Travelling in France

I am so overdue to post here. What a long several weeks it has been with a lot of busyness at work, working on the new house plans and getting ready for another architectural review committee when I come back from this trip and then forcing myself to relax enough so I can do art while in this workshop.

I find taking photographs is a good way to relax and slow down, so here are some of my best in my travel postcards #1 and #2.

My Version of Young Me - Now Me

There's a new trend in photo taking out there that has to do with reenacting a photo taken a long time ago, through the composition, what the person is wearing, gestures and facial expressions, etc. See more about that here.

I just ran across these unintentional Then & Nows of me and a couple of Claire. They are about 10 years apart.

How fun!

Alameda Naval Air Station

Sunday I went to the "once a month" Antique Fair at the Alameda Naval Air Station. It was really hot so the ice cold lemonade tasted really good. The gyro was decent too. But what I loved was wandering around from row to row of "antiques." I say this in quotes because their rule is that things have to be more than 20 years old. That really doesn't qualify as an antique, to me. That is not even really nostalgic in my lifetime.

Still, there's lots of cool stuff to see and it's fun just watching the ga-gillions of people wandering around. I think there are about 400 booths at this faire selling everything from vintage clothes to old books to rusty outdoor furniture masquerading as antiques - not! I think I'll lug my crappy outdoor patio set over there and score some big bucks!

I saw my friends Jenny and Melissa from The Junk Girls and also met Kymberley from Three Fine Grains. I bought a vellum book from Kymberley back in May via her on-line store, so it was nice to put a face with the name. I scored some spool candles made by Jenny K, and three vintage books of ladies items - sewing patterns, advice, etc. I really only wanted two, but they were three for $20 so I lugged them all the long walk back to the car.

Here are the spools, repurposed by Jenny K/The Junk Girls as votive candle holders. They're going to look great somewhere in my new house.

 
And here are some photos of the adjoining and now abandoned Alameda Naval Air Station I passed on the way in/out. What a resource! Seems like it would be good to redevelop this property into something more productive than ratty old buildings with peeling paint. However, the peeling paint is immensely more interesting to photograph.

Bay Bridge - Center of Span

A Photo For Today, From A Few Weeks Ago

Marisha's Teapot

Artistic Photo of Walking the Doggie Doggs

A Blank Canvas

Beautiful day here in HMB, finally. The sun was shining and I took a walkie-walk with the mister misters and passed by where my new house will be. I love all the green wavy grasses growing, and soon it will be a house instead.

I want to figure out a way to put up a camera to capture the construction day by day....

For now, here is the blank canvas.

Not Much Art This Weekend

I had the whole weekend to do with what I wanted. I did a lot of work and stuff around the house. I intended to do some art, but didn't get to it...though I did take a couple of walks, had a nap on my lawn in the sun (yes, the sun finally appeared after a 6-week absence), washed my sheets and dried them on the clothesline, visited with my friend Eva and had a nice healthy dinner last night, and took some photos. Here's one I took yesterday and the one of the sheets.

Knaughty Knitting at Lisa's

Jodie and Christina

One of the highlights of my life, one night every couple of weeks, is knitting. I have been terribly remiss in not knitting in between meetings, but I do get a few rows done and love the socializing with this great group of "knaughty" knitters. 

This week, we were at Lisa's, but Lisa was not there. Still, we enjoyed her lovely veranda in the warm, summer weather. Her kitty stayed close while we stitched. We had a lovely tomato tart prepared by Eva and Christina, and an apple tart too. Deb worked an edge on her beautiful quilt (sewing, not knitting) and Jodie continues to work on an exquisite sweater that I can't wait to see. She works with delicate Japanese silk thread, knitting it in a box-like stitch that is open and very elegant.

Here are some photos of the Tibetan prayer flags, the kitty, and us doing our work.

Eva's Colorful and Fluffy Scarf

Another One of Deb's Amazing Quilts

Lisa's Kitty

Zee Tarts

Embarrassing Moments at the Doctor

I got a tickle fest at the doctor today during my annual physical. In the totality of all the poking and prodding, the thing that I couldn't manage through was when he checked my lymph nodes in my legs. I couldn't help laughing and just like when someone is tickling you unmercifully, I reflexively grabbed and pushed his hands away!  We were all laughing - the doctor, the nurse and me - what a sweet morning!

This is a photo of a rose in my front yard, just for kicks today. It makes me smile, but not laugh like I did this morning at the doctor's office!

Some Engineering Photos

What a day! Spent a lot of time in the past 24 hours being my own IT Tech Support. But I did it! Last night at this time, my Mac Book Pro wouldn't boot up at all. Tried everything and did finally get to a screen that showed all my files, so did a back up of the files and then reimaged the whole thing this morning to the Time Machine. Then a few more hurdles to get the computer to "let me" reinstall the operating system. Not sure why it was so hard to delete all the files and then boot with the Leopard CD. Anyway, every portion of this effort took about 2 hours, with my fingers crossed and really holding my breath.

Worst part? Thought I might have lost all my new house design files (not - I have them all), and recent photos since my last backup  on 6/20, which would be all MN trip files, plus a few others (have them all too). Then, in the past couple of days, I've had no access to Lightroom to manage these new photos.

Everything is back in order. Current no. of files on my MBP? 1.25 million (1,250,000). It took 3 hours to reload all apps and files. Whew!

Productive Day With Wedding "Chores"

I made the test batch of wedding cupcakes: key lime and coconut. They are all a white cake base (yes, from a box because my family will attest that I can't make these cake from scratch recipes). Then, for the key lime, I made a filling from sweetened condensed milk, key lime juice, some lime zest and cream cheese - just to stiffen it up a bit. The coconut filling was either plain coconut, sugar and milk - just like an Almond Joy candy bar, note to self for future - or the same plain coconut filling with some choco chips stirred in while warm. Note to self - also intriguing for some future use.

Then, I made white butter cream frosting which I used on all. I'm needing to up my skillage in the piping department. While still a bit moist, I topped the key lime with some candied lime peel and on a few, I put some graham cracker crumbs dusted over the top. For the coconut, it was flaked and toasted coconut on all.

We're meeting the B&G today for dinner and a cupcake testing. I also did the thank you cards (50) and got the vases for the flowers from my local senior thrift store. $20 for everything! So my list is up to date, Kati, if you are out there monitoring these sorts of things.

Here are some photos: