Book Club

I'm having so much fun belonging to a book club!

So far we've read the following books:

• Friday Night Knitting Club - Loved it!
• A Thousand Splendid Suns - Loved it!
• Naked - Not a fan of David Sedaris's writing, unlike most people.
• Water for Elephants - Loved it!

And we're just starting

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - I still need to buy it.

I've also been reading the Twilight series...I know, I know, don't make fun of me! I have to know what the kids are reading at school, ya know? :) So, I'm on book 3...One more to go!

I love this whole reading for pleasure thing. During grad school, the last thing that I ever wanted to do was read. I was so sick of reading textbooks and articles that I never wanted to read when my work was done. It's fun to finally read some good books again!

Our book club is pretty easy going, too. The structure of it keeps me reading at all times, but it really should be called "Wine Club", because we spend the entire time drinking wine, and only about 15 minutes talking about the book!

Wait, what?

As I exited the gym tonight, I was offered a hot dog, a churro, and a beer! I laughed, and suprisingly easily responded, "No, thanks!" But I must say, I continued to chuckle down the block. It wasn't just a coincidence that the hot dog vendor set up shop outside the door of my gym. The gym hired him for their Grand Re-Opening after their weekend remodel. To compliment the hot dog cart, they had a table set up for beer pong, and a table set up for flip cup inside the gym, in the stretching area. Very entertaining to watch while working out.

Then, I met Winston. I hadn't known about Winston, but I guess he's a celebrity in the Marina. He's a 95 pound bulldog. I actually saw him out for a walk last night as well...walking very slowly! At least his owner walks him a lot. He's huge! I learned the details of Winston because tonight, a business man walking next to me stopped the owner and asked, "Wait, is that Winston?" The owner replied that indeed it was, and they bonded over their mutual ownership of bulldogs. The businessman then got back on his phone and told whoever he was talking to about Winston's legacy in the Marina. What a crack-up! I thought I'd see if there are any photos of Winston on the internet, and I found these photos on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/squirrelmonkey/464049951/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/squirrelmonkey/464043142/in/photostream/

Yup...he's huge. Makes the Goldendoodle that I want look tiny, huh, Paul?

I've got a bagel hook-up!

So, I never thought I would be one of those people who was a "regular" somewhere. Especially not in the morning. I've always griped about people who go to Starbuck's everyday, and how much money they waste. Well, I guess I should stop talking.

I'm a "regular" consumer of Noah's Bagels. Well, to give me credit, I don't go EVERY day. I go about 2-3 workdays each week. But it's enough so that they recognize me, they yell, "Hi, Kelly!" when I walk through the entrance, and most importantly, I get hooked up! (Which is most likely the reason why I have started to go more frequently!) Yes, it's true...I love the weekday morning cashier at Noah's. And she loves me! (I won't use her name because I wouldn't want to incriminate her!) My order? A cinnamon and sugar or everything bagel (depending on my mood) with low fat cream cheese. I usually don't order a drink because I've already cracked my morning Diet Coke. (I know, I know! I'm terrible! My co-workers in Marin cringe when they see me with one any time of the day! Because of this I'm a more closet Diet Coke drinker and I drink a LOT more water!) If I do order a drink it's a small coffee. And what do I get charged for? A bagel [used to be with butter ($1.49), but now it's turned into just a plain bagel with nothing on it ($0.99)!], if I order a small coffee, it's rung up as a coffee refill, and then she adds a Senior Discount to the whole bill! This morning I walked out with a bagel with cream cheese and a small coffee for $1.20!

I think the funniest thing for me is that now I understand why people get into such habits. It's not the deal that makes me want to go, although that low price is what allows me to go as often as I do. It's the fact that I actually look forward to my morning conversation with my bagel lady, and my ritual of stopping there on my way to work. Now the only thing preventing me from doing it more often is the calories (which I just looked up on their site and are actually not that high!) I'll keep having my bowl of cereal every other day just to keep me grounded and not too spoiled!

Darcy's Bridal Shower

The vanilla cupcakes with lemon filling with cream cheese icing and lemon shortbread cookies that I worked so hard on for Darcy's shower! I finally perfected the P's in the shortbread cookies in honor of Darcy's new last name, Praw!

The happy bride and groom, Darcy and Jon, playing The Newlywed Game!

Kim, Paige, and Lauren, celebrating with Darcy!

Mom and I had so much fun planning all of the details with Laurie for the shower!

Darcy with the shower hostesses!

A weekend drive to Point Reyes

Cattle in the pasture on the farms on the drive to Point Reyes!

Me with the lighthouse in the background. I think they said it was 300 steps up to this point!

It was a gorgeous day!

The water was so blue!

My hubby, looking cool in his shades!

We had a great day!

Pink/Green Parking Meters!

Our neighborhood always wraps the parking meters with different colored ribbons for the upcoming holiday or season. When it was Chrismas they were red/green, when the Blue Angels were in town they were blue/gold, and now that it's Spring and Easter time, the meters are wrapped with pink/green ribbons. I love it! I had to take a picture of the meters, so that I could show my girls who know my love for pink and green ever since the wedding planning days. One would think that I would get sick of this color pairing, but I think it will have a special place in my heart forever. I hope they leave them wrapped until our anniversary!

A Trip to the de Young Museum with Gayle and Bryce

While Paul's mom was in town we made a trip to the de Young Museum. Being an artist and art lover, she enjoyed seeing the work of a lot of artists that she knows and loves. Paul, Bryce, and I enjoyed learning some of the unknown details about these artists and their work from her, and we also enjoyed a lot of the modern art in the museum. Paul and I snuck into the Yves Saint Laurent exhibit to check out all of the couture clothing designs and fancy dresses on display. I then proceeded to get yelled at by a security guard for what I assumed was going to be not having a badge on to be in that part of the museum, but it turned out that it was for photographing the pieces. She made me delete them from my camera in front of her, so that she could see that there were erased! She informed me that I could take those photos somewhere and have the dresses made to copy. I was like oh, ok. Got it! They had informed us not to use a flast in the museum, but the no photos at all in the Yves Saint Laurent exhibit explanation must have occurred when you actually bought your ticket to get into the exhibit. I didn't think I'd explain my error to the security guard! It was a great day, although I definitely had memories of my Europe trip and quotes like, "I feel guilty if I don't do all of the cultrual stuff" running through my head.

Adults only at California Academy of Science

Every Thursday night the California Academy of Science opens up from 6-10pm to those 21 and older only. The tickets are only $10, and this gets you in to the museum and the ability to see all of the fabulous exhibits, with a cocktail in hand! There is a bar set up around every corner you turn, and a DJ in the center of the museum mixing the music heard throughout the building. Megan and I went (after several others bailed on the evening), and enjoyed ourselves immensely. The aquarium was awesome. There is definitely tons to do here, and we need to go back again! What a cool Thursday night adventure. Particularly an adventure because we rode the bus and took 3 transfers to get there, one of which was a pretty sketchy bus stop! We found a much faster way back from the museum to the marina which involved no transfers. A great night indeed!
A hermit crab with really cool eyes!

Fishy!

This may be the worst job, ever! This guy works with all of the dead animals found and donated to the museum. In this case he is stuffing this deadbird with a saw dust type of material so that they can display it in the museum.

We got patio furniture!

So Paul's been in Japan for the week and I needed a project to do with all of my free time. Conveniently, the patio furniture that we've had our eye on went on sale the Saturday that he left town for the week. So...what did I do? Borrowed Kevin's Xterra and went to buy it! And then, every night when I got home from work I built pieces of it. The only tricky part was getting the loveseat out of the truck. I was able to lift all of the rest of the pieces by myself due to my enormous muscles; however, the loveseat proved to be too heavy. Luckily, the men were working on the apt above ours when I figured this out. So...ding dong! Yes, I rang the doorbell and asked the nice man who came to the door if he'd help me get the box out of the truck and into my apartment. He was kind enough to help me get it right inside the door. Then, when I was ready to build that piece, I just pushed the box along the wood floor, and had some major dusting and mopping to do afterwards. I built all of the furniture in the family room, with chick flicks on in the background. Great background noise for when I am home alone for a while. I need some new ones to add to the mix. The Wedding Date, 27 dresses, Sex in the City, The Wedding Planner, In Her Shoes, P.S. I Love You, etc. need some newbies to be added to the line-up! Anyhow, after I built the loveseat, I realized that just as before, I couldn't lift it out to the deck alone. And, being the anal person that I am, I wanted the whole set to be set up for Paul to see when he got home from Japan. So, I put the love seat on a giant beach towel and then slid it to the door of the patio. From there it was easier to lift onto the deck, and then to it's new home. The set looks great! Now we just need that grill! I think we'll spend lots of time out here!

My cool, hip cousins!

When did you girls grow up so much, and get so mature and cool? I swear, this was the first picture where I've ever seen them as young ladies, mature, and totally cool! I guess we're all getting a lot older. On this particular day I was home in AZ for the weekend. It was a Friday afternoon, and I decided that I needed to spend some more time with Paige and Lauren. So...I got to pull them out of school for their "orthodontist appointments" and we hit up Desert Ridge! Went in every store they wanted to, ate like 50 cookies at Paradise Bakery, got Starbuck's frappacinos, bought some cool new blue nail polish, jewelry, etc. Then we ended up at Target...the greatest store on Earth, browsing the aisles, looking for anything else that we might "need". We found these cool headbands, and immediately thought of Jenn and decided to take a picture with them. What a fun afternoon with my favorite girls! I think they're looking forward to their next orthodontist appointments!

Valentine's Day with my Hubby!

This was one of the most fun Valentine's Days ever! Paul and I went shopping on Union St walking our way over to Washington Square. We then walked through North Beach over to the Ferry Building where we had dinner at Taylor's Automatic Refresher, a kind of spruced up diner on the water. We had cheeseburgers, fries, and a shake, and then walked over to the Embarcadero and watched the annual Pillow Fight. What a riot...people from all over the city come together, walking around with their pillows from home...and then take out all of their pent up frustration regarding love, or just have a blast hitting their loved ones and random people they've never seen before. It was a great Valentine's Day all around. I love you, Paul!

The rain returns!

The weather is still fun around here! Some pictures I took going through the toll plaza at the GGB on a rainy, foggy drive to work this morning!

Gotta love working in Marin!

Wednesday is early release day, and after school we get "all natural" popsicles. I like the pineapple! I also like looking out the window and seeing the deer run by! So fun!

Sick day

So I'm sitting at home with nothing to do. I went out to dinner last night with Elisa to an Italian restaurant in Burlingame. We had the greatest time! It was so nice to get to catch up with each other! Anyhow, the food tasted good at the time, but I awoke at 12:30am and did NOT feel good. Well, it's now 11:00am and I haven't been sick for a couple of hours, which is what makes me think that it was food poisoning as opposed to anything else.

So...my question is...what should I do now? I have the hardest time just sitting still. The house is already pretty clean, the laundry is done, and I have no desire to write reports. I could start to pack for my trip to Phoenix next week. I could scroll through the many options on daytime TV. I have emails I could respond to. I have a million people I could write letters to to catch up! I could waste time on Facebook. Or I could watch chick flicks all day! So many options of what to do on sick days. Perhaps this isn't the worst thing that could happen.

Dark Chocolate and Cherry Amazingness!

This recipe was my latest baking adventure and these cookies were amazing! They were basically dark chocolate chip cookies with dried cherries in them, but they had both vanilla extract as well as almond extract in them which made them taste so yummy! The cookies cooked to be very thin and crunchy. I brought them to work for our Friday lunch and they were a hit! I will definitely be making these again!

Are you happy?

I have to laugh whenever I hear Paul or myself saying, "Are you happy?" or "It's a happy day!" These are phrases that we've adopted from my cousins Luke and Paige when they were little.

The "Are you happy?" phrase came recently from my 2-year-old cousin Luke, who, sitting in church, concerned about the happiness of the stern looking older gentleman sitting next to him, asked him repeatedly, "Are you happy? You happy? Are you happy?" He was required to ask repeatedly because the cranky old man refused to answer him. (I think Luke was onto something and the man was not happy.) This story always makes me smile, and Paul and I tend to use this phrase randomly throughout our life now! It's a nice reminder of Luke every so often! And it always makes us smile.

The "It's a happy day!" phrase came from when Paige, who is now 12, was about 2. Every time she got up in the morning or from an afternoon nap, she would get a big smile on her face when she saw the sunlight coming in through the window and say, "It's a happy day!" We now find ourselves commonly saying this to one another when we get up in the morning and are trying to coerce the other person out of bed..."Time to get up...it's a happy day!"

It's definitely children who see the simple things in life!

Celebrating the Chinese New Year!

We went down to the Financial District to watch the Chinese New Year Parade. It included lots of marching bands, government officials, dancers, firemen, and dancing dragons! The night out afterwards was probably more exciting than the parade, but all in all, it was a fun, unique night!