We love Market Day & Roasted Beet Salad

Santa Cruz always has the most enjoyable farmer's markets--lots of cute mandolin players, nice people, and things that I like to eat (which always instantly makes everything the best). 

With the new produce, I made a fresh salad with roasted beets, fresh lettuce, apples, goat cheese, and a quick apple cider vinaigrette. 

 It is now very rainy and cold, so I'll be finishing some work and drinking tea inside all night.  

Have a lovely evening!

Joseph Knows How to....Flower Arrange?

Who knew?  It was closing night of my last dance performance at UCSC, and Joseph had picked and arranged flowers for me as a surprise! And what a wonderful surprise it was...

In recent news: I bought new herbs! As I type I've got some fresh mint tea brewing in my loose leaf teapot.

The far left is mint, the center is chocolate mint, and the right is parsley.  Hopefully these seedlings will bloom nicely and the mint will (hopefully) be nice to each other and the parsley.

Hoping everybody had a beautiful week!  There are going to be so many interesting, new, things happening in my life in the next few weeks--and I'm really excited to see what kind of surprises life decides to throw my way.

Love,

Amanda

10 Things that Make Amanda Very Happy

1. Socks right out of the dryer

2. Stealing the gentleman's sweater right out of the dryer

3. Springing up out of bed at the thought of a french press

4. A good book

5. Knowing that my parents are party animals now that us kids are grown-ups

6. Writing letters

7. Purchasing flowers at the Farmer's Market

8. Dessert. (Forever)

9. Breakfast outdoors

10. New Recipes

Sometimes it's nice to reflect on the little things every so often.

Love,

Amanda

Celebrations of Presidents, and Birthdays.

This extra long weekend was filled with loads of fun.  We drove up to Sonoma County in the evening and went to a yum Thai restaurant for Jenny's birthday.  Joseph & I love Thai food, and sometimes it doesn't really love us back.  In any case, Joseph's G-ma kept us all laughing while she went on about how her Pad-Thai tasted like spaghetti.  We then named her dish, "Spaghe-Thai".

The drive was absolutely gorgeous.

 

Wonderful news! Jenny loved our gift.  It was an antique jewelery box shaped like a pyramid, in which each compartment we filled with goodies: a wallet, a necklace, and a pin.  Here is her cute little face after she opened it:

 Anyway, the J-man was stylin' today, so I took a few snapshots while he was loading his things in the car:

Off to go get some things done for now and then out for some fresh grocers to make a tasty dinner for us tonight.  Eatin' good this weekend.

Adventures in Aptos

So here we are, our first post on the ol' blogger!

Tomorrow after my performance, we'll be driving a few hours north to Sonoma County to celebrate Joseph's sister's 19 years of being alive.  So to prepare for this bonanza, we decided to go a little further up Highway 1 to satisfy our daily dosage looking at old things.  We found Jenny a few really awesome things that will be photographed at a later time, hopefully when we get to see her cute little smiling face while she opens the gift.  Us, on the other hand, got a few things as well!  I also was able to put the camera to use, which always makes me love life a little more.

Before any of this money-spending even happened, though, our plan quickly turned into an adventure when we made a wrong turn and decided to use my non existent four-wheel-drive on an unpaved road.  We braved rough terrain and maybe had to fight off banshees in the process (maybe.), but we found a run-down hotel-turned-restaurant in the process and took a few snapshots in the backyard.

 After that, we found the Antique Mall, but had to brave more rough terrain and chain linked fences to arrive at our destination.

And we made it! Let the antiquing begin. 

Joseph found an awesome tie clip shaped like a Saw.  It'll look real fancy with the new tie I got him for Valentines day.

I even picked up a pair of vintage 1950's sunglasses that (clearly) made me very happy.

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Hoping everybody is having a lovely Saturday.  Here's to another performance tonight.  

With love,

Amanda