Introducing...a Postcard Shop!

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I am thrilled to announce my new shop just for postcards! I have been planning and working on this all summer and my first collection is loaded and ready for purchase. I decided to branch out from Etsy and host my postcards on Big Cartel.





My first postcard collection includes two of my best sellers, Apothecary and Beach Light, as well as two new images for sale, Three Palms and Vintage Toy Cars. I actually have Vintage Toy Cards framed on my living room wall so if you've been to my home, it's not new to you. ;) 

The postcard shop has many options for you from purchasing the entire collection to an individual postcard and something in between. They will come prettily packaged in a glassine envelope and shipped in a rigid photo mailer. As usual, I will ship USPS first class mail for free worldwide.

Now that I have launched my new shop, you can bet I will start working on the second collection!

Field Trip

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Today I am so excited because I am going on a field trip. You can read all about in my guest post at the Green Phone Booth.


I took this photo on my first walk home from school drop-off. It is all uphill and I wimped out last year and didn't do it after the first two weeks of school. I'm hoping to improve this year. But there are pretty things to look at along the way and good music definitely helps. 

I researched some screencasting programs yesterday and I'm going to start working on my Picnik tutorial for you. I won't promise a date yet but I'm excited about the idea.  We're off to the in-laws this weekend and we're looking forward to the overdue visit in their new home. I'm also thinking about reorganizing my entire kitchen, like empty every single cabinet and pack up stuff I hardly use and put it the rest back in a more efficient manner. My kitchen is small and lacking useful counter space so it makes working in there very difficult. It is a low-level drive me crazy kind of thing. I'm going to attack it!

The Beauty of Spring

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I know it's summer, raging summer in fact, but yesterday I was looking through my photos and fell head over heels in love with this tree blooming in spring. Isn't spring so beautiful?


In all honesty, I find beauty in each of the seasons but I find each season can last a little too long. I think I have a short attention span for weather* and seasons. I think every two months would be good, especially when it comes to summer, my least favorite. Or maybe we could have summer and winter for  two months each and have spring and fall for four months each. Now that's a good idea! What do you think?

Rambling on another topic, I really loved this picture straight out of the camera, but I processed it to bring out the yellow in the sunlight. I love it even more this way. Would you ever want me to share how I use Picnik to process my photos? Yes, I mostly use Picnik and rarely use Photoshop. Is that a terrible thing to confess? 

* This is why I am an excellent candidate for life in Oregon. ;)

Lemon Fresh

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It's the last day of summer vacation and boy does it feel like it! The heat came in overnight and I've been slurping down ice cold water with a slice of meyer lemon from my MIL's abundant tree.

lemon fresh

We had a swirly lemon cheesecake after dinner tonight to celebrate getting through a long, hard summer. The Noodle has mixed feelings about returning to school: happy to see his friends and teacher again, sad to be away from me and a little nervous about the responsibilities ahead of him in second grade. (Is worrying hereditary or what?)

I have mixed feelings too: happy and elated. Ha. I will miss my little guy but I am in desperate need of time to myself. I'm not sure what I will do tomorrow, it's going to be a scorcher around here. I don't want to work too hard on anything, I want to enjoy the bliss of doing nothing before everything ramps up to full effect. 

Amazing Dahlias

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I picked up these gorgeous, amazing dahlias at my farmers market yesterday afternoon for four dollars. I really couldn't believe the price. I'm in awe of them. Look how they transform from those closed buds to those giant blossoms! I love the middle stage so that's where I focused for this shot. It reminds me of when you get a glimpse of your child and you can imagine what they will look like as an adult. That happened to me recently with the Noodle.

Tomorrow is our annual all-school cleanup in preparation for the new school year. Yes, back to school happens on Tuesday! We are both very excited and for different reasons. I kind of can't believe I have a second grader...

Single Tasking

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I read this Poppytalk post which led me to this article on How to Live a Single Tasking Life and I wanted to share it with you. Please read the article, it's short & sweet and the bullet points at the end are wonderful.


Have you tried doing only one thing at a time lately? I tried one-tab-at-a-time browsing recently upon the advice of my career coach. Let me tell you, it was really hard at first. I actually felt twitchy. Then slowly...I felt relieved. I only had to absorb one page of content at a time! But have I kept up with it after the one-day trial? NOPE. 

It's #4 in that article that really intrigues me. What if (the collective) we poured ourselves into one thing at a time? I think it would have a huge ripple effect on the world. I'll tell you what -- for the rest of this week I am totally committed to browsing the web with only ONE tab at a time. It's such a great step and it's not even a baby step for me, it's more like a long jump. I am so scattered when I'm online and I know this will have a huge effect on my concentration, comprehension and productivity. Do you dare try it with me? :)

Sunny Cove

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We went to a special spot in Santa Cruz on Saturday where my MIL Betty grew up body surfing. She has been taking the Noodle there this summer and they wanted to show it to us too. From the beach, you could see out to a sea cliff and lots of people were jumping off with their boogie boards. 

Do you want to see what the cliff was like?


the path down

the terrain


the tide pools


the sea anemones


the colorful plants

the view south of Sunny Cove


someone trying to protect herself from the fierce winds

and...the cliff facing Sunny Cove

Yes, my husband joined me after a bit and I walked back with his hat and shirt after he jumped off the cliff and swam back to shore. (That splash there is just from a wave though). Later on, he jumped off the cliff again...WITH MY BABY!

Simply Hue Creative Challenge

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Happy Friday! I'm having a kid-free day which means there has been a little time for this mama to read blogs and play with her camera again. It was great timing for my visit to Simply Hue and discovering that this week's theme for the Creative Challenge Flickr pool is Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny because look  what we found in our mailbox yesterday!

a darling toy red VW bus

Our neighbor left it for the Noodle and I promptly begged him to let me have it. I'm having a busy day otherwise -- I had a job interview this morning (please cross your fingers for me!), followed by a lunch date with my husband, I'm leaving shortly for a 1.5 hour massage and this evening, I am meeting my girlfriends to see Eat Pray Love. 

I hope all of my readers are having a lovely day too!

Baci,
Jess

Polaroid Sale

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I can't believe I forgot to post about the Polaroid sale I'm having right now in my shop! Duh! Recently the Impossible Project released their first color instant film and I am so excited by this news that I decided to throw a little sale.


All of my Polaroids are buy one, get one free through August 15th. Also, check back here tomorrow because there will be a special announcement. :)

Baci,
Jess

Golden Gate

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Saturday we took our dog to Crissy Field since I read it was dog-friendly and it was his fourth birthday. It was very cold, very windy, very beautiful and very fun. You should see the smiles on the wind surfers when they come in off the bay. Talk about a zen state of mind.


I am going to drop the August Break project and stick with posting MWF. It was an experiment that didn't work out that well for me after all. Thanks for understanding.

Did you have a good weekend?

Baci,
Jess

Surprise!

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Yes, you are still at my blog! I have had a late night curiousity with Blogger's new design features. I am not done tinkering, you know me! I was feeling like my blog sidebars were too busy and too cluttered. So I've streamlined by going back to two columns. Ultimately it means...bigger pictures!

zinnias, one of my top three favorite flowers

And there's no going back either because I forgot to back up my template! So over the weekend, I will remember how I made that cute little post signature and put up new social media icons, etc. Oh and this tickles me to no end..the font up there for Sweet Eventide is called, "Sunshine in My Soul" -- get out!!! How cheerful is that?!!!

Do tell! 
What do you think?!

Baci, xxx,
Jess

August Break

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I had some time to open up my RSS reader today, seeing how I've been laid up in bed all day with stomach aches and migraines. I think a lot of the summer stress has caught up with my body. Did I remember to mention here that a few weeks ago we found out we have to move out of our rental house by April 1st (i.e. smack in the middle of the school year)? This news is just the tip of the iceberg around here this summer. So, even though I had cut my blogging schedule down at the start of summer, this August Break idea is really appealing to me right now.


I need to listen to my body and cut out as much as I can right now. I am going to do iPhone photos only, no words, for the "August Break." I do love to write on my blog and I look forward to resuming a full, normal schedule in September after the Noodle is back in school and my career coaching sessions are done. Do you want to join the project? Comment on Susannah's post and let me know in the comments so I can be sure to visit.