Compost? Compost!

Wow... Composting. I never thought I would ever do it. Not that I have a problem with it, but I never had a garden to do anything with compost and frankly, didn't really know much about it. But in Pittsburgh, where we do little to no recycling in general, it wasn't such a big deal.

Well, I am now here in SF and while I had been pretty good about separating paper and plastic, I never gave a thought to my other trash. My landlords pointed out yesterday that we have a compost bin and that paper towels and the like could also be put in compost. Well, I immediately began to wonder at what exactly could be composted. Turns out there is a website that tells me.

It's amazing the amount of stuff in our trash that is actually able to be used in compost. It makes me actually horrified that I hadn't been, and that other places still don't, doing this. So much of our trash can be used for good - and in SF, that means WINE as the compost goes to Napa Valley for some wineries to use! :D

I also found out about these biodegradable bags that you can use for storing compost trash before throwing it out in the trash.


Consider composting in your local area! And if they don't have it, consider writing to your local county government to institute it!

Fun in the City

My mom and I roamed the city this morning getting some errands done and also having a bit of fun. We went to Union Square to check out Macy's then afterwards, off we went to the Ferry Building to check out Tuesday's Farmer's Market.

It definitely isn't as impressive as Saturday's, but still, there are enough vendors to offer good fruit and vegetable options. We ended up getting more fruit for my mom, sage honey (yum...), and artichokes for dinner! You can see the bags full of goodies here:


For lunch, we just ate at the Ferry Building at Delica RF 1. It's Japanese fusion and at lunch, they sell Bento boxes, 4 items for $9.50. It was okay. I actually had to get one custom made for me since most of their pre-packaged boxes had something with soy in at least one of the items. I ended up with the Tonkatsu, Wasabi potato salad, and Green Beans (drenched in a mayonnaise based sauce, not excellent). Like I said, ok, not wonderful. But as we ate, we got to see the ferry coming and going - it was nice!

Pasquale's Pizzeria

Dad went back home today and the whole family went to dinner tonight. We didn't want too much to eat and some of the places we wanted to try were closed today. So we decided to try Pasquale's Pizzeria which had some good reviews. We got the House pizza which was just ok. Not great, average. We still know our dad's pizza is tops. :)

But we were still hungry and here's what was left:

QOTD -Thursday 6/5

"I've been waiting a long time to do that."

"This is Special J!"

Sunday - Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday J! It was a J-centric kinda day... which is good! But also good was me getting to see wiggly-butt Sage again and for the parents to meet Sage. Watching Dad meet and play with Sage was just about one of the cutest sights.



Sorry the photos are a bit blurry, Sage is always in motion and my phone camera just doesn't do her justice!

Saturday - Farmer's Market and IKEA

After a night of illness... (Blah!)

Farmer's Market the next morning! I've been to the Marin County Farmer's Market many times in the past and that has always been fun! But I had never been to the one in the city before (Ferry Plaza) and since this will now be the one that is more accessible to me, I thought I should check it out!

It is also open on Tuesdays and I think I'll be checking that out tomorrow also. But on Saturday, everyone is out and about including all sorts of vendors making breakfast and selling their wares. It was pretty nice and we (Mom, Dad, Aunt, me) got to have fun sampling fruits and cheeses and other things (i.e. hummus and salsa). We also got some stuff, including some Skor-like sugary goodness for my dad. :)




We got to see some fresh almonds - don't they look cool? I am not sure what I would do with them in terms of eating, so I will have to look this up and maybe try out a recipe.


In the afternoon, we went to IKEA again - I know, I know, it must seem like we live at that place! - but thankfully left more there than I brought back into the apartment!

As we headed back to the city, these are the beautiful views we got of SF:

Friday - Shopping and Working!

Mom and Dad are here! Yay!

Unfortunately for them, I kinda put them straight to work. :D No, really, they were ok with that as they wanted to help me with my new move. One of the things that I had needed was to replace the fabric on the cushions in my built-in dining nook. The fabric that had been there seemed like it had been there for ages and frankly, who knew what they had been through?

We started our morning bright and early going to Britex Fabric Store. It was a fun collaboration of ideas and we finally settled on some calming fabric and trim for the cushions.




We were excited to start but were very hungry so we decided to head to Chinatown for some lunch. We ended up at a seafood place (can't remember the name!) and got a couple dishes, seen below, all decent. Good, not great. But it filled us up and we soon headed back to the Inner Sunset.



We then checked out the cushions and saw what had actually been the fabric color choice. What a difference between the original color and the present-day color. We began staple gunning away - I became quite the staple gunner! How satisfying is that job? :) Well, we finished in the afternoon and check out the fabulous results.

Before:



After: