Tuesday, February 28, 2012



I spotted a little unicorn on someone's fence while walking on Balboa island this weekend. I wish there are more fairy tales in real life, such as a real doggy heaven for Bobby maybe?

Sunday, February 26, 2012


Jean Dujardin winning the Oscar tonight was a moment to remember!

My husband's work place had a retreat this weekend, I dropped my doggies at my parents house and stayed at a nice hotel with my husband. We were wined and dined for a couple of days. It was so nice to not having to pick up the dishes after a meal or make the beds ourselves in the morning, but after a couple of days I missed home and a good plain healthy home cooked meal!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

71130d225cd011e19896123138142014_7

Alfie loves to watch birds from our bedroom window.

IMG_9075

Here's our master of the house. His servant, aka, me, has purchased prime ground beef for the night, ready to be cooked and served, followed by another daily walk:)

Monday, February 20, 2012

IMG_9055IMG_9067IMG_9065

I haven't posted anything of Kelly as of late, but she's doing fine! The last picture was her sucking up to her favorite neighbor. It's really funny that Kelly has a set schedule of her own, and she is never hesitant to remind me that it's her walk time, treat time, dinner time, her barking at the neighborhood dogs at 5pm time, and her bed time.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

IMG_9018

My husband and I got up very early in the morning and made a day trip to Big Bear. We drove through the foggy mountain roads, ate hearty breakfast and did some sight seeing. It was a really fun day trip and I felt refreshed!

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

IMG_8919

Remember the saying that life happens when you least expect it? Well, I now understand what it means. It all happened when we discovered a little hairy bat resting leisurely on top of our build in closet door in the bedroom one night. After googling on what to do, we decided that instead of picking it up and taking it outside with a oven mitt, we should call the police department and have animal control to take it away. The operator at the police department didn't quite understand what we meant by a bat, until my husband said, "yes, a bat... the animal." After waiting til well past 12 am, a animal control officer showed up, captured the bat, took notes, and left. We thought it was the end of story, until a couple of days later we got a call from the county public health department saying that the bat was tested positive with rabies. It left us scrambling to find and see if we had any bite marks on our bodies or if our dogs had their vaccinations up to date. Luckily, after calculating the time of Kelly and Alfie's shots, I realized that they were still covered by rabie vaccine.

We were however, recommended to take the post exposure treatment, which shockingly upon discovery, after insurance coverage, still runs up a bill in deductible around the five figures ball park. I almost passed out hearing the astronomical cost of treatment that we needed. The dilemma was, should we spend $10,000 on post exposure treatment? Or should we risk it and see if we die of rabies in a year or two? With the way our insurance is set up, even though we are partially covered with insurance, the treatment was still expensive enough that we'd have to make tough decisions on whether or not to spend that much money. This is when I wished that we bought the full coverage health insurance that would have a much higher monthly payment.

In the meanwhile, it was impossible to get a hold of anyone in the insurance company that actually spoke English. After being transfered a dozen times between departments we still couldn't find answers to the questions that we needed to ask, nor could we talk to anyone that understood our questions or spoke English. The internet was filled with misinformation, so we had to read the insurance policy booklet and figure out what the solution would be on our own. After several days of frustration, we finally decided that it was too much constantly worrying about whether we were going to die or not, that we would be better off taking the treatment and be done with it.

The procedure goes like this. We need to first find a hospital that had enough amount of treatment available, then we need to set up a appointment, to go the emergency room, and receive several shots over the period of two weeks. It was suppose to take place today, and after we got everything set up, we received a call from the county again to ask that we hold off the treatment so that they could redo the rabies test again because there were "some doubts" about the result. After hours of waiting, finally we got a call back saying that the first test was a error and done by a inexperienced technician, the proper result showed that the bat was not infected by rabies.

I had the sensation of having the flesh scrapped off of my bones when there was nothing left and then suddenly woke up and realized that it was just a bad dream. Having gone through this ordeal I'm not sure if we are considered lucky or unlucky. It made me think of people that actually do have serious illnesses and had to go through the frustration of constantly dealing with insurance companies and having to make important decisions on matters of life or death purely based on financial considerations, whereas other people have the best coverage under the sun and could take whatever treatment is necessary, not mentioning that a simple error by a lab technician could cost us tens of thousands of dollars.

So, having said all that, what are some of your experiences with insurance companies, or for that matter, wild animals?
IMG_8805
Another fairy garden, using a single bloom serissa tree.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012





These leather accessories are hard to resist.

Pictures are products of a.b.k. custom leather craft.
IMG_8810IMG_8846

For Valentine's day this year my husband surprised me with a ride on the Duffy! He kept the plan secret all the way til we walked up to the boat.  We finally opened the champagne that my parents-in-law give us after we got married! We had so much fun listening to music, eating strawberry and drinking champagne. Even though it was windy outside, the windows on the boat kept us perfectly warm and cozy, while still gave in some ocean breeze.

We wild guessed the cost of having a ocean front home and joked that one day we will become gazillionaires too. Whatever it is that we will go through in life, I'm just feel so fortunate that we have each other.  It was our first Valentine's Day celebration together as a married couple, and I couldn't be happier!

9370329456ab11e1abb01231381b65e3_7bc750b0656ab11e180c9123138016265_7ac20137856aa11e1a87612313804ec91_73984f77656ae11e1a87612313804ec91_726e23fbe56b511e19896123138142014_73b3a46b056aa11e1a87612313804ec91_7
ac20137856aa11e1a87612313804ec91_7

Thursday, February 9, 2012

IMG_8764

I'm so excited that my Serissa has bloomed. For a little tiny plant it's doing pretty well! I'm pretty obsessed with miniature flower trees. They work so well in fairy gardens. Can't wait for them to become mature trees!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

IMG_8743

Aside from a pair of shoes I got as a Christmas gift, I haven't purchased a single article of clothing for over five months. I somehow lost interest in clothes when I picked up fairy gardening, and it was a exchange that served me better. When I'm gardening all I need is some used clothes that don't mind getting dirty and a good pair of rain boots. It also prompted me to finally get rid of another 16 handbags, 20 or so pairs of shoes and bags of clothes that I no longer wear. It felt really nice to shed things that weighed me down, and gave me a feeling that I was moving on with life. Now that I have a clean slate, maybe it's about time to build a newer and better wardrobe? I think so! It starts with this cute vintage bag. I looked for it for a long time but never could find in the exact style and color until a few days ago. It's perfect in every way, even better because it only costed $25 and I know I will wear it til it falls apart!
IMG_8728IMG_8730

The first flowers of my new Cherry Blossom tree. This variety is called Pink Cloud. I guess the real test would be seeing if it makes through the hot summer in Southern California weather!

IMG_8731

Single bloom Serissa. The tiny little flower makes my heart skip a beat... it's how much I like them! I also have a purple one but too small, only three inches tall and no flowers yet. It takes years before they grow into anything, but I'm hopeful!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

IMG_8701

It's only noon but my morning was crazy enough. Besides spilling half a can of paint in my backyard, I also almost ran over a wild running rabbit on my way to the nursery, had to swerve over to avoid it. The frightened little bunny then decided to do the only thing it knew: to freeze in the middle of the street! I thought I had hit it so I got out of my car to see if it was alright, luckily I didn't and it ran off the traffic into a nearby shopping plaza. Hopefully it will go into a residential area where there's no heavy traffic!

Here's some furniture updates while I get my nerve back in order! New to me but very very old furniture. A table and four chairs for $100 bucks. All the paint on the chairs are flaking off, I already painted one chair in pink, it's waiting to be distressed BUT, why does everything I paint look so tacky? I think I kind of like the chairs as is, any thoughts?

New Year Preparation

I always like to do a bit of preparation at the end of each year to welcome the new year, although this year things were very challenging, I...