Sweet sweet things

My parents in law are visiting us this month. They surprised us (me and my hubby) with these sweet candies which are extremely hard to resist. I must have already vacuumed 1lb of these into my stomach in last 2 days.

And this is a ring from Damasquinado de Oro Toledo, Spain. It is an art of decorating non-precious metals with 18 and 24 carat gold. These jewelry items typically have two different types of patterns; the geometric designs, and the Renaissance motifs which displays birds and flowers.

The September Issue

First time I had heard about the importance of September Issue was when I watched this documentary movie chronicling Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour's ( so called "ice woman" ) preparations for the 2007 Vogue September issue. Anna had reminded me Meryl Streep's character from The Devil Wears Prada.

I am now looking at this almost 5 lbs magazine which every month is being delivered to me for $15/ year. Little more than $1 per issue does not seem to be a bad deal to me. The only down side is; of the 758 pages printed, almost 700 pages belong to ads.

A cup of tea at the Waterfront

Summary of Saturday;

- a nice view by the water at Waterfront cafe
- some hot tea to warm you up since the cafe management does not turn on the heaters until 7:00pm.
- good company with friends that came from San Francisco
- lemon mint hookah
- greek & veggie combo pizza

Spice up your shoes

Never been a huge fan of high heels ever since I was a teenager but I love to wear them occasionally such as at a cocktail party, company dinners, weddings and etc...other than at these sort of events, I am totally a flat ballet shoes lover.
Just recently I have seen an article about shoe condoms and started browsing more on the web. You can see more designs and purcase them here.

Herbs, spices...Sky Planters!

What a wonderful way of growing herbs indoors. Not only they look cute as an indoors decoration piece but also they help you spice up your food. I have always wanted to have the convenience of having my favorite herbs while experimenting my cooking talents. Sky planter seems like a very fun idea to keep some fresh parsley, dill and basils in your kitchen.

Asian bakeries

Every time hubby goes to business trips in Asia, he makes sure to bring some fun treats and bakeries. Not that they are hard to find in San Francisco Bay Area if I have a craving, but it is always more fun and meaningful to enjoy them knowing that these goodies have traveled all the way from the other side of the world.

Lancaster,PA - Amish Country

I departed from San Francisco International Airport last Sunday at around 11:00am in the morning unaware that my travel trip to Lancaster would take as long as a flight to Europe. By the time I arrived at the final destination Airport at Harrisburg,PA and rented a car to drive the 30 mile road to Lancaster, my clock was showing 12:00 am in the morning. I was almost there... Almost made it to my hotel...One more thing left to get to my target point was to rent a car and drive for 30 mins. Just 30 more mins...And my fake motivation did not last long when the lady at the car rental passes me the keys for a 4x4 Jeep which was just too big for me to handle but that was my only option. As if this was not enough, the car was so hightechly equipped that it took me 15 mins to figure out the engine button and start the car. ( I was looking for an engine key all that time) I started driving slowly under the rain thinking what a great coinsidence it was that I started hating technology as I was driving to an Amish Town where people would use no electricity due to religious reasons.

Was that a sign to me from god?

At least the Hotel was worth the trip. It was close to downtown area which did not seem very safe to me to walk by myself at all so I limited my daily gasoline usage to road trips from the hotel to work and from work to the hotel. The Lancaster Arts Hotel was a modern and clean hotel where mostly families stay. They had a small art gallery that displayed oil paintings and sculptures. The room service would bring a red rose every day to the room and place it on the bed. This was just too romantic for me to handle at a business trip tough...

Having realized my interest in the lives of the Amish people, our business partner Rick offered to give me a quick tour to an Amish Farm during a lunch break. We drove to a produce farm where an extremely cute and smart Amish boy named Samuel was running the cash register operated by battery. Surprisingly, he allowed me to take his picture but I promised him not to make it public so I will not be posting his cute face on my blog. One more thing that surprised me besides Samuel's friendly and welcoming attitude was how clean and organised their farm was. They live such a simple life free of worries like career goals, stock market or retirement plans.

Weekend Treats

I went a bit out of my comfort zone today with my nails and treated myself to a nail shopping spree that includes green nail polish and sparkling nail stickers. With just the price of a mani&pedi, I bought these from Sephora and did my own nail treatment.
Nail polish drying drops are the life savers. Just 1-2 drops on each nail and they will get solid rock in just a few minutes. Highly recommended.

Cupcake Happiness

What can be a better way to start a great weekend after a week of sickness and frustration? cupcakes!!!
I did not have a favorite brand until I met with Sprinkles. I did not even like cupcakes before I tried my first Sprinkles in my friend's bridal shower for the first time. I think I am a huge fan now, especially of the dark chocolate one...please enjoy the photos while I enjoy the real thing.... :)

Read more here about how to create your signature desert even if it does not look as good as this one.

Photo: Victoria Pearson

Display your artwork

Whether you think you are talented or not, give your artwork a chance and display them in your house. I enjoy looking at my own work as much as I enjoy Picasso's mediterranean landscape reproduction hanged on my living room wall.

This one belongs to my husband and is my favorite

SJP on Vogue

It is just Tuesday and I am already tired mostly because of the sourness and aches I have since yesterday. With 2 capsules of Tylenol PM still in my blood from last night's dosage, I can not quite say that today was my most efficient day. When I came home around 6:30, the only thing I could think of was heating the frozen shrimp wonton soup and have a cup of it while waiting for hubby. Sex and the city is playing on Style TV and I have nothing better to watch so I watch the same episode for the 5th time. Coinsidentaly, SJP is also on the cover of this month's Vogue magazine that I just grapped from the coffee table. This woman is just an amazing actress, style icon and a great mom. I start reading the article...read more about SJP on Vogue

Photos by Mario Testino

Cheeseful Sunday

Sunday morning I woke up around 8:30am. Hubby is outside running probably 7mph. I go to the kitchen, open the almost empty fridge and try to find anything that I can turn into breakfast. Nope nothing...I decide to pretend I am not hungry but I can not fake that for long...and there comes hubby,takes a quick shower and we head outside for breakfast.
Destination is Crepevine. I have tried it out in Burlingame before and just recently they opened a new one in Palo Alto. This place is similar to Squat & Gobble in the way that they both have a self order system. You pay first, get your number and get seated later. I am not very adventurous when it comes to breakfast or brunch so I go with a regular; Greek crepe. Overall it was good but could have been better if they used less cheese which was dominating the flavors of the grilled onions and other veggies.

As if I did not have enough of the cheese that came in my crepe, I sampled 5 different kind later when we went grocery shopping to Milk Pail. This place is amazing. They sell the best cheese that comes from all around the world.

Errands will finally come to an end after we are done in Walmart. What's on the list? Laundry detergent, paper towels, wet towels, etc... How about this cute pink Calandiva? No, it was not on the list which means we can still survive the week without this cute flower. So what did I do? Well of course I bought it anyways :)

TGIF celebration with Sangria

Fridays is my favorite day of the week, no surprise I believe. And my favorite thing to do on a Friday night is to have some good food, good wine and good company. This is exactly what I did last night. We met with some good friends and had dinner at Cascal Restaurant at Castro Street in Mountain View. I had passed by this place several times and was always curious to try out the food but never had a chance before. I had actually missed out a lot so far. This turned out to be one of my favorite tapas places, even better than the ones I have been in San Francisco.

As a tapas tradition we first ordered one pitcher of red sangria which was later on followed by another pitcher of sparkling sangria. I could not quite decide which one I liked better so I would recommend both.
We ordered fried calamari, ahi tuna, asparagus salad, cheese fondue, shrimp, cheese and mushroom espenadas. The feast was finalized with a tres laches and chocolate suffle. Nothing we tried was dissapointing.

Past like a dream

My latest Shutterfly project was finally delivered today. Since I have purchased my first real digital camera, keeping print copies of my photo albums has been a huge hobby of mine. I think this latest one is my big biggest photo album ever with 100 pages of wonderful memories from last 3 weeks I spent with my family. Here are some of them...

The 4 day trip to LA was both fun but very exhausting at the same time due to the 97 degrees wheather and our extremely busy schedule.

Time to say goodbye to Mom

I just came back from SFO International Airport to say good bye to my family who was visiting me from Turkey.  Last 3 weeks was an adventure for both me and my husband. Having no kids yet, neither of us had any real experience on spending so much time with the younger generation ( my 11 year old cousin) though I am quite experienced about older generations ( Mom; I am not referring to you, pls don't take me wrong)

We had an amazing 3 weeks full of activities and sightseeing points in San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Los Angeles. I will definitely miss both of them a lot until the next time I will see them and here are 3 big reasons why;

1. Because I love spending time with two of my favorite guys in the world. Team would be complete if my dad could join as well.

2. Because I love going shopping with my mom and we have a common taste. :)



3. Because I will miss my mom's cooking.