Sharing is Good for the Soul

No worries, friends, I didn't finish all these fries by myself - 

I shared it with my friend the Crow!

Fall Fun & Food

Hello my dear friends and readers,

This post is more of a "slice of life" post than a style post, which some of you, I know, prefer to pure fashion/style blogposts. I will share some of our Autumnal outings and my Fall recipes, so if it's your cup of tea - I hope you enjoy it to the fullest (pun intended)!

Cannon Beach, Oregon: Ocean, Muffins and Puffins

The pictures for this post have been sitting in my blog drafts for almost a month now without posting, not sure why - perhaps because I don't like to end things. But I do like to have a closure, so here you have it - PART THREE (final) of our early Spring mini-break in Oregon State. Click here to read PART ONE and PART TWO.

More Oregon vacations from previous years in these posts:

MAY 2015 

DECEMBER 2015 

AUGUST 2016: PART 1 and PART 2.

I also invite you to look at my old Russian blog for a zillion photos of Portland, Oregon that we took during our first few trips there (prior to this blog):

PORTLAND JAPANESE GARDEN 

(considered the best Japanese garden outside of Japan) 

and PORTLAND: CITY OF ROSES, BRIDGES, TRAMS AND BOOKS.

Both posts written in February 2013, with pictures from 2007, 2011, 2013 taken by Justin and myself (yes, I used to bring a camera wherever I went, for many years!).

And now on to the final destination of this year's trip.

Portland: Bread and Bridges

Eats and paths, what can be more essential than that? Especially when it comes to travel. In today's post, I'm taking you on a little getaway to Portland, Oregon, where we spent a couple of days of our family Spring break. We will explore some Portland paths (a.k.a. Bridges) as well as learn about local eats (a.k.a. Bread), and my hope is that we will discover some of the elements that make Portland Portland. Of course, it's only a brief glance, and I hope it'll be interesting to those of you who have never been there and might plan a trip in the future. With Portland being only 2.5 hours from our home, it's surprising that we don't visit more often. Justin and I were there last time 5 years ago during my parents' stay, and for Anya it was her first trip. 

Phenomenal Woman & Local Food

Happy International Women's Day,

my lovely international women friends!

Wishing each and all of you lots of happiness and joy this day and always!

Being a woman is awesome! I think each and every woman is phenomenal, 

and we all are here to discover that phenomenal woman within ourselves!

Welcoming Sun and Blini Recipe

Happy Maslenitsa!

Today (Sunday) is the last day of a week-long celebration of MASLENITSA - an ancient Eastern Slavic folk holiday which, as I understand, is the only pagan holiday approved by the Russian Orthodox Church and included in the church calendar - it is always the week before the Great Lent (40 day long, before the Orthodox Paskha). Maslenitsa is believed to be the oldest surviving Slavic holiday and celebrates the end of long Winter. In Russian, the name comes from the word "maslo" (масло) which means butter, in English we could call it Pancake Festival because the most important tradition is to bake blini - pancakes or crepes every day of the week. The deeper meaning of it is celebrating the Sun and the arrival of Spring.

Korean Influences

On the right: Portrait of a Beauty by Shin Yun-bok (born 1758), source

This was almost a month ago, back in March, so no fresh green leaves on the trees behind me, neither blue bells, nor dandelions by my feet just yet. Our two-week-long Summer which I was writing about a couple of times lately was not hot (even our real Summer is rarely hot, for which I am greatly appreciative), but we steadily had temperatures around 70 F (21 C) and glorious SUNSHINE, both of which make me insanely happy. It felt like having a mini vacation to restore both my physical and emotional health. But, we now have mild Spring temperatures again, clouds, sprinkles, in other words, all as usual, and while I am not having any new outfits to share from this week, I still have a few outfits and stories to share from the past month or so. Are you ready? Let's go.

Mannik Recipe

Mannik (манник, pronounced MAHN-nik), a Russian semolina cake, is one of my favorite childhood treats and also a favorite of Anya and Justin. I'll write up my basic recipe first, and offer a few additional ideas to make this simple (yet tasty!) cake even more interesting.

Blue Eyes, Red Pixi, Healthy Salad, Light Heart

When mama visits, I take her at least once during her stay to Erica for a stylish haircut and good professional color, and all the wonderful service Erica provides. Back home, they can't afford a nice hairdresser - both Mom and Dad are retired with less than modest means for living, so they are always looking for ways to cut corners. Mom's haircut is usually hit and miss, and then she just buys an inexpensive hair color from a store, and her sister colors her hair. That is also hit and miss - for instance, last time the color turned out way too bright for Mom's liking (Anya, her granddaughter, did appreciate it though). So this time, Mom's wish was to make her hair more natural looking, warm brown, sort of honey walnut color as she described it. That was difficult to do, given the bright purplish red Erica had to work with, but I think it turned out pretty well.

Adventures in Music and Deserted City

“Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human.

 Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe.”

― Douglas Adams

"Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art."

- Claude Debussy

"I'm an adventurer. I like invention, I like discovery."

- Karlheinz Stockhausen

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, 

if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

On October 25, Justin and I visited the Tacoma Symphony. It was a new season grand opening, and it was the first season with a new music director, Sara Ioannides. I wrote about the concert we listened to a year ago when the orchestra was still in the process of interviewing candidates for the music director position HERE in English and HERE, in more details, in Russian. You can also see more of Justin's photographs of the historic Pantages Theater in Tacoma which is considered to be the most beautiful of all Pantages theaters and the oldest one still in operation, and is a part of the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts, the largest one between Seattle and Portland, Oregon.

You're Gonna Hear Her Roar

She is not Dumbo, the little elephant anymore, Anna's very first Halloween costume, her big love at the age of 2 years old. You're sure gonna hear her roar! But as I went through her Halloween photos, I got a feeling that the theme was building right up to this year when she made her own version of the Queen of the Jungle, inspired by Katy Perry's fun video. Maybe you'll catch it too.

October Babies

I've decided to go a bit crazy and post two more outfits today. What? Again?? Yes, again. But you would never guess why I combined these two outfits into one post. Because the photos of both of them are awfully dark! Not especially artistic of me to post lower than usual quality photos, but I happened to like these outfits and I rarely repeat the same outfits a few days in a row (I repeat, but mostly something casual "throw on and forget about it" type of clothes). Well these were special, and I hardly will do them again soon and definitely will not dress up just to retake the photos, so here you go.

High On Life

Did you know that the artichoke is a thistle (чертополох)? 

Well I didn't! Until Justin pointed out how similar they look. 

I think I am a bit of a thistle artichoke myself. 

Not just a flower. Not only a vegetable. 

Big, bright and bold. 

Surprising. Unexpected. Unusual. 

With a myriad of tiny flowers

and a big heart.

1940s, Here I Come!

There is magic in life, isn't there? I started thinking polka dot thoughts a little while ago, and out of the blue found this loveliest polka dot dress in a consignment shop. The condition was excellent. The fit was great. The color was navy (not black as I thought at first). And the price was $9.50.

Magic!

Meeting Anne The SpyGirl and Russian ABC: S is for Salad

As many of you know, Anne of Spy Girl is currently on an artistic travel adventure - the project she calls On The Edge: US. We are lucky enough to live very close to the Western edge, so Anne and I had a chance to meet. This is the very first time I met someone from this wonderful and warm blogging circle (but I did meet great blogger friends from my previous blogs - with some of them we are friends ever since that, for almost a dozen of years already!). I offered Anne to stay in our little cottage up the hill from the Puget Sound, and she accepted my invitation!

Event as a Gift

Remember my outfit from the post Not With Chalk, But With Soul? It was mentioned in Sally's Lovely Links over at Already Pretty - how exciting! I noticed that because there were suddenly over 500 views of that post (it's close to 900 now)... that just has not happened to my blog before! I'm happy to welcome all the new readers and encourage you to leave comments - please do! I would love to hear from you! :)

Now, on to today's outfit. You might think that someone very thoroughly planned this photo shoot - look how the funky chairs perfectly match the colors of my dress! Yet we didn't plan it. It just happens to us... all the time! A proof? Here are a few from the top of my head:

- the orange bench

- the chameleon 

- the sunset

A little spooky, right?

Summer Suddenly

It feels like SUMMER! So sunny and warm - my favorite kind of temperatures, mid 70s to lower 80s, not too hot and not humid. Just PERFECT! 

I think you can probably tell that I'm pretty happy today. Why yes, I am! I do apologize for less than usual quality of photos though. It's all because Someone forgot her camera at home when she was hurrying to meet Someone Else in the early afternoon. That Someone would be me, of course. And the Someone Else would be, yes that's right - Justin who offered to take pictures with his phone, bless his soul and the modern technology.

What To Wear To Indian Movie

When I was a little girl, probably younger than my daughter (she's 11), I used to love to go to our small town movie theater. It was a little theater by the woods that back then felt almost like out-of-town. The theater had a cute name, "Brook" ("Родник") and later became a place where young people would go dancing (disco club I guess). As a kid, I usually would attend either a morning or an afternoon showing, and watch cartoons, fairy tales, and children's movies. But at some point, I discovered the joy of Bollywood movies. I did not know the word "Bollywood" back then (and probably did not know the word "Hollywood" either) - we simply called them "Indian movies" (индийское кино) and were captivated with the bright colors, costumes, music, singing and especially with the exotic dancing of these movies. I can't remember titles any more. I remember there was a movie about a girl named Bobbie - that one was probably my favorite as I still remember her! My friend, a neighbor girl Nadya and I, would come see something like "Bobbie", laugh and cry our eyes out, then come back home to our little apartments next to each other, draw little red circles on our foreheads, put on skirts and imagine that we were exotic Indian dancers. There was nothing else in the world we wanted to become - just these gorgeous dark-haired, dark-skinned Indian girls wearing brightly colored exotic clothes, a little sparkle in our noses and a red dot on our foreheads, who dance! I think soon after that I started going to a local dance studio and learn contemporary dancing.

May Dress Madness: Ikat Maxi

I would like May to be mostly a month of dresses in my blog, and I chose this one to open my Dress Madness month. But before I start talking about it, I'd like to share with you that Beate's and my outfits were featured in Sylvia's article "How To Look Great in a Short Jacket". It was exciting to see how other ladies wear short jackets, and I invite you to take a look and share your ideas too. :)

Russian ABC: B Is for Borscht

I have had this idea for a while to write a series of posts about my native culture. I sort of naturally started doing this and introduced you to such very Russian phenomena as banya (here) and traditional Russian platok (here and here). I thought it could be fun to do one Russian cultural phenomena for each letter of an alphabet, and borscht would be my pick for B, as it is one of the most famous and delicious soups in world cuisine. Then I received a request from a friend to give her a recipe, and as I stayed at her house, I cooked borscht to share with her, and decided to photograph the process and finally write a recipe for my blog. When Shawna posted her yummy Italian soup, I saw that it is just the right time to finally begin realizing my idea about the "Russian ABC" series, which will not be in alphabetical order though, as I don't want it to become something forceful and too "thinky" - I enjoy the natural pace of life, and a spontaneous approach to my blogging is a must for me.