Happy Purim!

If you don't already have plans for tonight or tomorrow...

How I spent my Sunday afternoon

For the past few weeks we've been setting into our new home. We worked on every room except for our spare room, which is where all of our boxes and odds & ends landed. But, we finally spent some time in there yesterday making it into our "den" and making it cozy for guests.


I ordered some neat decals from Leen the Graphics Queen and got to sticking! Let me tell you, it's a nifty process, but it took forever to stick each of those leaves on. But, we love our little tree with the purple birdies in it. What do you think?

View of SF over Dolores Park from the J-Church Muni

I got my very own king cake!

Remember how I was dreaming about king cake the other day... well, I got one of my very own... and it was FREE! Here is the story: I called the Virginia Bakery in Berkeley where I had my first and only king cake two years ago. They said they weren't making any new cakes, but they had a cake from Tuesday that was never picked up. If I wanted it, I could stop by and pick it up (I was going to Berkeley anyway to meet some friends for lunch), and since it was 2 days old they would give it to me for free. It was SO YUM! :) Who doesn't love a free cake?

We lost power!

Just before 8am our power went out. We didn't think much of it as we disabled our garage door and manually opened it in order to get our car and bikes out. As the day went on we heard reports of a plane crash taking out some power lines and an electric transmission tower. You can read more here.

The power came back on around 6pm but not in time for me to get to my online class. Grrrrrrr.
 

Dreaming of King Cake on this Fat Tuesday

No, I didn't get to eat any this year. And, yes, that's a little plastic baby Jesus in the center.

Meet my new bike

I finally got a new bike today! And, I named her Willow. Her full name is White Winter Willow, but I think she'll mostly just get called Willow. She's very different from the bikes that preceded her, Camel and Stella, but she's a good solid bike for cruising around Palo Alto, and I'll make sure her pearly white frame gets covered in stickers in no time. :)

Happy Valentine's Day from some heart-shaped kitties

It's Sunday morning, I'm going back to bed

Cindy's birthday and Cheese Corn!

Winter sky in Palo Alto

"Remind me to never visit Minnesota in February again."

New Minnesota Freeman kitties!

Last weekend we lost a very dear and sweet little member of the Freeman family. So, this weekend my MIL decided it was time to bring some kitty life back into her home!

This little boy kitty was originally named Skippyjon Jones, but we have renamed him Jonah. He's only 4 1/2 months old and he's such a kitten! He was only shy for a few minutes and then he romped around and played with us all evening.


This gorgeous girl is named Philadelphia, and has yet to be renamed. She is about a year and half old and is super shy. Philly is still unsure of her new surroundings, and her new adopted little brother. I'm sure she'll come around in no time.


Do you notice a trend for one grey & white kitty and one orange kitty in our families? :)
 

Snowshoeing in Minnesota

Conversation of the day

So this morning I was saying something about Ashton Kutcher (randomly) and my husband asks, "Is he an actor or musician?"

I say, "he's an actor."

So then he asks, "Is he a heartthrob?"

After totally losing it in hysterical laughter, I said, "saying heartthrob is like asking if we met at a malt shop!"
 

Gifts from Japan

We've already established that I have an amazingly sweet husband. So, of course we are not surprised when he returned from his trip to Japan with some little gifts for me! Of course, he brought back some funny named candy, because everyone knows how much I love treats.


But he also returned with A NEW CAMERA for me!!!! I have a fancy SLR camera that only comes out on special occasions. Normally I carry around a little Canon point-and-shoot camera. Well, as you can imagine, my little camera gets lots of action, and I've had it for many years now, so it has seen better days. Now I've got this awesome new one! Thanks honey. You're the best. :)

Loving my orange cat

While the cat's away the mice will... cook?

As we all know, my husband, Dave is the chef in the family. I can make veggie chili, granola, and toast. Occasionally I can hard boil an egg. However, my dear husband has been in Japan for almost a week now. When my family was visiting we ate in restaurants.

Tonight, on my own, instead of heating up frozen food or calling for delivery, I decided to cook. I picked up some pear and pecorino ravioli at the farmers market yesterday and noticed we still had some fresh sage left over in our fridge. So, I decided to make brown butter and sage ravioli tonight. And it was amazing!!! I am so proud of myself! Can you feel me beaming?

A quote for the new month

“Expecting life to treat you well because you are a good person is like expecting an angry bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.”
- Shari R. Barr