Scary looking shoes

I saw these shoes online and I just had to share. I can't imagine wearing them. I wonder if they're comfortable...

Outfit of the Day

So here's my outfit from yesterday.



I'm pretty proud of it actually. I think the sweatshirt made it more casual, and the two patterns worked together well. I do think I need higher waisted shorts though. These are probably 5 years old at this stage and a little out of date, but I think it's good enough.

So I wore it to a Society of Women Engineers event at Banana Republic where the sales people were giving advice on business casual outfits. I got some advice once how to match earrings and necklaces without looking "matchy matchy." Basically pick the same metal and make sure that the colors in each piece play off each other. Not super useful advice but at least it's a start. The rest of the event was a little less useful. The store didn't have a petites section so I couldn't even buy anything. It was fun to hang out with SWE people though.

Gnats are gnasty

I got up early this morning to go for a run, expecting a nice relaxing workout. It was for the most part -- except for the gnats that were everywhere. They got in my eyes, my nose, my mouth... gross.

I haven't had to deal with gnats since high school marching band camp. We'd have to stand outside for hours in the heat with gnats flying around our face, and we couldn't even move and our hands were holding the instruments so we couldn't swat them away from my face.

Anyway, I'm hoping the gnats go away soon.

Ugh.

Even after a relaxing weekend hosting some family friends in town to visit UCLA, I'm still not ready to start the week. You see, the husband had a cold last week and somehow gave it to me. Yuck. I wish I was working from home today.

But over the weekend, the husband and I beat the two family friends in a game of Scrabble. It wasn't really fair though, given that our combined ages is 56 and the two girls' is 39.

Weekend with the sister

So I promised a post about the weekend when my sister came to visit. So here are some highlights from the weekend (and some even come with illustrations).

1. Drop Dead Diva - While working from home together (she had reports to send out for work and a paper to write for a class, and I had, well, work), we turned on the TV to find some background nice. We stumbled upon Drop Dead Diva in the Netflix recommendations, and decided, "How bad could it be?" Answer: Not bad at all. It's basically about this thin blonde aspiring model who dies and tries to return to earth, but instead her soul ends up in the body of an overweight lawyer who just took a bullet for her boss. So basically she has her own memories, but the intelligence and knowledge of the lawyer. And so it's somewhat Legally Blonde-esque, in which she uses her modeling and beauty knowledge from her past life and her legal knowledge from her current life to solve and argue cases. The first season ended with a cliffhanger, but Netflix in all its evil glory, does not have the second season available for streaming. And the husband would not appreciate having to give up a disc of Glee for this show.

2. Food Trucks - I have never eaten at a food truck. Well, no, I suppose I ate at one in Seattle, but the only vegetarian option they had left when I got there was poutin - french fries and cheese - so it wasn't much of a meal. There's a ton that congregate around the husband's office, so I even left work super-early the day before Thanksgiving to head over to his office to get lunch with him, but no food trucks showed. Sad. So when my sister was here, the husband brought home a Banh Mi sandwich from the Nom Nom truck, which is supposed to be one of THE BEST TRUCKS EVER. My sister and I reheated it in the oven, and it was good. Yumm. And then the next day, we drove over to his office for lunch and got food fresh from some other food trucks. Not as good as the Nom Nom truck but pretty solid Korean-Mexican fusion food.

3. Carrot Cake - Thanks to Elizabeth, I learned that SuzieCakes has the best carrot cake ever. And it does. I usually don't like nuts or raisins in my cakes, but in this cake, it really works. The icing is perfectly sweet and creamy, and you can see the long strands of carrot weaving through the cake. Since my sister is a huge fan, we went to get a piece for dessert, and life was good.

4. The Beach - Unfortunately, my sister decided to come during the one weekend it was warm and sunny in Atlanta and it was cold and rainy in LA. Well, one of the many weekends that has been happening recently. So we couldn't go the beach, but we got to an overlook in Santa Monica so we were able to look out over the water on that sad, cloudy day. But it was my first time seeing the LA beach (does Malibu count?)

5. Sweet Harts - Last and definitely least, our visit to Melissa Joan Hart's ice cream and dessert shop was very disappointing. Clarissa Explains It All and Sabrina the Teenage Witch were awesome shows, so we expected that her attempt at a dessert shop would be awesome. Nope. It was in a sad area of Sherman Oaks (a suburb of greater LA) and the inside was sort of dirty, as if it was just overused and undercleaned. And the fro-yo wasn't that great. Sigh.

Anyway, it was fun just hanging out and playing board games and watching TV and eating food. All things we do well.

Girl Scouts

I found this on my coworker's facebook page and I just had to share. Disclaimer: Girl Scouts are awesome and as a former/current Girl Scout, I know this isn't necessary -- the cookies sell themselves =)

Garage Sales and Art Fairs

So with the hubby occupied, I had a chance to do a lot of stuff I like to do that he dislikes. Well maybe not dislikes but is apathetic to.

During my run yesterday, I saw a sign advertising a neighborhood yard sale, so after eating breakfast and unsuccessfully waiting for the heating guy to show up, I drove over to the garage sale. I figured that given the garage sales was in Santa Monica and advertised "Designer Clothes," I would get a good selection of furniture and jewelry to choose from.

On the way, I saw 2 or 3 other garage sales that I stopped and took a look at. I was tempted to buy an antique end table/credenza thing but I was scared to commit to furniture before I had figured out how I want to decorate our place. When I finally got to the advertised one, it was only three families' worth of stuff -- not as big as I had hoped, but I got a few good things there. I got 3 comic books for the husband's collection, a 1940's wind-up pocket watch, 2 cameo brooches, and a cameo locket for $15. Oh, and "Angela's Ashes" in almost brand new condition for $1. Not bad, I think (pictures below). I'm going to try to make one of the brooches into a pendant, since I've been wanting a cameo necklace for quite a while.



I also went to a local art fair this morning down the street and picked up a pair of silver earrings for $12. I think I need more subdued earrings since I lot of what I have right now was picked up at The Icing and is huge, dangly, and full of sparkly colored stones -- not really work appropriate.


Now that the weather is getting better, I'm hoping to check out more garage sales and maybe get some antique-y furniture for our place.

Ups and downs at work

Thursday was a really long day that really had its ups and downs. It started at 3:30 when I got up to catch a 6 am flight to SF. I got to the airport just after 4:30, so I had plenty of time before the flight. But the plane didn't leave until 9 am, so I missed coffee with a coworker, I couldn't print out packets for the client meeting, and I couldn't practice my presentation out loud. And I was really sleepy since I had planned to take a nap from 6-7 while on the plane.

After finally landed in SF, things got better for a little while -- the client meeting went really well -- but spiraled downwards as we got stuck in crazy traffic on the way back to the office. A car hit some power lines and so they closed all the lanes going north, and some of the lanes going south as we were. And since I had to take the same freeway north to get to the airport I was stressing out about how to get back to the airport to fly home that night. My coworker was nice enough to drive me to the BART station so I could take the train one stop to the airport, and as she dropped me off, she recommended that I go to the airport and have a drink, which I promptly did. But since I hadn't really had much of a lunch, the wine hit me pretty hard and after half a glass I was getting tipsy and sleepy. Totally unacceptable -- I really need to build my tolerance back up.

I finally got home and got into bed around 11 pm, and I'm still recovering from that really long day. I know I wasn't working most of the time since I was sleeping or reading a magazine on the plane, but it was just a lot of travel and stress and being awake. I'm looking forward to recuperating this weekend.

P.S. It turns out those downed power lines were actually phone lines. Better safe than sorry, but still, it completely shut down a major freeway for like 4 hours.

Springtime outfit

The high in LA yesterday was about 80, and it was sunny, so I took advantage of the warm weather to usher in spring with a spring-y outfit. I pulled out my only spring-y dress and tried to figure out how to wear it. I was going to find a navy sweater since it would match, but I took a step outside my comfort zone and picked the pinky-purple one instead. It actually turned out pretty well I think -- the colors went together better than I expected. I also put on a really feminine white belt to pull it all together. Pretty good outfit, if I don't mind saying so myself =)


On another note, I finally got rid of my blush, which I've had for almost 14 years. I got it as a present in 8th grade for my awkward Indian ceremony (when I got my period). Yes, there really is a ceremony when that happens, and yes, it's really embarassing. One of my mom's friends who came had two sons that I went to school with, and one was in my grade. That was excruciatingly embarassing. Luckily the sons didn't come but still, they probably knew what the ceremony was for. Ugh.