Weekend Shenenigans

I live for the weekends. I think part of it has to do with me working every 3rd weekend of the month and usually when its my weekend on at work, something exceptionally fun is going on and I can't participate in the festivities. Boo. 

This past weekend, it was bitter sweet. 

Sweet.

Celebrated my BFF's 36th birthday by having a decadent soul food lunch at Sandra Dee's BBQ and then later on trekking down to Berkeley to just literally "hang." 

It's a good thing that we changed to jeans and a sweater because it was freakin' cold in Berkeley. The weather forecasters are not joking that the bay area is not receiving a good summer this year. It looks and feels like winter. What? 

 We perused one of our favorite stores, Anthropologie while we were down in Berkeley. Love, Love, their clothes, accessories, and shoes there. Why do they have to be so darn expensive?!? I'm waiting for these sunglasses to go on sale. Yeah, I know, they are only $24.00, but I refuse to pay full price at this store. 

In the evening, we dined at Cafe Rouge and noshed on Hog Island Sweetwater Oysters and minty mojito's. 


Love me some oysters. I'm hoping to make a trip to the Hog Island Oyster farm soon and bbq them there.




The Bitter {sweet}.
The next day, the family and I headed down to SF to visit my lovely grandma that passed away three years ago. It still feels like yesterday when we lost her and the pain is still there of missing her.  I'm so glad that she stayed with my mom the last three years of her life. Its because of that, I was able to grow even more close to her and spend good quality time with her. I miss you grandma and always will.

Summer Concerts.

Last month, I had the giddy excitement to attend the Rihanna + Ke$ha concert. When I accepted the invitation from a friend to go, I soley accepted it on the likes of Ke$ha. I'm a so-so fan when it comes to Rihanna. I blame the radio for overkilling her songs. Can I say, " ella, ella, ella, eh?" 

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuut, on the night of the concert, my feelings were the exact opposite. Ke$ha sucked. She sang songs that I hardly recognized. Dinosaurs? What? Oh, but Rihanna, she rocked it. I didn't realize how many hit songs she had and was happily dancing in the aisles with my friends to all of her ballads. 

Before the concert, we noshed at one of my favorite happy hour restaurants in midtown, Lucca's. I couldn't pass up their cucumber mojito. It screamed summer, hanging with your girls, and refreshing all in one!

Then, we noshed on prawn pasta in lobster sauces, grilled artichokes and fresh soup and giggled the night away. Our server was so kind as he made sure that we got out of the restaurant in time to make it to the concert with reasonable time. 

 I love these girls. They are my besties at work and always have a great time when out. No drama. That's how I roll. That's how we roll. 

Rihanna wore the most obscure outfits. Looks like she favored bodysuits, or what I like to call them, "onesies."

After the concert, all of us were on a Rihanna hight. Like, literally. We came out singing all of her songs and even listened on the way home her new song with Eminem. 

                                                                          It was a great night.

Coastal Camping

I've never really been a fan of camping up until this past weekend. I'm a newly reconverted camping fan! In the past, camping to me was dreadful. Dirty all the freakin' time, dry hot weather,  dreaded taking a shower in the less than clean showers, bugs, bees, bears, etc. But, I think I've found a solution to my camping dilemma and that is, find a campsite that is near nice places such as Pismo Beach. 

Pismo Beach was my saving grace. We were able to hang out in cool, breezy weather, and then return to our campsite in the evening hours where it was finally in decent weather temperatures and lounge for the remainder of the night. It was the perfect combination! 

This past weekend, we drove down to the Central Coast and camped out at one of the KOA campgrounds in Santa Margarita. I have to give much props to KOA as they were exceptionally good at making sure the bathrooms and campgrounds were clean. Heck, even their porta potty was clean. Well, that's what I heard from my fellow family members. I didn't have the heart or the courage to go into the porta potty. My rule, go in a porta potty unless its absolutely necessary. 

This time around, the weather was perfect to set up our tents. Last year, it was so windy making it difficult to even hold down the tents to stake them. Below is our humble abode for 4 days/night. Inside, we had cots that took up majority of the room inside and made me a wee bit clausterphobic. I thought I was going to have a panic attack. 

The next day, Friday,  we all decided to head to Pismo Beach. I was very excited because I've never been to Pismo Beach. The weather, at first, was foggy and cold, but the sun began to come out mid afternoon making it perfect to walk around and explore the little beach town. 

We encountered the infamous Splash Cafe that my lovely Facebook friends kept telling me to check out. The line was super long, but fortunately, it went by fast! We ordered a bowl of their award winning clam chowder, with seafood topping and a loaf of sourdough bread. (Thank you V for giving me this tip!). It was very, very, delicious and needless to say, worth every minute of the wait. 

Noshed on a seafood platter combo which was next door to Splash cafe at a place called Brad's Restaurant.  that consisted of clam strips, shrimp, halibut, and calimari and oh, some good ole' chips! It was oh-so delish!

Then on Saturday, we headed over to Grover Beach. This was my favorite part of the trip! We were able to drive onto the beach and have a little tailgating beach party all day long.

Dogs are allowed on the beach, so long as they are leashed. Fine by me. Maddie is a rebel when it comes to being off leash on the beach. The last time we off leashed her, she went ballistic. She started chasing a bird and kept going farther and farther into the ocean. We seriously thought we were going to lose her because she wouldn't respond to our voice commands. 

I can't wait for next year to camp again! It truly was a enjoyable weekend! I heart summer days.....

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?