And the walls came tumbling down...

I have been trying to get unburied from all of the emotional rubble that has fallen on me in the last few days. Today was the first day I started feeling back to normal, however I feel like I have lost a part of me in all of this. I know Tim and I are going to be parents one day, its just hard to think that is possible with all the crap that is going on with Vietnam adoptions right now. My heart goes out to everyone involved in this and to all of the children that need families. The media has taken this story and run with it like always without telling every side. Anyway, enough about that, I have an adoption blog to talk about all of that on. Just really heavy on my mind and I am literally going to be on pins and needles until September 1st. If we don't have our referral by then, we need to make some decisions about how to move forward (ugh, just typing that makes me cry).
I will make a normal post later.

Stunned...

I am currently at a loss for words and can't update at this time. I feel like my entire weekend was a blur since I got hit with an adoption update on Friday.
More on my Operation Olive blog about our adoption.

No, you are not seeing things

I made a very slight change to the set up of my blog - I widened the columns a bit and made the font one point larger. I noticed that some of my things (you tube posts and others) were getting cut off (how rude!). So fascinating changing the HTML code and have it actually work!

Oakland's Chinatown

Went to Oakland's Chinatown today in search of the ever elusive Foo Dogs (Fu?) for my bosses office. I know, it sounds crazy, but our entire office is getting a Feng Shui face lift to shift the energy in there. Some of it makes sense, like the placement of furniture in the room (no backs to the door, etc.), but the hanging crystals, wind chimes and mirrors used to move energy in a different way kill me sometimes. I guess everyone has their thing and we are in Northern California. I guess I am still a bit small town when it comes to those things.

Anyway, Chinatown was cool, but no dogs.

One of my Favorite Kitchen Tools!

Have I ever mentioned that I have a couple favorite kitchen tools?

Here is one - I will profile her in this posting (she doesn't like the share the spotlight).

You can find one for super cheap at any Asian Market (there are a million here). She works for everything from straining pasta to rinsing a handful of berries.

They come in many different sizes, mine is about the size of both of my hands together. I figure I can't hold more than a handful and she shouldn't have to either. They are also available with a brass basket, but I prefer the silver color.

PS - Got the lovely strawberries at Costco this weekend, grown in the U.S.A!

Saturday

What a nice Saturday I had.

It all started with the cutest doughnut ever - thanks Tim!

After my sugary start to the day I just hung out. It was so nice to have a day to myself, no plans, nothing to do. Well, I take that back, my place is a wreck, but I wanted to relax, not clean and work around the house. So I watched TV, read magazines and had some fun with Tim at home. Hope you all had a mellow Saturday as well.

The Pope

Just thought I would share this, I thought it was a great speech.
I heard it live on the radio and just knew it would make it to You Tube.
Enjoy.

The Tortoise and the Hare

Just a reminder of a fable we all hear as kids - and a reminder, Life is Not a Contest!
Once upon a time a hare saw a tortoise walking slowly along and began to laugh and mock him. The tortoise challenged the hare to a race and the hare, thinking himself the fastest animal around, accepted. They agreed on a route and started off the race. The hare shot ahead and ran briskly for some time. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise, he thought he'd sit under a tree for some time and relax before continuing the race.
He sat under the tree and soon fell asleep. The tortoise, plodding on, overtook him and finished the race. The hare woke up and realized that he had lost the race.
The moral, stated at the end of the fable, is, "Slow and steady wins the race."
-From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Having Fun and Taking Care of Business

Busy weekend - had a lot of fun and got to knock some things off my 101/1001 list at the same time. We went to Sacramento for a garage sale at the Asch house, it was also Angela's birthday so I brought some goodies with us.
Friday night I baked these lemon pound cakes to take to Sacramento with us on Saturday. Super easy and really moist and yummy.

I also have to share my first major baking disaster, while making these red velvet cupcakes. Everything was going great, I mistakenly filled the cupcake papers a little too full so when they started to bake, they puffed up and spread out a little on the muffin tin. I thought, no problem, they will just have little hats on when they are done. I think they would have been OK, but I let them cool too long in the pan and the overflow tops stuck to the pan and wouldn't budge! I tried to run a knife under their edges and nothing, so, I thought I will cut around the tops completely and cover the rough edges with frosting, no go, it didn't work. I was so upset that after prying 4 of them out of the pan, that were delicious and perfect - except for the messy tops, I threw the entire pan of them away. I generally don't have too many of these episodes, so I had to laugh. I had already made the cream cheese frosting too! Good thing I had baked some of the batter in a couple ramekins and those were fine, so I made a mini Birthday cake out of one for Angela, so she had a little something special for the day. The pound cakes were just not good enough for me to give to her for her Birthday.

Saturday, we work up at 6 AM, packed the car with stuff to sell and hit the road to get to Sacramento. We had a nice drive, once we got out of the city, construction on the bay bridge held us up a little bit. We got there and set up our stuff to sell. I had a couple boxes of things to unload, but am also going to join our neighborhood sale in August, so I kept all my books here until then. We did pretty good, we made enough to fill the tank with gas this week, which is great! Did I mention the heat? It was super hot too, we packed up everything around 1:00 and moved to the backyard for the rest of the day. Frankie is getting so big, when we went to CO in February, he was starting to cut teeth and now he has 6! He is such a sweet baby, we had fun together taking photos while he was on my lap and then he would look at them and squeal! What did we do before digital cameras?We hung out and enjoyed the sun and had a BBQ dinner, it was incredible! It reminded me of Birthday's at my parent's house. It also made me sad, because, I am not sure if I mentioned it before, but, maybe it is because I don't want to deal with it, but, Angela, Brian and Frankie are moving in three weeks to Colorado. My one friend here with a baby, my friend that I have had the longest out here (we met before I was married), she is literally like a sister to me and she is moving. Ugh, I honestly, don't want to talk about it. Call it denial, that is fine, I can deal with that. I am sure I will approach the subject at another time about how much this girl means to me. We had such a nice day. We left when it was time for Frankie's bath time as to keep him on schedule. We drove home listening to a Dead show from 1991, which was cool. It was hot so we had the windows open the entire way, I loved it! I love driving and listening to music. Which I should also mention, I am driving to CO with Angela and her 2 dogs and 2 cats the first weekend in May. Her husband is driving with his friend and her Mom is coming to get the baby and fly with him. It should be fun, I am looking forward to it actually, can you tell how bad I want a vacation?

Sunday, slept until about 9:45 am - watched the Lifetime movie I taped from Saturday night and made a lemon meringue pie while Tim was out playing tennis. We just had a nice spaghetti dinner (Tim's favorite) and are just hanging out at home.I have an OK week ahead of me, not too much going on, which is nice.

Hope you all had a nice weekend and have a wonderful week.

Spring 2008 Flying Nun

If only the flying nun had read Vogue magazine...

Balenciaga Spring 2008 Collection