skip to main |
skip to sidebar
I have plenty of them.
My favorites are craft related, though cookbooks, ticket stubs, and themed mixes from Heath are cherished and greatly appreciated.
You see, I have this little shelf in my craft room. It holds my most important collections.
I display items that inspire me to be creative. I started collecting vintage cameras years ago, and mom has helped me add to my collection. Old books, lots of fabric from my favorite place in Portland, colorful thread, postage stamps, and buttons, of course.
I'm pretty sure I was meant to live in another era. I love old things. Give a an Estate or yard sale and I'm one happy lady.
I've collected buttons for as long as I can remember. If I could keep only one collection, this would be the one for sure! I keep them in several mason jars, but I would love to display my favorites in some way.
So, now I need your help. Your input if you will.... got any ideas on how to make use of and display some of my treasured buttons?
A pillow, frame....
Help please! :)
Have a lovely weekend friend.
Heath and I went to the Japanese Garden last week. One day a year, they have free admission to the gardens! I normally costs $9.50 per person, so we jumped at the chance to go. Though crowded, rainy, and cold, we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly!
The Japanese Garden is located next to the International Rose Test Garden that I have mentioned before. I've been told it's a great place to go for the whole day, to meditate and appreciate natural beauty. Going on a free day, we experienced the beauty... not so much the peace and quiet though. :)
Enjoy my colorful leaf pictures! I'm pretty sure this might be my last post of them... they are dropping fast. Hope Tennessee still has some left for us!
Just so you know, it's supposed to rain the whole time we are in Nashville. We cannot the escape rainy, gloomy days! It hasn't been too bad, though I would appreciate one occasional sunny day! I've had a hard time taking pictures for my etsy shop because I've had no natural light. Oh well.
Texans, we'll be saying hello in less than one month. Tennesseans, we'll be there Monday! Have a lovely weekend, dear friend.
A dear friend recently encouraged me to blog more, so I will. But I warn you, this post is random and has no theme at all. Enjoy :)
1. Two weeks ago, Heath and I attended a marriage seminar in Seaside, OR. Overall, it was a great getaway and really encouraged us to keep growing and learning more about each other. We stayed for the whole six hour seminar (which was a bit lengthy if you ask me), and were then awarded with a free hotel stay by the beach. Not too shabby, eh? Anyway, there was a swing set on the beach...
2. Two weeks before that trip, we visited Seaside with Jared and Michaela. We played lots of games and enjoyed exploring the city. I really just wanted to share what Heath's hair looks like in 60mph winds...
Made him five inches taller I tell you! (He just got his haircut yesterday and looks very handsome. smile)
3. The birds were on attack at the beach. At first, they followed us and we thought it was funny... it wasn't funny after 10 minutes. Katie Buckel, I'm pretty sure you would have passed out.
4. I love Trader Joe's! We have one about 5 minutes from our house and I visit it often. It's not a place for staple grocery items, but I buy my meat and specialty things there for sure. They also have the most beautiful, afforable flowers! I purchased this lovely bouquet for $4.99 a few weeks ago.
5. I've had a good week in Etsy sales. One of my magazine inserts was featured on the Etsy email last Friday, and by Saturday, I sold all of the files I had! Wonderful, but I wish I had more in stock now. (If you have been hanging on to any magazine inserts, I'd love to take them off your hands!) Anyway, I am now the proud owner of lots of these beautiful rose buds... they are small and adorn the ear beautifully. These would be lovely stocking stuffers. :)
6. I like to go for walks around our apartment complex. After long days of job searching online and crafting in the living room, it's nice to enjoy a little sunshine when I can. This is what our road looked like two weeks ago. The cold front brought wind and ran, so the leaves now blanket the ground.
7. And this was the tree next to our door. I loved looking up and seeing this vibrant red. I'm already looking forward to seeing the colors change next year.
8. I am proud to say that I have completed all of our christmas shopping. (We are celebrating Christmas with my family during Thanksgiving this year and I am so excited to be in Franklin again!) I suggest that you start your Christmas shopping as well. Shoppers tend to be more anxious and crabby during the holiday season, so finish it before you're stressed like the rest of them!
9. I love Heath. He's my best friend, and I'm glad I can share this journey with him. It's been fun.
Okay, that's all I have. Hope to see you soon.
Well, we went on my new favorite hike on Monday. I'm pretty sure my favorite hike will change frequently, especially this time of year. I guess it's a good problem to have... too many hikes that you love! :)
We explored Silver Falls State Park (aka Trail of Ten Falls) with a new friend named Jerrod. This will definitely be on our list of places to take visitors! The park is usually busy, but since we went on Monday, and a fairly chilly afternoon, we basically had it all to ourselves. Wonderful!
Hike highlights: good company, we saw a crane, waterfalls, and mushrooms! This land is plentiful of thousands of mushrooms, big and small.
I loved how the yellow leaves framed each waterfall. Let's just say the photo opps were very plentiful as well.
Friends, meet our new friend Jerrod. He also attends Pacific University with Heath and is studying Counseling Psychology. He kindly invited us to go on this hike with him and briefly showed us around his hometown, Salem. He even treated us to dinner at a roadhouse... I had bbq! Thanks Jerrod. I look forward to more hikes and good meals!
You could walk under/behind most of the waterfalls on this hike.
Christmas card spoiler below... if you want to be surprised, stop reading now! Another nice thing about hiking with a friend is getting wonderful pictures like this...
What a great hike. Let's go back tomorrow. Sound good, Heath?
For the next ten days, the high is only 60 degrees. Hello Portland weather. I think I'm handling this change of weather better than my summer loving husband. :)
Hope you enjoy the rest of week!
Heath and I had a morning date today. We explored the Portland State Farmer's Market, which is the largest and most diversified one we've found so far. If nothing else, it's fun to walk around, take in all the wonderful smells of fresh food, and admire the lovely dahlias and sunflowers.
Though many say the prices at farmers markets are unreasonable, I think it's well worth it to set aside $10 a week to spend. Here's a couple reasons why:
1. You support local farmers.
2. You get to take home amazing food, fresh and free from pesticides, which makes the tastes remarkably intense and juicy!
3. By supporting local farmers, you are taking away the control of superstores (aka Walmart) and regaining control in your community and the quality of the foods that you eat.
We purchased a pint of cherry tomatoes, strawberries, and blueberries, and 5 large red potatoes. We spent $9. Farmers market strawberries literally taste like sugar! MMMmmm, such a treat.
Heath recently finished reading Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food", and I hope to finish it soon. It's a book full of useful and challenging information on what we eat here in America. We highly recommend it. The Oscar nominated documentary Food, Inc. made me realize that I need to start paying more attention to the foods I choose to eat.
No, we don't buy everything organic and I certainly don't think that's necessary. Just thought I'd share some thoughts. If you ever visit us, we will definitely be taking you to the farmers market! I will be buying some flowers for your room, and you will be sampling the cherries, strawberries, peaches, cheeses, breads, and kettle corn. :)
I cannot express to you how nice it is to live in a place with actual seasons! It's so wonderful. Living in West Texas was not terrible, but in the middle of fall I always found myself becoming home-sick. The leaves never changed colors... the weather stayed warm until December...
Well today, Heath and I got to experience Oregon fall weather at its finest. We drove out to Mt. Hood (which is about a hour and twenty minutes from our house) to explore the Salmon River area. Imagine the sound of the leaves ruffling softly as the wind blows, watching them fall slowly around you as you walk along the trail, and listening to the river move rapidly over the shallow rock beds. (that was my sorry attempt of describing the most beautiful, serene place in the world!)
This was probably one of my most favorite hikes we've taken thus far. It probably won me over due to the golden, yellow leaves, the perfect 70 degree weather, and the abundance of wildlife.
We weren't able to spot any Salmon... I think they're spawning. However, we did hang out with some monster Steelhead Trout. (see picture below) It's amazing how amusing these things can be. We watched them for at least thirty minutes. And I probably could have watched them longer :)
I realized that Oregon has giant redwoods too.
I love living here. The past few weeks have been a little difficult. With the job search, finding our new everyday routine, missing friends and family... but today was a great day. For Heath and I, and for me individually.
I think I'm a mountains kind of girl. You know, some people like the beach, some people like texas, but I like the mountains. And the rivers and waterfalls that come with them. :) Thanks for reading, and I promise to share more pictures and updates soon!
Happy Weekend
I married my best friend. (Sorry, this post is a little late!)
August eighth was a wonderful day, and I'm happy to say that I remember much of our wedding day. Thanks to my mom, Julie, maid of honor (Katie B), and lots of other family and friends, the day went smoothly. :) I often think back to walking down the aisle with my dad by my side, seeing Heath's face the for the first time that day, looking out into the crowd of beautiful, smiling faces during our ceremony, and singing "Be Thou My Vision" together. These are just a few of my favorite moments, and I will forever cherish them.
In establishing our anniversary tradition, Heath and I decided to do several things. First, we decided to watch our wedding video. (This was kind of a no-brainer.) While watching the video, we realized again how meaningful our ceremony was to us. Our minister, Jason Anderson, was Heath's youth minister for several years; though I have only known Jason and his sweet family for a year and a half, he words made the ceremony so personal and sentimental to us both. Thank you, Jason. You did a wonderful job. :)
Now comes the second tradition... celebrate by eating a fancy meal. The picture below was taken on our honeymoon, in Riviera Maya, while sharing our lovely "Special Honeymooners Dinner". So, we would really like to celebrate every Anniversary dinner at that same table, in that same location, even eating the same food. But alas, we are young and a bit on the poor side, so we cannot. smile
Fast forward.... this picture was taken at Andina, one of Portland's finest Peruvian restaurants. The food was incredible and very adventurous for us! We had "tapas" which is basically ordering 4-6 appetizers for your table and making that your meal. We tried cheeses from around the world, filet with a quail egg on top (no, we weren't that adventurous...), and two different types of fish that were to die for. I'm salivating as I type. Heath and I had so much fun trying these new things together. At the end of our meal, we had the restaurant to ourselves (our reservations weren't until (9:30p.m.) and our waiter treated us to free dessert! It's that sweet. Apparently it was mousse and chocolate of some sort imported from the Amazon. delicious!
Please note that I'm wearing the same black dress. Hope I can wear it for a few more years! :)
Our third tradition is eating asweet treat. Yes, I know the tradition is to eat your wedding cake topper on your one year anniversary. Heath and I had our gone about a month after the wedding. We cheated a little bit, but it was sooooo good. So instead of the cake topper, we visited a local cupcake shop for our sweet treats. If you are in downtown Portland, visit Saint Cupcake. We recommend the coconut cupcake with cream cheese icing. yum!
Our last tradition is to go on a vacation. This is my personal favorite. It doesn't have to be to somewhere faraway and fancy, just someplace new. Our adventure to Portland has brought so much growth to our relationship. I love traveling and exploring with Heath; I'm so glad I married my best friend. :)
So, to celebrate our one year, we headed to Oceanside, Oregon. We rented a house overlooking the coast, and even saw whales while eating dinner out on our balcony! It was beautiful.
The Oregon coast is much different than any other beach I've ever been to. The water is much too cold to play in, and it seems that small rocks take the place of sand. We had fun walking though, and just enjoyed the peaceful ocean sounds and breeze. I also took about 1,000 pictures... I'm trying to put together a "stop-motion" video of our time here in Portland. It's a bit of an undertaking, but I'm excited to put all the pictures together.... check back in 2 years for the final product.
All in all, our time in Oceanside was a perfect getaway for Heath and I. It provided time to grow and learn more about each other. I'm thankful for this past year, and everything we have learned. I'm excited for the years to come.
With one year down, does this mean we are no longer honeymooners? :)
Hello all. It's been a while! This past week has been fairly busy, and I have been a bit exhausted. I think it's somewhat due to our heat-wave here.... yesterday, we hit a high of 86! I know, I know. Tennessee and Texas have been close to 100 lately, but I'm to (and very much prefer) the cooler weather. My "perfect" temperature is 68-75. :)
Anyhow, I am now faced with the past 15 days of activities, and I have no idea how to share it all with you. So, I'll just choose my favorites.
First up... We conquered the Lookout Mountain hike! (Remember that one time we failed miserably on our first hike? Well, we tried the hike again; only this time, we drove our car up the majority of the mountain, and only had to scale 1500 feet. It was great!) Along our hike, we played in the snow...
On the summit, we could see 7 mountain ranges. Adams, Rainer, St. Helens, Jefferson, Three Sisters, Diamond Peak, and Mt. Hood, which was only 7 miles from us.
And, Heath stood somewhere where I will never stand... This terrified me, it made for a good picture though.
After this hike, we headed ten miles down the road to Tamanawas Falls. This has been my favorite thing so far! Hiking next to the spring provided a cool, refreshing walk, and the falls turned out to be sooo much better than expected.
(I'm glad my camera has a self-timer.) I also came across the largest dandelion ever! It made me happy.
On wednesday, our family came in for a visit! It was wonderful. I think Heath had been anticipating their arrival for weeks. :) We went to the Saturday Market, walked around downtown, ate from a food cart, visited the local farmers markets, and shared our church with them. It sure felt nice to share our home with family.
We also visited the Washington Park Rose Garden, of course!
And we finally visited Canon Beach! As you can tell from my over-exposed picture, it was very sunny thankfully.... recently, the coast has had temperatures in the low 60s, so we went on a great day.
We've visited several farmers markets in the last month, and I have grown increasingly anxious to buy a bouquet of flowers. Well, Saturday was my lucky day! While visiting PSU's market, I purchased these beauties. Aren't they lovely?
Last but not least, I wanted to add a sneak peak of our apartment. This is my favorite wall, found right above my craft/sewing desk. I'll try to post the rest of the apartment soon.
Though I do not have a picture to show for it, I watched a top-notch 80's movie on top of the Hotel Delux in downtown! Had a lot of fun with new girlfriends who have been so welcoming and nice to us. It was wonderful.
Sorry for the long post! Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of posting weekly...
Hope you have a lovely, relaxing weekend
