Portland Day 1

We went straight from the airport to Lovejoy Bakery. I ordered a Roasted Beet & Goat Cheese salad with a Peach Vanilla lemonade. It was so yummy! Later for dinner my friend's boyfriend cooked pork & chicken kabobs with a yummy fruit & quinoa salad. Too bad I didn't take a picture of it. For dessert my friend made ice cream sundaes. Yummy :)

Xoxo…

Portland Oregon Food Blog

I'm back in Portland Oregon and after prior trips of experiencing so much yummy food I decided to keep track of it this year. So for the next seven days I will be posting pics of yummy food and the name of the restaurants.

Xoxo…

11:11 Again

Today I saw it twice. Both times I had my phone to look something up and there were those numbers. Luckily I was able to screen capture it. :)

11:11 and Guardian Angels

Lately I've seen the numbers 11:11 a lot. My thought when I first saw it was "cool". Then after the second time my thought was that I should go buy a Lotto ticket. After the third time I began to wonder if there was more behind those numbers. A Google search later informed me that I wasn't alone in my 11:11 sightings. There were both nice and dark definitions and I chose to believe the nice ones for many reasons.

First of all living a positive life is a conscience decision I make every day; therefore, why give the negative stuff a chance to ponder in my head? I only invite positive things in so it was pretty easy to believe that seeing 11:11 means an angel is near you and just letting you know.

Second, I truly believe I have a guardian angel. Whether its one angel or many more. That fact is that I've had life experiences where someone can say I was lucky or they can say what I believe - that my guardian angels are taking care of me.

Let's start off with one of my earliest childhood memories. I was around 7 years old and almost kidnapped My sisters & I were at a local arcade goofing around and although I didn't have money it didn't stop my pretend games. At one point a man approached me and asked if I liked quarters. I said yes. He then said he had a lot of quarters in his car and if I followed him I could get the quarters. I smiled and said yes and was ready to go when something within made me stop and a voice in my head screamed "Don't go! This is a bad person!". Instead of following him I turned around and went straight to my older sister to tell her what happened.

In my next memory I was about 10 yrs old and almost drowned. My sisters and me, along with other neighborhood kids, where swimming at a local pool. My crush was there too. I didn't know how to swim so I was hanging on to the edge of the pool. I moved to the deep end of the pool and in a brief crazy moment I decided to show off and let go of the edge. I didn't tell anyone what I planned on doing so my sisters weren't really paying attention to me. After letting go of the edge I just sank down slowly. I looked around and figured I didn't magically learn to swim. After what seemed like several minutes I understood that I wasn't in a good predicament and decided to do something to get someone's attention. I slowly raised my arm and next thing I know my sister grabs it and pulls me out. My underwater experience feels surreal to this day and although my sister saved me I truly believe my guardian angel was with me and helped too.

Many years later when I was walking home from high school I was almost hit by a car. As most teenagers I tended to walk with my head down instead of looking ahead. As I was crossing a street a truck driven by a college student made a left from the main street onto the street I was crossing. I looked up in time to see the truck coming straight towards me and I stopped in my tracks, frozen. The truck swerved a little but still came my way. I remained frozen in the middle of the street and watched as the truck somehow drove inches away from me and stopped. The driver apologized and after I realized I was okay my legs somehow began to move again. I walked home in a daze. I couldn't believe I escaped a dangerous situation again. I knew then that without a doubt my guardian angel saved my life.

So this is why I believe 11:11 is a sign that angels are near. I've always felt blessed in life and now I'm feeling it even more.

Xoxo…

Ewww…

I was asked to give a recommendation on LinkedIn by someone I haven't worked with in over 3 years. I believe that there was more between us *almost* going on back then but for whatever reason nothing progressed on a personal level. We still maintained a good professional relationship. Later this person left the company and dropped off the map.

On Monday I got the generic request asking that I recommend him. I write a pretty darn good one on Tuesday. I also sent him an additional personal message saying hello etc. Then I noticed he needed to review and approve what I wrote prior to it being posted on his profile.

Today I waited all day to receive a response from him. At least a "thank you" for writing an awesome review. Lol :)

Well as you may have guessed I haven't heard from him. I know he read it because my recommendation is posted on his profile I know I'm being silly for expecting a personal message as a response but I did expect a thank you on a professional level.

Ewww… disappointing.

Xoxo

Eye Contact

Established eye contact and smiled from a distance. I received a smile in return. Felt great! :)

Xoxo…

Camarones Aguachile

I finally made this very traditional Mexican seafood dish!! I'm so proud of this!  

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients (serves 4 persons as main course and 6 persons as starters )
1 kg shrimp, cleaned, peeled, deveined, butterflied and dried with kitchen towel
2 peeled small cucumber, sliced one thinly, and roughly chopped the other
1 red onion, thinly sliced
3 table spoons chopped cilantro leaves
6 chile Serrano, sliced
2 cups lime juice (reserve 2 table spoon for the salsa)
Salt and black pepper to taste
Tortilla chips or crackers to serve

Put the prepared shrimps in a bowl and cover with the lime juice. Make sure that the lime juice covers the shrimps completely. If not turn the shrimps around every other minute.
Let it rest for ten minutes until it turns opaque.

For the salsa:

Pulse the chopped cucumber, Serrano chillies, cilantro and reserved lemon juice, for few seconds until smooth.
Check the seasoning and add salt to taste.

Serving:
Arrange the sliced cucumber on an individual plate/bowl, arrange the shrimps on the cucumber.
Spoon over the salsa, garnish with sliced red onions, and avocado if you wish. 
Served with some crackers, tostadas or toasted crispy corn tortillas.