J is working on his raw foods diet, and he did so well all day, eating salads, drinking juice. Then after dinner, I announced that I was craving something sweet -- a milkshake to be more specific. J tried all kinds of ways to dissuade me - he offered to cut up some fruits, and even to make me some juice. But once I got that milkshake stuck in my head, it was very hard to move me. And I knew exactly what milkshake I wanted, where I want it from.
So we drove to the Cookout (it's like a grill out diner) drive thru' and ordered me a good ol' strawberry cheesecake milkshake. And i even swayed J's will - he caved and got himself a Reese's cups milkshake! Oh dear... I feel terrible...NOT! It was worth every last drop!!
Thank you for your kind and encouraging comments from the last post.
I thought I would be updating the blog more with J away.
It seems I thought wrong. I must be doing a great job keeping myself busy.
I've been working on an Etsy order, making a cute set of 6 placemats for a customer. They're turning out to be so pretty, I hope she likes them as much as I do!
Cooking and gardening take up the majority of my time (who would've thought!), and giving the house a deep cleaning while J is away is a good way to while the time away too!
I love that the house stays nice and neat while I'm away at work. Hah!
Anyhoo, I know this has taken so long, but I have yet to give away the turquoise necklace from my last giveaway because the winner didn't contact me (for a long long time!) so I picked another winner and guess what?
Miss KYLA!
I will be emailing you soon for your mailing address.
You're the new owner of Oksana's beautiful necklace!!!
This was taken on our trip to Cebu, Philippines a few years ago,
with a bottle of local rum in my hands. Oh yeah!
So this is Day 11.
J and I have been chatting on Skype almost everyday. Sometimes we miss each other on Skype because he is 12 hours ahead. So i'm in bed by the time he is online. But we manage to talk pretty frequently.
He is in Bohol, Philippines. Before he left, I tried to get him into my work to get some travel shots (at least just a tetanus shot!), or just some medication to take with him. Two hours before his appointment, he cancelled on me, and i was FUMING MAD. He just doesn't believe in vaccinations.
So with a heart heavy, I say a little prayer every day, hoping he'll be safe and sound until he returns.
But already, he has ...
1. eaten a local fare called balut (OH-EM-GEE!) do you dare eat this? according to him, it just tastes like egg.
2. rented a scooter and fell while riding it.
3. stepped on a sea urchin in the sea.
One day during our Skype conversation, I said "I TOLD YOU SO". But he had anticipated my response and had hit the 'Mute' button so he didn't have to hear me say it.
"Say what?"
Cheeky bugger.
I'm halfway through and hanging in there. Now he tells me he's going to take a short flight to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat. The nurses at work scare me with malaria stories. Thanks J! I just need one more thing to worry about.
This was taken at the airport just before he had to check in.
He will be gone 3 weeks.
And as you may know, he cooks all.my.meals.
When he told me about his decision to go on this trip, the first thought that popped into my head was "What about my meals?" A very pragmatic woman, i agree.
But I had to start planning my time better now that he's gone. Because there's a ton of things on my to do list, that used to be split between two people.
Such as
☹ Feed and play with the lizards.
☹ Water the garden.
☹ Weed the garden (on weekends only)
☹ Pick veggies from the garden before they rot and go to waste.
☹ Figure out a way to feed myself
☹ Motivate myself to keep up with evening runs without J
So, the J-man decided to get in shape before his Philippines trip in July. He is on a boys only vacation with his buddies he had met in Shanghai. And he's going to be gone THREE WEEKS. Yucks.
Anyway...
My friend S at work introduced me to this website My Fitness Pal. It's a free site, anyone can join, so I thought I'd join in the fun. I've never really paid any attention to the food I eat. I'm not picky. I grew up eating whatever that was served to me at the dinner table. My mother was strict that way, we were not allowed to pick and choose favorite foods. And so I stayed that way. Of course I do have foods that I dislike more than others, but when I'm hungry, food is food is food.
What I meant to say is that we have started to really started to watch what we eat, so J can get in shape before his beach vacay. Although I don't think I am at the point that I need to start losing weight, I think it is pretty interesting to pay attention to calories and carbs and see how that'll work out for us!
On this site, you decide on your goal : to lose weight, to maintain etc. You punch in your height and weight and they calculate how many calories, carbs, proteins and fats you are allowed to consume in a day. Then you keep an online journal of your meals everyday, as well as a record of the exercises you do. A very simple process that takes less that 5 minutes, and at the end of each log, it estimates what you'll weigh at the end of 5 weeks if you eat according to that day's consumption.
I like it because after I punch in the numbers, I can decide at the end of the day if I have any leftover calories to consume a chocolate bar or drink a soda. That's my "treat" for eating well during the day! And sometimes it's alarming to find out how many carbs / calories are in certain foods. For example, I drink a cup of Dunkin' Donuts K-Cup coffee at work everyday. That's at 10 calories. Pretty low right? But the crunch comes when i add 3 tablespoons of liquid creamer, then BOOM i add 10 times the calories to this drink!
I mean, it makes sense, I just wasn't THAT aware all this time.
So, I guess this is a good exercise for me personally. I encourage everyone to be more aware of your food consumption too! Eat well!!
Now I told you I bought a bunch of patterns off Etsy!
The J-man has been waiting for me to make him something. He complains that I make gifts for everyone and forgets him. So he requested for me to make him something with the Chicago Bears emblem on it. Because he loves to cook, i decided to make him an apron.
We discussed the details, and he decided he wanted it simple, with just the signature "C" with orange pockets in the front. And then we took a trip to Hancock Fabrics together for him to pick out his blue and orange fabrics. This was exciting for me because I got the chance to show him around my crafting 'turf'. He could never understand why I loved to make trips to the fabric store, but after his own experience, he was pretty impressed. :)
Once the fabrics were chosen, he left me to work, but i had to occasionally bother him with fittings.
Now i know i'm probably infringing copyrights. I got the letter "C" printed off the internet for a template. BUT i figured this is for personal use, and it's not like they have Bears' aprons for sale. So i traced the letter onto the orange fabric and some sturdy interfacing, edgestitched the layers together and zigzag stitched the letter to the apron. Really proud of this because it looks real profesh!
I doubled the layers of the apron body to hide the applique stitches on the back. And for the first time, i find out about facings. So yes, i think i know ALL about interfacings. But facings? What?
According to Wikipedia, facing is fabric applied to a garment edge, on the inside.
I had to google and youtube all about sewing facings! Thank gawd for the internet. You can learn almost anything online these days. This site was very useful to help me visualize the instructions.
And this video is AWESOME! It explains the use of facings, how to pick the right facings, and how to sew a facing from start to finish!!!
So yes, the apron is complete with bright orange facings on the inside, down the sides.
Here he is, testing out the end product with some outdoor stir frying. But I think he loves it. :)
What a year! 2011 just flew by in the blink of an eye.
Just like most of you, I made my list of 2011 Resolutions. Now let's see how I fared. Somewhere along the line i think i forgot i ever made any (eeps.)
1. Live simple.
Still learning to curb my wants and differentiate them from my needs. But the simple things in life gives me a greater satisfaction. Like spending time with family, going for walks in the parks, sitting at my sewing machine and creating!
2. Budget all spending.
It's not hard to do when you don't have too much to work with, especially now that we're on our own. With more bills and expenses to figure out, every dollar, every penny makes a difference.
3. Eat fresh. Eat healthy.
J and I were doing great when we were living with his parents. We had the garden going, we were eating lots of fresh garden produce everyday. Now that we've moved, we need to start a new plot all over. The good news is, we bought some more seeds and we're getting ready for spring. We're definitely keeping this resolution going strong.
4. Sun salutations every morning;
Bah.
5. A full Ashtanga workout at least twice a week.
*mumbles*
6. Swear less, be patient more.
This is one resolution i forgot was actually there, but I'm not ashamed to say I have been subconsciously working on. The reason, i think, ties in with my last resolution.
7. Love J everyday like it is the last.
Even though we've been together for the last 5 years, I'm constantly surprised by how much we're still in love with each other. J makes little gestures in our everyday lives that make me appreciate him, and want to be a better person for him.
All in all, 5 out of 7 is not too bad!
And then there were things big and small worth a little mention.
J and I became our own little experts at mushroom foraging.
We started our own little garden, watching things grow and appreciating Mother Nature for her bounty, learning to live off the land.
We've moved out from my in laws. Which means our garden is now 20 miles away. Which also means we're not counting on it to be watered everyday but thank goodness it's not summer now. So our fall garden has been thriving on it's own (as Mother Nature generally does).
Went back to see the in-laws last night, they got us a microwave oven for Christmas (yay!)
We went out into the garden to pick our fruits of (non) labor and found these strange looking leaves.
When we got back, J was impatiently trying to figure out what they were. He looked through pictures on the seed packets and online and couldn't for the life of him remember what he planted.
After a frustrating hour of researching on the internet... bakchoy, no. Arugula, no. The metaphorical bulb lit.
He had chopped off the tops of what were the beginnings of the beautiful heads of broccoli!!!!!
This was followed by many minutes of palm-to-face self-admonishing dismay.
Moral of the story: never neglect your plants. Or perhaps, just label them clearly.
But the carrots growing in our current backyard, in a bucket, is doing THIS well. They're the length of my palm (and if you know me, you know how small my hands are). But they're super sweet!
I wanted to give out some Halloween goodies this year for my friends at work. But i am useless in the kitchen and at baking. So the simple candy crafts will have to do to! And I found these simple ideas on Pinterest! Too cute!
So i went to the Dollar Store and got some:
1) Lollipops and mints
2) White and black plastic table coverings
3) Fuzzy pipecleaners
4) Googly eyes
5) Glue gun
A $5 dollar craft? Hell, yeah!
Cut out squares of plastic table covering. For the spiders i cut out 3"x3" squares, and for the ghosts i cut out 6"x6" squares, and cut all my pipecleaners half in length.
Wrap the plastic squares around the lollipops like so.
I don't even tape them up, I just wrap them tight with the pipecleaners. I use white for the ghosts, and 3 black half-lengths for the spider legs. I made a spider with 8 legs, but it looked too cluttered. The spider looked better with 6 legs, so maybe I'm just going to call them ants.
Use a sharpie to draw on features for the ghosts.
Voila, spiders and ghosts all done!
But waitaminute! There's more! I'd seen these mints at the dollar store and thought if i added some googly eyes on them, maybe i can turn them into bloodshot eyeball candies? So i whipped out my glue gun and stuck eyes on the mints. I'm going to add a sign that says "Have a ball!" *sniggers*
You guys have a ball this weekend! Happy Halloween!!!
Finally got the internet hooked up in our new place! We found out from our neighbor that our house is at least 75 years old!!! He invited us to pick his veggies from his garden any time we want! So sweet! We offered him some long beans from ours but he politely declined because he said he had more than enough vegetables to go around. I hope it's not because he thinks our beans are inferior... :(
So anyway, here are the latest pictorial updates of our home:
I think the color red goes so lovely with dark wood. And I adore the bedroom set that was given to us. Don't you think it's just total old-fashioned cuteness?!!
I found this picture stowed away in one of the closets in the house. So I decided to set it out!
My favorite part of the house, the cosiest by far! The couch, loveseat and coffee table were given to us! It's so vintage!!! J'adore!!!
Check out the size of our fridge minibar. We need to get a fridge this weekend. Halp! We've been getting groceries one day at a time because there's just no room for weekly meals. But we've been doing lots of cooking in the kitchen so that's awesome! The J-man has made fried rice, chicken curry, oyaku-don and baked chicken wings so far and mm-mm home-cooked food is the BOMB!
The craft room is non-existent, this is the only part that is "set-up". My crafting supplies are in this dresser, which J thinks is hideous. I do see the potential in dressing it up. Think lace doilies, a picture frame above it, kitschy knick knacks atop. Alright alright!! I do need the storage space so it's staying! The rest of the room is piled with boxes half unpacked, so i'm not going to show you the mess. Hehe, or maybe I will:
Bleagh.
No crafting so far because we don't have a decent table for that. I have crafting withdrawals... *spasms*
Here's Don Vito chilling like a villain in his corner.
The J-man's ONE contribution to dressing up this house. His childhood prized collection -- this glass chess set.
So the bad thing is that the house is unfurnished. I know it usually is, but then the good news is we get to pick out our own stuff! though they will mostly be given or thrifted, but hey! more excuses to go thrifting!
I love the color of the walls in the living area!
This is linked to the kitchen so i'm guessing it's a dining area, but guess what? IT'S GOING TO BE MY CRAFT ROOM (i call first dibs!) even though the J-man doesn't know that yet. We can totally sit on the couch for our meals. D-uh.
What i love about our house (other than the fact that it is OURS) is the amount of sunlight that filters in through the windows. We've been there several times in the day now and the living and dining areas get so much light!!! That just makes me happy.
Did i mention that we have a lil 80 yr old neighbor who has the biggest garden patch?? well, technically that patch is in OUR yard, but he has them all planted out in nice little neat rows, we figured we'll let him take charge. He's also got sacks of sweet potatoes in his back porch. Now, this is ONE guy we need to get to know better. Think of all that wealth of gardening knowledge!!! And we don't want to start off our neighborly relations on the wrong foot by insisting on getting our yard back, do we?
My brain is going crazy with decorating ideas, but before we do any of that, we've got to get some electrical issues sorted out. We tried to start the stove the other day and the kitchen lights came on instead. Err.. hello? So utility glitches aside, we are mighty pleased and way over excited. Here's a little secretary desk i found on Craigslist that I'm hoping to get as a table for my sewing machine (if budget allows).
So what do you think? Will keep y'all posted! Send decor ideas this way please!!
