Scavenger Hunt

Today I helped my friend stet up a scavenger hung "Amazing Race" type activity around Coos Bay for a friend of here that is moving. My part of the scavenger hunt was to hide I clue that could only be accessed by kayak, and man the kayak station until till they got there to retrieve the clue. I hid the clue in a waterproof otter box submerged under my dive flag to make the spot, and then kayaked out to the far side of an island to hide it. The found the clue in about 10 minutes (it is a pretty small lake) but I think everyone had fun. I know I had fun just being involved in this little part of the activity. And I would love to set something like this up for a friend in the future.

The lake where I hid the clue is in John Topits Park in Coos Bay. The above picture is my friend in here kayak looking for the flag.

My Sister's Great Biscuit Breakfast

Katelynn makes an amazing biscuit breakfast once in a while, and she made it again for us this morning. It's a really easy and very versatile breakfast. She starts with some refrigerated biscuit dough, and then smashes it in to a big disk. Then she adds stuff to the inside of it. This morning she added, instant potatoes, broccoli, and cheese. Sometimes she adds hamburger or stir fry or anything we have left over in the refrigerator.  

The dough gets folded over, trapping all the stuffing in to a pocket, and then baked according to the

biscuit instructions. They turn out delicious!

Egg Roll Experiment

Tonight I tried my hand at making homemade egg rolls. I found the wrappers at the grocery store and decided that I would give myself a challenge and try something new. Thankfully, there were directions and three recipes on the back of the wrapper so I chose one as my starting point.

The recipe on the back of the egg roll wrapper package was:
1/4 lb of chopped chicken breast
2 carrots, shredded
1 cup broccoli, chopped
1 cup condensed cream of mushroom soup.
Fry in vegetable oil for 4- 5 minutes. 
Makes about 8- 10 egg rolls

I made some changes to the recipe. First, because I don't eat meat, I replaced the chicken with Quorn Turky Burgers.

Second, I didn't feel like measuring out everything so I just used one crown of broccoli, about five baby carrots, one can of cream of mushroom soup, and three of the Quorn patties. I mixed it all together and this is what it looked like: 

The next step was to wrap it all up in a nice pretty package. Add two tablespoons on the wrapper, and then fold up the bottoms, sides, and roll up the top.

This is all my little rolled up egg rolls! If you try this at home, I don't recommend staking them like this, they stick together pretty bad, and are hard to separate when you go to fry them.
















Try them with some Sriracha sauce!
















Finally, after all that work, DINNER!

1992 Poem By Little Kat

I've been helping my mom move for the last few days, which means going through boxes and boxed of kid stuff that has been setting around for years. Today I found a poem I wrote in the third or fourth grade. Its called "Trash."

Trash

We dump it in the ground
and also in the sea.
It is not good we all have found
for the land the fish and me.

Trash is not good for anything
not man or beast alive.
It will not make the birds sing
or make the fish dive.

We put it in the air
it will not make the birds fly.
It doesn't seem quite fair
in the end every thing will die.

All the flowers will wilt and die
it makes the air bad.
Soon the airplanes can't see to fly.
It makes me so mad.

I like to make the earth clean.
I like to make the planet neat.
Some people say I am very mean.
I think a clean earth is sweat.


The poem is also illustrated. There is a picture of a dead dog, a dead fish, a singing bird, an airplane crashed in to a mountain, I flower with the petals falling off, and tires and water bottles floating in the ocean. I'm very happy to find evidence that I was a budding tree hugger at a very young age.

A Magic Number Meme

Today's writing prompt is a Meme from here. The magic number is four.

Four Jobs I Have Had:
Janitor
After School Teaching Assistant
Math Tutor
Fish Biologist 


Four Places I Have Lived:
Coos Bay
Corvallis
Newport
Eugene 

Four Movies I Could Watch Again and Again:
Finding Neverland
Robin Hood Men in Tights
The Worlds Fastest Indian
Love Actually 

Four Television Shows I Love:
Bones
Once Upon A Time
Psych
Modern Family 

Four Authors I Enjoy:
Mercedes Lackey
Jared Diamond
Neil Gaiman
Juliet Marillier


Four Places I Have Travelled To:
Yellowstone
Grand Tetons
Forks, Washington
Oregon Caves 

Four Website I Visit Daily:
Facebook
BBC News
Blogger
Weather.com

Four of My Favorite Foods:
Cheese Pizza
Vegetable Soup
Grilled Mushrooms
Fish Tacos

Four Places I'd Rather Be:
The Beach
The River
The Mountains
The Brewery 

Absolutely Tasty Fast Easy Meal

I make this tortellini a lot. It comes out super tasty and is really easy to make. For a well balanced meal I like to have a salad with it as well.

I though I would share the directions with the blog-verse.

First boil the noodles, I like to use Buitoni brand, the spinach cheese ones or the three cheese ones.

Once the noodles are soft, drain the water, and add sauce. I like to use the Sun-Dried Tomato Alfredo sauce. You only need about half the jar for one packet of noodles.



If you want to get really fancy about it, I add some grated cheese on top, and of course you should try it with some Tabaso! 

Laundromat blog

I'm currently sitting at the laundromat waiting for my clothes to come out of the washer. I thought I could used these 25 minutes to composed my first mobile blog.  I was wondering how easy it would be (not very)  typing this out on my phone. 
I need to explore this mobile phone/internet usage more.  I know there are way more possibilities here than I know about.  I'm sure I can do some awesome things with my new droid. If anyone reading this has any ideas,  let me know.
Random thought: I really like how laundromats smell. 

1-3 hours a day!

Have a successful blog in 1-3 hours a day. This made me laugh, mostly because the idea of blogging as a career baffles me. Also, I dedicated all of less than 2 minutes a day to this lovely blog, typos and all. I like it like that. Probably because only 0.5 people read it and according to the stats, they all live in Russia.

Bikes!

I drove up to Eugene today to go shopping for bikes. Eugene has a high concentration of bike shops and my Christmas present from my friend TJ was a shopping trip and a chance to FINALLY get a bike. I've been wanting a bike for exercise and transportation and I am excited that I got one today! We visited four shops before we were directed to 1010 Cycles who had two bikes in my price range (cheap) and I bought the feisty red one that I fell in love with at first sight.

Me with my new bike! We went for a bike ride along Alton Baker Park just to try them out. It was a beautiful day for it. 

TJ bought the second bike in preparation for his move to Portland.

Because safety when riding is important,after our ride around the park we make our final bike stop. We went to Arriving By Bike (who recommended 1010 to us) and loaded up on safety equipment. I got lights, reflectors, and a helmet. 

My helmet... and yes, I do love my brains. :-) 

Urban Inspiration

This Video has inspired me. I really really need a bike! And I loved the manifesto quoted which led me to find This company who is the inspiration behind the manifesto showed in the video.

If I was to write a personal manifesto it would be very similar to this one. I would love to support Holestee in the future. I especially am fond of their recycled bike tire messenger bag. 

New Years Resolutions

1. Take more time off: I work way too much. I need to take some time off, have fun with my friends, and spend some time with my family. I also need to put more time into myself. I will use some of my new time off to work out, relax alone, and pull myself together again.

2. Spend more time maintaining my important friendships and building new relationships with quality people. This is slightly related to number one, but important enough to be mentioned independently.

3. Spend more time focusing on getting better at things rather than being good at them. This means allowing myself more acceptance of my imperfections. And honest attempts at improvement rather than kicking myself for mistakes that I have no control over.

4. Build my willpower (to say no to things that are not good for me, and to seize the moment to accomplish things that are)

5. Continue being a vegetarian, but eat healthier: This includes me cutting down on sugar and caffeine.

6. Read more books for fun. And do a better job at updating my facebook book section, as well as this blog with the books that I read.

The Last Day of 2011

The last day of 2011 was a pretty good day here on the coast. Eric was visiting from Bend and I started off the day showing him around the area a bit. We went out to the Charleston and had lunch at the High Tide Cafe, a must so for anyone in the area because the have (literally!) the best clam chowder EVER. We also enjoyed a couple hot buttered rums there, and then headed out to the beach.

There is a cave under chicken point in Charleston. I'm not sure what this cave was for, and it's obviously man made, but its fun to walk through. We took some pictures there.

Eric at the mouth of the cave

Me right next to the cave on a nice over-look of the bay.

After out beach adventure and cave experience we went to Shore Acres because New Years Eve is the last night that they have their light display. We got there before dusk and were able to walk around the park as it was getting dark. It was a pretty neat experience to watch the park progress from light to dark, and a wonderful way to end the crazy year that was 2011.