meet me in the 50's

day 58: meet Regina in the 50's. i chose to dress like Susie Homemaker for Steph and Eddie's 50's themed wedding shower. it was fun dressing up!

steph and eddie's wedding shower

to celebrate their soon to be nuptials, Steph's bridesmaids planned a 50's themed wedding shower. lots of games happened including something including balls, bananas and thrusting. lots of love and laughter was shared. Congrats to Steph and Eddie!! it's obvious that you two love each other a ridiculous amount. i'm so happy for the two of you!! 

the happy couple!!

some of the gals. me, trina, steph, kris, kim

sisters, kim and steph.

miss trina and justin, who are to be wed in July as well!

the bride and me. i love this chick.

brandon and jessica

then hoola hooping happened.....

project 365

day 57: Marjie's mom's dogs had puppies. there were nine of them all cute and half asleep. SO cute! and she named one Shortie, which is the name of the dog  my best bud for 14 years of my life. 

day 56: they said it was supposed to snow in SF. does that look like snow weather? i don't think so!! but i will say that it's been incredibly cold out lately. still, i wouldn't consider frost snow.

day 55: the bow and arrow by the water.

day 54: coffee shop

day 53

"just prayed to a god that i don't believe in"

disclaimer: i am not suggesting that God does or does not exist.

there's a song that's been out for a while called Break Even by The Script. there's a line in that song that i feel holds enormous meaning and the first time i heard that lyric it grabbed my auditory attention and sounded louder than the rest of the song's lyrics.

"Just prayed to a God that I don't believe in."

the song itself is about a break up and how the guy feels in the whole scheme of things, and although i know that people can feel immense amounts of pain and vulnerability due to a break up, the lyrics can pertain to anything. disease in the family, the loss of a child or parent, internal struggle with self esteem, physical abuse in any relationship, the want for something, the struggle to survive and so on. it can be about anything that a person feels at his/her zenith of passion or incredible vulnerability. if you do not believe in a God, then to pray to one would require quite a leap of faith. for someone to even think about praying when they've never even fathomed the existence of God must mean that something pains them enough  to allow themselves to forgo all of their own beliefs to try and adopt someone else's method of hope. if somebody absolutely does not believe in God but is so heart-wrenchingly low at a point in their life that that God becomes their last resort, then he/she is experiencing some crazy deep feeling of want, need or sad.

the sincerity in these lyrics is what got me. i just felt these words were so genuine and heartfelt that they couldn't be ignored or unaddressed. every time i hear that song a feeling of serious sympathy goes out to whoever feels that way at that current time, anywhere in the world. most people have felt that low at some point in their life and i am not an exception.

peanut butter chocolate sandwich cookies

a coworker was helping me figure out what to do with extra whipping cream and somehow he came about this recipe from epicurious.com. another coworker chimed in that it sounded good, knowing that i always bring the things i bake to work to share. 

a few opinions about these cookies:

- they are kind of light and brittle. the consistency is more like a shortbread than your traditional chewy peanut butter cookie. so if you like that, then this recipe is for you! 

-because i like my cookies crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside, i liked licking the mixer for cookie dough more than the actual cookies itself.

-the cookies are rich and don't need the filling part. they're pretty good on their own

Peanut Butter Chocolate Sandwich Cookies:

ingredients

cookies:
-1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
-1 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp baking soda
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/2 c plus 1/3 c powdered sugar
-1/2 c plus 1 tbs packed brown sugar
-6 tbs unsalted butter (softened)
-1/2 c peanut butter
-1/2 c vegetable oil
-1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
-1 large egg
-1 c milk chocolate chips

filling:
-3 oz milk chocolate
-1/4 c creamy peanut butter
-2 tbs powdered sugar
-1/4 tsp salt
-6 tbs whipping cream

directions for cookies:
1. preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. combine/whisk first four ingredients in a small bowl
3. using electric mixer, beat powdered sugar, brown sugar and butter in a large bowl until blended
4. add peanut butter and beat until creamy
5. beat in vegetable oil and vanilla extract
6. beat in egg
7. add dry ingredients and mix until just combined
8. stir in chocolate chips
9. drop cookie dough by leveled tablespoons full onto baking sheets, spaced about 1 1/2 inches apart.
10. bake until puffed and golden brown, about 12 min.
11. cool slightly and transfer to racks to cool completely
12. sandwich cookies with filling

instructions for filling:

1. combine all ingredients in a bowl except for the whipping cream
2. in a small sauce pot boil whipping cream (this should only take a minute)
3. once boiling, pour over other ingredients and mix until smooth and completely blended
4. chill in fridge until spreadable (about 1 hr)
5. spread on cookies and sandwich

an interesting massage

so yesterday Stefan and i decided that we needed massages. we go to Chinese reflexology places because they are cheaper and those tiny women have deceptively strong hands. Wonderfoot is the name of the place we went to. man, the Chinese come up with some interesting names. and just because i act like a goof in my head i pronounce it vun-deer-fut because it's more fun! so we pay $39.99 for 30 min foot massage and 40 min body massage. awesome, no? [side note: i HATE feet with a passion. they are pretty gross to me. even the word freaks me out. so from here on out i'm going to refer to them as "podiatric extensions of the body." thanks in advance for understanding! haha] the first thing they do is dunk your podiatric extensions of the body in a bin of scalding hot water. even after i asked her to pour in some cold water my pod-extens were on FIRE!!

and this was my reaction:

i'm pretty sure my face stayed like that for about 10 minutes. i wondered if they'd be red the following day, but i can assure you they are not. most of the rest of the massage was fantastic, except for the part where she took my hair and pulled it enough that my scalp moved. i'm not even joking. she yanked my hair like four times. WTF! i have the thinnest hair in the world and i don't have much hair to spare, so i can't have b*tches just pulling it out!

Appa

day 52: meet Appa, named after the character in Avatar. or in my head he's "Appa-lachian Mountain" because he's just a big ol' blob. he's 10 months old but he already looks like a giant. he's got another 20lbs to gain too! i used to live with his parents of the human kind, Kim and Jon, while Appa was still a young little man. it was the most hilarious thing when he would flip over onto his back and wasn't able to flip back around. he'd roll around like a little potato, all cute and floppy! 

celebrating birthdays

Mark, Lawrence, Alex, Jon

hmmm can you tell that they're a family at all? i mean they look nothing alike. =)

last night we went out to Shabu House for Jon's birthday. Happy Birthday Jon!! i didn't intend on drinking considering i'd just drank the night before, but more drinking ensued in the form of sake bombs. sake bombs and all you can eat shabu (which is considered fondue, but i would just call it boiling meat and veggies). do you think it is possible to be liquid drunk and food drunk too? i ate so much that i if there is such thing as food drunk, then i was also that.

Melissa, yours truly, Muri

Kim, Tracy, Muri, Melissa, Augs

Kris, yours truly, Kim

later in the night Kris and i went to Houlihan's to celebrate awesome Ize's birthday.

this pretty lady is Izelle. she is one of my favorite people in this world. 

Kris, Ize and i.

good times, good times!!!!

catching up with project 365

so i haven't been taking a picture a day like i'm supposed to but i want to have an image for each "day," so when i write "day," just think of it as "image." at the end of the year i should have 365.

day 47: "super crew! super crew!" i know this hand symbol was meant to be for Superman, but some of my coworkers and i have adopted it as our symbol for Super Crew, a group of coworkers that are awesome for various reasons, and that's all i'm going to say. 

day 48: fourthmeal. drinking two nights in a row (which is a LOT for me) requires consuming Taco Bell in the middle of the night. glorious supreme tacos. plus i think i do work for food! my paychecks seems to disappear as i eat my way through my days!!

day 49: i LOVE running down the Embarcadero on a sunny day! you get to exercise and people watch all at the same time. if you think people watching is weird then you're the one that's odd. i mean that's exactly what anthropology is all about.  everybody is different and it's interesting/intriguing seeing mannerisms, style, dogs and pups, laughter, etc. one of my favorite things to do is just take a walk by myself and roam around observing everything.

day 50: Bay Bridge

day 51: so on one of my runs down the Embarcadero, i thought i'd try and recreate a picture that i took about four years ago that i really liked. 

here is the original i took years ago!

de-stressing from CT training

if you didn't see this post or don't already know that i'm an x-ray tech, then now you know. the last two weeks of my life have been consumed by CT training. it's a six week on the job training that is fairly high stress. the type of person that i am is the type that likes to feel in control of things. when i don't understand something or don't know how to perform a skill at least 90% then i feel like i don't know how to do it at all. i feel like a fish out of water and it's frustrating to me. frustration=high stress. you know how people who work in offices seems to love/need happy hour? after these past two weeks, i can now say that i understand and can identify with feeling the need to de-stress. generally work for me is fun and i always leave work with the satisfaction that i get to leave my work at work. there's no such thing as taking your work home with you in the world of x-ray and better yet, there are no deadlines to meet. but  this CT training has kind of consumed my life and will continue to for another four weeks minimum. 

i don't go drinking a lot, but at the end of this week, i felt the need. some coworkers were going out to celebrate birthdays and it was the perfect opportunity to let loose and forget about training. 

T, Cynthia, Edgar and Uyen. they all have Jan/Feb birthdays so we went for happy hour  to celebrate!

i made that face on purpose, i assure you. 

things just got real funny.

this is me, de-stressing.

aaaahh that feels better!! 

tomato soup with candied bacon

sounds enticing, doesn't it? i got the inspiration here

candied bacon

ingredients:
-bacon (whatever amount you want. i did 4 strips for 2 people)
-brown sugar

directions:
1. preheat oven to 400 degrees F
2. lay bacon onto foil and bake until just at desired crispiness
3. sprinkle with brown sugar and continue baking until the sugar has melted and turned into kind of a glaze.
4. allow to cool and then chop

easy enough, right?


tomato soup


ingredients:
-2 tbs butter
-a drizzle of olive oil
-1 small onion
-3 cloves garlic
-1 1/2 tbs tomato paste
-2 tbs sugar
-1/2 tsp paprika (smoked paprika is better)
-1tsp salt
-1/4 tsp black pepper
-1/2 c white wine
-2 cans 15oz. chopped tomato
-1/4 c orange juice
-2 c water
-5 tbs sour cream
-1/2 tsp dried basil

directions:
1. chop onion
2. in a large pot melt butter and olive oil and cook onions until tender
3. add garlic and cook for 30 sec.
4. add tomato paste and stir until darkened (about 2 min)
5. add sugar, paprika, salt and black pepper and cook for 30 sec
6. add white wine and bring to a boil
7. add chopped tomatoes
8. bring to a simmer and take off stove
9. stir in orange juice and water
10. stir in 5 tbs sour cream and dried basil
11. let cool a bit
12. in batches blend in blender until smooth
13. return to pot to heat through

when serving don't forget to toss in your candied bacon. it's kind of necessary for life happiness. it's pretty standard to serve tomato soup with grilled cheese, so bust out your George Foreman grill and make some magic! i used ciabatta with havarti, just cause that's all i had in the house. don't forget to butter your bread when you grill it. it's good without butter but it's grand with. and PLEASE use a crusty kinda bread, none of this Iron Kids or Wonderbread stuff unless you're serving it to a child. oh, and dunking is not an option, it's a must!

my nemesis

day 46: as an x-ray tech, the next step up the ladder is to become a CT tech. in order to become a CT tech you have to be able to confidently start IVs on patients. i hadn't stuck an IV since i was an x-ray student over three years ago. when i learned that i had to successfully stick 30 patients during the beginning portion of my CT training, fear struck. i was nervous about hurting patients or having to shove a needle into their skin more than once if i missed/messed up. the first few were difficult for me to jump in to. but over the past few days i've learned to fairly confidently stick patients. yay for me! tiny achievement in my life!

p.s. i kind of LOVE this picture. i think i'll pat myself on the back.

my funny valentine!

day 45: my funny valentine. he's smart. he's funny. he's helped me with communication and he brings out my goofy side. he's awesome. for Valentine's Day we went to La Ciccia, an Italian (Sardidian specifically) restaurant in SF that i've been wanting to try. i left with a happy tummy and a smiling heart!

banana bread

that chick Martha Stewart seems like someone i would never want to know. she seems cold and she seems like zero amounts of fun. the couple of times i've seen her on tv, she was either building some kind of crafty craft, cooking up a storm, repairing some house, or baking amazing things. but while she's doing these fantastic things, her demeanor always seems to be i-do-crafting-cooking-repairing-and-baking-better-than-you-do-so-watch-me-do-it-better-than-you-can,-i-dare-you-to-try-and-do-it-better-than-me. so i tried. and maybe i can't make up recipes better than she can, but following her recipes, i can at least make them the same as she can.

one of her great recipes is for banana bread. it makes a really moist, pretty fool proof banana bread.

banana bread


ingredients:

-1/2 c butter (1 stick) at room temp
-1 c granulated sugar
-2 large eggs
-1 1/2 c flour
-1 tsp baking soda
-1 tsp salt
-1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 medium bananas)
-1/2 c sour cream
-1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 c chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

directions:

1. preheat oven to 350 degree F
2. butter a loaf pan
3. in a medium bowl mix together flour, baking soda and salt. set aside.
4. in a large bowl cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy
5. mix in eggs
6. mix in flour mixture until just blended
7. mix in bananas, sour cream and vanilla until just combined
8. stir in nuts
9. put mixture into loaf pan and bake for about 1hr and 10 min or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean
10. let cool for 10 minutes then turn out and place on a rack to finish cooling