Seattle

This place was beautiful. If was just what my heart needed.... to know that there's a life out there that I could live and love. To know that Chicago doesn't always have to be home, because it never felt like it was. The people here had become my home, but this place... it was never home. I could never love it. I got to drive through the mountains, just for the sake of driving. With no destination in mind... just the desire to wind through the trees, hike up the mountains, and admire the beauty that was Washington.

The city was beautiful. It didn't feel like a city. I wasn't overwhelmed by the chaos, but felt settled and safe. I felt happy. I haven't experienced that in a while. I ate breakfast at a place that served green eggs and ham, walked in the rain and the sun, and bought myself the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen and brought them all the way home with me.

I got to spent hours talking to the best friends someone could ask for, friends I haven't seen in far too long. Friends who know my life and my stories and want to hear the one's they've missed out on since we last saw each other. Friends who care about my heart and will defend it no matter what. And I got to spend hours listening, getting to hold their stories, be the friend I've so missed being.

One day. One day I hope this city will be mine. I don't know when. Not yet though. There are days when I wish I could be anywhere but here. Anywhere but this apartment in this neighborhood in this city. But not yet. I don't think I'm supposed to leave just yet. And so I will wait. And listen. And pray. And when He tells me so, I will leave this place and embark on a new adventure. But He's still telling me to wait. And so I will.

Seattle... I hope you will wait for me. I hope one day to call you home.

i Heart faces: Flowers

It's spring now (though today's weather in Chicago could have fooled me) and the flowers are blooming and the sun is hiding shining. The challenge at i Heart faces this week is flowers (no faces for this time).

Go check out the other great entries!

Happy Spring

I've been waiting a long time for spring to come. It's been a long winter in Chicago. I think I've spent about 75% of the past 7 months shivering in the cold so today when I walked outside and was blasted by warm air I was ecstatic.... until I got in my car and was sweating like a pig. But regardless, I am welcoming spring in with open arms, excited to play outside and plant some vegetables!

Go outside today. Enjoy the changing of seasons.

i Heart faces: Fall has come

Last weekend Eric and I went on a fall adventure... on it, we accidently stumbled upon this beautiful wood with it's shining yellow leaves and not a soul around. This place was quintessentially fall, one of the most picture perfect represetations of the changing of the seasons. And I loved every minute of it.

Summer

Summer has finally come. I've been waiting and waiting. Dreams of shorts and tank tops, of swimming in the lake and eating fresh tomatoes right off the bush. The anticipation of warm thunderstorms and of rolling down your car windows to feel the rain on your skin. It has finally come. The plants are growing tall and my sun hat has been taken out of storage. Summer is here!

Daisy, Daisy...

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer due. I'm half crazy all for the love of you...

p.s. sorry to elise for not posting every day. i'm going to blame it on my job. and the fact that i have no cool kids in my life to photograph. do these pictures make it up to you. :)

A walk in the garden...

On Monday I went to the botanical gardens (an attempt at a fun adventure day... of course it rained for most of the day, but the water droplets everywhere made for some fun pictures). This quickly became my favorite flower there and the subject of many of my photos. It reminds me of some kind of explosion... tiny flowers shooting out from the stem making this beautiful puff of color. Add some water drops to the shoots and you've got picture heaven!

A bean grows tall...

It is officially past the frost season and my plants are making their way into the garden. The worms are active (as are the birds that eat them). The bunnies are out, which means a fence needs to go up to keep them from eating my plants. I eagerly await the day when there are green beans and peas and tomatoes to be picked, when dinner can come soley from the backyard and afternoons can be spent outdoors in the dirt.

I'm sensing a floral theme...

The past few days I haven't gotten out of the house much, except to see my over photographed campers, and have thus had to venture into the yard for pictures (unfortunately our house does not lend itself to good indoor pics). The daisies are in bloom right now so into the bushes I climbed. I love the simplicity of the daisy. Definetly on my top 10 list of flowers... probably even in the top 2. If you could define a flower's personality I think a daisy would be very low maitenance. A little quarky. It would be it's own person (well... flower). I would like very much to be a daisy.

I'm off to go camping this weekend so I should be back with some great pictures on Sunday!

Backyard

Yesterday I grabbed my camera and headed into the backyard to snap a few pics. Not much is in bloom yet and other than plants, there's not much happening in our yard. The cat, of course, is always a good subject, but he was just not in the mood to be photographed. Or maybe he was, and that's why he kept head butting the camera. It took me a good 20 minutes to get the following picture since Mudles (the cat) insisted on throwing himself at me every 2 seconds. Anyway, Tracey took some pics the other day of this particular flower that inspired me, and it happens we have the same ones in our yard, so I thought I'd try my luck with it.

There were these 2 unusually cooperative bees who kept posing for me as well.

It was like they didn't even know I was there.

And the only shot of the cat that wasn't his blurred head coming at me...

The beach: Part 2

As I prepare myself to move back to Chicago I'm trying to take some time to enjoy this place that I live. My dear friend Katie called me up the other day and asked if I wanted to drive along Hwy 1 and take some pictures (she really must know me well, huh?). So that's exactly what we did...

A stop at the tide pools... of course the only thing we saw was a half-dead crab. But she'd never been there so her excitement made it worth it. Sometimes I forget how amazing this place is, but there was something about have a camera in hand that reminded me of how lucky I am (and made me wonder why the heck I'm moving back to Chicago).

The waves were huge and came in droves, crashing into the rocks sending their cold spray straight for us. There were a few times when I was sure that we'd be swept away or at least end up with very wet legs, but somehow we managed to esacpe the ocean's grip (barely).

Pebble beach was on the agenda as well. This is one of my favorite places to go. (for those who have never been there the beach is all pebbles and when the water sweeps over it it sounds like a giant rain maker) When I was in 5th grade we went there on an Outdoor Ed field trip and got to pick our favorite pebble and put it in a pebble hotel (see the second picture for an example of what a pebble hotel looks like). Mine was green. I took a picture of it. It was blurry.

We finished up our trip by visiting my favorite place in the entire world... the buckeye grove. I think it speaks for itself.