i'm back

I went back to work today. Apparently this sort of flu has been going around for a while. My friend Joanne came to see me at the caffe today and told me she just barely got over her sickness, too, and the symptoms she and I had were pretty much identical.

I'm well and I'm back. Yay!

late postcard

My friend Chia Lun (and I call her "chicky") from Taiwan set her goal to visit the 7 wonders of the world. Wherever she visits, she sents me a postcard to share her joy with me, and I love it!

I got a postcard from her in the mail yesterday. She apparently sent it while she was in India. The only thing that confused me was that she dated it 2004.7.5. (7/5/2004).

I emailed her and asked if she dated it wrong. No, she DID send the postcard on July 5, 2004. She said she just barely got the one she sent herself a couple days ago.

I used to work in the post office and knew the fact that a regular postcard going from a country to another takes about 2 weeks to deliver. But apparently this postcard took a year and 9 months to arrive. Now that's some postal mystery...

being sick sucks

Being sick sucks. I'm still staying at home and John is still working at the caffe by himself. I do get my afternoon nap, but it gets boring after a while. I love hanging out with the dogs and cats, though, but I couldn't really take them out for a walk or playing with them too much because I'm feeling a bit weak.

I'm feeling a lot better today. I made 3 pairs of earrings for my boutique, and I'm planning on making a couple of bracelets later on.

It's been raining off and on all day, and luckily the dogs were cooperative when I took them out to pee/poo. There must be something in the rain that made all of them want to sniff and sniff and sniff and sniff.

Being sick sucks.

i'm sick

We had to close the store today because I'm really sick and John twisted his ankle. I'm still sick but John will be opening the store by himself in the morning.

OK this may sound really weird, but I lost 8 lbs when I weighted myself this morning... within 2 days! It's just crazy. It was all water weight, but it's somehow making me weak! I'm drinking a lot of fluid and keeping myself hydrated.

I hope I'll feel better soon.

windy day

It's been very windy today. The weather man said there's a storm on the way. Nuki actually enjoys the strong wind very much. He was sitting in the middle of the backyard with his head and his nose up and let the wind "brushed through" his hair. I was going to take a picture of him enjoy the wind, but he heard me and ran back toward me. You can still see how the wind is so strong that it's brushing/messing up his hair.

the number 7 is upon me

The other day while I worked all by myself I was feeling a bit exhausted while I was driving home. (OK ok I admit that I did close a bit earlier that day.) When I was stopped at a light I looked at the meter on my little 4Runner, and guess what I saw!

The total miles read "107077" and the trip odometer read "277 7".

I think the number 7 is upon me.

bad apricots

John got sick from some dried apricots and went to the emergency room yesterday. Food poisoning is scary! He was throwing up and couldn't really eat or drink anything until the doc gave him some anti-nausea medicine. Poor thing. We close the caffe yesterday so I could stay at home with him to make sure everything was ok.

To prove that I can handle things just fine, I came to the store all by myself this morning. I put out the tables and chairs out on the patio and everything. I'm not sure if I'll stay until 10 p.m. tonight but I'm working on it.

Beware of the bad apricots!

record bowls

I made some record bowls last night and I loved them a lot! I saw these really cool old records from the store and specifically picked the ones with the RCA record dog and some other awesome records with funky pictures on.

I melted the records in the oven and then shaped them into little funky-shaped bowls. While I was finishing my third record bowl I realized that I had a couple other little projects that I needed to finish, so I asked John to help.

John was glad to help and said he would make really cool ones.

I finished my projects and came out into the kitchen. I then screamed.

John came into the kitchen and asked what was wrong. I said, "Look at these! They are mangled!" He made funny faces and said, "I did that on purpose. I wanted to make them different."

I felt bad that I made fun of John's artwork and then melted the record bowls again and remade them into the "proper" ones. I love John, but for now I have to make the record bowls bowls.



I'm happy about my record bowl and so is Nuki (in the background.)



John intentionally did this, but Naicha (in the background) stuck her tongue out and turned away from it when I tried to take a picture.

the giant japanese bowls of udon

I'm very into udon noodles this week, and I really wish I'm back in Osaka where I can get giant bowls of udon ANYTIME! There's a little udon shop called "Doku Doku" near the hotel we were staying. They have great variety of udon bowls and what's interesting is that they let you choose your own portions of udon noodles without extra fairs. Oh, and the udon noodles are handmade at the shop! Yum!

John chose to have a "single" and as a super udon lover I took a "double" with my curry udon. The men sitting close by all got "triple," and that was a LOT of noodles!

And of course beer has to accompany any meal in Japan. We found Asahi was the default beer in Osaka.

Hmmm... curry udon.



please note that John had his beer-dyed "Mr. Brewski" shirt on that day.

first sales at "my store"

I still haven't officially opened the boutique yet, but my dear friend Rachael got a chunky ring yesterday. The ring looks really great on her! That was the first sale at the boutique and I'm really excited! Thank you Rachael.

And a lady got the handmade dog-print bag today. I was quite surprised that she'd get it, but she seemed to really like the bag. Yay!

I'm a little nervous about the sales at the boutique, and I wonder if people would laugh at me because I don't seem to be THAT pro in the industry... but I really want to bring great products (name brand or not) to people and allow my friends and myself who handmake stuff have a place to showcase our creations. (I just secretively put a few accessories I made out!)

I hope all will be well.

it's happening!

I've been busy setting up my little boutique in the back of the caffe. It's still not quite all done yet, but John and I have managed to display and tag some bags, clothing, and accessories so far. I'm a little scared about the boutique idea because it's pretty much a seperate business and there's a lot of work I have to put into it, but I'm happy that John and some friends really support me on this.

I just finished displaying some really cool select sunglasses and I made John wear a pair to let me photograph. I think he looks quite good with those "bug-eye" sunglasses on! I'm hoping that we can officially open up the boutique on Monday. It's happening!

yummy udon

I got a bag of bulk dry udon noodles from the oriental store the other day. I love those fat noodles! We actually made some with our pasta machine a while ago and they beat anything, but it was time consuming to knead and "beat" the dough... so I'd say it's going to be another while before we make homemade udon noodles again.

I cut up some chicken tenders, a few slices of kamaboko (Japanese 'fish cake'), some mushroom and spinach, and made super yummy udon noodle soup tonight. I used Kikkoman's Memmi to make the soup base. Yummy! It was quite a big bowl of stuff, and the dogs of course enjoyed some of it with me.

crazy snow

After a few days of nice weather with temperature in the low 60s, it snowed all of a sudden out of nowhere yesterday. It only snowed for about an hour, but the sudden snow apparently got so big that 200+ accidents in Salt Lake valley were reported to UHP within the hour. It was just crazy!

blue curtains with beads

I made these blue "curtains" with beads for our store. We are going to put in a cool little boutique in the back section of the store, and I thought these will match the feel a bit better than the stainless steel blinds we had.

I basically measured and cut ribbons and folded the bottom to make the pointy ends, bead on 20 gauge wires and attach them to the ribbons. I added the blue dangly beads to make the whole blue thing/theme come together.



I will take a couple more pictures and show the whole set of curtains later on. The outside lighting is odd today.

bye bye la marzocco

We got a customized espresso machine last November and retired the 2 GR EE La Marzocco Linea we used in our caffe for the first 15 months since we opened. We offered it on ebay and sold it to Pete from Colorado Springs, CO.

Pete is coming to Salt Lake City to pick it up today. The La Marzocco was a wonderful machine and it still is a top of the line on th emarket. It's the first commercial espresso machine I'd ever worked on, and it was with this machine that I poured my first good latte art. I will truly miss the time I spent with it.

Thank you, and bye bye La Marzocco.

shiny hair

People who know me know that I usually have not-very-manageable hair. Every time I go and have my haircut Fumi will do everything to make my hair look sily and pretty, but after the first wash my hair will be wavy again.

But the other day I tried to take a pic for my myspace profile (you know how those myspace pics are!) and found that my hair, evern though still wavy and semi-unmanageable, looked really shiny (at least in the pic!) I think it could be just because of the lighting, but MAYBE the many daily espresso shots and gelato magically work on my hair? I'm gonna stick with that theory.

the giant baby pickle

We give people a baby dill pickle with their bagelini at the store, and when we say "baby" we mean "baby," until today. I found this giant "baby" pickle in the pickle jar. It actually took me a while to get it out of the jar. You can see how big it is compared to the regular and real baby pickles. I think I need to get a refund.