Fall is in the Air!

My almost 4th grader starts the new school year on Tuesday...  Today, we went shopping for clothes with the other 150,000 people who decided to wait until the weekend before...  I try to tell myself EVERY year that I won't do this again next year, but Past Lorie's voice simply isn't loud enough to remember.  So hopefully by posting this I will remember.  YAY for Past Lorie! 

This year, we will be sending William to Kindergarten, at least that's what the school calls it.  He has been in Pre-Kindergarten for almost a year because he is twice the size of the preschoolers.  The teachers think he is ready, so we are going for it.  The staff has decided that they will have academics in the morning, so William can peel off and nap with the Pre-K'ers - since he is still takes a 2-hour afternoon nap...  Hey, I'm not complaining!  It gives us and the teachers a break from a very active 4 1/2 year old boy!






Very excited to post first day of school pictures, next week and even more excited to get this blog going again!

Put a Bird on it!

Well, we've been up here in the Pacific Northwest for a little over 2 years and we aren't looking back!  We love it up here... but what's not to love?  We have big green trees, 4 seasons, clean air, clean water, and sometimes snow in the winter.  We just sold our old house (it's pending right now) in Long Beach, CA.  It's bittersweet for us...   I remember walking into that beautiful Cliff May Rancho thinking, this is my house!  I am buying this!  And lo and behold, we did!  That was in March of 2002...  12 years and 2 kids later we are up here in Portlandia... land of the home-grown breweries, tattoos, piercings, and all-around weirdos... we so fit in!

 PORTLAND, OREGON MOVE - PART 1 :

Well, this is my first "official" post from Portland, Oregon!  We left Long Beach on the evening of June 28th and headed north!  With stops at my parent's house and Mark's parent's house, we finally made it to Redding, CA.  Yay... The kids were delighted to stay in our new digs... A HOTEL!  Wow, they've even got a pool (and free breakfast)!  Not much to say, other than it was extremely hot and Redding is Redding...  Next stop, Klamath Falls.  Another hotel...  Yay... Again, I booked us at a place with a pool and free breakfast!  Woot!  Big spenders!  With another night under our belts, we took off for Bend, Oregon to meet up with some friends from Long Beach, who moved up there a few years back.  Yep, you guessed it... hotel with a pool and breakfast...  Next stop.... DUH DUH DUH... PORTLAND!!

We got into town on July 4th and haven't looked back!  After our week long stay at the downtown Marriott Residence Inn, our wonderful relocation company, who shall remain nameless, placed us in corporate housing for a loooooong 3 weeks.  Our housing consisted of a nice 3 bedroom apartment right on the corner of the BUSIEST street west of Portland... and right across the street from a shopping center.   One would think of this place as an "ideal" location, but with +90 degree weather and NO AC, it was necessary for windows to be open 24/7 - keep in mind... BUSY street and grocery stores...  It's a little known fact that most deliveries to grocery stores occur in the middle of the night...  truck traffic turning onto our street + windows open = NO SLEEP FOR 3 WEEKS!  Lucky us!

Next stop... Portland

Better not lose our baby!

Goodbye SoCal!

A whole-lotta-nothing...

Mad Max!

Our first tree encounter!

Good Lord, what's that smell coming from the backseat?

Crater Lake, Oregon

Hiking in Crater Lake National Park!

Happy 4th of July!

  

Gotta love the land of full-service gas stations!!

 
Here are the kids enjoying their 20 minute game show of, "There Goes My Underwear!"

And the endless rides up and down the elevator, with laundry in tow!  Ah, the memories!  

Countless Streetcar rides (free, too!).

Bought a family pass to the zoo and the indoor children's museum!

 Made silly art projects!

 Moved our stuff into our new house!

 ...and discovered that 2500 sq.ft. is a lot of cleaning for one person!

That's it for Part 1... stay tuned for Part 2!!

Falafel Recipe

For all of my friends who are asking for the recipe... here goes:

FALAFEL RECIPE:

Falafel:

1 pound dried chickpeas (garbanzo beans) – they come in a bag

1 small onion, coarsely chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon ground cumin (I generally add a full tablespoon- yum!)

¼ teaspoon red chili flakes, optional (I never add this- too hot for me!)

Salt & Pepper, as needed (a few shakes of each)

½ cup vegetable oil

Make the Falafel: Soak the chickpeas in cold water in the frig overnight. Do NOT use beans from a can – it’s gross… I’ve tried it before!

Drain the chickpeas and place them with the onion in the bowl of a food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the oil. Mix well (I usually leave the mixture a little chunky – it just fries up better!). Form the mixture into walnut-sized balls and deep fry or pan fry (that’s what I do) in hot oil.

I take the falafel and turn them until they are slightly golden. Do not burn, cuz it tastes icky!

We like to get pitas, cucumber, tahini sauce, hummus, feta cheese, plain yogurt, tomatoes, and make a sandwich with the pita halves!

SOCCER!

I have to say that in all my years, I've never once played in an organized soccer game. I've played basketball, baseball, softball, T-Ball, hockey, roller hockey, broom hockey, volleyball, walleyball, raquetball, handball, kickball, tennis, frisbee golf, ultimate frisbee, badminton, flag football... but never soccer! Not sure why, but I just haven't. Shayna (#10) had her first game a week and a half ago and loved it! She is on the Pink Pixies team... there's a whole lotta pink going on... Camille, her life-long friend, is also on the team. They both go to different elementary schools, so it's nice to hang out with the Lindsays 3 times a week!

September 11th - Ten Years Later

September 11, 2011

Honor the victims by remembering their lives,

Todays post is something a little bit different. Today we remember... We remember the victims of 9/11 . Today I am honoring Patricia Kuras. She was killed ten years ago while at work as a Facilities Manager at One World Trade Center. She and 294 of her colleagues at Marsh and McLennan, a professional services firm, were murdered by terrorists. Patricia was only 42 years old and from New York, New York. I read about Patricia online and found her to be a kind, gentle person. Someone you could easily be friends with. I read her eulogy, which was delivered by her brother, Thomas Kuras on October 12, 2001, with a heavy heart. How could this happen to such a beautiful person? We'll never know... but the one thing I'm sure of is that I will never forget what happened that morning of September 11, 2001

***WE MUST ALL NEVER FORGET!***

Ahhhh... kickball, 2011... A week ago last Thursday, as I was pitching for our beloved Rancho Rockers, the kicker kicked a mile-high pop-fly right above me. I carefully positioned my 40 year old body under this great big giant red rubber ball and proceeded to catch it. WOOO HOOO! One out! As I tried to grip the ball for the next kicker, the ball seemed a bit deformed! In actuality, it was my pinky finger that was deformed. Whoops. As I spread my fingers wide, all of them straightened out nicely, except for one. The end of my pinky finger drooped. No matter how hard I tried to extend that finger, it refused to 'obey' me. I finished pitching the inning pain free, got into the dugout and sat until it was time to take the field again... yes, I finished the game...

A quick inspection via google and I solved the mystery. I had a distal interphalangeal joint (DIP) extensor tendon avulsion -- more commonly known as Mallet Finger.

Mallet finger, also called 'baseball finger' or 'drop finger', occurs when the tendon that straightens the finger gets pulled loose from its attachment. Usually you're forcibly trying to straighten the finger, when a sudden impact bends it. The force of the impact is too much for the tendon, which snaps at its weakest point -- right at the base of your fingernail. Voila -- that joint is no longer under your control, and without a tendon to straighten it, the fingertip droops.

It does look a little freaky, having that one fingertip dangling like that, but it's often painless. ONE VERY IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER: If possible (and painless, which it is not at the present moment), immediately straighten the bent fingertip & keep it straight ALL THE TIME for the next 4-6 weeks. This means wearing a splint to keep the snapped tendon from being retracted up into the finger. Oh, how lovely... it's so attractive - and of course it's on my right hand!

80% of these injuries heal reasonably with conservative care (splinting), but you'll probably have at least some permanent loss of extension at that joint. For most people, this injury never causes a noticeable loss of function, but the aesthetic deformity may be bothersome.

It's also important to have a doctor check out your finger. Avulsion fractures are very common with this injury, as are dislocations, and both can be caught on an x-ray. Luckily for me, after further review of an x-ray at the orthopedic surgeon's office, there wasn't any bone breakage nor fracture. hooray! Now, I get to wear this fashionable splint for 6 to 8 weeks! We won the game - we beat the first place team!