my summer decoration

I spotted this cutie little string of felt fish when I was browsing for plastic bottles to use on our trip to Europe. It struck me as being the quintessential summer decoration, cheap, cute and easy to tack up.



For only $1.60 at the Daiso store, I just couldn't resist this fabulous little treasure.

cutest wine label

I buy wine based on the label, to try to deny it would be silly, just look at the darling bottle of sparkling wine I picked up at my favorite corner store the other day. Why wouldn't I want to buy something so cute?



I have no idea if it is good(although I always trust Rumi's selection) but I love the label!

my little bean tree

Last night, while shopping at our local Nijiya store, we found these fantastic Edamame vines. I'm excited to steam them up for a little treat but honestly, I think I fancy the fact that they are on the vine and look like a tree more than I look forward to eating the actual product.

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.