Finding Beauty

I’ve lived in Oregon for 75% of my life. I know it’s pretty. But like gum stains on the Walmart parking lot or graffiti on boxcars, at some point things become so commonplace that I don’t really notice them anymore.

(This may also be due to the fact that approximately half of my life is spent inside my own head, but whatever.)

A few friends of mine recently visited Oregon, and suddenly Instagram was flooded with beautiful images, the captions singing the praises of my beautiful state. “But…but…I see that all the time!” I kept thinking. “How come I never thought of it as Instragram-worthy?”

It’s springtime in Oregon, one of the prettiest things there is. And I’ve been taking it for granted.

I decided that this must stop, and I was going to go out and pick a bouquet of wild roses and snowballs, and I was going to take pictures and blog about it no matter how Ann Voskamp-ey it turned out.

I even picked the flowers onto this round flat basket instead of a cracked ice cream bucket like usual.

But seriously, how pretty is the snowball tree, and white dusting of petals on the grass, like sprinkled snow? Or powdered sugar? Or dandruff?

(I had to say that just to keep from over Ann Voskamping it.)

(I really have nothing against Ann Voskamp, in case anyone was worried. 🙂 Just not the writing style I usually try to emulate.)

Anyway, I was quite proud of my bouquet, and it made my room smell amazing. I put the leftover rosebuds in some vintage perfume bottles and they actually opened up, later, when I set them on the windowsill. That was nice. They didn’t die as quickly that way.

As much as I love bouquet-making, I decided I’d rather appreciate Oregon’s beauty another way: by going on adventures. This summer, I’d like to visit various pretty/awesome spots in Oregon and blog about them. If you have recommendations for where to go, please don’t hesitate to comment!