my sponsored kids.  I sponsor kids with Compassion International, a wonderful program that really emphasize letter writing, which is so fantastic.  Over time, you really start to get to know the kids, and it's a wonderful way to speak love and encouragement and God's Word into their lives.  A couple of my kids have birthdays coming up, so I sent them cards, and I wrote Christmas cards for all of them.  I'm a bit late this year, so they probably won't get them until after Christmas, but better late than never.  :)  I also included a small watercolor painting (on paper)** that I got at the Made in Oregon store for each of them.  I love those kids.  :)

4. Getting organized.  I created a calendar for each month from now to next December on my computer, and plugged in important dates and so forth.  I created deadlines for myself for finishing my poetry book and put those on the calendars, as well.  I'll add more of those self-created deadlines later.  I also created a daily work schedule for myself.^  My plan was to start it Monday, but I kept pretty close to it today.  It is so satisfying to finally be organized.

5.  What else?  I checked my emails, naturally.  Did some paperwork.  Made a couple of lists.  Advertised my editing services a bit.  Made an appointment with an academic adviser for school.  Did a couple of military-related surveys.  Worked a little on organizing my books.  Um... That might be all!

All in all, a good day's work, I'd say.  :)



*You may want to sign up for their newsletter - it's fun to read, and they'll be doing some holiday giveaways soon.

**If you're a Compassion sponsor thinking about sending your child a gift with your next letter, be sure to check the restrictions in advance.

^Obviously, this will have to be adjusted come January when I start classes.  But still.

Wednesday Review: LEGOs

So, I was going to do Christmas music because I bought Idina Menzel's Christmas CD, Holiday Wishes yesterday, but then I thought, it's not even Thanksgiving yet!  So I'll save the Christmas music review for later.  You're welcome.

Today, I'm going to be talking about LEGOs.  Prepare yourself: there's gonna be a lot of pictures.


Introduction: You see, my brothers and I grew up with LEGOs.  Generally speaking, we'd get a LEGO for birthdays and/or Christmas.  I remember for a couple years running, we'd have a small LEGO stocking stuffer and a bigger one under the tree.  These are LEGO sets, by the way, not boxes of random bricks.  So we collected quite a few over the years.  Some may have been lost over time, but most were kept safe for us by Mom and Dad while we were going through college, and now we each have our own sets from growing up.  I have a few more, having become interested in them again in recent years.

In my review today, I'll be comparing old LEGOs and new ones, and giving my opinion about the themes available now.


My Review/Reminiscence:

1. Old LEGOs.  Some of our favorite old LEGOs were the Pirate LEGOs.  Like this pirate ship:

The Black Seas Barracuda*

And my very first set:

Sabre Island

And my favorite pirate set that I owned:

Lagoon Lockup

We had a great time with these two belonging to my brothers, as well:

Eldorado Fortress

Imperial Trading Post

These things were awesome.  They were cool-looking, they were a great theme for the imagination, and they were sturdy.  So much fun.


We also enjoyed some of the Castle LEGOs.  We had a few small sets, including one or two Dark Forest/Forestmen sets (basically Robin Hood inspired), but the ones that stood out were the big Castles.  Over time, we had Castles from several different sub-Themes.

King's Mountain Fortress

Black Monarch's Castle

I didn't get my own large Castle until near the end of my LEGO enthusiasm:

Royal Knight's Castle

Ah, the good old days.  These LEGOs were detailed, sturdy, and difficult to build - the instruction books showed pictures of what your set should look like as you built it, but rarely told you what pieces to put where - you had to figure it out by studying and comparing the picture with your set.  It also didn't tell you how many pieces were placed in each step, so you had to be careful not to skip any.  It was a nice challenge.


Now!  Skip ahead a decade or so, and I got interested in LEGOs again.  I decided to go online and check them out.


2. New LEGOs.**  I was saddened to see that there were no Pirate LEGOs, but they had a good run and LEGO is always coming up with new things.  Let's look at the positives and negatives of the newer LEGO themes.

First, Space sets.  Some, like the current Galaxy Squad, just don't look very interesting, but I was pleasantly surprised by the Alien Conquest sets they had out a couple years ago.  I only got a few of them, but they were sturdy, fun to build, and aesthetically pleasing.

I'm normally not a big fan of the alien space ships, but this UFO Abduction set was great.

I wish I could say the same for the Castle themed LEGOs.

I got a couple of small Castle sets.  They were pretty bad.  The line seems to be dying out, and no wonder.  They were built mostly with large specialty pieces, so there wasn't as much building fun, and they were incredibly unsturdy.  In addition, the mini figures and their accessories looked cheap.

No, right now, it's the City sets that reign supreme.  I got several of those, and they were fun to build, detailed, and sturdy.  Incidentally, they're still going strong - pieces I bought two or three years ago are still available.

My favorite:

Museum Break-In

Why is this my favorite?  Because it's awesome.  The vehicles and mini-figures are good, but the real joy is in this lovely, detailed City Museum.  It's got pillars, sky-lights, banners, lights, mini-figure gargoyles, and a security system for the door, not to mention the displayed artifacts inside.  It's basically awesome.

Then there are vehicles like this:

Cement Mixer

And this:

Camper Van

And this:

Logging Truck

The police, fire, medical and coast guard sets are and/or look pretty good, too.


Finally, there's the newest sub-theme: Arctic.

These are the sets that I want but don't have yet.  Except this little one:

Arctic Snowmobile

Here's what I like about these sets.  They look sturdy (and this little one actually is), and they're very imaginative.  They're set in the arctic (obviously), where scientists and explorers are mining the ice fields for crystals, which can represent pretty much anything you want.  Lots of potential there.

Plus, they kind of remind me of the Ice Planet 2002 and Aquazone sets Ben and I were starting to collect right at the end of our LEGO enthusiasm, so there's a nice little nostalgia factor.


But Rachel, what about all the movie-themed sets?

Seriously?  No.


Anyway, to sum up: LEGO sets these days are a little hit and miss in terms of building fun and stability.  I'd recommend buying a small set from the theme you're interested in to see how you like it before investing in the larger, more expensive sets - I've noticed that if one set in a theme is good, the others are likely to be, and same goes for sets that are bad.  If you're like me and are getting back into LEGOs after a long hiatus, be aware that the new packaging and instructions make building a lot easier (aka, less fun) than the old sets.  That said, they come with extras of the smallest pieces (in case you lose one), so you'll have some nice detail bits to add to your pile of random, set-less LEGOs for building straight out of your imagination.


Statistics:
Not even going to attempt this.


My rating:
Pirate: 5 stars
Various old Castle: 5 stars
Misc (like Aquazone and Wild West): 4 stars
New Castle: 1 star
New space: 4 stars
New City: 5 stars
New Movie-Themed: I said no.

Overall for all LEGOs throughout time: 4 stars - 5 if you're careful which sets you buy.


*Pictures from brickset.com.

**LEGOs can be purchased directly from the source through their website or your local LEGO store.  I highly recommend you immediately sign up for the VIP Program, as it's free and gives you points toward purchases.