Category Archives: life

happy things, valentine’s edition

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February is halfway over and this is my first entry of the month. !!! Terrible.

I did get sick for about a week so… yeah. That helps justify my lack of blogging.

Anyway. HAPPY (Belated) VALENTINE’S DAY!!! It’s time for another Happy Things… Valentine’s edition.

1. Mini carnations. I bought them for myself on Valentine’s Day. 🙂 Carnations get a bad rap but I love them.



2. Cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery. Thanks Carms for bringing them over! They were YUM!



3. Rob and I took one last trip to Disneyland before our annual passes expire. We normally “gift” them to each other for Valentine’s Day but we’re considering an international trip this year so we figured we should save the money…



He totally beat me on Toy Story Mania but I got him back on Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters, hehe.



We also finally saw the new water show World of Color, which was both amazing (loved the music) and disappointing (standing room only so hard to see everything going on even from the preferred viewing area).

4. We had such a great Disney day that we’ve decided to renew our annual passes anyway. SUCKERS.

5. We got new top soil in the yard and Diesel ran straight over and started rubbing his face in it. ARGH. He got SO dirty. But he’s still so cute! 🙂



And that’s it! How was YOUR Valentine’s Day?

2011 resolutions

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My 2010 New Year’s resolutions were pretty much an EPIC FAIL. I only accomplished 1 of them (buying a house). So my 2011 resolutions are basically the same with a few new additions.

Repeat Resolutions aka The Resolutions That Continue To Haunt Me
1. Save more money.
2. Blog more often.
3. Exercise regularly.
4. Drink more water.
5. DRIVE.

I feel like I am forever chasing these resolutions. Maybe this will be the year that they click? I think I can I think I can I think I can.

New Resolutions
1. Reconsider and finish up forgotten projects around the house — like painting the remaining rooms and organizing the garage.
2. Clean regularly. I have a tendency to get our house in order only when we’re expecting company. I need to be better at frequently taking care of the little things so they don’t pile up.
3. Be more discerning about my “fun” purchases. I’m a shopaholic but I recognize that I already have a lot of stuff (clothes, makeup, etc). I want to put more thought into what I buy and buy what I love.
4. Wake up earlier. Because I work from home, I am lucky to get extra sleep on the weekdays. But lately I’ve been cutting it WAY too close and waking up with barely enough time to take a shower and get ready for work. I’d like to wake up early enough so I can eat breakfast before I start my work day.
5. Cook more at home and meal plan during the week. Rob and I opt for take out more often than not because it’s sooo easy. Cooking at home would make us save a little money and because there’s only 2 of us, would provide us with food for additional meals.
6. Find a primary care physician. I know, I know. In the 2 years that we’ve lived back in SoCal, I’ve put this off. For no other reason than laziness. I go to the dentist and optometrist regularly but have to get this sorted out as well.
7. Finally, this is less of a resolution than it is a reminder to myself to really think about what I want to do with my life long-term. I’m no longer concerned with the ambition I had (and have since lost) when I graduated from college. Now what I really want (what I really really want), more than anything, is to have a job that doesn’t intrude into my personal life. Where holidays and vacations truly are days off and where late hours are nonexistent. I’d also like to love what I do and but let’s not get too crazy. All this to say, I don’t really know what I want and if I’ll ever find it. I just know that I’ve been feeling restless, unsettled and unhappy with my job and this is something for me to figure out.

How are you all doing with your own resolutions? Please share! 🙂

holiday 2010 recap

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I’m in denial that the holidays are over. I haven’t even taken the decorations down yet (yes, I know you’re judging me right now :D). I should probably be doing that at the moment but instead I thought I’d write up my holiday recap…

I love having a house to decorate but besides the Christmas tree, I didn’t really go too crazy (Rob would probably beg to differ).



We had a wreath on the front door…



… garland on the banister with our mini stockings…



… and a few little touches in the great room, like the ornament-filled hurricanes on the entertainment center and the random snowmen hanging out on the bookcase.

Next year I’m hoping Rob and I (ok, mostly Rob) can figure out how to put up lights on the exterior of our house.

My family celebrated Christmas a week early because my cousin Riz was heading to the Philippines for the holidays. She and her brother both had birthdays earlier in the month so Rob and I made our signature cupcakes (chocolate cake with an awesome strawberry frosting). We made one giant cupcake to go along with the regular-sized ones.



I made Rob pipe the frosting, hehe. We’re not going to win any decorating awards but it was yummy, which is all that matters. 🙂



On Christmas Eve, my dad came over and instead of cooking for just the 3 of us, we decided to go out for Chinese food. Too bad everyone in Irvine had the same idea and we waited about an hour and a half to be seated. ARGH.

Christmas day was spent at the in-laws watching the terrible Lakers game.



Thanks Carolyn for the pic!

The day after Christmas Rob and I hosted a get together for our friends. We had a ton of food (with leftovers for days) and lots of great company. It’s so nice to have the space to have everyone over! I hope to make this some sort of tradition. 😀 We did a white elephant gift exchange and Rob got a Justin Bieber calendar. BWAHAHA. But seriously, I have no idea what we’re going to do with it.

In between the holidays, we took the time to take care of things around the house. I cleaned out my ridiculous stash of makeup and Rob set up a pegboard to organize our garage (sadly there’s still a lot of clutter and boxes to conquer).

New Year’s Eve was low-key as per usual. We had a few friends over and one of them brought his taco cart (thanks Ricardo)! YUM. I was super tired that night and struggled to make it until midnight. Darn old age.

Now here we are in 2011. All in all, it was a wonderful holiday break (though I do have two regrets — not taking more pictures during the holidays overall and not making it to Disneyland to see it all decked out) and I’m definitely looking forward to this upcoming year (weddings, another trip to Comic-Con, possible vacations).



One last picture to close out this entry… Diesel wanted me to share his awesome holiday card that we sent out this year. 😀 Now I gotta work on making my New Year’s resolutions!

kinect adventures

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If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that Rob and I went shopping over the weekend with the intent of buying Christmas presents aaannnndddd ended up taking home an XBOX 360 + Kinect for ourselves. Ok, more for Rob. We’re considering it his present to himself. Besides, we couldn’t pass up the 20% off coupon that Microsoft sent us in the mail for use in their store. 20% off!

The Kinect came with Kinect Adventures which we opened and played right away. SO FUN! And unfortunately, there’s photographic evidence…



Obviously Diesel thinks we’re crazy.



BWAHAHAHA. Oh man. That last picture is especially embarrassing! I have no idea why I’m hugging Rob and why he’s posing like that. LOL.

Now if I can convince Rob to buy one of the dance games.. Hehe. 🙂

december’s happy things

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It’s been a really tough past few weeks at work and I haven’t felt much like blogging. It’s the kind of tough where I’ve been waking up in the morning absolutely dreading the day. 🙁 But things are calming down now (dare I say it’s even slow?) and I’m eagerly counting down the days until our holiday break… I need it!

But that’s enough of that. This is a no-work zone. I want to think about my current 5 Happy Things!

1. Putting up our Christmas tree.



Rob and I always put up our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. What can I say? We’re (ok, *I’M*) always super excited to usher Christmas into our home.

2. Girls’ Weekend in Palm Springs with the BFFs.



We stayed overnight at the Ace Hotel and despite the unusually cool weather for this time of year, it was an awesome getaway filled with lots of food, girl time and even a viewing of Eclipse. Perfect.

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1.



OMG. The movie was amazing. Probably one of my favorites of the 7 so far. I’d love to watch it again. I’ll get to a review soon.

4. Next week’s 3-day trip to San Francisco. Yes, it’s for work so I have work obligations but I’m looking forward to seeing friends and just being in the city again. I miss the hustle and bustle!

5. My domain! The server hosting my site failed earlier this week so it was down for a couple of days. And I missed it! OF COURSE I wouldn’t be able to access my site at the exact time I’m itching to blog. But now it’s back. YAY.

Do you have any happy things to share? 🙂 Diesel wants to know.



thanksgiving 2010

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Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! I definitely did. Even though it left me incredibly tired. I feel like I need a vacation from my Thanksgiving vacation. LOL.

Rob and I hosted Thanksgiving at our house for our immediate families so there was a lot to do! I took Wednesday off and spent most of the day cleaning. My cousin arrived on Wednesday night and together we spent all day Thursday cooking for Thanksgiving dinner. We decided on a traditional menu including a turkey, which neither of us had ever attempted to cook before. EEEK. Luckily, everything turned out fantastic and we STILL have yummy leftovers. I managed to take a few photos before we dug in to all the food…



The dinner table.



Dessert and drinks table. I made the pumpkin pie! The best part of it is the whipped cream on top. So good.



The buffet table (aka the kitchen island). Look at all that food! For only 8 people. Yeah, we cooked waaaayyyy too much.

Umm… I guess I got distracted by all the food because I totally forgot to take any family pictures. D’OH!

On to Christmas! 😀

minneapolis trip report

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I feel like I start all my blog entries like this but seriously… HOW IS IT ALMOST THANKSGIVING?! I don’t even know where the time goes (oh wait I do… it’s spent working… BLAH).

Last week I took a few extra days off so I could tag-along with Rob on his business trip to Minneapolis. I only had 2 full days there but I made the most of my time away…

We landed late on Saturday night (only had time to brave the cold and eat dinner) so we woke up early on Sunday to explore downtown. It was a beautiful day (and unusually warm for this time of year) so we walked down to the river to see…



… the Stone Arch Bridge. It’s gorgeous.



The bridge has pedestrian and cycling lanes so we walked a bit to check out the view of the Mill District…



… the Mississippi River…



… and the view of the downtown skyline.

For brunch we went to Hell’s Kitchen (so good!) where they have the most amazing homemade peanut butter (and marmalade). I bought a small jar of peanut butter to take home with me and LIKE AN IDIOT, I put it in my carry-on luggage. I did not know TSA considers it a liquid so they took it away from me at security. Waahhhh. Luckily, Rob was staying an extra day and bought me another one. Phew. So remember kids, peanut butter is a liquid (even though it’s totally not).



After stuffing ourselves, we walked down to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.



It was nice to be outside in the cool, crisp air. Especially since Orange County was experiencing heat in the upper 80s.



Of course we had to see the famous Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture. Iconic.



For dinner we went to 112 Eatery where I had tres leches cake for the first time. OMG. It was incredibly rich and decadent. So good.

The following day was Monday and Rob had to work (hahahaha) so I was on my own. In Minneapolis there’s no tax on clothing or shoes so I decided to do a little retail therapy.



I started downtown and since the weather was cooler than the previous day, I took advantage of the Skyway system. This California girl loved the Skyways. They’re basically an above-ground, enclosed pedestrian walking path that connects various office towers, hotels, and shops. I didn’t have to go outside once! Ok, except to take this picture.



I even found this awesome bakery Cocoa & Fig. Their chocolate chip cookies were TODIEFOR. They even had macarons!



After lunch I took a trip out to the Mall of America. It was such an inexpensive (only $2!) and easy trip on the light rail from downtown.

I wasn’t originally planning to go to MoA but I figured that at least now I could say I’ve been there. It’s your normal suburban mall but amplified by about… a million. Not to mention that there’s a freaking amusement park in the middle of it all.



Craziness, right?

My 2 days went by in a flash. If I had more time, I would have loved to walk around the Uptown area, see the Lakes or even visit St. Paul. I guess there’s always next time. 🙂

first post of november

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How is it November already?!?

Work has been kicking my ass. The house hasn’t been cleaned and is a disaster. Laundry has been done but not folded or put away. TV hasn’t been exciting me (well ok, except for Hellcats, The Vampire Diaries, Chuck and sometimes Hawaii 5-0). And I seem to have hit a complete and total blogger’s block. ARGH.

BUT. I’m heading into a long weekend and tagging along on Rob’s business trip so maybe time away will be good. So I can recharge and relax like Diesel does every day of his life…



the weekend

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I like doing weekend photo recaps so even though I was sick and didn’t do anything exciting this past weekend, I took photos anyway.



There’s grass in our little yard now and it’s getting loooong. So Rob was on a quest to buy a lawnmower. YES, these are the things that we do over the weekend. We’re old and boring now. 😀



While we were at Home Depot, I couldn’t help checking out the faux Christmas tree display.



Rob decided he wanted the new iPhone 4 (and was going to buy me one too!) so we headed to the Apple store. Crowded as usual but we got our phones in record time. So far I LOVE it. It’s so much faster than my old 3G and the screen looks impeccable too.



Aside from those errands, I stayed home most of the weekend nursing a cold (still am, which suuuucks). Lucikily, I had all my October/November magazines…



… and Diesel to keep me company.

🙂

holidays on the brain

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I haven’t been posting much lately. There’s nothing much going on with me that’s worth committing to the blog. But I’m sick this weekend (runny nose and sore throat, yay!) so here I am.

After my birthday passes, my brain automatically goes on holiday mode. I add my holiday playlist back to iTunes and become one of *those* people who squeals when they see holiday displays in stores. Rob can only roll his eyes and steer me away in silence before I start adding unnecessary items to our cart.

First up is Halloween. We rarely do anything and this year probably won’t be any different. BUT I wonder if we’ll have any trick-or-treaters! I hope so. I haven’t seen many kids in our neighborhood besides our neighbor’s kids across the street, though. Oh, well. I’m still super excited to buy a huge bowl full of candy just in case anyone rings our doorbell. At least we’ll have extra candy around for me to eat if no one does. Heh.

For Thanksgiving it looks like my family has nominated us to host this year. Umm… yay? I’m mostly excited not to go anywhere (what can I say, I’m lazy) but am starting to wonder what we’re going to eat. Hmm…

Then finally Christmas. My favorite. I’ve started sending out wishlist requests. I’m looking for personalized cards to order (possibly with a photo of Diesel, not sure yet). I’m contemplating the purchase of a faux Christmas tree (I love the smell of a real one but dread vacuuming up the needles). And I’m throwing around the idea of having friends over for a Christmas party. Could be fun!

So yeah, those are my holiday plans so far. What about you guys?

Just for kicks, I feel like sharing my absolute FAVORITE gif of the best Sesame Street character ever…


funny GIFs - For me? You shouldn't have
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Look how happy Cookie Monster is! AWESOME.