meeting the mister for a lunch time walk

I was early for a coffee date

So I decided to see what I could see on the street I was on. Sometimes, you just need to challenge yourself to find the magical, colorful pretties around you.

 Shadows and light on a dappled sidewalk in progress.

 Loops, texture, angles, and lines...happy yellow and fun shapes...

 In between walking the short stretch of street, I did visit the cheese shop, how coudl I not?

 Color and shapes can be found most anywhere. You just need to pause, slow down, and look.

The light was pure magic. The coffee was delicious. The company was perfect. The day was a blast!

all the things i saw standing on a corner....

Photos taken from where we parked the car to go to Bovine Bakery in Petaluma. I do love a city or town with character. Take your camera out and stand in one spot...see what you can see!

walking before midnight...

Greetings! Tara and I have been talking about how we have kind of lost the knack of both blogging and taking photographs. After many chats and coincidences we decided to partner up and photograph our magic hour walks. Once a month, we will be posting photos and writing about our early evening wanders not too far from home, we're calling it walking before midnight. We hope to encourage you to grab your camera and go for a walk when the light is its most pretty and your surroundings appear magical. Begin small, take a wander around the block or your neighborhood. Look for color or interesting combinations and have fun!

Tara and I couldn't live in more different environments. She lives in the desert and I live on the coast but we still see magic and beauty in the simplest things. From flowers to rocks to cacti or sand, we aim to appreciate the beauty that surrounds us.

I took my magic hour walk along the sands of Avila Beach. Usually I like to walk this sandy stretch early in the morning when the tide is out and there are very few people milling about. Walking this beach after 6pm changes everything about my walk...the tide, the people, the sights, and sounds.

The tide was super high, which made walking in the sand a little more work. My feet would sink, sink, sink, in the soft, soft sand causing the incoming tide to embrace my knees. The air is warmer in the early evening and of course the light, more golden.

 

There are small mounds of golden seaweed scattered across the sand. Feathers are everywhere, poking up out of the sand like small forests and tangled up like a dance party with the golden seaweed.

After wandering out towards the cliffs as far as the tide would allow, we turned around and wandered up to the small village full of touristy shops, coffee houses, and tasting rooms (this is wine country, after all).

It's a tiny little stop along the coast but there is much to look at if you slow down and look. I love the colors I can see, the rust, the green, and the puffs of pink.

How quickly the light changes but it may be those hills you see in the background. One minute the light was golden, the next it was as blue as blue can be and the temperature dropped. People began packing up and making the trek up the sand back to their cars and their homes.

Really, this stretch of sand I love so is not very large at all. Maybe half a mile from end to end. Mostly sand and seaweed with the occasional sand crab tickling your toes. If the tide is out far enough, you can walk to the end where there are small green crabs that hide behind amongst anenomes and if you time it just right you may see a whale breach right before your eyes, a pair of sea otters will float by, and lines of pelicans cast shadows across the sand peppered in criss-crossed footprints of the seagulls as they do their early morning dance before the sea. Click here to see Tara's desert adventure.

an urban hike {sometimes i forget i have allergies}

the mister and i woke up this morning and hit the ground running. first stop, farmer's market where we picked up more eggs than you can shake a stick at, an orange pomegranate juice blend, cara cara oranges (my favorite), kale, shallots, carrots, and all that jazz. from there we probably visited every other market in our town to complete our grocery list which I had created using 4 recipes and a perusal of our pantry. the fridge is quite full of par-cooked goods that i need to work on tomorrow. phew!

after browning the pork roast and popping it into the slow cooker with onions, onions, and more onions. and then taking the lid off the twelve eggs i was boiling for lunches this week, we grabbed the mama a-go-go to get our burger on at our favorite burger joint in Los Osos. between the three of us we barely polished off two burgers, two chocolate malts, and a basket of onion rings. i'm full just typing that all out. it's what we always get unless the mama a-go-go is not with  us then we split a burger and a malt and call it a day. they make the best malts and onion rings. the best.

woodpecker!

the mama a-go-go had some errands to run so we took care of them and had her drop us off downtown so i could hit up the craft store for some for reals needed supplies. after chatting with a couple of awesome shop gals we then wandered up to the library before gamely approaching our walk home which is a whistle shy of 2 miles.

i of course took advantage of the walk and took pictures which is what you see here. it was warm and lovely and my feet are tired.

once home we rehydrated with a tall jar of water each before the mister headed out to the garden to prune the peach tree and i wandered about prepping and cutting school stuff with a manic search for the hole punch somewhere in the middle. i found it...eventually...sheesh!

after a dinner of my famous New Year's Rice i finally plopped onto the sofa and pulled the laptop onto my lap for a round or three of Soda Crush, a but of sad news regarding a family friend, and round of photo editing so i could post here on the blog. my goal for this year is to write more whether i am feeling creative or not.