fried rice(s)

each night that we cook, we are inevitably left with rice that we cannot finish. instead of eating leftover rice the next day (shudder :p), we wrap the leftover rice into riceballs with saran wrap and pop them in the freezer. then over the course of a week or two, after the freezer has extracted the excess moisture from the riceballs, we defrost and use the rice to make a big batch of fried rice!

today, we made our fried rice the "traditional", aka my favorite, way: with simbala taiwanese-style sausage, egg, yellow corn, and green peas. we had some extra chicken breast meat leftover so we diced that up and threw it in as well. that is the dish on the left.

on the right hand side, we made a similar fried rice with the same ingredients as mentioned before, and added a few helpful servings of diced sichuan spicy turnips! it made for a spicy fried rice with smokey sichuan aromatic flavors!

in the evening, i whipped out my new cherry apple kitchenaid for an inaugural spin and followed this copycat levain chocolate chip cookie recipe to make a dozen of these monsters! i forgot to include a reference object to give you an idea of their size, but they are about the size of my fist :) i was pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to make cookies - i guess the intended sloppiness and size of the cookie make it a little easier too. and and oh so delicious right out of the oven!

cutting board class #2

tonight we had our second and final class with pete raho of gowanus furniture to complete our walnut-cherry-maple morse code cutting boards. with an hour to spare before the 7pm class, we opted to explore gowanus a bit and ended up at a local bakery and cafe, four & twenty blackbirds. it was at the corner of 3rd ave and 8th street, just a couple blocks from the fourth ave F train station and steps from makeville studios.

the cafe was large and reminded me of places we've gone to in LA ~ high ceilings, generous tables and space, and lit up with macbook screens. i had a serious problem when it came to ordering because the pie descriptions sounded so delicious! i ended up ordering the sweet potato apple crumble with fresh whip on the side because i was in the mood for buttery crumble :) and actually it turns out that the crumble was largely made from oats, so not too unhealthy after all.

next time i want to try the salty honey (that one only had ONE slice left so it MUST be good), grapefruit custard (because a citrus custard just sounds interesting), and the bittersweet chocolate pecan. it's going to be a cake party next time!

when we arrived to shop, our beautiful boards were waiting for us, having been cleaned of the excess glue and planed (thanks pete). during our second class, we would have far more autonomy and shop tasks to do in order to complete our board. they included: drilling the wall-mounting holes; rounding over the edges of the board and mounting holes with the palm router; creating the handholds; sanding corners; and applying the finish.

pete demonstrated how to use a number of pieces of equipment including: the drill (to make the wall-mounting holes), palm router (to round over the edges), router table (to create the handholds), and the orbital sander (to sand the corners). it felt a bit as if we were being transported back to the high school wood shop again! pete stressed the importance of safety when using the tools, which was helpful, and we got to work.

at the end of the night, when we were satisfied with the shape and smoothness of our boards, we applied the hot oil and wax finish, which also left our hands feeling silky smooth. how do i get a bottle of that stuff? :) we left the boards to dry and will return to pick them up in a week or so. yay. it's been an awesome way to spend two friday nights so far, and can't wait to tell our friends about the class and the awesome instructor!

sickling

after picking up a few serving dishes at the soho c&b, i met kevin for dinner at one of our local go-to spots, soba-ya, for a quick, tasty dinner. we ordered the santen-mori (three vegetable dishes) of kimpira-gobo, satsuma-imo, and kabocha to shiitake, and a few vegetable tempura as appetizers. i love japanese veggie dishes - they are so simple and SO GOOD. kev had the large sardine hot soba special and i had the mini oyakodon.

when we arrived home, my table-top fiddle leaf fig tree arrived via usps from ohio! it was packaged very carefully in a 2-day priority box with packing peanuts and a warm heating pack, but the leaves were very dirty (white spots all over them) and sickly/damaged upon arrival. also, the top 2 inches of the stem was soft and had fallen to one side. it couldn't have been good for the plant to be packaged and away from sunlight for 2 days, but i think it's also possible that the gardener didn't take very good care of this guy, and it was damaged in transit (possibly frozen, due to the snowpocalypse). i repotted the little guy and wiped down his leaves, and put him in a southern facing windowsill. hopefully it's not too late to save him and it's bright and sunny tomorrow!

here is a photo of him right after i removed him from the box. how sad! stay tuned ...  

feels like home

a loft is not easy to furnish, especially when we moved from a space approximately 1/3 of the size and 2/3 of the height. i think one of the hardest parts is not having walls/boundaries between the different areas - it requires you to do a whole lot more measuring and imagining. 

when we moved in on october 31, 2014, we had +80 boxes of our belongings, but no furniture for the living room. even though we have heaps of boxes in every room, the space felt massively empty. after a few months of unpacking, donating, and scrupulously shopping at the rate of one piece per month (we are slow lol), we've finally acquired a few pieces which make the loft feel like home.

most recently we picked up this black walnut and rosewood sideboard and placed it behind our living room sectional. it feels like an anchor piece, and has helped to separate the living and dining space so our furniture doesn't look like it's just floating around anymore. then kevin spent THREE evenings this week polishing it, as well as every other piece of walnut furniture in the apartment, with orange-glo. i grew up with a father who was very involved in the daily household chores, and i was lucky to marry a man who helps out too :) the wood looks really nice after it's been polished, the colors are richer, and a little bonus is that everything smells like oranges afterwards!

kevin and i both grew up in the suburbs: me in holmdel new jersey surrounded by small, local farms, and kevin in stockton california in the heart of the central valley agriculture. we both love the outdoors and miss the greenery, so we are trying to bring some of the outdoors indoors. i repotted our snake plant aka sansevieria trifasciata (also known as the "mother-in-law's tongue"), but i'm not sure if this exact location will be his home quite yet. we'll see how the light works out.

well, my friend liz asked to see a recent photo of the place, so here it is! it's the only one i can show you because there are boxes everywhere else still. and because i am the queen of collecting knick knacks and magazine hoarding, this is probably the least cluttered you will ever see our place. bookshelves are expected to arrive in march, and hopefully we'll get our bikes mounted up on the walls as well. yay!

best: korean body scrubs on a chilly evening after a long day at work.

worst: how walking by dirty water dog street vendors at a brisk pace for even a quick minute makes your hair smell like smoke and grease for the rest of the day. bleh :p

smile: the title of this post is coincidentally the title of the chantal kreviazuk song that we danced to at our wedding at the boathouse :) it's one of my favorite songs from "how to lose a guy in ten days".

snowpocalypse of 2015

we awoke to a very quiet city on tuesday morning. the streets and sidewalks were void of cars and pedestrians. all we heard was the low rumble of snow plows going down seventh ave and the comforting crackle from kevin's burr coffee bean grinder. our new houseplant was settling in nicely by the southwest window, basking in the morning light.

deblasio had implemented a car-train-bus-subway ban starting at 11pm last night, so we decided to walk to work. there was about 6-8 inches of snow on parts of the sidewalk, but for the most part, the streets and most major sidewalks had been cleaned overnight. the temperature was in the mid-30s, not too cold for a 25 minute walk, so i put on my ice breaker base layers, a fleece pullover, and a hard shell jacket and pants! armed with kevin's nikon and freshly brewed coffee in our top pot double-walled stainless steel mugs, we were ready to go!

the walk to work and back home were really nice! with so many people taking the day off or working from home, the streets were quiet and cars and public transportat did not re-enter the streets until 7:30am. maybe we should do the walk a bit more often, well, maybe just on workday holidays or days with terrible weather when it's less crowded out.

during the day, one of my close friends, monica, asked if it was okay to put me down as her older son's emergency contact at his high school. she'd asked us last year to be his emergency contact as well. it feels nice, like we are family. i am almost always at my desk or in the city reachable by my mobile, so of course i accepted.

we made a quick and easy dinner tonight. spicy sesame noodles with chicken, cucumbers, and pea shoots on the side. we've been working on a pot of chicken-pork soup with daikon and seaweed this week as well, good comfort food during these cold days and just like my mama makes it :)

winterstorm juno prep

winterstorm juno has started! we are bracing for 2-3 feet of snow over the next two days, as forecasters are saying this could be the largest storm in nyc's history. and for the first time, kevin is actually IN TOWN for a natural disaster so we can experience it together :)

when we got home, he started with the doomsday prep, which included:

• filling up the tub with water
• taking out our flashlights and headlamps
• charging all our portable electronics
• testing out his hand crank radio <-- LOL

better to be safe than sorry! it's really nice to prep together and the possibility of being snowed in for a couple days together is actually appealing :)

we stocked up on groceries on sunday afternoon so good for a few days there. not to mention we have four bags of quinoa - white, black, red, and semilla. the three pictured below are the ones lawrence and catherine brought for us from peru! so for a quick and healthy dinner, we made a little dent in our quinoa reserves: red quinoa, sauteed curly kale, roasted golden beets, and broiled salmon.

and yes! it's that time of year again - time for ... SUMOS! :) sumos, a cross between the mandarin and navel orange, are one of our favorite fruits. they are sweet, juicy, and oh-so-tangy! in the pic below, they are the ones with the thick scaly peel, with a giant nob on top. they look like ... sumo wrestlers with the little bun :) and they are only in season for a few weeks in the winter, so along with the ruby red grapefruit, cara cara oranges, and bananas, we have a bunch of sumos to brave the next couple of days with.

gun control

today started out as a beautiful day: it was partly sunny and nice and cool (36F)! we squeezed in an 11.5 mile run around the bottom of the island. talk about mentally and physically challenging - lack of consistency in our workouts and runs is starting to show in our weakened joints and muscles and mental prowess as well. i think kev and i were both internally praying just to get through the first three miles, and the strong gusty winds did not help!

no time better than the present to get back into shape though! hopefully we can be a bit more consistent starting this week with less than two months to go before the la 26.2.

after the run, we rushed to jing fong in chinatown, transported by a cabbie with an asian-food fetish, to celebrate hode's 28th birthday (for the seventh time). it was great to see the entire cmu gang after the holidays, wives, and babies all present :) we got to hear about glenn's proposal in hawaii, i met and fed baby ben for the first time (SO CUTE!!!!), and to top it all off, we got a nice email from vince during dimsum that he had proposed to shirley in australia!! woohoo ~~ two weddings coming up! it seems like a second wave of weddings for the cmu friends, and from what it sounds like, especially the couples with kids are ready to party! 

im looking forward to some destination weddings and spending time with friends and their families, which feels harder and harder as families are expanding and moving further away from the city.

then came this afternoon.

after making our way back to chelsea, we stopped by homedepot for 45 min or so to pick up some supplies and i spent a little time selecting the perfect snake plant :) as we were waiting on line by the registers, we heard two loud sounds. they didn't sound like gunshots to me, but kevin thought they did. we heard two more shots and kev saw a man running desperately away from something/one (about 25 feet away from us) and falling as he was running. "DROP EVERYTHING AND LET'S GO"  kevin said ... i was still a bit in shock thinking - that didn't sound like gun shots tho. why would there be gunshots? there couldn't be ... are we overreacting?

my initial reaction was to hide ... if they were gunshots, i didn't want to be shot while running :( but kev was like - the door is right there (pointing ahead of us about 25 ft in the opposite direction from where we had heard the gunshots). so i dropped my plant (sadface) and other supplies i had been holding, and along with the other shoppers and employees started running slowly towards the exit.

when we got outside onto the sidewalk, people had no idea what the fuss was about and were walking by normally. a couple employees were screaming "there were gunshots!" and ran towards fifth ave and we went that way as well. about 30 sec later when we reached fifth ave, kev was pointing for us to continue running to get far away from the store and potential harm's way.

police cars were blazing and driving up fifth avenue and broadway (in the opposite direction of traffic) were at the homedepot within 2-3 minutes of the first gunshots. it was amazing to see how quickly they responded and arrived at the scene of the crime.

when we were a block north of the homedepot, we peered through the empty parking lot to try to understand what had just happened. twitter feeds were lit up with updates about the shots fired and indeed, there were two people killed: an ex-employee had shot and killed his former manager and then shot and killed himself afterwards.

we walked home a little stunned and grateful for not getting hurt. but there's something to be said with the number of shootings we hear about these days and gun control. i don't understand how any pedestrian in nyc can argue that he "needs" a gun. but if the newtown elementary school shooting massacre wasn't enough reason to tighten gun control policies, i don't know what it will take ...

our fiddle leaf fig tree

another rainy, chilly saturday! but it was a fun one none-the-less as we got to explore our new neighborhood a little. 

we paid a little trip to the floral district on 28th street! it's kinda sad because the florists are slowly leaving the area due to rising rents, and there are really only a few nice ones left. we were pleasantly greeted by a wide assortment of the most beautiful and colorful flowers! and baby peonies ~ i thought they were only available in the spring-summer months!

checked out a few shops, and then i finally selected our first fiddle-leaf fig tree. he's a 4.5" guy, with a long stem, and leaves towards the top. he seems pretty healthy, though his leaves were quite dirty. i spent the morning repotting him in our case-study planter and wiping down his leaves. it was pretty relaxing and therapeutic actually! though i spilled a bit of potting soil so it wasn't all that pretty. hahaha ...

we have currently positioned him in the SW corner of the apartment, where i think it's most aesthetically pleasing and also most sunny during the day. i don't have a green thumb by any means, but we grew some nice herbs at the usq apartment with our massively intrusive southern-lit windows, and i've managed to keep a few succulents and airplants alive so far, so we'll see how this goes. it's nice to feel needed :)

quick swedish meatball with lingonberry sauce at the local fika for lunch (DEEELISH)!

to top off the day, we picked up a gorgeous sideboard at organic modernism on 22nd between 6th and 7th ave from aydan, the store manager. that woman rocks!!! she's sweet, and fair, and honest, and she gave us an expected deal on our much needed sideboard (she has thus become my favorite OM salesperson to date). yay. our new piece of furniture is made if walnut and beech wood, and has leather strap finishes. given it was just two blocks away, we carted it away with a dolly so i could smile at it for the rest of the weekend. :)

on a sad note, kevin was feeling sick, uhm, which may explain why i was feeling better so quickly. the best way to get better is to pass it on? :p oops :/

cutting board class #1

after a good night's sleep, i woke up feeling a lot better. not sure what was going on, but i can only attribute the bug from a coworker and my swift recovery from kevin's TLC. thank you always ... i am not a fun sick person to be around. i basically make myself immobile from the bed or couch :D

after a long friday, one of the busiest days of the year so far, i met my giddy husband on the F train platform and we headed down to gowanus, brooklyn. gowanus is home of the famous gowanus canal and a part of south brooklyn which had been the site of decades of industrial use and coal gas manufacturing in the 19th century. currently, it is zoned for mid-level manufacturing and the neighborhood is full of artists lofts and studios. we actually went on a self-guided tour of some gowanus studios back in october and so were excited to go back.

we stopped by fletcher's brooklyn bbq for a quick bite and hurried over a couple blocks to makeville studios for part 1 of kevin's birthday gift from last spring: gowanus furniture's cutting board class with pete raho. we had rescheduled this class multiple times last year due to conflicts with our race, travel, and friend's birthday events, so were especially glad to finally commit to this date.

the space was decorated with raw wood of all shapes and sizes, tools, masks, and machinery of all sorts lined the walls. we were welcomed with beers and wine, and i polished off three chocolate covered biscuits within minutes of arriving. our class was on the large size - 12 of us in total, plus pete, the instructor, and his friend, rachel.

pete worked in the auction house business before receiving his mba from nyu stern a few years ago. he has since started his own business, gowanus furniture, and one of his best selling products are his kentile monogrammed cutting boards. his passion for gowanus and his product was quite infectious, and he conducting his class is a very easygoing, relaxing way. it was a great way to spend a friday night!

each group was given 4-5 pieces each of maple, cherry, and walnut, and asked to spend a little time to come up with a design. kevin and i decided to do our initials, "J" and "K" in morse code! "J" = short-long-longlong and "K" = long-short-long so our first initials alone would span almost the entire cutting board. we used walnut for the "J", maple for the "K", and maple for the background. once rachel helped us to cut our wood pieces to size, we applied wood glue generously to the same face of each piece and carefully clamped them together with gigantic woodworking clamps. the clamps would force the wood glue to stay in place and to ensure all sides of the cutting board were flush. 

as our cutting board was suspended in midair by the clamps, the wood glue made a cool design as it dripped and beaded up! almost looks like pancake batter and mini pancakes yum. had to remind myself not to grab a piece!

and that was it for class #1! can't wait to come back next friday to cut it to size and sand it down!

looks like someone's ready to install a woodshop in the apt!

moma modern party

sadly, i woke up feeling pretty crappy this morning and thought perhaps it was a case of the morning blues. as the day progressed, felt sore all over and by the afternoon, i was feeling hot-cold-and-sweat-chills.

i wasn't able to attend the inaugural moma modern party that i invited my girlfriends too! (>.<) BUMMER. i love that place ... and the matisse exhibit is really nice. 

the girls had a nice time though! i received this text around 9pm (fast asleep). doh ... next year or perhaps they'll have a spring/summer event!

here we go again, nyc!

today we accepted our guaranteed entry and registered for the TCS new york city marathon again. the race will be on sunday, november 1, 2015, which means we'll probably need to start training in mid-july. fingers crossed for another mild summer! :)

i'm not sure if we'll be able pull off 26.2 miles in 3 hours and 30 minutes (essentially 8 min miles), but we will sure as heck train for it and have fun in the process.

another chelsea loft gem

it started to drizzle after lawrence and catherine left, and we were both a bit sore from saturday's workout, so kevin and i lounged around the apartment all afternoon on the MLK holiday. i occupied the chaise with my travel & leisure, real simple, and american sniper on kindle, while kevin programmed at the island.

haha. just kidding, kev. he always corrects me when i comment on his "programming". well, to the amateur, when someone opens up the black msdos prompt window and starts typing in commands to navigate a linux or windows machine, it looks, smells, feels, and is programming! haha ... but just kidding :)

at some point, we joined forces and posted a couple things under kevin's account on ebay. after unpacking his boxes of jackets and being forced to admit that he has uhm +15 patagonia/mountainhardware/northface/arcteryx rain/soft/midweight/hard-shell jackets, kevin's successfully posted and sold two pre-owned jackets on ebay! i decided to give it a whirl with my similarly fabulous collection of dresses compulsively acquired mostly through gilt and ruelala from 2009-2012 (some still with tags on!). 

i realized that, however, without the professional photo of the dress on a model, regardless of the lighting, clothing on a hanger is not very appealing to consumers. i wouldn't buy it! oh wells - good thing goodwill is one block away!

for dinner, we met with some friends in the neighborhood for chips & guac, ceviche, and soft tacos at cafe el presidente. although we've only hung out a couple times since meeting through rose & dustin, i think the experiences that we share through our respective loft remodels have forged a bond between us, kris & jessica. for example, we are all in cook-at-home mode after our savings accounts have been pillaged through the confusing, yet extensive manhattan design and construction process. haha.

we dropped by their new pad after dinner and saw the beauty. i think i may have surprised everyone with my smiles and excitement. the place was a wreck. the previous owner had taken liberties that no one should ever have. she had handfuls of cables and commercial-size outlets running throughout the loft, extra cabinets haphazardly installed above original kitchen cabinetry, and a surprise with every closet opened. it was a sheer wreck, but the bones WERE SO GOOD.

even the littlest amount of work would yield vast improvements and increase the market value of this unit. they have hired an architect and both have a background in design/art, i think, so i am excited to see the transformation of their space! really glad to have new friends in the neighborhood :) 

and when the place is done, i might even get to run my fingers across their steinway & sons ivories OMG!!

lunges, burpees, planks

it was 20F out today, as it has been for many days now, so we ventured to the gym! after a mile warm-up and 800m of some fitness routines, kevin (my trainer, my husband, same guy) suggested we do a little light strengthening work: lunges, burpees, planks x 3.

i love strength training days! even back in hs, they are the "easy days", when compared to the actual long-run / speed-workout days. i got into combat mode and we busted out our strength exercises relatively quickly - piece of cake.

afterwards, i gawked at the cute little toddler girls in their bathing suits practicing gymnastics (omg are they not so so so adorable?) and had an easy lunch at chelsea piers' wichcraft. nothing beats a classic pbj on wheat and tomato soup on a cold cold day.

an act of kindness

this morning as i was waiting for the 1 train at the 23rd st station heading into the office, i heard the faint raspy sound of a man's voice mumbling "hello hello" and felt his presence coming from behind me. a bit disenchanted from the variety of characters which pass through nyc, i didn't bother to turn around and assumed he was on his phone losing service underground.

as he neared and the volume of his "hello hello" increased, i turned around and realized that the man was blind and was using his walking stick to try to identify end of the train platform. a little confused at who he was speaking to, i paused momentarily and looked around, during which time a guy who had also been waiting walked over and helped guide him to the edge of the platform, and then when the train arrived, helped him onto the train and secure a seat.

seeing this act of kindness from a stranger was an inspiring way to start my friday. next time, i'll know better myself.

after work, kevin and i met up with a friend in town from austin, komson, for drinks in the east village, and finished the night with a nice dinner with college friends at ravagh's new location around the corner. 

our first experience at the ravagh in murray hill was so memorable, i wanted to bring all our college friends, and luckily, saied was with us to do all the ordering :) we had a few types of eggplant appetizers, chicken, beef, and lamb shish kebabs (whole meat and ground meat), four types of rice seasoned with barberries, sour cherries, fava beans, and saffron, as well as persian desserts with tea. it was really nice seeing everyone after the holidays, the guys anyways as most of the wives and girlfriends couldn't make it. we learned that ray and syl are expecting a baby girl in april so sydney will be a big sister!

neato vs roomba

with an open floor plan and approximately 2,000 square feet of maple hardwood floors, i am always looking for efficient cleaning and maintenance solutions. 

we have a dyson canister vacuum cleaner which i adored using multiple times a week in our one-bedroom apartment, but after going through the loft with the dyson, i am 100% positive i never want to vacuum the entire loft by hand again. there is a better solution and i was out to find it.

after doing a bit of research online (i found this review quite helpful) and testing out the irobot roomba 880 vs the neato botvac 85, we decided to invest in the neato for these primary reasons:

• the neato has a number of sensors which help it to constantly scan and  detect walls, objects in its way, and different depths in surfaces
• the neato operates in an orderly fashion, outlining a particular area and going back and forth up and down through the area until it has been cleaned
• the neato has a short term memory and ability to recharge itself at the charging station when running low on batteries, and then finish cleaning up the rest of the space after a full charge
• i owned one of the earlier irobot models back in 2004, and wasn't ultra impressed. it's time to give another company a try!

it's now been two months since we've been using the neato and we are thrilled with the results! it's usually charging in the corner of the living room, but once a week, we'll put all the counter stools and dining chair tables upside down on the countertops and table, and flip on the neato when we are on our way to bed. with our bedroom and hallway doors closed, we don't hear a thing overnight, and wake up to beautifully clean floors and the neato is back in his home charging station.

very happy with this purchase!

getting organized

my company didn't publish its annual company desk calendar as it has in previous years, so i made my way to kinokuniya and picked up this little guy. while we have access to calendars in many formats - in our email systems, on bloomberg, and on my big red 2015 standard diary, there's still something cute and convenient about at a visual monthly calendar, especially when it comes to planning fun things.

so this is my desk layout under my second monitor (second of six). aside from the utilitarian scotch tape dispenser and swingline stapler, this is where i keep some of my favorite things. leftmost is my new s'well bottle, a 9 oz birthday gift from rose! save some trees, guys! then my clinique moisture spray for those dry winter afternoons, my new calendar, and on the far right, my valentine's day present from jess a few years ago. it's my all-time favorite mug :)

i can't show the rest of my desk because it's embarassingly messy with some piles almost covering the monitors ...

on another note, we finally got our backsplash installed! to stay consistent with the minimal look and feel, we chose a white back-painted glass backsplash with four vertical seams. unfortunately i chose this subcontractor myself and kevin and i gave the final product a 6.5 out of 10.

while the glass itself looks great, the difficult part is in the details, which could be better, to say the least. now i'm going to have to go to my contractor and beg him to help fix it so it's on-par with the quality with the other 99% of the renovation.

the good news is that kevin recalled my parm reggiano craving from a few days ago (i complained about wanting to eat an entire wheel of parm for a few consecutive days) and surprised me with two new murray's goudas:

ewphoria (lol, yes, that's what it's called)
and another nutty one whose name i can't recall right now.

delish! and to think, i didn't even like cheese a few years ago!

36 q's to fall in love

i recently read an article in the nytimes which introduced a study on generating interpersonal closeness by arthur aron. the study brought two strangers together in a lab, had them ask each other and answer a series of 36-increasingly probing questions, and then gaze silently into each others eyes for four minutes. 

the idea is that mutual vulnerability fosters closeness. to quote the study’s authors, “one key pattern associated with the development of a close relationship among peers is sustained, escalating, reciprocal, personal self-disclosure.”

here are the questions. i'm looking forward to sitting down with kevin one snowy weekend and going through these to see if it will bring us any closer. i know the study wasn't set up this way, and i probably won't see results, but i'm interested in learning more about the hubby nevertheless.

and i think it would be hilarious trying to stare into each others eyes for 4 minutes. wow.



Set I

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?

3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?

4. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?

5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?

7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.

12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?


Set II

13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?

14. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

16. What do you value most in a friendship?

17. What is your most treasured memory?

18. What is your most terrible memory?

19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

20. What does friendship mean to you?

21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?

22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?

24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?


Set III

25. Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling ... “

26. Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share ... “

27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.

28. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.

29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?

34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

bookshelves

we finally ordered book shelves for the apt! yahoo ~~ three of them! they are simple, white high-lacquered engineered-wood shelves from cb2 which mount against the wall, each two and a half feet wide and eight feet high. the bookshelves are backordered until the end of feb so it will be a while before we can unpack those boxes of books, but glad to make some progress!

i also ordered these liora aqua blue carpet squares for the dining area. i've never used carpet squares before, but they seem neat, simple, and i love the dash of color! im hoping to interchange some of the blue squares with the goldfish squares to keep things light and playful. kevin seemed okay with the idea :)

today was a long day at work. we invited an index analyst candidate to come in for a day of interviews with team members and a lunch, and it did not go well. she was clearly nervous, but it was more than that. i don't think she is going to be a good fit on our desk. we also had clients in town from the west coast in the office later in the afternoon.

the highlight of my day was coming home to leftovers after a long day of work. zoned out with borscht and quinoa while catching up on downton abbey and gilmore girls. dug out some old piano music and jammed for a little while to old jay chou tunes. a nice quiet evening for a cold wintry night ...

guac & hk style borscht

it was a balmy 24F out when we started our long run today. dressed appropriately (hat+glove weather), it was actually not too bad, minus the southern winds. mentally it was quite challenging, having not run much distance nor consistently in the last two months. we cut the run short around the world financial center because my inner left ankle was bothering me.

rewarded myself with a long hot soak with these jelly beads from japan! i don't know how to describe them, but you feel like you're in a tub of jello cubes or tapioca balls haha. now i am wishing we had installed a tv in the master bath :)

in the afternoon~evening, i made guac paired with tostitos with a hint of lime (did you know that 6 chips has 150 calories @_@ i learned after we finished 1 large bag), and kevin made a super delicious hk style borscht. i added some quinoa in mine and it was the perfect way to spend a chilly afternoon-evening.

what's up doc?

temperatures dropped AGAIN today and we bundled up carefully for our trek out to astoria to meet kevin's cousins and their kids (our flower girls) for brunch. 

the ride out there was quite interesting. the after learning en route that the N/Q trains were running limited service within manhattan, we transferred to another yellow line train. then we found out that the N/Q trains were not running between manhattan and queens altogether, so we transferred twice to get to the 7 train, and back to the N at queensboro plaza. a thirty minute commute took over an hour, and it was a massive google map FAIL.

we had brunch at sanford's, a busy breakfast spot in astoria by the broadway station. it was great catching up with mae & pierre, whom we hadn't seen since the fall, and always darling to hear about the elementary and pre-k school adventures of hana and kiki, our flower girls, from yuka and shawn. it was an especially fun time seeing everyone because we are also in the midst of planning a big trip to yuanlin, taiwan for the cheng ancestor tomb sweeping!

hana turned 6 in early december and kiki will turn 3 on valentine's day :) they were super shy initially, but warmed up (as usual) as the day went on.

after brunch, we checked out the chuck jones exhibit at the museum of moving images. the musem has such an interesting history and the special exhibit was really interactive and fun, for kids and adults. we made a fun flipbook with the entire clan of 8 and then finished off the afternoon with tea and desserts at omonia cafe nearby.

we always have such a great time together - im not sure why i always feel surprised about this each time we hang out, but i am always really relaxed and happy the entire time. can't wait for our next get together, hopefully long before our taiwan trip!

a cozy night with friends

there was a snow blizzard this morning! but even that couldn't stop good friends from getting together for a nice dinner at bar primi tonight :)

it was the perfect way to end the first week of the new year and the first full week back in the office. and who knew management consultants had such "interesting" job training?

a year older

today was my birthday! :) 

and kevin spoiled me rotten, starting with this adorable bloomberg message. apparently he had to keep resending and retracting it because i didn't see it and he wanted to make sure it was on the top of my bloomberg messages. those donut flags are actually dynamic and the donuts get gobbled up over a 5-second cycle. it's the little things, right?

the day flew by and +175 facebook birthday posts later, we were on way our to the river cafe on the brooklyn promenade for dinner. the restaurant is seating right along the east river almost directly under the brooklyn bridge. you couldn't ask for a more amazing view of the water and lower manhattan skyline.

what stood out to me was the quality of service, cute and extensive style of dishwares, modern preparation and presentation of some traditional dishes, and how the place could completely fill up on a night as chilly (10F) as last night! to start, we had the pear salad and grilled octopus. for our entrees, kevin had the rack of lamb and i had the branzino. i was expecting a whole fish, but it was a beautiful filet with a roasted tomato on the side - this is difficult to describe - the tomato skin had been torched such that the it had become a crispy sculpture on top of the tomato! for dessert, we had the apple gallette and chocolate souffle. kudos to the chefs!

and when we got home, kevin gave me a little gift to help me get educated and started on bringing the outdoors inside our little apato :) apparently he learned about thesill.com from the blogs listed on my blog. LOL. i didn't think he paid any attention to this ... 

anyways can't wait to visit the sill and get my fiddle leaf fig tree!

ps. surprise #2, we've got the http://www.inourloft.com url! :) thank you!