Its like Christmas in March!

I had trouble falling asleep last night. I was a giddy as a child on Santa's "good list" on Christmas Eve. All night long visions of fiddlehead ferns, peashoots and stinging nettles danced in my head. I awoke at four a.m. with the thought of a grilled cheese made with Rogue Creamery's Rosemary Cheddar.

As soon as was reasonable, I was out of bed, my market bags in hand. After a quick stop at Coffeehouse Northwest for a cup of Stumptown Coffee, I was off to the South Park Blocks to grab me some local grub at the opening day of the 2010 Portland Farmers Market.

Even the first day of Spring was eager to share in the festivities and showed up with sunshine and cherry blossoms at 10:26 a.m. I was there a bit earlier at the opening bell as vendors and market goers alike cheered in the new season.



This year's Portland Farmer's Market has doubled in size, allowing better movement of the crowds among the approximately 100 vendors once the market is in full swing. For a view of the new set up, visit Portland Farmers Market's interactive map.

The weather was amazing and it was such a pleasure to once again wander around the market planning my purchases and dreaming of the dinners that would come out of them. Its been a very mild winter here and everything has blossomed early so there were plenty of blooms scattered among the veggies, fruit, herbs, meat,honey, fish, dairy, wine, nuts, and juice brightening up the already sunny morning.

Colorful Ranunculus

I bought a bunch of White Lion Double Head Daffodils from Laurel Valley Farm and they have already frangranced my entire living room.

Assorted mushrooms from Springwater Farm

Fiddlehead ferns.

Miner's lettuce

Stinging nettles

It was really difficult to pass up these cinnamon rolls for my future breakfast date with the husband who was still sleeping at home.

Herb starters

I will, of course, have to miss the market next week as I'll be running the big 32.4.32 birthday run, but am so happy I will once again be able to make it a part of my week.

How could I not?

Here's the deal:

For my 32nd birthday at the end of March, I will be running 32 miles of trail in Portland's Forest Park.

Now its official.

I've started this blog to make that statement and to let people who are interested follow along.

Now according to my friend C, there is nothing more boring for a non-runner than hearing someone talk about running. I can kind of see her point. So this blog won't be only about running, it will be about many of the things that make up my life in Portland.

However, because I have precisely one month and twenty one days until I run, there may be a slight focus on that for the first few weeks. I hope you'll stick with me.

In case you don't know this already, I love living in Portland. For those of you who have never been here, visit. Portland is a very active smaller city with allot going on. I've heard that it has the highest number of brew pubs, coffee houses, bookstores and strip clubs per person than any other city in the U.S. Not bad.

It just may be high on the list for miles of running trails per person as well. Runner's World Magazine just voted Portland the Number One Running City in the U.S. I'm so proud! And after all the hours I've spent running miles and miles through Forest Park, along the Willamette River, crossing over many of the city's beautiful bridges and hoofing it through the Portland Marathon last October, I fully understand why.

The St. Johns Bridge - the bridge that motivated me to run the Portland Marathon.