Hi, friends! Hope your Monday is off to a great start! It is a beautifully drizzly day here today — here in California, we are thankful for EVERY drop of rain we receive! — and my grandma is making soup. I’m feeling cozy, warm, and so so grateful for what Mary Oliver refers to as this “one wild and precious life.”

What are you grateful for today?

I’ll be back tomorrow with this week’s year of Wooden post, but for now I wanted to share some scenes from my weekend…

My reading on Saturday as part of San Francisco’s LitQuake went really well! The folks at Arroyo Literary Review were so kind and welcoming. I was honored that they asked me to be one of the readers. I always get a little nervous beforehand, but the audience was super warm and attentive. We were all happy with the turn-out — standing room only, woot woot! I also loved listening to the three other talented readers: Keith Ekiss, Rachel Howard, and Mike Larkin. Here’s a pic that someone snapped of me while I was reading:

Alson on Saturday night, I had a super fun time with Allyn and his classmates at karaoke! It was a fundraiser for their humanitarian trip to Kenya, so it was a unique format called “dareaoke” — a person would place a bet for someone else to sing a specific song. If the person didn’t want to sing it, they could “up” the bet to get someone else to sing the song. It was a blast, and a great idea for a fundraiser! It was a big group and no one bet me to sing a song {for which I was grateful} but my sweetheart rocked a rendition of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song that had everyone cheering 🙂

Brownies! For half the batch I made pb cup brownies, for the other I tried a new recipe. I had a carton of strawberries in the fridge that were all ripening at the same time, so I decided to experiment and throw some chopped strawberries and chocolate chips into the batter. It was a success! Fudgy chocolate goodness with bursts of strawberry. I think the trick was to cut up the strawberries into very small pieces. I always love topping brownies with fresh strawberries, so these brownies were right up my alley.

As far as eats go, I can’t get enough veggie egg scrambles lately. I like to saute a panful of veggies with one or two eggs — I prefer my veggie-to-egg ratio to be very veg-heavy, egg-light. This one had zucchini + bell pepper + tomato + spinach. Serve it on top of a piece of whole-wheat toast for a delicious and healthy breakfast, lunch or dinner!

My friend Dana just got two kittens! How adorable are these little fluffballs? Can’t wait to meet them in person!

Aaaaaand that’s a wrap! I’m heading out to meet up with my sweetheart soon for a work session and a night in, making dinner and watching a movie. Enjoy the rest of your day!