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Amy's Brain is 47% Female, 53% Male
Amy's brain is a healthy mix of male and female
You are both sensitive and savvy.
Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed.
But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve.

What Gender Is Your Brain?





Feel free to email me your comments, suggestions, and/or random thoughts.





 
December 2008
  


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Merry Christmas everyone!  Even Toby is getting excited about all the presents under the tree.  He knows there's a few things with his name on it!  He typically ignors the tree but the past few days, we've found him hanging out on the "tree-side" of the couch, not the side with his blankie.  Hm...is he warming up to the tree?

We also officially celebrated my birthday.  I got to pick any place I wanted to go to for dinner.  So naturally I wanted crab.  But I didn't want to pay a huge amount of money at some fancy restaurant where I get only small pieces of legs.  I wanted to enjoy crab the best way I can enjoy crab, at home where I can spend hours picking out every morsel of meat.  My wishes were granted!  Mr. BAW and I went to Costco and got two giant dungeness crab for ~$20.  They were extremely fresh too.  We steamed the crabs and Mr. BAW created this amazing concoction of minced garlic in melted butter for us to enjoy with the crab.

The meal was simply amazing!  Not only the yummy factor but they were so huge that we ended up using half of the crab meat for a crab and artichoke dip for dinner the next evening!  Mr. BAW got to use his new cast iron bean pot to make the crab dip.  So for ~$20 we got two expensive and amazing dinners for two.  Not a bad deal at all!  The only thing we have to be careful about eating seafood at home is to keep it away from Toby.  Shellfish and dogs do NOT mix.

Costco also had some clams for sale...hm...maybe for Valentine's Day dinner...





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Work stinks.  When can I retire??  Oh, not for another 20 years, if I'm lucky.  I don't understand why there are so many baby-boomers at work who refuse to retire.  There are a million other places I'd rather be than at work, like cuddling with a furry dog on the couch.

But in the mean time, Toby's got the right philosophy, he just takes it all in stride.  "Sleep on it Mommy, literally"...is his advice to me.  Here he is demo-ing it for me.  I wonder if this is what the phrase "working like a dog" means. 

I may be suffering from a case of lack of vitamin D.  I've been getting early for work since I started my new job and the combination of the shorter days plus the recent LA rain has gotten me down. 

I am looking forward to Christmas vacation.  But I'm already worrying about how quickly that's going to fly by and then I'll have to start work again.  Sigh, I'm burn out.  Hum...maybe it's time for a career change...


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It was that time of the year again, my Birthday!  This year, since it fell on a Wednesday, I had to go to work.  I also have an extremely early meeting tomorrow so I didn't feel like celebrating.  But Mr. BAW surprised me with these beautiful roses anyway.  They reminded me of my wedding bouquet so they really brightened an otherwise dampy day.  It was extremely cold and rainy in LA and my day at work was just as dreary.  But when I came home to these flowers it all makes sense.  The long hard days at work was not important, it's family that is truly what's most important to me.  I'm lucky to have a wonderful husband and the world's best dog to come home to.  I also got some terrific Birthday wishes from my new mom and dad from Michigan and my best friend from SF.  Looking back, it's been one fantastic 2008 and I'm happy to be celebrating my first birthday as a wife!


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It's beginning to feel like Christmas...at our house.  We finally got our tree a few nights ago.  It's a lovely Noble Fir.  We also got some new stockings for the three of us.  Mr. BAW has the Santa stocking, I have the Snowman stocking, and Toby has the Moose stocking. 

We also saw Santa on our street tonight!  It was the City Fire Department as Santa.  The Police Department provided the esort along with Christmas music and presents.  We didnt' get a picture of Toby with Santa because there were so many kids waiting to see him. 

I have been too busy with my new job this year to do any Christmas shopping so I'm way behind!!  Yikes, I haven't even made my Christmas cards yet!  I'll have to get cracking this weekend.  At least I have some idea of what I'll be getting.

We're also going to decorate the outside of our house this year.  Hopefully it won't rain this weekend!




This little moose is one of our new ornaments this year.  Mr. BAW wanted him the second he saw him at Crate and Barrel.  The moose is skiing. 

This little bone ornament is of course Toby's ornament.  An old friend of mine got it for me years ago, when Toby was about three years old.  I can't believe Toby's going to be seven in a few more months! 

Happy Holidays everyone!


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This is the centerpiece at our wedding.  It's a hurricane candle holder that I semi-made.  I have always loved the look of candle light so I knew I wanted candles at our reception.  Incorporating the centerpiece and the use of candles would also eliminate the need for flowers at the reception which is typically very expensive.  Since we had 17 tables, I wanted to limit how much I spend on each centerpiece. 

I searched the web for inspirations and found this woman's featured wedding.  I normally don't like pink, but this particular wedding was beautifully done.  But most importantly, I loved her asle decoration which happens to be a beautiful glass hurricane that she made. 

For her ceremony aisle, Gloria screenprinted the cherry blossom motif onto washi paper, then wrapped it around glass vases holding floating candles.

So I borrowed her idea and bought 17 large glass hurricane candle holders.  I purchased rice paper from a website that came in sheets rolled up and delivered to me in a tube.  I had to cut down the sheets so that the width will fit into my printer.  The width also fit perfectly for the height of the hurricanes.  I printed my red blossom design onto the paper and wrapped it around the hurricanes.  I used double-sided tape to secure the overlapping part of the paper to the hurricane.  I then tied twine around the whole thing for a slightly rustic look.  I also purchased scented pillar candles from Save-On-Crafts.  I love this site, they were a tremendous help to my wedding planning.  I would even consider this site one of my wedding vendors.  They have everything you can ever imagine for crafting, cheap!  They were also extremely reliable and fast in their delivery of their products.  I also ordered red lanterns you see in the picture below from this website. 

So I ended up making extra centerpieces in case one or two breaks during the transport to the site.  So we ended up putting two by our cake for the cake cutting.  We gave away the centerpiece at the reception.  We asked our DJ to play a little game with our guests and gave the centerpiece away to the winners at each table.









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We went to Ikea a few weeks ago to look for a file cabinet.  What we came home with was a lot more, for Toby that is.  We hadn't been to Ikea in close to a year so I've not seen any of their new stuffed toys.  I love Ikea stuffed toys for Toby since they are cheap and they don't use plastic buttons for eyes and noses.  Toby loves to destroy stuffed animals because it makes him feel like a fierce hunter. 

Since last year, Ikea has come out with tons of new soft toys.  Most of the soft toys are under $10.  Such a bargain since pet stores typically charges over $20 for smaller toys.  What did we pick up for Toby?  I picked out a cute little blue giraff.  But what did Mr. BAW picked out for Toby??  A crocodile and this RAT!  I was opposed to the rat at first because it looked quite scary real at the store.  But he insisted that Toby would love the rat.  Well, look at him, what do you think?  He'll carry this rat around the house and bring it over to me so I can play tug-a-war with him.  Strangely adorable...

We won't give him the other toys until Christmas.  This way he'll have something to open under the tree too.  So if you are trying to spend a little less on gifts this year, I recommend purchasing your doggie toys from Ikea.  :-)

By the way, a friendly reminder during the holidays to keep your doggies away from poinsettia plants since they are poisonous to dogs.  Here's a list of other harmful plants and food.


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Following our third Thanksgiving tradition, we went to a museum on black Friday.  This year, I wanted to see a couple of photography exhibits at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, aka LACMA.  The first exhibit was Story of Photography and the second exhibit was the Vanity Fair Portraits.

I was quite disappointed with the first exhibit.  I was hoping to see some amazing photography but the only thing amazing about the whole collect was that all the photos were really old.  Many of them dated back to the late 1800's.  But just because they were old doesn't mean the photos were particularly spectacular. 

We did enjoyed the Vanity Fair Portraits because there were many interesting and artistic shops of famous people.  Mr. BAW was particularly happy to see a shot of Charlie Chaplin.  This exhibit was extremely crowded too.  More crowded than any other museum exhibit I've seen.

We ended our museum day at a new eatery I accidentally discovered online.  It's a hip place called MILK and it happened to be just blocks from LACMA.  I love the whole vibe of the place.  It was small but cozy and the food was fantastic.  They had a huge selection of desserts, pastries, and light meals.   Check out their cool website.  There were lots of trending folks but also some locals who liked to enjoy a quick bit with their friends.  I tried their squash soup and it was yummy.  Mr. BAW tried their brownie sundae and it was sinful. 

The only bummer is that they currently only have one location in LA.  And it isn't close enough to our home for us to visit regularly.  I would love to be able to try different items from their large menu.  They even have a shrimp soba that I would love to try.  But being in mid-town LA, we won't be getting out there much.  But if you ever visit LACMA, be sure and stop by MILK for a light lunch or some yummy desserts.