Lunar New Year Celebration

Today is the 2nd day of the Lunar New Year. Had the guests over (just the in-laws and the brother's family) on Saturday, which was the new year's eve, for a family dinner together (a Lunar New Year tradition).

Original plan for Saturday was to get up early, something like 8am, to get things rolling. But but but ... we didn't go to bed until around 4am the night before so I snoozed until around 9am. Hubby went to pick up the car from the garage and me at home prepared to get sweaty and dirty in the kitchen. Listed and priotized what tasks to do in the am and what to be done just before the guests arrive. Everything went according to plan (phew~~~)... until ... the phone rang (~1:45pm)... it was the brother asking if it's ok that they come an hour early.

%*&!$#(*&_^@ WHAT??? Coming AN HOUR early? That means they'll be here at around 3pm instead of 4pm (on the invitation). Mannn... I'm truly not impressed. There's nothing I can do about it, but I'm not impressed!! It's easier for them to decide to come an hour early but have they thought of with their early arrival, the hosts will have to keep them entertained instead of being able to get things ready as what hosts planned to do mostly??!!

So, for the next hour or so I was scrambling and tumbling in the kitchen. I started complaining to the hubby about their punctuality manner - - - arriving an hour early messed up my schedule of what to do first/later and when to do them. He tried to calm me down as I was getting antsy and agitated, he said:

"I told them it's ok to come early, but I didn't say I'm going to let them in straightaway."
"Look... it's totally their right and freedom to come early, yet it's our right and decision whether to let them in."

Hahahahahahahaha...

Conclusions:
- Yes, the guests did arrive early and no, we didn't let them out in the cold. It'd be rude!! >!<
- Snacks & Starter and dinner were served on time, and went well in our perspective. ^.^
- Only one little imperfection tho', one of the couples were giving each other cold looks throughout the entire gathering. "_"
- Other than that ... everybody had a great time celebrating the arrival of a lunar new year! ^m^

Can I wear this to bed too?

pic src: http://www.tennisaustralia.com.au

Yes this is what Miss Sharapova wore in court (played compatriot Petrova on Jan 24 and Henin-Hardenne on Jan 26) at the Australian Open.

This is probably one of the ugliest tennis dress I've ever seen!!! YEAP! Even uglier than what the Williams sisters wear in court. I couldn't make up exactly what the dress is - - - is it a tennis dress? or a dance gown? For some reason, I keep on seeing Elizabeth Bennet (in Pride and Prejudice mini-series by BBC, played by Jennifer Ehle) everytime the camera focused on her. Except, Sharapova's tennis dress is: 1) a lot shorter and 2) has spaghetti strings instead of the short/long sleeves that Elizabeth Bennet wore.

When I asked my husband what he sees in Sharapova's tennis dress. He said it looks like one of the nighties I wear to bed. Hooo Hooo Hooo ... now that's a bit harsh!! He said, maybe she hit the snooze button that morning and slept in. Didn't realized about the time and had to rush out to the court without changing into "something more appropriate".

Personally, I couldn't stand watching (or listening to) Sharapova plays, the noise that she makes is just pure irritating! My husband (the harsh Sharapova critic) said watching her plays is like watching a porn movie - the revealing dress and the yelling/screaming she makes everytime she hits the ball are perfect ingredients for porn movie!!


The one on the front left is Elizabeth Bennet.
img src:http://orion.it.luc.edu/

Coffee & Chocolates

This is for those who enjoy coffee (or addicted to coffee, rather) and love chocolates (or chocoholic, =)) ! I used to buy and eat this very often - - - the chocolate coated coffee beans (whole bean, mind you) when I lived in NZ. Can buy them at the regular supermarket. But after searching high and low, I haven't seen anything like this here in the States. Quite disappointing, really!

Then, one day when we're out grocery shopping at our local supermarket, I saw this little boxes labelled "Milk Chocolates Coffee Beans" I knew straightaway it's what I've been looking for. I can't remember the exact price, but I think it's somewhere around $3. If you enjoy coffee as much as chocolates, you really should try this. It is really really NICE!!

New Year's Eve Discovery

Made this discovery as we're on the way to my husband's brother's place in the NW of Houston for a new year family gathering. About 5mins from the destination ... right in front of the traffic lights (it was red light) ... I yelled out "Piccomolo" followed by "Italian Ice Cream"!!! Mannn... as always, my high pitchrd voice (and loud too! mind you!!) shocked my husband who was fully concentrated on the traffic in front of and beside us. When he heard his dear wife yelled out "Italian Ice Cream" he reacted with a quick swing to the left lane (almost thrown me outta the car in the process!!!) so he can turn into Piccomolo when the light went green.

That whole a minute and a half of waiting for the light to turn green was as long as it can be. I can hardly content the excitement for being trapped in the car.

I made the quickest dash into the shop as soon as my husband parked the car. The rest ... I ... errr... can't remember. The only memory I have of that afternoon was we bought a box of ice-cream combo (5 flavors: honestly I can only remember 3/5 flavors that we picked: cookies&cappucino , mango & peach, and peanut butter) for everybody and 2 scoops (1 flavor each: pistachio and almond&caramel, I think) on a waffle cone for the two of us, just the two of us. =)

We've decided that the next time we see a Piccomolo, we're gonna buy a tub of 5-flavor combo for ourself, too!


Look at the blue sunny sky! It's a perfect ice cream day.

Piccomolo Italian Ice Cream
12914 F.M. 1960 Rd. W. Ste.A
Houston, Tx 77388
www.piccomolo.com

My Christmas Present

Mannn ... I know it's a little bald, but I don't think there's anybody out there who gets a Christmas present as big & mobile as the one I got from my sweetie husband.

Way way before Christmas ... I had been whinning about needing a more spacious kitchen for the stuff that had started to pile up on one of the corners. For that we'd been shopping around for a shelf to store my kitchen precious & treasures and his "junks" (heheheheee...) but we can't seen to find one that we like - - - it's either too tall or too short, or we miraculously found one of the height that we want but it can't fit into where we wanna put it. All in all, it'd been a long hunting process for, what we thought, a simple kitchen shelf.

Anyhoo... about 1.5wks before Christmas ... he decided to build one himself. This way we could have it the way we want it to be. So... the Saturday before Christmas eve, we went to Lowe's to buy all the materials needed for building the shelf. After that ... he worked pretty much day&night on it. Every morning, way before I was up, he's already out and about working on the shelf; and every night I pretty much had to drag his butt to bed or he would still be working, well into the wee hour!

After a week of hard work - measuring, sawing, drilling, and hammering, on top of everythingelse ... we finally have a kitchen shelf that we like in term of design and size. Obviously, I knew he's building the shelf, so there's no surprise there. What surprised me was what I saw being engraved on!! Look!!


left: actual engraving
right: charcoal trace on the engraved characters

He engraved "Hanzi" characters (or mandarin characters) saying: From Oxie To Piggie (note: oxie is him and piggie is me). Originally he was gonna engrave "A Christmas Present From Oxie To Piggie" ... but one character would take him 30 ~ 45mins to do (or a lilttle longer for more complicated characters ... amazing, isn't it?!) which means, the whole clause would take him at least 6hrs to finish! I stopped him from any further engraving when I found out how long each character took him. I told him if he wants, he could add the characters later. Mmmm... he actually suggested that maybe he'll find a way to add a removable plate onto where the engraving was being done on ... this way ... he could customize it to say: "A Birthday Present From Oxie To Piggie" or "A Valentine's Day Present From Oxie To Piggie", etc. Of course... he got a kick on the behind for that! =))

note1:
The engraving was done on a "real-time basis" ... meaning ... no tracing or writing on the wood before carving. So ... if an extra stroke was mistakenly carved, that was it!! It's truly work of a professional!

note2: My husband used to carve stone stamps as a hobby. I guess that's why the engraving on the shelf was piece of cake to him.