Summer recap

The rain has set in here - unexpectedly, but I should have known it would happen since I've had out-of-town visitors! It's an unmistakeable reminder that summer is wrapping up. We should get a good month in September, but I view this rain as my nudge to consider what I've done this summer, and make a short list of things to do before the rainy season arrives for keeps!

I've been good on the social front - one highlight was when a friend visited a couple weeks ago and we had a potluck here, complete with twelve or so adults and an uncountable swarm of kids running around screaming happily (okay, maybe 8 kids).

This past weekend I had friends in town partly for my birthday, which was lovely. I had a couple of birthday gatherings, one of which included bubbly, appetizers, and cake. I sliced the hell out of my thumb making this app, so my friends finished assembling: bread, peach, tomato, mozzarella,basil, olive oil: all super fresh and so yummy.

My sister made cake:

Other summer highlights:
Making a dent in the billions of berries by making crumbles, cakes, smoothies, and even blueberry syrup:

Hanging out with several thousand of my people at a live-action Trek in the Park:

This year was the fifth and final year, and has become quite a Portland institution! They did The Trouble with Tribbles:

Sound quality wasn't great, but it was a ton of fun anyway.

Biking has slipped by the wayside, and I haven't gotten to explore the area quite as much as I'd like, so my goal for September is to get a couple of weekend rides in, do a day trip to wine country, and go camping. It's ambitious with everything else that's going on, but I'm willing to try!

Fun with tagging

Now that I'm working with a designer, sorta, I'm looking at some of the many (so many!) pictures I've taken over the years. I'm thinking about printing and framing a bunch and making a hallway gallery or something.

I started by going through my flickr albums and tagging anything I was considering with the tag "print" - this will let me then look at all those photos together.

Of course it was like a billion too many pictures, so I started adding tags, like wood, fire, water, nature, landscape, beer, stone, train, transit, bike, flower ... you get the idea. Then I can look at all the pics that are grouped by a particular tag. You can click each group below to see a bigger screenshot.

 Tag = art

  

  Tag =bridge

  Tag = graffiti

  Tag = landscape

 Tag = red

It's been fun! I don't think I'm a LOT closer to picking what I print, but maybe I really am. 

I'm so hoity toity

So, I seem to have acquired an interior designer. Sorta. Kinda.

A friend had a brunch a couple of weekends ago, and when she was pulling together the guest list I asked her to include the aunt who helped pick out her color scheme when she repainted her house. The house looks terrific and uses colors I might not have chosen. My friend had said in the past that her aunt would be happy to help me pick colors, so this seemed like a great way to finagle an introduction.

To backtrack a bit: I moved into my house in January, and it had been flipped over the previous two months. I got what I wanted - a solid house that didn't need work, and it's got terrific light, but it is rather.. beige. I do plan to sell this house in about 20 years...but I suppose I can paint in the interim!

Move-in day; yes, I've decorated some since then!

 However, I've never picked colors before. I am a decisive person, but when there are a ton of options, and one of the options is NON-choice, I'm likely to take the path of least resistance and go with doing nothing. So I picked up some paint chips my first week or so in the house, but pretty much dropped the idea thereafter.

Fast forward to the brunch, and I find myself making a date for Laura to come over and look at my house and talk about colors. She came over on a Sunday morning and spent nearly two hours hanging out, admiring the light, and getting a feel for the space and my thoughts about color.

Then she came over a couple days later and we spent 45 minutes going over some design pages she'd bookmarked with me in mind, looking at ideas for colors and space and contrast and decor. Apparently just painting isn't enough: I also have to do things like curtains, pillows, wall hanging - it's exhausting!

Anyway, she also brought me paint chips for the various rooms. We talked them over, and now she's going to go buy me samples of the paint so I can try them on for size. All this is free, mind you - she's doing it because it's fun for her! She did at least take money to pay for the paint samples!

So, I'll definitely take some before & after shots, because I think this painting thing is going to happen. August is nuts for me, but September is looking good.

My assignment this week: start getting a feel for wallpaper; also go through my flickr albums and look at photos I might like to have framed to hang in a gallery in the hallway.

Eep.