Shrimp, salad and a BIG BUD

another fantastic weekend in the bubble! the weather was more fall like which made it a great weather to be outside and feel the dirt in my hands. I bought some blood meal for my veggies and after *massaging* them, I decided to massage the roses beds also :-) i think they all enjoyed it. I also did MORE sweeping of the tree in our back patio area that has been relentlessly dropping both leaves and some other pollen filled parts for weeks now. When it started dropping the pollen a few ago, everything out there was covered in yellow snow. Luckily I am not allergic to it!

We have a new baby that will arrive... well, not sure when, but the BIG BUD is quite a sight! I don't remember what kind of plant this is btw, if someone knows, please tell me.

On Friday night I decided to try another shrimp taco recipe and OH MY! It was definitely a winner! I made a pistachio-cilantro pesto, slathered it on some shrimp and then skewered and grilled them. They were decadent and they melted in your mouth! If anyone wants the recipe, I will surely share it. I would today, but I didn't bring it with me to work. I was skeptical when I read the recipe and even when I tasted the pesto raw, but after grilling, I was sold.

Last night I threw together leftovers (roasted cabbage and asparagus) and some new salad fixins.Here's the salad greens and spinach with pepitas, garbanzos, roasted garlic, fresh basils and tarragon and some goat cheese = YUM!

We also continued our brick making, but I'll wait and post photos of that when we've given them away to their new homes (birthday girls), I don't want anyone to see the finished product and ruin their surprise!

maintaining

My last 2 Saturdays outside have been all about getting the front garden and back patio whipped into shape after winter (although who knows if winter is really over!?), this Saturday and Sunday sure felt like summer! I think we got to the mid-80's both days. Last weekend I tamed the Bougainvillea bushes and cleaned out all the weeds along the driveway so the ivy could breath, and this weekend I cleaned out one of the front flower beds. Both needed attention desperately but boy was it a lot of work... or maybe I'm just getting older and crawling around on the ground is getting increasingly more difficult :-P  And, sorry, no pics of either of these tasks, maybe I'll take some of the Bogey when they bloom.

My Saturday morning started out with a nice bowl of fresh fruit:

The dish is a handmade gift that I received a number of years ago from friends that live in Utah.

K and I also made a couple of bricks on Saturday. We have a kit that contains letters to press into the bricks and then give them away as presents (we also press in stones, shells, etc.). I'll take some shots of those later because my hands were too dirty to use my camera. Have I said how much work it is to make a bucket of cement? Evidently, I like hard work :-D

spring? summer? who knows

I don't know about you, but our weather is just plain wacky currently! We are still in the mid 40's at night, but get up to the high 70's during the day and sometimes 80! It's no wonder I have some kind of upper respiratory infection. Hopefully I'm over the worst of it, but the coughing is still keeping me up at night :-/

Anyway, onward with the WBB adventures! I am late posting because I had to edit the parrot photos. Taking photos of any wild animal is not easy, they are constantly on the move! About a dozen or so of them decided to visit us for quite a while when K and I were doing yard work this weekend. Here's 2 shots:

This last one is a bit dark, there were 3 all huddled together. I didn't know until this last weekend that they like to eat the berries off the trees in our neighborhood, that's why they stop by quite frequently.

In other news, the Camelias are in bloom! We have pinkish ones in the front, but this is taken in back patio :-)

We picked up the sign when we were in Seal Beach over the summer when Melinda and Connie were visiting from Dallas. It is a fine edition to our back patio :-D

And lastly, is a dinner shot. We had this sesame-ginger salmon with soba noodles on Friday night - yum!

Sunday - PHEW!

Seems like the weekend (starting on Thursday night actually) was a *flurry* of activity! Thursday night was a late night at The Troubadour in LA and saw Joss Stone & Dave Stewart. Friday was errands, yoga and then preparing a birthday meal (shrimp tacos, cilantro lime slaw and homemade margaritas! first time for me to make my own margy mixer!) for our friend C-T and THEN going out dancing! Can you say 1:30 in morning!?? aah... to be 20-something again and have ENERGY! LOL Well, everyone enjoyed themselves, especially C-T and the go-go dancers (at Club Ripples) :-D

Which brings us to Saturday! I bought 2 more containers to plant the lettuce and joi choi in.

 

I  didn't get as much done in the yard as I had hoped because C-T came back over and we decided we needed to finish off the margaritas from the night before :-P.... we then ended up at BBC and then a stroll on 2nd Street, which is a shopping and eating mecca. Can see why I'm tired now?? Luckily, we managed to crawl onto the couch last night and watched "You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger". Not a bad movie, but not a super-duper great one. Fun to watch I'd say.

Today it was a typical Sunday in the Bubble, waking up late (7ish), Kelly going to yoga and me watering the front and back gardens and making banana-walnut pancakes with the last of the Michigan Maple Cream. A few more patio duties, then a shower, then a nice meditation and dharma talk at the Monastery (sorry, no website for them!).

So now, I just did a bit of stretching (my back is aching from the gardening... or was it the late night dancing??!) and I'm off to make a horseradish crusted salmon with some green beans and maybe a sweet potato to go with. Rose is on tap for me tonight - so cheers!

one of my succulents on the front porch:

(all of the photos so far are raw... I'm on the computer at home and have no photoshop! Maybe if I can get ahead I'll be able to edit shots before I post, but for right now, you seem 'em as I shoot 'em!)

First post here!

Welcome to Molly & Kelly's Weekend Bubble Blog where everything that happens is good because it's a weekend! AND everything we will post is what's happening in our little BUBBLE of the world! I hope to include gardening, cooking (and wine!), other projects that we choose to embark on and whatever makes our BUBBLE look good and feel like HOME :-)

Yesterday we planted tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash and bell peppers. We used 4 terra cotta containers. Today we bought some lettuces and some Joi Choi cabbage. I'll go back to Home Depot for more containers for those, I couldn't fit anymore supplies and plants in my car yesterday (my trunk was FULL of dirt!).

So, here's how they look:

Please be patient with me as I learn to navigate blogger!

The last of our roses, time to cut them back now. I probably should have cut them back already, but our weather has been so whacky that they decided to bud again and I couldn't cut them!

 
Hope you can smell them! Inhale deeply! and CHEERS!