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Oh, hello fall… time for a new 10 things that make me happy…

1. MacBook Aaaaaair - My laptop broke last month (can we blame my lack of blogging on that? Ok, good) My sweet little Dell 710m was a trusty little lappie for almost 5 years! So after comparing newer Dells and Macs, I ended up deciding on the Air. Reason #1: It’s tiny and cute like a netbook, but still has just enough of the necessary laptop features. #2 (heh): Price. I thought about getting a Pro, but a basic Pro (same price range) is kind of the worst of both worlds. #3: this will make my occasional “work from a coffee shop” time so much easier since it’s super-light and starts up in oh 1/2 a second. I’m officially back to the dark side. The iPhone = gateway drug.apple $1299

2. Old-school FAIL – Classic Home Shopping network ladder fail, from Fail blog. It’s one of my YouTube favorites, and I still can’t stop watching it… “Actually I didn’t have it locked… it is very safe to operate…” youtube

3. Things Organized Neatly – I came across this tumblr via Swissmiss a few months ago, and still take a peak every few days. It reminds me of the scene in Amelie where her mother cleans out her purse. thingsorganizedneatly

4. New places to eat and/or drink around Portland – I love trying new restaurants… I managed to tear myself away from my favorites go out too much this month… new places I would return to: Tabla, Muu-Muu’s, Night Light Lounge, Cabezon, Red Flag (this place cracks me up), and Broder… Mock all you want, but Foursquare is amazing for cataloging everywhere you’ve wandered into each month. Place I really want to try next: Secret Society. foursquare

5. The Shining @ Bagdad Theater – Groupon had a free Secret Screening event at The Bagdad. I knew buying too many Groupons would pay off eventually! Anyway, it was sufficiently fun… plus free beer and the movie was not as scary as I remembered it being 10 years ago. Bagdad Theater free

6. Gifting – You know when you find something that someone would absolutely love, and it’s so “them” that it’s just kind of automatic to snag it for them? Makes me happy. Excited for Christmas. :)

7. Mad Men – Yes, I know. I’m about 4 years late to the Mad Men party. Everyone has been telling me I would love Mad Men since oh, their first season. I finally checked out the first 3 episodes on Netflix and was [obviously] hooked. Thankfully I have about five months of dreary weather to catch up on Mad Men. netflix $eriously, why only 3 episodes on 1 DVD, Netflix? Why$

8. Betsey Johnson tights – To be honest, I’ve never been a fan of Betsey Johnson anything. Too pink, too over the top, too gaudi. And then I ran across a 4-pack of tights (grey, grey, argyle, and black textured) in a Rue La La sample sale for Target-ish prices. Anyway, I’m a huge fan! I’ll still be giggling and/or cringing at most of their products, but the tights I love. ruelala $25

9. The XX – I got a few free songs of The XX earlier this year, and added to my Pandora station, and I’m still kind of obsessed with them. amazon $6.99

10. Portland, rain, pretty leaves… – I took this pic from the tram up to OHSU. Another reminder of why I love Portland and fall. :)

What’s on your list?

My move into my new places randomly coincided with my switch to working from home. It’s been about four months now {WHAT!?!}, and although it’s definitely been an adjustment, creating my own little work space has really helped me adjust to working from home, and not letting my work area take over the entire 600-ish sq ft of my studio!

Step 1: IKEA. Warning: you know those charming IKEA employees who tell you that you can choose any of the tables/legs from the VIKA series and go to town? They’re wrong! VIKA CURRY legs ($4) + VIKA FAGERLID table leg with storage ($40) + VIKA AMON table top ($20) = unbalanced desk. Alas, after all that work, I ended up just taking the “lid” off the FAGERLID piece and putting extra sticker things under the CURRY legs. Voilla!

Step 2: make use of my lovely Target Liberty of London file box.

Step 3: finally unpacking my lime green wooden stacking trays from See Jane Work.

Step 4: Hanging random IKEA magnetic strip and bins.

Step 5: Moving the speakers that I bought for using with my laptop/TV to the desk, since I use the TV about once a month.

Step 5.5: Pandora

Step 6: Hanging my Strawberry Luna bicycle print.

Step 7: Stability ball desk chair, which people continually tell me is in no way, shape or form a desk chair. Whatever, your core is just jealous.

Step 8: Cat grass for kitteh. OK, I just added this one, since she’s always in the window, on the other side of my desk, lounging by her cat grass.

Step 9: Trying to find a quicker commute. *Thanks, I’ll be here all week… yeah, actually I will be…

#9 on my 30 Before 30 List was to go to one new restaurant (or coffee shop/bar) per week or 52 in total. So three months into my project, it appears that I’m done! I think my dining out budget can attest to this one being completed. I’ll blame it on working from home. :)

I love trying new places, so this was a really fun project to cross off my list. I might just keep adding to the list for the rest of the year. I also love taking pictures of my food, so a recent obsession has been the Foodspotting iPhone app.

New restaurants & coffee shops (May-September, mainly Portland):

1. Pix Patisserie
2. Pizza Oasis
3. Whole Foods (for lunch, this so counts!)
4. Elephant’s Deli
5. Lapellah (Vancouver, Washington)
6. Chow (Bend, Oregon)
7. Bambuza Vietnam Bistro
8. Rilassi Coffee House & Tea
9. Acadia
10. Donuts Coffee Shop (Manzanita, Oregon)
11. The Daily Cafe OHSU
12. Laughing Planet – Belmont
13. Chez Machin
14. Le Hana
15. Ringside
16. Bean & Tree Cafe
17. Flying Elephants Delicatessen
18. Bar Avignon
19. Thirst Wine Bar
20. Deschutes Brewery
21. Cafe Yumm (does a new location count?)
22. Hot Lips Pizza – Hawthorne (does a new location count?)
23. Banh Mi food cart
24. Waffle Window (attached to Bread & Ink cafe)
25. Mio Gelato
26. Samurai Japanese food cart
27. Tugboat Brewing Co
28. Poompui food cart
29. Pacific House restaurant (Tillamook, Oregon)
30. Prasad Cuisine
31. Dove Vivi
32. Staccato Gelato
33. Left Coast Siesta (Manzanita, Oregon)
34. Pudding on the Rice
35. Kiko’s Taqueria Uruapan food cart
36. Oregon Ice Works food cart
37. The Whole Bowl food cart
38. Ping
39. Voodoo Doughnut
40. Potato Champion (Cartopia)
41. Perierra Crêperie
42. Cafe Velo (PSU Farmers market location)
43. Pine State Biscuits
44. Widmer Brothers Gasthaus Pub
45. Equinox
46. Cafe Mundo (Newport, Oregon)
47. 21st Avenue Bar & Grill
48. Savor Soup House (cart)
49. Pearl Bakery
50. Kiku Sushi (Seattle, Washington)
51. Seattle Grind (Seattle, Washington)
52. Barista
53. Cupcake Jones

Tasty.

Today is the final day of my yoga challenge! Honestly, I’m glad to be done with it — on a daily basis — but will be adding more yoga into my regular workouts. I love projects like this because I love learning and I love fitness projects because it’s simply amazing how quickly the human body can change and adapt in such a short period of time.

<<< Funniest yoga ad. Ever.

I ended up going to yoga classes at my regular gym, taking free classes at Lululemon, buying a $30 for 30 days of Bikram deal (which I didn’t use enough), and trying out a few yoga podcasts (which was really hit or miss). I won’t be continuing daily yoga, but will definitely be going 1-3 times a week instead of 0-1 times a month.

Things I learned, liked, disliked etc:

• Bikram yoga is hot yoga, but hot yoga isn’t necessarily Bikram yoga. Verdict: Bikram isn’t really for me.
• You can overstretch in hot yoga, especially 90 min yoga. Hello, hammies.
• Free yoga classes at Lululemon – thumbs up!
• Time-wise, I ended up replacing most of my regular cardio with yoga, which left me with cardio 1x/week for the past month, and a hell of a lot of yoga.
• Noticeable difference: arms and upper abs are more toned (apparently I look “leaner”, but I don’t feel as fit since I’ve been slacking on the cardio). :P
• I love the spiritual aspect of yoga. When I first started yoga a few years ago, it took me a few tries to get the giggles out. I still don’t like super-meditative yoga, but I’ve found that I feel a lot more ‘meditative’ when I’m moving. I love the mind-clearing peacefulness of yoga. Zzzzen!

Yoga fan: yay or nay?

Last day of July. Shocking. Time for 10 things that make me happy July edition…

1. biking – I’ve been biking up a storm this month. Other than the streetcar, it’s my main mode of transportation, along with the occasional Zipcar. Anyway, I have such a crush on this bicycle. I want. Dear Savings account, can I use some of my first-time homebuyer tax credit for this? Public D3 $690

2. yoga – I started my 30 day yoga challenge a couple of weeks ago, and then took a 4 day hamstring break after my first ever Bikram (hot) yoga class. Intense! So I’m back on track now — 10 days in (6 days/week), 20 to go! Watch out.

3. iPhone 4 – get over it, yeah?  As mentioned… LOVE! How did I survive without one? :P And the daily food photos continue. My only complaint is that it’s not that great as an actual phone, not that I actually use it for the phone aspect too much.

4. Hobo International Clover Wristlet – I’ve been wanting a clutch (wristlet, whatever you want to call it) for a while now. However, most of them seem to be the size of binders, so I’m loving this smaller, vintage-y one that I found at Rue by Hobo. rue la la invite

5. Pastis – One of my favorite summer drinks. Water + pastis. It’s like being in Marseilles again!

6. Scheming. Dreaming. Iceland. $458 Seattle to Reykjavík. (waving goodbye to getting a new bike). Iceland: Sigur Ros, blue lagoon, Icelandic ponies, Eyjafjallajökull volcano… cannot wait! Also, I’m pretty sure that I’ll have a chance meeting with one of the lovely gentleman of Sigur Ros: fall in love, live happily ever after in Iceland, and have like 1,000,000 Icelandic babies. Yep.

7. Google Docs – humor me in my Google fangirl moments. So they’ve had tons of new changes lately, enough for me to quit my whinging about how all the Excel formulas that I’m used to aren’t working, and you can copy tabs to a new doc now, and rumors are circulating that you’ll soon be able to login to more than 1 Google Account in 1 browser. I think I’m a little bit, a little bit in love with Google.

8. Ice cream sandwiches – I tried out the Martha Stewart recipe for classic ice cream sandwiches. Tasty. I’ve also been a little obsessed with the coconut ice cream bars by Paleteria La Michoacana from the dreaded land of Costco.

9. Lululemon yoga pants – I finally bought a pair of Lululemon pants. Half of me is annoyed with Lululemon for being so damn expensive, but they are incredibly comfy shorts and after I got my first-time home buyer credit, I decided it was kosher to spend 1% (eek!) on some sweet ass pants. I also really love their company and they have free yoga classes in-store twice a week. :) Lululemon Astro Crop

10. Oregon coast – love.

What’s on your list lately?

Blogging about what I ate for breakfast just got a lot more interesting… for me anyway. I’ve been using my new iPhone to take garden, cooking, and [nomnomnom] out to dinner pics. It was fun to import a few weeks of food pictures into Picasa!

One of my favorite recent recipes was ^^^ Summer Pasta Salad with Shrimp Tofu from the July/August Everyday Food issue. I couldn’t find the recipe online, so they probably post this month’s recipes in August.

I’ve been neglecting my blog… thanks to my new iPhone. Obsessed much? Yes. Best thing… like evah!

Favorite Apps

Google Maps – Yes, it’s a pretty standard map, but the geo-location feature is awesome (my gigantic shoe phone aka, Treo didn’t have the locating bit, and took about 5 hours to load). So example of awesomeness… yesterday I decided to ride my bike to Chipotle for lunch, so instead of trying to remember exactly where the downtown location was, I just started riding and then after I passed the Hawthorne bridge, I stopped to look at my phone… and ta da… I was only a few blocks away.

Foursquare – I’m the king of town. And no, I don’t Tweet “I’m at blah blah blah” every 5 minutes. I do enjoy ousting people as mayor and collecting badges though. Also, if you shout “Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz” (a vuvuzela) or “Goooooooooal” you get a nifty World Cup badge. :)

Mint – If you know me in real life then you know I’m a huge Mint fan. I’ve probably asked you more than once if you’ve signed up yet. If only it was a pyramid scheme of some kind…

Groupon – Speaking of pyramid schemes and totally awesome apps… we’ve discussed my Groupon obsession, yes? Yes. So the deal part of the app isn’t that special, as I get the morning email anyway, but being able to use your Groupon from your iPhone is brilliant (I don’t own a printer). Also, I like being able to see all the Groupons I’ve already bought on a map, to see which is closest to me… exactly now. Give me $10 k thx bai

Pandora - I like.

Match.com – man shopping from your iPhone? Awesomeness.

Trivial Pursuit – I bought this app during the EA 1/2 off sale last week — totally worth 99 cents.

Words with Friends – I have 8 Scrabble games going right now.

Shazam – What is this song? Oh. This app makes me squeal and clap my hands.

Rue La La – another squeal-worthy app. Rue is my favorite sample sale site (Gilt is my 2nd fav and they also have an app, although the dept structure isn’t as nice as their website).  I especially love the picture flipping feature. Rue La La invite

RedLaser – it’s a frickin’ laser beam. So I was at the store buying food for my kitteh, and I couldn’t tell if it was outrageously expensive or not. RedLaser said it was a deal. Score.

Chipotle – I like the idea for this app, but in practicality I prefer to actually go through line and ask for extra everything.

My24 – love being able to check class schedules from my phone.

Zipcar – I can now unlock my zipcar — and HONK THE HORN! — with my lovely iPhone. You can also reserve with the app, but really, the appeal to me is honking.

Sleep Cycle – it appears that I fall straight into a coma at night. My charts and graphs don’t look too much like the examples. Not sure if I’m doing it wrong or just an insanely heavy sleeper.

P Tracker Lite – TMI? Probably, but still a pretty cool app.

DailyBurn – I used the web-based version previously, so it was fun to be able to login and test it out. I’d like to try the barcode scanner feature, but surprise, surprise: I don’t want to pay for it.

iHandy Level – now that I own my place, I’m a little more concerned about getting nails in right the first time.

IKEA UK – I found the UK catalog app for when I just have to look at IKEA magic.

As you may have noticed, I’m kind of a fan of free apps. I think I will set up a new category in Mint, titled “Apps” and my budget shall be $1.98/month.

Brief complaints: #1: Remember the Milk app I am not interested in paying for with so many stellar free options. #fail. #2: ESPN World Cup app asks me if I want to pay every time I open it. #ithoughtitwouldbebetter

What’s your favorite iPhone app? What am I missing out on?

Brief sadness earlier this week when I couldn’t get my iPhone 4 pre-order in. Alas, Best Buy to the rescue! I’ve been off Apple products for a while (ok, ok, I do own an iPod), but it looks like I’m about to get back on the emotional roller coaster that is Apple products. Speaking of, the white one is so cute, but it was not available for pre-order. :( Buyer’s remorse, I shall have?

I’ve also complained endlessly about how expensive the iPhone plans are, as I currently have the Sprint SERO insane deal of a plan, but I’m doing the iPhone/ATT “family plan”, so my monthly bill will just be slightly higher. Win!

Such an awesome birthday present, love me. So, apps I’m excited to finally be able to use: Mint.com, Remember the Milk, Foursquare, Yelp, ESPN World Cup. Aaand I’m totally going to download one of those Vuvuzela apps. :)

Any iPhone app recommendations?

It’s been a few months since I did a 10 things that make me happy post… so stuff that has my attention lately…

1. Liberty of London – Remember when I went overboard on buying Liberty of London stuff? Yep, still like it.
2. World Cup 2010 – Was I stoked for World Cup 2006? No, I was on the “meh” level, but being in Marseilles and going to local pubs to watch games and then watching the French go ballistic after the Brazil/France (quarterfinal?) was awesome. So this time around, I have the infectious enthusiasm of my coworkers and a few work projects that are related, so yeah, excited for World Cup 2010? Definitely! Come on, it’s stuff white people like.
3. Häagen-Dazs Five Ice Cream – Ginger – “It tastes like ginger” Yum.
4. window gardening – I got a late start at my community garden spot, because of my move, so I started 2 small planters on my balcony that I moved to my windows after the move (arugula, basil, mint, and 1 strawberry plant). The basil died, and my kitteh is making great time on eating the arugula. Which inspired the Arugula Pecorino Pizza before it’s all gone.
5. She & Him – I won tickets to the She & Him show in Bend on Memorial Day. le sigh! Volume I & II. So good.
6. iPhone4 - I can haz? birthday coming up, yes.
7. Mumford & Sons – Rather obsessed with these fellows of late. Also, you can listen to the entire album for free on [gasp] MySpace. And if you weren’t already in love with them…
8. Gap linen shorts – You know how some people say you shouldn’t buy a ton of the same thing in different colors? Dude. Those people obviously don’t have issues finding shorts that a. fit in the waist b. fit in the butt c. are tight enough around the leg. So, I bought green, blue, and white. I did put the yellow and pink ones back… for another time?
9. Pink Gin Fizz – not a big fan of sweet drinks, but I can get behind sweet/sour. Shortcut: Grapefruit Izze + oj + gin= tasty.
10. Oregon coast – I spent some time napping in the sand dunes and sunshine last weekend. <3

What’s on your list?

I bought a house condo in April at an auction! Yes, really! I never thought I’d be buying something so soon after my return to ‘grown up’ life, but I really wanted that first-time homebuyer tax credit (which you cannot get for a yurt, fyi), and it was a great time to buy.

The auction was a little intense, but still a fun experience. I had a few Excel spreadsheets pre-auction in full analysis paralysis style, so I didn’t have to worry about what I was going to bid on auction day. Also, did I mention that I tried to raise my own bid? True story. Also, did I mention that I flung my pen that was attached to my bidding card when I was trying to bid? Nobody expects the wild card.

So I’ve been in my place for one week, and so far kitteh loves the hardwood floors and climbing on the fridge, while I’m in love with the kitchen, and we both love the view. Anyway, so pleased to own my own 639 sq ft in the sky. :) I think I’m officially a grown-up.