Love Fridays

This week has gone by so fast I didn't realize I hadn't posted anything since last Friday. That's all right, it may have been a fast week but it was also uneventful.

I'm loving this Friday because of the awesome weather the last two days. It's been beautiful...in the low 70's and sunny...my favorite kind of day.

This is the view from work, ignore all the ugly power lines and industrial buildings but look at that green and blue. I love it!

Normally it's brown and, well, brown. Brown dried up grass and brown smoggy sky. But there are days, two times a year (during spring and fall) when the days are like this. It reminds me that living here is a privilege and I should take full advantage.

I also got a couple of projects done today. The first is another pencil roll, another very late Christmas gift for L.

L. reads my blog but it's ok, she already knows it's coming. Now she'll see how awesome it is and she'll maybe come over to get it and we can go see a movie...maybe Watchman. Just a suggestion.

Anyway, here's some more detail of the pencil roll...

All rolled up and ready to go.

Open.

I made (from left to right) a few pockets for normal pens and pencils, pockets for a 6 pack of highlighters (all my highlighters are at work so let's pretend that the pens and batteries in the pockets are highlighters), 2 miscellaneous pockets and one flapped pocket for milk money.




Here's the pocket up close. No, I'm not giving her that milk money (it's actually my phone bill money).

The other project was another zippered pouch, slightly different in design, slightly better made than the first. This pouch was actually designed to be long enough to be used as a pencil case. I made it from more vintage sheets in my favorite color...purple.

For more reasons to love Fridays, visit Tinnigirl and check the list. Oh, and be sure to wish her luck on her craft fair stall.

new addition / Love Fridays

On Friday, we brought home a new family member. He has brown eyes and gray hair. He's very sweet, hardly ever speaks. He's not too tall, let's say medium, yeah, he's of medium build.


Here's a picture of the little guy...

Isn't he cute? My sister has been wanting a dog of her own so when Petsmart announced their adoption weekend we decided to go. We both fell in love with this little mutt (part Schnauser, part who knows) instantly. He was so calm and quiet among all the chaos of other dogs barking and jumping and when we took him by the cats there was nary a peep outta him. So we adopted him right then and there. I'm guessing they thought he looks like the dog from Lady and the Tramp cuz they named him Tramp, plus they found him wandering the streets. It doesn't really flow off the tongue for me so I keep calling him Champ, which I like much better anyway.

He's super sweet and curious but has a propensity for chewing on power cords, which we're trying to train him out of. Since he was a stray he's not trained at all. He's managed to go...ahem...#2, exactly once outside. All other times have been in the house. But he has managed, each time, to make it on whatever we've put down as our "just in case" measure. So he actually has my dog beat. My dog who is too phobic to use a doggy door by himself and who can not seem to keep his little butt on the puppy pads I put down.

(gratuitous Jasper shot...)

Speaking of...I think Jasper is liking his new playpal but as soon as I'm home he's all "I'm too good for that mutt." and "How dare he think he can just play with me!" My dog is such a snob.

Sasha is not having anything to do with him, she's been holed up in a corner and only comes out when she knows for sure he's not in the room.

and tentatively at that. Poor girl.

Love Fridays

One of these weeks I'm going to make this post on a Friday. Oh how I loved this Friday!! A friend and I decided that we are going to start visiting local museums because neither of us really ever have so yesterday we visited the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena. The museum doesn't actually open til noon so we made plans for lunch first. We picked Daisy Mint. A very cute little Thai bistro. My Chilies, Basil and Beef hit the spot. Doesn't it look yummy?! (mine is the one on the left, L's Green Curry on the right)

So, on to the museum...I remember the commercials for this museum from when I was a kid. It featured a very young Candace Bergen and flashes of lots of Degas sculptures. At least thats how I remember them. I've never been to it...after living in SoCal for 35 years this was my first time. It was amazing! I love art museums in general. To quote my friend, they make me feel so educated and cultured. This one, for such a small museum, has a collection that spans about 800 years. And the numbr of sculptures is astounding. I think my favorite pieces were Bird In Space by Brancusi and Little Dancer Aged Fourteen by Degas. But my favorite part of the museum was out back...

It was raining so their sculpture garden was actually closed so this is all we got to see which was our view from out cafe table where we had coffee and dessert.

I really wish the garden was open cuz I wanted to get a better look at the scultpures. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to go back for a better look.

You should definitely go over to Tinnigirl and check out all the other reasons to Love Fridays.
Only two more days left for the give away!

Love Fridays on a Saturday and an award.

I. I've become so slack in my meme responsibilities! Mostly, due to the fact that I've become EXTREMELY lazy in the last couple of months. That's also why my Friday was spent just like this...

I think I was awake maybe 3 hours during the daylight hours. Which of course means that I was awake into the wee hours of the night. Just another reason to love Fridays...SLEEP.



II. I was completely tickled and excited and quite touched that I received an award. This award...

from the very kind Tinniegirl.

The Proximidade is described as follows:'This blog invests and believes in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes for self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers!'This blog award should be sent to your favorite eight bloggers and they, in turn should forward to eight of their favorites. You should include the text for Proximidade (above) in your announcement blog.

I started this blog for a couple of reasons. Mostly to see if I could actually keep it up, having been terrible at keeping a diary when I was younger, and to get things off my chest. It quickly changed directions and became an avenue for making friends, finding inspiration, becoming connected to someone, anyone out there that felt, thought and was interested in the same things I am. And I must tell you, there are blogs out there for everybody. I really feel I've found my bloggy niche. So, the following 8 blogs are ones that I feel that connection with or get inspiration from or both. (Just for the record, I would re-award Tinniegirl, but I don't think that's how it supposed to go)
Area Thrifty One
Kimono Reincarnate
Miscellany of Me
Strickerin
Edward and Lilly
(fossil compass) erin kobie
CurlyPops
One Little Acorn

If anybody reading this has not read any of these lovely blogs, I heartily encourage you to do so!

Love Fridays

I really do love Fridays. Being my day off from work and having no one else at home but me and the critters, I take advantage of the opportunity to do things I wouldn't normally do. Like cook myself a nice hearty breakfast. Today it was my favorite scramble...

my "Creamy Sausage and Cilantro Scramble"
Ingredients:
2 or 3 eggs (depends on how hungry you are)
1 tablespoon cream cheese
2 0r 3 breakfast sausage links
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 handful cilantro leaves
1/2 tablespoon olive oil

Cook sausage first, chop into small chunks, set aside. In a bowl scramble together eggs, garlic and cilantro. Slice cream cheese into small chunks, add to eggs. In a pan heat olive oil, add sausage. Pour egg mixture over sausage and scramble. The cream cheese makes the eggs take a little longer to cook, just be careful not to burn.

Plus toast and YUMMY Raspberry Peach Champagne Jam from Le Gourmet Chef.

All this after sleeping in til 8...yeah Fridays are good. To see more reasons to love you some Friday, go to Tinniegirl's blog and check out everybody else's weekend gateway.

Love Fridays

I don't technically play along with the Love Fridays meme but I just felt I needed to today. And really, I do love them. Fridays have recently become my day off (not by choice but that's alright) and I can't wait to put them to good use. So far they've been spent waiting for some type of repairman or installer of something to come to the house and then waiting for them to finish. I should be utilizing my waiting time knocking out the gifts that I still have to make (and haven't started) but my sister loaned out the sewing machine to a friend of ours and we haven't gotten it back yet.

Sooooo....instead, my time is spent torturing my poor pets with things like this...

Please forgive me, I couldn't resist! I don't know if you can see it in the picture but the hat has little pointed elf ears on the sides. And let me tell you, poor little bub did not like that thing on his head. But after much hemming and hawing or at least the doggy version of hemming and hawing he finally sat still enough for me to get 2 pics squeezed out, both of which are blurry but this one was the lesser of the two.


Maybe next friday I'll actually be productive, or maybe not.