Weekend Outing

I have been on a hunt for a couch. No, the perfect couch. Not perfect in terms of bright, shiny and new, but a perfect fit for my criteria: good "bones," cheap (but lacking pee stains), no longer than 70 inches, and not terribly heavy.

Apparently that couch does not exist (at least not in Portland). After nearly two weeks of searching on Craigslist and a dazed Friday afternoon trip to Ikea, J pointed out that I might want to consider a paradigm shift with regards to furnishing our apartment. Feeling defeated and a bit overwhelmed, we each flopped down into a POÄNG chair. At that moment, J came up with a brilliant idea. We could just sit on chairs. Duh. It never occurred to either of us that we don't need a couch.

Saturday morning I woke up invigorated and ready to find another awesome chair. We ditched the plans to drive to Tillamook to celebrate our first wedding anniversary and instead went to a nearby second hand store to check out a chair that had been posted on Craigslist the night before. It wasn't as comfortable as I had hoped, so I decided not to take it. I was bummed, but still optimistic. J suggested that we stop by another store we had visited our first week in Portland to see if there were any new arrivals (or if this one chair that had caught my eye might still be around). And it was. And I got a pretty good price. Obviously it needs some love, both on the wooden frame and the cushions, but it was a great excuse for an outing. So, we decided to ditch the car and take our bikes for a spin.

First we stopped at the library to check out some furniture restoration books and then headed to the largest fabric store I have ever seen. J was even impressed at the magnitude. (For those of you who are starting to feel sorry for J, you know, for spending his anniversary weekend chauffeuring my butt around shopping for furniture and fabric, just wait. I redeem myself.)

Fabric stores of this size are never located downtown, so our bike ride was nice and long. And by long, I mean 16 miles round trip, which made J a very happy man. We were gone for about four hours and I was pooped and sweaty by the time we got home. However, I was extremely happy because we found the perfect fabric for my chair (and I rode my bike for 16 miles).

Even though our Saturday included stops at the library AND a fabric store, I think J would agree that it was a really great day. I'm so glad we decided to go together on our bikes. We saw the city from a completely different perspective and it made this Saturday seem like our first real weekend as residents of Portland.

Bikes!

Since Portland is such a bike-friendly town and we would like to drive our car as little as possible, last weekend we decided to go bike shopping. After trying out a few different bikes, I determined that I would like a more European-style upright bike (as opposed to a commuter bike with striaight handlebars).

The bike that I fell in love with was the Gary Fisher Simple City. However, it seemed silly to drop $600 on a bike before knowing if I'd even really like riding around the city. So, Jesse started searching Craigslist (for both of us).

He found his bike about 4 days after he started. It turns out that the guy he bought it from bought it in August and found out that he had to go overseas to work. So, Jesse got it for $100 less and it's practically brand new.

I actually found my bike while browsing for a couch in the furniture ads on Craigslist. The lady who was selling it put it in the wrong category, so it's very possible that I was the only one who contacted her. She was selling it for about $250 less than I would have paid in the store - there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with it other than some dust here and there. It's more along the lines of a beach cruiser bike, but with 21 speeds.

I went online yesterday before purchasing the bike to read user reviews. The bike gets top ratings for sure. People who have an Electra Townie 21 speed love the ride and comfort. The only problem is that they're all between 50 and 85 years old and have had various hip and knee replacements. I would be willing to bet that they all have garages too because the Townie is a total bitch to haul up three flights of stairs. Jesse often tells me that I behave like a curmudgeonly old man, so maybe I found my bike soul mate - the Oldsmobile of two wheeled transportation. It even has a little bell that I can ring violently like the Omas in Germany.

We took our bikes out for a spin last night and I think I need to make a few adjustments before feeling 100% comfortable on it. The lady who owned it before me had the handle bars jacked up and the seat pushed way low down. When I first hopped on the bike I felt like I was on a chopper. However, once we get the handlebars all situated, I think it's going to be a sweet ride.

The Furniture Game

Before we left D.C., Jesse and I sold a bunch of our stuff on Craigslist. With the proceeds, we set up a few different ING Direct savings accounts earmarked for purchases we would likely make once in Portland. All book sale proceeds went to the "E and J Savings" account, which was the largest account and pretty much paid for our move and will help pay for living expenses, new bikes, etc. Furniture sales went into the "Furniture Fund" and when Jesse got a performance merit award at work we set up a "Stereo Fund."

Jesse didn't spend the full amount set aside for his receiver, so his funds were redirected to support the purchase of furniture. The rules of the game are pretty straightforward: purchase as much furniture for the house while staying within the $609 budget allotted in the "Furniture Fund." Exempted from the game is anything purchased for Jesse's home office. So far I feel pretty good with how things have developed:

My Chair: Purchased for $89 at a consignment store in Portland. It's a solid chair that rocks and swivels, and is the perfect size for me. Also, it is totally cute. Yes, the fabric makes me sweat in 90 degree weather, but that will be remedied someday. Jesse said with my first paycheck I should treat myself to a new pair of awesome shoes - I think I'd much have a nail gun and air compressor.

Our Bed: Purchased on Craigslist for $125. Reason it is rad? It's solid wood and not Ikea. Other than sustaining irreparable knee, shin, and toe damage from running into the end posts, I have no complaints. (Well, maybe except for the dirty laundry that keeps piling up nearby.)

Kitchen Cart: Purchased for $56 at Ikea. Even though we have tons of built-in cabinets in the kitchen, we seriously have zero prep space. This was one of the first things we purchased after taking an initial scan of the apartment. Now there's room for one person to chop and mix while the other cooks or bakes.

Metal storage rack: Purchased on Craigslist for $25. Again, the kitchen has tons of built-in cabinets, but I was astonished at the amount of kitchen items that we unpacked. I think they may have multiplied in the storage crate. The shelf will provide a little extra storage space for things that won't fit directly in the kitchen.

That leaves me with $314. I'm a little nervous because I still need a couch AND kitchen chairs. The couch will likely eat up most of the remaining budget.

Will I win the game? Or fail miserably? You vote.

Progress

We've been unpacking at a steady pace and rearranging our exploded boxes so that there are defined paths throughout the apartment. Our rearranging and unpacking is only interrupted by feverish searches on Craigslist for furniture and bikes, which has been almost a full time job alone. I still haven't found a couch, but hopefully one more weekend of intense searching will yield some results.

Parts of the apartment are still a total nightmare, but scattered throughout there are pockets of order - like my reading/web surfing/lounging nook. It's not much, but for the moment it's all I have (there literally aren't any other chairs for me to sit on). Speaking of my cute little (wool blend) consignment store find, it's not a very friendly hostess given this blazing hot heat. Who knew that it would get to 90 degrees in Portland in mid-September. I radiate when I sit in it, and not in a good way. I'm afraid it might be made of some heavy duty combustible 1960s fabric and I might just catch on fire. Or melt directly into the seat. I still love it dearly, but may speed up my plans for recovering.

As predicted, our anniversary was very low key (but not in a bad way). Jesse said it was hard for him to really celebrate or 365th day of marriage on a workday. I completely agreed. Instead, we ran some errands and went to Doug Fir for happy hour. This coming weekend we are going to drive out to Tillamook, eat some cheese, and enjoy the Oregon coast. Tonight, for a treat we picked up cupcakes from Saint Cupcake around the corner from our apartment. In honor of our of the banana chocolate layer that we would have saved from our wedding, I picked up the fat elvis and the banana chocolate chip pound cake, as well as the pumpkin spice with cream cheese frosting, and chocolate cake with chocolate mousse. They were delicious. We ate all four.

I'll be knee deep in packing materials tomorrow, but hopefully the kitchen will be completely organized and fully functioning!

Our First Year

Holy Dude!* We've been married for a year. It certainly was a quick 365 days.

In the spirit of other "firsts" in our relationship, a few highlights:

Our first date. This was the scrap of paper that Jesse tore from his City Paper in D.C. for me to jot down my phone number. We found it while unpacking some of Jesse's things before our move in August. "Froggy Bottom May 7th after turning in paper for Goodyear." He called about a week later and asked me out to dinner. We went to Pasta Mia. We saw each other every day for the rest of the summer.

We spent many Wednesdays at Toledo Lounge in Washington, D.C. during our first summer as graduate students. $2 pints of beer whenever it rained. Luckily (for our thin wallets), it was a very wet summer.

Our first Halloween was one of the best. I dressed as the Ice Queen and Jesse was Wolverine. He grew a beard to get those sideburns. (I filled in the patches with eye liner.) In preparation for the night, we gelled, and combed, and moussed each other's hair. It was quite an evening.

This was our first case of roller fever. We were whisked back to our childhood when they played the Ghostbusters theme and dimmed the lights - recalling all the broken arms that were sustained by friends who were caught at the bottom of a roller skating pileup. Jesse loved skating so much that he developed a walnut-sized blister on the bottom of his foot.

There have been a lot of "firsts" over the past five and half years, but this one feels pretty darn amazing. Even though today's "first" will be rather low-key (given our still unpacked state), I couldn't think of a better place to celebrate - in our apartment, starting a new adventure in our new city.


*Phrase courtesy of Larson. He exclaimed this sentiment at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco when seeing the awesomeness of the drum bridge. We also happened to be on our first double date with Larson & Serena.