greenatopia

Even though my Nov./Dec. was crowded with travel, I decided it had been too long since I had visited my friends in Portland and headed up for Thanksgiving. It had been so long that my friend's baby was practically a toddler!



I did my usual tourist stuff: visited Powells, had an almond croissant at Nuvre, etc. We had a lovely Thanksgiving meal with all the fixins (tofurkey for me!).

Friday my host and I braved the weather to go for a hike on the 10 waterfall trail near Salem. We had nice weather for the beginning of the hike, but then it started to rain. And then it started to pour. And then we missed our turn and walked 1 mile out of our way. While my host carried a 35 pound baby on her back and I had my usual 25 pound camera bag (which I'm pretty used to by now, so this isn't so bad).

But we made it and it was a lovely hike. And little Sashinka had a really, really great time -- the kid was all smiles even in the rain.

While I slowly make my way through all my Death Valley/Nevada photos, I thought I'd share some photos I took last month with my Diana lens. I've had this lens for more than a year, but I never use it because it doesn't sit on my camera very well. Anyway, I purposely went out the other day with it on and no back-up lens -- so I just had to deal with it falling off (which it only did once).

So what is a Diana lens? It is a cheap plastic (thus, why it falls off all the time) lens that does something funky to the colors in your photos. I know it seems odd to want this distortion when I have such a fancy camera, but sometimes I like to try to be artsy-fartsy.

So this week I was rather productive. I sewed. I made a little lap quilt out of remnants from a sample book that I purchased for a whole four dollars. I made my friend new pillow cases for her couch to brighten up the basement. I recovered the duvet that sits in the basement to keep us warm. I'm currently making a new belt and I'm thinking of making a new bag too.
Yep, very productive. I also had an interview this week, which always makes me a bit more chipper. I'm not speculating on whether this will become a job because when I do that it always turns out bad. So we'll just keep our fingers crossed and our hopes grounded.

In keeping with my promise of taking photos and blogging at least once a week, I took a walk down Alberta St. The thing with Portland is that it can be really beautiful and sunny when you walk out of the house and less than an hour later it can be pouring. The rain happens that quickly. So I only got to take photos for about an hour. Anyway, there are a few I like:
Finally I just want to do a shout out to Obama for actually reading the Endangered Species Act and understanding its relevance and importance. That is right people -- you once again will need to be concerned about whether your development is hurting threatened or endangered species. Ah, all is becoming right in the world.

So I'm a much more motivated person when I'm busy. I'm not the type that needs time to do things, I just need to have a lot to do and then I'll get it all done. I realize that sounds counter intuitive, but that is how I am.

Take this blog. It has been about a month since I announced on my old blog that I'd be starting a new one. When I was fully employed and quite busy, I wrote entries for that blog on a very regular basis. I took new photos at least once a week. I did stuff.

Now I'm unemployed and have all day everyday to walk around and take photographs and write blog entries. Now I can blame the lack of blog entries on not having anything to say, but I can't blame the lack of photography on that.

So my new leaf for March (starting this last week in February) is that I have to write at least one entry here and go out and spend at least one afternoon taking pictures. I took pictures twice this week, so I'm halfway there and now I'm writing an entry so I guess I succeeded this week.

Maybe I should take a moment to mention what this blog is going to be about. Um, nothing. I know that has been done, but I don't want to confine myself. I'm calling it Greenatopia as that is where I'd like to live. I'd like to say that is Portland, but without work it is far from the "utopia" of which I dream. I'm going to go on record saying that I believe wherever I eventually find work could become greenatopia for me -- I just hope that is sooner rather than later.

Photography will definitely be a big part of this blog, no matter what. So here are a few from this week's excursions. Portland has so many unique neighborhoods and people really weirdify their yards, so it is great for photography. Plus it was randomly sunny this week. Go figure.
And I just really like the colors in this one.