Welcome to Port-o-land!

Pen on left (always a challenge for me, all my mistakes get to hang around! eek!) Pencil on right

This summer I took a weekend to go visit the love of my life in Portland, Oregon, where he was doing an internship with Periscope Studios.  Portland is...eerily perfect.  My favorite thing was the blackberry bushes growing literally all over the city, up the buildings, down the hills, next to the roads.  Also there were crab apples donated to me by neighborhood trees on our morning walk to the trolley (the Portland trolley is like what the NYC subway systems are when they go to heaven).  

The beavers were a joke for Ginny, gnawing away at her desk.

This is really what the streets in Portland look like.  I mean, really and honestly, this is a major road in Portland.  What?!?  Where is the traffic?  Where is the trash?

There are lots of bridges in Portland, like New York.  

But they are all so...not quite quaint, but not intimidating and huge.

granola-grunge

The most relaxed and contented I can remember ever feeling:

lying on the cool grass in the shade of a maple tree in the state park,

next to my boy,

making a clover chain.

ahhhh....

Japanese gardens, so peaceful.

I was sitting on the bench drawing the waterfall when I was 

overcome by how green everything was.  There was so much green.

Oh, also, I found my new home.  

Moss covered shingles, covered in flowering plants, I'm there.

california, here i come!

This summer I took a short vacation to San Diego to meet my new niece, Syerra. Dad took the twins and me out for lunch and to poke around the Point Loma lighthouse, one of my favorite childhood pastimes. I have detailed memories of organzing hermit crab races on the rocks with my older sister and cousin, discovering sea cucumbers, and flustering thousands of anemones by sticking my finger into their soft tentacles.

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Wouldn't you know that southern California has a blue and white color scheme?

Tide pools! They are such beautiful, magical little lagoons of sea creatures, little miniature oceans.

enter the Little Mermaid

This is where the pirates hid the treasure...
...and we are going to find it!
well, maybe they dropped it down here by accident.
I found my treasure! I love sea rocks and seaweed. I discovered pretty early on that you can't take seaweed home...it starts to stink. So I have to just admire it in its habitat.
Point Loma lighthouse. I harbored many fantasies about living in this house, making sea grass dolls, chasing Victorian ghosts, collecting sea shells to cover mirrors and boxes, cooking earthy stews with wooden spoons and iron kettles. (and you know what, I still harbor those fantasies!)



Look at their banjo!
Oh, please let me live here!

Okay, well, to be practical, I probably wouldn't enjoy having to feed the fire to cook. But I would love to have a gas stove next to it that I could cook on, and the wood stove to boil water for tea!

Dear Grandma Jean,

I'm not even really sure how to begin writing this, but I just wanted you to know that I think you were an amazing woman, all the way from your Kansas farm girl roots to your California teacher career, to your adventures as a world-traveling photographer, to your quiet and constant life as an ever-loving, ever supportive, ever happy grandma.  I guess everybody always regrets something when they lose someone, and what I regret most is not making a point to make you feel special all the time, and I hope that you always felt special.  I took for granted that you would always be there, in a good mood, and never really stopped to do anything showy for or about you.  I hope that when you see this silly little gesture of me blogging about you it makes you feel special.  Thank you for the birthday present check for my bedroom.  I bought not only a bed but new sheets, a cozy reading chair, a wardrobe for my clothes, and a shelf for my books.  So yes, it was plenty enough to cover the price of a bed!  We will miss you so much, from all over America and all over the world.

I love you,

Chelsea

raspberry picking

Hey guys, sorry about the long blogging delay (again).  Now that I have my *sweet* new iMac, I can hopefully post all the updates I've been working on that my tiny old MacMini couldn't handle uploading, lord bless it.

Frances turned to me at work one day and sprung this delightful question, "Hey, do you want to go the New Jersey with me this weekend and pick raspberries at my parent's house?"  Well, who would say no to that?

Obviously, I accepted.

(before) Look at this perfect little grouping of raspberries! 

(after!)

France's bucket filled up much quicker than mine.  I kept sampling.

Look at how magical New Jersey is!  Who knew?  I kept waiting for a hobbit or elf princess to pop out of the ferns, but I guess they were all in their cozy burrows and tree houses, eating raspberries as quickly as me.

Aren't they just so beautiful and strange? They look like little glass beads, and their casings look like fuzzy stars.  I want to wear raspberries.

One at a time...

...oh who am I kidding? This is more like it.

  

"Once upon a time, there was an enchanted village where the clover on the ground grew raspberries, and the boys and girls in the village would fill their cheeks with the tangy, fragrant fruits until their lips were red as rubies in the sunlight."