The Palm Room

The other day I visited one of my favorite shops in Ballard: The Palm Room. It has the coolest plants and containers and terrariums and I love stepping into its light and green filled space.



I brought home this pretty pot for my farmers market plants.



And I picked up this cactus and pot from The Palm room on a previous visit. I'm hoping to slowly fill my apartment with plants.

Shakespeare and Charlie Brown

A mix of photos from here and there, then and now.

Last week I became hooked on Pinterest, which is a site that allows you to build boards of inspiration for all kinds of things you find around the internet. Right now I'm using it as a place to collect photos I admire, decorating and style ideas, and recipes I want to remember. My boards are here if you feel like checking them out and if any of you are on Pinterest I would love to check out your inspiration!

Now and now and now

sunny afternoon:





grey misty evening:





sunset:





Some photos from my walks lately. The light looks so different each day.

On the table

A friend recently formed a book club which combines two of my favorite things in life: reading and fancy food. Each month we choose a book to discuss over dinner at a new restaurant. This month we met at Betty, which was spectacular. I wish I'd gotten a photo of my sweet potato ravioli but I was too blown away by its rich flavor to think of getting out my camera. Luckily I remembered by the time that beauty of a dessert called baked hot chocolate came around. I highly recommend Betty if you get the chance to go.

Betty is located at the top of Queen Anne hill, which is an area I haven't explored too much. My bus dropped me off at the bottom and it was quite a hike to the top which made the night feel like an adventure. The view from Queen Anne is incredible. The Space Needle looks enormous from this angle and towers over the lights of downtown and everything is reflected in Lake Union. Maybe sometime I'll take my tripod out and try to capture it but there's really nothing like seeing it in person.

Unexpected in January

These are the unexpected things I came across while out with my camera this month:


A hummingbird on Greek Row


A flood


Chopsticks with ends shaped like a tiny fork and spoon. I didn't notice this until I was half done with my meal.


A stranger asked me to photograph his artwork since I had my camera out already. He wanted me know that he will be really famous someday.

Shadows

A few random photos involving shadows. The first one was taken a few weeks ago and the bottom two are from last summer. I've been going through the archives a little bit since I haven't been feeling inspired to take many photo walks lately.

Winter feasts

One thing I appreciate about winter is all of the delicious food that's still around and how wonderful it feels to eat a warm meal when it's cold outside. Here are a few things I've been enjoying lately.

* lunch at La Carta De Oaxaca, home of Seattle's best guacamole and a fun salsa bar.
* herbed beets, carrots, turnips, parsnips, and sunchokes for roasting.
* number 25 off my 25 things list: oatmeal honey bread modified from this recipe (I used half whole wheat flour and only 1/3 cup honey since my farmers market honey is so potent). It was amazing. And I discovered that making bread is not so bad! It was very rewarding to watch it grow from various stages of mush into glorious loaves that tasted like heaven.
* sweet potato soup from my favorite soup recipe book.
* The lunch buffet at Flowers where everything is vegan and almost everything is fantastic.