and i think to myself...what a wonderful world

things that make me happy

2012-02-11T11:28:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning chai tea in a jar.

Bright, springy daffodils from my love.

Sweet card from my team!

self portrait

2012-02-11T10:09:00.001-08:00

Feb. photo a day photo for Friday. almond eye! I remember doing a self portrait project in first grade. We were working with partners and had to ask our partners what shape our eyes were. There were a few choices, round, almond, oval. I was pretty certain my eyes were round but to my shock my partner took one look at me and said "Almond."

i love the home that this door leads to...

2012-02-09T21:38:00.001-08:00

sun!

2012-02-08T21:58:00.000-08:00

my favorite button!

2012-02-08T06:32:00.000-08:00

enough said :)

breakfast for dinner

2012-02-07T07:32:00.000-08:00

Eggs, potatoes, onions and kale :)

10am, warm frothy milk...

2012-02-05T15:25:00.000-08:00

...makes homemade chai tea so luxurious!

spread joy

2012-02-04T18:46:00.001-08:00

photo of the day - stranger -
Thaks for the yummy Village Cheese House sammy to fuel us up for wedding invite creating and the nice reminder :).

Timshel

2012-02-04T11:10:00.000-08:00

"Timshel," a word that loosely translates as "thou mayest;" the word suggests that we as humans, with the consciousness we "achieved" by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden, can in every moment CHOOSE our behavior; we can choose between good and evil."

Timshel - Mumford and Sons...

to have and to hold

2012-02-03T22:25:00.000-08:00

Pic. of the day - our hands

Thanks to Lisa for this beauty :).

words

2012-02-02T15:35:00.001-08:00

Picture a day picture for today. Prompt = words.

What's better than words in a love letter from the man I get to marry!

guys, I'm here!

2012-02-01T21:05:00.000-08:00

Hi! Sorry for the long absence, did ya miss me?!!?!! Absence makes the heart grow fonder right people?!

I've just been having a little blogger's block lately! Well that and I've been spending hours and hours on the basketball court and some more hours dreaming up wedding DIY projects!

I think part of my problem is that sometimes I feel like I have soooooooo much to share that I don't know where to start and then I just get kinda paralyzed and don't end up writing anything at all...so, I'm piggy backing on a little February project that dear friend Kat/George is undertaking - the infamous picture a day project in hopes that this will help give me a little focus. (Ha! More like a little wedding project procrastination) Check out the prompts here - http://instagr.am/p/mrbSB/.

And here's my 1st photo!

My view on my walk to work in the morning. Past big, beautiful trees that on sunny days have the most beautiful light shining through them!

And on side notes - a couple fun things from today - A new music discovery - Of Monsters and Men. If you've got Spotify, check 'em out!

And I saw a cool quote on the facebop today that I liked ---

"Until you have done something for humanity you should be ashamed to die." -Christopher Hitchens

Maybe a little harsh, but I like it :).

Scenes from the weekend :)

2012-01-16T20:36:00.000-08:00

Ceremony brainstorming while sipping green tea out of our sweet new tea kettle courtesy of Mike and Tara. Also - drawing serious inspiration from our new lego bride and groom courtesy of Kat and Erik :).

Using up the frozen bananas in the freezer.

indulging our new addiction - bananagrams by candle light with hot cocoa :)

3 day weekend, come back please!

Simple Pleasures

2012-01-08T18:53:00.000-08:00

stirring cream into sweet potato soup (that link is for YOU Clare :))- love something about those creamy swirls, love 'em in coffee and tea too!

golden afternoon sunlight in our home.

the dough hook on a Kitchen Aid - that thing does wonders with flour, salt, olive oil and eggs.

starting from scratch

and creating something that usually comes out of a package - it just tastes better even if it's a little uglier :).

the endless possibilities in bru-skeh-teh!

gorgeous days at the beach in JANUARY!

water crashing up against rocks and making great, big splashes!

new music (at least to me :))!

Thank you 2011.

2012-01-02T20:04:00.000-08:00

For health, love and good friends.

For visits from Mom and Dad, Clare, Mark and Rachel, Niki and Ryan and Christina and Lane.

For a firm hand shake from the President himself and for almost getting to touch Joshua Radin -ha!

For moving in to a sweet home with my love and getting to start each day beside him and to end each day coming home to him.

For celebrating the marriage of two dear friends, Lindsey and Nate.

For introduction to the practice of meditation.

For the opportunity to see beautiful new parts of the country in Santa Fe and Crestone.

For the joy of watching tomatoes grow. And then eating them in all sorts of forms - like candy straight off the vine, in sauces, soups etc.!!!

For my own engagement story, more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.

For the new family that comes along with marrying Joe!

For Kat and Laura's engagement - it's so nice to have friends to go through the wedding planning process with.

For finding a beautiful wedding venue and having a family that constantly reminds me how excited they are to celebrate the love Joe and I share.

For the third annual Yosemite trip and Friendsgiving - Friend star and Friend star husbands and fiances - you continue to be such a bright spot in my life.

For a successful meeting of the parents at Thanksgiving in San Diego and loving and warm future in-laws.

For another opportunity to work with young women on the basketball floor - even if we haven't won a game yet :).

For reminding me that trying to arrive 5 minutes early has incredible stress reducing effects.

For a week on the road with my fiance visiting and basking in time spent with our growing family and friends.

For reminding me that relationships of all kinds take constant care to maintain but that if you care for relationships properly, they can be one of the greatest sources of joy in your life.

Happy 2012! Here's to a year of celebrating love (we have 6 weddings to attend so far!) and nurturing the relationships that bring joy to my life, including the one with myself.

2011 Holiday slideshow

2012-01-01T20:36:00.001-08:00

From the snowy roads in Flagstaff...

or should I say the snowy front yards that Joe, Mark and Mike thwomped through in Mark's old Jeep in order to transport Christmas meal fixings...

To trudging through the back alley from Mark and Rachel's place to Mike and Tara's place with cups of coffee in hand - ALWAYS with cups of coffee in hand :).

To celebrating engagements with my future sister-in-law.

And up-ing the number of girls Clare has on her side!

She's been outnumbered by these guys for far too long :).

To Christmas morning madness...

and satisfied boys- ahem, men - with their new tools!

From road side coffee in Sedona - what else do you do when you need some caffeine and all the coffee shops are closed on Christmas day?

To the inevitable jump shot...

and a picture of the whole crew...

To sunset runs on the beaches of San Diego...

It doesn't get much better than this in December!

To shopping trips with my sister and favorite shopping partner ever (with the exception of my Mom)...

To hanging out with Grandpa listening to stories of the service in WWII that got him that shiny medal!

And cozying up around the fire with friends I've known since elementary school...

To ringing in the New Year on the Dipsea trail through the Muir Woods, Tamalpais State Park, and on to Stinson beach with the man I love and am going to MARRY in 6 months...

I feel grateful beyond words for all the gifts and challenges that 2011 brought and feel re-charged by all the family and friend time in beautiful places over the past two weeks. Bring it on 2012!

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu

Song of the day...

2011-12-20T21:16:00.000-08:00

Joe and I are having a super quiet and cozy winter night at home, writing Christmas cards, lighting Hannukah candles and listening to this song. Something about the beauty of this one always makes me a little teary...

Hello two week vacation!!!

2011-12-16T06:57:00.001-08:00

If my life had a sound track this morning, these two songs would be playing. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited for a two week vacay!

I love being engaged to Joe!

2011-12-09T15:07:00.000-08:00

So we're 3 months into the world of wedding planning and I won't lie, it's been a little crazy at times. BUT you know what? I absolutely love, love, love, love, love being engaged to Joe! I love that the novelty of calling each other fiance hasn't worn off. I love that he sometimes calls me sparkles because my ring is so darn sparkly and that I love that sometimes in the middle of a conversation for no reason at all, we just stop and say - "Hey, we're getting married!" And then we both just smile really big.

When we were first engaged, people asked if it felt different and to be honest, at the beginning, it didn't really feel that different to me. But now, with a couple months of this engagement thing behind us (we're like old pros at this now) it actually does feel very different. It's funny, it's not that I didn't think about the reality of spending the rest of my life with Joe before we got engaged, but somehow I think that actually being engaged makes the whole "rest of our lives" thing really start to sink in.

Since Joe proposed and I said yes and we actually committed to this whole committing our lives to each other thing, I've been finding myself thinking more and more about how this man is going to be my life partner and how awesome that is and how incredibly smart I am for saying yes. (Ha! How's that for some unabashed bragging :)). It's true though, there are plenty of times when I think, man, I am getting the better end of this deal :).

Thanks for reading my crazy engagement thoughts everyone! happy weekending!

Song of the day...

2011-12-03T22:52:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving - Parents meet the Parents edition

2011-11-27T12:14:00.000-08:00

Well Joe and I are back in town after an epic Thanksgiving weekend with the parents! Both sets! Yep, that's right Amy and Gary met Karen and Tom and well, I'd have to say the meet up was a success. I mean look at these guys, they are practically besties, right?!

Kickin' the kids butts on a post- Turkey meal walk. We needed it after ingesting too much/not enough of my fav. sweet potato soup!

And Karen's deeeeelish pumpkin and zuchinni bread...

As the parents bonded, the kids were busy perfecting our jump shots, obviously.

Jess and Paul - take 1- the starfish jump

Sarah and Joe - take 2 - the toyota jump and the meditating buddha

Jess and Paul - Take 3 - bendy limbs

Thanksgiving day treated us to an awesome sunset from the ridge!

But much to our family's dismay, the calorie burn didn't stop there - Joe and I coerced the crew into a little paper crane folding for the wedding. Here's a shot of Joe leading the crane folding workshop. My dad is probably asking for some extra help on the elusive "square" step, Tom is surely chanting our mantra to himself, "Happily Ever After," - right Tom?! And Paul is probably kicking back and thinking, C'mon Gary, it's not that hard! ha!

They rocked it! Although, not without a fair amount of good hearted griping :).

We even recruited the F4L to help! I'm thinking there might be some forced smiles here, especially from Ryan :).

We folded so many, we couldn't even fit all of them in our luggage!

Joe and I managed to sneak away for a couple runs! Including this "burly" one to the top of the Ramona Dam.

And this one around the lake...

I had to figure in a few ways to offset all the turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie I ate so I could fit into a wedding dress or two for the wedding dress shopping extravaganza! My mom, my future mother-in-law and the sister accompanied me to brave black Friday Wedding dress shopping! And well, these ladies helped me find a beautiful dress on a super Black Friday special! I felt so lucky to have us all together for this! Here's a quick shot from our pre-shopping girls lunch at the Winery! For a pic of the dress, well, you'll just have to come to the wedding!

All in all, maybe one of my favorite Thanksgivings ever! Joe and I feel so, so, so, so, so, so, so thankful to have not just one, but TWO families behind us. I have to say that one of the coolest things about getting married is the coming together of families. I just love the idea of family extending beyond blood relations, it's such a peaceful and joyful thing to me. And well I'm super happy to say that this family extending was truly peaceful and joyful!!

-Love, our kitchen crew!

Scenes from Friendsgiving #3

2011-11-20T20:37:00.001-08:00

I can hardly believe it's Turkey time again and I can hardly believe that this is our 3rd annual Friendsgiving! Theme this year = Damn good food and man did the crew pull through! From butternut squash/mushroom bread pudding to twice baked potatoes, stuffing muffins, pomegranate/grapefruit salad, sauteed brussel sprouts to cider and cedar planked salmon - the food was damn good and so was the company as usual! Kudos to Kat and Erik for coming up with a round of Friendsgiving Jeopardy! Coolest thing about this year's gathering? We're all married or engaged! Ha, how's that for getting old! And at next year's Friendsgiving, we'll all be married! Feeling super thankful for all the love floating around in this group!

The crew folding cranes to build up our appetites...

Joe's cedar planked salmon.

A few of my favs, jars and leaves :).

Jars, leaves and cranes.

Our growing crane collection thanks to Kat, Lindsey and Laura!

Maybe my perfect weekend?

2011-11-06T18:12:00.000-08:00

So, I think my perfect weekend consists of the following;

1) Two full nights of sleep with no alarms
2) A couple leisurely cups of chai
3) A hard trail run
4) New music discovery
5) An evening with friends
6) Getting really cool engagement photos back :)
7) A yoga class
8) A car cleaning session
9) Deelish homemade dinner
10) a good blogging sesh

Hmmmmm...am I getting really old and boring? Well maybe so but in any case, I got to do every one of these things this weekend and I couldn't be happier about it! Joe and I did our usual Windy Hill run after a full night sleep on Saturday morning and I have to say, it was one of my favorite runs in quite a while. One of my favorite things about this trail is the way that it changes just about every time we run it, whether it's the seasons, the fog, the rain, the sun, something is always different and I just revel in that! Saturday morning the trails were covered in fall leaves and the combo of the yellow, green and little bits of sunshine streaming through the trees just made me feel so grateful and so alive.

After a hot shower, chai #1 of the weekend, a couple hours of crossing some things off our to-do lists, and a new music discovery (I'm late to the party but Joe introduced me to Tim O'Brien this weekend and I've had him on my Spotify play list all day long today) Joe and I got a little gussied up and made our way out to celebrate Kat and Erik's engagement! Kat's parents threw a beautiful party at their home with a yummy buffet and and an awesome live Jazz trio! Good food, good music and some of my favorite peeps and some cool new peeps always makes my heart sing!

On our way home from Kat and Erik's engagement party, I checked my phone and had a text message and email from Lisa saying that she had posted our Engagement photos. I've been so super excited about getting these back all week and I was practically bursting at the seems on the drive home, anxious to take a look at Lisa's website when we got home! I felt so full of emotion as Joe and I got a chance to go through the photos - Lisa absolutely brought to life the exact vision we had for the shoot. As if she doesn't have enough to do as a mother of 4, she spent hours on Pinterest with me in the weeks leading up to the shoot culling engagement photos to come up with poses, lighting ideas etc. Her dedication to making our vision a reality is more meaningful to me than I could ever explain in words. It feels kind of like a dream come true, that this woman who I have shared so much of my life/relationship joys and sorrows with over the past two years via the blogosphere was the one that was behind the camera capturing the essence of Joe and I. There were a couple moments during the shoot when I just felt like tearing up thinking about how this was all unfolding. I feel so inspired by Lisa's kindness and friendship and so blessed knowing that Joe and I will have these photos for the rest of our lives, to remind us of how in love we are with each other and to share with current family and future family. Whew - I better cut the sap, before I drown myself in a puddle of tears over here - here's a link to the shoot! We're simply over the moon about them...

http://www.7ofjune.com/?p=899

So, although running is one of our favorite things to do together, I have to say that one of the best feelings for Joe and I is waking up on a Sunday morning and knowing that we are NOT going for a run! You know we love our runs, but we sure do treasure lazy weekend mornings too! We got another good night of sleep and with a hard run behind us, the only thing that we jumped out of bed to do on Sunday was to fire up a cup of coffee and chai! We didn't hang around the house too long though. I have been missing out on my regular Tuesday night yoga class because of basketball, so I told Joe that I wanted to head out for a late morning yoga class and he said he'd go with me! Yay! I love yoga on my own, but I love it even more when Joe joins! So we got our downward dog on and gosh, yoga always feels that much better the day after a hard run :). Our instructor had us think of something we were grateful for to start class and I found my mind racing as I mentally went through my list.

After yoga Joe and I ran a couple errands and then came home and I cleaned our cars. Call me crazy, but there is something so calming to me about having a clean car - I blame my mom and my Grandpa who always take pride in having clean cars :).

And that brings me to now. Joe made the most delicious homemade chicken enchiladas tonight and my belly is full of them and I am sitting here doing something that I love as much as him - blogging :). If that's not a perfect weekend, I don't know what is :).

oooh and a few pics of the weekend that I had to share...

Check out Joe's table! It's finished! The man amazes me - isn't this beautiful? He chopped one of our old IKEA tables up and made a square table with a beautiful tile inlay using tile that we bought n Santa Fe. I love it and it feels so special to have something that h enjoyed making so much in our home oooh and those roses are the flowers he had waiting me on Tuesday night after my first day of basketball practice. He's always tellin' me how proud he is of me for coaching - I'm so incredibly grateful for his support in my pursuit of things I love.

This was the most delicious cup of hot cocoa I sipped as I did some bball practice planning today. Made even more delicious because the mug was made by Lindsey:).

And this is the latest addition to the craft room/gym! A pull-up bar! Rule is, any time you walk by the bar you have to do a pull up :). We'll see how long that holds up!

Just a teaser...

2011-11-03T20:54:00.000-07:00

Lisa - aka Super Mom of 4 - aka Photographer extraordinaire just posted a photo from our Engagement shoot last weekend. Lisa totally gave us the royal treatment last weekend. We arrived at her place at 1 to apple pie and coffee. After meeting the fam and chowing on some sweet treats we went to check out the photo site she had staked out - it was ABSOLUTELY perfect for us! She even found a couple posts that we could rig our mason jar lanterns from! She let me crash her bathroom to get ready. She spent two hours with us shooting hundreds of photos. She actually laid all the way down on her stomach on the road and on a grassy/weedy field to try to get the best possible shot of us. And to top it all off she tasked her sweet husband and kiddos to prep dinner for us when we returned! Here's a quick look!

http://www.7ofjune.com/?p=848

We love it Lisa!!!!

Life just got a little crazier, in a good way :)

2011-11-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

Well not only am I planning a wedding this year, I'm now into my first week as JV basketball coach at a local private school for girls! Hello hardwoods :)! Season will mean long days from here to February, but I'm super amped about the group of young women I'll be working with this season! More than anything, I'm posting this morning to share just how grateful I am for two things that are already making the big time commitment easier to handle...

1) My new exercise bike! You all know I get a little grumpy when I don't get to break a little sweat - having this guy is already making it easier for me to get a workout in on these long days. I woke up this morning at 5:30 to jump on the bike for a half hour and it felt great to get my blood pumping this morning. It's so nice not to have to wake up even earlier so that I can drive to a gym and then drive back - major time saver!!!

2) JOE! I got home last night at 7 after practice and jumped on the bike to get a workout in. Meanwhile, he cooked up the most incredible pot of Gumbo! I got off the bike, showered and then got to sit down immediately to a hot dinner! And when we finished, he cleaned up while I made a practice plan for today. I feel so, so grateful for his support!

Yosemite trip #3

2011-10-23T20:03:00.001-07:00

I'm sorry if you're sick of hearing me say how much I love these people, but I just can't help myself. I love 'em and I love that we get to share incredible places like Yosemite together! This year was our third annual trip to Yosemite to celebrate Lindsey's birthday. I'm starting to feel like we are Yosemite pros! Fall colors, perfect temperatures, incredible views of nature in every direction, high energy games of Nutsack, scrumptious brunch at the Awahnee, paper crane folding (more on this soon!) and some of my fav. peeps in the world - folks, it doesn't get much better than that. Here are a few pics of our trip this year!

On a hike to Upper Yosemite Falls - we're heading to the top of that fall.

View of the falls along the way.

We made it to the top! Gorgeous bluebird views.

Sunset with Half Dome.

Beautiful!

El Cap with my love.

The girls!

And the boys!

And speaking of boys...that boy of mine worked on grouting tile on our new table when we got home today! Check it out...I love how it's turning out!

Goin' to the CHAPel :)...

2011-10-19T20:11:00.000-07:00

Okay so maybe we're not actually going to the chapel. BUT, we ARE going to

Hakone Gardens! And yay! We're goooooooing to Hakone and we're goooooonna get maaaaarried (written to the tune of Going to the Chapel :))!

Hakone is the first place that we saw and it set the bar pretty high for the rest of the venues we visited. We feel so lucky to get to have our wedding at such a beautiful and historic place. Hakone is the oldest Japanese Garden in the western hemisphere - it was first established in 1915. It is modeled after a Japanese Samurai's garden which is significant since my ancestors were samurai! oooh and fun fact - part of the movie Memoirs of a Geisha was filmed on site!

I'll be sure to keep you all posted as more ideas unfold!

In other news, that sweet fiance of mine was busy this past weekend remodeling IKEA furniture. Here's a sneak peak at his work in progress...

....and his newly decorated man-cave - complete with transformers posters and lots of big power tools! More pics on the finished product coming up! Stay tuned!

I appreciate this bride's advice....

2011-10-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

"Also, I would advise brides to not get too tied to any idea or vision
of your wedding. The end result of my wedding was quite different than
my initial thoughts, and I think what made it successful was not
rifling at unexpected changes, but rather letting the curves in the
planning road shape the final outcome."

simple pleasures

2011-10-10T21:11:00.000-07:00

1) super supportive phone conversation about what else? Weddings! with my future sister-in-law Clare - I am marrying in to such a cool family.

2) going to get fingerprinted for my upcoming coaching gig and having the guy tell me how beautiful my ring is :). (Joe and I have been engaged for over a month now and I still find myself staring at it!)

3) Having a reason to browse through wedding blogs - I love being inspired by the creative and beautiful things that people do.

props to us :)

2011-10-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

Well, no definite wedding venue yet - Hakone Gardens is still a top contender, but we may check out a couple other places this week - in the mean time, I'll be visualizing a wedding venue victory happening for us this week! I'm so ready to get on with the rest of wedding planning!

Besides wedding venue shopping, we've been brainstorming for our upcoming engagement photo session and today we made a couple props that are going to double as decoration for our bedroom and possible decoration for our wedding day. I've had the canvases for a couple years and painted them for my last apartment to add a little color. I've been wanting to add some meaningful words to them, but inspiration didn't strike until Joe and I moved into our new place together. Here's a sneak peek...

This guy has been hanging on the wall in front of our bed since May. We decided months ago that we wanted to put the words, "It's a beautiful day," on it because it's the name of a U2 song (Joe's all time favorite band!) and because we thought it would be fun to wake up every morning and see those words to set the tone for the day. Thank goodness for impending engagement photo dates to force us to finally make it happen! We started trying to stencil the words on, but didn't like the rigid, uniform feel of the stencils - so we painted over with some home made turquoise and made a quick trip to Michael's for some paint pens - I love having the words hand written instead - sure the word day is a little crooked, but it feels much more organic :).

This has become one of my favorite quotes in the past month, it has served as a good reminder that although the craziness of the wedding industry can be overwhelming, celebrating true love is well worth it. Combine that with my favorite gingko leaves and well it just kind of makes my heart happy. Excited to have these up on our bedroom walls and excited to have them ready for our engagement photos :).

Couple simple pleasures from today....

1) beautiful brunch in the city with Laura, Karen, Kat, Lindsey, Nate, Erik, Julian and the love of my life :). We had a delicious dish called Green Earth - how sweet is that?

2) The Wailing Jenny's on Spotify - seriously, if you don't Spotify yet, you're missing out. Lovin' the playful harmonies in this song - think they'd come sing at our wedding?

3) Joe's bbq chicken teriyaki - reason #2984058343 that I am marrying him :)

4) Our favorite post bbq dinner dessert - S'mores on the grill in the back yard

Simple pleasures

2011-10-02T10:15:00.001-07:00

1) Gingko trees beginning to turn golden
2) Pumpkin Candles
3) Engagment rings that fit perfectly!
4) Joe's home made fruit smoothies
5) Fall recipes - pumpkin pancakes, turkey, brie and apple sandwiches
6) Homegrown tomatoes
7) Morning runs
8) KFOG's acoustic sunrise
9) Engagement photo brainstorming with Joe and Lisa
10) Operation October!
11) Homemade tomato soup with Parmesan croutons

And I'll leave you with a few pics of the tomatoes! From the vine to creamy, tomato soup! So perfect for a fall evening!

Keepin' it real

2011-09-25T12:14:00.001-07:00

Oh boy oh boy it's been way too long since I've posted - thank you Clare for the little Facebook nudge to get on it :). Dang it, I hate when I let so much time lapse between posts - too darn much happens in the span of 2 weeks to possible update you completely without writing a novel. Joe and I are knee deep in wedding venue searching - no big news to break there yet, but rest assured that they'll be a post when we pick a place and set a date :). I will tell you however that Joe has been the sweetest fiance - he has been such a great partner in the planning process so far and I simply love checking out venues and envisioning our big day together. A couple thoughts on the wedding front - many, many parts of this process have felt extravagant and well, just a little bit crazy. I was telling a co-worker a week or so ago about how part of me felt guilty spending so much money on a single day to which she basically said, "Sarah - it's not every day that you find true love or get to witness true love. Your wedding day is not just about sharing your love with each other but with your family and friends and you just never know what kind of inspiration will spark when people have the chance to witness that. " How sweet - I love that perspective. Also, in my wedding borne addiction to Pinterest, I found a great quote that I'd like to incorporate into some sort of decoration or photo prop for our wedding - it was a simple quote but a true one - "True Love is a big deal." I heart it.

Soooooo, aside from wedding stuff - guess what?!! I got to meet Lisa this weekend! It was just the neatest thing to finally meet a woman who I met through the blogosphere 2 years ago and who has been a constant source of inspiration during that time. She's a simply amazing mother of 4, photographer and creative blogger. She has doubled so much joy and halved so much sorrow and I just feel lucky to know her. She picked out this adorable cafe in Napa which I loved and we sat over a scrumptious veggie omlette and sipped some derwicious chai tea. I came home starving because well, the truth was, we were so busy talking and filling in all the gaps from what we know of each other through our blogs that there just wasn't enough time to eat. It was so fun meeting my modern pen pal - she was just as sweet in person as she is on her blog! Here are a few pics of our brunch spot.

The Boon Fly Cafe. I heart this Barn, maybe Joe and I could just get married in front of that :).

On a side note - our tomatoes are in full force!!! Check out these beauties!

a moment...

2011-09-11T21:31:00.000-07:00

So, I was just going through some of my old blogs searching for the first comment I received from my very dear blogging buddy Lisa. We've known each other for over 2 years now and are going to finally meet in just couple weeks and I couldn't be more excited about it. In doing so, I found myself reading through some old posts and came across a post where I included this quote...

"Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing and you were in the best possible place in the world for it." p.149

...and well, I just started to cry. I wrote this post on July 8, 2009 - right in the thick of a difficult time and it just made me think about what a neat thing this blog is for me - that I can go back in time and see what I was thinking a couple years ago and look at that from this side of an incredible couple of years. The truth in these words brought me to tears - I was indeed going through a sweet time of grieving, my life was changing and I was in the best possible place in the world for it. I had a feeling that this was the case at the time and now, sitting next to the love of my life and my fiance, I can't help but marvel at just how true it was.

one of our developing Wedding Themes...

2011-09-07T22:11:00.000-07:00

Earthy and Elegant.

That's all. Just had to share :). Wedding venue research is well under way - will keep you all posted on any decisions we make!

We're engaged.

2011-09-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

And I couldn't be any happier. I simply feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have found a man like Joe and am beside myself with excitement thinking about marrying him! The way he walks through life continually amazes and inspires me and walking with him just seems like the best idea ever:). Our engagement story feels like a fairy tale and it's been so fun sharing with friends and family and I can hardly believe that this is the story we get to share for years and years to come. I'll share it all in just a minute, but first, I also need to say that, just as incredible as the proposal/engagement, has been the overwhelming love and support we've been receiving from friends and family. I am so moved by the kind words and the genuine welcome I have received from Joe's family and I know that my family extends the same to Joe. Just after they got the news, this is the text I got from Joe's parents -
"Sarah! We are so very happy! We love you and look forward to years and years of memory making with you as part of our family. - Karen and Tom"
I feel so blessed and I can't think of many things more beautiful than sharing our love with everyone. A big, big thanks to everyone who has shared in our excitement! We are so incredibly grateful. Alright here's the story!!!

Joe and I are still basking in the joy of having full weekends now that he is done with grad school and we knew that we wanted to head out of town for the long Labor Day weekend to take advantage the extra day off and to soak in a little mountain air. I have to admit, although I've been a little antsy about getting engaged, I honestly didn't think that this trip would be anything more than a quick one-night getaway. Ha, earlier in the week, I even told Joe that I wasn't sure that I wanted to make the big drive - luckily Joe persuaded me to get over that - thank goodness! I sure would've missed out if I didn't go! We got on the road bright and early on Saturday morning and made our way up to South Lake Tahoe to a place called Baldwin Beach. We had incredible weather - clear skies and crystal clear Caribbean like water! We rented a couple of kayaks and started paddling to Emerald Bay - all the while marveling at the brilliant turquoisy, blue clear water. I've never seen lake water this color - if you haven't been on a kayak in Lake Tahoe - put it on your bucket list - my description doesn't do the beauty justice. In Emerald Bay there is an island called Fannette Island, so we paddled on over and pulled our kayaks on shore and hiked up to the top where there is a small stone structure that used to be a tea house back in the late 1920's. Joe and I were both poking around and after a few moments Joe said he had found a shady spot beside the stone structure with a place to sit overlooking one of the cliffs of the island. So, thinking nothing of it, I followed him. We set our stuff down and I was just starting to find a comfortable place to sit and gosh it all happened so fast! I turned to my left where Joe was and he had a box in his hand and was opening it and I think I said something lame like - "Oh my gosh, is this happening right now?" and Joe got down on one knee and well dang it, I can't remember exactly what he said, but somewhere in there he said Sarah Mariko, will you marry me? My heart was screaming Yes, Yes, YES but I'm pretty sure it took me a couple minutes to stop kissing him and actually verbalize that!!!!!! A boat down below must have seen us kissing because they started hoopin' and hollerin' at us and so I pointed to my ring and Joe yelled out "We just got engaged" and well then everyone started cheering and the boat started honking it's horn and I just kept kissing Joe and reminding myself to breathe! We spent a little bit up in the stone house just taking it all in and had a few people snap some pictures of us. Here's our first photo as an engaged couple - I love that we were adventuring when this happened and I love that it happened so fast that we didn't even have time to take off our dorky life jackets! And I love that Joe had the ring tucked into a sack on his kayak the whole way over! What a stud!

The ring with Lake Tahoe in the back - heavenly I tell ya!

Back on shore and giddy with "WE JUST GOT ENGAGED" love. One of my favorite parts of the day was our kayak back from Emerald Bay to Baldwin beach. As the island faded into the distance, we kept looking back and saying - "Hey, we just got engaged there!" And all the way back we were saying saying silly things like "Hey Fiance!" and "We're getting married!" - super original right? I guess when you're on Cloud 9 - you lose a few brain cells :).

This thing sure does sparkle!!

Us with our island - yup that's right, I'm claiming it.

Joe about to dig into a big buffalo steak. He was so cute - he told me that he was feeling super manly after proposing and needed a meal to match that. I think he's super manly no matter what he's doing!

So WAHOOO, there's the story, he did a pretty damn good job didn't he?! We're getting Married and well, cheesy as it sounds, it's true, I've never felt more sure about anything in my life - Joe is the ONE. He is the man that I want to love forever and grow old with and I've known that for quite some time now. I'm thrilled that I officially get to share it with the world now!

Stay tuned, there's bound to be a lot of love bubbling over on the blog this year!

just weekending y'all

2011-08-28T14:42:00.000-07:00

Joe and I have been basking in a couple of open weekends recently. We've been intentional about trying NOT to make plans and well, it's made our weekends feel a little bit more vacationy which is nice. We hve also been feeling like our weekends are so long lately because Joe no longer has all day classes in Berkeley on Saturday. What a difference it makes to have real weekends back. Here's a little bit of what we were up to this weekend...

We started the weekend marveling at these Monster Sunflowers at Hidden Villa gardens.

And soaking up the golden morning sunlight as we moseyed around the grounds.

I love sunshine streaming through trees!

Joe found these hops which made him crave a good home brew session.

I found these old salvaged windows which made me dream of having one of these somewhere in my home in the future.

oooh and I also found this sweet baby goat.

And we both found this sign - good to know, eh?

We spent the afternoon doing some projects around the house - Joe put a "ribbon rack" on the craft rack...

Check out his craftsmanship!

Saturday night we picked up a few heirloom tomatoes and grabbed some basil from our backyard and ....

...grilled this beauty. Joe was the master at figuring out how to control the temperature on the charcoal grill - he's such a stud :).

Couldn't quite use our tomatoes yet, but we will in just a couple weeks - look at those baby tomatoes and all those blossoms!

We topped off the pie with some parm and Bon Apetit!

We concluded the weekend with a pickle making sesh - starting to build our xmas gift giving stash :).

Hope you all had a great weekend! Is it Friday yet?

Song of the day

2011-08-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

Lovin' this one...

Our babies are growing...

2011-08-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

Our baby tomatoes that is :). I don't have kids to obsess about and I don't have a dog to obsess about either, so that means you get pictures of the next best thing - our tomatoes! Look at these sweet things just a month ago when we first brought them home from the Farmer's Market.

Baby Tomatoes.

Adolescent tomatoes.

Nearly full grown tomato jungle!

I get so excited checking out all the budding tomatoes. I was late to work this morning because I just couldn't stop looking at these guys - they are popping out everywhere! And they're absolutely gorgeous to me. My mind is blown and they're just tomatoes, I can't even imagine what I'm going to be like when I have kids :).

Colorful furniture is just more fun!

2011-08-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

On our recent trip to Santa Fe, we happened to be in town for part of an incredible arts and crafts fair called the Spanish Market. My heart skipped a beat when we walked by this stall...

COLORFUL furniture in all sorts of shapes and hues! Cue heart melting ;).
Ever since, Joe and I have been itching to slather up some of our old, boring and just plain ugly pieces of furniture with a little color to give 'em some new life. So, this weekend we made our way out the door on Saturday morning (with Philz in hand, of course) and picked up some paint at the Home Depot to do this..

We added a little sass to this night stand with a fresh coat of red. AND, what's even cooler - you see that bottom shelf? Well, Joe used some scrap wood we had and built that - not too shabby - I think I'll keep that guy around for a while. Now we have double the "storage" space, you know, for important things, like Joe's gameboy.

This former hunk of junk got spruced up with some turquoise - still have some touch ups to do so don't look too close, but I am too impatient to wait until it's finished to post.

And this folks, this is a project that I have Pinterest (and my super cute handyman Joe) to thank for - I have been antsy about getting some of my craft supplies organized so that they're not cluttering up shelf space in our "junk" room which I hope to turn shortly into a "craft" room. This is what it looks like right now...

It's still a work in progress, but I'm already over the moon for my new space to store paints :). I'm hoping to get that dowel on the dresser up for ribbon storage soon and I'll be scheming about how to create space for some stationery, knick-knacks etc. Stay tuned for updates :).

the beauty and healing of silence and stillness...

2011-08-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

I had my last Mindfulness class last Tuesday and boy oh boy oh boy did I fall in love with this class. I'm about ready to sign up to take it again in the fall. If it weren't for my impending coaching duties, I just might - I'm already thinking of signing up after basketball season to reclaim some of the calm that I'm sure I'll lose as I dive into the craziness of another season. But anyways, I digress....

It's not the first time that I've written about how crazy last year was and whew, by June I was feeling physically and emotionally run down. If I'm honest, I admit that I was not always graceful at coping with the stress and had my fair share of minor and major breakdowns. I felt as though my usual resilience had been depleted. The challenges that I would usually be able to take in stride were harder for me to face, overcome and then recover from. And ultimately, I was feeling so tired that it was harder for me to do something that I usually pride myself on, and that is being open to the beauty that I do believe is all around us.

Enter this Mindfulness class - what lovely timing! The class helped me to reclaim my ability to tap into and appreciate the beauty all around me. And more than that, I think that the reason I was so moved by this experience was that it showed me that not only is beauty all around us, so is healing.

For me, one of the big takeaways was that we are each our own greatest healers. A big part of the class revolved around developing a meditation practice and call it hippy-ish, soft or whatever you want, the first time that I laid down to do the 45 minute guided body-scan meditation, I felt like my body had found exactly what it had been craving -- stillness and deep, deep, deep breaths. Now you all know that I love my fair share of go, go, going - there is just too much in life to do to be too still, but Sweet Georgia Brown, this stillness thing has spoken straight to my heart.

And it's funny right, because even after doing just one week of this stuff, something in my body and brain began to crave the feeling of calm and rejuvenation and non-judgement that I now realized I was able to get from just being still and conscious of myself and my breath. I'll admit that I haven't been super disciplined about keeping up with my meditation practice, although I still aspire to, but since taking this class I find myself turning to the tools of meditation multiple times in my daily life. I feel more conscious of my breath throughout the day, more aware of when I am beginning to feel stressed or anxious and as a result I feel better able to respond to these things instead of reacting to them. Overall, I just feel a little more present and it feels wonderful. To be doing something, whether it is cooking dinner with Joe or going for a run, experiencing something joyful or even painful and to feel like I am actually there to experience it, appreciate it and learn from it, well, it just feels good. I'm still far, far, far from enlightenment of any sort, but it's so empowering to have these tools at my fingertips.

One (of the many) of my favorite things about the meditations that we went through in these classes was the way that our teacher would end each session, he would say...

"May you know peace.
May you be free of suffering.
May all beings know peace and be free of suffering."

I could go on and on and on about all the wonderful pearls of wisdom our teacher shared, but for now, I'll hope that these bits and pieces rise up and find their way out in future posts.

Peace to each of you and all your loved ones too!

Visit from an F4lie and her H4lie

2011-08-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

One of my F4lies Niki, and her H4L Ryan came to the bay this weekend for a visit. (F4l - for those of you who need a reminder is the oh so super cool acronym that stands for Friends 4 Life that my high school girlfriends and I gave each other our senior year. 3 years ago when Whit, Niki, Christina and Maria got hitched, we started the H4L - which obviously stands for Husbands 4 Life - we are self proclaimed dorks :)). Niki and Ryan have been married for about 3 years now and they shared over the weekend that they are even more in love today than they were 3 years ago! So stinkin' sweet.

Before they arrived, I kept telling Joe how it kind of felt like family was coming to visit - Niki and I go back - all the way to the eighth grade when we were little 13 year old pipsqueaks. Those were the days when I curled my bangs and Niki and I and the rest of our bball clan would go to Open Gyms every night at the local middle school to get our game on! We were so flippin' crazy about basketball it makes me laugh looking back. Anyways, we were friends all through high school and managed to stay close even after I left San Diego for college, I was a bridesmaid in Niki and Ryan's wedding and well, sheesh now we are quickly approaching our 30s!!! It would be impossible to count the number of Friday nights in our lives that we have spent watching Dirty Dancing and the bond that we originally forged in our shared experience on the basketball court is something that is so special to me.

We started the weekend exchanging some home made goods - Joe and I gave them a jar of our strawberry jam and Niki and Ryan brought up a bottle of their home made wine and their home brew! We spent the weekend eating amazing food and drinking their homemade wine and beer AND lots of Philz coffee. Niki and Ryan are food and drink lover/appreciators like Joe and I and we love being able to appreciate these things with people who are equally enthusiastic! They are also new home-owners and have been having a blast doing tons of home improvement projects -their latest patio project inspired us! And I think Ryan and Joe shared a moment when they were talking about all the cool power tools in the world. Ryan is a pretty awesome guitar player which made Joe happy - he busted out his guitars and the boys had a jam session on Saturday night. During the jam session, Joe unveiled an "OG" which is apparently guitar player code for an original song. Joe's was titled - Old Mount Hoody's Top - the Ballad of Mt. Hood - Nov. 2009 (he made me write the full title) and he was just so darn cute singing it - I was swooning and it wasn't even a love song ;).

Here are a few pics of our weekend...

Drinks at the Cavallo Lodge Farley Bar.

Coffee stop at the beloved Philz.

Can never help myself on these jump photos.

oooooh and one for you lovers!

P.S. - Joe and I saw Adele in concert last night - the woman is absolutely beautiful and her voice moves me to tears. I heart sharing an evening of beautiful music wrapped up in Joe's arms.

Happy week to you!

my parents came to visit - it only happens once every three years

2011-08-07T21:03:00.000-07:00

Ha - love to give my parents a hard time about never coming to visit me :). It was so nice to have them up the bay this week and show 'em around my life a little bit :). I just love and am so thankful for both of them! They came up for memorial services for my Great Aunt and then we got to spend a couple days together with my Grandma, Grandpa and Great Uncle. AND, they even got to meet Kat, Erik and Lindsey and the tomato plants that Joe and I are so proud of! My parents are so important to me and my bay area friends are so important to me and it just made my heart sing to have these people meet!

Here we are with our tomatoes!!

Land of enchantment

2011-07-31T13:49:00.000-07:00

You can tell I was enchanted - I took over 300 photos on our trip - so just a warning, you're in for a marathon post here. Joe and I are easing back into reality today after a week in God's country - just got back from testing out our high altitude lungs on one of our fav. bay area trails - I was hoping to feel like a little bit more of a super star after spending a week at 7-8,000 feet.

I'm not even sure where to start with this post - it took me about 15 pages in my journal to get to Thursday of our vacay and I've got a couple more pages to add for Friday and Saturday. As a quick re-cap, Joe and I spent Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morning in the beautiful town of Crestone, Co at the base of the Sangre de Cristos in southern Colorado.

I've heard so many stories about Crestone from Joe and after just 5 seconds in this place, I got it - it didn't take long to understand why he feels called back to this place time and time again. The majesty of the mountains combined with the sprawling San Luis Valley views, unending and ever changing skyscapes, and the darkest, starriest night skies create this sacred space for solitude that is absolutely invigorating. Joe's aunts Connie and Tessa live in Crestone and trips to this place were regular occurrences throughout his childhood and early adult hood. The entire time we were there, I just kept thinking about how lucky Joe has been to have had a place like this in his life - the reflection and gratitude that this place calls forth is moving. I feel equally lucky to have had a chance to experience this place with Joe - I can't wait to get back again. I could go on and on about the beauty of this place, but I'd never be able to capture it all, so I'll let our pictures do the talking...

This is what we were greeted by on our arrival in New Mexico - I never got over the incredible skyscapes.

New Mexico is dry right now - this is the start of a fire we saw on our way up to Crestone.

UFO viewing platform along the cosmic highway - ha!

The Sangre de Cristos -cue a deep breath of fresh, mountain air :).

The entrance to the Monestary.

The Chapel from afar.

The Chapel with the Sangre de Cristos in back.

Nightime Chapel.

Another chapel view - Someone could publish a book with photos of this beautiful structure at all different times of the day/in different seasons etc!

Versi! Our faithful traveling companion.

Our sweet, sweet hermitage.

Hermitage with beautiful blue sky.

Indigo hour at the hermitage.

Desert light through our hermitage window seat.

Chairs and lounges that just invite relaxation.

A sign that Joe's dad made when he was 16 for the Monastery. Everything in this place had a story behind it - it felt so rich.

Painted Desert Sky - Sunset in Crestone.

The Sangres at Sunset.

Chillaxing by the Arkansas River in SalIda. Mike and Tara - did I get close to getting the flowy water effect?

Lunch with my good college friend/European backpacking partner Melissa in Salida - love, love, love this girl!

Dinner with Connie and Tessa - appetizer = Kale chips = genius!

Joe with his Aunt Connie and Aunt Tessa at Tessa's hogan.

Joe's favorite - Desert Sage.

Mountain Meadow on our way to Willow Lake at 11.5!

Willow creek.

Mountain flowers.

Our reward - Willow Lake! Bonus birthday prize = waterfall!

awww two little lovebirds at Willow Lake.

Willow Lake

Mountain Goats! Joe spotted them at the very tip of the peaks - so neat.

Another guy! Joe was the spotter once again.

Breath-taking views of the valley.

You were probably waiting for this one, weren't you? There was no way we were leaving Crestone without a jump shot.

After Crestone, it was on to Santa Fe. Santa Fe has to be a photographer's dream come true, the incredible light that this place gets and the vibrant colors on the buildings had me swooning. Some more of my favorite parts of Santa Fe were the adobe building, colorful doors/windows, hanging chilis, rooftop sunsets and dramatic skyscapes. Here are a few pics of our time in Santa Fe in no particular order...

Santa Fe Cathedral

Loved these lights at La Fonda.

Loved the rustic, artsy feel throughout the town - wish this was my living room.

Afternoon crepes, loved the lighting in here.

On our way to 10,000 Waves for massages and serious relaxation.

10,000 waves.

Buddha welcoming us to 10,000 Waves.

Another of the millions of awesome doors.

Cafe Pasquals - our first dinner spot in Santa Fe - love the sky in the background.

Rooftop drinks amidst the adobe :).

Our B&B - Pueblo Bonito.

Los Alamos check in building - this is for all the UPSers who took the Manhattan Project class.

All the pottery made me think of Lindsey.

Afternoon chips and salsa at The Shed - enjoying some shade and some acoustic guitar.

Beautiful baskets.

Santa Fe streets at night.

More chilis - I couldn't get enough of these things.

Chilis and adobe.

Chilis and adobe.

Stained glass in the cathedral.

Stained glass reflecting on the floor.

Love one another constantly.

Night time rooftop reading over the plaza -we are a couple of self-proclaimed dorks.

Governor's Palace - I bought a pretty turquoise bracelet from the lady in white pants.

Santa Fe rainbow.

La Fonda rooftop bar in Santa Fe - gorgeous sunset views.

Shadowy pic of us at Sunset.

More rooftop reading - this was one of our fav. spots to relax.

The Fajita cart that we spotted from our rooftop reading spot.

In heaven journaling the afternoon away.

Santa Fe rugs rock.

Don't know exactly what it is about chilis and adobe that speak straight to my heart.

Sunset drinks on the roof to celebrate our last night in Santa Fe - I might have had a little bit of vacation ending blues at this point - 7 whole days traveling with a man that I love more than anything in the world was a little bit of paradise. I feel so completely humbled and lucky.

Whew, I also feel ready for another vacation now :). Here's to holding on to the vacation glow for as long as possible.

he's done, (I feel like WE are done!)

2011-07-22T21:06:00.000-07:00

Let's face it, this past year was a team effort! But yay! We just got home from Joe's last grad school celebration, he got the official okay on his thesis and wam, bam, thank you ma'am he's f***ing (sorry for the profanity, but this is a big deal!) done!!! Yay, we get Saturday afternoons back - real two day weekends people. AMEN! In all seriousness though, I truly couldn't be any prouder of my man stud for getting through this year and balancing his roles as math teacher, department chair, grad student, job seeker, boyfriend, friend, brother, son etc as amazingly as he did! Joe got awarded the Happy Feet award tonight by his grad school classmates because you can't contain his feet (apparently he's got some rockin' dance moves) or his SPIRIT - and that's the truth- that guy has got an unbelievable amount of passion, enthusiasm and life inside of him - I'm so lucky to witness it!

on a totally unrelated note, here's the song of the day...

letting it all sink in...

2011-07-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

My head and heart are once again swirling with so many feelings of love and gratitude and there is just not nearly enough time to share all that is running through my mind, so here are just a few snippets of some of the thoughts that have been sticking in my head as of late...

beautiful things are born when something is broken...

let the blood flow deep into the belly of your muscle...

if you want something, you will suffer...

acknowledge and let it be...

Song of the day....

And here is a pic of our flourishing tomato plants - i just heart watching plants grow...

Look how much bigger the garden is today!

we heart Clare!

2011-07-17T21:04:00.000-07:00

So not only is Joe the coolest boyfriend in the world - he also has the coolest family. Joe's little sister Clare spent the weekend with us and I just have to say - I adore her! She' s a super smart, sassy, fun-loving and full of life young woman and I just treasured getting to spend time with her and getting to know her a little better this weekend. Clare and I first met about a year and a half ago when I made a work trip out to DC - at that point Joe ad I had only been dating for about 2 months - she was the first member of Joe's family that I met, and I thought it was pretty cool that she was willing to meet up with me without Joe being present. We ended up chatting over dinner for about 2 hours and well, right then and there, the girl stole my heart.

We spent this weekend going out for spanish tapas, touring Stanford, sipping bubble tea, hanging out at a local park, checking out Joe's new school, catching up on the last Harry Potter movie, brunching with Clare and a few of her college friends and cooking up a mean pot of chili and cornbread for dinner.

Clare - if you're reading this (and I KNOW you are), we can't wait to have you back!

Clare and Joe - love the sweet relationship Joe and his siblings share :).

The weekend trio :).

Joe remaining calm of course in the midst of a couple of crazy girls :).

Lovefest

2011-07-10T21:41:00.000-07:00

Words can't even begin to describe what a beautiful weekend it was. Lindsey and Nate's wedding was bursting at the seams with love - they packed meaning into every detail of their wedding and the end result was an evening full of the essence of who they are as individuals and a couple and so many other intangible things that are beautiful in life. What a truly special day spent with some of my favorite people in all the world. Lindsey and Nate - I'm so happy for you guys!

The happy couple :).

ooooh and one more happy couple :)

AND, here is the 1st song that Nate and Linds danced to - loved it and had to share!

Our dreams have come true!

2011-07-03T15:02:00.000-07:00

We just finished building our very own raised vegetable bed!!!!!! Since we first met, Joe and I have always talked about wanting to have our very own bit of soil to grow things in and well after just a couple of hours in the back yard today, we've got one!!! Voila!

We've got lavender, lemon verbana - two things that I LOVE the smell of and so does Joe. I think we'll also use the lemon verbana for some teas eventually. And for edibles, we're starting with basil and tomatoes - two big basil plants and 4 tomato plants - yellow tomatoes, purple tomatoes, sun gold tomatoes and red cherry tomatoes! I hope we can actually get them to grow!!

Here's the before shot as we started to dig up a patch of grass to make room for the new vegetable bed.

Did I mention that it was hot today!!! If this was a close up you'd be able to see the sweat pouring off of me!

Once we got the grass cleared we built the frame of the bed. Credit goes to loverboy for engineering this beauty!

Joe came up with the idea of making stakes for each of the four corners to make drilling a bit easier and to add some stability. They worked perfectly - we built the frame upside down and then flipped it and hammered the stakes into the ground. He was pretty excited to get the electric saw out today to cut up the pieces of wood that we bought at OSH. That boy loves his power tools and I think it's adorable!

The frame in place!

And one more cameo from the new star of our backyard. Can't wait to share pics of what we grow!

On a side note, here are a couple of projects that kept me busy this weekend....

Kat inspired this - I had a surplus of dum-dums after Joe's bday pinata and Kat sent this brilliant idea for the left overs. I bought a styrafoam ball at Joann's (I felt a little guilty about that) and stuck those suckers in it and made a dum-dum astroid - how cool is that! hah - probably not nearly as cool as it is in my head.

Joe made this refreshing sun tea today!

We hung these guys in our kitchen. A while back, Kat, Laura, Lindsey and I got together and painted these for Kat's kitchen. When Joe and I moved into our new place, Kat passed them on to me as a house warming gift. They add so much color to our kitchen and I love that every time I look at them they remind me of the girls.

Alright off to enjoy the yummy teriyaki chicken that Joe has grilling along with some grilled veggies and pineapple!

Happy 4th of Julying everyone!

just a silly story...

2011-06-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

So here's a little sneak peak into our room - I hesitate to post a pic of our room because it's not quite fully decorated yet but I just couldn't resist posting the story that goes along with this pic (Warning: this story may be more entertaining to me than anyone else). I got home on Friday afternoon, to a boyfriend who had the afternoon off and discovered that he had taken it upon himself to do some redecorating. I had made Joe a "welcome home" card when he got back from DC and hung it up with some heart sticky notes in our living room. We ended up leaving the card hanging for the week, but I guess by Friday, Joe was ready for a change of scenery because when I walked into the bedroom, this is what I saw...

The heart stickers that were in our living room had been moved to our bedroom and thoughtfully placed 2 on each side of the bed! Joe calls it his environmentally conscious recycled decorating. I call it adorable.

oooooh and good news! The Farbielecki cannery has officially re-opened for the season. We found these beauties at the Farmer's market today and just finished making our 1st batch of Strawberry Jam. The kitchen smells amazing.

One more side note - I started an incredible class last Tuesday at Stanford. It's called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and is based on a program founded by John Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts. It basically centers on the connection between mind and body and I have to confess, I am loving it. During our first class, we went around in a circle and shared what brought us to the class and I was in tears for at least half of it. I am awe-struck at what we as human beings endure in our lifetimes and I am even more awe-struck by the courage it takes to share these experiences. Along with a number of other things, the class guides us through developing a meditation practice. I am going to try to be disciplined about this to give it a fair shot. More to come on this for sure. For now, it's off to a Bikram Yoga class - eeek, wish me luck, it's been a while since I've done heated yoga.

Happy Birthday to the sweetest man I've ever known

2011-06-19T12:26:00.000-07:00

It was Joe's birthday this past week and so I am going to guiltlessly take some time to brag about him. Joe is hands down the sweetest and most amazing man I've ever known. I've never known anyone who is able to handle life as gracefully and fun-lovingly as he does. The guy knows how to buckle down and "GSD" like no one I know - it's no wonder that he has been able to handle working full time as a teacher at KIPP - a crazy, super high standard charter school, serve as Math Department Chair, go to grad school, move in with his girlfriend and line up a job at another high achieving charter school for next year. I swear he gets more done by 8am than most people do in an entire day and somehow he manages to do it all with a big, bright blue eyed smile. He somehow seldom allows the craziness of the world get in the way of just enjoying himself and making sure that the people he loves know it. He's one of those people that just has his priorities in life straight - he spends his days working towards something that he whole-heartedly believes in and although the work is exhausting, I have witnessed how fulfilled he is by the it and I have to say it's absolutely inspiring. His dedication to teaching is so courageous and the strength that he puts forth in working with kids makes me fall deeper and deeper in love with him. Joe squeezes so much out of every moment of life - no matter how crazy things get - he does an incredible job of not allowing any of the craziness to take away from his ability to savor every last drop - whether that's in his beloved cups of coffee/beer, sunny weekend mornings, kick ass trail runs, U2 songs, cooking up something delicious or just snuggling me! I feel luckier than I could ever express to have found someone who inspires me to do what I love, enjoy life and love those around me. He is more than I could have ever dreamed of finding in a partner. Joe spent his actual birthday in DC with 55 8th graders :) - so when he got back it was only fitting that we had a big celebration. Here are pics from yesterday.

Backyard - before the birthday BBQ makeover. Super sunny day - yay!

Morning light and limes and bouganvilla - I'm loving this color combo.

I spent an evening watching the Bachelorette and making these fun hanging mason jars one night while Joe was in DC. I love them - and just a girly side note - these are going to be everywhere at my wedding one day - maybe even full of the same exact flowers - I was loving the bouganvilla this weekend!

Joe's grilling station - that boy doesn't need much to create some major deliciousness for dinner! oooh and we bought a Costco pack of limes so the extras became decoration.

All set :) - backyard post Bday BBQ makeover - hanging mason jars, outdoor Italian cafe lights (I've always wanted a backyard to hang these in!) and a super colorful table runner - I didn't want to leave this place last night.

I heart our table runner!

The carne asada didn't last long.

Joe's famous black beans - these were amazing!

Margaritas in mason jars :).

Our truly amazing friends. Kat' head is being blocked by the Margarita pitcher and Erik an Julian's Margarita's are the only evidence that they were present.

My love in the tree hanging the AWESOME pinata that Kat brought - totally pumped up the party!

The birthday boy with his blindfold.

Erik giving it his best shot.

Lindsey takes a swing.

Julian goes to town on Toro the pinata.

We found some clowns :). Photo credit to Laura!

Lighting the candles

Sunset, twinkly lights and Joe with a Dum-dum from the Pinata.

Birthday BBQ afterglow - this completely matches the way I felt inside after last night. Love Joe, love our friends, love our home and love having all three of these things together.

couldn't be happier...

2011-06-17T13:54:00.000-07:00

It's Friday AND loverboy is back from DC :). And this is what I'm thinking...

beautiful thoughts...

2011-06-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

Loved this article about the Baccalaureate celebration at Stanford this weekend. I pulled out a couple of my fav. parts.

"If you demand a mate who is a perfect person, you'll be single," she said. "If you wed expecting a perfect marriage, you’ll be sad. And if you try to run a perfect business, nobody will want to eat lunch with you. And if you come to the point when the imperfections of your parents are obvious and unavoidable, let me remind you, 'the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.'"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In her 12-minute address, Bowman said people cannot predict where their faith – whatever it is – will take them.

"But wherever that is, go, go," she said. "And leave your 'score card' app behind and just relish the experience. Study, shape, find, forgive, struggle, weep when you need to, laugh when you can, love. Hold, please, the knowledge that wherever, whenever, why-ever, whoever, however time and events touch you – or are touched by you – there is yet and always the possibility of Amen."

Bowman asked the graduating students to consider that their life plans may not go as planned, and "that sometimes the things that do not go as planned, the things that are not executed perfectly, have a power all their own."

She said sometimes they will have to "launch a leap too short over a gap too wide," and predicted that what they launch will get completed – somehow.

"Picture in The Matrix, Morpheus launching out of the building, with Neo launching out of a helicopter, closing the gap – you with me?" she said, to appreciative laughter from an audience familiar with the 1999 science-fiction/action movie. "It's messy. It's imperfect. But it works."

gettin' back to goal setting...

2011-06-12T21:35:00.000-07:00

So I've fallen out of my usual routine of setting 8 week goals for myself and I think as a result, I've been less dedicated to making time and space in my life for things that bring me joy/growth/fulfillment etc. So enough of letting the everdayness of life get in the way of the things that make me smile and feel a greater gratitude towards life, here's my latest list of 8 week goals - to be accomplished by 8/1/11.

1) Sign up for a Meditation class through Stanford's health improvement program

2) Dedicated an afternoon or two to basketball planning for the upcoming season (offense, defenses, team building)

3) Plant tomatoes

4) Carve out 45 minutes/week of journaling time

5) Bedroom art project

6)Dedicate an afternoon outing centered on taking photos

words that moved me tonight...

2011-06-11T21:28:00.000-07:00

I went to a restorative yoga class tonight and this was the opening meditation. I loved it and had to share...

Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I gain the embrace of the universe;
Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.
Each condition I flee from pursues me,
Each condition I welcome transforms me

--Unconditional, Jennifer Wellwood

singing my way to the weekend....

2011-06-03T14:22:00.000-07:00

I woke up today with an overwhelming amount of excitement bubbling up inside of me for the weekend. I've been ansty for the weekend all day and can hardly wait for 5 o'clock to roll around and to get this party started - nothing big on the agenda - our Adele concert just got cancelled - poor darlin' has a bad case of laryngitis :(. I was bummed for a moment - but you know what - it's supposed to storm like crazy this weekend and well, honestly, I think Rollin' in the deep would be much more fun on a sunny day :) - so in any case - my head is already filling up with ideas on how to spend Saturday with the man I love - who has NO CLASS tomorrow - YAY!!

In the meantime, I'm heading back to focus on some pending press releases and will be listening to these two songs to pass the time...

Short work week :)

2011-05-31T07:27:00.000-07:00

Took a quick trip home to San Diego for the weekend - here's one of my fav. pics of the trip - gosh I love these guys!

Three cheers for short work weeks - hope yours is great!

mini house projects

2011-05-22T17:08:00.001-07:00

no earth shattering happenings around here this weekend, BUT, some earth shattering news - Joe found out his summer vacay time - so we started to do some real vacation brainstorming/planning! wahooo! yipeee! more details on that once we've got some stuff set in stone. Other than that we've had a relatively mellow weekend. On Saturday night we tried a Vietnamese restaurant called XANH - we give it 3 stars out of 5 . Joe had a beer called Judgment day because well, it was supposedly Judgment day so he thought it was fitting. Afterwards we hit up our local fro yo joint - Yoogl - hah, kind of like Google - this place gets 5 stars -mmmm Red Velvet fro yo was awesome.
Sunday morning we did a mini trail run - I know I've said it before but I just can't say enough how much I love sharing a love of running with Joe - I also appreciate that he runs at my slow pace when I'm tired, let's me feel like I'm winning on our runs sometimes, and that he challenges me to pick it up every now and then too. I can remember on one of our very first runs together, we were on a pretty muddy trail and I was getting a little grumpy because my shoes were getting all gross and I felt like I was about to face plant with every step - but Joe was bounding (he runs like a gazelle!) around in the mud and commenting on how sometimes you just had to roll with it :) and have fun. Little did I know that that attitude would perfectly capture Joe's attitude about life and some of the "muddy" stuff that comes along - his optimism inspires me.
oooops little bit of a tangent there - after our run we walked down to our local Coffee shop - Red Rock to fuel up with some coffee and chai and then walked to the farmer's market. Lovely little Sunday morning:).

We also did a couple mini house projects this weekend, here are some pics...

I've been needing a place to put my earrings and was inspired by a craft that I saw on Pinterest. I found an old frame I had collecting dust and Joe helped me to rig the wires to the back so I could hand my earrings. He was clutch in figuring out a way to make the wires extra taut so that my earrings wouldn't slid down to the middle. It's fun isn't it?!

I printed up a pic from our road trip to Arches and monument valley last summer and added it to our wall collage. And when we were downtown for dinner we popped into a bookstore and found this great card quote - love it and am so excited to see these words each day. Inspirational words and beautiful nature is about all the decoration I need :).

A college friend made this pretty bowl for me and I've been wanting to hang it up for years but for some reason never got around to buying a bowl hanger - finally did and this beauty has a place in the kitchen - I also love seeing these words every day.

Yay our house just keeps getting homier - but this quote sums up my fav. part of our place---

"What I love most about my home is who I share it with." - Tad Carpenter

Happy Friday!

2011-05-20T08:39:00.000-07:00

Here's the song of the day - Xavier Rudd -Messages

And, I have to confess - I have a new obsession - PINTEREST! Holy awesomeness and holy time suck! My dear friend Kat invited me to join this week and I thought I wouldn't get too into it - boy I should know myself better - pinning things to organized boards - totally perfect for me! Lovin' it - maybe a little too much...check it out...

http://pinterest.com/sfarber1/pins/

good clean fun

2011-05-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

We went away for Lindsey's bachelorette party this past weekend! Petaluma - who knew a place so close could feel so gloriously far away :)?! Kat - the master planner whisked us away to an adorable french hotel for a girls weekend. Super, super cute doesn't even begin to describe it. We had so much fun eating yummy food, giving ourselves mini facials in our room, brunching, going to the movies, shopping, eating more yummy food and then rockin' out to te 80s at a Tainted Love concert. I just couldn't be more excited for Lindsey and Nate's big day and I just couldn't ask for better girlfriends to celebrate with!

Enjoying a long, luxurious dinner at Central Market.

Resting our spirits and trying on our 80s gloves in our room - the quote in french says something like - the Sandman is working :)

Kat and Linds

Being silly in front of our hotel.

A Kat sandwich.

Getting ready to rock out to the 80s - you know with our glowing goose and all :).

Such a fun weekend - thank you girls!!!

PS - If you want to see a few more photos - check out Kat's tumblr

just some side notes...

2011-05-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

life sure is busy these days - for a lot of people it seems. I don't think I'm going to ever get to my gushing post about the craziness of the past month, life just keeps marching on ya know, and well, maybe it's good for me to just let my attachment to blogging about EVERYTHING go a little bit :). So I suppose that's that - I'll just say that I got stressed and had a big melt down and in the end realized I was being a little over dramatic and more importantly, that I have an incredibly supportive, patient, understanding and forgiving partner in Joe and friends and family whose perspective/support are one of the most precious gifts in my life.

sidenote #1 - This past weekend Joe and I did so many errands/general house settling (I'm calling our place a house because that's what it feels like, even if it is a duplex) things that well, we didn't get around to our young house love project - too much time spent cleaning blinds - whew our blinds were filthy :).

sidenote #2 - Joe did buy a cute grill though (don't tell him I called it cute) and he grilled up a mean batch of veggie kabobs and teriyaki salmon and well, I just melted into bliss with each bite. And then to top that, on Sunday night he made enchiladas that were to die for - we may just have to throw a mexican inspired fiesta this summer in our new place to share those!

sidenote #3 - I just accepted a position coaching a JV girls bball team at a pretty cool private school ---eeek, I thought life was crazy now, looks like I'll be giving up my winter to the hardwoods :) - I'm a little nervous about the time comittment, but also pretty psyched about the opportunity.

sidenote #4 - mark my word, I am never going this long again without a real vacation. NEVER. EVER. again - I'm in some serious need of a break from reality which is why I am so stoked for a girls weekend in Petaluma in just a couple of days for Lindsey's bachelorette celebration!

sidenote #5 - like our wall picture collage? I do! I'm excited to change out a couple pics for a fresh feel :).

sidenote #6 - if you didn't already know, I heart glee...

sidenote#7 - i think one of the sweetest things in all the world is waking up next to the one you love and falling asleep the same way ;).

Come on in ;)

2011-05-05T09:36:00.001-07:00

Finally! A few new house pics for you :). My blogging session got bumped by some extra work that needed to get done last night - but never fear, here's a sneak peek as my dear friend Lisa would say. I'll save the gushing for later but for now I'll just tell ya that I'm absolutely loving coming home to Joe every night. I feel so very blessed. Now, come on in!

Our front door - note Joe's brass bell to the left that he had to hang asap and my crazy stick that I found and am determined to do something fun with ;).

Our bright and fun kitchen - I love it, the counter tops, the tile, the gas stove, the big sink - we are going to create so much yummy food here.

Two of our besties hanging out in their new digs- Obi wan and Julia ;).

I just love the light that streams in! oooh and those are some gingko leaves that Joe picked up for me on his way home our first week here. Who needs to pay for flowers when you can have gingkos for free!

Our work in progress living room - we haven't settled on furniture placement yet and have a big Young House Love project in store this weekend - can't wait to post photos of that!

hehe - maybe this is TMI - but I had to post a pic of el bano because I heart our leafy shower curtain.

Our baby back yard - nothing much yet - but boy are we excited about the potential - we've been dragging chairs out for our meals and eating al fresco!

The big Totorro tree we see from our backyard - I'm falling in love with this guy!

ahhhh friday :0

2011-04-29T10:43:00.001-07:00

I couldn't be happier that today is Friday and I couldn't be happier knowing that I get to go home to Joe tonight :) - it is such a treat to have a Friday night together, even though Joe will be needing the evening to get some grad school work done, I'm just so happy that we'll finally come home to each other to start the weekend. The bulk of the move is complete - we (by we, I mean me) had a few bumps emotionally this week, but we're in and I am so excited about creating our home together. I promise that pics are coming soon (we still don't have internet) but I can't wait to share! The place is so us.

Here's a sweet song of the day for today - enjoy!

well hello Mr. President...

2011-04-20T21:50:00.000-07:00

I met the POTUS today peeps - yep you read it right, the President of the United States.

Well, actually I just got to shake his hand, but let me tell you guys, the man has got some serious swagger. You can imagine that I was completely calm and collected as I naturally am around celebrities (kat, linds, laura -reference my recent encounter with Joshua Radin) - when he shook my hand, I very gracefully said, Nice to meet you Mr. President and gave him a firm handshake and he looked me straight in the eyes and gave me a big smile and said.....ummmm, well I can't remember, I was too star struck by his dreamy charisma :).

We got a private tour from the pilot himself, Scott Turner - total top gun dude and unfortunately, we didn't get to take pics inside, but we got to sit in Barak's chair in his office and see his bedroom and the conference room where apparently he plays cards for entire flights on a lot of trips :) with Reggie Love. We also got to see the medical room and hear about the slumber parties Chelsea Clinton used to have on board and the way that Nancy Reagan refused to leave Ronald Reagan's casket on their trip to California. oooh and we got to sit in the cockpit too! Here are a few pics!

joe always makes me feel better...

2011-04-18T21:44:00.000-07:00

I was having a case of cold feet about the move today - a combination of feeling a little guilty about Joe having to bear the burden of a longer commute for a couple months (I hate to add any more stress to his already super busy schedule!) and just my usual nervousness about change and new surroundings...

but once again, my rock solid boyfriend pulls through...the guy just exudes positivity and I couldn't be more grateful for his grounded can-do-ness. Reason #1,984,379 that I'm head over heels in love with him.

bridal tea

2011-04-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

One of my dearest friends in all the world is getting married this summer and yesterday we kicked off the celebration with a bridal shower tea in the city at an adorable tea room called Lovejoy's. It was so fun to meet and spend time with some of the important women in Lindsey's life. Lindsey is such a gracious person and an even more gracious bride to be (no Bridezilla anywhere to be found in her!) and it was an afternoon of genuine excitement about the upcoming wedding.

outing my boyfriend

2011-04-17T11:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't been to the Kingdom for a while (that's what we call Joe's place) and yesterday when we got home from dinner (at an awesome funky Mac n'Cheese restaurant called Homeroom), I went into the bedroom and on his night stand was a Gameboy. We were both pooped from our busy days so we plopped down on the bed to rest our spirits for a minute and that's when Joe confessed to me that after we say good night on the phone (we usually chat just before going to bed, often both of us are in bed, and I thought we were both just moments away from dream land) he hangs up and instead of going to bed, busts out the game boy for a few games of tetris. Hah, I loved it - this crazy, super motivated, get down to business educator, chillaxing with a few games of tetris before bed time.

Then, this morning after we got back from our morning run, we were looking at one of Joe's tables to see if it might work for a coffee table in our new place and on top of the table was this crazy lego battle truck thing - he says it's called the batterax, I accidentally called it a battle ship and he acted like he couldn't believe his ears. Turns out he spent a recent evening drinking a beer and building the lego batterax. He then proceeded to show me how certain portions of the batterax detacched to become a flying batterax and then he rolled the truck around on the table making battle noises. Here's a pic, ignore how dusty that table is, we'll be sure to clean that up before the move :).

crazy is the new normal :)...

2011-04-15T08:59:00.000-07:00

...yep, that's the truth people, it's been one busy year, one busy fall, one busy winter and one busy spring and you know what - I'm beginning to realize that the crazy probably isn't planning on leaving anytime soon (I mean holy moly, let's be honest we're single and don't even have any kids or pets yet! Moms of the world, I'm not quite sure how you do it!) - but there is light at the end of the tunnel!!!!

Yay, loverboy and I just signed a lease on a new place last night! Which means...

1) No more 45 minute commutes to see each other.

2) No more teary (me being the teary one) phone conversations about how I just can't take the semi long distance.

and the BEST part...

3) Coming home to each other after long days.

ha-le-lu-yah

Bon Apetit!

2011-04-04T06:52:00.000-07:00

I heart Julia Childs - I mean, really, how can you not? The woman exudes this contagious, bubbly, effervescence and speaks in a high pitched tone that you can't resist trying to imitate when she exclaims BonJour or Bon Apetit! One evening last summer, I forced Joe to watch Julie and Julia with me and to my surprise, he really enjoyed it - blogging, cooking, food - what's not to love?! Ever since then we have both been wanting to try to make Julia's Boeuf Bourginon. This past weekend, we finally got around to it! Now, I love spending time with Joe, no matter what we are doing, but I have to say, spending time creating something together in the kitchen to share with some of our dearest friends ranks pretty darn high on my list. Don't tell him I said this, but I think Joe is kind of adorable in the kitchen :). The way he plots and plans and problem solves and steals a few sweet kisses every now and then - it all just makes me melt. I have to say, I think the true reason that the Boeuf was extra tasty was because we added our secret ingredient - a whole lot of LOVE!

Ingredients for the Boeuf - 12 oz of bacon, 4 lbs. of organic, grass fed stewing beef, more pearl onions than a single person should ever peel by hand, flour, more onions, carrots, garlic, mushrooms, parsley, beef stock and a bottle (yes a bottle) of wine.

Patting the beef dry so that it will brown -we heard you Julia!

mmmmmm Bacon.

so, so, so, so many Pearl Onions- adorable but pesky little buggers.

mmmmm....Beef browned in bacon fat.

mmmm...Beef braising in a bottle of wine.

Mushrooms and pearl onions post butter bath.

et Voila! Le Boeuf.

Joe and Julia...I mean Lindsey :)

Laura showin' off her pearls :)

Kat getting to work on her candle napkins :)

A few of my favorites :)

Post dinner games :).
I simply love sharing meals with these people.

thank heavens for old friends

2011-03-31T06:35:00.000-07:00

A good college friend of mine came into town last weekend (I know it's practically next weekend already - I've been blog slacking!). Darrel and I lived together with a bunch of other crazy kids during our sophomore and junior years at college. I have to be honest and admit that I was a little bit stressed about hosting him for the whole weekend as my weekends have become precious time set aside for getting to see Joe. In fact, I was so stressed about it that I ended up crying on the phone to Joe for about 1/2 an hour, just before Darrel's train pulled into town - sometimes the stresses of being in a semi-long distance relationship wear me down - I'm not proud of that :(. In any case all this is to say that having Darrel here for the weekend was such a blessing. As soon as Darrel hopped in my car, he could tell that I wasn't feeling great (my red, teary eyes might have given him a big clue :)) and it didn't take more than a few minutes for me to feel comfortable pouring my heart out about how hard a semi-long distance relationship with a partner in an intense grad school program can be. I'm afraid that I must sound like a completely ungrateful, unappreciative person by focusing on what is hard about my relationship with Joe instead of focusing on how much better life is with him in it, but in my attempt to be strong through a stressful situation, sometimes I don't allow myself the opportunity to express my true feelings and boy did it feel good to pour it all out. Darrel was an incredible listener over dinner that evening and made me feel like I wasn't crazy for feeling as stressed over a good thing as I was.

We spent the weekend sleeping in until 10am ( I never do that!), listening to the pouring rain outside, making the most delicous banana bread, shopping with Kat for some bridal shower supplies, hosting an impromptu pasta dinner with a few friends before heading off to Laura's concert, walking the dish, watching college bball, making pizzas and just catching up and talking about life. I admire Darrel's drive in his professional life and his willingness to continue to reflect on life in order to grow. Between the converstaion and the break from my usual routine, the weekend ended up being so rejuvenating. Here's a few pics...

Song of the day

2011-03-24T21:29:00.000-07:00

This is simply beautiful...

Stephanie + Chris from scotty perry on Vimeo.

the Team :)

2011-03-15T21:59:00.000-07:00

A group of pretty cool girls at our team party tonight - how did I get lucky enough to be their coach?!

and look what they made for me...

My heart just melted when I opened it. I gave the girls little quotes on colored construction paper with a ribbon tied to it before each game, so they told me that they made the frame to look like our game quotes.

I hope Tara Vanderveer finds this post and is looking for a new assistant bball coach :), I just love this stuff.

resilience

2011-03-13T16:49:00.000-07:00

I do not have adequate words to express the sadness I felt on Friday as news of the earthquake in Japan began to unfold. Having lived in Japan for a year, my heart sank a little further on Friday morning as my thoughts turned to my friends there.

I found this article at some point during the day and very much appreciated the sentiments it conveyed - Sympathy for Japan, and Admiration.

Joe and I spent our morning getting an earthquake survival kit together. We included the following:
Band aids
Sterile Gauze
Neosporin
Benedryl
Anti-bacterial wipes
lighter
candles
contact solution
extra pair of contacts
2 gallons of water
2 cans of tuna
2 cans of beef soup
2 cans of chef boyardee ravioli
change of clothes
leatherman
document with emergency contact numbers
copy of photo id

We both have blankets and rain coats in our car as well as a stash of water and first aid supplies. (Let me know if you think we are forgetting anything :)). Here is a good link in case you are interested in making sure your emergency kit is up to par - Survival Kit

I will be sending so much white light to Japan as they begin to pick up the pieces in the coming weeks.

May Japan's spirit of resilience shine brightly.

1000 paper cranes

2011-03-11T11:26:00.000-08:00

My heart goes out to all of Japan and everyone affected by tsunami warnings. My friend Kat had this posted on her Tumblr site this morning and I thought it was beautiful...Sending so many prayers out this morning.

1000 Paper Cranes

Rest

2011-03-09T09:59:00.001-08:00

Good, quality rest is something that I struggle to get enough of - in the past 2 or 3 years, my body has been telling me more and more that it needs rest. I've struggled to listen or to be able to fully over come my desires to exercise like super woman or to push my stress/anxiety out of my mind. I stumbled upon this great list for promoting rest today and wanted to share...

http://www.exerciseprogression.com/rest.html

Enjoy!

Weekend simple pleasures

2011-03-06T18:28:00.000-08:00

1) Boys that voluntarily stay beyond their own practice time to help my girls work through our defense.

2) vacuuming out my car - call me crazy, I love having a clean car.

3) Taking Joe to the Hillview Alumni game to see girls I coached last year play versus the girls I am coaching this year.

4) The electric energy of a basketball gym full of fans and passionate athletes.

5) romantic Saturday night dates in new restaurants (We tried Mantra in Palo Alto - two thumbs up, I recommend the Traditional Tikka Masala.

6) kickin' loverboy's butt on our morning track run ;)

7) almond croissants and espresso at Douce France

8) Big pots of Sunday chili and cornbread

9) pre-game planning for tomorrow's big game

10) finishing the entire Star Wars series - I can't believe I'm saying this, but I absolutely love the movies!

11) finally putting Bouef Bourginon dinner on the calendar

12) feeling my normal energy levels coming back after a week of feeling exhausted

13) listening to Joe play the guitar - he's so darn good :)

14) message from Lisa that baby Henry rec'd his onesie.

Get rhythm when you get the blues...

2011-03-04T09:25:00.000-08:00

Happy, happy Friday - so ready for some more r&r this weekend. Little bit of a rough week health wise - it's true, getting old isn't for sissies! But let me tell ya the harmonies, melodies and lyrics of these women were a little bit of saving grace for me this week...enjoy and happy, restful weekend to you!

it's all about Sunday...and a few simple pleasures...

2011-02-27T16:08:00.000-08:00

Boy oh boy am I happy to have a "weekend" with Joe after a few weekends of out of town trips. Friday night, I was absolutely fried from the week - thank goodness for the energy of my 8th grade girls at practice on Saturday morning - I barely had the energy to plan practice, but funny how being in the gym with the girls totally brought my energy up. After practice I came home and took a big, long nap which felt so darn good :). Me of year ago probably would have pushed through being tired to get a whole bunch of stuff done - I'm proud of myself for getting a little better at listening to my body. After a mellow evening with Joe with soup and a movie, I woke up feeling like a whole new person this morning. What a difference between Friday Sarah and Sunday Sarah! Hallelujah for Sunday - and what a beautiful one we had today - lots of sunshine pouring in, a day off from exercise, cinnamon bread, tea and Joe - I couldn't ask for much more :).

And because I didn't do anything especially earth -shattering this weekend - here are some of the weekend's simple pleasures (in addition to glorious Saturday afternoon naps, and sweet Sunday morning's with the one ya love :):

1) Friday morning rainbow on the way in to work
2) Friday afternoon walk with Linds
3) Star Wars Episode 2
4) An evite from Joe for Snuggle -o-rama - he actually sent me an evite to snuggle with him on the couch with a movie! How cute is that?
5) Costco rebate checks
6) Free lululemon yoga
7) Greenlees cinnamon bread
8) Quick Frisbee study break
9) Just getting to hang out with Joe for more than 2 hours (even if he was doing homework most of the day - only 4 more months of grad school!! Hallelujah!)
10) Homemade Mac n' Cheese with gruyere and fontina
11) Pics of baby Henry
12) Bridal shower planning for Linds

And I'll leave you with this gem - action shot of Joe on our Frisbee break today.

Happy week everyone!

where everybody knows your name :)

2011-02-21T21:53:00.000-08:00

I made a quick trip to San Diego for President's Day weekend while Joe made his way out to Salt Lake for a ski trip. It was so nice to be home for just an ordinary weekend - no holiday gatherings on the agenda, no last minute Christmas shopping and no holiday meals to be prepared - it was so nice and relaxing! I flew in on Friday night and as soon as I got in the car, my dad had to play me his new favorite song - Ce-lo - Forget you - oh my goodness, he was belting it out and all - I have some pretty fun video footage of it. On Saturday morning, the fam had breakfast together and then my sister and I made our way over to my lovely grandparent's house to say hello. They're adorable :). We got to their house at about 11:30 and they were just hanging out doing their usual word puzzles and cross words. My sister and I sat down and started chatting and before we knew it Grandpa had roped us into helping solve his word puzzle - he's so cute, he makes my heart melt. As we went about unscrambling the word 'Zinnia' my Grandma went into her closet and pulled out her skeleton pants - did I tell you guys about those? Silly lady bought a pair of black sparkly pants -she thought the sparkly designs were flowers- but they were in fact skeletons, so look what she did...

She stitched a bunch more gems on by hand - one by one - and now, well they're some serious bling, bling pants!

This is my Grandpa's spot - he's got a shelf next to him that is fully equipped with an atlas, a couple dictionaries, word puzzle books, a thermometer and the remote control :). Cute man isn't he?!

Look how beautiful my Grandma is! I love her - skeleton sparkly pants and all :).

How cute is this? My Grandpa is a big sports fan - he especially likes baseball, golf and basketball. Sometimes games go until late at night, and these days, my Grandpa's bed time is pretty early - so when he goes to bed before a game ends, my grandma - who is a night owl, stays up and writes the final score on a piece of paper and puts it in the bathroom so my Grandpa can see the final score first thing in the morning. I just love this super simple but super sweet display of love - absolutely warms my heart.

After a little bit, my sister and I hit the mall to do some shopping - I've been looking forward to this since I booked my tickets home. My sister and my mom are my absolute favorite shopping partners in the world and it was a treat to get to spend a Saturday afternoon shopping with my sister! I love all the giggling and dressing room sharing etc.

Saturday night, I got to see the San Diego F4lies for Curran's 30th birthday.

I am so thankful for these women and the friendship that we have shared since we were in elementary/middle school. We went to this super fun Russian/Georgian restaurant - I had a big bowl of Borscht and the birthday boy got to write on the restaurant walls. After dinner we made our way to the Triple Crown pub where we played a crazy group ping pong game until 1am (way past my old lady bed time these days) - it was a blast!!!

On Sunday, I got to meet the boy that my sister is dating - ooooh he is super sweet and I hope that things work out between the two of them - I wanted to take a pic of these two, but decided to be the cool sister instead of the embarrassing sister - you're welcome Jess :). My mom and I did a little shoe shopping in the afternoon and then it was off to the grandparent's for Pizza from our favorite, local spot and Amazing Race :0.

Monday morning my mom and I got to do some Yoga together - I love getting to do Yoga with her and I am glad that we got squeeze a little in.

It was a Happy President's day weekend indeed, hope yours was too and here's to short work weeks! Bring on the next weekend already!

that's what happens on busy weeks...

2011-02-15T06:36:00.000-08:00

You don't get to post about wonderful weekends until the next weekend is almost here!

A bunch of my favs at Dim Sum on Sunday.

Post dim sum book club/video chat with the author of our last book! How cool is that?!

And big news over the weekend in the blogosphere - my dear blog buddy Lisa had her baby boy on Sunday! Welcome to the world baby Henry!

Happy Valentine's Day Lovers....

2011-02-14T06:51:00.000-08:00

Here's a little diddy for you, I hope your day is full of lots of love, sweet love!

battle of the brothers :)

2011-02-07T20:37:00.000-08:00

Joe's brother Mark came to the bay to visit this weekend! And before I tell you about all the fun stuff we did, I just have to say that I absolutely love the relationship they have. I grew up with a sister, so the whole brother thing is foreign to me and while I imagine having a bunch of little boys can cause some pretty serious head aches for a mother, there is something so sweet about the relationship that two grown brothers can share. I had so much fun seeing them together and listening to their playful banter.

A few days before Mark arrived, he emailed suggesting that we head out for a run all together after we picked him up at the airport. My kind of guy!! So we did just that, we picked Mark at about 10am and after a quick stop to change we made our way out to Windy Hill. I asked Mark to make sure that he stayed out really late on Saturday or did some kind of strenuous activity on Saturday to make sure that he was a little tired on Sunday morning so I could keep up with him and Joe. Mark did some skiing on Saturday, but you know what, if he was at all tired, I sure couldn't tell. Mark and Joe both kicked my butt to the top, but despite getting my butt whipped, we all got to enjoy a few moments at the top together with 360 degree views of the bay area - we could see downtown San Jose, downtown San Francisco, Mt. Diablo and even waves at the coast! On the way down, we took a new trail and it was gorgeous! The downhill made it easier for me to keep up with the boys, Joe was in front of me and Mark was behind - it was a brother sandwich!

After our run we stopped at a local outdoor cafe for some breakfast in the sun with coffee and chai! The weather was incredible this weekend and it felt like a summer afternoon sitting outside at the cafe! After breakfast we made a quick Superbowl beer stop, showered up at my place and then drove over to Nate and Lindsey's for some Super Bowl watching.

I can't think of anything better than spending an afternoon after a long run, hanging out with friends, eating yummy food and vegging on the couch watching football! Glorious I tell ya! And then to top it all off, there was a special episode of GLEE on after the game! AND, there's even another new Glee on on Tuesday! Life is good people.

Our yummy spread! Lindsey's delicious mushroom and cheese quesadillas, 7 layer bean dip (in honor of KONAS), good ol' guac, and Joe's mom's famous garlic dip! Pair that grub with a cold one (a Hansen's orange lime soda for the weak sauce drinker - me!) and I was feeling like I was living a little slice of heaven yesterday!

Yum, I wish this was in front of me again right now!

The brothers chill-axing with some yummy eats!

Some of my favorite peeps.

oooooh and PS - On Saturday night, Joe and I went to see Laura play the cello in Saratoga! She was fantastic, the music was beautiful and I have to say I was just so darn impressed - I wish I had a picture to share!

Happy week everyone!

Song of the day

2011-02-06T08:40:00.001-08:00

Totally unrelated to the Superbowl, but I love this song....

Simple Pleasures

2011-02-04T21:51:00.000-08:00

1) Reading on Lisa's blog that she got to go home for the week!

2) Letters from my Grandma telling me stories of how she and my grandpa went to Triple A to get a map of the bay area so they could see where Joe lives.

3) Lime Sparkling water

4) Homemade Vinegar cleaner

5) Pictures of my grandma on Facebook (she bought a pair of pants with a sparkly design on the bottom - the design was a skeleton but my sweet grandma bought them because she thought they were flowers)

6) Hearing happiness in my sister's voice on the phone.

White light needed

2011-02-04T09:05:00.000-08:00

I'm a firm believer in the power of sending positive energy to the people that we love. My good friend Kat calls it sending white light, which I love and so I'm borrowing the phrase here. My dear friend Lisa is in the final trimester of her pregnancy and has been having some medical complications that the doctors have not been able to figure out. She is in the hospital now, but hoping to head home for the week to rest before welcoming her new baby boy into the world next weekend. If you've got any extra white light in you today and this next week, could you send some Lisa's way?

Sending you so much love, peace and healthy white light Lisa!

I'm officially a nerd..

2011-02-03T06:56:00.000-08:00

I mean I guess this probably isn't news to anyone who really knows me, but by posting the following video, I am giving up any hope of denying it!

May the force be with you! (I'm talking to you and Henry, Lisa!)

Simple Pleasures

2011-02-01T06:36:00.000-08:00

* A good night sleep after a relaxing massage.

* Good energy as a result of a good night sleep and a relaxing massage.

* Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap - so refreshing in the morning!

* Roasted red peppers

* Good Earth Sweet and Spicy Tea

* Yummy leftovers that only require a little heating up after a long day

* Seeing a light bulb go on when one of my 8th grade bball players gets a new concept and does it right on the floor!

* Thank yous from the girls after our game last night. PS - We won :).

* Having a girl ask - Coach, do you know what the score of the Duke, UCONN game is? I love that they are into college bball!

* Having an old high school coach who I can go to for offensive strategy advice.

* Running through possible strategies to prepare for the next team that we play.

--can you tell I love this coaching stuff :)?

Happy Tuesday!

Simple Pleasures

2011-01-28T15:14:00.000-08:00

1) Friday energy!

2) Coming home to the man that you love :)

3) Flowers and chocolate for no reason at all.

4) Arriving to my office this morning with a big box waiting for me - a new jacket that a co-worker and I ordered together so we could share shipping costs.

5) Watching 8 girls giving their all during shell drill at practice Wednesday night.

6) Unexpectedly running into a friend at the gym on a night when I really needed the motivation to get my workout in.

Happy, happy weekend! Joe and I have massages booked on Sunday and I couldn't be more excited.

Wedding Planning weekend

2011-01-23T20:14:00.000-08:00

My dear, dear friend Lindsey is getting married this summer and I just couldn't be happier/more excited for her and her fiance Nate. I just love both Lindsey and Nate as individuals and together I think they make one of the greatest couples I know. They've got six months to the big day, so I'll save some of the sap for a little bit closer to the actual date but, this weekend Lindsey rounded upthe friend star as we call ourselves or the bay area UPS alumni book club as Jack calls us and we got down to business - Lindsey and Nate have done so much work planning already and it was so fun and such an honor to have Lindsey ask us all for some help! We spent an entire 24 hours together - which meant girls sleepover!!! How fun is that?! We visited the park where the day before picnic will take place, we saw the venue, took some table measurements, did some dress shopping, purchased a few succulents for dreaming up centerpieces with, watched 3 girly wedding movies, had a big finnish pancake breakfast and then hit up a local bridal fair for some more inspiration.

The pre-wedding picnic site where we picnic lunched and got our brains in wedding mode.

At the dress whisperer's dress shop!

Wedding movies galore - boys don't get too jealous of this one :).

Blog/website inspiration.

Centerpiece brainstorming.

Lindsey's homemade Finnish pancake - how fancy is that?!

Succulent breakfast table!

At the bridal fair.

Love, love, love these girls and am so excited for the journey leading up to the big day for Lindsey and Nate!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

2011-01-20T21:34:00.000-08:00

It's my Grandma's birthday tomorrow and well, my Grandma is the smartest, sharpest 81 year old I know, but she doesn't have computer so she will likely never see this unless my sister or my mom or dad show her - but I just had to take a moment to share with the blogosphere how much I love that lady!

I think I'm probably more like my Grandma than anyone else I know (or at least I'd like to think I am ). She's a kindred spirit and I just treasure all the similarities that we share . I can hardly believe she is turning 81 - she's the most youthful, quick witted 81 year old I've ever known. She's amazing really! In a thank you card that she ALREADY wrote me, she told me that she was turning 81 years young - how cute is that?! And you know what I just adore about her (one of a bazillion things)? Even though she is 81 and has pretty much seen it all - she still has this child-like curiosity and wonder inside of her - it's such a breath of fresh air to witness her genuine zest for life. I know this quality has played a huge role in keeping her young and healthy.

I hope she knows how grateful I am for her and what a powerful impact she has had on me by being the person that she is.

I love you Grandma! Happy, happy Birthday!

Rock and Roll and Run

2011-01-16T10:39:00.000-08:00

Busy MLK weekend round here - had to take advantage of perhaps the last weekend before the grad school madness kicks in again for Joe. So take advantage of it, we did (I'm also practicing my Yoda speak as Joe and I spent our evenings watching the entire Star Wars trilogy - I had never seen them and boy now I know what I was missing out on (am I condemning myself to eternal dorkiness by admiting this?)- my fav. part of the movies, next to the sweet jedi action was Joe's total boy excitment throughout each one - haha - adorable! All weekend long everything we've been doing has included Star Wars references - we've been whipping out our light sabers and calling on the force quite a bit).

Where was I? Oh yes, taking advantage of a 3 day weekend -yipeeeee! We sure did pack some good adventuring in and thanks to good old Mother Nature - we got LOTS of outdoor time! Saturday we made our way down to Saratoga to Castle Rock State Park to do some rock climbing. We had about a mile and a half hike in to Goat Rock where we set up some anchors and repelled down so we could climb back up (and when I say we, I mostly mean Joe).

My heart was pounding about a mile a minute here.

I'm probably sweating a little bit here :)

Glad that boy knows how to tie a good anchor!

Sunday we made our way over to the city and did some rollerblading through Golden Gate Park - hallelujah for streets closed to cars and relatively flat terrain - my sister and I used to rolerblade down our steep driveway, but I was a a little out of practice to say the least - nevertheless, it was fun and I didn't break any bones - so I would say the experience was a success. Sunday night we drove to Indian Rock in Berk-town to catch the sunset, we arrived a little late but still had beautiful views of the bay and Mt. Tam. After a little sunset-watching we popped into town to a spanish restaurant called Cesar which I definitely recommend!! Fun Spanish tapas place in the Gourmet Ghetto. We ordered brussell sprouts, which were coated in a parsley, olive oil, lemon, garlic sauce- yumalicious and then we shared the paella and boy oh boy was this a treat - rice in a lobster broth with mussels, clams, shrimp, chicken, and chorizo - you've gotta try this if you find yourself at Cesar!! I was transported right to Spain! For dessert we had the bread pudding - I heart bread pudding and it was topped with an orange-caramel sauce, which was lovely!

Top of Indian Rock.

Mt. Tam in the distance.

mmmmm Paella as good as they make it in Spain!

Monday morning we drove up into the Oakland hills for our "first date run" and were treated to some pretty views of Mt. Diablo floating in fog and clouds :). That brings us to now, we're icing our aging bodies after a weekend full of fun activity and making some maple 'baked' beans in the crock pot for din din.

I'm so thankful to have an extra day off today but more than that I am so thankful for the people before me who gave their lives fighting for equality for all human beings - as I got out of my comfort zone this weekend and did some things that I am not particularly good at - there were definitely moments when I paused for a moment thinking about how cool it was to be able to participate in and enjoy all the different activities and places that the bay area has to offer. I know we don't live in a perfect world, but I am thankful for the work that has been done and hopeful that people will find it inside themselves to open their hearts to men and women from all different races and ethnicities.

Sunset on our way out of Castle Rock.

Wishing you a beautiful week!

Luxuriously lazy Sunday

2011-01-09T15:26:00.000-08:00

I just love a good, lazy Sunday - lovely way to spend the day after a week of readjusting to the working world. Especially when it follows a fun filled Saturday spent coaching some 8th grade girls bball players, hosting the friend star's THIRTEENTH book club and dinner dating with loverboy at NOLAs in Palo Alto. Joe and I woke up leisurely this morning and made our way out for one of our favorite runs - Windy Hill! It was a gorgeous day out on the trails. Lots of runners, hikers and bikers playing in the sunshine. After a good 2 week holiday break, Joe and I felt rejuvenated and energized on our sometimes extremely painful 2.5 mile uphill run :). When we got to the top today, we could see all of Palo Alto and we had gorgeous views of the ocean - it looked so close we cold even see the waves breaking. We were up high where the clouds are and they were blowing through the pine trees and the wispy whites and greens made my heart melt - sometimes the clouds looked like waterfalls between the trees - what a fun reward for a hard, uphill run! After our run we treated ourselves to Philz - nothing like a cup of caffeine to replenish the muscles :). This evening we cooked up a pot of Cioppino soup, a recipe that I recently saw Giada make and mmmmm, mmmmm, it was good! Spicy Italian Sausage, some shrimp, fennel, shallots, tomato paste and basil - Yummmy!

And since I haven't posted any pictures of my holiday break, I thought I'd tack a couple on here. I have to admit, I was a bad photographer while I was at home this year, so there are just a few...

Christmas Eve with the fam.

Annual F4L holiday get together.

The sister and I at Sushi dinner.

Joe and I got to head out to Tahoe for our first XC skiing adventure together and my first time EVER on skis! We had an absolutely gorgeous weather day - a blue bird powder day as Joe calls 'em. Pristine snow and crystal clear skies! It took me a while to get the hang of it and well I fell my fair share of times, but I'm excited to get back out there and try again some day!

Winter wonderland!!! Being a So.Cal girl, the snow is a whole new world for me, I was absolutely awe-struck by the beauty it creates!

Warm thermos of hot cocoa that Joe packed! We busted it out on the trails and had some left over for the car ride home - such a simple but wonderful and WARM sweet treat!