Christmas Trees, Corn stocks, and Pumpkins oh my!

The forecast for this weekend showed one last sunny weekend for the Seattle area. A perfect opportunity to head to a local pumpkin patch with the nieces and nephews and Troy's parents. When Saturday finally came  it was with a cloak of thick chilly fog. We headed out to a local farm that was located next to a main highway. It was packed with literally hundreds of people not exactly my idea of a cute local farm. So we took a quick tour of the cute farm animals and headed out. Then we just drove until we saw the next sign for a pumpkin patch and found this little slice of heaven.

You start by driving in to an enchanting Christmas tree forest.

And then find that Christmas forest is filled with wonderful Fall surprises as well.

There where even pumpkins growing in the trees!!!

Stalks and leaves straight out of the Jack and the Giant Bean Stalk

Trying to find the perfect Pumpkin!

Nephew photobomb!

The old scale used to weigh the pumpkins.

They even had a sweet old farm dog!!

Our pumpkins!!!

Stay tuned to see what I create with these beauties!

Furr and Falls

Sorry the blog posts have been thin on the ground lately, I was hit with a pretty nasty cold this week but finally felt good enough today to go out and play with Troy. So we decided to head up to Snoqualmie Falls, just about forty minutes from our house. The falls where absolutely beautiful as the run off was particularly high due to the very heavy rain we have had lately. I decided that this outing would be a perfect time to pull out my fur vest (see how I created this vest here). I have been thinking about pulling out my fur for fall ever since I viewed Okopodes Fall post. Okopodes is a blog that is created by a friend of mine Tiffany Hilton she is an amazingly talented girl go and check out her blog. I apologize in advance for the overload of pictures in this post there was just too much fall, fur, and falls beauty!

Some Fall Colors as we Started our journey

A very Welcome Blue Sky as we headed up the Pass

The view of from the Top of the Falls, the Falls where going 

so strong that there was lots of spray back on the viewing platform.

Then after stopping at the gift shop and picking up the first Christmas gift of the season we headed down to the lower viewing area.

More Vibrant Fall Colors

The View on the drive down, I think the moss covered trees are just spectacular!

Leaves bigger than my hand along the trail

An electric plant that harnesses the power of the falls, it was odd to see this stark modern building in the middle of all of this nature.

  

The Lower view of the Falls

Some relics of the Hydroelectric project displayed as art

My Favorite Braided Up Do

We then took a break and relaxed and explored next to a calmer part of the river

My watch and ring where once my Grandmothers

So Calm only a few hundred feet from the falls. 

Hope you enjoyed our little Fall adventure!

Vest: Thrift Store and Altered by Me

Shirts: GAP

Pants: Cierra in Old Town Fort Collins

Boots: Nordstrom

Earnings: Vintage

Ring: Heirloom

Watch: Heirloom

The Silver Lining

The cloudy rainy days have started to settle in over the Seattle area and you know what I was pretty excited. As cloudy days bring sweater weather, so my church outfit had to incorporate my lovely mustard yellow sweater. My outfit also included some of my favorite pieces with a story. I always feel a fashion accessory or clothing item is better when it has a story behind it.

 The bracelet is a vintage bracelet of my Grandmothers.

The shoes are from a vintage store in Florence, Italy.

The beautiful view cloudy on my drive home.

I hope you will try to find the silver lining in your cloudy days whether it is a fun outfit or a beautiful view it is always in there somewhere.

Sweater: Mens H&M

Skirt: Macy's

Belt: Pull & Bear

Scarf: Francesca's

Earnings: Francesca's

Shoes: Vintage from Florence, Italy

Ring: Made by my sister

Chemistry? Your crazy...

I decided that I wanted to become a chemist when I was a junior in high school. Six years later I have become very used to the looks of shock or confusion whenever I explained my career path. Some of the most common responses are wow that is hard, I hate chemistry, you must be smart, and occasionally the question of why I do it. Over the years the reasons why I do it have changed and sometimes I have even questioned why I do it myself. But last Friday, as I drove home from work all doubt seemed to fade.

In the beginning the "why" came from an inspiring high school Chemistry teacher and the desire to eventually use my Chemistry knowledge to help cure diseases. As I progressed out of high school and into college I found that Chemistry is hard sometimes really, really hard. But each time I would overcome those really, really hard tests or classes there came a true sense of accomplishment and pride. Pride is also a reason that draws us nerds to Chemistry because your shock and awe feels good. Because lets face it most of us Chemists grew up as the quite introverted nerd always in the shadows of the athletes (lets face it Chemists are mostly very uncoordinated) and the popular social kids. So that sense of shock and awe feels pretty good. But truth be told when you tell us we must be smart, we are often filled with doubt. Because most of the time we have no idea if we are really going to conquer the hard part or if we are really "smart" enough for science.    

But you know what, most of the time we do conquer the hard part and most of the time we do it with the help of those around us.Because it really does take a special type of person to study and work in science. It takes a person who is driven to work independently but more importantly it takes a person who is willing to set aside their pride and contribute to the greater whole and help a friend in need. Because one of the greatest "whys" is the people I get to be surrounded by. Maybe it is because we come into science with a goal of making the world better or maybe it is because of the our mutual appreciation of science and love of what we do. But all I know, is that I would not want to be surrounded by any other group of people than these smart competitive chemists.