Crochet - Bag #2

So here is my 2nd attempt at another produce bag.  Ta da!!!

I hope my sister likes the color!  I decided to do the double strap instead for this one.  I tried using our new crochet bag yesterday at the grocery store and it was a bit tricky with the one big strap.  So maybe this one will work better?

I probably didn't need to make it so long/deep as I actually did run out of yard!  There was just enough to make the straps identical in width. Phew!

The crocheted yarn in our bag did stretch quite a bit and I am guessing this one will still stretch too.  Hope she likes it!

More pruning

So Bob is not quite referring it to as "pruning" as I am.  He is calling it "butchering" instead. Ha ha! Okay, I guess you all can decide :-P

Before:

After!

So... maybe I did go too far with this one.  But I couldn't reach hardly any figs last season! I am just so glad I didn't electrocute myself with those overhanging wires and/or take any of our wires down with those big branches!  Even the gardener next door was impressed when he saw me working - said I had all the right tool.  Pat on the back for me! :-P

Charlie was such a big helper - cutting up the limbs into shorter pieces.  I almost hit him a few times - while tossing the big branches to the ground near him.  At the end of the morning, thankfully no injuries and Charlie earned some tablet time/points for helping Mommy:

Next on the list, our apricot tree.  Only 1 fruit on the entire tree last season! Maybe more this time around?

Before:

After!

Maybe not as drastic for this tree.  I had to mostly get all those branches away from that roof line.  The twigs from this one was definitely more manageable:

One more fig tree!  We were able to get more figs out of this tree, assuming I get it before the gnats and the bees!

Before: 

 After!

Bobby says this one looks like an alien tree. LOL!!!

Okay, so moving on to this BIG job - the BIG lemon tree!

Before:

After!

I'm not sure if Bobby was impressed or upset or shocked because all I got from him mostly was, "That's my shade tree for my hammock!!!".  Well, assuming that I didn't kill the lemon tree, we should be good for all the leaves to come back by summer.  Fingers crossed!

So here is all the drama that went on while pruning the lemon tree.  First... just trying to figure out where to start!

I managed to climb up the tree to cut the taller branches.  Just glad I didn't fall over or cut myself!  I had a good branch to put my saw away while trying to toss the branches over.  And then my hat fell over a couple of times but glad the tree caught that one too!

So much saw dust!

Yay, all done! But look at all those branches.  And lemons!!!

One of 3 big bags of lemons.  I still have them sitting in the back porch.  Not sure what to do with them:

 Another look at what I have to tackle with.  Unfortunately, the green bins were not picked up this past weekend so I can't get rid of ALL of these until another week or two! InsyaAllah or God willing, as they would say in Abu Dhabi:

I managed to get the boys to help out but Graham ended up IN the tree and Charlie is on the swing-seat.  Both were playing some sort of game.  Ha!

And then, it's Charlie's turn to get up into the tree.  Graham is so sweet - helping out Charlie. If Charlie only knew how much his big brother cared for him!

Here's the pile so far under the gazebo.  Some of the branches are still too large so the work is not quite done yet:

In time, I suppose.  The branches aren't going anywhere!  If anything, the place smells so lemon-ie :-)

The last and final tree which is the apple tree, still needs to be pruned.  It is probably shivering in the corner, afraid to see me coming with my saw and trimmer in my hands. Ha ha!  The apple tree did produce some good fruit last season but some of them did end up being too high.  The squirrel did enjoy those. Soooo... yeah....

Until next pruning season! Oh wait, also pruned the rose bushes.  They seem to be coming back nicely.  They all looked so gnarly and sad earlier this winter:

Oh, look! Some pretty purple flowers!  These appeared last season too.  Bonus from the previous owner:

And one more last thing.  I gathered all the green bottles that were hanging on the fig tree and put some water into it.  I hung them back up on this big thick limb and TADA! Graham managed to play some music!

As usual, never a dull moment in this household :-)

Crocheting (again)

It's been a long while since I last crocheted.  I did see a crochet class recently in that Last Book Store that the boys and I were in a couple of weekends ago.  The class was about making a grocery bag and I thought how cute!  But for $80 and NOT including supplies, I thought,  "I can do it for less!" And for less without having to drive downtown (and who knows, maybe get towed again) and not having to deal with parking.

Sooooo,  a few trips later to the local supply store and a few looks at some online tutorial...

Suppose to use yarn made out of jute, but couldn't find any. This one seems pretty sturdy but then again, one tear and the bag will probably be deemed useless!  At least it's colorful :-)

The tutorial did a double strap but I decided to just go with one strap.  Not too shabby???

And who knew the leftover yarn would actually be pretty good for fixing up the boys' trampoline net:

Before:

 After:

This was another stretch of netting on the other side of the zipper that also tore.  But now it's fixed! Yay (for now)!!!

In the meantime, Graham has taken into the whole crocheting thing too!  He is almost obsessed at times. Ha ha!  I helped him with some of this but he is obviously missing a few stitches as it is getting narrower at the top.  Not too bad for a beginner so far :-)

In the car:

When we got home:

Too funny!  He is so proud with what he made:

Looks like I need to work on my phone/camera skills!

Well, onward to another type of yarn.  Maybe this one will not be as stretchy:

So far so good!

This one will be for a birthday gift for my sister.  I better get it done soon as her birthday is at the end of the month! :-)  Although crocheting for too long gives me a terrible ache in my neck and shoulder and right elbow.  Sheeesh!

Discovering LA near Disney Music Hall (Feb 1)

After our show "Peter and the Wolf" at the Disney Music Hall, we decided to walk around the area again and find something to eat. Charlie vetoed the Grand Market, which was where we ate last time we were near here.  So we kept walking. Supposedly this Japanese restaurant in the basement is quite fancy and yummy but it was closed.  Next time!

A massive mural on a building:

Graham said the shadow of the traffic cone makes the car look like it is a unicorn.  Ha!

After going around an entire block, we finally find the Italian restaurant that we were looking for.  It's too bad we had to walk through so many stinky streets (of pee.. yuck!):

Glad nothing spoiled our appetite for lunch!  Yummy spaghetti and meatballs:

Charlie had gnocchi but he didn't enjoy it too much:

I obviously had to try their tiramisu.  Delizioso!

Of course the boys had dessert too:

There is an interesting water feature just outside of the restaurant:

Art is so subjective:

I just love this little car!  This photo is curved somehow. How did I do that??!

There is a little store where a guy is working on fresh pasta for the restaurant:

I'm guessing spinach tortellini:

Moving on!  There are some amazing architecture on the buildings:

Sorry, but I am obviously obsessed with these buildings:

Hmm... not sure what I can say about this "thing" that is on top of the roof.  Art??!

Amazing ceiling! (minus the smell of pee... blah!)

What an amazing mural!

We finally reach our destination - the Last Bookstore.  Check out this installment of books!  It's like a "wave of books":

Doesn't take long for the boys to pick up a book.  I love how they love to read:

Okay, building and lights.  I love light fixtures too :-)

It's amazing how many books are in this form of "manga" or Japanese comic - even Marie Kondo! Maybe I should have bought this book:

An interesting find:

LOL!!!

This place is pretty cramped with shelves, books, and people!

I like these slanted shelves.  An idea for our next house perhaps :-)

There was a line in the middle of the upper floor - some Asian lady was trying to take photos of her man within this window of books (not this man in the photo).  I guess Bobby was just happy that Asian lady wasn't me. Ha ha!

And then, there's a tunnel of books:

We skipped the photo op with this feature too!

This building must have been a bank before.  One of 2 vault sightings:

Charlie wanted to take my photo :-)

Upper floor looking down:

We are back downstairs and found the 2nd vault:

Maybe Graham and Charlie will learn Spanish by reading this Dogman book???

Nope! Didn't spot the bookstore cat named Blake:

If I bought any books today, it would be this one - only because I like the cover :-)

I'm guessing this mammoth above us from the bottom floor is a fake one?

Phew! We made it out!  Family we-fie outside the store:

More interesting architecture on the way back to the car:

We find the tram again!

Just realized that both trams share the same track and then there's a split in the middle.  Looks like timing is everything on this one!

Not sure if the boys are allowed to actually climb this structure... but it did get a little bit wobbly at that top end :-/

We decided to stop by The Museum of Contemporary Arts, but only for a little bit. Daddy is running out of gas!

The gift shop has some cute pillows!  We didn't go in there though.  Maybe we'll save it for next time:

We had to wait in line to get our tickets, even though the tickets were free.  Looks like more junk emails in my inbox since I had to provide my email address to get the tickets:

We were at the Broad Museum the last time - that's the white squarish building on the other side of the street.  And the Disney Music Hall is just behind that:

Boys are reading their new books while they wait for our tickets.  I don't think they have opened those new books since!

As usual, Graham grabbed some sort of kid's project to complete within the Museum:

This piece probably inspired me to knit/crochet again.  Charlie didn't get too close to whatever pile that was on the floor, but was told by one of the staff to stand back.  Sheesh!

We are already finding this place a bit... cumbersome.  There's some strange exhibit and we had to put on these booties to keep the floor of the exhibit clean:

So, okay... 3 rooms with 3 different colors - red, green, and blue. The exhibit is called Chromosaturation.  I guess we were suppose to see different colors when we walk from one room to the other:

Well, needless to say, we were all confused. LOL!!!

And then, we turn the corner and I see this.  Recognize it?

It's a Mark Rothko - titled "Red and Violet over Red/Red and Blue over Red) 1959.  I had to sort of burst out laughing to myself because when I was in college at Arizona State, I was a volunteer docent at the Art Museum there.  And I had to bring people around the museum and one of the stops was at a Mark Rothko piece, that was on loan from Chicago if I am not mistaken.  I just didn't get it then and I still don't get it.  Just blocks of color, no??!  What do you see???

In 2012, one of Rothko's 1961 painting (Orange, red, yellow) sold for $86.9 million, which was the highest price fetched by a piece of contemporary art at auction.  Can you believe that??!

Well, after zooming through the rest of the museum, we decided this museum was not for us.  Charlie decided to just relax on a bench:

And Charlie was again warned by the security not to touch this structure below (as we were walking into the museum the first time).  This structure is on the outside of the building - what do you mean I can't touch it???!  So we went to the structure again after we were done - obviously to prove some point.  Too bad the security lady wasn't there anymore.  We would have done a group hug with it :-P

One last photo of the Disney Music Hall - the reddish color is from the sunset. Neat!

LA traffic!  Not too bad today. Phew!  We spent over 5 hours roaming the city after the "Peter and The Wolf" show was over!

These tall skinny palm trees make me think of California now:

Funny enough, the next day I am reading a weekly magazine that comes together with Bobby's Financial Times.  And this guy that was being interviewed the magazine says that he would collect Mark Rothko if he could!

Maybe I  need to buy one of Rothko's print in our next house just as a conversation piece! ;-p

Another fun day in LA!!!