Cool digs in the Pacific Northwest

Chris - are you cool enough? Article in the Chicago Tribune about a newly opened hotel in your 'Pearl District' in Portland, Oregon. Video shows the building and room, and it is so 'Pearl District' for sure. Check out the video at the link.

Ace Hotel

Portland,

1022 SW Stark St.,

Portland, Ore.


Beautiful hipsters sip coffee, read magazines and listen to alternative rock music under a vintage hotel sign. Stacked old books and suitcases make up nightstands. Converse sneakers wiggle inside the lobby's black-and-white photo booth.

Welcome to the 79-room Ace Hotel Portland, where chic meets cheap and minimalist flair mixes with military earth tones.

And, despite a retro feel, the hotel also offers Wi-Fi, flat-screen televisions and even turntables in some of the rooms, all uniquely decorated -- some with walls painted by local artists and other touches that mix vintage with modern.

read more and watch the video at this link.

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June 8, 2004 - Permanent vegetable garden space - Garden Journal entry

June 8, 2004

Well here goes my new journal for my gardening efforts. Like Pinocchio, I want to be a "real" gardener some day. I've had a hand at growing some vegetables in container pots. Last year I tried the split open top soil bags and planting the vegetables directly in the bags. Hey that worked! I had nice amount of summer squash, zucchini, pickling cucumbers, and even a hint of cherry tomatoes.

This year my husband cleared a garden space for me, I don't know the dimensions, will ask him and post it here later. The grandkidlets are staying temporarily with us and took over the newly turned garden space into their own personal sandbox.

We had a family medical situation so I got a late start on the gardening this year. I claimed back 1/3rd of the garden space, laid down newspaper then dumped all the old last year's potting soil from containers on top of the newspaper. Well, of course that was not near enough.

I asked my sweetie to buy some more potting soil, and he obliged me by purchasing 10 bags plus the 3 bags of topsoil I already had. Was enough to partially fill the newly claimed back garden space.
With such a late start, I didn't think seeds would work out, so bought some starter vegetables and planted those. Okay, so now I have a tiny little wee garden woo hoo... and I thought I'd keep a journal of things that go wrong, and things that go right and things I learn along the way.

What I learned from last year, planting seeds is that it's not wise to use cheap seeds, cause they are exactly that..cheap and don't grow too well. So I'll upgrade to better quality seeds. I did save the seeds from my mammoth russian sunflowers last year and planted them again this year. They seem to be sprouting again for 2nd year ..woo hoo for me.

See photos here


(Sidebar note from summer 2004 - my sis (sil), Cinda, came out to spend a summer week with us and brought me a sweet birthday gift - a retro, 1950s, pink mixmaster to go with some of the other retro, 1950s pink items in my kitchen. When we were renting, I had a great kitchen with flowered wallpaper with pink flowers, and I was capitalizing on the Craftsman house era of the house, so I started a kind of retro era kitchen. Bought a chrome and copper formica table with pink chairs; a pink breadkeeper; a pink square cake taker and a pink Bauer chafing bowl.

We bought this house and the layout and decor just doesn't fit well with my retro pink effort, but I haven't the heart yet to give it up. So sis brought me an addition for the 'pink'.



birthday gift - retro,1950s, pink mixmaster

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