Tuesday, January 3, 2012

switching gears

The rest of Thanksgiving weekend was a bit more exciting than that Friday, when I resorted to photographing Christmas ornaments. I joined Dan, Carmen, Elsa, and LJ on Saturday for the Christmas tree procuring expedition. It was getting pretty late in the afternoon by the time we made it to Santa's Tree Farm in Half Moon Bay, but we found a suitably tall and skinny tree before it got dark and the place closed. This year, the role of Steve was played by LJ. (Steve was busy cooking the turkey mole for dinner, and the car was full anyway.) The role of Enzo was played by Elsa, except that she slept most of the time and did nothing to tell us if other dogs had peed on the trees.

When it was all done, we took the tree back home and had our mole sauce with the rest of Tyrone, the Thanksgiving turkey. It was officially time start the Christmas season.

330/365 christmas tree hunters


The next day, I babysat Elsa while Dan and Carmen and LJ put up the holiday window display at Eye Q. Elsa's nap was pretty short, so we played for a while on the floor and then went out for a walk to Noe Valley. She finally fell asleep after probably half an hour, so I kept strolling for another half hour while she slept. When she woke up, we dropped in at Eye Q and chilled with the others until the display was done, taking a quick break for some pictures of Elsa in the topiary, of course.

331/365 daily dose of cute


Our lunch plan from the weekend ended up being rescheduled to be Monday's dinner. It was the pear-filled pasta with taleggio cream sauce and asparagus that we had at Trattoria I Quattro Leoni in Florence. I had found the recipe online, and Steve planned to make it that night. It was going to be dark by the time it was ready, though, so I took a picture of the pear that afternoon to make sure that I'd have an acceptable picture of the day. I did end up shooting the finished pasta dish, but the light was better in the pear shot.

332/365 pear-ed down


On Tuesday, I took a late afternoon walk with Carmen and Elsa down Valencia Street. It was getting darker outside already, but I got a picture of a couple giraffes on a Noah's ark toy in the window of Aldea NiƱos.

333/365 giraffes!


I felt that I needed to go out again to find a picture on Wednesday afternoon. I went to Pot + Pantry to see if they had the coasters I wanted, but they didn't. So I walked back up Valencia and stopped at the parklet outside of Fabric8 on the way home. In the last year or two, these little parklets have started to spring up around the city. They take up potential parking spots, but they make nice places to sit. My favorite part is that each tends to be a little different, with the design reflecting the location. I especially like the colored pieces of wood on this one.

334/365 a walk in the parklet


For December 1, I got out my tiny Christmas tree, some ornaments, and the last page of my 2011 calendar. This was the day that I actually decorated the place a little, so it was fitting. After taking the picture, I decided to keep the tiny tree unadorned this year and just add my terrarium of wool mushrooms to that corner. I was digging the woodland theme more than flashy, colorful Christmas.

335/365 december


It was time to start my Christmas shopping on Friday—at least for Steve's presents. I took a walk to Omnivore Books, where I scoped out several of the new cookbook options. (So many pretty ones!) I came away with signed copies of Eleven Madison Park and Ruhlman's Twenty. I was still on the fence about whether I was going to stick to a Christmas theme for December, so it was someone's large penguin decoration that became my picture of the day.

336/365 unruly penguin


And with that, I am now only about one month behind in blogging. Here's the November mosaic.

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