Farmers' Markets • Fresh Produce • Art • Garden • Food

If you live in or near Historic Downtown Campbell you can go shopping from 9:00am to 1:00pm each Sunday right in the heart of Downtown on Campbell Avenue roughly between the railroad tracks and Central Avenue to 2nd Street.

If you live elsewhere in the Bay Area you can check out more Urban Village Market locations at THIS LINK

I don't know about you but when I think of a farmer's market I think of two things: Fresh produce and...

Kettle Corn!

This is the Downtown Campbell Farmer's market. It pops up each Sunday, rain or shine, all year long.

You'll also find cute home decorating items at this particular market with plenty of designers and artisans attending with their wares. Here some really cute tiled end tables.

And if you're looking for local art Downtown Campbell has a plethora of galleries. The Stone Griffin Gallery features california landscape artist Vicki Asp among others.

They also have some cute and whimsical paintings by other local artists. I love this "Wine Country Cows" painting.

I also love this 'Happy Yellow Fish' by Joe Zona. It's an 18" tall x 24" wide original oil on canvas.

There's even a garden vendor who sells live plants. So much for just fruits and veggies!

But of course the main attraction is the produce.

I wish you had been there. You could smell the peaches wafting on the breeze that morning.

And fresh flowers galore. There's always a wonderful purveyor of orchids with prices you just can't beat.

Potatoes of every shape, size and color.

Who doesn't love fresh corn?

Here in California lemons grow like weeds so it almost seems funny to pay for them. Almost every block has at least one lemon tree in it's yard and you can't possibly eat all of them so my experience has always been that most neighbors share.

Imagine using those onion tops to make a broth, season oven roasted vegetables or sliced thinly and added to a stir fry?

And if you've never had fresh soybeans, boiled and lightly salted you should buy some or grow some and try them. They are delish!

Yummmmm Melons

And the yummiest fruit tarts around can be found at Margaret's French Bakery.

There's also a whole block of restaurant type food where you can purchase ready made dishes to eat for breakfast or lunch while you're shopping along with all of the local restaurants and coffee shops.

And maybe only in California you can find fresh, organic, good to go, tofu at a farmer's market. This company, Toofu, also offers fresh matcha soy milk. 

Gorgeous! Doesn't this picture just scream summertime?

A very nice selection of gourmet lettuces.

And gourmet spices from the Spice Hound. I swear they had 5 kinds of salt!

And this is just one of many jewelry design companies who showcase their collections each week in Downtown Campbell.

There's also a Farmer's Market at Santana Row each week as well as the one I most want to some day attend at the Ferry Building Plaza up in San Francisco.

Not sure if you're city has a Farmer's Market? Just do a Google search of the name of your city+farmers+market and hopefully you'll be in luck. I love supporting our local growers and small businesses.

Due to health codes in Campbell your dog is not welcome to walk down the main street of the Farmer's Market but you can walk them down the sidewalks. It's better to bring a friend and your dog if you want to shop. That way your friend can stay on the sidewalk with your dog while you run to the front of each booth to make your purchases. If your pet is in a stroller or carrier then they can be in the street with you. They just can't have their paws on the ground.

A Weekend Trip to Vancouver, Canada

Here's what I can tell you about Vancouver. If you ever have the chance to go there? GO! I wasn't even feeling very well with my big ol' Frankenfoot and all but my hubby and I went up for a quick trip last weekend so he could hang out with some of his friends. The city is so beautiful and there are a lot of green, glass buildings. All I could think of was the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz.

You have to click on the image above to enlarge it. I took 5 frames to recreate the view from our room for you. Gorgeous! I really felt like I was on vacation.

Did you notice the floating house in the center of this photo? I think it would be so cool to live in a floating house. Not so much a boat but a real live house.

Near the waterfront a constant stream of sea planes take off and land because it's a popular form of commuting into Downtown Vancouver.

We were told this was a building often featured in the tv show MacGyver. I never watched it so I don't recognize it. I'll have to ask my Auntie. She was a huge fan.

And we saw the new Luxury Fairmont Hotel and Estates being constructed. I couldn't help but to think of the beautiful view brides and grooms would have of the water if they had their weddings there.

One of my favorite stops was to the cutest toy store called Ped•a•go•gy Toys. They specialize in toys for children ages 0-12 that are developmentally appropriate to the different stages of a child's learning skills. Their inventory has been sourced from across the world and has been selected based on quality, originality and uniqueness. Children even have a chance to experience a selection of the toys in a parent supervised area.

They had a lot of functional and educational toys as well as cute baby items, rewritable t-shirts for kids and more. I bought a knitting tool so that I can make Kitai some knitted winter scarves this year.

The doll at the top center was hand knitted. They had several hand made product lines. I love that. Being a crafty person myself I love the look of handmade items. They often seem to have more character then mass produced objects.

Ped•a•go•gy Toys is located at

424 East Columbia Street

New Westminster, Canada

(604) 395-3459.

After leaving the toy shop we headed to Granville Island. I wish I'd taken more photos but to be honest I was pretty tired from walking around (probably too much as it turned out) so I only took a couple of photos for you. One of the pier while we ate lunch.

And these super cool totem poles in progress.

Later that night we went to the Boathouse Restaurant for dinner. It's a classic waterfront restaurant established in 1981 and what I really loved even more then the excellent view we had was the fact that they were celebrating the "Best of the Westcoast." It's a 2 month event and is their annual celebration with their Ocean Wise & Pacific Salmon Foundation partners. Their menu boasted selections created by using fresh, local, sustainable seafood.

As we walked near the restaurant look what we found... A cupcakery!

I purchased a single "philanthropic" cupcake with some of the proceeds of this one flavor being donated to the BC Children's Hospital.

Cute Branding!

It was vanilla cake topped with orange flavored buttercream frosting. The frosting was that really sugary kind, light, fluffy and sweet.

And this was just too funny. There I was hobbling around Vancouver and we came upon this huge truck for some foot and ankle surgery company. LOL if anyone had been around it I would have asked if I could be their mascot.

And the last thing I did before I left Vancouver was to have the BEST cheese and turkey panini on cranberry focaccia bread that I'd ever had. Oh my gosh I hate when the best food is so far away from home :( I guess I'll just have to go back up to Canada again someday so I can order another.

Sea Kayak Wedding Photos in Monterey Bay

A Bride, a Groom, 2 kayaks, Monterey Bay and a fun loving Wedding Photographer... Check out Claudia Akers unique after shoot in the Flirty Idea Gallery.

My Ankle MRI Results • A Torn Ligament

"You have a torn/stretched ligament." Oh man that was not what I wanted to hear.

It's a ligament tear that allowed way too much fluid to build up between the Tibia and Talus bones. This means that the Talus bone is shifting around too much because it isn't able to position correctly in the fluid filled socket. That pretty much explains the intermittent, worsening, sliding pain sensation I've been experiencing since May 12th. Sometimes it really sucks to be right.

Sliding Talus Caused by Fluid Build Up

The Dr. gave me an anesthetic injection that was supposed to numb my ankle. The injection hurt a lot. Then it did numb the area but made my entire ankle hurt worse.

When he went in with a syringe to try to draw out the fluid he was genuinely shocked that it took 2 syringes to do so. He said he couldn't believe that I didn't have any visible swelling with so much fluid in there.

Now the fluid goes to the lab to check for infection or crystals which would be bad.

Then he injected some cortisone into the socket to try to calm things down.

Normal Placement of the Talus Bone
Original source of all foot illustrations are from eorthopod.com

Now I have to wait for 2 weeks to find out if this will do the trick or was the ligament torn enough that it will require surgery to fix.

In the meantime he said I could walk on it if it didn't hurt as long as I keep it in the Frankenboot. I'm a little wary and want to wait a couple of days to really give the Cortisone a chance to do it's job first, then start walking on it Monday because I also need to walk on it to see if it gets better.

It better get better by next week because I have an appointment to go to the Wildflower Linen's San Francisco Showroom to see what's new and take some photos to share with you.

These are some images you may recognize from past Flirty Guide posts of the Wildflower Linen showroom and displays at various showcases in 2008 and 2009. In another week I'll have a bunch of new pictures for you to help with your wedding and special event planning when only couture chair and table covers will do.

Their famous "Pink Paillette Sequin Table Cover."

Visit them at:

The Wildflower Linen Website

Their BLOG