Sweet Saturdays

Today couldn't have possibly been any sweeter.

I made homemade guacamole with homegrown cilantro, all chopped up in my new hand blender.

I used the guacamole for our brunch today.  I layered it onto toast, then topped it all off with scrambled eggs, salsa, sprouts and nonfat Greek yogurt as a sour cream substitute.

Not a bad way to start the morning.

Oh yeah, and I did laundry and did my workout.  I felt pretty productive.

I also got to hang out with my favorite neighbor:

He didn't do too much, but his company still made me happy.

The only way that this day could have been any better would be if I didn't have to work.

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Come Together

On Thursday night, a huge crowd of us went to see our friend, Will, perform music at Cool Cat Cafe.  Here's a very, very short clip of him playing "Come Together" with his friend Solo on bass.

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Best Buds

I captured this moment between T-Bone and Bryan through the screen door.

T-Bone looks so loved.

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Green Thumb

A few snapshots from my adventures in gardening:

The larger planter with basil and cilantro is still alive and kicking.

My basil is looking particularly robust.  Now that I know how to use the Cuisinart Hand blender, I think I'm going to use the chopping attachment to make some pesto!

The cilantro is also looking pretty healthy.  I need to make some guacamole!

Besides admiring my already thriving plants, I transplanted my thyme and a second bunch of basil into new and bigger containers.  Hopefully the herbs will get a little bit bigger and healthier now that they are no longer squeezed into tiny pots.

I have higher hopes for the thyme.  The basil is still looking a little stuffed--even in the bigger pot.

I then used the left over pots to plant some new seeds!

The two smaller containers have been sprinkled with chive seeds, and the bigger pot on the right has been planted with more cilantro.

Growing stuff is fun!

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New Bling

A friend of a friend makes gorgeous seashell jewelry, and I finally snagged a few pieces for myself as well as for gifts.

I'm sporting just two of the bangles that I purchased from Natasha.  The one on the left has three small shells on a silver bangle with a wave detail.

Natasha does some serious beach combing to find all the shells she uses in her jewelry.  All the shells are from Maui beaches.  It's fun to be supporting a local artist friend, and it's even better to be wearing Maui shells on Maui.  Love it!

You can see more or buy! on Natasha's Etsy website.

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Meatballs!

I've been craving meatballs for over a month now.  I'm not sure where this hankering came from, but I've been trying to cure the hunger with take out spaghetti and meatballs and Hamburger Helper--but it hasn't helped.

Then I remembered a recipe for meatballs that I had come across online awhile back, and I decided to give it a try.  I mean, how could I pass up a recipe called "The Best Meatballs You'll Ever Have."

{photo and recipe from blog Cup of Jo}

The recipe is incredible.  And fun to make.  This was my first attempt at making meatballs, and I was so pleased with how they came out.  And thank god they came out so good!  I had company over for dinner.  I served homemade meatballs with pasta and a homemade tomato sauce.

The sauce was simple: simmering cans of peeled plum tomatoes with butter, salt, and an onion chopped in half.  Get the recipe here!

The meatballs required a little more prep-work.

So, I busted out the Christmas present that Bryan's parents sent us:

a Cuisinart handheld immersion blender with tons of add-on's, including a chopping tool.  

I used the chopper to prep all my vegetables and herbs for the meatballs.  And when the sauce was ready, I used the immersion blender to smooth out the sauce and blend up the onion and garlic cloves that had softened during cooking.

The meal was incredible.  Good company, good food (Mike brought over home made garlic focaccia and Ashley made a huge salad), and good times.

It was a lovely night in.

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Snapshots from the Weekend

My favorite neighbor crashing on our lanai:

Beach day at Black Rock:

...and on a side note: the whales are back!  It's still a little early in the season, so we haven't seen the numbers that we'll be seeing in the spring, but you can definitely hear the whales sing on every swim.  Just get in the ocean and stick your head under the water.  It's beautiful!

Laundry Day:

and yes, I did fit that entire mountain of clothes in a single load.  I'm sure there's a Martha Stewart rule against overstuffing your washer and dryer, but Miss Martha probably isn't feeding $1.75 in quarters into her machines at home.

Now we're just hanging at home playing some Guitar Hero with Will before we watch him play real guitar at Cool Cat's tonight.

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Epic Weekend

It's going to be hard to go back to work tonight after the wonderful weekend I just had.

Wednesday morning was spent cleaning up and organizing the house before Bryan and I headed to Wailea to hang out with some of my friends who are visiting the island.

We grabbed lunch on the road:

{Lunch at Maui Tacos.  And yes, I did eat all of this.}

We drove over to Wailea to hang out with the Leslie family at their condo where we were introduced to our new game obsession:

{7 Wonders in action}

The Leslies prepared an amazing dinner for us.  We stayed until after 10 at night, talking and catching up.

Thursday morning was a bit dramatic.  Bryan had woken up early to get ready for his guy trip to Poli Poli for some disc golf, when we were alerted to the fact that a pipe had burst in the house.  The whole household scrambled around for a bit to do some damage control and contact a plumber.  We had to turn the water off to the whole house while we waited.  

We finally found someone who reacted with some urgency (sometimes it can be hard to find emergency help on Maui).  The plumber told us that it would be about 4 hours before he got everything patched up and turned the water on again.

The boys took off for the mountain, and I also headed out of our waterless house.

I met up my girlfriend, Shaina, and we got an early lunch at our favorite joint: Star Noodle.

{Our first course: Ahi Avo prepared in lemon pressed olive oil}

There are no further photos of lunch because I became extremely occupied with eating everything else that came out of the kitchen: Vietnamese Crepe and Fried Noodle Soup (not an actual soup, but incredibly delicious all the same).

After lunch, we came back to Shaina's house where I played with her roommate's dog:

{High 5}

Then we went to Lahaina harbor and took a dingy to Shaina's brother's catamaran that is moored right outside the harbor.

I spent most of the time in the water.

{Taking the plunge! Shaina took these photos from the trampolines at the front of the catamaran}

Not a bad way to spend the afternoon.

Later in the evening, I met Bryan on the Other Side to catch the new Tarantino movie at the Mall.

Definitely not my favorite Tarantino movie, but I was happy to finally see it.

As you can see, it was an epic weekend--and now I need a weekend from my weekend!

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Street Art

I was blown away by this spray painted mural that's down by the Safety Check garage.

The whole picture:

And a few closeups:

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Daphne

Bryan decided to take his '62 Thunderbird, also known as Daphne, in for her safety check today.  It's been a long time since Daphne's been uncovered, so I asked to tag along.

Daphne is a beautiful shade of Easter Egg blue, although both Bryan and the guy manning the Safety Check garage said she was green.  They must both be colorblind.

The previous owner chopped the top off the car, so she is a permanent convertible with the roof down.  She's a blast to ride around in, and she gets loads of attention.  The hoots, hollers and wolf whistles would make any other woman blush.

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Hair Cuts on Maui...

...are usually done outside someone's house and are very cheap.

Bryan got a little trim with the help and clippers of our neighbor and friend, Will.

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Snapshots from the Weekend

When biking to work on Tuesday night, I got behind this VW Bus at the stoplight.

His bumper sticker said "Honk if you love Satan." Ah, bumper sticker humor.  Har-dee-har.

Bryan and I had a busy afternoon yesterday.  We went to our friends' birthday party for their 1 year old daughter.  There were good friends, great food and lots of chocolate cake.

Afterwards, Bryan and I braved Front Street to do a little post-Holidays clothes shopping.

When we parked our car at the free lot, we saw this:

I love that there are wild chickens randomly roaming all over the island.

Bryan had a shopping bonanza at Hurley.  They are having an epic 50% off sale.

Then I made dinner for us at home, and we watched the newest episode of Top Chef where our friend Sheldon is competing.

We had a little company:

The praying mantis was on the outside of the house, but she hung out for the entire night.

After the TV show, we had a few friends over and played Apples to Apples.  Definitely one of the best games ever.

Today has been a day of laziness.  I didn't sleep too great, so I'm lazing about at home.  The only major plan I have for today is dinner out at Duke's with my girlfriends.  Duke's is featuring a holiday menu until the 6th of January, so we are going to take advantage of our company discount and order everything.  Maybe I should also plan on doing a workout today...

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KaBOOM!

Happy 2013!

{amateur fireworks shot over the neighborhood. PS that little smudge of white light in the upper right hand corner of the photo is the moon}

Biking back up the hill from work this evening was a trip.  I could see that the cops had completely blocked off the road about a block down from the street I had to take to get home.  I found out later that there was a hit and run earlier in the evening on the highway.  I don't believe anyone was hurt.

As I biked up Lahainaluna hill to my house, I felt like I was cruising through a war zone.  Fireworks whizzed and popped and exploded over my head.  The street was filled with smoke that smelled of burnt hair.  And it wasn't even midnight yet.

I got home around 11 pm, took a shower and chowed down on some leftover Cilantro Avocado Salad.

Then, at midnight, it sounded as if the world was ending.  

My neighborhood went absolutely ballistic.  Everyone and their mother started lighting off fireworks.  I watched the show from my lanai.  Looking out over the hill, I could see huge clouds of smoke billow up through the streets.  Fireworks were exploding above houses and palm trees, with a few errant rockets landing ignited on neighboring rooftops.  The whole town seemed to be glowing, and in the haze from all the smoke, it looked like Lahaina was on fire.

I took a very short, very dark video of the fireworks as seen from my porch.  I am just as horrified as you by how much I sound like an 80's Valley Girl in the video.  Do I talk like this all the time?  If so, I really must stop.

As you can see from the video, we do New Year's a little different here on Hawaii.  What was your night like?

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Cilantro Avocado Salad

The photo below makes my lunch look like an unappetizing but colorful mush--even so, my Cilantro Avocado Salad was the perfect way to fuel my pre-New Year's Eve work shift.

I finely chopped a generous bunch of cilantro and spinach, added 3 thinly sliced radishes, cubed a whole avocado and halved two handfuls of cherry tomatoes.  I mixed the salad with a homemade lemon mustard vinaigrette and polenta.  I was originally going to use quinoa in the salad, but I had sadly used all my quinoa in a previous recipe earlier in the month and had none left over.  The polenta made for an interesting but suitable substitution.

I feel like this bowl of superfoods really powered me through a long shift running up and downstairs from my section in the lounge to our kitchen upstairs and back.

Thankfully, the evening--although long--went relatively smoothly, and it was lucrative.  I even made it home in time to enjoy my neighbors' smorgasbord of fireworks.

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