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.]

And More to Come

While I didn't take these pictures today, I did manage to finally get them scanned into the computer this afternoon.

They remind me so much of Texas. Just look at that grass-less yard! But, because I'm challenging myself to think positively about this place in my remaining time (and it's refreshingly not that hard), I want to highlight more than the brown color of the ground.

First of all, these pictures are polaroids, which automatically earn some affection in my heart, and they were taken in this lovely family's backyard. I was experimenting with polaroid art (in this case, simply drawing on top of the film as it developed), and my uncle helped in the exploration as my mom watched, on one of her rare visits to Texas. The collaborative effort, bright colors, and remembrance of children at play make these photographs worth posting here tonight as I sit in a large house under and even larger star-sprinkled Texas sky.

I will hold fast to the memories I've formed in this state.

Family Time

With my family spread around the country (and some around the globe), it's always special when I get to spend time with relatives.

It just so happens that the family I have in Texas is incredibly photogenic, outdoorsy, and entertaining...







And that's just my little cousins.

My aunt and uncle have a wonderful laid back hospitality and appreciation of good food. Evidence of our delicious meals is lacking here, but gyros, an apple German pancake, and sourdough waffles were all on the menu. Not to mention the delicious home-brewed beer that went with our Saturday night homemade pizza dinner.

Besides the mandatory bread-making time my uncle and I spent together, we also got to bottle some delicious raspberry mead and taste-test a prickly pear variety he had been storing in his bedroom closet until we got the acidly just right.

Here are the bottles after a sanitizing bath of their own.