cheers!

cool shot I took of Cody's martini the other week in the city - thought I'd share :)

first things first though...

the first major expense we have when we move into our new home is to buy a washer and dryer - and when you look at the options available to you in washer and dryers I do mean major expense...

we are doing our research about steam vs non steam and front loading vs top loading, but with these pretty colours how can you resists these???

Pizza party with mom

Tonight we met up with my mom at the new Mountain Mike's that just opened near the Almaden Cinema Five (our favorite place to see movies) for their 50% off any pizza night and then went to see Land of the Lost at the Almaden Cinema Five for their Terrific Tuesday $4.50 movie night. We ordered an extra large 1/2 pepperoni and mushroom, 1/2 Tuscan garlic, but they accidently made a whole garlic Tuscan and gave us a second pizza for free. We currently have a lot of pizza at home. So much pizza.

The movie was alright. I thought I would hate it, but Cody really wanted to see if and my mom didn't care either way. It was lame and pretty corny, but there were several parts that had me laughing so it ended up being fun to watch. Overall, it was an affordable and fun way to spend time with mom.

yummy thai

this is my favourite lunch to eat right now, that is close to my work... chicken noodle thai curry from thai orchid - might have to go get some now :)

ranch dressing

we are 'that' close to being home owners of a mid century modern ranch which has spurred many an internet search for inspiration of how we can spruce it up... here is a great house I found last night here


we've decided we're going to paint our ceilings nice and shiny white like this. we don't have the panelling quite like this, so maybe we'll add that - dunno, depends on price really... what do you think?

sunset on a sunday...

yesterday we ventured out in the gorgeous Californian sunshine for the

Sunset Magazine celebration day, which is basically an open house at the

Sunset headquarters in Menlo Park.

Sunset Magazine was first published as a promotional magazine for the

Southern Pacific Railroad in 1898

Here is the first cover which I thought was very cool.

We tasted all sorts of food and wine, got some great home and

garden ideas and even made our own rub.

we got these cool glasses

which we quickly filled with some delicious wines

and had some chocolate to pair with the wine

and yummy food too

we all thought it would be a fab place to work

the boys got their car fix

and I got my photo taken with a funky old police car!

it was a fun afternoon distraction from packing boxes...

aren't they nice...

look what anthropologie sent me for my birthday...

and with the gift credit card I got from Bill & Barb, I just have to find something to spend it on now :D

The Arcade Fire

I really truly, truly love this band.

Here's their song Wake Up from Funeral.
I want to go home, light a candle, and ache.

UP

We went to see UP over the weekend in 3D which was awesome - definitely make sure you see it!

We even got to wear these sexy glasses, which I must say looked great on Melita and reminded me why I got rid of my wayfarers in the early 90's and won't be getting another pair - even though they are oh so hip these days...

I was really happy to take them off after the major headache I got from watching a 3D movie from the 15th row, but I was even happier to see that they recycled them!

Text to Kate minutes before UP

We're here. There are a lot of children. We're at the bar at the Outback.

what will they think of next?

as bryce and I are busily making plans to renovate our new house and surfing the web for inspiration we came across this must have app for the iPhone.

house update

we're well on the way to being home owners and getting into a good chunk of debt... but hey, that's the American way... right?

we've been signing this and that and must have killed a small tree with all the paper we've had to print and sign, but all seems to be moving along very quickly.

We get the keys on June 22 - Yay!

now we are trying to use every minute available getting packed up here and planning which 'fun project' (as I like to call the many many reno jobs that await us) we should start first. we stopped by the house the other night on our way home and the listing agent just happened to be there, so we learned some more about the house...

• we will be the third owners - the lady that has just moved out lived there since 1963, she and her husband bought it when the house was 10 years old
• the carpet was given to her as a 50th wedding anniversary, he wanted to give her a ring, but she said we need carpet... (ain't love grand...)
• we have an espalier apple tree which is trained along a trellis along the side fence, 2 large orange trees, and 1 lemon tree and apparently the fruit are delicious!
• we have a 2 car garage out the back instead of the 1 car garage that I thought it was, which excites Bryce to no end...
• we have a very large ash tree in the front which would hold a great rope swing :)

Yesterday we had our final inspection and we're very excited to get in there and start making it our own...

this made me happy...

to see this sign on the side of a bus the other night - I had to take a quick pic to share...

some great ways to save water here

unphotogenic eh?

gino

happy friday

The doughnut project

Ever since Lou's Living Donut Museum closed I haven't had a doughnut. Not that I ever was a big doughnut fan, but I really loved Lou's. They had pumpkin doughnuts every fall and a great atmosphere. People go crazy for Krispy Kremes, but I don't know what all the commotion is about. Perhaps it's time to find out and start a doughnut project in search of the most remarkable doughnuts in the Silicon Valley? First stops will be Peter's Bakery on the East side and Manley's on Meridian. I welcome any suggestions for local places to try and will post updates of my findings. Yes, I know eating doughnuts make me fat, but this seems like a very worthwhile way to spend time.

aidan

came across this picture while cleaning up my hardrive - aidan, my gorgeous first born nephew

does anyone else find it wrong....?

that when I just typed botox in an email microsoft outlook picked it up in spellcheck and just happened to correct it with Botox??? Botox is just a fact of life these days I guess.... and guess what??? apparently it makes you more happy!

I swear to God, we will garden

This weekend is going to be jam packed with work. First, we're having a big yard sale on Saturday and, although it's going to be a major chore just hauling all my stuff out of hiding to sell to judgmental strangers (those are rust stains on my Juicy sweats, beatch!), I swear to God we are going to garden on Sunday no matter how tired we may be. And, much to Cody's future disappointment, we're going to start early. I constantly dream of cooking with garden fresh vegetables and herbs and have a gigantic yard just waiting to be used for something besides Gino's poo graveyard but I never seem to get myself together enough to venture outside to plant or water anything. This weekend will be different, I swear it.

Blogger jackpot!

I absoultely love food blogs and I came across this link to a bunch of awesome food blogs when I was looking at the fabulous dessert pictures and recipes on Bunny's Warm Oven. Yum yum yum! I never ever make desserts, but after looking at Bunny's site I want to race home, turn the Kitche Aid on, and NEVER EVER TURN IT OFF.

shoes

while bryce and I were in the city for my birthday we just 'happened' upon Nordstroms shoe department and I 'had' to buy these...

while in the shoe department we were invited to a photography exhibition called A Day In My Shoes by Amy Martin Friedman which is a project to help women of domestic abuse get back on their feet. each photo had a little story about the woman and her shoes, it was really lovely and hearing Amy talk about the project brought tears to my eyes...

This was my favourite photo which you can buy here

More smoked food

We tried chicken and ribs in the smoker last night. The ribs turned out perfectly, but the chicken was just bleah. I think the issue was that the chips may have been too wet so it ended up steaming everything. When the ribs were cooked we took them out, coated them thinly w/a very vinagery homemade barbecue sauce, and put them on the grill to char a bit. I attached some exciting video of dinner cooking in the smoker.

Mark your calendar!

My friend Annie will be performing on June 19 at Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco. Happy Hour. Friday June 19.Church & Steak presents the SF premier of Josh Lowman's short film "We Are Croissan'wich". PLUS, the premier of the Church & Steak music video "A Woolgathering Exodus". PLUS two other short, funny films that go great with beer.It's all topped off by a potentially mind-blowing performance by Date Nite. I definitely plan to attend!

Kate's B-day

We met with Kate and Bryce at the opera in San Francisco on Saturday. Cody and I arrived first and were able to get seats in the balcony. After a brief, but bitter and furious, battle with the old lady next to us (Cody forgot to "save" the seat on his side and she was SO pissed) K & B arrived and joined us for the show. Cody and I both fell asleep during the first act of Tosca and I was ready to run out the door by the first intermission, but after 2 allergy tablets I was back in the game and we stuck it out to the end. As Kate put it, we can check "going to the opera" off our lists of things to do in life, but I doubt we'll be back. None of us had eaten so we stopped in at Citizen Cake, had drinks and sampled some desserts before heading back to the hotel room Bryce reserved for the evening. We met up with Christina at an Irish pub, had a drink, met up with Bryce's Chilean friend (who was like an intense, South American Wolverine) and all made our way to meet Hannah for a delicious dinner at Osha Thai on the Embarcadero. Dinner was so much fun and fortunately Kate had her little journal to capture some of the evening's better quotes. Here are a few winners that I can remember, but I'm sure she'll have more to share:

Q: "Which do you prefer? Giving hand jobs or blow jobs?"
A: "It all depends on what time of day it is versus how much lube is available."
...cut to Kate scribbling "lube is good" in her journal

Q: "It's funny how you blogged about losing 6 pounds and then all of our ads were suddenly about eating disorders and anorexia. How do you spell anorexia anyway?"
A: "*clap* *clap* r-e-x-i-a
..laughing and scribbling

Q: "What did you say?"
A: "Tears make the best lube."
....scribble, scribble

When Cody and I got up the next day we were still laughing about how Kate kept trying to play patty-cake with everyone while telling them they were "doing it backwards" then Cody and I tried the Australian hand slapping game and decided the American way is still better, sorry Kate.

Updated w/raw chicken video!! BARF

After all of the years of issues I've had with my dogs and cancer we decided to switch Gino to the BARF diet a few months ago to see if we could make sure he's just as healthy as he can possibly be. My aunt's breeder has advocated this raw food diet for years, but it always seemed too complicated and like it would be tons of work so we never really tried it and have always fed the girls high-quality commercial dog food. Once our last Giant Schnauzer, Ezree, died at the age of 6 from intestinal cancer we made the decision to have all our future dogs on as natural a diet as possible. And while I'm not saying the commercial dog food caused her cancer, I am saying that losing a dog like that is a sad and terrible thing to experience and I want to do everything in my power to promote my pet's health.

I have some familiarity about how the BARF diet works and what types of food to feed the dog. My friends Kelly and Fernando have had their Giant on the diet ever since they got her and they were a great source of information. They even belong to a raw food co-op. I also read several articles about how to transition a dog from commercial food to the BARF diet and noticed there was a lot of debate about weaning slowly versus going cold turkey. For Gino we tried cold turkey and after a day of some confusion on his part about what this gigantic turkey wing and chicken gizzards were doing in his bowl, he took to it without any problems.

As for the cost and convenience factors we haven't really noticed any major changes in our routine other than I stop at the grocery store more frequently to pick up his dinners. I spend a little bit more each month on food, but it's not really noticible. I try to shop for a variety of raw meaty bones and other meats. When we first started the diet I noticed that the cheapest meat was pork ribs, but they are so super fatty I don't like to buy them anymore. Now we buy pork neck bones, lots of chicken, and whatever other stuff is on sale. We also had some questions about exactly how much to feed him, but it's mostly been by trial and error and I think we've got a good idea of how much he should eat. This week we've also introduced vegetables to his diet and he LOVES eating his carrots for breakfast. Changing to the BARF diet has made me feel really good about taking care of my dog - he literally flies down the hall at dinner time and is so excited to eat. If you're interested in doing this for your own dog feel free to send me an email with any questions you have. I'm not an expert on the diet, but I should be able to answer any questions, or point you in the right direction.

*6/3 - post updated w/a picture of his raw chicken dinner and extreme bone-crunching, close up video of him eating it. Enjoy!!

we won! finally...

well bryce and I are very happy to report that somebody finally accepted our offer to buy a house... we were a back up offer for Los Olivios which is the wonderful 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, pretty much original condition 50's ranch that we had really loved, and we were convinced that the first bidder would take it for sure - but apparently they wanted to bulldoze the garage in the back yard and the city wouldn't give them a permit... so we don't mind at all!

It is on a huge corner block with lots of fruit trees and plenty of concrete that needs to be jackhammered (can't wait to start demo'ing :D) This is also the one with about 7 varieties of wall paper throughout. It's going to be lots of fun making it our own...

Gino the Unphotogenic Dog

Gino really is a very cute and precious Labrador Retriever but for some unknown reason he refuses to pose for the camera and is incredibly difficult to photograph. So, I am giving up on trying to take cute pictures and am settling on ones where he is at least facing the camera. Enjoy his adorable facing the camera-ness.

The new smoker

Cody's mom gave us a new smoker for Christmas and we broke it in last night with our first batch of ribs. I'm really up at 2:27am stressed about registering for classes at SJSU, so I figured it was a good time to share some of the pictures we took from dinner.
We made a very flavorful spice rub out of pretty much every seasoning we could find in the cubboards and agreed that next time we'll a) use less seasoning in general and b) try a simpler rub until we get it right. The ribs came from Costco and were very tasty - I was expecting them to be greasier, but they were nice and lean. After about an hour and 10 minutes (with several peeks to check on the ribs) they were perfectly cooked and delicious. I made a barbecue sauce out of onions, ketchup, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, mustard powder, and pepper and also a garlic bread to mop everything up with. According to Cody we're using the smoker for every meal for the rest of our lives. Next time we're going to try a whole turkey, yum!