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I fold

As I was browsing on Coach's website for my scarf post below, I came across this purse:
Coach Ergo Leather Convertible Tote

Which reminds me of this F+C tote that has been pretty popular in the past two years or so:
Foley + Corinna Mid City Tote

I hope the "fold" style stays "in" for a bit more - I definitely love the practicality of the design.

Playtime with your scarf

Let's talk about scarves, one of the more underrated and neglected fashion accessory. A well placed scarf can liven up a simple outfit. Target has tons of cute scarves and so does H&M, and with those prices they won't break your bank.

I really got into scarves a few years back when I stumbled across the "Playtime with your scarf" PDFs from Hermes.com. The digital booklet shows many many ways a scarf can be worn, and those are accompanied with illustrated steps. Here are screen grabs of the pdf thumbnails, with the pdf you can easily enlarge the pages and see the details... e.g. the knots.

Download Playtime with your scarf




Try tying one around the neck with a solid color short sleeve crew neck T for the summer.

Here is an even easier way to get started, do as my BFF does here with her green/grey purse, or like the Coach Madeline as seen on Coach's website.

Breakfast at Bob Evans.

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Food journal - May 19th, 2008

As you can see the food journal attempt is not going all the great. I just started procrastinating and then it went downhill after that.

Now, instead of making it a daily thing, I think I'll post whenever I get a chance, but I am not going to torture myself by setting unnecessary high standards.

Breakfast:

1. Special K and reduced sugar frosted flakes with soy milk
2. One pb and j as I was still hungry

Lunch:

1. Grilled chicken wrap (no dressing), tater tots, and an ice tea from Sonics

Snacks:

1. Two Ferraro Rocher chocolate balls that are to die for

Dinner:

1. Big bowl of salad
2. Two slices of home made pizza with turkey "pepperoni", onions, and cheese

shoe heaven

Saw these absolutely gorgeous in the latest Neiman's newsletter:

Snakeskin Pointed-Toe Mary Jane

I hate to say this, but I will totally buy a knock-off version of this. As much as I love the real Manolo Blahniks, they are unfortunately too rich for my blood. Maybe one day...

Watching the game, having a Bud.

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Food journal - May 13th, 2008

Woke up with my ears and throat sore, and nose is still runny. So I decided to stay put and work from home instead.

Breakfast:

1. PB and J

I've read that peanut butter contains carcinogen, and this weekend while at Whole Foods I saw almond butter and cashew butter, and sounds like those two might be a better alternative than peanut butter. Does anyone know how the taste of the different {nut} butters are compared to peanut butter?

Lunch:

1. Breyer's YoCrunch - yogurt with granola crunch on top
2. Special K blueberry breakfast bar
   

Dinner:

1. Kashi Pesto Pasta Primavera
2. Leftover BBQ Chicken - 2 legs and a wing

Food journal - May 12th, 2008

Yikes, forgot to post yesterday, this is hard to keep up. Back-dating the post to yesterday.

Breakfast:

1. Frosted Flakes, special K, and soy milk

Lunch:
I came home from work at about 1pm feeling like crap.

1. Pho soup with noodles from vietnamese restaurant

Snacks:

1. Too many cookies

Dinner:
Despite not feeling 100%, I went to the Y for class, it made me feel so much better, at least for the 2-3 hours after. Da boy and I stopped by Shnucks on our way home from the Y to pick up dinner.

1. Salad - lettuce, spinach, baby corn, mozzarella cheese, eggs, and one piece of imitation crab meat salad.
2. Two thights and a wing from the Shnucks BBQ rotisserie chicken
3. Mac and cheese
4. Fruits

Super cookies

I made cookies from scratch this afternoon. Sorry Kami, it wasn't one of the recipe you gave me :( Da boy emailed the Super Cookie recipe out of the blue one day, and it calls for very "intriguing" ingredients. On top of that, it's suppose to be healthy. I'm in.

The recipe is from BYU's website. There is a story behind the super cookie and I encourage you to read that: http://magazine.byu.edu/g/?act=view&a=2182

Quinoa Cookies

1. 1 cup quinoa flour
2. 1 cup wheat flour
3. 1/2 cup sugar
4. 2 teaspoons vanilla
5. 1 tablespoon baking powder
6. 1/2 cup vegetable oil
7. 3 eggs
8. 3 tablespoons calcium carbonate (optional; available in most health-food stores)

In a large bowl, mix all wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix all dry ingredients. Combine dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix by hand or with a mixer. Drop rounded tablespoons onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake for eight minutes at 350 degrees.

One thing that I learned from this since I've NEVER baked cookies from scratch before, is that I need a cookie scoop. The shapes of the cookies were all over the place because I tried using a regular old measuring spoon and that just doesn't work well - the batter was too sticky.

Another thing I found out is that the quinoa flour has an exceptionally distinct smell. I could not get used to that. Luckily that smell went away after the cookies were done.

The Shnucks on Arsenal sells both wheat and quinoa flour, and they are quite pricey. Da boy wasn't able to find calcium carbonate in the grocery store though, so I skipped that.

The two things I did different compared to the recipe are:

1. Adding an extra 1/10th cup of sugar
2. And in my 2nd and 3rd batch, I added semi sweet chocolate chips to the mix before scooping it out on to the cookie sheet.

Here is the result, told ya it is all different shapes and sizes. The cookies are not super sweet, which I was glad I added the chocolate chips. Overall they taste pretty darn good. Da boy approved of it, thank goodness. Haha.

Food journal - May 11th, 2008

Breakfast:

1. Two sausage patties
2. An egg - over hard
3. Instant grits

Lunch:

1. Sushi - spicy tuna roll from Whole Foods
2. Couple cookies that I baked in the afternoon
3. One Reese's peanut butter cup

Dinner:

1. 3 ears of white corn shucked and cooked
2. Pork rib tips cooked and deboned
3. Big squares dumplings that we buy a ton of from Charlotte because we can never find any here
4. Lots of fruits - cantaloupe, grapes, pineapples, honey dew

Food journal - May 10th, 2008

Breakfast:

1. Two sausage patties
2. Two Pillsbury flaky biscuits

Lunch:

1. Leftover beef stirfry noodles with lots of Sriracha (thai hot sauce)

Snacks:

1. 5 thin slices of banana bread
2. generous helpings of da boy's bbq and mesquite chips

Food journal - May 9th, 2008

I'm off work today, using up my very last day of the 2007 vacation.

Breakfast:
Believe it or not, I actually did NOT eat any cereal this morning.

1. Two slices of banana bread
2. My daily coffee

Lunch:
I went to Wei Hong bakery on South Grand, I'm hardly ever at home for lunch so today is a perfect excuse to get some good ole Asian food that I soooo crave for.

1. Fat noodle stirfry with beef - super greasy so I only ate half of it.
   
2. I added a large spicy chunk of asian chili—sambal belacan—to go with the noodles. BFF fashionkitteh will be so proud of me :)
   

Snacks:
While at the bakery, I also bought two of my favorite snacks: Sesame ball with red bean paste. I downed both of them after lunch. Yummy.

Dinner at Everest Cafe and Bar:
We ventured out to the Mangrove (Manchester/Tower Grove) area for dinner last night.
Everest Cafe and Bar's menu is very unique and the food was excellent. I smell a return visit sometime soon. Da boy and I ordered:

1. Appertizer:
   Steamed Meat Mo-Mo - Tibetan style dumplings stuffed with fresh ground pork and mixed vegetables with cumin, garlic, ginger and spices served with homemade achar.


2. My dinner:
   Lamb Tarkari With Mixed Vegetables - Boneless tender pieces of lamb cooked in authentic Nepali sauce with fresh mixed vegetables.


3. Da boy's dinner:
   Mixgrill Sekuwa (Chicken, Lamb & Shrimp) - Chicken, Lamb, and Shrimp marinated in famous Nepali sauce baked in clay oven.

Food journal - May 8th, 2008

Breakfast:

1. Same as previous days, +
2. One raisin bagel and raspberry creme cheese spread from Panera Bread

Lunch:
Met my ex-coworkers for lunch today at Smugala's Pizza off of Lindberg and I44

1. A 9" mozzarella provolone cheese pizza topped with mushrooms
2. A side salad with ranch dressing

Snacks:

1. Two slices of home made banana bread
2. 3 hand fulls of unsalted cashew nuts

Dinner:
Neighborhood happy hour at a local bar/restaurant

1. Three slices of bread with butter
2. Baked ziti with sausage
3. Four Budweiser Select - well this is technically not food.

Food journal - May 7th, 2008

Breakfast:

1. 1/2 cup of reduced sugar frosted flakes cereal
2. 1/2 cup of special k with strawberry cereal
3. 3/4 cup Trader Joe's soy milk

Lunch:

1. Two Supreme beef chalupas from Taco Bell
   
2. A side of Cinnamon twists

I hate that I had fast food for lunch two days in a row. Ugh.

Dinner:
Da boy knew I had been complaining about unhealthy lunches, so tonight's dinner was pretty healthy (in comparison to the crap I've been eating)

1. One and a half boneless skinless chicken breast, marinated and baked in the oven
   
2. Half a bag of Uncle Ben's ready in 90 sec microwaveable wild rice.
3. A huge helping of fruits: 5 big slices of honey dews, 10 grapes, a slice of cantaloupe and pineapple each.
   

Life. Liberty. And The Pursuit.

Cadillac's most recent "Life. Liberty. And The Pursuit" TV advertising campaign had really caught my eyes. The dialogues, or rather, monologues, are excellent and made me laugh.

The first one that caught my my attention was the 30 sec slot with Kate Walsh in the new 2008 CTS:
When you turn your car on, does it return the favor?


My second favorite—also featuring Kate Walsh as well—is the "My favorite things" slot:
These are a few of my favorite things


The one that is closest to my heart, is this particular one:
Link: If it had a bathroom... (links to the ad on youtube, embedding disabled)

While I won't be running out buying a caddy anytime soon, this particular commercial echoes how I would feel if I have an Audi RS4.

Check out the rest, especially the "Graduate" and "Cupholders", if you're into cars and love automotive commercials as much as I do.

Link: Cadillac Commercials and Downloads

Food journal - May 6th, 2008

Breakfast (same old same old):

1. 1/2 cup of reduced sugar frosted flakes cereal
2. 1/2 cup of special k with strawberry cereal
3. 3/4 cup Trader Joe's soy milk. Tastes more "vanilla" than Silk's (red carton) soy milk.

Lunch:

1. McDonald's Filet-o-fish
2. Medium fries
3. I gave away the coke, I'm not a soda drinker
   

Man, now I feel bad that I ate McD, I'll have to work triple hard at yoga tonight.

Snack:

1. One Hershey's Cacao Reserve premium dark chocolate truffles, perfect for after lunch coma.

Dinner:

1. I was starving and craving for something sweet after yoga, so instead of proper dinner, I ate a Yoplait light yogurt instead.
   
2. After that I was still hungry so I ate 3 BBQ ribs leftover from Sunday, and couple slices of leftover potatoes to go with that as well.
3. And I ended the meal with a slice of my home made banana bread.

grey and yellow dress

To break the monotonous food journal posts, I just want to say I am in love with this dress for summer.

Mr Abbott - Colorblock Mini Dress


Grey and yellow, one of my favorite color combo.

Food journal - May 5th, 2008

Breakfast (yeah I am really predictable, it's cereals again):

1. 1/2 cup of reduced sugar frosted flakes cereal
2. 1/2 cup of special k with strawberry cereal
3. 1 cup 2% milk (out of soy milk, my lactose-intolerant stomach is not happy)

Lunch:

1. Jimmy Johns #2 Roast Beef ez-mayo (horrendous cellphone camera, I know)

Snacks:

1. Two Hershey's Cacao Reserve premium dark chocolate truffles, perfect for after lunch coma.
2. Dannon Light & Fit yogurt
   

Dinner:
Hung out with good friends, over at dtothek and designerish's new dig. Of course, I ate way too much, I have no self control especially when faced with a big bowl of chips and condiments.

1. One and a half crunchy taco with ground turkey
2. One soft taco with meat, sour creme, salsa, lettuce, cheese
3. About 4 things of margaritas
4. And endless amounts of tortilla chips

I'll have to work extra hard at yoga tomorrow to compensate for the over indulgence.

Food journal - May 4th, 2008

Breakfast:

1. 1/2 cup of reduced sugar frosted flakes cereal
2. 1/2 cup of special k with strawberry cereal
3. 1/2 cup organic soy milk
   
4. 1/4 cup 2% milk (ran out of soy milk)
   

Snacks:

1. four palm fulls of unsalted cashew nuts
2. one bite of da boy's ranch potato chip (yuck)
3. three slices of made-from-scratch banana bread

Lunch:

1. Eight slices of beef leftover from yesterday's dinner
2. A packet of ramen noodles

Dinner:

1. Three thick meaty BBQ pork ribs that da boy grilled outside on the deck
2. Three scoops of potatos (sliced, and cooked in butter, how sinful)
3. Medium bowl of salad with my standard Asian miso dressing
4. A big bite size of the banana bread (see pic above: that piece at the corner)

Food journal - May 3rd, 2008

Today I pretty much ate most my meals on the road. I tagged along with dtothek and designerish's and went on a day trip to Chicago - Bolingbrook Ikea.

Breakfast:

1. Turkey Sausage & Potato baked egg soufflés from Panera Bread
2. Tall Caffe Mocha with soy milk and no whip from Starbucks

Lunch in Ikea:

1. Swedish meatballs with marinara sauce served over penne pasta
2. Small bowl of salad
3. A slice of lingonberry pie

Snacks:

1. One Special K cereal bar in blueberry flavour
2. One Reese's peanut butter cup

Dinner:

1. Ten slices of london broil (beef) marinated in Kraft's Italian dressing (Two slices too many)
2. Medium bowl of salad with Asian miso dressing
3. Two spoonful of Bob Evan's microwave mash potatoes

Forgot to take pictures today.

Food journal - May 2nd, 2008

Breakfast:

1. 1/2 cup of reduced sugar frosted flakes cereal
2. 1/2 cup of special k with strawberry cereal
3. 3/4 cup organic soy milk
4. 1/4 cup water (I prefer thinner milk)

Snacks:

1. Lipton Green Tea with Citrus
   
2. A brownie and a granola ball (I have no idea what it is called, and in the photo it doesn't look that appealing, but both are good.)
3. Went back to the kitchen and got another granola ball thing. I'm having a hard time with lunch coma!
   

Lunch:

1. Leftover vietnamese food from yesterday: Shaking tofu with onions stir fried topped with sweet potatoes and rice.

Dinner:
Da boy and I went to Lily's Mexican restaurant for dinner (we go there EVERY FRIDAY)

1. One carne asada soft taco
2. One carnitas soft taco
3. Side of rice
4. Two *extra* flour tortilla
5. And waaay too many chips

a "new" resolution

Inspired by Rebecca's post about posting a photo a day for the month of May, I am going to attempt the same "challenge" albeit with a slight twist.

For everyday in May (well starting May 2nd), I will post the food I eat everyday. I've been wanting to start a food journal and start counting calories. So I will start with keeping track of what, when, and how much I eat on a daily basis.

And when I can, I will follow up with photos (cellphone camera though, so don't get your hopes up high)

I hope I will be more aware of what I eat daily, and finally lose the 5lbs I've gained since last Oct.

Thank goodness the pharmacy is open.

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