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I'm sure you're tired of staring at dead fish. Would you believe we made biscuits in a skillet on the grill when we went camping? We did. And they came out a-mazing. Just like in the oven. All you have to do is cover them with a lid or metal plate and flip them once. Nicola, the other mom in our group, brought Pillsbury biscuit dough. She 'discovered the dough' before their last campout and was pleasantly surprised how well the biscuits cooked in a skillet with a lid. Yes, you read right. She had never seen Pillsbury biscuit dough before. I was like, HUH? REALLY? Then I remembered she's from England. They are missing out over there. I wonder if she's tried the cinnamon rolls? They're a staple in our house, which could be why my jeans are getting a wee bit tight. Thankfully she brought enough biscuit dough for everyone because there would have been some really sad faces at camp if we couldn't get a bite of one. The girls were going to ma...

Wrights Lake Last weekend we went camping for the last time this summer. This time we went to an area near South Lake Tahoe where we got to hang out at two beautiful lakes - Ice House Lake and Wrights Lake. It was my third time to camp this summer. That's a lot for a girl that's never camped in her life. School starts on September 1st. I think our camping adventures are over for a while. The Ice House Lake Campground was a beautiful place. Nice big sites and really clean. The only downside was the port-a-potty out houses and the two wandering camp bears. Not one, but two. Thankfully I never saw the bears. But one of the guys in our group did. Scary! Don doesn't know it yet, but I get to pick the next campsite. There will be flushing toilets and showers.  We spent a lot of time at the lake swimming, hanging out, and relaxing. I even relaxed a little. We were hanging out at the beach on Friday afternoon when a guy walked up to the group next to us ...

I ordered Elli this new Goodbyn lunch box today which I found on reuseit.com. She is going to love it. It's a container and lunchbox in one. She'll probably use it as a seat too knowing her. Good thing she has a tiny hiney. I was on the hunt for new plastic lunch containers. Elli and the dog have destroyed all our plastic containers that we use for her lunches. Her favorite container was one that had three compartments. Unfortunately, the dog got both of them and now they are gone. I've looked around town in different stores to replace them and can't find them anywhere. Her school encourages ZERO waste. So plastic containers are a necessity. I decided to shop online since my store search failed. My Google search led me to reuseit.com. What a find!! I think this Goodbyn lunch box is even better (sturdier) than our old container. And I think Elli is going to LOVE it. And the best part? She's going to think it's so cute she won't use it to dig dirt ...

I wish it was mine, but it's not. I didn't get a new iPad. Elli and Don did. Elli really wanted an iPad so Don made a deal with her. If she could save half the money ($350) then he would pitch in the other half and they would get it together. Elli has worked for months cat sitting for different neighbors to save the money. She charges $5 a visit. Most people ask her to come 2x a day, so she makes $10/day. She finally reached her goal and was chomping at the bit to get that iPad. Don was hesitating. He didn't want to buy the iPad2 and have the iPad3 come out the next week. He finally gave in and ordered it. Elli was beyond excited. She went crazy. They picked out a cool purple cover and has been downloading and exploring all the fun their new iPad has to offer. She has loaded all her favorite games and swears she's going to load some new books to read. I may just have to order those for her. Just to make sure. I must say, I'm pretty proud of her for sa...

Elli and I stopped at a little market in Sonoma called The Fruit Basket. I love stopping at this place on my way home from Napa. The fruit and vegetables seem so fresh compared to the grocery store. Plus I just like the little market. It's kind of like shopping at a farmers market, but it's open every day. I have a bad habit of planning my meal while I'm at the store. So I shop all the time. And this place has become my dinner companion. I just see what looks good that day. They have lots of different packages of rice and pasta in addition to the fruit and veggies. Elli wanted to try a bunch of different stuff including quinoa. Who knew? So watch for that as soon as I figure out what to do with it. But back to tonight's dinner. I had chicken thawing in the fridge, I just needed to turn it into something. I saw tortillas and immediately knew I wanted to make fajitas. I grabbed an onion, some peppers (yellow, red, and jalapeno), the tortillas a...

Elli and I went to the pool last night to catch a quick swim before dinner. No one was at the pool when we got there. We both jumped right in, wasting no time. The water temperature was perfect. It felt great stretching in the water. We weren't alone for long. A mom and her three kids arrived about ten minutes later. Two of the three kids jumped right in. The other, a boy, seemed to be having a bad day. He was hiding under a towel by his mom. Elli and I kept to ourselves playing in the water. She was pretending to be a mermaid with her cute yellow flippers and I swam some laps. "Mom, look! I'm doing the butterfly." she said. "Keep your feet together. Kick like a dolphin." I added. "And move your hands in a figure eight under the water like this." I said. I then proceeded to demonstrate the butterfly. My first few strokes were decent. I think. But then I felt heavy and choppy in the water. I had no core strength to ...

Baking is like science, right? When you don't exactly have all the ingredients for a recipe it's like creating an experiment. It could be really good. Or as I know from personal experience, it could be really, really bad. I got lucky today. I wanted to make pancakes but the recipe I had called for 3 cups of buttermilk which I didn't have. I checked in the fridge, I had one cup of whole milk. So I cut the recipe in half and used my milk plus some water to net one and a half cups of liquid. I knew this would make a thin batter so I decided to make crepes instead. My family would never know that the original plan was to make pancakes. I had blueberries and raspberries that I could roll inside, and white chocolate chips for Elli. She would love that. And the result? Yum. Yum. Yum. They could have been a little thinner. But no one here was complaining. Maybe I should call them thin pancakes? Crepe (Thin Pancake) 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 t. ba...

It ain't pretty. Especially on me. Because I wear it like a maxi dress. It consumes me head to toe. So what am I jealous about? Everything. And I mean everything. But I'm especially jealous that I'm not going to a Blogging conference with all my blogging and writing buddies. I want to go so bad I even tried to find a free ticket from some poor soul that can't go and would take pity on me at the last minute. Nevermind that the conference is in San Diego - which is not exactly around the corner from SF, and it's over two days, which would mean I would need a place to sleep and shower. And of course I have no budget for any of that. It's killing me. Everyone is BlogHer this and BlogHer that. I want to tell them all to zip it, to stop going on and on about the Tori Burch sandals you ordered at the last minute that are getting shipped to you, or the fun you're going to have at the Clever Girls rock star party. I had a ticket and had to give it u...

A new customer called our store today. "Hi, I have a sleeper sofa that I want recovered." she said. "Ok. Tell me about it. What size bed is it? Is it a queen?" I asked. "No it's a double. The couch is from 1932." she said. My brain stopped right there. Wow. They had sleeper sofa's back in 1932. That's pretty amazing. And then I thought HOLY COW who still has a sleeper sofa from 1932? "How much is it to recover the couch?" she asked. I asked her a few more questions than gave her an estimate of $X. "Wow."  she said. "That's a lot more than the other estimate I have. "Oh. Ok. Well, it's a lot of work to reuphoster a sleeper sofa. We have to take the whole thing apart and put it back together." I replied. I thought it would be around $Y (which is exactly half of the quote I gave her.). That's how much your owner told me it would be when I came in 16 years ago. hmmmmm." she said cu...