Simplified Summer Notations

When life gets busy this blog gets quiet, and while that's exactly the opposite of how I like things to go, it happens.

Somehow my camera activity quieted down this summer, too. It was a fun whirlwind, though, so I just spent some time going through my humble selection of shots from the summer to share with you.

I hope you enjoy the still images captured in often activity-filled moments. That's what I just love about photography. I can be blinking my eyes awake as I walk through the living room in the morning and see the light fall just right across a chair. It will cause me to stop and admire and crop in close before rushing into a day. It's the same thing with a dinner eaten alone on a wide white table. The prettiness of simple, seemingly mundane things.

I don't know how I'd make it through life's busyness without these mentally recorded or shutter-captured notations, and my soul gets extra hungry when I go too long without stopping for them.



In May my sister and I traveled down to Oregon to spend time with good friends, and spent time in the gorgeous wine country.



I finally made it to Honore in Ballard one Sunday morning in June. The next day I was ready to go back.



Friends and I began a book club with the book The Help, so I made my first caramel cake based on this recipe I've been wanting to try for years.



A trip to Texas happily coincided with getting to celebrate a dear friend's birthday there together. We took a well air-conditioned drive from Dallas to San Antonio and stopped at FoodHeads in Austin for a perfect birthday lunch.



July in San Antonio, Texas, was oh so hot but oh so worth it, with the priceless celebration of the marriage of two college friends.



I ended my season of working at our local artisan cheese shop, and this was the last bunch of flowers I got from the shop's neighbor and friend...a surplus bouquet from a Steven Moore wedding. I remember the secretly enjoyed pleasure of quietly walking through Fairhaven that Sunday evening with my treasures: a baguette under one arm and these with a bunch of pink peonies cradled in another.



A favorite recipe from the summer, but one that I'm not sure how to replicate: cornmeal, coconut milk, plum cake. I'll give it another shot and share the recipe if I'm happy with it.



These little legs belong to a nephew of mine. He and his not-much-bigger brother and parents visited Washington and brightened our days throughout their time here.



My little sister (and one of my best friends) turned another year older, so I made her a gluten-free crepe cake.



September brought the annual Greek festival hosted practically in our front yard, which meant four days of white tent peaks filling the view out our windows and music, gyros, and friends flowing in and out of our house.

[The photo at the top is of the front of our house with our rhododendrons in vibrant bloom.]