I Used To Be So Good

At responding to emails promptly, that is.

I've always been a terrible responder to texts and missed calls and still am, but I used to be so on the ball when it came to responding to emails.

I blame my phone and email.  Evil.

I really love having email access on my phone, because it enables me to read emails right away.  Except I hate responding to emails on my phone, so I tell myself that I'll respond "later." Sometimes later is 17 days later.  I feel like such a jerk b/c an old friend of mine emailed me about something major going on in her life.  And I barely responded to her...tonight tomorow. (I'm incredibly sleepy right now!)  Ugh.  I feel heartless.

Gmail and other google products have really become a major part of my life and I can't imagine running my life w/o them.  Except ever heard of "too much of a good thing"?  I currently have nearly 7000 emails in my inbox, and no, I have not done this thing call "archiving".  So my inbox is one major mess.  Lately I can't remember if I've replied to an email and by the time I remember it already got pushed all the way down, sometimes to the next page.  For example, I had sworn that I confirmed to my friend about lunch, and to my MUA about my trial, and I promptly forgot about them.  Suddenly, I get this vague recollection that I'm sposed to have lunch tomorrow and my trial is in a week, and I hadn't confirmed the dates/times for either.  Big fat whoops.

30 days until the wedding.  And I just realized my next free weekend is Oct 23.  I really can't wait for the day when I don't have to hear the word wedding!!

27

My birthday came and went without much ado. 

 Cupcakes from Hannah in San Jose (yes, my colleague flew these babies down!)

I had a bruschetta craving and Jerry wanted pasta & clams so we threw together an impromptu dinner.


I didn't make any fun plans this year (and no, I wasn't expecting Jerry to surprise me either as we've been quite busy), but at the same time, I didn't feel a sense of dread at turning a year older.  I feel like I've accomplished a lot for my age so far, and dare I say that I'm currently where I want to be in my life?

For as long as I can remember I was always itching to get to the next stage.  I didn't want to be in middle school, I already wanted to go to HS.  I couldn't wait to get out of HS so I could escape the confines of the El Monte bubble and go to college.  During college I was tired of trying to figure out my "career path" b/c I just wanted to work already.  Once I realized the limitations of a BA in my field I wanted to go to grad school.  And those who know me well know that I couldn't WAIT to get the hell out of dodge aka grad sch!

But as of right now, I feel like I have no need to hurry to the next level as I have in the past.  I can sit still and just breathe for the first time in 27 years.  Big picture wise, I don't have to worry about many aspects of my life for a while.  I can actually enjoy the current day-to-day and not be anxious to jump start the next stage (which is most likely starting a family).  After putting so much pressure on myself to achieve, achieve, achieve my whole life, it's a strange feeling for me, this idea of being complacent and accomplished.  I can actually enjoy the benefits of my hard work, how about that! 

I'm sure I'll be itching for change as I near the big 3-0, but for the time being, I'm excited about the next 2-3 years and what adventures and lessons they'll bring!

Divide and Conquer

I vaguely remember the days when we planned this shindig together.  You know, while holding hands and spoon feeding each other and crap?  (Kidding.)  Now that we're getting closer and closer to September (yikes!) we're doing some of the tasks separately.  Divide and conquer.  That's our motto.

I went to the flower district myself b/c Jerry can't tell the difference between ranunculus and a dahlia.  No matter how many times I've shared something via google reader that says "AREN'T THESE DAHLIAS SO PRETTY?!"  Luckily, bridesmaid S shares the same joy in flowers that I do. :)

Jerry went to get his tux rental by himself.  I will admit right now that I know nothing about menswear and had already rendered myself useless.  I never, ever look at the groom when I go to weddings, so I never notice if they are wearing a suit or a tux.  And did you know there's like 50 million kinds of white shirts out there, ranging from Brad Pitt a la Meet Joe Black to Jon Gosselin...a la douche?  And don't get me started on cuff links.  No clue.  Well, let me tell you, after this wedding I will be looking at what the grooms and his crew wear much more closely now!

I like the creative licenses we take on our respective wedding projects.  Jerry designed and built the photobooth by himself, and I'm in charge of anything that goes through a printer.  We can make executive decisions on things and then report back to each other on our progress.   Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed some of the tasks we've done together (venue walkthrough with our photogs, getting our marriage license).  However, there are times when we're doing something together where it ends up being a big fat waste of time.  Makes me wish I could get those 4 hours of my life back when I went white shirt hunting with Jerry, and I bet he wants those 4 hours back when I dragged him to go cake tasting.  We could have easily split up to do each task but we didn't.  Cus even people who keep multiple calendars make scheduling boo-boos! :P  

We've had some rough patches while planning, but we're all works in progress, aren't we? :)

Licensed to Wed

Not all courthouses are built alike.  Ours was not fancy or traditional looking.  (I think the San Francisco courthouse is so nice looking!)  But it was less than 10 minutes away from our house. Score. 

We look happy here, but we're really breathing a sigh of relief.

Side bar: It's a major pain in the butt to plan a wedding when you start a new job b/c you have like zero PTO hours.  The only reason I worked half day that day was because I worked a 14 hour day the week prior.  And certain wedding tasks you can only do M-F between 9-5...which is basically working hours. 

Anyways, Jerry's meeting ran 1.5 hours late, and so when he came home we basically shoved lunch down our throats and jammed it out of home.  Got there, and found parking, but turned out that it was metered only.  And we had zero quarters.  I ran inside the building to find a place that would give me change.  Got directed around the building to get change.  I get $5 worth of quarters, and when I come back, Jer reparked to a spot adjacent to us that had an hours worth of quarters already.  Yay, I guess.  Except I got all sweaty from running around.  We get inside.  Turns out there's metal detectors.  Jerry has to go back to the car to put away his belt and swiss army knife.  We both finally make it up to the 6th floor or something like that.  We stand in the line that says birth/death/marriage certificates.  Except on Fridays, you stand in a different line for marriage licenses.  Ugh.  So we re-stand in a different line.  By now we're both grumpy and we just want to get our paperwork done and go home.

And then, I finally start to notice my surroundings.  And I see couples around us actually waiting to get married.  Right then and there.  A lady in black with purple flowers with her soon to be husband greeting friends and family.  A not-sure-what-kind-of-Asian-she-is pretty girl with a European-looking guy in mismatched pinstriped separates who are both alone, not a single witness in sight.  A younger girl in an actual wedding dress!  And I start to get misty-eyed.  And I stopped being grumpy.   Nothing like warm fuzzy feelings to get out of a funk!  Finally, it was our turn and the process was very quick and smooth.

Yay.  Another thing off our list. 

We posted a pic on Facebook and people are congratulating us...except we're not married yet!  They should call it a marriage permit...like a learner's driving permit haha. 

Ants are Annoying

We had an ant problem a while back and then they went away.  Lately we've been finding them in random places.  They aren't even interested in food!  We've been pretty diligent about not keeping food out anymore (I left a bag of cashew chews unsealed...oops), and yet we still find them in our bathroom upstairs and on the carpet downstairs. Weird, they must be scouting.  One even crawled out of Jer's laptop.  It's not like they swarm either.  It's one or two here and there.

Hopefully some ant bait from Home Depot will do the trick.  Come one, poison all!

Macaron Thank Yous

My bridal shower and bachelorette party (yet to be blogged about) were so fantastic that I wanted to do something a bit extra so I decided to give my ladies a couple of treats along with a thank you note!

I bought 2 dozen macarons from Paulette Macarons.  

I recommend ordering online b/c they run out of certain flavors as the day goes on.  I wasn't able to pick up my order until 45 min to closing, so thank goodness I pre-ordered!  I made the Thank You cards from an template I found online.  Since I was sending them to 11 girls..I had 2 left over for myself.  Score!

I ended up purchasing vanilla as the universal flavor for each girl, and then a fun flavor to round out the pair.  Believe me, it was HARD to not eat them all myself!

I wrapped each pair in wax paper and then sealed it with painter's tape.  

I added some foil for more padding and noted flavors on a post-it.

I was able to hand deliver to 5 of the ladies, but I had to mail the other 6.  I used padded envelopes from Staples and thankfully they remained relatively intact!

Everything took a bit of elbow grease to figure out, but it was well worth the effort.  It's a small, but tasty, extension of my thanks. :)

TM-Everything

I really enjoy being part of social networks (facebook, twitter, blogging, yelp, foursquare, gowalla, etc) b/c by nature I'm a curious and nosy person.  I like seeing what other people are up to, what they are wearing, and what are their thoughts.  Many of my close friends don't have time or aren't as committed to the various forms of social media as I am so I end up browsing blogs, scrolling through tweets, clicking on pictures, reading yelp reviews, etc of people that I don't really know-know, whether it be total strangers, friends of friends, or mere acquaintances.

Now, let me preface this by saying that I do respect freedom of speech and that people, including myself, are pretty much entitled to say what they want and post whatever they feel like.  And as a reader, I'm entitled to shut up and stop visiting/reading if I don't like what I'm seeing.  And I have done that.  I can't be the first person who's blocked people's statuses on FB or un-followed someone on Twitter right?  And I wouldn't be surprised if people would want to tune me out b/c I've been known to overshare and go on and on and on about something w/o shutting up.  I think Jerry wanted to block me on FB cus I was checking into Foursquare too much :P  Anyways, feel free to tune out, readers, if you think what I'm about to say is too much!

So.  I am pretty disturbed by the amount of over-sharing that I've seen or that has been pointed out to me lately:
My friend told me about a profile picture she saw on FB.  It was a couple in bed, they were in between the sheets, and she had her hand over her breast.  How the hell did that one get past the censors?  We reported it right away but last I checked it was still up.  So gross.  What's even more gross?  In the same album, there's a picture of a stain.  On the bed sheet.  I'll leave the rest to your imagination.  Seriously, TMI.  Keep it in the bedroom, folks.  No one needs to see ANYTHING.

People have been using social correspondence to publicize the state of their finances.  I also think that's over-sharing.  Nothing wrong with privately telling a friend how much you paid for your new car/house/toy, but don't write in a public forum.  Less than a handful of people should know how much is in your bank account- yourself, your significant other, maybe your parents, and your accountant/auditor.

Finally, I'm quite irked by folks who feel the need to (over)share their affections for their significant other.  I've had to block several people from my FB wall (including my cousins and former schoolmates) b/c really.  No. One. Gives. A. Crap. That. You. Are. In.  Love.  Only 1 person needs to know and that is your significant other.  Not the other 500 friends.  There are 3 times that you get a pass to be publicly mushy on social media- the first week you get together, the day that you get engaged, and when you get married.  Privately I'm a very mushy person and Jerry has absolutely no doubt that he's awesome b/c I pretty much tell him 50 times a day unless I'm grumpy and then it drops down to maybe 25 times.   The point is that we really make an effort to not force the status of our relationship on anyone by avoiding excessive PDA while out (we all know of couples that use each other as chairs) and while online.  That's the line that I've personally drawn for our relationship publicly, but others may have different lines.

I think everyone has such different views that you can't ever please anyone.  Others might consider the Outfits of the Day bloggers to be oversharers.  Or people who post about their travels on FB to be oversharers/braggers.  But I personally love reading those kinds of blogs!  Sure, they're hella showing off what they're buying/what they can afford but I totally sponge that shit up.  While on the other hand, there are plenty of people who enjoy reading about mushy relationships and consumerism that I've mentioned above as my personal pet peeves.  (Inappropriate pictures will NEVER be okay.) 

But guess what?  Thanks to a simple click of a button, we don't have to read about anything that we don't want to! :)

Okay, I'm off my soapbox.

In other news, I promise to return to regularly scheduled programming and overshare my wedding planning progress/projects (or lately lack there of) and reviews of restaurants I've been to!

About Meetings

I'm back to attending a zillion meetings every week. 

Good things:
I don't snack on empty calories anymore since I'm too busy actively listening and taking notes. 
I also walk (0.4 miles each way) to some of my meetings so I get in a wee bit of exercise.
They make my day go by faster.
Some of them are calls/webinars.  I can participate from the comfort of my desk!  (The mute button is my friend.)

Bad things:
I tend to touch my face a lot when I get bored and I get mini pimples along side my face and chin.  Bad habit!
Some of them end pretty late.  For example, last week I was in South Pasadena until10pm!
My emails pile up b/c my whole day was spent away from my computer!
Some of them are calls/webinars.  I can get easily distracted, so I should turn my monitor off b/c it's so easy to tune out people on calls.

About 2 weeks so far on the new gig.  I'm surviving.

Hayat's Kitchen

Ventured to this part of town for some Lebanese food at Hayat's Kitchen!  

Complimentary.  Not everyone was a fan.

I really liked this.  Everyone else was "eh."

This was a hit!  We ordered another round of this!

This was AWESOME.  That garlic paste (top right corner) was THE BOMB.  We ordered another round of this as well.

The 2 awesome dishes above made this dish not as stellar.  My dining companions let me hog all the veggies. :)

Tea was nice and fragrant.

This was sooo good.  Complimentary.  I would have gladly paid for this!  Fantastic way to end a meal.

It's a very homey vibe.  They seem to know all their customers!

Great food, fantastic dining companions, and lively conversations.  I love our reunions. :)

Summer Shows

It's nice to know my taste in TV aligns well with my tween cousins.  "Who do YOU think is A?"

The only way I'm going to enjoy this show is if I stop comparing it to Alias. 
 

Jerry is obsessed with this show.  I sort of pay attention when he watches, but I prefer my fluff over his substance. :)

Yes, we did cut our cable, but we're able to enjoy these shows via hulu and this nifty cable which allows us to hook up our laptops to the TV screen.  Sweet!