alphabeat

i miss food

i've been hungry for the past four days. i mean, ravenous. i had two wisdom teeth pulled and one cavity filled on wednesday and i haven't been able to eat anything but smoothies, jello, and pudding. normally i enjoy a tasty smoothie, the occasional jello, and rarely pudding but having it day-in and day-out is just plain maddening.

makes me reflect on last weekend's tour de food. i knew my dentist visit was coming so i wanted to spend my birthday weekend eating all the foods i love.

first i had islands on the tuesday before my bday with my old co-workers. did you know that they have endless fries/onion rings just like red robin?? fantastic! it was a toss up between their china coast salad and their hula burger. not wanting to be offensively racist i went with the hula. mm, i love me a good burger. no pictures unfortunately.

on saturday i had lunch with my parents at my most favorite chinese food place called peking restaurant in westminster on westminster ave. and newland. we go here every year for my birthday. we had dumplings, beef noodle soup with homemade noodles, and some chinese veggie i have no idea what it's called. delish. no pictures again.

dinner was with one of my closest friends randy, whom i've known since 7th grade. we went to my favorite shabu shabu place called california shabu shabu in fountain valley (woot!) on brookhurst and garfield. great customer service and the best shabu i've had in OC. see above.

sunday was the U2 concert which was food for the soul. 'nuff said.

top it off with chili's on monday night with the monday crew and their two 3-course dinners for $20. whoa! blow-you-mind kind of a deal and of course i had CFS (chicken fried steak) which is killer at chili's. remembered we should've taken a picture while walking out.

sigh, so i'm starved and i'm realizing that i'm terrible at remembering to take pictures.

as chuck would say, "life-changing"

yesterday i had the awesome chance to see U2 live in concert at the rose bowl stadium. streaming live on youtube, black eye peas opening, dvd filming, and their last concert for 2009.

vertigo tour was amazing and that was in 2005-2006. no line on the horizon was the longest they had taken to release another album and i felt nervous coming into this concert.

how would it hold up to past U2 concerts? would it just seem like deja vu and nothing new from the vertigo tour? would it be worth all the physical pain of standing for nearly 12 hours? yes it was.

the staging was simply amazing. the stage itself had so many moving parts and just when you thought you had seen all it could do it would do this:

the 360 degree screen webbed down and into this beautiful light show

my point-and-shoot seemed to have a hard time with taking shots because of the moving targets, stage lights, and frequent moving hands in front of the lens. haha, i was a little sad because all for members of U2 were so close to us but i did get a few good shots.

thanks chuck for having a ticket for me! life-changing!

he's a keeper!

at work i get a lot of boxes and packages in the mail. none of them are for me because i order a lot of things online for my boss.

today i got a box and this time it was really for me. when i opened it up i saw these lovelies. i couldn't help but keep saying, "aww!!"

mark surprised me with flowers at work and it was the sweetest thing. thanks for making my day - you're the best, sweetie!

thanks!

tuesday night some of my old co-workers from valley day preschool took me out for an early birthday dinner at island's. it was organized my good friend, mrs. stowell who i LOVE and am so grateful to know. she and her family are my favorite thursday night hang out partners...cutest grandkids EVER.

everyone wasn't able to come to the dinner but the staff sent a card to the dinner signed by everyone. it's been a year since i stopped working there but they were so sweet to remember me. it was such a nice surprise.

i wanted to drop off a special 'thank you' card to the preschool and mrs. stowell so i got to working. of course i used stuff from work. something nice about mrs. stowell's card is that the flower is removable so she can recycle the flower and use it on a gift or whatever. i learned how to make the flower from my boss and you can learn too by checking her blog here.

etsy: an obsession, part two

every morning before i hit the ground running i trawl around various sites and blogs to fill my mind with beauty and loveliness before it gets bombarded with deadlines, shipping forms, emails, and running up and down stairways.

aren't these too cute? i saw them on this blog that i love and they're on this etsy site.

man, i could picture a whole animal kingdom on a future window sill with these little guys. i think it's important to appreciate craftsmanship and beauty in all it's forms whether is in a handmade clay vessel, nature, automobile, hamburger.

i read this quote recently, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit." --Aristotle.

i really stuck with me because a lot of times i can be a perfectionist to a fault. but i don't know that perfection and excellence are necessarily the same thing. one seems contingent on a moment in time whereas one seems more like a process. one seems defined by the omission of flaws and mistakes and the other seems to be defined by how we learn and grow from those flaw and mistakes.

i think i'll take a lesson from bill and ted, be "excellent!"

haunted house

here's another card that is for a co-worker whose birthday is october 31st! birthdays that fall on holidays generally suck but if my birthday had to fall on a holiday i think i'd choose halloween for sure. so fun!

the house was made out of paper from my work and all the co-workers wrote their birthday wishes on strips of fun paper that were attached to the inside of the house that dangle whimsically when the roof of the house is lifted up.

the day after...

i should've known it.

literally the day after our wonderful beach day, up until this very day, and thus forth until "no end in sight" we have been slammed in the face, fall to the floor, slap your mother silly, swamped with work.

so in times like this i like to look at some pictures that help me have a brief but much needed smile.

just another day at the office

today was a hard day. we had to drive to san clemente to have a bbq and find sea glass on the sand. i'm exhausted.

my job rocks, i won't lie. today was so awesome...our managers treated the art department to a day of fun in the sun and amazing food. our dept has been working really hard all summer and it's difficult to force creativity on the fly without times like this to recharge and have a little fun. renée encouraged us to spend time sketching but i couldn't help but walk up and down the shore. the beach was so beautiful....a perfect day.

we went to a beach house right along the shore of san clemente beach. it was crazy how close to the water it was. i found my first piece of sea glass and i also got soaked from the waist down during high tide. it's called that for good reason i discovered! i had to throw my pants in the dryer and walk around with a towel around my waist to cover my chonies (underwear) hahaha it was legendary.

life is a blessing and i'm grateful for days like this. i don't normally feel this way but today i love the beach.