The Lake Shrine

Ok, I'm breaking my personal unwritten rule about posting things in chronological order, but I'm still kind of excited about visiting the Lake Shrine this weekend and feel inclined to skip over a few things for now. Devious, I know.

One of my coworkers told me about the Lake Shrine months ago and from what she described I knew that it was a LA "must see." I tried to visit shortly thereafter, but the grounds were closed to the public for a wedding at the time. Anyway, as sometimes happens to a mountain girl like myself, city life started to take its toll on me this weekend and I felt the need for some tranquility, so I tried again with my fingers tightly crossed as I drove up PCH towards Sunset Blvd..

Fortunately, I was not disappointed. The Lake Shrine was open to the public, the weather was pristine, and I spent the better part of an hour wandering the grounds taking in the lovely refreshing surroundings. (I should also mention that the water seemed less brown when I was there.)

The Lake Shrine is "dedicated to all religions that all may feel the unity of a common faith in the Fatherhood of God," and Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism, five principal religions of the world, are represented throughout, yet somehow I found the swans to be the most inspirational aspect of my visit. :)

Downtown Flower Market

In the midst of preparations for Jenn's wedding I was introduced to what may now be my favorite district downtown; the Flower District! Who knew? I really had no idea what I was in for when I agreed to assist in the quest for bouquet flowers, but evidently in order to get the best selection you have to arrive early. The Flower Market opens at 6am on Saturdays, but after a bit of negotiation we agreed to go at 7am instead. Yes, we went to look at flowers at 7am on a Saturday... I was still mostly asleep while we strolled amongst the rows of flowers that filled two massive warehouses, and didn't really offer much helpful input, but Jenn was able to pick the flowers she wanted and the bouquets were fabulous at the wedding. I hope to go back and get some flowers for myself in the near future.

California Guac

A few weeks ago, Jenn and I made guacamole with some perfectly ripe homegrown avocados. It tasted like heaven, and looked like this;

Happy New Year!

Hi friends, first of all, to my truest and bluest, please accept my sincerest apologies for neglecting you these last few weeks. :) I don't have an excuse, besides that I got caught up in some of the beautiful things that have been happening in my life lately, but I do have some pics saved up to share with you as 2010 has already been pretty amazing.

It's always a bit sad when the holidays come to an end and I feel like all the discarded Christmas trees in the weeks following is a kind of the final confirmation that the festivities are officially over. It's also a huge demonstration of how wasteful we are to cut down countless trees only to discard them weeks later, but that's just my inner environmentalist talking. :)