Home Shopping

Envirosax Market Bags

July 21, 2009 – 10:47 PM

 

As a bring-your-own-bagger, I used to alternate between bringing paper Trader Joe’s bags from previous trips (for whatever reason they seem the sturdiest – and most cheerful – of the paper bag types) and a bunch of canvas tote bags.Both required space and thought, two things of which I seem to be in limited supply nowadays.

Enter Envirosax market bags! On a particularly good day at the office, my team surprised me with a green botanical-printed Envirosax stuffed with a candle gift set (I am thinking of investing in risky derivatives sometime in the near future, because shortly thereafter, I also won a Garmin navigation system in a random drawing).Requiring neither space nor thought, the bags roll themselves into a teeny-tiny size and have fasteners to keep them shut. They’re super lightweight, and as small as they look, they expand into a roomy, sturdy bag. The empty, rolled up bags are great tucked into your purse, or kept in the car (which is what I do). And of course the bag isn’t limited to shopping purposes — the lightweight polyester material can be hosed down and is a roomy bag for the beach or pool, and the print is so cute that I’m sure at some point I’ll be telling you that I made one into a skirt.

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Home Money-Saving Tips

Refurbished!

July 19, 2009 – 8:55 PM

A couple of weeks ago I walked into my friend Carol’s house — she has kids roughly the same age as mine — and was struck by how grown-up her house looked. It was spotless. Her sofas looked normal, as if no one had ever puked on / spilled milk on / mashed food into / used them as a trampoline. The overall effect of walking into a clean, puke-free house was magical…and serene. When I walked back into my own house, the saggy, stained sofas that sit in our family room made me glum.

Though I entertained fantasies of a new beige-colored microfiber sectional with leather trim, that was out of the question. I asked the kids if they would continue to jump on / step over, build forts with / color near / sneak food on said hypothetical sofa and they answered yes. So, I set out to refurbish! A cursory call to reupholsterers, who would re-stuff my formerly down-filled cushions, yielded a quote of roughly a thousand dollars for the sofa. That included a wait time of a couple of weeks while the special feathers were ordered, and a period of time during which I’d have no cushions upon which to sit. Not good enough for my need for immediate gratification.
So I ended up shoving old, flat pillows of yore into my cushions. See the picture above — the cushion closest to us has been restored using my free-but-effective pillow stuffing method (I stuffed them into the bottom-facing part of the cushion so the unusual lumps wouldn’t show as much); the depressed cushion further away is the “before” sample. I happened to have a lot of old flat pillows, which included a variety of out-of-commission-bed pillows and accent pillows, all shoved breast-implant-style into any space I could find in the cushions (which were zippered, making things a lot easier than they might have been). I then set about removing stains by using a spray bottle filled with water and blottting with a cloth; grease stains I was able to get out by sprinkling corn starch over stains and letting sit for a couple of hours before vacuuming up. The result? To the right. Puke-free puffy sofa! (Well, mostly. I wasn’t able to get out the residue from a particular incident involving pink silly putty. Silly putty is the enemy. Don’t let it into your house.)
This transformation inspired me to look for other low-cost ways to reduce the offensiveness of my family room. Here’s what the wall opposite my sofa used to look like — it was basically a mishmash of cheap furniture that somehow migrated down from the playroom.
A visit to IKEA and investment in Expedit bookshelves, filled in with baskets I’d gotten from Target for the play room a couple of years ago, plus a coffee table spruced up the room in a remarkably low-risk fashion. While I’d like to be able to say that my house looks like this all the time, and not just every other Tuesday when a certain cleaning crew rolls in to save the day, I can’t. But it does look less bad.

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Beauty

Fragrance fix

June 6, 2009 – 1:49 PM

I’m not good with fragrance. Having worked in the beauty industry, I’m fully aware that they’re selling an aspiration, but I really want to believe what they’re trying to sell. Problem is, even if I read “sophisticated and sexy” in the copy I still smell “flowers and lemons”. And if I were a celebrity my branded fragrances would be called “Garlic Sauteeing in Olive Oil”or “Retail” which would be the smell of clothes when I first get them home from Nordstrom.

Anyway, I’m still trying. I regularly spritz myself with testers when I see a pretty bottle, and maybe there’s an issue with the way my brain is mapped, but the smell for me never matches the bottle. For instance, I feel like perfumes in purple bottles should smell purple. But they don’t. Sometimes they smell like apples.

I do have a small collection of perfumes, from impulse purchases and gifts. Last time I was at an airport overseas I spritzed myself with Chanel Chance Eau Fraiche, which I liked. Trouble is, I tire of fragrances pretty quickly. Which is where eBay comes in: I discovered that you can actually buy samples of perfumes on eBay. Often they’re bundled with 2 or 3 samples. The beauty of this is that for ten bucks you can wear an expensive perfume, but not feel so bad once you tire of it. About 7 years ago I fell in love with the Kate Spade perfume, which is now mentally linked for me with the basic black bags of the ’90s, and as a result I can’t bring myself to wear it anymore. I still have 3/4 of a bottle left. Shoulda gone to eBay.

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Beauty Hair Shopping

Back to the Basics

May 30, 2009 – 10:17 PM

My latest haircare discovery costs $1.29. Pictured to the right is the upscale version of it. Yep, you got it — corn starch. If you want to trace back the blame for this idea (and you should always assign blame), I’d say it goes back circa 1995 when some Allure editor started to slip in advice from haircare gurus that washing your hair daily strips it of its natural oils and to keep it healthy, you should wait a few days between shampoos. Over the seven years following that I made at least ten failed attempts to convert from daily hair-washing, all thwarted by the fact that I could smell my hair. I really didn’t want to smell like hair.

It wasn’t til I had kids that I successfully made the transition — driven mostly by fatigue and a general loss of will (this was also around the time I started driving a mini-van and favoring elastic waistbands). Still, I was really turned off by the hair smell — I just feel like we’re beyond the evolutionary stage where it’s necessary to smell distinctly human. So I experimented with multitudes of dry shampoos, all of which were either too medicinal (some actually had copy that read “For hospital patients who can’t get out of bed”), too disgusting or had faulty packaging (the Oscar Blandi spray shampoo was the best of the bunch, but the nozzle never failed to get stuck and let all the aerosol out). I eventually moved over to baby powder, which worked just as well, but left me smelling a little too babyish and, at worst, like a baby that smelled like hair (plus, isn’t talc a carcinogen when inhaled?). I’m thinking fragrances + hair smell just don’t cancel each other out.

So a few weeks ago I tried the corn starch. And yes, the stuff right off the grocery store shelf, and the same stuff I use to thicken up gravy in the kitchen. It was good. It didn’t result in a sickening medieval-era effect of covering a bad smell with a perfume; it just neutralized the smell. It can be a bit tricky to get onto the scalp without also getting all over my clothes, but I’m sure I’ll master that at some point. Perhaps Eddie, who just moved to Oregon, might have time now to experiment in that regard and advise me on the best dispensing method?

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Beauty Shopping Uncategorized

MOP

May 3, 2009 – 9:49 AM

Alexander the Great wanted to conquer the world. Barack Obama wants to save the world. I have always wanted to have hair with volume.

If you’ve seen my hair, you know that I have stick-straight Asian hair with a predisposition to kick out at the bottom in the exact opposite direction from what is desired (it’s like it knows…and then does whatever I don’t want it to do just to tick me off). It is also really heavy, and I’m pretty sure that at least 20% of my brain power is dedicated to instructing my head to remain upright despite the gravitational pull from the hanks of hair. If I wanted really serious volume, I’d have to get a cut where my hair was no more than 1.5 inches all around — but it’d be the wrong kind of volume (think porcupine after electric shock). I also sleep on my hair, which doesn’t help, and I’m growing out my bangs, which, though not relevant to the volume issue, really doesn’t help in general.

Part of having good volume (and the right kind of volume) is of course having the right cut. But my hair can’t have decent volume without additional intervention. For this I have two products in the arsenal. I really like these MOP products because I’m a fan of the fresh lemongrass scent, and the products hold.

  • MOP Form Foaming Gel with Light Hold. I usually put this on near the scalp where I want volume and then blowdry my hair upside down. Pro: this has given me more volume than any other product I’ve ever tried, and I’ve tried a lot of products. Con: I should probably put in for a Prozac prescription right now, because I just found out that it’s been discontinued! Why do they forsake me?!?
  • MOP Glisten Organic Volumizing Spray. If I want major volume, I’ll put this on over the Forming Gel before blowdrying. In between washes, I spritz it at the roots and then blowdry upside down — it neutralizes grease and gives a (heat-activated) lift. And I love the lemongrass-y freshness.

Try these recommendations if you have hair like mine. Send me yours. The quest continues.

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Parenting

Poof and Pearl

April 25, 2009 – 11:50 AM

For her birthday, my 6-year-old wanted to get a pet fish. Not being much of a pet person, much less a fish one, I started off my setting up a set of seemingly unattainable hurdles (“Collect enough small, yet unbroken, shells from the beach to fill the bottom of a tank!”) to buy myself some time. Finally, though, I relented, and for her birthday my parents covered the cost of turning us into a fish household.

I wanted hearty fish, so we got two betta. I was told by the PetSmart salesperson that though you can’t put two male betta together, it was fine to put two females in the same tank. I have two female kids, so that made enough sense to me, and I thought it would be nice for them each to feel like they had a special pet, and for the bettas to be friends. So, off we went with Poof and Pearl in their betta store containers, traipsing through Trader Joe’s so that I could complete a last-minute errand, and then back home where we began to set up their habitat. Which I really enjoyed –I think I’ll be adding “undersea decor” to my hobby list.

Once we added both fish into the tank, it was clear that there was some type of interaction going on. Poof (bigger, and pink) was frequently chasing Pearl (smaller, and bluish green). Poof would also eat any food that was dropped in, before Pearl could get to it. And when Pearl finally did get to a betta bit, it was too big for her mouth. Trouble.

I ended up staying up late reading up on female bettas. The frustrating part of it was that most of the available information was wiki-style, meaning that random people just posted information or answers to question (and I mean random — there is no filter against people who can’t spell or who write “yo yo yo” in their responses). I didn’t feel like there was a real, definitive betta authority out there, but here is a collection of what I found out about female bettas:

  • They can live together in a tank.
  • But why would you force them to do that? It’s stressful and against their nature.
  • No, they can’t live together.
  • Well, they can, but you can’t have just two. One will bully the other til the other dies.
  • It’s best to have three females so they can form a hierarchy.
  • It’s best to have at least four females so they can form a hierarchy.
  • Females can be aggressive and territorial.
  • Some betta bits are too big for some bettas.
  • Chasing is ok as long as the fish aren’t nipping each other’s fins off.
  • Horizontal stripes mean the fish are distressed.
  • If you see horizontal stripes, the fish are healthy.

See what I mean? Ok, so this is the worst part — now that I was feeling like God of the Bettas and had personal responsibility for them, I had a sleepless night wondering if Poof was going to kill Pearl, if Poof was just showing dominance over Pearl, if Pearl was ever going to eat, and why I was up at night thinking about Poof and Pearl in the first place (didn’t help that that afternoon some guy on NPR was talking about how fish have feelings and feel pain). I have enough things in my life that cause me to lose sleep, and I really don’t like to lose sleep.

So the next day I ended up putting up a divider between Poof and Pearl, just to ensure that Poof didn’t kill Pearl, that Pearl could have something to eat once in a while (we have to manually crush her pellets to make them small enough) and so that they could get used to the sight of one another. Now I’m obsessively researching whether I can remove the divider once they’re used to one another — seems that it would be nicer for them to have more swimming space. No matter — last night my overly excited daughter fed Poof five pellets (she’s supposed to have one a day) so this all could be moot soon.

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Crafts Popular

Cable Knit Pom Pom Hat

March 20, 2009 – 10:15 PM

This entry is going to be about knitting. If you don’t care about knitting, stop reading. If you don’t care about knitting but do want to learn about how to make pom poms, you can keep reading, but I’m just going to redirect you someone who can explain it better than I can.

My job’s been a little demanding lately, so I’ve been trying to unwind before going to bed by knitting a few rows every night. I started off doing pretty basic things, like 2×2 rib hats on straight needles, but eventually became obsessed with questions like “What if I don’t want any seams on my hats?” and “How do you make those twisty designs?”, and before I knew it I was knitting bad hats using 4-5 needles concurrently, cursing myself all the way. I am pretty sure that if I stayed at home full time I would be equally capable of finding things that would stress me out. Needless to say, this idea of unwinding using knitting only resulted in me staying up later than planned, determined to be able to do what seems to be somehow innate for little old ladies.

The good news is that I’ve been making progress. The hat to the right is the first one that I’ve knitted that is of my own design, without using a pattern. Except that this was supposed to be an adult hat, and as you can tell by the picture, it is being worn by a doll that is roughly 10% the size of an average adult. So I present to you: Cable Knit Pom Pom Hat for Toddlers! Nevermind the fact that my children are no longer toddlers…um, yeah, I meant to knit a hat for this knitted doll (which by the way was actually knitted by someone in England whose knitting skills are vastly superior to mine). Here’s how to make this hat:

I used:
Valley Yarns Berkshire (85% Wool, 15% Alpaca); wt 100 grams, in Lt. Blue

US Size 10 double-pointed needles (set of 4)

Cable needle (I just used a dpn from another set as the cable needle, with a rubber stopper on one end)

CO 60

Rows 1-6: *k1, p1, rep from * to end

Rows 7-9: *p4, k6, rep from * to end

Rows 10: *p4, CF6, rep from *to end

Rows 11-13: knit the knits and purl the purls

Repeat Rows 7-13 until total rows = 26

Shape crown:

Row 1:
X= if the next stitch is a knit, use K2tog; if it is a purl, use SSK
Y= if the next stitch is a knit, k; if it is a purl, p

*X, Y2 rep from * to end

Row 2: X, Y

Row 3: *k1, p1; rep from * to end

Row 4: *k1; rep from * to end

Row 5-6: *k2tog; rep from * to end

Break off yarn, thread through yarn needle and through live sts, drawing tight and sliding off knitting needle. Secure and weave off.

Making the pom pom:

Do it the cheap way:
http://www.kid-craft-central.com/pom-poms.html

Or do what I did if you’re too lazy to cut your own template — buy one:
http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog.jsp?CATID=cat2874&PRODID;=prd31838

Sew securely to the hat, and voila! Now find someone who’s willing to wear it, preferably aged 1-2.

Copyright
This is pattern is free for personal, non-commercial use. Further use requires permission from the designer (me). You may not sell or distribute the pattern in any form. You may not sell the any item or items made from this pattern without my permission. You may not use this pattern or items from the pattern for commercial use.

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Fashion Shopping

Eugenia Kim

February 28, 2009 – 10:07 AM

 

Since my hairdresser’s been on maternity leave, and I’ve had two traumatic cuts that I’ve had to fix up by myself afterwards (my haircutting skills are pretty much on par with my knitting skills — ok from afar, but a little scary up close), I’ve been a little obsessed with hats. I’ve noticed that even in winter here, I seem to be the only person wearing knit hats. Ok, nevermind the fact that it’s 65 degrees and sunny on a cold day, or that I’ve been getting headaches from overheating my head, but hats are cute! And they look a lot better than my hair does nowadays.
I’ve always been an admirer of Eugenia Kim, the hat designer. I love the fact that her business started from an attempt to hide a bad haircut (yes, that in particular resonates with me), and that she’s very accident-prone (see the Design Philosophy section). I have a particular affinity for knit hats, and of those in her collection, I’m a fan of the Heather cable knit hat. Being knitty myself, I love the chunkiness of it and the way she’s able to put a little edge into cables, which can often come off as being a little too precious. I am also impressed with the fact that she can charge $190 for the hat, which is about as much as I would have to pay someone to wear one of mine. Here’s more on Eugenia if you’re interested. It’s a good thing for us that she didn’t become a doctor (nevermind the accident-prone thing).

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Beauty Shopping

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat

February 14, 2009 – 1:42 PM

What is it about a sunset that looks so ’70s? They’re beautiful, of course, but once you snap a picture you can’t help but want to feather your hair with your portable butane curling iron. And then you start to think you need to print cursive writing Deep-Thoughts-style over it. Whatever. I just wanted to show you what we do in the winter in San Diego. This picture was from earlier this month. The alien-like figure on the right is my daughter.

So I’ve been sick now since December. Most recently, my doctor prescribed me a nasal spray called FloNase, which is just as sexy as it sounds. At first I didn’t read the instructions that you were supposed to squirt and inhale at the same time and then breathe out of your mouth, so basically everything came right back out when I exhaled. I had seen the instructions but kind of thought, what kind of idiot needs instructions to use a nasal spray? And maybe it was not such a good idea to get in the ocean in the middle of winter.

On to more important things. I haven’t done my fingernails in a long time, but living in an open-toed culture year-round, I do mostly make sure my toenails are painted. For the past 10 years I’ve been a Seche Vite type of top-coat girl, but it was always kind of a pain to get. Easier here in SoCal than in other places (we have a ton of beauty supply stores that stock them, but for me, that involves putting two kids into the car, doing four sets of buckles, driving them there, undoing four sets of buckles, dragging them out of the car and across the street, making sure they don’t eat/break/pilfer the hair nets/wig glue/bobby pins at the beauty supply store, finding the Seche Vite, paying for it, dragging them back across the street to the car…you get it), but regardless I still have to go out of my way to get it. And it is wonderful — long-lasting, salon-looking finish that’s super duper shiny. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that at a fraction of the price, and available at your local [insert retail location where you go to buy food, toilet paper, contact lens solution], the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat is a winner. Not as gloppy as Seche Vite, it dries in 30 seconds and keeps a solid, shiny finish for a long, long time. I’ve converted.

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Shopping Uncategorized

Etsy

January 16, 2009 – 9:30 AM

Every once in a while you stumble upon something that makes you inexplicably happy. For me, it was the discovery of Etsy, “your place to buy and sell everything handmade” (note it is not “the place where people buy the things from me that are handmade”, because nobody seems to like the things I make). The product to the right is from a seller named yooboro who seems to specialize in plush not-scary-monsters. While I don’t have anything against mass-production (see what happens when I get into an H&M; store), I do have an appreciation for things that are handmade, and are less ugly than the things handmade by me.

Etsy has a lot more than colorful plush monsters. I’m amazed at the things people make — from unraveling and re-knitting vintage sweaters to quilting enormous wall hangings. You can get cute handmade skirts for $15. My kids got a pair of the most exquisite Japanese-anime-sort of wool dolls from an Etsy seller for Christmas, and I just marvel at the maker’s command of proportion and the magic elements of achieving ultimate cuteness.

Inspired (as I am, just once a year) to pick up my knitting needles again, I discovered this amazing craft blog called futuregirl.com (here, I was interested in how to sew a lining for the knit bag I will probably finish circa 2021: http://www.futuregirl.com/craft_blog/2008/1/tutorial-sew-lining-for-crocheted-bag.aspx . I did make my first hat, though. Which is really useful when it’s 75 degrees and sunny year-round.

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