Wait, We Live in Wine Country?!

As often as I talk about living in wine country, I realize that I haven’t posted many photos showing you that we do, in fact, live in wine country.

Time to rectify the situation:


I snapped these photos about a mile from our house on the way to the grocery store. Not your typical sight near your local mom and pop store, I know.

The grapevine leaves are just starting to change colors despite the 80 degree weather as of late. In another few weeks the leaves will be yellow and then wither and drop off, as close as we get to the changing of the seasons here and the brilliance of fall.

And the view from our house:

Notice the flecks of green in the hills? More grapevines.

See?! We live in wine country. Love the beauty and open space that surrounds us.

We’re feeling West County to the core.

Recycling in Northern California

This weekend at our neighborhood street fair, we saw recycling, trash and compost bins with these fantastic signs and I started thinking about how lucky we are to be able to recycle so many things in our curbside bins. I think I often take it for granted how green our county is! (Shame on me!)

We can recycle a number of things that you typically can’t recycle in other parts of the country including all plastic types, shredded paper, laundry baskets, lawn furniture, plastic toys, bubble wrap, and household electronics such as cell phones, answering machines, stereos, and home printers.

Yes, lawn furniture and stereos. It boggles the mind.

And we don’t need to sort our recycling! Perfect for busy mothers.

Our trash pickup also includes a compost bin that gets collected weekly. In our yard debris/compost bins we can compost tea bags, bread, vegetables, fruits, pasta and rice, eggshells, wood ashe, and yard clippings.

(While this is incredibly convenient, the down side is that we don’t have our own compost pile that we could use to enrich our garden. We end up buying compost instead and that’s a of a financial bummer.)

And in true California fashion, a keen reminder that our trash doesn’t really go away. Evidently we’re all about laying environmental guilt on you. Sigh.

Sorry about that.

Statistically Improbable

… and almost too good to be true!

I love it when my very favorite bloggers/artists host giveaways and I WIN! (Can you believe it?!)

Case in point:

Giveaway #1


Beautiful barn cards from Lori Joy Smith, an artist living on Prince Edward Island (being a longtime Lucy Maud Montgomery fan, imagine my joy at receiving a package from Charlottetown!). I’ve loved Lori’s work for years and have been following her blog since before she had her two daughters and was living with her husband in Vancouver. I adore these barn face cards (barns have feelings too!) that she sent me! Instead of using them for their intended purpose and mailing them off to friends, I’m planning on keeping at least a few to frame and hang in Miss Leyba’s room. (Warning: It will be a while as MISS LEYBA DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A ROOM OF HER OWN YET but I promise to post pictures when it happens!)

You can view all her barn face posts and more on her blog and purchase these cards in her shop. Head over there; she’s inspiring and delightful.

And did you read her note to me?! SWOON!

Giveaway #2

Brenda, artist and craftster extraordinaire, also known as the stealth Secret Agent Josephine, sent us a fun cocktail book that I can finally really explore now that I’m no longer breastfeeding (one week ago, today!) and a cd with famous regee artists singing Disney songs (Miss Leyba loves it). My favorite? Circle of Life by Matisyahu. (Oh, yes, the famous Orthodox Jewish Reggae artist! Hysterical!) Miss Leyba’s favorite part of the package? Bug’s artwork that wrapped our gifts! Miss Leyba cut it up, taped it back together, added stickers and played with it for days. (Thank you!)

You should know that this isn’t our first package from Brenda. She’s so awesome she lent us homemade banners to use at Miss Leyba’s first birthday party in 2009 (pictures of the banners at our house here and from two weeks earlier in her house for her daughter’s birthday party). She rocks!

Giveaway #3

Last but not least we won a hand screen printed Seasonal Summer Tote illustrated by Claudia Pearson via Brooklyn’s enormouschampion. I’ve been admiring Claudia Pearson’s artwork over the past few seasons. I love her seasonal dish cloths and have been meaning to order some (I still need to!). Ah, the delight in winning this bag! It’s beautiful. You can buy this bag and other prints, bags, towels, and coloring books at her etsy shop. Head on over!

Many thanks to Lori, Brenda and Claudia! Thank you for sending us such wonderful gifts and for having beautiful, inspirational blogs, all of which I so enjoy reading. I greatly admire you and what a thrill for me to have gotten mail from you.

Thank you!

(Not just statistically speaking) I am such a lucky girl.

Updated to add: Look who’s over at Claudia’s blog! Miss Leyba is a rock star.