a beautiful moment

First of all, there is nothing like a bike ride around town on a hot summer night.
This particular night was the Fourth of July, a few weeks back. A pack of us, friends and family were all on bikes on our way to watch the fireworks. The mood was festive, everyone in good spirits, then we came across this guy- putting a smile on everyone's face and capping off the happy silliness.
He rode with us for bit- Steve O shot this clip from the bike, I only wish it was a little longer.
I want a boom box on the front of my cruiser too.

what the world needs now

Nobody knows more about bicycles than Brent Hulme.
Lucky for all of us, after something like 20 years of working tirelessly in the cycling industry (for Gary Fisher and Trek) and dreaming about a shop of his own, Brent has finally done it. Salt Lake City Bicycles is located downtown in a beautiful old building on the corner of 200 East and 200 South, Salt Lake.
Brent knows all that is good and lovely, sparkly and fantastic about bicycles and it shows. I was so happy to see Swobo goods and bikes on the floor- a few of my favorite wool jerseys from over the years are Swobo. I know, I know wool sound pretty crazy in the middle of the summer but come fall you may change your mind and cozy right up.
Whatever your cycling interests may be- Salt Lake City Bicycles has got it covered. Get back in shape, save some gas money, or just toodle around the neighborhood... get out and ride your bike, you'll be a happier, not to mention healthier person because of it.
And what does our world needs now, I mean really need right now??... more bicycles!

Don't miss the grand opening party September 13th. Stay tuned to http://slcb.blogspot.com for more info.

the danish poet

This short film will make you smile, it's a great story with wonderful animation.

a special gift

Thank you so much to my friend Kanani for this box of patterns. It may seem like an unlikely or boring gift to most people out there, but I couldn't be more excited. There are some fabulous possibilities in this box. I haven't made very many items of clothing for myself in the last few years so maybe it's time to try.


Here are a few of my favorite patterns from the box. I love these dresses. But then I wonder if the reason I love them so much is because they look so "Barbie" with their 13 inch waists. Would these dresses really look as cute on me?


I think, with the right fabric this scalloped neck dress could be darling. Maybe I'll make it in the Fall- when I'm more motivated to actually get something done. It's summertime and I'm all about relaxing... while I can.

Happy Birthday

My oldest turned 12 on Friday- can she really be that old? Because that means... lots of things, including- but not limited to- me being really old too. Her party was super fun. We barbecued, made t-shirts, played night games and ate too much cake.
As a host and a parent of the guest I get so tired of the useless party take home gift that gets tossed aside or thrown away as soon as the partygoer gets home. I like t-shirts as a take home gift, it's nice to send friends home with something that can actually be put to good use after the party is over.
I have been working on this idea of jazzing up plain t-shirts. The cheapest shirt I could find were at Walmart, white or in various of other colors. I was thinking: a little paint, some iron-on applique, then machine stitching over the top, maybe even a few jewels to top it all off. Well, when it came right down to it-I couldn't find my roll of two-sided interfacing (I think I ran out last winter and forgot to pick up a new roll- or it's just lost in my messy sewing room) and then the though of lots of little girls using my sewing machine made me a little nervous, so we simplified the project down to just spray painting the shirts, using handmade stencils.


The shirts turned out really good. Steve O was getting all kinds of crazy making stencils and lots of guests got personalized stencils, special request pictures or their names made up. We washed the shirts in with some crappy towels first just to make sure the spray paint didn't bleed onto other clothes in the same load- but the paint stayed put and washed up just fine. We mostly just used whatever spray paint we had laying around the garage, some just household, others enamel- all kinds worked just fine. The metallic paints looked really good adding a subtle sparkle to the design.

Ohh the cake... this is what happens when you don't really have a plan going into the decorating- you throw all caution to the wind and just go for it. I think it's a flower that looks a little like a sun. In any case it was a bugger to frost with all the pointy bits, but tasted delicious with the thick layer of buttercream frosting trying so hard to cover the whole cake with all it's nooks and cranies.

stroke improvement

Here is a great video of very fast man, an excellent visual tool for all of you triathletes out there training your guts out for this summer's line up of races. All of the announcing is in French making it just a little bit more fun to watch.

holiday fun

The day in pictures- Happy Independence Day

shock + waterproof

The Olympus Stylus 790 SW- our new camera. I think Steve O had been dying to get his hands on one of these. My old camera was falling apart after too many days spent being knocked around in the bottom of my purse. It was fixable but I got this special present anyway.


It's a good thing the camera is digital because you find yourself snapping shot after shot trying to get it just right... you can always delete later. The picture of the little lady friends cracks me up. Adding a whole new level of silliness to summer fun.


We took little camera to the workout in the morning and 150 pictures later- ended up not getting much of a workout. Quite a tool for stroke improvement (as you can see I need here) it can take underwater videos as well.

Underwater pictures are so funny. I don't generally think about our kids in terms of "Oh, she looks just like her Dad..." or "He has your nose..." But looking through all of the pictures of underwater Steve O underwater and I can see family resemblances. What does that say? I'm not quite sure.

in the jardin

Here is how the garden is looking just over a month after planting. We've been mandating weeding time from the kids each morning and so this is probably the most successfully tended/weeded garden we've ever had. It's in a tucked away corner of the yard, easy to forget about if you want to- but we're on top of it this year. We didn't plant a garden last summer (2 months in Europe) so I think we're all extra excited to get our hands dirty and have some fresh veggies in time.
Morning weeding after working out is one of my favorite times of the day (thanks in part to the umbrella), it's a good time to get a little personal chit-chat time with the kids too- they usually wander out after a bowl of cereal, generally willing to help out and get their hands dirty.
I have vivid memories weeding as a child- mostly positive. Except the one time I came face to face with a big fat tomato worm at very close range... I think that might be one of the reasons I despised tomatoes for so long.

Ahhh... the basil, (and dill and cilantro behind that, then the onions, peppers and bush beans in the back...). I've been babying these plants because there is nothing in the world better than fresh basil when it comes to summer cooking. Pesto is perhaps my kids favorite food flavor. They get very upset when I try to pass off store bought pesto in the winter. Every fall- forced by the impending frost, I spend a day in the kitchen using every last sprig of basil I can find from my garden and madly make batch after batch of pesto. I freeze it in ice cube trays, so handy to pop out 3 or 4 cubes at a time, for delicious fresh summer flavor all winter. As well as a pasta sauce, pesto is so delicious as a rub for salmon or mahi mahi (any fish or chicken really) on the BBQ.

Pesto Sauce:
1 cup fresh basil leaves, tightly packed
2 cloves garlic
Coarse or rock salt
2 tablespoons pine nuts (get a giant bag at Costco)
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons freshly grated pecorino cheese, or 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan

Place basil, garlic, salt and pine nuts in a blender or food processor. Whirl until finely chopped.
With motor running, add oil in a thin stream. Scrape down sides to make sure all solids are well mixed. Continue to blend until you attain a smooth sauce.
Add cheeses and give the machine one short burst to blend ingredients well.
Makes about 2 cups.



We were so happy to find this tiny praying mantis wandering about the garden this morning, it was about an inch long and doing all the funny little praying mantis moves- the head tilt, boxing hands, and praying, of course. I wish I could have gotten a perfectly focused shot but I was too impatient and the subject wasn't really very cooperative.


Flowers in one of the pots on my front porch, I couldn't help but snap off a bunch of close up flower shots this morning. This is one of my favorite pics. I love the dark pink flowers, I can't remember what the are called, some kind of verbena perhaps?