Grandparents, macarons and chinchillas

Today I slept in, accidentally (thanks Daylight Savings). I wanted to go see my grandparents and Brian had to go to Brooklyn to see his family so we went our separate ways. I went to my favorite local French bakery and got coffee and macarons. I love their pistachio but they only had lemon and raspberry so I got a box for me and one for my grandma. I went to see her at the nursing home she stays at. She was sad because my mom's been gone for so long but luckily my mom called while I was there so they got to talk for a little while. I stayed for about an hour, then went to my grandpa's house to drop off her laundry. My grandpa does her laundry and sends it back with either me, my uncle or one of the guys that works for him. I hung out with my grandpa for 3+ hours, just talking and cooking. He was making food for himself (calamari and shrimp in fra diavolo sauce) and ended up giving it to me to bring home to Bri. He loves Brian. They've got this big-guy bond. It makes me really happy that he has my grandpa's seal of approval. Today was honestly one of the best days off I've had in awhile. I got to see my family and eat good food. OH! I also stopped by a pet store on the way up to my grandma's to look around and see if they had any cute bunnies. Last night I decided I wanted to get a new bunny. I had one for 5 years but he passed away in 2003.


I was really sad for awhile but I think I'm ready for a new one. My old bunny had floppy ears and I wanted my new one to have them, too. I even picked out a name: Flops. I didn't see any cute bunnies today, however I completely fell in love with a chinchilla! Before I had a bunny I had a chinchilla. His name was Charlie and he was awesome. I've always wanted another one! I impulsively put a deposit down on a beige male chinchilla and tomorrow after work Brian's going to come with me to the store and meet him and hopefully take him home. I was nervous Brian would want to kill me, he's told me many times that he doesn't want a small pet, only a dog (which we can't have right now). He's kind of into the idea, though. I caught him looking at chinchilla cage reviews online. I'm really excited! My landlord doesn't allow pets but hopefully he won't mind/know.

Lent, Easter, Chocolate

Religion is always a touchy subject for people. I don't like to talk about it much because everyone has different views. My dad is an Atheist (Jewish by blood but it ends there), my mom is Roman Catholic and raised me as such. She's very "whatever" about it, though. When I was younger she enrolled me in religion class, made me complete my sacraments and after confirmation let me do what I wanted. My middle name is Sunshine, not even a saint's name, much to my Grandma's dismay. Growing up she used to lie to me and say my middle name was Catherine, but that was just my baptismal name. I try to go to church at least once a year but that usually doesn't happen. I do celebrate the holidays in my own way, though. This year for Lent I gave up chocolate. Which is very sad. Not only do I love chocolate all year long, Easter candy is my absolute favorite. I look forward to it for an entire year. This is seriously one of the biggest sacrifices I've made in awhile. To combat it, I've decided to not stop buying it. Every time I see a Cadbury Creme Egg or Cadbury Mini Eggs and I get the urge to buy them, I will. I'll save them up until Easter comes and then I will devour them.

No Car Payments

5 years ago my mom and I went to the car dealership and I got a car. It was a 2001 Honda Civic and I loved it. My first car was a hand-me-down from my mom, a red 1995 Pontiac Grand Prix. It was huge, guzzled oil and had to be serviced many times in the 2 years I had it (including a new transmission...ouch). So, when I test drove my little Honda I immediately knew it was the car for me. It was compact (at that time I was living in street-parking hell), zippy, comfortable and, most importantly, affordable. I put down a decent chunk and financed the rest over 5 years. My payments were low, less than $200 a month. Last week I made my last payment and yesterday in the mail I received my notice of lien clearance from Honda and the DMV. It's such an accomplished feeling and a huge sense of relief! I own my car. As much as I would love to drive a new shiny car, and I'm constantly going back and forth over it, I am very sentimental about my car. We've been together through so much! We've driven down to Florida and lived there for awhile, lived in NJ and drove on the turnpike almost every weekend to see my parents, driven to many different states on road trips, lived in Brooklyn with me and commuted back and forth for three hours a day, got hit by an overzealous ambulance with no lights or sirens on and taken me to and from many good memories. I love MY car!

That said, Infiniti G35's and G37's are really pretty and a girl can daydream a little, right?

Sunflower Progress 5, Winter Blues & Tanning

I accidentally deleted 2 days worth of sunflower progress photos. Oops. Here are my photos for today:


The high output fluorescent lighting makes it hard to get a good photo that isn't too washed out. You can't really tell but they all have their first set of real leaves. Exciting. It should be warming up this weekend (it's already near 50 today) so hopefully they'll start growing a little faster.


I honestly can't wait for the Spring. I'm not made for the winter! I'm little and always cold. Usually I get the whole seasonal depression thing, or at least a touch of it. After I came back from the Bahamas in January I realized how much the sun had helped me and my mental health. I started going to the tanning place once or twice a week and it has really helped keep my winter blues at bay. Also it's really helped my skin a lot. In the winter I tend to break out because of my complete combination skin. Either my skin is trying to overcompensate for its dryness by producing excess oil or my pores are getting clogged because I'm using too much moisturizer. The "sun" fixes that problem immediately. I know it's fake, I've always made fun of girls who go to tanning salons. You can spot that orange glow a mile away. If you do it right, though, it looks completely normal and natural. I use the best booth with the least amount of UVA and UVB rays and I'm pretty much my normal color just a little more brown.

Reason #1 why I love snow days (the only reason)

Monday was a Snow Day for Carla so she came to hang out at the shop and brought my favorite little asshole with her:

This is Brooklyn. She's the best/worst ever and I love her. She's a 2 1/2 year old blue AmStaff. She's actually looking for a good permanent home, which makes me kind of sad because I'd love to keep her but unfortunately can't right now.

Sunflower Progress 4

I came into work on Monday to find that my sunflower seedlings were ready to be transplanted and put under a better light. So I did:


I put them in 1 gallon containers and labeled them with which food I'm feeding them. I put them up on wooden crates that my dad had in the back. I love the crates. Someone actually came in recently asking if he could have them because he collects old crates. I felt bad saying no but I think they're awesome and didn't really want to part with them. They have the names of dairies in NYC on them.

Here are the sunflowers Tuesday:


They're coming along pretty well for only being 1 week old from seed. I haven't gotten my photos up from today yet but the second set of leaves are coming in. It's been really cold in here these past few days and that's definitely inhibited growth but it should be warming up soon.

Sunday City Shopping

Today is our best friend Sean's birthday so yesterday Bri and I went into the city in search of birthday presents. We started out in Soho and were very successful with gifts. He may or may not read my blog so I'm not saying what they are. We also ended up doing some shopping for ourselves. I got two new nailpolishes at MAC (Shirelle and Dark Angel) and since I never got my Hello Kitty tote bag with my original Hello Kitty purchases he gave me one with my normal purchases. I got an awesome mug in the MoMa store! The handle makes it look like you're wearing a diamond ring:


I didn't realize that the Tokidoki Capsule Store is right next to Union on Spring St.. We were in Union for Bri and Sean and I just happened to notice a couple people inside the Tokidoki store. I walked in and talked to the people working there and it's open! They did a soft opening and the official grand opening will be on Saturday the 7th with Simone Legno doing signings. They have a bunch of bags, toys and practically the entire Hello Kitty x Tokidoki collection. I saved all my big purchases for the grand opening.

Then I went to Kee's Chocolates on Thompson for macarons! I'm absolutely obsessed with French macarons and can never find any really good traditional ones. The best I've ever had so far are from Miette in San Francisco. I can't wait for July, I'm trying to plan another trip out to SF for a trade show for work and I will undoubtebly stock up on delicious Miette baked goodness. Anyway, so Kee's. Apparently I hadn't done my research on these. Their signature filling is a dark chocolate ganache base. I am a good catholic girl and gave up chocolate for Lent. So. No macarons for me. It was a very hard sacrifice to make, they were right in front of me in all of their sugary glory. The flavors that stood out the most to me were the Rasberry and Black Sesame. Oh well, after Easter I'm going to completely gorge myself.

We headed back over to the East Side to stop by some more shops for the guys and Urban Outfitters for me. I like the one on 2nd Ave. much more than the one on Broadway. It's not as busy and messy as the other. I fell in love with two pairs of sandals:


I couldn't buy them, though. I'm a true 6.5US. The don't come in 1/2 sizes and the 6's were too small and the 7's were too big. So now I'm on a quest for the perfect sandals. The fact that we're in the middle of a snowstorm sort of put a damper on that but I will get re-motivated and I will find them. I also picked up a few of the Hello Kitty blind box toys, a scarf, a set of bracelets and a shirt. Here are all my purchases:

When I opened my blind boxes at home I ended up getting good ones! For my Moofia's I got:

I already have the baby bottle at home so I brought it for my desk at work. For my HK's I got:

Brooklyn (top right), Clouds & Rainbows (middle row, last) and the black one with polkadots (bottom left). I didn't have Brooklyn yet, the clouds and rainbows was a double so I brought that to work, too, and the polkadot one is actually the 3rd of that design I have! I think I'm going to give it to Kiera. Speaking of Kiera and HK, last night she told me that a new Sanrio store opened up right here. I'm so ridiculously excited because the one I used to go to in NJ closed a few months back. Hello Kitty and Sanrio are one of my (many) guilty pleasures. I've been obsessed with Hello Kitty for as long as I can remember. At least since I was about 10. Anyway, I'm definitely going to check it out tonight if I have time before dinner.

Tonight we're going out to a fancy dinner with some of our friends to celebrate Sean's birthday. I'm actually really excited, I've been completely craving a really nice dinner lately but we've been working really hard and haven't had the time. I love getting dressed up with my friends and doing adult things.