This is why I love So Cal

Yes, that's 87 degrees at noon. A beautiful, breezy 87 degrees..I can't complain. The shirt below says it perfectly..

Hear me RAWR!

With one of the nephews under our watch on Sunday afternoon, I had the chance to make a prototype pattern for an idea I saw through eighteen25's "You gotta see this" blog the other day.

I raided my stash of anti-pill fleece and let my nephew sort through my leftover felt from the Quiet Book project I made for him a while back. We came up with a Navy blue and red color combo, which he thought was really dinoriffic.

I measured twice..First around his waist, and then from his waist to the floor. I cut a piece of non-roll elastic for his waist ( subtracted 1 inch before cutting) and then got to work on his very own dinosaur tail pattern. I subtracted 2.5 inches from his waist to floor height, so that he wouldn't be tripping all over it, and also to keep it from dragging on the floor. I laid out my fleece doubled over, and drew a swoopy tail shape ( so scientific, I know) that was 2.5 inches less than his waist to floor height in length. For the spine of the dino tail, I cut squares out of stiff red felt ( from the craft section at Michaels) and cut those in half. I pinned them betwee

n the two layers of tail and then got to sewing, leaving a 3' opening at the bottom for stuffing.

Here's where our tail turned into a little "fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants-and-use-whatever-we've-got"...I stuffed the tail with scraps of polar fleece, since I did not have any batting. It worked, but I will definitely be using batting in the future.

I cut two slits in the fat part of the tail and weaved the elastic through ( like a belt loop of sorts). I handstitched the velcro closed ( my machine was hating trying to sew on velcro). He slipped both his feet through, pulled up the waistband, and ladies and gentlemen, bestill yourselves...it's the cutest dinosaur, EVER! I had to share with him while sewing this, that not all aunts can make dinosaur tails..He then says to me, " I know, aunt B, some make T-rex tails". He's probably right..I'll just let him keep thinking that all aunts spoil their nephews with capes and tails and quiet books and such, because I seriously have no willpower when it comes to cute kid projects.

Hear him RAWR!

He loved it so much so, that his dad sent me this picture from school the very next morning, with the following caption " It hasn't come off".

California love

I've been seeing state love everywhere these days.. I fell in love with a print by q.a. design over on etsy which was quite bold and cute, but gave the wrong part of California love with it's heart in San Francisco..So, I set out to make my own version of CA love..and it was so unbelievably easy!

A simple google search for free California state shape clip art, and some editing with my software over at Picnik, and voila...I could give any part of California a little love, and change the state and background color to my liking. Slipped it into a frame that I cluster with others, and wham, bam, thank you ma'am, a little homage to our hometown.

My next state love project will be a set of notecards for correspondence. I am just in LOVE with this little print.

You're my girl, blue!

After 10 years and 107,000 miles of memories, my girl blue died peacefully amongst her commuting friends of Thousand Oaks..

..in the middle of the road..

..during morning rush hour..

Okay, I may have freaked out more than I have ever freaked out in my life, as I sat in my car near the center divide frantically phoning my husband at work asking him what the (bleep) I should do.

So calm, cool and collected ( love his style), he walked me through opening the car door, getting out and crossing traffic to the nearby gas station where I was to ask for help. After getting turned down by the first two guys I asked to help me, two men whose mothers I'd like to thank for teaching them chilvalry, ran to my rescue and pushed my car to safety.

We had her towed to the mechanic, who called NZ with the grim news.

She was dead on arrival.

Timing belt went and engine was screwed up. The damage? More than she was worth.

So, we're sending her to scrapyard Heaven, where her parts will be donated to other little VW's in need. Perhaps her radiator will live on and give new life to another ailing jetta. One can hope, right?

My girl blue and I have had an up and down relationship since we first met. There have been times I have resented her, times I have loved her zippiness, and so many memories of hot leather seats in the Davis heat ( 110 degrees, and black leather anyone?), driving down the 101 with my sunroof open to soak up the random 80 degree December days, and even some nights spent pulling over on the causeway for drunken buddies to call the dinosaurs.

Even though we may be bringing a new car home soon, I have to say in "Old School" fashion,

"You're my girl, blue!"

Blame it on the Rain

I couldn't help but bust out in a Milli Vanilli song, but to be completely accurate, we'd have to also blame the high winds and horrendous weather mother nature sent our way today for what occurred this morning across our neighborhood in lil 'ol N.P.

Our neighbor started out with 8 trees this morning, but by 12 p.m. today, 6 of 8 fell in the windy weather. Thank goodness no one was hurt, and I just watched it all unfold from my kitchen window.

When NZ and our neighbor got home, they felled the last two trees for safety reasons, and NZ spent the rest of the afternoon helping our neighbors cut

up the trees so that the street could be cleared.

This is just one of the many things I love about my husband. Today was his Sunday to relax,check out the RC show, kick back, go to the gym, do whatever he wanted...and what did he do instead??

He helped a friend.

in the rain.

in sopping wet jeans.

for 4 hours straight.

And never once will I hear him complain about it, because well, that's just not his style.

If I had to pick a pickle...

I'd pick Nathan's Kosher Dills....I found these at Sprouts market yesterday and before I even had my key in the ignition, I had opened the jar and taken one glorious bite...

...and it was TOTALLY worth biting a huge chunk out of my lip for....

..but did I let that slow me down??

Absolutely not...and this is why my jar that started with 10 pickles now only has 4.

Time to make a pickle run.

Brownie truffle wanna-be's

I've all but lost my urge to bake lately. Nothing jumps out at me as something that I-must-make-now-or-the-world-will-end, except that the other night, I opened our cabinet to organize our dry goods ( I know, exciting Monday night project, right?) and saw baker's cocoa and a recipe for Brownies.

I attempted to make said Brownies, from said recipe, and added a twist for St Patty's day..by adding mint extract & semi sweet morsels to the batter. I baked up a 1/2 recipe (in case the recipe sucked), put it in a ziploc and mashed it all together into a "dough" of sorts. I rolled the dough into 1 inch balls, and chilled overnight in the fridge, much like one would chill a cakeball. This morning before work, I melted semisweet morsels on 50% heat in the microwave and thinned it with a little bit of that dreaded Crisco for dipping. After dipping each brownie ball, I sprinkled rainbow jimmies on top and placed them in candy wrappers.

Super cute, minty wanna be truffles.

If you're looking for an easy, bite-size gift or treat for those around you, these are perfect!