Valentines day?

Why is it that Valentines Day either makes people happy or somewhat depressed? It's all that social pressure and commercials making you feal bad if you don't have a date on February the 14Th. GOSH! What a blubs! But, of course I fall for this huge corporate act. Now I feal bad I don't have a date for Valentine's. Mmm, FUN (not really)! It's probably better that way anyways, that way I can focus more on classes rather than trying to figure out what to get someone...

☺Double bento Saturday☺

Before we get into the awesome subject of cute bentos... Here's my cute cat, enjoying a toilet paper tube... She kept looking through it like "I see you!!!". She was so cute!



Here's my dad's bento... It's actually not so cute, but It's kind of hard making it somewhat masculine AND bigger portions too. Anyways I got my egg molds today and they say use "Large" eggs so I got the carton that said "Large" but they were more like "Small" so they didn't turn out AT ALL! But the awesome thing about egg molds is that they can also be used for Onigiri (it a little more difficult for those who haven't made onigiri before, make sure you spritz the mold with water first when making onigiri). I also got some rice shapers to make rice look like dice (as seen on top left). The green things on the bed of rice (in the middle picture) are some Jalapenos my dad stuffed with potatoes and cheese that night. The stuff below the egg is Shoe String Potatoes. Which are AMAZING!

The last, and the cutest bento. The rice ball (top right) is made of... rice, duh. And the white stuff in the top section of the right bento is water chestnuts and below that is apples. Simple but healthy.

All bentos I make are made the day before, so I actually made these today Friday, the 30Th.

HAPPY!!!

I feal soooo happy!!! I finally know how to play stuff on the guitar!!! I don't even have to read the TAB's anymore!!!! In just two days, I've learned beginner songs like 'Whinnie the Pooh' and 'Indiana Jones'!!! I'm still working on 'Whipeout' by The Beach Boys... It's pretty difficult, the tempo is CRAZY! I also won $10 from a scratch lottery game. Oh! And my manga books finally arrived too! Now I can lend them to my friend. Hopefully she's still into the Miki Falls series... I now own books 1-3 I still need to get the last one (book 4). It's been awesome actually owning manga instead of borrowing them from the library. I cleverly decided to start with the Miki Falls series because it was such a small series, so I don't have to spend a bunch (I'm working on just allowance so, I have to start small.).

And then there was...

THE DENTIST!!!

I have a sort of dentist/tooth phobia (as my brother well knows, making sure to use every last one of his loose teeth as a way to penetrate my un-penetrable field of toughness...) I FLIP OUT, when I hear to oh-so-frightening noises of teeth wiggling..*shivers* NOT COOL! So no one better get any ideas, kay? I had no cavities (once again, for the 9Th year in a row). I've only had one when I was little. You're probably wondering "Why is she so afraid of the dentist when she's only been under the drill once?"... Almost EVERY time I've been to the dentist is so they can remove a compacted tooth, 2 semi-molars and 2 eye teeth removed WITH Novocaine and 4 semi-molars WITHOUT NOVOCAINE!!! That was the worst pain I've ever felt in my life, so I went straight from the dentist to Disney land to hang out with friends. I still had goz in my mouth though (that's how fast I went from death to cake (Death or cake is a comedy act my friends and I use a lot, meaning that things went from Death to well... better than death)! So just make sure to ALWAYS get Novocaine...

Quick update: Guitar lessons

I've had an eventful day so far... I had a HUGE pile of dishes to do (left over from birthday festivities). And of course Japanese homework (only 3 pages this time though, yay!)... And I will soon be off to my first guitar lesson. I have some scheduling to figure out! Good thing I don't have to make dad a bento today. I wish the lessons weren't so expensive though... grr.

Saturday: Mom's bento

This is me in me official bento making gear (bandanna and apron, usually PJ's are included in my bento making ritual). ^-^

This is mom's Owl bento which consists of orange salad w/ sesame ginger dressing and Onigiri with edamame. The left onigiri kind of looks like an owl (I just started putting nori (seaweed) on it and it came out kind of looking like a sandal with eyes) and the ever-so-popular "XD".

In case anybody wanted to know how to wrap up a bento you place it in the middle of a bandanna and...

Tie a regular knot on top with two of the sides...

Tie another knot on top of that...

Put a chopstick case (don't forget to put the chopsticks in it!)...

And do another double knot on top of the case. TA DAH!!!

Birthday Bento for Gundangley Jim (Dad)!!!

This is dad's B-day bento!!!! It's not actually that beautiful but it tastes good (I hope). On the left is sprouts and pickles with teriyaki sauce. The right is a bento-stable apple pie (boiled apples, later simmered in honey (which I keep spelling Hunny, thanks to my younger years of watching Whinnie the Pooh) on top of toast. And in the middle is breaded fish with Edamame beans (soy beans). YUM!

Pan fried tofu

I just HAD to share my recipe for Pan Fried Tofu with Honey soy sauce! Okay I made this one night for my dad's bento and found out that it was really good and made some more for everyone in my house. Even my brother liked it (He WILL NOT eat tofu, he hates the stuff).

Pan Fried Tofu w/ Honey soy sauce:

• 1 container of extra firm tofu
• 1 cup Ralphs brand seasoned breadcrumbs (other kinds will work too, this is just the one I had on hand)
• 1 Large egg
• 2 Tbsp. Soy oil (or any type of veggie oil)
• 2 Tbsp. Honey
• 2 Tbsp. Low sodium soy sauce

1. Drain tofu of water and pat down with paper towel. Cut tofu into 16 1-inch strips.
2. Crack the egg and whisk with a fork place in bowl. Place bread crumbs on a plate.
3. Dredge the tofu through the egg, then dredge through bread crumbs.
4. Heat oil in small pan test temperature by dripping some water on the pan is some little bubbles come up then the temperature is correct.
5. Place about 5 tofu strips in pan and flip every 3 minutes, or until medium brown.
6. Mix honey and soy sauce in a small cup, microwave.
7. Take tofu off of the pan and blot with a paper towel. Drizzle Honey sauce on the tofu.
8. Om nom nom the tofu.
9. GO DO THE DISHES!

Birthday!!!!

I made a clever (If I do say so myself) gift tag for my dad's birthday present. Which I'm pretty sure I can put up on my blog because my dad isn't very... computer savvy. Anyways I got him a Ramones shirt from Hot Topic using my awesome gift card my auntie Gail gave me for Solstice. I think he'll like it.

Sunday Bento!!!

This is ANOTHER one of dad's bentos. On the left is fruit salad, the right is leek rings (fried leeks) and in the middle is fried tofu tonkatsu style f(a type of fried pork usually used in curry rice) with some Chile Reano on top (I didn't have time to make curry).

Saturday Bento!!!

This is dad's bento... notice there are no vegetables, dad forgot to take the vegetables the other day so... I just used those. Also, I made these bentos right after the New Years Party at sensee's house (which was pretty awesome!). So I was SO ready to go to bed after I was done making these bentos!!!


This is mom's bento which had a "hard" boiled egg? (I don't know what happened to it but it was more like soft boiled egg), carrots, collared greens, leek rings and rice with an umeboshi (pickled plum).

Friday Bento!!!

I recently signed up for making bentos for my mom and dad. I make mom bentos on Saturday and I make dad bentos Friday - Monday. So.. here's dad's Friday bento.


The left container is butternut squash cooked in sugar and soy sauce, the right compartment of collared greens is cooked the same way, just with sesame seeds on top.


Yum! Hot dog octopi! And collared green kelp and carrot sea stars.

Follow the popcorn brick road!

My brother decided to lay down a popcorn trail (kind of like the one in Hansel and Gretel). It was sooooo cute that the dog was following the trail. When she got to the end she was like "Where'd it go? Isn't there more?"

Ohaiyo!

I really want to start waking up at a good hour but, I usually can't because my stomach makes too much acid, blah :p. But, today I woke up at 8am which was rather odd because I went to bed at 12:30am, but hey that works for me! I guess I might need to take a nap somewhere because today is *drum roll* THE FIRST JAPANESE CLASS! But it's from 7:30-9:50pm and sensee always seems to drop a bunch of homework on us... I guess that's okay though, because I LIKE JAPANESE CLASS!!! WOOH!

My view is awesome right now, I have a big Japanese tree in front of my window. It's flowers bloom in summer (I think), they look like little red swords. It's a good tree to climb too. I'm pretty sure that's the only thing I'm going to miss when we move (YAY! moving!), we're going to try to move to the beach area... Maybe I'll still have an awesome tree to look at or, the beach. I hope our house has one of those window seats. I can already see Jade (my dog) and Maneki (my cat) sitting on it soaking up the sun. And I'll be reading some classic book that actually has a manga in it, hehe.

Well, I'm off to make some breakfast! Ja ne!

Strawberry Sigh

I decided to switch back over to my Lotus Wallpaper from my shortly used Strawberry Wallpaper because the formatting wouldn't let me use the Link List or a C Box. Even though I love strawberry a bunch (and think that they should be at least the size of an apple, another one of my favorite fruits) I don't really think it's worth loosing those applications though.

This is a picture of the biggest strawberry and the smallest apple that one of my Facebook groups could find. I would love chomping into an Strawpple (Strawberry + Apple = Strawpple)! The only problem Is that it would be more difficult to fit into a bento box... Oh well!

Good luck interview and BENTO~!!!

Mom had an interview today with her head boss man: Bruce 'Almighty', as I like to call him. Anyways the interview went pretty good and since it was from 8am to 4pm I made her a huge bento box!

I made a hard-boiled egg man, salad, tuna and carrot sushi and a little thing I like to call Umeboshi-sushi! It's pickled plum (ume boshi) as sushi instead of onigiri (Japanese rice balls)! That way I could make it over night and the rice wouldn't be all hard and gross. I did order some egg molds from J-list a while ago but they're coming from Japan so they'll take 3-4 weeks (it should arrive around 19Th, at the earliest). I can't wait! I also got some Japanese recipe books from Boarders a little while ago AND there are these really cute cookie cutters (for veggies) in Little Tokyo that I have my eye on, I think we might go next week. Maybe I could get grandma (Obaa-san) to go with us!

Here's your Japanese for today:

• Obaa-san, Grandma
• Ojii-san, Grandpa
• Okaa-san, Mom (in general)
• Haha, Mom (your own mom)
• Otoo-san, Dad (in general)
• Chichi, Dad (your own dad)

Future excitement

I finally got to sign up for JA2 sooo. Now I feal somewhat stressed about doing well in the class. Heh, I should probably study verbs and such (you have to change verbs around a bit before you can use them). So basically now I'm pumped for the new semester and can't wait till class starts.

I still think I might miss Gym a little bit but it's probably for the better anyways. Or maybe I'll keep going? I don't know! Now I'm second guessing myself!!!

Geeze how long is Konata going to keep typing (Konata is the blue haired girl on upper left corner)?!? So clever typing with her eyes closed hmm.. maybe I should try that too...Nope, didn't turn out that great.

Oh! I ran a WHOLE racing track (those ones at high schools and such that look like a big 0. Sure I kind of started walking half way through but... That's just because my throat got crazy dry! I would never be able to pass P.E. in a public school. I'm a crazy sprinter though! I guess a relay race would be good then. I would be as crazy fast as Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh. In the anime It looks like she's going 17 mph! But, then again she does have long legs... Yet I'll always be Chiyo the 10 year old girl that went to high school and graduated at 11. I guess that's probably a few years off though.

Cake or Death? Just kidding, we only have death.

I hate calling people on the phone! Grr just a minute ago I called my collage to have them send me around all the offices. And STILL not helping ONE BIT!!! It says that I can't sign up for any classes at all this semester and that I'll have to wait until the Summer semester. SO, since this is oh-so-obviously-wrong I called in and waited for approximately 29 minutes (out of a 31 minute phone call) just to have the machine hand up on me. NICE! I just can't wait untill ALL of my Japanese classes are over and I know the language like I grew up hearing it (well I guess I have heard the Japanese language since I was little-er). Tee hee sensee said that after 11 years old the ability to have the accent like a native is impossible, I'm pretty sure that I have a major advantage then over the rest of the class because I'm not much older than that right now.

Oh Bla De, Oh Bla Da

I have some life changing decisions to make soon! Aaahhh! I still have to see if the computer will let me register for JA2. I still need to find a way to play guitar SOMETIME in the day. AND I need to decide if I'm staying in Gymnastics! So far my plan is: I will drop Gym after February, I'll stay in my JA2 and I'll be able to play the guitar when Dad's schedule changes. I'll start Guitar Class too.

I just would really hate to miss out on the seasons like Spring and stuff. I still want to go have a nice bento box lunch in a meadow somewhere with some awesome tunes from my guitar. Mom wants me to wait until her interview is over and by that time there's only 6 days until the new semester starts! I don't even know if the Administration's office is open at that time. Grrrr. I wish all my classes were on one day and that my Japanese classes weren't 3 hours at a time (they're twice a week so hmm, a fun 6 hours of sitting in a freezing classroom)! I guess I'll figure it all out.

Spring time

First off, Happy New Year everyone! The next year in the zodiac is the Ox (my brother is an Ox). So happy Ox year too (The Chinese new year starts January, 26Th).

I know, I know it just became winter a little while ago but I already can't wait for spring! Spring is my favorite season, the weather is nice and a bunch of delicious fruits grow in spring (such as strawberry's, my favorite!). On a different note I'm using the laptop again but this time it's upstairs! O_O Woah! I see this coming in handy a lot during the spring semester!

Lately my spelling and grammar have been pretty bad. I hardly even write English outside of my blog and e-mails. Blah :p. I guess I should probably work on them more...

Did you know that it's good luck to eat Buckwheat (Soba) noodles on New Year's Eve? It's also very traditional to eat mochi on New Year's Day. So yesterday I made Soba and Miso soup and today we'll have green tea ice cream mochi (we couldn't find the regular kind... I don't think Trader Joe's caries the kind with red bean (Azuki bean) inside... Oh well, this kind is still made by pounding dough in a wooden mortar type of thing with large mallets! I would love to make mochi sometime. I think Little Tokyo in Los angles had a festival like that but, I'm pretty sure I missed it. Oh well, maybe I can go next year.

I was around a bunch of guitar playing yesterday and became somewhat inspired to play the guitar everyday. It's very difficult though because my dad sleeps in until very late in the day and by the time he leaves it's already dark so it's more difficult to see the guitar strings. But he is getting a new schedule soon that will let me play the guitar in the actually day! I can tell, this year is going to be awesome! We already have a bunch of stuff planned. Getting into JA2, moving into a nice house by the beach, making bento boxes for mom, getting guitar lessons... The list goes on.

It's weird, every time I select a thumbnail size for the little picture when I'm posting a update it comes out it's regular size... I should probably mess with the HTML a little next time...