I Heart San Diego

While the famous mommy-bloggers were off in San Francisco having fun, this mom-blogger stayed home and enjoyed being semi-anonymous, albeit income-less, in San Diego. And let me say, San Diego is a great place to live. Once you get past the busy freeways, the fact that you have to own a car in order to get anywhere, and the still-too-expensive-housing market, the place just shines. As in sunshine. No, the ocean water is NOT warm (today it was about 70 degrees), and you won't be frolicking like a Bay Watch Babe all year (although you can swim all year at the heated outdoor or sliding roof pools all around the county), but you can wear your flip-flops all year and just kick back. Like today, when I joined the water aerobics group from the Y for their weekly jaunt to Mission Beach. They brought their boogie boards, fruit, and Tings to share, their beach chairs and umbrellas, and their average age was maybe 65 or so? That was just too neat. (I tagged along with my neighbor, who at early 40-something is the younger of the bunch.) And this evening, Mr. Burli, Burli Jr. and I enjoyed an awesome dinner at Urban Solace here in our neighborhood. I just love it when you can walk to really tasty restaurants with LIVE music! (Yeah! JT said, "I know him [the musician]. Can I dance?" because he plays at the Thursday Farmer's Market.) The wine was tasty, Mr. Burli enjoyed an Austrian beer, and I ordered Pork Belly, which turned out to be the best tasting Schweinsbraten ever. Oh, and I wore my new shirt, which, in my humble opinion, is pretty fancy. Maybe it is just because it took me 3 hours to make it on Saturday. Plus the time I spent a different day picking out the material, washing it, ironing it, deciding where to place the pattern, cutting it out, going back to the store to buy some binding, etc. - in short, the most expensive shirt I own were I to pay myself my usual hourly fee. And oddly, I want to make another one!
[This is my expression of relief on Saturday of having finished the shirt and it fits!! I wasn't so sure it was going to, since the pattern had measurements that seemed to fit a Barbie doll and not a regular spare-tire type woman.]

And our other break-through - Sunday I convinced Burli Jr. to just try out the water (at La Jolla Cove, a great snorkeling place - but it is PACKED on weekends and really, any afternoon during the summer). After refusing to even dip his toes in all year, it turns out that he really, really likes the water. Yeah!