Secret plans

Last night DH told me that he is leaving for a conference out of town this weekend, I got really excited. I am not saying that I am excited that he is leaving, it's just all my fabulous crafts/organizing/decorating ideas started jumping back into my head again. DH is not very supportive when I decorate or organize. I want my home to be like a picture cut off a magazine, but for DH, home is just a home, as long as we have all necessities, it's ok with him. So, I kind of developed a habit, listing and preparing my "DH unfriendly" projects, and then as soon as he is on a business trip, I will start working hard. Crazy, huh? But I found that very efficient. I can concentrate on my "work", actually they feel like play to me, and don't have to listen to DH's complain. He is a great guy, just not very handy at all. But he is a perfectionist, so he tends to point fingers and try to tell me what I did wrong, and what I should do next. Sometimes I just want to tell him to shut up, since he had no idea what I was doing. So, it's better this way.

So, the first big project I am going to do this weekend is to paint my closet office. We set up a home office for DH in one of the big bedrooms, and I finished painting and decorating it two years ago. But what about all my stuffs? I have tons of papers, fabrics, beads, books, albums and other crafting supplies, which means I need space for all those plastic boxes, totes, and all kinds of containers. So, I came up with a very smart idea, transforming the unused closet in DH's office into my own little crafting area. I had my plans, but by that time DH has already moved into his office and won't allow me to paint my space, because he didn't want to stay out of that room for a couple of days and he didn't want to smell the fresh paint either. So, all I did was installing a "desk" surface, (was a couple of heavy duty shelves I found somewhere), and moving most of my stuffs into the closet. But since I don't like to face the white wall, and didn't have time to install more wire shelves to organize my boxes, I couldn't really "work" there without running downstairs for some ribbons or fabric. Now I got my chance. DH will be out of the house for several days, so I have enough time to paint the wall, install more shelves, and re-organize everything. I know he is way too lazy to paint it over if he didn't like my color, so I am safe there. And he will benefit too, not like I am not thinking about him. He always complains that I put lots of my materials and unfinished projects on the big sectional sofa. If I can finish my "office", I can give him the living room back. What a deal for him! Getting a clean living room without even lifting a finger. OK, I promise to post some before and after pictures later. Here is some of my inspirations. I like the clean look of this closet office. And loving the chair.
Like the idea of using containers on wire shelving.
This is not a closet office, but I love the curtains. I removed the sliding door, so I will have more elbow room, and hang a pair old curtains on a curtain rod, which matches the wall color and the window curtain. I think it looks nice. And I can hide my messy "office" when friends come over.

Then if I have more time, what should I do next? I better prioritize my to-do list, which has about 30 projects, big and small. Hum, I have to find all those projects I have to hide from DH. What's next then???

Loving Turbo Jam

I have been a very good girl last week. OK, DH helped a little. He bought the Turbo Jam DVDs a couple of weeks ago, and started exercising right away. But at that time, I just recovered from the internal bleeding, and still was very weak and my belly still hurt when I try to run or jump. So, I waited. By waited I meant being lazy couch potato and watching TV. Finally last week, DH won't accept any more of my excuses, and dragged me down to our fitness room, aka the basement. I have bad knees, so tried the low impact version. The movements are so much fun, like dancing, and music is very energetic. I just love Chalene Johnson. She "packs each workout with calorie-blasting kickboxing, body sculpting, and the hottest dance music". It's not like exercise at all, but a workout party with some wonderful people in the privacy of my own house. Frankly, I still cannot follow all the moves, especially my hips, I just cannot move or shake it. =) But after the first week, 3 days a week and 20 to 40 minutes everytime, I found my love handles shrunk a little, and I could feel my muscles tightening up, my arms, legs, and belly area, even when I was not exercising. I am recommending it to all my friends now. Feel like I am their new spokesman. If anyone want to know what Turbo Jam is, check this YouTube video of their program at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88MdH1xK8So.
This reminds me to "dance" with Chalene again tonight. I know I will have so much fun.

So tired of this

I am so tired of this cold thing! It has been more than 3 weeks and this on and off fever lasted total 2 weeks. I am tired all the time, and no motivation or energy to do anything. Couldn't even take care of my little shop. I didn't promote my shop in any way ever since I am sick, which was 3 or 4 wks ago, and to tired to upload any new items in my shop. So, everything is very slow now. But I managed to mail out a custom order on Sat, at least some activities. Cannot wait for this down period to be over. I really need to start planting now, so I will have healthy seedlings for spring. And I have to do more to attract traffic to my shop. Anyway, here is the custom order I just sent out, and they are everyone's favorite too.

Finally feeling better

I have been really sick for a while, and after last Friday's simple procedure, I had internal bleeding and the pain was unbearable! I could not eat, drink, or lay down even with full dose of pain killers. And because of the pain, I had to sat in bed for the entire night. I was exhausted next morning, and could not take it anymore, so we went back to the hospital, that's when they found out about the internal bleeding, and there were fluid accumulated in my belly too. Also, since I didn't drink much water, I was dehydrated too. My blood pressure dropped a lot, that's why I almost fainted everytime I try to stand up and walk. Oh, what a horrible weekend. And then the pain got much better, and just as I thought everything can go back to normal, I started having fever Monday night. It's on and off, and very annoying, burned off lots of my energy. I lost some weight because of all of these. And yesterday when I ran into my neighbor, she said I looked like a ghost! Yeah, I know. My cheek sunk in, and my skin, and lips were very pale. I could not walk 10 yards without feeling my heart pounding. I tried to work yesterday, but felt exhausted and went back home after lunch. But thanks to my dear hubby, TG, I felt much better today. He doesn't know how to cook great meals or those traditional Chinese herb medicines, so he needed to ask me questions constantly. But one thing he knew is that I have to start eatting. Ever since I got the cold three weeks ago, I totally lost my appetite. He kept telling me that I have to force myself eat, even though I feel nausea. So, last night, he asked me to find those good herbs and dry food in my cabinets, and cook me something very nice. Amazing! After eatting those, I felt better, and actually had 4th meal late night. And today, I felt much stronger, and very energetic. I haven't felt this good for weeks! Thanks, honey.

Two more!

Someone just bought two of my items! Very happy!
She bought one of my favorites, the red button knot earrings, I wear the same one myself occasionally. I don't wear it all the time since I have more than 60 pairs of earrings, but I really like its simplicity. It adds just a hint of color and Asian taste to my outfits.

And she also bought one of the friendship bracelet. I came up with that design several weeks ago. I wanted to make something for two birthday girls in my office, nothing too fancy, but colorful and cute enough to go with all kinds of casual clothes. I found some friendship beads in my boxes, and worked them into this design. They absolutely loved them. So, I decided to make more and use different color cords and beads. Love the results. And they are adjustable, fit everyone, doesn't matter how big or small your wrist is.

This reminded me that I have to make a custom ordered keychain. I got the order several days ago, but since I am still very sick, I told the customer that it will take a while. I will probably make it tonight and post the picture tomorrow. This PanChang knot keychain is a huge success, plus this order (one red, one green), I have sold 5 already! And my friend, Tracy, wanted me to make this into her company's promotion gift! But since I only have a hand full of those cute copper bells left, lots of people will be disappointed later.

I've been featured!

Surprises keep coming these days! Sandra just featured my shop in her blog, Jewels and Knits. Sandra is a wonderful artist from France, she loves jewelry making and knitting. Her designs are very elegant, and yet contemporary. And she really can knit! The bags she made are very nice, and just give me that warm feeling, making me want to hug them. =) Knitting is one of the skills that I don't have, so I have always admired other people's knit work and dreamed that one day I can make myself a nice scarf. Keep dreaming! ZZZZZ
Oh, and here is a picture of the lovely angel bookmark I recently bought from her. You can check out Sandra's shop Bijouxboutique, then you will know what I am talking about.

And remember the Etsy shop I featured recently, JanineKingDesigns? One of her bag was featured in the Martha Stewart show on last friday! I picked that same one last time, and Janine told me that is the best seller. Huh, I have very good eyes! Here is a link to the video, Rob Promoting Etsy on Martha Stewart. And congratulations to Janine! Now millions of Martha fans heard Etsy, what a great PR! Hope this will inspire more people to appreciate handcrafted products, and bring more traffic to all of our stores. Cannot wait to go home and complete more of my new designs.

I am back

I caught the nasty cold last Mon, and got so sick that I had to stay at home for almost entire week. It was awful! Lots of people are sick now, either the flu or cold. I consider myself one of the lucky ones who got the cold, not the flu. Even with the coughing, diarrhoea, vomitting, and on and off fever, I still think it's much better than the flu. And look at the bright side, I lost about 5 lbs! One of my new year's resolution is to lose 10 lbs this year. So, plus my previous effort, I reached my goal! I know, after I recover from this, I probably will gain that 5lbs back very fast, since I am dehydrated a little bit now. But at least my body feels much lighter now, and I feel like I can jump as high as when I was still playing volleyball.

I got a great surprise last night. My highschool best friend, "little fish", called me out of blue, after all these years. We lost contact after graduation, and didn't even know that we came to the US around the same time! Now she and her husband moved from CA to Boston, we can see each other again. And the most interesting part is how she found me. She was shopping in local grocery store one day, and all of sudden somebody called out her name in Chinese! It was another girl from our highschool class who also knows me. She gave my numbers to "little fish". I am so happy! After this cold thing totally gone, I will definitely throw a party, and we can have a small version of highschool reunion right in my home. Cannot wait!

Store of the Day

I am trying to promote other Etsy shops as often as I can. Here is one of my favorites, Janine King Designs (http://janinekingdesigns.etsy.com). Janine King is an established designer of fine quality, fun and unique fabric handbags. Check out their shop, you will know why they are so successful and why I love them so much. The clean and efficient design, absolutely devine! And the color combination! Just wonderful!

A Lazy Day

A lazy, and very slow day for me! My computer at work has been driving me nuts all day! It's so noisy, I cannot stop hitting it. And everytime I called the help desk guy over, it just quites down. This makes me madder, and want to kick it you know where. I think it's the fan for the power supply, I have to turn it off and wait till tomorrow to call the guy again. So, I got some free time before leaving for home, and we have a computer lab next door. Convenient! I got my excuses not working now, because I cannot use my own computer where all my softwares and programs are. So, more time for chatting, and checking out my store. Oh yeah, I can read more forums now! Great!

Cute Earrings

I posted some new items in my shop yesterday. Here are some of the cute earrings. I love the colors, and they casual, but some of them can be very dressy too.

Yummy! Scallion Pancake

The weather is absolutely crazy today, heavy rain, 61 degree! In the middle of the winter? I guess this is really New England weather. Anyway, I loved it. Didn't have to go to work because of the President's Day. I opened all the windows and doors to let the fresh air in, my house smells like spring time. I was so happy that I made some scallion pancake for lunch. Yummy! Here is step by step instructions.

	Step 1: Make the dough with all purpose flour and water. Take a piece dough and roll it to really thin pancake. Pour oil at the center, and some salt and five spice power.
	A little tip about spreading oil, salt, and five spice power evenly on the pancake. Lift the side and fold it towards the center, and repeat all around. That's it.
	Step 2: Now sprinkle some finely cropped scallion all over the pancake, and roll it to a rope shape.
	Step 3: Now twist and roll the rope into a donut shape, and push the end into the center.
	Step 4: Roll it to a pancake as thin as you can, but be careful the oil and scallion squeeze out sometimes.
	Step 5: Add some oil into a non-stick pan, fry each side until golden yellow and crispy. Now you can enjoy your scallion pancake. It tastes better when hot, the outside is so crispy, while the inside is still soft. And lots of layers of fun too.

And one more secret, more scallion means better taste, and more oil in step 1 means more layers in the final pancake. Go cook yourself some pancake now!

See what I found tonight

After uploading some new pieces to my shop, I went to read the Etsy forums. Love to chat with other people there, always something new and learned a lot about running Etsy business. And take a look at what I found. This shop called BeautifulJewels (at http://beautifuljewels.etsy.com), and the pieces are so gorgeous, and the pictures are very professional. See how the crystal sparkles, yet you can still see all the details. Wonderful pictures. Just want to share this with you. I am a big fan of things that sparkles. =) It's a girl thing!

Spring cleaning?

Since I bought the gardenia, my new favorite, it finally reached the point that I have no more space on the shelves. So, I had to rearrange everything. I am so happy that I bought this metal shelf unit (from BJ's). This unit is so versatile, can be put together as a 6 feet tall unit or as two 3 feet units. And has 4 casters, so can be moved freely. The best part is all shelves can be set at different level. Since my jasmines were just too tall, there was no way I can fit them into the shelves with the trellis. So, I ended up using only half of the shelf, and already blocked entire sliding door. I had my tall plants on the top shelf, medium height ones on the second, and small ones on the bottom shelf. So I kept the other half of the shelf in the basement, and felt so guilty of wasting it. Now I am more than happy to set it up in the small bedroom on the second floor, right in front of the sunny window. I moved all my succulents and dry loving plants to the second floor, and kept all orchids, jasmines, and humidity lovers on the original shelf. I washed all water trays and wiped off the mineral buildups from the outside of the clay pots. Quite a workout!
But I am so glad I did all these. Because as I was cleaning the pots, I noticed the last smell you want from an orchid plant, rotting smell. It is my yellow Oncidium, which finished blooming a month ago. I didn't pay too much attention to it, because it was re-potted last year, and even though the bulbs are so wrinkled, it bloomed nicely, and grew a new baby. And the roots hanging in the air was very healthy looking. Now I understand why AK said orchids sometimes can fool you. When I was re-potting it, I saw all the roots that were inside the pot are totally rotted! How dangerous! I trimmed off the dead roots, and washed off all old medium, and started over with a new pot and new mix. I have to be very careful not to over watering it again. Just hope it can survive. Here is a very nice tutorial about re-potting orchids. Hope it can help all the orchid lovers out there. Don't make the mistake I made. http://www.geocities.com/aussieorchid/cyms/cym_repot.html
Here is the result of 'spring cleaning'. The big metal shelf is right in front of the dinning room sliding door, the old bathroom space-saver shelf is on the right side, and TG's favorite, Norfolk Pine Tree is on the left side. They all look very happy now. The last pic is the other side of the dinning room.

Happy Valentine's Day, Honey!

My hubby, TG, took me out for dinner last night, and he bought me a gardenia, which I wanted for a long time. I was so happy, and when he offered help to carry it, I was like, "No! This is mine! I will hold on to it." I hold it on my lap all the way home. I watered it, put it on a water tray away from my other plants, all 50+ of them, for quarantine. Even though I checked it very careful in the store, I cannot say I didn't miss anything. Two years ago, I bought a mini rose. It was so beautiful, but brought aphids into my house. I had a disaster that winter. I learnt my lesson the hard way. Anyway, back to my gardenia. I am very happy to report that two of the flower buds started opening up before I went to bed. The smell was wonderful. And the flowers are big too. I will take some pictures once they fully opened. I know gardenia is very hard to take care of, even for the experienced gardener, and I killed a baby one before, but I am willing to give it one more try. Another friend of mine, Em, is great with gardenia. She has several huge ones in her house. I will try to talk to her and ask for some advice. So excited! Am I lucky or not? I got Em for gardenia help, and AK for orchids and everything else. It's great to have friends who share your passion.

Oh, another wonderful surprise last night. As I enjoying my gardenia, I suddenly noticed my 'Winter Wonderland', Odontoglossom, opened up quitely. I posted its picture earlier this month, the white one with burgundy color dots. I didn't think it will bloom for me this winter, since the baby was too small. I left it on the bottom shelf, pretty much ignored it. But I guess it was happy there, the baby grew very fast, and reached mature size before winter. And now it's blooming! I know it only has 3 flowers this time, last winter it had 4, but the flowers are still quite big, and the plant is healthy. Another baby is about 3 inches tall now, it will give me flowers next winter. I love it when my orchids give me surprises.

These days I have been busy making some custom orders. A girl asked for my help, she bought a Chinese QiPao dress, very pretty, but didn't have jewelry that matches the style. She loved the little dangling button knot earrings, and wanted me to match the color for her. I finally got the picture of the dress from her, and just finished making the earrings. I think it will go great with the dress. And one of my friends want to buy some bookmarks, but they were sold out. I have to buy more papers, and start making them again. And for her, I will not use any beads, just chinese knots, so they will be even more unique. She loved the idea. Here they are. Unique, huh?

Cute choker necklaces

Here are some choker necklaces I made recently. If you want to see more pictures of them, you have to go to my store. I just love them. They are very cute, and look great with casual clothes. And any age group can wear them. The one with a matching bracelet was customly made for a 5-year-old little girl. And the dark green one will look fine on a girl or guy's neck. I have to make more of them since there are still lots of cute designs in my mind.

Updates on my Cymbidium

The flowers on the second spike of my big Cymbidium just fully opened. It's so beautiful, I cannot wait for the 3rd spike to bloom. Here are some new pictures.

Dumpling time!

Right now is Beijing time the morning of the 5th day of the Chinese New Year. In my city, we eat certain food on a certain day during the 15 days of Chinese New Year. And the most important days are the New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, 2nd day, 5th day, and 15th day. Every Chinese person will try their best to go back home, spend the new year's eve with their family. We make dumplings together, and cook a table full of delicious food. And we have to boil the dumplings and eat them at exactly midnight. And of course, there are the fireworks, and new years parties on TV. On the New Year's Day, people normally stay at their parents house, and if you are married, you should stay with your husband's family. Then on the 2nd day, the young couple will visit the wife's parents, with hand full of yummy cookies and deserts, and lots of fruits, especially oranges. Normally the wife and kid will wear some red clothes, traditional or not. And all the husbands want to impress the in-laws, they all call the taxi. So, you will be very lucky to be able to grab a taxi on that day. This is so funny, we call it "son-in-law's Day". And the 5th day is very special too. We make dumpling again, but this time, you are not supposed to use food processor. You have to chop the vegetable and meat by hand, and everyone in the house should do it, at least the adults. You knot those Chinese knifes are huge, and heavy sometimes, not safe for kids to handle. The meaning of this is you are actually chopping up all the 'bad people' you are going to meet in this entire year who's going to bad mouth you and stopping you from reaching your goals. Since none of us want to deal with those type of people, we all participate. And you also should use a stick to hold a rope of firecrackers, light it up, and swing it around you, so you also kill those 'bad people' from all directions. For more about Chinese New Year, read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year.
Enough with the culture education, I just want to tell you that I made dumpling for dinner today. If you love dill, you should try this.

	The stuffing are a mix of finely chopped dill, some scallion, ground pork, (you can use any meat you like), and a couple of egg. Then I added Chinese cooking wine, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, five-spice powder, chicken stock, and sesame oil.
	The dough is very easy to make too. Just mix all purpose flour with water. That's it. But you should make the dough harder, and the more elastic the dough is, the better the dumpling will taste. You take a piece of the dough, roll it into a rope shape, and cut into smaller piece with a knife. Press a small piece of the dough into a pancake shape, then roll it out with a rolling pin. Now you got a dumpling skin.
	Hold it with one hand, put some stuffing in the center, fold and press the two side together. Now one side at a time, pinch about 1/3 of the opening together, then the rest. Ta-dah! You just made a dumpling. See, not hard at all.
	To cook it, heat half pot of water to a boil, and put in your dumplings. Be careful, don't splash yourself. Then use a spoon or some other utensil gently push the dumplings around, don't let any of it stick to the bottom. If some dumplings leaked for whatever reason, don't worry about it. You now have not only dumpling, you also have the dumpling soup, very good. =) When the water come back to a boil, add a cup of cold water. do this twice. I was told this will make the dumpling's skin taste better.

You can buy those dumpling sauce from Chinese town, but I prefer dark Chinese vinegar. The one in the last picture is my all time favorite. Now, sit down and enjoy. Yum!! Wish you can taste it too.

Happy New Year everyone!