blue

today, in order of appearance: bubbles, fruit crates, banana seat bikes. oh summer colors week. you are just what I needed.

all swoony over these blues and I'll tell you, I'm really sort of trippin over this blue velvet cake.

pink

not pictured here: a pink ukelele, which I'd someday like to own.

(summer colors week, yay)

yellow!

happiest color ever.

(hooray for the beginning of summer colors week)

summer colors week

poppytalk's summer colors week starts tomorrow. checkit:

monday: yellow
tuesday: pink
wednesday: blue
thursday: rainbow
friday: red

because is there a better time for color? well, is there?

and speaking of summer

taken last summer in the small illinois town where my parents live and I swear to you, when I look at this, I can practically hear the cicadas. I can feel how thick the air is and I want to get on a plane and go home.

list thirty-six: 100 things I love about summer

1. daisies in my front yard
2. rainbow snow cones
3. old lawn furniture
4. drive-in movies
5. polaroid skies
6. lightning bugs
7. sidewalk chalk
8. saltwater sandals
9. saturday morning yard sales
10. sunflower fields
11. street festivals
12. paper fans
13. ice cream cones
14. the sound of cicadas
15. the hum of old fans
16. polka dot bathing suits
17. backyard string lights
18. oversized beach balls
19. teeny tiny pinwheels
20. carnival food
21. painted toes
22. diving boards
23. impromptu picnics
24. water balloon fights
25. epic roadtrips
26. cherry slushees
27. open windows
28. hanging laundry
29. flashlight games
30. frozen grapes
31. barbecues
32. bare skin
33. squirt guns
34. sundresses
35. homemade tents
36. cut-off jeans
37. collected shells
38. super slides
39. neon inner tubes
40. roadside fruit stands
41. underwater tea parties
42. candy-colored zinnias
43. the sound of ice cream trucks
44. the scent of the ocean
45. long afternoons at the library
46. long afternoons at the park
47. mexican coca cola
48. corn on the cob
49. hand-painted driftwood
50. homemade bubbles
51. vintage sunglasses
52. white cotton nightgowns
53. pink plastic flamingos
54. roller coasters
55. ferris wheels
56. frozen lemonade
57. giant hammocks
58. dinner on the patio
59. early evening bike rides
60. late night light
61. hand-picked strawberries
62. braided hair
63. baby pools
64. dairy queen
65. tiki torches
66. the scent of fresh cut grass
67. the scent of suntan lotion
68. hot city sidewalks
69. lemonade stands
70. mexican peasant blouses
71. backyard croquet
72. watering cans
73. fireworks
74. farmers markets
75. tide pools
76. straw totes
77. water slides
78. window boxes
79. sandcastles
80. sleepovers
81. sparklers
82. art camp
83. blueberries
84. beach umbrellas
85. miniature golf
86. neighborhood parades
87. lawn sprinklers
88. turquoise waters
89. wild blackberries
90. hand-painted rocks
91. bright-colored beach towels
92. fleamarket weekends
93. happy gardens
94. magic hour
95. night swimming
96. daisy chains
97. popsicles
98. summer songs
99. bare feet
100. sunshine

happy second day of summer, friends.

hangers are pretty

hangers that inspire. hangers. who knew?

wooden heart

Listener "Wooden Heart" from Nathan Corrona on Vimeo.

brilliant beautiful work from that guy listener (who you might also recognize from here or here) and directed by that guy nate (who you might also recognize as my brother). watch it big. watch it big if you can.

the moment is

when I was a kid, I used to wonder if it was possible to hold onto ordinary moments. you know, if you tried hard enough. if you closed your eyes and memorized every single thing about it, painted the scene in great detail in your mind and then just willed yourself to remember. could you? in twenty years? remember the way you bent down and scratched your knee while you waited for the school bus to round the corner. remember the way that peanut butter and jelly sandwich tasted while you watched an episode of good times. remember the way your skin stuck to the back of the station wagon seat while fleetwood mac played on the radio. because where do they all go? all the seemingly forgettable everyday moments? the thought of losing them all terrified the ten year-old me. no matter how unremarkable they were, I wanted them. I wanted them all. I still want them all. thirty years later and I have really only managed to hold onto what feels like a few measly scraps. for whatever reason, only certain moments stick.

so I thought about this earlier as I sat in the parking lot of the grocery store waiting for my husband to pick me up. I thought about how hard I tried at age ten to hold onto things, how hard I still try to hold onto things-- how I take photographs and make lists and scribble thoughts onto the pages of a hundred different notebooks, how carefully I've integrated this practice of preservation into my daily life. I am indefatigable. and then I sat there in that parking lot and did what my ten year-old self used to do. I memorized the moment. cool concrete beneath me, sun on my face. left hand on a cart filled with groceries for the week, giant bin of watermelons just a few feet away. old squeeze song coming from the grocery store speakers, me singing along. quietly, under my breath. one moment folds into the next and then it's over. and I am left hoping maybe this one will stick.

list thirty-five: books I loved as a kid

these are the books that I read over and over. tirelessly, joyfully. these are the books that I loved so much it hurt.

1. maria tallchief by tobi tobias. purchased in first grade at the school book fair and the beginning of so much for me. filled with gorgeous pencil drawings of a dancer who was born on an indian reservation and went on to become a famous prima ballerina with the new york city ballet. I spent hours examining the drawings. hours and hours and hours. and even though I have long since parted ways with ballet, I still want to slip inside this book and become maria tallchief.

2. peppermint by dorothy grider. a litter of kittens is born in the back of a candy shop and all of them find a home but one-- a sickly little white kitten named peppermint. oh the heartbreak! I could not take it. which is probably why I read it again and again. also? pictures of pretty candy in big glass jars plus pictures of fluffy kittens= total win.

3. little majorette by dorothy grider. baton twirling was never really my thing but the pictures of the costumes in this book had me reconsidering. oh, that bright red two-piece number with the white fringe! and the fancy majorette costume that patty's parents surprised her with at the end! SO. GOOD.

4. I know a story by miriam blanton huber, frank seely salisbury and mabel o'donnell. pretty much your basic collection of classic tales here-- i.e., the gingerbread boy, the three little bears, little red riding hood, yadda yadda yadda. but the last story in the book, the boy who went to the north wind, was something special. there was a magic stick and a magic goat and a magic tablecloth and wind that actually talked and a boy and his mother who had nothing but got everything in the end. the best, people. the best.

5. popular party games edited by alison m. abel. purchased at the school book fair in second grade and the very beginning of my lifelong obsession with party planning. there's a price tag on the front with 30 cents marked on it and the initials A.C. scrawled next to it. which means I must have tried to sell this book at one of my mother's many garage sales. which, if it had actually sold, would have been nothing less than tragic. there are important sentences underlined and specific game titles circled and entire paragraphs crossed out. it's a little piece of second grade andrea and I die when I think of how easily it could have ended up in someone else's attic.

6. flicka, ricka, dicka and the strawberries by maj lindman. checked out from the local library repeatedly and then purchased at an antique mall somewhere in tennessee a good twenty years later. to be clear, I loved all the flicka, ricka, dicka books. all of them. I was also a big fan of the snip, snap and snurr books. because please. old-fashioned storybooks about swedish triplets are meant to be adored. however, this particular flicka, ricka, dicka book just about did me in. every time. the story: flicka, ricka and dicka (in adorable matching red and white dresses, mind you) go on a picnic in the woods. along the way, they fill their baskets with wild strawberries which their mother has promised to pay them each a silver coin for. at some point, they lose track of time and end up horribly lost. which is when they stumble onto a sweet family who takes them in. fyi, this family has nothing. they're walking around in ratty clothes and bare feet so in my 7 year-old mind, they have nothing. but you know, the mother keeps the tiny home clean and clearly, they're kind, humble people. the kind of people that just sort break your heart. so anyway, the mother sends her daughter (who just happens to be the same age as flicka, ricka and dicka) back into the forest to help the triplets find their way back home. when they return, the triplets tell their gorgeous (blonde) swedish mother everything. they tell her they want to use their silver coins to buy the girl a new dress and there's a whole page devoted to the shopping (which I loved) and of course, they pick out the most perfect dress ever-- crimson red with white polka dots and a little white lace collar. in the end, they take it to the girl, along with a basket filled with apples and jars of strawberry preserves and milk for the baby (who you just know was starving) and oh people, it was beautiful. and I don't remember crying but I bet I did. I just bet you I did.

get out and ride

it's national bike month and how did I not know this before now? on the bike I go.

photobooth friday

sometimes photobooth frames capture exactly who we are in a particular moment. not always, but sometimes. I'll admit, when the booth first spit this strip out, I was a little disappointed. ezra did exactly what I told him not to do-- that is, move in close and make the crazy face. four whole frames of variations on the crazy face. but the more I look at this, the more I love it. because it's exactly who we are right now. ezra, all goofiness and loose teeth and straw-like bangs. ava, all smiling eyes and soft preteen edges and the kitty cat hat she won't take off. and me in the background-- loving them both so much I can hardly stand it, trying so hard to hold onto them like this but failing miserably. because you can't hold on, it doesn't work like that. so you grab them and put them in a photobooth every once in a while and when the strip comes sliding out, you silently celebrate your triumphant (albeit small) attempt to stop time.

happy mother's day, y'all.

lolo

we have a new kitten. which means I will probably never get anything done again ever in life.

true

which of my photographs is my favorite? the one I'm going to take tomorrow. -imogen cunningham

tomorrow is today

finally, we have sun. and it's bouncing around all over the city of portland like a giant yellow ball.

we are all out in it. we are celebrating by doing things like opening windows and taking photographs of the sky. we are laying in the grass and ordering ice cream cones. some of us are even wearing sandals, though it's not really warm enough for that. what I'm trying to say here is that we feel a little like we just won the lottery, like we're at the beginning of the shiniest kind of parade. we know it's not going to last forever but dang it if we're not going to forget everything for a second and lose our minds over it.


(PX680 film plus blue skies= so much win)