good eats of summer

thoughts: the rain and clouds have been around far too long, and i (among many oregonians) am very happy to say that this sunshine the past two-ish weeks has been a real treat! i haven't really seen much sun since my choir toured in hawaii in mid-may, so i am loving these goregous blue skies and warm weather. although my car's air conditioning doesn't function too well, i enjoyed a nice 1.5 hour drive up to portland on thursday with my windows down and my music on. it was so great! that evening we saw the broadway performance "the lion king" which was by far the best 'official' start to summer ever! yesterday, i ran some errands and my mom asked me to pick up some strawberries for the house. i purchased a flat of berries. they were fat, bright red, and looked amazing. i'll just have one, i thought. wrong. i ate so many on the way home! they were absolutely incredible. being a native oregonian, i can tell right away the difference between an oregon berry and a non-oregon berry. oregon berries are SO delicious and sweet, i plan on eating millions over this summer.

why i chose this photo: as you might have guessed, most of the strawberries are all gone, and i really wanted a picture to show how great they are, but i took this picture when josh and i went to the beach one sunny day in may. we had a picnic and ate bread, cheese, strawberries, and good-n-plenties. we also took some pictures of our lunch, this was one of them. mmm mmm good.

question: what type of food(s) remind you of summer?

inspiration: "enjoy the sun as much as you can, because it doesn't last long in oregon!"

driving

thoughts: today was a day in which joshua and i drove almost 8 hours from star, idaho to portland. i wasn't really dreading the drive. i actually looked forward to it. the trip itself wasn't long in the scheme of things (i took several 6 hour bus rides in spain) and josh wanted to drive the whole way. our time was spent conversing over a variety of things, surveying the landscape, and forgetting life's worries. i say forgetting life's worries because there are a lot of things on my mind. i have to try and figure my summer, how i am going to make it. i still haven't found a job to pay my extremely expensive rent (although my internship will be paying a bit more than previously promised) and i'm worried about graduating on time. although i've been really bummed out and frustrated with a lot, this nice long drive helped rid me of the things flooding my mind. the drive was mainly empty of human existence, just open and free. i focused on the empty hills and treescapes and tried to empty my mind as we passed miles and miles of countryside.

why i chose this photo: this was just as we got onto 1-84. josh told me to look out the window, and i just stared at this endless beauty.

question: what was/is your favorite drive?

inspiration: [i saw this on a church bulletin board and liked it]: "if there is any sort of storm in your life, just wait for god to make it into a rainbow."