It's July Already and Summer Curls.

I swear, with each year, time just seems to go by faster and faster. Remember when we were in highschool and we just couldn't wait for the time to go by fast? I know that I just couldn't wait to get to the age of 16, then to 18, then to 21. Now, I'm hoping for the reverse. 

A week ago, I decided to jump on it and get a Japanese Digital Perm. I made the appointment a month or two in advance at Star East Hair & Beauty Salon in SF. To sum up my emotions that day, I was really nervous because well, it's a freakin' perm. The last time I had a perm, err, a spiral perm, was back in 1990 and I absolutely hated it even though every single girl around me had one. I vowed since then to not ever get a freakin' perm ever again. See exhibit A below. I know, right? What the hell was I freakin' thinking????

I picked this particular salon solely on the well received reviews it had on Yelp, coupled with the fact that it seemed a bit more reasonable in price. The digital perms can go as high as $300+. 


So armed with a good book, snacks and water, I came into the salon fully prepared to endure the 4 hour time frame it will take to get my "perm." Oh, but it's a digital perm. That's what I kept telling myself to keep sane. 


I cam in at 10:30am and my hair was literally done within 4 hours, 2:30pm. Here are the initial results. I had to ofcourse, fix my bangs myself because he had all of my bangs going to one side that didn't really compliment my face structure. Oh, and we both agreed to not curl my bangs as well. Great idea, that was!

The next morning, after a big ole' water spray, some curling cream product and anti frizz spray, and some twirling with the fingers, it came out like this. 

It's been a week so far and I'm loving it more and more. I have to be completely honest with you. It really took me awhile to get used to it since I had straight hair for more than 15 years. The curls are relaxing more and getting more relaxed which is making them appear bigger. Would I do it again? Perhaps. I only say this because it takes a butt load of time to have it done. But, it is very low maintenance. No blow drying required! Just put in product, twirl and let it air dry. Sure, at first, you feel like a wet dog after getting out of the shower, but once it dries up, you are good as new!

It's Officially Summer!

Not sure what is up with these days. I've never really been one to get pedi's often. It's usually for a special occassion. But lately, these past couple of months, I've been getting them like, every 2-3 weeks and that is no bueno for my bank account. 

What can I say though? I'm addicted. My recent color is OPI's, " Don't be Koi With me" and I am absolutely smitten by it. 

At first, I thought it made my skin color look rather dark and for some odd reason, I kept thinking of the WHAM! video, " Wake Me Up, Before You Go-Go". The video had all sorts of neon colors and some even glowed in the dark. But that thought was abruptly stopped when my girlfriend had no clue what I was talking about. She's 24. I'm 34. Need I say more?!? Le Sigh. I feel old. 

Anyways, going back to the color. It's my first time to ever go bright which means to me that it's officially summer according to my toes! Please excuse the extremely large pores on my legs. I need to shave!

Sirius Dog Shopping.

At the SPCA Doggy Dash there were tons of doggy vendor booths. I try to get as many samples as I can and save my pennies, but at this one particular vendor, I just couldn't resist. 

The vendor is called Sirius Republic. They have the cutest, well in my opinion, wide width buckle collars. They come in all sorts of pretty designs and they are handcrafted with cotton fabric and nylon webbing.  I couldn't decide which one to purchase for Maddie. Ugh, decision, decisions! 

In the end, I ended up purchasing the Purple Bloom collar that looks simply marvelous on her. It kinda makes her look like an Etsy dog, yes? Hehe.

 

You Say Tomato, I Say Tomatoe.

This is my first year to grow tomatoes and basil on my own. I decided to plant them in pots since our yard is landscaped and I didn't want to mess up our drip system by digging a big ass hole in the ground. Heck, I haven't a slightest clue where our drip system runs through. Shows how much managing I did when we had our backyard landscaped, yes?

In the beginning of my tomato growing process, I was a bit scared because our weather has been acting funky. I planted them in April and since then, we experienced cold mornings causing some of my leaves to kinda look all funky. Like, they sorta look like experienced some "freezing", yet I'm not entirely sure as to what frozen leaves look like. 

But, thankfully, our weather bounced back to good ole' sunny sunshine and my tomato plants and heck, even my basil plant that I thought was dying on me look great! 


Right now, I have this ONE cherry tomato that is a rich red. I think it's time to pick it, but I don't want to because, well, it's just ONE FREAKIN' TOMATO!!!! Ugh. Why can't they all just harvest at the same time?!? 

 Here's my basil plant that I seriously thought I killed it as soon as I planted it. It was looking so blah and to think that in the description it said that it's a "tough" plant. After reading that and after seeing what my basil plant looked like, I didn't think I was cut out for this planting business. But, I decided to repot it with Miracle Grow and water it more, and viola, it bloomed. Now, to google if having flowers on a basil plant is toxic or not?

Here's my Beefsteak Tomato plant that a friend shared with me. So excited for these to start growing so that I don't have to go to the Farmer's Market. I'm sorry, but the FM's vine ripe tomatoes are bank! 

Have any of you guys grown some vegetables this summer? Any tips you can give this newbie?

Weekend Festivities.

I had a nice surprise to come home from work  on Thursday morning. Husband declared that the sewage backed up at his work, and so, he didn't have to go in because they closed the entire building. Yippee, Skippy!!! I love it when the husband is off on weekdays especially on weekdays that I'm off! It got way better because when we got home that evening, the office called again to say that he has Friday off too as the cleanup is still being worked on! 


You would think that we would take off somewhere. But, we pretty much stayed local and hung out. Ran errands, ate BBQ, and watched the Celtics game, (HAH!). 


The weekend was a different story as we were on the go, go, go! We went to the SPCA Doggy Dash on Saturday morning. This was our 2nd time participating in the event as we had tons of fun last year. Lots of smiling dogs, happy people, beautiful day, and lots of walking, walking, walking. 

Here's a pictures before taking off to the Doggy Dash.  She has NO IDEA how much fun she's going to have in the next 30 minutes.


As we were walking towards the event area, Maddie was extremely excited. Like, really, excited! She kept crying as we were approaching the area because she saw so many dogs ahead of her. She just wanted to play! 

When it came time to walk around the park, she finally settled down a bit, which we blamed on her being a wee bit of tired. There were all kinds of dogs in sizes. From the itty bitty's to the medium sized, to the extreme large dogs like the Great Dane's! 

We were pretty much walking in sync with this oh-so-cute basset hound, but he paid no attention to Maddie. Poor Maddie. =( 

There were dogs in strollers. 

There were dogs dressed up in tu-tu's!

 We strolled through the area of breed specific rescue booths. Just had to snap up this picture of the greyhounds. I can't help but wonder if they would kick my ass if I ran with them. 




Our weekend was jam packed with the addition of celebrating a friend's 40th birthday and another friend's 40th/graduation from Neurosurgery residency at Stanford, we are totally spent! How was your weekend?

No BBQ Memorial Weekend

No BBQ's this weekend for us. But it was definitely a weekend filled with lots of gatherings with friends and family. 

First, we celebrated one of our good friend's 40th birthday. During the day, he drove up to Tahoe to do a 72 mile bike ride. Can I say awesome? It was safe to say that he was starving when he returned and what a better way to end a 72 mile ride with a rib eye steak with baked potatoes and veggies. I had every intention to have a hamburger as I was really craving a burger, but ended up ordering a rib eye too! 



The next day, it was my turn to finally watch the Sex and the City, Part Deux movie with my lovely girlfriends. I was dying from seeing all the Facebook updates from friends saying that they were seeing the movie and loved it! I couldn't wait until it was my turn! 

We had sushi, bellini's, and shared great laughs. Love me some girl time. I don't think I've laughed so much and so loud in a long time, despite the disappointing probing of the restaurant. Can you believe that they had the balls to call me 15 minutes before our reservations to see if we were still coming as they had another party of 7 people that needed a table. WTH? Really?


Oh! I can't forget to say that Wingwoman made a special surprise appearance! I couldn't believe it! I was so ecstatic that she came along. I haven't seen her since her  raunchy bachelorette party. 

On Sunday, we celebrated my little brother's 26th birthday by noshing on garlic steak sandwiches, fried ravioli's, and farmville conversations. Gotta love, Facebook to bring a family together, yes?

How was your Memorial Weekend?

The Rules are Up!

I couldn't help but purchase this ginormous wooden sign when I saw it on Etsy by seller, BarnOwlPrimitives. I think it will look great in our entryway which is slowly but surely coming along.