St. John's Bridge

This is the bridge that spans the Willamette River on the way to the area of Portland where Greg and Sara live. When I drove up there last Friday I couldn't resist taking a couple photos. The sky was soooo blue and the bridge had been repainted last summer and was gorgeous against the sky. Don't ask how I managed to get these photos. The first one was on the hill approach to the bridge and I was stopped in traffic. You really don't want to know about the second one.
Greg and Sara have a wonderful black and white framed photo of a couple workmen sitting on one of the scaffolds yards above the bridge when it was being built. They could be a couple of boys from the Huck Finn era sitting there eating their lunches.


I think this bridge is by far one of the most picturesque in the Portland area. I love that I get to drive across it when I visit my kids. There's a beautiful park on their side of the river under this bridge. It's called Cathedral Park because the supports for the bridge look like a Cathedral from the under side.

Hope you enjoy this little glimpse of Portland history.

Last Assignment

I'm really sad to see the DYL class end. I've learned so much and created so many layouts that I have just LOVED. This is the last one. We were to pick a scrapbook product and build our layout around it. I wanted to scrap these photos so kind of went at it backward. I think I chose the perfect scrapbook product in the patterned paper by Scenic Route. The rub-ons are an older Basic Grey product. The color in my photo doesn't do the flowers justice - the iris is really a very deep purple, and the day lily is an intense lemon yellow.

Now that class is over, I'm going to have to use what I've learned to create my own pages. Kinda scarey......

Design Your Life

Although the class finished right before Christmas, I'm still finishing the last couple lessons. The layout on the top above is my most recent assignment. I was to chose one of my favorite layouts from past weeks and assignments and do it again - alterating it as I wished, but sticking to the basic sketch. the layout on the bottom is one of our first assignments. I love the large photo and the smaller supporting photos, so I used it to tell a story about having Pema, my daughter and son-in-law's dog, come visit me. I kept the sketch intact and switched the journaling block around and added the red paper under the photos to tie them together. I used letter stickers to put my title directly on the photo, and I used some cool ribbon on the bottom of the page. I like how it turned out and it's a good example on NOT reinventing the wheel and still coming out with a cool layout.

Thankful Thursday

Thursday works better for my gratitudes cause I don't work on Thursdays. So here they are.

1. I don't work on thursdays. I work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but not Thursday or Friday. Crazy that I'm retired and work at all, but I'm grateful for the work.

2. Sunshine: We've had warmer days with sunny afternoons for about a week. I've even gotten out to do some much needed weeding in the front yard. Sunshine really lightens my mood.

3. Scrapbooking: I love this hobby. I love putting words and photos together and remembering things that happened in the past or telling current stories. I love the creative element of chosing paper, colors, and extra goodies. There are lots of people who are way more artistic than I, but that's OK because only I can tell my stories.

4. A clean home: I finally found a cleaning lady who will be spiffing up my house twice a month. I hate housework - well, not really, but I'd rather be doing lots of other things besides cleaning. And with my asthma, I really shouldn't be breathing in a lot of dust, which is another reason for the cleaning lady - without her my house gets really dusty. So, she came for the first time on Monday while I was at work. My house was so beautiful and spotless when I got home. I love it!!! And look forward to having it like this at least a couple days out of the month.

5. Good books: I love to read and am so grateful the volumes of really good books out there. I just finished two of the best ones I've read in a while. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks was so well written and well researched. It took me from the 1400s to the present day. Loved it.
And The Amber Room by Steve Berry was also well researched and interesting to read about all the art treasures that were looted during WWII by the Germans and later by the art collectors who restole them and hid them for their own pleasure. Steve Berry writes an excellent mystery novel with lots of history thrown in.

There you have it. The five things I'm thankful for today.

Flowers

There is nothing quite like the unexpected gift of flowers, especially these lovely tulips in January.

During November and December I worked five days a week to fill in for the full time RN at work. Last week she surprised me with this lovely bouquet of pink tulips as a thank you gift. They were so unexpected and such a breath of spring.
I'm really enjoying having them in my home this weekend.

Thankful Tuesday

Finally remembered to post my gratitudes on Tuesday.

1. That I have a friend who is on the Paper Trunk DT - hi, Dena. Check out the blog for a chance to win some cool new papers.

2. The fog is gone (for now). We've had fog over the past couple weeks almost every day. Caused by a temperature inversion, they say. I get really feeling blah when it happens and can't get motivated to do much of anything. Yesterday, the fog lifted - to reveal clouds and some glimpses of sun, and occasional dribbles of rain. I would rather have that anyday than the fog.

3. The few signs of spring that are appearing in my garden in spite of it still being January. - see the previous post for one of them.

4. Wolfgang Puck's organic chicken broth: I've been a bit under the weather for a couple days with an upset stomach and have been subsisting on chicken broth. Wolfgang's is the very BEST around. Just heat it up straight out of the box and drink it down - warming and tasty.

5. My grandbaby: Baby Stiles has been cooking in utero for 26 weeks now. That's a milestone as there is an 80% survival rate if it is born now. Of course, the continued prayer is for a normal gestation period, easy delivery and healthy babe in May. But I'm grateful for every day that passes now.

Winter landscape

It's been foggy for days and days. Today it rained and then the sun came out briefly. It's still very much winter here. I love this quote from Camas: “In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer”.

And I might add that in the depths of winter I can also find signs of spring. I have two hellebores that usually bloom at Christmas time. It was so cold around that time that they were delayed for almost a month. Today I found this:

I transplanted this particular plant last summer so it would be in the shade garden. I wasn't really expecting it to bloom the first year after being moved, but it is. I also found that my raspberry colored one has buds on it as well. There is still hope for spring after all.