Friday, February 19, 2016

Weekend Getaway





I'm taking a little me time this weekend so I'll see you next week! :)

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

San Diego

I'm still working backwards in time blogging and it seems that I'll never catch up!

We had a stressful summer dealing with my mom and her health so I couldn't plan any outings with the kids. In mid-August, a few days opened up and we took a quick jaunt to San Diego with Laura & her son Glenn. 

I only lived in San Diego for 9 months way back in 1990 and I never explored Mission Bay. I knew that Sea World was there and that was about it. Turns out that I loved it! I think the kids enjoyed it too. The bay offers all sorts of water activities super close and convenient. The beach and little restaurants are in walking distance too. 

Our first day we went to Sea World. It was nice day and we ended it with our complimentary cruise on the Bahia paddleboat.


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I know there is a lot of controversy over the Shamu show which has changed drastically since when I was a kid but I was happy to catch their show as they will be phasing it out soon.


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Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Walking around Kyoto

I'm winding up our Japan trip from April 2015. One afternoon, Hector and I decide to walk around Kyoto near our apartment. On the map,we saw that the Imperial Palace grounds was not too far so off we set to explore. 

Note: Viewing the map, as always, seems straight forward but getting there is usually involves consulting the map frequently and asking for help. Luckily, the grounds has many entrances and boy is this place huge!! One would never know since their are lots of grass, tree area then the walkways are gravel which makes walking interesting. Even though it had rained recently, we saw lots of people gathered on blankets for a picnic. Even on a picnic, the Japanese people take their shoes off and neatly line them around the blanket.

Again, the grounds are huge!! It seemed like we just kept walking and walking. And suddenly we came across the area where the cherry trees were blossoming. 

I believe the palace was closed and we just spent our time walking and observing which is really a pretty great way to experience Japan.

And now for lots of pictures...






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Friday, February 05, 2016

A year late...

I'm pretty sure that I did not share this last year. My photos were in my catalog and not edited at all so here goes. 

Probably about every other year, my friends and I go to Tip-A-King which benefits the LA Kings Care foundation. This time Julie and I decide to go. I believe that there was an early afternoon game and the Tip-A-King event was scheduled for later. Julie and I had some food and spent a long time in line just to get into the event. From there, you have to decide what players you want to tip ($5-10 range) and you can get their autograph/picture and/or play a game with them.

It's really fun because the players are always super nice and friendly. Since this was from more than a year ago, I don't remember all the details. I managed to get signatures on my Kings flag and a couple of photos. Depending on the player, it was either/or an autograph/photo. The superstar players had some really really long lines and time was limited so I had to decide who I wanted. I did want Alec Martinez but his line was ridiculously long. Julie and I  had to split up to get the players we wanted and then had to hurry to get Kings Mystery bag before they ran out of those.

I scored and got a mini Stanley Cup banner that was signed by all the players!! I was so happy. I'm at mid-project getting that banner framed. :)


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I'm passing up this years Tip-A King but it is a super fun event. 

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Household tip

I'm definitely not Susie Homemaker but I try my best. Sometimes its difficult to manage a household while providing care to my mom too but I guess H & I have a strong sense of love/family/duty.

We manage together which is great to have a partner that will go with the flow and share everything. Anyway, I discovered a cleaning tip which is not new or groundbreaking probably to anyone but me but I thought I would share it anyway. :) 

I have an Instant Pot  which is an electric pressure cooker plus rice/slow/porridge cooker too but I mostly use it for pressure cooking. It has a stainless steel insert and over time it has developed some staining. I didn't want to use a harsh scrubber on it and somehow I came across a little video demonstrating how to remove stains on my Instant Pot.

It's simple. Distilled vinegar and baking soda and a little brush (like an old toothbrush). No measuring since you only need enough to get the reaction of the two ingredients foaming up. Like those school projects and making our own volcano.

Well, I tried it on my Instant Pot and boy, it works and makes it shine like new. Awesome! This morning, as I was heating up my water for my coffee I see all the coffee stains in my little Chemex carafe which is glass. I pour a little white vinegar in there and accidentally dumped a lot of baking soda in it. Whoosh! A nice eruption of foam, well, not an eruption but a definite reaction of foam. But my Chemex is beautiful again. 

So that's my little tip for the day.


Wednesday, February 03, 2016

Phil and Shadow

We've had our cats for over a year now since we adopted them from Kitty Bungalow. The cats have adjust really well and I can see all the signs that they are totally happy and trusting in their environment. 

Originally, we thought Shadow would be the skittish/standoffish one but Phil has that slight edge in wackiness. Phil freaked out one day for no apparent reason (to me) and he took almost a week to finally calm down in the freakout area. It was fascinating to observe but also felt awful since we didn't know how to deal with it because we had no idea what freaked Phil out.

Otherwise, Phil is my baby. He is laid back most of the time (with me) and let's me do all sorts of things to him...because he loves me.





A photo posted by Debbie T (@moodybq) on

For some reason, people can't figure how I got Phil's ears to do this. It's temporary plastic surgery where I place my fingers behind his head and pinch slightly to bring his ears together. Duh!




Another picture using the same technique.
Phil is so chill he allows a certain amount of dress-up time...




A photo posted by Debbie T (@moodybq) on

A photo posted by Debbie T (@moodybq) on



A photo posted by Debbie T (@moodybq) on

A photo posted by Debbie T (@moodybq) on

Shadow is so much harder to photograph since he is a mini black panther. Toss in our black furniture and he becomes ninja cat. Literally. There are numerous times that we walk into the family room, do whatever we're doing and then spot him sleeping on top of the sofa. I think he's learned not to sleep in my sitting spot so he won't get squashed. 

Lately Shadow has picked a more visible spot to sleep...in the middle of our stairs which are light gray. Now we just have to be careful to not step on him.

Oh that reminds me of an incident where Phil did not move when I closed the door. He managed to get his tail caught and I took a strip of fur off his tail. I felt so bad for Phil. Luckily for me, Phil did not blame me for this accident and still loves me just the same.




Poor Phil got his tail caught in the door

Those are the latest photos of our cats. 

Monday, February 01, 2016

Stuff I may try



I really want to try the T-shirt box and the treats in the water bottle. We have plenty of old T-shirts so I need to find a good sized box. It'll be interesting to see if our cats will go inside it since they're sort of weird and don't like boxes in general.

I have an empty water bottle on standby drying out so maybe later this week, I will post my results.