Salt

The Oregon coast tastes like salt. I think the Pacific is saltier than the Atlantic, but that is just me; it permeates the air, your clothes, your hair, and your nose. It corrodes everything in it’s path, it softens your skin and feels all around incredible. It stings while simultaneously cleansing both cuts on the body and of the heart. There is something about the ocean that instills a calmness in people for a moment of reflection. We need salt to stay alive, but some of us need the ocean to ground us and keep us moving through life. Salt really is pretty incredible!

I went to the coast with my mom, aunt, uncle, and cousin this weekend–it was a relaxing get away. I took walks on the beach each morning, finished a book, drank good wine, made a cobbler, you know–that kind of good stuff! The beach had tons of drift wood which was so interesting. Not only is is amazing wood for a fire (I’ve never had a fire start that easily and smell so good–it’s all pine!) but people have build small forts with the wood all along the beach over the years. Some of them are quite the architectural feat!

Something else we did was check out all the local junk and antique shops. They had great names like Stuff n’ Things or Trash n’ Treasures, it was a lot of fun. My mom has always been into finding “finds” at small shops like this, our house was always filled with little treasures and antiques growing up. I find that sometimes the hunt for the perfect thing can really stress me out! More often than not, I have a particular idea about what I need/want and when I can’t find it, I get frustrated. But that is the beauty of junk shopping, you just go with a running list of stuff you’d like to keep an eye out for, and usually it pops up at one point or another! Going with something in mind is a good way to set oneself up for failure–the treasure will reveal itself to you, usually not the other way around. My friend Chelsea, however, has junk shopping down to an art–she keeps me on task pretty good when we go .

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We ate well while there too. Good cheese, wine, and an amazing pasta dish I will be making for soon and sharing with you–a recipe via my aunt via her host family while she stayed in Italy years ago. We stopped at a little bakery and had a strawberry scone that had a salty undertone–to match the beach–and a cinnamon roll that was like eating a cloud–it was light, fluffy, and super cinnamon-y. I love a lot of cinnamon, check out the cinnamon rolls I made a while back, they are totally worth the trouble!

Hope you had a great weekend!