Playing with my camera

So I have this friend, well, she and E have been friends for a long time. When we moved up here, she and I have become fast friends. She inspires me in a lot of ways but for now I will share how she inspires me with learning the ways of my digital camera. Said friend takes amazing pictures. I love looking at "her subjects" and the way she uses her digital camera to capture the moment. When we all were in Napa for our bike ride she shared with me basic tips on how to use our digital camera. Since then, as you can see from the changes of my blog, I have started to play with my camera. The header picture of the A's flag, I took :) Same with the side bar pics. Those are the roses from my backyard. So proud!
Last night, she and I decided to take advantage of the warmer then normal temps for this area and go have beers and mexican food outside. I really think it was meant to be. The resturant we went to is on the water and since it was so warm out we for sure thought the resturant would be packed. It wasn't! We had a 5 minute wait and received a "choice" seat outside on the patio. We sipped on Pacificos, stuffed ourselves with yummy mexican food, great conversation, laughter and watched the sunset. I couldn't have asked for a better way to end my weekend. On top of the E came home from his second IOE trip later that night.
Here are some pictures from our view at dinner.

40 miles & vineyards

Our Sunday morning started at 6am. Why I agreed to get up at 6 am on my Sunday morning was proved to me when I got on my bike at 830am in Napa aka wine country!
E, our dear friend Ursula and myself got up this morning to do a bike ride in Napa. This was all Urs's idea. A grand idea it was! E and I hated getting up so early on my weekend but we knew it would be well worth it. I can't begin to describe our scenery, which is why I am including a link to pictures.
We started out in Napa and rode into St. Helena for some breakfast. This was 20 miles later. After breakfast we started our trek back. With a full stomach we just had to stop and taste test what wine country had to offer. Our first stop was Mumm Winery. Hello! Champagne!!! We each sampled their classic offerings. My favorite was the Brute Prestige. Even with a full stomach the 3 glasses of champagne each went straight to me and Urs's head. We got back on our bikes and rode for another 15 miles. We then stopped at Pine Ridge for wine. My camera died at this point so I don't have pictures of this stop. We all shared 8 glasses of wine. We tasted 2 whites and 5 reds. All 3 of us voted, our favorite was the Oakville and Stags Leap Cabernet.
We left there and biked the 6 miles to our car. I'll be honest, my legs were jello from breakfast on. I am so sore but it was so worth it! As we were making our way back to the car. Urs and I noticed a "fresh strawberry" stand. We both agreed that we have to go back and pick up some fresh strawberries. E was way ahead of us so he was back at the car first. Urs and I biked in and immediately were chatting up the fresh strawberry stand we saw. We went back Urs and I got our 4 pints of strawberries and we were happy. As soon as we got home, I made strawberry shortcake. Our total mileage today was indeed 40 miles. It's been quite some time since I have rode my bike for that long.
As a tribute to my friend Linds and her capturing quotes. Here are two. The first one was said by our winery person as he was listening to our conversation about wine. The second was part of the description for the Oakville cabernet. Both at Pine Ridge Winery.
"100% delicious"
"firm and silky upon entry"

Dirt and stuff..

Today I confirmed the following:
1) There is something special about having the sunshine wake you up at 8am on a saturday morning.
2) Despite being so far away from my family and my girlfriends, I am so happy we are living in the bay area.
3) I will some how, some way conquer the weeds that are taking over my back yard and now the front yard
4) I will focus on getting my would be garden up and running.
5) I finished getting rid of the nasty weeds that were inhabiting my would be garden.
6) I hate snails!
7) I hate worms!
8) This is the longest weekend EVER!
9) I don't miss the midwest cold. Today I got to wear at one point during the day, a tank and shorts
10) I do miss my husband and wish it was Monday so he could be back at home already.



Here is the space for my garden to be. Once E gets home, we are going to figure out what we want to grow.



This is the "green waste" bin that I filled up today. If you look beyond the bin, you can see the weeds that become my backyard. I hate weeds!



The motivation to start a garden. This is a lemon that is growning my backyard from our young meyer lemon tree.



Meet Van Gogh. The neighborhood cat. He is the sweetest thing ever! When we first moved in and had all of our doors open. This little snuggle bug found his way many times on to our bed. I wish I took pics of him camping out in our house. He kept me company today while I did my thing in the backyard.



My hand was shaky and my little digital camera isn't so great at the clos ups. So I apologize for the blurry picture. But in reality this snail is HUGE! I ran into even more of them as I cleared out the weeds. They scared the crap out of me!

this makes me sick to my stomach

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/25/fire.arson/index.html

Safe and Sound

Thank you for all the inquires if Eli and I are okay or if we are affected by the awful SoCal fires. Luckily for us, we moved to northern california---we are in San Francisco now. So we are doing just great--busy but doing great. I have checked on a few of my friends that I have in SoCal and the it's just unreal what has happened. Luckily those friends are safe and sound in their homes but many are not. Please keep all those families who lost everything in your prayers. There are many great stories coming out of San Diego about people helping each other. Those who were affected and those who weren't coming out in the dozens to help each other.

I promise after next weekend, I will be back to my regularly scheduled blogging.
I will catch up with each and every one of you! I promise!!!

Bonita Mama!

Bonita Mama.. this was shouted at me at 9am on Friday morning as I was half awake watering my plants on my balcony. Now this normally would not bother me and I might on a good day take it as a compliment. However, knowing the lurkers, aka the construction men that are literally a stones throw across the street.. I mean fire lane away from my apartment saying this, iritates the crap out of me.

The reason this iritates me so much is that I accidently gave these men a peep show one morning. I am so embrassed even writing about this. E and I like to sleep with our patio door open. Now that we are living in California and so close to the ocean, we are spoiled by how cool it gets in the evening thus we like to open the doors to get a cool breeze instead of turning on the AC. Well, of course the one morning that i FORGET that we had the door and thus the blinds open. I trot out of the shower, with very little clothing and proceed to put lotion on. I start to feel like I am being watched and of course, I turn around and see a construction dude just lurking at my window. Mortified, I crouched down and scramble for some decent cover up so I can crawl my way to the bathroom to put on any sort of clothing I can find.

Needless to say I did manage to recover and cover myself and close the blinds so I could finish my morning routine without the lurkers. Everytime I step outside to my balcony I am a little grossed out. Let's just say I am so happy we are moving out of this joint and i have learned my lesson to be fully robed or clothed when I walk out of the bathroom.

Ode to my bike..I am so sorry

Dear Bike-
I can't believe it took me this long to get you out for a ride. You have every right to be upset with me--but you were not--in fact you were patient with me. As soon as I clipped in I knew I was wrong in waiting so long. All the fear, lonliness, and self doubt disappeard--as it usually does when we are together. I knew you would enjoy the smooth bike paths--where there are fellow bikers, runners, roller bladers--all happy to share the outstreched road where we don't have to battle cars and the tight congested streets.

You let me take my time in getting used to you again--starting out at 13mph and inching my way to up to 18-20mphs. I felt the wind across my face and the sun shining down on my arms. You rode easy and took the curves with such precesion. I knew you would enjoy the climbs. The scenary was beautiful--reminded me why we moved to California in the first place.

Thank you for your patience and the reminder of why I love to ride. I appreciate you letting me take my time in being okay again to ride by myself. As you can tell this move has rocked me a bit and I am trying to piece my old self back together.