Weekend Fun Times!

Whew! What a busy and delightfully fun weekend! It started Friday night when Dannon took me to the Space Observatory. The free telescope viewing is pretty cool, which they do every Friday and Saturday nights, but you aren't missing out on much if you don't pay to see the museum {unless you have kids}. The wonderful part though was that a bunch of my friends came and surprised me! It was a freakishly warm night so we hung out on the patio talking and laughing. It was lovely!Then on Saturday we happened upon Circus Bella performing a free show at Fort Mason where we have our spiritual discussion group Second Wind. We grabbed some lunch and enjoyed the show!
There was a slack rope walker who put a ladder on the rope and then climbed it!!! {click the pic for better mind-blowing images}
And another crazy balancing act!
And a trapeze artist!
There were more amazing acts and a live circus band! I highly recommend checking them out on September 26 in Golden Gate Park if you'll be in the area.
We ended the evening by seeing Inglourious Basterds with my friend Mike. It was SO Good! And by that I mean if you like Quentin Tarantino movies {and don't mind some gore... I think if you are a surgeon this movie is probably not bad at all, and it's probably really cathartic if you had family members in the Holocaust}.
More to come on Sunday's big adventure: Outside Lands!

Simple Pleasures from My Birthday

I think this is the first birthday that has been completely overshadowed by all the crazy busyness of life. Poor Dannon was trying to plan something but I kept saying, "I might just want to go to bed early, or I may have to do homework all evening." So I didn't let him plan anything big. But in the spirit of all things Zen, I decided to pay attention to all the little things that made my birthday special and celebrate them. So here they are, my birthday treats:

*Sleeping in! Okay, so I do this most days, but today I got to sleep in guilt-free!

*Getting text messages, emails, and phone calls from all my loved ones was a super special treat... even though I had class and was not able to talk to all of you!

*Hearing the story of my name from my Mom. It's funny how little I knew about the thing that identifies who I am!

*Stopping by The Bean Bag for organic coffee and discovering these adorable organic mini donuts! Not to mention they were playing Al Green's "Let's Stay Together." Good times...
* Dancing to more Al Green at home with the long-haired, dread-headed painter outside my window singing along while he painted his truck with our new building paint. We shared a moment...
*Seeing a bunch of my school friends {it was also my first day of fall classes for grad school... luckily I really like my classes}!

*The adorable bag my mom sent me {which matches my clothes perfectly}!

*The Stargazer Lilies Dannon brought me. They last for weeks and make my entire house smell amazing!

*Eating my favorite meal: Yellow Curry with Tofu & Thai Salad from Banana House!

*The stargazer book Dannon gave me, with tickets for dinner, a planetarium movie, and telescope viewing at the Chabot Space Observatory {that's right, Dannon gave me the universe for my birthday}.

*Laughing the night away with Dannon and Larry, two of my best friends, watching Mystery Science Theater 3000! My stomach still hurts, but it's never felt better.

My Extravegant Birthday List

So another little piece of information about my life is that today, August 25th, is my birthday. I have been so busy the past few weeks that I really haven't thought about my birthday at all. So today I decided that I would take some time to have a little fun with it. So here it is, the "In My Wildest Dreams Birthday List." In no particular order:

*The chance to raid Zooey Deschanel's closet and collect her hand-me-downs. *An all expense paid trip around the world, especially stops in Nepal, Tibet, New Zealand, & the elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka - taking care of baby elephants!*To sing a duet with Sufjan Stevens... sigh...

*A special helmet that would maintain my hair-do's so I could ride my bike everywhere, be safe, and always look cute like these Copenhagen girls!
*Homes in multiple places: down by the sea, a cabin in the mountains, and somewhere, anywhere that has fireflies {oh how I miss fireflies!}.
*An original Paul Klee.
*Time - to read, create art, make & enjoy music, bake, reflect, write, do yoga, and lie in the grass!
*The chance to have ALL my wonderful family and friends around to spend quality time with!

So Long Vacation...

Well my mini-vacation is over and life has suddenly been filled with busyness. Tomorrow I start school and in a couple weeks I'll be working as a therapist! I'm also working on a couple projects at home, but more on that later. I'm actually rather enjoying the busyness. I'm the kind of person that thrives on having a full life, and I think I did rather well keeping the past 4 weeks full of fun and adventure.

I managed to:
*Read some books for fun.
*Enjoyed art, concerts, and dancing.
*Cleaned out my closet then went thrift store shopping to fill it back up.
*Rode my adorable bike all around the park and coast.
*Went backpacking, hiking, and beach lounging.
*Made fun little crafties for a soon-to-open Etsy shop.
*Practiced the mandolin and drawing skills.
*And had the best time hanging out with lots of good friends!

So yes, it has been a great past month. So long vacation and I'll see you again in December!

Fun Pins!

In addition to the coffee cozies in my previous post, I've also been making little fabric pins. I started with little scrappy flower pins and then moved on to some funky shapes. Most of the fabric is felt, but I also included random scrap fabrics for texture. Here are some pictures of what I have so far.

Coffee Cozies!

One of the things I have been enjoying on my little break is creating fun fabric goodies. I have been making a ton of coffee cozies and flower pins and feather hair pieces. Because I have a lot of fun making these little goods and because I'm building quite the inventory, I'm thinking of opening an Etsy shop. It might be a fun side business whilst in grad school. If I'm going to do it, however, I'm going to need some accountability. So I've decided to start sharing some of my goods on here. Today - coffee cozies.

*Goody Goody Gumdrops*
*Bumble-bee's Delight*
*Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head*
*Love Birds*
*Squared*
And a couple works in progress: Leaves and more Squares!All the cozies are made out of felt with fleece linings so your hands can stay cool holding a hot cup of joe {or whatever your hot drink of choice may be}. Plus it's better for the environment and makes drinking way more fun!

Fun Times with Felicia!

A very dear friend from college came to visit me on Thursday and we had the best time playing in the city! Here were the highlights:

* Breakfast at Boogaloo's {man that place is good!}

* A very successful shopping trip at the Haight Street thrift stores.
* Exploring the Palace of Fine Arts in the dark {it's so magical!}

* Finding ourselves swarmed with a late-night rollerblading flash mob at the Palace of Fine Arts {complete with 90's dance jams}
* Lounging at the beach doing nothing but watching adorable dogs!

* The hundreds of times I laughed uncontrollably {as only one can when with her closest friends}

The Little Ones!

I first heard The Little Ones on the movie Penelope {which I adored!} and immediately fell in love. Happy Boys playing Happy Music, what could be better?! Here's a few songs from their happy album.

Big Sur!

Warning! Lots of pictures to follow. Grab a snack, put on some nice music, and relax to some pictures from what many call the most beautiful place on the west coast {from what I've seen, Big Sur beauty is hard to beat}!

The Big Sur coast looks pretty much like this the whole way down:
It's full of massive bluffs and cliffs that fall straight into the ocean. There are also these giant rocks in the water that make huge BHUF sounds when the waves crash over!

We stayed for two nights and camped up in the bluffs above the ocean, about a 3 mile hike in from the road. After we hiked the Grand Canyon we fell in love with walking sticks whenever we backpack. The good thing is, they're free in nature! The first night we stayed in a valley next to a teeny stream. It was so peaceful and lovely... except for the swarms of mosquitoes {my poor legs!}. So the second night we stayed up on the top of the ridge where we had a perfect view of the sun setting over the fog {which was covering the ocean}. It was quite the sight! Click the picture to get a better view of the fog below us.

Our first full day was spent hiking around the Big Sur River. The river was shallow and crystal clear so we did some river walking. We eventually found one deep spot where Dannon went swimming {he was much braver than I was - it was SO cold!}.

Big Sur is also well known for its clean, free air. {We got a little silly after running for our lives from mosquitoes and eating only granola bars.}

We spent the second day driving down the 1 {the road along the coast} to see as much of Big Sur as we could. It was all a typical California morning sight - fog over the ocean. It was pretty amazing though.
We felt like we were at the end of the world!!

Aslan?!After our little drive we went back to the Andrew Molera State Park Beach. What did we find? More Amazingness!! This is a small, rugged beach where the Big Sur River empties into the ocean. It's fairly well sheltered from the wind and fog, and has great waves for surfing. Oh, and lots of sea lions and otters!
There were tons of driftwood shelters and sculptures along the beach, which Dannon and I totally love!

So we each made our own little driftwood creations.

After relaxing in the sun and watching surfers, sea lions, and birds play in the water, we hiked up to the little cliff above the beach.

We climbed down on the rocks on the other side of the cliff where the waves crashed about a foot in front of us!Yup, I'd say Big Sur is one of the most beautiful places I've seen. It's so grand and has all kinds of little treasures to find.

On our way home we decided to stop in at our favorite eatery in Pacific Grove. Tillie Gorts is so amazing, you have to try it if you're ever in the Monterey area. They have a huge selection and pretty much everything is made from scratch. De-Licious!

Whoo! I'm so soar and itchy now, but it was all worth it. We had the best time and will definitely go back!