Angela Lansbury

That's Dame Angela Lansbury to you! Angela Lansbury is one of my favorite performers. The woman has had quite the enviable career, spanning decades of Broadway and television work (I'm currently binge watching Murder, She Wrote as I write this). When I read that she was coming to San Francisco for the limited national tour of Blithe Spirit, I immediately bought Cole and I tickets. It was such a thrill to watch her on stage and let me tell you, she's still got it! 

Ready to go!

                                

Obviously thrilled

                 

I stumbled upon this a few weeks back while cruising the Internet and I'm desperate to get it!


xoxo,
Melissa

Pescadero, CA

Last Monday, Cole and I went on a mini road trip to Pescadero, CA. It's about an hour south of San Francisco, and taking Highway 1 offered us gorgeous views of the ocean. Cole's pretty game for road trips, and I usually don't tell him where we are going until halfway to our destination. Sometimes I just don't even bother telling him. He's so trusting.

"Where am I..."

Our first stop was Harley Farms. They are Blue Ribbon winners for their goat cheese products and from the amount of samples we tasted, we agreed that it was worthy of those ribbons. We picked up two rounds of cheese and their goat feta cheese.

No farm would be complete without a friendly cat.

After we grabbed bread from the local grocery store, we drove 5 minutes down the road to see the tallest lighthouse on the West coast. Fun Fact: It was made with cast iron and not steel. Cast iron absorbs water, so over the years most of the structure rusted and started to fall apart.

Even the 3D sign is rusted

Facts for your face!

I enjoyed learning that a ship from Boston had a hand in the name.

You can see at the top there are missing iron chunks from the cornice. They started falling off in 2001, so the lighthouse is gated off for obvious safety reasons.

The 2,000 pound Fesnel lens is 16 feet tall! It was moved once they realized the lighthouse was falling apart.

Our snack

Our view

We headed back into town for a quick lunch before heading back to the city. If you're ever in Pescadero, go to Duarte's and get the half and half soup. The waitress recommended it, and I was so glad we went for it! It's their artichoke soup mixed with the green chile soup.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse is registered as a State Historic Park, so funding has started to repair the structure. The lighthouse is still functioning, but bringing it back to it's glory days would be a treat.

xoxo,

Melissa

Art Walk

Our talented friend Paul had a show during a neighborhood art walk night. On top of being a gifted painter, he's also a tattoo artist. If I ever change my mind about tattoos, he'll be the one to ink me up!

My family has a tradition of getting our portraits done when we turn five. Sadly, the new generation has has missed out on that. I'm thinking of starting the tradition back up and having Paul do them!

xoxo,

Melissa

Girls Night

You'll have to forgive the unexpected hiatus I just took. With SF Sketchfest running from January 22-February 8 and SF Beer Week slightly overlapping (February 6-15), I've been quite the social butterfly and my bank account is has a significant dent in it.

With my friend's birthday coming up, I was so pleased to find an old fashioned invite in the mail telling me that instead of the usually night out we were having a Girls Night In, complete with movies, games, and trashy snacks.

The party took place in 1995.

Classic Games!

Dare: Have your friend do your hair and wear it like that for the rest of the night.

Dare: Let your friend apply your makeup...Blindfolded!

The Polaroid film was busted.

Most of us slept over and ate pizza and cheese puffs for breakfast. WE'RE GROWN UPS! It was a totally awesome time.

xoxo,

Melissa

de Young

Before the holidays started, I bought myself a joint membership to the de Young and SFMOMA. I finally got to use it and I took Cole along as my guest. He had never been to the de Young, so I was pleased to be his docent. They have a Keith Harding exhibit running until February 16th and we both really enjoyed it.

Cole gets cultured.

I started taking photos of people taking pictures of the art

JUST LOOK AT IT! STOP!

My favorite area is the American Decorative Art gallery

xoxo,
Melissa

Favorite Apps

Thanks to this Mashable article, I spent a good hour organizing my iPad and iPhone (can you tell I love organizing and cleaning?). It made me question which apps were still useful and which ones had earned the right to be on my first page. So here are my favorite ones!

Candy Crush - I really held out getting this, but once I got hooked on it I really appreciated it for giving me something to do while I'm waiting for/on the bus or just with nothing to do. Kidding! I totally use it even when I should be doing something else.

Fit Brains - I play this once a day and instantly feel wicked smart. You can track your performance and even see how you compare to other players.

NextBus - San Francisco's muni is notorious for not having a reliable schedule. This app actually tracks the buses using its GPS and has been a time saver.

Lyft - For when something has happened with muni. 

sleepti.me - This isn't an app, but I keep it on my home screen. It calculates when you should go to bed and wake up using sleep cycles. I've had a history of insomnia, so anything that helps and allows me to feel well rested naturally is deserving of my praise.

Relax Melodies - Another sleep aid that helps, especially if the city is a bit louder than usual. You can keep it simple with just one sound, or combine some for your own personal lullaby.

Drybar - I'm not a fan of doing my own hair. I lack the skill and the patience, so when Drybar opened up in my neighborhood, I broke down their door. Having this at my fingertips allows me to book a blowout for a last minute audition in a few clicks.

Munchery - Cole loves this one more than me. Don't have time to cook or just don't feel like it? Local chefs come up with a different dish each day for you to order and have delivered to you. The brilliant thing is that you can order soup, salad, entree, and a dessert each from a different chef. Cole wants Thai food and I want Italian? No need to stress, Munchery's got this.

xoxo

Melissa

Cleanse

January is the month of cleansing to me. It's when I start going through EVERYTHING and either discard it or donate in the hopes that I can downsize and live simpler each new year. Usually I have the same crackpot idea about cleaning enough stuff out of our storage room that it can be turned into a tiny art studio. I swear that room is like something out of Mary Poppins. I keep finding STUFF in there and I can't even recall how it came to be. 

This month I cleaned and re-organized our bookshelf. The poor thing was bending at the ends and quite a few of the books were ones from college. None of them were conversations starters, "Wow, you guys have History of Theater and Writing Styles? You are so cultured and educated"; no one cares. So we came away with two bags worth of books to sell to a local bookstore. Anything that doesn't get sold will be donated to the Friends of the Public Library. 

Cole, when he saw what I had started.

I managed to find three tennis racquet's in the storage c̶a̶v̶e̶ room "Oh, I didn't know you played tennis Melissa", I DON'T! So those are out along with the jump rope and exersize ball that I convinced myself I needed and then never inflated. I'm the worst.

In the end I've made two trips to Goodwill and I'll be heading to the bookstore and clothing exchange this week. I'm still not close to getting my art studio but I'm slooooooooowly getting there.

How I feel

xoxo,

Melissa