how does your garden grow?

i was out gardening today. (no, really.)

thanks to the boys (not just raf and ben, but bo too), i rarely get to sleep past 8am on weekends. i used to be able to sleep till noon, but those days are long gone! instead, i'm realizing the joys of enjoying a lazy breakfast without rushing out the door to go to work.

the weather this morning was perfect, bright and cheery with a slight breeze to keep things cool. so after a small plate of eggs and sausage, i decided to attack our overgrown bushes with the pruning shears.

bo and raf say hello to the ladybugs living in our mint leaves.

word of the day

in·im·i·ta·ble  (-nm-t-bl)

adj.

Defying imitation; matchless.

[Middle English, from Latin inimitbilis : in-, not; see in-¹ + imitbilis, imitable (from imitr, to imitate; see aim- in Indo-European roots).]

i was reading this story about crocker art museum and couldn't help but chuckle at how the writer mentioned sacramento mayor, kevin johnson, who is a former nba player:

"Here in Sacramento, where our mayor has embraced, in that inimitable K.J. way, both the arts and the green movement..."

sacramento events and attractions to look forward to: bourdain and crocker

i've been lagging on blogs thanks to the usual suspects... work and kids! i've also been spending more of my free time catching up on my reading and enjoying the last few weeks of summer. hope to be back with more substantial posts soon. meanwhile, here are a couple of cool things happening around town:

anthony bourdain is coming to sacramento! he'll be at the memorial auditorium on 9.17.2010. bourdain is definitely one of my favorite food-related celebrities. i don't follow him religiously, but i enjoy his show when i catch it. i won't be attending this one, though it certainly piqued my interest. here's a cool local interview with him from sacramento news & review.

the crocker art museum is reopening on 10.10.2010! by no means am i a fine art connoisseur, but i had the privilege of having a preview of the space thanks to work. the building itself is a work of art, designed by gwathmey siegel and associates and built by rudolph and sletten. i won't bore you with the technical details, but an amazing amount of coordination and craftsmanship above and beyond the typical design and construction of a building went into this expansion and renovation project.

easy yet elegant: ginger sea scallops

costco never fails to inspire me to cook. the one close by our home is clean, just the right size, and crammed with all kinds of quality finds in the meat and seafood departments. on rare occasions, it offers truly amazing one-time deals like opah. this week, it was a two and a half pound package of the more average yet still provocative sea scallops.

lake tahoe, ca

view from commons beach. this is why we love lake tahoe in the summer!

 the dog days of summer!

we normally only venture around the california side, not because we have anything against nevada, but because the just-over-two-hour drive from home is enough for us to get too excited to keep driving past the stateline.

"F" is for fair... which is code for funnel cake!

when one goes to a fair, one MUST have funnel cake! 

at the end of july, for the first time ever, we visited the california state fair in sacramento. i was having second thoughts about going... it gets so flippin' HOT here in the summer! but it was the last weekend, and raf is big enough to go on some rides, so bo coaxed me into giving it a shot.