my new mattress pad

As I was changing the sheets on my bed this morning, I remembered that I recently bought a new mattress pad. It was such a nice sight and I realized just how much better this relatively cheap mattress pad looks compared to what we were using before. I love my new mattress pad and thought I'd take a few photos of it to remind me of such a happy thing when, someday, it is no longer new.


The little seals are chatting

a pre-flight dinner

The night before we took off for San Jose, we enjoyed a healthy dinner of Hummus, Lebanese eggplant dip(which doesn't photograph well), and tomato soup. It was all delicious. I made the soup and eggplant dip because I had pounds of overripe heirloom tomatoes that needed to be used up. The 3 bucks-per-5 pound-bag deal was indeed a deal, but also caused a flurry of tomato panic in which I looked up only those recipes which use a maximum number of tomatoes. In the end they've all been consumed; I think that only one very tiny one went to waste.

No pictures of the tomatoes, since they weren't terribly photogenic. But I did think the hummus looked like a picture, so I took some pictures of it.



This hummus is a Lebanese recipe which has lots of parsley added in the grinding process, giving the hummus a green tinge, which I like. To make it, I took one can of garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained them. I then processed the beans with one clove of garlic, a couple tablespoons of olive oil, salt, juice of half a lemon, a pinch of cayenne and a nice handful of chopped parsley. Once that was well chopped and almost smooth, I added a touch more oil and a little water. I trickled the water in while the food processor was running, just until the hummus looked nice and loose and dippable.

images from a long week

Today, I'm catching up on chores that haven't been done for way too long and so in keeping with my theme for the day, I figured I'd post pictures taken over the course of the week. Catch up on my photographs and a blog post, all in one.

This past weekend, we stayed with friends in San Jose who have an incredibly darling sense of home decor and style. We felt right at home because their apartment is very small and cramped with tons of stuff in it, just like ours. They also have too many cute things everywhere you look. It was really a fun place. I didn't want to seem creepy by photographing everything so, I limited myself to the bathroom curtains and their potted garden, which, now that I think about it might seem like odd choices to most people. Oh well, I can't help being a little obsessive when it comes to admiring cuteness.


Such lovely basil


A neighbor's garden whirlie- adds color


So much mint. I'd like such a vigorous mint plant.


The bathroom curtain


Three little curtain creatures


Elephant with a leaf for a tail

The rest of the photos in this post were taken today and have nothing to do with our friend's house.


I love this dress and have worn it for a couple of weddings this summer. It's super cute.



Today, I'm making poached fish with papaya salsa. For the salsa, I roasted a few red serranos under my broiler to tame the heat of those spicy creatures. Tasty.

cheese and apples...

...but not together.



I made these two delicious cheese tortes for the big party that my family had when we were back home. They got snapped up in just 5 or 10 minutes. Yum!



These apples are lovely. Our family has picked apples from two little trees for years and we used to press cider in late September or October when the apples ripen.



These apples are always green even when ripe.

other pretty growing things

The hops aren't the only things growing well for Matthew's parents; they have lots of lovely little plants. In fact, this year, they have a real, dedicated garden, which I've never seen them have before. It really is adorable. Small and sweet.



For whatever reason I found these blue candle holders charming, probably because they are tiny replicas of a chimneria style baking oven. And, as with last year, I kept taking photos of the lavender.



Not much had been harvested from the garden, just a zucchini and a few pear tomatoes.



Such a cute pair of pear tomatoes



Probably the exact same branch that I photographed at Christmas, but it looks so vastly different in the summer time, still lovely.



A few flowers among the vegetables, for color.



Now, I realize and fully understood at the time I took all these silly bee photos, that many professional photographers have taken amazing bee on a flower photos. There was no reason for me to waste my time with the task, but I still couldn't help myself. The bees were just so cute and fuzzy. I wanted to pet them.