something pretty came in the mail

and i love them. thick cotton card stock. blind hit on my name. love love. thank you angela! i've needed decent cards for about a year now, and i found someone affordable and able to work with me as the designer. yay!

britney

britney spears and i are totally friends now. watch this video and you'll see! (i appear towards the end)

i knew it

i went to utah girl's camp one summer and shot some targets w/a gun (my first time ever) and beat out all the other girls. hence, i got the nickname pocahantas. that and that whole asian look i carry. anyways, i just took this test and it confirmed that day, so many years ago. if i were a disney princess, i truely would be pocahontas! awesome. take the quiz to find out which disney princess you are here. maybe when j comes home i'll find out which princess he is.

upcoming adventure

next week is my bday, and for those of you in the area, you are invited to join us on saturday night sept. 6th around 7:30 pm in koreatown for:

KOREAN FOOD & KOREAN ICE CREAM WITH REAL LIVE KOREANS

if you are far away, i'm giving you a week heads up to scoot yourself over here. ps. the korean ice cream is amazing. shaved ice, topped with ice cream, fruity pebbles, mochi, fresh fruit and whipped cream. you won't regret it.

{photos courtesy of flickr and surferbones}

happy yellow

I posted about this recipe for no knead bread a little while ago and finally scored the perfect dutch oven for the project! i wandered into williams-sonoma yesterday on my lunch break and found this little thing on a super sale! with my 20% off it was roughly 65% off, so i was pretty excited. Mine is oval and a 2 3/4 quart that barely fit, (but fits!!) into my toaster oven. (did i mention in this tiny joint we only have a toaster oven??) has anyone made bread in a dutch oven? has anyone made anything else in a dutch oven that was so good that you just want to share the recipe?

this is what happens when you get lazy

this is an old photo. we had just gotten back from a trip somewhere, and j had clothes everywhere after we did laundry. i told him to clean it up, pack it so eventually he could go home that night, and mr. lazy decided to take a nap instead. so being the nice gf that i was, i slowly piled up everything that was his on top of him, and then proceeded to clean up all my stuff and the rest of my house. the great part is, he knew i was doing it, but still kept sleeping. has anyone else done any fun things to their spouse when they don't help clean?

aaargh

my friend joy is throwing a pirate party for her son and asked for some ideas. i've been to quite a few adult ones, and a lot of the ideas can be used for children as well. some of my favorite ideas are bloody finger cookies , an invitation made to look old with coffee and burned edges showing a map to your house, sacs filled with chocolate coins and other goodies embellished with a gocco skull, a buried box in your yard with cheap fun jewelry for all to wear...and pin the eye patch on the pirate. anyone else have any ideas to help joy?

any reason to eat cake

worked all weekend, but found time to attend a little girl's 1st bday party. i'll post more images tonight - she was too cute. now, off to work again! 12-9, way too long of a shift for pb.

update: photos are now posted!

shopping assistant

If you know me, you know I love a good sale. But sometimes rummaging through racks to find my size can take forever! My friend Rachel sent me an invite to shop it to me. You check the brands you like, your sizes, the types of clothes you're looking for, and (perfect for us) i can do it for J as well. Ties, shoes & handbags are even included. You even get to tell them how often to send you the email so as not to clutter your inbox. The great part is that it's not just designer labels - stores like jcrew (where the above skirt is half off) and the gap are included. Let me know if anyone wants to join up - leave your email and I'll invite you in!

photo crush

this image by rodney smith is hands down rad. i want to re-create this shoot someday. maybe not all yellow cabs, just random cars and the girl in a wedding dress. any takers?

growing family

about a week ago, our family grew! h & e picked up azalea and clive from ethiopia and we are officially aunts & uncles for the 2nd time. sooo cute!! i can't wait to meet them. read about their journey over & back here. the photo is from their blog and was taken in country. stand by for my photos in sept. when we go meet them!

the kings

my weekend was spent...working fri, working sat., work party sat. night, church & friends in town on sunday. it went pretty fast. caroline's family came into town and we took some family photos and had dinner w/them. i've known her for some time, and her family, so it's always fun to see them. the kids are really a lot of fun for my camera. i wonder why it is that parents want their kids to sit still for the camera, and i want them to have fun and act up, and i always think those photos show more of who they are? aren't these normal faces for kids this age? i'll post more on my other blog later today.

oooh

i really, really want this or this for my birthday!! (sept. 5th for those of you that need to know). they are remakes of the diana, a plastic medium format camera created in hong kong in the 60's. $1 then, and only $60 now. the newest version has 2 shutter speeds, 2 images sizes and a pinhole and panorama option. i'm still trying to figure out the main difference between the two, but in the meantime i have a severe crush.

DIY closet

this idea is so simple and gorgeous. for a space lacking closets (ours), a guest room, a baby room, you name it. Here's what apartment therapy said: Find a branch outside, paint it white, and then loop it through two chains and hang it from the ceiling. So easy, right? I am definitely keeping this in my archives for future ideas.

tuesday

after work, i walked to albertsons and picked this rental up for $1. it's about 2 guys who meet and are both dying of cancer. they make a list of things to do before they die and aim to do all of them. not too brilliant of an idea, but well executed. i walked to farmer's market and picked up a few plants for the porch and met a really interesting 80-ish yr old lady who told me that everyone's eyes were really blue, and that if i drank rosemary tea for a few weeks, mine would turn to their real color, which is blue, like 'the sky'. she's a nutritionist/raw foodist/hippie who showed me a spot to get free herbs - planted on public property. i'm just wondering about this rosemary tea idea...she claims it's a really good cleanser to your system.. she also had me get some herbs to plant from the plant man and told me how to grow them and to eat the leaves with avocado spread and tomatoe. she also said bread is horrible and people who eat it will get colon cancer - yikes! it's fun making new friends at the farmer's market.

why does this keep happening

story 1: rewind 4 years to when i lived in san francisco. caroline & i go to dinner w/a guy friend. we sit on the same side of the booth to share a meal to cut costs. we think we convince the guy to buy us dessert. the guy thinks it would be funnier (and better on his wallet) if he sneaks over to the waiter to tell him that his good friends are celebrating their one year anniversary as a couple. so there we are, eating and laughing, and a small group of very awkward looking cheescake factory waiters appear with a chocolate dessert and 'happy anniversary' on the plate in rasberry sauce. we look at eachother like, what the...??? blow out the candles, and enjoy the dessert, while the group of waiters quickly leave. obviously, no clapping anniversary song to attract too much attention. we give him a hard time, but think, eh, it is free cake!

story 2: j & i go to farrah's last night for a group salad potluck. farrah was introducing a couple of us to this guy and says, 'this is julia, mary, julia's husband....' and leaves it at that, and moves on. the guy get's out of that, that mary (not her real name) is julia's husband, so for most of the night, he thought we were a couple! later during dinner, i over hear farrah in the other room say, 'wait, you thought mary was a lesbian?' and i chuckle and think, that seems like a funny conversation that we're missing...until i hear the rest and i was the other half of the couple!

so again? why? at least i can be grateful that he thought i was the wife in the relationship and not the husband.

help me avoid this

i've been googling my name to see if i'm rising on google search at all after rick helped me with some tricks. if any of you will blog about me and my photography and mention my name & site, it will really help me move up the rankings! i did great as julia abelmann, but am having a hard time w/julia bender. there seems to be too many of us, as seen in this photo! i really don't want her popping up before me when people try to find a photographer. are those pleather pants she's wearing??

sunday soap box

Jan was interviewed for NPR this morning about his show, In Their Boots. He is going to be featured tomorrow (sunday) am on the radio. Here is the link for more information. Try to listen!

finally, our anniv. photos

Ok, so the suspense is totally long gone since it took me so long to post the photos. Jan took me to dinner at the Beach Cove in Malibu, we spent the night in Ventura and showed up at 7:15 am at this place where we signed in for our day kayaking trip to the Channel Islands! We took a ferry out there, about an hr and a half each way, and saw herds of dolphins both ways. It was amazing to see them swim right by the boat. Kayaking was so much fun, heading into caves, etc. until the sea got the best of me and the medicine didn't make it's way down fast enough to kill the nausea. Puking a few times, I headed back to the shore to get some sun while Jan finished the last 45 min's of the trip, and then we ate lunch and went on a hike to see the amazing view. If you haven't been here, you should at least take the ferry out in the spring and go on a hike or go snorkeling. We didn't know to bring gear, but the water is amazingly clear. We got an itch to check out scuba licenses at some point - does anyone know where to get them around here or an average cost?

busy bee

sorry for the horrible blogging. i've been cranking to edit the wedding from last weekend ever since we got home. i'm really happy with how they turned out - tricky with low light most of the evening, but they turned out great. we had a long drive up the coast and back down - this time we spiced it up by adding nozomi and scott to the pt cruiser rental car. spent some time with fats and scored our wedding gift from him & julie.