fifteen years ago...

We met for root beer floats and food...walked around my neighborhood, decided we could be friends. Months later, after hanging out and many (well...for us...many) phone calls, he came to my birthday party and helped clean up. A few days later we went on an official date and never looked back.

have (sour) peaches, make (sweet) sauce

The mama a-go-go's peach tree actually produced some fruit this year...for awhile there it was touch and go. Aadly, the fruit, while stunning, is a bit tart with a slightly bitter after taste. Weirdly, the peaches also make my teeth feel squeaky...go figure. To make use of the peaches and to feel productive, I cooked two or three down to a delightful sauce. I used the applesauce approach...chop to bits, toss into a saucepan with a cup of sugar and a half cup of water, a pinch of salt, a generous twist or two (or three) of black pepper and hope for the best. We ate it on ice cream, pork roast, burrito bowls (like slasa), and on our oats. I even enjoyed a spoonful or two in fizzy water and/or iced tea. It was more sauce than we could handle really, the jar got stood up and scootched to the back of the fridge where it became forlorn and forgotten. Thee wasn't too much leftover but the fuzz came to the party and it had to be ditched. On the plus side, the jar is now fresh and waiting for a new partner!

a 17 piece red, white, and blue wardrobe

I finished my 31 Days of Red, White, & Blue. This time, I went the capsule route and narrowed it down to 17 pieces for 31 days...19 if you count the two tops I wore only once and ditched. This round features 8 pieces from Lularoe. If you haven't heard of Lularoe, you might want to hit the internet to find out more. Just so ya know, I am not a consultant, just a fan of the happy, comfy, clothes!

dropping the mister off...

The mister is going on an eight day hike on the John Muir trail. We headed down to L.A. two days before the send-off to enjoy friends and food. Our first stop was Ba Le Banh Mi, of course. Good golly I wish we had a good Vietnames eatery up here in SLO. Drooooool.

 It was a bit hot in L.A. so we headed to the home house of the mister's hiking buddy and old friend. The plan was to meet up with other people in the evening so until then...we napped.

The eatery idea was nixed and so we chowed down on doctored up frozen pizza at a dive bar in Altadena. I'm not much of a drinker and after trying to order cocktails with spirits only to find only beer and wine were served, I settled in with some bubbly. The pizza was really good, the company delightful. After awhile, the mister realized he performed here back in his band-playing days...he played bass guitar...one of their songs was even on a skate punk compilation. Hee-hee.

 The mister made himself a hiking kilt. He's become one of those nutty "make everything yourself" types...there's an actually acronym of some kind for his hiking archetype but I can't recall what it is. For some reason, all I can think of is MOPAR, but he's not a Valiant...

We spent two nights in the nifty basement apartment at the homestead. No matter how often we stay there, I always find something of interest to photograph..at least to me.

This is not the frozen pizza from the bar, but homemade pizza that our host made using tomatoes from his garden. We ate it for breakfast and it was delicious. I should have unburdened some of those tomatoes off of our host. Drats!

Of course we had Fosselman's. Summer time means peach ice cream. The mister and I will share a triple scoop. He picks a flavor (toasted almond or peach), I pick a flavor (always chocolate dipped strawberry), and then we go with either horchata or blueberry.

on skeeziness and homemade dressing

It's been too hot to cook so salad it is. I've been lazy and scooping up bagged salads here and there...the kind with the dressing and all the bits wrapped up in a zillion little plastic bags which I am simultaneously grateful for and skeezed out about all the waste. They are handy though, as is the equally skeezy chicken I buy by the bagful from Trader Joe's which gets roasted up and scissored to bits to add a bit of protein to our dinner. This time around though, the greens came from the farmers market (farmer's market?) as did the blueberries (the chicken however is trusty old TJ's). To add to my feelings of fanciness, I whipped up a honey lime dressing with no recipe...a little olive oil, juice from two limes, a spoonful of honey, crushed garlic, and a dash of salt and pepper. Yum!

31 days of red, white, and blue is back!

Days 1-12...trying hard to not drop it this time and for the most part I'm playing with Lularoe pieces. Bottoms at least, the tops do not work for me but I do love me an Azure skirt!