Cal Shakes, Thai Breakfast, The Kingfish, The Mountain View Cemetery, Temescal Farmers Market...so many of my favorite things in the east bay.

A few days ago a box arrived on our doorstep that just said "Perishable". The mysterious package turned out to be a whole big box of lemons from our friends Katie and Andy back in Oakland, where lemons grow on trees in the winter. We haven't been able to get any fresh fruit from farmers markets here in Minn for months, so we felt especially lucky.  For a moment I was nostalgic for my old house on Dana street in San Luis Obispo, where it seemed we were always picking lemons from our giant lemon tree in the back yard. We had so many lemons that we developed a few games such as lemon croquet, and lemon baseball. Half of these special Oakland lemons have been turned into a tasty lemon cake, and I'm hoping the other half turns into a Pomegranate Lemon Panna Cotta. Mmm. Thank you Katie and Andy. 

It is still a little wild at the new apartment. As Dave puts it it is ALMOST just really messy instead of just half unpacked. We have most of the painting done now. Still need to do the kitchen, but at least that yellow ceiling is gone! I don't care how cluttered it still is. I love living here. 

I always thought of oakland's Parkway theater as my friend. Like good friends, the Parkway made the east bay feel more like home. Though closing night of the Parkway was particularly heartbreaking, since Sydney, Amber and I didn't arrive early enough to be let in to Let the Right One In that night, I still wanted to commemorate our last Parkway experience with this little watercolor. I'm still looking for an independent theater out here in Minn...

So these are the colors that the old tenet painted. We will be changing everything except the green bathroom which we like. I think at some point Dave talked about making a floor plan of the apartment which would help. These are not in any kind of order so it makes it even harder to tell what's what. The dark blue is the room just off the kitchen which will be our dinning area/my office. We are planning on putting up a curtain to cover up that storage closet. The orange room is the living room and the very small room with green curtains is the bedroom. That pink stuff is a small entry way (makes a big difference, much better than opening up into a main room) which we will be painting a new color for sure. I Love all the built in cabinets but hate the carpet. We will see what we can do...