Here we are, living in southeast Portland, a city known for innovative dinning, and we can’t seem to get beyond SE Division Street when we go out to eat. Any why should we? Between our house and Division there is a plethora of fabulous restaurants offering an array of cuisines from around the world. By choosing to stay within our neighborhood we eliminate hundreds of great restaurant possibilities, but even within these restricted boundaries it is still difficult to make a dining decision .

A couple of years ago we stopped in at Taste Unique www.taseunique.com to pick up Italian to go. My husband Ty was raised on real Italian food and will not suffer inferior substitutes. Taste Unique is authentic home cooked Italian cuisine lovingly made by the Italian couple who owns the place.

It was one of those dark and dreary winter nights in Portland, the rain was slamming down faster than the windshield wipers could react. Two seconds out from under cover and you were drenched. We picked up our order and made a mad dash for the car, which was parked around the corner. On this same corner stood another restaurant that we had been eyeing for some time, Bar Avignon www.baravignon.com.  The interior looked cozy and warm and Ty suggested we go in and have a drink. There was only room at the bar, which was perfect. When you sit at the bar you don’t feel compelled to order a full dinner but have ample opportunity to really observe the place and how it operates. We ordered cocktails and, with the expert guidance of our server, appetizers. The experience was wonderful and since then this little gem of a place has turned into one of my favorite haunts.

Last night, when once again the rain was pouring over our fair city, we returned to this cozy sophisticated place and watched from our window seat as an episode of Portlandia unfolded before us. The place was full of dinners of all ages and backgrounds. Bicyclists came in stamping the wet from their clothes and dining without taking the time to remove their neon yellow and orange vests. The young couple next to us was out celebrating Friday night; she, trying to get her pregnant belly behind the table and requesting a’virgin’ cocktail. Hipsters and neighborhood regulars were welcomed by the staff and everyone looked satisfied after their brief or lengthy stay at this wonderful place.  The wine selection is broad based both in taste and value. Every dish is thoughtfully prepared with care given to even the smallest of details. The servers are knowledgeable and attentive without the obligatory, “Hi, I’m Brandon and I’ll be your server tonight”, which always irritates me. In short, it is a perfect place on a cold, dark, rainy night or, conversely, on a warm August night sitting at an outdoor table drinking a cold beer and enjoying this lively and animated neighborhood.

Assembling the shipping container inside the apartment, painting the interior fire-engine red, getting all too familiar with a handheld drill to modify the box—it’d all been worth it to discover his happy place.

When my mother passed away almost four years ago, my daughter put together a beautiful memorial slide show for the funeral. After working many hours on this creation, she called me into the office and said, “Mom, you have got to take a look at this”. She flipped through all of the slides that included a photo of me. The one constant in each of my ‘adult’ photos was my favorite little black dress. I purchased this dress years ago and, since then,  have worn it to every major lifetime event. I have other dresses in my closet but I usually pass them over for this little frock. I have worn it to  funerals, weddings, office parties and the occasional black tie event. It is sleeveless so it is perfect for warm weather and the addition of a jacket makes it suitable for the colder months. It is simple enough to wear with sandals and it travels well so it shows up in the photos of every vacation I have ever taken. That dress has been to Europe five times.

Both my daughter and my husband have told me it is probably time to buy a new black dress so I am always on the lookout, but honestly, I can’t imagine ever finding a dress that better suites me. So, I was greatly amused yesterday when I read the blog of Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post titled:

My Favorite Black Dress: Love Story or Cautionary

She writes, ‘I want to revisit one of life’s eternal questions: if you have a dress you love, how often can you wear it before reaching an unacceptable number of “repeats”? And, further, what if all these repeat showings were for “important” occasions — Thanksgiving, New Year’s Eve, your sister’s wedding, your college reunion, your wedding anniversary — the kind of events that often warrant a new outfit? Is it a problem if you serially turn up in the same outfit? And is it more problematic still if you post your pictures on Twitter and Facebook, as I do?’

She goes on to talk about her  favorite Nanette Lepore dress that she has worn again and again, from a dinner she gave for Bill Maher to a Christmas party at the White House. She shows a little slide show of her wearing the dress and then asks her readers to tell her honestly if it is time to finally retire the dress.

I was amazed that a woman with all of the money in the world would have the same design dilemma that I have. She can obviously afford any dress she wants but sticks to the dress that makes her feel great.

I’m always going to be on the lookout for another little black dress but I’m in no hurry. My dress will hold up for a few more years and will show up at many more lifetime events; throw on a scarf and change the jewelry, it will be fine.  And my family has already been instructed that when I die, I’m going out wearing that little black dress.

Here it is February and I still have spring bulbs to plant in my garden. This happens every year, and each year I make a promise to myself that next year I will order my bulbs in August and plant them the day they arrive. This, of course, will never happen.

In my business I am really busy in the fall, which is the best time for garden installation in the Pacific Northwest. And when I’m not working in someone else’s garden, I’m raking the thousands of leaves that fall into my garden from the hundreds of huge trees that have lined the streets of my neighborhood since the 1920s. The trees make our neighborhood a beautiful and special place, but for weeks, the autumn leaves create a serious clean-up job for me and my neighbors.

The small bulbs on the left are species daffodils (Narcissus) that I dug up sometime last fall when I was transplanting something nearby. I threw them into the one gallon plastic pot and literally left them outside my garage door all winter. They were exposed to low temperatures, lots of rain and a bit of snow. The large bulbs in the plastic bag have, for months, been sitting on a table inside my garage, which means they did at least get the necessary cold period that promotes good healthy blooms. The worst thing they were exposed to was a plastic zip lock bag, which certainly would have killed them had the top been zipped closed (and, truth be told, a couple of the bulbs on the bottom did rot). I had them in plastic rather than netting because, of course, I was going to plant them ‘next week’.

Today is a beautiful day for planting. The daffodils will be going directly into the ground. I’m putting the tulips in a pot with about 4” of soil and a bit of bone meal (if I still have it). I always plant larger bulbs in plastic pots and place them in my out of way holding area. When they bloom, I place them in a decorative pot and move them out into my garden. When they have finished blooming, the large foliage becomes unsightly so I move the pots back to the holding area. If I had a larger garden I might plant the tulips in the ground and hide the failing foliage with the leaves of a Hosta, or some other emerging spring perennial, but my garden is small and so I prefer the in and out method.

Will they survive? You bet they will. I have planted bulbs at this time for years and they always bloom a few weeks later. This might not work in a colder climate but in Portland it isn’t a problem.

It snowed today. Not unheard of, but still, unusual enough that the newscasters were able to hype Storm 2012 for hours. My first reaction was the same as it was when I was a kid, EXCITEMENT! But then I remembered my geraniums.

There are gardeners who stay on top of the tasks required to maintain their gardens, but I don’t seem to be one of them. My excuse is that I’m a garden designer and so busy with the gardens of other people that I don’t have the time for my own little plot. You know…the cobbler’s children syndrome. It’s a good mind trick but a poor excuse.

One of the jobs that I didn’t get around to last fall was digging up my geraniums (Pelargoniums really) and stashing them in the protected confines of my garage. I love these plants. They have beautiful yellow variegated leaves with orange flowers and they were a gift from my friend Teresa. I had to save them.

That was how I found myself out in the garden at 7 a.m. sporting a warm snow jacket atop my bellowing flannel pajama bottoms and solid Ugg slippers. Not just any pajama bottoms, mind you, but hand-me-downs that my daughter did not deem worthy to take with her when she moved out of the house; pink Christmas pjs with little red angels pulling sleds loaded with Christmas presents. You get the picture.

By now, the snow is really falling down. Fortunately, my potting bench was in good working order and my soil is beautiful so it was relatively easy to dig the plants, repot them, and slip them into my garden room.

That done, I turned, with a feeling of smug satisfaction, to go back into the house when I noticed my husband standing in the kitchen, with his first cup of coffee, looking out at me. I’m sure I was a vision of loveliness out there in the snow in my
motley attire. I can’t imagine why he was shaking his head.

Welcome to my blog, a place to share my opinions, projects, inspiration, and creative endeavors.

My husband and I are the parents of two children who, gratefully, have grown into wonderful young adults. I grew up in Portland, Oregon, traveled around Europe, studied interior design in Seattle and returned home in my 30s.

I am a visually obsessed garden designer with the following interests and inspirations:

Books, books and more books, architecture, designing and creating jewelry, French language, innovative dining with sustainable and local food, organizing and simplifying space, art, lettering, 1940s pottery, 1960s British rock, European and American history, travel, traditional country music, Zumba, office supply, fabric and hardware stores, photography, and quirky foreign films