Tag Archives: Salem Oregon

Soul Book Club

DSC06290I want to invite you to join a Soul Book Club!

YEAH!!!! πŸ™‚

What is Soul Book Club?

Well, Soul Book Club is an intimate group of women who meet every month to spend time learning art journaling techniques to help them create a Soul Book!

DSC06294

What the heck is a Soul Book?

A Soul Book is a personalized combination art journal/scrapbook/smash book/diary/planner etc. It is a fun and creative tool to help you remember what is important to you and your soul!

DSC06297Why a group?

For starters this is a fun way to learn art journaling techniques, and share how your fellow Soul Bookers are using their Soul Books! My goal is that these groups will also become intimate groups of women who will become Soul Sisters who support each other as they go through the ups and downs that life has a tendency to throw our way!

DSC06298How can I join?

If you want to join let me know by e-mailing me at beautiful.creatives@yahoo.com!

DSC06301What about cost?

The cost is $10 per month. This will help with the cost of art supplies, but this is not a group that is meant to make any money – this is a group solely for the purpose of supporting each other as we go through the process of creating and living with and through our Soul Books!! πŸ™‚

DSC06303When?

This first Soul Book Club meets the third Saturday of every month, from 1pm to 4pm. As more people sign up, more classes/times/locations will be created to keep the groups intimate!

DSC06309Where?

The first Soul Book Club meets at the Broadway Coffee House, which is located at 1300 Broadway Street Northeast #100 in Salem, Oregon

DSC06305What do I need to bring?

I will make sure to provide oodles of decorative craft paper, craft paints, paint brushes, and glues, but I would recommend bringing the following items:

  • Magazine images
  • Any copies of pictures you might want to include, make sure to have at least a few of just yourself – it is YOUR Soul Book after all!
  • Any miscellaneous ephemera you might like to include (book pages, maps, old letters, etc)
  • A pair of good paper cutting scissors
  • Your favorite black pen (preferably permanent ink)
  • Your favorite white pen (optional), but I am bringing my white Signo Broad pen
  • Anything else is completely optional! πŸ™‚

DSC06314What else do you need to know?

Broadway Coffee House has requested that I let all attendees know that beverages, besides water, is not permitted, but we are more than welcome to bring up any food or drink that we purchase from their coffee house!

Also, space is EXTREMELY limited, so this first Soul Book Group will be limited to 8 attendees! As more people sign up, more classes/times/locations will be created to keep the groups intimate! I am also hoping to have Soul Book Groups in cities such as Portland, Albany, and possibly Eugene – I am up for suggestions!

If you have ay questions, comments or concerns, please let me know by either leaving a comment on this page, or your can e-mail me at beautiful.creatives@yahoo.com!

I hope to see you there!!

Here is to living a FABULOUSLY CREATIVE life! πŸ™‚

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If you want to have a different life, live differently!

Adventures in Photography!

Good afternoon!

This past Saturday, it was such a beautiful day that my sweetie and I packed up my new camera, remote control, and tripod, and headed out for a few hours to practice taking photos with my new camera! I had had my heart set out on going to the Union Street Railroad Bridge, which is an old river-crossing train trestle that was converted to a nice pedestrian bridge just a few years ago!

Walking BridgeWe knew that this was an old bridge, but were surprised to see that it was originally built in 1912. We were literally walking across history! πŸ™‚

Walking Bridge 8This is my lovely assistant, AKA my sweetie! He was happy to just people watch and soak up the sun on this absolutely GORGEOUS day!! πŸ™‚

Walking Bridge 14There were actually a lot of people out enjoying this morning, but we got lucky and I almost got a free and clear shot of the walking bridge without pedestrians! πŸ™‚

Walking Bridge 13The outside of the trestle.

Walking Bridge 12I just love the way the metal crisscrosses and all of the details of the rivets! Industrial chic?? πŸ™‚

Walking Bridge 11

Walking Bridge 10This is the old wooden foundation. You can tell that there have been many recent repairs, but it is just so cool to look at!

Walking Bridge 9The Willamette River.

Walking Bridge 7

Walking Bridge 6

Walking Bridge 5I am soooo in love with the curve here!

Walking Bridge 4

Walking Bridge 3

Walking Bridge 2

Walking Bridge 1

Walking Bridge 15Thanks to my new remote control and tripod – I now actually have the ability to show up in some of my own pictures!! πŸ™‚ Jason has a way of just keeping me laughing!! πŸ™‚

Walking Bridge 16I really do love this man!! πŸ™‚

I know that I still have a loooooong way to go on learning how to use all of my settings on a my new camera, but I am determined to figure them all out!! ISO, white balance, timing, flash vs no flash, etc, etc! In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed these pictures and hopefully, over the next year or so, I can keep growing and learning as a photographer and continue to share my progress pics with you! πŸ™‚

Here is to a FABULOUS day! πŸ™‚

Signature Line

If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!!

The Salem Oregon Train Station

Good evening!

Yesterday, after work, I had some time and I decided I would make good use of it by going down to the Salem train station. It is one of my absolute favorite buildings in all of Salem, matter of fact, if it weren’t for the fact that it is right next to the train tracks, I could imagine myself and my sweetie converting this building into our home.

I did a little bit of reading this evening to see what I can find out about this building, and I discovered that not only is it on the National Historic Registry, but it is actually the third train station built in this location, the first two having burnt to the ground in both 1885, and 1917.

This building was actually built in 1918, and is one of only 5 of the original masonry buildings that still exist on the original Southern Pacific West Coast Line.

Although quite small on the inside, at least from where I was standing, there are some really beautiful architectural details on the inside of this building too. I especially loved the light fixtures, which there were two of, hanging from the high ceilings of the depot.

The outside isn’t too shabby either! There was a massive restoration project done by the Oregon Department of Transportation that was completed in 2000. The style of this building is called Beaux-Arts-style.

There are so many architectural details to see, that I walked around this building 3 times catching new elements with my eye and camera each time I circled the building.

It was such an amazingly sunny afternoon, and I was absolutely struck how vividly blue our normally grey sky was. It was quite breathtaking.

Another fun fact about this building is that Amtrak rents this building from the government for only $1 a year, in exchange for building and ground maintenance. Isn’t that amazing??? I think that is PHENOMENAL!! πŸ˜‰

Here are some more of those great architectural details. I am absolutely in LOVE with these pillars, have been since I was a little girl, but it was only by taking these pictures that I was able to notice the detail at the top of these stately columns.

See what I mean? And I just adore the molding around the top of the building too. They don’t make buildings like this any longer!

These are the original light fixtures. They are ginormous! And although I don’t really show it well here, the arched windows are really quite astonishingly beautiful!

Here is some more detail at the base of the pillars.

Finally, here is one of the front corners of the building! I had so much fun investigating this lovely piece of Salem’s history.

I literally drive by this building every day, and I almost forget that it is even there. This experience has inspired me to make an effort to purposefully go out and find out what other great buildings from history are out there just waiting to be rediscovered!! Who knew history could be so fun!?? I can’t wait to see what I find next!!

Have a FABULOUS evening!!! ;-)

“If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!”

Having a FABULOUS Day!

Good afternoon!

I am having such a FABULOUS day, that it made me feel froggy enough to want to share how my day has been going since I decided to start a revolution in my life!! πŸ˜‰

Here is something I texted to myself after having completed the first portion of my walk this morning:

WOW! I feel AMAZING!! I just spent the last 1/2 hour walking from my old High School all the way to one of my first places of employment, downtown – and all I can say is WHOO! HOO! My sweetie was very surprised I made it down to him so quickly!! We are now at one of the local Starbuck’s where he is playing on his computer and I am thoroughly enjoying a nice large glass of ice water!! I am not sure what to do now, but I am having the hardest time holding still now. Who would have thought that the act of expending energy, would actually give you energy? What a good day!”

After sending this to myself, I tried really hard to hold still and readΒ  a little, and I just couldn’t do it – hold still that is. So, I decided to walk a little bit further. I ended up spending the next hour or so walking everywhere I could think of just taking pictures like a maniac! It was soooo much fun!! I finally had to have my sweetie come pick me up because my camera battery had died, and my back up was dead too! So, here I am now at home, at least for a few hours before we go out to dinner with a girlfriend of mine this evening! I can’t wait!!! πŸ˜‰

Here’s to having a FABULOUS day!!

Β β€œIf you want to have a different life, live differently!”

 

 

Flood Warning!

Good evening!

It has been a really busy here, in my little hometown. We have been dealing with the first day of a very heavy rainstorm, and man has it been a doozy! It is expected to rain throughout the next week, and even though it has only rained hard one day, there has been flooding all over town already. The newscasters are calling this a 40 year event, it happens so rarely. Matter of fact, the street I live on is really flooded – so much so that it is closed, and most of it has been evacuated – SCARY!! My sweetie helped our neighbors fill sandbags, and thankfully our condo is safe for now, we are on a little bit higher ground than most of the other homeowners in our area, so I think we will be alright.

While at the office today, I, along with two of my co-workers, decided to go for a little walk to see what kind of flooding was happening. We knew that the creek that runs along side the hospital had crested, and was flooding the main back street into the hospital, so we wanted to see it for ourselves.

I am not sure exactly how to describe this picture, but normally there is at least a 10-15Β  foot drop here, some grass, and a very light creek that runs under the hospital. Obviously, not today!

This is a picture of where the creek that runs alongside the back of the hospital. It normally runs within the two rows of trees pictured here. I have worked at the hospital for over 11 years, and I have NEVER seen the creek get this high before.

Here is the same overflowing creek, but this is the park that sits alongside the creek. What you can’t see is that this water is so high that all of the picnic tables are completely submerged, and off to the right, which is not shown in the picture, there is a building that is about 1/4 submerged. Sad! This is usually the place we take our walking breaks! It is usually so peaceful here.

Here is half of the stairway that leads down to this park. The other half is underwater!

Here is the creek right behind my little building at the hospital.

It is crazy fast, and sounds beautifully loud. It would be fun to be able to go kayaking in the middle of my workday here!! LOL!! πŸ˜‰

I feel bad for all of these trees. There is so much debris being carried in the swift moving creek, that I am sure that these poor trees are just getting battered!!

It is kind of hard to see here, but this is a large trunk of a broken tree that has been brought downstream and is just banging into this bridge. Eventually so much water was coming over the bridge walls, that the police ended up cordoning off this section and closed the street down.

It is amazing how voluminous one rain storm can make all of these creeks around here. I am hoping that the water will slowly start to recede now that we have had a few hours of clear skies, but I hear we have a second rainstorm hitting tomorrow. EEK!! AND, working at the hospital, they have activated a disaster code, so all of staff are working 12 hour shifts, 24/7 this weekend. It is going to be a LOOOOOONG week until next weekend. I pray that I get to have at least one day off this week, I am most definitely going to need a break!!

Anyway, I will keep you posted on how things are going. My prayers go out to all of the families whose homes are truly affected with all of this flooding, and I thank God that he has kept my family and my hairy four-leggedΒ  girls safe!

Have a FABULOUS evening! :-)

β€œIf you want to have a different life, live differently!”

Monday Night Date Night!

Good evening!

Jason and I have been having some trouble getting some quality time together, so to make up for it, we decided that we would do a Monday night date, and man did we ever have fun!!

First thing we did was head over to the Wild Pear downtown to have some dinner. Jason introduced me to their French Dipped sandwich, and OOH-WEE!!! That was soooo good!! The au jus was SIMPLY LIP-SMACKINGLY GOOD!!!

Jason was patient enough to let me stop and take a bunch of pictures of this bank, which just also happens to be my favorite building downtown. I will make sure to share those pictures tomorrow. What I do want to make sure I point out today is just how LOVELY this purse is that Jason is carrying – it just brings out his eyes!! HAHAHAHA!! What a good hubbie!! πŸ˜‰

There are so many beautiful little hidey-holes downtown that are absolutely PERFECT for taking a nice picture in!! Jason is standing next to a gigantic vine arbor that grows inside one of the alleyways downtown! I just LOVE how beautiful it is, and isn’t my sweetie so adorable?? Man, I really love that man!! πŸ˜‰

After walking a little ways, we ran across Jason’s FAVORITE coffee shop. Unfortunately it has closed, and Jason is still really blue about it!! It really was a cool little place, it is a shame that it closed!! πŸ™

Oh, but onto brighter news!!! Jason and I happened to be walking by the Pentacle Theatre’s ticket office, and we decided to go inside and see what was playing this Friday.

We saw that it was “The Underpants” written by Steve Martin, one of our favorite funny men, so Jason and I picked up tickets for this Friday night! We both are SOOOO EXCITED, and just CAN’T WAIT!! πŸ˜‰

Next Jason and I stopped to get something cool to drink together and while we were just chatting it up, I realized that I had lost his attention. “UHMM… helllooooo! I am up here!”

Oh, yes! That is right Mr. Man – you have SOOOO TOTALLY been caught!! LOL!!

We had such a nice time this evening – we really needed that! We both have been spending so much time taking care of others that we somehow forgot that we both need to be tending to each other too!! So, we are making a concerted effort to make sure that we are doing just that – and man, what a GREAT TIME we are having too!!

Have a FABULOUS evening!! πŸ˜‰

My New Favorite Restaurant!

Good evening!

I am sorry I am posting so late! Jason and I went out with some friends tonight for dinner! I had promised that I would tell you about the new restaurant I discovered last night while I was waiting for my belly dance class to start.

This little place is called Venti’s and it is literally something like two shops down from my dance studio.

The staff there were super friendly, patient, cool, hip, artsy types, which was fun, but I am not exactly sure how to describe the food. I think this sign says it well, “Good, clean food”! I ordered a chicken teriyaki meal, which a portion of the purchase price went to help the local Boys and Girls Club, which you know I JUST LOVE!!!Β  I can’t remember exactly what the dish was called that I ordered, but it was just so fresh and delicious!!!

I could almost feel my body thanking me for choosing such fresh food!!

This dish had jasmine rice, chicken breast, hunks of fresh mozzarella, cabbage, tomatoes, bell peppers, broccoli, cilantro, and ginger in it, plus a yummy sweet and sour kind of teriyaki sauce – not to mention that it was like a FREAKIN’ WORK OF ART WHEN IT WAS SERVED!!! πŸ˜‰

BEAUTIFUL!!! & DELICIOUS!!!

As you might be able to see, I had a book and journal with me so I could just sit and jot some of my thoughts down! This place had the most comfortablly relaxing atmosphere. It was like my authentic self to a deep break and had finally let it all out!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAH! πŸ˜‰

They art from various local artists displayed on the gorgeous, and historic brick walls, which Honey, you HAVE to know that I LOVE!!

There was a plethora of things to look at and keep you visually stimulated! I really LOVED these stars hanging from various parts of the ceiling.

Even the old, worn hardwood floors had me ogling them! They were rustic and yet divine all at the same time!! I could TOTALLY see these in my dream home!! You remember, my chic little farm house???) The whole place was very warm and welcoming!!

There were so many cool, and interesting characters to people watch as I sat quietly against the wall observing anything and everything going on around me. I didn’t actually take pictures of anyone, because to be honest with you, I was too chicken to ask anyone for permission, but you will have to take my word for it, the clientele there are very artsy, creative, fun, beatnik-type people. I imagined they had amassed large book collections like myself and they spend all day talking about culture, art, and interesting things they had read. Ok, so that may be going a bit too far!! but Venti’s is HANDS DOWN my new favorite place to eat in town!!! If you ever are in downtown Salem, I would highly recommend it!!! πŸ˜‰

Venti’s Cafe + Basement Bar | 325 Court St NE, Salem | 503.399.8733

Have a FABULOUS evening!!! πŸ˜‰