has anyone seen bunks?

oh, there he is! helping himself to the last of the hay!

more cross-stitching and washi paper masking tape!

abigail and i are having dinner at the former headmaster's house tomorrow night, as his passion for education is contagious, even after all these years! bruce is a friendly giant, standing at 6'2" (or taller? i'm not a good judge of height), and he was super supportive of me during my search for a teaching job. he started a public school for math and science in durham (right across the street from erin!), taught way back when, was a provost of a quaker college, was headmaster at 2 different quaker schools, and is a trustee for numerous educational organizations. i am thrilled to have worked with him and wanted to thank him for all that i have learned from him in my years at this school and for his help in my job hunt. right after i accepted my new position in philly, i quickly started a cross-stitch project.this took 6 days. just six! (i cross-stitch fast, but do everything else slowly.) the bottom has a chinese wish: "fu ru dong hai su bi nan shan" which translates into "may your fortune be as vast as the eastern sea and your life be more eternal than the southern mountain." i had learned of the phrase from chinese class, back in my days at brown university. however, i must admit to having whipped out the chinese dictionary to retranslate the characters, as my ability to read chinese has declined drastically! i custom cut a mat from artist paper again, like with lan and robert's christmas gift, although this time the paper had a woven texture to it. i pasted a pinyin version of the quote with a translation underneath onto the back of the frame, in case bruce and his wife andra ever forgot what the quote said. then came the wrapping part. of course i had to use brown craft paper because the only other option was christmas paper (thus, not an option). i'd been wanting to use the washi paper masking tape (pic is from the moma store's website) that julia got me as a christmas gift, but hadn't found a good use for them. that is, until now. last night at 11 pm, i decided bruce and andra MUST have a gift wrapped with washi paper masking tape woven in a sort of plaid print. yes, that's right. MUST. also, i decided that this plaid MUST be woven last night. at 11 pm. little did i know that weaving sticky strips of tape would be so difficult.
but worry not! at 2 am, my masterpiece was complete!

dad's bday shirt- complete! and a strawberry pie!

this weekend mom and dad were in town, so i figured it was high time i finished up dad's bday shirt, seeing as his bday was march 4! i was dreading the redoing of the cuffs, since i sewed one of the cuffs on crookedly. however, it wasn't difficult at all, and mom even showed me her secret on how she figures out where to sew in the darts on the back! this shirt is so much better than last time's. for his next shirt, i am aiming to pay attention to the striping on the shoulders so that they line up with the stripes on the sleeves. (and yes, dad still models his nice dress shirts that i make while wearing sweatpants!)to finish up the strawberries left over from abigail's cake, i baked a strawberry pie! it was very quick and easy to make and the pie didn't leak in the oven as my pies usually do!hurray for finished projects! now i just have to knit one more sock to finish this year's batch of chinese new year socks (haha, yes the new year was feb 14!)

farewell, abigail!

abigail, a wonderful friend from work, is off to grad school to pursue an mfa in creative writing and poetry! we had a farewell party last thursday to celebrate her wonderfulness and to wish her luck on her new adventures. i wanted to make her something that took into account her personality and yet prepped her for her return to school. (girly yet tough, as she is a whimsical dancer, pianist, and poet, yet a hard core athlete!! yay soccer and hockey!) i hoped to make a pencil bag with the "weekend-away travel bag" pattern in "weekend sewing." i got to test out the zipper foot for my sewing machine on this project, and i must report that it was shockingly simple to use! unfortunately, this pattern was for something as large as a makeup bag, so i decided i needed to fill this "pencil bag" with goodies so that it wouldn't seem so ridiculously large. and thus her pink, cream, and navy themed gifts were born.i'm sure you've noticed that this fabric is of the same pattern as the flip side of robert's bday apron. to make it, i sewed strips of alternating solid navy and pink and cream striped fabrics together. notice i'm ocd to the point where my pink and cream stripes are equidistant apart (in terms of their stripes)! here's the backside of the sheet i made for the cover of abigail's notebook:the lining is made from my high school graduation gown! i, then, sewed the cover onto the cover of the notebook itself. sewing on paper is so thrilling!!! notice the pages are of pressed paper matter and not of normal paper itself (the best feature of this notebook!!):i sewed ribbons to both the back and front covers so that she could tie the notebook shut.abigail is particularly glamourous, but certainly not vain, so it was of the utmost importance that she have a little pocket mirror to keep in this pencil bag! pier 1 had the cutest little mirrors, but they had the most hideous cases. so, i took it upon myself to make the mirror its own navy, pink and cream case!it even has a mini velcro closure in front (unfortunately this velcro is not that sticky!):i then filled the bag with an assortment of office supply goodies, including an eraser, a spiffy hot pink highlighter, 2 pens, 2 RED pens (for all those vicious corrections), 2 pencils (i'm a math teacher, remember, and all students need pencils!), white-out, and the cutest mini stapler!then, i wrapped all the office goodies in themes, with witty sayings on the wrappers: "to help you get started on all that writing... (pens, pencils, highlighter)", "to help keep everything together... (stapler)", "watch out for all of those mistakes! (white-out, eraser)", "to help you get started on all that writing that you will be doing, creatively... (notebook)", "every glam gal needs one of these in her pencil bag... (mirror)"for the party, i baked a double tier chocolate cake with strawberry jam in the middle and powdered sugar and sliced strawberries on top. it was super moist and rather pretty. unfortunately the cake was too big for mom and dad's cake carrier, so i had to carry it without the lid down the street!the waiter at the restaurant kept asking for a slice, so we obliged at the end. isn't that a huge "no-no" to ask for food from restaurant diners?? i was flattered though, so no biggie.bye, abigail! we'll miss you!! (although i'll still be seeing her around philly hopefully, when she visits!)

a fish party!

last sunday, our soccer team threw a party to thank aaron for working so hard to organize our team and also to congratulate him on his recent wedding! i took it upon myself to fold 50+ beef and onion dumplings for the party (mom's secret recipe!). here's the meat, marinating:and here are the dumplings folded and fried. mom's always look beautiful, but mine look sketchy at best:avé, a friend from my teaching days who is also friends with aaron, noted that aaron's fav dessert is rice pudding. sorry, but not about to make rice pudding. i remembered that aaron liked the new orleans bourbon bread pudding that i made for an fc ceviche barbecue last year, so i decided to make that again. it's a very easy recipe from "joy of cooking," and my secret touch is that i use challah instead of italian bread (why not, since challah is already a little sweet)!! here's the bread soaking in deliciousness:and here it is partially eaten, with the bourbon sauce on top. note that the dumplings tupperware to the right is completely empty!also at the party was marcus, the nearly 1 year old son of my friends jeremy and amy. marcus came out rocking the jersey i made him as a gift to his parents when he was born! it's a little big on him, so he'll have time to grow into it!see you on the pitch, marcus, and congrats aaron!

road trip to beantown to see sarah!

sorry i've left you guys in the dust for a while. life's been busy, very busy. but i have good news to put a strong end to this hiatus. but first, here are tales of bunks' and my travels to see sarah. after the detour to philly a month ago, bunks and i (accompanied by the fabulous martha!) continued our drive to ct to pick up dad and then to boston to spend my spring break with sarah. bunks settled in nicely underneath sarah's granny's mid century orange vinyl couch. (amazing isn't it???) this is the same couch under which he hid for the remainder of the trip after he sprained his front right foot. poor thing!after some further reconnaissance, he met the love of his life! no, not me, but another wee bunny. he was so smitten that he gave her a couple sniffs and then ventured a couple licks. aw, spring is in the air! we settled right in and made pizza with fresh dough bought from sarah's local shaw's (major grocery store chain). sarah used to despise veggies (but no more!!!), so i loaded 'er up with broccoli, spinach, and massive amounts of garlic.so tasty! in fact, we loved it so much, that sarah bought a proper pizza pan and we made another pizza the next night! sarah was chilling out in what we have deemed "her office," known to the rest of us as "the bathroom," so i figured i'd give her a demonstration of how pizza dough is tossed!! you wouldn't have known where the dough was tossed by the looks of this final product!the last dinner i made involved sarah's fav: buttermilk biscuits. when reading recipes, i was a dummy and didn't read the right title, so i ended up making southern biscuits (whatever that means), so these biscuits were drier than the buttermilk ones i made her during my visit last year. and to continue stuffing my wee friend with vitamins galore, i concocted a creamed corn and spinach concoction, also chock full of minced garlic. it was my fav part of any dinner i made all week!! my domesticity continued, as i tackled cookies to celebrate bunny day (otherwise known to christians as easter)! of course we made some bunnies! we all know i'm not a great dessert decorator. they ended up being super sweet, but that's ok because it's easter!!! of course i got my fill of crafting in boston. as mentioned in the post about sarah's chin straps (which ended up being too big, so she's gonna return them to me for some shortening), i checked out a fabric store, winmill fabrics. and... there was even a store devoted to me. they might as well have named it helen's asian crafts (yes that's me in front, dancing!)...and now, for the good news: i'm moving to philly this summer! i just accepted a job teaching at a private school in the city!!! i'll be teaching loads of calculus and coaching hockey again. whee!!!

happy bunny day!

easter is to bunks like secretary's day is to hillary clinton (haha, oops wrong type of secretary)! the weekend had beautiful weather and was kicked off with a visit to the korean store, where i bought tons of veggies: chinese eggplant, asparagus, bok choy, broccoli, enoki mushrooms, onions, garlic, beef tenderloin. oh, not a veggie. hehe. regardless, i got inspired by all my purchases and thus made a veggie and beef stirfry to eat with noodles (note: i do not cook, so this was a huge feat)! my domestic inclinations continued because i scored strawberries for 99c (so ridiculously cheap), so i made angel food cupcakes (so cute as cupcakes! they shrink horizontally when rising in the oven) and topped then with strawberry icing that i made from scratch! i used the "quick white icing" recipe from joy of cooking and added pureed strawberries instead of milk. then i topped each with a small sliver of strawberry. aren't they cute? the cupcake tupperware is from mom and dad who found it for me a month ago. it's amazing!and good news on the bunks front: he does not have a broken or fractured foot! when we were in boston visiting sarah, bunks had had enough of being picked up and jumped from my arms one night, landing really hard on his front right paw. he spent the next week limping around, although improving progressively. here's a pity strawberry that mom fed him when we were home last weekend. surely he must have been ok, since he still was ready and willing to devour treats.i didn't want to take any chances, and brought him to the vet last thursday. initially, bunks was terrified, smelling dogs and cats all over the place. (yes, i emasculate him by carrying him around in my pink duffle bag!)however, once he realized there were no dogs or cats in the exam room, he decided to make a break for it! "i'm outa here, folks!"happy bunny day!