Amigurumi

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Although I’m not a crafty person at all, I should always have sth to make. I used to knit for a long time, but it made me frustrated, because I’m never satisfied with what I make. I’ve made a couple of sweaters, scarves, bags , etc but I don’t use any of them. That’s why I decided not to knit anything for the purpose of wearing it.

Recently I discovered Amigurumi. Making toys with simple crochet stitches. It was the perfect thing. I started with making spheres. Then I made a couple of baby monsters.

And now I’m making the Amineko. I’ve made the head, the body and one hand.

I’m a little concerned about the head right now because it looks lopsided but I hope it turnes out OK or I have to say good-bye to making Amigurumi too.

Cypress and Violas

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After the driving test I was very sad. So to cheer myself up I went to a nursery and bought some a lot of stuff for the garden. (OK I say garden, but more like a patio!)

The first one that I’m so happy about is a dwarf cypress tree. The previous owners of our house had a pot of some kind of pointy plant that looked like this

I generally don’t like these kinds of plants. My mom used to have them when I was a kid and for some reason I didn’t like them back then either. So in part intentionally I ignored it until it was almost dry. While thinking of what i should replace it with, I decided on cypress. Cypress trees to me look so pretty. I love how they’re not like other trees a long empty trunk and then some leaves on the top. It’s all leaves from the bottom. And the’re always green and they remind me of home.

But cypress trees usually grow tall, so they’re not suitable for a pot in our entryway. But after some searching I found a dwarf version. It is supposed to grow to a maximum of 6 feet which is perfect. I hope I can keep this one.

I also got some Violas. I wanted to get pansies but the ones they had didn’t look so good. They remind me so much of spring.

I also got a big container to start an herb garden. This one I haven’t done yet. Hopefully this weekend. I have some seeds leftover from 2-3 years ago. I’m going to try those first and if that didn’t work out I’m going to buy some new seeds.

Failed

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It is very hard for me to confess to people that I don’t have a driving license. But after this many years of ignoring it I finally had enough. I got the permit and found a driving instructor. I also practiced with my husband. Finally I reached a point that I thought, now I can drive. I was more confident in the road. I could even drive in the highway. So I scheduled for a behind the wheel test. I had my exam yesterday and I failed really bad.

I was really sad that I failed but I somehow expected it, since most of my friends, even experienced drivers had failed the California test at least once. But the examiner was the meanest person I have ever met in the US.

One thing that I loved about this country from the moment I entered was that everyone is very respectful and friendly and helpful at least on the surface. For example when I entered the US, since my passport is from one of THOSE countries I had to do a special registration. When he saw my passport, the nice old man at the passport check told me with a smile :”let’s go to the other room”. He closed his gate and accompanied me there as if he was the one helping me find something. Or anytime I call a customer service and they do nothing to help, they keep saying how they’re so sorry for the inconvenience and how they wish they could help. I know some people find this fake friendliness annoying. But I’ve always appreciated it.

But this lady who was giving me the exam was so mean and hurtful from the beginning, I was temped to just pull over and tell her I know I failed but do you have a problem with me? And what bothered me more was that I wasn’t a bragging, self confident 16 year old. I was nervous as hell!

It’s over now and I’m going to practice more and take the exam as many times as I need to. And I’m planning to write my complaint in the DMV survey forms

Toddler sleep

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My son will be two and a half years old in a couple of days, but he still can’t sleep on his own. We used to rock him until recently. But it’s a while that we’ve decided to help him learn to sleep on his own. So we lie down beside him till he goes to sleep. And then we put him in his crib and he usually sleeps the whole night. I’m planning to eventually put him in his crib from the start and then after a while let him sleep on his own without one of us there.

But for now, this ruins the whole night for whoever is responsible that night. Because usually we fall asleep too. And even if we wake up the couple of hours left of the night are not very productive after waking from a deep sleep. I’m tempted to change his crib to a toddler bed and start the whole you-are-a-big-boy-now-and-you-should-sleep-on-your-own process

Office clean-up

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This weekend besides a lot of lunch and dinners with friends I managed to clean our home office.

It went from this

to this.

And this

to this.

It actually took a long time, since most of the stuff was papers that needed to be organized. But this was just cleaning up and I need to buy some stuff to decorate the room and make it more functional.

I wish I could make the furniture white. This cherry wood to me seems very manly! But my husband will use the room too and he likes the color, obviously!

Counter tray

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I’m not a particularly organized person. So I have to force myself into organizing. One method that usually works for me is to have containers. The more pretty they look the more I’m likely to use them.

These days the stuff on the kitchen counters get on my nerve. So when I saw this picture on Pinterest I knew I had to do something like this.

But so far I haven’t found a basket like this. This one seems to be very big (there’s a cookie sheet inside). What I wanted was something half this size. But shallow baskets are not easy to find.

I have found a blue salt cellar in Anthropologie and a small oil drizzler in Crate & Barrel outlet, which I hope to get this weekend.

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Tomorrow is Valentine’s day and I’ve already got two gifts. My husband got me a Macbook Pro a while ago and today he gave me a very sweet card and a mini chocolate.

What did I give him? Nothing. Not even a card. I’m not feeling particularly romantic. It’s not about him, it’s about me. I don’t feel that good about myself these days and so it’s hard to think of romance and pretty things to buy.

Gardening

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These past couple of months I had ignored our little garden.Some of the flowers especially my Bougainvillea is dry, everywhere is covered in grass and I forgot to prune the roses. What amazes me is if there was enough water that the grass could grow, why are the rest of the plants dry?

Also there is this plant taking over the entire garden. I’m not what it is.

Last week my friend took me to a nursery and I bought some plants and this motivated me to pay attention to the garden again!

I’ve started from a corner and took all the grass out and planted the lettuce, arugula, mint and oregano plants that I had bought.

I also replaced one of the lavender pots with a french lavender.

I’ve bought two roses, one Shockwave rose and one Distant Drum rose. They’r still in the pot and I have to first decide where to put them. This seems to be the hardest since I need to take the existing rose out and then dig a huge hole, so I can plant the roses. And generally roses make me nervous.

I also bought a Dahlia bulb that also needs to be planted.