Skeptickle

Music Therapy

sophia — Fri, 28 May 2010 19:50:14 +0000

I haven’t posted in the last few weeks because I’ve been so darn busy! Work, volunteering, participating in events, and friends have taken up so much of my time that it has made for a stressful month for me. I’m usually a pretty healthy person (as in, I don’t get sick very often), but two days ago my body started giving up on me and I felt so tired for no reason. I started sneezing a lot which I thought was my allergies coming back. Then yesterday during work, my head felt really stuffy and I guess I was running a fever that broke sometime during work because I was drenched in sweat when I got home. Fun times. So the lesson here kids is to not get stressed out for too long cuz you’re basically inviting the germies in with a big dancing sign on the street corner.

Anyways, one of the things that helps me cope with stress is listening to music. Not just any music. Alvin and the Chipmunk songs actually make me more stressed. Anyone else have that problem? Maybe it’s just me…

Here are some of the albums/songs on my playlist now:

Glee albums (my current fave show now that Lost is gone forever! *Sob*)
Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster
The Killer’s Day & Age
Kings of Leon’s Only By the Night
“According to You” by Orianthi (for some reason I think of my ex when I hear this song. Just sayin’…)
“Run” by Benton Paul (I was one of the people who got to weigh in on this guy’s work before it came out on iTunes. I like this song in particular.)
“Melody” by Kate Earl (such a happy song and I think most of us can relate to the lyrics)
“Change” and “Temporary Home” by Carrie Underwood (keeps me going when I’m disheartened about what I do and what I want to do)
“Better in Time” by Leona Lewis
“Hey, Soul Sister” by Train (loved this band from San Francisco ever since high school. Represent!)

Any recommendations for songs and albums that help when one needs a pick-me-up? And if you say “Single Ladies” from the Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel album, I shall hunt you down and destroy you. Most of us have heard by now that “Asian vampires are the most vicious of all vampires”. Don’t tempt me.

Happy Mother’s Day!

sophia — Sun, 09 May 2010 17:45:46 +0000

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people,

promptly announces she never did care for pie.

-Tenneva Jordan

Love you, Mom. I’m bringing you lavender this time. One of your favorites .

Introducing Le Jardin

sophia — Wed, 05 May 2010 22:42:47 +0000

One of the things I’ve been working on ever since we moved into our new house is the backyard. I envisioned having a kitchen garden and grow my own vegetables. I took a 6-week evening class that taught me all the basics on how to grow a sustainable vegetable garden conducted by some of the Master Gardeners in our county. I started some seeds back in February and March and kept them indoors on our windowsill. I hardened some of them outside and they are waiting to be planted: Sugar Pie Pumpkins, winter squash, pickling cucumbers, sunflowers, onions, 4 different varieties of tomatoes, red potatoes, herbs, etc.

I had conveniently reused these colorful cans to grow San Marzano tomatoes in. Bonus: no need for any other labels.

This lettuce was from seedlings I started in February. They are loving the sun we’ve been getting recently. Almost time to harvest them though. These are great because you can cut them and they will grow back.

And my blueberries are starting to bulge out. I have to cover them with bird netting soon before they ripen or else the birds and squirrels will feast on them.

My awesome husband built these garden beds for me. He’s so awesome that he developed tendonitis because of it .

I filled them with all natural Kellogg Garden Soil and my own compost. I picked Kellogg over other brands because all the ingredients on the label were recognizable as being good for plants without unnatural chemicals. Also, the words that drew me to buy it was that it had bat guano. Bat guano! Instant radness. Can’t wait to transplant my seedlings into these. We have to first install some bent PVC pipes in them so I can cover them with row covers so that bugs don’t get in. We’re going organic!

Here’s a peek at my (almost) flower garden. These are dahlias plants that sprang up and even surpassed my peony plants. They are assorted colors so I can’t wait to see them bloom.

Lastly, I stained and put together the acacia wood patio table I got from Ikea.

All we need is a good grill (which will be arriving any day now) and we’re ready for some BBQ!

New Hair!

sophia — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 23:19:04 +0000

I swear I’ve been wanting to do something crazy to my hair ever since high school. Crazy specifically in the form of crazy unnatural colors. I was always jealous of the girls who got away with or got permission from their parents to dye their hair all sorts of colors from the rainbow because my mom would’ve disowned me if I had. And boy do I love rainbows! Then after high school I was dating someone who was really conservative in regards to appearance and discouraged me from doing anything drastic to mine. Then I was working in a workplace that prohibited anything “unprofessional-looking”. Then I was totally into school and didn’t have the time to eat, let alone keep up a high maintenance hair schedule. Then there was the wedding….and on and on! So now that I don’t have all those constraints, I told myself that I gotta do it before I’m so old that it won’t look appropriate anymore. Just do it! Actually, I personally think it looks cool at any age and you better know that I’ll be doing this when I’m in my 70s. My grandkids will call me the cool/crazy grandma. Take that all other grandmas!

Okay enough of my spiel. It was surprisingly difficult to find pictures of Asian ladies with purple/pink-colored hair. I guess we all had pretty much the same type of parents. Here are the inspiration photos I managed to dig up to show the hairstylist:

I basically wanted a panel in the back to be blue/purple and a large streak in the front on the side in pink/purple. Here’s how it turned out:

Sorry for the blurry last pic. It’s the only one that illustrates the dark purple peaking through in the back the best. So yeah, I was happy overall with the results but the pink was a little too “pink” for my taste. I wanted it more of a raspberry color, so I’m fixing it myself with some Manic Panic. What do y’all think? Btw, Rob loves it and was totally encouraging the whole time. I knew I married the right man!

First Anniversary in Big Sur: Part 3

sophia — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 19:00:33 +0000

We celebrated with an anniversary dinner at Sierra Mar in the Post Ranch Inn.

The food was amazing and the view was unparallel to any place I’ve ever been to.

It was heartbreakingly beautiful.

One of the bottles of wine we got on our Napa mini-moon. It was even more delicious than I remembered it to be:

Simple and classic amuse bouche:

I really loved that they used organic and sustainable food sources. I was totally feeling like seafood (I wonder why?) and I’m so glad I went with it:

Btw, everything was fantastic here and I highly recommend this place for special events/vacations/just because you’re loaded and you can eat wherever you want. However, there was one thing that was a bit…unsettling…every time I went into the ladies room (and I went several times during the course of the evening). This thing (it’s like Beetlejuice’s sister!) seemed to look over my shoulder whenever I’m at the sink washing my hands:

And it got scarier and scarier throughout the night because the lights are really dim in that bathroom and I got more and more inebriated from the wine (Rob was DD so I was sorta forced to drink more). P.S. The flash from my camera is making it look less freaky, but I assure you it was!