CA sales Tax...WTF?

Okay, so its been ages since i've gone shopping ..heck I've got 3 sisters room and closet I can rummage through when i need something...like lotion, clothes...you get the idea...

i'm not one who checks reciepts either, i rather not revisit how much i've spent.
so last night i went to get something for my friend's bday at sephora aka women's candy store....and found that the sales tax is now 9.75 ?! WTF? I'm paying almost 10% of my purchase! and California is in a budget crisis? where does all this money go?

hot pot!

just pictures, for some reason, the blog is being wierd right now...instead of showing the pictures where i can insert comments,its just a bunch of letters and numbers below...argh...i'm a handicap when it comes to computer talk...

can't stop messin' up mah hair.

Haircuts.....aside from the fact that i think its a waste of money to pay someone a hundred bucks to cut my hair...i'd rather do it myself and i have, for the past many many years.....I have cut my own hair.

i'm not really particular of how i want my hair to look anyways...heck...my hair probably has never seen a comb, brush or hair sylist in the past 10 years...

however, after all these experimentations, i still can't find a hair cut I am fully satisfied with...

Obviously, I'm no professional, so my trick to mask the potential crappy job is to go for the messy look...it is the trend now isn't it? :o)

at first it was long and poufy but i managed to layered it. I actually liked this look...just had to post this pic too..dont' we look cute? lol!

then i tampered with the bangs...I was getting tired of my bangs poking my eyelashes and eyeballs...this was great, i thought it was cutesy.. but i had to blow dry the bangs downward every morning..which was a pain in the ass.

then i decided to go bold and chop it all off...eh..didn't care at this moment, just wanted something different...besides, its just hair...it'll grow back..no biggie..notice the choppy layered look? this was earlier this year... and i have since cut it again yesterday...

I am in love with this look....its so vintagy shanghai-sy...20's look...but short cuts like this looks way better if you have big eyes..which is something i dont have :o( this would be a great hairdo for the wedding though....

Thi Le cooks.

yes she does.

for anyone who doesn't cook and who does cook, story might sound a bit a familiar. dont get me wrong, i love to cook for my family but at the moment it was quite funny and enjoy-ful for me.

one evening as i was driving home from work, get a call from lil bro and sis...

bro: hey wer're at fresh and easy. what cut of steak is good, what kind of potatoe are good and what are the ingredients to your oo so awesome spagetti sauce? (they love my spagetti sauce, supposedly, i'm not sure anymore if that is an excuse to just get me to cook for them.)

me: get any cut that's cheap, no rump roast...ny strip is okay. potoatoes, red is great...as for spagetti sauce, ground beef, bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, cilantro.

lil sis comes on the phone: ok sounds great, we'll buy the stuff.....but when you come home from work, can you cook it?
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LOL.....not surprised...um,okay, at first, i thought they were gonna get the stuff and cook for ME but thier intent was the other way around....so, i ended up putting on the apron..and here's what i made:

ny steak strip....told bro that next time, he should look for more marbalization, more fat = juicy steak.

Here's the spagetti sauce!

chopped up all my ingredients for the spagetti sauce.

browning the onions and garlic in some olive oil...lots of onions and garlic!.

add the red and green bell peppers....it would be great to have smell-o-vision right about NOW!

ground beef

stir everything together on high heat.

I love mushrooms.

then, after everything is mixed well, pour your choice of jar-spagetti sauce and put cilantro in mixture....my choice is good ol prego.

lil sis ended up making the mashed potatoes but had to fix it by putting more butta. yum..everything taste better with butter.

awesome...medium rare...my favorite.

Porridge and accomplishment

just porridge I made. it has chicken, scallops and thousand year old egg..it turned out really tasty and homely...yummy...
so i've had these bags i started on about a few months ago and finally was able to finish them...i am actually really excited to post these on etsy soon. they're small totes you can just throw over your shoulder. it looks fancy because of sequins but i think its cute to use on any occasion.

Spam fried rice!

made this for tomorrow's lunch. had in-and-out for dinner and since there were some leftover rice from last night, I decided to turn it into lunch for tomorrow. why waste some good rice and almost expired veggies in the fridge? if you know me, i'll die if i dont have veggies with my meals...lol..

I'm usually not strict with my ingredients and just improvise with my dishes - I bascially use what i can find in my fridge, but if you want to know what i used, here it is; spam, cabbage, egg, green onions, salt, some hoisin sauce and obviously, rice! i pre-tasted it and

i was really impressed. I'm gonna have a really great lunch tomorrow!!

Squid dish anyone?

This is just a homemade dish with squid and veggies that grandma use to make and it was hella good! nothing beats grandma's home cooking but this comes close!

totally different than the fried calamari eh?...not much a fan of calamari.

lazy dog and Improv'd dinner.

So as I was driving home from work, I was drooling over this garlic, shitake pasta I had at the Yardhouse. I was thinking to myself, I cook, I'll make something similar, and add my own recipe.
So I did and stopped by Trader Joe's..

But first, here is pepper sleeping on the cool floor. smart huh? yes, dogs know when its hot too!

Oh, and this balut I had the other day....it was yummy with salt and pepper and some vietnamese coriander (leafy herb on the plate) this is vietnamese style i guess.

So here was what I cooked for dinner: garlic chicken and cremini mushroom pasta

Chicken and LOTS AND LOTS of garlic. Garlic is good!

cremini mushrooms and string beans

Stir fry them all together with olive oil, butter (lots of it) and salt, add spagetti pasta and viola! I don't like to use too many ingredients in my dishes because if you use too many, the flavors collide and you don't get to taste the natural sweetness or flavor of the veggie or meat...

add some parmesean and pepper flakes and it was yum...lol..

In 100 degree weather and then some.

oh my goooshness!! It was unbelievably hot today. I could just be sitting on my bed staring at the wall and sweat profusely outta the creases of my body and of course, my pits too.

AC is not an option since my house does not have one.... a fan would be nice too, but the green side of me says to conserve energy and the other is just that I'm cheap....I'd rather die of heat stroke than turn on the fan...yes...

I made myself a margarita to try to cool down but didn't help..nope..just made me more thirsty cuz of all the sugar in the margarita mix...so I tried to be productive, so that somehow by working on some sewing, that would make me forget how much sweat beads were dripping down between the speed bumps.

A great pat on me-self's back for finishing these clutches that had been sitting on my work desk for the past 2 weeks...yay to myself again...I'll post these on http://www.factoryjunkie.etsy.com/ for purchase soon! Don't forget too, that I'm offering FREE shipping for the USA!

And then I got camera happy and stacked the clutches in odd ways...pretending I'm artsy and sh*t.....I can get retardo sometimes..

Here's my next sewing project...more small totes!! These poor things have been sitting below my desk for about a month already, so its time to get them all sew'd up!

Pepper bobbing for ice

its been soo hot lately that bro video taped pepper bobbing for ice in 90 degree weather. she's pretty darn good too!

silly peoples and pepper

mommy and crazy auntie.
this is how pepper usually sleeps. check out the belly hannging below her.

The boy's artwork - kewl eh?

I've never seen this before and when the boy showed it to me I was amazed! I'm a dork.

YAY! An accomplishment so far.

I'm so happy that I've finally posted some of the handmade stuff on Etsy. Come and check it out! http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5240160