Milk Tea Heaven

Boba milk tea has sort of taken the US by storm. In the past decade, boba places have cropped up all over the place. For me, a majority of them are lackluster; often they're cloyingly sweet, the boba is tasteless and/or the boba has the wrong texture. After I moved out of Irvine, a new plaza popped up a mile away from my old apartment complex. In this plaza, an 85° Bakery appeared and Asians all over Southern California rejoiced. This bakery is famous on the other side of the world with locations in Taiwan (where it originates), China, Australia and Irvine, CA. Rumors are a new one is opening in Rowland Heights soon, which is great news!

Like Sprinkles, there is usually a huge line outside this bakery. I've once stood in it for an hour to buy freshly baked goods and boba milk tea. There is typically a bakery bouncer (lol) that stands at the door and lets people in little by little. Once inside, you grab a tray, a pair of tongs and go to town. If you ever go here, be prepared to jostle with finicky foodies, old Asian women and the occasional out of place non-Asian person for the fresh baked goods. There are constantly new platters of pastries being brought out that are often snatched up before the worker has a chance to set it down on a shelf -- I'm not exaggerating here. It's a bad thing to have a favorite pastry here because it's a crapshoot whether that particular pastry will be there when you get inside or not. They probably have 40 different varieties of baked pastries (not counting the pastry case shown below) you can buy and I've tried about 15 of them. If you take a peek into the back kitchen, you'll see ~10 cooks bustling around throwing things in giant ovens and giant racks of dough ready to be baked. The staff is super friendly and will always go in the back to check if your favorite pastry is coming out of the oven any time soon. Unfortunately, most of the time the answer is, "It won't be ready until later tonight :(." For the record, my favorite pastry is the little Japanese cream bun thing. It looks like a small round bao with a white swirl (like a naruto) on top.



It's no secret I don't eat fruit, if you know me. If you don't know me and you just balked, I'll explain some other time. As you can see from the picture above, everything has fruit. That's how Chinese pastries roll. A majority of the celebrations I went to as a child I couldn't eat dessert. That combined with my mom never serving dessert at home (it's not traditional for Chinese people to do that, it's not that she's mean!), I don't have a very large sweet tooth. I know this is quite a different story than Willy Wonka, at least in the new movie, I don't remember how the original one went. If you're balking again because you know how much I like to bake, then you must not know that I rarely eat what I bake. All that fruit talk aside, I was still always amazed at how beautiful Chinese pastries were, especially the ones at 85° Bakery. I know this sounds like some sort of Yelp review, but I urge anyone in Southern California to try this bakery out!

Oh ya! Back to the boba. It's ridiculously good here! The milk tea is sweetened perfectly (except for that one time they forgot to put sugar in mine...) and the boba has just the right amount of chew and flavor. You'd be surprised how much boba has no flavor. Yuck.

Please go here. And buy me a Japanese cream bun. Thanks <3

Food And Red Envelopes

Every January/February, the relatives blow into town from overseas and we meet up for Chinese New Year dinner. As there is a lack of any good Chinese restaurants in Southern California, we tend to go to East Gourmet Seafood Restaurant for every occasion.



This was part of the spread from this year's feast. I am very partial to "spicy salt and pepper pork chops" (I'm not quite sure what they're called in English) and lettuce wraps, so I was pleased to see they landed on the table. We started off the meal with Peking duck <3 and ended it with red bean dessert. All in all, it was nice to see my family. The red envelopes were nice, too. I was reluctant to go since I had to DVR the Pro-Bowl, but in the end I'm glad I hoofed it out to Rosemead to dine and catch up.

I'm aware that Chinese New Year isn't until February 3 this year, but gung hay fat choy in advance.

After Several Years

I've always loved food, but hunting down delicious places to eat didn't become an obsession until after college (having a steady paycheck and more free time helps!). I lived in Yorba Linda for the first 18 years of my life and recently moved back after spending time in Irvine (yay!) and West LA (ew!). I had heard about Rosine's Mediterranean Cafe back when I was still in my teen years (pause for wistful thoughts of youth and not needing anti-aging cream). The extent of my culinary palette at this point was CHINESE FOOD, AMERICAN FOOD and ITALIAN. All I knew about Mediterranean food was that hummus was delicious and pita bread was tasty. I first had Greek food from a private chef in London (tiny living room converted into private restaurant, old Greek wife cooking in kitchen, old Greek husband serving, celebrity autographs and pictures plastered all over the walls) and came away knowing I loved hummus. In college, I started going to Daphne's and slowly got introduced to gyros, baklava, pilaf and the like. After college, Zankou's Chicken and Chicken Dijon fell onto my food radar and broadly categorized "Mediterranean Food" became one of my favorites.

As to be expected, when I moved home I knew I had to visit Rosine's.



This is their shawarma plate. I actually got rotisserie chicken with wheat pilaf and hummus, but the picture came out funny, so I'm going with the shawarma picture instead. There's a salad and tabbouleh at the back of the plate. The best part of the meal was the garlic sauce (of Zankou's fame) that came with the chicken. I soon ran out of chicken and pita and pilaf to eat it with and resorted to eating it straight from the small ramekin it came in. Eight hours later, my mom came in my room and asked me why it smelled so strongly of garlic. I blushed and told her to go away and acted like I had no idea. Then I ran to the bathroom and brushed my teeth and used mouthwash... again. It was worth it.

Now I want more garlic sauce. Hummus will have to step aside because garlic sauce is winning! ):

Books > Me

I've been falling horrifically behind on my reading as of late. Yesterday, I had to return The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Cloud Atlas and Freedom because I couldn't renew them further. When I try to read lately my mind just sort of drifts off to random thoughts and I end up re-reading passages over and over. Part of me is thinking that the books I'm reading just aren't grabbing my attention. I read a bit of The Fellowship of the Ring yesterday and got through a few pages without falling asleep, so maybe I just need to return to the fantasy (nerd lol) genre for a bit.



This is the plaque outside the Yorba Linda Public Library, which was pretty much my second home as a child. I frequented this place 2-3 times a week and almost always had the maximum number of books checked out (35). I volunteered here starting from fifth grade all the way through school where I eventually became a "VIP" volunteer (Volunteer Internship Program) and headed up all the other summer volunteers. I remember when I was reading to a child and he peed in my lap. Good times. I got paid $100 that summer for 100 hours of work or something weird like that. My name is still immortalized on a plaque on the second floor, haha. Small triumphs in my life.

I have three library cards (Santa Monica Public Library, Los Angeles Library System and the Yorba Linda Public Library). Oh, I guess I have a card to the Newport Beach Library too, but I think I owe them money so let's not remind them of that. What kind of place charges $1 a day per book when it's overdue?! That's blasphemy. I think YLPL charged 10 cents per day per book with a grace period when I was a young'n. I digress. The point I was trying to make is despite all the libraries I've frequented in my life, my favorite is still always the Yorba Linda Public Library. I remember when they remodeled it to the two-story structure it is now and for a year or so the library was confined to a portable trailer (a PORTAKABIN?). There's just something so homey and nice about it. It isn't weirdly stiff and lifeless (I feel the Newport and Santa Monica ones are sometimes) and there aren't hobos laying around outside asking you for money. I'll always feel at home there. I still have my first library card I got when I was 4ish with my name scrawled in blue Sharpie. I think I'll hang onto that thing forever.

Ailing

Either the Santa Ana winds are bringing particles to destroy my sinuses or I'm coming down with a cold. As such, I don't have much energy to summarize the goings-on of my day.

But here's a picture of my currently messy bedside table:



I forgot I made that tea. I'm going to drink that tea now. And finish watching this episode of American Idol then pass out in my bed. The bed that is next to the bedside table.

The Tikka Obsession Continues

After watching roughly ten hours of television yesterday (7ish House episodes, 2 Arrested Development episodes, The Biggest Loser, Chopped, 2 cooking shows), I decided that I would be more productive today. Hasty to jump too quickly into things, I set two goals for myself. Take care of some EDD stuff and make chicken tikka masala for dinner.

I lolled about and finished season one of Arrested Development before making a list and heading out to gather my ingredients.



Ta-da! This is the finished product. After importing this onto my computer I realized it's the blurriest photo ever. I had a few snaps of the ingredients I used but it just didn't seem to do the post justice. After all, I can't brag about my tikka masala and show you a bottle of coriander and cumin. I'm feeling quite pleased with myself and know I could replicate this recipe pretty quickly now. I still have a lot of left over yogurt and cilantro kicking around in the fridge, so I'll be tikka-ing a bit more in the next week or two. I was really reluctant to cook since the kitchen was a mess (I had to do dishes for 15 minutes before starting to cook) and I couldn't find my Le Creuset (my mom just puts things away and then loses them), but in the end I'm glad I did. Turning out a great dish is always satisfying and I can now go to bed tonight without feeling like I completely wasted another day.

While I was upstairs snapping a photo of my bowl, my confused dad spooned some sauce and chicken on top of a piece of garlic naan and tried eating it that way before I rescued him and told him there was rice and served him up a bowl properly. He then asked if he was supposed to eat the whole dish with his hands. /facepalm I'm hoping my mom figures it out a little more quickly when she comes home.

The next Glee BluRay came from Netflix today. I know how I'll be finishing off my day! Toodles (:

My Favorite Piece of Furniture

This is my Robin bookshelf from Ikea. My mom and I bought it roughly half my lifetime ago. We lugged it home from Ikea Tustin -- now a Best Buy -- and built it together. A total mother-daughter bonding moment, if I do say so myself. It's housed some of my most beloved belongings over the years.

At age 13, my Animorphs books stood proudly on those shelves. A few years later, Sweet Valley books joined the ranks. Soon, hefty Harry Potter hardcovers came along. Then school required classics hopped on. In the dorms, my bookshelf couldn't come with me, but a year later when moving into my first apartment, I dragged it from home to Irvine. I put CDs (lol Yellowcard) and various framed photographs on the shelves then. A year later, I moved into a different apartment and the bookshelf graced the area between my bedroom and the bathroom. I started owning DVDs at this point and those took the top shelf with old textbooks falling below. After college, I had no room for my bookshelf so it went home for a few years where my mother stole it for her room and put weird finance books on it.

Since moving back home in December, my first duty was to reclaim my bookshelf for my room. Finance books were dropped to the floor and good ol' Robin and I were reunited. Filling up bookshelves is always my favorite part of unpacking and it's the favorite thing in my room (sorry TV, sorry bed!). Every time my glance falls upon it, I smile because it embodies me. Sure it's a mess and it's overcrowded and my picture doesn't even show the bottom shelf (it's full of cookbooks) or the top (Harry Potter books and Drew Brees); nonetheless, I love it.



Stonewall is hiding on this bookshelf. I sort of think of it as Where's Waldo, but Where's Stonewall? If you can't find him in under 5 seconds, you should probably have your eyes checked.

My video game collection takes up the top shelf. The second shelf has two of my favorite cookbooks -- Mad Hungry and new classic family dinners -- I keep at eye level (I have to stoop down to the bottom shelf for the rest of my collection). Random books I own clutter the rest of that shelf as well as the one below it. The OC complete DVD collection sits hiding behind a makeup bags. DVDs (House, Gilmore Girls, Family Guy, Desperate Housewives -- I'm trying to sell the last two!) make up a majority of the fourth shelf along with a stack of manga I'm trying to sell on Glyde.com. The last visible shelf has my beloved collection of Everyday Food magazines, my BluRay collection and my DS games.

In retrospect, maybe this isn't fully indicative of ME, I have way more stuff in my room and plenty of things I hold near and dear aren't on these shelves, but I like to think of it as a snapshot of what makes me me.

PS: I've been in my room watching House, M.D. all day. I have a slight case of room fever.

Garlic Distraction

Okay, so, maybe I didn't get around to taking a photo today. But in my defense, that's because the whole router blowing up thing threw me off. I couldn't very well post efficiently from my iPhone. Admittedly, I'm ashamed. 24 days in and I'm cheating and pulling something from my archives... but, again, I blame the Internet. Now.. be distracted! Garlic!



I took this picture last Spring at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market. This produce booth happens to be me favorite one, it's run by a Chinese family and they always have the best stuff. My favorite bounty from them is probably the English peas every spring and the gailan (Chinese broccoli for you non-Canto folk).

Today I noticed that my Windows7 rotating wallpaper thing is still set to Fall pictures (squash, yellow/orange leaves and the like). How is it that I somehow forgot about Winter? I guess, having lived in Southern California my whole life, I think of Winter passing once Christmas is over. In reality, Groundhog Day isn't even until February or something. Nevertheless, I'm already mentally bounding fully into Spring and I can't wait for the beautiful produce that comes with it. English peas! Favas! Ramps! Asparagus! Agh!!! Visions of Pasta Primavera and beautiful risottos are already flitting through my brain.

Apparently I'm a little nutty for Spring. Spring just embodies freshness and cleanliness. A brand new start. I know I was spouting off about New Years and new resolutions and all that recently, but Spring still seems so much newer and startier. I never could decide on what my favorite season was before. I'm a loon about the holiday season so I always had a soft spot for Fall (the prelude to holiday season) but I think I can firmly settle on Spring. At least for now.

Lazier Sunday

My day consisted of the NFC Championship game (YES GREEN BAY!!) then the AFC Championship (NOOOO JETS) and a lot of of lolling around in my bedroom. Oh, there was a smattering of chocolate chip cookies thrown in. Okay, more than just one smattering. Perhaps a few smatterings. In my defense, the box is labeled "The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies In The World!" They sit right up there with my favorite recipe (which I'm sure I'll share some time).



I normally am staunchly against purchasing cookies because I know I can make better tasting and better for me (at least in terms of chemicals) at home; however, I sampled these a few months back and was hooked. They are dangerous and addicting and the ingredients are as follows: flour, chocolate chips, pecans, walnuts, eggs, brown sugar, sugar, butter, vanilla, baking soda. That's the same ingredient list (roughly) as the ones I make 0: And they are so damn tasty. And they didn't require me to lug all my baking stuff into my mom's kitchen and jostle for counter space for a couple hours to turn out a couple batches. I have weaknesses too. And this post IS labeled LAZIER SUNDAY.

Inside the box are three bags. For how much I love to bake, I surprisingly don't have a very large sweet tooth. Six of these bite-sized cookies (they're never bigger in diameter than a quarter) is one serving of 120 calories. I manage to keep each smattering to no more than one serving at a time. So maybe I ate twelve-ish cookies today, I think that's ok! Right..? ):

I'm hiding these cookies next to my bed, so no one else steals them. l:

Three Meals!

I finally managed to have three meals today (Egg Wrap at Starbucks, Asada Sope and Cheese Tamale at King Taco, Tempura Spicy Tuna Roll). Yes, this makes me sound like a glutton who eats out all the time, but, it was Saturday! ): I don't normally eat sushi. Ever. People are always shocked when I say this, but this is the only time I've had raw fish, and luckily for me it was mostly cooked anyway. I love fish. I love seaweed. I love rice. But.. something about the thought of eating uncooked fish scares me. This coming from someone who will eat beef raw 0:

Anyway, enough about food!

I had Letterpress class this morning and worked on a Valentine's/loveydovey card (: I set all the type for it (Alternative Gothic 18 point, Virtuoso 30 point) and selected some dingbats. I plan on ordering Komasuki and Sankaku to woodblock carving tools to give me more flexibility when carving linoleums. Hopefully I don't stab myself, but... it tends to happen with me sometimes.

Aside from Letterpress classes being a great way to vent my frustrations through creativity and being a genuinely fun activity, I get to see how beautiful Old Town Pasadena is each week. After living in Los Angeles for as long as I did, it was always a breath of fresh air (literally, there's less smog up there!) to see the green trees in the park, open skies and mountains that surround the Armory where I take classes. Just up the street is a church with a beautiful clock tower that I always admire walking to and from class. This may be tame church architecture compared to the grandiose churches of Europe, but it's always a welcome sight to my eyes.

Broccoli

The Internet is still dead. WTF Time-Warner!

Today was a much better day. Again, it started out wonderfully and ended with lots of broccoli at The Nook Bistro. How can I not find happiness from broccoli, rice, poached eggs and coffee (Librarian's Decaf from Intelligentsia, haha). Okay, I know I just had a parenthetical there but I have to go back to that coffee thing. The name was so ridiculous I had to order it. Unfortunately, I did not have rectangular glasses on nor was my hair pulled back in a chignon. I did, however, have a cardigan on. I somewhat fit the part.

The day ended with smokey Earl Grey, Arrested Development and curling up with a baby blanket and dozing off.

If anyone doesn't like Arrested Development, they have problems!



PS: I'm still on an Indian food trip. Can't keep me away from that tikka masala!!

Internet Fail & Whoopie!

I have no Internet since it decided to stop working a couple hours ago while I was baking Whoopie Pies. Power cycling the router and modem twice hasn't worked ): at least I have my phone!

Poop.

It's now Saturday night and I still don't have Internet (wtf). I have, however, commandeered Internet from someone else momentarily to flesh out these posts!

So, Thursday was a weird day. I had a great morning, then it kind of petered off into random meandering around Tustin and Irvine. I eventually stumbled home and turned to what usually perks me up: baking. Whoopie Pies have long been celebrated on the East Coast (I even think it may be the official dessert of Maine) but only recently started lolling about on food blogs and becoming a popular snack. Wikipedia claims they are often called Big Fat Oreos, but I'm more partial to the original name. Over the past couple years, I've read several recipes for Whoopie Pies but was always hesitant to make them since a) I'm not a big frosting person and b) the recipes never seemed to have resounding success with people.

Now that a couple years have passed since they first began cropping up on blogs, I decided to search for a Cook's Illustrated recipe, since they never fail me (except that beef stew...). Since I only have the "low" level cooksillustrated.com membership, I wasn't able to dig into their deep archives (including the Cook's Country ones) and find the recipe; however, plenty of people have blogged about it so a quick Google search turned up a few versions of the recipe rapidly enough. With a few tweaks of my own, I soon had Whoopie Pies baking in my mother's ridiculously cluttered kitchen.



I attempted to take several pictures of these BFOs (it's a silly name, nonetheless!) but they all pretty much came out ridiculously ugly. I blame the lighting. And my lack of understanding on how to use my camera. They were delicious though, unanimously enjoyed by friends and classmates alike. I also finally got to use that jar of Fluff I found a couple months ago at World Market. Success! (:

At least I always have my baking (:

Analogies Were Never My Strong Suit

Perseverance : Tiffany :: Ladders : Stonewall

If the last time you looked at an analogy was when you were hunched over a desk at a weird high school (cough Brea-Olinda) taking the SAT, well, you're not like me because I write analogies all the time. As I mentioned, I purchased a Kung Zhu hamster this week named Stonewall. Like any smart consumer, I researched Stonewall prior to purchasing him and looked up his profile on the Zhu Zhu Pets website. Presumably you can't be bothered to click on my link, despite the fact that I wrote the HTML code out for it myself. As such, I will summarize that his profile lists his Likes and Dislikes. "Ladders" is on both lists.

In retrospect, my analogy is terrible and would never show up on a standardized test. At least, it wouldn't be "the best" answer, since "Ladders" is a concrete noun and "Perseverance" is not. Also, "Ladders" is a Like/Dislike while "Perseverance" is a trait I Have/Don't Have on any given day. So... this turned out to be the world's worst analogy and should probably be the first multiple choice option you cross off if taking a test.

Whatever. I'm going to continue on with my train of thought anyway, so too bad. This all started because I was surprised at my perseverance with this Photo Blog thing. I had first heard about Project365 last year. The idea is to take photos and post one every day to document one's growth in photography skill (I haven't learned a thing in 19 days) and to encourage more picture taking. Circumstances being what they were, I had little brain power to divert to this weighty task, but I've held onto it stubbornly. In the raging storm that has been my January, it's the one constant that I was determined not to let slip away. So, maybe I take too many pictures of random objects in my room and maybe a majority of my posts thus far have been filled with mindless fluff; however, there's a tiny cheerleader me inside my head that's jumping up and down with pompoms cheering me on for having stuck with it.

Back to the analogy thing. I don't usually have perseverance about things. I tell myself I will and I make resolutions all the time. I rarely stick to them. Every year I buy planners and page-a-day calendars telling myself I'll keep up. This year it was a New York Times Crossword calendar. I did the first two crosswords and have thrown the rest out since. I used to hang on to such things telling myself I'd do them in the future but I'm a tad more realistic these days. At least I've kept up with tearing the pages off each day. Small victories like this keep me going, even at the expense of forgotten resolutions.

Despite all I've said today, I still only managed to take a picture of something in my room today to post. This time, it's the pair of earrings I wear most often. I have ridiculously sensitive ears that freak out and infect from 90% of earrings I wear, so I usually just don't bother. Nevertheless, I purchased this pair at the 2010 Renegade Fair(e?) in Downtown LA from the oh, hello friend booth. At the time, they matched the skirt I was wearing. I was never too fond of roses but somehow I became girlier in the past few months and purchased some flowery things. I was stunned and stoked (stunked?) when I wore these and didn't end up with rashes or swollen pus filled earlobes.



Now, I wear these earrings for good luck and when I want to feel happy. They're girly and weren't so expensive I'd throw a tantrum if I lost them. I have very fond memories of the fair(e) and these earrings send me back down memory lane. I wore them today. I'm hoping that luck shows up soon.

PS: I was skimming over old posts and realized I used "moseyed" twice in one week. Bad form. I apologize for my limited vocabulary.

Progress

I had a meeting down in San Juan Capistrano today to try and figure out my future. I came away with a list of master's programs to research and a possible path for me to climb back onto. I'm crossing my fingers that all of this works out and I can feel less like I've "wasted" my youth on pointless pursuits.

After the meeting, I took my mom to the Irvine Spectrum (somehow she's never been), ate Wahoo's and managed to find something at H&M to spend my gift card on. This may be the biggest shopping success EVER. I've been to four H&M's since the new year and finally was able to find something. Unfortunately, my $5 off coupon expired two days ago, drats. I also convinced myself that Pinkberry is "healthy" and got a mini with coconut and chocolate flavors. Healthy... right? o.o

We then moseyed on over to South Coast Plaza and did a quick circuit. I may or may not have ducked into Tiffany & Co. Hey, it's my namesake, leave me alone! I also pretended like I could afford the bags at Louis Vuitton, then quickly scampered away before anyone could ask me questions. I managed to resist cream cheese croissants at Vie de France AND ramen at Santouka in Mitsuwa. I could continue bragging about my legendary willpower, but there was that cake I had last night...

It's my brother's birthday today. And I thought I was old ;D

I'm trying not to stress about things, but I can't help stressing about things. Being nervous makes my stomach hurt. As if my stomach doesn't hurt enough on normal days.



Like Biggs, I have serious things to take care of.

Stomach Ache

I ate too much today. Let's see, week old soup (I went to the bathroom), bread, pita, chicken, some rice, baklava, some salad, iced tea, iced coffee, more salad, chicken salad sandwich, some lentil soup, some salmon thing, a lot of Reese's cheesecake cake.

I'm going to roll over and die now.



Baklava is amazing.

I bought a Kung Zhu Hamster today. His name is Stonewall.

I'm sleepy.

Zz....

Sorry Brady

Jets vs Packers -- my ideal Super Bowl for 2011! We got one step closer to making that a reality this weekend (: While I tend to avoid being malicious towards other teams, I can't help but feel slight satisfaction that the Seahawks got knocked out by Mr. Cutler and crew. People can now hop off the "Seahawks-are-so-hot!!!" bandwagon and back onto the reality wagon (;

While I haven't been to the gym yet this year, I did manage to take a three mile walk with my mom today. I was going to lug my camera with me but I'm weak and cameras are heavy. I picked up some coconut water at Trader Joe's, since that's the new "thing" to do. Once I try it I'll give my thoughts on it.

I started watching Waiting last night in an attempt to keep making use of my Netflix subscription and have to say that this is one crude movie. I haven't really cracked a smile yet but since it's not completely terribad, I may as well finish it. I'm still trying to trudge through The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest on the book front. Considering I could barely put the first two down, I'm surprised at how dull I'm finding the third installment, especially since it picks up off a cliffhanger (oops, spoilers?).

While watching the games today, I tidied up my room a tad and made room on top of my dresser for some Legos. After dinner, I started building a set I got for Christmas. This is the finished product:



I never knew who Zev Senesca was before, but I did skim his article on Wookiepedia (lol). Rebel pilots are the best! One of these years I'm going to be one for Halloween..

Sleeping cuddled up with a baby blanket is so nice (:

The Year's First Sope

Today was the first class of my latest Letterpress session at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena. My creative juices were completely lacking at first but I managed to print up some 4-bar cards ("I like coffee and tacos. You're not so bad either.") using metallic silver ink on 'gravel' and 'peacock' colors from Paper Source. I used the C&P (Chandler & Price) machine for the second time and managed not to lose any body parts, phew.

I've had a hankering for King Taco for awhile now and remembered last night that there is one conveniently located two blocks from my class. I moseyed on over, dragging my art supplies with me, and ordered a sope (asada) and a tamale (queso). After bashing my head through traffic, I enjoyed both with salsa verde and some water. Just thinking about this made my stomach rumble. Only 7 more days until you can have more King Taco, stomach, be patient!

Santa Ana winds have been ravaging the LA/OC area this week which means lots of tipped over trash cans and clear skies! Walking back to my car I was shocked to notice how well I could see the snow capped peaks in the distance. Since I lug my trusty D5000 with me everywhere nowadays, I grabbed it from my trunk and set out to attempt to take some pictures. Unfortunately for me, I was unable to get high enough to get a shot of the mountains that wasn't obscured by power lines, fences and/or buildings ): I was, however, able to snap some shots of Memorial Park. As I strafed around a hobo napping in the grass, I came across this little fella.



I followed him for a bit as he foraged for bugs or whatever it is that squirrels eat. Eventually, my hunger got the best of me and I went back to my car to drive home and inhale delicious sope goodness. Argh, typing that made me drool thinking about delicious food again.

I'll close with some random thoughts:

Go Green Bay! My eyebrows were neatly threaded today, yay! H&M is still a terrible place.

Espresso

I'm averaging five shots of espresso a day lately. I still sleep soundly at night. And I'm incredibly tired right now.



It's been quite the day.

Rustic Canyon

Yep. Ate here finally. I had rabbit.

Scotties

I hung out with this guy today.



It's blurry and crappily shot. Yep. My dad comes home soon, though, maybe he can teach me to not be a shoddy photographer.

PS: I HATE FISH.

Over 1000 Days Later

I finally picked up this bad boy after three and a half years. It's surprisingly difficult to make down to the registrar when you're working 40 hours a week. Luckily for me.. that's no longer the case :P



This is signed by Mr. Schwarzenegger himself. Well.. it's printed on there. Still counts, right?

Soon

I saw this dress on CollegeFashion.net in an article for fashion inspired by Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw which is the house I figured I would be in if I went to Hogwarts :P That's Cho Chang's house, so clearly I would fit right in. Right? I rarely buy clothes from Forever21 but I managed to track this piece down. I'm saving it, for a special day.



I hope I get to wear it soon.

Feh

I had Indian food for dinner. I was lectured for spending $5.99 on it by my mother.



It was okay. I shoveled it in my mouth while watching The Biggest Loser. But I only ate half cuz my stomach almost exploded.

This month still sucks.

Sucks!

Bye Bye Saints ):

And the season ends for the Saints! ): That was a disappointing nail biter for sure. Pierre Thomas on IR, Chris Ivory out, Malcolm Jenkins out, the loss of Julius Jones in the 4th quarter, a shoddy offensive line with no protection on Brees, Hartley (Badley) and defense issues. Icky.



Time to stow this bad boy away for a bit!

Go Green & Gold!

Go Sanchez!

Football's not the same now anyway ):

Still Here

Found this card at Urbanic Paper Boutique on Abbot-Kinney in Venice today.

I'm a sucker for letterpress.

less than 3

Looking For a Silver Lining

Highlight: Carrots

Today was meh. I won't go into details, but, it sucked. Here's to hoping tomorrow will be better.

This was my lunch. It was tasty, but needed some salt. I put carrots in it because I don't eat fruit and need my vitamins (yes, I'm a freak.) I don't like cooked carrots; however, eating those cooked carrots might be one of the highlights of my day.

Boo today.

Turkey & Tron

I had a turkey sandwich at Harry's Deli today. It was awesome. It fit my eating healthy/natural/not heavy goals and all that jazz. I had a bowl of tomato basil soup with it. Wait, no, I had a bowl of cream with some tomato basil soup in it. That didn't exactly fit into my goals. Oops.

This is their menu board. It amused me.

I finally saw Tron Legacy. Visuals: Good. Music: Very Good. Olivia Wilde's Eyeliner: Ponderous

To continue the movie Tuesday thing, I'm watching (500) Days of Summer right now. I've had it from Netflix for 2 months so I figure I should watch it and send it back. It makes me angry at Zooey Deschanel, and I like Zooey Deschanel.

PS: I totally used WiiFit yesterday and the rhythm boxing made my arms sore. I am weak.

Lazy Monday

I had planned to start all my resolutions (gym, getting out of the house, cleaning, organizing, jump start reading, baking, eating healthier etc etc) today, but it was cold in the morning and I somehow stayed in bed until about noon watching The Office. At the very least, I managed to shower before eating lunch. Baby steps? On a brighter note, I got a package from Free People today, woohoo!

This is my desk at 2:00pm. Jasmine tea is my savior. I'm currently reading Mini Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella. That series is a bit of a guilty pleasure for my mom and me. That Lubriderm with SPF 15 is my attempt to stop being roasted by the sun. I'm slowly turning into one of those Asian women that carries parasols around when going outside and wears full length arm gloves when driving. My Chanel Chance bottle is nearly empty, darn ):

I promise to put in time with the yoga mat today and WiiFit. I promise!!

To the Playoffs!

Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints for making it to the playoffs again! So, we didn't win the division (curse you Matt Ryan!) but we made it nonetheless. Time to take out some Seahawks (:

This is the top of my bookshelf. Yes, Drew Brees is resting on top of a British copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! (:

So I invested in a Nikon D5000 over a year ago and barely made use of it. My photography skills are almost nil (sorry Dad). Thus... I resolve to get out and use my camera this year! Here we go! (:

Shrimp and corn at The Boiling Crab in Alhambra, CA.