Sup

Here are some pics from a drive down to Cambria. Highlights :

my canteen nails :  

Grow nursery - this place is next level succulent lover's paradise. Every succulent was unusual and something you would probably not see at a box brand nursery. 

Our campsite was right next to the beach!

 Elephant seals hang out about 10 miles north of cambria. When we went it was baby season! SOOOOO cute

I have also been doing some kind of random projects around my apartment this month - stay posted for my next post on cleaning grout, re-doing the caulk in my bathroom, and hanging a bike rack. 

The Bone Wedding

A few weeks ago Loren, Brian and I flew to LA to video/record, and bridesmaid(respectively) Anne Marie and Tristan's wedding. 

Anne Marie and I met in 2008 on the floor of the math building at UCLA. We had both accidentally signed up for the worst honors linear algebra class in the department and were trying to get this guy Andrew to help us with the homework 10 minutes before it was due. 

I didn't really want to like her at first because she had perfect hair and was suspiciously nicer than any math major I had ever met. But I soon realized she was both genuinely friendly and way smarter than I would ever be. Her family is also nice and smart and so is her now-husband Tristan. She basically told/hinted/implied they were going to get married from the first time she mentioned him to me. I was eating a piece of homemade berry cake her mom had sent her home with and she pulled out her high school graduation dress, declaring that it was what she would get married in. She eventually changed her mind about the dress but not Tristan ;)

The Crew : 

Sneak Peek I made (the real video is coming. Brian and Loren shot something like 7 hours of video between them and it is taking a while to go through) :



bone wedding - sneek peek from emily rowe on Vimeo.

Kentucky

Last weekend I went to Kentucky with Sergio for Alex's wedding. It was partially 'when else will we ever get to go to Louisville' and partially 'we ate lunch with this guy every day for 2 years and he never told us he was dating this girl and now they are getting married we have to go' and (mostly me) 'partially 'i miss eating lunch with sergio and alex everyday...let's cling to that memory as hard as possible even though we've all totally grown out of that phase in our lives'

Our 4 days were pretty consistent with an ardent schedule of brunching, activity, lunching, bourbon, nap,dinner, more bourbon. 

Found this sweet vrbo penthouse to stay at - it did not disappoint.

One of our excursions was to the zappos outlet - it was pretty sweet. Everything was at least 50% off with opportunities for more if the shoe you liked had the sticker color of the week.

I got these but I wore them on our last day and we got caught in a huge rainstorm - they got wet and gave me horrible blisters that make me not want to look at them let alone expose my feet to their wrath again.

 The mens section was way more fruitful and Sergio walked away with 3 pairs of shoes and a crueset pot lol 

 bacon bloody mary and prosecco

We went to 2 memorable restaurants in Louisville - the Silver Dollar, which was pretty hyped by everyone we talked to at the wedding. We actually ended up going there twice - the drinks were delicious and food good and greasy. However the Blind Pig was definitely my favorite. probably because...

pictured above is the BEST BACON OF MY LIFE. maple-y, oily, and just the right amount of crunchy, I spent a lot of time thinking if it would be possible to stow a stack of this onto the plane...but I was too hungover by sunday to deal with the logistics of that. 

 smiling in anticipation of the bacon/meat plate

Another excursion we went on was to the Maker's Mark distillery. It was pretty interesting and enjoyable..my only 'should've could've' is it was over an hour away from our place/the wedding venue and after the tour we realized it didn't really matter which distillery we visited..it would have been the same deal. On the drive over we passed by 3 other distilleries - we should have gone to one of those and saved 1-2 hours of driving. but whatever! here is a picture of me dipping my finger into a vat of yeasty mash - tasted like sugar beer.

Then the final excursion was the wedding.

 deciding on shoes. 

 getting married :) 

I may or may not have used 1/3 of my carry on space to stuff a bunch of these jars in my roller suitcase. 

Now I'm home and my pants don't fit but it was totally worth it ;) 

An Abundance of First World Problems

When I was in college I took an Intro to Java class taught by a really grumpy and slightly ocd professor. He was overly particular about the smallest things. ie when making us write out code by hand, we had to make an indent exactly 2 fingers wide anything more or less was totally your fault and minus 2 points. One time I forgot to include my name in my homework which was submitted online. I put my name at the top but forgot to comment it out correctly so when he ran my code it of course error-ed out meaning instant 0/10 on the assignment. I went to ask him about it and he said 'oh yeah, your homework was perfect but you commented your name out wrong...really your situation is quite tragic as you would have only been docked half a point if you just had forgotten your name.'

 

I feel like all of my problems are like this. They aren't really that serious but they still kind of suck. These last 2 weeks were a series of 'quite tragic' events.

1. The Grated Thumb

Last Tuesday I tried to make/imitate Heirloom la lasagna cupcakes and grated my thumb. Not deep enough to need stitches but deep enough to convince myself that eating sour patch kids for breakfast the next day was well deserved in my pity party. which leads to the next issue

2. The Overly Dramatic Tooth

Three sour patch kids in I felt a tremendous pain in my left bottom tooth..a tooth I have had issues with for the past year since I got it filled. Seriously it is so...needy. Conversations at the dentist's office have been using phrases like 'your tooth needs to heal, it has been badly traumatized' and 'your tooth is bruised, you need to baby it and let it soothe itself' as if it is a small child who has been removed from a hostile home and placed in my mouth until somewhere more stable becomes available.  

Anyway, my tooth really hurt but I didn't want to go back to the dentist right away in fear that the filling would have to be replaced. My mom suggested wearing a nightguard as the pain might have been related to teeth grinding but I couldn't find my old store-bought one in the 10 minutes I spent looking for it. Waking up the next morning I couldn't even touch my tooth without excruciating pain. I went to work. I called my mom and cried. I called my dentist and cried. I told my boss I had to leave work to go to the dentist and cried. Then I went to the dentist and was pretty okay until they touched my tooth and I cried some more. More personified phrases of my tooth led to 'your tooth is too aggravated to do anything right now'. Anyway after a lot of advil and a nightguard, turns out my mom was right and I was grinding my teeth.

3. The Really Gross Bug Bites

We had 2 days of blissfully warm weather over the weekend. Which means the mosquitoes found me. I think I am allergic. 

4. The Broken Mirror

I tried to close my medicine cabinet and a cord was sticking out. I don't know if it was the angle or what but the glass instantly cracked.  After reviewing some youtube videos on 'how to remove and install recessed medicine cabinets' and 'how to extract rusted screws' and 'how to cut out painted in cabinets' I decided to just email my building manager. 

Anyway, I am very grateful these are my 'problems'. There are so many worse things going on outside of my clean, safe, lasagna cupcake filled bubble. Which I try to remind both myself and my special tooth everyday.

recap

Trying to get back to blogging. 

Updates : 

got a marimo moss ball!!  

 have had a cold for 4 weeks gahhh 

 tray of dim sum at jook time (it is all mine)

 while i was sick i didn't really have energy to go buy food..or make food..so brian gave me a bunch of black bean ramen. i got pretty good at making it delicious. (above is first attempt)

second attempt (added onions and peas)

 enchilada night!(michelle is enchilada master)

 how coffee is served in hayes valley.

 my new juicer. i watched fat sick and nearly dead while i was...sick.. and a little fat...and decided the main reason it was taking so long for me to get well was my lack of micronutrients.

dinner tonight - spinach kale carrot apple cucumber lime juice and a slice of homemade bread.

Best Video Ever.

POOM!

Dress Angst

It might be because everything is breaking at work so I have too much time to online shop or I'm just really materialistic, but I have been having the hardest time deciding on what to wear to an upcoming wedding.

A few months ago this anthropologie dress went on sale and I was like perfect! done.

Then they cancelled my order because they oversold. Then I ordered the dress on ebay for the same price and USPS lost it. Then I found out you aren't even supposed to wear red to a wedding.

Then I saw this madewell dress. Perfect! done.

Then my size sold out. Then I also realized it kind of looked similar to a wedding dress.

So now I am so confused. I might borrow a dress from Loren but what if it doesn't fit? I found this dress at Jcrew and really like the color/shape but does it look too bridesmaid-y?




Or should I just get a simple whatever dress

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.