farm life

Last weekend, I got to lift up a hen and take her egg on Orcas Island. My friend Oliver was staying at Once in a Blue Moon farm for the weekend. Since it was only 4 minutes from the bed and breakfast I was staying at, I headed over on Saturday morning to look at the alpacas, llama, sheep, horses, and many many feathered friends. During my visit, we went to the hen house with the farm's owner Shawna. Shawna told me to go ahead and lift up a chicken to collect her egg.

Very odd to lift a chicken - a live chicken that squawks at you when you lift it (because of course I'd be irritated too if I were sitting around only to be tilted on my side). The chicken oddly stayed in a 'sitting' position as I lifted it - like I was tilting a box lid open. And the egg was sooooo WARM! pretty fun.

I totes want chickens someday.

Here's Ev and me on pretty Orcas Island:


We came here for our friends' wedding. The location was just breathtaking! It was way up on a hill with a view of water all around. You could actually see into Canadian waters!

I got a chance to wear Anthropologie's Oroya Dress by Eva Franco (sz 0, $100 on sale)





and a last pic from the rehearsal dinner. I just think I look really sassy in this pic, haha

tired!

I'm still so tired!

I bought this iphone app to help me build up endurance on my runs. It's called "Get Running" (http://splendid-things.co.uk/getrunning/). It is this voice coaching system that will interrupt your podcast/music on your iphone and tell you when to walk briskly, and when to run (week by week it increases the amount of time spent
running relative to walking. 1st week you do cycles of walk 1.5 min, run 1 min, etc). Almost every single reviewer said that they hadn't run before, but now they could run thirty minutes w/o getting winded. Sounds great!

I tried it out yesterday morning on my run/walk with Buddie. The British-accented female voice was very soothing and encouraging. By the end of yesterday's run/walk I felt great (although Buddie seemed to resentfully be trotting about 10 feet behind me - he doesn't like running so much, and he dislikes the hills - well at least the uphill
parts - I go up and down around my neighborhood). I didn't get any side stitches and I didn't end up completely winded. I just felt like it was a good cardio work out. I'm looking forward to my run/walk tomorrow! I finished off the workout by coming home to do push-ups and dips. Hooray! On my way to toning up! I swear.

I also mowed our lawns yesterday which ended up being quite a workout in itself. And, when I told my mom I mowed my lawns yesterday, and she replied, "you're just like your grandma!" Not exactly the reaction I expected to hear. But apparently, my grandma used to be the one who did everything around the house - including lawn mowing. My grandpa never did ANYTHING! What?! No wonder she's still out and about at 90 years old!

I topped off my day with some Benedryl as well as my usual Allegra-D to try to reduce the swelling of the 33 bug bites on my legs. Suffice to say, I was exhausted by the time bedtime rolled around...

Backyard DONE!

Omg there are boat ones in here!

Perfect! :)

Orcas island here we come!

My snacks are well suited for this car trip. If only I had boat ones for the ferry ride.

Girls night

Last nite my friend Jenna's MIL threw her a pre-wedding girls night party. We all got mani/pedis and then went to a creperie (very appropriate because it was Bastille day and because shes marrying into a French family). Apparently I got the most 'out there' fingernail polish. OPIs 'hey! Get back in lime!' I didn't think much about choosing colors at the time but the green seemed very fun and fresh. I think I like it a lot tho :)


a pic of me and the groom's sister at La Cote in Seattle

creeps

Just took Buddie out for a walk (I have to take him more often now that he can't access the backyard cuz of landscaping). A guy rolls up next to me in his car and says, "Can you walk me too? I'll go get a leash *grin*"

eew. What's up with the dudes in my hood?

The other day I was walking through my neighborhood to grab some lunch and I saw two guys waiting for the bus. Seattle has a rep for being all unfriendly, so I try to say 'hi' to people when I pass them on the street. First guy was nice and wished me a good afternoon. The second guy made me supremely uncomfortable with the way he was staring and making noises at me (think Campbell's soup "mmm..mm..good"-style).

Dude. I. Will. So. Kick. Your. Ass.

Seattle men, please stop being gross.

Same view from today after a few hours

After a few hours of work this morning you can already see how they are pushing the hill back. Note the location of the apple tree in front. The hill used to start right in front of that tree. We have reclaimed about four feet deep space already!! I'll probably post a vid eventually. :)

My yard yesterday

Basically everything you can see is part of our back hill. Yah I kinda let the weeds go. But I knew landscaping would happen so I figured it wasn't worth stressing about.

Dinner last nite at June

We went to dinner last nite at June with Sean and Janera. The neighborhood joint was packed (crazy for a Tuesday night, but I'm so glad it's doing well). The family style dinner was awesome. I've never had an octopus salad quite like that. But poor Janera didn't want to eat the parts of the octopus that still looked like - octopus. Umm yah. That doesn't hold me back. More for me!!!

In other news, our backyard landscaping starts today!! I did a walk through with the landscaper yesterday. Later I tried to salvage a bunch of wild strawberry plants that I planted when we moved in. They spread like crazy!! I think I replanted about forty strawberry plants and I only got about an eighth of the section. They're called a coastal strawberry. Right now they are covered in tiny crazy sweet berries. I kept poppin em in my mouth as I dug up plants. Ev thinks they are too sweet "tastes like koolaid." hopefully I got enough transplanted into pots and our raised bed that I can reestablish them after the hill gets pushed back.

So addicted to this right now

And I just bought a bag of their truffle salt popcorn too. Droooooool

Ev finds the led flash on my phone too bright

Tryin out blue bottle coffee finally!

Me and my U. Of Toronto advisor

He's great!

Talk actually went ok

So we did have that whole last session of the day problem where there wasn't a lot of people there. But people who were there seemed to like the research! There was ten min of Q&A when I should have only done 5 min (one of the other presenters had to put his watch in front of me as a signal. Oops!). And a friend told me when she went out to dinner with people from another school, someone was talking about how cool my research was! Someone actually walked away and thought it was interesting enough to remember and to share. Wow. Neat.

Pic is me after the talk. Don't worry. I wore a sweater. I just got really warm. In fact, I was so nervous I think I forgot to breathe. A talk that took 25 min when practicing ended up taking only 17min during the actual event. Extra oops.

Oh dear

I'm so not in 'networking mode' for this conference.

And I wish I had not threaded my brows since I still have an
irritation rash from the thread.

Brother in wayfarers

PLi's cat Sienna kicks back on da table

Soan cake

Evan bought some Soan Cake at the Indian Market near where I got threaded. I had eaten some freshly made soan cake in Seattle at a baby shower (from an Indian bakery), and I had forgotten how irresistible it was. The texture is light and composed of interwoven fibers that melt in your mouth (hubby actually described the look as 'insulation' which is apt, but not very appetizing). Tastes like pistachio and cardamom. YUM!

Filipino food at Kalesa in Milpitas

Me and my Nai Nai

'thrifting' at my parents' house

Friendship casserole apparently used to belong to my grandma.

Waitin at the airport

dinner with friends and an OOTD

From lorispeak

Went out to dinner with my dear friends Oliver and Jenna the other night. Jenna is getting married this year out at Orcas Island. It's so exciting! I also can't wait to see her in her wedding dress. We had this joke a few years ago, where my friend and I tried to imagine what kind of wedding dress she would wear. We figured it wouldn't be white and traditionally poofy, but it would be awesome and cool designer-y, so we picked one out on net-a-porter.com for her and sent it to her. I believe her boyfriend (now fiance) was like, 'what the heck did you tell them to make them think about looking for a wedding dress for you??!!' LOL. We're such trouble-makers

The food looks good, no? It's from a little french place called Cafe Presse in Capitol Hill (owned by the same people that run Le Pichet in Belltown). But sadness! Everything was soooo salty! I had to downgrade my yelp review to TWO stars! and I felt like I had to drink a gallon of water!

Last pic is an outfit of the day (OOTD) from that evening

green Caslon cardi
pink Climbing Cowlneck shirt from Anthropologie
grey Banana Republic pants
Franco Sarto boots
two vintage thrifted necklaces twirled together into one :)

Got my Blooming Lattice cardigan in the mail today!

I had tried it on at Anthropologie awhile ago, but I couldn't bear to pay the $88 price tag. I had hoped it would go on sale, but then it proved to be so popular that it sold out online, and even in stores they sold out of the navy color (they still had this pretty bright green, but I have too many green cardigans, and I needed a navy staple).

Luckily people have it for sale new on Ebay. So I paid less than in store anyway :) Thus far it feels like the fit is a little larger than the one I tried on in the store, but I still like it. (pics are from when I tried it on at Anthro).

E wasn't the hugest fan of this. I think he thought it was too grandma-ish. But I love this granny style, the large looping lace is so sweet. Plus, grannies don't wear things this fitted - so there! :P

NYTimes: Equal Rights for Women? Survey Says: Yes, but . . .

From The New York Times:

THE FEMALE FACTOR: Equal Rights for Women? Survey Says: Yes, but . . .

People around the world say they firmly support equal rights, but many still believe men should get preference.

http://nyti.ms/alZ9Ew