Satin Lei

K is graduating with his MBA one week from today!  To commemorate his three years of going to work early to make it in time to evening classes, meeting for group projects on weekends, and seemingly unending summer sessions, I made him a red satin lei.

This is one of those handmade projects that is not terribly difficult but takes a lot of time and patience.  Good thing I made him such a special lei...we found out a few days ago that K was chosen as the outstanding graduate student for Information Decision Systems (his MBA specialization)...I think he got magna cum laude too!  I'm so proud :)

Here goes my first stab at blogging artsy-craftsy making!  This project only requires satin fabric, scissors, and needle & thread.

1) Cut the satin fabric into 2 inch (or slightly smaller) strips.  Instead of using a ruler, I cut one of my business cards to 2 inches.  Snip the end of the fabric to size, then pull a thread loose from the snip and pull the thread all the way out, creating a guide line of where to cut.  For the entire lei, I used 35 strips of fabric that were 2 inches by roughly 2.5 feet long.

 

 2) Fray the fabric strips using a needle (or your finger nail, though I found using the fingernail hurt the pads of my fingers more) until the fabric left in the center is the width of your finger.

3) Put enough doubled thread on the needle so that the lei would go just above the belly button.  Knot off about 3-5 times and then sew on the frayed fabric strips, doing a running stitch down the center.  When you sew the entire length of the fabric strip, as you squish it down, start twisting the fabric around and around so that the frayed edges create the lei!  That's it :)

Voila!  It took me about 3 weeks to make this one, or the first two rounds of the NBA playoffs.  I also made this easy ribbon lei too.

Productive & Relaxing Weekends are the Best!

This past weekend felt really long because it seemed there was ample time for both productive adventures and R&R!  On Saturday morning, K went on his 12-mile run and I tried out an adult-cirque class at FlipForce (thanks, Groupon!) and I have a new obsession: learning silk aerial/tissu:

Source

It is soooo much fun!  We learned climbing, foot-ties, and a few basic tricks.  But wow, did I feel it in my shoulders and hands the next day!  After our early morning "work outs" we went down the street to Mission Bay to see KK perform with his taiko drumming group. 

Pretty freaking awesome!  High energy, too!!!  K cheered on KK so loudly that I felt a little ringing in my ears.  After that we went to the grand opening at Keys Lavender Farm in north county.  Gosh I love the smell of fresh lavenders!

It was fun to finally play around with the new DSLR camera!  K had to go in to work for a few hours then because of an engi-nerd emergency :)  On Sunday we slept in, got a very nice couples massage and extra scalp massage for K and facial for me at Spa Velia.  We really liked the eucalyptus steam room there.  Next stop, sitting in the sunshine at Mission Bay before dinner...I am really starting to love living so close to the water!

The Randomness of My Life

In my lifetime, a number of very strange, bizarre, and kooky things have happened to me, but this may take the cake.  A couple of months ago, I bought a Buywithme deal for car detailing from an eco-friendly, mobile service.  The structure where I park for work would not allow the mobile detailer to clean my car from the parking garage so I switched cars with K for the day and they spiffy'ed up my car at his work parking lot.  He kept calling me through the day to give me updates on my car.  After they finished up my car, K called me to consult how much to give as a tip and to tell me that they did a great job with the clay bar on the paint.

He also told me this:

• K: "They found an ET in your car."
• Me: "A what?"
• K: "An ET.  A little one."
• Me: "What?!  An alien in my car?"
• K: "No, a little plastic guy.  What was he doing in your car?"
• Me: [utterly bewildered] "What do you mean, they found an ET?"
• K: [gasp of exasperation] "I'll bring him home tonight to show you, but it's a little plastic figurine of ET!"

And there it was.  A tiny plastic ET...exactly as K had described it to me.  I have never seen it before, nor do I know how or why it was wedged in the upholstery of my car.  Before we moved out of our old place, I carefully hid the ET in a little nook of our closet so someone else can have a random moment!

Superbowl Pork Buns

For Superbowl Sunday this year, I decided to try my hand at making Nikuman (Chinese style pork buns) after seeing so many delicious pictures of these pork buns on B's facebook.  The recipe comes from a Japanese cooking show called "Cooking With Dog" which is hosted by a cute little Japanese lady, dubbed over in English by an awkward sounding man, and features a real live poodle named Francis that just sits to the side and oddly enough, never once lurches toward all the food in front of her face.  Note, Asian people should never, ever title anything "cooking with dog" for the obvious double entendre associated with such a phrase!  Never...not even when the dog is helping to cook rather than being cooked (gruesome, yes)...sigh! 

The pork buns were not difficult to make, per se, they were just really, really time consuming for the amount of grubbing you actually got to do afterwards.  I started right after kickoff and I think we had but a mere 8 buns at the 4th quarter.  I am so ghetto that I used a butter knife with a round handle to roll out the dough because I do not own a rolling pin.  Oh well.  They were still quite tasty!

Above: uncooked pork buns ready to go in the steamer!

Below: four steamed buns - moist and flavorful on the inside with doughy goodness on the outside!

Older male attorneys - boo on you!

Why oh why does this opposing counsel (an older male attorney) think it is in any way appropriate to refer to his client as a "young lady" in discovery responses?  She's over 50 years old!  So annoying!

Baby Booties

K's high school friend A and his wife S are having twins!  We went to their baby shower last month (btw, easily the biggest baby shower I have ever been to with probably close to 150 guests...) so I knitted these baby booties out of 100% organic cotton.  My lil sis A sent me the pattern for "one hour baby bootles" from her Stitch n' Bitch Nation book.  I followed the pattern exactly except I did not put buttons on the sides to decorate the booties because I thought that might be a choking hazard; instead, I did one pair with single straps and the other pair with double crisscrossed straps.

I love how easy they are to make and the fact that each pair really only took an hour...and the fact that anything that mini just looks so adorable!

Pair #1 - single strap

Pair #2 - double strap

Both pairs next to my cell phone for size-reference.

Finished!

I completed my second 1/2 marathon (Carlsbad) and I am officially retiring from running for at least a year.  This race was really tough on my shins but I'm just glad I finished!  The course was super gorgeous...right along the Pacific Ocean.  Even better was the mounds of all-u-can-eat Korean BBQ we all went out for afterwards :)