Summer and Lots of Pictures of Ruby

 Five Days old and out for a walk

 Eight days old

 Father's Day, and one week old

 June 20th, David's birthday

 Fourth of July,  Almost 8 weeks old

Hi everyone, I didn't mean to disappear for so long!  Starting to put pictures up of Ruby to make some kind of chronological picture story of her growth. Of course I could flood the entire blog post with just pictures of her, but I resisted and inserted a few family celebrations and fourth of July. I had to work on Father's day....oops forgot to ask for the day off, so David spent the time with the kids while I was at work for 4 hours. The night before I marinated some flank steak using my favorite recipe I found on Pinterest. Then Monday was our 35th wedding anniversary! We went to Chez Panisse for dinner and it was a really lovely ride over to Berkeley, as we went on the back roads. One day break in the celebrations, then it was David's birthday.  He decided he wanted to spend the day in Berkeley and Oakland having lunch and visiting some of his favorite shops to spend some birthday money.  We stopped by one of our favorite chocolate shops in Berkeley called Casa de Chocolates, ( click on name to check out this great shop.) and bought some Tres Leches cake to celebrate at home with Caitlin and Ruby...Cyrous is teaching summer school so could not be with us. We saved him a piece of cake though!

Ruby, Ruby.....what can I say? She is a delight and a dream come true, I'm really enjoying being a grandparent. We are fortunate to live so close to them that we can see her at least once a week. I have taken quite a bit of photos as you can imagine, so get ready for most of my posts to have pictures on this sweet angel baby. On fourth of July she wore that little knit onesie I made with my first adventure on my serger. She many not get to wear it very much, since she is growing so fast! She is already almost 12 pounds and almost 24 inches long. We think that she is going to have her daddy's long legs. It's fun to see each week how much she has changed. When I look back at the first few weeks of her life up until now, she is a whole different little baby! Her cute little personality is starting to shine through and she is now flashing real smiles at us. She also loves to stare intently at us and we have all had fun having staring contests with her.  She's a joy!

Summer so far has been quite nice, due to lovely weather. I can't even complain as usual. It makes for a nice gentle pace, and because of this I have been spending more time out on the patio enjoying the new humming bird feeder we bought. I use to have this really neat red glass feeder, but it leaked sadly, and it seemed not to be visited as much. So we bought this old school one and some really nice nectar with electrolytes and other nutrients in it. They sure are greedy little guys. The other day I took the feeder off the hook to replenish their treats, and one hovered in the empty spot and stared at me through the kitchen window quite disappointed and flitted off. Soon as I hung it back up, he was back in a matter of seconds. The feeder is near our neighbors giant apple tree, so I think they feel really protected while consuming their treat. In the mornings I love to sit on the patio and watch them zoom in and out. Lots of fighting between them as well, but for the most part they are civil.  Best money I have spent to date!

Last week I got two cape orders. It seems each year it gets earlier and earlier, and always is hard to cut hot wool on a summers day. After I got the orders, I realized those were the last two that I could make since I ran out of wool. I quickly called my supplier and thank the lord above they had a whole bolt of it. I raced over there and this time bought the whole bolt from them. Usually I buy a handful of yards as the orders come in, but I decided to be better prepared for the cape season and go for the entire bolt. I stopped by the sewing machine shop, that I bought my Bernina, to also by more special red thread for the heart embroidery that I do on them. The sales woman gave me a demo on the newest Babylock serger. Man oh man.....I was impressed and really want one now. I had told her that it took forever for me to use mine because the threading etc. She said that shouldn't be the case if you had one that worked as well as the Babylock one. She was right! So simple and endless creative ideas could unfold with it. Price tag is steep, but I think I'll start saving up for one. Plus they said they would take mine in as a trade in, so it could knock the price down a bit, not much I'm sure, as mine is a low rent Brother. Well.....it's now my new goal though to have one!
I'm still working on my new merchandise ideas...slow going, but it's getting there.

Well guys, I'm off to enjoy the day....hope summer is treating everyone well.

Lovely Weekend

Nice weather and friends over for dinner last night at the spur of the moment made Saturday a fun filled cooking day. Our plum tree has exploded with ripe fruit, so I made a plum galette for dessert! I used two recipes for this one, because I like the fact that this crust had pecans in it. I found a plum galette recipe on Pinterest to get the right balance of sugar for the plums. It was a bit tart, even thought the fruit was ripe and sweet, but it was still pretty yummy. Our friends came after I pulled this out of the oven, and then we began grilling up dinner. The newest issue of Bon Appetite had some very good recipes for kabobs, so we tried the spicy lamb recipe with garlic yogurt sauce.  The couscous was from the "Plenty" cookbook. It was called "Green couscous."  I highly recommend this recipe if you own the book, it really went well with the lamb. We also grilled some zucchini from David's little garden, along with some cherry tomatoes.  Love having friends over and chatting over a good meal.

The three pictures of the deer are with my iPhone, so apologies for the quality. It's been a whole year now that we have been in this house, and my memory of our first few weeks here last year were the deer. They are out in the front of our house day and night. They eat off the wild plum tree near our bedroom window, as well as all the loquats that have fallen to the ground also near our bedroom. You can hear them ALL the time! Last night, I think one of them bumped into the side of the house (our room) and scared me! Last year while my sister was visiting, my nephew was walking out front, and one jumped right in front of him and almost knocked him down! They had just finished eating some of the peaches and must have gotten startled.  This seems to be only a summer thing, as I never saw them in the winter months. A few evenings back, I heard something outside our bedroom window, and when I peeked out, I saw one of them on its hind legs standing like a person, yanking plums off the tree, very funny site.  We also have what appears to be a little skunk family that has a path through our back yard. Yesterday evening, while our friends were here, a baby one casually sauntered by David on his way to who knows were. Thank goodness it didn't get scared because you know what that means!

I'm finishing up on a really cute sunsuit/romper as you can see above. It's coming out really cute and I just love this Japanese fabric for it! Next up are some gingham bloomers. I've noticed on Etsy that there aren't a lot of people making banded bloomers, so I'm going to put more of those in the shop. I have made some before and sold all of them, and was asked also to make some as a special order. I'm hoping that I can fill the need.

Well, I should be off now sorting out the mess from my dinner party.  Hope everyone is having a nice weekend.

It Must Be Summer

Happy Monday!  We had a heat spell last week that lasted until Sunday, so it must be summer now.  It's not so bad in this house during the summer months, so hopefully the season will pass without too much grouchiness, it's early still so we will see.
Friday I polished up the house, as evidenced above by my gleaming hardwood floors! I love Bona wood cleaner, it makes the floors in this house look so pretty.  I forgot to show you the rug that we bought for the living room a while back, but you can see a little glimpse of it in the picture with my cocktail. I really love seeing the hardwood floors, so we got the 5x8 size.  We looked a lot of places, and none could beat the price and quality of this rug from Pottery Barn. Years ago we bought the same design for another house, but the runner version. It still looks brand new. Design rules say it should be bigger, but like I said, I sure do love the floors, so we didn't want to cover them up too much, design rules be damned!

I have to explain the top two pictures. Friday, after I cleaned the house and watered all the potted flowers out back, some animal must have had a party on the Nectarine tree shortly after I came into the house!  When I was out there, I did not see all those fruit piled up on the lawn like that. David came home from work, and went out in the back to water the veggies, when he called me outside to see this mess. You can see the little teeth marks on the green fruit! Our guess is that it was a squirrel that must have landed on that branch and knocked all of the fruit off, then decided to have a snack. Little stinkers! Those nectarines take an eternity to ripen, so it's a bit annoying that we lost that many all in one fell swoop.

I've really been wanting to make up a batch of chimichurri sauce and grill up some carne asada for a while now. I love eating this combo at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Oakland, so we tried to duplicate it. It was so good! It's kinda funny that the Mexican restaurant puts this on their carne asada, since it is Argentinian in origin. It's a very basic sauce and you can find many versions of it all over the web. I used parsley, cilantro, white wine vinegar, because I was out of red. Fresh oregano, garlic, chili flakes and olive oil, salt and pepper. Whirl it in a food processor and voila! It's good on chicken and fish as  well. We are going to try and push ourselves to use the grill more this summer. Last summer we did not grill one single thing! I think this weekend we might experiment with the pizza stone and see how that comes out. We also would like to grill some of the peaches and nectarines when they are ready. Besides the regular hamburger and hot dogs, does anyone have creative dishes they like to do on the grill?

Sunday we went out to dinner with Caitlin and Cyrous to a Peruvian restaurant that has been forever so busy we could never get in. Being Sunday it was not as busy and we finally got a chance to go to it, it's called "Parada."  Click on the word and see how yummy the food looks. We really loved the food and will go back again for sure. Three of us had their specialty drink, Pisco Sour, and they were very tasty and very strong! I highly recommend the restaurant if you live in the Bay Area. They have two other locations with different names in San Francisco as well.

Today a gentle breeze is blowing through all the open windows and I'm off to do some menu planning before it gets too late in the day.  Catcha next time!

Oops, forgot to mention the lady bugs. Never in all my yards, have I seen so many of these lovely little insects. I captured the last pictures with my iPhone leaning out of one of my living room windows. The peach tree is covered in them. They are the cutest!!!

Christmas 2015 and Birthday Celebrations

Our December was busy with work and the holidays, just like everyone else. I worked on some special orders like I have mentioned in my previous post, and Caitlin just started her new job at Anthropologie.   We kick off our December festivities with Cyrous' birthday on the 17th. I met Cyrous 7 years ago on his 21st birthday! Seems just like yesterday, and now he is part of our family.
I, like many others, have big plans around the holidays. Per usual though only one or two creative things that I did have planned came to fruition. I have no one, or thing to blame for not getting more done this year! Perhaps dreaming on Pinterest sucked up too much of my time hahahah. Oh well, I did manage to make a boxwood wreath studded with red tea roses for our Christmas dinner table, and I had a lot of fun making it. Especially when total cost of it was five bucks for the roses, and the wire wreath form, which I got a steal of a deal on at Michael's, for maybe three dollars. The boxwood came from the front yard. The beautiful candelabra I had purchased from Anthropologie with birthday money back in October. I was going for an old world/old time Christmas. It's funny because I purchased this really cute snowball garland at Target, and had full intention of a more modern look in my living room. When we bought the tree though, I ended up going a different way because of the bough, which I think I already mentioned. My furniture and this house combined, lends itself more to old time more than modern I suppose, or maybe it's just that I like the coziness of it.
Christmas eve we went to visit  our dear friends near by and spent a lovely time with them chatting and having a few drinks before we went to dinner here. We had the most incredible paella dishes. One was more seafood with black rice, made that way with squid ink. The other had clams and rabbit. Really nice relaxing dinner.
Earlier in the day, Cyrous' mom dropped Caitlin's gift off. A car! She didn't see it until we got home from dinner. I made a video of her reaction, it was funny hahaha.
I love our small Christmas with just us four. I love entertaining, but at Christmas I love not worrying that things have to be perfect for company, and you can stay in your PJs for as long as you want. Since we are slower risers, our dinners are always closer to when we eat normally. When I take a break and look at Instagram, and see everyone already eating or relaxing, and I haven't even put our food in the oven, I start to have a bit of anxiety for some reason. I shouldn't but I always do!
This year I went with a prime rib. It's the second time only that we have had prime rib for Christmas dinner. The first time I had some assistance, so I almost don't count it as me cooking it. It turned out really good despite me freaking out that I thought I'd ruin it. I made a Jamie Oliver carrot recipe, which I think in it's simplicity, is quite genius, and I think from now on I will cook them this way. Here is the link for those( Jamie's carrots). Then Dave talked me into making mashed potatoes in the Scottish manner. You boil potatoes, rutabagas, onions together. Then mash by hand and leave chunky. Pour a little milk and butter, and chopped chives.  I tend to not make a lot of sides on Christmas, especially since it is just us four, and we really should be consuming so much!
Dessert, I bought an English pudding by my favorite brand, Tip Tree. Not everyone ended up liking it, I won't name names hahah. It was still a fun experience and fit into our loosely based English Christmas theme.
The last picture on here was a super sweet gift from my sweetie pie. He first gave me a subscription to Audubon society. A bird was adopted in my name, and the plant is a miniature pomegranate bush to attract humming birds! So sweet, and I can't wait to see it bloom, and hopefully visited by some birds.
Caitlin and Cyrous were so thoughtful and gifted us a new TV. Ours apparently is too small according to Caitlin hahah. It was a total surprise and look forward to all the cool features on it.
So, on that note, I'm going to jump off here to set up the new TV, or help rather.
Hopefully I will get to fit in an end of the year post sometime this week.
Have a wonderful relaxing time with friend and family, for the rest of 2015!