L.A. lunch with girlfriends

Today was the final day of my L.A. getaway, and I enjoyed a fabulous lunch out at a gastropub with two of my best friends. What a joy to spend time with these two, who I’ve been friends with for most of my life. After returning from our late afternoon lunch, we discovered a third…

Yogurtland and pedicures

Today’s big L.A. plan was pedicures. It felt glorious to be pampered along with one of my besties. Alyssa and I selected cheerful, bright spring colors for our toes. It was a lovely day, finished off with scrumptious frozen yogurt. Meanwhile, Mama enjoyed a wonderful visit with our friend Ellen and embarked on a hunt…

My L.A. getaway

In the wee hours, I kissed Mama and Paisley goodbye and got a plane to Los Angeles to visit one of my besties! It’s a short trip, but I’m so excited to spend time together. Our first stop was breakfast at the beach. Then I got to cuddle with her sweet dog, Yofi, for an…

We won!

This afternoon Mama and I got a call from the sweet woman we met at the Home & Garden Show last week to let us know that we’d won her raffle! Next week we’ll get to pick up a $100 gift card to Friedman’s Home Improvement. We are so excited and have already picked out…

Teaming up to wash the dog

Our sweet little Paisley only weighs about 17 pounds, but she feels like one big muscle. This is never more apparent than at grooming time. Thankfully, we are able to bathe her in our giant kitchen sink, rather than leaning down into the tub. Paisley makes sure it’s a two-person job, so Mama and I…

A squash solution

When we first grew zucchini a few summers ago, we discovered it was greedy in our garden box and tried to muscle out the other vegetables. Then we planted it in a giant barrel in an attempt to confine it last summer. That worked too well and we ended up without much produce. This year…

The planting begins

These beautiful two-tone Dahlias, which I found at Costco last week, are now planted in our garden, thus opening the season of planting! I also did a bunch of work preparing the garden, but it was more pulling weeds and picking up dog poo—not exactly the best photo opp. I’m still working on this year’s…