The World is My Oyster: March 2011

Monday, March 28, 2011

A to Z

A. Age: 27

B. Bed size: Queen. After having slept in crappy beds the first 24 years of my life, I've splurged on the last 2 beds and let me tell you, it's worth it. Good bed = good sleep = good start to the day.

C. Chore you dislike: Vacuuming stairs. I did all the vacuuming growing up with our heavy duty Eureka. Even though we have a lightweight Dyson vacuum that can get to all the hard to reach places more easily, I still never want to do it!

D. Dogs: When I'm feeling down, I watch youtube videos of cute doggies.

E. Essential start to your day: Breakfast. Unlike other folks where coffee is enough fuel, I have low tolerance and must eat something in the mornings or else I won't make it to lunch. But then again, I eat dinner around 6 and a lot of ppl I know, including my colleagues, eat after 9pm so maybe that's why they aren't hungry when they wake up?

F. Favorite color: It changes. Right now I like dusty pink.

G. Gold or silver: I used to think that gold was so for the old folk...but now I'm starting to purchase more gold items so I guess I'm getting old!

H. Height: Short enough that 80% of my pants/jeans are hemmed.

I. Instruments you play(ed): The recorder in 3rd grade. Is that a real instrument?

J. Job title: Organizing Coordinator

K. Kids: Can't wait! :)

L. Live: Near a Costco. Our forever house has to be near Costco. Makes life easier.

M. Mom’s name: When my mom picked out her American name, she went with Connie. Inspiration? Connie Chung.

N. Nicknames: jeanniechild and jeannieweenie

O. Overnight hospital stays: Thankfully none yet.

P. Pet peeves: Oy vey. Many.

Q. Quote from a movie: "Go ahead, make my day." (brownie points if you know where that's from without googling!)

R. Righty or lefty: Righty. My friend Harry in chinese school was a lefty, broke his arm, and instead of being off the hook for chinese school, our super mean teacher forced hm to start writing with his right hand. And he did!

S. Siblings: 2- my sister in law and brother in law :)

T. Time you wake up: 6:25

U. Underwear: Calvin Klein all the way! I used to wear Chinatown underwear. I've come a long way.

V. Vegetables you don’t like: Eggplant

W. What makes you run late: When my ride is late, or when I didn't time my cooking correctly and I have to wait around so I can turn off the oven or stove..

X. X-rays you’ve had: Only dental, luckily!

Y. Yummy food you make: I made spring rolls for dinner last night night, and a huge pot of green curry with chix, tofu, bamboo shoots, peas, and spinach for our lunches this week.

Z. Zoo animal favorites: Monkeys. They are always doing something entertaining! A second fave would be the baby version of any animal. :)

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Musings of a Newbie Couponer

I'm relatively new to the world of couponing. There are so many thrifty and organized folks out there who come into the grocery store armed with coupons and they walk out paying like...$3.50 for $20 worth of groceries. Seriously, I want to join that club. Every dollar saved means an additional dollar to my "eat really fresh melt-in-your-mouth sushi" omakase fund.

I've had some good experiences with using coupons lately. I ambled into Target with a $5 off any denim apparel coupon and found a pair of jeggings (yes, I joined that trend cus it's like sweat pants disguised as denim that you can wear in public) that were clearance priced at $13. Imagine my surprise when they rang up as FREE. Don't you love that? Somehow that never happens when I'm at Michaels or at Sushi Gen. Of course all the euphoria of having saved $8 went away when I wore said free jeggings 5 days later and a well-meaning (aka really ignorant of what not to ask women) gentlemen asked me how many months I was along. Sigh. I didn't even have a large lunch. I guess I should stop wearing tunic tops on casual Fridays?

I've fallen into the habit of printing all my coupons on Sundays. During the week I'll bookmark the sites (I subscribe to Penny Pinchin' Mom and Southern Savers, to name a couple) in my google reader and it has become somewhat a ritual for me to clean out my "queue" of stuff to print on Sundays (I don't want to install the coupon printer thingy on my work computer). Even though I do most of my shopping at ethnic markets, Costco, and TJs, there are certain items that are much cheaper at Food 4 Less or Target. Couponing becomes less intimidating and more manageable for me when I only have to cross check my coupons against sales in certain stores once in a while. Baby steps!

Monday, March 21, 2011

Dealery and Ebates

As an avid user of daily deal sites such as Groupon, Living Social, Gilt City, etc, I love finding new deals, but I don't love all the emails in my inbox throughout the day. One day I discovered Dealery, and it's completely saved my overflowing inbox! Dealery aggregates all the deals in one place, so no inbox clog-gage, whew! Right now they are in select cities, so keep an eye out if your city isn't on their list. (There's other sites such as Daily Flock and Dealradar.com, but I haven't used those yet.)

What I do is add "http://feeds.dealery.com/dealery-(name of city)" to my google reader subscription and I can then check out deals whenever I have time. Currently I'm signed up for both Los Angeles and Chicago. I'm hoping to score some great deals for our Windy City trip this summer. In fact, my friend JT alerted me to a great hotel deal last week which I quickly nabbed.

This is a good transition to talk about my second love- Ebates! Using my Ebates account, I was also able to save around 10 bucks by purchasing my hotel Groupon through the Ebates link. If you haven't used ebates before and you do a lot of shopping online, you must learn more here, and then sign up! Here's my referral link, I get a reward every time a new user signs up via my link and makes a purchase. In addition, new users get a reward for signing up as well. Ebates partners with different retail websites to give you cash back whenever you shop online- each retailer has a different rate. I believe Groupon had a 3% rate that day. I've seen Endless rates around 10% which I take advantage of since I do most of my shoe shopping online. Last week Gap's rate was 20% which was unheard of! Now that Bing Cashback and their crappy customer service is defunct, I'm glad I found Ebates! I might also try Mintbox one of these days.

It takes a bit of effort, but the savings do add up in the long run. Happy shopping, I hope this was helpful! :)

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Before the Rain

Saturday was super packed with plans. Thank goodness yesterday was our busy day, and not today! I felt bad for all the LA Marathoners today, I heard many were treated for hypothermia. :(

Woke up bright and early to get to Pasadena for Jer's first triathlon. I am so proud of him for completing it! The weather conditions turned out to be just right for this type of race. P.S. I don't see myself becoming a triathlete as I'd never cut it during the bike portion of the race.

Afterward, we headed to the 24 Hour Fitness in Arcadia so Jerry could soak in the jacuzzi while I got in a quick workout. Being a member definitely comes in handy- we can get in a quick workout before a family get together, or when ever we are in a different part of town to run errands. We even use the facilities when we're in the Bay Area too!

We were starving, so we headed to a nice joint called Tasty To Go that our photographer introduced us to a while back. I love how in SGV there's always good food on any given intersection!

The hainan chicken and rice is only $5.55 before tax! It's so delicious- the rice is so fluffy, the chix is plentiful and juicy, and the side of veggies is generous and well seasoned. I could easily turn this portion into 3 meals, believe it or not! Jerry got the 3 item combo- they carry the same generic-ish items (orange chicken, green beans, braised tofu, kung pao chicken) as many other similar places, but they charge only $5.55, and I think the food is just as good (albeit, these types of meals are on the salty side). Gosh...you CANNOT get any meal close to that in terms of price and portion west of 110 freeway. :(

Their shaved ice is also delicious- I actually think it's pretty comparable to Class 302. This is the green tea one- the fresh pink mochi really makes this extra tasty. And yes, it's possible for 2 people to finish this, although it's probably better suited for parties of 3-4, esp when your husband doesn't like red bean and you gotta finish it all on your own, AHEM.

After a very satisfying and delicious meal, we went back to my parents house so Jerry could take a nap. So convenient. :) The reason for the nap was cus our day wasn't over yet- my cousin had invited us to his high school play, so we had to make sure that we stayed awake late into the evening despite having a very early start to the day! My cousin wasn't actually in the play- but he was pretty much the backstage manager. He was in charge of the sound/lighting/set design/etc. It's a lot of hard work, and I'm so proud of him!

Twenty five bucks a person got us a full course Italian meal served prior to the show, mmm! Bruschetta, salad, CHOICE (there were choices!) of lasagna or baked meatless ziti, meatballs, and how cute...for dessert we got spumoni ice cream and mini cream puffs. The high school students staffed the entire event- they held roles such as hostess, maître d, etc. It was a really pleasant start to the evening. (They run the play a handful more times- so there's Asian night, Mexican night, etc.)

There were 2 plays- one was FOB by David Henry Hwang, and the other was called The LA LA Awards (not sure by who)- and boy were they raunchy (at least for my standards!). I hadn't realized that the high school drama club could make sexual references and cuss so freely nowadays. (And some of the costumes were REALLY revealing.) When I was in high school, they wouldn't even let us use "Two Become One" (Spice Girls, anyone?) as the theme for the Sadie Hawkins dance! Jerry thought that the acting was quite superb considering they are only in high school, and I gotta agree! The LA LA (Latin American Lifetime Achievement, in case you're wondering) Awards play was so hilarious, I'm still chuckling at some of the scenes. They did a scene called the Roseanne Barrio Show which had me rolling in my seat, and somehow inserted a joke insulting El Monte during the Aztec Dating Game (something about El Monte making Rosemead look like Beverly Hills, haha). Both plays were extremely heavy on ethnic identity issues as you can see. Yay for social dialogue being explored in high school!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Currently

Avoiding: The gory parts in the Hurt Locker (fantastic movie, by the way! I can see why it beat Avatar for all those Oscars.)

Craving: These pan-fried goodies from Luscious Dumplings

Dreaming of: My dreams have been really random. Last night I dreamt that I kept calling this girl Cathy but she wouldn't answer to me, and her boyfriend Wilbur had to tell me that her name was Cathys. Yeah...with an "s". Very weird!

Enjoying: Macarons from Ladurée (a colleague of mine went to Paris and got them for me!)

Listening to: Idina Menzel's "No Day But Today"

Looking forward to: Creating a version of this. I haven't let my crafty creative juices flow in a while. Might be because I'm still recovering from our wedding.

Lusting after: Anything from Emerson Made, especially these, this, and that.

Measuring: about 6 months since my last haircut. I think it's time?

Nervous about: Japan's earthquake and all the collateral damage makes me scared about how unprepared we are in LA. We don't take precautions like they do! They even have helmets in their offices. Sigh.

Reading: Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain

Suffering from: I'm forming a bad habit. Lately I've been peeling my nail polish off during long conference calls.

Wanting to buy: Le Creuset 7-Piece Silicone Spatula Set with Crock

Watching: All sorts of ugly.

Working on: WordFeud game with my friend C. She's kicking my butt right now! Add me if you use this Android app- "photoist."

How about you guys?

Saturday, March 12, 2011

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Can you spot the atrocity? I was going to eat here for lunch...but not anymore!

Friday, March 11, 2011

Friday Buzzkill

It's such a buzz kill when I get to leave work early, and my bus is so incredibly late that it comes when I would have originally got on if I left at the usual time. I also ran to the metro and through the metro too, all for nothing. Ugh, my favorite night of the week is totally starting off so lousy! If the food wasn't so tasty in LA and if I wasn't bound by my work contract I'd leave sooner than later, that's how frustrated I am with the public transportation and the traffic in LA. I also had two bad commuting experiences this week, so sometimes the bus, no matter how late, seems to be the lesser of two evils.

Bright side: I wouldn't have beat angry birds Xmas edition level 10 if I didn't have half an hour to kill.