Erika S. parties

The joys of getting older

There are a number of benefits to a birthday in the 30’s.  1) you are more concerned with a good bottle of wine than getting shit faced, 2) you have a good group of friends that will show up on time only up to 20 min late to the dinner reservation 3) you and your friends finally have some semblance of a career, meaning you can afford to add a nicer dinner on top of the usual birthday bar trip.

My good friend Devon turned 31 a couple of weekends ago.  Dev and I met when we were 24, a time when our birthdays consisted of getting shit faced and sweaty in the back dance floor of Delirium.  Over the years, those days have slipped away for good the most part.  Now in our 30’s, we both share a love of sweets, baking and Mac n’ Cheese.  Dev chose Grub, a comfort food type restaurant on Valencia for her birthday dinner.  They have a Mac n’ Cheese Bar.  You heard me right, a Mac n’ Cheese Bar where you order the basic and add toppings as you like such as steak, lobster, panchetta, brocolli, etc.  I’m really great horrible at making menu choices, so I actually skipped the Mac n’ Cheese and instead ordered the steak.  B was smart brilliant and ordered Mac n’ Cheese with steak. He was awesome enough to let me steal some of his in the end.

More snapshots from the night:

Aaaaand, one of the funniest things from the night, seeing 6’4″ B try and fit on Jen’s bike:

Erika S. outfits

friday nightcaps

last week was rough.  So we teachers decided to top it all off with a drink…or four.This year I’ve been teaching Health Science at my high school.  One question that inevitably comes up is “Ms. Schenck, do you drink?”  My answer?  “Yes I do. I’m over 21 and I know to drink moderately.”  Answers to questions about my outside life are usually buzz kills.  Kids want to hear that I go out all the time drinking, smoking weed and cigarettes.  Most of all, they want to hear that I go out “clubbing”.  Never mind that they really don’t know what clubbing means yet.  It’s no school dance, kids.  So when I give them responsible, adult, good sense answers, they get all disappointed looking.  Now I just need to remind myself that 3 or more drinks in a row is technically “binge drinking”.  Opps!

My fav horsie t-shirt that I bought years ago, Aimee and Anne at Cassanova in the Mission.The end of the night: a quick bart ride home.  I ❤ BART.
coat: h&m – horsie shirt: UO (hella old) – jeans: f21 – boots: steve madden – bag: pour la vitoire – scarf: crossroads find

As you can see, it was a 7 min wait.  So B started snapping pics of the tunnel and promptly got yelled at by the station guy over the loud speaker for standing too close to the edge of the platform.  ha.

cool photo huh?

Erika S. outfits, parties

The Maritol

The Maritol, China Basin, San Francisco
image source

I’m on a Boat!  More than a few years ago, I visited the Maritol for the first time. At the time, there was one dude living on the ship and it wasn’t very decked out.  Since then, the Maritol has changed pretty dramatically, with a hot tub addition and a warmer atmosphere.   I was lucky enough to visit the ship a second time around last week when B and I were invited to a Boat! party.

An invitation to a boat party to me is just another excuse for nautical stuff.  I think B had the same thought because when we met up to go to the party, we were both wearing blue stripes.  He’s such a biter.

Narwhals are so magical!  I picked up this Narwhal necklace at the Renegade Craft Fair this past December from the Unicorn Crafts Booth.  

glasses: bonlook – cardigan and pants: j.crew – top: anthropologie (old) – boots: steve madden – jewelry: unicorn crafts, gifts from B and made by me

I’m not going to lie, the whole evening on the boat this video was playing through my head.

Erika S. fun stuffs

nails!!!

I do my nails just about every sunday evening.  I plan my lesson for monday, and I reward myself with music/mindless TV and pretty nails.

The biggest hit with the teenagers by far: Pokeball nails

This design took a while but was pretty simple in the end.  Full grey nails, covered half way with red.  Then add a white dot and outline with black sharpie marker (or sally hansen nail polish pens).  By the way, this photo was taken on Australia Day where B (the aussie) and I celebrated with Coopers Pale Ale and special edition sheepskin stubbie holders by Aussie Bentley.

This week, I went more geometric.  B bought me a 3 month subscription to Birchbox, and january’s box came with this lavender Zoya polish.  It’s pretty enough, but I’m not a fan of the brush or the viscosity.

Erika S. fun stuffs

unseasonable weather

SF has been experiencing some very unseasonable weather lately.  It worries me/bugs me. Not that I can’t appreciate 70+ degree winter weather in SF.  I love it in the city.  But great weather comes with a price, and for me that large price is the lack of snow in Tahoe.   I was hoping for a long ski season, but alas, not with this gorgeous weather.

B, Bambi and I decided to take advantage of the unseasonable weather last weekend by taking Bambs to her favorite place in the city: Ocean beach.  She luuuuves the beach. Ocean Beach is Bambi’s favorite by far because 1) there aren’t as many dogs there compared to fort funston (she’s anti-social to an extreme degree) and 2) there aren’t many hills to climb.  So she got to prance, run and sniff (on leash of course) to her satisfaction at  the beach.

Bambi attack!  She’s mean.  Really, she’s mean.  Because she’s scared…you know, small dog stuff.

Her favorite person (besides me of course)—>

top: f21 – jeans: paige – bag: freitag, sunglasses – h&m

Erika S. fun stuffs

fun stuffs

School is back in after a nice 3 day weekend (4 day for me).  LA was great, but it’s always nice to come home. Even nicer when you have presents waiting for you from hawaii!!  B was on a business trip in Oahu for a week and he was awesome enough to bring home some goodies for me.  Like this and this.  I’ve also been dying to try out Incoco nail wraps and he surprised me with them!

love them!  super easy and flashy.  I was never really into nail polish and stuff till recently when I kept seeing all the amazing nail art all over the blogs. Nail art is fun.  It’s cute.  Fun nails puts a bounce in my step, etc.  The kids react to my nails.  They make comments, they talk about it, it helps me relate to them and vice versa.  It works for me.  And it’s FUN!

Other recent nail art inspired by here and here:

Erika S. outfits, trips

nem nuong love

Yesterday we ate three noodle meals.  Pho in the morning, ramen for lunch and banh canh gio (other type Viet noodle soup) for dinner.  Today, it’s a wrap day.  My uncle Richard took us out for nem nuong wraps. second to pho, these wraps are my favorite Viet dish.  plus, you end up smelling fish sauce in your hands for the rest of the day.  good thing or bad thing?

No joke, LA has the BEST Asian food ever.

Nem noung is garlic and sugar marinated barbecued pork patties.  At the table, you wrap the pork up with lettuce, rice noodles and mint.  A quick dunk in nouc nam and its ready to be devoured.  Seriously delish.

uncle richard, aka richard-fufu. 

cousin eddie, aka shortie.  😉

glasses: bonlook – scarf: nordies rack – necklace: hand me down from my mom -top and tank: madewell – jeans: f21 – flats: frye – bag: pour la victoire

Erika S. outfits, trips

ramen love

Coming to Los Angeles means two things: hanging out with family and eating noodles.

LA to me = San Gabriel, Alhambra, Rosemead, Monterey Park.  LA, the asian part.  I’m ok with that though because this part of LA has the best noodles ever, all kinds.  The best Pho, the best fun and mein ever, the best ramen ever.  I would happily eat only noodles while I’m here in asian LA.

For lunch today we went to a ramen place in Rosemead called Shin Sen Gumi.  So yummy, even yummier than Katana-ya in SF which is my favorite in the city.

Gyoza, char siu tacos and spam misubi.  Om nom nom.

our ramen: Kris’s (sister’s) with roe and egg, Eddie’s (my cousin) with extra char siu and mine with extra char siu and spicy miso.  Holy crap it was yum.

I swear this is the first time ever I’ve been able to eat noodles without geting splashes all over my top. Kris and Eddie helped me snap photos.  Kris was sure to remind me to give her photo credit, so here it is.  Photo credit to my sister, Kris.  and Eddie.

The ultimate LA background…the parking lot of a strip mall.  

There’s my new bag!!!  I was super excited to find this at Nordie’s Rack last week.  It’s the perfect size, color and it has a cross-body strap.  Not to mention it was a steal.

sunglasses and glasses: bonlook – coat: gap (hella old) – top and jeans: f21 – belt: gap (hella old) – flats: frye – bag: pour la victoire

Family photo time.  My mom, sister, Popo and me.  Popo doesn’t remember who I am anymore. Popo needs round the clock care now and she talks to herself a lot.  But she still mentions how tall I am every time she sees me.  “Wah.  hou gouw ahhh.”  some things never change.

Erika S. fun stuffs

stacks, heaps and loads

B and I have this thing about these three words.  I saw this DIY project on craftgawker a while ago and I loved the idea.  I even recreated the project twice so far with other canvases and phrases.  Third time around, I decided to switch it up a bit.  following the same ideas, I took a trip to Michael’s and created my own version:

I bought three blank canvases and covered all three in blue acrylic craft paint.  Later, I changed my mind and decided I liked the chrome spray paint a lot.  so I covered two of the blue canvases with chrome spray paint.

Next step was lettering.  It took forever to get all the stencils straight and evenly spaced.  All other blank space was then covered with tape.

While at michaels, I ended up purchasing both stencils and vinyl lettering, so I used both types.  In the end, I liked the look of the vinyl lettering more…should have stuck with one style.

Here are two of them, the ‘heaps’ one already spray painted.  next came the peeling off of the letters.  The stacks turned out really clean, no bleeding of the paint.  The heaps on the other hand with the stencils, bled a lot.

Next up was ‘loads’.  this one also had a chrome background, but I used the stencils for thicker letters and sponged it in with blue paint.

Again, there was loads of bleeding under the stencils.  oh well.

all supplies used, minus the tape:

I love them!  they go so well with my new sofa too!  I ordered this sofa 3 months ago and It was just delivered yesterday.  3 months of waiting since I chose different fabric from the stock upholstery.  It was worth the wait though.  Bambi loves it already!

Here she is snoozing.  She’s found her spot already…right in the middle of the couch.