SuperEggplant

I totally forgot to blog yesterday! Anyway, I think most coffee drinkers in the Bay Area have a special relationship with Peet’s Coffee. Yes, there are other great little coffee purveyors, including Royal Coffee and Blue Bottle, but when you get right down to it, it’s pretty easy to be loyal to Peet’s. We conveniently get a monthly shipment of Peet’s (yes, that makes us Peetniks). Every once in a while, they will throw in a little goodie, like some post-it notes or a coffee sample. Look what I got this time!

Isn’t that nice? A cap! Can you see what it says on the back? “It takes one to know one.” Good ol’ Peet’s.

Deedle was invited to a birthday party for her pal Zoe. Zoe turned five. I was afraid Deedle was going to growl and attack all the other dogs, but she did very well. There were yummy dog cookies, and Deedle got to lick the remains of a giant bowl of whipped cream. The little black dog with the blue shirt is the birthday dog.


Do they make Gas-X for dogs? They really should.

Time for a trip to the dump:

See how much trash one can accumulate in 6 years? This is just from the shed and garage.
And I would also like to unload these Phildar magazines (Tendances printemps 2004 and Tendances printemps 2003. Both include English translations):
If you would like one or both, please leave a comment. There is no charge for the mag(s), but I do ask that you cover the shipping charge, which will be $3.85 within the US. Mags go to the first dibbers!

We had our moving sale today, and we were able to unload quite a bit of stuff! It was essentially my first yard sale, and I think I should get a fair to poor grade. You see, I am pretty terrible at negotiation. I just want to give things away, and I will accept just about any offer. Oh, and one woman bought this antique sewing machine and cabinet we had. I never tried using the machine, since I bought it just to use as a table. We had it marked for $20. I took $8. The woman came back later to say that it was missing a particular bobbin part. I explained that I didn’t have the part, but maybe they could order it somewhere. They left. I felt guilty. I ran after them and gave them $5. I guess I still made $3.

This was taken during a lull in action. By the way, we still have a couple boats for sale in case anyone out there is interested!

It’s been kind of a crazy week around here, and I don’t think it’s going to ease up for a while. Here’s what’s been happening:
Friday: Peter has a phone interview from our hotel room in Santa Barbara with a high school in Portland
Sunday evening: Peter flies to Portland
Monday: Peter accepts the job
Tuesday: I pound a For Sale By Owner sign into the front lawn; Peter flies back
Wednesday: We get an offer on the house
Thursday: We put an offer on a house in Portland, and it is accepted
Okay, so we haven’t sold our house yet, so now I need to decipher these bridge loan forms and hope we qualify. Also, we are having a moving sale Saturday, and Peter is moving up to Portland on Monday. I will stay behind to pack and sell the house.
Here’s our newly acquired (assuming everything goes according to plan) house in Portland! Can you believe I haven’t even stepped foot in it yet?

We’re back from Santa Barbara, and the house is still standing! I would have blogged again from Santa Barbara, but my laptop died. It is still dead. The battery is just about shot, but when I try to turn it on with the power adapter connected, it either doesn’t turn on or it starts up then goes black. Urgh.
So anyway, Santa Barbara was a lot of fun. We forced Deedle to do all kinds of new things. In addition to swimming (see previous post), we took her hiking:

Okay, so it’s mostly a butt shot of Peter, but you can sort of spy Deedle’s little legs as Peter pushes her up that big rock. Thuy is enjoying it, as you can see!
We also took her shopping, which she loved:
We walked into Nordstrom’s, and she became a different dog, completely mellow and calm. The piano guy wasn’t playing, so maybe it was the lighting and the “soft jazz” that did it, or perhaps it was the selection of MAC lipsticks.
What else? We got to visit Buzzville Kelly and her daughter Brynne and saw their immaculately restored mid-century home. Really great furnishings and paint colors and everything, as you would expect if you know her blog. Her collection of Japanese crafty books is nothing short of astonishing. She took us to a great fabric/craft store in Oxnard called the Fabric Well. They have a bunch of really great fabrics for $4 a yard! I exercised considerable restraint and only purchased the following:

I was also lucky enough to receive one of Kelly’s famous cupcake purses!
Poor Kelly was kind of passively coerced into giving me the purse. The day we saw her happened to be my birthday, and I wasn’t going to say anything, but Peter let it slip. I gave him $5 later. HA HA! Just kidding.
So yeah, it was my birthday, which is why we stayed in accommodations that weren’t part of the Motel 6 family. I am officially old now and embarking on the second half of my life, but what can you do? I had a nice birthday. Peter surprised me with this in the morning:

We had cake in the hotel room with Thuy, who saved us by picking up the cake before the bakery closed!
I thought I ordered a chocolate cake, but it was sort of a mocha cake. Delicious. I ordered it from Xanadu Bakery in Montecito. Yummy.
And because this is supposed to be a knitblog of sorts, I end this post with a photo of some glorious Noro Kureyon I received as a birthday gift. I have never knit with Noro before! I plan to design a saddle-shoulder sweater with the knitting software I got from Artfibers. Yahoo!

Well, we made it to Santa Barbara, and we’re staying 1/2 block from the beach (along with a million other tourists). Not much to report except that Deedle went for a swim today at the Goleta slough (okay, so Peter strongly encouraged her):

Needless to say, Deedle is exhausted from her big day. She is passed out and snoring.