Autumn, kind of...

This is about as good as autumn gets around here!   Nowhere near as beautiful as the east-coast autumns of my youth, but the tradeoff is mild evergreen winters.  There are ferns popping up in cracks on the deck, strange new butternut squash starting to grow (even though I just harvested the old ripe ones), new cherry tomatoes still growing (though they'll never ripen), and moss, moss, moss, every kind, everywhere.

Transition

Let me explain something....I have a friend-of-a-friend with a beach house, so that is why I have been showcasing so many trips to the beach lately!  The house is an old creaky cottage- cozy by day, and spooky by night!  I visited a couple weekends ago whilst in the midst of a major technological shift in my life.  We are transitioning to smart phones, and as someone who previously only had an emergency cell, this has opened up a whole new world for me!  I would be shouting my joys from the rooftops if I wasn't so pathetically late to the game!  The weekend that I went to the beach was my in-between time where I had no cell phone at all, and it was a beautifully unobstructed getaway with a couple of awesome ladies and our kids.  Thank you E, once again for sharing this awesome house, and for a great weekend.  Lara, it was one of those times that I really, really wished you could have been there!  You could have probably put the "cold" weather in perspective for us!

Kuvataidetta ja muita merkintöjä

Amy is having computer trouble, so while we're waiting, I'll go ahead and take my turn. The season has been so dreadfully dark and rainy that I thought I would have to post summer pictures yet another week. But today we have the luxury of sun, and not just for a few minutes, but since sunrise at about 8.30 am. Just now it even snowed for the first time this fall, and tomorrow there may be more, though not of the lasting kind just yet.

That there was natural light in the house was reason enough to re-discover the camera from the depths of the mess in our study. Nothing much this time, just some artwork and lesser scribbles from around the house. Drawing is one of the things that keeps the two little ones busy nowadays, and time and time again the crayons and markers wander off the paper onto other surfaces. Fortunately our multiple wallpapering projects are progressing so slowly that we can handle some artwork even beyond the drawing paper. Even grown-ups scribble on old wallpaper around here!

The painting with swallows is from my first-born, and actually I would love to have wallpaper just like this! I wonder is there a place to have your own print made...

Lempiväri

A few weeks ago Amy and I decided that both of our lives had changed so much over the summer that we would start posting on alternate weeks instead of both of us every week. It seems we are not doing a very good job even with this more relaxed schedule! However, my plan is to check in at the beginning of the week every other week, or later on if I'm running behind, which I most often am.

I haven't even had time for new pictures lately, so this week I'm returning to carefree summer days - and that particular one when my daughter got a new watering can on a trip to the hardware store with daddy. I didn't set up this photo shoot at all, all this pinkness happened all by itself! (Now that she has a little brother to whom I would love to recycle her clothes, of course her favorite color would be pink.)

Philip Foster Farm

It is just plain nonsense that I have lived 15 minutes from the Philip Foster Farm for the past decade, and that this weekend was my first visit ever!  I guess I thought it didn't look like much from the road, and just never took the time.  After all, there are plenty of fun things to do around here, and admittedly, history is one of my least favorite topics.  But pioneer history has less to do with war, and more to do with daily life, which I find far more interesting.  I was also motivated by a coupon for free admission!  Once we were on the property, I was surprised by how much this out-of-the-way rural attraction had to offer.  When the boy asked what something was, the answer always began with, "Well, before there were engines or motors..."

But most exciting was his first ever pony ride!  He loved it, but not so much that I am worried about the "I want a horse!" phase that I went through.  We played with pulleys, built a miniature log cabin out of giant-sized lincoln logs, used woodworking and blacksmithing tools, and ground corn.  It was high noon and awfully sunny for pictures (never mind attending to a 5-year-old hefting 7-foot logs), so maybe I'll get some better ones when I return for the Haunted Halloween event!

I also found it interesting that my friend on the east coast spent the weekend at a similar attraction set in the 1700s, as opposed to Oregon's 1850s version of 'old'.  Check out her adventure here!

Kaikki saimme jotain

This is in memory of my July flow experience. The cardigan has also appeared in earlier posts (here and here), but I haven't mentioned before that the pattern is from my favorite Finnish knitting site, Ulla. I made the red pants from some really nice linen, they are for a daughter who will never ever no matter what wear a dress to a party. The pink party outfit, from linen and vintage lace, is for another daughter who loves everything princessy and has an enviable wardrobe of dresses. I made the little boy's shorts, well, because he needed them, they were easy, I happened to have the fabric, and time and time again I find it so hard to find anything I like from boys' departments in stores. The last pants are for me, so there, everyone got something. For the smaller clothes I used patterns from my Juju book, and for the bigger pants a book called Joka tyypin kaavakirja. I warmly recommend both to anyone who speaks Finnish and wants to sew, also beginners! (Beginners in sewing that is. However, most of the patterns in the Juju book are so simple that possibly also beginners in Finnish would be able to get by, especially with some experience in sewing.)

And finally I must add that they are all being used, which is the cherry on top of my wonderful flow.

Goodbye, summer!

This summer has truly been the end of an era around here.  For one thing, I have started working part time.  It has been an exciting new adventure, but my summers of leisure are certainly over!  The other big change is that my little one is off to kindergarten this fall.  My mom came out to help with the child-care transition that occurred as the school year began, but we had a few days off to have some fun.  Ecola State Park is the first beach you get to when heading to the coast, so it was pretty busy there, at least as far as Oregon beaches are concerned!

South of the park, the highway climbs up the coast to some spectacular viewpoints!  Over the railing, it's 500 feet (150m) straight down!  Woozy!