Migration of the painted lady butterfly

Last week I kept noticing many, many butterflies fluttering about. I would say swarms of them,but I don't want to make it sound yucky, since it was such a beautiful site to see these delicate painted ladies fluttering about. I just never had seen so many at once! It has now been over a week, and they just keep on coming. I don't think I have ever seen this living in the Bay Area for as many years as I have. I spoke with a friend yesterday about them, and she said that the last time she saw this was when we were living in France, and that there were even more than this time. I'm glad that I have been able to witness it this time around. Today in our local paper, there was finally an article that explained why we were seeing them and the migration route. I guess they have hatched from southern California dessert areas,and are now heading north,and we are lucky to be in the migration path. In August they head south, back to the dessert areas for winter.
It makes it so pleasant to be outdoors and seeing spring at its most beautiful and whimsical!
I have been working on the red top that I mentioned a while back,and I may have some pictures as soon as tomorrow to show and tell. It came out fairly nice,so I will either be in it or just take a photo of it.
I'm off to the fabric store today to buy some material for more dresses and tops. Caitlin and I went shopping for dresses this past weekend,and I just could not justify spending a hundred plus on some the simplest dresses we saw, so it's off to the fabric store instead!
Hopefully I'll have more to share with you all.
In the mean time, Happy Spring to everyone!!!

Celebration!

We had a very nice gathering for Caitlin last night, with her friend, boyfriend,Nicole and Pierre.Mom and Dad were there too, but we managed to stay out of the pictures.
This is Caitlin's Chocolate cake. It is a two day affair in the making. The frosting starts out as a custard that needs to be cooled, then you add melted milk chocolate and melted unsweetened dark chocolate,and of course butter and all the other goodies that go with making a frosting. I love chocolate cake,and it has to be moist and dark. This is by far my favorite recipe. I think you can find it under epicurious.com. It is from Gourmet magazine and was originally published in 2004. The name is " Chocolate layer cake with milk chocolate frosting." The cake is very dark and moist; I used Valrohna cocoa for the cake and the melted chocolate part of it, I used Ghiraidelli. The key is to use top quality chocolate and you can't go wrong.
I forgot to take a picture of the peanut butter ice cream. It turned out very,very good. Almost a gelato consistency. I would make it again,and I'm not even a big ice cream lover.
From left, Vanessa,birthday girl, Cyrous, Pierre,and Nicole. Dave just got up to put music on,so he escaped the shot. I made a Halibut with a sherry vinaigrette dressing, along with purple roasted potatoes and asparagus.


A little bit of fun opening gifts
I love how they are all immersed in looking at Caitlin's loot!
Nicole and Pierre, got this cute gift of a vintage 1950's dress and the other goodies you see.
Every year I take a picture of family members blowing out the candles....I decided not to include the picture, because Caitlin didn't like how she looked, so I spared her the giant cheek blowing out the candle picture.
It was a nice evening, and I think everyone had a good time.

Happy Birthday Caitlin!

Caitlin turns 19 today. As any parent would say, "My how time flies!" Seems like yesterday we brought this little 8 lb. 8 oz, bundle of joy home.
This evening we are having a small dinner party to celebrate, and I will share photos tomorrow. Yesterday I spent time making "Caitlin's chocolate cake." I also made some homemade peanut butter ice cream. Caitlin LOVES peanut butter and chocolate, so I decided to try and make some ice cream, instead of peanut butter frosting on her cake. I'll have full details tomorrow.
Happy Birthday sweetie pie! Mom and Dad are proud of the young woman you have become!

The above photo was taken by Nicole, my oldest daughter. She had Caitlin model her clothing she designed and made for school. She also made that very lovely sash/neck piece.

Bouquets to Art 2009

Aren't orchids amazing?!
This was in the modern section of the De Young. Usually, the arrangements in these rooms are not my favorite, but every once in a while there are some stand outs. This one was pretty interesting.
As well as this one. Love the whimsical arrangement of the tulips.
Isn't it pretty how they used the yellow of the dress for this one?
I couldn't tell which painting or sculpture this one was trying to be, but it sure was pretty.
Every year there are some paintings that always have a very similar arrangement, this one is like that. Last year, the arrangement was pretty close to this.
Love this painting,and this one was one of my favorite arrangements. I think they did such a lovely job with the colors.
Sweet little arrangement for a darling little painting.
Loved the dramatic blackish purple leaves they used in this one to depict the dress in the painting. Very stunning in person.
I've seen better for this one in previous shows, but it is still quite nice.
I think that this one was trying to use the very large carved fireplace behind it, but it was hard to get that in this picture. I love the peach French tulips.
I opted for a close up of one aspect of this arrangement, since it was so interesting. I'm not so sure that it was one of my favorites though.
Again, I didn't see which painting or sculpture this was depicting, but is was so pretty.
This one in real life, was amazing. It really conveyed the painting I thought.

The little painting of the oranges in paper, is my favorite painting in this room. Every year, I can't wait to see the arrangement for this one. I think it was pretty nice.
Isn't it neat how the silvery plants pick up the fish in the painting?
This one was very sweet, and dainty in person.
I don't really care for the painting that this one is of, but I actually like the arrangement they did.
At first I didn't think this arrangement worked with the beautiful lady in the back, until I got home and looked at the photo again. I think it does work quite well.
OOO those beautiful tulips again!!!
This is another one that I think they do a good job with every year.
A detail
This arrangement was really something in person. Loved how they worked with those flowers to make a waterfall. *note, all pictures can be larger if clicked on!!




I really look forward to this show every year. While the De Young was getting rebuilt a few years back, they would do the show at The Legion of Honor. I must say that I favor that museum for this show much more,as all the painting are mainly French and Italian. The paintings really lend themselves to be conveyed in flowers. I remember one year they did a flower arrangement of this one extremely large painting of a Russian wedding. In the painting was a very beautiful carpet. Someone decided to copy the carpet in flowers! Gorgeous, is what I remember, along with other very inspired arrangements. I hope that they decide to take turns in the future and bring the show back to The Legion of Honor.
All in all, this year was a tad disappointing for me. There weren't any big stand outs that left a big impression for me. It was however a very lovely night out,and a nice welcoming in of the spring season.

Playing with the new Nikon

These are a couple of sample shots I took with the new camera, nothing special,but I do love the clarity of the pictures.
Tomorrow I plan to go to the "Bouquets to Art" at the De Young museum in San Francisco. Last year I got very frustrated with the camera I had,and the quality of photos that I got from it. This year, barring the people not stressing me out, I may have some beautiful photos to share with you. For those who don't remember my post last year, it is a show where floral designers interpret a work of art in the museum in a floral display. It is always so much fun, and you can't believe the creativity of some of the designers. So, stay tuned for those. They will be much prettier, I hope, than the above boring photos :)

Day to day life in another time

This is a shopping center in the 16th arrondissement In Paris. This is where I did my daily shopping for food and other goodies. Tucked away under this apartment building is a whole shopping center with a grocery store,Gap, H&M, and much, much more. There are some days where my mind will wander to this shopping center, where I spent a lot of time, and I wonder to myself, what might be going on at that moment, or what has changed in the little center, that use to be such a big part of our daily living. One of my favorite grocery stores was in there( Inno.) Inno had everything that some of the more popular French stores did not. Most French people outside of Paris that I spoke to, said it was kind of a snobby store and it was best to go to the local markets instead. They were right, but I loved that store because it was so close to the supermarkets in America,and there were some days where you just wanted a bit of familiarity.
On this street "Rue Passy" were other lovely shops, cafes, and most important the patisserie!
This is the apartment that we were so lucky to live in. I posted this picture a while back,some of you may or may not have seen it. I have included a couple more that I don't think I did last time. Through some wonderful connections, this place was found for us,and paid for by my husbands company. It was quite large: Three good sized bedrooms, three bathrooms, office.The picture above is of the main living room, equipped with the most beautiful French antiques, parquet flooring and many other charming details.
This is a partial picture of the dinning room, which was very large and had such gorgeous furniture in it. We only ate in it once,because we were afraid we would spill something on the beautiful rug. It was equipped with china and beautiful flatware also.
This isn't a great shot of the kitchen, but I loved that little blue hutch, that housed charming dinnerware and serving pieces. The table in front of it, was where we mainly ate. I would love to have that little antique farm table here. The person who owned this place, really had a lot of faith in people that he rented it to,because I would have been a nervous wreck thinking about how people would not take care of all the lovely things that were in it.
This fire place was in the office off of the main living room, and had the neatest desk and cool etchings of Napoleon on the wall. It was also the TV room, and a place more people could sleep, as the couch in it pulled out to a bed. The walls were green velvet. If you click on the picture you may be able to see the antique sampler on the wall on the upper left. It was stitched in the 1800's.
We also were spoiled with a housekeeper that came once a week to tidy up,and an elevator that opened up into the hallway to the kitchen. This was so handy when you bought way too many groceries and couldn't hall them up several flights of stairs.
Yes, we were spoiled rotten for three months. I think I have been thinking about my daily routine there because we will be going to France at the end of May for three weeks,and I'm always excited to see what has changed in the old 16Th, and our village that we ended up outside of Paris. Last time we drove by the apartment, we stood outside wondering what lucky people where there now. It is a temporary rental for vacation, or like what we did, so if you would ever want to rent a sweet pad in Paris for a week or so let me know, I still have all the info on it to contact the guy.
We just set up our new computer,and my husband needs to upload a few more things so that I can start using our new camera. So, this is one reason for a trip down memory lane. I've had to use pictures that are already uploaded. I hope I didn't make you all sleepy in my ramblings. Just thought I'd share a slice of a day to day life in another time.

It's out now

Pretty cool huh?
There are my Irish lads. Just in case you don't know who they are, which I do know someone once who said "Who are they?" to me, while I was gushing praise over them. From left Mr. Adam Clayton, Mr. The Edge, Bono, Larry Mullen Jr. How cool are they!!!
This is how their new tour will look. The stage is circular and rotates!! Plus it has the jumbo wrap around screen too. I cannot wait to see them live on this tour, it should be amazing. We went to two of their shows last tour, and had very lame seats. Even with the lame seats, they were both magical nights. Hard to explain, you just had to be there. They have a way of making a big arena seem like a intimate night club.
I love the new album, now that I have had over a week to digest it. There is a lot going on in the lyrics, so you really have to give it several listens. I'm in love again I must say. Rolling Stone magazine gave it five stars out of five.
Anyone else buy the new album?
Next CD out, in May, are my local boys, Green Day. Those guys know how to rock the house. I saw them in 2005, and they blew me away. It is going to be an expensive year for us with the concerts.

Late on to the party wagon

I happened to buy this Greek yogurt the other day, and when Caitlin ate it for the first time, she couldn't believe how creamy and wonderful the stuff tasted. I then had to sample some of it,since usually non-fat yogurt is OK tasting,but not soon worthy. Well, let me just say..... It is heaven in a bowl. You will really do a double take on the calorie content and could swear it isn't fat free. I wonder what the full fat of this stuff is like. If you click on the up close photo of the yogurt, you will see how it looks like pudding almost. The next day I looked this brand up on the Internet to see why it is so creamy, I kinda thought it was because it was strained many times, and I was right. What I didn't expect though was all the glowing comments on this yogurt from bloggers to foodie sites.
I found a frozen yogurt recipe on someones blog, that I cannot wait to try.
The funny thing is that the serving size is 1 cup. I really don't think I could eat that much of it in one sitting. Yesterday I put 1/4 cup in a little glass with a bit of honey and a tablespoon of "Cafe Fanny" granola. Very yummy snack for under 100 calories. Oh, by the way the calorie for one cup is 120, 0 fat,and only 9 grams of natural occurring sugar. Ingredients are skim milk and cultures...that is it!! Anyone else late to this party wagon of heaven??

Thinking of spring clothing,and actually making something!

Close up of fabric. I have had this fabric forever, and we finally found a dress that would suit it.
Last year I saw a dress at Anthropologie that looked just like this one, and I had remembered that I had this pattern. I meant to make it last year,but never got around to it. Better late than never I guess.
Caitlin wanted it much shorter than what the pattern was, so we used the view with the extra panel on the bottom, cut it there and then hemmed it instead of adding the panel. I think it made it look much more youthful. Caitlin had the crinoline slip already, and I think it looks so cute with it.
Detail of the top. Caitlin took more photos of herself in it at her blog: Feather.
Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend. I'm off to start on a spring top for myself.....I will only post it if it looks good on me, so if you don't see it........Well, then it just ended up in Goodwill.