Tonight, we had Halibut with Coconut-Curry Sauce for dinner (it was supposed to be sea bass, but Safeway didn't have any). It turned out well. The fish was unremarkable and kind of pricey, but the sauce was awesome, and we're planning on making it again someday. Oh, and one of the good things about halibut is that it had no detectable bones in it. That's my kind of fish!

As of today, I am the proud holder of a California driver's license! Well, it's just a piece of paper right now, but I'll get the real thing in the mail sometime soon. Since I had a Colorado license, I only had to pass the written test, which I did. I'm glad I can legally drive in CA now, but since I haven't driven in more than two years, I'm a little hesitant to start again. I will eventually. First I'd like to get a used car (instead of borrowing Patrick's dad's car), so if I hurt it, I won't feel horrible. But before we can buy a car, we need jobs. Still working on that. I'm glad I have my part time programming job to provide some padding.

Our wheatgrass is growing at an impressive pace, and there are little baby basil sprouts in our herb garden (the chives and rosemary haven't done anything yet). I'll take pictures when things have progressed further.

Yesterday, I made some paintings to hang in our bedroom, since we can't afford to buy art that other people have made. I think they turned out pretty well.

Today, Andrew and Tree visited, and we rode our bikes on Canada road. It was fun, and I was glad I didn't have to worry about cars while remembering how to ride a bike. The road was kind of hilly, and I'm tired now! My body's not used to exerting itself. I'd definitely like to go bike riding in the future too. It's peaceful out there.

The bad part of the day was that Andrew's bike fell off their car's bike rack on the freeway when they were returning to our apartment. Luckily, nobody ran over it, but it's still in bad shape. Plus their trunk got messed up because of some construction work in town. So not a good day for Andrew and Tree in terms of wheeled possessions, but it seemed like they enjoyed the day, those things aside. I hope they'll ride bikes with us again, once they have their bike situation sorted out! We talked some more about our upcoming Napa camping trip (Tree and Erin are doing a triathlon up there in October, and we're coming up to cheer them on). I'm looking forward to it!

Our bedroom walls were too white, so we needed some art to put on them. Inspired by this lithograph, I ended up painting a series of pictures of constellations based on images from this website. I used acrylic paint, and the whole project was nice and cheap. Detailed pictures below...

Completed paintings, hung over our bed

Blank canvases with circles drawn on them

Sketches of each season's constellations, to scale

Black circles painted

Streaky background painted (I diluted the acrylic to get that effect)

Milky way (stippling achieved using a pastry brush)

Close-up of Winter Constellations before labelling

All four paintings before hanging

I got my new bike yesterday. It's so pretty! Tomorrow I'm going to ride it for the first time. Every Sunday, part of Canada Road is closed to cars, and only pedestrians and cyclists are allowed on it. So Patrick, Tree, Andrew, and I are going to go ride bikes there. I hope I don't make a fool of myself!

I sewed myself a velcro strap to hold my lock in place. I used a silver ribbon and tan velcro, and it does the job well, but it's not so attractive. So no close-up pictures of it. And no, my lock can't be opened with a ballpoint pen. They've already pulled those locks off the shelves.

We've been doing bits and pieces of decorating around the apartment. A lot of this requires putting holes in our walls, unfortunately. But we have spackle (we've already used it once), so I don't think the apartment will be too holey when we move out. Patrick had to drill some big holes in the living room yesterday in order to put up the shelves we got from IKEA. But I think it was worth it.

The print on the wall is Hokusai's Great Wave. When Patrick was in Japan, he bought a postcard with that print on it, and we both liked it, so we ordered a larger version (and a real frame with a mat and everything!). We're not sure if we want to hang a print under (or above) the lefthand shelf as well or just leave it like it is. The metal troughs are full of dirt and wheatgrass seeds. In a few weeks, we should have lots of lush grass in them, which I'm hoping will look nice against the wall. If the grass is disappointing, I might try planting Icelandic poppies instead. Or maybe a different kind of grass, like winter rye.

We bought baby kiwis at Draeger's just now (we rarely go there since it's so expensive, but we only needed a few things for dinner tomorrow). I couldn't resist--would they taste like kiwi? Well, turns out they kind of do. They're definitely little kiwis, but they're not as sweet as big ones. Kind of tangy. But not bad!

I love Draeger's produce section! And their jams and preserves section. And everything else about them, except for the prices. Patrick had his eye on some maple syrup in a tin, but it turned out to be $25! So we didn't buy it. That was sad :(