love you, dad.

The day after his hip surgery, my Dad and I went to his first physical therapy class. The doctor started by having all the patients share what they were most excited to do once they healed. It's a long road, she said, and it's good to have something to motivate you. They went around the room; patients who were excited to work in the garden, get back to biking, to go scuba diving in bermuda (#humblebrag). 

 "I'm going to walk my daughter down the aisle" he said.

My dad asked me to take the first set of pictures the morning of his surgery, to commemorate the last time he'd ever use a cane. His stiff walk down the driveway took five or six minutes. The bottom photo was taken the day after my sister's wedding.  Not only did he walk her down the aisle, but he twirled her across the dance floor. a dance floor that he built. after taking a few waltz classes. 

(photos) 1. on film with Pentax K1000 | 2. on film with Hasselblad 503 (p.s.) my dad = atticus finch + mitch buchanon

thetas for a lifetime.

One of the very best choices that I made in college was joining a sorority. I know greek life gets a bad-rap, but Theta has made such a difference in my life. Going to college at a private university in Southern California quickly gave me an inferiority complex - seeing as I was neither rich nor blonde. I met my best friends as a Theta and found a network of ladies who helped me find my sparkle again. For that I will always be so grateful. 

As I've gotten older, Theta has also had a lasting professional impact on my life. Being part of a sorority taught me how to work with (rather than compete against) other women. It's something I think is so important in a society where we're taught that the opportunities for ladies are limited, making us see other women as rivals rather than allies.

Even though I've been out of undergrad for four years now, 2013 felt like a very "Theta" year for me. First, I was incredibly blessed to be awarded a scholarship from the Theta Foundation for my graduate studies. And secondly, my little sister - who was also a theta at Oregon State - got married. All of her best friends and most of her bridesmaids are also Thetas (the picture above is of all of KATs at her wedding). It made me realize that being a Theta for a lifetime isn't just a tagline, it's a promise.  Happy founders day, Kappa Alpha Theta!

(photos) 1. Lily's theta badge on her bridal bouquet | 2. by Olivia Ashton

lily's wedding.

raise your hand if you want to see some pics from my sister's wedding?! well, these are the only ones I took because I was mostly busy painting emergency wooden directional signs after another set of signs appeared on the same country road for farm wedding in the opposite direction. luckily there's never any shortage of cameras at a wedding, so stay tuned for a few more this week! 

The big day was full of blessings (no rain! no mosquitos!) but the biggest might have been that I managed not to get neon pink tempra paint on my bridesmaid dress. 

(photos) 1 and 3 on film with Pentax K1000, other's are iphone + vsco. 

LA lady.

Stacey and I have been friend since we were three, we grew up together in Oregon. She hated the rain and she told me more than once that she belonged in Los Angeles.  When I visited her there in July it was clear to me that she'd been right; she finally found her city. 

We sat on her veranda overlooking La Brea, at eye level with the palm trees. The air was still warm and the sun was setting, shining over the stucco siding. She went inside and brought out a handful of otter pops, which were our favorite thing as kids. And we ate them, snipping off top after top, until our mouths turned blue.

as for me and LA, I'm still undecided. it's hard to love anywhere that makes my hair frizzy.

(photos) iphone + vsco, except the third which is film | West Hollywood, ect.

gatherings | Sabrina's Sauvie Island Bachelorette

At Sabrina's bachelorette party, one of the girls brought along The Book of Questions: Love and Sex. And, let me just say there is something special about a group of ladies who unanimously agreed they'd rather have 6 months of free time than 6 months of spending every single second with their partner (as her friend Katrina put it:  "I've got sh*t to do!"). Sabrina has this whole "birds of a feather" thing figured out, and was ushered into married life by a group of independent women, most of whom are in committed relationships. Lots of wise words and jello-shots were shared!

I wish I could say that my friendship with Sabrina started when we met in college and realized our mutual love of feminist theory, contemporary poetry, and our Oregon roots. But, no ... that came later. Really, I have to thank a drink special at The Beachcomber for bringing us together. Pocketing a set of glowing ice cubes is not my proudest moment. But I am thankful all the same.

(photos) on film with Pentax K1000 | Sauvie Island's Reeder Beach

iphone pix from Tessa + Andy's wedding.

Without further ado .... pictures from Tessa and Andy's Wedding! I only took a few photos with my real camera since most of the day was spent Maid-of-Honoring (see: me following Tessa around a pear orchard with a San Pelligrino, a red lipstick and a giant white balloon.)  Which was really just fine by me because the day was one of the most memorable ever and it will live on in my mind and in the forthcoming photos from the official photographer/my dear friend Cassy Berry. So, I bring you the five pictures I quickly snapped on my phone! The rest of these are borrowed from the instagram of our friend and fabulous Day-Of Coordinator, Megan (of Mackenzie Events. I cannot recommend her highly enough!)

Tessa will be the first to tell you she has high expectations and it made my heart so happy to have everything exactly the way she imagined it. Here are some of the special details she dreamed up... 

1. homemade wedding cake + juliet roses. The night before the big day, Tess and I went over to Billy Jean's as she was baking it, and she put mint green dye into the frosting toothpick-tip by toothpick-tip to get the color just right. (And, Megan made the rose-gold bent wire "I do" cake topper.)
2. pizza party!! dinner was "fancy" local pizza, served on cake plates, from Solstice in Bingen, WA. 
3. venue: The Ruins at Springhouse Cellars in Hood River, OR
4. Andy, the groom, made a playlist on his iPod and we all danced the night away. The first song of the night was LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends" and it was truly one of the happiest moments of my life. I met Tessa and Andy my first month in Portland, and dancing to that song at their wedding was one of those "wow" moments where I was just so filled-up by everything that has happened in the last four years. My life here has been better than I anything I knew to hope for.
5. I developed a gold foiling technique to make the signage, since Tessa was very adamant about her wedding "not looking like Pinterest threw-up on it"
6. the favors were heart shaped sunglasses and they were the cutest! It was so funny to look out from the alter during the ceremony and see everyone in the audience wearing them, including her grandpa.

I'll share my handful of film photos  (taken with a Hasselblad I borrowed from my friend Anu!!) when I get them back from the processor. They'll, of course, be accompanied by me getting all emotional on you about my best friend getting married and how being her Maid of Honor is a memory I'll cherish forever.

(photos) top, bottom, 5 and 6 with my iPhone | 1 - 4 by @megnmackenzie

anatomy of | A Thoughtful Bridal Shower Gift (Using The Registry!)

A few weekends ago, my sister and I headed over to Crate and Barrel to buy a Bridal Shower gift for Tessa. I like to think that I have a talent for gift-giving {exhibit A} but this was a challenge. Giving your best friend a spatula just seems kind of impersonal.  How do you shop for a bridal shower gift that's both thoughtful and uses the registry? Here's what I learned...

step 1. pick a theme

For Tessa, I went with "breakfast." Andy, her fiance, cooks this special mash-up of sausage and eggs titled "scramby" which has been known to help cure her migraines (and our occasional hang-overs). The picture below is of when they visited me in Boston and Andy found us a local breakfast joint where a coffee and an egg sandwich was less than five dollars!

step 2. pick out some stuff

When you get to the store, print off the registry and look for the small ticket items that relate to your theme or relate to one another. If you didn't come prepared with a theme, look to see if they registered for cookbooks and start there! Think: Italian Cookbook + Pepper Grinder + Garlic Press or Cupcake Cookbook + Baking Sheets + Measuring Cups.  (and don't be afraid to toss in a cute low-commitment extra that's not on the registry to really jazz it up. In the cupcake example, add sprinkles. People act like registries are so multiple guests don't buy the same gift but it's really because new couples don't want to end up with a ton of stuff that isn't their style. Sprinkles are edible - you can't go wrong.) 

dishtowels $9.90 for 2 (the ones in the picture are fancier and by marimekko $36.00) | quiche pan $15.95 | balloon whisk $7.95 | omelet and pancake spatula $6.95 | egg timer $4.95

for a total of: $45.70

or ... you could buy one frying pan for $49.95

Gifts like this not only seem more thoughtful but they're more "bang for your buck" if you're like me and on a budget for the bridal-bachelorette-baby-housewarming parties that seem to happen every weekend in the summer. So, leave the crystal wine carafe to Great Aunt Susan and head straight for the utensil section!

dad hands, doing things.

Father's Day Weekend, both photos are so classically my dad. 

friday: painting the foundation of my sister's first house and then laying out plans to remodel her laundry room while eating a pile of cherries from her (twelve acre!) backyard.

saturday: that thing at the upper right corner is uni - or sea urchin - my dads "favorite food on the planet." My sister and I think it's the color of baby poo and has a surface texture like a human tongue but he says it tastes like "a mouthful of sea water." I guess nowadays sushi is more of a yuppie food, but it's something I always associate with my parents who met and lived the first half of their life together in San Francisco. Growing up, they would take us to the one ten-seat sushi bar in our little town for birthday dinner. Even just twenty years ago, sushi was pretty unusual and I always felt it was a special that my parents knew about California things.

p.s. he gives good advice...

how to end things gracefully.

how to deal with stress.

how (not) to use spray paint.

traits.

I hope you take the time today to thank your mom for all the things she's given you - genetic or otherwise! xo. 

on being her bridesmaid.

At her bridesmaid brunch, after manicures and the day before her wedding, each of the girls were given a little time to toast to Laura. I told her that being there felt like an awards banquet. I spent three years in college working towards this day: three years of  taking every major class together and finding excuses to hang out in the library for hours, working on our study guides.This was an achievement! I knew I wanted to be Laura's friend since that first day of class.

And, the funny thing is, I think a lot of people feel that way. She is a rare kind of person : open-hearted, witty and perfectly punctual (all. the. time.)

I joke with Laura that I'm her "secret friend", a phrase I borrowed from Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Despite already having three best friends, Mindy has another friend who loves comedy as much as she does, and who she only hangs out with one-on-one.

“There was just Mavis and me, but it never seemed lonely because we never stopped talking. We never needed best friend gear because I guess with real friends you don’t have to make it official. It just is.”

Laura is the most important person in so many people's lives, and there are at least six of us out there who call her "my best friend". I don't think I'll ever get over the honor of being asked to stand up in her wedding, or the joy I felt on that day knowing she had found her forever. 

gatherings | Lily's Birthday (and big proposal!)

On Friday morning, Lily's boyfriend called me at work. The conversation started with small talk, thought I had a feeling he wanted to talk about something substantial. And he did. He was asking to marry my sister. After a lot of squealy excitement (mostly on my part, but not entirely), he let me in on the plan to propose the next day at her Birthday Boat Bash. Which worked out perfectly, since the hoopla of her birthday would hide every hint that something even bigger was about to happen ... and I only had to keep the grin off my face for a few-hour car ride. My part in the big plan was to make sure Lily left for the lake before 9:00 ... no easy feat, since the Shoreys can be a little slow moving in the morning and she would be spending the night in the nearby town after a wedding. 

But the next day, I caught the bus under a highway overpass (where I watched a bum wake up - gooood morning), commuted to Clackamas, bought bagels and coffee and was ready to go by nine am! on a Saturday!

To get some alone time - proposing isn't a three person activity - AJ told Lily he had planned a "birthday" hike for them and that I could stay to decorate. I asked myself : how would I feel if Lily was actually skipping out on setting up for the party to go on a hike. answer : annoyance, thinly masked with enthusiasm. Luckily, years of passive aggressive behavior primed me for the roll of a lifetime - I nailed it, and Lily was none the wiser.

By the time they got back the decorations were done, making the whole day feel like magic for her. She was so excited she got a bloody nose.

My other pictures from the day were a blurry blownout mess, but the proposal was captured on a Go-Pro. The recording survived for three whole hours before it was accidentally dropped in the lake when her new fiance dove off a bridge in a burst of enthusiasm/manliness.

So, the rest of the day will have to live on in memory. and it will.

(photos) on film with Pentax k1000 

two for | Red, White + Blue

Film photography makes my life a twilight zone of timing. For example ... the photos I posted on the 4th? actually from last year.  But, I liked these too much to sit on them for another 354 days so I thought we'd have a little redo.

Luckily, my sister and I dress in navy blue every other day of the year so it's pretty much like the Forth of July all the time. Except we're not at the lake. I'm working in an office with no windoww torturing myself with photos of the lake. and I didn't get to eat a hot dog for lunch. and I'm wearing a bra (ughhh.) instead of a bathing suit. So, not like the Forth of July at all.

(photos) on film with Pentax k1000

gatherings | Laura's Bridal Shower

Laura's getting married a month from yesterday, so I guess it's fitting that I finally processed the film from her bridal shower. It was nice to relive the real excited of opening a toaster and all the little details from the day, right down to the monogrammed ribbon.

Her wedding has given me so much to look forward to this year: Las Vegas and Chicago, with the big day up next! Every couple of months we all get together, and it's become so clear why each of these ladies hold such a special place in Laura's heart. I'm really going to miss seeing them- and Laura's handsome future husband - after she ties the knot . 

... which is why I'm trying to get included in her anniversary. C'mon Radley, whatdya say?

(photos) on film with Pentax k1000

father's day + fictional dads.

I think my Dad is a combination of the two best fictional fathers of all time : To Kill a Mocking Bird's Atticus Finch and Baywatch's Mitch Buchannon.

My Atticus-Dad has the "quiet dignity" thing nailed. He taught me, by example, how to treat everyone with respect  He is on a first name basis with the mailman, the barista at the drive-through coffee stand, and the toothless guy who pumps his gas. He gives the best advice and speaks in moral maxims like "only idiots paint using a plastic drop-cloth"

My Mitch-Dad enjoys body surfing and giving informative lectures about sneaker waves - not just to his own children but to anyone playing on a log near the ocean. Maybe it's his affinity for red swim trucks and the chest hair, but Lily and I also think our Dad looks like Mitch Buchannon - which he vehemently denies / is secretly flattered by. 

I hope you and yours have the happiest of Father's day weekends!

Does your Dad remind you of any fictional fathers?

been there | Las Vegas

 

"How do these eleven girls with matching t-shirts and monogrammed cowbells know each other?"

The answer isn't a city or a school ... it is one special girl who found her soul mate.

(photos) on film with Minox EL

Grandparents (Mission Accomplished.)

Usually when I set a goal for myself I break the cardinal rule of goal setting : make it something measurable. I'll say something like "This month I'm going to relax more". How do you even measure that? Here's me making a chart and putting up a nice cloud sticker every time I do something relaxing. Now here's me freaking out because I don't have enough clouds on the chart and taking a luke-warm bubble bath, even though we're out of hot water, because I need that sticker, I need to relax, god dammit. 

So, last year when New Years Resolution season came I decided to avoid the usual fiasco. I picked something real. I made it my resolution to visit all my grandparents in one year. I've seen a Grammy, a Mydie, and - as of October - a Grandad.    

 It sounds silly, but I've always felt a little left out because my sister looks just like my mom (how do you really compete with someone that's not only beautiful but also a reincarnation of your dead mother. c'mon).  Seeing the picture below was a special part of my last trip to Montana. As I get older I start to look more like my grandad, Harry. It was Darwin-on-the-Galapagos woah moment. It felt good. No cloud sticker necessary. 

[ (1 and 2) with Mintola srt201 on fuji superia 400iso.

(p.s) another Darwin-woah moment on my trip to Montana]

portland places | Departure

I took these pictures at my sister's birthday party at Departure - a 12th floor airport inspired rooftop lounge - over looking downtown Portland.  Despite their appearance, the pictures are unedited. The saturated red-tinted color is from the film being expired.  It's one of those things that was accidental, but turned out awesome.

Kind of like last night, when I thought my waiter forgot to bring my glass of white wine. So rather than correcting him, I just ordered another one. As soon as he turned around I noticed a glass just outside my peripheral vision. 

Whose glass of wine is this?

It's yours, Sam.

Why of course it is! and now ... I have two.

As Mae West said : too much of a good thing is wonderful. I hope your weekend is full of too many good things.

Hip Hip Hooray!

Hip Hip Hooray! Today I am 24!

Even though I'm supposed to be a grown-up, it still made me want to cry when I had to go to work this morning. It's my birthday. But, nothing is ever too bad when I work with my best friend. Or, when I leave the office with a bottle of 12 Bridges Gin ( ... maybe I just like the label) and two bouquets of flowers.

My sister picked me up and surprised me with the Heath mugs of my dreams. We had lunch on the patio at Produce Row, and looted the Egg Press Sample Sale. 

I arrived home to a clean house (my boyfriend is so sexy), and pile of packages from some faraway friends. And, now I'm off to dinner at Little Bird. It's French, so I think I'll put on an extra coat of red lipstick for good measure. 

It's been a truly fabulous day.

One more year until I'm in my "mid-twenties". Here's to making it count! 

Like Mother Like Daughter

I am 5-feet-6-inches tall. It's marked on the yard stick in the hallway. You can see, before it, my sister and I at 3 ft and 4-feet-11-inches. We measured our height and it changed every year. But, all the while, when we were growing up, the line titled "Mom" stayed the same. It's marked at 5-feet-6-inches. Then her bones began to shrink and she left us, inch by inch, until she was gone.  I wonder what it would be like to stand face to face, without looking up. I honestly can't imagine it; now that I'm 5-feet-6-inches.

Even without her here, I am slowly becoming her. 

In my own small way, I am bringing her back.

(photos) my mom, my sister, and I on the ferry from San Francisco to Sausalito in 1999 + my sister and I, again on our way to Sausalito in 2009 | another shared moment between our two lives
(p.s) on mothers & loss | my Mom's playlist

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Deck the Halls

Part of working in the service industry is that during December - when everyone else is out enjoying their holidays, traveling and shopping - you are at work helping them do so. We're lucky if we even get Christmas day off.

My roommates and I decorated a Christmas tree in our house, since some of us couldn't get home to our families. It's a special memory of mine; the way we carry out our traditions with the people around us, in the time that we can find. It doesn't take much to celebrate this time of year.

tis the season for ten-hour work days, bundling up because the furnace is broken and sipping hot toddies! fa lah la lah la!