Beverly gets groomed after her bath

Awwww she's so well behaved!

Home Improvements

JT and I busted our asses this weekend fixing up our house. John has been working on the front yard for quite some time, and I must say it looks REALLY awesome right now.

I think once he gets really into something, he can get quite obsessed with making it perfect. This is a trait we share...

I woke up Sunday morning and found him outside fixing our NEIGHBOR's lawn. HAHAHA The part that connected our lawn to their lawn was a drastic difference... Our lawn is really nice, well kept, and healthy. Their area was dirt, rocks and weeds. So he got frustrated with it. hahaha... funny thing is, the neighbor from across the street saw he was doing this and offered to lend him a heavy duty weed pulling tool. HAHA I guess we're not the only ones annoyed of that house.

So my big project of the weekend was the fireplace. It had been bugging me for quite some time, and I finally got around to painting it. =) Here are the pix:

Before:


After:


So not only did I paint the fireplace white, I also cleaned all the nasty soot from the red brick fireplace and restored it's vibrant brick red color. Thanks to the internet, I did some research and came up with my own three step process:

1) Get a bucket of water and rags or a sponge and clean off the area as much as you can.

2) A lot of the soot gets stuck in the brick, so take a foaming bathtub cleaner and spray the areas with soot. let is sit for a while as you will see the soot in the foam. Wipe away with water and sponge.

3) Most of the soot should come off by now, but if not, this last step should take care of it. Wipe down all the bricks with a cloth dipped in household vinegar. The bricks will start to look brighter. Then get a clean bucket of water and wipe once more after you let it sit for a little bit.

I got pretty obsessed and spent almost all of Sunday by that fireplace...painting, washing, and vacuuming. So I ended up with bruised knees =(. But it was worth it!!

We also finally finished up painting the stairwell hallway, and JT also painted a wall in the garage.

Jason and proud dad of lawyer

Jason n me after he is officially sworn in

Happy Thanksgiving!

I went down to LA for thanksgiving and had a blast. It was my third Thanksgiving at the Tso's, but my very first as PART of the family. =) It's definitely starting to feel a lot more comfortable for me, although I am still not used to calling my new in-laws 'mom' and 'dad' or (in chinese)'mama' and 'baba'. Everyone in JT's family is so relaxed and chill so it's quite easy to fit right in.

For Turkey day, I made two side dishes - Recipes I got from Food Network.
Ultimate Potato Gratin by Tyler Florence


and a squash/zucchini casserole recipe my friend han had made before for a southern-style cookout. It was delicious!

I got a lot of positive reviews on my yummy, but fatty American style dishes. So JT's dad jokingly challenged me to cook some Chinese food next time. Little does he know, yummy chinese food is my SPECIALTY!! I'm now kinda glad I didn't pull out all the stops in attempting to impress JT's parents before getting married - because NOW I still have some tricks up my sleeve. muhahaha

It's also nice to know I am appreciated as I am at a comfortable state. Life can get tiring if you're always trying to be on top of things and pleasing everyone all the time. That's how you burn out.

So anyway, I did a ton of shopping and the highlight was I ended up with *Gasp* four new pairs of boots. But honestly, they were MUCH needed! I realized all my main boots are either cracked or totally old and messed up. So I thought...It's about time I treat myself to some nice stuff eh!? Isn't that part of the reason why I work so hard?!

So I got a pair of really cute cream and tan colored Charles David boots, a pair of comfy tan Nine West boots, some black sketchers, and these cute brown jessica Simpson Boots:



So I think I'm all set in the boots department for the next like.. 5 years (I hope). AHAHAH (no, I'm not one of those people who say "OMG that's SO outta season!") If I like it, I'll wear it till it breaks!

What else? I got some cute tops and sweaters, and a skirt. Honestly, I think Los Angeles has way more fashionable stuff than up north.

It was nice hanging with Margaret, Sherry n David, Marcus, etc. Gotta plan some more get togethers.

YES WE CAN! =)

Working from Home

So I decided to work from home today… no, not “work from home” like some people.. but actually WORK from home because my list of things to do at work has been building up, and it’s sometimes so hard to focus and get things done with constant distractions at work. People interrupting your train of thought, meetings interrupting a nice work session, lunch breaks, coffee breaks… etc. etc.

So I decided today would be the perfect day to work from home, since I have no meetings scheduled ALL day for once. It was all going so well, and then 3:15, my MOM shows up at my door out of nowhere. It’s like she has some kind of sixth sense for when I’m around. Either that or maybe she comes over a lot when nobody’s home?! I wouldn’t put that beyond her.

Ya, she didn’t even know I was wfh, so she just shows up randomly with her key to drop food off… and then she was EXTRA excited and happy to see me. So of course this made me feel kinda bad to be thinking “What the heck!? Great.. now my peaceful wfh day is ruined!”

So I try to be nice… She comes in with this glow on her face saying in chinese, “Today’s my day off too! Let’s hang out!” I give her my annoyed, “MOM, I’m working…” Then she does her whole “oh, don’t mind me then, I’ll just hang out and help you tidy up around the house.”

And what am I supposed to say? I can’t kick her out of my house after she was so thrilled to see me. So I just continue with the document I was working on, and then she interrupts, “hey so how often do you work from home!? We should coordinate”… I’m like “not often”… and then “hey show me how to work your laundry machine I’ll help you do your laundry”…

“MOM.. I’m in the middle of writing something!! And no thanks, I’ll do my own laundry!!”

Waaah.

So she then says, “ok, I’ll hang out downstairs then…” in the nicest way possible which now makes me feel extra guilty for snapping at her. O mommy, I know she loves me so…

Time for a coffee break?

Back from my break =)

After exhausting all my after-work creative energy on wedding planning for the last year (yea, seriously), I decided after coming back from our honeymoon, that I'd give myself a break. This break consisted of two straight months of vegging out in front of the TV after work, watching smut reality television, and *dun dun* Law & Order. O dear. When I started getting repeated nightmares of rapists and murderers mixed with melodramatic potential BFFs of Paris Hilton -- I knew it was time to draw the line.

Over the weekend, JT helped me shift my desk. Sometimes, I find that rearranging furniture really helps to give you a fresh start. I felt extra motivated and ended up reorganizing my whole work station.

I have a couple of fun pet-projects in the pipeline and I really hope they end up working out. I've also started going to castings again, which I hope will get me motivated to get back in shape. Married life has been extremely awesome and comfortable, but I don't want to get too comfy!

From the wise words of one of my good girlfriends about getting married: "Don't let yourself go & don't stop shaving your legs"

So here I am blogging about it -- in a way it's to help keep myself accountable. It's time to get back in action, and live to tell about it.

Paris

Paris, originally uploaded by Sandswirl26.

John looking up at Notre Dame

Paris

Paris
Originally uploaded by Sandswirl26

Check out our Honey Moon in Paris!

What's new with me?

Lots been going on - and I've just been trying to keep up with all the changes that are going on in my life.

This blog will be dedicated to my many countdowns...

5 days until my bachelorette party in Vegas ! woohoo
15 days until my brother Jason's 28th bday
20 days until a nice mini get-away to Monterey with JT (a gift from my bro - thanks Jason!)
33 days until John's 30th birthday!!
34 days until Raging Waters!
41 days until Spa Day with dear friends and weekend of crazy wedding assembly
47 days until the wedding rehearsal/rehearsal dinner
48 days until I am a married woman!!!
51 days until I head out to PARIS!

Taiwan Jewelry Ad

Taiwan Jewelry Ad
Originally uploaded by Sandswirl26

LOL - my mom looks good~ I look cheesy. gotta work on that smile damnit. lol jk.

good to be home...

I just got back home yesterday - and I have to tell ya, driving to work this morning to my familiar beats was extremely enjoyable. =) Is it crazy to say I'm happy to be back at work in San Jose? It was great to see JT's face again!!! =) - we barely had a chance to talk while I was away because of the time difference and because I was so busy. Lucky for me, he's not still mad over it =P sorry babe!

It's so good to be home, though I'm not exactly done traveling yet. JT and I are flying in to Seattle tomorrow morn to visit Em and Ryan =) yay. I'm very excited about that. Until I get back - my blog will be a bit backed up. But I still have a lot to share about the rest of my India trip, and then Shanghai. Shanghai was aweeesooome btw =) so anyway, stay tuned - and I will have lotsa pix to post too.

-s

Day Two in Chennai

The work days were long, with giving presentations in the mornings and holding workshops in the afternoon -- but it was very rewarding, because they were all really involved and interested in what we were talking about. We all had a lot of fun with the projects and group activities.

After work, our driver would take us around to go sight seeing. Pete had been in Chennai before so it was more like him showing me around. We went to Mahabalipuram where there's this giant rock called the butter ball, and a lot of temples and carvings. There were goats and cows roaming freely (like everywhere) but also had monkeys. I didn't get to see any monkeys close up, but last time Pete was there, the monkeys were everywhere.

On Tuesday night, i had another 'malaria pill' episode. It was horrrrriiible!! I seriously hallucinated. I was getting all paranoid in my sleep that i was being attacked by mosquitoes... so I kept swatting at my face - and then i opened my eyes and saw a GIANT hummingbird-sized green mosquito, that kinda looked like a cartoon. I kept blinking my eyes to make sure i was seeing it properly hovering towards the back end of the room. Then it all of a sudden flew at me really fast and i screamed and covered my head with the blankets. I had to sleep like that for the rest of the night - all throughout my hot and cold flashes. After that, I decided in the morning that i would not continue taking those crazy pills.

The Paranoia

I was already really paranoid about India before coming because of all the warnings I got from friends, the travel nurse, my manager, etc about being careful about the water, ice, food, being robbed or cheated, the mosquitoes, getting sick etc. So it didn’t help that the malaria pills heightened my paranoia.

Pete and I were talking about how one of our co-workers got really sick the last time she was in India, and I had to be hospitalized.

They say: “If you wait until someone tells you that you look really sick, it’s usually too late.” Haha . we laughed about it, but then later on that day I started feeling REALLY sick.

So after our first day of presentations and training, we went straight back to the hotel, take some cold medicine and take a nap. I was getting major hot and cold chills, so I decided to put a sweatshirt on. Halfway through my nap, my temperature got really high, so I was kinda sweating it out I guess. I forgot to put the ‘do not disturb sign” up so the maid entered my room.

When I woke up, I experienced some weird vivid dream, where I felt really disoriented and thought I was in a cave. I yelled down the cave “HELLLOOO??” in a very frantic manner. The maid rushed in and looked at me and said “OH MY GOSH you look sooo SICK! Should I call the doctor madame!?”

It was almost funny that she said that… since just earlier that day, Pete and I were laughing about how it’s too late when someone sees that you look sick. LOL. I said "no thanks, I think I'll be ok" and that’s when I thought to myself ... hmm, I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if I died...I mean.. I've lived a pretty eventful life, have really lived it up, worked hard... accomplished a lot, loved and loved ... seriously I have no regrets.

But even then, I think it was the malaria pills talking.

The maid stuck around for a while in the room, i guess just to make sure I was going to be ok. Eventually the facade of the cave went away and I realized where I was again.

Singapore to Chennai…

I was so happy to see Pete at the terminal. The smile on his face immediately revealed that he had experienced a completely different mini-vacation than I had. We were both given the option to take a few days off before our India trip, and he had chosen to go surfing in Bali. Here I was, all hung over and exhausted from my action packed time in HK… and Pete comes sunburned, smiling ear to ear, with such a refreshed and glowing aura. Ahhh I became green with envy all over again as he shared all the lovely pictures of the beautiful scenery… hahaha.

Anyhow, believe it or not, I was really excited to get to work in Chennai.

HK the steep hill and uneven roads

I totally packed the wrong shoes. I didn't know HK was gonna be one big slope. I wore heels on the first day and it was kind of a disaster - so I stuck with flip flops for the rest of the stay there. haha.

On the first night I was in HK, my bro's friend Eddy took me to the LKF area where we ate and got a few drinks... just a really chill night. On the way back there was some plastic on the ground that Eddy kicked in front of me and I slipped and fell pretty hard. My elbow was bleeding and I got a huge bruise on my knee so I had to wear pants for the rest of the time there even though it was super hot. I didn't realize until later, but the jeans I wore that day had ripped too!!! My $250 jeans!!! NOoooo!! owell. lesson learned.. no more high heels in hk - dunno how some people do it.

Hong Kong Models

We were going to check out this place called Dragon-I on Wednesday since it was their ‘model night’ which would be pretty interested to see…but ended up just having some drinks at a nearby bar.

But on Saturday night, my friend Patrick took us to a pool hall called RACKS which was swarming with models. Honestly some of the girls were so beautiful that I couldn’t stop staring hahaha. To quote Raylene, “They HAVE to be models because they’re just too pretty to be doing anything else.” Hahahaha.

I actually know a girl who came to model in Hong Kong (now she’s modeling in Singapore) … the lifestyle is so interesting to hear about…they’re put up in an apartment with bunk beds with other models, basically like in the movie zoolander. And they’re given an allowance of basically a hundred bucks a week, just to get by – and they go on castings until the book jobs, and when the do book jobs, they have to pay the allowances back. Then they have the party scene… here’s an excerpt from her blog:

the thing i like the most here though is one of the clubs out here. everyone who's a model goes there. why? well...in order to keep the place poppin they figured that they should have models around all the time. so the way that they attract us is by allowing to get in free all the time as long as we call ahead of time (normally it's $300 HK just to get in...that's about $50 US dollars i believe). once inside they then sit us down along with other models so we can socialize. then...once situated they ask us what kind of four course meal would we like. we get to choose our own appetizers (salads, soybeans, miso soup) our own sides (sushi, green beans, etc), then our on entrees (sweet and sour pork, sauteed chicken, broccoli, chow mein). i love it. then....after the dinner they pull away our tables to make room for a bigger dance floor. turn on some music then bring out the alcohol. they reserve a table for all of us models and and use it to give us an endless amount alcohol (red and white wine, vodka, some dark kind, and pitchers of red bull and many different juices). it's great.

Hong Kong part 1

So, although I’m just traveling to India and Shanghai for work – my manager suggested I could take a couple days off work and check out HK on my way. Best idea ever! I have never been to Hong Kong, or India, or Shanghai… I’ve never been much of a traveler because I’ve always had jobs that kinda locked me down. I never did the backpacking thing or the study abroad thing… other than family Taiwan trips, the furthest I’ve gone on my own is Toronto. So yeah, this is much much more to me than just a special treat.

My days in Hong Kong were really eventful… It was pretty surprising to see how many people are out and about on a Wednesday night. People in HK sure know how to enjoy life. My first night there was really chill. It was nice to just kinda hang out, have a couple drinks and soak in the atmosphere. My brother’s friend Eddy is temporarily living out there, and it was really nice of him to let me stay at his place even though he was going to Taiwan for the weekend. Very nice pad he has… they have these things in HK called serviced apartments. Every afternoon the maid would come in and clean – so it’s sorta like a hotel but more homey.

My buddy Justin was also visiting HK at the same time, so it was awesome to have him here and hang out.

I spent the first day checking out the city alone, wandering around, taking pix with my spiffy Canon EOS 5d. I went up the peak tram and took pics of the city. SOOO beautiful. I went shopping, of course.

Justin got in on Thursday night, and Eddy’s friend took us to this “members only” restaurant that was REALLY good. We went to his bar and drank a ton of wine, and then went back to the LKF area to check out some clubs. Thurs night was sooooo fun! It wasn’t too crowded and the music was awesome. It was one of the drunk buzzes that made everything feel a little bit too perfect and surreal. I will elaborate further on that thought in a sec…

Singapore Airlines and Singapore Airport

this was written on 5/7 while I was at the airport:

The food court was bustling with all sorts people and noisy chatter – mainly in Chinese and English so it didn’t feel too foreign to me. Kind of felt like I was in one of those Chinese food courts in LA.

What did feel foreign to me was the feeling of being alone. Being at the airport lugging around my cart full of luggage and buying food to eat by myself made me realize how much I miss JT already. I’ll have to admit, I didn’t have a chance to miss him much while I was enjoying my nice comfy business class airplane ride. I was sleeping like a baby in my little capsule, and ate the best airplane food I’ve ever had.

A lady caught my attention from the Taiwanese food stand in the food court as I passed by. I ordered what JT would have ordered. It’s what he likes to call “five meat rice” hahahaa. It’s not really five meats, but it SOUNDS like that in Chinese when he mispronounces it. So that’s what he thought it was called. His Chinese is so funny sometimes…anyways….

Back to Singapore. I ate my five meat rice, and watched people as they passed by. Only a few more hours and I will be headed to HK!

prelude: btw, I'm on meds...

A week before departing to my first destination, I had to pay a visit to the travel nurse at Kaiser to get all my vaccinations. Basically, she printed out my itinerary (SF -> Singapore -> HK -> India -> Shanghai), and then printed out a bunch of packets on diseases you can get while traveling to each location.

Pretty much every disease ended with something along the lines of "and you could die from it..." I don't know if part of the objective was to freak me out, but it did. So I ended up getting 3 shots: tetanus, polio, hepatitis A, and also had to pick up some prescription malaria pills.

O the malaria pills =/ After going through a whirlwind of physical and emotional chaos this past week, I decided to do some extra research, and found out I was prescribed the worst kind of malaria pill out there: Mefloquine!

Here are some of the side-effects:

Mefloquine may have severe and permanent adverse side-effects. It is known to cause severe depression, anxiety, paranoia, nightmares, insomnia, seizures, peripheral motor-sensory neuropathy,[2] vestibular (balance) damage and central nervous system problems. For a complete list of adverse physical and psychological effects — including suicidal ideation — see the most recent product information. Central nervous system events occur in up to 25% of people taking Lariam, such as dizziness, headache, insomnia, and vivid dreams

and they failed to mention that there are other medicines with less risk of severe side-effects and which are equally effective for malaria prevention are available like Malarone and doxycycline... the daily ones that my colleague is taking.

Damn you kaiser!

She definitely didn't mention the suicidal part, so I actually didn't read about that until this morning -- and I have to admit that the thought weirdly crossed my mind yesterday when i was breaking out in my hot and cold sweats... in a very non-melodramatic way like oh... I guess I wouldn't be too upset if I died today.

Anyway, sorry if this entry is getting a little too creepy in any way, I promise you I am feeling more than fine right now and I don't want people to get the impression that I'm going crazy, cuz I'm not. I am definitely still having a VERY positive experience here. Work is going REALLY well, and really the only time I feel it is generally when I'm alone at night.

It's a weekly pill, and I'm supposed to take my next one today. Should I? Do I take my chances with malaria and death... or do I continue on in feeling all messed up inside? it's a toughie...

So the blogging begins...

As most of you know, I am traveling in Asia this month.

I've been trying to keep up with emails here and there to update ppl on my whereabouts and experiences, but finally decided I should really share what's going on in my blog. I really should document all this... so here we go. =)

Hong Kong

The Peak Tram
Originally uploaded by Sandswirl26

uploaded some pics to my flickr.

citibank ad

citibank ad
Originally uploaded by Sandswirl26

JT n Me on a Citi Bank Ad

Birthday Cake!

cake
Originally uploaded by Sandswirl26

Happy bday to me! pretending to be 22 again ehehehehe.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

My 26th Bday bbq

Be who you are and say what you want because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.

- quote stolen from sherry's facebook =)



I had a blast on my bday. Good friends came out, we cooked up some good food, drank a lot of pineapple infused vodka, munched burnt almond cake, and ran around like psychos (well at least some of us did). =) Others -- like my dear JT, danced around with arms flailing like a monkey (the usual)! haha



Can you believe this is my last bday celebration as a 'single' unmarried woman??? Next year (when I turn 27) I'm going to be Mrs. Wifey Tso! I'll probably have to throw a dinner party with cheese, fois gras, and wine or something! hah, well that actually sounds pretty fun too =)

Anyway, I just wanted to give a huge thank you to all my friends who came out to hang with me =) -- to those who really know how a good time *wink*, and to everyone else who loves 'sandswirl' for the crazy barf-day girl she is.









You can check out the rest of the pics here.

My 99 cent Spring Cleaning Sale!

I spent all last night cleaning out my closet so I can make room for new things. I'm going out of the country soon, and I want to be able to shop till I drop with no reservations.

But the issue is, I have too much stuff in my closet as is... and I don't even use 50% of it ! I know a lot of people out there are just like me. It's just tough to let go of things you like -- but if you're not going to use it, then what's the point?!

After hours and hours of sorting, I finally ended up with two big piles of clothing. One designated for Salvation Army pick-up, and the other for you lucky eBayers out there!

I am setting all starting bids at 99 cents, and am forcing myself to 'let go' =)

Happy Bidding!!

american idol top 8 =)

My top two favs!

David Archuletta - I am such a fan of this cutie patootie!



Jason Castro - he has such an amazing voice..

Back to life...

I am back from my awesome weekend up in Tahoe (pics to come), finally getting better from my flu, and patiently awaiting my favorite tv shows to come back!! =)

If you are a tv-junkie like me... I'm sure you've been wondering.. when are my favorite shows coming back on!?!?

April will be a good month!

Desperate Housewives
6 new episodes (including a two-hour finale) to air beginning April 13.

Gossip Girl
Expected to shoot 5 new episodes to begin airing on April 21.

Grey's Anatomy
Expected to shoot 5 new episodes to air beginning April 24.

Heroes
No new episodes expected until fall.

The Hills
March 24th

Lost
Four pre-strike episodes remain. Expected to shoot 5 additional episodes to air beginning April 24.

Scrubs
Five pre-strike episodes remain and will begin airing on April 10. Up to four additional episodes may be shot; unclear whether they'll air on NBC or go straight to DVD.

A New Name?!

President's Day Weekend

What an action packed weekend!!

Fri night was kooza..

On Saturday -- bridesmaid dress fittings with Sherry n Margaret, dinner with my family for my cousin Russel's bday and belated Chinese New Years... and then we celebrated Roel's bday at Poleng Lounge.

Sunday -- I was able to catch up on some z's... and we got dinner with linda, kelvin, wendy, dom for linpin's bday.

On Monday, I shot a fun and artsy shoot of LinPin in downtown San Jose.!

Check out some pix!

Family Dinner

the whole fam, plus one of my best friends margaret


Ryan, me, and bday boy Russ

Roel's Bday at Poleng Lounge


Happy bday roel!!


The girls


me n my jt


me, sherry, n kat



My big brother!

Photoshoot...


We got Linda's crazy hair n crazy makeup done at the mall hehehehe.. more pix to come.

vday post part #2

GERVAIS in Saratoga was awesome.. My fav was def my entree... It was something I've never had before... a filet mignon with mushroom and spinach around it IN a puff pastry... and sauce around it. Seriously the best combo eVER. It came with potato gratin on the side and some veggies. DELISH.



Last night, we went to KOOZA - which means 'box' in sanskrit. I loved how creative they were with the circus in a box theme...

My Top Five Favorite American Idols!

Yay! It's American Idol season -- I think this season has some of the BEST talent. =) Very exciting. Here are my top 5 favs. I hope they all make it to the top 10!

Ramiele Malubay



David Archuleta


Syesha Mercado



Kady Malloy



Brook White


Who are your favorites???

Happy Valentine's Day!

JT and I had a delicious dinner last night at a French restaurant called Gervais in Saratoga. I will post pix of it later.

~~

JT and I did a TFP (Trade for Prints) engagement/portfolio shoot with Tiny Water Photography a couple months ago... Here are some of my fav shots:


coffee and JT. two of my fav things in the world in one pic! awesome!


That's me enjoying my coffee buzz and love buzz. ahahhaa (corny eh?)


hehehe I love how the little girl is running past. There were a couple of kids running through for fun while we were shooting. Caroline is pretty awesome to have caught the moment so well.


lovely shot!


hahahah JT is such a silly head. I love it!

Unclaimed Money!

So I got a letter from Pettinato & Associates informing me about about some unclaimed cash. I was skeptical about the letter, and decided to look it up online where I found this other blog entry about it... and it turns out, I really do have unclaimed salary/wages from my internship at Grey Global way back in 2004... woohoo. Over a thousand bucks that I didn't know I had.

So I found out you can look up any unclaimed cash or unclaimed property you are entitled to at the California State Treasurer’s website. You can download forms from their site and simply follow their instructions to claim your cash.

Here is the link:
http://www.sco.ca.gov/col/ucp/aboutucp.shtml

Search here: http://scoweb.sco.ca.gov/UCP/

You should definitely check it out! I randomly checked up some of my friends and found out that quite a few people I know also have unclaimed money!

Check it out.

Happy Bday Han Hong!

Happy bday to the one and only Han Hong who beats everyone at ugly dancing. Love ya!


What a dorko!












work it baby, work it!


Han's soulja boy dance. hahaha

More pics can be found on my flickr site.

here comes my second wind...

After sitting around with my unfinished website for nearly two years now -- I finally decided that it's time to get back into the groove of things and really start cranking it out. I had said this many years before -- having a website somehow keeps me grounded, reminds me who I am, where I came from, and where I want to be. It helps me to be much more inclined to hold myself accountable for the things I promise to accomplish.

I guess I stopped updating my site since so much was going on... with my millions of jobs, then traveling, then buying the house and moving, and fixing up the house.... Things are finally starting to get a bit more comfortable...

...but comfortable is not what I'm striving for.. comfort is just what allows me to go and reach out for newer and richer experiences. I just hope that every year can be even more exciting and eventful than the last.

Las Tunas ramen place

Last time JT and I went down to LA, we found a little ramen house on Las Tunas that was sooo yummy.

They had the BEST enoki wrapped in beef..


Here's the view from my side of the table... jt looks 'fierce' ahhaha... I like making him pose for me.


Then I made him switch spots with me so I could get a shot of him looking 'dreamy'


Here's me:


and the yummy red bean mochi dessert we shared