Bird of Paradise

Did you know that the bird of paradise is the official flower of the city of Los Angeles?

More things I love about the summer... the annual Biola Bookstore sale!  I walked over this afternoon and browsed around the bookstore.  As staff, we get an additional 40 % off for purchases this week.  Yay!  That's the kind of sale I like!  I picked up a few little gifts for friends and couldn't help getting this super cute, adjustable ring for myself for just a couple dollars.

Just the thing to wear this summer!

Summer Dresses...

Another thing I love about summertime is wearing summer dresses.  I found this colorful beauty on zulily a few weeks ago.  Wearing it makes me feel quite happy!  What does your favorite summer dress look like?  
All dark colors in my closet are hereby banished to Winterdom... Long live Summer!

Happy first day of summer!

I really love summer! 

 One of the things I get to do more often is hang out with these cutie pies.

 Last Friday we went to Huntington Beach and had a bonfire, roasted weenies, and made s'mores.

 

     Fun times!

Adventure Week Is Just Around The Corner!

It's that time of year again!  I don't get to paint or draw very often so when an artistic opportunity comes around I make the most of it.  The theme for Adventure Week (VBS) this year is "Saddle Up".  My friend Kim and I have worked on a couple of these projects together.

Last year we were up to our ears painting all kinds safari animals

From 2011 June 11 - Monsters and Lions and Elephants... Oh My!

but with the American western theme this year our main project is to paint a stagecoach that can also be used for a photo booth.

We started tracing the image onto the plywood last week so today we were ready to break out the brushes and paint and get to work.

Got a couple of hours of painting in today before running out of day light so we will tackle it again Saturday.  I'll post another photo once we're all done.

Serendipitous Saturday

The dictionary defines Serendipity as "an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident".  That is what happened this morning.

I was driving home from an early morning meeting and kept seeing signs here and there for garage sales and yard sales.  After driving past a few I just picked one and followed the signs to the address listed.  Now mind you it's been over a year since I have stopped at a yard sale.  I usually gravitate to the table with dishes or kitchenware.  I wasn't really expecting to see anything in particular.  Much to my surprise I saw a stack of plates on the corner of the table.

When I looked closer I noticed it was the same exact pattern of some dishes I bought years ago at an antique store in Orange.  Well, I bought the dishes for... ready?

$2 for the whole stack.  Yes!  I drove away with a big smile on my face.

Then noticed another yard sale a few blocks further down.  Why not I thought!  There were no dishes here and as I was about to walk away and drive home I saw this...

It's a beautiful, old, four drawer solid wood cabinet.

No pressed wood or particle board here!  I took it home for $60.

I love it when these little completely unplanned surprises happen.    

Did you see it?

 

A little black dot in front of a giant red dot.  I watched with great interest this week as Venus made it's way in front of the sun.  This is quite a rare event that will happen again in 2117.  Above is a screen shot of the NASA website during the transit of Venus.

Breakfast for Dinner

Sometimes at the end of the day when I come home after working out and I'm trying to decide what to make for dinner I like to try something a little different.  So this week I made breakfast for dinner.  Why not?

I toasted a piece of sprouted wheat bread and put a little bit of coconut oil on it.  Fried up an egg and served myself a big scoop of fresh fruit (pineapple, papaya, strawberries and basil).  Yes, basil... my favorite herb of the month!  I've been adding it to lots of things these days.  

What are you having for dinner?

Happy Mother's Day!

I can never thank my Mom enough for being the best Mom ever!  I admire her strength and courage to go to a foreign country far away from all her family and friends and raise and teach five kids.  (And this was well before all the modern technology that we take so much for granted today!)  There was no "Skyping" with grandparents.  They wrote letters that would take weeks and sometimes months to arrive.  There was no Google or internet to look something up.  There were no cell phones, iPods, CD's or microwaves that most of us use without a second thought.

But there was time.  Time to learn and do school together. Time to watch my mom cook meals from scratch everyday. Time to sit down at the table and eat together at every meal.  There were good times and bad times but I could always count on my Mom being there.

So, today I say "Thank You, Mom!"

Thank you for loving me.  (Even though I was a crier!)

Thank you for teaching me about Jesus.

Thank you for teaching me how to read.

Thank you for getting the nasty bug out of my eye.  (I still remember that day!)

Thank you for all the time you spent with us.

I love you!

Got Guac? {My Recipe}

What do you do when you have a bunch of avocados ripening all at once?  Make some guacamole of course!

So here is how I put it all together.  Gather you cast of characters and start by chopping up the green onion.

Peel, pit and chop the avocados.  Add the lime juice.  (Tip:  Save one of the avocado pits and place it in the guac when you are done.  It will help it not turn as quickly)

Grab a bunch of cilantro and chop that up too.

Add the pico de gallo chili powder, some garlic powder and salt to taste.  (Sorry about the blurry pics.  It was late at night and the light in the kitchen wasn't the best.)

Mix it all together... grab some chips... and DIG IN!

Ruth's Guacamole (makes about 6 cups)

8 - 9 large ripe Avocados, pitted and chopped (save one of the pits)
5 stalks Green Onion, chopped
Juice of 2 Large Limes
1 cup Cilantro, chopped
1 tsp Pico de Gallo Chili Powder
1 tsp Sea Salt
1 tsp Garlic Powder

Chop and mix all ingredients together.  Adjust seasoning to your taste.  Enjoy!

A new found love called Basil

I have a new found love called Basil.  No, not this Basil although he does look quite handsome and debonair doesn't he?.

My basil, is fresh, fragrant and tastes delicious!  I know, you are probably saying what's so new and exciting about basil?  I used to think the same thing and my dates with basil consisted mainly of marinera sauce and pasta or pesto.  So the last week as I was chopping up some fresh strawberries I looked over at basil and and though "why not?".  I picked off a few leaves and tore them into bits and added them right in to the strawberries.

Wow!  This is truly a pairing made in heaven.  The flavors complement and enhance each other in a most delicious way.  The I began to think about how else I could use the fresh basil leaves.  Here are a couple ideas I found were also quite delicious.  Add some fresh basil leaves to toasted sprouted wheat bread with some coconut or olive oil drizzled on top.  So yummy!  And for breakfast put bits of basil leaves on your fried egg over toast. Mmmm!

I was curious if there were any unusual basil recipes out there and I found a few that I must try sometime soon.

The Pioneer Woman's newest cookbook Food From My Frontier has a Peach-Basil Ice Cream Topping recipe that sounds simply amazing.  You can also use fresh basil to make herbal sugar.  This sounds delicious for baking.

On the Farmer's Nest blog there is this recipe for Sweet Basil Fruit Dip.

How do you use basil?  Have any recipes or ideas to share?  Love to hear about them!