Sunday, September 30, 2012

Sunday Suggestions vol.3

This Sunday, I suggest you...

Read up on how science is challenging religious foundations. Pretty interesting regardless of what side you're on!

Make these fall recipes so I can live vicariously through you fall people.

Check out blueprints of TV houses. I coulda drawn the Frasier one from memory!

Read up on your regional sandwiches! I smell a challenge. Long live the Monte Cristo!

Try not to drop dead over how cute this is:
                                                           Source: iwastesomuchtime.com via Amanda on Pinterest


And finally...
                                                                   Source: Uploaded by user via Ash Lee on Pinterest

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Happy birthday to my wonderful dad!



Friday, September 28, 2012

some like it RAW

One of my clients told me about RAWartists last week and I'm so glad she did! Because their website explains it better than I could...

RAW:natural born artists is an independent arts organization, for artists, by artists. We're a community made up of creative individuals across the nation. Our mission is to provide independent artists within the first 10 years of their career with the tools, resources and exposure needed to inspire and cultivate creativity. We welcome all genres of art including independent film, fashion, music, visual art, performing art, hairstylists, makeup artists and more. We encourage the creative success of the many visionaries and storytellers of our generation.RAW currently operates in 54 cities across the United States & Australia and counting ...
Every month, RAW puts on an event that showcases featured artists. There's a DJ, art exhibits, music performances, other random performances (this month there was a huluhooper and a girl that cuts up t-shirts) and a fashion show. Plus, every artist has a booth so it's a good chance to buy stuff and mingle. This month, our client happened to be there so a few of us from the office went to support her and check out the scene. We had a really good time, and for $10 I definitely think we'll be back next month. 


Lots of people hanging out...

Autumn Complex played lots of covers. As usual, everyone loves any version of 'Rollin' In The Deep.'

Hair and makeup was done by RAW artists, too.

Metalli Jewelry had awesome pieces that showed really well, and I ended up getting one the next week for my birthday! 

 Fluro Swimwear was the last part of the fashion show, but of course brought the house down with a bunch of scantily clad girls!

So all in all, we had a really fun night and will definitely be back! I'm trying to get my business back up and running and I hope to be a part of RAWartists soon, too! Is there a RAWartists collective in your town? Check it out, if so!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

funglasses

sunglasses= funglasses

sunglasses= funglasses by mostlyglasses featuring black eyeglasses

The only reason I wear contacts is so that I can wear sunglasses [and snorkel!] and contacts are a pain in the you-know-what (and the eye!) I figured out that for the price of a year's worth of contacts, I could buy all of these sunglasses. Whyyyyy do I figure these things out too late? I bought a few pairs of glasses from zenni optical before and loved them because they're super cheap and pretty decent quality. Like, for real, so cheap. They start at $6.95 (for some pretty whacked out frames) but the most expensive ones I've bought are $29.95! I usually buy a couple pairs at a time since I tend to fall asleep with my glasses on, wear them in the ocean and throw them in my purse with no case, etc. Living on the edge, yeah? Can't wait to slap some tinted lenses on a few of these frames (the white ones for sure) and keep on rockin'. Astigimatism represent!

*This post is in no way sponsored, I just love this company and want everyone else to, too!*

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Nor' Shore

Kika's awesome mom and dad came for a visit and rented an amazing house on the North Shore and let her bum friends come for a visit :) It was not only great to be at the NS because it's flipping gorgeous, it was so nice to be around parents because I am really missing mine lately! Something about homecooked food and good advice just feels like home, even if you're on a rock in the middle of the ocean in a rented house and they're someone else's parents! :)

Thank you, truly, Greg and Betty!
















Tuesday, September 25, 2012

birthday mayhem

Despite being far from home and missing my family and friends there, I had theeeee best birthday possible! In the weeks leading up to my birthday, I was so depressed because it was not only my birthday, but also Jenni's the day before, Timmy's the next day, Thomas and Lindsays the next day after that and my dad's the next week. I love my people at home and didn't want to miss out on everyone's birthday fun! I was also kind of feeling like I didn't know that many people here and was scared that if I had a party it would be lame. Turns out, I know a lot of people here, and they are all awesome. I have found (thanks B and Kika!) such a solid crew here in such a short amount of time. I got a cake and tambourine song at work, awesome presents and had a great time at dinner+drinks+drinks+drinks with the ladies (and some gents) at night. Besides being reminded that I'm closer to 30 than 20, it was an awesome day! Here's a little taste of the funzies, with most the incrimination (and most of the fun) taken out :]

I wore the obligatory "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" crown and spun the wheel of shame at every stop. I love wearing the crown! The wheel is pretty fun, too!


We met Hello Kitty, who was not polite until we gave (pretty sure it was a him) a dollar. Then it was all shakas.
Pretty ladies! I was turning 252252552 apparently. The other part of birthday crown fun is that we made everyone else wear mini tiaras! It started at Cate's birthday and we loved it so much it shall continue. Forever.

I turned Nashville Waikiki into Ashville Waikiki. It needed to be done!
And this is pretty much how we all felt at the end of the night. Another success. [Also, check out the flipping gorgeous lei that Cate got me! Cannot even explain how many people came up to me to say that they could smell me (in a good way for once) from across the room.]

At the end of the day, 25 felt pretty damn good! The next day? Not so great!

Friday, September 21, 2012

quarter century club


In my 25th year, I'm going to...

1. Be a more involved aunt, sister, and daughter...which is no joke since my fam is getting really big! Long story!
2. Learn to dance (this was my birthday resolution last year and I never really did it, except for cat daddy and cupid shuffle)
3. Release my own line of clothes independently and get into at least 2 local boutiques
4. Re-open my etsy shop
5. Visit another Hawaiian island
6. Hike Kokohead (1,100 stairs!)
7. Take a picture in front of Dog the Bounty Hunter's house (whatta creeper)
8. Kayak to the island at Kailua
9. Take a hula class
10. Stand up on a surf board
11. Get much better at paddle boarding
12. Check out the big wave surfers on the North Shore this winter
13. Go on a date with guys all 5 branches of the military (2 down)
14. Quit being late for things; it's rude
15. Join RAWartists and other art co-ops and groups, and support other artists too
16. Take my big camera out more and practice on manual mode
17. Finish my nephew's dragon quilt that he's been very patiently waiting for for 2 years now
18. Get SCUBA certified, or at least think really hard about it (haha!)
19. Cook more, eat out less (no more Starbucks egg+sausage sandwiches for lunch every day!)
20. Practice my Hawaiian so I don't have to sound out every syllable of every word
21. Learn to draw better
22. Stay in touch more with friends besides facebook (stupid facebook!)
23. Get back into working out; I love being strong but I also love not being sweaty and sore, so it's been an easy habit to get out of...
24. Let go of people and things that only bring me down, and have no regrets or dwell on time I feel like I "wasted"
25. Have fun being a young (not so young anymore, boo!) single lady in Hawaii working at a job I love! This one is easy!

Monday, September 17, 2012

hey, sailor

hey, sailor

hey, sailor by mostlyglasses featuring plastic sunglasses

Since my summer is never ending, I can't help but shop for cute, beachy dresses and sandals. Every day. I'm getting ready to drop some serious dollars at modcloth.

On the agenda this week is getting my local ID (so I can work that kama'aina discount, holla!) and figuring out how to transition my business from CA to HI. I have had everything on hold since I've come here and it's time to let mostlyglasses into the wild again. The beach is slowly but surely inspiring my brand and I can't wait to see where it goes. Dream status!

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Sunday Suggestions: vol 2

Posle poludnya! Good afternoon! The Russian ladies at work are teaching me a new word every day. Unfortunately, the Russian alphabet and I are strangers, so I have a whole bunch of crazy, phonetically spelled notes of Russian words in my phone.

Happy Sunday! This weekend was lots of fun in the sun and lots of errands. Today is another busy day of funzies, with birthday present shopping (September babies, gotta love 'em!) and lunch with my Ukrainian coworker. This Sunday, I suggest you...

Read this profile of Mindy Kaling. She's hilarious and I love her new show. The first episode is on hulu. Nothing wrong with a sassy, single lady!

Make these cookies so I can live vicariously through you. Unlike the rest of the blog universe, I do not get to have fall this year, so pumpkin spice lattes and cookies are not happening.

Watch this video from a couple of weeks ago that Bahar shot and edited of Alessa and I heading out paddle boarding. Alessa is a champion, but I got my ass absolutely handed to me that day by the ocean. We went (wayyyyyy) further out than I have ever been and there were waves. Imagine that, waves in the ocean! Waves are cool and all, but this was only my second time ever being on any kind of board in the water and I was not prepared for how much of a failure I would be, haha. I went splashing off my board a bunch of times, fell on TO my board once (fun! no, not really.) and after my swim suit bottoms fell off at one point,  I just sat down and decided to enjoy the sunset instead of paddle. But, when I accidentally got caught with a set of waves coming towards me and nothing to do but take it,  after the initial "oh f*!" moment, I manned up (ladied up?) and rode it out (AKA, went down to knees and held on for dear life) and it was so fun. So basically I need to work on my balance, keep going out, tie my bottoms on tighter and quit being such a baby and getting embarrassed when I fall. That's kind of a lot of stuff to do but I'm up for it. Maybe!

Saturday, September 15, 2012

garbage pickin'

Today was International Coastal Cleanup Day, did you clean a beach today? I did! 



Today, Bahar and I went to Lanikai (my favorite beach ever!) to clean up garbage and work on our tans. It was her idea, because she's a good person, but I went because I've been trying to even out my back tan for weeks and thought that doing a good deed while tanning would be better than just laying there. Lanikai is one of the cleanest beaches I've seen here. Residents are always pitching fits that there's too many tourists and guides there and trying to pass laws to keep the people out so the beaches stay nice. But never the less, we did find some trash. Woohoo!

you can't capture how gorgeous this beach is, but I tried!

They gave us a reusable bag to put the trash in and a tally sheet to count up what we found. We ended up with mostly cigarette butts (14 plus 1 cigar) but also 3 beer bottles and some other random odds and ends. Have you ever heard of nurdles or mermaid tears? I hadn't until I came here. They're basically little pieces of plastic. But that was it; nothing that cool. But the fact that we didn't find "cool garbage" means that there wasn't that much garbage to find, which is a good thing!


B was the happiest garbage picker in all the land!

And as usual I was just sassin' around, working on my tan.




We found some stuff that was cool but wasn't garbage, like this crab claw and tons of flower petals, so we let it stay at the beach. 



And then we couldn't resist anymore and jumped in the water for a bit before making the gorgeous drive back to town. I highly recommend cleaning up your local beach, it's tons of fun!





Monday, September 10, 2012

littleblackbag

So last week, Kaelah posted about Little Black Bag and I couldn't resist the temptation and bought a month's membership (it's my birthday month, treat yo self!) I think the concept is amazing! Basically, you pay a monthly fee (you can buy a one-month membership for $59.95 or a every month membership for $49.95/month with the option to skip any months.) With the membership, you receive 3-4 items valued around $150. You pick the first item, and the rest of the items are chosen for you by one of their stylists after you take a style quiz. The fun part is that once your items are picked for you, you can trade with other members. And oh good god, it's addicting. When you make a trade request, the request is sent to all of the people with that item, so you have to accept it quick if you want it! There are SO many cool things, and a lot of them are designer (if you're into that, I'm not really.)


I picked a nice blue, slouchy bag as my first item (valued at $78, and I'm only paying $50, holla!) and they chose some jewelry pieces for me as the other items. As soon as I "opened the bag" there were a bunch of trade requests waiting, so I quickly traded away all the jewelry for a hat and something else that I already forgot. Then I traded that mysterious, forgotten item for a badass alligator ring!
little black bag wishlist
little black bag wishlist by mostlyglasses featuring a black shoulder bag


After 7 days, you're cut off from trading and your stuff ships to you and you anxiously await next month when you get to do it again. Fun. Too much fun, really. I'm hooked! I have 3 more days of trading before my bag ships, so whoooooo knows  what I'll end up with. 

Should you want to try this shopping mayhem out for yourself, click here and let the fun begin. In the interest of full disclosure, if you sign up through that link, I get a free item next month. But I'll love you forevs so, worth it. Plus you'll have so much fun trading your life away and you'll get a box of awesome stuff for cheap! WINNING. 

Friday, September 7, 2012

Operation Bringing Sexy Back: halfway done


So I’m now halfway done Operation Bringing Sexy Back, AKA my goal of losing 40 pounds. It’s been 3.5 months and I’m down 20 pounds.  Because duh, thats half of 40. While I’m not proud that I had/have that much weight to lose, I’m proud of myself for finally getting rid of it. In CA, I was working out on the daily with my friend and unofficial trainer, Terrell, and I really miss our every day gossip/ therapy/ beastly lifting/ sometimes a little bit of dancing to Kanye (by me) sessions. I never was able to stick to going to the gym regularly until she came around and held me accountable. She made me work harder than any of my male trainers (that I paid a LOT of money to) ever did and she was way nicer and would go get her nails done with me, which is more than I can say for any of those boys! 

Soon after, Lindsay and I started trying every workout class in the county and got hooked on sweaty yoga (we were always the sweatiest, I take that as a badge of honor) and kickboxing (man that teacher was hottt, with 3 t’s even, and it made me work way harder than I would have otherwise) and water aerobics (we were 50 years younger than the target audience and consequently totally schooled everyone else) and booty barre class (I thought we might die or our butts might fall off, neither happened.) And then I was such a jerk and up and moved away and left my ladies.

Yet I somehow dropped 10 pounds in the last month without working out once, with the exception of some leisurely swims. Don’t get me wrong, it’s awesome and I’m very happy. It’s also insanely frustrating because I worked so, so hard at home for TWO STRAIGHT MONTHS to lose the first 10 pounds. I’m talking 6AM workouts every day (two-a-days a lot of the time, too), dieting, doing the god forsaken stair stepper, running on the treadmill holding plate weights… I did everything I could to lose my first decade of fat. 

Since I’ve been here, I…
-have been eating a lot of protein shakes. Body by Vi, to be exact. My friend sells it and was losing tons of weight and I bought some to be nice but I ended up liking the shakes and will stick with them for a while. Bonus: I paid for them last month so it doesn’t cost me anything now and I’m bbbbrrrroooookkkkkeeeee so I have had a lot of shakes. Many more than I would have liked to have had, actually.
-don’t have a car, so I end up walking more than I used to.  I get rides a lot of places thanks to having awesome friends but still end up walking a couple of miles a day between my place and theirs, and to the beach and stuff. In slippers, mind you, so my feet are not cute like they used to be. They’re all busted up.
-sweat a lot. Too much; it’s disgusting really.
-drink tons of water cause I’m so hot all the time(temperature hot, not sexy hot…but occasionally a little bit sexy hot, but it's only been brought back halfway so far)
-also drinking tons of beers, but hey, the proof is in the scale so I shall continue doing my thang.

I conveniently make the same pose in all pictures, so here's the proof that I look less like a roly poly than I did on Picnic Day. Also, like less of a douche because I am not wearing a silly hat, and more of a blonde because I paid big bucks to get my fun hair back.


I find it funny that because I haven’t been eating that much, I’ve become slightly better looking, which in turn has
gotten me more dates, which has gotten me free food. It all comes full circle. These guys who caught me in my hungry stage are really screwing it up for the next round of troops who are going to meet me after these guys fatten me back up. That’s not to say that the only reason I’ve had good luck with the dudes is because I’ve lost weight, because I did fine when I was actually fat and not just chunky, but more confidence never hurts. Plus, since I’m hungry I think I’m a little feistier. Maybe dudes are into that, who knows.

And I’m happy to report that my workout buddies are also losing weight across the ocean. Great success! On to the next 20…

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

GROUPLOVE

Kika, B and myself went to see GROUPLOVE last week, or the week before maybe (it's been a while and I'm too lazy to look up the date) at a new venue called the Republik. Hawaii doesn't really get that much live music (compared to SF and Sacramento where I grew up) so this place having this show, Death cab the next night and Gym Class Heroes two days later is pretty awesome!

hey layyyydeeeees!
The venue was super cool. From the outside, I wasn't expecting that much, but inside it had all these different lounge areas all around and 3 bars, so there wasn't really a wait for a drink and always a place to sit and hang out if you weren't watching the show. But the place was brand new. As in, so new that a girl closed the bathroom door and it literally fell off the hinges.. hahaha whoops!

We thought it was funny that none of the band really matched eachother. There was one surfer looking guy, the drummer was a little bit of a bro, the singer looked like Molly Ringwald, the next guy was dressed like the singer from Coldplay who wore that weird military jacket for like 3 years, and then the last guy was a beardy hipster with a funny hat with a feather in it. And I thought my crew was mismatched! 



Anyway, Alessa is way cooler than us and was the one who suggested we go because she liked them, but Bahar and I thought we didn't know any Grouplove songs. It turns out that they were on an ipod commercial or something, so we knew that one, and I knew another one from listening to Pandora 24/7 ( I'm always singing "take me to your breast friends house, da da da da da da da daaaaaa" obviously my listening skills are a little bit sketchy and I'll turn anything into a boob joke.) I'm so glad we went! They were fun and energetic and have somehow blown UP in the last couple weeks. I've been hearing them all over now! Maybe it's one of those things like how you never notice a kind of car until you want one and then you see it everywhere, I don't really know. Our CA friends saw them a couple days later in Monterey, so that's kind of fun, too. Speaking of friends, Bahar found a new friend who was dressed in the boy version (okay fine, it was slightly androgenous) of her outfit.


And just like that, another successful night of funzies.

30 day recap



I can’t even believe it, but today marks one month since I got to Honolulu. A lot has happened in 30 days besides hanging out, splashing around, getting an awesome slipper tan and eating papayas (but there is a lot of that going on, too.)
real shoes be damned!
I’m going into my 5th week of work and I love it so much. Every day at work I design and sew samples for clients, and so far it’s been mostly board shorts and swimwear. In all of the jobs that I’ve had in my life, I’ve had things about them that I liked (free baseball tickets, free bagels, awesome coworkers and even a few good bosses) but I haven’t ever been really fulfilled by or content with the work. But now I am. This is the first time since college (when I was seriously delusional) that I actually have attainable goals for myself that I’m actively working towards. Except that my goals back then were crazy and thank goodness I didn’t actually come close at all to reaching them.  Now I’ve got a 5-year plan that is all about ME and nothing to do with boys, marriage, babies or any other normal things a 25 year old girl should be thinking about. Hopefully this isn’t the beginning of me becoming a crazy cat lady!

Even though I am on the cat lady path pretty solid, I have gone on dates with guys from 2/5 of the branches of the Armed Forces this month. Just 3 more to go. I didn’t set out for that to be a goal but now it is. I need to figure out how much of that part of life I’m willing to share, because there has been some REALLY FUNNY THANGS going on with dating and how silly (lets be real, they dumb) these young guys with a disposable income can be. But alas, I don’t want to get caught calling anyone out, especially when they’re paying for my dinner. Hah. But it hasn’t been all ridiculous, I’ve had a lot of fun, made new friends, yadda yadda yadda.

supporting the troops!

I also learned in the process that I am NOT a gold digger. No matter how much you spend on me, if you don’t make me laugh, I cannot have you in my life even for a meal. Thankfully I make myself laugh enough to suffer through these kind of situations. If you are my friend, you are funny and you can bet on that because I literally could not tolerate you otherwise. It's a problem, I know it, and I'm working on it.


I finally got the keys to my place after a ton of drama and a 3-week wait. The tenant that had the place before me left it a huge, disgusting mess and my realtor had to do a bunch of work to make it inhabitable. Of course, it was all on Hawaiian time and took forever. I finally just went California on the situation and said that I would take care of the cleaning and give them to bill. Dunzo. Thank goodness that I was staying with Cate, one of the most generous people I know, and I was able to push back my move-in date without a problem. She also hooked it up with a blow up bed after my failed attempt at sleeping on a pool floatie (it worked fine for a nap) for the time being while I figure out how to get a real bed. Or a futon. Or bunk beds so my guests have a place to sleep. Or a bed and a futon so people don’t get all weird in my bed because there’s nowhere else to sit. Or maybe a fancy air mattress because it’s cheap. See? I got problems, clearly. First world problems.

upgrade! Thanks Cate!

There’s also a new upcoming series in life (and the blog): Cate Dates! There are so many restaurants that us ladies want to try nearby (a blessing and curse of living in a tourist area) and we decided to make it a goal to try one a week. With Cate. A Cate Date. We had the first one last night, so that’ll be coming up shortly. I don’t have wifi at my new place so it’ll happen whenever I have time to hang out at Starbs and do some research.

While I do miss some stuff from home (working out with Terrell, visually molesting our kickboxing instructor with Lindsay, lunch dates in Elk Grody with Jenni, etc.) I have really only gotten homesick once so far. We went to Taco Bell and the lady helping us has the same kind of arthritis that my mom has. I went home and cried.  I felt bad that she had to work when it was probably really painful and frustrating for her and that made me sad. Then I missed my mom and that made me more sad. Then I ate way too much Taco Bell and that made me super sad. It’s funny what little thing can bring out bigger issues. Love you and miss you, Mom! More than you know!

when peple wonder where I get my crazy from, it's this lady's fault. She's my fave!

Anyway, clearly I am a terrible blogger since I saved up two weeks of junk and then threw it all in one post that is so long nobody in their right mind besides my parents will read it. I’ll try to be better. I’ll also try to steal some wifi somehow because walking the 12 steps to Starbucks just really doesn’t sound that appealing. That, and getting up from a slightly deflated air bed is so awkward even when nobody else is watching!