So this year has been pretty crazy.

Me previous Boss RW got terminated. It was kind of crazy because either it was her going or us leaving. One person really was able to spoil the whole team. It’s true what they say, the fish rots from the head.

So shortly after she left I was so relieved and tried stepping up to really gather the team to try and ensure that the team would be handled. It turns out that D from the other team was being pushed out and that they had a change of plans to put him in charge of outlet.

It turns out that it really wasn’t a bad idea, he’s been really great for the team. The major issue with RW was her constant need to micromanage the team which was really inefficient. He does a great job leading the team and making sure that we have a great work life balance.

I’ve felt really comfortable having him be my manager and

It has been an extremely rough year at work. Had some major drama with my boss and in the end had to go above and speak to her manager.

It was extremely nerve racking because I ultimately betrayed her but in hindsight I have no regrets. I had zero sleep constantly going over the things I was going to say to her over and over, it was crazy.

With the support of her boss I was able to come clean about how I felt about her management. With absolutely zero sleep I came clean and spilled the tea. She was very flustered and I’m sure embarrassed that her direct report was coming to her with these harsh comments about her but I think it was kind of like a wake up call / smack in the face /realization of her old habits creeping back in. It was kind of perfect that all of that happened at the end of the year and having a long break (Christmas and New Years) to reflect and also kind of let the heat of that moment dissipate.

I know that its very hard for some bad habits to completely change but the fact that she was open to actually try and make effort to change has made a difference. It was a big enough change for the rest of the team to notice.

I feel like were starting to build a better relationship and feel like there has been a fresh start. I know that shell never be able to actually forget what I said to her but sometimes you have to be brutally honest and straight with certain people.

So far so good, were starting a new season so lets hope the good behavior continues.

So I’ve finally turned 36 this year.

It’s pretty bizarre to feel past my mid thirties. In terms of accomplishments, I feel like director title at my age seems just about right so I feel really great.

Ruth made a comments last week saying that she started at MK when she was 35. That’s really insane when you think about it.

She probably wants me to start thinking about my future here and also probably like, gurl, you need to be getting out of here.

I’m pretty satisfied with myself in terms of my career, love and financial status. I feel like I’m exactly where I need to be and really enjoy my work life balance at the moment.

So this Christmas Uncle Alvin and Aunt Cindy got to Eskie Poos. 

The most adorable puppies. They said that there was actually a third puppy they wanted to get also but gladly they decided to deal with just the two. 

I remember when I was 17 or 18 I brought home little baby Rocky. Luckily uncle and Aunt Cindy was nice enough to let us keep Rocky. 

Max and Luna are so adorable and so much fun. So Adorable to see sibling puppies play together. 

Last year was a difficult year for me. Grandpa passed in May 19, 2018. That really hit hard because I was really close to him. He taught me so many things growing up here

My grandfather was one of the most influential family members growing up. He taught us the principles of respect and the importance of being a good citizen and doing the right thing. 

He will live on in my hearts as the greatest man in the family, I hope that I can someday live up to his legacy. 

During his last days he mustered enough strength to say that he was really proud of me. 😢😢😢 #RIP

It’s finally official. I’m 35 years old.
 Looking back at what I’ve been able to accomplish I feel pretty good about what I’ve done.
 
 We own a place in Chelsea, I’m in a loving relationship, I have a great job and feel there is much more to prove in terms of growth at work.
 
 Turning 35 for me is kind of a mid way point where I feel like I need to start planning the future. Having kids has always been a priority which means we really need to get that ball rolling.
 
 For now maybe I can hold off for a little. It’s going to be the largest commitment and it won’t be easy.

I just found out that my dad passed away today.
He actually tried to call me yesterday at 4:02pm.

If I had the chance to speak with him again I would say:
“Dad, even though you were never there for me , I love you”.
I’m sorry for:
not being there for you
not sending fathers day cards
Not sharing my life with you
Not calling you back

The truth is that I’m an awful son.

I wish that you were the father I always wanted. Someone to protect me and support me growing up. Someone to be there on holidays and birthdays. I wish I could have told you face to face that I was gay. I wish that I could have told you and that you said you loved me no matter what.

Looking back one of the only times I can remember you there for a big moment was at my college graduation. You and Aunt Amy were there. Allison came to celebrate dinner with us.

From your Shis:
I heard someone say once that we choose who our parents are. Dad was meant to be our father and he was the type of father that we needed. We can’t blame him for not being there, he had a rough childhood and didn’t have a father himself. Without him we wouldn’t have Grandma and Grandpa, UA and AC, Wei and Aus. You wouldn’t have your condo… there’s so much. He has impacted our lives more than you realize. He was around in a way everyday.

Also, you were a good son to him. You sent him money when he asked, got him a cell phone. The best thing you did for him is that you made sure you were successful, he never had to worry about.

I love you Brother, don’t feel guilty bc there’s nothing to be guilty about. We’ll get through this together.

So this weekend we celebrated sisters 35th birthday!! 

We first started the surprise with having B and Miki come on Friday instead of Saturday and as we were on the train my mom called and ruined the surprise. I accidentally told her that I was with B on the train and she called Sister after and told her “your brother and Furry are going to see you! “. I should’ve known to tell her not to Adis but I didn’t think about it. 

We had a nice dinner at Aji sushi and just chilled at her house after. On Saturday we did our usual dim sum treat and spent the first part about of the day browsing Barnes, Michaels and BB&B.  

After dim sum was digested we headed to Island Spa. This was B’s first time at the spa. It kind of got ruined in the beginning because of our scrub delay. I had an embarrassing moment with a HO during the scrub. I tried everything including doing my math times tables but it didn’t work. :-( it wasn’t for the whole time but to be honest, I’m glad that we finally had our first scrub together. 

After the scrub and saunas we met sister and went into the hot rooms and played some scrabble. We got so carried away playing games that we missed dinner at the spa. We forgot the kitchen closed at 10pm. 

For dinner we ended up going back to Aji since that was the only place open at that time. 

On Sunday we had a suprise planned for Adis. The plan was to meet for dim sum but since we had the dogs we had to drop them off at Uncles first. When we did uncle was fully dressed in his jumpsuit to work on the car. Allison was like “no, not working on the car today etc… And he was really adamant about us just helping him rotate something heavy in the garage. After she finally agreed to help for a second she walks into the darkly lit garage with the family (A.Amy, A.Cindy, Chris, Austin, Ariel ) huddled in the dark holding a cake lit with birthday candles. She got teary eyed and was so shocked and surprised. We actually did it!!! It was so awesome. 

After the suprise we took the doggies to Holmdel park to go for a nice walk together. 

We ended the night with Vietnamese food before our train ride home. 

Exhausting weekend but well worth it! It’s kind of unbelievable that Adis is 35. Time is really flying by and I don’t know if I’m ready for #mid30s yet! :-( 

Feeing a little bad about being such a bitch lately. 

My mom and dad are in town and with the amount of calls I get from my Mom or any other family gets me stressed out and I just kind of take it out on my mom. I feel really bad about being so rude to her. 

I’ve decided that I’m going to really be cautious of what I say now. It’s not right. 

Today, I stopped by uniqlo to get my dad a warm jacket. He didn’t have anything warm to wear. Seeing him smile about getting the jacket and some shirts and thermals really made me happy. He’s not the type to complain or bitch about anything. I used to get angry because I always felt that he was able to ask anyone for help financially and they would help him. 

Now, I feel kind of different about it. I’m in a position to be able to help him so why not. Sometimes it takes a little bit of reflection to remember what it takes to be good. 

So in one month it will officially be one year working at MK. 

This year has truly been wonderful. Working in this environment has been a dream come true. It’s funny how positive I am about it because I know that a year before I started the dynamic was much different. I guess it comes down to luck. 

My boss Nicola had a party to celebrate the year and also celebrate the end of a really successful Fall collection. I’m really proud of how much the brand has changed since my start. It’s evolved and raised the bar to a much more sophisticated level. 

I get along with pretty much everyone on the team which makes going to work and traveling with them really pleasant. It’s also a huge bonus that Daniela works and travels with us also. 

One huge benefit of working here is the power of design. Normally in large companies you have the merchants and sales staff which have power to change, and or add things to line to serve the business. 

I’m truly lucky and blessed to be a part of this company and so incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity. If it wasn’t for Lisa I would be here. 

This Halloween we celebrated it attending a party at Nancy and Howards place in brooklyn.

Schnoo and I dressed up as Orange is the new black characters. I was Crazy eyes and Schnoo was Chapman.

It was fun getting the chance to dress up. Normally we don’t attend any parties so never really a point to dress up.

The thing was that going to Nancys house on Halloween was the shady 7 blocks walking to her apt from the subway. There were some ghetto people being like ” damnnnn, just broke out yo!!”. Also the wigs didn’t help our look. Was kind of creepy and scary but we made it to and back from the party.

Howard had an experiment down in his basement. It was this crazy thing where he brushed your fingers with a brush. Basically you were supposed to feel him brushing a rubber arm and think that it was your own.

Overall, we had a great time and hope that we get to go to more parties in the future. Dressing up is fun and if we dress up next year, well have more time to try something a little more creative.

Today B and I spent the day with Uncle, AC and the kids to hang out at Dia and Storm King. 

It was their first time being at Dia and Storm King so was fun showing them around.

We arrived a little late at Dia so decided to just wait for them to wrap up and just go to Storm King w them. 

We had lunch in beacon at this taco place before heading over to storm King. 

We arrived with only around an hour and a half to view the park. It was fun because we spent time only at the places we wanted to see. 

One of the best moments was re-taking a photo that B and I took around 10 years ago. It a total throwback and embarrassing to see how young and weirdly dressed we were.

I wonder if I’ll look back at the photo today and be like, “what was I wearing?”. 

After the park we drove down to fort lee for a nice Korean dinner at this hot tofu place and then went our separate ways from there.  

We finally got a new bed! 

We heard lots of good things about Casper and Tuft and needle so we decided to check it out. Made an appt at the showroom for Casper and the bed was super comfortable. We decided to go with the Tuft and Needle since it was cheaper and offered the same guarantee. 

The bed was ordered and came within a few days. After seeing that the bed was going to be delivered the next day, the urgent need for a bed frame was serious. 

After lots of browsing we found an awesome bed at IKEA. We booked the zip car and picked it up that night. 

The bed is so nice because it had these two leather back pillows that lean on the headboard which actually make it really comfortable to lean on an either browse iPads or read.  

It’s been several years since I had the chance to go to Lineapelle. Luckily, my boss thought it would be nice to send me and Lottie to LP this year. 

I think that LP has been in Milan for three seasons now. When I used to go I would go to the one in Bologna. 

I flew there alone and met Lottie on Monday morning. It was rough because we took the late night flight and I arrived early morning in Milan. It was really fun getting the chance to go there again. This was actually the second time I had the chance to go there. The first was because of MCM flew is there for some meetings. 

The first day Lottie had plans w a friend and luckily Laurence was also attending the show so I had the chance to meet up with her and have dinner. It was really nice catching up and getting to see her. She likes her new job, and feels glad that she is in a place where they are very reliant on her. It’s a good and bad thing but I think that she is always down for a challenge and is really dedicated to her work. 

The leather show was lots of fun, we had so many meetings and felt that we were really productive. On Friday morning we checked out and flew to Paris for an inspiration trip. Did some vintage shopping and some personal shopping too. We had a great time and it was nice to get the chance to bond w her. 

One of the restaurants we went to was called Cuisine. It was kind of like French tapas but very mixed with all different types of cuisine. 

I had so much fun shopping there. The weather was crap the second day but it was fine. The best part of traveling for me is that it gives me a reason to shop since they’d only carry these brands in the states. Also the dollar is so much better. I think it was for every Euro it was .80 cents/ dollar. 

I got my first leg tattoo! By an artist names Valentin Hirsch. Amazingly talented artist from Berlin.

I got a tiger because of the symbolic reference to Korean culture and history. Tigers drive away evil and bring good luck and also symbolize courage and power.

Schnooboo also got a tattoo by Valentin. He got a half fox face on his forearm.

The tattoo on the leg was definitely a different sensation and I think a little more painful.

What an eventful morning. We woke up at 3am to the smell of burning rubber. B thought it was the smell of the ceiling fan that I had running at full blast but it was actually coming from the chimney outside about 30steps from our room.
 
 We called reception to complain but all they could do was being a fan to the room. Whatever it was it eventually stopped. We had to be up anyways for our hot air balloon pick up at 4:30am.
 
 We got picked up and headed off to Butterfly Baloons. After a quick breakfast we headed to the take off site.
 
 As we approached (12 people ) the balloon, the sky was dimly lit and our sight was consumed by massive half deflated hot air balloons with bursts of flame filling the balloons.
 
 After the balloons were filled we hopped in the basket and then took off.
 
 We started off slow and took off gently while the slight breeze pushed us across the landscape. We went higher and higher until we reached around 6000 ft above sea level. The view was amazing and once the sun rose it was incredible. The slight creep of sun stretching onto the hills and valleys was so amazing.
 
 After around 45 minutes we started our descent into a large field. Landing was surprisingly easy and not as hard as expected.
 
 Overall the ride was incredible and well worth it all. Especially because I was with my Schnoo boo.
 
 
 
 

HEIRLOOM ISTANBUL CAFE We started off our second day at this Heirloom Istanbul Cafe. It was really simple and delicious. When we walked in we peeked at the menu and after we saw some interesting things we sat down and the waitress asked us ” Breakfast right?, how would you like your eggs?, baked, over easy etc…

We got a full table full of stuff that included olives, bread, three types of jam, two cherry tomatoes and a fried egg. The food was light and fun to eat because of all of the flavors.
In the back there was a market where you could by olive wood trays and turkish soap and jams.

HAGIA SOFIYA After that we went to the Hagia Sofiya to sight see. The church was converted into a mosque. Really amazing to see in person and although it was super hot but just had to get used to it.

After that we strolled over to the Basilica Sistern. Stunning sights full of Corinthian and Ionic columns. The water there was brought in from the Belgrad Forest which is 19km away. There was lots of fish swimming in the water also.
For dinner we ate at this place a friend referred us to. The food was delicious! We had liver and grilled octopus as a starter and for dinner B had the grilled anchovies and I had lamb cheek. The wine was also delicious and was the perfect way to end the night.

Time is flying by this summer. Gaeuls baby shower was this weekend and we threw her a wonderful baby shower at Hudson River Park. It was really nice because we got the seated tables near the park with umbrellas.

Kim did an amazing job setting up and preparing all of the food for the shower. Kims friend did the party favors and decorations. She did such an amazing job that I really think she should start her own business. She could make so much money doing this full time.

Gaeul had a great time and was happy to get a chance to catch up with everyone. She only gained 10 lbs so far which is not much at all. Diana said she gained like 40 lbs when she was pregnant with Isaac.

B and I was in charge of drinks so we made Mind Lemonade. We bought this awesome mason jar pitcher which was perfect! (thanks schnoo)

We had a great time and was really glad that we had a chance to all get together. :-)

New job
 I can’t believe how lucky I am. I went through a whole month of misery being unemployed and stressed.
 
 Thanks to Michelle I got a job at MK and freaking love it.
 
 There’s so many nice people that I work with and they all work really well together so it’s truly a team and not independent groups like it was at Coach.
 
 I am really relieved and happy that I got this job. I truly thank God because he really saved me from the nightmare of a company.
 
 I wake up in the morning stress free and aren’t even worried about being late because of our 10:00 start time. It’s really a dream come true.
 
 My boss is also freaking wonderful. She’s really sincere and passionate about what she does. She has a great heart and is a believer of having a work life balance which is so wonderful.
 
 This is the start of my 3rd week here and it’s been so pleasant. I keep thinking that I need to pinch myself and or that something awful is going to happen but it’s just a great place.
 
 
 
 
 

What a momentous wonderful day today. Today the Supreme court makes Same-Sex marriage a right today.

It’s such a big deal. What’s even more amazing is that today is Austins 17th birthday. He said that he wanted to come celebrate this victory with me and the Fam in NYC because of the ruling and of course because of his birthday.

This day will definitely go down in history as a really big day. It’s like when they ended segregation. EQUALITY all the way.

We celebrated with dinner at Oootoya and of course with dessert at Harbs.

Had dim sum w mom today. Was really nice to see her. It was really cute because she was getting acupuncture when I got there and I was in the waiting area and she was bragging to the acupuncture dr in Korean. The only words she said in English was Designer and Coach.

It was just really cute that she is so proud she feels the need to brag about it. I guess looking back and where she came from. She came from Korea with no schooling and was able raise two kids that are successful. If I was in her shoes it would be an accomplishment too and for that I’m really happy and proud of Mom. Makes me emotional thinking about it but to come from nothing and to raise kids to have a better life that you didn’t have must be a great accomplishment.

I love my mom so much and am so lucky to have her. She might not be perfect but She’s definitely the best mom.

Had such a lovely dinner last night w Dangi and Gaeul.

Was crazy hearing about the office from an outside perspective. I felt bad but relieved that it wasn’t my reality anymore.

Gaeul looked really sad and I feel like she is holding up too much weight. She needs to let go. I think with me being there I was helping her keep her cool and was responsible for for the overall line so she only took part ownership which was good for her. Now that I’m no longer there it’s more pressure for her but I think it’s really good only because she needs to grow as a designer and as a senior level person.

What a wonderful bday week! Last Sunday B and Adis took me Decoy for dinner. The food was so amazing!

We shared Peking duck and oxtail dumplings and Uni noodles. It was amazing!

Before that we saw Gone Girl which was so freaking amazing. Very well acted by the two leads Ben Affleck and the actress.

Made a quick stop at Red bull studios gallery to see some weird ass art.

I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m leaving the company or if reality is sinking in but I feel like the company is in bad shape.
 
 Payroll seems tight and I know that because I got paid on a Wed as opposed to a Friday which was a sign.
 
 Also another thing that I realized is that the Amex hasn’t been working and only recently I noticed that the cards were either maxed or just have not been paid.
 
 The bookkeeper issue was a few weeks ago and she hasn’t returned which is an issue im sure. It’s really crazy but I feel bad but relieved.
 
 I am so proud of the company and feel somewhat responsible for the success etc… So it’s important that the company succeeds and grows. It would really make me happy to see the company just blow up and be well recognized.
 
 I really really hope that things get better for them. They really need it to and I hope that an investor comes in and helps the situation.
 
 It’s really boggles my mind. I don’t know if it’s the business management or the economy or a combination of both.
 
 Let’s see how it plays out. All I know is that there is so much potential of they just get their shit together.
 
 
 
 

So it’s official! I received an offer from C 10/2/14. I accepted the offer 10/3/14 and am so freaking excited about this new venture.
 
 I am pushing for true start date to be 11/3 so we’ll see if they accept.
 
 The news went pretty well w J and P and am really happy they took it so well.
 
 
 
 
 

What a wonderful bday week! Last Sunday B and Adis took me Decoy for dinner. The food was so amazing!

We shared Peking duck and oxtail dumplings and Uni noodles. It was amazing!

Before that we saw Gone Girl which was so freaking amazing. Very well acted by the two leads Ben Affleck and the actress.

Made a quick stop at Red bull studios gallery to see some weird ass art.

So I’m patiently waiting for an answer. Kind of funny because another recruiter reached out to me regarding a position that I would be interested in.
 
 Part of me wants to pursue it to find out but I just don’t think it would be the right move. Would be lateral rather than vertical.
 
 
 

First time going to Brooklyn Heights area. Went to the Smorgasburg flea which was super fun. So many goodies and snacks.
 
 
 
 
 
 

So we officially had our last beach day of the summer.
 
 It’s kind of crazy that it’s the last day of September but this weekend the temps have been in the 80’s!
 
 This was the perfect day Togo because the weather was so perfect. Not humid at all and sunny but still cool. Miki had his umbrella so he was ok.
 
 We even got him to go into the water and swim. Was so freaking cute! He had a lot of fun and I think going forward we will bring him. It’s good for him to get some exercise.
 
 

Really hope that this new job that I’m applying for works out.
 
 So far I have applied to several and I’ve realized that it’s really hard to make the switch.
 
 I can justify it by saying that there’s a change in management and or they didn’t like my projects and or maybe it was just not meant to be.
 
 It’s difficult to be sure and I don’t have an answer but I’ve come to realize that after so many attempts whatever happens is just meant to be.
 
 In hindsight I look book at the position for TB and am relieved that it didn’t work out. Same with CH. It’s funny how you convince yourself internally that it’s the right thing to do.
 
 I’m feeling really positive about this one. She even had me meet with her team.
 
 More importantly I respect her which is so important. I’ve had friends who have bosses they have no respect for and its just really sad.
 
 Let’s see if this really happens. Fingers crossed!
 
 
 

So i went on my last intvw with TB and I left with a wonderful feeling like all went well.
 
 Turns out that it did not actually turn out well. T felt that my presentation was no up to par and also felt that I was probably not the right fit.
 
 I had Brunch with Kyle the other day and after he saw the project he mentioned that it should have been more about the journey than the actual product and or sketches.
 
 To be honest, the whole BS behind inspiration is such a waste of time- more of selling tool rather than useful info. He as saying that for example if I felt that the them was Morocco that the colors should have been curry, cumin and cayenne etc… Which I totally understand. Lesson learned- but in my eyes if someone presented this gorgeous mood/inspiration board but with no sketches and or weak sketches I would not hire them either. I guess i’s about finding the right balance.
 
 
 I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason so hopefully something positive comes around.
 
 
 

Wow. I had such a wonderful interview with Elizabeth.
 
 Super friendly and warm and so glad that she was down to earth and cool.
 
 I feel really positive about this and don’t think I have ever felt so positive about an interview.
 
 If it comes down to me leaving and moving on I am going to feel so awful and bad for doing it but I feel like I have to do whats right for me and my career.
 
 It’s really funny because I had this completely different view of what T would be like inside and am so happy that I was wrong.
 
 It’s true that she believes in not being that diva fashion company and am so happy that she stands by that.
 
 I’m working on my thank you notes now. Fingers crossed and hopefully I get the job!!!
 

So I have a second interview with T tomorrow. I previously had an intvw with HL and I assumed that it went really well but instead I received no email reply back.

I even sent several follow up emails and heard no reply.

I am a strong believer of Karma and one day that HR girl will apply to other companies. I feel like after all that I went through I at least deserved a reply.

So my first interview with J went really well. I was really happy with how well the interview went. The interview took a full hour which was surprising.

So now I have my second interview tomorrow and hopefully that goes well also. I am really looking forward to moving on to new challenges and experiences. Let’s see where this goes and I am sure that fate will decide where I end up.

Enjoyed a lovely breakfast day at Montmartre. Fried chicken and french toast
 afterwards went to sample sale and a quick stop at Opening Ceremony and Project No8.
 
 After that we went to see the movie Under My Skin with Scar Jo. Was really strange and creepy with barely any talking.
 
 Didn’t hate or love it but was just interesting. Definitely kept me interested throughout the whole movie because everything was so vague.
 
 So I guess its always about never giving to much away.
 
 

So I got my third tattoo by Apro Lee.
 He was doing a guest spot at East river and I loved his korean tigers that he does. Super cool kind of animated in a way.
 
 Adis wouldn’t let me get one so I decided to have him work on my crane.
 
 He was kind of intimidating at first but in person he was really cool. He had this great korean art book where he referenced the crane from and so glad that it also has a Korean reference.
 
 I wanted the crane in memory of Grandma so it really worked out.
 

So I just got into a small fight w Adis on the phone because we agreed that I would get there by 3pm which was more than enough time for me to get stuff done before I left to see her.
 
 I ended up cleaning the apt and vaccuming and also dying up leather to make the kids wallets.
 
 At around 2:30ish adis called and it totally freaked me out because I should have already been on the train to see her.
 
 I apologized and told her that I would shower and get ready.
 
 I immediately showered and packed and left for the train. I was about to go down into the subway when she texted me to not come anymore because she was made that I was late.
 
 I was really pissed because she has done that shit to me so many times before and I always just took it in and just dealt with it but now she had the nerve to try and cancel w me.
 
 I was so freaking annoyed.
 
 Well shortly after we talked and i told her that I was just going to come down and that we would just hang and not shop so she agreed and then I came down.
 
 While on the train she texted me to just meet her at Metropark to go and shop so we resumed as planned.
 
 We laughed it off and glad that it all worked out. If it didnt I would have been so pissed.
 
 In the end we had a lovely night. Shopped at the mall for a bit and then went for a delicious korean dinner.
 
 Got back to her house and watched Constantine.

So I got my 2nd tattoo by Gregorio this Saturday.
 
 I was a but nervous because I gave him some references but wanted it to look more artistic than a scenic landscape but when he showed me the design it was so dope.
 
 Mountains w/ clouds above and geometric design below.
 
 He is such an amazing artist and so lucky to get something by him.
 
 

So while in Italy I had a chance to Face time with Furry and Miki.
 
 My little cuties.
 

So Gaeul and I have been talking about taking a ski trip for a long time.
 
 We finally made the plans to go and make it happen. B and adis came too.
 
 We had such a good time. It was funny because we started the day as 3 snowboarders and one skier and towards the end of the day I was the only snowboarder with everyone with skis.
 
 B was having trouble and getting frustrated with falling and hurting his wrist.
 After a few hours b decided he needed to switch to skis. I’m actually glad he did.
 
 We finished around 7 or 8pm and drove to Edison to get Korean dinner.
 
 Towards the end of dinner we realized how late it was. The car had to be returned at 11pm and it was after 10. We rushed out and after we dropped off Adis it was already too late and there was no way we would make it in time so we decided to just pay the additional fee.
 
 We had to keep the car overnight and B and I returned the car at 7am. It really sucked because we had to wake up at 6am again but that actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise since I was leaving on my trip at 1pm. This gave me time to get things done.
 
 

Off to Florence with Joy.
 
 We left on Sunday at 4:30 but with time difference and travel times we arrive in Florence at 9am.
 
 Joy and I got around 4 hours of sleep on the plane so feel kind of rested.
 
 I love traveling with Joy. She’s so amazing and just love talking to her and hearing her stories.
 
 Hopefully this is a positive trip for us. Our last MCM trip together was a disaster that involved an all nighter and a complete re design of the collection.
 
 Here’s the view from the plane. Absolutely stunning. #sunrisemoment

So after months of planning to get a tattoo B and I got out tattoos but this Brazilian artist, Gregorio Marangoni.
 
 By far was the best experience. When B went for his consult I got a chance to meet with him and discuss the tattoo. Super nice, friendly and accommodating.
 
 I absolutely love my tattoos by him. The first one is a chrysanthemum with poppy flowers and the second is a mountain with geometric patterns.
 
 B is also super happy with his. It’s kind of funny how were already thinking about our next tattoos. Let’s hope we take it slow. B said that there’s a Korean artist doing a guest spot there so now thinkin about getting a Korean tiger. Ugh…. We’ll see.
 

Last week I took mom to the doctor but they couldn’t operate due to a small infection inside so it had to be rescheduled to this week.
 
 So today I took my mom to have the operation.
 
 She was complaining about heart pain and dr said that one of the reasons is because if her arteries could be blocked which could cause those symptoms.
 
 The dr checked out her arteries and all is ok so they didn’t need to put the stent inside.
 
 Procedure took an hour and then she needed three hours to rest to make sure her body didn’t go into shock or anything.
 
 We went home in a taxi and I started thinking about all this time I’ve been spending with my mom. I’m really glad that I got to listen to spend time and really talk to her.
 
 I’m incredibly lucky to have my mom as a mother. She has been through so much in her life and she’s a survivor. She’s the type to go after what she wants and gets it done. She raised me and Allison the best she could and am so thankful for it.
 
 Even though she has put me through a lot- it all made me stronger into the person I am today.
 
 My proudest trait that I have from my mother is a kind heart. She has the ability to connect with anyone from nurses to the cab driver.
 
 I’m so proud of my mom. Love her with all my heart.
 

Went on a stroll on the High Line with my boo.
 
 Even though it was cold out it was nice to get out and breath in some fresh air.
 
 It’s a brand new year. It has been a rough rocky road this year donut can only get better.
 
 But to be honest spending time with my baby cures it all.
 
 

Ever since I got my camera I have been using it every day and loving my camera.
 
 It’s been taking really great pictures and feel that it makes my other camera look like camera phone quality.
 
 The way that it handles light just makes it so much better.
 
 It’s kind of great because any time I walk around I am looking at the scenery as if I am seeing it through a lens.
 
 
 

So I’m super nervous about my tattoo. Going to get a 3/4 sleeve that’s going to be sick.
 
 I told him that u wanted it to be graphic, black and white with some paper cranes flying above. I also told him that I love the idea of flowers which he said he could work into at base of mountain.
 
 I’m so excited and nervous about the pain.
 
 
 

For this Thanksgiving I spent the weekend with Bart’s family upstate.

I was super nervous because this was my first time being at their house while they were home. Normally we just stay at the empty house.

B told me that after he and Mamu helped set up the bed she asked if she should set up another bed for me.

Was really funny because she even. Felt weird about opening the door to our room. Was really nice and comfortable to be in. A separate part of the house.

I was really impressed by Mamus cooking. She made really delicious fresh food. I have had her leftovers before that B brings home but never had the food fresh.

When we first arrived she made blueberry pierogis. They were so amazing!

Another thing I noticed was how nice the food was displayed. Always having a fresh herb and fresh fruit or cinnamon as a garnish.

I knew that Mamu was nice but my stress was being around Tatuz. He was super sweet and made lots of effort to talk to me. Towards the end of our stay he took us out for a cross country ski lesson. I told him that I wasn’t going to fall but ended up falling like four times.

It was super hard to get the hang of it.

Was really proud of Furry because he only fell once.

Also before we left I gave his Tatuz my memory card for the pics and he started showing me all his gadgets and electronics. Really sweet.

Hopefully there will be more family get together a with them. Am really happy for Furry because being able to hang out together as a family with your loved one is something that everyone should get to cherish.

So being at grampies and being able to flip through old photos made me reminiss about all the good times I had growing up.

Me with my spike collar and bleached hair was so much fun. I really loved that period of my life. Definitely worth all that experimenting with all my styles. Was able to get out all that rebellion.

When it comes time for me to have kids I won’t put up a fight because expressing yourself is so important.

So after doing some research on Tandy leather I found out that it’s super easy to dye your own leather. They make these special dyes that make it easy to dye veg tanned leathers.

After you dye and polish the leather it makes it super shiny and the dyes penetrate the leather with lots of depth. It’s really amazing.

So I’m thinking to gift to a blogger and then make a few and start an etsy shop. Really enjoy making things. It feeds my creative needs and makes me so happy to be able to use and have people appreciate my designs.

1. Start with Vachetta in natural color.

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So this year I celebrated my 31st bday with Adam, Lolli, Kyle and B.

They took me to Pylos for dinner. This really cute Greek restaurant in the east village.

The food was really good. I’m really lucky to be blessed to have sweet nice friends. Throughout the years I find that it’s harder to make real friends. I hope that I end up keeping the friends I have.

I feel like in doing pretty well for someone that’s 31. I support myself financially and am a homeowner and already a design director. Also I am in a committed relationship with the hopes of taking our relationship to the next step.

I am truly thankful for everything I have been given.

So tonight b took me out to Collichio and Sons.

This is the second time I have been to one of his restaurants.

He took me to the Tap room which is more low key and chill.

The food was excellent. I got this beef brisket dish over this creamy sauce. Was so delicious. B got this really good shrimp dish.

For desert we got two desserts. My favorite was the ginger snap ice cream and the little doughnuts. The food was so amazing- would definitely go back.

My bday gift was my beautiful miansai bracelet. Sterling silver with calf leather trim. Super chic and really nice. I tried it on at Patron of the new and fell in love. So thankful- your the best baby!!!!

So last night marked our official one year anniversary for our JG store.

We had a great turnout and we sold quite a few bags which was great.

The party was also a celebration for joys Bday. We all chipped in and got her a Margiela bracelet which she loved.

It was fun to be hanging out with people at work but in a fun environment. We ended up staying till 9:40 ish.

So this night started out to be an amazing night.

The opening band called Alpine was amazing.

Pore of the sun started and they were so amazing. They had really good performers. At certain times during the concert I was taking pics and videos of the performance because I really wanted to capture this cool moment.

I
Towards the end of the concert b was getting annoyed that I was Playong w my phone and then shortly after he said “you’re pissing me off!” I was so shocked he was so mad and that totally ruined my mood. For the rest of the night I just shut down and was so angry at him that I wanted to leave.

Anyways he ended up just leaving me there. I tried to catch up to him but hw was rushing out so fast that I have up and instead took a long time to get home to vent out my frustration. I have never been that angry at him before. I even slept on the couch and barely spoke to him the next day. And for dinner that day I ate out alone. We ended up kind of talking along time on the phone. I ended up forgiving him the next morning only because I had to. I wanted to forgive him and I hate being mad at him.

So that was the story of our concert event. #drama but the concert was worth it. Really loved them live. Amazing energy.

Had such a great day off with Anita. Took Wednesday off to spend the day w her.

She met me at home and then we chilled for a bit and headed to Hudson River park for a lovely picnic. We got some sandwiches on the way over and had such an awesome time. It was so beautiful out.

After the picnic we walked on the highline over to the the meatpacking district to do some shopping.

We ended up going to Chelsea market for some Gelato and I fell in love with this awesome scarf. She bought it for me as a congrats on my promotion. I didn’t want her to but she insisted.

After that we stopped by Anthropologie and she bought a top.

After that we headed back to the apt and looked for some food options. We decided to head to the west village and ended up at Home restaurant. Locally sourced food and wine.

Dinner was delicious. For dessert we shared some goat cheese cheesecake. Was amazing!

After dinner went to Port Authority to meet Reina her sister. She was so grown up. Was so crazy to see how much she changed.

Had such a great day off with Anita. Took Wednesday off to spend the day w her.

She met me at home and then we chilled for a bit and headed to Hudson River park for a lovely picnic. We got some sandwiches on the way over and had such an awesome time. It was so beautiful out.

After the picnic we walked on the highline over to the the meatpacking district to do some shopping.

We ended up going to Chelsea market for some Gelato and I fell in love with this awesome scarf. She bought it for me as a congrats on my promotion. I didn’t want her to but she insisted.

After that we stopped by Anthropologie and she bought a top.

After that we headed back to the apt and looked for some food options. We decided to head to the west village and ended up at Home restaurant. Locally sourced food and wine.

Dinner was delicious. For dessert we shared some goat cheese cheesecake. Was amazing!

After dinner went to Port Authority to meet Reina her sister. She was so grown up. Was so crazy to see how much she changed.

Had an amazing interview with Walker this morning.

Super cool guy and down to earth. I definitely clicked with him and feel that working for him would truly be a pleasure.

He really gets product and understands it. There are so many bullshit artists that talk the talk and just use their charm to schmooze their way up but he definitely knows his shit.

He is very adamant about building a strong creative team. He also mentioned that I would be great for mens also. Definitely interested and look forward to meeting with him again.

The recruiter that I met with told me some salary figures and I am super excited about that.

Had such a fantastic time with Sister.
Got to Jersey yesterday around 5 and chilled with sister at the house.

Around dinner time we went to this new Japanese fusion place called Aja. The interior was actually really nice and modern. Had a really cool Asian theme with clay soldier statues and koi fish at the entrance.

The sushi was delicious. We started with some tuna tar tar. Had this amazing sauce and was really fresh.

For dinner I got this creative roll that was just way too weird from me. I think Firry would have probably liked it.

For dessert we shared some hand made creeps which was like 40 layers of creeps with coconut creme in between each layer.

On Sunday we had to run an errand for uncle. Helped unload the truck for him at the disposal center and then headed to the courts to play some tennis w adis.

After tennis we had these delicious panini’s that we bought earlier. Was so nice to get a nice work out and be outdoors in the sun. Was such a perfect cool day and wasn’t too humid either.

After tennis we showered and then went back out to Home goods and Barnes and noble. Researching some options of tattoos to get. Have some great ideas.

So on the plane right now listening to Savage love podcast and after two movies and lots of naps I feel restless.

I think I can stay up the rest of the flight so that I can just crash out when I get to the hotel.

So my old co worker from Botkier is actually in Hong Kong now and I may actually meet up with her there.

She said that she is at Wang now and I’m really curious how that’s going. I would fucking love to work at Wang but I doubt that is in the cards for me only because I heard that they only hire European designers for one and also I heard that it was a revolving door.

Today we had a lovely day in the city. It was really nice because we had the time to just browse the neighborhood and chill.

We had brunch at Cafe Americano. Food was really good and the place was really beautiful. They were having some type of party to celebrate the launch of a Japanese organization that helps to provide awareness to the Hiroshima bombings.

After brunch we needed to get some groceries and B wanted to head over to Fairway grocery store. Was really nice because the prices were really good.

On our way over to Fairway we stopped at this really awesome flea market in a parking garage. Was so much fun because I love browsing vintage goodies. So much to get inspired. Bought a cute necklace for my mom and some really cute letterpress blocks that say A & B for the bathroom.

So in the beginning I honestly dreaded this trip but it turns out that it really wasnt that bad.
A week and a half trip was actually a nice way to be able to spend time at our factories and also to be able to have some personal time in Hong Kong.

The best part of my trip was being able to spend Hong Kong with T & A. We actually got to spend time going to all areas and shops and eating some awesome food.

We also got to stay at two hotels on different sides of the island which allowed us to be able to see different parts of Hong Kong. On Saturday we stayed at JPlus botique hotel which is where I stayed last time. It was really nice because we got to spend lots of time shopping around in this area.

On Sunday we stayed at the Langham hotel which was right across the street from Harbor city which is this amazing mall that I always go to. Was actually really close to the ferry that takes us to China .

Our last night we watched the sun set at the Intercontinental. Enjoyed a really nice light dinner and watched the sun set. The view was so amazing because we actually got to see the transition from day to night. They do this crazy light show at night which was lots of fun.

So tonight after work B recommended this sushi place in Tribeca called Megu.

I asked Joy about this place and she said that it was actually a really fancy place. It actually was a fancy nice place, not normally our vibe but the sushi rolls were normal price so we decided to check it out.

We shared these Kobe beef foie gras croquettes as a starter and had some rolls.

For dessert we shared this amazing green tea crepe layer. Was really amazing.

After my family left on the 1st I went back to China to work at the factory for a few days.

Today is my last day here and I am so relieved to be heading home tomorrow. Being away from home really sucks especially since I have been away since the 21st of December. Thats around three weeks!

Being at the factory is a fun experience. Its fun to see your designs being made but also a huge reminder of how much labor is involved when making a bag. Even the simple act of edge painting 1 little tab is amazing. Each thread is trimmed and burned. Even our most simple collection takes a long time to make.

Being in this industry is really amazing! There really is no difference when you consider country of origin except the labor costs.

Its really awful that people have such a negative connotation with “made in china” but we are to blame. We are the ones who wanted things cheaper and farmed out the labor overseas. The garment district is almost non-existent because of this.

I am very thankful that I get the chance to travel because it really opens your eyes to see what the rest of the world is like. This trip especially because I now have the experience to travel across the border alone. Normally I get escorted with a driver but they sent me on a bus over the weekend. Almost got lost but thankfully someone on the bus spoke english and was able to guide me across. You basically have to get off the bus, take your luggage and go across the China border and when you get to the other side you have to just walk around and find your bus. Luckily this guy saw that I was with the bus company because I had to wear a sticker. Then you get on the bus and travel like four minutes and then get off the bus to travel through Hong Kong immigration. such a complicated process but is just how it is here.

So yesterday morning I met with a recruiter to talk about a potential position CH.

To be honest it wasn’t something that I would have normally been interested but because of the restructuring and the new investors who want to make it successful I really think that it could be a good thing to move into.

This coming tuesday is when she is going to present me as a candidate to the company so hopefully they consider me as a candidate.

So today was my first time meeting with the board for our annual coop meeting.

It was actually really exciting because I got to see how the building functioned. We discussed everything to building financials all the way to building cleanliness and overall management.

We are getting a new service to manage the cleaning and building maintenance because we are not currently getting the proper care from our current super.

We also needed to vote for a new board member. Me and this other guy voted and I unfortunately did not get elected.

I felt really bummed for the rest of the night but just have to move on. Now t least I know what happens at these meeting and am better prepared for next years discussion.

After the meeting I met up with B to get some Mussels and oysters so that he could prepare for his sperm test. Lets hope all goes well tmmrw.

I got a new keyboard today on Amazon.

It was actually reallly cheap- Only 20 bucks with the 10 dollar next day shipping.

The keyboard is actually really nice and looks just like an apple keyboard. The only thing really that is missing is the fact that it is not have that aluminum surface, instead it is just painted silver but honestly its not that bad and definitely worth the money.

It is definitely lighter and the keys do function very nicely.

Yayy!!

Decided to head over to Fire island for the day. It’s so beautiful outside.

B said it was ok to head over to Cherry grove since we did the Pines last time.

We got so dam lucky with the trains today. Just made the trains on our way there by minutes.

After a full afternoon of getting sun and relaxing on the beach we decided last minute to leave the the island at 3:30 knowing that the ferry leaves in 15 minutes. We literally ran to the freaking ferry and actually made it. I was sweating hard core when we got there.

Now we’re off to Biang for some dinner and then off to see Broadway bares.

So today Furry got his MacBook Air. Super sexy and slim.

Really thinking about getting one too but only because it would make traveling for work so much easier.

I guess if they made a MacBook Air with lots of memory I could use it as a main computer. Maybe an external hard drive would be the best option.

In the past I had an external hard drive and it totally died so don’t have good feelings about having one unless its a good one.

B and I spent the weekend up in Syracuse for our 9 year anniversary.

What was supposed to be a weekend of rain turned out to be a lovely weekend in the sun.

We went kayaking and did some vintage/antique shops.

More importantly we just chilled. Was such a nice relaxing weekend away from the city.

On our actual anniversary we drove up to Emerson park to go kayaking. Was such a beautiful day.

On Tuesday we went to this waterfall. There was a short walk through the woods. Was nice to be able to bring Miki. He was being really brave going right into the water.

B got me this really cute book for our Anniversary. Highlighting our moments together. Was a very sweet sentimental gift.

So spent the day with family at Grandpas house to honor grandmas 1 year since she passed.

I met the Fam at Grandpas and we all met at the Cemetary to show respect.

Traditionally we show up with offerings like food and drink. Afterwards we all get together and share the food together. Something that Grandma always seemed to plan so well. Best food and her famous dumplings.

Afterwards Ant Amy and the kids left and we went out to eat with Grandpa and Uncle Alvin and the kids.

The best part was that Adis is so much better- it’s like she was a completely different person- herself! No more one track mind and obsessive qualities. Was like I finally got my sister back.

Last night B and I went to see Oblivion at Union Square. Freaking betch wouldn’t let me in with a latte.

Also had another bad experience. The freaking movie started twenty minutes after the scheduled time. Once it finally started they were actually playing the wrong freaking movie. Complete fucking joke.

Never going to this stupid ass theater again. #betches

Made a delicious roast chicken tonight on a bed of root veggies.

Super simple recipe with thyme and butter. The most important part was leaving chicken out two hours prior to get it to cook evenly.

Prepping for a huge presentation today because we have a huge presentation with a client on Tuesday.

Took one of our vendors to dinner tonight at Freeman’s. he enjoyed the food and we had a great time.

Bummed that I spent my Saturday working but it’s fine since its just part of what has to be done.

Today B and I went to Philly for the day.

B wanted us to explore the city just for fun to do something interesting. We started the day with brunch in this up and coming area called Eggs something.

It was worth the 35 minute wait. Had fried chicken and waffles. :-)

After that we explored the hood a bit and found a few cute vintage and art stores.

After that we went to City center which is a main area that we explored a little. Mainstream shops like urban, Zara and H&M but honestly was more like breaks from the bitter cold.

Even though it was really cold outside I did enjoy doing something different and new with my boo. I really appreciate that he always wants to do fun things and I am really going to try and plan more fun things.

On the train back to the city now and can’t wait to just sit in our warm apt and relax. :-)

Had a lovely dinner tonight with Furry at Pounds&Ounces for Valentines day.

We had the 5 course tasting menu and it was delicious. Portions were just right and everything was delicious.

Grandpas dream finally came true. We went to Tai Shan village today. One of our neighbors came to pick us up the Gaoye International Hotel.

He was our actual neighbor that lived next door to our house in the village. Our first impression of the village was kind of shocking. I imagined that there would be rice fields and huts but when we got to the village that was basically it except there was actual small houses made out of concrete i guess. Very basic houses. Uncle said that our village only got running water around 20 years ago.

We went into the house and you could tell that no one has been in that house for decades. Everything that remained in the house covered with dust and no signs of modern day. We climbed up this wooden ladder and found some dishes that obviously date back at least eight decades. Grandpa remembered that the dishes that he used were all signed with the same Chinese character almost a type of family crest. We saved all of the dishes and had one of the people from the village wash them for us.

When she asked if we wanted her to wash them for us I assumed that she would just wash them in hour small house but she washed them in the small stream in front of the village. She made a sponge with soggy leaves and washed all of the dishes. It was so bizarre to see how basic their living was. Everything that they did was so old school. Even the guy working the garden had a stick with two buckets that he used to carry the water from the village to the field.

We strolled through the passageways of the village to see some really old houses that you would think are vacant but obviously these people still lived there.

After we walked around for a bit they took us to Grandpas grandparents grave in the village. The graves were so old that the engraving was so faint on the tombstone that you could barely see the marks.

On the wall that is in front of the village you could see the dried vegetables that they would store away to make soups and things. Everything has a purpose. They have to harvest the vegetables and dry them in order to preserve them.

The couple that helped us also gave us a small bag of rice. This rice may just be plain basic rice but the fact that it was grown and harvested in our village is so amazing. They also had a dog and after being in China for this long we know that they raise them for food. He looked a few years old and uncle asked if they are going to eat him and they said “Of course! Dogs are delicious, we’ll probably cook him in about a year.”

One thing that I noticed was that most of the people living in the village were really old. One of the couples that helped us with the dishes had a son that helped us when we visited the cemetery. His wife works outside the village and you could really see how their culture worked. The son marries and they work and bring money back to the village. The parents took care of the kids while the parents worked. So what happens when the kids are done sending money to take care of their parents and move away? The kids obviously would want a better life for their children. What happens to the village when all the old people die?

This trip has truly defined the word poverty. These people work so hard to make a living. They do anything that they can do to make money for their family. Grandpa was nice enough to give some people money. i guess this is just how it is if you go back to the village.

Grandpa told me that he was around 22 when he came to the us and that Grandma came around 30 years old when she arrive to the US. I think about how I have become the person I am today in my 30 years of living- the thirty years of life lessons that has made me the person I am today. Grandma lived in this village till she was my age. I look back at how grandma was, saving everything that could be re-used, not wasting running water, always working or cleaning. I remember that Grandma would walk several blocks just to save a few cents to buy something cheaper. I must admit that I was mean to grandma sometimes about saving things like tupperware and not flushing the toilet with bowls of water but not it all makes sense. Grandma was raised that way.

I am definitely more appreciative of what I have now. Americans are so wasteful with all of the materialistic things that buy and throwaway its really so disgusting.

I really hope that the kids learned something from this trip.

So right now were in Macau at the Metro Park hotel. We arrived last night and it was a huge mistake on Uncles part because he booked a hotel that was relatively close to Macau but the hotel was still in China which would mean that if we stayed there we would have had to go back through immigration everyday.

The fucked up part was that Uncle booked the same day that we were staying in Tai Shan CIty which is ridiculous. He said he messed up because he was looking at US time calendar on his laptop. The hotel was nice enough to let him only pay for the one night and cancel the other two nights.

We decided to cancel that reservation and just book this hotel at Metro Park.

We are going to head back to Hong Kong today because there really isnt much to do over here except gamble. The good news is that last night Adis asked me to Gamble for her 50$ on black and I did that for her and actually won. It was really amazing! Grandpa and Uncle were not that lucky- both of them lost 500 Macau dollars.

This trip has been pretty amazing so far. Seeing our village in Tai Shan was the most interesting part because even after so many years they are still living that very simple basic village lifestyle. One of the guys there still has to carry pots of water on sticks to water the garden. We got a few dishes from our village. These date back at least eight decades! Grandpa said that the symbol engraved on each dish was their family mark that identified who’s dish it was.

Really looking forward to leaving this ghetto city. I really hate gambling and that nasty feeling of losing money. The thing about being in Hong Kong is that everyone feels like they have money in Hong Kong shopping and spending money but over here you can feel that broke worn down feeling in the air. Pawn shops, hookers and people out to make a quick buck.

Today is Christmas Day in China. Who would have ever imagined that we would be spending Christmas in China.

We are staying in Guangzhou city which is an amazing city so far. Right now we only experience a dinner at a restaurant and the hotel but just from those experiences were already impresses by what this city has to offer.

Down the street there is this amazing shopping mall that has Hermes, LVuitton and all the other high end designer brands. This is nothing like I have experienced in China. I guess its because I stay near the factories and the areas are for locals.

Theres a few outdoor markets here that were going to try and get today. Looking forward to experiencing this city. I really hope that we get to stay here an additional day. It would really suck to have to leave early.

Last night I made this delicious pasta dinner. Sautéed some Kale, Kabocha, tomatoes and some mushrooms and made this delicious simple pasta.

Furry bought me this amazing new cutting board from Quirky. What makes this amazing is the storage prep trays that slide underneath which make it super easy to chop and prep recipes.

I really love the kitchen that we have now. Its spacious and has lots of counter-space. We can even be cooking together at the same time and still have space for the pupster in the kitchen.

Going forward I really have to make more of an effort to cook at home. I told B that when we moved into this place that we would have a schedule of how many times we eat out and cook at home. Its way too expensive to constantly be eating out.

So in a few weeks were going to be heading to our trip to China. 12/19.

Have to get our China visas done for the fam and then have to finish any outstanding work that I have and finish it before I leave.

I always tell myself that I have to plan a vacation and haven’t done one in a long time. It’s kind of perfect since I barely used any of my vacation days ill practically use them up for this trip.

This trip is basically one of the last times we get to spend with Grandpa together. I have never been on vacation with Grandpa and looking forward to his stories of growing up in china.

It’s funny because growing up you really take for granted how much your family helps you and helps you to become a better person.

My grandfather took me in during my college years and helped pay for most of my tuition. They supported me and believed in me. Waited for me to have dinner with them and took care of me. I was such a snobby kid totally not being thankful enough for what they have done for me but I appreciate it now.

I am incredibly lucky to have such a loving supportive family. Maybe they’re not perfect but they definitely love me in conditionally.

Had such a lovely thanksgiving with b. any Cindy’s family was there and we’re super warm and friendly to B.

B and I worked together to make some mashed potatoes and everyone made the rest of the food.

The only negative was that Adis didn’t spend much time with is since she was busy working on the laptop wifi but that was ok. We had a good time and really happy that B was welcomed into our family.

Kind of worried about next year when it’s my turn to spend with his family. …

So its Thanksgiving Day 2012 and Furry and I are getting ready to head over to Uncles house for thanksgiving.

This is the first time that Furry is coming for a family event.

He is getting stressed out because were going to meet my Mom at Penn station and he has to ride the train back with my Mom to the city.

Im sure that he is totally not enjoying this but I am sure that this day will all be over very quickly and he can have the whole weekend to relax and chill out.

Ill be spending Friday with Adis since shell want to do some Black Friday shopping. Its kind of tradition and should be a fun day. I definitely do not need anything so really just going along for the thrill.

I am writing this post using the bluetooth keyboard with my iPad Mini and freaking love it. Super light weight and so so much easier to hold and use.
Would definitely not go back to the heavier larger size.

For the past few weeks I have been cooking Alot lately at home.

Furry has been doing a good job with helping me clean up an maintain a clean kitchen.

Last night I made some delicious fish packet with chillies and mint on a bed of sliced zucchini.

For breakfast I made eggs over easy on top of a roasted tomato serve with a piece of avocado toast.

I can’t believe that it has been about two weeks since we moved into our new apartment.

We have finally just about settled. The few things left to do are to hang up the art and to get a shower curtain.

It feels amazing to be in this apartment. To know that this will be our neighborhood for many years to come. Best of all knowing that the money we invest into the apartment will pay off.

I freaking love EVERYTHING about the apartment. One of my favorite parts of the apt is the kitchen. Its so spacious that both B and I can be doing stuff and not in eachothers way. There is plenty of counterspace which is definitely needed when cooking. I feel like everything is larger- Even the sink is larger to hold more space making it not so annoying to leave dishes in the sink.

Also one of the best things about the apartment is the layout. Having the bedroom so far away from the living room helps to keep phone calls private and if one of us needs to get work done we can without keeping eachother awake.

Another one of the best features of the apartment is the peace and quiet. Living on the fifth floor keeps us away from the noise and also closer to the sun coming in that peaks over the buildings next to us.

I am so thankful to be so fortunate to be a homeowner/design director and engages to be married.

I’m also turning 30 next week so definitely feeling accomplished.

Nite nite.

I can’t believe it finally happened I’m turning 30 this month and I finally got promoted to design director. So happy and excited about what’s to come. Im looking forward to the announcement tomorrow.

Dreams do come true.

After roughly a year of emails documents and fees we finally closed on our apt today at 3:00 pm.

What was supposed to take an hour and a half max to complete took around three and a half to four hours. The reason it took so long was because practically everyone was late and the bank and money was late too which was the main reason for delay.

Also the seller took a while to move out. After closing he said he couldn’t hand over the keys because he still had stuff inside the apt. He ended up texting me at 11:30pm to give us the keys.

The best thing about getting the keys was getting the key to the free storage unit downstairs. So freaking lucky to get the storage. It’s 3 foot by 9 foot.

After we got the keys we walked around the apt for a bit and actually was able to feel the reality of what happened. so freaking relieved and will always be a day to remember.

Now it’s time to clean and get the place ready for pairing.

#everythingHappensForaReason

So today we finally had our board interview. Hopefully it was a success.

I honestly arrived thinking that there was going to be at least six people in the board review but there ended up being only three people!

They were all super friendly and very nice down to earth people.

I really had a good feeling about the review and think that we passed but well know the result in 1 to 2 days.

We enjoyed a nice italian dinner at the italian place across the street.

Tonight was the first night that we ever BB. What an eventful day!

Was talking with co worker today and were freaked out about payroll situation.

She told me that this may not seem like a big deal but the fact that he can’t manage payroll that it’s a huge issue. If he can’t even manage that then there’s no telling what may happen in the future.

I have started to think about what may happen also and really not sure how I feel about the being here.

As comfortable as I am here I really don’t know how long I can stay here and if I am even learning anything by staying here.

I really hope that things get better. I’m hearing that employees are starting to look for other opportunities and it really makes me nervous. Am I here for the wrong reasons?

Now that things are moving along with the apt I really need to think about my career. But then again if I make a move too soon then eventually I will reach the top and then just get let go. What’s the point of rushing?

I just hope that things get better. One thing that is absolutely true in life – nothing is a constant.

I started out the day by making poached eggs with pan seared tomato and a side of avocado toast- I think this was my first time poaching eggs. I learned from watching an Elton Brown video on making poached eggs.

Had such a wonderful day today at the Brooklyn Flea. B and I haven’t been to the flea in such a long time. We used to go to the flea back when it was still at the park but now they moved to a new location by the water.

Much more space and now they have grass and the water so it definitely makes a nice place to shop, eat and just chill.

We saw lots of great places that sell furniture and art that we definitely want to look into once we move.

Really hoping that the whole thing with the apartment goes well.

The latest and greatest is that they want 11 grand in an escrow for two ears which is insane. I’m really hoping that after they read the email from Uncle Alvin that they agree for my review.

Let’s see how it pans out.

Tonight I saw Daniela at her house. She made delicious tomato basil mozzarella sandwich with chips note side and we had a great time talking about our concepts of making really cool leather goods to sell at the market.

We have had this idea for several years now but finally Daniela took a stand and said that every Wednesday we have creative days where we get together and just make some things.

I am really excited about this and really think that we can make this happen.

We also spoke about life in general and how it’s very important to have savings for emergencies. It’s really ridiculous that I don’t have savings considering that I make so much money. I really have to get my finances in order.

Today is the official start of my Vacation!
I took Wed, thurs and Friday off and am going to Syracuse till Sunday for a quick get away.

Tonight I had dinner with Daniela to catch up. We had dinner at the venezualean place up the street. I am so glad to have her as a friend and so thankful to have her in my life.

She is such a great person and really glad that she is there to support me just like I have supported her. Thats whats great about friendship- support.

Tomorrow morning going to visit my mom and then just chill out for the rest of the day. :-)

What a lovely suprise to wake up to such a delicious brunch. Furry made this amazing avocado egg dish which is basically a fried avocado with an egg inside.

Served with a side of toast with Pate- slammin!

Afterwards we left to try and visit this art gallery but didn’t end up going because we would had to spend at least four hours in line waiting in the blowing wind.

We ended up staying at home just chilling which I definitely needed since I was feeling sick the whole weekend.

Last night for Dinner Christina took me to this amazing Sichuan restaurant. We had hot pot which consisted of all of these veggies and a whole fish.

Was super delicious but freakin spicy as hell! The waitress put in a ziploc bag full of hot spicy oil. Was so delicious though.

After dinner I dropped off my bags and headed outside to shop a little. One of the stores that we passed on my way home was Cabeem which is a store that they have in Chinatown in the city. I walked around and ended up buying these kick ass asymetrical velcro kicks for only $60 dollars.

I also got these amazing little leather key charms. They are so adorable that I may even go back tonight to buy more of them.

So this marks my 2nd day in China. I arrived yesterday around 3 in the afternoon and arrived at my hotel around 5 or 6pm.

I chilled in the room for a bit and then headed to find the spa on the 6th floor for a nice relaxing massage.

This is my first time here at this hotel HJ International hotel and I can honestly say that this hotel room is larger than my apt in NYC. Kind of ridiculous. My bed is this gigantic king size bed that I feel like a child in a grown up bed. Its actually fantastic and definitely one of the things I look forward to on my trips over here.

After my massage I went over to the Japanese restaurant for some pork ramen and spider roll then headed back to the room and basically just passed out.

Today I woke up around 6:30 in the morning and called Mom and Adis for a bit then showered and headed down to breakfast. I was so dam hungry this morning.

This is my first time here at the factory and so far very impressed with the this factory. Its huge and so clean and well organized definitely a step up from the other factories I have been to.

For lunch Christina took me to this chinese buffet restaurant. The food was just OK since I am not a huge fan of buffet style food. Looking forward to our dinner tonight though. I think we are going for Sichuan food! Yayy

Wow what an exhausting day. Had a full day of work and then off to NJ to see the family.

I also remembered that I have Monday off so I have to go into the office on Sunday to get work done. Hopefully i won’t be there too long.

Really excited to see the family for Thanksgiving- definitely my favorite holiday of the year!

Let me start out by saying how fucking beautiful this day was.

Furry had planned a wonderful bday brunch at Cafe Lyon in the west village.

He invited a few of my friends and co-workers and it was the perfect amount of people. Lolli, Adam, Mam, Tia, Diana, Laurence, Daniela and Luna.

We had such a fantastic time and the food was so dam delicious. I had the baked egg dish which was amazing and plus we ordered their BANGIN bread basket which had the yummiest pieces of bread.

To be quite honest Diana got me the most amazing gift of all which was a photo of Bart and I on the beach at Southampton. Definitely a memorable trip and a great experience with all of us.

Laurence got me a wonderful little travel kit from Flight001 and Adam got me the cute iPhone case that I wanted. Mamsie got me a gift card to an Indian restaurant which was super sweet since she knows how much I enjoy food.

It was really nice to have this awesome get together with friends and my Lovely and so happy for the sweet simple day.

Afterwards Daniela, Lollise and Luna came over to hang for a bit and then after Lolli left Daniela took Furry and I out to eat a Mole.

So today was a mellow Sunday. We decided to make it a Miki day. Spent some time at the office working on some 7FAM designs and then headed out over to meet Furry at the dog park.

Took some amazing pics on the bike ride down the west side HWY. Another reason why I LOVE NEWYORK!

Last night since Furry had to wrk on the A. Toy website we had dinner out at this Vitemanese place in out hood.

After dinner we were weak and had a treat at Three Tarts NYC. Pumpkin and Gingerbread ice cream sandwich. Banginnnnnn…..

Super glad that we discovered this after the summer. Makes it less tempting when it’s cold.

So Daniela finally moved! I remember six months ago when Daniela was talking about it and how it was such a huge step for her to be living on her own and she finally did it.

I am so dam proud of her because she worked hard to get to where she is and is finally on her own. Her moms negativity would always get on her nerves and now she is finally on her own.

We started with dinner which was takeout from this Dominican place, classic chicken with beans and rice.

She invited us over to her house to help with installing a bookshelf and the shelf for the TV.

We are both so happy for her to finally be on her own. So glad that I have her in my life.

Love her plant outside her apartment.

I had to go into work today. Kid of sucked but riding my bike to work made it better. I made a stop at the bike shop to get a back rack thing to place bags etc… On the way to the bike shop this fucken cab almost ran into me. He stopped like one foot away. I was so pissed because I had a bright yellow shirt- fucken dum driver.

Anyways this inspired me to get a helmut which Adis made me promise to buy so now it’s all about safety first.

For dinner I made delicious pea purée and scallops. Super delicious.

During dinner we watched Kick Ass. It was hilarious. I loved it so much and really liked the little girl the best. She kicked ass.

Jeez. It really sucks lately because of my taxes that I had to pay on my credit card it feels like I’m always broke. It really sucks because before I had to put my bills on my card I was debt free and now have that same overwhelming feeling when I think about my bills.

The good thing about Furry and my bills is that we finally started dividing our joined expenses on home and food purchases on a credit card and then at the end of the month we split the bill. It’s the perfect way to make sure that we pay our share of expenses.

I’m still working on trying to figure out how much money I actually need on personal expenses but I’ll fig it out.

OMG. There are so many changes at work going on. First of all one of my favorite people at the office told us that she is leaving after she has her baby and is not returning back to the office. I was so so sad to hear that because she is seriously one of the people that has worked at the office the longest.

On top of that Shelley is also leaving the company at the end of the month. Seriously I am so dam sad because she seriously is a huge inspiration to me. She is such an amazing person and am so sad to see her go.

These changes are huge and I know its just part of working for a company but goodbyes really suck. :-(

We celebrated Austins bday dinner in Jersey and had an amazing dinner on the back porch.

We had such a great time. We had this delicious steak and salad with some noodles. The meal was simple and not too filling. Usually we cook like so many dishes and end up eating way too much.

When we had cake we were all singing happy birthday and as we were singing I was video taping and leaned back and my fucken hair almost caught fire because I leaned over a candle. The only reason I didn’t get burned was because I felt the heat from the rim of the candle. Wow the night could have turned out horrible.

After dinner we went to see Xmen with Adis. The kids liked the movie.

In July the kids are going to go to maine for a camping trip and I’m thinking of going. It will be such a relaxing time and I really think that its something my body really needs.

So we had dinner tonight at this Japanese place called Takashi the other night.. As we entered and scanned the Menu I stupidly asked if they have any sushi and she said this was mainly a meat place that serves tar tar beef, Kobe etc…

We started with the beef tar tar. It has this baby quail egg and the scariest part was the fact that it looked like a brain. We also ordered the Kalbi beef which was delicious.

For dessert we had this delicious homemade ice cream. I’m not sure that I would come back but it was definitely an experience.

This morning woke up on this lovely saturday morning and went to have breakfast at Viceroy. Its this little cute place across the street.
Now I am going to work for a little bit and then head to see my mom in Queens.

So tonight Furry and I went to the Tribeca FIlm Festival. We first had dinner at this cute sushi place called Momoya.

This was actually the second time we went to this restaurant. I honestly thought that I would never go back because I was really really rude to one of the waiters because at the end of our meal I asked politely for the check and it felt like the waiter took his sweet ass time to get the check. I got so flustered after he WALKED by our table to give another customer something and as he did that I walked towards the cash register to get the check myself. He then followed me passing me the check and said he was bringing it and I just grabbed it then and paid for it with a different cashier. I was so frekin pissed that I don’t even remember leaving a tip. It was really rude and I probably should have not reacted that way but glad that we had a pleasant dinner there tonight.

After dinner we stopped by booty bread bakery and got ourselves some sweet bread. I got a delicious tasty strawberry and cream cheese bread. After that we walked over to the theater on 23rd street where the Tribeca film festival was showing.

We saw The Hideaways. It was a really strange movie about this guy with strange powers. Basically whenever put in a situation of extreme fear everything would die around him. This all changed when he met this girl who changed everything and kind of turned his curse/power into giving him the power to heal and give things new life. Overall the movie was OK.

Looking forward to the next film next week. :-) So glad its friday for me. Yayyyyy

So today we are going to see My Girlfriends Boyfriend. Nancy reccomended this to us and im hoping that this is going to be hilarious.

Its actually a beautiful day outside and I am sitting on our bed soaking up the sun. Thats probably one of the best things about this apartment since every morning we get the sun exposure. I bet come summer time Ill regret saying that but it’ll be fine.

After breakki I am going to return a few things at Home Depot and then stop by Tekserve to see if they have any cool iPad2 cases.

So this morning Furry and I walked around the west village for a bit. We had to kill some time since our reservation at Dell Anima was not until 11am.

We stopped by Urban Outfitters but nothing really got my attention.

We then headed to have Brunch at Del Anima and it was so delicious.

I ordered poached eggs with mushrooms over polenta. It was so delicious and creamy and served with two perfectly toasted pieces of bread.

Afterwards we went home and I decided to run a few errands. Dropped off laundry went to have my weekly massage at this place by the Gym. The massage was excellent and it did not end with a happy ending Yayy!

I went to Home Depot afterwards to get some stuff for my closet. When we moved in I knew that I had to redo the closet shelving in my closet but have not had the moment. I just finished all of the shelving and it was a success. I installed 3 shelves plus a bar to hang clothes- Now I finally feel like I am maximizing my tiny closet.

Now Furry and I are just chilling at home and about to enjoy a nice dinner at Alpha Sushi. :-) Seriously I love these kinds of Saturdays. :-)

So we celebrated Dianas Birthday at Slate in the city.

I am so so happy to have met Diana. She is so amazing and cool and I just love her attitude and energy.

She is so thorough and I really trust her with anything.

I got her this cute little coin purse that I got from that place above baked by melissa cupcakes.

I really hope that we get to be friends because shes amazing and her husband Jon is such an amazing guy.

A few months ago he came to help me shoot an outdoor scene for Atoy because I needed an image for the Capsule book.

They are an amazing couple and am so lucky that our paths crossed at Gryson.

Wow. I can’t believe how fucking awesome my life has become living in Chelsea.

I actually have time to do things and now when I meet up with people I can actually be one of those people that go home and change. :-)

So last Wednesday the movers finally picked up the bins so we finally have space to arrange furniture and play with the layout of the apartment.

It’s everything and more living in a cool neighborhood. Everything from restaurants to the miki walks are awesome ad painless.

Lo, Joy and I just had a lovely time in Hong kong. We had a good time just relaxing and shopping in the city.

Joy could only stay for 1 day but Laurence and I stayed in HK for two days.
We had a nice lunch with Rommy and Joyce at this yummy dumpling place.

Hong Kong was amazing- We had a great time shopping and I bought a few really cool things.

So at the factory and there an area for all of the employees drinks since they are not allowed to drink while working.

I took this snapshot because all o their drinks have so much character/personality.

Also it goes to show you how green the Chinese are never throwing away cups and or bottles.

So last night Joy arrived to the hotel around 11pm. We met for breakfast this morning and then we went over to the factory.

This was Joys first time at Arsto so it was nice to show her the factory and introduce her to the people that we work with at the factory.

Its around 8:30pm right now and were waiting for Laurence to arrive so we can all have a nice sit down dinner together. We are probably going to have a nice Korean dinner.

Getting very sleepy right now and can’t wait to go to bed.

Woke up this morning pretty early. At around 7:30am. Spoke to furry for a little bit via skype chat.

I decided to go down and get breakfast early today because I woke up starving.

My part of breakfast was my Lao sa Bao and coffee. Yum…

For lunch I went out to a group lunch with the factory workers and ate this amazing Hunan food. The food was so spicy but it was so delicious.

Woke up at around 8am this morning. I slept really good. I spoke to Furry for a little bit and then got ready and had a lovely breakfast.

Now waiting for Joyce to pick me up at hotel.

I am at the factory now. For lunch we had this delicious spicy beef dish with sides of diced up veggies and a milky fish soup. Perfect way to start out the trip.

For dinner we had to have a rush dinner and I let Joyce decide what we should have for dinner. She suggested McDonalds so I agreed.

I have to say that it wasn’t bad and did definitely taste different than the McDonalds in the U.S.

I am on my way to Hong Kong right now. Only approximately 4 hours left to go- whoopie.

I have seen a total of 5 movies already on this flight. Butterfly effect, RED and Charlie St Cloud, Wall St Never sleeps and last but not least Never let me go.

So glad I have my earplugs because there’s two baby’s on board.

I miss my baby so dam much it hurts. Almost to the point that I don’t think I can handle being away from him for so long. :-(

I am so excited about our new place up in Chelsea. Looking forward to being spoiled by the convenient city life. I am really glad to experience living in the city at least once. I doubt well ever go back to living in Brooklyn but things happen and I am sure if we move out of the city there will be a pretty good reason for the move.

I can’t wait for Joy to arrive to the factory on Wednesday. Also hopefully all goes well with Laurence’s visa situation so that she can leave Tuesday afternoon as planned.

Ok- going to try and get some sleep.

Arrived at the Hotel in China around 5 or 6pm and feeling so exhausted. I had Japanese for dinner. I ordered a yummy fried chicken ramen and one order of Uni sushi along with 1 shrimp tempura hand roll. Yum…..

Furry and I have been working at the Chelsea apartment cleaning and painting all weekend.

One of the fabulous things about this new apt is that there is a massage place right next door.

As a reward for working hard on the apartment Dump said we could both get a massage after we worked on Sunday.

So we arrive at the Dingy massage place and I strip down to my indies and then lie face down as usual. The masseuse arrives and then pulls my underwear down and then he slide all the way down. I feel uncomfortable but then realize that this is not that abnormal except usually thy put a towel over you.

So right when I think the massage is over he says ten over. Embarrassed as he’ll I have a hard on and I’m like he prob experienced this many times so I keep my cool. After he does my arms and chest he then pokes below my penis and balls like a pressure point and I’m like this is very touchy and he glides his hands over my balls and grabs my penis and as he strokes once I’m like “no no it’s ok”.

I felt so violated and weirded out that he could just so openly do that.

I am never going to that place ever again. So skeeved out because of all of the massage places that I have been to in the city and even China that has never happened to me. I guess theres always a first.

So it’s finally official. Furry and I signed our lease for our fabulous Chelsea apartment.

We can move in by 1/15 but will realistically move in 1/28.

We now have to work on cleaning And painting. We want the apt to be as fresh and new as possible.

On Saturday morning we had a lovely brunch at Westville Chelsea which is only a like 1/2 block away. It was so delicious and a really cool spot.

For dinner we decided to visit our favorite Grand Sichuan. It’s only like 6 blocks away.

It’s funny because on our walk home We were talking about how we used to walk through Chelsea and say that “one day well be able to live here” but the dream is finally a reality. AMAZING

Our life together is only going to get better and the best part is that we can be openly gay in our neighborhood. :-)

So at 8pm today Bart and I are heading to Chelsea to sign our lease!

Yup- were moving to Chelsea!! I can’t fucken believe it that this is really happening. It has always been a dream for me to move to the city but I thought I would never e willing to pay that much for an apartment but the apt that we found was only 2199.

It’s really amazing because this was actually the eat apartment that we saw together and although it was nice the bedroom was a little small.

But the thug was that we saw this apt around New Years so the landlord was on vacation and we could not get a hold of him. After leaving several calls Bart was in the neighborhood and decided to pop into the Bar where the guy who goers us the apt works and he ended up meeting the landlord. Turns out he was on vacation.

The crazy part of this story that yesterday we signed and paid 75 for an application to rent an apartment in the West Village near Tomoe sushi. We were actually supposed to sign the actual lease today at lunch so if the Chelsea guy never called us yesterday we would have already signed the lease.

It’s insane how things work out. I’m a firm believer of fate. So goodbye Brooklyn. Yayyyyyyyy

So Anita came to visit me in the City. We stopped by Barneys first so that I could make an exchange.

I ended up finding these awesome grey common projects sneakers that I have wanted fir so long. Usually priced at 300 and up but they were on sale for 130.

After Barneys we shopped around uptown for a bit and stopped by Zara and Banana.

We then headed downtown and went to our usual coffee place Aroma and chilled for a bit.

The. We decided to see a movie- Blue Valentine. The movie was amazing Ryan Goslings performance was completely natural. The movie was so touching and I wished that I had my baby with me.

We then decided to shop and walk around soho for a bit and then ended up at the Lovely Il Corallo for dinner.

The best part of hanging with Anita is that every time we see each-other it’s as if we just saw each-other last week. I’m very glad to have her as a friend.

So there has been some drama last week over some shit that Daniela told Dennis about Malia.

Basically probably over casual conversation Daniela knew that Dennis was going to see Malia and asked her if she was pregnant.

She assumed and THOUGHT she heard this from me but thats complete fucking bullshit because she never heard a peep about anything personal like that from me.

So when Dennis met up with Malia he asked her if she was Pregnant and supposedly said that he heard it from me.

I was fucken livid and pissed off when I heard the news. She basically panicked and texted me and was like I told dennis that Malia was pregnant but i only assumed or thought I heard it from you but I was wrong and she told me that we would talk tonight.

In the end I spoke with Malia and we resolved the issue. Dennis never even mentioned that he heard the story from me and she told me that even if she did she would have not thought anything wrongly of it. She said that she trusts me and knows that its not in my character to be that way.

Really glad that all was resolved and with Daniela I just dropped the issue and now every things cool.

We had our office Yankee swap today.

It was so much fun. The gift I bought was a plastic Tupperware from Moma store and it was funny because Joy got the same gift as I did and I knew this only because Shelley said that both of our gifts we contributed seem awfully the same :-).

After they were opened it was funny because other people could swap for the gifts that were previously opened. Basically if you went last you had the best advantage.

Overall we had such a good time. Peter and Joy really liked their gift which made all of us really happy. Joy was so kind and got us each a small gift from Barneys.

What amazing people. The end to a wonderful year.

We had our office Yankee swap today.

It was so much fun. The gift I bought was a plastic Tupperware from Moma store and it was funny because Joy got the same gift as I did and I knew this only because Shelley said that both of our gifts we contributed seem awfully the same :-).

After they were opened it was funny because other people could swap for the gifts that were previously opened. Basically if you went last you had the best advantage.

Overall we had such a good time. Peter and Joy really liked their gift which made all of us really happy. Joy was so kind and got us each a small gift from Barneys.

What amazing people. The end to a wonderful year.

I spent most of my lovely Friday today with Furry.

We started off the day with having brunch at Tacombi in Nolita. This place is amazingly fun because instead ordering your meal and paying for it you buy tokens for your food and then you go to the different stations for your food. Very interesting concept because it brigs you back to the days that you use tokens to play games.

After that we went to Sunshine Cinema and saw “the rabbit hole”. A story about a woman losing a child. Her child died because he was chasing a dog that ran out into the street and the passing car driven by a young student kills her son.

It was a very tragic story but in the end you imagine that they eventually get through and continue to love a normal life.

After that we walked around for a bit and stopped for a drink at Savoy- cute place for drinks and great snacks. We shared fried duck liver. Yumm.

After that we made a few stops at some stores to buy a secret Santa gift. I ended up buying a cool Tupperware dish that comes with plasticware and a container for dressing.

Now I am on my way off to see my grandpa and family at a yearly Banquet dinner in queens.

This weekend we spent with Grandpa and the family at the Chinese banquet dinner.

We usually spend this dinner with Grandpa but for the first time we had a lot of the family there and we had a full table. It was a great time and delicious food.

After we hung at Grandpas for a bit and then I headed off to Jersey with Allison. I wanted to spend time with her over the weekend.

It actually ended up being a work weekend because Adis needed help installing hard wood floors in her place. She basically needed to sound proof her floors so that the downstairs neighbors would not hear The dogs foot steps.

We kind of into an argument ecause Allison kept saying your wasting my time. I was really hurt because here I was helping her wasting my weekend helping her and she was saying that I was wasting her time. Out of anger I said don’t ever ask me for my help. And of course she replies that she will never forget that.

It’s ridiculous because she always takes shit so literally but people say shot they don’t mean when they are angry.

We ended up texting up so now were ok I guess.

That just about sums up my Staycation

I think I’m ready to go back to work. I feel so well rested and ready to get back into the work groove.

I finally got to see my awesome friend Hara. We met up for an early dinner at Peep Soho.

She is such an amazing person. I met Hara way back at FIT in the Fine arts program. She is so sweet and I am lucky to have her as a friend.

In two weeks she’s going to move to Shanghai to live for a few years. She believes that China is the future. The people from China are filthy rich and it’s something that I have heard several people talk about. Chinese people travel to Hong Kong to go shopping every weekend because they have so much money to spend.

Americans these days don’t have money to spend- it’s so difficult to have a profitable business in the states.

I asked Furry if he would be willing to re-locate to China and he said no because you can barely use google over there and because of the closed minded mentality towards homosexuals.

I honestly am considering it only because it could be an easy way to make a living and just experience another culture. Also I would be a true asset because I understand the american market and could help communicate designs/details to a factory in Asia.

Even if China is not the answer maybe I could work in another country. The only problem is that most companies do not produce in for example London or Singapore or Paris and therefore would probably not pay to relocate.

Well lets see where fate leads us. In the meantime Hara said she would do the research and let me know what its really like over there.

So today I made a wonderful frittata breakfast for my baby before he had to go to work. It was just as delicious as the one I made yesterday.

The rest of the day I spent cleaning up the bathroom and organizing my clothes in the dresser.

After all that I got ready to head out into the brutal cold to meet Malia.

Malia is someone that I owe my career to because if it wasnt for her I would not be anywhere close to where I am today.

She has offered me guidance that had led to my success. I learned so much from her stories and experiences and I am so grateful to have had her friendship in my life.

I first met up with Malia at 5ish so that we could spend some QT before dinner with the girls. We met for tea at the ACE hotel. What a cool fucken place. Very downtown and chill.

Afterwards we went downtown to meet with Sanyee at Thefatradish on Orchard street. This was a very cool spot and the food was amazing. You know the place is good if there are only like 15 items on the menu :-).

We had such a great time catching up. smiles…

Wow. So today marks the first day of my week long vacation. It is so amazing to be home relaxing away with nothing to do.

I started my day making this wonderful breakfast Frittata. I have been meaning to make this wonderful dish for the longest time but never got around to it.

My frittata has eggs, cheese, arugula and cherry tomatoes and of course as a side dish I made a yummy hash brown.

I am loving my wonderful day and am about to start cleaning up the apartment. :-)

Tonight we saw “The Kings Speech” at BAM in brooklyn.

The movie was suprisingly good. Suprisingly only because I normally dont like period movies because they seem old and boring but the story was an amazing inspirational story of the King overcoming his stutter.

After the movie Furry and I went to have Turkish food for dinner.

Overall this was the best night because tomorrow is the start of a WEEK LONG vacation. :-) Fuck yeah!!

So tonight was Daniela’s wine and cheese party.

We had such a good time with each-other. And best of all we saw little Luna. She was so dam adorable. She’s starting to talk and mumble little words and it’s so cute.

The food was delicious. Daniela brought back some delicious cheeses from Chile that were so yummy. We had sausages, cheeses and this type of seafood which is kind of like little clams.

While we were all enjoying the little appertivos Daniela was making the second course which was beef roast with sautéd vegetables and beef and mushroom skewers.

The food an wine was delicious – we ended the night with this amazingly light strawberry shortcake from this Japanese bakery.

What a lovely night filled with good people and good food.

I spent most of my morning buying a wonderful gift for my Mom for her bday. I got her the most beautiful Jade necklace.

The woman I bought it from was named LIly. She is a 65year old vietnamese woman who is completely amazing. We started talking after she found out the gift was for my Mothers bday and that story really touched her heart.

We ended up chatting about her past experiences in life. She told me about how she got ripped off in Hong Kong and about her awful experience eating congee at a restaurant. There was a huge ass cockroach inside of the congee. Because she is so kind and considerate she told me she did not make a scene but instead calmly told the waiter about the cockroach and the manager came over and instead of being friendly about it he told her to Get out in chinese and kind of shoved her.

Well, long story short I told her about an experience that I had with the old Korean man I gave money to that promised to send me money after I stupidly gave him my address. Her reply was that the money he borrowed can be paid back and easily forgotten but the kind gesture of your heart to lend him the money will last forever. I completely agreed with her. Her whole attitude about life is to do good and the good will come back.

I was really touched by her stories and am so happy that I bought this beautiful jade necklace from her because the pendant now means so much more to me. Her stories about her life will never be forgotten in my-mind and my mother is the best example of a woman with a wonderful warm heart.

I took several pictures of me and my mom and plan to send a thank you card to Lily with a picture of my Mom and I telling her thank you for her stories and her help with the purchase.

I just had dinner last night with Adam and Lolli.

We had such an amazing time- always do. They are so fun to have around. And love both of them equally much.

I gave both of them their Devon bag that they ordered and they went crazy over the details and that makes me so happy that my friends enjoy all of my hard work and effort.

I am so thrilled that love all of the details and glad that they are representing the brand.

This weekend Furry and I went over to Jeremys and Juliets apartment to visit the adorable little Keplar.

This was my first time visiting the little cutie and he is TO DIE FOR in person.

He has this little cute personality that is so sweet and innocent and after hanging out with him I wanted my own little Keplar.

I remember way back when I was in Highschool when I had to take care of my cousin Austin. He was such a good little baby and I remember all of the diaper changes, the feeding and the cuddling and rocking of him to put him to sleep. I loved taking care of him and most of all making him laugh-He had this cute little laugh that reminded me so much of Keplar.

Having a child is definitely something that I know I want but I just don’t feel ready yet. One good point that Adam made was raising a child with a Full time job is so difficult. I know that once it happens a schedule will fall into place but I am definitely glad that we don’t have the biological clock issue to pressure both of us but I do see kids in our future.

I had the most fantastic relaxing time in Syracuse NY . It was so nice and peaceful up there. It was actually the first time that I spent thanksgiving with Furry.

We cooked together and had a wonderful first thanksgiving. We made a 13lb turkey, yams, stuffing, corn and some green peas.

It was really nice to cook in a nice peaceful big house without the stress of all if my family around.

By stress I mean just having to entertain/catch up with family and also cook foods. It’s actually not that stressful now that I think about it bit also the stressful part of it is to head back to the city the same night which is always jam packed with Traffic.

We did a little shopping up at target but other than that did not do any black Friday shopping.

So Furry got me an awesome Cooking class for my Birthday which we just finished after several times rescheduling.

It was a Tuscany cooking class with Chef Loren. The amount of dishes we all collectively ha to make was approximately 9 dishes.

The class was split up into 3 groups that focused on their own dishes which was the only way that the whole class could make all of the 9 dishes.

The food Furry and I made was Cotechino sausage with Lentils. We also helped make Piadina which were Tortillas with Swiss chard and Mascarpone.

There were several other dishes that I am definitely going to make at home. The Bordetto soup was a definite winner.

I’m so thankful for this wonderful gift that Furry gave me and so glad that bought me such a wonderful experience that I could enjoy with him.

I love you baby. Mwah!

Over Thanksgiving weekend we stopped by the cemetery to visit Furrys brother.

One of my first memories of Furry was when he told me about the loss of his brother. I was so shocked by the news only because I could never imagine myself going through such a tragic event. I honestly do not think that I am strong enough to even go through something so huge.

After he told me about his brother I had this amazing respect for his strength. Here was this amazing gentle person who seemed very sweet yet got through a horrible tragedy and is living a normal life.

Baby- I am so proud of you and so happy to have you in my life. You are my rock baby.

Love,
Crinky

So I just recently got back from my trip to China on Sunday.

I actually got to spend some time shopping in Hong Kong with Joyce. We had such a great time and I had alot of fun.

After shopping around midnight we went to Karaoke with all of her friends. That was pretty crazy because most of them did not speak Chinese and I actually made it by mostly understanding the simple things that they were talking about.

We drank so much and I was pretty wasted and basically drank till like 5am and went back to Joyces apt and showered and got ready for taxi pick up at 7am.

I was so proud of myself for pulling an all nighter. It’s crazy that I use to do this all of the time.

I had a fantastic time on my trip and look forward to seeing Joyce again. You Just know when you meet someone really genuine.

Partying all night probably explains the reason that I am sick right now. Feeling congested and also to top it off I must have ate something bad because my stomachs has been fucked up since Sunday.

Overall had a fantastic trip and would do it again if I could. Yayy

For some reason I woke up so dan early this morning. I woke at 5:00am and kind of just laid in bed.

At around 5:30ish I decided to make the time useful by playing with my iPad.

I took a nice hot bath at 7:00am and now it’s almost 8:00am. Breakfast w Pete is at 8:15pm.

Hard to see the sunrise through the haze of Hong Kong but still a cool pic.

Wow. So just got back to our hotel. Its around 9:45pm and so fucken exhausted. We had Korean for dinner and had several cups of Sake so thats making me want to pass out.

Had a very productive day and it looks like there will be plenty of things that I need to get done before the end of my trip so I am happy that at least there will be lots to get done to make this trip productive.

Waiting till 9:15 which is the time that I can call my boss via Facetime.

Nite nite

So its officially my third time in China.

On the long ass flight to China I was watching Sex and The City 2. The movie was mostly about all different types of marriages gay/straight and seeing Carrie and Mr. Big together really made me miss my Furry. I got sad just thinking about this long week without him but hopefully it will go by very fast.

Right now i am writing from my hotel in Hong Kong. We are being picked up tomorrow morning from one of the people at the factory. I believe it will be Rommy.

When we landed Pete and I took a cab over to Hotel Nikko and after that we scheduled a room massage. We both got 1 hour massages that were fantastic.

Afterwards we grabbed some dinner at the cafe at the Hotel.

I walked around for 10 minutes after dinner but most of the shops were closed so I decided to just head back to the room and get some rest.

I fucken love love my new iPad. Its the most fantastic pretty toy. I am really glad that I did not end up getting the macbook air because it would have just been a dinky little laptop.

Okay-Thats all for now. Nite nite.

So Today I got my very own iPad. Yup- 3G+Wifi.

I am so fucken happy because its kind of like my gift to myself for finally paying off my credit card bills.

It was several years of struggling with paying them off but I finally fucken did it.

To be honest I didn’t even know what I was going to end up getting today. I really thought that I was going to get the MacbookAir but in the end Furry convinced me to get the iPad.

He basically told me that I would have more fun using the iPad and also I would use the iPad more often than a dinky weak laptop.

Furry was totally right on the money and I don’t regret my decision one bit.

This is the first of many many posts on my new iPad.

Its fucken awesome because tomorrow I am going on a business trip to china and totally need my iPad to make my life a whole lot easier.

Okay-Time to go pack. Yayyyy!!!

So the launch of my collection has finally paid off. I recently did a launch with an online retailer. The exciting part of this launch was that this site normally does discounted sales which over 3 million people look at every single day.

So a total of 103 pieces sold out of the 150 we sold to them. It was very exciting since all we needed to do was get the word out there and it totally worked.

It has been a full week since the sale and I have received two orders on my website along with hundreds of hits which is so amazing. I am really happy with the brand and feel very strong about the future of the brand. Lots of people are loving the limited edition aspect of the brand and I feel that once the word spreads the brand will be a huge success.

I had the best 28th bday ever.

Furry made delicious pancakes for me and after we had breakki and watched some TV he gave me my bday gift.

He got us a Tuscany cooking class together which is so amazing. Something I have always wanted to do. The cooking class will be in November so looking forward to it.

After that we got ready and made a trip to Target to make a return. I got some Tretorn rubber boots at DSW and then we went back home.

We had reservations for dinner at Purple Yam with Adam and Lolli. I honestly had the best night because to me I enjoyed that much more than a party with lots of people only because it’s less intimate.

Adam got me this lovely J Spade card case and a cute Jonathan Adler box. Super sweet gifts. Lollise got me a book which was so nice because I feel that its much more personal. It is called “the boy that harnessed the wind”.

So it’s been insanely fucken busy at work this whole entire month. Actually past two months.

I remember when I got back from my trip to China it was insanely busy but now it has been like two and a half months since I it back and it has not slowed down one bit.

Wow. I can’t believe what just happened.

I went to Newark airport and after having some problems checking in the clerk realized that I was at the wrong airport.

I looked ad the ticket said JFK. I was like stressing.

Anyways they were able to put me on the flight to Rome Which would even land me in Rome a few hours earlier.

I was so fucken thankful that they allowed me to get on this flight.

Anyways I’m thrilled that I was able to get on this because if I missed the flight I would be in big ass trouble.

So I’m on my way to Rome now flying AllItalia which actually sucks. Seats are ghetto and not comfy at all.

It sucks because on my last trip I was able to fly business class to Italy but now they have become really strict with budgets.

Hoping for a smooth quick flight.

Having a lovely Saturday so far.

Went into the city and had brunch with Furrry at Home restaurant on Cornelia street in the west village.

Had this yummy duck confit. In place of bread they give you this delicious corn muffin with butter. I also had this amazing mushroom soup that was so amazing that it totally inspired me to make mushroom soup this week.

Afterwards Furry and I went to J&R to buy some computer speakers. They were originally like 50bucks but they were on sale for 35$.

Now Furry and I are at the IFC about to see “enter the void”. Trailer looked fantastically trippy.

Today is such an awesome fucken day.

I just got confirmation that Stephen Alan agreed to carry my AToy collection.

I am so fucken thrilled. Also refineri 29 and NYC mag may do write ups on the brand so i am super excited about that.

Also Gilted is going to do a full priced launch for my brand which is fucken huge because thousands of people get those emails. It will be so amazing. I can’t wait!

Also a few other great accounts wrote for the spring collection which is super super exciting.

So glad that good things are happening with the brand. I was kind of getting down about the whole thing because I felt like people were not into the whole utilitarian thing.

Fingers crossed let’s hope spring goes well.

Yayyyy to this awesome fucken day.

My mom came back into town and spent Saturday with B and I.

B let me go alone to Rent a zip car to pick her up. It was kind of fun driving alone.

I was so happy to have her come over because she was going to teach me several delicious Korean recipes. I was so excited to learn them. :-)

Mint leaves with Fish cake
Bean sprouts
Turnip leaves with miso paste
Fatty pork dish
Denjang (miso stew)
Radish Kimchi

It was amazing how simple all of the dishes were to make. The only thing was that none o the dishes had specific measurements but were done with kind of a dash of this and a little of this so the next time I make the dishes it will be all from memory really.

After dinner we watched “the curse of the red shoes”. A Korean horror movie. Movie was okay but more importantly was the QT spent with mom and Dump.

The next morning we this amazing nut powder with milk and bananas. It was amazing because it actually tasted good and held our hunger for more than a couple of hours.

After breakfast we drove my mom back to queens and then did a quick stop at Target.

Wow. So this past month has been like a blur.

We have been crazy setting up the showroom for market and repairing bags and shoe. What a mess!!

For Fashion night out I worked till 11pm and then we headed over to CV lounge for Joys birthday party and also a celebration of Gryson and OH. We had a blast and dance for a few hours. It was awesome because Lo was gettin it down on the dance floor. :-)

Sunday Lo, Wade and I attended the Global Glam presentation that featured one of the bags we did for OH. Disco ball bag. It was a cool event and the bag and model looked amazing.

Then on Monday-wed Gryson had a presentation at Lincoln center and it was freaking amazing because we were the only handbag specific designer chosen to be part of the accessory presentation.

So proud of J and the company. It’s really amazing how much we have grown as a company and so proud to be a part of the team.

So the China trip was somewhat successful.

It could have been more successful only if we stayed a few more days but that just wasn’t the best option because I was already out of the office for two weeks because of Vegas and China combined.

The trip back home from China was a nightmare. First- the trip from China through HK customs was brutal. Took probably like 2 hours due to the huge crowds. After customs we took a cab to the airport but on our way the cab were were in got pulled over for speeding. :-(

When we got to the airport we barely had time to shop around and have lunch so we just had a quick bite to eat then rushed to our terminal.

We finally get onto the flight and ended up waiting like 2 hours to take off because of a mechanical issues. After the repair we head to Chicago. We arrived in Chicago so late that they gave us these express passes to help us get through security without having to wait trough lines etc… Even though we had these express passes we did not make our connecting flight.

We arrive at our gate and there is no one there. The gate was closed and we missed our connection. We had to wait two more hours to connect to Newark.

After all of the craziness we end up not changing and head straight to NY.
So the day Lo and I got back from China we ended up getting food poisoned. It was fucken horrible.

Both Lo and I had bad stomach problems for a week!

So my first trade show trip in Vegas has almost officially come to an end.

The project show turned out to be in my eyes un-successful. The reason being because I didn’t write one single fucking order.

Well actually I wrote 1 order for the woman I shared the booth with Cynthia and the other order was for her friend that owns an eyeglass shop in Laguna Beach.

The first day there after the show Wade and I had dinner with this really sweet guy named Ramiro. He owns his own showroom and is just a fantastic person. Super funny and a great guy.
We ate at Hotel Paris at this awesome burger place. For dessert we had these delicious banana filled Beignets. They were banginnnn!

The 2nd day after the show Wade and I had dinner with Cynthia and Donna. Donna was super sweet she paid for the dinner at Taco and Tequila. We had the most delicious steak fajitas.

The third day the show sucked. Barely any visitors at the booth. However the day didn’t suck that much because I knew that Anita was coming so that made it all worth it.

We have been spending the last two days eating and gambling and having a blast. We just right now got back from the pool.

Normally that would have been a normal thing but neither of us had our swimming gear so we had to go shopping for shavers (so anita could shave) and get bathing suits for the both of us.

We had the most awesome breakfast off of the strip. At Blueberry Hill diner. I had fried chicken and waffles. They were soo yummy.

Back at the hotel now. After the both of us get ready we are going to to go Galaghers Steak House at NY hotel and hopefully after that go catch a movie.

Lets see how the night ends up.

Have to start packing for my trip now. Leaving early in the morning to go to China-Probably leaving at 5:30am.

Wow. Had the most delicious steak at te New York hotel at Gallaghers steakhouse. The steak was so fantastic. Anita and I shared the NY Aged sirloin steak with Garlic mashed potatoes and broccoli and cheese. We also shared calamari to start. For dessert we had warm bread pudding with vanilla bean ice cream. Banginnnn

About to board my flight to Hong kong now. Let’s hope it’s not too painful.

This is the official first night of my Vegas trip.

Let me first start out by saying how much the room sucks. I mean its not that it’s terrible but its not that big and there is no bathtub which is really annoying.

Also there is no wifi? WTF??

So its like 2:30am right now (5:00am NY time). Wade and I went downstairs to get some food before bed and had the most saltiest chicken fingers ever. They were so fucking horrible we sent them back. I did however get a descent french onion soup.

Now it’s time for bed. Finally!!!

I am on the last hour of my 6 hour flight to Vegas. It’s fucking brutal.

I can’t wait to get to Vegas. I am looking forward to the nice hotel and just relaxing.

The most I plan to gamble is 150. I remember the last time I was in Vegas Cyn and I had the best luck.

OMG I can’t take it. I want to get off of this plane so badly.

Today Furry and I started our day off with dim sum at dim sum go go in Chinatown.

It is a fantastic place to go that allows you to pre-order your dim sum rather than ordering your food from moving carts.

After dim sum we went to china town ice cream factory. Their ice cream is fucking fantastic. I’m drooling over their sesame ice cream right now as I write this.

After that we went over to MAD and went to see the exhibit “dead or alive”. It was so amazing. A brief summary of the show was a lantern made of hundreds silk cocoons and a diamond made of canary bodies.

So I had a fight with Adis on Friday night.

It was actually not a big deal when you look at the big picture but all of the little things got out of hand and it just escalated into huge problems.

Long story short we fought because adis thought I was fucking with her by sending her two emails of “what”.

And he whole thing about it that it Allison pissed was that B got involved.

She was so hurt by the fact that I let him get involved with the situation and that I should have never let him get involved.

So after about an hour of fighting about this I finally understood why she got so upset. It was because of Bart getting involved. Yes it was stupid that we were fighting over nonsense but the fact that B kept getting involved made the situation get crazy.

While Adis and I were arguing she said something that hurt so badly. She said that now were even for what she did to me in the past.

After she said that I was so angry with her because it sent flashbacks of the abuse that she put me through. I told her that I will never put her through anything that resembles an inkling of what she did to me. I was heavily crying telling her this.

Anyways now I think that things will eventually pan out. I guess were cool for now and when we look back at the situation well just laugh.

Yesterday I stayed home and designed from home.

I asked both J & P and try were both totally cool with it.

And at the end of the day I ended up meeting with Jae and Tiffany for dinner. We ate on Mott street at this cute Italian place.

It was so great to catch up with them. Tiffany is so amazing and I am so dan happy for her because they both seem like amazing people. :-)

For some reason I am so in love with this combination. Kelly Green with natural vachetta trim. Such a gorgeous combination.

So today is the official end of the first week of the launch of my very own website atoy dot us.

I am so incredibly proud of what my baby did for the website. It’s simple, clean and in keeping with the brands message.

Today is 08/13 Friday and on Monday right after work I am leaving to go to the airport to attend the Project trade show for Atoy. I am so fucken excited also because on Thursday night Anita is driving up to meet me to stay with me for the night.

And then Saturday morning I am off to China to go work at the factory to make sure that all of the market samples are complete.

It’s going to be a crazy month but all very exciting. And on top of that the design office is moving to a new different space which is going to be so fantastic. I can’t wait!!!

See pics below of screen shots of the website. So far approximately 240 hits to the website. :-)

I am soo fucken happy. Today my business cards arrived an they look amazing!!!

Simple clean design on thick 300lb black stock with silver text.

Dolcepress did such an amazing job.

Last night Furry and I went to see “The kids are all right” at BAM cinema. The movie was about a lesbian couple family. The movie did a great job portraying two normal healthy kids growing up with two mothers.

I really enjoyed the movie and makes me want to have kids.

After the movie we went to One Green for dinner and had a delicious steak. Furry had korean kalbi.

Check out this picture I took outside of BAM.

Right now B and I are on our way to AC. We rented a zip car and are on the way to pick up the car now.

Once we get the car well head up to Jersey to pickup Allison and then drive on to AC. Hopefully the traffic won’t be too bad.

Let’s see if we get lucky tonight. :-)

UPDATE: Wow. So when we arrive to Allisons house in Jersey we pick up Adis and then run a few errands at Target and Marahalls.

While we were out shopping having fun Adis kept saying “should we not go?” and it kept on making sense that we shouldn’t go.

Actually one of the deciding factors of us not going was the Zip Car mileage. Our AC trip was 142 miles One Way and the zip car total limit was 180miles.

So after shopping we had dinner at Fudeuckers home of amazing delicious burgers.

After that we headed to the movies to see Salt with Angelina. Sexy action packed movie. :-)

This is one of the reasons I love my baby-Because he’s so dam cute :-*

So glad that it’s Friday.

Enjoyed leaving early at three today. I walked around a bit and ended that with a lovely relaxing massage.

After that I enjoyed a lovely dinner at Spunto on Carmine st. We shared delicious ravioli and barbecue pizza.

Now were at the IFC waking for the movie to start. “life during wartime”.

Not sure if I am an asshole but basically I made an item cry.

Well not in purpose but by being straight up with her about her lack of skill and professionalism at the office.

So here is what happened. Basically o gave her a project with three weeks to work on it and she handed me a rough draft of the project like 3 days before it was due in Korea.

The annoying part was that the for three weeks that she was here only 1 time did I see her actually working on it. She was surfing the web and looking at blogs the other times. Another annoying thing was that she would come in and not even let us know that she was here.

She said she knew that we were busy and that she wanted to wait till we came to her but that was complete bull shit. Interns work for free to learn and gain experience and knowledge. I was really fucken annoyed about all of this shit and basically told our manager to tell her that she was making no contributions by being here and that there was no point to have her intern with us at all.

Anyways long sort short, she left crying after her talk with her and when he got back I spoke with her to let her hear her side of it. She started tearing at one point but eventually we came to conclusion that it was all a misunderstanding and that next time I would give her more guidance and meet with her more to check status on projects.

This afternoon my lovely made me delicious banana smoothies today. Yet were so yummy.

Last Night I saw the movie “Inception” with Tonya and Furry.

The movie was completely off the hook. It was insane and the imagination that it took to create that movie was dope.

That was my first time at the Ziegfeld theater. The theater is so old school theater, it was stunning.

So this past Saturday my Mom made plans with Furry and I to hang in Flushing.

We started our day with Dim Sum in queens at Pings. A great place that we usually go to near Grampies house. After that we waited for the bus and headed to Flushing to do some shopping with my Mom. We had a really good time and the best part of it was seeing my Mom hold Barts hand. It was the cutest thing but completely amazing. It felt so wonderful to see my Mom accept me and Bart.

I remember the last time I hung out with my Mom in Jersey at Allisons house. We were had an awesome weekend and my Mom said that next time she wanted me to invite Bart. It was the sweetest thing. She said that she doesn’t want him to feel like he is not part of the family.

I am extremely lucky to have such a wonderful Mom. She means everything to me and her acceptance is the best gift she has ever given.

So yesterday Dylan our 6 year old neighbor stopped by to visit us to show us his new Lego collection.

He was super cute. So excited because he went to the new Lego store in Rockafeller center.

We played two games with him and Daphna his mom.

Check out below pic of his cool Lego toys. They’re awesome!!

I’m currently siting at the Delaware water gap rest stop.

Were waiting for my Uncle to get here so that we can head out to go waterfall hiking.

Having a blast chilling with the kids.

We had an amazing time. We jumped off small ledges into the water. It was amazing. Thrilling and the fun part was the boys also jumped off and almost did not but decided to do t anyways. :-)

Another lovely summer Friday.

The design department had a lovely outside lunch at our favorite lunch spot Local.

Afterwards I worked for about an hour longer then met up with my Furry.

We went to see “the eyes never lie” a movie about a brutal murder. Basically the killer in he movie gets caught after a grueling hunt but in he end he does a little time and gets out.

The story ends happily with the killer behind bars in a cell behind the victims husbands house.

Now I am on my way over to see my Mom for dinner in queens.

After leaving the theater we saw this amazing classic car.

I am so fucken loving my iPhone.

I was a huge blackberry only user before. I loved emailing and typing buttons etc.. but after a week of using the iPhone I feel like such a retard because now that I know what it’s like to have an iPhone I feel like such a retard. Its like I was that dumb kid who thought he was in the cool club when the reality was I wasn’t in on the cool u know what im sayinnn!

The iPhone is amazing. Phone, music, email, video, camera all in one. The best part of the phone is that it does everything 10x better than my EX:blackberry.

I thought that I would miss using the buttons to call and email but I finally realize that buttons aren’t necessary.

An amazing everything phone-my iPhone. :-)

Yayyy. I made it theory another Monday.

It really sucks because both Furry and I barely slept last night. Not sure if it swerve sweltering heat or the iced coffee I drank throughout the day.

It was stressful trying to grab hold of what was going on today. Actually maybe it wasn’t that crazy but the thought of what actually had to be done was the stressful.

Today I actually got my alex toy portfolio book and t looked fantastic. Shelley friend helped to print it.

The layout was simple and straightforward yet also very inspirational. I sent the booklet to Korea today and hopefully Samsung likes what they see.

After my bosses mention o ordering Korean tonight we decided to hit up K town for dinky and some groceries at H Mart.

Today was my first visit to the Forever21 in Times Square.

I honestly think that this is the only reason I would ever come back to Times Square again.

Let me start out by saying how huge this store is. The store was previously the Virign Megastore so all of the levels are now different sections that include the following categories:

Mens

Womens

Childrens

Makeup

The store is huge and I read somewhere that the store hours are from 9am till 2am. Insanity!!!! A total of 4 floors- 9,000 square feet.

Check out these pics.

OMG.

Bart and I were just walking on our way to the subway up a few fee away we saw a little miniature yorkie. He was roaming around leash free and we were looking for he owner around thinking is this real??

Then all of a sudden as we get closer I try to call him or her over and he starts walking into the street right into on coming traffic! He immediately gets run over by a car and we yell ” of fuckkkkk”. It was so fucken surreal I was in total shock.

I look back and B is like freaking out in tears and then I look back and the dog is out of sight. B says he ran across the street and the neighbor got he dog.

I don’t even know Irtysh realized what happened to their dog but B tried to knock on the door but nobody answered.

All of that happened so dam quickly. We are just thankful that that was no our Miki – Wow. Insane way to start off the day.

So it’s 12:38 now and going to bed.

I’ve completely converted to iPhone tonight. All of my contacts, music, and pictures are now synced up and on my new baby.

This phone is so fucken stunning. Good night lovely friend.

7:04:15 AM

8:31:11 AMAlmost made it one full block length. Now have to wait from Houston to Greene st then from greene st to Prince street. :-(
10:29:20 AM At corner of Greene st and Houston. 1 block to go. Yayyyy

11:10:24 AM I’m half way down the block now. Soo close yet soo far away. :-(
12:52:17 PM Finally made it into the fucken store. Felt fantastic to walk in. Never again am I going to go through this again.

So this is my second day with my gorgeous new baby. My very first Canon camera model S90.

I have been very into photography lately and love the amazing beauty that photographers capture. Its an amazing art form and I hope to someday be able to have my own DSLR.

I plan to take pictures all the time with my new toy and hope that I begin to capture amazing shots.

Here are two select shots that I am very proud of. One is the view from our balcony of the sunset and the other of my baby in a cab on our way to see “I am Love” with actress Tilda Swinton.

So its been two late nights in a row trying to get specs for SS11 out for one our new gigs.

So far it looks that I will be on target with sending out the specs. The only shitty thing is that I have had to work late the past two nights.

The great thing about tonight is that I actually took a dinner which was really nice. Furry and I went to Noodle bar and that totally eased the pain of working late.

Also my co-worker Nancy worked with me so it was nice to have some company.

So I left work at 1030 to get a massage. I only got 30 minutes and that made such a difference. The shitty thing was that I was supposed to take a can home but after waiting 15 minutes to hail a cab I had no luck so here I am on the Q train subwaying it home.

Oh what a night…

Yesterday started out as a lovely saturday.

Furry made me a delicious breakfast of ham and eggs my favorite. ;-)

Afterwards we kind of had a slow mellow day and for our lunch which ended up being dinner we went to Pekind Duck house on Mott street.

We had fried shrimp and spicy scallops with scallion pancakes to start. It was very delicious but for some reason I just was too full from the scallion pancake to enjoy the entrees.

Also practically everyone around us had the Peking duck so next time were definitly having the peking duck.

After dinner we went to the Chinatown Ice cream factory. They have such amazing flavors. Furry chose Zen butter and I had black sesame. Yummm.

After we enjoyed our delicious goodness we headed downtown to whitehall street to take the ferry over to Govenors Island which was the location of the Yeasayer concert.

When we got there we tried to find the location of the ferry we heard an announcement that the Yeasayer concert had reached Full Capacity. :-(

We were bummed out and decided that we needed a little something to cheer ourselves up. Century 21 hollaa.

I had a great time browsing the store. Its always so fun to look for great deals but I found some things that I liked but didn’t necessarily need so I walked out empty handed. However Furry got a pillow which he desperately needed because his pillow is so limp and flat.

When we arrived home Furry made some delicious rasberry blueberry banana smoothies and we just chilled.

I am so very glad that its Friday. Its around 4:20pm and I am on the train now going home.

I had such a rough morning I had to be at the office at 8:30am this morning to make sure that my presentation for Sevene was all set.

The presentation went from 9am all the way till about 10:45am and the overall feedback that we got was very positive.

The only bad thing is that we did not edit the collection down so there is a lot of product to spec out.

Let’s hope that all goes well with the collection. I will be very happy if this turns out to be a sucess.

Also I texted Daniela to see if she was available next week to help spec things but it turns out that yesterday she received an offer from KS. I am soo fucken thrilled for her.

I hope that it all works out because she has been very unlucky with landing good jobs so she definitely deserves it. ;-)

I am in a cab right now on the way back home and so exhausted. Its 12:30am and I can’t wait to get home.

I stayed at the office late so that I could finish up a project for one of our clients Sevene. So glad that all of the designers helped me with some of the presentation because if they didn’t I would habe been there all night.

I think that overall the presentation looks great so let’s see which styles they like.

I can’t wait for it to all be over tomorrow. Thank TGISF stands for thank god its summer fridays.

I can’t wait to leave and get a massage after work.

Finally on the BQE. Night night.

Just watched the documentaty “Babies” with Daniela at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema.

Babies was such an adorable movie. The documentary did not have a narrator just video of babies growing up in all different types of thw world. From places ranging from Namibia all the way to San Francisco.

The movie showed the contrast with how overprotective western culture raises babies while in rural parts of Africa babies practically learn on their own.

I enjoyed my time with Daniela. I hope that things go well with her work and personal life. Its amazing to be part of her life now that she has a baby. I am really proud of her strength as a single mother. ;-)

She briefly spoke about having another child and I was like “hey if you need sperm you can count on me” ;-). We both laughed and she said she knows that I am serious because I want kids. Who knows-maybe shell take me seriously??

This morning I was riding the train as usual and noticed all of this commotion in front of me.

Then I heard “sick passenger”. One of the women in front of her was helping her. Her hand was cramping up and she kept wanting to fall over fainting. It was really scary. I wonder if she was having a stroke?

I’m really proud of NY for helping her. I really hope that I don’t ever end up in that situation but if it ever does then I hope thaty a kind new yorker will help me out.

We started off today with a delicious cup of coffee on the back deck and then headed out for some breakfast.

Since it was memorial day a few places that we wanted to try were closed.

We ended up at Suzys diner in Syracuse. A big Di er nothing fancy just lots of diner type food. Furry ordered steak and eggs and I ordered fretta omelette (pepperoni, sausage, peppers, potatoes & onions.

On our way home we stopped by a garage sale. I had some great finds! Two vintage watches one times and the other a buchere watch.

After that we stopped by North Pole a local ice cream spot by Furrys house. The ice cream was Hersheys brand but it was soo good. :-).

When we got home we went for a small walk in his backyard. There are some small trails in the back along with a cute small stream.

When we got back in we cleaned up the house, packed up and hit the road.

10:00am
What a lovely way to wake up. I woke up only to find out that Furry was downstairs making my Breakki.

We had a lovely breakfast on the deck outside. Furry made eggs and this delicious toast with a Type of cottage cheese spread and of course some delicious coffee.

Now we are kind of lounging around and just enjoying our morning. Probably heading out to go for a walk to the lake shortly.

Greenlake Park
We are on our way back from Greenlake park. We had such a lovely time.

Its basically a big lake that has a small beach with sand along with beautiful trees that outline the lake. We walked around the entire lake which took around 45minutes. While on our walk Miki had a few dips into the lake. It was funny because there was a fallen tree that I used to walk across a stream. Miki followed and he ran across it smoothly. Then he purposely went under and walked into the stream the only bad part was the mud that covered his fur when he got out of the stream.

He looked like a neopolitan cookie white/black. It was hilarious. We kept on walking and eventually found a deep enough portion of the lake near the trail that Miki could rinse off in.

4:30pm
Were on our way back to the house for some lunch/dinner. Were starvinnnnnn…

Just got back home and started cooking a delicious dinner. We made delicious steak with portobella mushrooms and fiddleheads which are like rolled up ferns. It was such a delicious dinner. Of course we washed it all down with some whine. A little sweet but still great with the steak.

7:00pm
On our way out for some ice-cream and some shopping at target. What a day. :-)

10:00am
So today is the first day of our road trip. Were are our way to Chittenango and I just spent the last three and a half hours.

There was a little traffic but I got through it. We took a small break at the whole foods in South Orange and had some lunch and some groceries.

Afterwards we got back on the road and then kept on going. We traded of on the driving once we got into pennsylvania at the welcome center.

1:25pm
Now I’m in the back with Miki on Barf watch. Miki gets car sick and already since we have been on the road he puked twice.

5:00pm
Just arrived at Mamu and Tatus house. Its such a beutiful house. Furry just gave me the house tour and its such an awesome place. The kitchen is huge with georgeous red cabinets.

Outside on the deck you have a beautiful view with lots and lots of trees. Its so awesome to see this place in the summer time because I have only seen this place in Barts photos in the winter so now it all makes sense.

Were starving so its time for dinner. Maybe some nice steak. Yummmmm…..

6:30pm
We had dinner at this french place called L’Adour in Syracuse. The food was actually delicious. We started with a delicious endive walnut and goat cheese salad. I had a delious steak topped with foie grois and furry had an entree with three different types of meat. Duck, lamb and chicken.

Afterwards we headed off to a super huge mall where we spent the rest of the night. I bought a duffle bag ant a tee from H&M and we ended the night with some gelato from the food court.

11:30pm
Its time for bed. What an awesome fun filled day. Nite nite
Now its time for bed.

So I know that I have been pulled out of the Conv Project for some time now. B and I were strolling through target when I noticed some of the product that I designed at Target. The bags looked great.

Its nice to know that after all of that hard work it payed off. ;-) These are probably the last of the product that I will see of mine in the stores. ;-)

Today is May 28th and officially the first Summer Friday of summer!

I left at 2:30pm today only because I was waiting for Brad our photographer send his equipment back.

I met up with Furry to go have some delicious pizza at Spunto Pizza on carmine street.

Afterwards we went to Pop a new popsicle place that has gelato popsicles. They were so delicious.

After that we went our seperate ways and now I am off to queens to spend some time with Mom before I head off to Syracuse for the weekend.

Furry’s parents are out of town this weekend so Mamu gave B permission for us to stay at their house for the weekend.

I am thrilled to have a little getaway for the weekend. We get back Monday night.

What a wonderful way to start the weekend.

Wow- So I guess this marks the beginning of my very firt blog post.

I have been bugging Furry to creat a website for me that I can use to blog on but hey-if you want something done do it yourself.

This will the the first of many posts about life, drama and any blog worthy events worth mentioning.

Yayy!!

Wow- So I guess this marks the beginning of my very firt blog post.

I have been bugging Furry to creat a website for me that I can use to blog on but hey-if you want something done do it yourself.

This will the the first of many posts about life, drama and any blog worthy events worth mentioning.

Yayy!!

Check out this dream of a watch that I just came across on one of the blogs I read.

It will be up for auction soon for over 20,000-30,000 grand. Craziness.

So this is my first official sewing machine inside our Apartment.

Well actually this is not my first machine but this is technically on loan from Daniela. Long story short Danielas friend Dennis gave it to her but she didn’t have space for it so she loaned it to me to basically hold onto it until she moved out.

Kind of messed up only because that thing weighed a ton and we paid zip car to help her move it but I guess well see what happens down the road.

For now- She’s a beauty and I absulotely love it!

Tonight we had a fucken blast. We went to see Phantogram play live at the Bowery Ballroom.

We got out of work thinking that the show started at 8pm but Phantogram was not going to be on stage until 10pm.

We decided to walk around for a bit and ended up shooting pool in Nolita. I won all games of pool we played. Hee hee.

A few hours later roughly at 10pm Phantogram played and their show was fucken amazing. Both of them are sexy and their show was amazing. :-)

So workig on AToy brand has been amazing. Let me start out by saying how fuckin excited I am about the whole toy concept.

We are actually making a toy that will be placed inside one of the interior pockets of a bag and and I will be just some really cool thing that people will eventually expect and love.

So Peter Shelley and I were talking about wha we should name the toy and Peter was like Yota which is atoy backwards. It’s just a cute name that is not super obvious.

The cool part of yota is that he will be made up of the same leathers of the alex toy bags which also means that there is only 99 yotas in hat version running around.

It’s very cool so let’s see how it looks. I just sent the specs out today Hopefully he looks perfect when we get him back.

I just got back from my very first trip to China.

Let me start out by saying how fantastic my trip was.

I was lucky enough to have Laurence with me on the trip. We had an amazing time.

Luckily we had at least 3 days to spend in Hong Kong. The rest of the days we spent in China.

Hong Kong was pretty much just as I imagined it to be. It was pretty dam amazing. The subway system was immaculately clean and really efficient. The cool part of it was that there was glass doors that would open when the train arrived on the track.

Not sure if the glass doors prevented littering or suicide but it was a nice touch. The subway payment system was just like it was in Paris. You have to keep the card so that you can exit the station.

The shops were extremely luxurious. They had so many cool stores and unlike the shoppers in NYC people were actually shopping.

The food was so amazing. All of the food from dim sum to dinner was fresh and delicious.

FACTORY:
Our first day at the factory was amazing. It has been my dream to be able to go to the factory. Going to the factory means that your company trusts your judgment enough to send you to make quick immediate decisions that will improve the overall look of the samples.

When we approached the factory the large metal gates opened and allowed us to enter the front area of the factory. The front of the factory had basketball nets in the front. Interestingly enough I noticed that every factory had this PROP suggesting that the workers played basketball in their off time. Not once did I see someone playing basketball.

When we entered the building was by no means glamorous. Sign age on the walls about labor rights etc.. Was prominently displayed.

When we entered the building our host Rommy gave us a tour of the factory. It was really amazing to see how efficiently they split up the laborius tasks of making bags into different sections.

Sample room:
Patternmakers
Cutters
Edge Dyers
Preppers/Sewers

It was amazing how efficient the factory was. Mind you that Rommy said that this was a small factory. I could only imagine what a large factory looks like. I think a large factory would treat their employees like shit.

Another interesting thing was that as soon as lunch or dinner time came around everyone stormed out. They all went to the “cantine”. The factory office workers told me that they could only eat that food with their eyes closed.

So its been a long ass time since I wrote about what’s going on with my life.

So far things have been going swimmingly at the office and also the workload has been manageable. They recently hired a senior designer to handle the other two brands that we work on so that has been amazing.

Not sure if I mentioned this last time but my boss told me that he would fund the start of a line under my name. He has definitely kept up to his agreement which has been awesome.

I have been wear testing a few of the prototypes and it feels amazing to have my own accessory brand. I am so fucking happy thinking of all the amazing possibilities that this can bring.

Everything has been going fantastic so far. Things almost too good to be true. Except for the agreement in which we are still trying to work things out.

I am so very excited to be a part of this growing company.

It is so fucken amazing because we are moving office in January so we will have so much space and actually a storage area to organize our stuff. Its going to be so fantastic.

Well other than that things are fantastic so I guess let’s see what happens during the holidays if all goes well with our consulting we will be perfect!!

Let me start out by saying that I honestly had the neatest fucken bday. Usually I get bummed out on my bday but I honestly had such an amazing time last night. We went to Pochu in K-town. Adis, Jack, Hara, Lollise, Tiffany& Jay came for dinner. Michelle Wade and Gaeul from the office came which was so sweet. It was really funny because they pretended that they weren’t coming so when they showed up it was a big suprise.

It was all thanks to my lovely Furry who organized the whole thing. :-)

After dinner we headed to Karaoke. That was actually my first time. We honestly had a fucken blast. It was so muh fun and I got so wasted. Happy 27!!!

So basically after the delicious food

Just went to an In Store Barneys event.

It was an event in which the funds went to support different charity organizations-Meals on wheels and another charity which helped kids etc…

Laurences friend that I met at the Dance event at New Museum invited me since Laurence was not able to go.

It was suc an amazing experience since I actually got to meet Richard Chai. Also alongside him was Phillip Lim.

I was star struck since they are both amazingly talented successful deisngers. I felt honored to be there.

Basically there was T&A about their stories about how they got to where they wwre. It was really inspiring about how they made it to where they are.

The designers got to speak about there brands and about how they started.

One amazing quote from the designer of Duckie Browne was that There’s Cool Whip and Whipped cream-We like both but one of them is the authentic quality true product-The other serves the same purpose but is not the same quality.

Overall I had a blast- After the thing we grabbed Pop Burger and talked about the event.

Yayyyy

So it has been like maybe approx 3 years since I saw my best friend Cyn.

The Last time I think I saw her eas with her boyfriend. She is insanely busy with school and studying that she never has time for anything.

She texted me out of the blue and so we decided to get together.

We had an awesome dinner-Ramen at Mitsu ramen and then we went to Avenue bar to shoot some pool and grab a drink.

We had such a good time just catching up. We talked about the exciting things that happened recently as well as her Vacation to India.

That is the Second person that I have spoken to about India and how horrible the food/experience was. She did mention that the Taj Majal was definitely an amazing experience but other than that she said the rest was kind of horrible. Definitely would not visit again any time soon.

Overall I had a good time with her. It totally felt like things never changed between us other than the gaps of lost info about her new life that I never knew but had a great time.

Nite nite.

So tonight I had dinner wh my desiner friend. She is such a sweetheart. Sexy girl and single. I told her that she deserves the best.

She’s a workaholic too and she never made time for her own life. She asked me how i met my boyfriend and i told her the truth which was that through an online personal.

She wa totally shocked but 5 months after we met she told me that she took my advice and put a profile up and guess what? Shes not single anymore. :-) She has been dating is guy for like 4months now. How fucken awesome is that!!

She is the sweetest thing. I really am so happy for her that she met a good guy. She deserves it. All thanks to me. Yayyyyyy

Wow so I just left the M Cee M launch party. I had a fucken Blast! It was a private event party held on the 5th floor of saks fifth ave. It was so fucken Awesome to be inside the store after hours

Joye also introduced me to Mrs Kim. She was super nice and pleased to meet me.

I also got to meet Jade from Americas nexttop model. She was super nice and let me and Wade take a picture with her.

Afterwards we went to 17th street to go to a after parry. The thing was that the party we went to was really cool but oddly enough we only reconized one group of people at the party and when we dint see Julie or Joy we questioned if we were at the right party :-)

We asked the guy and it turned out we weren’t even at the right place. We had a glass of champagne and then went over to the right place but when wevgot there we couldnt even get in because the place reached full capacity. It was really fucked up because the host of the event Mrs. Kim couldn’t even get her daughter into the event. She was so upset.

After that we headed over to G lounge and had a drink and watched a stripper dance. Good times….

So on my way now from Adams bday dinner at Korea. Fried chicken in Jackson Heights.

We ate so much chicken I feel sick. I mets slot of really cool people and it was lots of fun. I made Adam a tote. The Joy tote. I really wanted to make him something because I really like him as a a person. He really does have the sweetest heart and is genuine person.

I rode the train home w my girl Lolli and her man Steven. He’s such a super sweet guy. I really like him because he is totally down to earth. He gave me lots of advice to help adis with her credit.

I am so happy to have good people around me and hope to have them in my life forever.

So just chillin on the bus andthinking about friendship and how important it is to form lifelong friendships.

Last month Anita came to visit me. It’s been about a year since

Sent from my i last saw her. We’ve been friends for over like ten years. She’s been there for me through so much shy and always there for me. When we saw eachoher and eerytime I se her it’s as if we picked up from where we last left off. No akward moments just e jouing eachohers company.

Which led to me writing his post. Friendship takes effort and are really important. I have had plenty of aquaintances but true friends will be there no matter what the circumstances.

Today is the day that I finally got my wedding ring. Bart has been working with Dave to custom make my wedding ring. It has been such a Long time considering that I proposed to B May 20th and I got my ring around 3 months later.

So it’s early Thursday morning and my baby wakes me up with sweet kisses. Here I am wondering why he’s crouching over me and he then asks if I still want to marry him while sliding the ring on my finger. The grorgeous ring slipped right on. I was so happy. After we kissed and hugged he walked me out to the living room and laid out on the table is a delicious breakfast of pancakes and ham on the table. We eat together with me smiling taking occasional glances at my hand-blingggggg bling. :-)

I finally have a ring. Yayyy. Every time I look at the ring it makes me really happy and it is a constant reminder to save for the wedding so that we can make this official.

Woke up late this lovely Sunday morning. Was so nice to sleep in.

Afterwards I made a delicious breakfast for Furry and then headed out to the Highline Park in the downtown manhattan.

When we got there the Meatpacking was crowded with people. When we got there we cooled off with some ice cream from Bluebella and then walked over to the line of people. The line which ansked around the underneath of the highline park was not as bad as expected. It took approximately 20 minutes and we were in.

It was such a beautiful park. They did a lovely job landscaping the park. The view alone was breathtakingly georgeous. As we strolled through there were benches and lounge chairs that you could relax on.

B and I took a breather on one and it was awesome because the wheels underneath the wooden lounge char had rail road wheels that were set into the pre-exhisting rail track. They did such an amazing job with the park.

Afterwards we exited down the stairs which dropped us near the art galleries on 10th ave in Chelsea.

It was such a lovely day and was so glad to get out and experience the lovely city.

So things at home have been pretty good lately.

After my proposal to Furry things have become lovely around the house.

I guess it was a sense of peace inside due to the fact that the ring signifies everlasting love”till death do us part”.

Love is such a beautiful thing. I have noticed that what makes love between two people so awesome is that both people in the relationship are there to support each other. One person may not be good at a certain thing whether it be technical or mechanical etc… Two people come together as one.

I am so happy and am still madly in love with Furry.
So the next steps now would be to save money and plan the wedding. There are so many details involved- invitations, flowers, the cake etc… And all of those things are going to cost a lot of money.

Straight marriages involve bachelor parties and all types of things that I don’t think should be part of our wedding.

Let’s see how things go these next couple of weeks and see if I get this position.

Last night Furry and I went to see MGMT. We had a blast.

The two bands that opened for them were so not so great. The first one the Rejects were just okay but the second one was absolutely horrible. The entire band looked like they all just met each other.

MGMT live stage performance was not as good as I was hoping for but the crowd vibe was good so it ended up being lots of fun.

It was really crazy- We saw two people just totally pass out. They just collapsed. It was so fucking insane watching this. They must have been on some kind of new drug or something with fucked up side effects.

Overall I had fun with my baby. After the show we went back home and ended the night with some sushi. Yumm……

Finally saw Grindhouse with Tonya and Furry. It was so awesome. All of the commercials and previews were so awesome. QuentinTarantino is the shiiittt.

Dam. We finally did it. Designing Spring Summer 2008 is finally over. Daniela, Malia and I finally finished designing and developing SS08.

It has been an extremely intense week and I am so thankful to have had Daniela and Malia there to help and work on the groups.

I really enjoyed working with Malia. She is extremely experienced and is a great person to learn from. Just by her being there I learned so much just by looking at her technical drawings.

Daniela and I left work around 8:30pm and celebrated by going to I’ll Corallo for dinner. I am so thankful to have had Daniela’s help. If it wasn’t for her I would have never made my impossible deadline. (Well I could have but that would have meant working late nights and weekends.

Wow. I just saw the Gladiator 300 with Tonya and Furry and the movie was so so fucken hot. The men were so fucken sexy and the movie was Bad Ass.

Also watching the movie at the Imax theater was the shiiittt. We had to see a 10am showing because all of the other showtimes were sold out. Wowwwwwwww.

Last night B and I had plans to go to meet Adis, Kristina and Anita for a goodbye dinner for Anita. She is actually leaving in about a month but it was so great because we totally surprised her. She didn’t expect B and I to be there.

I finally gave her the swirly earring as a goodbye present so she was really happy about that. We tried to eat at this Phillipino place but it was closed so we ate at this place called Wild Fusion instead. It was yummy.

Afterwards we went over to Kristinas new APT. It was pretty small but cute. We ended up going home after visiting for a little bit. It really sucked though because we had to take the Patch train home and it took forever. It wasn’t that bad but I just totally prefer and trust the subway.

We got back really late (don’t remember the time) and Furry let me go to bed early because I wasn’t feeling well. My sweetieeeeeee pie. Mwahhhh.

Now I am heading to work to work on SS08 with Daniela at Botkier. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy (note:its saturday).

On way home now from Cyns house. Had a great dinner at Dinosaur BBQ on 125th st w daniela and Sean and then went to see a movie at Cyns. Finally home time. 1:20 am.

So things at work have been pretty good lately. I designed 4 of the 8 groups for Fall 07 and am really excited to complete all of the tech packs for this season.

Moni said that is okay for me to ask for Daniela’s help this season. She has been such a great help. There is a slight chance that Moni will hire an assistant Designer and I really hope that they hire Daniela because it would be so great for her to work with us because she will learn so so much.

It sucks because Daniela hurt her foot the day before she was supposed to work with me. She has been at the crutches at the office. Its really cute.

It is also really cute to see her and Sean together because it seems that he takes really good care of her. He drives her around and has been a big help since her injury. I hope that she gets rest and doesn’t continue to injure her foot even morebecause it can continue to injure it and she will never recover.

Its really crazy. Adis has finally moved to another place in Milltown N.J. This was a place that uncle Alvin bought and fixed up.

I helped Adis move to her new place which looks so amazing. She lives in the attic fully furnished and it is a really pretty space. The place looks beautiful. Clean, crisp and historical if that makes any sense.
She lived at the Davenports for about 5 years. She was kind of sad to leave that house because for one she will have to live there (uncles place) and she is afraid that Uncle will hold that against her. 2nd she will be alone. The fam always felt bad that she was alone living there at the Davenports but in reality she wasn’t alone. She had Jack, the Davenports and had Kristina right down the road.

I truly feel that its a sign that she’s moving out because she needs to be alone away from all of the distractions to focus on herself. She needs to step back and really focus on her life right now. Lets hope that this is the big change in her life that is going to make her focus on her school and financials.

Right now its 2:42 am and I am two stops away from home. I missed the trains because we were moving stuff so late so Adis had to take me to the City. She dropped me off at West 4th street and as soon as I went down I caught the E train.

Yayyy. I got this leather I really wanted from work. I only have to pay the cost for the materials since the factory doesn’t charge for protos. I have wanted this bag for several months and finally decided that I should just ask Monica if I could buy it. Yayyyy

Today was pretty interesting. Getting off at 154st now to go to whole foods.

Okay back on train now to contine
AS I CONTINUE THIS POST:
As soon as I sit down this black woman said there goes another CHINK can you fucken believe that!!!!

I was having the best day and this bitch had to fucken ruin it.The only thing that I said to her (calmly) was What?
She didn’t respond and the next stop I moved into the other car.

I wanted to say so many things to her but I held it all in. I thought about how much I have changed and realized that all of the hurtful things I could say would only spread hate and make things worse.

Things like this makes me think about racism and how it all began. I guess it began here and it started with the white people and the black slaves. The white man taught the racism and till this day racism continues. Its so sad, why can’t all people just get along and stop hating eachother.

I truly feel that bi-racial couples are contributing so much to the end of racism because it is changing the patterns of segregated communities and making them mixed and more diverse.

Maybe one day, maybe….

A few Sundays ago we tried to go see the play All that I will ever be and the tickets were sold out. We finally saw the play and it was pretty awesome.

All of the actors were so amazing and the stage props/set up was amazing. It was completely modern.

I am really glad that we went. Furry was a little upset because one of the actors from Six feet under was supposed to be in it. The Art teacher guy.

The play was about this hustler that was completely lost in life, lying to all of his clients and even to a client that eventually became his boyfriend. One of the girlfriends of the hustler was this Black Woman and she was this bobby sexy woman with big titties and eventually you saw her character snap and become this ghetto mean nasty bitch. It was so great! She was so talented.

After the play we headed back and it was snowing like crazy outside. We went to whole foods and then went back to Furries to see the little furball.

Yesterday I had to work a little late and Furry cooked me the most delicious meal. He cooked Cajun Seafood Linguine. The shrimps and scallops were so good.

We spoke about cooking for each other once a week, lets hope we stick to it.

So I was talking to Moni asking about the progress of hiring the Senior Designer and she told me that it is not as easy as it seems. She told me that she was having trouble hiring somebody that had the same attitude as me. She has been very impressed with my growth here @ botiker and feels that I should no longer be considered an Assistant Designer but as a Designer!!!

I can’t believe it! I was complaining to Furry a few weeks ago about my business cards and how my title reads Design Assistant. I guess I won’t have to worry about that anymore.

Things will be final once I get my business cards.

So for V Day I told Furry that we should not send eachother flowers. He replied”what, no flowers at my new job??”. I was like shit I have to find a way to get him flowers. I kept trying to call all types of places to get him flowers but due to the storm delivering flowers to him was either too expensive or it they were booked.

I later remembered that I had an outside appt to go to this Trend Selection for leather trends and I fugured that I would just deliver them myself. It worked out in the end. I wrote Furry on the card and he was embarassed because he thought that they would think that I meant Furry down there. Hee hee.

We met at W4 street to go to A.OC. Which is this really cute French restaurant that I thiught was perfect for V day.

We got into a fight before we went into the restaurant because I answered the phone when cyn was calling. I answered because I wanted to let her know that she can call me when she needs me. She needed me to check her voicemail because she didn’t have any minutes on her phone. I did not think it was a problem since we did not even go to the restaurant but when I was talking to Cyn I told Furry to check if our table was ready.

The hostess was rude and said that we were early for our reservation so we had to wait 10 more minutes.

He was very angry at me for making that phone call. I told him that its not like we were inside the restaurant and I answered the phone.

He was still really mad at me even after I apologized. I got angry also because it seems like he is always getting angry at me. It happens all the time and it just seems like TOO much sometimes.

We finally got seated and things cooled down and we had a wonderful $180 meal.

My Valentines Day present from him was a Georgio Fedon card holder. I was shocked to see the card holder because I already had one because Shelley got me one for Xmas. I started wrapping it back up asking if he still had the reciept and he told me to first open the case.

When I opened it I saw a folded piece of paper. As I continued unfolding I saw that it was a printout of our tickets to see Gwen Stefani “The sweet escape”. I was soo soo happy. One of the really crazy things was that it is on our 3 day anniversary. :-)

I finally gave him his present. I planned on tricking him with two gifts. The first one was going to be not his real present but this cute little toy change purse. I thought it would be so funny to see his reaction. When he opened it his face looked confused yet happy. I was asking him if he really liked it and he replied “well what am I going to use it for”. I then reached into my bag and pulled out his real present and gave it to him. It was the small zip Comme Des Garcons wallet. He was very happy about his gift.

After that we headed home to see the little rascal Miki. Mwah mwah mwah.

Woke up a little later this morning. I normally head out at 8:30am but because I was running late I left at 8:50am. It was really great because the train came very quickly at Grand Ave (within minutes of getting to platform).

I normally ride 2 stops to Roosevelt and transfer for the F Train. It was really nice because it was right there across the platform when I arrived at Roosevelt Ave.

I rode the F all the way to 34 street and transferred to the N train. As I was coming down the steps the N Train arrived.

I made it to work only a few minutes late. How awesome is that.

So while I was sitting at work deciding what to get my love for V day it suddenly came to me the perfect gift. I caled the store and they told me that they were closing in 30 min. I told them I would be heading down there and they said just make it before 7 because we are closing @ 7.

I knew that the fastest way to get there was to hop in a cab but I had no cash! I ran from my work to the bank and pulled out cash for the taxi. I caught one within minutes and told them that I needed to get to 22 and 8th ave. The time was 6:42.
I told him that I needed to get to this store before 7 bacause it was closing. He asked me how much I was going to give him if we made it on time and I told him that lets just see if we make it.

As we almost approached 22st and 8th ave I called the store and they told me that they were between 10 and 11 ave. He said it was more difficult to cross town and we only had 5 minutes to get there.

We finally made it to 22 and 11 ave and we were at a red light so I payed him 15.00 (bill was 11) for the rush. I ran to the store and made within 1 minute of closing. Wow it was so amazing.

I then planned to meet Furry at 42 st and as I approached 23 st the bus stopped right there. It was so perfect. I took the bus to 8 ave so that I could catch the A C E train.

When I went down I saw the train leave, I was like Dammmm. When I looked down the track after the train left I saw another train approaching the station. How luck is that?

I hopped on it and rode to 42 st.

To summarize all that, basically I had an amazing subway day. It was full of movement and no waiting. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyy

So today B and I got in another fight. We got into an argument about me not paying attention to him.

B thinks that I don’t listen to him when he talks to me and that I don’t pay attention to the things that are really important.

It really bothered me when he told me this because I do care about what he has to say.

We started fighting because he told me that he had to go into a meeting all about PHP and that it wasn’t mandatory that he go but he felt that since one of the reasons NY times hired him was because of his knowledge of PHP. He said it would look really bad if he didn’t go.

Alex: It would be good for someone in design to go.

Bart: there is already two people from design going.

Alex: I feel it is important because you may learn something from those meetings.

Bart: its PHP and I don’t want to learn anything about php. Don’t you listen I don’t want anything to do with PHP its the reason why I left Flat.

Alex: than you should just talk to Sam about it and let him know that you are not interested in doing PHP because that is not why you came here.

Anyways now that I wrote that out I can see that Bart was testing me to see my response. I guess I am learning about him more and more.

(One day later)
We finally made up after I made him dinner, walked Miki and did all of the dishes. We both agreed that we were going to work this out. I asked him about being more patient and in return I told him that I would listen to him more carefully.

So lets see. Life has been going okay lately.

Living at home is seriously killing me. I am so not happy there and the nasty apartment is totally getting to me. Last night a 4 inch long cockroach was in the shower. When I walked into the bathroom the cockroach scattered into the huge hole in the ceiling of the bathroom.

My mom has been really sick and traveling from home to her friends house. I am so worried about her not being home but there is nothing I can do about it. She is having money problems and the bills keep ading up. I don’t know, it seems like the only way to deal with that whole situation is to withdraw from my moms financial issues.

Things have been great with my furry. I care about him so so much. My love definitely exceeds my need for him which is excellent based on the Dalai Llamas point of view. Mwah mwah mwah my love.

Things at work have been pretty good. We just had our Fall 07 photoshoot. I am pretty glad that I did not have to be there because I had so many other important things to complete at work. All I had to do was grab the bags from work and bring them to the location. I traveled in style in a cadillac escalade. It was so pimp!

One thing that I can say is that I learned that when you spend money you get treated so nicely. Our contact person at the hotel was just a phone call to help us in any way possible (at 7,000 for two nights she better have). The car service we use was really nice. The driver Emmanuel was so nice. He drove me back to the hotel to get my wallet that I left at the Hotel! We only drove 6 blocks away from the Hotel but it was nice of him.
One of the best moments On our way out of the Hotel Carlyle we saw Tom Ford and Lenny Kravitz walking in to the hotel. (Sooo sexyyyyyy)

I had a great talk with Shelley. It was such a great talk. She really opened up to me.

She took her time out to see how I was doing and I told her that there might have been an error and that I wanted to double check the purchase orders to see if everything was correct. She was glad that I took the steps to solve that problem. We started talking about other things like why so many people at botiker don’t seem to understand the sense of urgency that both Shelley and I seem to understand. She told me that she was very let down with production mainly San because she really did not do a good job with production.

She also told me about San and her relationship and how it seems as if things seem akward and tense.I mentioned to her that I was also feeling strange with San and that it got to the point that I almost confronted her about it.

She told me that I was not the only one who was feeling that way about her and that many other people have complained about her also. She mentioned that she knows someone from her previous job that said that they were wuite glad when she left the company. She said that she had a very high ego problem and anytime she was confronted about a mistake she would react very cold and angry.

We also talked about her husband Q and about how he is such a wonderful person. She told me that she was once in a relationship for 6 years and that she thought that after that relationship she would never love someone that much ever again and now that she has met quentin she says that she is more in love than she was with that other relationship. We talked about Q and about how when they first me he would write to her and send her little trinkets. He sent her a box full of leaves she told me that in the beginning they would write to eachother by hand!

We also talked about how she may eventually start her own thing one day and that she may also want children.
It really helps to look up to people in the work place. I work really hard at work and I learn from the people that are doing things right.

Wow. What a stressful week. We have been so dam busy at work. Getting 5 sets of samples out to our 5 showrooms is not as easy as it sounds.All bags must be labeled with its style number, style name, group name, color and hardware color.

On top of all that we have to make special hang-tags for the bags that were made incorrectly.
Ex: handle too long, hardware color incorrect.

An additional task was to make swatch cards for all of the 10 groups that we are showing for Fall 07. It was a lot to do because there was 10 swatch cards needed per group (100 cards total). Thanks to our interns, I only had to make the cards while they cut the leather swatches and placed them on the cards :-) .

So last night I got a call from some random man saying that my mom was in the hospital.

He told me that she hurt her leg and back. I heard this message on my way to work this morning at 9:25 AM. I immediately called the Elmhurst hospital looking for my mom and after 3 attempts speaking to different parts of the hospital I had no luck in finding her. I even kindly asked a nurse if they could walk around the emergency room and see if they see a 5ft Korean lady around the age of 49-50. After all that I still had no luck. It really sucked.

I finally heard from Allison saying that mom was at the ER psych ward. She mentioned something about a ghost or something at Chris’s house to one of the nurses and they thought she was crazy. Mind you that Chris is a weirdo because he is totally into that Sci-fi stuff and always has movies about ghosts and aliens on the tv. So my mom got transferred to the ER Psych ward and stayed there for a day.

I picked her up later on that night @ 7pm because that was when people were allowed to visit and I took her home. It was such a strange place because there were so many police outside because of crazy people acting out but my mom was safe napping in the little couch.

There was one asshole guard that was taking his sweet ass time getting my moms bag out of the locker. Some drunk guy came in and the guard had to give him a breath test. My mom yelled at him and was like “what is taking you so long? We have been waiting I need my bag”. The asshole was like “well then keep acting like that and you’ll wait all day haa haaa ha. I was sooooo fucken pissed but then stepped back to look at his situation because he was busy, I whispered to my mom telling her that she should not yell back at them because then they would never give it to her. I told her that If she sinks down to his trashy ass level it makes her look just as bad. She relaxed a little and didn’t respond to his comment. We then asked the kind nurse Maria if she could get my moms bag and she went over to the prick and they opened it for her. Finally we left. (I left saying a nice thank you to the prick :-) hee hee )

My mom is the most wonderful person. My mom has been living around bad people, evil people, convicts, cheaters, thieves and after all these years she still remains pure. Her heart still remains as nice as it was many years ago.

Back in the day, my mom went to Hong Kong w my dad and she saw all these poor people homeless people on the streets. She gave one of them her coat because it was cold at the time. She also gave some of the homeless peolple 20 dollars and prayed with them. My mom still has that heart. That is so amazing. I always thought that the people around you shape who you are as an individual but its really not the case.

Wow. I was so frustrated today. Sometimes when :urry and I get out on time we meet at 42nd street and he was like 20 min late.At first I was annoyed that he was not there when I got there because the amount of time it takes for me to get there is a lot more because I work downtown and he works midtown.

After 3 trains go by I am like what the fuck is taking him so long. These thoughts start creeping into my mind.
Did he get an assignment at work and needs to stay late? Did he get hit by a crazy taxi driver? Did he fall down the stairs? Did he lose his wallet and was not able to go underground?

I was so frustrated also because I was meeting Grampie and Grammie so that I could take them out for dinner and they were waiting for me at home.

Well, he finally came and apologized for being late. He went to staples and then he went to Duane Reade for a lock that he needed for ther gym.He could have told me that he had to do that but instead I was waiting for him thinking all types of reasons on why he could be so late.

That little jerk. Its so hard to be mad at him because he is always so cute. Jeeezzz. The frustrations of being with a furry………rahhhhhhhhh

Wow, so after my first visit with the doctor I was told that I am going to need a colonoscopy. What’s really funny is that I finally realized what my grandma had to go through when she had it done.

The great thing about it was that the morning I had the procedure I weighed 129. Yayyyy.

It was so nasty because I was given two bottles of laxatives that I was supposed to take the night before and the morning of the procedure. It was so nasty cause from 8 pm last night I was going to the bathroom like every 10 minutes. As of now my little butthole is completely raw from the friction of the cheap toilet paper my grampie buys.

So the procedure went well. It was kind of scary because some guy that had the procedure he came out all messed up stumbling. He couldn’t even walk. It was honestly so quick. The doctor said it will only be like 10 min. After they prepped he said “goodnight” the next thing I knew I woke up and the procedure was over.

It was so awesome.

It was really nice that cyn offered to come and pick me up. It was comforting. I know for a fact that if furry was still working at Flat he would have definitely came to get me cause he is my sweetie pie.

Well now I am fine, cleansed and heading to the container store to get the tools needed to organize my life.

I have had a stomache virus for at least a week and a half now and its time to see a doctor. I had bad poopy for a few days and I remembered that Shelley had something similiar to what I have so I asked her how she cured herself and she told me that her Mother gave her this awesome medicine. shelley then offered me some of that medicine and that totally cured the bad poopy but not the rumbling in the stomache. **

So finally I am heading to a doctor right now. Hopefully they can give me something that will fight off the infection.
Last night I had a fever and when I got home after eating wonderful Malaysian with my Lovely Furry I completely passed out. I totally planned on not going to work but I guess that all that rest made me feel a lot better. I called an made an appointment to see the doctor at 4:45 which allowed me to leave work at 3:45 yayyyyyyyyyy!!!!!

Dammm. Things at home are just becoming unbearable.

Just let me list off all of the things that bother me about living at home.

Bathroom always has water bucket on sink(grandpas theory-pour water in toilet lightly flushes water so as to not waste water)

Bathroom tile always grimy and dirty (cause they walk in the bathroom with their dirty flip flops and step on the water that splashes out of the toilet from the “flushing”)

* Bathroom always smells like Urine (cause they only “flushing” when they poopie)
* Kitchen totally over cluttered (all shelf space sink space (ALL FLAT AREA IS OCCUPIED)
* Never wipe thre counters which lead to cockroaches!
* The dish rack is covered in soot because grandpa uses it as a large vegetable strainer which leaves all types of dirt and dry veggies under the dish rack which takes forever to clean!!!! (Yelled at hinm for 5 min the other day begging him to stop doing that)
* Kitchen floor is always sticky and dirty (they never care about dropping things on the floor which leads to mice problems
* Mice problems (I have even had mice in my room) I read that mice can live off of a small amount of food droppings under the kitchen table. (Trust me an army of mice can live at my house. They will never starve thanks to grammie!!!)
* The food problem- Grandpa is the only one that cooks anymore and and all he cooks is old food. He always buys things at a bargain so the veggies are never fresh and the chicken scares me to eat cause I fear it gives me bad poopy cause its not fresh.

Well that’s about all of the things that bother me about living about the house. But its also very annoying living with them cause they nag me to death about eveything.

The other day I stood on the steps with a ladder blocking my grandma from going up the stairs to wake my mom. I already spoke with my mom about eating dinner and she really didn’t want to eat cause she was so tired so she said she was going to come down in 1 hour. Grandma insisted that she go up and wake her cause my mom said to wake her when I got home. I kept telling her that I already spoke to her but she kept on going.

When I finally convinced her to walk back down the stairs (took 5 min) when we were bringing out the food for dinner she snuck around and tried going out to wake her when I was not looking but I put the chain on the door and heard it when she tried to open the door. (Hee hee) I stopped her again and somehow convinced her to just eat dinner.

Its so hard living here. Things just drive me insane. I am so thankful that I have dumpies house to go to, if I didn’t I would go insane.I hope that really soon I will be able to finally leave. I was so angry the other day that I was really going to send the whole family an email about moving out.

I was talking to Allison over the weekend about the raise and she told me that I should only tell a few people. Especially Grandpa because he will tell everyone. Not only will he tell everyone but he will start telling me how to spend my money. It is really not a bad thing but only an annoying thing. I know that he will probably tell everyone because that’s how he is. He just wants to brag about me.

I had my first lunch today with grampie. We went to XO (XO was one of Furrys favorite restaurant but not anymore since he doesn’t work downtown anymore. Pshhhhhhhhh). I decided that It was the perfect time to tell him the good news.

I gladly told my Grampie the good news about my raise. He was so so happy to hear it.

I reminded him today before I told him that he should keep it to himself. My Ant Amy even told me that Grandpa told her about my bonus before I even had the chance to tell her. Well see if he keeps quiet about it. Another time he was telling something personal to somebody else was when he told one of my cousins Mom about my original salary. After he told her I was like what the hell Grandpa, why are you telling people that! Its personal! He apologized ant told me that he wouldn’t do it again.

The reason I told him was because I wanted him to be proud of me. When I told him about my first new job and my first Bonus he totally lit up. He is truly proud of me and wants to see that I am treated well.

Oh my goshhh! I just got my raise! I am so happy. They gave me a little over 20%. I have heard that 10% is a good raise but 20% hell yeah! I am so happy. Now I might even be able to really start saving. We’ll see. I get paid on Friday! What a great way to start off the New Year.

Yayyyyy. I had off on Friday and headed down to Brooklyn to go Skiing (well I am snowboarding of course). A.Amy and the triplets, Uncle Alvin and Aunt Cindy, Austin and Ariel and Allison and I are all went to the Poconos. Austin snowboarded for his first time that weekend. He did so awesome!

New Years Eve Allison and Kristina wanted to go to a restaurant for New Years in the city. Of course we were totally down with that but after waiting forever for them to come to the city Furry came up with the most awesome idea! He wanted us to all go to Atlantic City. It really was the perfect thing to do since it was not something we had done on New years before.

The funny part was that we rushed down to jersey to meet Allison and then rushed to Atlantic City by car and struggled to find parking. We eventually found parking right when it became the NEW YEAR!!! How insane is that!

We had sooo much fun. The crazy part was that we finished A.C. at like 5:50 in the morning and was like lets just take a train back home which is what we totally did. We were extremely exhausted and got home at like 8 or 9 am. WHAT A BLAST!

Furrys New Job. I can’t believe I have not posted about this. This is the biggest change in Furrys life.
Furry just recently got a new job in their digital design department. He is now a Design Technologist. He is extremely happy there. Its funny to him talk about work like I talk about Botkier. one really awesome about his company is that they gave him a higher starting Salary than what he requested. It was soo awesome of them which shows how great of a company he works for is. Usually companies go with a lower salary than what you request.

Well the only negative thing about Furry working there is that he is no longer downtown near me. We used to always see each other after work and get lunch together but now he is in Midtown. Other than that he is really happy and so am I.

So life in the Toy-Szyska family is doing great. I am really happy with my awesome job at Botkier, Miki just spent the whole weekend with Grandma and Grandpa and papa IC, Furry is really happy about work and we are sooo happy together.

Sometimes life is sooo gooooddd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So it is the week before x mas and I finally got my bonus at Botkier! I was really suprised since I have never received a bonus before. In addition to the bonus I received a gift certificate for www.kiva.org which is a place that young entrepreneurs or people who don’t have enough money in like 3rd world countries go to to borrow money rather than borrow from loan sharks with high interest. So we have 150 dollars to loan to anyone we choose and best of all the people will eventually pay you back. Its such a great gift idea since your actually helping other people.

On top of that I have paid all my bills which is totally awesome. Now I am debt free and can start saving money.

After paying the loans and x mas gifts I am left with the usual paycheck but it is so great since there are no more bills except for my loan which will eventually get paid.

Yayyyyyyyy

Bart and I just got in the worst fight ever. Miki has been really bad at night lately. He has been chewing up the carpet, couch and anything he can get his teeth on. There are many reasons why he could be acting this way, one of which is the fact that he is not neutered. He is getting neutered on Jan 13 so lets hope that solves everything.

The couple of times that Bart and I got into a fight was because there was a few times that I did not do a good job of cleaning up after Miki. The first time it happened was late at night at like 3 or 4 am and Furry checked the area that I had just cleaned and noticed that I didn’t pick up pieces of the rug that Miki had pulled from the rug. He was yelling at me saying that there was no point of cleaning up the mess if I was not going to clean it up good enough. He was angry and I yelled back at him saying that its not like I didn’t want to pick it up it was because I didn’t see it! We got in a big fight that night because I really felt that I was helping being the one to get up when Miki was being bad. I was happy to let my sweetie pie take a break but instead I was looked at as not being good enough and not doing a good job. (This happened twice)

Here is another incident that happened at Target. He was really annoyed at Miki for shitting on himself and when Miki got to Target we put him in the cart and Furry had to hold Miki down so that he would sit so he wouldn’t expose the poopie. He was annoyed. He wanted to check out the shampoo and when Miki got up he got mad at me for not holding him down. But what he failed to see was that I was trying to hold him down but I noticed that he was licking something off of the cart and when I checked to see what it was he got up and daddy 1 came back and yelled at me.

Later on we were looking for Gardening tools and I had thought I had found them and called furry over to see if this was what he needed to find. He got all angry and started yelling, saying that I knew what he was looking for and that I was annoying that I made him come over to an area that didn’t have what he wanted.

I was so angry at him for being so mean and rude for the 2nd time that I was like fine! I am leaving then!!!!! I was so angry at him that I really did not want to speak to him for a few days at least.

On my way home I thought to myself, I think thats the first time that we got into a fight and I left.

Later on after he left Target he called me. I really didn’t want to talk to him but I knew that it wasn’t the right thing to do so I answered the phone. I don’t even remember what I was saying but he started getting me so so angry and I totally blew up at him. I screamed “you fucken jerk” can you fucken hear me?” you fucken jerk”. After I yelled I was so shocked that I blew up like that. I was holding that much hurt and anger and I just couldn’t hold it inside anymore. I was so so upset that I told him that if he was going to continue treating me like that I didn’t want him in my life.

After I started to cool down Furry asked me to come downstairs, I replied okay but after I hung up the phone I was like I don’t want to see him. I really was dreading my walk to see him partly because I was embarrased and upset at myself for acting like that. Of course when I saw him I couldn’t help but smile (Dammit). We started talking about what happened and eventually we talked our way through the fight.

We agreed that I was going to be more thorough with helping him clean up after Miki and he agreed that he would watch how he spoke to me when he was angry or upset at me.

It has been two days since our fight and I am still upset at myself for freaking out like that.

I love him so much and am so scared that I could have lost him. :-(

Happy Birthday for me. So my birthday was split up in 3. On Saturday I met up with Allison, Furry, Kristina, Jack, Anthony and Agnes for Korean. We had a beautiful Korean restaurant. I got two awesome presents. A georgeous Marc by Marc watch from Allison and a lovely Oil Burner from Kristina. I love both gifts so so much.

After dinner we went for a suprise movie that Furry chose for me. Jack spilled the beans about the movie! It was half Nelson. I really wanted to see this but I never got the opportunity. The movie was great. It was both depressing and moving. it was really deep and the relationship the two characters had was extremely familiar because of my family past.

Sunday was spent with my Ant Amy and Uncle Phil and the Triplets. All of us including Grampie and Grammie went out for lunch at the Korean Restaurant. It was so delicious. My Ant Amy gave me a beautiful ring fron Ibiza. It was hand made by a local artist. I also gave Ant Amy a gift. Her very first Botkier bag! She absolutely loved it and it made me so happy how much she appreciated her gift. I am so lucky to work for such a great company.

Later in the evening Allison and I went out to eat Vietmanese with my Mom and her boyfriend Chris. He seemed like a great guy, I just hope he treats her good. There is no reason for me to believe that he doesn’t but I just worry about her.