A Week In Review

Last weekend Cliff and I found Steelhead on sale for about $2/lb.  at the grocery store.  This is an awesome price as it is normally around $10/lb.  Obviously we had to get it.  When we lived here before we really didn't eat any of the amazing seafood that the Northwest has to offer so we are changing that this time around.  We baked/steamed it in a foil pouch with lemon, sliced onion, and butter and ate with with rosemary mashed potatoes and peas.  Yum.  We had so much fish and mashed potatoes left over that we made fish cakes the next day for lunch.  This is the first reminder of the week that things fried in corn meal are always amazing. (Note to self: remove paper towel before taking a picture of fried food next time).  Thank you Albertson's grocery store for having a seafood sale that was within our budget and worth our while. Now if only your normal prices were as exciting.

Not a whole lot happened on Monday unless you consider watching Dancing with the Starts newsworthy.  In case you are wondering...I am rooting for Ricki Lake but I do hope that Rob Kardashian comes in second.  He just looks so happy when he dances.  Oh!  I also rowed 5,000 meters.

On Tuesday we went to Divine Cupcake for their trivia night.  As I am sure you can imagine Cliff loves trivia.  We played a few times with his classmates at the Green Leafe in Williamsburg but we stopped after a while as it took forever and people with smart phones ruined it.  We decided to give this one a try as I had a Groupon for $20 worth of cupcakes and beverages.  Apparently with Groupon you need to use the whole value at one time so Cliff and I both got a drink (he got an espresso and I got a hot chocolate with rice milk) and we got six cupcakes.  All of their cupcakes are vegan and organic.  I've had some amazing vegan cookies in the past so I was excited to see how vegan cupcakes compared.  To help you imagine our dining experience I will fill you in on the flavors.  From left to right and top to bottom: chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, lime cake with lime and coconut frosting, cherry vanilla cake with cherry frosting, lemon and vanilla cake with lemon frosting, chocolate cake with maple frosting, and chocolate cake with orange frosting.  In my opinion chocolate  vegan deserts are the best.  But anyway, back to trivia.  Their trivia is a bit different from bar trivia.  First off it starts at 7pm and only goes until 8pm which is our kind of event.  It is 25 questions broken down into five categories and the trivia hosts shoots them out one right after the other.  When all was said and done Cliff came in second place.  He was just one point behind the winner.  I'm sure you are asking "what does a trivia contestant get if you win or come in the top three?".  Well first place gets the choice of two mystery packages or a free cupcake and the remaining two get to choose between what is left.  Cliff won a super cute stuffed red dinosaur.   It was pretty exciting.  Also, more rowing all around.

On Wednesday Cliff and I ventured out to our old stomping ground of Springfield.  We ate amazing fish tacos at Hop Valley Brewing (along with a cesar salad, mozzarella sticks, and the worlds largest order of onion rings).  They have a pretty wonderful happy hour menu. Afterwards we ventured towards Walmart to do our grocery shopping.  On the way we saw something amazing.... a Sonic!  That's right....Oregon now has Sonic.  Amazing.  I know that we will go back soon as I love their chocolate malt milkshakes.  We stopped at the local home improvement store and bought daffodil and crocuses bulbs (they were 50% off) as we wanted to plant fun things on our little hill.  Afterwards we finally made it to Walmart.  We needed to find a small turkey as both our oven and freezer can't handle the size bird I typically buy around the holidays (I just can't help myself when they are $.27/lb!). We were up to our elbows in turkeys when we finally found a 12lb. turkey!  It was our lucky day.

On Thursday we spent the afternoon planting the 72 bulbs we purchased the night before on the little hill right outside our window.  It was chilly and rainy (it is Oregon after all).  Let me tell you that it is not easy to plant that many bulbs on a muddy hill with only a kid friendly trowel.  We will post photos in the spring when they come up.  It is going to be so beautiful!  We really loved all of the daffodils in Williamsbug and knew that we were going to miss them so we decided to get some for our new place. 

On Friday we saw our first snow of the season.  Downtown Eugene didn't see any but since we are in the hills we got to see the little white stuff.  It only lasted about 15 minutes and it didn't stick (which is good as we do live on some pretty steep slopes). Cliff and I were so excited that we sat there and watched it from start to finish.  We tried to take photos (see <-----) but it was heavy snow and fell to the ground pretty quickly.  I hope that we get to see snowflakes a few times this winter.  So pretty.

On Saturday I officially entered my late 20s. To celebrate Cliff and I went to Oakshire Brewing as they are open on Saturdays for tours and tastings.  It was really nice as a bunch of folks were there just hanging out before the Duck game (Go Ducks!).  They aren't a brew pub but they did have a food cart outside.  Food carts are pretty popular in the Northwest and Eugene has a few.  This was my first time eating out of a non-festival food cart and oh my goodness it was good. Delacata sells southern food with a flair.  Cliff and I split a basket of cornmeal fried catfish with cheddar and jalapeno hushpuppies. They also gave us a cilantro and lime coleslaw.  Living here I am finding that I might actually like coleslaw but it has to be a topping.  I now like it on fish tacos and falaffel and apparently with cat fish.   We will be going back as everything was sooo good.

After the brewery we went to an estate sale.  I love estate sales.  Last week we went to one and I purchased some super cute Christmas decorations and all of it came to under $5.  The estate sale we went to this weekend had lots of old bottles, canning jars, craft items, and clothes.  It was a jackpot!  I found a full sized Pendleton wool blanket (only $10!), old Ball canning jars (only $1), and antique handkerchiefs.  They are big which is great since we keep all of our baking supplies, beans, and pasta in jars. It was like Christmas.  Cliff was pretty excited as he found wool yard and knitting needles in sizes that we didn't already have.  The lady conducting the sale wanted to get rid of the craft supplies so bad that she told Cliff to go back in the craft room and pick out anything he wanted for free.  Sadly there wasn't any more wool yarn but there was the ugliest yarn on the face of the earth...and there was plenty of it!  We have no clue what to knit with it.  We will gladly take any suggestions.  Seriously.  It is red, yellow, brown, and white. If you are lucky you might get a Christmas gift made from it.  After the estate sale we went to PF Changs for dinner.  We ate dim sum dumplings (chicken with lemongrass and spicy pork and rice) and their stir-fried spicy eggplant.  So good.  On the way home we got cupcakes and ice cream.  I would say that it was a very good birthday. I'm a lucky gal.


Yesterday we finally washed our car.  We hadn't since moving and it really needed it.  We took it to one of those places where you can wash it yourself but the lady there gave us a free automatic wash in their new bay with felt brushes.  It did a really nice job as our car is back to its original color :)  It also put the rain repellant stuff on the windshield.  I love that stuff.


Ok I have laundry to fold.  Hope everyone has a good week as you prep for Thanksgiving.  I know I will post a few times more this week as we are hosting Thanksgiving at our new place and Brie, Kathy, and Jill are coming down. I can't wait!