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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Celebrating Christmas - Pug Style

My lil pug celebrated Christmas this year, pug style.  This means she started it with a sleepy, lazy morning.  I had to drag her out with promises of Santa Claus.  Do you see how high her bunny arms are?
Unhappy that I dragged her out of the bed so early, she followed it up with some sleepy sunbathing.
Then she admired a new pug phone case.
And my lil nephew helped wrap up my lil pug.
And she renewed her love for the bunny.
So much so, that I gifted her a brand spankin' new bunny!
Then she admired my snowball cookies.
And begged for some.
And looked pathetically sad when I refused to give her any.
And then she finally gave up and went back to the bunny love.  I swear I did not place her bunnies like this.  She arranged this herself and then passed out.
Close-up.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas! (Random Treats and NOTD)

My friend, Fritillaria, sent me these cute and delicious red velvet pirate cake pops for Christmas!
Don't worry - despite my lil pug's sniffing and begging, I did not let her have any of the cake pop!

And in the holiday spirit I decided to do Christmas-themed nails.

On my toenails I alternated Essie's Size Matters and School of Hard Rocks (2 coats, plus base and top coats).  I made a huge mess of my right big toe, but I didn't care enough to clean it up afterwards since it's winter and my feet are not really being exposed much.  Besides, since I've started running regularly, I think there are worse things about my feet now to distract the eye.  Dang I still have a flip flop tan line!  My skin holds onto tan lines fo eva.
On my fingernails I painted Size Matters on my ring fingers and School of Hard Rocks on the rest of them.  I then topped them off with a coat of OPI's Good Tidings We Bling.  I then topped it off with a coat of Essie's Good To Go top coat just to seal everything in with a quick drying top coat.
Even though I feel a bit dorky for having matched my NOTD with the holidays, I can only do this once a year so I figured I might as well go full out.  Red and green, plus glittah!  I would've liked a brighter and more true green, but I just used whatever colors I had handy.

I was tasked with making more snowball cookies for Christmas, not by my niece and nephew, but by my mom!  She kept asking if I was going to make them for my niece and nephew and I kept saying probably not.  Then today she finally admitted that she wanted them!  Unfortunately, I realized too late that I didn't have enough butter (dang those cookies use a lot of butter), so instead I made the coconut toffee bars.  I love these things.

I've already eaten 4.  Argh, must stop!

Now it's time to sleep and get ready for Christmas tomorrow.  My lil pug is quite sleepy despite having slept all day.
And in case you wanted a close-up...
When my lil pug wants me to nap with her or go to sleep at the end of the night, she makes it clear.  See?  Look at that face and posture in the pic below!  This is her way of saying, "I am so tired my tongue is sticking out and I can't sit up straight.  Don't I look sad, pathetic, and adorable?  Come, join me and snooze with me! Pfft..."
I should go to sleep now anyways.  It's already Christmas technically and my computer is trying to tell me to log off since it's all of a sudden moving super slowly and acting buggy (my hard drive is starting to run out of space).

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Best Xmas Gift Ever!

So today I received a mysterious package and opened it only to discover that I had opened my sister's Christmas gift to me early.  Oops!  This is probably the best surprise Christmas gift I've ever gotten.  So without further ado...the pictures:
How awesome is this?!!  The picture quality is really good too.  I was shocked at the clearness of the photo considering how much it's zoomed in.  I of course had to whoop out the koala hat again for these photos, and my lil pug was so not pleased.  She really hates that hat.  I can't wait to hang this up!  What a great and surprising Christmas gift!

New "Friends" at Work

So I set up my mini marimo and my cactus zen garden in my office today and I love them!!  The sand in the zen garden is super duper fine so it kinda got everywhere but it's great for drawing in.  And my mini marimo is so cute and small!  Love them!
One coworker thought I had a fish in there at first and then I felt kinda silly explaining it was a moss ball floating around in there.  Now I just hope I don't kill them, because I'm so bad with plants!  Stay alive lil Henry and cactus!

Monday, December 19, 2011

New and Great Etsy Finds!

I introduced you to my new "pet" marimo moss ball here and I loved him so much I got more!  I named my big marimo ball Henry and I greet him each morning with a few good rolls around his jar.  He's so green and fluffy, I think he's very happy in his new home!

So anyways, I ordered a few mini marimo keychains for my niece, my nephew, and myself!  I chose the green one since I got the blue one for my nephew and the purple one for my niece.  The colors are supposed to be birthstone-related but I just chose whatever colors I thought we'd each like best.

My pug's first meeting with her new buddy.  She wasn't too interested at first.
Aw isn't mini Henry so cute?  I love that I can carry him around with me.  
You're supposed to change the water every 7-10 days.
Come on, don't you want to bond with mini Henry?
That's good - give him an intro sniff.
HEY STOP!  Don't lick mini Henry!
Ack!  Stop, stop!
Don't try to avoid eye contact and look innocent!  You know what you did wrong.
I also got a medium sized marimo ball that I'll bring to my office tomorrow.  I call this one lil Henry.  Isn't he cute too?
Anyways, these wonderful marimo balls come complete with vases/bowls and rocks to put at the bottom.  The etsy seller also has other plants and zen gardens.  I love everything in her store and ended up buying a zen garden for my office too!  I imagine I'll be drawing stuff in the sand during long and boring conference calls.  The etsy seller is Wendiland (link here) and she's great with quick communications and super fast shipping.  Awesome - highly recommend!

I also have another great find from etsy!  My friend Fritillaria and I always do themed Christmas gift exchanges.  One year it was food, another it was creatures of the sea, and another was unusual/rare makeup. This year we did a fun and random things from etsy theme with the only restriction being a price cap.  One of the things I gave her were these adorable hand warmers made of wool sewn together with rice inside.  You heat them up in the microwave for 25 seconds and stick them in your pockets to keep your hands warm.  

I ended up getting a pair for myself because my hands get so cold when I walk my pug in the winter nights.  I tried them out and they are awesome!!  They keep my hands nice and warm during the short walks and having grown up in a Korean household, there's something comforting about the smell of warm rice.

She has plain rectangular ones, but I love these heart shaped ones since they fit in the palm of my hands so comfortably.  Again my pug looks solemn in the background. 
The heart shaped ones come in various colors.  The one I got for my friend and myself is red on one side and dark green on the other.  But they also come with a gray back like pictured below.
These are sold by etsy seller WormeWoole (link here) and the seller is also great with communication and fast shipping.
In fact, I loved them so much I bought a bunch and plan to give them to my family as small stocking stuffer gifts.  I think my parents especially will love these since they are always so cold (I guess a couple decades of living in southern CA permanently affects your core body temperature and ability to handle cold).
Sometimes I feel inundated with random stuff on Etsy, some good and some bad, and it takes quite a bit of digging or a clear idea of what you want to find the good.  But when you do find the good, it's soooo exciting and satisfying.  I am definitely putting my marimo balls and heart hand warmers in the good category!

NOTD - Essie's Smokin Hot

I haven't done a NOTD recently because I haven't bought any new polishes and after my vacation I decided to give my nails a breather since I've been painting them nonstop for a while now.  But with this cold weather, I wanted to do a dark color and so I whooped out Essie's Smokin Hot.  I love this color!  It's a deep and dusty purple with hints of gray.  It's like the dark purple version of Chinchilly and Cocktail Bling.  It has that same grey undertone and is just super flattering for my skin tone.  I think I'll be wearing this one a lot this winter. 
Why is my pug looking so solemn in the background? 
 
In certain lighting it looks almost black.  It was super easy to put on and went on very smoothly.  I'm a bit out of practice though so my cuticles are a little messy but if I'd been more careful or had the time to clean it up afterwards it would look more polished.  This is with Essie's base and top coats and 2 coats of Smokin Hot in between.  I've read that this polish can be hard to find and that some people sell it on Ebay for crazy amounts, but I was able to find this easily at Ulta recently although I'm not sure if it's always available there.

Friday, December 16, 2011

A New Pet! (kinda)

I got a new "pet" today!  Sunny is pretty ambivalent about it.  Probably because it's not an animal but is actually a marimo ball in a glass jar.
I stumbled across this on Etsy and have wanted one for a while.  I thought I might keep it in my office, but now I'm thinking I'll keep it at home.  You know, to keep my pug company during the day...

I do enjoy pushing him around.  In my mind, my marimo ball is a he.  No rhyme or reason to my way of thinking sometimes.  I had to change the water a few times at first since he was a little dirty and the water got cloudy.  But after a few rinses and rolling around he got really big and fluffy.  I think I made him happy with my poking and rolling.
I tried getting a photo with my pug but she was only interested in the treat in my hand.  And it was really hard to get her attention focused on the marimo ball without putting my hand near the glass jar but then my hand would be in the photo.
She did sniff it briefly every now and then but she moves too fast!
Another attempt...
And a few outtakes...