Menu Planning

It's Memorial Day Weekend! We're at the hideaway for a week and hoping to have some visitors. So I spent several hours planning meals and grocery shopping. Honestly, it's not a favorite chore, but it's a lot less annoying than flying my the seat of my pants for each meal.

This is what my refrigerator looks like:I need 8-9 lunches and dinners. A handful of lunches will be sandwiches on the lake or out exploring the forest, but this is what I have planned for the next 8 days in no particular order:

Lunches:
naan 'top it yourself' pizzas
sandwiches, pb&j, ham, roast beef
tuna casserole
Rosie's mac salad and ?
soup and sandwiches
naan slices and spinach salad

Dinners
1. turkey tacos + avacado salad
2. pie in sky (out)
3. chicken enchiladas + green salad
4. grilled burgers + mac salad and corn(or sloppy joes)
5. el jardin (out)
6. molly's chicken chalupas + green salad
7. chipotle lime fish tacos + avacado salad
8. salmon and asparagus pasta + rolls
9. chicken tamale casserole + green beans

While I was doing that, Jimmy was doing this:
hacking our tv. I suppose this voids the warranty. But the tv makes a loud "pop" when you turn it on. Annoying. He's figuring out how to make it stop.

World Turtle Day

Raise your hand if you knew about this celebration?
I didn't till today. Interesting the things you learn whilst browsing the internets.
I wonder if this event even existed before the internets.
(update: wiki says it started in 2000 to bring attention to, and increase knowledge of and respect for, turtles and tortoises.) Well, there you go.

It seems like a good reason to post some photos that I have of turtles.



These guys live at the Hokane Japanese Gardens in Los Gatos. They seem to like their home.

I know I would if I lived here.

Shark Attack at Bay to Breakers

You never know when you'll be attacked by a school of sharks. But my chances were at an all time high at Bay to Breakers yesterday. There were hundreds of them.

May?

I May have forgotten how to upload to my blog.
It's been 30 days since my last post.
Have I been traveling?
Working on a secret project on a deserted island?
Stuck at the bottom of a well and Lassie couldn't find me?
Nothing nearly as glamourous as any of those.
I.
Have.
Been.
Sick.
Plain and simple.
For almost 3 weeks. Then of course, when I started feeling better, Jimmy started coming down with the same thing. Let's just say, we were pretty much quarantined for the last several weeks.

ANYHOO...
I'm back on track and LIFE IS GOOD!
Now, let's see if I can remember how to upload a photo.
I took this photo of a dogwood blossom on April 27th when we were at the hideaway. I was just coming down with that vicious virus. Today, May 20th, is the very 1st day that I feel completely, 100% better, well and happy! And that frog of a squatter has finally vacated my throat.

So I'm back to my normal programming. I've got a few photos and a video from Bay to Breakers, and a project or two to share in the next day or so.

PS: thanks SusanD for checking in!

Saturday Crafting

Saturday morning, Doris and I went to our local scrapbook store in Berkeley to take a fun class with Amy Tangerine, a popular scrapbook artist from Los Angeles.

We made this cute little album.

I had to finish adding all the photos when I got home since I didn't bring photos to class with me.

Emergence

The Exploratorium reopened at it's new location on Pier 15 yesterday.

The Exploratorium is a twenty-first-century learning laboratory, an eye-opening, always-changing, playful place to explore and tinker. For more than forty years, we’ve built creative, thought-provoking exhibits, tools, programs, and experiences that ignite curiosity, encourage exploration, and lead to profound learning. Dive in and discover what we’re all about.

For the 1st 2 nights, they had a free light show in front of the building called "Emergence". Jimmy and I walked out to watch it tonight. So glad we caught it since tonight is that last night. They really should try to do this more. It was so awesome!

This is just a minute of video, shot across the street. The entire light show was about 15 minutes (maybe more. maybe less.) and looped.

views from my front window

Window washing season...OOPS! He caught me stealing a snapshot through a crack in the blinds.

The building across the street seems to be a little drunk.This is actually a silly technique I learned from Photojojo using the panorama function on your camera phone. I'll have to try it again, fun and silly. I like it!

Radish Avacado Fennel Egg Salad

One of my girlfriends is trying to eat Paleo.

If you're not familiar with the paleo diet, here's a quick blurb from wiki:
The paleolithic diet (abbreviated paleo diet or paleodiet), also popularly referred to as the caveman diet, Stone Age diet and hunter-gatherer diet, is a modern nutritional plan based on the presumed ancient diet of wild plants and animals that various hominid species habitually consumed during the Paleolithic era—a period of about 2.5 million years which ended around 10,000 years ago with the development of agriculture and grain-based diets. In common usage, such terms as the "Paleolithic diet" also refer to the actual ancestral human diet.

I know I'd never be able to adhere to such a diet, though I do agree that everyone needs to eliminate processed foods as much as possible.

Anyhoo...this was one of her recipes. She doesn't use mayo. I added a little bit but it definitely would have been good without it.


Ingredients:
4 hard boiled eggs, cooled and chopped
1 avocado, diced
1/4 cup fennel bulb, julienned into 1/2 inch matchsticks
1/4 cup radish, finely diced
1/4 cup chives, finely chopped
1 tsp. lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
a heaping tablespoon of mayo or greek yogurt if you want a smoother texture

Coincidentally, I had received most of the ingredients needed in my Farm Fresh to You Box the day before.


I also made some roasted veggies, simply tossed with a bit of olive oil and kosher salt.
I used the carrots, leftover fennel and asparagus from my box and included some zucchini and yukon gold potatoes.

Chinatown with a 4 year old

Cousin, her daughter and her mom came into the City on Tuesday. I took the day off and we went to Chinatown for dim sum and bargain shopping.

You may know that I love giving my camera to kids to see what they capture.

While cousin and her mom were shopping, Princess Niece and I waited patiently, shooting photos and playing eye-spy.

Floating in Air

A bunch of us went to the Chabot Space and Science Center for Ninja Nephew's 7th birthday. We had the chance to float in a 'space station'.

or jump in front of an image of the space station and have a camera timed to take our photo at the exact right moment. But shhhhh don't tell anyone.