Day 1..

I went on a trip a couple of months ago. My Awesome In-Laws were going, and decided to take me along. How could I refuse...

Straight off the plane, a quick shower (cause SERIOUS grime after 20 hours of travel!), and we were out on the streets...

Just strolling past the River Seine..I mean, COME ON..this was the stuff of poetry and song..and there I was..

And of course, right on the river, Notre Dame. This was about 1-2 blocks from where we were staying. It felt surreal just saying that. We walked past it ALL the time, cause it was on the way to almost everywhere we went. Did I mention surreal??

My mom's first comment when she heard I was in Paris was TAKE LOTS OF PICTURES OF THE ARCHITECTURE!! So I did. (If you are wondering why that was her first comment about it, it would be because I basically told NO ONE I was going, and just..left. I was NOT going to jinx myself!! As it was, it got pretty close!)

The cafe nightlife was big...seemed half the city ate out every night..

Yes, this is a pic of me, looking slightly shellshocked, partly from a 20 hour trip over from Hawaii; and partly cause I was standing in the courtyard of Notre Dame, a place I had til that point pretty much only heard about in relation to hunchbacks. Insane. 

I found this in my folder of pics from the first night...I cracked up when I saw it, and then refused to have anything to do with it...I had not flown halfway around the world, to the City of Lights, to drink Florida OJ. No matter how fancy it looked written in French.

I stayed in Paris for 7 days, and then went on to the next destination...give me a chance and I'll get all the days up! lol

Family..

One of my very favorite pics of my visit to California. Heading out gold panning in Coloma (hey, I was embracing my inner tourist wholeheartedly :p ) with my mom, my sister, three of my nieces, and my boy. Didn't manage to find more than freezing feet while panning in the snowmelt American River, but I did get this awesome shot. :D

Merry, merry Christmas..

Merry, Merry Christmas, everyone. :)

The City...

Funny how I can have so little actual paying work, and life can still be so frantic. Huh.

Anyway..point of the post. My loving, incredible sister bought my kid and I tickets to Sacramento to visit them in January, which is going to include a dash down to San Francisco to land on the parents and visit the Auntie and Grandma. Anyone have any MUST see shops there I can't miss? I used to live there, years ago, and my mom still lives there, so I already have a million nostalgic places to visit, as well as the Exploratorium, and BRITEX FABRICS! etc, but new, cute shops, I know nada! Who's got tips?? :D


Credit: Art.com

J-pop..

My dd has become Japan-obsessed. She loves all things Japanese...she is teaching herself Japanese, both speaking and reading and writing.. is perfecting her Origami shurikens.. is trying to convince me that Hakuna Matata, in Japanese, is a perfectly acceptable alternative to the original (When hell freezes over!!)..etc etc.

So when she desperately needed a new carry bag, anime inspired print was the obvious choice. :p



She is also cow obsessed, so the lining, while seeming bizarrely unrelated, was actually perfect. And seeing as we are in Hawaii, and she has a whacked sense of humor (no idea where she gets that from), the MooMoo was perfectly acceptable. :p



The whole shebang went over VERY well. :D

Pattern, my own; a magnetic snap closure, lined with very stiff interfacing, and self made piping bordering the edges.

Coming home..

It's good to be home.

In the country..

My sister came over for a fortnight with her kids, to visit us other two sisters+kiddos...right near the end, we took a trip out to the North Shore, aka, the country. Thanks to a crappy camera, and a migraine, I didn't get nearly the shots I should have, but here are a couple...

Snorkeling at Shark's Cove...Schools of rainbow fish, crystal blue water, a sea turtle, warm, warm water....


Some of the best shave ice on the island..I am extremely fond of the li hing mui powder option you can get here (a mix of sugar, salt, plum, and licorice..and here, a heck of a lot of red food coloring. :p ) Not everybody agrees with me on that one, though. The philistines.

A random cloud, found on the camera after I lent it to my sister...don't really know who took that one. :p One thing you will find about Hawaii, is there is no such thing as a cloudless sky. Some days, you might think you have seen one, but then you look low on the horizan, and there will be some tiny smudge of a cloud, a little tiny dot, still in the sky.

You can't really see it, but there are horses in that thar picture. :p It really is the country. Though, developers are moving in, which has spawned a campaign to Keep the Country Country. Money being a driving force behind everything, I am just hoping someone retains enough sense to not let it be completely wiped out, and turned into a glossy, fake version of Hawaii, like tourists see when they go to these places :p :

Little boats...

When I was very little, 4 or so, my family lived in a little shack on the side of the mountain on the Big Island of Hawaii. It was primitive (our water source/shower was a rain barrel on the side of the slope out front), but in the backyard, where my parents were digging a garden, they dug up a little square pond of some sort. One of my favorite memories is walking into the jungle out behind the garden and picking up banana flower petals off the jungle floor, and floating them in that pond like little boats.

These ones, all these years later, are growing in my backyard. I don't float the petals any more, but I still love to see them.

Fifteen..

Happy Sweet Fifteen, my Baby..

Credit: Julzappa

Snug as a bug..

Are these just not the cutest little dollies?? My SIL bought them from this girl for my dd's Christmas present (No, I don't think dd is ever going to grow out of the doll stage. :p) I thought they were totally clever and adorable. :p

A vegetarian Christmas dinner...

Okay..so these aren't the most appetizing pics in the universe. I couldn't help it...I was starving, and the food was sooo yummy, I just dug in before I could remember to take a pic. :p But this was our Christmas dinner, sans meat. We got the mashed potatoes (mixed with kumera, Maori sweet potato), the stuffing from scratch, tofu pieces soaked in Braggs, coated in a seasoned garbanzo flour mix and fried, a salad, and the roasted dinner, consisting of something created out of various soy products by my SIL that was totally yummy, some soy or gluten cutlet things from the Buddhist vegan restaurant, also totally yummy, and asparagus and peppers, all roasted, too. And, of course, cranberry sauce. Gotta have the cranberry sauce. :p



Dessert was my pumpkin pie, with a dollop of mascarpone...the pie was better even than last time, and the mascarpone took it over the top...



..and then these, made by SIL. The pictures may not look like they belong alongside Cannelle et Vanille, but trust me, they tasted like they did. A bitter chocolate/caramel mousse, seriously amazing.

By the time dinner was done, I couldn't move. The rest of them ate just as much, but that didn't stop them from having a rousing game of the annual cricket. I sat on the bench and tried not to burst. :p

I'm not the only one..

I'm not the only creative person in my family. We all create things in one form or another. This particular post is about my 11yo DS. He paints miniatures. Really, really well, in-my-not-so-humble-opinion. :p


Note the subtle colors..


The textures..




The fine attention to detail..(Note the flaming tail, his newest favorite detail. :p )





The depth..



The subtle shading..



The realism..(I think if you enlarge this one, you will notice blood splashes...he has a deep fascination with gore, lol)



And all done in a scale 3 inches tall, from the tip of the flag horns down to the baseplate.

I, personally, all total bias aside, am completely impressed. :p

Mmmm...cheeeeesecake...

It was FIL's b-day yesterday. Can't remember which one. But it was an insanely young one for a dude with a 35yo son and 5 grandkids. (NO, they aren't all mine!)

I was on cheesecake duty, and I made this one. Though, I just used the ingredients as a guideline, and didn't use eggs, but subbed with milk and cornstarch (2TB milk and 2tsp cornstarch, per egg). And then mixed in the innards of a couple of mighty shriveled lilikois (passionfruits) languishing in the fruit bowl. But it came out pretty damn yummy. After I had to wash the cream cheese in a colander to remove the several cup's worth of fine Italian salt that exploded into the bowl, all over the counter, all over the floor, all over me, when the stupid salt container FAILED while I tipped out a bit into my hand, though. Ugh. That would not have been nice. And then we topped it with fresh mango, and canned lilikoi in syrup. Yuuummmm.

The artistically close up shot is to disguise the fact that it is a pathetically small slice, leftover from last night, looking a bit worse for wear. We ate all the rest. Couldn't help ourselves. :p

Note: If you decide to make this really yummy cheesecake yourself, take note that the butter measurement for the crust is down in the topping list, and the milk for the filling is also down in the topping list. Gave me a few moments of confusion, they did. And take note that you REALLY don't need much of it to start feeling sick. :p

A wedding...

A wedding over the weekend..Aside from making me feel old as the hills, seeing as I met the bride when she was still in diapers (or pretty damn near..), it was a beautiful day.

It was also a very DIY day, so beautifully done. The bride made the cake..



..the bridesmaids' dresses (the one in front is my own oft-mentioned SIL)..


..and her own dress. Have a better look at it..it's worth a click!



Everything else was also done by family and friends (these cupcakes courtesy of my SIL..a fantastic cook. The icing was SO yummy...and I don't usually like icing.:p )...except the celebrant, of course. Who, actually, was also a good friend of one of the friends. :p



We had a great day...tons of good food (and drinks..non alcoholic, of course...but we were all SO hot, the drinks were a definite standout, rofl!), all our friends, and then the fun and games...between the volleyball and the soccer, dh and ds are walking like old men today. I, personally, sat like a lump on any available chair all day. I was WIPED, lol.



The kids got to be painted...the girls mostly chose butterflies and flowers..



..and the boys mostly chose spiders, beetles, and Maori face tats. :p



Congratulations, Nanda and Vani...may you have a long and happy life together, under the Lord. Thank you for a wonderful day.

It's a girl...

Yet another baby girl born into the extended family...



(Excuse the terrible pic..the sun decided to vanish just in time for pic taking time...and then the dog decided to run away, so I couldn't just wait for some more..dumb dog!)

Same pattern as I used here, Ottobre 2/2005 #2. I think I forgot one tier...I have these strips of fabric left sitting next to my machine, with no obvious other use. Ooops. :p The pants are Ottobre 2/2005 #3, but extended, and then two tiers of ruffles added. Cause you just can't have too many ruffles if you are a girly little girl, right?? :D

Blind to your face..

If I know you, and one day I walk past you on the street unexpectedly, there is a very high chance I am going to come off as a Grade-A bitch, totally ignoring your, or else staring at you like I have no idea who this freak is, coming up to me like they've known me for years. Not because I *am* a Grade-A bitch (I hope!), but because I am face blind. Mildly, anyway. I am not a hopeless case; I just have an incredibly poor memory for faces. AKA, I have Prosopagnosia. I am pretty sure I have the genetic kind, because I am firmly in denial that I am brain damaged. :p Also, because my sister has it, a little worse than me. And I have my suspicions about ds, too. Poor kid.



I never realized not everyone was like this; I thought it was NORMAL to not know who someone was if they weren't in their normal setting, their normal context! How odd. Anyway, like I said, I have a MILD case...I can recognize most people I know, most of the time. If I know them. If I see you every week at the supermarket, and then I see you two towns away, in someone's house, I MIGHT think you look familiar, but I probably will never place why..unless you triggered one of my coping mechanisms, and said something that I could place...or if you are very distinctive in some way...or if your voice has a pattern I can place. If I *know* you, I probably won't do that..usually (Note to NS: It had been a whole week since we had moved out of the house! I PROMISE I recognized you...2 seconds later!!! lol)



I am not bad with famous people, either...I can recognize the really famous, most of the time, if the picture isn't really weird, and I can recognize others, if there is something I can latch onto. Otherwise, IMDB is my FRIEND! :P



I get by by recognizing speech patterns and voice tones; overall facial structure and body build; walking patterns; settings; and then if I am actually talking to you, and I STILL haven't figured it out, I can listen for cue words, that will clue me in. I am not completely nonfunctional, though..some people are completely, totally faceblind. I am thinking it's like the difference between being nearsighted without glasses, and totally stone blind. I am the former, obviously. And then there are the ones who rely on others to tell them who their wife and kids are. And for the record...face blindness is NOT real blindness...we can see perfectly fine!!! We just don't retain any record of what we are seeing! Okay, *I* do, mostly, but total faceblind people don't. And I am really good at reading expressions, and seeing *other* details, to remember. Oh...and I didn't realize til yesterday that not everyone thinks all dogs, or all cats, etc, look alike. :p Apparently that's a symptom, too, lol. (I think my inability to remember the way to get somewhere, no matter how many times I've been there, if I was NOT the driver, has something to do with it, too...drives my dh freaking NUTS, lol!)



Anyway. There you have it. Totally random, useless trivia about me. I figure, it's a rare enough, unheard of condition, that you might still be interested, right? Right? :D Maybe next time I will get into my synesthesia (what...doesn't EVERYONE think in colors??? :P )

Credits:
1. Blood and Ink
2. Andrea Shishmanian
3 and 4. Magnolia Forever
5. CDT Images

Glamour in the Home...

Well, I don't have my pics ready of my latest creation, so I'm not showing them yet. But there is other creating going on in my house....relatively. :p

My inlaws are currently staying here, in between houses at the moment, including my sister-in-law, who is taking a professional makeup course. It includes everything from conventional makeup to movie special effects, and everything in between. And she needs guinea pigs fairly regularly. So here is me, being a high fashion model.




The theme is Africa..or Safari...or something. Anyway, I got to be a jaguar. With false eyelashes with little gold dots on them. Lemme tell you, those things look COOL...it makes me totally regret that my life has absolutely ZERO cause to ever use them. :p And don't tell me if it makes me happy, do them anyway. Because I can speak from first hand experience, they seriously get in the way of your vision when you are trying to peel and mash the spuds for dinner.

ETA Scuze the hair...what a MESS!!