dumpity dump dump

it's time for a random photo dump!  i take pictures all the time of stuff we do and then find that a lot of them don't really deserve a whole post...so here you go.  heh.

for one of their friends' birthdays, the bean got a bug up their butt to craft a handmade gift.  i don't really know what the significance of the wombat is, but that's what they created - she has a scoop of ice cream on top of her head and she's sitting in a skillet with a deep dish chocolate chip cookie.  i'm sure it's filled with all kinds of inside jokes, but i was just marveling over the bean's creativity because this was created with no pattern, not following a youtube video or online tutorial or anything like that.  the bean just knew what they wanted it to look like and it turned out exactly as they'd envisioned:

one weekend while the hub was off doing stuff with his friends, the bean and i headed down to little tokyo for some shopping and a fun lunch at our favorite udon spot.  they love a little shop out there called mokuyobi, which is a super cute shop filled with clothes and accessories in really bright colors and all made locally.  

we spotted this ad for a sample sale the following weekend:

and then we stopped here for a quick treat before heading back home.

the sample sale was in south pasadena, which was a slightly easier drive than little tokyo.  we got there about a half hour after they opened, and the line to check out went all the way back to the front door.  i walked around the shop a bit with the bean and then left them to keep browsing while i got in that long line.

another day, we headed out and met up with the old lady at disneyland for a few hours of fun.

somewhere in between the bazillion rainstorms we've had here in soCA over the last few months, we also got some snow, which was really cool:

we tried to put beanies on teddy and cocoa, but they would have none of it.

i crocheted some fun little surprises for my friend weezermonkey's kids:

and also worked on my submission for the home arts competition for this year's l.a. county fair.  it turns out that the rules for the culinary competition state that those who sell their work aren't eligible to compete (oops), so i decided to try something different this time around.  i scrambled to finish my two pieces by the turn-in date, and then headed out to the fairgrounds to drop my entries off for judging.  there were a lot of other folks there with handmade quilts and dolls and things in hand, and i was flattered when a good handful of them stopped to compliment me on my projects.  the fair opens in may, and i'm excited to see if their sentiments are echoed by the judges.

i follow a bunch of people on instagram who post their process for recreating drinks from starbucks and dutch bros., which probably sounds super dorky (but i don't care).  this, of course, led to me deciding that i wanted to save up for an upgrade to my entry-level espresso machine.  i did a little internet research to narrow down my options and see what i could get with the budget i'd set for myself and settled on a nice mid-level breville machine.  

the coffee gods must've been watching, because as soon as i'd made that decision i got an email from williams-sonoma announcing a 20% off sale on - you guessed it - their selection of breville espresso machines.  SCHWING!  this then presented me with quite the dilemma...go with the machine i'd settled on and save a few bucks, or use up the original amount i'd budgeted and upgrade to the next step up?

bitch, please.  as if that were a real question.  and then i did a little googling and found that amazon had also decided to put all of their breville machines on sale.  and so the next day, i welcomed this new addition to the household:

much to my family's amusement (and slight horror), i moved stuff around and now i have my very own coffee bar:

they may make fun of me for it, but don't think they haven't all enjoyed some delicious caffeinated beverages as a result.  hmph.

there's another new toy in my kitchen too, and i think it's getting almost as much use as the coffee bar - an air fryer!

so i've actually had an airfryer for a few years now, but the damn thing is so big and sucked up so much power that every time i fired it up it would trip a circuit.  like, every single time.  it was so annoying and so i never used it.  it just took up space in one of my cupboards, and after looking at it again one day i finally decided that i wanted to get rid of it and buy a smaller, more usable version.  i listed in my local mom's yard sale facebook page and sold it within ten minutes.  woohoo!  and now i'm having fun trying out all kinds of fun recipes and cooking everything i can in that thing.  it's amazing and i can't believe i waited so long.

oh, and for st. patrick's day i totally pigged out on green krispy kreme donuts and a shamrock shake from mcdonald's.  YOLO.