Hello August!

Wow, it's been a few weeks since I have blogged! One day seems to meld into another over here with routine and summer time laziness.  Since I last blogged, Caitlin and Cyrous moved to their really cute new place. On the Sunday before they got back, we built an Ikea TV stand for them, and got them a cute little patio table and chairs for their front porch. I think they were surprised with their house warming gifts! In my next post I'll put some pics of of their place, it's really charming.  It's nice to have them home after being away for a month.
A week or so we were suffering with a heat wave, as evidenced in the first photo. Not much gets done in this type of weather for me, which as you can see, there are no photos of anymore sewing projects! I did however complete one special order, and spent some time getting some inspiration for some fall projects on Pinterest. I went to my favorite fabric store in Berkeley last week and bought some really fun fabrics that inspired me to begin my fall/winter looks. I was going to work with a real bright color palate this fall, but changed my mind when I found this one particular print. I'll take some pics when I get some things cut out, which hopefully will be this week.

This past Saturday, we met Caitlin and Cyrous for breakfast and then checked out the vintage fair they were having downtown. I found a cool 1930's print to frame for my bathroom. Last year I found some really great vintage patterns, but this year I didn't see any vintage sewing supplies.  We stopped in at States Coffee for an ice tea and then headed home.

One of our summer guilty pleasures has been watching "Six Feet Under" on HBO.  This is the first time we have ever had HBO, so just now we are watching shows that everyone else already saw back in the early 2000's hahaha. The series began in 2001 and it's funny to see how that already looks dated. This started airing around the time we were getting ready to move to France.  I heard all about it when we moved back to the States, but like I said, no HBO until now. We are on the next to the last season right now and have really enjoyed the series.  Now we have to try and fit in the Olympics with our HBO viewing hahaha. Speaking of Olympics, as I type this I just saw the US win the mens swimming relay!! Michael Phelps really was incredible to watch. What are your favorite events to watch? We love swimming, gymnastics, and beach volleyball.

On Saturday we decided to go into Oakland for dinner, and while we were walking to the restaurant, we encountered this sweet little cat. It was just lying there minding its own business. As we walked by, it gravitated towards David like a magnate. It rubbed up against him in circles, then came over to me and did the same. I tried to pet it, but it just looked at me, like don't even.... then sauntered away. It still seemed that it wanted to pal out with David, as you can see how it is stalking him from behind. I miss having a cat.

The yard continues to bloom and bloom. The purple flowers on the tree are covered in bees and dragonflies. I really don't remember this tree all bloomed like it is now, last summer. I love seeing it out of my kitchen window. My miniature pomegranates are starting to form it's tiny fruit! We love sitting out in the yard on Sundays with our farmers market treats and coffee enjoying all the sights  smells of summer. Today we had a friend over to help us eat the farmer's market treats.

Oh I almost forgot.....Nicole got the coolest job opportunity that we are all super excited about! Unfortunately I can't say much about it, as I'm sworn to secrecy.... BOO! The minute I can tell more about it, I will be doing my proud mom moment. It's pretty cool :)

Off to do a bit more Olympic viewing before bed.....Catch up sooner than I did this time!

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!!!