Black Friday ready

Can you believe that the holidays are upon us??! Thanksgiving is just eight days away, which make Black Friday just nine days away!!! Of course, I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving food and whatnot, but I'm WAY more excited about Black Friday!! 

However, I'm not one of those insane people that stand outside of electronic stores at midnight in the cold or hit the malls before the crack of dawn. I tried that once or twice and it just wasn't my thing. (I give major props to those who do this religiously each year). It didn't seem worth it for me to wake up so early, fight the crowds, the lines, and fight the traffic getting out of the mall just for those deals. The year I actually went to the mall at 5AM, the deals were ok, and I ended up purchasing a few items, but it wasn't something to-die-for. 

I've gotten smarter since... Now I just do Black Friday shopping online or shop during Cyber Monday. I've learned that most retailers will offer a lot of the same discounts online as well. Sure, the selection may not be as great as actually hitting the stores, but it's beats waking up early and dealing with the crowds. Also, a lot of the retailers are offering free shipping as they are competing for your money. Hmmm... Waking up early to fight crowds to buy merchandise or have the merchandise be delivered to your doorstep free. I choose the latter.

This year, I've already did my homework thanks to online sites such as http://bfads.net/ and http://www.2011blackfridayads.com/ that post retailers' Black Friday ads and promos. I've pinpointed what stores and products I'll be purchasing online. Now, all there is to do is wait to eat turkey and spend money. :) 

Randomness: Post Its

Have you ever wondered why Post Its are so damn expensive?!! The random thought popped into my head recently as I had to reorder supplies for the company. If you think about it, Post Its are just colored pieces of paper with sticky adhesive, cut into different shapes and sizes. However, those things can get ridiculously expensive. A stack of them is more than a ream of paper!! (Darn 3M making lots of dough off of these things!)


Also, have you ever noticed the variety that these things come in?!! I feel like it sure is a lot of choices for a piece of paper you write notes on, then later might toss away. I walk into Office Max and there is a whole shelf dedicated to just Post It Notes.


There is so much variety....


Different sizes: 1.5x2, 3x3, 8x6, etc
Different types: lined, unlined, pop-up notes, post-it flags
Different shapes: your typical square and rectangle, to round, star, heart-shaped
Tons of colors: canary yellow, electric glow colors, tropical breeze colors, pastels, jewel pop colors, etc


When my coworkers ask me to buy "Post Its", they have to be very specific because some people are very particular with their Post Its only wanting a certain size, colors, etc.

Sewing away....

So, the recent lack of blog activity has been due somewhat to laziness and the rest because of trying to put together a costume last minute for Halloween. I thought what I was going to dress up as a while ago, but like always, I procrastinate. My friend was going as Snow White, so I had decided I'd go as the Evil Queen from Snow White to match her. I actually started looking for the costume three weeks prior to Halloween, but had no luck at Party City, Price Busters, Savers, or Walmart. I later decided that the picture of the costume I saw online was easy enough for me to make and I had ample time to do so. 


Materials:  Went and purchased the basics for the costume and accessories
-Black tank top
-Petticoat (couldn't find purple, so had to settle for black)
-Purple ribbon
-Grommets
-Purple fabric 


Then, during the week of Halloween, I finally worked on putting everything together. 


Process:  
-Put grommets on the black tank top and looped the purple ribbon through
-Sewed on ruffles on the sleeve using organza
-Attached a layer of purple tulle to the petticoat
-Sewed a collar using boning and bonding fabric to make it stiff. 
-Made a small crown using card stock, acryllic paint, glue, jewels, and lots of gold glitter. (Was originally thinking of using the Burger King crown, but didn't feel like it matched the outfit)


I was pretty satisfied of the end result with my last minute sewing... 

 Lessons learned:
-Grommets do not stay well on stretchy knit cotton.
-Organza and stretchy knit cotton do not make a good combination
-I haven't totally forgotten all my sewing techniques.

Work - You're like a lingering bad cough

Dear Work,


I don't hate you, but I don't love you either. I'm pretty indifferent about you, but I feel like I can only handle so much of work or work-related stuff. However, you have been following me everywhere I go lately.


Luckily, I am no longer working the crazy 50-55 hours work weeks anymore with you. Since my coworker has come back from maternity leave, things have calmed down a bit. I've made a goal recently to leave you on time. 5:30PM on and weekends should be MY time, not yours. 


When I am away from you though, you somehow constantly find a way to remind me of you:
-I am home watching TV while I workout and see your gold commercial. 
-As I am flipping through a magazine, I land on a spread that has your vendor's advertisement.
-When I am doing errands on the weekend, I hear our radio ad in the car from least three times on different stations. 


The worst though, was that you ask someone to call me during the weekend to go into work because the sales floor is busy. Work, give me a break. Are you kidding me that you want me to go in on my time, not get any additional pay, and just take some comp time off later?! (Which sucker fell for that one?)


I just want to do my work and go home on time. Please stop haunting me like that. I want my non-work hours to be my time. I don't appreciate me being constantly reminded of you. Thank you.


Sincerely, 
-AW 

McDonald's Monopoly

I'm usually not one that cares too much about eating fast food. I don't dislike it, but just that I rarely go get fast food because it's never one of those places I think about getting food at when I'm hungry. However, when McDonald's has their Monopoly game, that's a different story. I'm a TOTAL sucker for that game! I know that the chances of winning anything (besides food) is near slim to none, but for some reason, I still like playing and collecting the pieces. It's a good feeling to know you won something, even if it's just the 1 in 4 chances of winning food. My usual self that doesn't care for fast food would intentionally think about going to McDonald's for food just to get play pieces.


This year, I didn't realize that their Monopoly promotion had started earlier than last year, so I've only gotten McDonald's twice for their promo. I got some Chicken McNuggets yesterday, but was quite disappointed to find out that they put the darn nuggets in a regular box and not a Monopoly one with the game pieces to peel!!!! (I did, however, find out that McDonald's now has a spicy buffalo sauce for their McNuggets and it's oh-so-good!! It tastes exactly as the real buffalo wing sauce--and it's actually spicy unlike other foods that claim "spicy" but isn't at all)


Since I'm trying to stick to my budget though, I guess that's it for now, McDonald's Monopoly. Until next year!!~~~

Self-Challenge: $10/day

So, it's only halfway through the month, but I'm close to blowing this month's spending budget already. It doesn't even seem like I did a whole lot so far this month. I was gone five days on a work trip with most of the food being provided. It's so surprising how quickly a few dinners/lunches, Walmart runs, a trip to Trader Joe's (when I was in the mainland), and an unexpected $300 expense can quickly add up. Then again, I'm not surprised about Walmart. They ALWAYS get me. I go in having a list of a few things to buy, but end up buying more than I intended. 


Now as a challenge to my self, I'm going to try to spend $10/day for the rest of the month so I won't be going over-budget. I'm not sure if that's actually doable, but we'll see. The weekdays aren't too hard, however, weekends could be dangerous.  I usually bring home lunch and don't usually go out during the weekdays. I don't really "need" anything from Walmart at the moment, except possibly some sewing notions for my Halloween costume. 


Silver lining: A $100 gift card from my work trip for food that I hadn't used. 


However, Day 1 has been a major fail.... 


-Office Depot: $50 - Totally ran out of black ink for my printer. Also bought a SD card for my camera I've been wanting--(Forgot $20 rewards certificate at home.) :(  
-Lunch: $0 - Friend treated
-Starbucks: $0 - Used my Starbucks gift card
-Ross: $41, but used the gift card, so technically $0 - Went in looking for a black tank top, but unnecessarily bought two pairs of shoes. How do I justify this purchase? I really can't..... (unless saying that they were "nice" or that I got a great deal counts)
-Target: $11, but used the gift card, so $0 - Found a plain black tank top for my costume.


Currently down $50 and only about $48 on gift card remaining.  :(

Don Quijote love

I think Don Quijote tops my list as favorite Asian (grocery) store to go to. (Walmart: I heart you too, but you just don't offer the variety of Asian food that DQ does). Don Quijote has a lot of variety and the price is reasonable for most things. I would say that Chinatown is THE place to go to get Asian groceries and veggies for cheap, however, I dislike going to Chinatown for groceries. It less convenient for me in terms of hours and parking, it's crowded, smells, and the worse is there's a lot of homeless people around there. 

I knew they had a lot of different noodles (dry and fresh), sake, snacks, Asian beverages, etc. However, today I see some new interesting finds as I was browsing through the aisles. In the Asian dessert aisle, I find a big section dedicated to just jelly, puddings, etc..... All different types of jelly flavors including the usual almond tofu and mango pudding to coffee and green tea jelly!!! It was my first time seeing coffee jelly mix in a store, and I just couldn't resist buying it. They even had packages of crepe and shortcake mix there, which I found interesting. Usually people just mix the batter themselves, so it's neat to see that someone already conveniently packaged it for you. 

Upon walking by the frozen food aisles, I had to check out what stuff they had available for shabu shabu. Some of the interesting finds in that section was that I saw they had frozen custard buns, lobster balls, and  miscellaneous Japanese variety packs for shabu shabu. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any shabu shabu/spicy hot pot base at DQ. Guess it's back to Chinatown for that one when I do shabu shabu. 

Back on the Pavement

I've been trying to keep up with my exercising, and today I got back into running the route I did when I trained for the Great Aloha Run. It's been a good half a year since I've gone on this route (from Ala Moana Beach Park to the zoo) , but it was good run. The view of the sunset was great, though, it did get dark very quickly. The five miles run seems to pass by so quickly when you have such a nice view to look at. The only thing I dislike about the route is that it's always a game of dodging the many people that are on the beach and walking the streets of Waikiki. I wish there was a nice, well lit place to go jogging around that was nearby work or where I live.... 

Overdue

So... It's been five months since my last post and obviously I'm overdue for one. I blame my lack of updating to the insane work schedule previously and laziness.


Things on my mind at the moment:
-OMG. My room looks like a frickin' pigsty. Good thing hardly anyone ever comes over.
-AW: Keep exercising. Don't let the momentum stop.
-How is it humanly possible to balance work life, social life, healthy lifestyle, and having leisure time (for reading, watching TV, cooking, etc) all into 24 hours?
-Damn.. I haven't gone on a photography adventure for a while. Gotta make up for it one day after the LA trip disappointment
-Need to write more frequently. Poor blog has been neglected.

Circle of Life....

I think it's interesting how the circle of life works. It can bring so much joy, but yet also can bring so much sorrow. In the past two months, I've sort of experienced both.


I've been to baby showers of my two coworkers/friends and cousin as well. It was the first pregnancy for all three of them, so the atmosphere was filled with joy, excitement, laughter, and hope for them. We had so much fun talking about their futures, them being moms, playing games. I imagine that it must be so exciting, yet nervous for them to be welcoming this new life into their home, but not being sure about what to expect from parenthood.


On the other end of spectrum, there is death. It's something taboo that people don't discuss in everyday conversations, but is inevitably part of life. Last month was my first time experiencing the passing of a family member. I guess there's always a first to everything. As much as I knew that it would have been something that'd happen sooner or later, it's something that you can never fully prepare yourself for. At times, I think I'm still in denial, but then I start to realize.......no, she's really not here anymore and all I have to hold on to are memories.


I've also had a friend in which experienced a death of her good friend recently. She told me she had dinner with her friend Ryan the night prior with a bunch of people. Then, the next day he was gone due to an accident. He wasn't old, he wasn't sick--there were no foreseeable signs. Yet, so easily, he was gone. It's unbelievably fragile how life is, but yet we don't seem to notice it in our day-to-day routine of things.


However, no matter what happens, life goes on. So, carpe diem............

Project Caterpillar

Yes, I am still alive, and this blog is still alive, though much overdue for a post. Haven't felt like having one of those "blog moments" lately. Anyways, time to catch up.

About two months ago, I tried raising caterpillars. (Note: It was my first time trying to do so. A lot of people did it as a project in elementary school, but I never did). It actually came up unexpectedly. My friend wanted to catch caterpillars, so I thought it'd be cool that I go with my camera so that I can get some shots of butterflies and/or caterpillars. We went to our old high school where there was a crown flower plant and caught some caterpillars and I was able to snap a few decent shots of butterflies. In the end, my friend didn't want to keep the caterpillars, so I kept them.


There were about five of them and the first few days went fine. I checked back a few days later and unfortunately they all died. I did a some research online and little did I know that the caterpillars needed "fresh leaves". I guess few day old leaves weren't their cup of tea.


So, now my friend who gave me the caterpillars was now interested in trying to raise some herself and went to catch some caterpillars. She caught some extra and gave me four of them. These ones were pretty huge already. So.... attempt number two.

Attempt #2: My chubby caterpillars

This time I made a conscious effort to keep the leaves "fresh" and going to the high school to pick up new ones every few days (even when it was raining). I also had made them a home via a Starbucks cup in which i made holes and put chopsticks in for them to crawl on. The work paid off. After about five days or so, I saw the first cocoon. Then, the next. I was lucky enough to see one of them make their cocoon. It went to the top of the cover and hung out their for a good 1/2 day or so, but the process itself happened in a matter of minutes. It was a bit weird. The caterpillar wraps itself with green goo it spits out, meanwhile its skin sheds.

Caterpiller upside down ready to turn into a cocoon like the one on the right

 Later the cocoon started changing colors about the fourth day or so. It turned to a darker, brownish color, then clear, in which you could see the black and dark orange which were the wings of the butterfly. I wasn't actually there to see the butterfly come out of the cocoon. I thought if it came out when I was at work, then it would have to stay there for a long period of time until I got home. Therefore, I gave it to my friend to look after the cocoons. Ironically, I was told the first one emerged an hour after I gave it to my friend.   -_- How convenient, huh?

My little butterfly!!! (The wings still weren't dry yet in the pic)

My friend gave me one of the last butterflies back not too long after it emerged from its cocoon. The wings were still wet and it couldn't fly. However, I let it go once its wings were dry as I didn't know what the butterfly's diet would be. I had forgotten I still had crown flower leaves in a cup until a few days later in which I was about to throw it out. Then, I noticed the leaf had a little tiny hole in it and after close inspection, noticed it was a tiny caterpillar!! 

The teeny caterpillar I almost threw away with the leaf

 I started raising this caterpillar as well, but this time it was in an open cup as I was too lazy to make it a cup and it seemed as though it wouldn't run away. It was going pretty well and the caterpillar was growing and I saw it shed its skin.

The caterpillar getting bigger and bigger day by day...

Then one night, I notice the caterpillar was not on its leaf and had actually ran away. Thinking it couldn't have gone far, I look around my desk, but was unable to locate it. The next morning, I find it on one of my gloves I had laying around my desk and put it back on its leaf. I knew I had to find it a new home so it wouldn't escape again. However, it made another escape before I got to making it a new home. This time I couldn't find it the next day. I thought it surely would've died by now without food. But, a day later, I find it on crawling on the floor!!

However, the caterpillar didn't last. Not sure if it was due to the lack of food when it escaped, but it died the next day even though it had its food source back.


I did prove myself not to be a caterpillar killer after all, and still raised four caterpillars into butterflies (though some died in the process).

My first Great Aloha Run... (or run in general)

It's been a week since the 2011 Great Aloha Run, but unfortunately, I've only had time to blog about it now. It was my first run, and a great experience.


I was never the athletic type of person. If anything, I would go swimming or hiking--not running as a form of "exercise". However, two months ago, my friend and coworker Jennifer told us at work that we would be forming a team for the run and encouraged us to join the run. At first I was a bit hesistant knowing that I didn't exercise, much less run at all. I decided to join because I found out quite a few of my coworkers are joining as well, and a lot of them didn't run either.


A month and a half or so ago, I decided to train for the run just so I wouldn't suck the day of the run and to do my best to see I would fare with other people.
Basically, my goals were:
-Not to embarass myself and be one of those people on the run ending up needing medical assistance
-Finish the race
-Attempt to do so in two hours or less


My goal time probably didn't seem hard to a lot people, but I thought it was enough for me being that it was my first run ever and not knowing what to expect. The first time I started training for the run with my running buddy, I totally sucked. It was about 15 minutes per mile with me slowing down and walking in order to catch my breath. I ran about two to three times a week about an hour each time and slowly started to improve.


By the time the run came, I felt good about being able to do the run in two hours a less, although I've never ran eight miles at once (the closest was 5.7 miles). A few days prior to the race, I went to load up on carbs. (According to my friends, you should load up a week before the race. Then, on the day of the race, don't each too much in the morning or you get nauseous)

Picked up my packet the weekend before the run which contained my running number and a computer chip is attached to the shoes to track each person's running time. (I found the computer chip pretty interesting as it was something totally new to me. It starts timing you once you pass the start line mat and stops at the finish line mat, so that people don't all need to start at the same time to be timed accurately.)

I prepped the night before by getting everything ready so that I wouldn't have to go looking for it early in the morning. Went to buy a running belt the day before the race, uploaded songs to my mp3 player, and had a banana the night before and the morning of the race so that it would lessen the chance of me getting cramps.

On the day of the race, I was very surprised at the sheer volume of people attending the race. I knew the run was a popular one and that a lot of people attend it each year, but being there seeing the masses of people was a different thing. Once the run started, I ran with my two work friends (Jen & Donnie) and kept up with them until we passed mile 4. They ran faster than me, so after a while I just needed to catch my breath and go at my own pace. After about ten minutes on my own pace, I lost traces of them. I finished the race at my own pace, going slower than when I first began once we hit an incline. Without my friends running by me, I relied on my music, adrenaline, and those people on the side of the road to push me through the rest of the race. As I passed the second incline and saw the stadium not to far ahead, I felt some relief it would be over soon. Then as I finally saw the finish line, I sprinted towards it the last 20 seconds of my race. Surprisingly afterwards, I saw my friends in front of me. As I passed the finishing line, I saw the time was 1:48:39. However, later I was estatic to find out my official time was 1:34:15. I never thought I would've ran it so well. I think running with my friends had a lot to do with it as I pushed myself to keep up with their pace.

Note to self: Do not attempt to go to work after doing an 8 mile run. (I feel like our company were the only insane ones doing so)

The world of obsoletes...

Upon cleaning out my room and at cleaning at work due to renovation, I've found a lot of items to be obsolote. It was funny. I could still remember using some of these obsolete items like it was not that long ago. It seems that the world is moving so fast that there is so much new technology out every minute. Here's some of the stuff I found:

-Correction fluid: Or what is now know as correction tape. I'm sure correction fluid still exists, but really, who still uses them? To have to use a brush/pen to go over your mistakes, and have to wait or blow the paper til it dries before you can write on it, now just seems kind of silly. (I stole that bottle from work, though when I was cleaning out my room, I did find I still had a correction fluid pen)

-Floppy disks: That's been.... almost a decade or so ago? We sure have come far from floppy disks now. From floppy disks, we moved onto zip drives, then burning information on CDs, and now tiny USBs that can hold so much information! My coworker had made a comment that he doesn't even know if there are any computers out there that have floppy drives anymore. Well, surprisingly, I still have my old computer which my dad uses, which does have a floppy drive. Now there are even very tiny external hard drives, which makes my huge external hard drive look like a dinosaur. :(

-VHS tapes: I grew up watching all my Chinese drama on these before the days of VCD and DVDs. Do they even make anything on VHS anymore?



-Old school phone: This is actually still present and working currently in my house. My dad insists on having an old school dial phone instead of a "modern" one because he says in case the power goes out, you can still dial out. -_- This thing is loud and obnoxious. I don't even remember when was the last time someone called the landline and it was for me. Who uses these nowadays or even landlines in general (except for businesses) when there are cell phones? It led me to thinking how life even went about before when cell phones existed. I remember when cell phones weren't yet popular, I would actually use a landline, and sometimes even talk for hours at night in which my dad would start yelling that I'm holding up the phone line. Now, it's gone wireless and a phone is used more than just calling people. It's sends texts (which I think some people use this function than an actual phone), is a calendar/organizer, and has capabilities that computers have.

-Phone books (not pictured): Phones going wireless led me to thinking, does anyone even use phonebooks anymore? I know they still pass them around, but how many people actually still use them? I know Generation Y definitely doesn't. Why use a phone book when you can just search for anything and everything online and get it instantly? I think the companies should stop or reduce printing these, and save trees instead.

A new year upon us..

It’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged or read others’ blogs. The holidays were hectic, but passed by like a breeze. I thought about stopping my blog after not writing for so long. Sometimes I’m too lazy to blog, or feel it’s hard to blog because my life is uninteresting to think of topics to write about. However, to my surprise, I still get comments here and there, which got me motivated to keep writing knowing there’s people out there that still read what I write, despite me thinking my life is becoming uninteresting.
Anywho, a recap of the past year’s resolution results: I had made two main resolutions which was to be healthier (as is probably everyone else’s) and more productive/less lazy. I think I did make a conscious effort to be healthier by changing some of my habits like what I eat in the morning, my portions, drinking more water, and getting adequate sleep. I had kept up with exercise for a while, but things stopped once I went on a trip, and never picked back up.


Being productive and less lazy was not-so-much accomplished. Not much to say about it, but that I’ll keep it for this year’s resolutions.


2011 Goals


-Get back into exercising, especially since I’ll be attending the Great Aloha Run next month.


-De-clutter (see one of my previous posts)


-Take more pictures. I finally upgraded to a DSLR, so I am hoping to put the camera to use and get familiar with it.


-Write a PostSecret card and mail it in or slip it into the book in the store. It’s such a brilliant idea and I’m surprised of the creativity and thought people put into their postcards. I think it’d be a nice surprise if I left one in a PostSecret book.


-Go without spending money on clothes for six months. It’s quite a restraint, but I know I’ve splurged enough after Christmas. Also, my room can’t handle more clothing if I don’t do some cleaning out first. Hopefully, if I don’t go to the mall or clothing websites, I won’t be tempted to buy anything. Out of sight, out of mind.