Green & Grey

Portland has been grey grey grey and cool this week. WHERE'S MY AUGUST?? Hello, I might bitch and complain and slow down to sloth speed when it gets above 95 F, but hey, couldn't we manage some some 80s here, sometime? Yesterday's high? 72. Bleh.

I tend to fixate on the weather, and the greyer it gets, the less energy I have and the harder it is to wake up. I love the summer and the long hours and the heat. The summer I've been EXPECTING, anyway.

I promised you pictures, and here I haven't posted for two days. Aieee! Cake topper is still MIA, bleh. I have only completed 7 of 38 thank you notes. I need to catch up.

I am really annoyed at something at work that should really not be bothering me, so that makes it a good time to post, hmm? I'm just so tired of the little dribs and drabs of problems that keep cropping up on this project. That and really, the shittiest software I have EVER worked with. bah.

We got married in a garden - the Leach Botanical Garden. Despite the unfortunate name, it's a beautiful place. As wedding sites go, it was fairly inexpensive and we had both the wedding and reception there. K & I both liked it because it's mostly a working garden and not fru-frued up just for weddings, except an arbor and a grassy area that they keep watered and green for special occasions. Oh yeah, and there's an attached house just in case (with my luck, I knew I had to to have a backup).

My friend Carmen took this picture, looking down at the tables for dinner:

You can see the dahlia bouquets on each table.

We were having everyone come out to visit us in Portland, and I felt like showing off the city a little. One thing the PNW is very good at is dahlias. About this time of the summer they bust out in blooms and if you've ever been to Pike Place Market in Seattle in high summer, you'll have noticed all the gorgeous $5 bouquets of dahlias. They come in white, red, orange, yellow, purple, and even a vague green, all the way from pale delicate pink through day-glo fuschia.

Since my mother and mother-in-law (and sisters in law and etc) didn't get much chance to actually plan and organize the event, I asked if they could do the flower centerpieces for the tables. I wanted to keep it simple, with just a simple vase and a bouquet of dahlias for each table. I thought, how hard could it be? The farmers markets are selling mixed dahlia bouquets for $5-10 or $1/stem around August, so I must be able to get some easily and not too expensively.

It worked out fabulously. We went to Sauvie Island Dahlias, a U-pick farm about 1/2 hour drive away, armed with clippers and buckets of water. We just wandered the rows, looking at flowers and saying "ooh, this one's pretty" and cutting them. I just told everyone to choose whatever they liked - they all went gorgeously well with each other anyway. I took maybe 1/2 hour?

The vases were from a thrift store and were $1 a piece; probably from someone else's wedding. Yay! I didn't set out to be cheap but I'm pleased that I spent less and had flowers everyone seemed to like. (Do I grow dahlias at home? No: because they are a Big Pain in the Derrière to grow. Look, I barely get around to weeding and you want me to... dig up tubers every year? ha ha.)



The cake was delicious and was from the Blue Gardenia Bakery. Layers were alternating chocolate and vanilla and the frosting is buttercream mixed with blackberries and a blackberry filling. They really outdid themselves, the cake was really fabulous. Cake! Woo!

Another of Carmen's pictures. I like this one of us.