Friday Lunch Club

Where I work, we get every other Friday off .. We work 9 hour days Monday thru Thursday and our "on" Friday is only 8 hours (only half the employees are in the office .. we have alternating "on's")  A few of us have formed the Friday Lunch Club and it has become the tradition to photograph our food.  I don't know if it's just because we LOVE our special Friday activities or if the food simply is the best in the world .. you be the judge!

Turkey Club with regular & sweet potato fries .. OH YEAH!!  And only 750 claories

This is called the Route 66 burger.  It holds a special place in my heart as my husband and I took an awesome trip from our home in California to The Grand Canyon traveling on the old Route 66 .. and i also just LOVE monterrey jack cheese and mushrooms.  This burger joint has, hands down, the best in town.

Is there really anything better than a burger and fries?

Mobile Slug Bug

I made up this silly game to play with my son.  We have always done SLUG BUG!! But when he got his new cell phone, we would snap picture's throughout the day while we were apart, and send them to each other .. well, it blossomed into something bigger .. I have friends from all over who now send pic's .. I even recieved a Mobile Slug Bug from Europe!! SO much fun. 

I think this is my very favorite pic - thus far ..

It was taken after a hike on a wonderful Saturday afternoon.  I just really like the look and feel, it just says "cool, crisp Fall day" to me.  A second after I took the photo, ol' Spotty barked his @ss off at us!

My next project ..

This is my secret garden .. this area I fell in love with when we first looked at our house in Valhalla.  It had a little trellice-fence thing and a big, crazy vine plant that was pretty .. but really un-useful.  So, feeling a little randy one night  (you'll remember my husband is gone, gone to Sicily, gone until December and then gone again) I decided THIS DAMN THING IS COMING DOWN!! 

So, I busted it down.  Yes, it had cement anchors, and yes the damn vine plant REALLY didn't want to come out .. but in keeping with our "family" motto .. I maintained my Can-Do attitude.  And this is the morning after .. eeek!  Did I really do that!  Well, yes I did, now clean up and get rolling. 

There will be grass and plants and it will be wonderful, it will be my secret little retreat and I will LOVE it! 

This home-ownership is the coolest thing. 

You're my blue sky, you're my sunny day. Lord you know it makes me high when you turn your love my way

Every day on my way home from work, God helps me forget all the junk from the rat race and shows me what is REALLY happening! 

 ** sorry the menu thing over there cuts into the picture .. I'm new to this blog thing.

Another little suprise bloom ..

My Man!!

At work, we have a HUGE bucket of peanuts - supplied by one of out fantastic HVAC mechanic's. So, after eating hundred's ... I decided it was time to STOP!  And who could eat such a handsom little creature?

Food is fun

Roxbury Deli ...

mmmmm ~ mmmmmmm!

And looks a bit like Kermit?

my birthday

rain makes corn, corn makes whiskey. Whiskey makes my baby feel a little frisky ..

rain is a good thing!

It's Fall here in our little piece of heaven and it's been super overcast and raining A LOT.  During the summer months, I forget how much I like autumn.  It's probably because I was born in this season.  Whatever the reason .. I'm so happy it's back. 

Sorry!  I got side-tracked .. back to the rain!  Valhalla is in FULL bloom!  I had my aunt up for a visit last weekend - SO FUN! She and Nico went for a walk while I was hiking Saturday morning and they brought home a HUGE pile of bougainvillea's home .. I decorated the house with them .. the outside of the house!

Quite possibly the best burger in history ....

Can I ride your magic bus?

Bard mansion

The Nico ..

Eats ...























This is my boy.  It was a beautiful day, we'd just come from the doctors office and the child was hugry.  We sat on the curb out in front of the restaurant.  He ate his shredded beef burrito and I read the book I'd just picked up at the thrift store. As he goes further and further into this teenager thing, I cherish the moments like these. Later that day we played catch in the back yard. It was a good day.

rain ..

Rain brings many things with it ..

    rainbows with purple stripes ..

AMAZING sky

happy grass :)

and the desire to make corn bread!!  This is a "before" .. didn't get and after.



the grass is greener where it is watered ..

One of the first places my husband and I went when we started seeing each other was a car show in Carpenteria.  I found this little ceramic sign that read "the Grass is Greener Where it is Watered".  Coming from a relationship where the emotional grass withered from lack of care, this little sign really rang true with me .. so I spend the five bucks and I bring it home.  I hung it on the wall and would just stare at it every day when making coffee or doing dishes ..


I would picture in my head all the ways you can "water your grass" to keep it so green all the neighbors will envy it .. just an expression, don't want anyone to envy .. but, this little sign has been with me and I have meditated on it so many times ... in my tiny little house where I learned, or started learning who I was again and found out how to be independant .. and found what it's like to send the one you love to war and what it's like to be so scared for you child.


Then that little sign came with me to the fancy house, where it sat - again - at the kitchen sink .. except this time there was a fancy green house window for it to sit on and I looked at that sign everyday .. and I thought about what it meant and how to save grass that was getting little brown, scratchy spots.  And We fought and fought and made that grass so healthy and happy that pretty soon We got married and now, I've moved the little ceramic sign to it's new home .. a place it will stay for a long, long time. 



Again, it's right with me at the kitchen sink.  I still look at it every day, and it means so much more to me now .. as I'm standing in OUR house, looking at the Seabee's car parked and knowing that it's going to be sitting there, unused, for a long time and then seeing at our grass.  Our very own grass that I do have to water and mow and care for .. it is a real struggle .. but one that yields such vibrant beauty, such a cool and comfortable retreat on those HOTTER THAN HELL days we have, a place for Us to sit and talk about our day .. and how happy and proud he'll be when he does come home - finally - and the grass in the yard and the grass that sits up by the sink with me are so hearty, healty, lush and green ..

Anyhow .. this all leads me to ..

our new grass .. everyone told us it couldn't be done .. well dig this!!!!

Yeah, the grass is so much greener.

our little patch of success.

and then the rains came ..

AND IT GREW STRONGER!

"he who is drowned is not troubled by the rain"

The first patch is just about ready to be released from it's isolation, dogs will be free to run all over it.  Second patch to come!

this past week ..

This past week started hard .. went along and got a little smoother, and now looks like it going to end on a sweet note.  I'm trying to get my "good attitude" back at work.  No more being down because there is tension in the office.  Just happy Wendy :)

Now, if only I had grass in the back yard ... we'll see what this weekend brings!

Here are a few things that happened in the past 7 days ..

Punch Bowls

There once was a hike ..

The thing about Punch Bowls is that people go there to party .. with parting comes shady people .. and with shady people come an lack of respect.  A lack of respect for nature in this case, but no matter how much junk the toss on the ground and how much paint they spray on the rocks .. there is no denying the absolute beauty of the place. 

The first time I did this hike, Nico was a little, tiny man and I carried him in a back pack.  The next time was with my future husband and my almost-teenage son .. well, Nico and I just did it again and here are some of the photos ..

trying to break shale :)

beauty from a rock ..

Suprise!

So, it turns out that there are all these secret plants popping up in and around my gardens . .we have tiny little purple and yellow pansies, cool purple yard lilies with BIG green, lush leaves with the coolest white polka-dots, other bulb plants .. not sure what they're going to develop into, and 2 tomato plants (one even has fruit now!) .. SO cool!  But what excites me the most are the 10 or so roses that have survived some pretty crappy environmental abuse and have poked their little heads up through the dust.

They were ALL over the place, so last weekend I dug up all the little fella's in the back yard and put them in proper rose formation, took great care to lay their roots so they had lots of room to stretch out, built little moats around them, watered heavily and then built little shantys to keep that hot O'ville afternoon sun from burning them up.

Almost a week later, it looks as if it was a successful mission.  One of the little guys looks wilty, but still green! Woohoo!  So, if I can just keep Puppy from digging up everything, it will - one day!, be a beautiful yard with flowers, grass, beautiful little trees to keep Big Pine company and when the Seabee comes home we'll get started on the slope .. can't wait for that!!

Anyhow, here's a photo of one of the suprise roses that came up in the front flower bed.  Strong little sucker!  Too bad the bloom doesn't have a strong scent ..

As a side note .. the alyssium is taking over the world!!!!

Peace~

The last day of a long weekend ..

it's Monday evening .. just talked to the Seabee in Sicily, now time to start winding down and get prepared to head back to work.  A few fun things from today ...

this morning, got our first mortgage payment all enveloped up .. funny, it didn't hurt as much as rent used to  :)  and I used a stamp left over from our wedding invitations .. just seemed appropriate <3

then, took a ride to vons to get some fixin's for dinner ..

got so enthralled with dinner, forgot to take a 'before' pic .. so, here's the meatball's and pepper's we had for dinner after Nic and I dug in ..

And, then it was time to put our feet up and get our chill on!  Be well, have a wonderful week

~wendy&nico

Garden of Valhalla

Complete with a serpent, our garden has everything!

BBQ 4 ..

Had a BBQ with some friends to celebrate Labor Day .. tomato's supplied by janet, SUPER home grown and SUPER delicious .. the cantaloupe kiss was an accident .. but surely a sign from the love god that my seabee misses me  ;)

cruiser adventure ..

Nico and I rode our new cruisers down to vons, the VTA bike trail is super cool.  Lived here the majority of my life and this was the first time I ventured out on the trail.  This will become part of my day to day.  Takes a little longer to get where you're going, but the ride is what makes it TOTALLY worth it.  A couple pic's from our ride ..

in the begining ..

hi there,

the purpose of this blog .. to show my far-away husband all the fun and wonderful (and borning and scary) things that are happening in and around our new home.  There will be stories and photos of all sorts of things .. plants, bugs, neighbors, friends, Nico's, dogs .. bar-b-que's, delicious dinners, experimental recipies ... anything and everything.

We'll start with this .. our tree.  my mission .. to save her ..