day 96: I have been hard at work updating the vector art/illustration website that I run tinyfacedesign.com to make it better and easier to use. It is still in need of a couple adjustments, but it has a brand spankin’ new contact form that I’m pretty excited about (I know, I’m a nerd) and I think it’s looking pretty good. Yay tinyface!

day 95: This gate is at the entrance to a duplex in Manhattan Beach. I’m going to take a guess here but it *seems* as though each half of the gate is owned independently (one half for each unit) and that one of the owners repainted and the other didn’t bother. Now if it were me, I would have offered to repaint both halves while I was at it… but maybe they like it this way.

day 94: I love our place but it has a couple of “quirks”, one of which is that there are upper cabinets above the sink. The cabinets make it really hard to get in and wash large dishes, and completely block out any available light, making it impossible to tell if your dishes are actually clean. Enter Ben’s handiness and our under-cabinet lighting over the sink. Clever and he does the dishes… what a great husband!

day 93: I am lucky enough to have a great older brother who I’ve always looked up to. He is dating an amazing person who just happens to be one of my best friends from college. They are such great people each on their own but they also make such an amazing couple together. They were visiting California for the weekend and let me take them out for a photo session. I had too many favorites to count but this one especially jumps out at me.

day 92: We went to the park today with Valena John and Isaac. He didn’t seem to love the playground and he didn’t want to roll down the big grass hill … but he sure seemed to enjoy pushing Ben down the hill. Here he is just after giving Ben a good shove.

day 91: I’ve heard of sports stars having superstitions or lucky charms they carry with them to help them play better. I doubt any of them carry a fork. Maybe it was less about luck and more about the lack of a convenient trash can, but Cecilia carried this fork with her throughout our entire game of bocce ball.

day 90 : I baked a cake this evening for an office birthday party that we’re having tomorrow. The cake itself is pretty straightforward if you can follow a recipe, but the buttercream I make is a totally different story. It involves whipping egg whites, boiling sugar and lots of other wizardry. Made correctly it tastes like fluffy beautiful goodness. But one degree off on the temperature and it turns to a greasy, curdled mess. Thank goodness for candy thermometers.

day 89: I have been working on homework for the last 5 1/2 hours straight without a break (and it’s still not quite right… how frustrating!) and I am much too tired to run through the pile of photos I took today to find the best. Here’s the first one I shot today…

day 88: While waiting for my car to be done getting an oil change, Ben and I wandered into a drug store that happened to be selling Thrifty ice cream. For those of you not familiar with Thrifty ice cream, it’s delicious (and dirt cheap) drugstore ice cream that I used to get as a kid (back when the drugstore itself was called Thrifty, hence the name). The best part? They use a scoop that produces cylindrical ice cream instead of the standard sphere. Ah Thrifty… so tasty.

day 86: Ben and I ate at the Bay Cities Italian Deli for a late lunch this afternoon. The wait for a sandwich was a half hour at 4 o’clock, and they got Ben’s order completely wrong, but it was still delicious and worth a trip back. Especially because they have a crazy selection of old-timey sodas. Mmm nu-grape.