Last weekend we bought some flowers at the Alemany Farmer's Market, and here they are one week later looking beautiful and smelling amazing. We love the farmer's market, especially the Alemany market because it has great variety and it's super cheap. These flowers cost $6, and there are a few more stems from the same bunch in our bedroom. If you live in or near San Francisco and haven't already been, it's totally worth a visit.
Yesterday Lauren and Derek gave me an Ann Wood handmade bird! It was a very generous and thoughtful gift for helping them out a few extra days at their shoppe and for taking care of their kitties. I love Ann Wood's birds and have peeked at her site now and then for about two years, longing one day to have one of her adorable birds myself. Lauren and Derek had no idea that I love her birds, so they were really excited that I was so happy to receive it, or I should say to receive her--each bird has a name and mine is Sue Anne. She's from the "picnic friends" series. I love her. She's going to live in the baby room on the little one's dresser.
One of the newer kids on the Noe Valley block is Mabuhay, an adorable shop for kids that's perfect for anyone who values both eco-consciousness and buying local designer's work. Camille, the super friendly owner of Mabuhay specializes in carrying items that are locally made, handmade and organic. She even has a helpful chart she can refer to to let you know just how green various items are. I love her selection of clothes, toys and gifts. I look around and oooh and ahhh saying, "this is so cute . . . oh, this is so cute . . . wait, and this!" With our little one on the way, I have a feeling I'll be here a lot! Here are a few pictures from Mabuhay.
Mabuhay
Today Andrew and I headed out for one of our city walks. We decided to go to Russian Hill to just wander around and check out Macondray Lane--the real name for Barbary Lane in Tales of the City. On our way we stopped into Swallowtail, one of the many shops on my growing list of San Francisco shops to visit. I loved this place! They have a great mix of styles--modern, vintage, industrial, natural, world, and French to name a few that I got a feel for. You can read a great post and see a lot more pictures of Swallowtail on SFgirlbybay, and you can see even more pictures on Yelp (scroll down on that page to see more).
This was the base of a huge industrial table. It was so cool. It reminded me of my friend Paula, who I think would love this place.
I loved these pendant lamps.
This table was so funky. Under the glass was some kind of wire or metal mesh. Then the two outer ends of the table looked like they were on some kind of hinges.
They had all kinds of artwork: Antique paintings and prints, modern paintings, photography, and various ephemera.
Girl! We found out the baby is a girl! We'd be just as happy with a boy, of course, but we're really excited we'll be having a girl. You won't have to twist my arm to go shopping for cute girl clothes.
On Sunday we went for a hike on Mt. Tamalpias, or Mt. Tam as people around here call it. Mt. Tam is just a short ride over the Golden Gate Bridge and outside the city. It's a great place for a day hike and one of my favorite hiking spots mainly because of the variety and diversity of the scenery. Oh yeah, and the view. You can see one of the most spectacular views of San Francisco from Mt. Tam (though I don't have any pictures of that view here). One thing I love about California is the way it smells, which may sound strange, but it's true. Just outside the city, when you head north, you can smell the sweet scent of eucalyptus what what seems like wild sage, although I don't really know what it is that I'm smelling besides eucalyptus. In any case the air smells great. Here are a few pictures from Mt. Tam.
Last Sunday we went to the Maker Faire, which if you don't already know of it, is part science fair and part craft fair from the people behind Make and Craft magazines. It was really fun. One of my favorite things was the cupcake cars. I want one! The one with the cherry on top, please.
The woodworking / tool shop was really neat. They had all kinds of neat machines on display that could cut a number of different things in intricate and crazy shapes.
Need a hovercraft?
I thought these light boxes were fun. What they had people do was jump around while they captured images of them and then you take that image and sit down to make your own light box. Like a little iPod / iTunes commercial of your own.
There were all kinds of fun things for kids to do. I think these were wood drum set kits that kids could put together.
Lego land was huge.
This weekend Lisa opened the Pickled Hutch at its new ocean side location in Pacifica. It's a great space, and she and all her helpers did an amazing job packing and moving from the old space and then quickly unpacking and arranging the new space in one very short week. Here are just a few pictures from around the new Hutch.
I LOVE this bird cage, which is not for sale by the way. It's so tall, I could stand up in it. Lisa's going to make it a light fixture by hanging a chandelier in the inside of it.
I love the picture railing she installed. I always like seeing pictures hung from real picture railing.
You should have seen how quickly but how well Lisa can whip up a decorated corner of the shop. This was one of the first areas we got together. It took about 15 minutes.
Lisa bought these cute bird on branch decals (was it a decal or stencil?, I can't remember actually). I thought it looked really good next to the enamel tins and pitchers.
Lisa got lots of flowers from friends on opening day. Congratulations to Lisa! I'll be visiting often.
I had a great time in Atlanta seeing my mom, sister and nephews! Andrew had the good camera with him in Japan so I brought our little point and shoot digital camera. It's good, too, but not nearly as good as the other one, and a lot of my pictures are blurry, too bright and just not very good, so I don't have much to report from home in the picture department. My nephews are cute no matter what though! Cash is the older one, and Wyatt is the little one. My sister asked Cash what he thought I was having, a boy or a girl (he knows there's a baby in my belly even though I don't think he understands that). He said a boy. We asked what its name should be, and he said, "grandma!" We were cracking up when he said this! He loves his grandma. And he loves kisses. What boy doesn't?
Here's the little one, Wyatt, playing in the dirt.
Other than hanging out with the boys, we also went to the Inman Park festival. It was great, but when we headed out for the day, I checked my camera to make sure it was charged enough, and it had three bars, so I thought that would be good for the day. Before we got to the festival I took a short video of my nephews (the camera also does video) and then it went down to no bars and shut off! I was able to get just a few pictures of my friend Shelley's booth at the festival before the camera officially died for the day. Shelley makes super cute vintage button jewelry and headbands and aprons from vintage fabrics and tea towels. I loved the way she displayed her hairpins on vintage cards.
I had a great time. Next time I go to Atlanta, I hope to show you more.
