NEW Items. Feel the Holiday Love.

Here's the scoop:1) You give me your old vacation or family event slides
2) I make them a sweet candle holder, lantern, vase, window piece or table lamp paying lovely homage to said vacation or family event or member 3) You receive a fantastic and unique gift that will be talked about for years to come, made out of memories no one was appreciating last year
4) We can all feel good about reducing, reusing and recycling
5) You tell your friends about me and I make them equally awesome gifts!!!

More info: www.etsy.com/shop/bitsanpieces

Business Cards as Usual

So a few of us Sellwood kids think it's important to support our ministries and the ministries of those around us and a simple way to start that is to use our talents for the general good. To that end, an Etsy account in my name was born. You can shop my store, donate to the cause, or just send me a gently harassing conversation at:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/bitsanpieces

I'd love your feedback, ideas of places to score some more Kodachrome slides or window frames, other project ideas, more artists who'd like to locally join the co-op, and new friends just stopping by to say hey.

If you were directed to my blog here via a business card, the web address above or the link to my homepage should take you straight to Etsy and my page there.

Peace, my loves!

-M

True

1. I live with 7 other people that I know love me with a love I hope I can reflect with equal fervor and commitment.
2. I have a great job that will meet my needs creatively and student loans-ly.
3. I am still heinously immature and irresponsible sometimes.
4. I love being with people, in their stories.
5. I want to be around kids more. Other peoples', my own eventually, right now...just other peoples'....
6. I'm discovering a kind of unity that is worth fighting for; these are bonds I expect to defend because of my love for these people.
7. I am now a pastry chef, a sniper, and a barista. And not a sniper.
8. Boop boop boop.
9. Regardless of how I feel about my life in the little pieces, I can feel the arms around me in the big story, making me a very small but integral part of it. Or so I'm told.
10. It's all one story. All of it. Family, your choices affect me, and mine you, and that's alright. That's more than alright, that's crucial. Help me choose wisely for a better story for you.

I Just Love Food so Darn Much

I have missed my city. I mean, I've been here, I have just not made time to do any experiential eating in the last couple of months.

I miss Le Happy, where I can play a semi-long-haul trucking boardgame from the late seventies, drink a fine Tempranillo, and chow down on a crepe full of honey-cured ham on a plate right next to a crepe full of Nutella, or Bananas Foster. En Flambe, even.

I miss Mehri's bakery, down the street from me as I head to Woodstock to FedEx a box of sweet surprises to an old coworker. Her hand-crafted rolls and wedding cakes in progress remind me of why I went to culinary school, and also make me want to come play with gum paste. Gum paste lilies last a lot longer than the real thing.

I haven't been to Cupcake Jones in an unforgivable time, I was practically a staple of the place not long ago. Best buttercream icing for cupcakes in town, hands down. St. Cupcake markets better, and wastes more paper in helping you get them home safely, but unless the cupcakes are for a party or someone (luck dog) other than you...who on earth do you think you're kidding? A cupcake from them isn't going to make it back up the block to Everett, where your car is parked, much less home. It will be safely in your belly. Where it belongs.

It's been far too long since I paid a visit to another of my favorite places in the world, Bridgeport Brew Pub and Bakery. I mean beer, and bread, all in the same place? It's not just a marketing ploy when they call it "Beervana." A lot of their product involves their in-house brews, and that's just smart, and delicious. I could definitely work there.

Saturday is my brunch day for Delta Cafe, here on Woodstock. Nothing says good home cookin' like brioche french toast. My head has been light just thinking about it recently. I will let you know how that goes. If they can fry up bread and eggs as excellently as they can feed my need for starches, cheese, and deep-fried veggies in the middle of the night, I will be a happy camper.

Food stories updated next week? Let me know if there's a place you've been dying to try. I'm all for sharing my eating nirvana with others!
-M

4.21.09

Eating pudding, hanging with my buddies Trevor and Mark at the Living Room by Adsideo, my faith community's new brainchild...life is pretty amazing.

I'm growing.

I'm passionately desiring to grow.

I'm loving the weather.

I'm cleaning my house. Tonight.

I'm changing for good, in all senses.

Much love.

-M

April Showers....are Portland Standard

Hello, loves.

The best part about this here is that I'm typing this here from my brand new lap-top. Every purchase that I make that I consider an "adult" purchase, in the most innocent sense of that word, mind you, still makes me a little giddy inside. That's probably why I'm not a real adult, yeah?

Brand new lappy came out of his Costco box about three hours ago. Yeah, I'm that girl-the one who buys her electronics from the only store where one would buy five gallons of soy sauce, or a gross of toilet paper, or a giant inflatable castle-waterslide-funtimes-bouncehouse (which.....may be another "adult" purchase sometime over the summer. Cass thinks it's gonna cost like, $100, but she wouldn't go check the price for me, and I think it can't be more than five or six hundred. And I might be shocked, it might be under four hundred).

In more legitimate news, I'm still working for Delphinas, even if a little grudgingly. I love that I have a job, basically. And it's paying me well. In the state with the highest unemployment in the country, I can't complain too much.

Wynkoop's House for Women is getting going. I volunteered at the women's facility where most of our permanent residents may come from this week, and I'm very excited about the connections, resources, and all-around knowledge I'm gaining. I should have a roomie to be another house manager by September, and there's been rumors of summer interns, although we'll see how that goes. The struggles with our new project are numerous. It's a new project, for one. And with our pastor down for the count for a few weeks because of some surgery, our house is ever-so-slightly on a back burner for the moment. There's a lot of paperwork and logistics to sort through here. I just have to keep reminding myself that it's God's stuff, the house, my actual stuff, my skills, my job, my family and friends, the way my relationships with everyone play out, my time, and everything else. It's all God's stuff....and he's got it under control, much better than I ever could.

Prayers are much appreciated.

Peace,
-M

Me and Julio down by the schoolyard

Can I tell you what's been going on? Would that be alright with you?

Excellent.

Every now and then I'm on the bus, looking at people, and I just get this crazy urge to run a stream of conscousness exercise through a mini cassette recorder that I would be cradling like a small child at all times if I owned such a thing. This morning there were seven or eight other beings on the bus with me, early morning creatures, as this lady-baker is learning to be. The anemic, vampiric teenager; the effeminate man in the black blazer with the collar turned up and a white ring around the top of his J Crew sweater, lending the impression of clergy; several W-Mart greeter types, retired, but not retiring; and myself. I'm sure I look like a haggard addict in the mornings. I usually roll out of bed about fifteen minutes before a ten minute "brisk walk" to my bus stop, rinse my contacts, scarf a muffin, brush my teeth, and do a systems-check of my pockets: keys, debit card, ID, lip balm, bus pass. Some clothes that I appear not to have worn the day before arrange themselves rather miraculously on my body, and I manage to tie my shoes. Sometimes I manage to trot like a bloated caribou toward the bus stop's bench, so as not to trip myself on the laces I have not bothered to tie. As of yet, I have not fallen. 

My fellow riders are less interested in me than I am in them. Unfortunately, my racing mind is attempting to race back to unconsciousness and dreams, and I tap my forehead unpleasantly forcefully on the glass of the emergency exit window. No one laughs audibly. I wonder if the vampire teen can sense how much it hurt. The TriMet employee who catches the bus at the same stop as I do and sits as far from the rabble on the bus as is humanly possible, forward and away from us, leaning into the other driver for some public transit inside gossip is smirking at something, and I wonder if it's my window attack. I looked like the cute little ring bearer at my cousin's wedding who face planted into the ring-bearing pillow about three minutes after delivering the goods. 

The thing is, my mind is making up stories about these people while they're here in front of me, but I've gotten so good at having a job that requires deft hands and a present head, that I'll entirely forget them until the next commute. I feel almost an hysterical need to immortalize them somehow, even if just for myself. We are nothing special, but each minute within our lives is so precious, so meaningful, and so individual. If you look into it, really, it will speak into the rest of your life. It will mark you. Part of the fun is keeping your eyes open while you're being marked.

I am that kid. I'm the kid that refused to look away while my dad pulled slivers or yanked teeth or removed Band-Aids. I keep my eyes on the gory bits of movies, the awkward moments of others, the hilarious and horrific moments of my life. I've watched every tattoo I've gotten

- closely. I want to be breathing in every piece of my life as it happens.

That said, this year is shaping up to be one of the wildest of my life. Maybe wild isn't what you think when you think of me. You're probably right. Or perhaps you just don't know me as well as you think you do. 

I have limited stories about jumping off of things, of kissing strangers, or of international travel. I have endless stories of Jesus walking into the darkness of my life in a whirlwind to put me on top of a new adventure. I get the nip of the lion that says "back in line, kid" and then I get to go be something else to someone else.

This isn't the place to write about those stories. 

2009's first hours saw Laura, Brennan, John, Alex, Kristy, Anne, Shelly, Amanda and Amanda and I in Las Vegas. I saw some fancy fountains, drank (too much), spent (too much), gambled (not enough), but generally behaved myself. I petted a stinger-less stingray, watched someone spoon one of the MGM's lions, inhaled a lot of second-hand smoke, ate the best sushi that could be expected in a land-locked state, and wore little black heels about two times too many. I had a blast.

Adsideo, the family I've been pulled into here in South East Portland (....church, guys) is raining down upon me all sorts of blessings in this new year, as young as the year may be. 

*A team of guys and girls from their New Year's Eve party moved the stuff out of my old apartment and into my new location in the middle of the night after the ball dropped. Apparently the person in charge of setting up that work crew that was going to move me out by the 1st didn't ever get the message that I had to be out by the 1st. 

*The new location is going to be named after authoress and philosopher-ess M. Wynkoop, and is going to mimic a little of what Adsideo has done elsewhere. We minister through the Portland Rescue Mission, taking individuals out of their rehab programs, individuals who show an interest in being part of the Adsideo family and put them in one of our houses, they get jobs, stay connected to the people they live with, grow with us, and generally make us all the stronger. Up to now it's just been two men's houses, but recently a building was donated to our cause, and we're turning it into something that follows the same lines, but for women. I get to be a staff member in that house. It's going to rock my face off, and I'm so excited.

*I'm.....into someone. And someone that I think I ought to be into, for the first time in a few years. No details. Too early. I'm excited about that too, and I hope it rocks my face off.

*Promotion at work! After a long bout of hard experiences, pastry people quitting or being fired, and generally lots of overtime and sweat and flour...I am a shift-lead! It's excellent. Basically the same job I've been doing for months, but now I'm getting paid for it, and I have some actual authority. 

*Searching for a really great Paul Simon Ringtone. Any ideas?

That's basically it, guys. I love my life, and I love you. Call me? :)