New Blog - 請移玉手

I've decided to start a new blog in March, and wanted a fresh start. So, I will no longer update this blog. Instead, please move your fingers to here!

Mr. Brain - だいすき!!

Kimura Takuya is back! I love the show ♥♡♪♫☆
木村拓哉 +綾瀬はるか
I love spending my Sunday doing nothing.

Life is Good & Sweet. Happy Monday!

By Bridget Hall Grumet, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Monday, June 15, 2009

The grass around the bus stop bench was thick and overgrown, the long blades scratching Mary Marzec's legs. So with one brisk motion, the 88-year-old woman swatted the grass away from her knees — and accidentally flung her wedding ring into the field along Embassy Boulevard. The diamond-studded gold ring, which Mrs. Marzec had worn for nearly 60 years, had loosened as her fingers shrank with age. Now she was on her knees, patting the earth, praying to find her ring. She went into a nearby Chevron station and borrowed a pair of scissors. Then she got back on her knees and chopped away at the grass, crying, hoping. But she couldn't find it.

"My husband said, 'Come on, let's go home. I'll buy you another one,' " Mrs. Marzec recalled. "I said, 'I'm not going until I find my ring!' "

• • •

Mary and Ed Marzec led parallel lives for years before they'd met.

Both were born in Detroit to Polish parents. Both went back to the old country as small children. Both returned to America in 1937, two years before Hitler invaded Poland.

Mary was 19, living with her sister in New York City, when a mutual friend introduced her to Ed, a laborer who was four years her senior.

Four months later they married.

"My sister said, 'What are you doing? You don't know how to cook. You don't know how to do anything,' " Mrs. Marzec said. "But I said, 'Don't worry, Ed knows how to cook.' "

Life together was simple and frugal. Two years into the marriage, when Mary was pregnant with her first son, Ed's weekly pay got bumped up from $29 to $31.

"He carried me up two flights of stairs" to the apartment, Mrs. Marzec remembered. "We were so happy with $2."

In time the couple had two sons: Richard and Bob. Ed cut their hair and pulled their teeth. Mary made their clothes.

"We never felt poor," she said. "The boys went to Catholic school. The rent was paid. We always had food on the table."

For 12 years, Mary wore the plain gold band that Ed had given her on their wedding day. But when she got a job as a seamstress working alongside other women with flashier rings, she wanted a nicer ring for herself. And why not?

"I was working," she said. They could afford it.

So they bought a double-gold band that framed 15 small diamonds in diamond-shaped settings. It was pretty, not showy.

And that ring stayed on her finger over the years — as she fed countless bolts of material through the sewing machines for famed New York designer Adolfo, as she sewed the red coat and hat that Nancy Reagan wore at her husband's first inauguration, as she knitted blankets and welcomed grandchildren and great-grandchildren and buried a son — until it sailed off her finger a few months ago at the Embassy Boulevard bus stop just east of U.S. 19.

• • •

A sheriff's deputy happened by the gas station that afternoon and saw Mrs. Marzec frantically searching for her ring. In his pocket was the business card for George Kollmer, a treasure hunting enthusiast who owns a couple of metal detectors.

Kollmer, 75, came out to the field with his trusty Teknetics 7700B coin computer. A dial on the metal detector indicates whether the item below is, say, a dime, a quarter — or a ring.

"It's 99 percent right," said Kollmer, a retired auto mechanic who lives in Port Richey. "It's never failed me."

The Marzecs had already left — they had to catch their bus back to their Port Richey home — when Kollmer arrived. He asked the gas station clerk where the ring had been lost, and the attendant waved out toward the bus stop bench.

In a patch of overgrown grass between the sidewalk and a utilities box, Kollmer's detector got a hit for a ring.

"Within 10 minutes," he said, "I had it in my hand."

He called Mrs. Marzec, then drove straight to their house with the ring.

Mrs. Marzec was in tears, and pressed $50 into Kollmer's hand.

The ring from her finger belonged with her heart.

"If you promise yourself to someone," she said, "that's for life."

**********

I love this bike. Whopping $1299!
http://www.madsencycles.com/

Sleepless in Seattle

I feel so much better resting for 2 days after my trip to Seattle. I was exhausted! I was very lucky that there was no rain when I was there, beautiful sunshine, record breaking high temperature. It's absolutely different than LA, the vibe is really mellow there. Oh, and I've never seen so many trees next to the freeways. But the traffic is terrible and the lanes are a lot narrower than LA.

A crappy picture that I took at the Redmond Town Center

It was a really short trip but intense. On my way back from Seattle Tac to LAX, I had a couple hours wait time at the airport; while I was busy talking to my friend, Jenny, I found something really cool to do.

The coolest nail care place on earth - butter London

I enjoyed a full mani and pedi at the airport. What a brilliant idea! I absolutely adore this place. People were really friendly there and the products they used were very good too.

I am especially fond of this stiletto stick.

Extremely dry, cracked heels are difficult to treat, since most products are heavy, greasy, and not at all shoe-friendly. With Stiletto Stick, your heels will benefit from a high Urea content and Macadamia nut oil, while staying silky, soft, and never greasy, because of the unique “solid formula”. Genius!

Lastly, I found my scent - Chloe! I have a collection of perfume, but this is really the one. A young, fresh and romantic fragrance, with a flirtatious head note of rose accompanied by magnolia and lily of the valley combined with the subtle intimations of warm amber and elegant cedarwood. I like it more and more every time I put it on. The smell is truly divine and the bottle is just simply lovely. Yippeee~

Professor Layton & the Curious Village.

My life has been evolving around this game lately: レイトン教授と不思議な町 Professor Layton & the Curious Village.

It's so addicting and fun. I have only been addicted to a couple games in my life...Super Mario Brothers (NES), Tetris (Game Boy), Moon Harvest - it gets really boring after a while (GBA SP)...and now, Professor Layton & the Curious Village.

It's so good that I don't want it to end. I am sick, officially.

By the way, the E3 just released this clip, WTF! It won't be available until 2010 though.

Happy Hunting

This past weekend was awesome! We celebrated Mother's Day on Saturday instead because mom wanted to go to Dim Sum and didn't want to deal with the crowd. She's really paranoid of the swine flu :) We pretty much spent a day with her, had Dim Sum, shopped and grocery shopped, and then had dinner at home.

Sunday, we finally went to the Rose Bowl Flea Market. I had been wanting to go but he was working 7 days a week, 18 hours a day. The dark age was over early last week, so we were able to enjoy life a bit. Hurray!

It was so hot. My forearms (dark) and upper arms (pale) are in different shades now.

Lots of cameras - a dream come true for avid photographers (or a photographer wannabe, like me)


A dozen of lace for only $18.


My craft/sewing box. Very retro looking. I love it so much!

Honestly, there were so many things that I wanted to take home at the flea market. I will definitely try to go back next month. We also got an art bowl in free form made by desert sand. I forgot to take picture. I will post it later. After walking and walking and walking from 11am -3pm, we went to Old Town Pasadena for lunch (well...late lunch).

We went to Mi Piace. I love the pomodoro from here. By the way, it's a good place for people watching. I witnessed a 12 year old (may be 10) holding a custom made Hermes mini Kelly. Oh my! Anyway, that's about it for Sunday. We were dead tired.

I was away from this blog for quite some time. Here are some highlights during my MIA.

Things I made:

These are up for adoption. If you like any of them, please message me.

My first batch of handmade soap. They were all made from scratch: palm oil, coconut oil, olive oil, lye, water and essential fragrant oil. I can't wait to give them to my friends.

Things I bought:

Paper lace from Nederland.


Velvet ribbons.


Rub-ons.


Clear rubber stamps.

Gorgeous Craft Books

I went to Kinokuniya Bookstore today and browsed around for an hour. I always enjoy being at the bookstores, Borders, Barnes and Nobles, independent book stores...etc. I am always amazed with the high quality books and magazines from Japan. They really pour their hearts out to get the best stuff published. You can tell if you can read Japanese, they really love what they do and they say it out loud through the words. But if you don't know the language, you still know from the pictures and layouts.

I picked up a few craft books during my visit.

Preserved flowers projects - I've always wanted to go to an Ikebana class, may be I will try with the preserved flowers first before the real thing.

Natural Handmade Goods Idea Book - It comes with 2 CD rom. One is filled with 150 clip arts and layouts. The other one is the Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 trial version (For Windows only).

London Ateliers - édition PAUMES is a small and dynamic family run Japanese publishers, working in close contact with artists and designers in Europe on different editorial projects.
With a poetic and original approach, édition PAUMES explores the environments of those who stimulate the creative industries, and in doing has produced a set creative "bibles" that overflow with inspiration.

I want all these "bibles". Pretty please with cherry on top :)

While browsing through the PAUMES website, I learnt about this great rubber stamp artist, Hekisui. Crazily cute!

Finally, I signed up for 2 soap making classes. The first one will be next Tuesday. I will be making soap from scratch, learning the hot process method to make natural scented soaps. I will have lots of fun. I will take some pictures and share it here.

Enough saying...time to read now. :)