{ Oh hello, Autumn! }

{ Lots of Linky Love }

Hey peeps!

We don't have internet at home right now....it's part of the new-office changaroo, and should be fixed in the next few days...but I've managed to find all sorts of great nooks and crannies on the interweb that are dee-lightful.

Like this post from Young House Love that has me itching to re-organize our closet and get rid of a LOT of my clothes that I almost never wear. Though I know I can't pare down my earring collection like she has!

I think that I am going to be forever grateful to find this post about favorite paint colors over at Holly Mathis Interiors: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four. I'm heading to Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore after work today to get more paint chips. Fear not, dear husband, I am learning that accent colors are NOT wall colors. No more apple green walls. I'm very happy with how our home looks, but, well...if we were gonna do it over again, I wouldn't paint our living and dining rooms light green.

Another delight: this gorgeous nursery.

Notice the sidebar full of links to tutorials: how-to-make-beautiful-things, with lots of photos! I'm loving this wreath, and--these fabric flowers!!! Someone please tell my ovaries to stop emitting this continuous high-pitched sqealing noise! I'd like five girl babies right now so I can dress them in hats, headbands, sweaters, and dresses decorated with handmade fabric flowers, please and thankyouverymuch. Mercy, the cuteness!! Makes me think of my chubby new loves, Audie and Lottie, whose names are actually Audrey and Charlotte--two of my cousins had babies three days apart in March, and I got to meet them for the first time last month when we visited my family in Idaho. Audie and Lottie would rock the fabric flowers. Their mommies are going to hate me for calling them Audie and Lottie. Especially Lottie's mommy. {Love you, Julie!}

Maybe it's the autumnal quality in the air: A sort of extra-golden tint in the sunlight, a hint of orange leaves in the scent of the wind. Maybe it's the rain and the fact that I had to turn the heater on the other night and all the home decor blogs I've been consuming. Whatever it is, I am in a fiercely home-making phase. Can I start working part-time, in order to dedicate those other 20 hours per week to crafting and creating and painting?

Or at least be a mommy like this lady someday?

A crafty do-it-yourself-er like her?

I feel so blessed to be able to learn from read these women, to garner inspiration from their lives and creativity and to apply what I learn to hopefully make my home and life more beautiful. Seriously, what did people do before the internet?!

I'm excited to show you allllll about our camping trip last month, and then our trip to Idaho. So many beautiful people and places to blog about!

{ Bits and Pieces }

1. 2.3.
4.

1. Can you see them? My long-awaited dahlia buds?

2. I'm so impatient for them to bloom! I love dahlias; these are of the dinnerplate variety, and the plants grew much bigger than I expected. I've forgotten what color they're supposed to be...
3. It's not every day that you glimpse a Boeing DreamLifter parked by the side of the road as you're stopped at a red light on your way to work, is it?

4. In the midst of tearing apart, packing up, and moving his office from our second bedroom to an office space, Mike took a call from a client.

P.S. We'll be working on this office move for most of the rest of the weekend...wish us luck!

{ I am... }

...excited about helping Mike move into his new office space this weekend!
...itching to deep clean, sort, and Goodwill my way through our home. AGAIN. I did this in the spring, after we painted. I guess when you live in a condo, all of your stuff is essentially accessible and visible, so the need to purge and organize is more frequent. I guess. I'm just making things up here, really.
...totally in love with The Pioneer Woman, especially her cooking blog. I am fascinated by her, and she makes me laugh big time. If you grew up on a farm, or if you didn't grow up on a farm, or if you haven't grown up yet, her writing is delicious.
...still amazed that I'm kind of a foodie. I readily admit that I DID. NOT. COOK. in my pre-Mike days. That man has transformed me culinarily.
...going to make a confession: I've become a decorating/design junkie, too. A designie? A decorunkie? Is that the term? I read home decorating blogs voraciously. I'm planning to make drop cloth drapes. I drool over Roman shades. I have all 289 Martha Stewart Paint sample chips. I really need to add some of my new favorites to my blogroll...
...totally stalking The Nester. I drink up her posts like they're lemonade.
...excited to celebrate a dear friend-and-former-roommate's birthday tomorrow night at Macaroni Grill.
...somewhat dubious about what Husband and I will find when we review our budget and spending for the month of August. I'm afraid. Actually, I'm very, very afraid. Because I'm not a beans-and-rice foodie. Any suggestions on how to gussy up beans and rice?
...positively elated over the antique jars I found at my parents' place last weekend! Some of them are even green glass!
...pretty much always using most of my brainspace 24/7 these days to figure out how I'm going to decorate using aforementioned antique jars, and rejoicing that Mom said I could have them!
...feeling guilty that I don't blog more often. I think that somewhere deep down, my subconscious thinks the number of photos I take should directly impact the number of blog posts I write. That part of my subconscious needs a talking-to.
...pondering my blogging "voice." Feeling a gut-deep need to be sure that what I say, how I portray myself and my life, and who I am in this space are really truly me. Not a style. A passing fad. An infatuation. A person I want to believe I am. Does that make any sense?
...ruminating busily on what sorts of gifts I want to make for the January babies. I feel rather outnumbered by the procreating folks lately: Among my not-too-extensive network of friends and acquaintances, there has been a baby in August, and will be one baby each month in September, October, and November, followed by two in January. Goodness, people!
...wishing the hubs didn't feel sick. :-( And that he didn't have to work so long, and so hard, and that I could somehow help make his workload less.
...giddy over the prospect of an Ikea trip this weekend, since the hubs' new office and his newly-downsized home workspace will need some new furnishings and supplies.
...sorta wishing someone would find the perfect kitchen and hallway paint colors for me.
...so, so glad for a three-day weekend!

{ Our First Anniversary }

My dear husband planned a super-special-surprise trip to Lopez Island for our first wedding anniversary in July.

We started with breakfast at the Maltby Cafe, the same place we went for breakfast the day Mike asked me to marry him. It was yum-ola. I'm pretty sure if I ate everything on my plate anytime I go there, I'd die of happiness and gluttony.

We didn't know that Friday ferries are HIGH TRAFFIC during the summer; as a result, we didn't make it on the 2:30 p.m. ferry and instead had to wait in line, in the parking lot, for the 6:30 ferry...which was more than an hour late. BUT we got to ride straight into the sunset on a ferry!!! How cool is that? Wending our way through the islands toward the sunset....it was breathtaking.

This is the Edenwild Inn, our home away from home. I cannot say enough about the beauty of the inn and the grounds, the hospitality of the innkeepers, and the "ohmygoodness this is one of the best breakfasts ever!" all-you-can-eat buffet each morning. Mike hit it outta the park with this B&B.



Lopez Island is tiny, about 30 square miles and with a population of just over 2,000 people in the year 2000. Edenwild is in teeny tiny Lopez Village, the only "town," and a convenient base from which to explore.







The inn has complimentary bicycles for guests to use, so the first morning Mike and I ventured out on wheels. I felt like a little kid again! We were following a road we'd never been on before, with a lake on one side, ocean on the other, and fog blowing in from the sea.








Later we went on an exploratory auto tour of the island. This is Center Church, located {conveniently} near the center of the island. Isn't it beautiful? We spent a lot of time poking around the cemetery, reading the names of the pioneers who settled here in the 1800's. Can you imagine that? Not just coming west on the Oregon Trail from the flat reaches of the Midwest--coming so far west you pass the edge of the continent and settle on an island in the Puget Sound?! Those were some brave ladies!

One phrase I kept saying over and over all weekend was, "I feel like Anne of Green Gables!" Lopez is a fairly flat island: miles of gently rolling farmland, big old houses, wooded hills and valleys, and around every corner, a glimpse of the sea. Oh my. It was incredibly beautiful!

The photo above is one of my favorite memories of the weekend: Driving alongside a field, we could see and hear the farmer cutting hay. The pasture dipped down toward the water, and though the day was brilliant with sunlight, fog was rolling in from the Sound. The tractor wove in and out of sunlight and ocean-scented fog. Something in me hearkens so strongly to the juxtaposition of farm and sea, working the land and being surrounded by water. I screeched at Mike to stop, and we sat in the middle of the road for a few minutes while I took pictures and reveled in the beauty of it all.

More fog sweeping eastward over the island.

This was my view during dinner on the veranda at the Love Dog Cafe in Lopez Village, mere steps from Edenwild. The clang of buoys, the salty breeze, the riotous glory of roses at my elbow, a delicious meal, my handsome husband--what more could a girl want?

I love seeing that ring on his finger.


Sunday morning, our actual anniversary, we moseyed all over the island. First stop: Shark Reef. No sharks were spotted, but aren't these rock formations cool? Notice the huge seaweed growths in the water--we saw huge swaths of this seaweed all over! And lots of sea lions, or seals, whichever they are. I can't remember.

Next stop: Iceberg Point, the southernmost tip of the island. It's quite a hike to get there, but oh, so worth it!


It was so bright, we could barely see to the mainland. I caught a glimpse of the Olympic Mountains, waaaaay over on the peninsula!

Mike had secretly made dinner reservations at the Bay Cafe. Oh. My. Stars. No wonder it's been voted one of the best places in the northwest to kiss. No wonder it has been featured in all kinds of magazines. Everything is superb: The service, the food, the location, the views {it's literally a few feet from the waterfront!}. It was such a lovely experience. Thank you, my love, for being so thoughtful and kind and romantic. I love you!

The wine needs a little explaining: At a wine tasting before we were engaged, Mike and I discovered a vintner we both really liked: Root 1. The day he proposed, Mike served a Root 1 chardonnay at our beach picnic. That evening, I gave him a Root 1 merlot. Fast-forward to this weekend on Lopez. Somehow, Mike snuck that merlot {we'd been saving it "for a special occasion"} along without my knowledge, got it to our waiter, and convinced me that he'd put in our wine order when he stepped out to use the restroom. Imagine my surprise when the waiter came out with a very familiar bottle of Root 1 merlot!


Gelato, you are the perfect ending to a perfect day.

Unfortunately, as we were waiting for the ferry to go back home later that evening, one of the lenses in Mike's sunglasses committed suicide.

Another unspeakably precious treat: A second sunset ferry ride! Would you believe that, over the course of one weekend trip, I took 367 photos, and the camera battery died on the ferry ride home? God has a sense of humor!

{ Lovelies }

These hydrangeas make me so happy, perched brightly about our home, giving an air of whimsy and joy and beauty.

{ He knows my heart }

thank you Jesus
for fog blowing through the parking lot

it's supposed to be summertime
but i'm wearing a sweater
as i head to work
wishing i were still in bed
wishing at least for sunshine
to brighten the commute

i step outside
and i smell it:
the sea!
salty water
seaweed
i even hear a gull in the distance

my whining
grumpy
tired
self-focused heart
is immediately
overwhelmed with gratitude
for this beauty

my Lord knows me
He made my heart
He knows i love oceans
and beaches

He wrapped my home in
ocean-scented fog
a good morning present
for an undeserving daughter
who complained in her heart
about the fog, not knowing
it was a gift for her from Jesus!

You love me, Jesus
even when the heart
that You fashioned to love You
grumbles about the gifts
You give me

I am undeserving of Your love