Chinese New Year Dinner Party

This has been such a crap week with all the snow. Snow makes me a very angry person. I'm think it might be nice to decompress and have friends over to celebrate the new year next week . . . .
This looks like an easy, interesting and delicious menu. Plus, I just love the flowers in the tea tins.

From Apples & Onions Dinner Party Blueprints

Chinese New Year Dinner Party

 

Is it too early in our marriage to renew our vows?

Anthropologie introduces it's BRIDAL line. I die. Let's do like the celebrities do and renew our vows every year!

I loved my dress. I never thought of myself as a lace girl, but then I saw it, tried it on and I was a goner.  Why can't I wear it again? I loved my wedding. I love my husband :-)

 

How does she do it?

It is 9:39 on Tuesday night. I just made dinner. For tomorrow night. After I did two loads of laundry (with two more to follow). I have been up and about since 7 this morning. I work from 9:15-5:45 and then pick the boy up from daycare down the street. By the time we get home on the T, it is usually 6:40 or so in the evening. Then we have dinner, a little we love N time, bath, story, bed. I am so tired. Bone tired. I am not complaining. I have a very supportive partner, extended family to help with childcare and give us some adult downtime, time with my girls, but to all the working mothers out there, or even just mothers, how do you do it?! How do single mothers do it?!

I'm sure things would be a tad easier if we could afford a housekeeper or if I cared less about what food was put out on the table. But I want N to grow up in a house where eating dinner as a family is sacred. That's how I was raised, even though in my Chinese family, we didn't really make any small talk :) I want to be counter everything on the go. I want to be part of the slow movement, even though my mind is racing from thinking about all that I have to do tomorrow. Here's what I cooked after my two loads of laundry tonight.

Chicken with White Beans and Tomatoes

(From Real Simple Magazine's Weeknight Meals)

Yum!

There is nothing better than a wholesome one pot meal that looks and tastes like it took forever when it took less than an hour for with prep and cook time. Unfortunately I don't think it will taste as good when it is reheated tomorrow night.

As I blog I am also Google chatting and half watching the State of the Union Address. I don't even know how to concentrate on one thing anymore! So much for trying to take it slow.  Ah, the dryer just called out to me. Time for another load. 

But I am making time for my blog, because it is one of the few times I get to breathe.

I had every intent to practice fiscal restraint . . .

but the crazy good deals floating around have weakened my resolve. That and being cooped up in the snow day on and then just being numbed by the cold. I have been wearing my old H&M puffy coat for years now. It's fine, but I get bored. I always admire women who wear stylish wool coats in the dead of winter. Maybe they're cold, but they sure look cute! So when I saw this Dear Creatures coat on super sale on Swirl, I caved.

 

(www.dearcreatures.com, but I saved well over $100 off the retail price!)

I was toying with the idea of ordering from Loft (they are having a pretty fab 50% off sale) for some basic cardis (I am sorely lacking in this department). I ended up getting three for $60!

weekend haul by ellencw featuring a white long sleeve cardigan

I threw in the F21 clutch because I had been lusting after it forever since seeing Rosa rock it on her fab blog, Love at First Shop, then Kim at Anthroholic shared that it was online again this weekend, so I didn't want to pine after it . . . .

Did I need these things? No, but with the exception of the clutch, the other items will be in heavy rotation as I work in a casual environment and wear a winter uniform of cardigans, jeans and boots. Ah, the way I rationalize my consumer tendencies :-) She works hard for her money!

OOTN Date Night

Anthro Thrush Song blouse, F21 Skinnies, Rebecca Minkoff Mini Mini in Moss, Franco Sarto Pacaya boots

Here's what I wore for date night, Saturday night with the husband. I've had my eye on this Anthro blouse but was not going to pay full price. I pounced when it went on sale. Dinner at Sel de la Terre, followed by True Grit at the movies. It's nice to be able to enjoy your dinner without shoveling your food down, which is what we usually do. It isn't that we need time away from our child, it's that we need to enjoy one another not just as parents, but as husband and wife. Breathe, pause, reconnect.

 Goal for the week:
Make a meal plan for the week and have dinner cooked or ready to be heated up every night of the week. No buying lunch at work either!

A year and some change later (okay, almost 2)

(picture by me)

I am giving this old bloggeroo business another go. In May 2010, about a year after my last post, a lovely person by the name of Anna commented on one of my posts. I don't know Anna except for her wonderful blogs, including the awesome one she does with her sisters, Have a Cute Day. I started this blog as a way for me to connect with the friends I had who disbanded after Chicago, so it was quite startling (and admittedly flattering) that a complete stranger had read my blog and told me she thought I had "a very nice way of enjoying life." Anna is absolutely right, I enjoy my life and try to savor the good and beautiful in life. The sad, the hurt, the ugly - always reminds me of how fortunate I am.

In the past year, I've really gained a new appreciation (addiction) for blogs. I have seen how people have opened up their lives to virtual strangers - making themselves vulnerable to their readers. I am shocked/saddened by the ignorance and hatred that comes with the territory - anonymous posters who make snarky comments. I don't get it. The world is too bad of a place for people to be ragging on those who'd like to share their vision of beauty.

Admittedly, since I've started reading (no, devouring) blogs, along with re-joining the workforce, my spending has risen sharply (I'm looking at you Anthro!) But I don't blame the style blogs for my vices - I assume complete responsibility. If anything, these blogs inspire me to take pride in my appearance. I always feels much better, which makes me treat others better, when I know I've taken the time to breathe and attend to how I present myself to the world. Mostly it is a harried working mom, trying to do it all, and succeeding in some areas more than others.

There is so much to love these days - a healthy, hilarious and wonderfully energetic 2 years and 8 months old little boy who is picking up Mandarin, a mostly healthy, hilarious, and very supportive husband, a job I enjoy (but am really underpaid, but I have a job, and one that I feel good doing), the health and love of my parents, my brother, my amazing girl friends, close and far, a big house with a big weeded over garden (must do something about it this summer) in the city, and last but not least a closet bursting with beautiful things.