what a deal!

i have to tell you about the great deal i got with this shaver. a couple of months ago, during the remodel at our store, an assistant manager came through my line with this shaver. it rang up at $25. i told him how i really needed to buy a new shaver for my husband, cause his shaver was not so good anymore. he told me i could buy it--he didn't really need it. he just wanted to buy it because it was such a good deal. we cancelled the transaction and i put it aside to buy when i was off the clock. that's not the best part--the best part is i had a $10 off coupon for this brand shaver that i had been saving. i ended up paying $17 for a $100 shaver!!!

Spring?

the weather was so nice last week that i decided to break out a pair of my capris!!!! raining today...

i like your hair....

several people at work told me they liked my hair. I hardly ever wear it this way...

flashback friday

written on the back in my mother's handwriting "Kathy 6yrs"

the date with a date stamp (my dad loved things like that)

oct 1959

yikes!

baking

after reading the comment about brownies, i was further inspired to bake! these are so easy--you should try it! this recipe card i typed from the cookbook. yes, i typed, on a typewriter. if you don't know what a typewriter is, just watch the movie "you've got mail". notice how well-used the card is. this was before recipe card sleeves.

guess what's missing?

that's right--the cocoa!

gotta have cocoa for brownies....

that's better

after mixing...

ready for the oven

testing for doneness

done, maybe

they will shrink after cooling.

don't worry

it always happens

don't eat them all at once!

cause you'll want to, they are that good.

Brownies

a comment left in my comment section the other day inspired me to post this recipe.

I started using this recipe when I was 12!

(Its been a few years)

I copied it out of my mother's cookbook "The Joy of Cooking"

Brownies

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar

1/4 cup cocoa

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup chopped nuts

Grease an 8 x 8 x 2-inch pan. Start oven 10 min before baking: set to moderate (350). Sift flour, measure, resift 3 times with next 3 ingredients, the last time into a 3-qt mixing bowl, or the large mixer bowl. Add butter, eggs and vanilla. Use wooden spoon and beat 100 strokes per min. by hand, or 2 min on medium speed on mixer. Clean off beater and remove. Stir in nuts with a wooden spoon until just distributed. Turn into prepared pan and spread to even thickness. Bake 20 to 22 min or until barely done. Mark, cool in pan on cake rack, and then store like Brownies. Sixteen 2-inch.

(copied just like that. i don't actually sift. I don't even have a sifter!)

so kind....

yesterday, one of my customers told me how kind i am, everytime!

she had to find a manager to tell them too.

the manager told me she was complaining about me

haha

shadow

yesterday afternoon, i noticed that i had a very long shadow so I had to take a picture--i was going out to the patio to bask in the sun while the brownies were baking....

flashback friday

I was rummaging through my dresser and found a treasure trove of pictures to share for flashback friday. I wrote on the back of this photo "so you don't forget what we look like. (ha ha) this is the most recent photo I could find. Just remember its a "before" picture.
1983 Mandi, Danny, Kathy H....
I was thinking I sent it to my parents when they were on their first mission at the Ogden visitor's center....
don't you love the hair? wow!

the moon!

I opened the door to look outside this morning and saw this bright light shining on our garage, so I went over to the north side of the house to see what it was...it was the moon! I had to run back inside to get my camera!

the shiny strip on the left side of the picture is our rain gutter, reflecting the moon.

I used several different settings on my camera--this is the "shoot without flash in low-light reducing blur" setting. Even though the sun hasn't come up yet, it looks brighter outside than it really was.

"For shooting with automatic settings"

"Auto exposure with adjustable settings"

These pictures cannot capture my wonder and joy at seeing the "red moon" setting
Click on the pictures to enlarge them and really see the red moon.

flashback friday

I'm lovin' flashback friday!

on the back of this picture, written in my father's hand

"Helen & Kathleen G....

about 4 weeks old

Born May 7 1953

(that's my brother, Eric, in the lower right hand corner)

Mama Kyra

yesterday was my annual check-up with my favorite doctor, dr. segal so i made arrangements to have lunch with kyra after the appointment. so after lunch at the closest sushi restaurant (she doesn't like it when i take pictures of our food. it was delicious! i had bob's shrimp tempura roll and she ordered the tempura plate) here she is, after lunch, working.....baby is definitely growing!

Quilt!

Teri, you better sit down before reading this post. A little background--about 5 years ago, I went to visit my sister, Teri, and she had some leftover material and suggested we make a quilt top. Its called quilt in a day, log cabiin pattern. So she started cutting and sewing and I ironed. Well, I bought the batting and found some fabric for the back. I was going to use a white sheet for the backing and give the quilt to danny and jenny for a picnic quilt but danny decided the top had too much white in it. For several years its been sitting in my bedroom, waiting to be finished. So on Sunday, I told Kevin I was going to finish it and it would be on the bed last night.

Hare the steps. I laid it out on the floor, sewed the backing together,

put the right sides together with the batting on the wrong side of the top,

Then I cut the backing and the batting to fit the top,
sewed the pieces together, leaving a section unsewn to turn it

turning

turned

ironed

tada!

just need to tie it.

parking lot fun

I was experimenting with my camera on my lunch break one day last week and tried different settings to see if there were any difference in the pictures. can you see any difference? i can't, either. This little hill is east of the parking lot where i spend my lunchbreaks. the building to the right is Kennedy Gym. Never been there and probably won't ever go there--to expensive.

My outfit for tuesday's date.

I got a new pair of jeans for Christmas--boot cut! wearing my favorite green blouse from Kohl's

The jacket i have on is my favorite. This is my third year wearing it. I really like it and it looks good on me--its fitted and its also warm. oh, and don't forget my black slip-on shoes with, I believe their called "kitten heels"

I really need a tripod. pictures in the bathroom mirror are getting old.

flashback friday

Another family picture with awesome hair.

This picture was taken in 1984--I was pregnant with Kyra, that's why there are only two children in this picture, Danny and Mandi. Notice that Mandi and I are wearing matching dresses! I made them! We should've put Danny in a lavendar shirt. Haha

Too bad I didn't know how to smile then.

lunch at pier 46

Kevin asked me on Monday night if i wanted to go to lunch with him on tuesday so we decided to meet up at pier 46 in templeton. it was pretty packed inside, so after we ordered we opted for eating al fresco. while kevin was waiting inside for our order, i sat at the table in the sun and snapped some pictures. this is the sign on the road side of this little shopping center.

you can see they haven't gotten around to taking down the christmas decorations. that's okay with me!

Kevin ordered a fish taco and i ordered a shrimp taco. when he brought them out, we couldn't tell the fish from the shrimp so i pointed out which one i thought was the fish taco and took the other one. after i was almost done, i realized i was eating the fish taco! in the end, it didn't matter because it was really delicious! (we had to wear our jackets even though the sun was shining)

This is the front entrance to pier 46. the food there is so yummy!

when i was taking kevin back to work, he suggested that I go to Guadalupe after he got off work to see what he's been working on with pieter de groot. pieter knows that kevin is very gifted with electrical wiring, etc and asked kevin to help him wire this building he wants to use as a music studio. (darn, i can't think what its really called)

as we were driving down highway 101, we came upon this scene. it was so beautiful!

another ocean view

this is the curve of the shoreline just before getting to arroyo grande. next time i go to guadalupe, i'll take pictures of the place where kevin's been working after work 2 days a week. its going to be so awesome!

"I am a lineman for the county..."

Danny, you're going to love this. Over the weekend, we had problems with voltage fluctations. (No, that's not what you're going to love)

Again! Kevin called PG&E on Monday morning and about 10 minutes later (I barely had time to take a shower and apply my makeup!), a PG&E truck drives into the driveway. I go out to greet him and he introduces himself as Bob (that's the part i'm referring to, Danny)

He checked out the connections behind the box on the north side of the house and decided he needed to check the connection to the pole on the north property line.

This is what our "north forty" looks like and there's Bob on the pole.

Another shot, using the zoom. He found the problem and fixed it! Thank goodness, because my hair doesn't look very good without using my blow dryer.

one more christmas post

this is my new christmas friend. actually, not that new.

he was a gift from work a couple of years ago.

i left him plugged in for 2 weeks straight because of all the rain.

isn't he cute?

eclipse

I got home late that night and was catching up on Facebook when I saw someone had commented about the eclipse. I went right outside with my camera. My camera really isn't meant for such a faraway subject.

look closely and you can see the eclipse beginning. i went to bed before it finished--too tired.

Oops! yesterday was flashback friday!

we went to grandma and grandpa's house for easter dinner (1989) and took this lovely picture. Kyra is wearing the dress i made for her. i hope to pass it down to her little girl someday.

kyra, 4; danny, 10; mandi, 12; cody, 6mo.