Back to Normal

Back to normal–whatever that is, huh?  After any trip I am always anxious to get back to normal.  That seems to always include a stop at Trader Joe’s to stock up on dairy and vegetables, making a batch of homemade yogurt, and cleaning the house.  How does a house get dirty while you are gone?  Oh.  Three little doggies…

Anyway, it was a wonderful fall trip.  Full of color and inspiration, and that was before I ever got to the quilting retreat!  So here’s my rather long and picture-full report.  And then I can truly get ‘back to normal.’

First stop was just an overnight stay in Klamath Falls.  I didn’t want to try the 9 1/2 hour drive to Sisters in one day.  (Although I guess I thought that would be okay for the drive home…)  Hotwire helped me make this reservation.  I can’t say enough good about my experience with Hotwire.  I called them because I had made a reservation and then they sent me an email with a better deal.  So even though their reservations are ‘no backsides,’ they honored that and gave me a $30 refund.  Which I applied to this place.  It was a very luxurious resort, only about 3 miles off the main drag.  I thought it would be a perfect place  if I was a writer and wanted a place to hide out and write for a while!

The next morning as I drove towards Sisters, I crossed a body of water and noticed the name was ‘Pelican Bay.’  Hmmm, isn’t that funny how they choose to name something?’ (thinking that Pelicans were sea birds, and this was an inland lake.)  Just then I noticed some big birds out of the corner of my eye!  Fortunately there was a place to pull over, and I grabbed my camera and jumped out of the car.  I was so EXCITED when I saw the first  three pelicans in this picture.  They were so much bigger and brighter than the ocean pelicans I am used to seeing!

And I was beyond excited when this PLATOON of pelicans floated into view!  So glad that I stopped to enjoy the view.  So many times I just keep on driving.

I had done map quests to Costco, Trader Joe’s, and Whole Foods to stock up on food for the week.  And so I stopped at Costco, and it turns out that was the only place I needed to stop.  I got one of those whole cooked chickens, a bag of salad with all the fixings, a loaf of their good bread, and a giant container of grapes.  Turns out this was a non-cooking trip.  So all that stuff was just right for grab and go meals.

The little cottage I rented (ha!  It was bigger than my ‘house,’) was beautiful and perfect for two people.  I was alone until Sunday night when my best friend arrived to spend a couple of days with me.

First night I was signed up for a lecture with Gwen Marston.  She is such a talented artist, and so funny and down to earth.  Her hand quilting  is beautiful, and has influenced how I am quilting my ‘housetop quilts.’

I had a free day in between, and I took advantage of that to explore the town of Sisters on foot.  I got in plenty of walking exercise.

I was inspired by Gwen’s work, and took out a little pack of hand-dyed fabric I had bought at the previous quilt show, and started a little quilt.

Later in the week I actually started hand-quilting on it, using Gwen’s liberated quilting method!

And finally the retreat started!  Here is an example of the work of Sue Spargo, the other teacher.  Her work is over-the-top spectacular, filled with every kind of handwork imaginable.

close up of some of the stitching:

I was quite unsure of myself at the beginning of this workshop.  All I knew for sure was that I wanted to use some deep magenta and green wool that I had bought for the project.  So I ended up spending a day and a half just piecing the top.

NO.  Those are not yellow clouds or mushrooms.  I ended up using this next picture that I took of the scene right outside the lodge where the class was held.  Lovely shapes of drying yarrow.  The quilt will look better when I fill in with stems and foliage and maybe some birds (I hope!)

I did get the hang of appliqué, and I finally got around to learning some new stitches the last day.  Very fun!  It was also fun to work with wool and silk, and velvet, some fabric that is considered difficult to work with.  Sue had a lot of experience in using those fabrics.

My friend arrived Sunday night, and so of course we went out shopping on Monday.  So fun to be able to talk in person with a friend.  Much better than the telephone!  I had to check out the local yarn shop, just for Shelley!

I bought three skeins of an old favorite, Koigu yarns, and started a ‘linen stitch’ scarf.  I totally LOVE the way the colors change constantly, and this is a fun and easy stitch to do.

Soon enough, the week was over, and I was on my way home.  I drove home in one day through rain and snow and sunshine.  And beautiful views of Oregon, one of my most favorite states.

It was a week full of creativity of every type, beautiful color, a little too much good food, not quite enough exercise, and plenty of great conversation, with just enough relaxation mixed in.

And now…back to normal.

 

 

Obsession

Wow, its been a while since I posted.  I don’t know why, except that I didn’t have much to say.  My trip to Sisters is coming up this week, and I find myself obsessed about the food I am going to eat, more so than usual.  Not sure what that’s about.

I do have a general plan in mind.  I checked, and there is a Costco, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods within a few miles of each other in Bend, which is the town right before I get to Sisters.  So I can stop there and stock up on groceries for the week.  I have a general plan to have two dinners out, and one lunch out on the way up.  The retreat serves lunch, and I usually don’t have a problem with that.  I take a protein bar with me, and if I don’t care for what they are serving, I can usually pick a bit out, and supplement with the protein bar.  So I don’t know exactly what I’m obsessed about.  Except the usual, of wanting to eat a lot because I am on vacation, and NOT wanting to eat a lot because I don’t want to gain. Oh, and then there’s that whole thing about ‘I’m not supposed to eat until I’m hungry.’

Have to be honest with you.  I am only being about 70% compliant with that now.  I’ve had a little non-specific anxiety, and just ate early.  Not bad choices or anything.  Just eating when I wasn’t hungry.  Still, I feel I have learned a lot from this experiment.  Like, I really am fine eating a little less food.  And I think it is a very good habit in general.  So I plan to continue to pay attention to that, and to try to stick with it as well as I can.

I am VERY excited about this trip.  The two teachers for the quilt workshop really do beautiful work.  I have my collection of fabrics ready to go.  Plus I have plenty of free time planned.  And after the workshop/retreat is over, my best friend is coming over to Sisters and we will just have fun hanging out for a few days.

Today was laundry day, so I brought in my suitcases, and am packing as I fold my laundry!

I want to take my bike with me, as I think it will be so fun to bike around Sisters to get some exercise in.  I hope I don’t chicken out.  Its a little nerve-wracking to think about that bike rack on the back of the car, just held on by straps.

Oh, here’s a bit of news.  I went back to my weights workouts last week.  It felt so good to get back to it.  I worked out on Friday and Sunday.  But then Monday through Wednesday my knee, and all my joints just really ached.  I don’t really think its due to the weights workout, but it did make me a little hesitant to continue.  I started a ‘knee journal,’ to monitor my pain level, what I eat, what meds I take, and what exercise I do, to see if I can figure out what makes it better or worse.  I’ve got a feeling that it is just random arthritis, and might have been exacerbated by the change in the weather.  I am also mulling over the possibility of swimming through the winter, because I do miss it already!

Travel and Food

So my week at rug camp was wonderful.  I’ve written about it before, so won’t bore you withe the details, because it is essentially the same every year.  It is held at Cambria Pines Lodge, a place I thoroughly recommend to anyone who might be in the area.  Beautiful gardens surrounding the lodge, and close to the ocean and the charming town of Cambria.

Here’s a picture of me and my roommate with our rugs in the background.  (they have a rug show mid-week at camp.)

Bits and pieces of what I worked on at camp.

The whole rug design is shown in this post.  And lastly, a picture of what I have named THE BEST NEW TOY OF THE YEAR.  This is a tool that cuts strips of wool from fabric in precise sizes especially for rug hookers.  It is a really well-made tool and is very fun to use.  VERY FUN.

Back to the food.  The good thing about this camp being the same is that I pretty much knew the menu for the week.  For a place serving over 100 people a buffet meal three times a day, they have pretty good food choices the majority of the time.  But three big meals a day is still too much.  Plus, they are pretty heavy on the bread/wheat options.

So what I did this year was to call ahead and ask for a refrigerator and a microwave in my room.  No microwave (which I didn’t need,) but the fridge sure was appreciated.  I packed a simple refrigerator bag ($5 at Costco) with some ice, and apples, small cans of crushed pineapple, my favorite cottage cheese (Walmart,) baby carrots, Hillshire Farms sliced ham (convenient packaging!), some of my Quest protein bars, and some walnuts.  Oh, and some diet Cokes…

Three of the four days I ate lunch in my room.  It was a nice relaxing break, and I had a lunch that I actually enjoyed more than the lunch they provided.  Plus it was higher protein and fewer calories. I really didn’t need all that stuff, but it gave me a nice variety to choose from.  A couple of mornings I was up REALLY early, and so I had an apple or a protein bar for a ‘pre-breakfast.’

I pretty much relaxed and allowed myself to have whatever they were serving for breakfast and dinner.

So, as always, re-entry (coming home) and stocking up on food is something I really enjoy. Sometimes I am surprised at how easy it is to convert back to my usual healthy food choices.  I love getting bunches of fresh vegetables and fruit, and checking out the meat department for what is in stock.  And then I love to get some milk and a carton of cheap yogurt to start a batch of my homemade yogurt!

Another thing I do is try to make something special that is still healthier than the food I indulged in on the trip.  So yesterday I made a batch of my blueberry scones.  Hadn’t made them for a while and I was out of practice.  Let me just tell you that there is a fine line between adding just enough liquid and adding a bit too much!  But the end result was absolutely delicious.  Better than any baked goods I had on the trip!

I was really in the mood for some fish, so I ended up getting both Dover sole AND salmon.  Both were absolutely delicious.  I am always surprised that our little land-locked market occasionally has some really fresh fish available.  I cook all fish the same way.  Pre-heat the pan over medium high heat with a spray of pam and seasoning, add the fish, spray the top of fish with pam,  cook about 3 minutes on one side, flip, and another 3 minutes on the other side.  You might have to lower the heat to medium, and might have to adjust the cooking time depending on the thickness of your fish. I finish by squeezing fresh lemon over the fish while it is still hot in the pan.

Today I was cooking some brussel sprouts for lunch when I realized that I was not going to have time to eat them before I had to leave for an appointment.  So I put them in a plastic container, left them on the seat of the car while I went to my appointment, and ate them with a plastic fork after I got done–still warm from sitting in the sun!  Its just not that hard to bring your own food along if you think about it a bit.

And while on the subject of THAT APPOINTMENT…it was EXTREMELY stressful for me.  Opening a trust account at the bank that is in the grocery store.  I had to go there two days in a row to get all the paperwork that they required, with an additional trip to my lawyer’s in between.  Both days I was so stressed that I was looking longingly at the candy bars in the teller lines right next to the ‘bank.’  Fortunately I had some of my Eclipse gum in my purse.  That stuff is so strong it usually knocks any thought of other food out of my mind until I can get my thinking under control!

Well, those are just some of my thoughts tonight on living a whole and healthy life. I hope some of them might be helpful for you!  And now, off to bed.  Another important part of living a whole and healthy life.

Where Do I Start?

To borrow the language from some of my favorite cooking shows, this vacation had a lot of different components to it, which added to the complexity and the “flavor” of the experience!

Who flies across the country to spend three days with a person they’ve never met?  Only a blogger, I think!  Of course, I ‘knew’ Sharon from reading her blog for the past two years, and I felt that we would get along well, and I was right!  Sharon was such a gracious hostess.  She has written all about our time together, so I will not elaborate here, except to say THANK YOU once again to Sharon for her time and generosity.  Sharon and I developed a really fabulous muffin recipe that I will share in a separate blog.

Here’s a picturama of our hike in the Smokey Mountains!

Everything is so green in Tennessee–I love it!  Kind of a young green, if you know what I mean.

We saw this deer in the middle of the stream, which seemed so unusual.  Later, when she moved, we could see that she looked pregnant?  Hormones, maybe?

These little log bridges were a bit scary!

I have a bit of an obsession with stumps.  Isn’t this beautiful, though?

And we made it to the waterfall!!

I loved that you could get right up next to the waterfall!

And photographic proof that we were there!  You know, I think these national parks underestimate their mileage by quite a bit.  It sure seemed a lot longer than 5 miles round trip to me!  But worth every single step.

Next, Sharon and I drove to Nashville to spend the day with Cammy.  What fun!  (and why is everyone TALLER and THINNER in person than I thought they were?)  Hey, nobody says to me “You’re taller and thinner than I thought you were LOL.”  I guess nobody imagined that I was 4′ 8″ and 110 pounds?  Anyway, we had another great day, and Cammy wrote all about it here, so I won’t try to improve on her report.

We went to the Opryland Hotel, which was a mammoth place, and included INDOOR waterfalls!

And gorgeous flower plantings.

It would have been just plain weird if Cammy and I had met and frozen yogurt was NOT included.  This was CiCi’s, and it was really delicious.  And much more decorated than most of the froyo places I’ve been!

I had a day to recuperate from all the festivities, and then an old friend from my spinning and knitting days drove up to meet me in Nashville.  The last time we saw each other was in 2003, when we had the great experience of co-teaching (actually I was assisting her) at a national spinner’s conference.  It was like no time had passed at all, and we had so much fun talking dogs and knitting and life.  We went to a gorgeous yarn shop, and I spent too much money, and then we went to a big mall and sat in the courtyard and knitted and talked some more.  What a great day.

And then the quilt show tour began.

If you can stand it, come back for more tomorrow!  I know I included a ton of photos, but I came home with 400 pictures on my camera, so consider yourselves lucky LOL.

Three Weeks from Today

Three weeks from today, at this very moment, I will be in Knoxville, Tennessee!!!  I can hardly believe it.  It seems funny but I don’t really think about the trips I am taking on a daily basis.  Maybe its a defense mechanism I’ve developed to keep from obsessing about details.  So when I do think about them, it kind of comes as a surprise that it is approaching so quickly.

Sooooo…..what am I doing in Knoxville?  Well, this trip started as a “dream trip.”  I’ve dreamed about going to the  AQS quilt show in Paducah, Kentucky for a long time.  There are other big shows in the country, but this is one of the oldest and biggest and something about Paducah, Kentucky–I just wanted to go there.  Well, when you start investigating, you can’t rent a room closer than an hour away from Paducah even a year ahead of time!  So I checked out some of the tours that are offered.  The one I chose started in Nashville, Tennessee for some reason.

Hmmm, don’t I know some bloggers who live in Tennessee???  Yep, I’m gonna have another blogger meet-up!  Started emailing with Sharon.  I’ve also always wanted to see the Smoky Mountains.  And now I’m going to get to take a hike with an expert on those mountains!  So an extra day turned into several extra days!  Then started emailing the fabulous and funny Cammy–gotta get my laughs in on this trip!  All three of us will get together at some point for a day of great fun I am sure.  I also contacted an old friend from my spinning/knitting days, and we are also going to rendezvous!  And all this before the quilt show tour even starts!

In the middle of all that planning, I got a little mixed up in my dates, and it turns out there is an extra day in there.  I am going to use that day to rest up for the quilt show tour.

If any of you have been to Paducah, KY, and know about any place I need to see or experience, please leave me a comment!  I’m sure there will be more to do than I can possibly fit in, so to have personal recommendations would be a good thing.

So tonight I’m thinking, I really want to keep exercise at the forefront during this trip.  I really feel better when I am exercising very consistently.  Oh, I started my new job this week, and that is working out great–I get to the gym an hour before my job so I have enough time to do my weights exercises and spend at least 20 minutes on the bicycle.  So far this is really a no-stress job.  I am enjoying the structure, and as friend Shelley said, sometimes that helps you to be more productive.  It certainly has done that for me this week.  So back to the trip.  I am sure there is a good gym at the Marriott where I will be staying in Nashville and Paducah.  I know there’s one at the hotel Sharon recommended (how much do I love that she scoped out the hotels for me and found one that had a kitchenette in the room  and a Starbuck’s across the street.  What more could a girl ask for?)  And of course there will be at least one hike, and maybe two.

So, back to the homefront, here’s a couple of the meals I have enjoyed this week.

I made my fabulous quinoa breakfast (have I told you before this is fabulous LOL?)  It makes 3 servings, so one of those I mixed half and half with the Abundance oatmeal for a change.  I still like it best without the oatmeal.  But I have a feeling that some people would like the oatmeal mix better.

I finally tried Helen’s crockpot BBQ chicken–THANK YOU HELEN!!  Yummy stuff.  And enough to last me quite a few meals!  I put most of it in the freezer, and have had it a couple of times this week.  Here’s tonight’s salad.  I had to go looking for a BIG bowl for my salad.  Tired of the salad spilling over the side of the regular salad bowls.  When I have a salad, its usually the whole meal.  This had baby greens with apple, carrot, raisins, sunflower seeds, and BBQ chicken.  Good to the last bite!

Another thing I’ve been enjoying the past few weeks is microwave popcorn a la Cammy! I had heard about the paper bag method before but was skeptical.  But if Cammy says it works, well then, maybe i should try it.  It tastes really good to me.  I spray it with a little vegetable oil spray and sprinkle with popcorn salt.  yummy.  Thanks Cammy!

Also in production this week, but not pictured, I made another big batch of my homemade yogurt.  This method seems to be foolproof for me.  It is so much tastier (and less tangy) than any store-bought yogurt I’ve ever had.

And to wrap up this disjointed post, here is a silly picture of Sophie.  I couldn’t figure out what she was doing, and then I saw that she was just trying to catch a few rays LOL.

 

Home Again, Home Again

Oh its good to be home again.  Except for the unpacking, the washing, the doggie smell to deal with, the dust.  Oh my, the dust.  Yes it is very dusty here in sunny California.  No misty mornings to keep everything looking nice and clean.

Well, you know I want to talk about the food.  I rented a little cottage for the five days I would be on Whidbey Island, so I could cook a bit and fix my own  breakfasts and lunches.  Plus, I love being able to spread out, even if it is only me.  I know I’ve talked about this before, but if you are interested, just google ‘vacation rentals.’   Many times the vacation rental is very closely priced to a hotel room.  I stayed at Cozy Harbor Cottage, and it was just as advertised. (Ha!  I googled cozy harbor cottage, and came up with a little place on the coast of Maine.  That just might be my next destination!)

Here’s the sign they had on the living room wall.  It proved to be an accurate prediction.

But let me backtrack just a wee bit.  I am pretty organized when I travel now, and there are two things I do consistently.  I try to take some of ‘my’ food with me.  And I google maps and directions for everywhere I am going to go.  Since I was flying this time, there was a limit to the food I could take.  But I decided I could take most of the fixin’s for my Spackle 2.0.  That stuff is a nice treat, and it definitely holds me from breakfast to lunch, which I figured might be important while I had my art quilting lessons each day.  So I packed a container of the oat bran/flaxseed meal combo, whipped up some walnut butter (figured it could be unrefrigerated for 24 hours,) and packed some walnuts and chocolate chips.  I also took a few ‘energy bars,’ which I don’t routinely use any more, but they are pretty good for traveling, and maybe a little better than a candy bar.  So using all my mapquests and directions, I found my way from the Seattle Airport to Whidbey Island, and I even took a side trip to a quilt shop (imagine that!)  The only wrong direction I took landed me right at the grocery store that Marianne had recommended, so I stocked up on food before I even got to the cottage!  Fruits and veggies, cottage cheese and yogurt, some honey and granola, and a couple of steaks as a treat for dinners.

I met Marianne for coffee shortly after arriving.  We had been corresponding by email for almost a year, and had only spoken on the phone once, but it was almost like meeting an old friend, similar to how it is when bloggers meet up.  [For those of you who have not been following along, Marianne is a quilt artist whose work I noticed in a magazine, and after corresponding for a while, I asked her if she would be willing to give me some private lessons.  So that is what this trip was all about.]

Okay, don’t worry, I am not going to give you a blow by blow of every second of my trip.  I did want to include the stuff about food to show that it is possible to travel and eat real food.  (BTW, finally saw that Oprah episode with Michael Pollan, where he ends with his famous statement “Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.”)

I LOVED Whidbey Island.  It reminded me of one of my favorite childhood books, “Anne of Green Gables,”  which was about farm life on an island.

Here’s a scene along the shore early in the morning.  That dot of a bird was a very large heron, who was there every morning as I went by.

The town of Coupeville was very small, and quite charming.  Here’s a picture of some of the typical flowers in these Washington towns.  I thought Lori might like to see them.

Every day at lunch I took a walk.  Here’s just one of the scenes I saw.

Marianne had a beautiful perennial garden that was home to a LOT of beautiful birds, and also a mother deer with two fawns!  Isn’t this a lovely treatment–the way the tree is pruned makes a perfect frame of the bay beyond.

Another day I walked from Marianne’s house into a forest!

One day, after my lessons were over, I headed up to Deception Pass State Park, up at the top edge of Whidbey Island.  It was quite beautiful and wild.

 

I decided to take  a hike up to Gooseneck Point, which they SAID was only 1.2 miles.  Ha!  Of course, being a “Point” it was straight uphill the whole way to the top.  And when you don’t know where you’re going, did you ever notice it seems a lot farther?  halfway up they nicely provided this bench for us old folks.  Ha!  I didn’t need that.

Why, when you photograph a hill, does it never look as steep as it is in real life?

Here’s a little doodle I did at Marianne’s. The gold is a resist glue so you can paint on silk and the colors will remain separate.

 

 

 

 

And here are a few more views from my last lunchtime walk.

 

And with that, I left Whidbey Island for the next leg of my trip.  These ferries are quite common over there.  It sure is a different way of traveling–just drive your car onto the ferry.  I kept thinking I had to organize my stuff, but no, I could just leave it spread out in the car!

And a little teaser for those of you who might want to look at millions of garden/flower pictures–I went to Buchart Gardens, and I think I only took 300 pictures LOL.

Here is the little doodle after I painted it.  I have started stitching on it.  It will be a nice memento of my time with Marianne.  Marianne is a true artist, and was so generous in sharing her knowledge with me.  My brain is kind of overloaded with inspiration right now.  I’m sure it will all come out eventually.

Back home, I stopped last night for a few staples at Walmart.  I even made my first batch of homemade yogurt last night, and let it set all night–first time I have done that.  It came out great!  This morning, before picking up Noah, I went to the grocery store and got a BUNCH of great looking vegetables.  I’m back in business!

The Project

Well, I promised you the garden pictures, but a couple of you asked about the project I worked on at camp, so I thought I’d stick this post in.  (I promise I’ll have some beautiful garden photos tomorrow, Lori!)

So, rug hooking camp, or workshops, are run differently than any other workshops I have been to.  It seems that they encourage individuality and creativity from newcomers just learning the craft.  Maybe its because the technique is basically simple (really, there’s just one stitch to master) so there is more time to concentrate on color and composition.  Anyway, each teacher has a specialty, but most of them are quite versatile and are fairly comfortable teaching the different styles of rugs  So before you come to camp, you are supposed to pick out a project and start planning it.  The teacher consults with you, and will provide patterns and/or dyed wool for your project if needed.

This year, for me, this was a very difficult proposition.  I really like designing my own rug.  And you all know that I love playing with colors.  But because of everything that was going on (my dad’s illness and death) my creativity was really blocked.  I finally gave up and told my teacher that I was just going to do a rug pattern that I had bought a few years ago.  This is the pattern.

It seemed really boring to me–white sheep, red apples, green leaves, and brown tree trunk.  Not exciting at all.  I have a lot of wool that I have bought over the past few years, but I had a hard time even looking in the box to see what colors I had that might work.  Just a few days before I left for camp, I finally looked in the box and picked out some really pretty pieces of wool that were not traditional colors, and thought, maybe i could use some of this pretty stuff.  So when I got to camp and my teacher said that I could use those colors, and add some more not-so-traditional colors, I was really happy.

First we worked on the leaves and the fruit.  My teacher said the fruit did not have to match.  Yahoo!

Then we worked on the crow.  Only I didn’t have to make it traditional crow colors!  Whee!!

Next I worked on the sheep’s wool.  This turned out to be really fun, because I had a nice collection of textured wools, including some felted angora and wool sweaters that I had bought at the thrift store just the week before!!

Next I worked on the ram’s face, and later on that night, I worked on his horn.  Then I realized that one horn was drawn backwards.  No problem, rug hookers just use a sharpie pen to re-draw their designs right on the canvas.

Then it was time for show and tell.  Believe it or not, this is all I had done by Thursday afternoon.

Later on that night and the next morning I worked on the tree trunk.  My teacher* told me AGAIN that it did not have to be traditional tree trunk colors!  Did you notice I extended the tree trunk with some ‘roots?’

So I’ve worked on it a bit since I got home (in fact, that close-up of the wool was part of what I did today–filling in around the swirls.)  But just like all handwork, it is not a speedy process.  I’ll show you the finished product in a couple of years…

Here’s a few of the finished rugs that were shown at the rug show mid-week.

(detail of the bird bath from the quilt above)

And hey!  Here’s a little rug that I actually finished.

Changing the subject rapidly, I had another good day of good food choices.  I am choosing to eat more veggies than usual.  Just because that’s what I want.  Even though they had good salads and nice veggies most nights, I guess it wasn’t as many vegetables as I have gotten used to having.

I made a new batch of yogurt, and it wasn’t as thick as I like it so I strained it.  I save the liquid whey for smoothies–it really makes a nice addition to a smoothie.  And I have to say again, that as much as I dislike Safeway, their Lucerne brand plain yogurt is the best yogurt starter I have found.  (That’s not what I used today.)

Today is the first day it was warm enough for me to wear shorts.  And I went for three walks, just because I wanted to.  It seemed like I was actually still on vacation, even though I made some business calls and did all my laundry.  It was a very good day.

*my teacher is a well known rug hooker and has a wonderful blog, in case you want to know more about rug hooking.  He has quite a few pictures from camp, including the glorious lemon ice cream with raspberry topping that we went out for one daya!

Vacation Recap

Well, here I am, back in the real world.  It was a wonderfully relaxing, creative, energizing, colorful week!   I’ve got a lot of pictures to share, so will try to keep my chatter to a minimum  (lol you know that’s not gonna happen..)  Here’s the beautiful room where I stayed.  Very comfortable.  I loved that they had a fireplace, but alas, it was not cold enough to have a fire in the evening.

 

Here’s the view from my window.  This is a real working kitchen garden.  They have a wonderful restaurant on the premises, and the food they served our group was quite delicious.  Although it was TOO MUCH FOOD.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  We’ll talk about the food later.

 

If you can believe it, this is the third year I have gone to rug hooking camp, but the very first time I actually went down to the ocean to take a walk!  These are some of the views of my early morning walk  (well, 7am was pretty early for me.)

It was a beautiful day, and the colors really were this vivid.

The best part was that they had this wonderful boardwalk built all along the cliff overlooking the ocean.  It felt wonderful to walk on, and I even ventured to run a bit!  I liked it so much that I managed to come back three times for nice long walks.

You’ll have to look close, but there was a really long line of pelicans flying by!

And elephant seals!!!  Last time I was here we drove 10 miles up the coast to a beach where they congregate, so I was really excited to see them so close by.

They really didn’t move much at all.

There were pretty wildflowers all along the boardwalk.

And the friendliest little squirrels.  This guy was about 3 inches from my foot!  I guess they’re pretty used to getting fed.

 

I thought this was a funny sight–don’t know what those seagulls are waiting for.

And as always, the never-ending quest to get the perfect shot of the waves crashing against the rocks.

Morning shot:

And evening shot:

I’ll try to post some pictures of the beautiful gardens tomorrow.  But now, as you know, there MUST  be a little food talk.  Like I said, the food they served was quite delicious.  There were good choices to be had at almost every meal.  There was just too much.  I skipped lunch a couple of days.  Still, I was eating quite a bit more food than I am used to.  Overall, I was pretty content with how I ate on this trip.  EXCEPT for the drive home.  Aaack.  It just wasn’t good.  Too. much. Junk.

Fortunately, one of my favorite farm stands was open, and I stopped and stocked up on fresh fruits and veggies.  By the time I got home I was still pretty  full from all the junk I had eaten, so I just had an artichoke and a bowl of cherries and called it a night.

And as usual, I surprised myself that I was able to go right back to making good choices of really healthy foods.  What a relief.  I have eaten  right on target the past two days.  Here’s a few of the things I cooked up.

Fresh stir fry of zucchini, corn and onion, all from the farmer’s market.  Combined with some pre-cooked brown rice from Trader Joe’s.  This rice was really tasty, and the combination was really delicious.  I just seasoned with salt and pepper, and cooked it in a little olive oil and sesame oil.

Vine ripened tomatoes!

Fresh blackberries along with some sugar free instant vanilla pudding.  I haven’t had this pudding for quite a long time, but it was quite yummy.

Here’s how I really ate it, alongside a cup of decaf coffee.

This morning I decided to try the breakfast clafouti with some of the blueberries I got at the farm stand.  Isn’t it beautiful?  Well, either it needed to cook a little bit more, or the juiciness of the berries made the dough too watery.  I ate it, but it wasn’t that nice custardy texture.  Next time I might make it plain, and just serve the berries on top.

And that’s all the news for now.  I have an appointment with the couch.  I’ll try to be back tomorrow with more of my adventures.