Places to Eat in Portland: LARDO and RubyJewel Scoops

 

This weekend we had family in town for Jared's white coat ceremony.  My baby brother is a voracious reader who insisted that his visit include a trip to Powell's City of Books. 

 

(Of the five people who visited us this week, every single one brought at least one book with them.  And almost all of them spent time reading during their visit.)

 

We spent a good while toodling around Powell's.  I hung out with my mom in the travel section, and then she followed me to the mystery shelves.  We found Max near the Civil War section, while Jared was busy giving himself the creeps with Jack the Ripper.  My dad was upstairs in the Pearl Room looking at art books.

 

Buying books makes me hungry, so instead of driving home to make dinner, we decided to look for food en route to the car.  We walked past LARDO, which Jared yelped for us.  It had good reviews, so we decided to check it out.

 

 

For you Paleo types, they will make any sandwich into a salad for you.  The bread's awesome here, but it's always nice to have options.

 

Jared ordered the Double Burger, and I got the PBLT (Pork Belly Lettuce and heirloom Tomato). 

 

 

We also got an order of Dirty Fries to share with my family:

 

 

The fries were perfectly done, with pepperoncini slices and bits of pork.

 

Max got the Sausage, Egg, and Cheese...messy, but good.

 

 

The service and atmosphere were both great, and the food was delicious! 

 

 

While eating outside, we looked across the street and saw ice cream...which of course we needed after a serious lunch like that.

 

 

 

RubyJewel Scoops has several delicious flavors available: some traditional, like Double Chocolate, and some a little different, like Roasted Beet with Mascarpone.  We tried the beet and it was surprisingly good.

 

 

I ended up with Blueberry Marzipan, which was sweet without being overpowering.  The blueberry flavor really came through and the texture was creamy.

 

 

My favorite flavor was probably Jared's Brown Butter Bourbon Pecan, but all of us were really impressed with our scoops.  They offered kids' sizes, which I liked (mine above is a kid's scoop).  Their "single scoop" is actually two kid-sized scoops!

 

If you are in Portland near Burnside and Powell's, be sure you check out LARDO and RubyJewel!

Wonder Women Wednesday: Marianne

I wanted to do a new series of posts dedicated to the women who inspire me...and figured there was no better place to start than with the gal who birthed me!

 

Marianne: Courage

 

My mom is not the fastest or the strongest at our box.  But I kinda think she's the bravest. 

 

She keeps coming despite box jumps and the risk of the occasional barbell to the face.  She always says, "You know how you're supposed to do one thing a day that scares you?  Well, when I come to CrossFit, I do." 

 

Our coaches are always bragging about her form and proprioception.  Her fitness has improved significantly and she's an inspiration to a lot of the younger athletes around.  I'm proud to have her as a workout buddy.

 

 

You tell me: Who's your inspiration this week?

Christmas Week 2012

Merry Christmas!  What a whirlwind of a week!

Friday was my first trip back to the box after over a week off.  Brutal WOD to come back to...the 12 Days of Christmas!

I RX'ed (except the handstand pushups, which I did to 2 #15 plates) but man I thought I was gonna die.  I spent probably half the WOD standing around and breathing hard and sweating.  I got so mad during the wall balls (I kept missing reps) that I kicked the ball.  That'll show it.

Jess B. was my hero!  She was my WOD buddy and kept encouraging me to keep pushing when it got tough.  Love working out with this chick.

 

Yeah, 37:21.  Yikes.  Honestly, I could have done a lot better.  My mental game sucked on this one.  I kept telling myself I couldn't do it and that it was too hard...not helpful.  Also Jared said I need to work on the catch and release for my wall balls - it should help me if I can improve consistency.

Saturday morning I hit up the Olympic lifting class with my fave, Coach Jared.  Every time I go to this class I feel like I learn a TON!  It's usually a very small class and we get extra time to go over technique for our lifts.  So much fun.  For the WOD, my mental game was way better!  Every time I had to rest, I gave myself a count of 8 and got right back into it.  I was so proud of myself!

Sunday we did parking team at church, and then had Jared's sister and her husband over for lunch...and then saw the Hobbit with them!  So fun - although we were up front and my eyes hurt and that night I dreamed I was going blind.

Monday (Christmas Eve) Jared had to work at 6, so we got up at 4:30 like a typical Monday.  I went and did my Wendler W1 lifts.  I decided to do another cycle of dumbbell rows and dumbbell overhead presses.  They're not as glamorous as deadlifts and backsquats, but I've seen a lot of payoff in how they affect my pullups, lifts, and handstand pushups, so I decided to keep at it.

I was only planning to lift on Monday, but Sunday evening Jess texted me to ask if I was gonna WOD on Christmas Eve...so I said I'd hit the 9:45 class with her.  The perk of lifting at 6 is you can go home, do chores, and wrap presents before coming back for CrossFit!
 

 

The WOD was "Frandy" - a mix of Fran and Cindy. 

There were a ton of people at the class, my forearms were bugging me a little, and I didn't want to have to lose my cute hat to WOD...so I scooted into the court across the hall and subbed out the thrusters for wall balls (to work on my catch and release) and the pullups for handstand pushups to plates.  Jess and I both said we'd shoot for 10 rounds in the 20 minute time cap.

It was harder than I expected to do the regular pushups - Jared explained that it was because I was doing 3 pushing movements in a row.  But I finally got the kip on my handstand pushups!  I was so excited!  Plus I tied with Jess for 9 rounds and 7 reps.

Poor Jared ripped up his hand on his WOD...bar muscle-ups on a textured bar = no bueno.

But we were both still glad to have started out the day at the gym.  Go Team Matson!

We showered at home and loaded up the sleigh to head to Jared's mom's for Christmas Eve!  Jared and Michelle made some incredible food, including butternut squash soup and cherry vanilla rum bread pudding.

 

 

 

We opened presents, played games, and later had a gift exchange with some of the rest of the family.  It was a really fun and relaxing day!

Christmas was spent at my folks.  McDevitt Christmas requires a breakfast of sticky buns and pineapple.

 

 

 

After stuffing ourselves silly, we headed over to open presents.  My mom and dad got each other snowshoes!

My mom and I took a walk in the afternoon, and we all caught some of the Heat/Thunder game.  More good food was followed by a hilarious family screening of Despicable Me, complete with Jared's Tom and Jerry drinks.

Wednesday was goal time for me.  I only have a few days left to finish my "end of 2012 goals", so I needed to get in the box and get after it!  I had "open gym" all to myself, and after warming up and doing 15 minutes of mobility, I went to work on my full range of motion handstand pushup! 

I started with some box pushups to get warmed up, and then went for gold.  It didn't go so well.

I shook out, grabbed a #15 plate and did one to the plate.  It went great, so I figured I could try again.

Success!  I was SO proud and excited!  Not only will kipping help me go faster, but now I can start RXing more workouts - so many times I was RXing everything except the handstand pushups.  Watch out, WODs!

After one success I was ready to beat another goal: a sub-10 minute "Diane" with the handstand pushups to one #15 plate.

It was ugly.  The last two times I've done Diane, I used #135.  For some reason, I thought #135 was the RX weight, but apparently the girls RX weight is actually #155.  I was expecting to blow through the deadlifts and slow down on the handstand pushups, but that was not the case.  I linked the first 10 deadlifts but went to fewer and fewer reps at a time.  My form also wasn't good (my back is so sore today) and then the handstand pushups were killer.  By 9:59, I had done 21 deadlifts, 21 handstand pushups, and 14 deadlifts.  I was only about two thirds done with the WOD.

The good news is that even though I didn't reach that particular goal, I can tell I've REALLY improved.  I'm keeping this goal on my list for the next quarter.  And my folks got me the CrossFit Nanos for Christmas, so this coming year I know I'm really gonna tear it up at the box!


You tell me: How was your Christmas/Hanukkah/Etc.?  Any year-end goals you're squeezing in?  Eat anything really killer?

Advent Mobility: Day 24 - Last Day!

Happy Christmas Eve!  And happy end of the #AdventMobilityChallenge!

Team Matson Christmas Season 2012!

Everyone has done really great work this month.  It's so encouraging to hear athletes tell me they are working more on their range of motion and getting those messed up tissues worked on!

For today, just spend 15 minutes doing your favorite (or least favorite) mobility from the month.  If you still want something new, Mobility WOD is my go-to resource. 

Jared and I will be spending the day celebrating with his family...and then tomorrow we hit up my fam for craziness and pecan sticky buns. 

Have a very Merry Christmas and I'll post a winner of the challenge soon.

Post your time to the comments.  And try to avoid the malls today - yikes!

Happy Birthday/Advent Mobility: Day 21

Happy birthday to my daddy!

This is from May 2011 -
we need an updated photo of us!

He is an incredible father, husband, teacher, and artist.  He plays a mean game of racquetball and is one of the funniest people I've ever met.  He always took me on "dates" when I was a tyke and read aloud to me and brought me to the office and taught me how to play pool and prayed for me and did the edits for my papers in school and made any visual aid projects look incredible.  Basically, he's the coolest and I'm so glad to have him around!

In his honor, today we'll focus on our backs!  He's had some back pain in the past, and most of us suffer from some level of back pain as well.  Here's a link to some Mobility WOD work for you.

Anyone try that external shoulder rotation?  I realized my external mobility on my left side in particular is almost nil.  Yikes!  That's the good thing about doing all this stuff...you find problems that you can work on.  If I'd never done the mobility WOD for it, I wouldn't know!  I've had pain from time to time in my left shoulder/upper back/neck area...wonder if this is related?

Hope you are enjoying the challenge!  It has been a really good thing for me - no way would I have been so consistent on my own.

Post your time to the comments.  And feel free to send my dad birthday gifts.  He likes coffee and excellent murder mysteries.

Pancakes and a Birthday WOD

Hello and Happy Monday!  (Is there such a thing?)

Hope you all had an amazing weekend.  Mine was a whole lot of wonderful - I only regret how short it seemed!  I still managed to squeeze a lot in, though.

Friday:

I was featured as a guest blogger on Carrots 'N' Cake!  Tina was over in my neck of the woods this weekend and graciously invited me to do a guest post.  I've been a Carrots 'N' Cake fan for a long time and was stoked!

I Hero WODed with my mom:

Thrusters are so not my favorite...but I managed #85 and RX'ed the Hero WOD.  I love all the encouragement at our box - as usual, everyone was cheering me on to finish strong!

I made dinner.  Jared threw out his back this week and so I said I could make dinner if he told me what to do.

Jared: "Be sure to put oil in the baking dish."
Me: "Okay."  Later: "Should I put oil in this?"
Jared: "Um, yeah.  I already said that."
Me: "No, you said put FOIL in."

Marriage and communication - hard stuff, folks.

I ate dark chocolate.  Actually I've had excellent chocolate pretty much every day this week.  A friend treated me to a truffle after our lunch date and then Jared bought me a bunch of truffles as an early birthday gift.

Cherry something truffles - dang they were good. 
And they have sparkles!!!

Bacon maple truffles

Grand Marnier truffles

Saturday:

I got up early for our Olympic lifting/Girl WOD class.  It was a special class because the "Girl" WOD was a specially designed birthday WOD to honor one of our athletes!

Lorie in beast mode

Lorie is one of the regulars at our box - she gives each WOD her all, and she's super fun and encouraging to all  the other athletes!  It was her 46th birthday, and so we WODed accordingly.

It was pretty brutal - even the first round killed me!  But it was really fun.  I also PR'ed my squat clean! 

Lorie always wears awesome socks to class, so I pulled on some crazy socks for the WOD to get in the Lorie spirit! 

8am class sweaty but proud - Lorie's in the red

I ate pancakes.  Jared made two different kinds of pancakes from Runner's World - Aztec Warrior (spicy chocolate) and Fig Pear Walnut.  Grocery store was out of figs so we did ginger instead!

Sunday:

I ate more pancakes while enjoying brunch with some good friends.  Eating healthy is important for sure...and so is a good balance and enjoying life!  We also broke a baking dish.  Oops.

You tell me: How was your weekend?  Do you love chocolate and pancakes?  Did you break anything?