A quickie...

...while hubby's in the shower! On our way out, I'm feeling generous enough to show you some crappy pics just for the heck of it.

My wedding shoes!

Cheap ring from Cheap Monday (the biggie). The other one's made by the father of one of my students when I was an English teacher. I love it! Don't ask me about my fingers, they're having a bad day.

And I'm wearing lippy for the first time in months... Smack! Enjoy your evening, or your morning, depending on where you are!

This is what hell looks like

And now I'm going back in there. Hope someone told the teacher we had yesterday that you don't have to sound like a machine-gun to teach yoga. Chill.

Update: Had the same teacher today. When she walked in I panicked and actually considered leaving. Then she gave the most AMAZING class. Moral here is, it's all in your head. Happy friday!

Blown away

The most beautiful voice to ever come out of Norway.

throwing together a dinner

I just got some serious pasta cravings I had to attend to. Improvised dinner! And, for a change, you don't need vegetables grown by the foot of the Himalayas by an ancient old medicine man or ayurvedan unpronouncable spices to make this, I promise.

Plain old pasta and olive oil (Well. Wholegrain and extra virgin. Obviously).

Some kind of pesto made without a mixer. I used my raw muscle power to sort of mash together pine nuts (come on, everybody has some pine nuts in their cupboards nowadays), basil leaves, garlic and oil. And a pinch of salt. As you can see I don't have that much strength, since all the pine nuts are still intact. Unimportant. While I was making this, I had a pan going with a handfull of chopped cherry tomatoes, a bit of onion, half a green squash and half a yellow squash. Just heated it in a little oil until the veggies got soft-ish. I also painted my nails somethime during the whole cooking process, because I'm such a multi-tasker!

Goat cheese! Ready-crumbled! (you're right,  I don't like that, but I couldn't find the real deal at the super)

Some boiled pasta, the veggies and "pesto" mixed in, a bit of goat cheese on top, and pasta cravings solved. So easy even Chester can do it, as they say in Spain. Tihi.

we need more coconuts, honey!

If you're sitting up there in the north of Europe, thinking "damn, autumn is here again, it's rainy and windy and chilly and I'm feeling bluuuue", and you want to feel like this:

...chin up, I have a suggestion for you!

(stolen from the guys at servedraw.com)

Throw together the following in a shaker:

2 parts White rum

1/2 part Honey

1/2 part Coconut water

1/2 part Lemon juice

Shake it, shake it, shake it like a polaroid picture and pour in a fancy glass or, even better, a coconut. Decorate with a strawberry, lots of those little paper umbrellas we all loved so much when we were kids, and a pink straw. Drink plenty of these and pretend you're on a beach while listening to this.

Pix spell and the gypsy, tripadvisor, surfwellfleet and me

All kinds of trucks

They're obsessed with selling things from trucks here. They drive around and you can find them all over the place, they even have a bunch of maps and pages for you to find out where the different trucks happen to be at a certain time. Like this or this. Or twitter.

You can get hotdogs...

cheesesteaks...

flowers...

Or Jesus! Yeah ok this is not really a truck, nor is it selling anything. But it can probably help you establish a relationship with Christ.

I just realized...

... that, although it seems like ages ago, four months ago at this exact moment we were getting married!

Could we have a wedding once a year maybe..?

Twilight

Grey, grey, grey

The beach is full of balls

The Emmys red carpet

(With half an eye on the TV and the sound off)

16.15 Oooh Hugh Laurie looking superb in a tux. His haircut is a bit weird though. All spiky.
16.16 Steve Buscemi will always freak me out.
16.18 Who is miss Betty White?
16.23 What the fuck is Alan Cumming wearing? Red plastic pants?
16.25 Matt LeBlanc looking all dapper and grey haired? I had missed that.
16.28 It must be hard holding a clutch while waving your hands around and being only 13 years old. Whoever you are.
16.32 JON HAMM!!! JON HAMM! JON HAMM!! His wife looks shy and has very awkward body language but is quite pretty in a canary yellow dress. I guess I'd be awkward too if I were married to the hottest man alive. Sorry what am I saying, I am.
16.36 Jimmy Kimmel was having a burger at the Rockefeller the other day, right up our street. Just saying.
16.41 Sofia Vergara is fit and she knows it
16.42 And Rob Lowe is too fit to be ... how old is he? 50? Still. Too fit. He's holding his wife's hand, which is holding their son's hand, which is holding his brothers hand. They're like a human chain. Weird.
16.43 Hello there Kate Winslet, nice dress and good hair. Well done. And I can tell that you speak British even with the sound off. Could I be you for a day?
16.49 I honestly don't know if I'm looking at Michael J Fox or the guy from Little Miss Sunshine

God, the intro to the awards is horrible.
Peggy Olson from Mad Men: Does that mean I don't have to sleep with men anymore to get to the top?
Host Jane Lynch: Nah, you still have to do that
Favourite part; JON HAMM doing the fingerpistol.

And so far, Modern Family has won every single price.
"Welcome back to the Modern Family awards!"

Dinner on the strand

Finally made it to the Strand House for dinner last night, it was a hectic Saturday night for them, but we got a nice little table outside, right under the warming lamps (or the pig lamps as I like to call them), and with a view of the dining room. I sneak-photo'd some of the guests so you can have a look at the fancy deco. You can't tell, but that's the ocean hiding out there in the darkness.

We had a reeeally good starter with rabbit and gnocchi and surprisingly good peas. Yes, peas.

The meat melted on our tongues as they say. And the peas popped. If saying that is allowed.

Then some beans with feta, an insanely tasty salmon with shiitake and sesame seeds, and the pizza we'd been dying to try, which was good but not worth dying for.

Being responsible people, we biked home after some vino. Maybe not that responsible, on bikes with no lights. Our shades were cool either way.

Fight on!

A tailgate is basically a pre-party to an american football game. It's called tailgating because they originally took place next to a tailgate which is, and I'm quoting, "A hinged board or closure at the rear of a vehicle, such as a pick-up truck, that can be lowered during loading and unloading".  Some still barbeque on their trucks I guess. People get really drunk on campus, and then some of them go to watch the game. Some don't, they just continue drinking. Everybody's wearing the team's colors, in this case, red and yellow, or should I say cardinal and gold. Entertaining!

I like my palm trees like my celebrities; super skinny with a wobbly big head.

Look, look at all the football fans wearing red and yellow

Corinne&Pablo working on their flip-cup skills, still not sure which way the cup should be flipped. Flipo!

Fashion for all!

This is the problem with the h&m that just opened in South Bay. It wants to be a store where eeeeveryone can find something. So they've filled the shop with basics. Suit jackets, straight jeans, cotton v-neck tees, faux leather handbags, polyester shirts. And then they've thrown in some old leopard miniskirts and bright orange furs they found in the back of the divided storage room somewhere in Sweden, and that's supposed to be their trend-alibi. You should have seen my sad little face in there.

Yawn.

Go to Anthropologie instead. I found a pair of pants, a scarf, a lamp and a shirt. And these:

Now we're off to a tailgate! All I can say is that I'm scared and wearing cardinal nailpolish to show my support for the USC football team.