birthday goodies!!!

as i have in previous years, i spent my birthday with my dear sister. she took the day off to go to the city with me.

the rings above are from her. they represent us and our birthstones, in the form of diamonds. they are cognac diamonds on yellow gold (topaz for november) and blue diamonds on white gold (turquoise for december).

i picked up this pair of shoes for such a bargain! i picked up some other goodies too. we finished our day in the city with a birthday dinner at the house.

the monday i returned from my birthday week off, my office staff surprised me with these flowers. this was the first year that my staff has done something like this for me. they are too sweet.

and this was my 3rd year taking all of thanksgiving week off. i'm hoping to make it a tradition.

ugh, i have to go on a diet

today, i saw my endocrinologist for a follow up after getting a not-so-normal lab result from my annual visit with him 3 months ago. i think i have mentioned my admiration for him previously. but i need to say it again. i ♥ dr. bruhn. he is the best. every time i see him, no matter how fat i feel, he always tells me that i am beautiful.

apparently, it is time for me to get my i-131 body scan again. in 2008, when i was declared cured, i was told that i would only need a body scan every 3-5 years. it's been 3 years so i suppose it's time. when i get scheduled for the body scan, i must go on this 10-day low iodine diet. this year, however, it's 2-weeks. 4 more days than usual! trust me, this is really hard. basically, i can't eat anything processed, which is good for cleansing but still not easy to do. one year, i lost 6 lbs in 10 days!

when the nurse asked me when i wanted to start the diet, i responded, after thanksgiving, please? so she scheduled my diet to start the day after thanksgiving. that means, no leftovers for me. :( wish me luck!

diana's 30th

me with my dear dear cousins at xanh restaurant

happy 30th, diana! ♥

black swan

for halloween this year, my good friend invited me to a party in the city. i haven't dressed up in years.

in early october, as i looked around my apartment for costume ideas, i found an old dress i bought in high school. for my senior prom, i made my dress but i bought a back up dress at guinne sax. see the top image of the dresses below. when i put it on, i thought... dark ballerina! which then lead to black swan. this was actually an idea my cousin gave me this summer while traveling together in new york. she had planned on being black swan. thanks debbie!

this dress is almost 20 years old and finally worn! it was very exciting.

as you can see, i first removed the horrendous long sleeves. then i moved the petticoat up and cut the dress in half. i added feathers and gems to the bust of the dress. i bought a tiara and basically colored it black with sharpies. now, i had to figure out the make up. and thanks to a youtube tutorial, i was able to get the make up done myself. i walked in 6-inch heels for over 3 hours and the make up lasted about 8 hours. i was pretty impressed with myself.

dear wedges,

how do i love thee,
let me count the ways
one pair, two pairs...

♥ from kip

venue: slim's
artist: pains of being pure at heart (pobpah) & twin sister
who: joe
when: 7 october 2011 (friday)
doors open at 7p

joe was visiting for about 5 days which is always nice. we got a work out in there, a couple trips to the city and of course, shopping! we also had tickets to see peter bjorn & john (pb&j) the weekend he was in the area. unfortunately, they cancelled. and in an effort to make the most of his stay, i got us tickets to see pobpah. coincidentally, at the same venue that pb&j were going to play.

we got there early enough to get a prime parking spot, something to eat and seats upstairs. from our seats, we could see the merch table and who was manning it. for a good period of time, it was kip berman, the lead vocalist for pobpah. i decided that i would check out the merch and maybe add some vinyl to my growing collection. i have a record that is white vinyl and another one (from the recent jens show) that is clear vinyl. so i wanted to get a record that is special. i have their second album, belong but only a couple of songs off of the first album. kip mentioned that the record has a marble pattern to it. this of course is the exact type of thing i wanted. to top it off, kip signed it for me (see image above). he was also very nice.

the opening band, twin sister was horrible. all due to their singer. her vocals had potential, however, she did not. the look she was sporting was terrible. it was some sort of homely-yet-slutty look. the two do not go together. it was dreadful. as far as their music, i clearly forgot because i needed to. nothing special.

for some reason and perhaps it was because of twin sister, but i liked pobpah much better when ro and i saw them at gamh back in april. i still enjoyed them, just not as much.

rating: ♥ ♥ ♥

you should wear rubber, always wear rubber

go put
your rubber boots on,
your rubber boots on,
stand up
walk on.

my shoe corner...

because everyone should have one. :)at the end of september, my sister moved out. with her, so did a large piece of furniture that previously occupied a corner of my room. since it was now empty, i thought i'd make good use of the space. i've always wanted a wall of shoes, however, i have so much crap that it was pretty impossible. so, rather than have a wall 'o shoes, i have a shoe corner. and this does not hold all of my shoes, mind you. it does conveniently remind me of the shoes i used to forget about that were formerly stored under my bed.

orchestral manoeuvres in the dark

that's right, as in the band who wrote if you leave.

venue: the warfield
band: omd with washington
who: my brother and sister (our dentist, her brother, my friend thao and her friend)
when: 3 october 2011 (monday)
doors open at 7p

this was the first concert that three of us siblings went to together. i thought we'd gone to see the cure together in 1992 but no one seems to remember that far back. omd has a new album out called history of modern. usually, when bands go on tour, their playlist consists mostly of new music in order to promote the new album. not quite the case at this show. in fact, they played most of their classics. more than they did at their show at the fox theatre earlier in the year, apparently.

the opening band was washington as in megan washington, an artist from australia. her vocals are upbeat, a little bit sexy and very lovely. we all thought her set was quite good for an opening. i want to get her album.

omd was one of the few bands i hadn't seen live, that i really wanted to see. they toured during my senior year in high school but i was only 17 and couldn't get into the 18+ venues they were playing. that cd, sugar tax, is a good one. that was really the last album i listened to. andy mccluskey has a voice to swoon to. i remember listening to them when i was in middle school and just falling in lust with him. believe it or not, he's still got it. even at 52. he still gets down like it's 1990 but like i said before, he's still got it. i was quite impressed.

also impressive is the song, electricity. mccluskey said he wrote it in 1976, when he was 17! it's still a really great song. they played most of our favorites, all of the classics that we could remember. towards the end, everyone in the audience (even us on the balcony floor) got up and danced like it was 1999. for the most part, everyone there was around our age. however, there were people much older (white hair and/or no hair) getting down to omd. it was so much fun. i would definitely see them again.

rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

nearly caught up! i'm in october now...

jens lekman at nightlife

venue: california academy of sciences
artist: jens lekman
who: ro
when: 29 september 2011 (thursday)
doors open at 6:30p

it has been two years since we last saw jens. plus, it was twice in 2009 and twice in 2008. he's spoiled us! he is still so so adorable! he has a new ep out and plans to release the new album sometime in the near future. which hopefully means, we'll get another double dose of him. i can't wait!

for more on jens and how i heart him, please click on his name below in the "labels" section.

rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

nestldown wedding

at the end of august, my sister-in-law's sister, jade got married at nestldown. it was gorgeous, as you can see from the images above and below. it's amazing what floral design can do. my sister-in-law's mother did all the floral arrangements. she is a genius.
after the wedding, i realize i didn't take enough pictures. the ones i did take enough of were the flowers. nestldown is a park located in the middle of nowhere along highway 17 on the way to santa cruz. it took some effort to get there, thanks to my navigation system. we were told to wear comfortable shoes as it is basically surrounded by forests and on dirt roads. i didn't really listen and decided to wear my nearly 5" heels. there were many times where i almost fell. and i wasn't the only one, quite a few of the ladies at the reception tripped and nearly ate dirt. the image at the bottom was at the reception. i took it from my seat. the best thing about this wedding was a surprise performance by my niece and nephew. she was at the mic doing the vocals and he was on the drums doing back up. this is what happens when you hire their music teacher's band to play. it was the sweetest thing.