{happy new year 2013}

I realize I'm a week late for New Years, but I'm still in the festive spirit. Plus, all these lovely gold and silver glittery wonders on Etsy are hard to pass up for a good New Years treasury.

I mostly just drool over those divine peacock champagne glasses. Aren't they gorgeous?

Did anyone think of a unique New Years resolutions? I'm usually really good at mine; I use the opportunity to list all the wonderful things I want to learn and accomplish throughout the year. This year, though, I still feel like I'm catching up from Christmas.

One thing I really want to do is come up with a Portland life list for 2013. There are so many amazing things to do here, but I feel like everything has a very specific month in which you can do it, since the weather is so volatile and the seasons so short.  Inevitably I learn about a backpacking trip I want to go on, or a garden I want to visit, or a festival I want to attend, a mere few weeks after the allotted time has passed and I missed my opportunity for another year.

Summer, especially, feels so hectic here because it only lasts July-August-September and sometimes even July can be rainy/snowy until late in the month. You wait all winter for summer to arrive, and then it's rush rush rush to get every ounce of beauty/exploring/activity into an eight week time span. It's exhausting.

I want to make a list for every month, so that when I'm stuck in the horrible doldrums of melancholy March gray-ness, I can have a host of things to do at my fingertips.

So, here's a question for you Northwest savvy folk... what are your absolute favorite things to do in Oregon, and when is the best month to do it? Maybe if I compile enough activities, I can come up with a fun tour guide to add to my Trail Guide page!

Besides that project, I'm also doing my best to be super cliche and join the "eat healthier" wagon again. I totally slipped off the horse at the end of last year.
So far I'm not off to a great start. Yesterday I had a whole pan of fudge before 10 am in the morning. In my defense, though, it was a really long morning and it was really good fudge.