real last post of the year

Happy Birthday Navia! i miss you!

*my sister and brother in law with navia, doing a traditional Toljabee celebration (i think) celebrating the 1st year (either that, or celebrating her baek-il or 100 days late)
i'm not korean, so i'm probably completely wrong!

It's her 1st Birthday!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

in about 5 hours, it will be just another day...but new years is never a bad reason to rethink who you are and what you do and why you do it. so here are my 2008 reflections going into 2009 (not resolutions as much)...varying from very shallow things to waist deep at most.

1. comb my hair - i've probably combed my hair all of 4 times in the last 7 years. i don't own a brush. my hair is just naturally stick straight...why make it more straight? well, for kicks and giggles i used my mom's brush and combed my hair a few days ago. it made a slight difference. i guess you'll have to look really hard to see if i'm keeping up with this resolution. sometimes i don't have time to comb my hair...i'm a busy girl.

2. go to the gym 4 times. that's right, setting the bar any higher would just be stupid for me. kendra let me borrow her gym membership that she's been generously donating to for the last 3 years. she's letting me use it temporarily, thinking i might find a better use out of it. (haha) so, i will force myself to go 4 times. if i can do it, great. if not, then she's still a very charitable person to this particular gym.

3. be a better friend | sister | aunt | - in my 'younger years', it was always about the quantity of friends...and then you had so many friends that you didn't have time for anyone. i would like to cultivate the existing friendships i already have. i wanna create my own satc group. i want to pay attention to people, instead of breezing by them or popping in here and there.

4. figure out my life - i like to be creative and fortunately, i have a business that allows me to use a medium to express all the stuff that whirls in my mind. sometimes i wonder, will all i ever do is flowers? am i maximizing my potential? fleuretica has come into it's 5th year, for which i'm truly grateful. but i'd like to see if there's more for fleuretica and if there's more for me.

5. be me - my life and all of it's activities revolve around my business. my "fun" activities involve going to places for networking, cardmaking is for my clients, even the books/magazines i read are related to fleuretica. in my down time, i'm doodling or making lists of things that i gotta do. don't get me wrong, i love it all! my sister pointed out to me that my blog is so much about food...(which i love too) but it's just that i don't have time to enjoy anything else BUT food. so food has to be interesting! i must make time to find an interesting activity FOR me, completely unrelated to fleuretica. any suggestions? and don't say paintballing! or the gym!

And so now i've put myself out there, currently feeling very vulnerable. that's also why i blog about food! anyway, happy new year! don't judge!

random stuff over christmas vacation

When euri makes cookies...

she also makes ice cream cookie sandwiches.


When euri's favorite second sister is in town on a 4 hour layover:


she immediately eats her souveinir chips brought to her from across the world:

and she celebrates Christmas at a nearby panera with family.


When euri goes to her granny's house for Christmas cuz her immediate family deserted her (she's not bitter):

she brings a dish of mashed candied yams:


and takes a picture of her cute cousins:


and eats the pudding pie that her auntie jeannie lovingly makes every year.


When euri's boyfriend goes paintballing for his birthday:


she wisely opts out of going and joins him for a 30 oz. steak dinner instead:


and uses a crazy candle to celebrate his birthday.


When euri sees cool boots at Kenneth Cole for 70% off and twitters that she likes them:


her boyfriend thoughtfully surprises her with a pair the day after even though he thinks they're ugly.


Have a great New Year!

p.s. see yegajie, it wasn't ALL about food this time! :)

when the cat's away....

my mom has been in and out of town for the last few weeks. when she's gone, i throw baking parties. last week i took suggestions as to what to bake. ellison must have filed his somewhere in his brain - he immediately piped up with an "apple pie and that crunchy stuff sprinkled on the top....you know". I googled a recipe for French apple pie, and made about 4 in two days.

There's nothing better than dessert and a movie. We had warm pie a la mode and watched Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. Or rather, Ellison watched Blake Lively and David watched Ell eat a few slices of pie. I found it all entertaining!


Last year, Kendra and I gave all our vendors little thank you gifts for Christmas. They were really simple gizmos and manly gadgets. This year, we put more thought (and less money) into our gifts and made goodie boxes.

*120 chocolate cupcakes with peppermint frosting

*150 brownies with chocolate chips and raspberry swirl...you can kinda see my new apron (from kendra) in the background! it was so cute i couldn't bear to wear it.

*300 cranberry white chocolate chip cookies that Kendra made. Rich, buttery, chewy...mmmm. they were an absolute hit with my family!

We packaged them in regular plastic containers and handed them out yesterday. People seemed to like them...and were surprised that I was actually "domestic". Our vendors work really hard for us and start their days super early in the morning (12am on most days). We appreciate them!

This is totally unrelated, but Christmas came early for me this morning. David had my present delivered to me at 10am:

*my new massage chair! i generally don't like massages because it's a bit too invasive of my personal space...he got this so i can relax and de-stress and not have to be touched. so thoughtful. :)

i love the holidays and i love my boyfriend!

marathon weekend update

okay...ready?
i took david to the parker to celebrate his birthday. i went back in august and had a blast stuffing myself silly. now it was david's turn to be a glutton!

*candlelight ambiance at Mister Parker's

*we started off with crusty sourdough bread with butter....which on a later trip to disneyland realized a whole loaf has about 1800 calories. mmmm

*david's all time favorite cut of meat is the rib-eye. he loved this dish. i suspect it was the foie gras jus that put it over the top.

*i got pork tenderloin with a buttery corn souffle. it came in a cute individual dutch oven

After dinner, we decided to go for a swim in their heated pool. I don't know who's idea that was...the water was warm but coming out of the water to 38 degree crisp air wasn't smart. Star gazing was kinda fun though, and with the steam coming out of the water, it felt like you were flying as you were looking up.

*David changed in a blink of an eye!

Since we got to the Parker late in the day, we only had so much time to use our food credits. We decided to use room service and found out that ice cream was the only thing available. We ordered mint and chip only to find that they use real, fresh mint as the base for the ice cream. It was GROSS, therefore it did not deserve a picture. Room service and ice cream were probably the only negative points at the Parker.

David willingly woke up early to eat breakfast at Norma's. I was so proud of him! We ate like kings.

*strawberry banana smoothie in shot glasses, with my little friends

*very berry brioche french toast
*potato pancakes with apples
*look familiar?

*this is what it's all about

After checking out, we went to....DISNEYLAND! I haven't been there since grad night...so that would be 11 years. I've never been a big fan of Disneyland but David heard from his coworkers how awesome it is during the holidays. So off we went to Anaheim for more adventures!

*david, me, & ellison, our tour guide (also david's occasional boytoy)

Some rides we went on:

*Haunted Mansion

*Pirates...with david's snack
*two cropped pictures put together...on the rocket ride! everyone in line ahead of us must have been under 10 years old.
*tower of terror
*toy story at California Adventures
*David beat me
*tai fai on the teacups

*twice! lol
*space mountain...i was busting up the whole time

*our last and worst ride, jungle cruise

Some pictures for my idea book:

Of course, we had the "musts" of Disneyland: dole pineapple whip (too foamy), clam chowder bread bowl (when we discovered the calories), cream cheese filled mickey pretzels, and the fireworks display at the castle:

*kaboom

Beignets dusted with powdered sugar from downtown disney should be added to that list :)

It was a fun afternoon and we took turns playing third wheel:

*geez, get a room

*this picture is actually funny cuz david took it himself and managed to crop himself out of it. no, you're hot ellison!

*david and his new friend

We ended the night by walking through the castle and seeing illustrations from the Sleeping Beauty movie. Kim, Ellison's sister and disney fanatic, told us that this was a rare occasion that the castle was open.

Okay, i'm not even done with the weekend update. But i'll spare you and will be back tomorrow!