Getting ready to farewell SF

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Cruising along last week prepared me for my weekend full of fun, starting with Trunk or Treat at our school. It was the first time we had signed up and it was such a good time with kids walking up and down the carpark filling their treat bags with tonnes of candy. I gave away two baskets full starting with around 800 Hersheys chocolate kisses.

The evening was a good time and I started the night off with some delicious tacos from the food truck, which really helped get through the Friday night. My outfit was a 1980s dance outfit – channelling my youth with the bubble skirt, sequins and big hair. The trunks were so creative and ours was a crafty dancy party as I have given away a lot of stuff and I do not have a lot of Halloween decorations. We shone our disco lights through the crochet blanket but the sound of the food truck drowned out our little speaker of tunes!

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My favourite trunk was our friends who designed their trunk with the theme of The Book of Life – it is such a beautiful film.

A couple of standout costumes of the evening was My friend’s costume with the lights on her hat from the character La Muerte from the Book of Life and another fave was the LED jellyfish and her sibling was a stingray – their mum told me that she was the ocean and wrapped in a blue ocean themed throw.

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After all the fun and excitement of trunk or treat my friends and I planned a hop on hop off tour of San Francisco months ago.

It was a bit strange to get the hang of as you waited around at a random bus stop and then when the bus came we had to get the ticket authorised for the Sausalito leg by the office at Pier 39. After we worked all that out half the day had gone but we packed it in and had a late lunch at this lovely traditional Italian restaurant San Drino in Sausalito (see the gnocchi and ravioli before we ate the thin crust pizza, amazing!) and had some ice cream from Lapperts as we were waiting for the bus. My ice cream was the right amount of sweetness the Ube Macapuno – Philippine Ube root with coconut puree, yummo!

Just travelling beneath the arches of the golden gate bridge atop the open bus was so cold but worth it for the incredible views of the bridge and the bay. I highly recommend these tours as you get a great overview of the city the view from the top of the bus allow for some magical photo opportunities. I plan on doing one in Melbourne when I get home to see what is new in the city 😀

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This is one of my fave shots of the day from the top of the bus while it was moving! Still, it was lucky to get this in focus with Karl the fog floating atop the water.

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After our trip to Sausalito, we went to see the rest of the loop and to check out one final destination – Lombard Street, AKA “the crookedest street in the world”. The views were spectacular and the sun was about to set so the sky was just gorgeous! As we were heading down the steep hill to go and get a quick snack for the way home we stumbled across this amazing sunset with the Golden Gate bridge in the foreground – so special and what a magnificent end to the day. That will most likely be my farewell to this beautiful city as I have two months left until we go home for good.

Sunday I had another early start with volunteering for the annual FabMo Textile Art Boutique. I wore my dress made from FabMo squares which received many comments of “cute skirt”, it is always so fun to wear it as it is the special souvenir of my time spent volunteering with FabMo – their ethos and approach to saving fabric from the landfill is something that I aspire to and maybe if I make the connections in Melbourne where I can create a FabMo there too!

This week is my last before I get into my next subject of Teaching Science and Technology – it should be a lot of fun juggling the study with moving home!

New places to play

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I don’t get out much these days with study and a ton of other tasks to do at home so I had a mission to go into San Francisco for the day to renew my daughter’s passport at the Australian Consulate. I hopped onto the train to allow myself a time of chilling and knitting which was excellent as I have many projects going on at the moment. Arriving in San Francisco and walking through SOMA I have never seen so many dudes in my life – hey if you are a single woman get out there! There were packs of them and as my hubby says its ‘cos of all the tech companies in South of Market. Funny they all look the same and dress the same in their little uniforms of trainers, jeans, t-shirt or checked shirt and some facial hair and glasses. Walking through the city there were many homeless people even camped outside the building on Market Street right in the middle of the Financial District. Crazy how there is so much money in this city and there is no real solution to the problem of housing for the homeless. Hopefully, with the upcoming election, some wise nut will be able to do something about it and begin to care for the community. As I was walking down 3rd Street there was a hotel worker strike demanding better conditions and pay – go for it and I wish you all the best of luck, it is a tough and demanding job often disregarded by the many folks who travel and expect more.

Thank goodness the Australian Consulate has such an easy process with the paperwork and it all went smoothly! With 30 minutes to spare I wandered down the road to Bluestone Lane, an Aussie inspired cafe. The story goes that the guy who started the chain began his coffee shop franchise in New York by the need to get a decent coffee and enjoy an Aussie style coffee shop. I went to the cafe in the hope of having a CUP of tea but this is the cafe and only do “to go” so I had a paper cup and had to recycle it! They had a couple of tables outside and there I sat and ate my $8 avocado toast out of a box and read my book on Swedish Death Cleaning. I really needed to go to the coffee shop in Union Square if I wanted to have a latte with a cup and saucer, this is all explained on their website, American style to go or Aussie style sit down, relax and enjoy a cuppa.  Anyway, it was not as exciting as I thought it would be and as I have been living in America for ages I always set my expectations low, so I do not suffer disappointment.

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Our baby girl Bella chilling out – which is where I should be but between subjects for Uni but alas, I have a bunch of stuff to catch up on, mainly sewing!

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To end the week I helped out at my work for a couple of hours on Friday and volunteered at the school walkathon for another 3 hours and I was done and dusted for the week, time to chill. Missy had just come back from her trip away on science camp for 4 days and was determined to get herself a t-shirt by walking 75 laps which equals around 18 miles (28 km) that is quite a walk! She did it and was quite pleased that she scored a shirt but by the time she got to the end they had run out of t-shirts so she will get it this week! Still, I am quite amazed that these 5th-grade girls mustered up the energy to complete the walkathon after their epic 5-hour hike on science camp, though they did say that was training for the walkathon 😀

The weekend was pretty packed with stuff to do with the kids going to the harvest festival with their chickens for 4H and sharing their chickens at a petting zoo and pet parade. Unfortunately one of the white king pigeons flew away, hopefully, he finds his way back to the coop – it was quite distressing for the kids to see him fly away!

On Sunday we met our friends up in San Francisco at a hidden gem called Glen Canyon Park where we hiked around the natural habitats to the main drag of Portola and found some food before we walked uphill to Twin Peaks and Sutro Tower. Glen Canyon Park has such a fascinating history which was saved from development by the “Gum Tree Ladies” in the 1970s. The park provides habitats for Red Tailed Hawks, coyote, racoon and many other critters of the city. There is a fenced off super cool park for the kids to climb and play but be warned – Adults must be accompanied by children! 

We enjoyed burgers at Tower Burgers which was a 10-minute walk away from the top of the hill and with some energy we continued our walk uphill towards Twin Peaks.

The views on Twin Peaks were breathtaking, as was the wind that was blowing us sideways! The crows were having a grand old time flying in and out of the wind currents up there. Here is San Francisco in all its glory. The kids had a blast pretending to be crows using their jackets as wings.

We headed back to the car by walking along the Gum Tree Girls trail and encountered many obstacles such as tree roots, low hanging branches, tunnels of scrub which makes it such a wonderful walk you have to be aware of your surroundings. This was another fun time in San Francisco with our friends being tourists for the day and discovering new places to play!

 

Immigration stories

It was so good to have a mental health day away from studies over the weekend! It needed to happen as Uni has been pretty full on and now with booking my flight to arrive in Melbourne on the 29th December, its all starting to get real!

I went out for an SF stairs walk with my friends – we were doing the walk up to Telegraph Hill. First, we had to have something to eat so we found this incredible Mexican joint, Don Pistos on Union Street. There I discovered spiked horchata – that is spiked with rum! I took one sip and tipped the whole thing all over the table, lucky my friend got out in time!! The guys cleaned it up quick sticks and bought me another, thank goodness it was not as strong as the first, I am such a lightweight drinker lately. Oh, and the fish tacos were just incredible with a bit of spice on the fish and the slaw was so fresh atop fresh corn tortillas – divine!

After lunch, we headed up the hill to Coit tower and travelled up many stairs to the top checking out the many vistas as we went along. The view of the bay was stunning. We walked right to the top of the hill and then we went back down feeling a bit of vertigo on the way.

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There is the Bay Bridge that connects the city to Oakland and here are the stairs, which proved to be a great workout – thank goodness I was not too wasted!

After our stair adventure, we wandered down the Embarcadero for a little while checking out the scene, the weather was absolutely perfect!

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This incredible art piece of a polar bear was in San Francisco after being built at Burning Man. It was installed as part of the climate summit held in the city over the week – this is such a statement to global warming – a thin polar bear suffering at the loss of its Arctic habitat.

Oh and here’s a little immigration story… my son was asking about why my family immigrated to Australia for a school project.

My mum and her family moved over in 1962 and travelled to Melbourne by ship called the Oriana and it took about 2 weeks to get to Station Pier in Port Melbourne. They moved to the coldest place in Victoria – Newborough where my nan moved from her teaching job to work as a librarian. It was funny that they moved there from tropical Sri Lanka. The reason they left Sri Lanka was that there was a coup d’etat in Columbo and there was no scope and no future for their family there. They left with their suitcases, a few furniture pieces to white Australia. The only reason they were accepted into Australia was that their credentials were important – meaning they had to prove they were of European background. As it turns out my Nan side was Dutch and my Pops side was French. The white Australia policy ended in 1973, such a fascinating racist past in what is now multicultural Australia.

My mum and dad met at a cricket match in Melbourne and they married in 1965 when they went up to Queensland for a holiday that was where they wanted to be with the tropical weather.

My dads family moved over in 1949 and lived and went to school in St Kilda as his Dad has retired from the railway so they migrated to Australia. They too had to write out their genealogy to prove they had a European background and my dad’s side is German. His family moved to the country when he grew up when he met my mum when she was 21. Dads family also migrated for a better life in Australia and he travelled on the ship Orontes, this is history we need to retain for our future. Thanks, Mum and Dad and Cheryl for sharing this story with me over the weekend!

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The ship my Dads family travelled on from Sri Lanka

 

Viewing the arts

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A week of art and craft happened last week with a field trip to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco on Friday with the 2nd graders.

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The kids had exploration one day of the week and created many fun objects, this doll was inspired by the pipe cleaner dolls.

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At the volunteer sewing teaching, we were working on LED cuffs, and these are examples of the Kinder and 1st-grade students.

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I was teaching the 2nd graders to make Gods eyes in their exploration time – so much fun yarn to make holiday decorations.

Friday came, and it was time for the field trip to San Francisco! The kids were very excited, and we drove up in the morning for a 10am Storytelling throughout the museum with volunteers. They told us many stories beginning with the story of Lakshmi and Diwali the festival of lights then we travelled to Indonesia to view Kris (daggers) and listen to a folk story and the last story was about Ganesh riding on a rat with his love of laddoos. Our storyteller Monique was so full of character and brought the stories to life!

After lunch and no running around the kids and their chaperones and teachers went wandering around the museum. We found many beautiful textiles, which I love plus little tiny colourful snuff bottles and this nephrite shepherd with his goats. The Asian Art Museum has something for everyone, though our 2nd-grade class maybe could enjoy it more if there were more Pokemon!

Couture Korea was an exhibit the kids really enjoyed with many kimono to view and also to touch with fabric samples on the information panel – the interactive was a plus with these guys! Of course, I really enjoyed it too being a textile lover and always wanting to touch interesting fabrics and seeing detailed clothing design. The majority of the pieces were silk and felt beautiful.

Come the weekend I enjoyed a white elephant exchange with my work friends and a tasty dinner of savoury crepes and potluck appetisers. Saturday was a bike ride day and catching up on study and Sunday the house needed a bit of sprucing up after I enjoyed a fabulous Thai massage at Sawadee down the road, it was well needed and has enlivened my soul, namaste.

 

Raise a glass to freedom

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The first few days of the school holidays and yes it has been exciting! No, actually it felt like a very long week, but I had something to look forward to after completing 2 more subjects in my Teaching course I had a goal of seeing Hamilton – An American Musical in San Francisco. As it happened my good friend and her daughter was seeing it on the same day, so we met for lunch before the show. We were all very excited to see Hamilton at last, after listening to the soundtrack many times!!

To pass the time this week – the kids enjoyed cat encounters at their swimming class in the Los Altos Hills.

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I experimented with coconut milk and rockmelon to make this delicious lassi. Another fave food item I found this week was Coconut Manna my neighbour made me buy it to taste it, and it is divine, I made raw brownie bites as a treat! I need to catalogue this as it was too easy to make and way cheaper than buying chocolate as an after dinner treat.

And finally Saturday came around, and I was preparing for my adventure on Thursday as there were little things to organise like making sure I had the ticket!! So it turned out I was sitting alone in the Loge section of the theatre at seat C26, and it was incredible, it was hard to know when you spend so much on a ticket to the show and hope that the seats are good. This turned out perfect, and with my binoculars, I got an excellent view of the whole cast.  The funny thing was in all the seats in the theatre I bought a seat sitting behind friends from Mountain View who had bought their tickets in December – all 6 of them! Now that is a small world :D, and there they are in front of me in the bottom image.

Funnily enough, I actually enjoy going to the theatre but spending the $ and finding a show I love is rare – rare enough that in all the 10 years I have lived in the Bay Area I have not been to one show in San Francisco. I have been to smaller productions here locally but not a Broadway show, and I was blown away by how spectacular it was! Now I really get the amount of cash spent on tickets for shows like this as they are incredible. I really enjoyed the soundtrack, and I realised if I don’t go to see this show in San Francisco when will be the time to see it? I am not going to New York anytime soon, and that show was totally sold out anyway! So I managed to find a seat between some friendly folks and really enjoyed my first Broadway show experience here in San Francisco! The pictures say it all, I was very excited!!

After the show, I met up for a final farewell to my friends before the summer, and we take off to Australia – it was so cool for my friend’s daughter to get a signed autograph and picture of Ryan Alvarado who played Hamilton at our matinee performance!

Sunday was the ice cream social at our park, and the neighbours came out in force getting their free ice cream on a windy, sunny day! I met my lovely friend / ceramic teacher Susan who did the face painting for the kiddos, and her work is beautiful, and all the kids were super happy, I especially loved the huge unicorn on my neighbours face.

 

New Year, New Beginnings

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This is the year 2017 and time for all those resolutions and all that jazz that never manifest. Last year I was supposed to play my ukelele but did I even pick it up and learn one song – no! I love my ukelele and it is so good to own one and I do need to make time to play if only there were more hours in the day, then maybe?

Now it is back to reality and to regular routine… I have my two subjects a week for this teaching period plus 3 assignments to complete in the next 2 weeks so my time is very limited to socialising and the like. I still need to get out and exercise for my mind, so time on my yoga mat and dancing are priorities. I am really enjoying studying and it gives me a sense of purpose and a goal (at the end of a very long tunnel!) My first group assignment is going along well and it was not as hard as I perceived it to be in fact communicating across the world online with different timezones is so do-able, every day it is done in business which makes me wonder why do business folks still have to have face to face contact and jet around the world constantly? Anyway, that is not my worry, I have to get this blog post written and get on with my reading and weekly tasks for this week for my Education degree…

Our new years eve this year was just the four of us enjoying a lovely dinner of DIY pizza, cocktails using Sonoma organic ginger vodka, loganberry liqueur from Whidbey Island distillers and lemon shrub I made over the summer and tonic water – they went down a treat. A collaboration with my hubby where he made the meringue and I decorated the pavlova sans the cream (as I forgot) turned out to be quite the success. It went down a treat and we shared it with our neighbour who also is a fan of Australia – my good friend in Australia said to me the pavlova was super easy to make and she is a Kiwi and it turned out to be so, though he did spend a lot of time with the hand mixer (I hear the Kitchen Aid is the biz!!).

For New Years Day we mixed it up a bit this year and we abandoned the idea of brunching with friends and decided to start the year off with something we have not done in the 10 years we have lived in the Bay Area. Why we have not done this is a complete mystery but as it turned out the 1st day of the year was a perfectly, clear, sunny day to walk the Golden Gate Bridge! Every time we drive over it seems so surreal that we are living here – well we live in the suburbs of San Francisco so it is not like living in a city! Anyway, I will not complain, I do love the sunshine 🙂 To start the year off on something new was a bold move for us and we plan to do many more adventures like this in the time we have left in the United States. That is if my plan works to escape and head on back home!

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The views from the bridge are absolutely spectacular and on a day with zero fog and sunshine, it was just amazing to see what this city has to offer. I loved the views of the bridge walking under it and I loved to admire the incredible engineering. The cables viewed from the walking paths with their curves were to behold and the view of the city just wonderful – it is such a beautiful bridge and a glorious bay it is no wonder that people love living here!

Here is a rare image of my hubby and myself finally in front of the Golden Gate Bridge – we had some time to talk about our future while we were away on vacay. Time alone without children screaming the background or media to distract us – now we know where we both stand it is up to us to take life where we want to go. The future can always be scary so a bit of investigation in the job market and where we are both going in life has to be examined before any big decisions are made! The love locks we found on the Golden Gate are from lovers who have used a lock as a symbol of their love and then thrown away the key – what a sweet gesture, I thought it was for suicide victims whew thank goodness they were not as that would be a lot of unnecessary deaths of couples!

I really enjoyed the light of the day the other day with the bridge and wandering along being together as a family. This holiday has really brought us together and it is so good to see the kids in a relaxed mode and enjoying each others company which is why I captured this pic of the two of them chatting away, they are both growing up so fast! Oh and check out the tunnel we had to travel through to get to the bridge, it is quite the adventure going into a little Hobbit tunnel.

So to new beginnings and how to move along 2017 in such a positive light! I plan to do more photography, ride my bike often (see this ride across the bridge for a bit of a long day of riding!) and bake more – this is a clafoutis that I made from apple and berries and it was divine. It is such a simple recipe I found in Sunset magazine using my Vitamix and oh yes I need to use my blender to make smoothies and all that goodness. Really it is so important to stay positive and full of light in the coming year and be there to support each other – I don’t want to mention here why but I think most people know the doom that exists on the horizon.

A piece a Week – Holiday Decorations Class at the library and time to relax!

With the start of the holidays I taught my last adult class at the Mountain View Library for the year with holiday decorations. We had a full class booked full but due to the rain a lot of people decided not to rock up 😦 Still I had an enthusiastic amount of folks who were ready to start cutting and hand sewing with craft thread. 
We used FabMo fabric, felt, fabric scraps, sequins, various laces and ribbon (from donations to the library) and thin ribbon for hanging the decoration. I had made the patterns from traced cookie cutters and drawings of animals and objects onto a card stock. This is a super easy project to make from scraps around the house. I really liked the little bird below that I found online and made it completely out of felt and completed the sewing around the body with blanket stitch. 
Tweet, tweet little bird
A cute stocking by a student
A beautifully stitched cat
A Scottie dog
A complete gingerbread inspired star with the instructions
This cat has whiskers and sequins for eyes
A stocking and a gift with sequins
As a farewell to our friends in O-town for the Chrissy break we visited the Disney Family Museum at the Presidio for the day. As you can see it was one rainy day in San Francisco with the Hello Kitty umbrella. The rain worked out perfectly as we planned to see the Disney Dali exhibition before it closes in the new year. The exhibit was fascinating with the collaboration of Dali and Disney with their film Destino – due to the financial difficulties with World War II the film was not made. Elements of the film were preserved and Disney’s nephew eventually made the film in 2003. The interactions of the two artists and the similarities in their work with surrealism from Dalis paintings to Disneys Fantasia film. 
Hanging out in the rain before the trip to the museum

At the Disney museum we were waiting for our friends to show so we entertained ourselves with a bit of crafting at the Open Studio. There were two workshops that day – one was pet portraits and the afternoon session was 4 leg animation with drawing and animating on an app called iMotion. The kids and the adults really enjoyed the pet portraits in the morning with many of us drawing cats!

Examples of past projects at the Disney Museum Open Studio – Egg head faces with toilet roll bodies

My orange cat illustration and my friends cats of every colour!

The cool thing in the Disney Dali exhibit was a mockup studio and a place for the kids to draw different characters based on the cards that they pulled out – a character trait, a location and a character. Here are a couple of drawings by Mr Ash.

Heroic Desert Skeleton 

Ominous Forest Dragon

Soon the week was over and it was Christmas Day – we had a lovely relaxing day cooking and eating and not doing much at all except talk to relatives on the other side of the planet. FaceTime is an amazing thing and it is so good to have had the time just to sit around and chat! 
Mr Ash made the family Lego mini figures – Dad the epic reader, Mum the controller of the household and Missy with her deep imagination (which is why she had a space helmet on!). So very thoughtful capturing our own little character traits in his own imagination!
The family in Lego minifigures

Merry Chrissy from the Peaches

All of us looking at the camera in this pic! 

A piece a week – Some photography at the Cal Academy of Sciences for Missy’s (early) birthday celebration and an Infinity Scarf commission

Over the weekend it was time to celebrate Missy’s 7th (early) birthday at the California Academy of Sciences. We have opted a couple of times instead of parties a friend can join one of our kids out for a fun experience. We are members of the Cal Academy so we can take a family as well as a little friend.
We spent the whole day at the Academy starting at the Planetarium with their new show Habitat Earth before lunch – which is a good idea as some of the fly overs in the animation make me giddy! Lunch is always good at the Academy though this time there is renovations that I forgotten about so it was Vegetarian burgers on the grill for me. The Rainforest was after lunch and that is always so hot but well worth it and we saw plenty of frogs, butterflies and birds. Down to the aquarium is my favorite and there is plenty to see with the fish feeding and the colorful tropical fish. The baby lion fish was the girls favorite. 
We finished our day with some hands on interaction at the naturalist center upstairs with an owl pellet for the kids to dissect and see what the owl had eaten for dinner!
Baby Lionfish – super cute with its parents
Checking out an exhibit
The birthday girl ready to go! 

A special pastry – since I have not made a cake yet!!

Hey Yellow bird!

Hello glass frog and it’s friends in the Bromeliad

Another cute frog
Loving the aquarium

Coconut octopus from the Philippines – on the run!!

And a friend from my Feldenkrais class loved my infinity scarf so much she wanted me to make one for her. I found this striped sweater fabric and lined it with stretch purple fabric and it is now ready to go to it’s new owner!

An upcycled sweater is now a scarf

A piece a Week – A Geometric top and a trip to the SF Symphony

The joy of field trips with the kiddos and this week was wonderful as we did a full school day trip to San Francisco to see the Symphony at Davies Hall. It was a splendid day though very tiring with so many kids to keep an eye on. We had all 3 classes of our 1st graders on the trip so it was extra busy! The day started off on a bus ride and then the kids made it to the line for their snack with another 300 kids from around the Bay Area – whoa chaos, yes!!
Inside Davies Hall is beautiful with the symphony at the front – I loved the lighting and the sound was just incredible. We were in the front so we got to see the musicians and the conductor way up close. The conductor was so good with the kids and the kids really enjoyed him too! 
Are you ready for the Symphony??

The SF Symphony warm up

I found this stunning watermelon radish in my CSA box this week and it is just delicious in this salad of arugula and carrot sticks with a lemon balsamic dressing. I loved the colour of the watermelon radish when I cut it and seeing how vibrant it is, it just had to be placed on a plate to look at and then devoured 🙂

Delicious watermelon radish jazzing up the plate

It was finally the weekend though it was no rest for the wicked with a Scouting event on Saturday – it was race day and the Pinewood Derby was happening. I volunteered with the decorations with some friends and we got the place looking fancy in no time. After all was settled it was time to go out for lunch and conveniently for us there was an amazing French Bakery across the road. It was serendipitous as I had read about Voyageur du Temps in the local paper that week and could not wait to try it out!  I had the Salmon Tartine with capers, french shallots and a hard boiled egg sliced on top of the salmon and slice of thick bread. With the lunch I had a dessert of a Marron Danish which was puff pastry with a chestnut creme in the centre and a roasted chestnut inside – divine! And to drink I had a Afghani Chai Tea with organic Indian tea, ginger, organic red poppy flowers, green cardamon, star anise, close, black pepper and organic spices – it was an hour well spent being happy with food!

A beautiful lunch for two – my hubby and me (he had the Salami Sandwich on a croissant)

Sunday I spent getting Meyer Lemons ready for something new – dehydrated lemons for tea over the summer time. Here they are though some may be a bit overdone. I had them in the oven on 170 degrees F for hours on end as I do not have a dehydrator – I tried them in tea and they are quite lovely hydrated again.

Lemons ready for summer

I bottled up my first batch of Limoncello as it was ready for it’s sugar syrup and as I was making up the lemons with the sugar, honey and water I used an immersion blender to squish up the lemons and oops not a good thing with squashing all the white pith into the sugar water making it a little bitter. My solution was to strain out all the white bits through a nut milk bag and hopefully getting the sweetness back – tonight I tried it and it is very lemony though not as sweet as my batch last year. Now I am trying it the Internet recipe way with Everclear Grain Alcohol and leaving the lemon zests for around 48 days – let us see how this batch turns out!

Woot 75.5% alcohol – do not drink this stuff! Though it is OK for Limoncello, apparently?!?

Sunday afternoon and the weather was still beautiful so we went on a 9 mile bike cruise with the kiddos along the bay trail. We saw lots of birds and a Great Blue Heron and its buddy the Snowy Egret on the trail. Unfortunately as we were cruising along we saw a few skeletons of birds from the land predators -bobcats, racoons and feral cats looking for easy prey.

Getting home before the sun sets!

On Friday I finally drafted my pattern for the Geometric top I have been working on – drafting and correcting with fabric is a job that requires a heck of a lot of concentration. Friday I had the time to fine tune the pattern and finally here is the top. It was certainly a bit tricky to put together but once I worked out the ‘tangrams’ with the fabric it all came together. I am looking forward to making more out of the sari fabric I have in my stash. This pattern was from the book Burda Sewing Vintage Modern – published two years ago but for me nothing but classic styles throughout. I am looking forward to making more outfits from this book.

The front with an abstract shadow

All Ready to go! 

Lovely back V of the top