A beautiful day - a day trip to San Francisco

Here is a OOTD (more or less a repeat) and it is taken at the San Francisco beach front in the outer Richmont area.

(Top: Anthropologie Visiting Professor Jacket. Bottom: Gap Skinny Jeans Boots: UGG Australia Boots

Sunglasses: Gucci Bag: Orla Kiely Multi Directional Stem Midi Sling - Multi)

It is not often San Francisco is sunny, even for summer, it is always foggy. So for our raining winter to have a sunny bright day is a rarity, a gift from heaven for the holiday. We hardly had a plan to begin with as the day starts.  I had read some review on yelp about twin peak at one point and I thought, that would be good to go take a look to take advantage of the rare sunny weather.  The building and house look like match box model from atop and the panoramic view is quite impressive.

I have also discover that my daughter is very much afraid of height, worse than me. She would not go anywhere near the fence.  Her legs were melting from the fear that she could hardly stand up. We had to carry her in order for her to take a family picture with us :-)

After that, we headed to Cliff house by the beach.  Since there is no parking, we end up parked at the trail head of Land's End.  The outline of the costal redwood against the afternoon sun are beautiful.

You also get to see the iconic Golden gate bridge on this trail from distance.

We headed back towards cliff house through the trail for Sutro Bath

Is Sutro Bath really someone's bath in the past? You can read about its history.

The kids get a break from the scenery at the nearby Lincoln park children's playground, 

We return to Land's End just on time for the sunset. I kept clicking the pictures.  Honestly I can't tell the difference from all the sunset pictures I took.  I just couldn't help it, neither could the rest of people who are watching the sunset.

The fog rose up as the sun progress down.

We finish the day at the PPQ Dungeness Crab Island.  This restaurant gets 1000+ review at yelp with 4 star rating.  Food is amazing and service is awful.  Not sure why my next table came later got their dish (same dish we ordered) and we didn't.  Crab is overpriced at $38/per crab when the local Chinese supermarket sells the live one for $2.99 lb. Will I go back?  Oh, yes....

Happy Holidays!

Hope you all have a good Christmas!

We spent Christmas eve at Arya restaurant. It is a Mediterranean and Italian restaurant. I'm surprised the restaurant opens on Christmas Eve. Everything we ordered are delicious.   After that, we took a stroll at Christmas in the park  downtown San Jose.  We wanted to go for sometime, but the weather hasn't been good.  But Christmas evening is perfect.  It was a mild evening.  The kids enjoyed looking at different Christmas displays and the rides.

After both kids crash in their bed, I spend the rest of the evening wrapping Santa's present for the kids.

My daughter was the first one up on Christmas.  She was overly exited to see if the old man from the North Pole made it through our chimney the night before.  She clamed that she didn't hear the jingles last night and was disappointed not seeing the present.   "Really? Let's see.  If you don't get it, that means you are on the naughty list."  I then offer to look for her Santa present with her under the tree and was really "surprised" to see two new boxes that sign with Santa.

My daughter's face lit up but still a bit suspicious, " How come Santa use the same wrapping paper as ours?"

"Santa must know we had this wrapping paper before and think we like this." My daughter always has great eyes for details.  She asked the question about wrapping paper last year, that is why this year  I deliberately used last year's left over wrapping paper for those presents so she wouldn't question me and yet she remember the old wrapping paper after not seeing it for the whole year.  Luckily my reasoning convinced her. After all, Santa is very magical.

So what did Santa get her? A book of course, just as she wished for in her letter.

And for my son,  let's just say the stuff rocket handwriting looks like a stump rocket and Santa misread it.

And something for me as well :-)

 Well, to be honest I did not wear this ensemble for the entire day.  I wore it probably for 2 hours. After the kids finish tearing up all the gifts from various teachers, friends and family and we trying to take pictures of the whole family without at least one of kid making some strange face or look away, it is well pass noon.  All the remaining restaurant that are open on Christmas day are full when we call.  They won't even give an estimate when it will have empty seat.  So I put on my oversize sweat shirt from college days and made grill green beans with garlic and stir fried beef with onions in a record 45 minutes.  (B.T.W, highly recommending Wusthof Classic Ikon Santoku Knife, 5" for slicing the beef thin. )  I get to take the nap with my daughter in the afternoon.  The whole family watched How to Train your dragon together.  As usual, my son fall sleep and my daughter is full of question after the movie.  What a day!

Happy Holidays!

In Search for the perfect red sweater.

There is a tag sale at Anthropologie.  Did you score anything?  I didn't because I was too late.  All the goodies are gone.  I was interested in the Glowing Leaf Skirt and the Cabled Pathways Pullover, but was not fast enough to grab one.

On the other hand, there is this little top called thick and thin Henley.  It is $39.99 + 25% off.  It doesn't look like much and it is probably pricy for a jersey top, but the fit is very flattering.  It make you look like 10 lb less and machine washable.  So if you like the easy breezy casual tops that is not fuzzy and still looks good.  This is a good one.  I highly recommend it.

In line with the whole Christmas spirit, I was looking for a perfect red sweater.  I mean red red, not orange red, or purplish red.  It turn out that it is harder than I thought. I originally lock my eye on the JCREW cashmere femme sweater in the color of Cerise. According to Wikipedia,Cerise (pronounced /səˈriːs/ or /səˈriːz/; French pronunciation: [səˈʁiz]) is a deep to vivid pinkish red.  However the item came in with an orange tone and is as radiant as the sun...

I then went with the rusted barn Merino ruffled strata cardigan.  The fit of this cardigan was too long too be flattering for me.

One day when I was randomly browsing things on Ebay, the Casch visiting professor cardigan from Anthro's years ago caught my eyes.  It is  listed as new with tags.  It still expensive, but reasonable for a Casch sweater, especially it is new.   Recall the Best of Bunch Cardi?  It is still at a stiffed price of $228 after all these months despite of all the negative reviews with fitting issue.  The green version of this sweater on Ebay bid over $200 last month. Crazy isn't it?  But I think it also shows how the sweater is holding its value.   This time there is a buy it now option with a less than $200 price tag, I decide it to splurge on it with my year end bonus I recently received.  It turns out to be a deeper color and slightly have a pinkish tone to it.  A Cerise may I say? 

Boy this sweater is warm.   I was sweating in it with the 57 degree temperature. I need to learn how to button that highest button like the one in the picture...

OOTD: Season of wrapping

Do you feel the Christmas Spirit yet?  My daughter has been counting down towards Christmas every night now.  She is the Christmas spirit of our family because she is the one most anticipating the holidays.  She had pushed us to put the lights up outside our house and  buy the the Christmas tree.  Without her, we would probably procrastinate till the very end and not do either:-)  This year she wrote her first letter to Santa, at 4.5 year old.

Luckily the wish is simple to fulfill.

I had spend the last few nights wrapping presents and printing out pictures for the Christmas card.  There should be a rule that all toys should arrive in the perfect rectangular package, no curves, no missing package sides to save packaging material because it just made it that much harder to wrap! By the time I am done with the 4th princess doll, I am pretty sick of wrapping gifts already.

So here is some wrap that I am not sick of.  It is the JCREW Dulphine open cardigan.  My mom said I tend to like all the open cardigans and maybe that is true.  I liked the light weight of it.  I liked the pocket.  I liked the ribbed around rib cage.  I also like the softness of its peach pink color.  I felt the color was different enough than the black so I got another color.

Top: Anthropologie Floreat Ice Capped Blouse

Bottom: JCREW Taffeta skirt

Cardigan: JCREW Dulphine open cardigan (Buy it here)

Boots: UGG Australia

Recreating Fisherman's Companion Sweatercoat

I really like Anthropologie's Fishman's companion Sweatercoat when it came out.

It is always tempting just to buy, but then I thought, hey, I can recreate this with the things I have.

So here is the result.  It was a old banana republic sweater and a JCREW open cardigan that I gift to my mother a few years back during Christmas . She return it back to me after one wear because the openess of this cardigan is IMPRACTICAL for the harsh Chicago winter.  It was slightly bigger for my usual size, so I haven't been wearing it since she gave the sweater back to me.  Now it is just perfect because  I can wear it comfortably over the other sweater. One extra bonus of this?  It is so warm no coats are needed any more.

So what do you think? Does it look like the real thing? Well, I had fun :-)

Here is the complete outfit spec:

Dress: Southward Stop shirtdress
Sweaters: old BR and old JCREW Open Cardigan
Legging: Madewell Denim legging
Boots: UGG Australia Boots.
Belt: Anthropologie Triple Buckle Belt

New camera and OOTD

I had been using my Canon Digital Elph for some years.  I like the fact that it is so small and light so I can carry it in the pocket with me.  I do however get annoyed at the long shutter delay at the low light conditions.  It would mean I miss the most exiting part of my children's action.  I also want a camera that has a wide angle as I take more group pictures than long shots.  I also know that I won't be changing lens since our family already have a Digital SLR and I really don't want to carry anything overly bulky or heavy.  The show down happens between Panasonic Lumix L5 and Cannon Powershot S95,  I had decided to pull the trigger on the Panasonic Lumix L5.    You can find a pretty good comparison between the two on  dpireview website.

I bought the camera from Amazon for $389.00.  It is probably not the best deal but then with deal, it is hard to know when the bottom is.  The camera arrived within two days.  I couldn't wait till Christmas to open it because there were Christmas performance to attend.  It did a pretty good job with the group picture.  I didn't cut anyone off from my daughter's classroom. I also don't have to back away when my daughter came in to close range to show me the card she made.

The camera came with a lot of bell and whistles and I have been playing with them without knowing what I was doing...  Some came out a bit weird like these OOTD photos. No, I did not photoshop them.  I think I had tune the white balancing parameter to some weird mode.  I kind of like this washout effect though. 

Dress: JCREW Plaid Shirt dress (Similar here)

Bottom Madewell Denim Legging. (Buy it here)

Sweater: JCREW Dulphine open cardigan (Buy it here)
Coat: Anthropologie Rutledge Sweatercoat
Belt: Gap
Boots: UGG australia.

The complete wrong OOTD

Today at lunch, I sneaked out to take my husband shopping for a Christmas gift. For him, of course. Let me tell you, it is so difficult to think of a gift for guys, especially this one.  Either he doesn't want anything, or if he wants something, he would get it himself. There goes my great idea of Playstation "Move".  Then I suggested a wireless gamer headphone so he won't annoy me with the "Snake, you can't die!" scream from the game character every 5 mintues.  He refused.   "Why would I want to give up the surround sound for a uncomfortable restraining headphone?" He ask.  "Maybe you want to keep your dear wife sane?" I guess that thought never occurs to him.

Then I thought of a pair of running shoes might be nice since he started to run more.  All he has was a pair from Costco year ago.  If you are brought up in China before the 80s, people would laugh at you for paying $100+ for a pair of shoes.  There is a fundamental difference between the east and west for paying for expensive gears.  I think the Chinese believe, if you are that good, the gear doesn't matter. We all know that is not true in modern world after the new technology in swim suit beats Michel Phelps?

After consult with my co-worker, he suggested Running Revolution at Campbell.  While waiting for our pizza at the next door Pizza joint, we went in the store asking for a fitting.  Chris who is available at the time helped us.  He is knowledgeable and patient, really taking his time to help us.  They had a computer imaging system too to help mapping out the pressure on your foot so it can assist the decision making.  I was so please with him so I ask him if he would do a fitting for me to to figure out why I always felt the pain on ball of one foot while the other shin hurts.  Well turns out that I walk funny.... I roll my foot inward slightly and put more weight on the other foot. Since I said I mainly walk on a treadmill, he had me try the shoes he suggested using a treadmill instead of running outside at the sidewalk like my husband did.

Now comes back to the title why my outfit was entirely wrong for this shopping visit.  Here is what I wore to the store to try on running shoes on a treadmill... I was a bit tire of the black and grey I had been wearing last few days so I couldn't wait to wear this new sweater I got from JCREW last night. If I had know ahead of time I'd probably dress more appropriately.  I supposed I could come back in another day, but I was too lazy to make a separate trip.

Top: Anthropologie Vanilla Bean Blouse
Skirt: Anthropologie Painted night skirt
Cardigan: JCREW casher femme cardigan in deep coral (love the color, buy it here)
Shoes: JCREW Lily peep toe pump.

Get Shorty? - OOTD

Have you notice that a lot of Anthropologie's sweaters got the complain of being too short lately?

Solstice Festival Cardigan

Tied Trail Cardi

And the one that is on Sale Right now

I have a sweater from last year and had the similar problem with the length.  I had a feeling those sweater are somehow meant to be wear with skirts rather than jeans. Anyway, that is how I end up dealing with it.

Look back at the picture, I realize my winter wardroom has not been as colorful as the other 3 seasons.  I did add the necklace to pop some color, but it still looks kind of gloomy.

What am I wearing:

Top: Gap stripe supersoft turtleneck, Anthro Sweater (2009 winter, similar here) 

Bottom: Anthro Acting out skirt. (similar it here)

 Boots: Matisse Women's 'Holmes' Booties (buy it here)

Necklace: JCREW Got it for under $25 (buy it here)
Hat: LOFT Beret (similar here)

Is the economy really in a dump?

If the answer is yes, why some of those expensive things flying off the shelf in no time?  Like this sweater coat from Anthropologie,  I have not even make up my mind about whether I like it or not, it is already sold out! Part of me really love the details of the embroidery.  on the other hand, it feels too over the top that it is almost custom like.

Rag& Bone 'Northfield' Poncho with Genuine Shearling Lined Hood is another example. I was lusting over it when it came down to half price at $400 at Nordstrom's recent designer sales.  But even then it is too much for an not so practical item. I ask hubby for second opinion, he said, you would look like Robin Hood in it.

With the holiday season coming up, I guess everyone felt like splurging a little bit.  At least for me I felt I want to splurge on something, not just looking for deals.  On the other hand, it is hard to not be sway by the deals. I am torn between a good deal, a very SPECIAL piece, and something that can be use everyday.  I guess when all that 3 requirements come together, the intersection became null.

Winter Bloom -OOTD

I haven't wear my bloom lattice cardigan lately.  It was a piece that I thought it would be versatile enough to pay full price for.  But I have always thought of this piece as a spring(left) / summer (right) cardigan because it is cotton.  In the summer, I wear it all the time.  It was the right warmth to throw on for the cool office temperature.

In the winter, I am more likely to grab for skinny jeans and boots and thick wool sweater in the morning, but readers from Anthroholic had chosen the week to be the blooming lattice as the outfit week. It got me re-thinking how this cardigan could also be styled for the winter. So here is what I came up with.

Top: J CREW gather neck tee
Cami: Gap Lace Cami
Skirt: Banana Republic (very very old)
Tight: JCREW wool tight (very very very old)
Shoes: Rensselaer T-Straps
Cardigan: Blooming Lattice Cardigan
Headband: JCREW zipper headband (It gets too loose after a day's wear, wouldn't recommend it)

Home Goods

Some the home item are having their best price this holiday season.

Newegg has OXO Good Grips 10-Piece POP Container Set for $58.95 when you enter code EMCZNYN79 at checkout. Shipping is free. I got a set a while back at amazon and they are wonderful to store the snacks! But this price is even better. When I told hubby that I saw this great deal, he nervously asked "You didn't get another set, did you?"

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Macy's has Wusthof Classic Ikon Santoku Knife, 5" for $45 if you enter code MACYSFRIEND.  $99 purchase will get you freeshiping.  I love a good knife especially when trying to cut the beef paper thin.  A good tool is always worthwhile.

Anthropologie Surprise Sale

Did anyone notice the clinton trench went on sale for $99??? Were there any left? Really love this trench.  That and the bag are the only two things from Anthro I packed to our recent Disney trip. Somehow most Anthro piece are too fuzzy to bring on a trip.  They don't interchange and layer as well as JCREW.   If you are able to get the clinton trench in your size for this sale price, you are the lucky one.

The Brassica Dress went for second cut of $29.99. It seem to have very good reviews so it might be worth trying it out.

Did you score anything today? I liked some of the layering piece, but they were instantly gone.  For now, I will stick with gap for my basic tee's.