Living in Long Beach

My cousin Scott (aka Ford) came down to Long Beach to spend Christmas with me. As soon as it got dark, we made the trek to Naples (it’s about a mile from me) to see all the holiday lights by the canals. As usual, some of the homes went all out with a crazy amount of lights. Many homes had several decorated trees. I forgot my tripod and just took very quick pictures as we walked by the homes. However, there are a few that turned out okay so I thought I’d share them with you…    Although this one was very pretty, it reminds me of a display window for a shop.  This one had lots of fake snow in their display. I guess that’s the closest thing to snow that  Long Beach will ever see!!   This one had several disco balls and disco Christmas music   playing and a bubble machine. Steve Rubell would be so proud. Of course, there were lots of animals. Pictured above are some polar bears (that remind me of the coca ...

I love collecting and reading old cookbooks. So last month I created a challenge for myself to make one recipe a month for a year from old cookbooks. You can read my original post here . I also said that if anyone wanted to send me an old cookbook, then they could chose the recipe for me to make. Well, a few days after that post I received a cookbook in the mail from my aunt. Here she is with me and my cousin (her son) on a vacation we took to Savannah, GA in the 70’s. The book she sent is the ABC of Gourmet Cooking that she got as a present from a close family friend back in 1963. The book is copyrighted in 1956. She selected the Quiche Lorraine recipe for me to make. She says she has made it (and many variations of it) many, many times throughout the years. (Click on picture to bigify it.) I was very pleased that she picked a recipe with few ingredients and that looked relatively easy. Plus, I have never made a quiche before! But before I get to the quiche, I’d like to...

So, the cat’s out of the bag. For those of you who didn’t already know, I am moving. To where? Well, that is TBD!! But I am moving out of my condo in January. Our book for the month was picked by Lora, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid. The thing that we all seemed to like best about it was that it was a quick read! But overall, I did like this book and would recommend it, especially if you are in a book club as it gave us a lot to talk about. But then again, we are all talkers. Since it was to be my last book club and some of my neighbors did not know about my move, I decided to make them a little “Celine” gift. If you remember this post here , I had created a design for us to label my door and all my “French” food. I decided to revisit that design and make a Stoneybrook Book Club book mark! First I cut the design in half, then printed them on business cards. (This took two tries due to borders.) Then I glued the cards together…punched a hole in them…and tied a piece ...

Last week when I was visiting the Palatine store , I was happily surprised by the sweetest "welcome" sign hanging for me (and Ray, my partner in crime , I mean, my co-worker.) Then, today another co-worker (thanks Marlena!) surprised me by finding my favorite flavor of Orbit gum (which I look for all the time and can NEVER find anymore!!) If anyone finds packs of Mint Mojito, please let me know pronto!

Just to keep all of you in the know...I copied Wednesday's Word of the Day from urbandictionary.com : opposite marriage The P.C. way to specify the legal union of a man and a woman, as made popular by Miss California at the 2009 Miss USA pageant. MISS CALIFORNIA: "We live in a land that you can choose same sex marriage or opposite marriage" After witnessing some horrible behavior by The Donald, I refuse to watch anything that he is a part of or will profit from, so I did not witness California's great representation of our state the other night in the Miss USA contest. (Although I am being slightly facetious, Prop 8 did pass so she is indeed an example of an average Californian, right?? Uuggh... And no, she's NOT from LA!) If you want to see the video or read more about the whole debacle, click the picture to be linked to the whole report. So was this another political rant post or a post making fun of a pageant girl who can't communicate? (Seriously, ...

This afternoon, there appeared to be a wedding rehearsal going on in front of the Greek church by my condo. So cute. As I rounded the corner, I couldn't believe my eyes. On the church lawn is a sign to vote NO on Prop 8!! If they know the sign is there (or better yet, put it up themselves) then a big YEAH to the church. Even though the rehearsal appeared to be a different-sex couple, it is nice to see a church stand up for equal rights. If you are interested in Prop 8, you can read about it here . Okay, if you clicked the link then you caught me; this is how I feel about Prop 8. A nonpartisan version is here . Basically, Proposition 8 is a CALIFORNIA initiative to change the CALIFORNIA constitution so that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in CALIFORNIA and therefore eliminates the rights of same-sex couples in CALIFORNIA. Why do I keep typing "CALIFORNIA" in all caps, you may ask? Because the only two people I know who are for Prop 8 (elimin...

This pic goes out to my homey in Cerritos, JW... Fun times in Modesto!! Tru dat.

On my way to the Oakland airport Friday, I hit really bad Friday afternoon traffic. I had my handy GPS so I took an alternate non-freeway route. Imagine my delight when I drove by Union Point Park. I only had a few minutes to spare but I snapped up several photos. I put them all in a slide show (hit the picture above to access show.) Don't forget to hit the "i" in the circle to get the comments for each photo. There are comments for each one so if you don't see a comment, hit the left arrow to go back and then the right to go forward again. I hope you like them. Come on, you want to see the shiny stainless steel toilet, right?? UPDATE: Here is a link to the official site for Union Point Park.

While in Northern CA, I visited some of the Home Depot Yardbirds. It is a smaller hardware store. I just loved it. It is so much cleaner and nice than the typical Home Depot store. Here is a picture of the store in Dublin, CA. (The picture of the Dublin seal will take you to their official website and the town's history.)