Lenny Kravitz

Lenny Kravitz came to YouTube today for a short acoustic show. He was in town as he's doing a few shows with U2 on their tour. I hadn't visited the YouTube office yet, which is in San Bruno, so figured Lenny's appearance was a good reason to go and check things out. The short and sweet show was amazing. Mr. Kravitz was looking and sounding amazing as usual. Below are a few pics I took.

Full album can be found here.

Congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge!

I was in England when Prince Charles and Diana got married, and although I was young, I can still remember the energy in England for the event. My grandparents threw a party and decorated the house with streamers, Union Jacks, and pictures of Charles and Diana. Although I couldn't be in England for today's Royal Wedding, I knew I wanted to get up and watch it live. My Mom is visiting, and she and I were up bright and early this morning (2:30am PT for me) to watch the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. It was a beautiful ceremony which lasted an hour, yet seemed short and sweet. Although there were 100's in attendance, it was still intimate and struck the perfect balance between formal in some areas and informal in others. Kate's dress was surprising to me, as I expected something a little more fashion forward, but after watching her throughout the morning I realized how it was a classic and timeless beauty. England's people definitely showed up in the streets for a glimpse of the royal couple, but I was more amazed at the organization of the whole event, and how calm and peaceful the crowds were. I wish I could have been there, although I think I probably had a better view from my couch, but I'm very happy and lucky to have had the opportunity to watch it with my "Mum", as it will be an event that I will never forget.

Congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, I wish you nothing but happiness in your lives together, and of course, God Save the Queen.

In preparation, I made some of my favorite Lemon Blueberry scones which hit the spot as an early morning snack.

Meyer Lemon and Dried Blueberry Scones

Specialty foods stores, Trader Joe's, and some supermarkets carry dried blueberries.

Yield: Makes 12 servings
Recipe from Epicurious

Ingredients

3 cups of self-rising flour

1/2 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1 1/2 cups dried wild blueberries (about 10 ounces)

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon buttermilk

1 1/2 tablespoons finely grated Meyer lemon peel or regular lemon peel

Preparation

1) Position rack in top third of oven and preheat to 425 degrees.

2) Line large baking skeet with parchment paper.

3) Whisk self-rising flour and 1/2 cup sugar in large bowl.

4) Using fingertips, rub in chilled butter until pieces are size of small peas.

5) Add dried wild blueberries and toss to coat.

6) Mix 1 cup buttermilk and finely grated lemon peel in glass measuring cup.

7) Pour buttermilk mixture into dry ingredients and stir until dough beings to form (some of flour will not be incorporated).

8) Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface and gather together. Knead dough briefly, about 5 turns.

9) Divide dough in half. Form each dough half into ball and flatten into 1-inch-thick disk. Cut each disk into 6 wedges.

Notes: For step 9, I instead separated dough into small individual sized round scones

10) Transfer scones to prepared baking sheet, spacing 1 inch apart. Brush tops with remaining 1 tablespoon buttermilk and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar.

11) Bake until scones are golden brown on top and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 - 25 minutes

Humans need breaks

I took a class a while back called Managing Your Energy which was very interesting and focused on how to...well...manage your energy. One thing they mentioned was that taking a break during a long day at work will actually increase your energy and your productivity. Humans need breaks.

Guess what? I'm human, today is a long day at work, so I took a break.

There is a park right next to campus that has benches to sit on, and a nice man-made stream to sit by, so this is usually where I go when I'm in need of a peaceful moment. I happened to take a picture of my view from a bench during the winter when the trees were bare. I found myself sitting on the same bench today but today the trees were covered in beautiful pink flowers. I just had to snap some pics as a reminder to take breaks in life. We deserve them.

View during winter (Jan '11)

View during spring (Apr '11)

Does anyone know what kind of trees they are? They're really gorgeous, although I don't know if I'd suggest them for your home (unless you like gardening). Today was windy and it was literally snowing pink petals as I sat there.

Note: Pics taken using the Retro Camera application on my Nexus S phone

Happy "21st" Birthday Banana

It was our baby boy's 3rd birthday on Saturday (that's 21 in human years). Anyone that knows Banana, knows he's definitely got his good and bad traits but we can't imagine life without him. He makes us smile every day and our lives haven't been the same since he came into them.

Banana started his birthday morning by joining us in bed where he snuggled and napped under the covers.

Once he woke up, he got a birthday belly rub.

For his big day we got him a party hat, a new toy, an edible card (made of rawhide), and a bottle of tequila (mini-sized for humans, full-sized for a Dachshund). Yep...tequila...after all it was his "21st"!

The hat wasn't very successful as it wouldn't stay on his head which resulted in Banana wearing it sideways and growling at it until he figured out how to get it off.

Banana sniffed the tequila, but in general kept his distance.

His favorite gift was his rawhide card, which he quickly started chewing and carried around with him for 6 hours until he finished every last piece.

Happy Birthday Banana! We can't wait to celebrate many more birthdays with you in years to come.

Note: Banana was not served alcohol as a part of this blog. It was purely for a fun picture moment :)

Baby Boy Banana

Lately Banana has been so loving and adorable, so I thought I'd share some recent pics of my baby boy and his Mommy.

For those of you that know Banana, you'll know he's not a fan of other people singing, especially the song Happy Birthday. Depending on how you sing it, sometimes he goes crazy, but if you sing it just right, he'll join in (see here).

Jury Duty and South Lake Tahoe

Well the past month has been busy.

Jury Duty

At the end of February I was called for Jury Duty. In Santa Clara County they make you call in (or check online) each day of the week you're "on call" to see if you need to actually go in to the courthouse. In the past, I've never actually had to go in and this time I thought I was going to be lucky again, but Thursday night I checked and they said I had to be in on Friday at 8am. No big deal (I thought), as I figured I'd go in for the day and then get dismissed. Unfortunately, it turned into another 7 day ordeal. On Friday when I got there, we were taken into the courthouse where we were told the trial was the De Anza Case, which was well known by many locally. I rarely watch or read the local news so knew nothing about it. To make a long story short, there were 120 potential jurors and over the course of the next 7 days we'd go in, they'd call up a handful of potential jurors, ask them a bunch of questions, keep some, let some go, call up some more people...rinse and repeat. They finally chose the 12 jurors and 5 alternate jurors on Day 7 at which point there were only about 25 potential jurors that hadn't been interviewed (one of them being me). The interview process took so long largely because if a potential juror had heard or read about the case, the judge and lawyers would question them one on one to ensure anything they said was not heard by other potential jurors that might not have heard about the case. It would have been a very interesting jury to be on, although probably very emotional, but the case was expected to go through the end of March which would have meant a lot of time off work for me.

South Lake Tahoe

This weekend we headed to South Lake Tahoe with some friends. I'm a true Southern Cali girl, so cold/rain/snow isn't really my thing, but I figured I should get out of San Jose for a weekend and enjoy a trip with friends. We headed up Friday afternoon and got home today (Sunday). It was a great trip filled with layers of clothes (weather ranged from 32 to 44 although it didn't rain or snow until we were leaving). We stayed at a beautiful cabin which was at an elevation of 8,000 ft. Here are some pics from our trip.

View from our cabin

Me trying not to freeze on our balcony

Banana enjoying the view while staying warm on the inside

Cheesy Meat Loaf Minis

Hello friends! Sorry it's been a while since my last blog. I've had a busy month with lots of visitors keeping us busy. This was the first weekend in a while that I had no plans and so decided to open up one of my recent cooking magazines to try a new recipe. While my Mom was here, she mentioned that my brother recently made a delicious meatloaf, and ever since I've been craving some. Lucky for me, my Jan/Feb 2011 Cooking Light magazine had a recipe for Cheesy Meat Loaf Minis. Below is the recipe and "tips" they share, unfortunately I'm not very fast at chopping, so their "game plan" caused me to burn my first batch of bread crumbs and completely forget to add an egg. Without the egg, the meatloafs didn't hold together as well as they should have (as the egg is a binding ingredient), but they were still delicious. One more thing I learned, is that meatloafs don't look very appetizing in pictures, but trust me, they were GREAT and something I'll make again. I served my mini meatloafs with mashed red potatoes and corn. I especially like that each person gets their own mini loaf, probably because I like the crispy parts on the outside.

Cheesy Meat Loaf Minis

Ingredients:

1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs

Cooking spray

1 cup chopped onion

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1/2 cup ketchup, divided

3 ounces white cheddar cheese, diced

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon prepared horseradish*

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

3/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 pounds ground sirloin

1 large egg, lightly beaten

*I left out the horseradish and added a chopped jalepeno (minus seeds) for spice

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Add breadcrumbs; cook 3 minutes or until toasted, stirring frequently

3. While breadcrumbs cook, heat a large skilled over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion and garlic; saute 3 minutes. Combine onion mixture, breadcrumbs, 1/4 cup ketchup, and remaining ingredients. Shape into 6 (4x2-inch) loaves on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray; spread 2 teaspoons ketchup over each. Bake at 425 degrees for 25 minutes or until done.

Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 1 meat loaf)

The Game Plan:

While oven preheats:

*Toast breadcrumbs.

*Chop onion and garlic.

While onion and garlic sute:

*Dice cheese.

*Chop parlsey.

A Day with Mila

Today was like no other. I've been waiting to sleep in since we got back home on Tuesday and I decided today was the day. It was Alex's day to take Banana for his morning walk but when he returned he told me that a neighbor found a Chihuahua and had taken care of it for the last 3 days but was now looking for the owners. He mentioned that he might take it to a shelter at which point I remembered that we needed to head to the shelter to get Banana some of his favorite lamb treat which we've only found at the Milpitas Human Society.

So...we took the dog, loaded it up in a crate, and headed to the humane society. When we got there, they scanned it for a chip (which would be registered to the owner), unfortunately it didn't have one. They were able to confirm that she was a girl who was either pregnant or recently had babies. They told us that because she was found in San Jose, we had to report her as a lost dog, or release her, to the San Jose Animal Shelter. So, we packed her up again and headed down there.

On the way, we talked about what we were going to do with Honey (we gave her a name by this point). My hesitations in keeping her were 1) Banana is not a fan of other dogs, 2) we knew nothing about her and therefore would have to get her to a vet for all her shots before she could even be introduced to Banana to ensure she didn't get Banana sick.

We arrived at the San Jose Animal Shelter where they said we could give her to them but they couldn't promise us what would happen to her. It would be based on her disposition, which from what we had seen was sweeter than pie, and any illnesses she might have. They said that after 30 days, assuming she was ok, they would put her up for adoption and we could adopt her if we wanted to. We decided to release her to the Animal Shelter.

As soon as I signed the papers and saw her taken away I started to cry, and cried most of the way home thinking we'd done the wrong thing, so we turned around. I just couldn't stand not knowing her fate, and figured at least if she was with us I'd know she's alright and could look for her owner. Luckily, the people at the shelter hadn't processed her yet, so they gave her back to us. We headed to PetSmart to make an appointment with the vet, and got her some food, bowls, a bed, and toys. As we arrived home, we noticed the neighbor that originally found her was outside. As we got in the house, he rang the doorbell and asked if we still had the dog as he had found the owner.

We walked her down to the house she lived in (which was in our complex), and the owner came down, at which point we found out her name was Mila. He seemed happy to see her, although not as happy as I would be after losing Banana for 4 days. Mila seemed happy to be home and reunited with their other teacup Chihuahua.

Overall, it was an emotional 6 hours all together and in the end bittersweet. I'm happy she's home with her owners, but was starting to warm up to the idea of having another girl in the house. Here are a few pics from her time with us.

Happy 2011

First of all, I apologize for not posting recently, but in my defense...life's busy during the holidays. Alex, Banana, and I all headed to San Diego on Dec. 16th and we didn't get back until Jan. 5th. Our vacation was packed with family time, outings with friends, and even some time for relaxation. Here are just a few of the details from our trip.

Weather

We headed down a day early since we were driving and heard a big storm was coming...and it did. It rained a lot, especially for San Diego, for 3-4 days but then the sun decided to arrive soon after. The rest of our trip we saw our share of rain and sun. Below is a picture that reflects my holiday trip in San Diego. Santa in front of a rain spotted window and a palm tree with the sun peaking out. :)

Baking

You had to know that baking would be involved. On Dec. 23rd we headed to Myra and Sean's house for a holiday gift exchange potluck. My mom made Poulet de Broccoli (recipe below) which was delicious and I made mini carrot cake and red velvet cake cupcakes (see my previous posts for the recipes).

Poulet de Broccoli

Ingredients

2 2/3 cups cooked chicken, breast and thigh (I use just breast)

2 small or 1 large package of frozen broccoli - or fresh broccoli

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 cup mayonnaise (for lighter dish use part plain yogurt)

1 tsp. lemon juice

1 tsp curry powder (adjust curry powder to your taste)

1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar

1 1/4 cups soft bread cubes

2 Tbs. melted butter

Instructions

1. Barely cook broccoli spears. (Slash stems for move even cooking)

2. Put in buttered casserole dish. Add a layer of chicken which has been torn into chunky pieces.

3. Mix cream of chicken soup, mayo, lemon juic, and currey powder together.

4. Cover broccoli and chicken with sauce mixture5. Distribute shredded sharp cheddar over sauce

6. Mix bread cubes and melted butter and top casserole with mixture

7. Bake for 30 mins. at 350.

Note: Serves 8

Christmas Eve dinner was at my Mom's house and Christmas dinner was at my Brother and Sister-in-law's house, so I decided to try something new. My nephew, Jack, said his favorite cupcake was vanilla cake with chocolate icing so I made mini vanilla cupcakes and mini chocolate cupcakes, and topped them both off with chocolate buttercream icing. (Note: The above links will take you to the recipes I used. The recipes make 24 standard size cupcakes so reduce ingredients and cooking time appropriately if you're making mini cupcakes.) This was my first time making vanilla and chocolate cupcakes and the batter with this recipe was AMAZING. It was like a fluffy mousse that I wanted to eat by the spoonful, but I resisted. My favorite was the vanilla cupcake. My mom said her favorite was the chocolate cake, but it still didn't have the flavor I was looking for so you'll likely see more chocolate cupcakes in my future.

Family Picture

Two days after Christmas, we got together for a family picture. Luckily, one of my friends is a photographer and agreed to take on the task. He did an amazing job, and you can take a peak at a few of the pictures on his blog at Drew Clayton Photography.

Crafts

Remember a few years ago when message bulletin boards were popular? At the time I watched a lot of "do-it-yourself" home shows and made my own. Recently my mom has been updating her house room by room and she asked me to make one for her office which is the next room on her redecorating list. She decided to go with an English theme for her office, meaning she'd keep things red, white, and blue (like the Union Jack). We headed to Michael's for a bulletin board and some stuffing, and then to Yardage Town for fabric, ribbon, and buttons. The only other things you need is a good staple gun, some thread, and a needle. The best part of making your own is that you can customize it by using whatever fabric, ribbon, and buttons you want. It's hard to see in the picture, but my favorite part of my Mom's is the one red button in the middle. Making these is super easy so I won't bore you with the details, but feel free to reach out to me if you're thinking about making your own and need some tips or help.

Those are just a few of the highlights from my trip. I hope your holidays were as enjoyable as mine. 2010 was a year of many great memories, and I can't wait to see what 2011 has in store for me!