grads & pears

A pear for Hillary of is there life on mars. A dear old friend like her needs a crafty pear to help with projects aplenty, to remember hillarious summer memories like falling in the hammock on hard apples, dogs with bad fruit additions and permanent tan lines from the trusty red lifeguarding suits. Thinking about it 1) reminds me about how pale I've been since I've moved to the coast, 2) how badly I could go for a fresh off the tree pear, 3) how much I miss that lady!

This was from that awesome heather baily pattern

Curti P is donezo!! wooooo! so is that skirt I started on eons ago... also, note the brazil jersey. World Cup anyone?? He even included a plug for his favorite team in the "what I've done and will be doing/thank you they read aloud when they called him up.


The rescue charlie brown lei complements of a Monday graduation. He said he still really liked it though.


Successful creep on Kaleo!! Congrats to you too!


The unit


My prize for being the supportive girlfriend for the five years: a beau and a token of gratitude.

Human Phys is not the easiest of majors and pretty competitive with the intensity of pre-med kids. It called for lots of food, beer, friends & family to celebrate. He'll be continuing with prosthetics and orthotics somewhere much warmer come August. Congrats!!

things I love

My home watershed! the trees, the solid understanding of where my drinking water came from while living there, where it goes, hiking there, swimming there, the incredible river valley drive up and down the whole thing from reedsport to the cascades....apparently I enjoy taking pictures while driving too! Don't worry, it's mostly guessing


Spring flowers on campus... ahhhh! including the yellow peonies nearby... the season is almost upon us!


This kid!! who just finished his first marathon without much warning or training... and finishing like a champ in the photo below (grey shirt). At 4 hours and 15 minutes with an average of 9:45 per mile I feel safe saying he is pretty awesome!


salty, sweaty, sore & all smiles (for at least 25 miles of the race)


I must have walked about 15 miles chasing him around that day to cheer on him and other countless runners who were very happy to get a smile and encouragement at mile 1, 8, 25, 16, and at the finish... the guys I saw cruising by at mile 25 looked like they were flying and finished all 26.2 miles in less than 2 and a half hours!! Consequently we both took much needed naps and a very very slow walk to mcmins to celebrate with beer and pizza. nom nom nom!

<3

working for the weekend?

I'm shooting for a post a week... doable right? I suppose I don't really care if anyone every reads this, I just like have a little mini collection of photos with random thoughts. Plus I know there are at least a couple of dedicated ladies out there :)

So I've been thinking quite a bit lately about the whole working for the weekend thing. what a damn waste. that means you spend the majority of your week bummed out and you are constantly posting on facebook about how blah blah poo pooo your job is and how you got sick again and how you only want to spend the rest of your life in bed with your boyfriend and a pint of ben and jerrys.

once again it is a damn waste of air and my mental capacity to see this junk posted constantly. I'm about ready to go on a positivity campaign to get people to forget about all of that. Everyone gets sick and everyone hates their job every now and then, but it's nice to be able to focus on the good things or maybe even the humor found in the poo situations of everyday life right?

Now!! to highlight the time of the week everyone loves (because we all love days to sleep in, go on walks in the daytime, stay out late, clean our respective places of living, what i've declared as sewing sundays, drinking coffee out of the hungover cat mug...)

CONAN!!! no big deal


Hiking with Curtis & Cam (those good lookers below), baby bananas & multitudes of millipedes




Sewing Sunday, ftw


Steven's first time at the Oregon Coast... <3 my friends




Watching the sunset with Marissa & the huge swell

I know I know it's been a while, but things are generally crazy as usual. Settling in has been nice in the new place, but a few boxes remain unpacked/undecided and a few frames remain on the floors. They are starting to become fixtures in the sparsely decorated flat. I'm also slowly figuring out what exactly my new job is. It's fun and challenging, but I'm really excited to start piloting the education modules we are putting together. I'm working with some fabulous teachers :)

Here are a few updates with photos:
New plants from an very large spider plant that found a new home in my mom's library. I got it during my freshman year of college.

I love this place!



My new $20 dollar chair!


Okay so the flowers have come... where is the normally pleasant weather???


Eugene in the Spring! Curtis got a new place as well. I love the little tiny stove and general man presence. The floral couch remains but will get a slip cover soon or make a move to the donation center.




My first setting for a piloted field trip! The essence of this project is that each coastal watershed education module/unit for the project has a meaningful field experience. We are going to do some marsh plant surveys, exploration of the tideflats through digging, water sampling and looking at some flora/fauna. The sixes river pops out just north of cape blanco so we will be doing some wrack line exploration as well. When I was there a few weeks ago not only was it beautiful but we found subtidal sponges, spruce cones, neat rocks, algae and of course plastic. All in all an interesting exploration of a local small estuary of Oregon that can hopefully shape any estuary field trip in Oregon along with a student field journal and corresponding classroom activities.

Obviously I could talk for a long time about the project's aspirations :) But for now I have pretty photos.




A little trip to Bandon on the same day with lots of heavy winds, poking, photography and watching some awkward windsurfing with southerly winds.
I love these sunglasses!


my dad going out for that sweet "double dip"

I did make it!

Now to update about two weeks later. My mom got me the most fabulous chiton-esq lei & I made my dress which came out fabulous.

The whole family

plus curtis
and hillary!

Buddy of course was happy for sun and me to be home.But he was not happy when I packed up later that day for a summer at the marine lab.

senioritis...

is a bitch. let's be honest. i'm so close and yet so far away from friday morning. so in the mean time i'm quickly putting together a playlist to get me through this crap.

if you have not heard this song yet i highly suggest it: Lark (Ruff and Jam remix) - Au Revoir Simone off the reverse migration album...

and for other kicks: you push, i'll go by baby dayliner. two words: vodka soda.

and other favorites like arcade fire (which got me through the summer of physics), broken social scene, beck (modern guilt), MGMT, menomena... and whatever else i think of.

Backyard

We have the best slightly neglected tree in our backyard. A few weeks ago it was in full bloom and now the petals lay on the ground decaying after a week of heavy rain and wind.