A Bright and Shiny New Year

Hello, and happy new year to all who wander on to here, or the handful of readers that come. We started out new year the same as always, with brunch in Berkeley and to get our 3 for $10.00 calendars. Since then, it has been a cozy rainy month and I've been dreaming up little creations with embroidery, especially after I finished the special order that I was talking about in my previous posts. They were really fun to do, and it makes me want to make sure to include interesting embroidery in more of my garments. I have always found embroidery so soothing and fun to do. I recently went to Japan town in SF and bought some really cute embroidery books to be inspired. The Japanese sure know how to do cute, in a tasteful way.

In case you are wondering about my cups that are photographed, I had a major mishap the other day!!! I put that amaryllis in the corner by the cups, and one morning, as I was walking out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee and my breakfast, I start to hear something sliding. Before I could do anything, my beloved cup and saucer crashed to the floor. This one was my favorite of all four, and was purchased in Versailles by my dad for my birthday, back in 1993. When we were living in Paris, I had a mishap with the saucer and chipped it. I was able to replace it there, but was told that this one was not being made anymore and very difficult to find. Of course this one would have to fall :(   I quickly hopped on E-Bay and found one though, thank goodness! It's on its way now, but it won't have the cool marking on the bottom that was from the museum in Versailles.  Having now learned my lesson, I think I'm going to move these, because this mistake was quite costly!!! I also need to bolt this piece of furniture to the wall in case of an earthquake.

All those beautiful lemons in the basket are from the backyard. I recently had friends come up with good ideas for all these lemons. I plan on implementing a few, like freezing them whole then grating them over food. The other is to freeze the juice for recipes. I would like to try and preserve some of them, but I just don't have the space sadly.

Recently we went to see a couple of movies that are nominated for an Oscar this year. One was the "Revenant," the other was "Brooklyn." Loved both of them. Brooklyn was such an eye candy film and so romantic and sweet. If Leo doesn't win best actor for Revenant, then there is just no justice. I think the only other movie I saw that is nominated was "Mad Max." I really liked that film, so I'm happy that it got nominated also. Tell me which ones you have seen other than I have listed and let me know which ones you liked.

Happy new year again, and hope everyone has a great one with good health and much happiness.