GET ME DRESSED // 008

brandon took these photos easily a million years ago (november!), right now i am watching when harry met sally (research!), and earlier today i went into target for some play dough and milk, happened upon a rather alarming aisle of easter candy (where is the decency?), a pack of temporary pirate tattoos, and a pink floyd t-shirt. all of which came home with me for less than twenty dollars. 

it is in that spirit that i say unto you: here it is! it's an outfit post.

i think we hit at least two of the three outfit post poses in the holy trinity of outfit post poses.

STUFF

these are the days! good crap!

and now, this is a post all about what all we've been up to lately. 

well first of all the entire house got sick. it was mild but it lasted forrrr-evvvv-errr. my insides are just now beginning to function properly and i won't regale you with the details except to say that the laxatives aisle and i have become real good friends and enemas are not as scary as you might think. and see? what is wrong with me!? there is some human condition where you get sick and suddenly you just really need to tell everybody on social media all about it. what is that. 

stomach bugs happen to be my anxiety trigger. if it's not pms and i have anxiety, that's why. (did you know matt lauer and joan baez are also emetophobes? good company, fist bumps, matt). so that's why all of last week and on into the weekend i was a complete nervous wreck. my brain went straight up fritzy. i am feeling much better now, thank you, primarily because my insides have started working again? p.s. this article on anxiety.

this is hands down the worst blog post i have ever written. hey let's change the subject!

if it's 3pm and it's not raining, i am walking. every day at 3pm a yellow lab comes tearing down the street from out of nowhere. i hear him coming and then there he is, full speed ahead, he catches his tennis ball, and goes ripping back the way he came, nd that's how i know it's time for me to put down the laptop and get outside and chase my own tennis ball. i get so much thinking done on these walks. this time in oregon has been good for my book, but it's been especially good for my soul. 

sometimes i desperately need a brain break from the writing and i take pictures using the self-timer on my phone. all this practice and i'm not getting any better! it's really strange. 

it's probably for the best.

we really miss brandon. i try and call him in the afternoons so i can hear his voice and rattle on and on about all the things in the world, because when he face times in the evenings huck completely bogarts the phone and i don't get a word in edgewise. he laughs this throaty, grunty laugh when brandon calls and gets all pumped up. ya gotta turn on ya manliness for ya daddy, you know. then he takes his dad all over the house to show him stuff. they play trains together, they take baths together (brandon is safely removed from potential splashes, looking down from on high), they even go potty together. "daddy, want to watch me poop?" "yeah, buddy!" they usually stay on the phone together until the battery dies, and then huck wails from somewhere in the house, "daddy! he go!" sometimes brandon face times during dinner, or when we're all out to lunch at baja fresh. we just set him on the table, propped against the tobasco sauce or what have you, it's become really normal at this point--just the four of us here in oregon plus the disembodied head of my husband. it's like he's there with us! the future is now! 

one more moss shot because whatever.

SILVER FALLS

this morning brandon texted me. it said, "i think you should do some henry instagrams. or you in cute clothes or something. take a break from moss, in other words." i rolled over and checked to make sure my earring was still in my ear (i have this rogue earring that likes to fall out when i sleep, it's weird), and then i checked my instagram feed and, yeah. my instagram has been so super green these days. 

now. this is not a horribly uncommon occurrence, lest ye be worried, because my brandon is my instagram husbager. sometimes i'll even text him two similar photos so he can help me pick which one to post, and he'll say in one text "natalie, i reeeeeeally don't care," and then in the next, "yeah, the second one for sure." you know, a husbager. like a momager only it's your husband? i suppose what i'm saying is, don't be irritated if i suddenly start posting more instergrams of cute outfits.

and yet! i am sorry to say, here comes some more moss, and other green junk, from our hike through silver falls on sunday evening. after which hike i bought CAMPFIRE INCENSE I AM SO EXCITED.

(brandon isn't really my husbager. he's really more of a hubsultant. riiiiight? okay okay.)

nature! ya know?

INSPIRED BY // BLACK + WHITE + BROWN

as part of my slow and steady descent into dude-dom ,i've found myself completely addicted to neutrals. in every way place shape and form. most especially the color combination of black, white and brown. there's something so serene yet striking about a spare white room with just an element of dark, and something so effortlessly chic about a good brown on black ensemble around town. casual and polished all at the same time. 

a few of my favorites to follow, click to keep reading.

AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHERS AND FAVORITE OUTTAKES

so, my baby sister got married last month. after christmas my parents threw her an open house / second reception here in oregon, for all the family and friends who weren't able to travel to utah. now, my mother is a wedding planner, this is her thiiiiiing. she rented a venue and hired a caterer and booked a photographer and a classical guitarist (she always does the flowers herself, she happens to be a pretty spectacular florist on the side), and then as luck would have it, our photographer had a family emergency. so us kids sort of looked at each other and blinked a bit, then pooled our collective stash of DSLRs and memory cards together and decided we'd just do our best. 

we were able to make pretty decent work of things, actually. somehow between the four of us we got enough of the classic shots a wedding album needs to be respectable. i offered to do the editing and put it all together into a book for the bride and groom, but the very most fun of course was looking through all of the ridiculous outtakes. a lot of them made it in. a lot of them..... did not. but those are the ones that tell the story of our family so, so well. they made me so happy, i decided to share some. here are just a few of my favorites.

(tough lighting in this place, also we are amateurs.) 

(we'd been watching the godfather that week, which (sort of?) explains this first one.)

△ brandon was behind the camera for this one. whatever it was, no doubt he deserved it ;). 

△ huck had a real healthy dose of satan in him that night.

△ my very, very favorite

△ twinner unattractive closed mouth smiles! we've been married too long and we're starting to morph into each other. pass the pearl jam!

and now i present, our intrepid photography team for the night:

kit lenses ahoy!

the end.

oh but p.s. i made these floral centerpieces myself and hell yes i am pretty proud of it.

now it's the end.

GET ME DRESSED // 007

i don't have much room for anything more in my apartment these days without starting a massive overhaul in the process, so when i went the pendleton mill outlet in washougal last weekend, i knew that whatever i found would have to pull double duty somehow in order to justify itself. voila: the wool throw scarf. i don't even care, i'm making it a thing.

i wore it on its inaugural outing to see a movie last saturday night. it got a surprising amount of compliments, and not for nothing but having a blanket on hand when watching a movie definitely makes a lot of sense. this is how i wore it the next morning. cold sunday school classroom? boom.

p.s. huck!