Days 22-30.

Ok so I have been behind on photos because my computer is busted! But fear not, dear 13 followers, I will be getting a new laptop by the end of February!

Without further ado, here are the photos you have missed! P.S. You can always keep up with this over at flickr too: Photo a Day 2010 set.

January 22, 2010. Adventures in extreme dive bars with Breanne, our first--New 715 Club.


January 23, 2010. A lovely walk on a surprisingly lovely day with my favorite guy.


January 24, 2010. My soon to be new kitty roommate, Covered Wagon.


January 25, 2010. Pretty part of a pretty church.


January 26, 2010. Yardful of homies.


January 27, 2010. Cutest homemade card for me by the super awesome Matthew Flook :)


January 28, 2010. A Couple birthday gifts to myself.


January 29, 2010. Walking around on Hawthorne, saw this Typeplanter.


January 30, 2010. Practice embroidery project number 1 in process.

Maybe there's a trapdoor under my chair, and I'll just disappear.

I was pretty sad to hear today that J.D. Salinger died.
He has been one of my favorite writers ever since the first time I read Franny and Zooey.
I have read Franny and Zooey more times since then than any other book and I have recommended it to more people than I can count.
I loved Catcher in the Rye also, and all of his short stories make me smile.
But Franny and Zooey will always be my favorite, as will Mr. Salinger.

R.I.P., Buddy.
<3

p.s. I'll catch up on photo blogging soon, I promise.

Day 21.

January 21, 2010. Really pretty sky after work today! Those clouds will probably rain on us soon.

Day 20.

January 20, 2010. Weird wall of cement cylinders near my house. The one in the middle looks like a moon and stars!
>

Day 18.

January 18, 2010. Gigantic ice cube in my fancy cocktail made by Missy's little brother at Teardrop.

Day 19.

January 19, 2010. Yummy fish tacos at Radio Room. I ate one before I remembered to take a picture!

Day 17.

January 17, 2010. Shredded a ton of documents and helped Matthew organize a closet.

Day 16.

January 16, 2010. Learned how to Embroider today!

Day 15.

January 15, 2010. Cutest puppy ever in a rain coat waiting for his owner outside Aalto.

Day 14

January 14, 2010. Siamese mushrooms! This guy and his friends made a delicious gravy!

Day 13.

January 13, 2010. Matthew made a real raging fire!

Day 12.

January 12, 2010. Lots of favorite things this day: Vanessa, cheap drinks, The Standard, and a photobooth (that we didn't use!)

Day 11.

January 11,2010. Origami pig at the pub while Holly and I chatted and drank Whiskey.

Rain, rain, go away.

I feel bad writing a blog post without posting any pictures, but I thought my laptop was totally dead and today it decided it wanted to work. I am honestly just feeling too lazy to upload pictures and post them right now, because I stayed up too late last night and don't have the patience after typing all day at work. So, just thought I would let my readers (if there are any!) know what is going on. I am still taking photos daily and I will try to post some tomorrow, if the computer wants to work. Otherwise I'll just stockpile a bunch on my camera and have a massive post in days to come. In the meanwhile, feel free to look at Matthew's pictures over at FLOOK.ME/FOTOS as he is being a little more strict about posting daily and his pictures look better than mine. Don't forget about me though! I will be back soooon!

Day 10.

January 10th, 2010. Creepy trees after tasty Thai food.

Day 9

January 9th, 2010. Finally dropped off our Christmas tree at the park. Sunshine!

Day 8

January 8th, 2010. Sad winter playground.

Day 7

January 7th, 2010. Tiga, best bar on my street. Discovered The Everly Brothers thanks to Ricci.

photo update!

January 5th, 2010. Extremely delicious Popeye pizza at Blind Onion!


January 6th, 2010. Gigantic stack of papers to be assembled into packets at work.


This week has been pretty exciting as you can see. Matthew and I also went to see The Fantastic Mr. Fox which was just all around, well, FANTASTIC just about sums it up. What other F words could I use... Furry, Fun, Fancy? Ok I quit. Just go see the movie!

Photo a day, 2010

So I decided to take on this photo a day challenge based on the fact that I don't take as many photos as I should, and my boyfriend got me this really nifty book from PhotoJojo.com for Christmas that has all kinds of fun and crafty ideas for projects that you can do using digital photos!

So it has not yet been a week, and I am already feeling that this is quite a daunting task. At least for the rest of the rainy season. Looking forward to all the pretty flowers I will see when I am walking out and about in the lovely city of Portland. I made two rules: No pics of myself and pics taken on my phone don't count.

Once 2010 is over I intend to bind all or maybe just my favorites of the year's pics into a book that will basically be Portland through my eyes, or something that sounds less cheesy. I am not diligent enough to post here daily with this project, but I will post as often as I can with all the photos that I've missed. You can also follow this project on Flickr.

Here are my first four:

January 1st, 2010. The end of Christmas!


January 2nd, 2010. A pretty gray sky to match my gray mood after watching Up In The Air.


January 3rd, 2010. Drinking the most delicious wine ever with my favorite.


January 4th, 2010. My buddy, Animal, sleeping cutely in an empty box by my heater.

A new year, an attempt at resurrecting a blog.

I cannot believe how infrequently I have been posting over here. I fully intend to make 2010 a much more productive year in terms of this blog, Mostly Soup, creative outlets, my Etsy shop, maybe a redesign of my website, etc. I am going to be doing the Photo a day challenge for 2010 and I will post a weeks worth of photos at a time most likely, as I will not be able to post every day, knowing myself.

But for my first blog post of 2010, I am going to do a summary of all the books I read this year, as that has been probably the most consuming aspect worth blogging about in 2009. Since I was unemployed from January to July, I had plenty of time for reading and rediscovered how much I love to read, and was able to continue at a pretty steady pace throughout the last half of 2009. 27 books total!

Thanks to GoodReads I have been logging all the books I have read because I never would have remembered all of these on my own. I do not think I have ever read as many books in a year as I did in 2009, and maybe that can be another goal of mine for 2010, to top my 2009 books read number. In any case, here we go:



I should probably write a short summary or review of each of these but I really don't want to. It's my blog, I'll do what I want! :) If you have questions about a specific book I would love to elaborate. My brain is just not up for 26 summaries right now. And yes I read Oryx and Crake twice. The second read was to refresh my brain after reading Year of The Flood. The second time made me love it even more.

Here is the list, with my ratings.

12/16/09, On Love by Alain De Botton, 4 stars
12/3/09, Into The Beautiful north by Luis Alberto Urrea, 4 stars
11/22/09, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, 5 stars
11/15/09, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, 4 stars
11/8/09, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, 5 stars
10/16/09, The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood, 5 stars
10/16/09, Memories of my Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 3 stars
10/3/09, 1984 by George Orwell, 5 stars
9/12/09, Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov, 4 stars
9/4/09, Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote, 4 stars
8/21/09, Everything is Illuminated by JOnathhan Safran Foer, 5 stars
7/28/09, Drown by Junot Diaz, 3 stars
7/21/09, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, 4 stars
7/15/09, Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk, 4 stars
7/1/09, Below the Root by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, 4 stars
6/6/09, Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote, 5 stars
6/2/09, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, 3 stars
5/19/09, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, 5 stars
5/1/09, Eeeee Eee Eeee by Tao Lin, 4 stars
4/21/09, The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy, 5 stars
4/9/09, Forever by Pete Hammill, 3 stars
4/1/09, Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger, 5 stars
3/20/09, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, 5 stars
3/10/09, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, 3 stars
3/1/09, Girlfriend In A Coma by Douglas Coupland, 4 stars
2/7/09, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, 5 stars
1/15/09, Fugitives and Refugees, A Walk In Portland, Oregon by Chuck Palahniuk, 5 stars

Ok that's the end of this nerdy book post. Any book recommendations?