Guess what?
I booked a trip to Paris this December!!!
It will have been almost exactly one year since I was last in Europe and I’m very excited to go back. I honestly thought I would be content to stay put for at least a full year after moving across the world, but nope! My wanderlust crept back in almost as soon as we settled in and bought furniture.
A few months ago I took a family vacation to the Pacific Northwest. We stayed near Port Townsend (a couple hours out of Seattle) and explored the entire area over about a week. My favorite part was exploring the Bloedel Reserve, which nurtures the most beautiful and rarest features of the lush native landscape, from mushrooms to hundreds of types of moss. They also have a beautiful Japanese garden and French style manor where the founders of the Reserve once lived. The day we visited was overcast and slightly drizzly – the perfect type of weather for this kind of environment.
There was a lot of talk this spring about the “Superbloom” here in California. The state had suffered through a pretty extreme drought for the past decade, but this year, thanks to all the rain, things started to GROW again! Some of the hills around my home were actually GREEN and wildflowers were popping up everywhere – things didn’t look so dry and depressing anymore!
That springtime vibrancy didn’t last long enough though. Now that summer is setting in, the hills have more or less gone back to their neutral tones. The climate in Southern California is quite arid, making it a great place for succulents and cactus, but not exactly ideal for delicate flowers.
Even though the tulip fields of Holland and the flower markets of Paris are a far cry from anything you’ll find here in California, I decided to make the most of what we have and seek out some blooms close to home. The two places I visited were the Poppy Fields in the Antelope Valley and the Ranunculus Flower Fields in Carlsbad.
The South of France is like a fairy tale come to life. On my solo trip to Avignon, I had the chance to visit Gordes on a small-group tour, but since it was the very last stop of the day, I only had 40 minutes to photograph this enchanting place! Fortunately, the center of Gordes is very compact so it didn’t take much time to explore the entire hilltop.
As I’ve aged, I’ve become more and more interested in handmade things. For one, they’re usually way more beautiful than mass-produced objects, and secondly, they have meaning – a meaning that is present from the moment they are conceived as ideas in the artist’s mind, until the day you finally place it lovingly in your home, where it will remain for years to come. Not only is that object unique and special, but purchasing it means that you’re supporting small businesses, keeping our economy more community-centered rather than homogenized and corporate.
I think the best way to start incorporating handmade goods into your home is though pottery and art prints. I don’t have the budget to buy large handmade furniture pieces or original canvas paintings (which is my dream!), but I DO have the resources to purchase an earthy hand-thrown mug to drink coffee from in the morning, or a small print that I can incorporate into a gallery wall. In fact, I only own three mugs at the moment because I’m holding out to find handmade ones that fit – I want to assemble a meaningful collection, not just a pack of identical objects filling my shelves.
Last summer I spent a beautiful couple of hours photographing the Musée Rodin. The rose garden was in bloom and there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. I arrived at mid-day when the sun was at its height, so the lighting wasn’t ideal – or so I thought. I spent most of my time in the garden taking endless photos of the roses, trying to get the perfect angles, and even though direct sunlight can be difficult to work with, it can yield amazing results if you work a little harder.