happy soon-to-be february!

This was one of the most relaxing and productive weekend that I have had in a while. Saturday was the most chill - woke up, went to the mall, had lunch with a friend, was stuck wandering around the parking lot looking for my car, then ran 2.5 miles. What a glorious day. I didn't realize that sometimes it feels so nice to just have time for myself. But then again, the next second I'm wishing I had people around to go to dinner with and such and such. Can't always win them all. :)

I'm somewhat excited to be going back to work tomorrow, but it's for a purely selfish and sinful reason. There's chocolate. A lot. Of. CHOCOLATE. YUMMM. Don't you just love Valentine's day? A good reason to self-indulge and perhaps even overdose on sweets and cavity-inducing chocolates.

holiday relevations

Happy Christmas Eve! Well, not so happy over here on my end. My poor Pacho (my lovely silver Honda) got pretty banged up this afternoon. He went up against another Toyota and, lost. And throughout this whole thing, I just felt so guilty. Mind you I was not the driver but I still felt an enormous amount of guilt. That's when I realized, I have a freaking guilt-complex! Yup, a guilt-complex. I do realize that I tend to blame things on myself a lot. I also have this annoying habit of incessant apologies. Now that I have self-diagnoised myself, where can I find the cure?

perfect worlds

In a perfect, ideal world, I would be a cook/baker, creating delicious food and dessert left and right. My kitchen would be STOCKED full, topped to the rim with every spice, simply everything that I could ever wanted. Not to forgot, my kitchen would be happily equipped with blenders, food processors, and even double ovens! Oh my, what a dream that would be. :)

p.s. I bought Clue today at Target for $12. I am super excited to tear open the box and start playing. I <3 surprise Target trips - it must be all those bright lights. :D

Slacking Off

Ever since the clock change which has resulted in racing against the sunset to get home due to the lack of bike light, it has been so hard to work out. And on top of that, I have been eating more and more every day! I am in need of a big slap in the face as a wake-up call and get back to my workout regiment. The fat deposits are not going to go away on its own, unfortunately. :(

In addition, I realize how my wardrobe has more of a tom-boy feel, especially when I am in dire need of some feminine clothing and dresses. I look into my drawers and see nothing but tees and jeans. I don't even own a pair of skinny black jeans, an article of clothing that I believe can be used for a little dressing up. I have Saturday morning/afternoon to pick out an outfit and maybe instead of going for a dress and head towards separates, perhaps I will be able to hold onto it for future outings (date nights are always fun to dress up for!). I also hope to see sales, or at least reasonable prices but that may be asking for too much. Why do men have all the luck! All they have to do is wear slacks and any dress shirt and ta-da! Whereas for women, we have to find the right top to match the bottom to the perfect pair of shoes and accessories! No wonder I would rather stick with jeans and tees - definitely less complicated!

it's friday!

It's Friday! The start of a bad day. I just want to crawl back in bed, not ready to face the world. Another day of work that I do not want to deal with. I have gels to run, precipitations to do that I most likely will not get to, primers to resuspend, testing of new primers, and more isolations. Arg. And to top that, dinner get-together tonight that I am no longer in the mood for. It's just one of those days that I wish I had my headphones and can listen to music all day - that or just not go to work! My mantra for the day will be: must not bite anyone's head off. Roar...

sucky weather at home

So far I have been traveling home every weekend and this weekend was the most cloudy and gloomy of them all! To pass the time, I baked and cooked, and of course, knitted! My first panel of the afghan is progressing so slowly! I wish I was a speedy knitter and be able to finish the afghan in a matter of weeks, instead of months, or even years.

Here are some yummy baked goods that I have created this weekend.

The first pictures is actually a blueberry cupcake that I made a month ago.

And this is a little Calzone Cuppie. I found the recipe on Vanessa's Contessa. She has the most creative cupcake recipes that I have seen. This is basically a mini-pizza, yummy and delicious!

And here I made two types of cookies, a regular chocolate chip and a chocolate chocolate chip cookie, both with white chocolate chips inside! It was my first time baking homemade cookies from scratch and they turned out decent in my opinion, especially the double chocolate one. It was actually less sweet than I would have expected.

Unfortunately, not all of my attempts were successful. My Chicken Tikka Marsala did not even taste remotely close to any tikka Marsala I had ever eaten. Bleh. Hopefully I can breathe some life back into the recipe and nail it on the second try! My beef satays on the other hand came out unexpectedly scrumptious! The marinate that I used was so tasty, and I did not even use a recipe for it - tons of eyeballing and tasting. It was a very tummy-filling weekend and I'm ecstatic that I brought some of my mom's homemade wontons back to Davis with me. Delightful flavors in every bite!

favorite blogs

Lately I have become quite fascinated with food blogs, in particular, baked goods! Seeing all the beautifully imagery of cupcakes, cakes, and cookies makes me want to drive to the nearest grocery store and try my luck at recreating them. And since Halloween is creeping up, I was looking for something along the theme and I stumbled upon this gorgeous creation at bakerella.com. It is the spider and chocolate cookies! If only it did not require colored icing, which means that I will have to go get me some food coloring of sorts - annoying since I will not need a lot of it. Someday, hopefully soon, I hope to be able to create beautiful sugar cookies with icing, and layered cakes with delicious creams in between! I would love to be able to bake all day and just learn the art. Too bad not a lot of people in my family like sweets which leads to my brother and I consuming most of the goods and packing some pounds along the way.