n. williams

Yesterday I decided to continue on with my new found love of borrowing Greg's camera and finding an hour to myself to walk and photograph. I decided to head over to our lovely old (and missed) neighborhood in NE Portland. This corner mural and graffiti art sits across the street from a daily stop I used to make on my way home where I would wait for cars and bikes to go by so I could weave my way into the traffic.

Anyway, made my way over to Alberta Street to walk, snap some photos, stop by here, here and here, and grab a coffee. I enjoyed Alberta in a new and different way and while I was sitting here enjoying a delightful soy latte and a chocolate chip cookie, I began asking myself, why is it that so many times I appreciate places on a new level AFTER I've lived there more than during?? Not that I didn't enjoy Alberta when we lived near...I loved it...but didn't see it in the light I saw it yesterday. Maybe it's because when we lived there I wasn't living in the moment as much as I try to practice now, I was working like CRAZY in public accounting and barely saw the light of day, or maybe it's because I never took an hour simply to walk up and down the street solely to find a few photographs. I think it's a little of both and I like how taking photos is helping me to see things in a new light. One exception to this was when we lived in Cincinnati for a year before we were married. I loved every moment in the moment and looking back I think it was partly due to us knowing we were there for a short period of time, but, I must ask myself...can't that be said about everywhere?

I wore children's socks yesterday (um...ya...and, we don't have kids :) ) for one of two reasons, or, maybe both. None of mine are clean, or at least, none that I can find. The sock 'drawer', we'll call it, is the one section of my closet that I choose to leave in complete disarray. I don't know why exactly, but, I REALLY like it that way. I LOVE to throw all of my multicolored socks into a pile when they come out of the dryer and jam them into this brown boutique bag I call my sock drawer. The rest of my closet stresses me out if it's not neatly organized, folded and hung in a color coordinated kind of way, so, I figure the craziness with my socks is just the yin to my closet yang. Nonetheless, as I was trying desperately to find a matching pair of ANY socks - no color really critical as I was wearing wide leg jeans with a pair of brown chucks - I noticed this neatly folded, laundered pair of mini white gold toe socks. Flashing back to some friends of ours joining us for dinner and a movie with their kiddos, I smile and decide then and there that those would be my socks for the day. They kind of fit but held up fabulously AND it looks like I have Asher's Christmas present picked out!