Sellwood Flower Co. Tour

Boy, do I have a treat for you today! There's a fairly new flower shop in my neighborhood and I went over on a rare, non-rainy, day to snap a few photos for you. Introducing Sellwood Flower Co.! "We love flowers. And we love people who love flowers." Umm, sign me up.

Owner LauraLee has created a truly darling, inviting space for your floral and garden needs. You will feel like you've stepped into another world when you step into her world. Check out the delivery car! Perfection and totally on brand too.

Right now, the Sellwood Flower Co. website says poppies, anemones and peonies are in! Guess where I'll be visiting soon! Hopefully you're following me on Instagram so you'll see a sneak peek when I pop in.

Having fresh flowers is a wonderful way to treat yourself, cheer yourself up or celebrate something. Having a photo of beautiful flowers is the next best thing and it lasts forever (well, at least 100 years with my lab).

Fall in Portland

I went on a photo walk in the John's Landing neighborhood of Portland this fall, I drive through there daily on the way to/from my home and my son's school. The variety of colors along the way is remarkable.

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A Secret Hideaway

“Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world," he said wisely one day, "but people don't know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.”

― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

I woke up this morning feeling achey, which is not uncommon for me sadly, but it is a discouraging way to start my day. One of my best forms of medicine is going on a short walk with my camera in search of the magic of the ordinary (my preferred phrase) or even in search of a trip down memory lane. The world shows up with this magic every day, like right around the corner from home next to a utility pole.Do you see? I am telling you with this photograph that nice things are going to happen.

That's worth at least 1,000 words.

Springtime with Jess: White Rhododendrons

My husband had to work all weekend and then flew out at 6 a.m. for a two-day business trip; we hosted a sleepover playdate for the Noodle (and the term "sleepover" is always used loosely, am I right?); I tried a new-to-me exercise class on Saturday and can hardly walk; traffic was horrible on the way into school this morning. Ahh, Mondays. Gotta love 'em. I drove straight up into the hills after I made it to school and went on a photo walk hobble. I needed the breath of fresh air and now I want to pass it on to you. I truly felt like Alice in Wonderland standing under this giant white rhododendron with my camera, as if I swallowed the Drinking Potion which shrank me. I think I can even still faintly taste the "cherry tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast." (Lewis Carroll)

Soft Sunlight

When the city of Portland is blooming the way it is right now, it’s visually overwhelming at times for me. I am hard wired to notice details anyway, and after a long winter, the abundance of colors and textures in spring is truly uplifting. I feel almost like a toddler as I move through my days: I am easily distracted and it takes me quite awhile to move from point A to point B. Every petal, every stem, every tiny bud demands my attention. I have been diligently watching the dogwood trees in my neighborhood, and my patience has been duly awarded! With my camera in hand, and my dog at my feet, I clicked away giddily.

P.S. I'm sharing Portland during spring daily on Instagram with the hashtag #springtimewithjess.

Cherry Tree Blossoms

Have you ever been to Portland in the spring time? The cherry tree blossoms all over the city create a "pink snow" and it never ceases to delight, amaze and distract me.

I encourage you to pin away and share the joy of spring with everyone you know.

Pinterest + Map Pins + My New Hometown

Recently, I was invited by Pinterest to create a new board about my hometown and try out their new map pins. I'm truly enjoying pinning all the places I have discovered since moving to my new hometown of Portland 2+ years ago!

A big fun thank you to Pinterest for including my Scene Around Portland board in their email newsletter this morning and hello to all my new followers! I'm looking forward to pinning with you all!

Handmade NW Holiday Bazaar at OHSU

I'm quite excited to share that I will be doing my first art fair in nearly two years!

For Portland friends and fans, I would love to see you at the Handmade NW Holiday Bazaar!

I am planning a beautiful, immersive booth experience with a mix of old favorites, new mediums and new products.

Scene Around Home: Garden Roses

I am not a gifted gardener, and our rental home has a rather lush, old yard that we let grow wild and crazy. Living in the Pacific Northwest, it's not hard to do. Since we moved in almost two years ago, we have had a handful of volunteer trees pop up in various parts of the yard. Yes, trees. We have lilacs, blackberries, rhododendrons, ferns galore and of course, being Portland, there are roses. Two of the four roses are blooming now, here are quick iPhone snaps of the pastel pink and pale yellow roses from my garden.

I don't know what variety these roses are being the accidental gardener that I am. Now, my square foot garden, aka my mini-urban farm, is not accidental. I have my strawberries in and plan to put in my kale and lettuce soon. Now you may think I'm a little behind planting lettuce in mid-May, but actually I am way ahead of schedule compared to last year when I planted everything in July.

If you know what my roses are, please tell me in the comments. I would also love to know what is growing in your garden and what if any veggies you are growing.

Peony Season

Peonies are appearing in Portland and I couldn't be more excited. On Friday, I bought these three pink peonies as a gift for my mother-in-law who was flying in late that night.

Aren't they delicious? I have one peony bush in my yard and there are about 8 buds this year. Last year there were only three. I can't wait to photograph them!

Happy Monday!

No Limits

This is my favorite photo that I took this week. It's a sign on the side of a building over on NE Alberta Street in Portland.

It commands you to stop and think, doesn't it? I've been thinking about what sorts of limits I have been putting on myself. I've been limiting the amount of rest and downtime I'm allowing myself to have. I have also been limiting the amount of Kettle chips I want to have. I'm trying to set myself free of limiting thoughts about my business.

What sorts of limits are you putting on yourself?

Whoa, Where Did I Go?

Okay so relocating is quite the time-consuming life adventure! I wake up, get the Noodle off to camp, work  six hours at my day job, rush to pick up the Noodle after camp, plan/make dinner, maybe do a little bike ride and then it's bedtime for the Noodle. After that I work like a dog on the house until 11, watch a little tv to try to shut my brain down and collapse at midnight in bed.

a little nook at last

I am making progress though, and I have the big deadline of Sept. 6th motivating me. That is the first day of school and I want all systems a GO before the madness of the school year sets in. We've been painting maniacs and the living room is 90% done. I finally found bookcases last weekend. I need a bench and shoe storage in the garage/mudroom/bike room and more more more hooks for backpacks, purses, etc. I got more lunch containers and I picked up the school supply list a couple of days ago. (I had a rant on Twitter about the requested pink erasers but that's another post for another day).

Anyway I could go on and on. I wish I had started a 365 project for my first year in Portland. But when on earth would I get that done? I am exhausted my friends. Happy in Portland, loving it, but nesting takes lots of time, lots of energy and yes, lots of cash. :)

That's my short report for now. Miss you!

My Bedroom Improvement Project

I've been working hard on a new pinboard for the past few days to inspire me to work with the wall color in my bedroom. I called it simply My Bedroom Improvement Project. :)

photo from free people 

via lovely clusters blog

green rosettes photo by Silvana Ferreira

serene blue photo by Silvana Ferreira

I am working on pulling in the soft pink and orange tones. I have a new crisp white coverlet for the bed to tone down my seafoam green walls. My MIL is flying up to visit today and bringing her Benjamin Moore paint decks with her, yippee. I am not going to paint yet as too much painting going on downstairs for now, but I will finally get a color name for the current wall color. There are lots of other inspiring images on my pinboard for this room, and I am starting to love the idea of working with it.

Happy Friday

Happy Friday!

This is seriously just a typical street in Laurelhurst

It has been a long week and I am very grateful it is finally Friday. I have been having a lot of problems with my back due to my desk so all week I was a little obsessed with figuring out how to resolve it. At home in California, I had two desks and I got rid of one of them for the move. Well, I rarely sat at the one I decided to keep and it is about 3" above normal desk height. After three weeks of working at the wrong height, my back and shoulders were in trouble. I found a chiropractor last week and that is helping a lot. 

I saw this sleek, gorgeous desk for two on IKEA Hackers and fell in love. My husband vetoed the counter height due to my back issues and while sad, I do agree it's not the best for my back. I couldn't get the image out of my mind though, so this week I decided to do an homage to the IKEA hack. (You can see my exact set up on that link but I got the trestle in metal with a white gloss coat). 

We put two of these set-ups side by side for me and the Noodle on Wednesday night. It looks great and is way better for typing but I have now lost the three desk drawers I had left and I'm now down to zero. Storage is a serious problem for me right now. I have 10 boxes in the office closet alone that cannot be unpacked, not to mention all of our books since our only bookcase has been put to use in the kitchen as a pantry. Meanwhile, I prowl Craigslist daily.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, I plan to keep hunting down furniture in my budget and up to my aesthetics. We are also hosting Sunday dinner for the first time, we are alternating weeks with Jeff's cousin & his family and started last week at their house. So I guess this weekend I will also finish painting the dining room. =)

The Perfect Art

Last week, I asked the Noodle for "some art that would look good on these walls."

Boy did he deliver!

To be honest, these walls are much more to the green side of green-blue than I normally prefer. But his art is making me rethink my automatic decision to repaint. For one thing, it photographs pretty darn well. However, the rest of my framed artwork will clash mightily on this color.

I am only speaking of paint now, three weeks into our new house, because we only decided yesterday that we would stick it out. We arrived to discover a bad combination of improper renovations, a lease that requires constant notification of problems to the landlord and a landlord who does not have the personality to hand out lease requirements like that. So we stopped unpacking after one week of terrible interactions with him and started stalking Craigslist again, much to our terrible dismay. Folks? There have been exactly two listings in this neighborhood since then. Rentals are scarce. So we will have to find a way to all get along and now, I can finally finish unpacking and start painting.

It's been too hard to even talk about it with close friends and family! Moving to a new state is hard enough, but to think about moving again immediately was over the top hard. Onwards & upwards!

City of Roses

taken in a top secret location, to be revealed sometime in 2011

Yes, you can just about trip over the giant roses blooming about in Portland.

Tree Swings

We have a simply amazing tree in our front yard, it towers way above the Noodle's room in the attic of our house. We can sit in his bed and watch it sway in the summer breeze. Our new neighborhood is abundant with such trees and there is a tree swing on just about every single block.  Granted, they don't all look like this one:

© Justin & Mary Photography,

via Style Me Pretty

Is this not the most darling tree swing ever?! Could the ribbon colors be any more Jess?!

One of my dreams has always been to have a tree swing for Jaden and Jeff made it happen on our second day here. Once I get my office all set up, I will take pictures of our tree swing with my real camera and share them on the blog. I'm still working on the kitchen, four boxes to go!

Tree Swings

We have a simply amazing tree in our front yard, it towers way above Jaden's room in the attic of our house. We can sit in his bed and watch it sway in the summer breeze. Our new neighborhood is abundant with such trees and there is a tree swing on just about every single block.  Granted, they don't all look like this one:

© Justin & Mary Photography,

via Style Me Pretty

Is this not the most darling tree swing ever?! Could the ribbon colors be any more Jess?!

One of my dreams has always been to have a tree swing for Jaden and Jeff made it happen on our second day here. Once I get my office all set up, I will take pictures of our tree swing with my real camera and share them on the blog. I'm still working on the kitchen, four boxes to go!

Hello from Portland

Hello from Portland!

hydrangeas in our front garden

What an emotionally and physically draining few weeks it has been for The Js! Leaving California was really hard but we did it and we arrived in Portland six days ago now. We're getting acclimated, unpacking and making this house a home slowly but surely. We put in a tree swing and a hammock on our front porch -- priorities, right? We met some neighbors yesterday on the 4th of July and Jeff's mom arrives tomorrow evening -- we couldn't be more excited to have our first visitor. 

The good news is I am finally to a place where I can blog again regularly. 

How has everyone been?!

A Getaway

Hello friends and happy Friday! I'm going to be going radio-silent next week because the Noodle is off school for winter break (aka ski week) also known as, we're going to have a little family getaway to...

Green Bridge © Misha Ashton, $30

...the ever-beautiful city of Portland. We'll play in the snow, visit the Noodle's great-grandma along the way and visit our fun cousins too. Mama may take a trip to Urban Waxx for some overdue pampering. While I'm gone, Portland's Mrs. French will surely keep you company in her new beautiful home for Bliss. 

Don't worry, I'm packing my camera and I will return with prettiness. 

A little grey has never scared me!