LIfe's Simple Pleasures

Verne enjoying Lauren's back deck on her new home in Beaverton

I started keeping a journal (nowadays called a Blog) in 2012. It was called StixChixConnected and I posted updates monthly for my handful of readers, who were also fellow quilters. Its purpose was to keep us “connected” as well as provide inspiration by sharing our current quilting projects and other creative endeavors. About two years later I started a blog for my other interest, food, and the two gradually were combined into the one blog, Moser Good Eats and Good Times. Just as I’ve had two blogs in the last eight years, I’ve also had two computers for about that same amount of time. Thanks to Jana, I now have a single computer that’s smaller and faster than the previous two combined. The past few weeks have been spent transferring documents and photos to my new laptop and learning to use OneDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage, for managing my files and thousands of photos. It’s a big project and one that has sparked a lot of memories. It’s made me realize the importance of documenting memories with not just photos, but also words. So often Verne and I together try to remember an event and uncertain about the specifics, we resort to reading my blog. Most of my posts are not about life-changing events, just our day-to-day experiences. Like the robins that made a nest in our hanging plant this past summer or about making granola with puffed cereal shot from a gun. Anyway, looking at old photos and reading old blog posts has made me realize that while most of our life experiences are not particularly significant or even interesting to others, they are as important to us as we make them.  And, taking time to place photos in an album with a few words or share photos and stories in a blog memorialize experiences and raise them to a level of importance. Bottom line…I’m thankful we’ve only experienced a few life-changing events of which I’ve written about over the past eight years and will happily go forward writing blog posts about our simple daily life experiences.

A special memory of Maria and Sally at Stix Retreat in January, 2008

Verne and I are perfectly well-matched in so many ways with one of the most important being our enjoyment of cooking and eating good food. We subscribe to several cooking magazines, own a couple hundred cookbooks, take on-line MasterClasses on cooking, and follow our favorite chefs online. We can go months (and sometimes do) without cooking the same recipe twice. We not only love cooking, but we love food sourcing. Grocery shopping is not a chore for us, it’s an adventure. For us, local is anything within a hundred-mile radius, and we have been known to drive that distance to Shop Local. Kitchen cookware and gadgets also hold an attraction. Until a month ago, I’d resisted the pull of the multi-cookers (they include a variety of functions, like pressure cooking, slow cooking, steaming, etc.) which have become popular over the last few years. Afterall, we own a complete set of All-Clad cookware, including the 6-quarter slow cooker, steamer and stockpot, rice pot, etc. The list goes on. I had convinced myself the last thing we needed was a multi-cooker. And then along came William Sonoma’s warehouse sale on Instant Pots. It was during a moment of weakness that I ordered one. All I can say in my defense is that I ordered the smallest Instant Pot (fondly referred by us as the “Mini”) to just give it a try. We’ve made perfect rice in it, including a jazzed up Mexican Rice, perfectly-done glazed carrots, creamed corn using fresh corn from Davis Ranch, the most perfect Ricotta Cheese, real Crème Fraiche (fermented, using the slow cook cycle), and most recently, Beef Stroganoff. It just keeps out-performing my highest expectations. If I’m to be honest, they weren’t that high…that’s why I hedged my bet and bought the less-expensive model. We’re in love with the Mini and talking about buying the 6- or 8-quarter model. Actually, we were perfectly happy with the 3-quart until we decided to try to make Crème Brulee and its small size couldn’t accommodate even our smallest ramakins. ☹ For now we’re going to hold off on the larger model until we decide we need it for something more than Crème Brulee, or William Sonoma or Amazon have another warehouse sale.

Besides cooking since I last blogged in August, we’ve made double trips to both LA and Portland. In other words, we’ve spent a lot of time on the road. Our first trip to LA was in early September to get Jana’s cat, Izzy. Yes, you heard me right. We drove 400 miles to have lunch with Jana and Andy and return home with Izzy while they went on vacation to England. Even though I keep all three cats separate, Julie (Izzy’s momma cat) and Olive (Izzy’s sis) sense her presence and, given the opportunity, misbehave. That is, pee on the floor to mark their space. You’d think it would be a happy family reunion…NOT! We managed to keep the bad behavior to a minimum, but it was a good day when we put Izzy in her carrier for our return trip to LA. 

Izzy's road trip

Girls in London September 2019

This time we didn’t even get lunch with Jandy, but did have the pleasure of staying in their condo in downtown LA. The following day we met up with Lara, Raelin and their families for the annual LA Phil Subscriber Appreciation Day at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. This was our second time attending the event and it was once again amazing! We started with the music instrument Petting Zoo. The kids (big and little) got to hold and play the instruments and indulge in some body painting. We attended three of the five musical presentations followed by Q&As with the musicians, and then took an audio/video guided tour of the Hall. All I can say is the response to the tour was mixed: I found it surreal in an artsy sort of way, the others found it confusing (so did I), and Rick hated it but couldn’t stop talking about it. I’m certain if we go next year we’ll all take the tour again. There’s just something about it…?  Lunch was also included in the 6-hour open house with food provided by the local LA truck scene. Overall, we had an incredible family day together with the only thing missing being Jana and Andy. Sadly, we left for home the next day without seeing them.

Logan 's attempt to play the violin (Lara, Sam, Matthew, and Raelin watching)

Kendall giving the violin a try

We spent Labor Day weekend helping Lauren pack for the big move to her new home in Beaverton. We managed to get in a few of our favorite outings, including rediscovering the greatest breakfast place in Lake O, Biscuits Café. The food is excellent and they serve homemade jam with every breakfast. Lucky for us there’s a Biscuits Café in Beaverton, so it won’t be the last time Verne and Lauren get their delicious chicken fried steak with white gravy. A month later we returned to Portland to help Lauren settle into her new place. She had done a good job unpacking and organizing all rooms except her new craft room (the third bedroom) and the garage. We focused on the latter building a couple of shelving units and installing a new overhead light. Other big jobs included installing a fan in her gas fireplace and swapping all of her Nest smoke detectors from the Lake O condo with those in her home. That ended up taking two trips and several hours before all were in place with fresh batteries and no chirping, screeching, or other obnoxious noises. 

Breakfast at our favorite restaurant

Verne and Lauren installing a fireplace fan

One final smoke detector in the Lake O condo

We celebrated with dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant in Lake O, Nicoletta’s Table. It’s definitely worth the 30-minute drive from Beaverton, so that won’t be our last time dining there. One of my take-a-ways from helping Lauren move is this – always buy second-hand boxes, paper, and other packing supplies. One of us (I think it was me) suggested looking on Craigslist for used packing supplies. For $70 Lauren purchased 50 moving boxes of mixed sizes and 20 pounds of packing paper – a fraction of the price new. I had no idea people make a business of selling previously-used moving boxes and paper. If all goes as planned, she’ll be one of those sellers and recoup a small portion of her moving expenses. And as a bonus she’ll feel good about her ecologically responsible decision to buy used moving supplies. Actually, Lauren needs no prompting to go-green as she is our tree-hugging conservationist and often our family’s conscience when it comes to living an ecologically responsible life.

Lauren's pieced and quilted  Puffin quilt in the Northwest Quilting Expo