Tigard Library Turns 10!

The Tigard Public Library will celebrate ten years in its current building with a birthday party for the community on Saturday, Aug. 23, from 2-4 p.m.  The Library Is a Blast party will feature the Picante Latin jazz band, activities for all ages, including a photo booth, crafts and a roving balloon artist, as well as festive food.  The celebration will include the official dedication of the George and Yvonne Burgess Community Room in honor of two long-time dedicated volunteers and Friends of the Library.

 

The current library was built after the citizens of Tigard passed a construction bond measure in May 2002.  It was only one of three bond measures in the state to pass in that election.  Construction began in July 2003 and was completed a year later.  The building opened to the public in August 2004.

 

The Library will also host music programs in August featuring African rhythms and a classical Latin American guitarist. The IJenNeh duo will offer a tasty mix of African, reggae, pop and gospel music with roots in Liberia on Saturday, Aug. 2, from 2-3:30 p.m.

 

Latin American classical guitarist and composer Ricardo Cárdenas will perform compositions that are both passionate and comforting on Tuesday, Aug. 19, from 7-8 p.m. Cárdenas will feature works by Brazilian, Venezuelan and Paraguayan composers. 

 

On Wednesday, Aug. 20, from 7-8:30 p.m., authors from the Northwest Independent Writers Association will discuss the elements of publishing genre fiction.  The Tigard Knitting Guild and the Oregon Chapter of the Crochet Guild of America, Always in Stitches, will provide demonstrations and instruction at the Knit Out and Crochet program on Sat., Aug. 16.  Participants may drop by any time between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.

 

The adult summer reading program will continue until Friday, Aug. 22.  Prize drawings will be held on Saturday, Aug. 23, at the library building birthday party.  The music programs are sponsored by the Friends of the Tigard Library. 

 

All programs will be held in the George and Yvonne Burgess Community Room. For more information, call 503-718-2517or log onto the library’s website atwww.tigard-or.gov/library and click on Programs & Classes.

 

5 year anniversary, a reflection

This month we celebrated 5 years of adventures, laughter and hardwork together as a married pair.  It is incredible to reflect on all of the highlights and accomplishments during this stretch, and to imagine the possibilities the future may bring. 

We started out as young passionate local missionaries living in poverty and striving to build community in a rough place. This time was exciting, challenging and built a foundation of love and compassion of the human struggle. We were very idealistic and were proud of rejecting the American dream. It was wonderful. 

In our second year adult responsibilities called, so we moved to the other side of town to be closer to work. We wrestled with reconciling our desire to actively live our faith and at the same time fulfill our adult responsibilities. Our faith matured to see all life circumstances as opportunities to love and serve, regardless of the structure. 

Year 3 was brave - we bought a fixer upper. Having little to no skill in home repair or construction, we set off to figure it all out. It was hard. Physically, emotionally, spiritually. It was demanding and stretched us to the max. We faced our fears, learned new skills and realized that we are not invincible. 

Thus, year 4 was about finding time to relax and take it easy. Taking time to focus on our health, both physical and mental was crucial. Sure there were projects yet to be completed, but our priority was restoring ourselves. We learned to let things go and be okay with things as is, to pace ourselves and know our limits. 

This year we celebrated our 5th year and it is exciting to begin with all of the lessons of the previous under our belt. I have learned so much about the reality of hard work, construction, relationships and faith. I have grown in my appreciation and love for David, and I have discovered so much about myself - my limits, my buttons and what I am actually able to accomplish. I am so thankful for David's continued belief in my ability to learn new things and to push me past what I thought were definite limits. 

It is exciting to go into year 5 knowing that I have a partner who loves me despite my dark side, who believes in me more than I believe in myself, and who continues to discover new things with and about me. And likewise I feel fortunate to continue to be impressed with David's love for learning, stability, and dedication to do excellent work. 

I thank God for these years and am truly excited for what the next years will bring. It seems like if a couple can overcome home remodeling, they can overcome anything. :)

Easter Sunday with the Family

With the recent remodel of our kitchen, I have been rediscovering the joy of hosting.  Recently, we hosted a dessert date with my two lovely cousin-sisters, Kat and Irina and their SOs. While preparing for the date, I realized that I had just as much fun making the dessert and deciding how to set the table, as during the time spent together.  There is this joy that comes from making food that you know people will enjoy and considering its presentation.  Then the payoff of the time spent together, absolute bliss.

Christmas 2013 with my sweet family

So I am thrilled to be hosting our family Easter lunch this year.  My mom is having surgery on Friday, so I thought I would lighten the load for her and offer to have the gathering at my place. She is hardcore and said she will be bringing blinchiki, goluptsi and her famous broccoli salad. So much for my plan, right? Amongst everyone else (there will be 13 of us total), and their contributions, I really don't have to make much.

So I am going to take the opportunity to try something I've never done before, and go for a lamb roast.

On my Easter Menu:

Rosemary and Garlic Roast Leg of Lamb 

Buttermilk and Scallion Mashed Potatoes from America's Test Kitchen's Slow Cooker Revolution

Roasted Beets

And possibly a dozen Mini Pies.

Hopefully the weather will be nice so we can whip out some of them lawn games that have been collecting dust in the garage. Looking forward to Sunday, family time is the best! 

Our Master Bedroom Remodel

We moved into the house before we had a chance to make any improvements. I remember the first few nights, all of our boxes and possessions crammed into the den, with our mattress laying in the middle of the room. There was no walking room, you had to climb over boxes and bags. We lived this way for a good few weeks as we figured what projects we would tackle first.

There was so much work to be done - we were basically remodeling it completely, so there were so many questions to answer:

• What vibe did we want to set? 

• What materials were we going to use? 

• How would we bring our vision to reality? How much time, energy and effort would it take? 

• And would it turn out as we imagined? 

Being novices with relatively no experience in home repair, we decided our priority was to prepare a room that we could call our sanctuary, our master bedroom.  It would be a contained goal that would serve as a point of sanity amidst the chaos of remodeling that would surely take a good while to complete.

And so the work began...

The master bedroom had a major animal urine stench. We knew we had to get rid of it first, so we ripped out the carpet and began our attack, deploying almost every scent removing strategy found on the internet.  Finally, we painted the floor with KILZ and it seemed to do the trick.

After succeeding the war on the terrible smell, we began searching for the perfect color scheme. We wanted something calming, inviting, and romantic. The good news was that we both wanted a similar vibe for the room. We settled on Hazel from Sherwin Williams.  I am glad we went with that choice; to this day, whenever I enter the room I feel a sense of peace.

Of course as silly as it sounds, painting the room was very stressful for me. It was my first time painting a room and knowing that it was going to be OUR room, I wanted it to be perfect. Thankfully the Cashmere paint was very easy to work with.

After the walls and ceiling was painted, we had to decide on the type of flooring we were going to install.  We didn't want to do carpet, and hardwood was out of our price range so decided on laminate. We sought advice from my cousin Alex who works in flooring, and he introduced us to NW Flooring Outlet in Beaverton. We scored a great deal on 11mm laminate that has a dark wood look with french bleeding.

After painting, installing flooring, and putting in our furniture, we were very happy with the outcome.

I died and went to flower heaven

Our neighborhood is blessed with so many beautiful flowers that start to show-off their beauty this time of year.  I love the effort that our neighbors have put into making the neighborhood so colorful. This time of year, yellow daffodils decorate the sidewalks, and soon tulips and dahlias will bloom.

The previous owners of our house were avid gardeners who grew a large variety of roses, white calla lilies, tulips and clematis. So far we have been lucky enough to reap their efforts, and we are trying to learn how to care for these so they keep coming back in bloom each year.





This year, in a fit of fury from a hard day at work, I managed to trim our rose bushes pretty low to the ground, so we are a bit worried about their comeback. But they appear to be resilient and are starting to show little buds. I am cheering and crossing my fingers for their success.





One of my favorite things about having so many beautiful flowers blooming outside is coming home from work and seeing how David creatively arranges them inside the house:

Sometimes I even discover new flowers that I didn't even know were growing in our yard, like these bleeding hearts.

 I hope we can plant some gerbera daisies soon, they're my favorite.

Oh great, another blog!

Hello there, thanks for stopping by! My name is Elena Knepprath and I am a twenty-something trying to figure out this thing called adulthood.

 So far, I've managed to find a meaningful job in the affordable housing industry, one that I look forward to each day.  I have a husband named David, who besides being my best friend is also the most thoughtful and hardworking man I know. 

Our recent adventures include purchasing a major fixer upper in 2011 and consequently discovering what homeownership and remodeling is all about. We are also dabbling in gardening and are continuously rediscovering what it means to live a healthy and balanced life.

As we are exploring these adult things, I hope to share what we've learned along the way, along with things that inspire a saner and happier life.

Thanks for joining on this ride, I hope you will share some of your insights with us as well!

What kind of tomatoes should I grow?

We were ambitious (nothing new here) and purchased 4 tomato starts last year at the Annie Ross Plant Sale. All proceeds benefited the homeless family shelter of Clackamas County.
 We had two cherry tomato starts, hot house tomato, and the pretty yellow pear tomatoes. We didn't know what to expect - how well these would grow, and which we would enjoy more. They all sounded lovely so we decided to go big. Well the tomatoes did grow big and plenty. We had more tomatoes than we knew what to do with. Here is how these three varieties faired for us:

Hot house tomatoes - these took the longest to ripen, but when they did they were huge! They had a lot of flavor and worked perfectly roasted, sprinkled with salt or sugar or as soup. Also could have worked well for salsa. 

Cherry tomatoes - these grow quickly and are very easy to eat. We liked these best roasted and added to pasta or in a caprese salad. These were also great as a snack by themselves, nothing else added. 

Yellow pear tomatoes - these were fun for the variety. They didn't produce as fruitful as the cherry tomatoes but they were definitely flavorful and worth the novelty. These were so cute we preferred them plain as a snack, and often thy didn't even make it to the house. 

Going forward, I think we will have one cherry tomato plant, one hot house and one heirloom. This produces a variety and will give us many options for preserving. This year my goal is to can some, make salsa, and donate the extras to the local food bank. 

Recap from our first garden

Last year, my husband and I finally got around to getting our green thumb on. It was the first time that either of us took gardening seriously and committed to seeing our efforts through to the end, and the result was satisfying.

Here is a look at our gardening adventure.  My hope is that you can learn from our adventure and be inspired to have a gardening project of your own.  It really isn't an impossible task, especially if you live in Oregon!

1. Prepare the land. 
First, the house we purchased in 2011 already had a nice little garden plot that had excellent irrigation and a watering system. The challenge was discovering it under the weeds. After a few days of labor intensive weeding and tilling we cleared enough space to plant some seeds.

2. Decide what to plant when and where.
This was both fun and stressful at the same time. We wanted to set ourselves up for success so we consulted with OSU Extension Services and the Oregon Tilth for a list of low-maintenance vegetables and when they needed to be planted. We decided on radishes, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, zucchini, and the assortment of our most frequently used herbs - dill, cilantro, basil and parsley.

We drew out a map of our garden and marked where we were going to plant what. We also discussed what would be best to plant from seed and what would benefit from coming from starts. In the end, everything we planted came from a seed with the exception of the tomatoes.

Now I admit, we were a little sloppy on clearly labeling where things were growing and where the paths were. This year, we will be more realistic in how much walking space we need and how explicitly we need to label our plants. This didn't negatively impact our results at all, but it did make for a few awkward moments navigating the garden.


3. Maintain the garden.
Living in Oregon, this was the easy part up until late July, early August.  Thankfully we had the great sprinkler system that covered the area of the garden pretty well, and then for some of our more particular plants we used a watering can.  This also included thinning out the radishes and keeping an eye on any plants being attacked by slugs and bugs.

4. Enjoy the produce.
This was of course the most rewarding and exciting part. We were blessed with an abundance of produce.  It was the most rewarding thing to come home from work, go to the garden and pick the vegetables that would dictate dinner.  I will share my favorite garden recipes in a future post.

I also took many instagram pictures. I was proud, if you couldn't tell.

All of that reflecting aside, we are excited to get an earlier start this year, be more strategic in where we plant and how we label, and also have a better plan for what to do with the produce.  Last year we had more than we could eat at one time, so this year I want to be more strategic with our produce.

Here's to happy gardening!

Lemon Yogurt

For Christmas, my parents surprised me with a case of lemon yogurt.  Now, what am I going to do with 24 cups of lemon yogurt? I can't imagine eating it plain, although I think David might.

Here are some recipes I found that will make use of this tangy-ness:

Lemon Yogurt Muffins 

Lemon Mint Chicken Salad

Lemon Yogurt Waffles

What would you make with lemon yogurt? 

3D Gingerbread Cookies

Gingerbread cookies go 3D! Saving this idea for next year.  Thanks Not Martha!

Cookies galore!

The cookie swap I participated in this year has posted all the wonderful cookie recipes involved in the massive 22,000 cookie trade.  Can you believe that? 22,000 cookies were mailed around the US and the world earlier this month! Makes my eyes go way wide!

Check out all the delicious cookies (and beautiful cookie shots) here and here.

Bonus points if you can spot the special gingerbread cookies Kat, Marina & I made.

Cheers!

Secret Gingerbread Cookie Recipe Revealed!

Thanks to the great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, today I will reveal the recipe of the most delicious gingerbread cookies I've ever had.  My wonderful friend and baking extraordinaire, Kat, from Walk Slowly and Carry a Camera   agreed to share the coveted recipe for this cookie swap.

But before we go into the recipe, I just wanted to reflect: this was the first cookie swap I've ever participated in and it was awesome! There is a special kind of joy about getting cookies of an unknown variety in the mail and I even found myself giddy while waiting in line at the post office to mail mine off.  Thank you Love and Olive Oil for connecting me to this cookie swap! I look forward to participating again next year!

Thank you Bake Eat Repeat for mailing me absolutely amazing soft and chewy ginger spice cookies cookies! They were delicious!

And now....drumroll please....the recipe!!

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp group cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup softened butter
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses or think honey
1 egg

Directions:

1. Mix flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg and salt into a large bowl.

Beat butter and brown sugar in a separate bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy.  Add molasses and egg; beat well.

Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until well mixed.

(It should have this consistency)

Press dough into a thick flat disk and wrap in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.

2. Preheat oven to 350*F.  Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness on lightly floured work surface (don't be shy on the flour!)

(Don't be shy with the flour, it will keep your gingerbread people will shaped)

Cut into the gingerbread with cookie cutters of your choice. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets.

3. Bake 8-10 minutes or until ledges of cookies are set and just begin to brown.

 Cool on baking sheet 1-2 minutes. Remove to wire racks; cool completely.

(This is just the beginning of the 6 dozen cookies we baked)

Decorate cooled cookies as desired.

 Enjoy!

(Can you call it foul play when it is so irresistible? :P ) 

It's Walnut Time!

Since we have this sitting on our kitchen counter:

I am making this:

Thanks Eat Good 4 Life for the wonderful idea! 

Here are some other walnut-iriffic recipes I am trying out with our mountain of walnuts:

Celery stuffed with goat cheese and walnuts

Chocolate Walnut Brownie

So much deliciousness to make, so glad that pretty squirrel doubles as a nut cracker! 

Cookie love

I am absolutely stoked about participating in my first ever Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap this year!    I will be making my cousin's secret recipe fabulous gingerbread cookies, but until then - here are a few other cookie recipes I intend to make before Christmas:

Soft & Chewy Vanilla-Orange Cranberry Cookies

Cookies & Cream Brownies

And the ultimate ambition, I'll be finally tackling the Snickers Bar from Bon Appetit... I've had my eye on this one for a few months now, and finally with winter break upon me - we're going to make it happen! 

Is it too ambitious...

to sign up to make apple grape pie from scratch for Thanksgiving dinner? I've never made a pie before but I was smitten by this gorgeous pie from Bon Appetit:

It's just so beautiful! I am going to try to pull off the leaf look too.. Going to practice this week, but first I need to pick up a rolling pin.. Sad that I don't have one yet, huh? Shows how much I bake! :) 

UPDATE: I made the pie and it was delicious!! So glad I tried, and now I have a rolling pin so their is no baking obstacles to stop me now.. I have an endless list of cookies and baked goodness I want to make.  Sigh :) 

View from my kitchen window...a poem

view from my kitchen window

2011 - the world is a place of pain, brokenness, suffering, greed, confusion

But I wake up to the sunrise peeking through my window

The man of my dreams holding me tight

The colors of autumn leaves flying around outside

And all is right for a minute.

The cover of Time magazine reveals world problems

Uncertainty of what tomorrow brings

The kitchen may not be in one piece 

But I am warmed by a cup of hot cocoa 

And my feet are not cold

And all is right for an hour. 

Children without love

Parents without a means to provide

Families without homes

Seems like all has fallen apart

But a smile from a child who has lost everything

Makes the world right for a day. 

Darkness fills the street

Sirens rush to help

People shouting

But I hear a sound - singing

A song of love, a song of Christ

A choir of voices singing proudly

And I know that all is still alright. 

Style muse: Pippa Middleton

  

I adore Pippa Middleton's style... So simple, classy, yet elegant. Definitely copying some of her looks this fall, because copying is the highest form of flattery - right?  

Spooky apples

Are these cool or what? Learn how to make them here.  

The harvest is plenty!

(Image via Flickr)

We received the bounty from the CSA we are participating in - and there are a lot of goodies in it this week! We have kale, cabbage, kohlrabi, lettuce, beets, tomatoes, watermelon, potatoes and eggs!  


Here is what I am planning on making with all this deliciousness:

Zuppa Toscana

Beets & Bowties

Watermelon Salad

Kohlrabi, Apple & Bacon Slaw

What are you having for dinner this week? 

The return...

Sitting in the car dealership waiting room, I found myself with a couple extra moments and beginning to realize, wow - have I really not posted anything since July 6th?  Slightly unbelievable, but then I remember all the millions of things that happened over the last 4 months...

1. We bought a fixer-upper house
2. I started a new job.
3. We bought a fixer-upper house

So basically, all free-time has been swallowed by survival mode living.  But now, things are finally settling down (or so I feel since I'm trapped in this surprisingly cozy waiting room) and I am excited to get back into writing and making note of all life's wonderful things.  

I am excited to start posting before and after photos of our house, because we are very close to having some decent "after" shots.

Until then, here are some images from my recent trip to the local farm... Isn't Oregon breathtaking?