Honey and Clover Hiatus

This photo is for Ling239 who had asked me about purple roses....

Hi! My blogger account has been very buggy lately and after many attempts over the last week to post about our recent trip to Mt Hood not working, I gave up. I became slightly embarrased at the time I was spending on trying to fix it. So I have decided to take a little break from blogging and focus more on my flickr account. It makes sense since I actually pay for my flickr. I am just going to do longer and better photo descriptions. The problem with blogger is that it wont let me upload photos (more than one) and I pretty much use blogger to post photos, so it has left me high and dry. ( i have a no post without photos rule for myself)
Anyways, summer is speeding along too fast to worry about petty things like uploading photos. I am still going to stay in touch with all my blogging friends via their pages, so please don't forget about me!!!
This is not the end of Honey and Clover and I think it will only be a few weeks. I love everything about blogging, especially the great blogs I have come across.
If you want to stay in touch with me in the meantime, please contact me via flickr. Flickr is free and I don't believe you even have to have an account to leave a message or comment.
But if flickr isn't your thing and you want to wait till I come back here to say what's up to me, that is cool, too!
I have gotten a few emails asking me what Honey and Clover means. It is one of my favorite Japanese movies, or favorite movie in general. If you have a chance to watch it, please do. I have a weird phobia of watching movies and television. I think it is boring, so I have to really like something to want to watch it for 2 hours. And Honey stands for Holly and Clover is for Casey. Plus, I just really like Honey, and I really like Clovers.
Anyways, to my blogging friends out there, keep on having a great summer and I will talk to you soon! xoxoxoxo-bunbun

Sweet Summer Sunsets

Wow, time is just FLYING! My job has really consumed most of my life this summer so far, but I have to step down from my new promotion soon because there will be no way to go to school with the workload that I currently have. I am grateful that they are willing to accommodate my needs and they are giving me my old position back. I will truly miss the amount of patient interaction I have had. That part has really changed my life, and it will continue to everyday. I have learned to acclimate myself to the sadness, So every night, no matter how tired and weary I am, I ride my bike to meet Casey on North Willamette Blvd. Willamette Blvd is by my house and overlooks the downtown (mainly industrial) part of Portland. We have it timed perfectly that when I arrive, the sun is just about to go down so we sit and watch the sunset, and I have to say, this little ritual has been so good for my soul, it is almost a religious experience! I am a different person on my way back home, my shoulders relaxed and my mind cleared again. The street is pretty quiet and it seems like you are in a little perfect pocket of Portland where cars and annoyances have disappeared.





Still not baking much, we do eat well, but the heat and the time constraints have really put a damper on my baking missions. I did make this Blueberry jam a few days ago.
A blueberry truck at Casey's work accidentally unloaded 900 dollars of blueberries, and I guess there was a free for all, and brought home bag after bag of fresh berries, so I made this jam. I cannot believe how much sugar jam recipes call for! One pound for every pound of fruit, my goodness! I didn't use any sugar because I think fruit is sweet enough. I like tartness anyways. So here is my jam, which I am quite happy with. I used my Zojirushi Bread Machine's Jam setting, so I really don't even feel like I did anything!
Life is great, Summer daydreaming in the backyard and gardening is what we live for,
and best of all, this Saturday we are back on the road again camping!!!

Paradise

"Happy Birthday!!!!"

This weekend was Casey's birthday and we celebrated it all weekend. We also met each other on his 25th birthday and we pretty much were instantly a couple after that day, so it has always been a little like a dual holiday! Every birthday since that first one together we have always gone camping to our favorite spot together.
It was so lovely this time, but it always is. We joke that our spot is our vacation home. It truly is like paradise, every shade of green glowing and vibrant with beautiful ferns,wildflowers, and succulents everywhere.
We sleep in a hammock with Nigel and Simon sleeps underneath us.
Our campsite is a about a 10 mile hike from our car(we had a subaru zipcar this weekend, along beautiful mossy trails, with beautiful babbling springs. Our site is along the edge of a stream, which is Mt. Hood runoff water, it is ice cold, but feels good to splash your face with in the morning.
That is the magic of camping here. Everything is bursting with beauty, it doesn't seem real. You half expect Totoro or Bambi to frolic out of nowhere. The dogs really needed this trip more than anyone, they love camping and turn into different dogs. Simon is obsessed with sticks and rocks, and will swim lap after lap in the ice cold water for them, then violently chew on them.

Nigel hops rocks that make me scared for life! But mostly they relax and scope out nature.
We drank sake and for food we used our Jetboil, which we love so much! Casey got two for his birthday a few years ago from his family and the cooking system is so lightweight and durable. Here is our breakfast,

which is a skillet meal of bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns, cooked in bacon fat, something I only eat when camping, but so good and fills you up for plenty of hiking.
We came home feeling like a million bucks after hiking and enjoying nature for the weekend. It was so nice to get away from clocks, phones, computers, and just listen to the beautiful sounds of birds chirping and the stream flowing for the weekend. We are going to try to come here every other weekend this summer to take full advantage of our summer, we will see what happens, but that is close to what we did last summer. We sort of live in fear of losing this spot to developments someday, but that is something I just don't want want to dwell on.

There is just so much to talk about when it comes to camping, I guess I will save the rest for future trips, I also uploaded a ton of photos on flickr of our trip.