october: week 2 - part tres

Wow so I realized that I completely forgot about my cool lunch on Saturday. Before we had dinner for my grandmother's birthday, we were at the Mission Viejo mall (the one with the huge Forever 21). While we were there, we decided to eat at Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour Restaurant. I've never been and as soon as we walked in, they asked if we were celebrating anything so I just said that we were celebrating my birthday (one month away but close enough right? lol). I would have seriously loved to have my birthday here as a kid! They make it such a huge deal! So when I said that it was my birthday I asked them if they were going to embarrass me or something and they were like "oh no.. if anything we embarrass ourselves" lol. So at the end of our meal, when they came over to sing happy birthday, they were like "oh we're going to make this a short birthday song". So what happened was that when they started singing, they all squatted so that they were "short" lol.

Also, I think this is seriously where they got the Carl's Jr "six-dollar burger" commercials from. You know the one's where they're like "Happy happy birthday, happy happy birthday" and making weird faces. Soo hilarious. Here are some pictures.

you know i can't resist a good burger!

Hope everyone is having a great week!! I'm working 8 days straight which is fricken fantastic lol.

october 24th, 2011

Today is actually a really special day. A year ago today was the day that I met Tony for the first time. We met up at the Phantom of the Opera showing at the Pantages and although it wasn’t really a blind date, it was somewhat of a setup but not really. Mostly just a chance for us to meet each other with a whole bunch of other people so that it wouldn't be so much of a setup. I was dating at the time but it was one of those situations where I wanted it to be going somewhere and it was really going nowhere. My options were definitely open at that point. All of my friends were in stable relationships at that time and being the only single one was getting to be a little depressing although looking back I did enjoy the spontaneity of not having any plans (even though I love planning things, it’s nice to be able to anything at the spur of the moment… mostly because you don’t have anything else going on… hmmm I sound a little loser-ish there lol). Anywhos, the first time we met I didn’t really think anything of it. I didn’t really think he was my type and I remember telling Judy on our car ride to Disneyland that night after eating at Road to Seoul that he seemed a bit too quiet/conservative for me. Little did I know that 2 months later, we would meet again and things would be so different. I guess they were right about not judging a book by it’s cover! We're still in the early stages of our relationship but I've been having such an amazing time and I'm so thankful everyday. It definitely takes meeting someone who is completely amaze-balls that makes all that heartbreak and turmoil worth it. It's like in the movie "17 again" where you get another chance to do everything over again and you still choose the same path because if you chose some other path, it might not lead you to where you are. I hope there are many more memories to come :)

october: week 2 - part 2

october: week 2 - part 2
[week 2 - part 1]

The last post was a tad long and overwhelming (plus I got tired of writing lol) so I decided to break it up into 2 different posts.

So it looks like I last talked about the amazing desserts at Extraordinary Desserts (and I forgot to mention, yes those are fricken gold flakes on those desserts! I was telling Tony how if I was super poor, I could go around and ask everyone to donate their gold flakes to me with my Charles Dickens, "Please sir, I want some more" bit lol).

The next day Tony got up at the break of dawn to take his friend to the airport (while I stayed in bed, teehee lol).  We got up early to get ourselves some Chick-fil-a and took it back to the house to eat. After that it was time to get ready to go back to LA for my grandma's 92nd birthday party. We stopped at this mall in Mission Viejo to go to the Microsoft Store since Tony had a Groupon and he wanted to get his racing game. I couldn't resist going into their Forever21 which was HUGE. It seriously rivals the Vegas F21 and that's saying a lot. It's 2 stories and everything was extremely neat, especially for a Saturday. I definitely must go back on my next trip either to San Diego or coming back from San Diego.

Anywhos, here's some pictures from my grandma's birthday dinner.

To end the weekend, I had to work on Sunday but thank goodness I was working at one of my favorite stores. Love the staff there so it made my Sunday more enjoyable.

Hope everyone is having a great Thursday!! I've got a full day of cleaning ahead, trying to purge my pharmacy school notes, new post on my recent makeup haul and also birthday lunch with the momma. Going to see a taping of "The Voice" with the bestie next week which should be super fun! We haven't been to taping since the good ole days of American Idol (first and 2nd season, I believe) so I'll have pictures from that next week. Hope ya'lls have a great weekend if I don't speak to ya'll before then!!

october: week 2

october: week 2 
[10/09/11 to 10/15/11]

On Sunday, October 9th, Tony and I just chilled at my house and watched football. We always have a pretty difficult time picking a place to eat and Tony always makes fun of me because I think Pizza Hut has the best pizza (I still think they do lol... although this place is quite equivalent). So we decided to use Yelp to help us decide on a new pizza place to eat at. We decided on Baby Bros Pizza. I was pleasantly surprised! I hate that thin pizza. I love pizza that's like... Pizza Hut pizza lol and this place has definitely got it! We ordered the medium supreme pizza with added pineapples (I love pineapples on pizzas!) and also the potato skins. I would have to say their pizza tastes a little better than Pizza Hut because their ingredients tasted a lot fresher but very delish! Here's a picture.

Ended up working at the 24 hour store on Monday for the morning shift. The amount of traffic at that store is CRAZY. I was alone from 7 till 7:30 and didn't really have much to do but once 8am hit, the phones would not stop ringing! Thank goodness I was done at 4p but it seriously felt like it didn't come soon enough. I returned the 2nd day back to the 24 hour store and this time they mostly had me at the drop-off which was nice because I got to practice typing, especially with insurances. Tuesday was a complete blur and on Wednesday I worked at a much slower store with AMAZING techs/staff so it was fantastic! It's also great when you have a 3 day work week so Wednesday was my "Friday".

On Thursday, October 13th, I took the train down to Solana Beach. I've never taken the train down that direction before. I've only taken the train back to LA from Stockton. Anywhos, it was a bit rockier than I would imagine. The train was swaying so much I could barely even type a post. I took quite a few pictures on the train (plus I was testing out the new HDR pictures on the new iPhone upgrade). Here they are a few of the pictures.

in one surfliner, looking at another

angel's stadium

the famous nipples

After arriving in Solana Beach, we went back to Tony's house and ended up having dinner with his parents at Que Pasa Mexican Grill. The place itself is pretty nice. It's more of a Happy Hour/Sports Bar scene being that they have this huge projector. They give you complimentary chips & salsa and they have this really good cheese dip that tastes like healthy nacho cheese (like a lot lighter and milkier... less yellow lol). I got the tamales and lobster taco. I've never had a lobster taco before but boy this baby was tasty!! The tortilla isn't the best though. It didn't taste very fresh but the flavor of the lobster with all the other ingredients definitely made up for it. Didn't get a chance to snap any pictures at this place since I was eating with Tony's parents lol. We also tried their margaritas which were very tasty as well. Tasted like punch :). Went to do some shopping at Target and CVS since I had a bunch of ExtraBucks I needed to use before they were going to expire and then called it a night since Tony had to go into work the next day.

On Friday, I had lunch with Tony's mom which was super nice. She's such a sweetheart and there's just something about talking to a parent that's not your own... not so much judgement and no constant feeling that you're a disappointment. Whenever I talk to my mom it feels like there's so much negativity... like everything I do is wrong. We spent almost 3 hours talking at Denny's while having brunch. After brunch we headed home and I got to spend the rest of the day with Tony. He hurt his back at work so we were trying not to do too much. We ended up going to ULTA, Marshall's, and World Market. There was so much cool stuff at World Market! I haven't been there in a long time (since back in the day when I used to go with my dad to Ontario Mills like every weekend lol) but yeah! They have jewelry there and a bunch of snacks as well! Their prices weren't too bad either!

We were super hungry after that but the weather got freakishly cold afterwards so we went home and changed. Another dilemma on where to eat. finally decided on Indian food and ended up just Yelping a place near Tony's house. We ended up going to Punjabi Tandoor (which I just realized through a Google search that they have one in Anaheim!). Let me just say... Oh. Em. Gee. We shared the shrimp vindalu which was SOOOOOO good because it was super spicy and the paneer tikka masala. It was seriously delicious! But then again I really don't have Indian food that often so my opinion is probably not that great lol. Here's a picture of our food. Here's a link to their menu in case you want to try it for yourself!

I realized half-way through dinner that I didn't have a picture and that's why everything looks half eaten lol. 

So I've been wanting to go to Extraordinary Desserts to see what all the hype was about and I've been to San Diego quite a few times now but we've just never really had time to go. Plus it's hard to find parking at the one Downtown (apparently there's 2 locations which I just found out from one of my coworkers lol). So during dinner, Tony was asking if he could use my phone to check traffic 'cause there was this guy that wanted to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge so they closed down the whole freeway. And I was like, "If there's not too much traffic, we should go to Extraordinary Desserts!" and he totally gave me a "You stole my idea, punk!" face lol. Apparently that's why he was looking up traffic. So yay! I'll let the pictures do the talking because the desserts were absolutely beautiful.

creme brulee

pink hot chocolate and chocolate chai latte (i believe... forgot)

creme brulee up close

torta misu - soooooooooo effing good.

looks like nestle's strawberry milk but tastes like white chocolate hot chocolate! yumes!

Alright friends, I must continue this post on another day since I've been a complete photo whore with the new settings on the camera lol. Will post the happenings on Saturday in another post as well as some recent purchases! Tony got me these super cute Marc by Marc Jacob sunglasses that are super cute from Marshall's. They were $35 but they are cat-eye inspired and also over-sized for the LA gal.

Anywhos, hope everyone started their Mondays off on the right foot! I've got a 40-hour work week this week but mostly morning shifts so we'll see how it goes! Love and miss you friends! Most likely won't be able to make it to cake pop making this Saturday since it's my mom's birthday and Tony's cousin is having a birthday party. I have Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday off lol. (In the words of Judy, it's a hard life :P) Guess we'll have to catch up on life at the Halloween party (which I have work on that day but I'll be ready to play at night). Have a great week everyone!

october: week 1

This picture was taken right after we got back from our cruise (which I still need to do a post about lol). Tony was testing out the color accent feature on his new camera. I really liked how it turned out :). As most of my friends know, I love making stuffed animals talk lol. Pook-a-loo Pluto is no different. I think it's my lack of stuffed animals as a kid due to the fact that it would exacerbate my asthma. Not no mo'!

Anyways, on Saturday, October 1st, I started off the morning eating the breakfast of champions! Chick-fil-A! Ever since Tony introduced me to the Chick-n-Minis (aka little bites of heaven) I've been super obsessed and since I don't live very close to one, I jump at the chance to have breakfast there. After breakfast we went shopping at some random strip malls in San Diego. Then I convinced Tony to see "What's Your Number?" with Anna Faris and Chris Evans with me. It was a little disappointing because it wasn't as funny as I expected it to be (you know one of those movies where all the good parts are in the commercial? well it was one of those.). After the movie we went to eat at a Thai restaurant. After that, I was bummed that my movie choice pretty much sucked so I convinced Tony to watch Enchanted with me since he's never seen it before. He ended up really liking it lol and he was saying how he can see why I like it 'cause it's so cheesy lol. Can't help it! I love the cheese! It was a pretty low key day since I had work on Sunday and had to drive back to LA.

On Sunday and the following week, I was working at this super slow store because one of the guys went on vacation. I absolutely LOVED that store! I wish I could work there everyday! Love the staff there! Anyways, on Sunday I gave out 10 fricken flu shots! I only worked for 7.5 hours so that's more than 1 flu shot an hour. But yeah, I gave out flu shots every single day at that store. I have to say, flu shots have kind of been hit or miss with me. Some people say they didn't feel anything and then others are like "Owww!" lol. I find that kids and old folks are the ones that don't really feel the shot because I'm always like "Oh think of a Transformer" or "Imagine yourself relaxing by a beach in Hawaii" lol.

The work week went by super fast and I had a fantastic time working. Had a day off on Wednesday and went to Kohl's, ULTA, and The Container Store. Didn't get anything at Kohl's because I didn't have any coupons but I did try on a bunch of stuff from Lauren Conrad's fall line. Love so many items. I really loved the ponchos. I want one in every color (a problem I have is once I find something I really like, I need to get multiples... hoarder alert lol). I stopped at ULTA because I had one of those $5 off $10 coupons and ended up purchasing 2 items that a YouTuber talked highly about. I purchased the Wet 'n Wild eye shadow that Holly used in this video and I also purchased the blush that she talked about in her September Hits & Misses video. I like the blush a lot but the eye shadow looks really green on me but it's also possible that I don't know how to use eye make up lol haha. I really don't play around with eye make up very much so it's really hard for me. I also got some pretty good stuff at The Container Store. I met up with Pearl and I was actually shopping for something to organize my jewelry but I ended up buying a bunch of food stuff lol. I got a larger lunch bag for work (I don't know what happened to my Penguin bag :(  ), a on-the-go cereal cup (super cool!), and a "salad" lunch box (which I've been actually putting my sandwich into). So far I've been putting my lunch bag and lunch box to use but no use for my cereal cup yet because I rarely work morning shifts.

On Friday, I closed and afterwards, Tony came up to see me and we went to Culver City to meet up with friends at the Ugo Wine Bar. Here are some pictures:

really expensive but super good!

tony being a dork as usual

On Saturday we went to Disneyland because we haven't been on any of the Halloween stuff yet. I'm not sure whether this year is just crazier or what but the lines were crazy long. I mean, 60 minutes for Haunted Mansion?! Really?! We just fast passed that ride and went on Dumbo in the meantime which was a super long wait as well.

tram picture

chicken meal - so good! gotta have the fried chicken. i don't know what i would do if judy never introduced me lol. 

dumbo!

 

this picture just captures LA. traffic and sun.

Hope everyone's week is going well! Already looking forward to the weekend! 

Two more days of work, heading down to SD, then heading back to LA for my grandma's 92nd birthday.

september: week in review [09/21 to 09/30]

september
[week 1][week 2][week 3]

I worked on Wednesday the 21st thru the 23rd and was happy that it was finally Friday! Lauren, another friend from pharmacy school was coming down to LA for a compounder's conference in Redondo Beach so I drove after work in Eagle Rock to meet her and her boss, Peter. Lauren had Yelped this burger joint that got superb reviews on Yelp so we decided to check it out. It's called The Standing Room and it's located inside a liquor store! For some reason, it did not click that the reason they call it "standing room" is because there is nowhere to sit! So we ended up ordering our food and taking it back to the hotel to eat. The food was absolutely delicious!! I'm a huge burger fan and this place makes really great Asian-y burgers. If you love extremely flavorful things, you'll LOVE this place. Lauren was saying the owners/workers looked like they're from Hawaii so maybe their food/style of cooking is brought over from Hawaii. Either way, super delicious food. I would definitely go back if it wasn't so far away :(. Here are more pictures of the food.

After grubbing out on food, we spent the night just talking about work and life in general. I was telling them a little about the judgement calls that I've had to make as a pharmacist. It's very interesting how I used to be the technician who would always say "Let me ask the pharmacist" and now, that's me lol. Anyways, it was great to catch up and it's crazy how we just graduated in May but it feels like we haven't seen each other in forever. I had work the next day and didn't end up getting home until midnight or so but for food and friends, totally worth it :).

On Saturday, September 24th, I got out of work at 6pm so Tony came up to see me and we decided (mostly me lol) to go to C&O Trattoria in Venice (the one by the beach... not C&O Cucina. They have the addresses mixed up on Yelp.). We got there around 8pm and the place was packed! I was actually going to see if we could eat at other places because we were both starving but the lady said it would only be a 15 minute wait. We didn't wait very long before we were called to the outdoor seating area. Seriously, I've been to this restaurant many times before but I had never sat at such a perfect spot! Twas very romantic!

The service is usually great but it sucked that night. We ordered wine that never came so we had to cancel and it just seemed like a bad night for the waiters. They made up for it though with their garlic rolls and we got to sing Amore!!

So every time you see the wine glass, you cheers with the waiters :)

I was still feeling pretty sick so we just relaxed at my house on Sunday. I did some light cleaning while Tony watched the Charger game. I had work the following Monday so I didn't really do anything too strenuous for the rest of the night. I worked Monday, Wednesday and Thursday for the week of 9/25 which I really like. I love working one day and knowing tomorrow is your day off. It pretty much feels like a Friday every other day lol.

September 29th... the day that will forever live in infamy! There were these three teenage girls that all wanted flu shots so I went to prepare them. The first girl was up and she was super nervous about needles. She kept telling her friends to distract her and everything went fine until after I slapped on the band-aid, she just collapsed. Thank goodness her friends were around to hold her up and she was only gone for less than a minute. It was just super surprising because I had given TONS of flu shots to people that were much older and they were completely fine! Super scary experience :/

On Friday, September 30th, I ran a bunch of errands before I headed down to San Diego. Another reason I like working only 3 days a week is that I get the those weekdays off to run errands. I had to go to the bank to deposit my cash back check from Citibank (Yay! Although the bank teller said, "You must spend a lot of money" when I told him how Chase Freedom was offering a cash back card that had no limit while Citibank has a $300 limit lol :X), get an oil change and change car insurances (being involved in a fender bender in the last year made my insurance quite expensive to renew so I was looking to change to a different company). I ended up saving a $100 from changing insurances so I'd recommend that as an option for those who have gotten into an accident.

After my errands, I made my way down to San Diego just for a quick trip. I was going to have work on Sunday so I would have to be back in LA Saturday night. I ended up doing a little shopping at Forever 21 before going to have sushi at Kappa Sushi with Tony's friends. Twas a fun night full of yummy food and drizzinks (as demonstrated from the picture).

when i say sake, you say bomb!

Hope everyone had a fun and eventful weekend!! 

Love and miss you friends! I know life has been getting in the way of us hanging out/keeping in touch but the birthday is coming up soon (little over a month) so I'll be seeing ya'lls hopefully very soon :)

september: week in review [09/13 to 09/20]

September

[week 1] [week 2]

Looks like the last time I posted was on Tuesday, September 13th, regarding the festivities of the previous day so I'll start from that day. It was my day off and I really didn't do much besides visiting my grandmother in the hospital at night. My grandma has been in the hospital a lot lately. Hopefully she'll be ok (she's out of the hospital now and doing a lot better). Finished the week off by working Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I worked in the morning on Thursday and had a great catch-up dinner date with my big, Cat at Din Tai Fung: Dumpling House. Sorry for the lack of pictures... I was too busy devouring food to capture anything lol. 

It was a jam-packed weekend with tons of stuff going on and I was starting to feel a little under the weather :/. First on Saturday's agenda was brunch with one of my old apartment mates, Kelly from my UCLA days. We went to eat at New Kim Bao Restaurant which has similar items to Mien Nghia Noodle Express (Just went to the yelp page to get the link and looks like you get a free drink for checking in on yelp. Can you say... deals!). I really wouldn't be able to taste the difference between the two places to be honest. I only tried one thing so don't take my word for it. 

Next up on the agenda was the potluck at Nam & Matthew's apartment in Culver City where I brought "banh mi" from Mr. Baguette lol. I believe everyone was already expecting something store-bought from me haha. I seriously want to learn how to cook but I want to cook in my own kitchen! Anyways, we started drinking right when we got there. Wine & shots hit me super hard! I blame it all on Nam the instigator! I did not even remember leaving his place... 

To end the night, Tony and I went back to West Covina to Elephant Bar where I got to briefly see my friend Christina for her birthday along with some of the other girls from my elementary. I was feeling super sick so I left after Elephant Bar and headed home. Here's a picture we snapped before I got super sick lol. 

And here's one with me and the birthday girl!

On Sunday, I felt super bad for missing most of my friend's actual birthday party so Tony and I took her out to get brunch at the one and only... Denny's! lol. 

After Denny's, we made our way to Disneyland to meet up with Tanya and Jason, my friends from pharmacy school who were visiting from Northern California. Football season had officially begun so we spent a couple hours drinking, catching up, and watching the Charger's game at The House of Blues. After that we met up with one of my other friends from pharmacy school, Lois, and her boyfriend. The six of us went and spent some time all over Disneyland and California Adventure. It was getting late and Tony had to head back to San Diego but before he left, we decided to get something to eat. I ate my first Disneyland turkey leg! (I know what you're thinking. How could you have gone to Disneyland so many times without eating a turkey leg?! In my defense, it always looks so dry! But it was delish!). Here's some pictures from that day.

This is me super duper sick at disneyland. I felt like poo. Yes, I smile when I feel like poo. Smiling's my favorite :)

seriously... if this isn't sexy, I don't know what is

That ended my super eventful weekend. I worked on Monday Sept. 19th. I was sooooo tempted to call in sick 'cause I was so sick but in the pharmacy world, there is no such thing as a sick day. And that's pretty sad being that you deal with people medications but unless you are in the hospital dying, you can't really call in sick. It's nearly impossible to find a replacement. After work on Monday, I rested up and since Tanya was going back up north on Wednesday, I was going to go to Disneyland to meet up with her and Jason. We just spent a couple of hours in California Adventures. We went to see the Aladdin show and then went on the Monster's Inc ride. After that we said our goodbyes. I think it's really sad to say goodbye to friends when you don't know when you'll see each other again :/. 

Anywhos, I was going to post this after I finished talking about the whole month of September but this post has already gotten long enough lol. Will update with the end of September in another post! Until then loves, happy Friday.. (friday, friday, friday...)


p.s. if you haven't checked out the new dynamic views setting on blogger, definitely check it out! it's so awesome!! there's something for everyone! 

help, i'm alive, my heart keeps beating like a hammer

Howdies friends!

(if you're wondering what song/artist that title comes from I'll give you until the end of this entry to guess! lol)

Sorry I've neglected to post these past few weeks. It's been rather busy here on my end with work, traveling to SD, friend's birthdays and friends from out of town. Thank goodness I'll only have a 3 day work week next week for some quality R&R, some hardcore planning, and a September in Review post. October is quite the special month for me and I'll probably have a post dedicated to that as well... not because I love Halloween or anything. Halloween is actually my least favorite holiday... possibly because even little kids dressed up in those masks scare the bejeezus out of me. Anywhos, I shall be updating soon! I'm closing the pharmacy tonight and tomorrow night so that should be superb lol. Thanks for listening to me rant on and on! And the song is Help, I'm Alive by Metric :)

Happy Thursday! Can't fricken believe it's already October!!

Love ya'lls for reading and I'll catch you guys up soon!