Another Outing

My title sounds a bit like I outed someone doesn't it! But no, just another outing with my sister a couple of weeks ago. The plan, you've gotta love that we actually had a plan, was to take a drive to the Walgreen's store that my sister manages in San Francisco and for me to get one of their last remaining flu shots and for her to pick up her hot water kettle. One of out two isn't bad for us. I got my "preservative free" flu shot for an "extra fee" because that was all they had left and she forgot to pick up her kettle. We left the store and headed for the mall because when I was there the day before specifically to get more of my foundation makeup I, of course, walked out of the make up store w/ $80.00 worth of new eye color but no foundation! So lickity split the foundation was in the bag and strait ahead of us was Godiva. A brief pit stop there and we were off to nowhere. This is the place where everyone gets into trouble right?. Nowhere. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking..........

When we saw there beauties we reminisced about going to Macy's in San Francisco's union Square and trying on all the fancy gowns just for fun..........we would laugh so hard.

Pumpkin festival

Well, If your from Half Moon Bay or have ever been to the Pumpkin Festival you know it is all about the Orange Gourd, the big pumpkin itself. This past weekend was the 39th annual in all it's glory. 300k people over the course of two days cram our little town to enjoy shopping, eating, music and my personal favorite.........people watching. For many of us it's a time to raise much needed funds for our schools and misc other non-profits and also to catch up with old and new friends. Here are some photo highlights from my day at the Pumpkin festival.
PS: I have no idea who these people are, just thought they had alot of pumpkin spirit!

Calm before the storm?

Wayne, Evan and I walked down to see the ocean last night before the rain started. I love the smell and the power of the ocean on days like this. This is what it looked.

Sunday Project

A friend of ours had a baby sometime in the last two weeks, a boy. I can't remember the date exact, Wayne has been working with the guy off and on so when his wife had the baby the guys all took up a collection and had flowers sent. OK, first of all you have to imagine a bunch of carpenters on a job site with no women around somehow figuring this out. What the thought process must have been on this, well it's just funny! So I don't know what possesses me sometimes but I said "Oh, I should make a pumpkin hat" Figuring if I do great, if not, well she got flowers right? So the other day Wayne says to me, "I told John you were making a pumpkin hat for the baby, where is it"? OMG! I guess I really did say that out loud. I don't knit much anymore, but I found my orange and green "Lambs pride cotton" and went to work. I had forgotten how quickly a little baby had knits up and how much I miss knitting. I worked on thought out the day Sunday and finished before Wayne and the boys returned home from Fleet Week celebration in SF.

Cooking Inspiration

Yesterday while I was surfing new food blogs, a current obsession of mine, I ran across this blog http://food-forthought.blogspot.com/. Scrolling down the site I discovered he/she had posted a recipe for Cannellini beans and kale. Seeing that I had all the ingredients on hand and It sounded wonderful, I went to work.
I used:
1 can of Cannellini beans (Trader Joe's brand)
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
Red Pepper flakes to taste
Diced pancetta
One whole bunch of purple kale, washed and roughly chopped
Sm lemon wedge maybe a teaspoon
Extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
Saute the onion, garlic, pancetta and red pepper flakes in a pan w/ olive oil. Add kale and a little water. Cover and cook until leaves are tender at this point I also added a little squirt of fresh lemon.
After the kale is cooked , add the cannellini beans and salt and pepper. Cook until heated through then mash the beans. Plate the dish and drizzle with more olive oil and Parmesan cheese. Serve with sourdough bread. This is how it looked.




The beauty of this recipe is that you can alter it in so many ways. I thought about adding some chopped tomatoes or even a small diced potato. Jazz it up how ever you like!

Home Sweet Home

A funny story about us is that until now we have never lived in a house long enough to have to do any type of maintenance, like painting or replacing a roof or re-landscape. And because Wayne is a contractor and we have built all but two of our houses, they really don't need anything done to them for a few years. So now, here we are going on year 8 in our lovely home and finding the exterior and interior could use some freshening up and even the landscaping is looking a bit tired. Wayne has had to replace the garbage disposal and repair the dishwasher this month. He even had to repair a broken slate tile in the kitchen. I don't even want to think about the fact that one day we might need to remodel! Moving does have it's advantages, like every couple of years I was able to purge. Now It's an ongoing process of purging. I constantly have items in the back of my car to go to goodwill. Our catch line was always, we'll just build another house. Until now, because we love it here. So let the maintenance begin!