Half Dome part 2

I realized I never continued my Half Dome post!  Here's part 1 in case you missed it.

Okay, so we were about to make our way down.
Going down was MUCH scarier for me than going up.  I tried going down facing forwards, backwards, sideways, it was all the same oh-crap-i'm-going-to-pee-in-my-pants type of fear that rattled me.  My legs were shaking like jello on steroids all the way down.  I also held up the whole line.  Oh well, I don't give a f*ck b/c I was going to take my time going down!  Some jerks were heckling me to go faster, but I. Just. Couldn't.  And Jerry told them to shut up but they didn't really.   And then someone's water bottle fell out of their pocket.  Rattling and bouncing all the way down.  And then finally the guys stopped yelling at me to go faster.

That's smooth granite baby.  Nothing to break your fall.

It was such a beautiful day, we lucked out!

So after the cables, where I breathed a huge sigh of relief, it was back to the granite steps.  Which did not seem to end.  If the cables weren't so dangerous, I'd say this was actually the hardest part of the hike for me.

A zillion more miles back to go.

It was nice and shady in some parts.

And not so shady in other parts.

Yeah the river is nice and all...except mosquitoes like to breed near water.  And then they like to bite people. 

Yay a restroom!

Still more miles to go

I was pretty miserable at this point.

Ugh more stairs.

This is pretty and all...but I was so tired and grumpy that I didn't really enjoy it. :(

My face says it all.

Misty.

Next time I think I'll just hike up to this point so I can actually enjoy it.  When we hiked by earlier and I had more energy, it was pitch black.

Ahh almost there!!!



YES! Done!

Half Dome, see ya never again!

I'm glad I challenged myself, but I'm never doing this hike again.  I tested myself once, that's good enough for me!  I'm ready for my next adventure.  Hmm, so I've done my first 10k, conquered my fear of swimming, then Half Dome...what's next?  I guess I should learn how to ride a bike.  In public.  I'm such a pansy.

Omakase at Toshi Sushi part 2

In case you missed it, here's part 1.

So after the yummy black cod, I attacked the Kobe beef.

Seared then served over ice

Melt in your mouth good!

Got some fried stuff.  Tako I think. (Octopus)

Yummy shrimp heads!!

More nigiri.  It was so fresh.  My palate is spoiled now!

Miso soup with clams.  Man, life would suck if I was allergic to seafood...or worse if I didn't like it.  (Hmm, maybe that's why ppl pity me when I say that I don't like cheese, onions, or garlic...cuz I pity seafood haters!)

Check out that salmon roe!! Yum!!

Mochi plate for dessert

Roasted green tea

It's down the street from Daikokuya

I framed the card that I gave Jerry.  Fitting huh!

Sites I Have Been Stalking

While I subscribe to over 200 websites and blogs in my reader, there are still some actual sites that I visit quite often. 

Modcloth for dresses.  I have a whole post on cute dresses coming up, but here's a sneak peek of what I've had my eye on.  This one is adorable, but I'm not sure if it'll photograph well! 

Preservation Society Dress in Peony, BB Dakota $79.99

Redfin for homes.  Check out this listing!  Over 11K sq ft!  Wondering why it's so cheap?  Jer says the house is basically uninhabitable, so it requires a full tear down.  Definitely more than we can handle on our current plate!  Back to the drawing board.

DineLA Restaurant Week for updates on restaurants and menus.  I'm always on the lookout to spoil my tummy.  I'm eyeing the Fogo de Chão menu as well as Joe's Restaurant.  I've had some mighty tasty muffins from La Grande Orange so I wouldn't be opposed to trying their dinner items as well!  I've only been to 8 of those restaurants on that long list, so this is a great way for me to try new places.

The Sun's Financial Diary to see if I've won the $100 Amazon gift card.  Voting started on Jan 6, and while it looks like the poll has been closed for a few days, I still don't know for sure if I've won!  I do have the most votes thanks to my friends, family, and hopefully one or two kind strangers. :)

Any non reader sites that you stalk?

Outfitting My Feet

On Black Friday, while everyone was out shopping or in sleeping, I went to work and happen, just happen, to check out shoes.com.  Where I found what else? Shoes!

My requirements:
Not too high of a heel (under 2.5 in or lower)
A bright color (I had been looking for blue shoes in particular, but no luck)
Doesn't show toe cleavage
Slingback (for mobility)
Some sort of detail, either a flower, bow, or jewel, etc
Able to incorporate into my post wedding wardrobe
Under $50

Without further ado, here they are!

But wait...they needed to be delivered first!

They left Gardena at 4am but didn't show up at my doorstep until nearly 7pm!
Okay, here we go:

They are darker in person...must be the white tissue  reflecting off!

The stitching is not the best, but good enough for it's purpose.  Which is to make my feet look pretty in pictures.

The best thing was, I scored them for only $26, about 50% half of my original budget.  They retail for $59.  I'm usually a size seven, but I took a chance and ordered 7.5 since I read that CL shoes could run small.  Plus only size 7.5 was left in purple.  Luckily, shoes.com has a generous return policy so it wouldn't have been a big deal if the shoes didn't fit, but I'm glad they do b/c it's another thing to cross of my list!

PS.  Someday I will own a pair of Louboutins!  Just not today :)

PPS.  One of my bridesmaids wore the exact pair in a different color at her wedding.  I guess we have the same eye for cute shoes! :)

Loose Lips

I'm lucky that Jerry's a pretty great listener.  Except maybe when he's watching football.  Then I could probably make up some outlandish story about Neil Patrick Harris, a unicorn, and some white castle burgers, and he wouldn't even blink.  Anyhoo...his amazing listening skills are something that I'm grateful for.

Sometimes. 

My problem is that I like to blab, esp when I'm excited.  And I won't even realize I'm blabbing, until Jerry and his awesome ears pick up some random detail that my loose lips inadvertently give away.

Case in point.

Saturday night.  In the car with one of my BMs Susan, and Jerry on the 405.  We're gonna meet up with Susan's hubby for dinner.  (the conversation is not verbatim, but based on bits and pieces of what I remember) 

Jerry: So what did you girls do this afternoon?
Jeannie: We went to a ribbon place and a bridal store, so much stuff there!
Susan: Yeah it was fun!
Jerry: How was trying on dresses?
Susan: Cam looked good!
Jeannie: Yeah, she tried on this really nice dress but it was ----- and since I'm wearing ----- she said that she couldn't wear ----- so she's going to buy this other dress instead!
Jerry: So you're wearing -----?

Silence.

Jeannie: (turn around to the backseat) OMG SUSAN DID I JUST TELL HIM WHAT MY WEDDING DRESS LOOKED LIKE?

Susan: ...silence...

Jeannie: Why of all times did you choose to listen to meeeeee nowwwwww??
Jerry:  I don't know.

Well okay, since the cat's out of the bag, let me show you all what my dress looks like:

via I Do Weddings

Oh just kidding.  This is really my dress.

via I Do Weddings

Kidding again.                                

Sigh.  Luckily that's all he knows.  There's much more to my dress than the ----- so hopefully I can keep my mouth shut between now and September.  Woohoo, exactly 9 months away!

PS.  Want to know what the ----- is?  PM me later :)

Dirty Details

I had dinner with one of my bridesmaids (hi N!) and the conversation pretty much revolved around weddings.  Her wedding.  My wedding.  Friends' weddings.  Some day our conversations are going to revolve around the best brand of breastfeeding supplies or how to home remedy kid diarrhea so I think I'll savor the conversations we have now, even if they are a bit one dimensional and completely silly and girly. 

We mainly talked details- what was important and what didn't matter, what the guests would notice and what they would be oblivious to.  For some reason, I was oblivious to what wedding shoes she ended up wearing even though I was the receiving end of many shoe links throughout her search.  5 months after her wedding I bought my own wedding shoes, and guess what?  They were her EXACT pair (oh yeah, I promised I'd show pics.  Later.  Swear.).  Omg.  How could I have not noticed?  Another project that she set time aside to do were the petal cones.  But since I wasn't sitting in an aisle seat...I didn't notice.  Sad.  I would have appreciated that little detail too!  But she expressed to me that it was important to her and that she wanted to do it, even if not everyone noticed.

I think that's my sentiment too when it comes to planning our September shindig.  There are so many details that I want to implement, and I know almost no one will notice or care...but I do!  If there's any time to go all out on the dirty details, it should be now!  So who cares if our site doesn't need extra lighting?  I'm going to have lanterns and diy LED lights anyway!  Sure it'll make my life easier if I don't cut all the 4x6 photo paper into strips...but I like how photobooth strips look!  Who cares if our invites are letterpressed?  But when the heck am I ever gonna letterpress anything ever again?  So really, while the point of this wedding is to marry Jerry in front of family & friends...I think I'll take it as an opportunity to indulge in the details. :)

Brain Dump 1.11.10

I fell asleep at 9:30 last night- I feel like my weekdays are meant for resting up for the weekends! There's a cupcake challenge tasting next month but it's $40 pp, I don't think it's worth it.  Ooh, unless Goldstar has a deal!  I just had potato chips.  Baked, so they were "healthy."  BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS!! We just realized over the wknd that there's only single digit months left until the wedding, time to get cracking.  I went to a Clippers game yesterday and it was so boring.  And these stupid people and their kids kept walking in and out of their seats in our aisle and the one in front of us.  What the heck is wrong with SITTING IN YOUR OWN SEAT?  I hung out with Nancy on Friday and she gifted me the cutest homemade calendar.  I love it when ppl craft for me :)  I'm finishing up the last of my work project, I'm going to launch it this week!  Excited!  I put a deposit down on my dress.  It makes my ass look good.  I finally saw Twilight.  Since my expectations were so low, I actually---Oh, who am I kidding?  It's still a terrible movie.   My hair is pretty greasy today.  I bought this dry shampoo but b/c its so expensive I'm hoarding it.  Yeah, I'm being dumb.  Ate at Brodard on Saturday.  Did you know you can order odd ball quantities of nem nuong cuon (the spring rolls)?  Yeah, all this time Jerry and I had been ordering either 4 or 6...when we could have ordered 5 or 7.  Thanks Stella and Eric for teaching me.  Jerry went to CES in Vegas over the wknd and brought me back a bunch of reusable bags yay.  My target ones were getting really dirty and hole-y.  Can you recycle reusable bags?  Whoops, I think I threw it in the trash last night.  I love Garden Cafe and it's predictableness.  My seafood crispy chow mein is done right.  Every. Single. Time.  Even though today everyone finally went back to work, traffic wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be.  Last wk I was applying tacky glue to some stuff and the whole bottle top came off and exploded all over my fingers.  Ick.  I better dial down my muscles when I apply more tacky glue to my stuff later today.  I just bought Jerry a new Sigg bottle.  I wanted one for myself, but all the designs were pretty ugly except for his.  I am obsessed with lamps.  I think Conan should go to Fox.  His humor is more applicable to Fox's target audience.  Screw NBC!  Project Runway starts up again on Thursday!  Can't wait!  Okay, time to eat my banana muffin.  Peace out!

Honeymoon Research

Usually, the bride does all the wedding planning and the groom does all the honeymoon planning.  Not us!  This is how it's been working out:

1. Jeannie gets an idea
a. Jerry vetos it, back to step 1.
b. Jerry likes it, onto step 2.
2. Jeannie decides how she wants it done (if it's something on the artsy end)
3. Jerry will do it

Here's an example:
Jeannie: Do you like this arch?
Jerry: No.
Jeannie: How about this one?
Jerry: Yeah I like it.
Jeannie: I think it should be built like this with this.
Jerry: Okay. 

Another one:

Jeannie: What do you think of this DJ?
Jerry: Nah his reviews aren't that good.
Jeannie: How about this guy?
Jerry: Yeah he's cool.
Jeannie: Okay, call him and set up a mtg.
Jerry: Okay.

It's fine so far.  I do all the legwork, Jerry does the follow up.  Sometimes it's reversed depending on a person's strength.  For example I am a pushy person so if it's something that demands a refund or exchange Jerry does the research and I make the pushy phone call. (That had nothing to do with the wedding, but I had to make a pushy phone call today regarding some Sigg bottles, so I thought it sort of related to this topic haha) 

So for the honeymoon, why should it be any different?

For the last few months, we've tossed around some ideas here and there but nothing really piqued our interest.  Today I stumbled upon an island called Curacao and I just fell in love!!  I immediately googled everything I could about it and sent Jerry a bunch of links.  I hope he likes my idea so we can go forward to step 2! :)  

via World Atlas

Okay, more stuff on Curacao as I do more research!  And I will talk more about other travel possibilities too! 

Two Thousand & Nine

Before I look forward, let's take a look back!

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?
I climbed Half Dome!

2. Did you keep your New Year's Resolutions from last year and will you make any for 2010?
I don't remember what mine were in 2009 haha.  For 2010 I resolve to get a haircut.  My split ends are so bad, they are spawning their own split ends.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Jerry's sister!  DC#3 hahaha (look Jen, I'm hip with mom lingo)

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My grandma passed away during the beginning of January.

5. What countries did you visit?
None, boo!  We did go to DC and New York though! 

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
A Torrance zip code.  We'll see.  :)  I enjoy living at our current home, but I'd like a real yard!

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory...and why?
July 15, our engagement date!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I was able to find a great job quite soon after I finished grad school.  I also conquered mochi dough.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Nothing major thankfully!  However, I did fall asleep during Jerry's favorite musical OF ALL TIME, Phantom of the Opera.  He now refuses to take me to future musicals.  Fail.  :(

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing serious.  I just had a lingering cough and I jammed my big toe :(

11. Did you take any risks this year?
I'm not much of a risk taker, but I did go to court, prepared to fight my traffic citation, and since the officer didn't show up, I got it dismissed!

12. What was something that you celebrated in 2009?
Nancy and Mike's wedding!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
While driving through East Palo Alto (to get to Union City), we saw a lady repeatedly smack her kid on the head with either her hand or some object.  I felt appalled and sad at the same time!

14. Where did most of your money go?
Sallie Mae- my grad school loan.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
That I made it through the entire year w/o dropping my cell phone in some sort of water (toilet, fountain, you name it). 

16. What were some of the best things you ate in 2009?
Jerry's brisket, the entire omakase experience at Toshi Sushi, the seafood trio appetizer at Bar Americain and the black sesame ice cream from the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory (both in NYC), the crab cake sandwich from Matchbox in DC, and the Elite Style Baked Chicken from Elite Restaurant (a dim sum item).

17. What fears did you conquer in 2009?
I swam in open water in the Merced River (Yosemite). For about 15 minutes.  Then it got too cold.  Before I learned how to swim in 2008, I couldn't even put my head in the water of a 5ft deep kiddie pool.

18. In what way were you pleasantly surprised this year?
When we saw fireworks during DCFC's last song Transatlanticism at the Hollywood Bowl.  I was not expecting fireworks, but it was such a perfect ending to a great show!

19. What were your favorite new TV programs of 2009?
Glee and Modern Family!

20. What was the best book you read?
No favorites, but I really enjoyed Waiter Rant, Bringing Down the House, Bringing Home the Birkin, and My Husband's Sweethearts to name a few.

21. What did you want AND get?
I wanted a salad spinner.  Yay I got it! 

22. What did you want and NOT get?
A Chanel J12 watch (white ceramic).  No thanks to Jerry for introducing me to the world of unaffordable watches.

23. What was your favorite film of the year?
I saw one movie in the theaters this year- 500 Days of Summer.  It was cute!  Too bad I have nothing to compare it to!  I need to find out what this Twilight mess is all about.

24. What was the best thing you bought?
My new purse!!

25. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I gotta feeling...
That tonight's gonna be a good night

The Babysitters' Club Rebirth

Something that I've carried on from my child-to-adult hood is my love of reading for pleasure.  Some of my earliest reading memories include the Pee Wee Scouts series by Judy Delton and the Polk Street School series by Patricia Reilly Giff.  I soon transitioned to Nancy Drews (Carolyn Keene + ghostwriters) and the Anastasia Series (Lois Lowry) and haven't stopped since.

So I was pleasantly surprised to see this article pop up in my google reader!
Comeback Planned for Girls' Book Series
I loved, loved, loved the Babysitter's Club Series when I was growing up.  Go ahead and judge me, ha!   I have no shame in admitting that my alter-"BSC member"-ego was a bit of Claudia (the Nancy Drews), a dash of Mary Anne (overprotective parent), and the rest Kristy (overachiever).  I never felt cool enough to be Stacy or Dawn.  :)  I'd get really excited when I was able to find a new one at the library and I would read during school, after school, straight through dinner, and under the covers with a flashlight until I'd finish.  And then I'd start a new one the next day.  With over 200 books and spinoffs, no wonder my eyesight grew increasingly worse over the years! :)

I was sad to hear that the books have been out of print for over a decade now (luckily I've been collecting ragged copies at book sales for years now), but am excited at the relaunching of the series for the up-and-coming generation of tween readers.  Some future mothers are excited about handing down their jewels or family heirlooms to their daughters.  Other mothers save their wedding dresses in hopes their daughters will wear them one day.  Me?  In this generation of fabricated vampires, wizards, and gossip girls, I hope to still be able to introduce them to Nancy Drew, the BCS Club, Anastasia Krupnik, Beezus and Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins, Fudge, Homer Price, etc, etc, ETC!  :)

What were the books of your childhood/tween years?