The 2-OH-2!'s Blog

Just in time for the holidays, the popular Moreland Farmers Market has scheduled a special market day. The First Annual Holiday Market will be held 25 November 2008, 1:00 to 5:00 pm, at the market's usual space, Bybee Boulevard at 14^th Avenue SE. 

Apples and cider -- and perhaps an apple pie?

 

You'll be able to take something home for dinner, find a special treat for turkey day, and grab some prepared food to put in the freezer.  Many of our favorite vendors will be there with lots of winter produce.  You'll find greens, winter squash, root vegetables, apples, pears, chestnuts, hazel nuts and more. Little Pots and Pans will offer their savory specialties.  Finales Desserts will be on hand with their fabulous desserts and pies. Baird Family Orchards, as well as vendors with goat cheese, fresh eggs and chickens, goat and lamb will also be setting up their stands. 

There will be lots of variety as you'll also find other cheeses, honey, specialty items and gifts for purchase.   Mocha Mama will have her coffee van on site with coffee, tea, sandwiches and more good things to eat while you shop!

Attention seniors and persons with disabilities, Project Linkage will offer rides to Moreland Farmers Market's holiday market. Service is scheduled to and from Sellwood Landing, Sellwood Center, Kenilworth Plaza, Westmoreland Union Manor and Sacred Heart Villa. For schedule and reservation information please call Project Linkage at 503-249-0471 or 503-341-9350. Seniors and persons with disabilities who cannot get to these locations may also call for service to the market.

A special event will help others.  A fresh produce food drive is planned to benefit FISH Emergency Service.  FISH distributes to residents of N, NE and SE Portland and feeds about 1700 people each month. Children are one third of the recipients!  Anyone who donates $5.00 or more will be entered in a drawing to win a New Seasons gift basket.  Many thanks to New Seasons for their support!  The winner's gift basket will be delivered the Monday after the holiday.

Music, Music, Music!  As always there will be live music for your enjoyment.

Market tokens and Oregon Trail tokens can be purchased at the information booth and used at the market or given as holiday gifts for use at the Moreland Market next season.

I'll be at the Information Booth from 3:00 to 5:00 pm, stop by and say hi.

REMEMBER - parking is available at 14^th Avenue and Glenwood, across the street from the market.

It always seems to happen like this:  You receive the invitation. You have the perfect party dress in mind, a little extra money in your wallet, and you’re feeling in the mood to spoil yourself with a fabulous day of shopping. You spend the entire day searching, but nothing you find fits the bill. Discouraged, you discover you aren’t quite as rich or thin as you’d imagined. It’s not such a party after all.

I can relate in more ways than I’d care to admit. As it happens, I’ve been doing a little shopping of my own. With all the negative media portraying last season's bad news about the housing market here in Portland, I’ve been searching for a little good news – news with sequins, if you will - and I’ve felt exactly the same way. Discouraged. All this negativity hasn’t left me in much of a party mood.

Just because you hear bad news, read bad news or believe bad news… it simply doesn’t make it true. As with any worthwhile pursuit, keep up your search and you WILL find it!  And I have!

Today… I bring you a sweet little black dress in the form of GOOD NEWS! 

According to a group known as Greenlight Greater Portland, a consortium of private sector leaders dedicated to growing a sustainable and vibrant economic future for the seven-county metropolitan area, the current and future economic outlook for the greater Portland area is terrific!

Consider the following highlights from their report:

     *  The projected population growth for the Portland metropolitan area is 8.0% by 2013.

     *  The workforce is projected to grow by 6.9%. The increase from Salem North to Vancouver alone is expected to exceed 2 million.

That’s 50,000 more families for the Portland metropolitan area!

     *  From 2000 – 2008, our population grew by 33.8%!

     *  6 of the 25 Most Innovative companies in the world are located right here according to Business Week Magazine.

 

This is fantastic news for the Portland area real estate market! With all the new arrivals on the horizon, I recommend shopping for the good deals while they last.

Now that I've found the perfect dress, I have a little shoe shopping to do!

 

If you're in need of a home shopping expert, I'm here to help you find the perfect fit!

Jennifer Bukaty

Real Estate Broker

RE/MAX equity group, inc.

Sellwood/Moreland Office

7886 SE 13th Avenue

Portland, OR 97202

503.495.4824

We've a saying in Portland, "it's a really small place."

You never know when you'll run into some one you know. And as for six degrees  of separation, it's small enough that we are really only about three degrees, maybe fewer, of separation. It's not unusual to meet someone and during the initial conversation discover that one of us knows someone who knows someone to whom the other is connected.  And after almost 5 years in Portland, I'm not surprised when I run into someone I know when I'm out and about in town. But wine country? Forty miles southeast of the city?

Friends and I went down to Yamhill County today, one of Oregon's fabulous wine regions.  There are over 200 wineries in the state, and we planed to check out just a few of them.  It was a beautiful fall day.  High sixties, clear skies, sunshine, and a green and gold countryside. A day to truly appreciate, most likely one of the last we'll have before the rains.

We stopped for lunch at the Dundee Bistro.  Another car arrived at about the same time and I was waiting for them to pass so I could take a few photos. One of the men politely motioned me to go ahead, and as I said "no, that's okay, I'm waiting to take a photo," the woman in front turned around.  It was one of those moments.   Simultaneous recognition and loud voices! "Alex/Renee!"  Renee Dobbes, a mortgage broker, was also down from Portland  with friends for some wine tasting.  We hadn't planned to go over to the Dobbes Family Estates, her family's winery, so it's on the list for next time.  They do have some great wines, and also produce Wines by Joe.

As I joined my friends inside, I laughed and said small world. I really  hadn't expected to see anyone I knew.

If you go to Dundee, please don't miss the Dundee Bistro.  The food is fantastic, they showcase regional wines and foods of the northwest. The salmon was grilled to perfection.  The chicken melted off the bones. The bread something to dream about! After a glass of the Ponzi Vineyards Pinot Blanc at lunch, couldn't resist and bought a bottle to take home.

After lunch we drove a little further south on 99W and turned off at the Archery Summit Road toward Domaine Drouhin. A winding and rutted gravel road means a slowed down drive, but all the better to ooh and ah at the vineyards' fall colors. Domaine Drouhin is at the top and you'll pass several other wineries.  You'll be tempted to stop - but catch them on the way back.  You definitely want to see the views from Domaine Drouhin.

We were on the deck, basking in the sunshine, watchng the light change on the hills and sipping our second taste, a 2006 Pinot Noir, when I heard my name called.  Paula Springer, a stager colleague, is walking toward me.   Paula, her husband, and her parents have driven from Portland for a day of wine tasting. Small world indeed!  By now my friends are giving me a teasing time, saying I know everyone, and can't get away for a day. 

I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised to see people I know.  Yamhill County is not that far, Dundee is only about 40 miles and it's one of the things Oregonians do -- wine tasting.  I wonder though, if we had chosen to go to one of the other regions in the Willamette Valley, would we have run into others that I knew? Possibly, or it would have been another of our group's small world day!

After a leisurely tasting at De Ponte Cellars, just a little further down the ridge, we headed back to Portland. 

And here's the topper for a small world day, we stopped at Market of Choice on Terwilliger Blvd  on the way home, and I ran into Simone Meekins who works there, and used to work at Burdigala - a favorite wine shop in Portland!

I don't have to wonder about this though -- when you're in Oregon, whether you are visiting, planning to move here, or already living here - you'll be spending time in our wonderful wine regions.

 

I'll meet you there,

or take you,

maybe we'll have a picnic.

 

 

 

I promise, it will be a day you won't forget, and you might even run into a friend or two!

I got a catch-up email from my good friend, Lynn, the other day. She's a member of a dragon boat team made up of breast cancer survivors, located in the Capital Region of Upstate NY. She says she is loving being a part of the group. Here's what she says about the Dragon Boat team and why they do it: " We paddle because we can. We paddle for those who cannot."

"I personally paddle for a handful of friends who have had breast cancer.  Albette. Amy. Linda. Liz. Meredith. I paddle my hardest for Pat Emmet. I don't know how I would have gotten through my cancer without her (and many of you!!). Pat ironically received her own bc diagnosis when I was just finishing my treatment, and, after a recurrence, she died in May, 2007. Knowing Pat was pure joy. She would have loved to race in a dragon boat!!

In Princeton, at the Paddle for Pink Festival, we came in 2nd out of 6 breast cancer teams, and up at the Lake Champlain Dragon Boat Festival in August, during two days of pouring rain, we finished 9th of 13 teams of breast cancer survivors. This is pretty amazing considering many of our team members had never even been in a boat before the day of the first race! Without a boat to practice in, we've become known as the "the team that paddles around a picnic table" (which is exactly what we have been doing, trying to at least syncronize our strokes)."

They've rented a boat for the two races they've been in.

"Legend holds that dragon boat racing got its start more than 2,000 years ago in southern China, where boats festooned with dragon heads were used in rituals to encourage bountiful harvests. Dragon boat racing is now the fastest growing sport in the world." - Hope in the Boat web site.The sport is hot in several areas of North America, including here in Portland, and also Florida, DC area, Canada to name a few.

Why Dragon Boating and cancer survivors?

In 1995, Dr. Don McKenzie, a sports medicine physician in Canada, pioneered the research that led to encouraging women with breast cancer to challenge themselves physically. He conducted a research study that overturned the prevailing medical view that women with breast cancer should restrict upper body exercise to prevent lymphedema. He did this study using the ancient sport of dragon boating and concluded that women with breast cancer can undertake upper body exercise, encouraging living full and active lives. Today, breast cancer survivors dragon boat teams flourish across the United States, Canada, and internationally."- Hope in the Boat web site.

Lynn and the team want to buy their own boat. A 40 foot long boat, related equipment, and a home and training site for the team will be $20,000. Just think if each of us sent $5.00 or 10.00 -Yes, this is a pitch! - they'd have their boat in no time! And could move right on to raising funds for their goal of raising awareness about the quality of life that is available.  That you can survive breast cancer and have a full and healthy, active and whole life during and after detection!

I know, there are a gazillion causes and we support many of them.  Breast cancer awareness, early detection and survival is a big one for me.  My mom died of complications from breast cancer in 1972.  She was younger than I am now. Today she might have survived.

If you do want to support this team from 6 counties in upstate NY, here's how to do it.  Write a check to Hope In The Boat.  In the memo section put the name Lynn F (via Alex).  Mail it to Hope in the Boat, 47 Dove Street, Albany NY 12210. 

They hope to have a boat in the water by spring.

If Lynn can raise enough, she'll be able to have a 3 line plaque on the side of the boat.  Knowing Lynn - she'll dedicate it to the people she paddles for.

Lynn kayacking, 2006.

Went to Hopworks Urban Brewery - HUB - the other day.  And I'm totally impressed.  Not only is it the first eco-brewpub in the Northwest, they've done it fantastically well!

Housed in the old Sunset Fuel Company's building on SE 30th and Powell, it was a gut rehab to end all gut rehabs.  Thick concrete walls had windows sawed into them, timber was saved and reused in booths and the bar. In an interesting  twist on the original location's function the oil from the fryers is recycled in the biodiesel tank which powers the trucks and the brew kettle.

 

Everthing possible is reused, recycled or designed to have minimum impact on the environment.  The exterior planters are old beer kegs that have been cut in half.  The parking lot pavers allow rain to drain into the soil. 

In each of the booths, the salt and pepper are stored in old power utility switch boxes.

Even the tissue holders in the women's bathroom are from old pipe. 

 

 

The brewpub is the dream child of Christian Ettinger, and for that story you'll have to read the blurb on the HUB's menu, and his family has been super involved as well.  Designed by his architect father, Roy; his mother, Karen who formerly owned a plant business, has taken on keeping the planters filled with native and non-invasive plants.

Of course the purpose of a brewery and brew-pub is the beer.   I didn't have any yet! It was lunch and sad to say beer makes me sleepy. Food and service were great! I am going back though and test out some of the organic ale and award winning beers.  Meet you there?

When you go, be sure to ask to see the professionally published photo book by Tim LaBarge that chronicles the rehab. He also has some great photos on the walls.

 

Whoever said variety is the spice of life is wrong. Challenges are the spice of life.Anyway, this is my motto after I broke into the real estate market in June of 2007. The road less traveled is the one that I usually take, however it looks as though it was the road that 10,000 other agents took as well. Climbing the real estate mountain is a test of patience and sanity, where you truly find your limits and push yourself to the edge. Similarly, I found the same was true on my epic journey climbing Mt. Hood

  

 

Apparently there are two 4’s in one day! The wind is howling as we break camp on Mt. Hood and I’m stoked as we ascend to “hogs-back”, an increasingly steep terrain surrounded by crevasses, sheer rock faces and giant boulders. The landscape seems unfamiliar, with the stars shining brightly on the snow packed landscape I feel as I am exploring uncharted territory on the moon.  I can feel the excitement with every step as the anticipation of summiting draws near. Timing is crucial and we need to hit the summit before the sun rises. The challenge is maintaining a steady pace. You may cover 1000 vertical feet in an hour, or you might find comfort on bended knee sucking wind until you have the energy to stand again. 

My legs burning and muscles aching, I finally worked up to 10,000 feet to the infamous “Devil's Kitchen”, a heated volcanic rock dome that spews sulfur vapors searing our already exhausted lungs. The sun is rising now, and with each passing hour comes the danger of snow melting, allowing the massive boulders to break free from the ice.  I am in the direct fall line and have few escape routes as we approach the final leg to hogs back on our way to the steepest part of the climb.

  

With novice climbers well ahead just hitting the entrance to the summit called the “pearly gates”, we notice disaster heading straight for us. With several basketball sized boulders barreling towards us at an unimaginable speed, there is very little time to react.  We run as fast as we can along the top of a steep cornice with crampons and gear strapped to our backs. We narrowly avoid tragedy by several feet, as the boulders crash down onto the glacier with an enormous “thud”. It is here where you have to make the tough decision to forge through or turn back and fight again another day.  With only 1000 feet remaining to summit, we make the smart decision and turn back. 

 

 

I began thinking how climbing Mt. Hood parallels my Real Estate career and I found a lot of similarities. Constant uphill climbs, so many that you just need to stop, take a knee and catch your breath. Not only is the environment difficult to manage, so too is the competition that re-directs your route. Dodging dangerous obstacles and dealing with harsh conditions you must have the determination and will to keep trucking.  Having come close to the summit only to turn around in the 11^th hour teaches patience and good decision making. Even though dangers are marked, you never know what to expect from the mountain, variables are always changing, just as our clients and the market. 

 

Though we didn’t summit, it was the journey and the experience that you work for, each step is a reminder of perseverance and determination. How far are you willing to push yourself for success? 

The work crew had to dig out a portion of the dirt floor - it's a crawl space under my house - in order to pour the new foundation. 

I was amazed at what they found. 

A brown bottle with Purex etched on the surface, filled with burnt wooden matches, water and sludge.  I had an image of a teenager sneaking smokes down there, hoping to hide the evidence by dropping it all into the bottle. There were tin cans, partially rusted with crumbling labels, remnants of the home's staples: Carnation Condensed Milk and Folger's Coffee. 

The woman of the house, or perhaps the adolescent daughter, used Noxema face care, packaged in the familiar deep blue glass jar and white lid now turned rust.

Weights and pullies from windows, a few brick cobbles from an unknown Portland street, more bottles and jars now unrecognizeable, encrusted with 40 or 50 years of dirt and most surprizing of all, a High School Diploma.

Encased in musty, semi-moldy black leather turned greyish, the gilt lettering still gleams in an Old English font, Robert Service High School, Anchorage, Alaska. Inside, under a plastic casing is the certification that Michelle Rene Warren has satisfactorily completed the Course of Study prescribed for graduation, and is awarded this Diploma, given in May, 1987.

The saved Commencment program, on gold paper has frayed edges, and a similar type face as the front of the diploma.  Inside, the list of the evening events and the graduates. Michelle Rene Warren, one of 441 graduates, wasn't the Salutatorian or Valedictorian, nor listed as one of the Honor Graduates.  She might have been a cheerleader for the Cougars, or is it a Bobcat sketched on the front? Perhaps she sang in the Swing Choir and perfomed "Brothers and SIsters", or played the recessional piece, "The Crowning Glory" with the Symphonic Band.

Or maybe none of these activities were hers. Perhaps she was a student who loved literature and language and went on to get her Ph.D  in French language and Medieval Studies at Stanford in 1993. A Michelle R. Warren did, and taught at University of Miami in Florida perhaps, and then went to Dartmouth?  I googled the name and found that. Of course they are not necessarily the same person, there could be a dozen women with the name Michelle R. Warren. Maybe she stayed in Portland, in Sellwood and I've passed her on the street.

She would have been one of the last to receive her diploma that night. Was she thinking of her future as she waited, was she getting ready to move?  How did her diploma get to the basement of a house on Sherrett Street in Sellwood, in Portland, Oregon? Did she live there? Or come to visit an aunt or uncle the summer she graduated, a fun trip before she went to college? And, where IS she now?

It's another mystery.