Peace, Man

Playing around with more bike related designs and came across this one. After I drew it out I searched the net to see if someone else has this one already. You'd think, something as common as a peace sign would be everywhere. One site had stickers that looked like this, but I didn't come across any shirts (at least not within a few search pages.) I like how the tan ink looks on the brown shirt, and also did one on a navy shirt for Emi and that one looked good too. I'm not sure if it looks too plain, or if it looks like it's missing something. Any ideas?

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Baseball season has started. Sage did good playing his first game today. He hit a triple and a single. Even got one of his friends out. His team consists of first-third graders, so he's definitely the veteran on his team.
Can you tell he didn't want me to take his picture?

Lotus Root and Bacon Mixed Rice

Tried a new dish today that looked different, but simple and good. Mixed rice with lotus roots, bacon, and kewpie (Japanese) mayo. The mayo was what caught my eye. Never had I thought about eating my rice with mayo. Sounds gross, doesn't it? But I had some lotus roots in the fridge, and some bacon as well, it was a good dish to use up some stuff and an opportunity to try something different.
Sauteed some bacon, then added lotus roots till the bacon fat was incorporated all around. Then added some water, soy sauce, and chicken boullion, and cooked till the liquid was gone. Then added some mayo, and mixed well.
Then added it to some rice...
And mix... Simple but tasty. The bacon fat helped break apart clumps of rice. It wasn't too bacon-y, maybe some chinese snap peas steamed then cut into matchsticks would be a nice, fresh addition. I couldn't taste the mayo, which was a little disappointing since that's what sounded good, but definitely a keeper recipe.

More Chicky News

Our babies are five weeks old now, getting bigger and plumper. They've become calmer and don't resist getting held. Abby put on one her arm and showed it her teeth...
... then, peck! It went for something on her teeth! We were busting up.

Thai Tea

Sage has been asking for Thai tea, and now that I had some time I made some for their snack.
























And even added some tapioca pearls. Mmmm, it was good...

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

Oh, I have waited soooooooo long for this day. Seemed like the longest ten days of my life. My shirts are FINALLY done! 155 shirts and caps, 9 teams. Many times I have said to myself, "What have I gotten myself into?" and moments of frustration and tiredness nibbling at my soul making me think, "I don't want to do this anymore." But I had already received the deposit, had hundreds of dollars of shirts, caps, and supplies sitting here, so I had to keep going. I really didn't think I'd finish in time, but I did, just one hour before when it was to be delivered. Since this was the first time making this many shirts with nine different variations, I had no idea how time consuming it would end up being. I split it up so there was a certain amount that needed to be accomplished each day, otherwise I would not make the cut. So all day I worked, anywhere from 10 to 13 hours a day well into midnight on many nights, knowing the end will come. And today, it did. Oh, what a relief it is. The sad thing is, although the job paid about $1000 (which is great for working 10 days), all of it is going to pay the supplies we needed to get the job done. But the next job will be mostly profit, so all is good. And besides, it went into the business so I can't complain. And a big thanks to my hubby for cooking when he was home and taking care of the kids.

The caps were the most frustrating of all, the seam in the middle just caused so much trouble. Next year, I think it'll be worth it to buy replicas.
My workroom (a.k.a. our 2nd bathroom).

All in all, a good learning experience and a good opportunity to practice A LOT. Some things are becoming easier and faster. I have been looking at heat transfer presses lately. Something I'd like to get someday. Print the image on the computer and press onto shirt. Done in minutes, no chemicals, no stress, and less margin of errors. The first few days I made so many mistakes, I'm stuck with a lot of blems which my family will end up wearing. ^_^ Lucky (?) Sage, he has a lot of baseball shirts now!

Daring Baker - April Challenge

I'm sad to say I did not complete the challenge this month. It was cheesecake pops, which really sounded good and my kids were looking forward to me making them. But with my shirt job taking all of my time, from morning to midnight, I just couldn't do it. Well, actually, I attempted to squeeze it in yesterday. But it just wouldn't bake all the way through so I kept it in the oven on low for a while when it just overflowed and burned on top of that. So I didn't proceed further to make them into pops. I guess that's what I get for waiting till the last minute, and not giving it the attention I needed to. But I hope everyone else's came out good, I am looking forward to seeing everyone's creations. You can check out their posts here.

SIREN Shirts

Today I made some shirts for Siren Bicycles. Siren Mary is headed for a event this weekend and wanted to take some. These guys are pretty neat, they make bike frames and live locally in Idyllwild. 50 shirts in one day, not bad. I hope they liked them. ^_^

Not Doing Much of Anything

...but working. My first shirt printing job, 155 shirts and caps for Town Hall Baseball all due next Monday. Each shirt has a 2-3 color front, with sponsor and number on the back. It's been five days since I started, things aren't going as smoothly as I thought. That's what I get for being an optimist. It bites me in the ass sometimes. So I haven't baked, cooked (well, barely... David did the cooking all weekend. Too bad he's not home all week...), and surprisingly not taken pictures of food, and won't be for at least several more days. But this is a good learning experience for me. All other jobs after this one will seem easier. Siren Mary asked me to make her a few shirts this week too. It'll be a nice change for a day or two. But it would be nice if I could clone myself...

4 Weeks Old

The chickys are almost a month old. They are growing bigger by the day. They say around 3 weeks old they start developing a peck order. Abby's chick is definitely the head honcho. Nori is the biggest and the bossiest, definitely acts like Abby. They've been practicing flying in their cage. The cage doesn't have a cover so any day now they will fly out. Today I saw one fly up higher than the top of the cage, but just didn't fly out. Emi's seen one fly up on the edge. They are definitely scoping out the scene and planning an escape. One day we'll come home to poop everywhere...
They started developing combs and wattles (the red stuff under their chin.) Apparently the comb and wattle help keep the chicken cool in hot weather by circulating blood between them. And both the hens and the roosters have them, except the guys just have bigger ones. They should be going outside within in a few weeks, and we'll start with three more chicks!

Benefits of the Internet

The internet has been very good to me. The amount of information you can find is unbelievable. I have learned so much in the past few years. For example, yesterday morning my car alarm went off in the morning. Normally I would just start the car and it would stop. Well, not this time. It wouldn't let me. So the alarm beeps on for a while, possibly driving my neighbors nuts. After a while it goes off, but I'm afraid of trying again. Our street is VERY quiet, so it just seemed louder. So I go online, and find there is a button called the Valet Override Button that would manually override the alarm and let you start the car and turn the alarm off. So I wait till about 10 am, just to make sure people are up, and quickly searched for the "magic" button while the alarm is going off. And wa-lah! it worked and I was relieved. Mine was located near the front hood latch. I've learned how to fix many things thanks to the internet.

Hammer Time

Emi shoots me an email with a link to MC Hammer's blog. Yup, MC Hammer. Right when you've forgotten about him, he's back. She likes his song "Can't Touch This" so she thought it was cool she can check out his blog. My brother and I used to listen to him back in the good ol' days, David makes fun of me for that. That's ok, I've never worked at McDonald's... ha ha.

Finally At Last

Emi and Sage had some two-tiered bento boxes my mom got them a few years back, but at that time Abby wasn't in school yet so she didn't get one. Although my kids take bentos to school sometimes, I haven't really used them because Abby didn't have one and you know her, if she can't have one, no one can. So the last time I was in San Diego, I picked one up for her. So for today's bento, they got to finally use their bento boxes, filled with last night's homemade Chinese food, sweet and sour pork, and veggies (broccoli, bamboo shoots, and water chestnuts) in oyster sauce.

This one is Emi's, with Hello Kitty on it.
Sage's has a picture of a shrimp tempura on it. ^_^
And Abby's has some flowers on it. Hers is nice because it has clamps on it to hold it secure.
Our kids like boba drinks, and sometimes when we go eat Vietnamese rice noodles we get some Thai tea. So when I saw some Thai tea at a Vietnamese market, I got some and tried making some tea.
I made it warm with some condensed milk and a little sugar. It was a little on the light side, but it tasted good. I also got some dried tapioca pearls, so when I get around to cooking them, we'll be having a treat!

I was lucky to get a bag for $2.69, I've seen them online for about $4.89+shipping.

Bikeman Shirt for Sale

The BIKEMAN shirt is now available at my Etsy store. Printed on 100% combed cotton American Apparel shirts. These shirts are soooo comfortable!
We've also added a small logo print on the back below the neckline: PEDAL 1 LONG in tan color. More to come!

Yummies

I made a melon soda float today. A nice change from the usual coke or rootbeer floats. I bet they have this in Japan instead of rootbeer. It was a little different, but good nontheless. I wonder why there aren't melon soda in the states, because they are really good.
Played around with sourdough again. These came out rustic looking. Since the starter alone wasn't making it sour enough, I added a little sour salt (citric acid), and it seems to be coming out a little more sour. I just can't get it to brown despite brushing them with oil and baking longer. I doubled the recipe and got two monster sized loaves.

Chicky Update

They are three weeks old today. Their bodies are changing, more feathers, less fluff. They are getting aggressive, tearing the newspapers and running around more looking like they might start flying soon. They've started hopping on our palms when we put them next to them. But when they hang out on our arm, they start picking at the moles and freckles. And they hurt. I put one on my shoulder and it started pecking at the mole on my face! It was funny, but never again. ^_^
It's hard to believe we've only had them for two weeks. It just seems like they've been with us longer.

I never thought I'd think a bird was so cute...

Kakiage (Mixed Tempura)

I made Kakiage for dinner tonight. Kakiage is mixed tempura. A few ingredients are mixed together in tempura batter and deep-fried. You can use various vegetables, mushrooms, and seafood for kakiage. It is much simpler than tempura-ing each item.
Tonight's ingredients consisted of gobo (burdock root), onions, carrots, and satsuma-imo (Japanese sweet potato), thinly sliced.
Toss in flour first so the batter will adhere better.
Then add a little tempura batter so they clump together. Too much batter will leave you with a pancake!
Slowly slide into some hot oil so they stay together.

Place on some hot rice with a little tempura sauce, for a nice, tasty meal.

French Bread Rolls to Die For

I don't remember if I've ever posted this recipe, it's one I use quite frequently. A good friend started making bread and asked about recipes I use. This one is by Jocatlyn, found at allrecipes.com. You can find the recipe here. I made a double batch today knowing I may not have time to make bread for about two weeks, and froze half. FYI, instead of the bread flour called for in the recipe, I used All-Purpose and added some wheat gluten. And I make 12 rolls instead of 16 so they are a good sandwich sized roll. Very fluffy and yummy bread.

Siamese Celery

David thinks I'm a freak for finding this interesting enough to take a picture, but I had never seen this before. Have you?

Emi's 1st Crash

Emi rode around the block today with her friend and ate it pretty hard. They were going downhill and the cellphone was starting to fall so she went to grab it and it caused her to tumble over her handlebars, hitting face first into the ground. Oh, that must of hurt. It really scared her friend who saw the whole thing. But she was tough enough to make it home instead of calling for help. We put a bag of frozen edamame on her face, I think she'll be OK. All her friends will be asking her questions at school tomorrow.
She had problems eating, chewing was painful. So David made her a smoothie.

Spring Break 2008

This week was spring break for the kids. So we headed down to San Diego. I am going to cram a lot of pictures into this post! We started off taking the kids to the park with Teru. We played a little baseball and Sage played some one-on-one with Teru.

Next day was hiking at Mission Trails. We went in a way we hadn't before, so it was new and exciting.




The flowers were blooming everywhere. It was soooo pretty.

I really liked this route. Everything looked nice and green. I couldn't stop taking pictures, everything looked beautiful.

My dad asked Abby what she wanted to eat for dinner. She replies, sushi! So we had handrolls. Yum!

When we were packing our stuff, Emi had asked if she should take her swimsuit. Of course, I say no, the water is way too cold to swim in, I doubt we'll be going to the beach. Well, looks like I was wrong. So I told them they can just swim in their clothes. I was surprised they went in, despite the fact that the water was ice cold!

On the way home from the beach, we stopped by Pirates Cove to check out the roller coaster. Abby was two inches too short, and the short two minute ride was $6 per person so we called that off. No wonder no one was riding it.
So instead I let them each pick one thing to do. Emi chose to climb this palm tree. We were watching some other kids attempt this and didn't see anyone make it. So I was really surprised Emi made it to the top. She cried out halfway, this is hard! But she stuck it out. I was impressed.

Her reward, this really cute inflatable monkey. She named it Terry.
Abby rode a merry-go-round.


Sage didn't want to do anything so we let him play at the arcade.

Saying goodbye... they had a nice time full of activities.
On the way home, my car breaks down in the middle of nowhere in Anza. Called AAA and she asks what the nearest cross street is. I told her I can't even see one. I walked in both directions till I found a mileage marker. Some good semaritan stopped by to see I was ok, and gave me the info I needed. The tow guy let us ride in my car as he towed it since there was no room for all of us in his truck. The kids were having a blast.

Killing time waiting for the car to get fixed. My tensioner had broke and caused my serpentine belt to not work which overheated my car on top of causing many other things to stop working. Luckily my belt was still ok, and tensioner was replaceable in about an hour. We had decided not to go to Nevada for the bike race, something just didn't feel right. And after the car breaking down, it was like, now I'm really glad we didn't go. Imagine if this had happened miles away from anything. That would of sucked big time.




Came home to some packages with some printing stuff I had ordered for our next job coming up this Tuesday. They packed it in such huge boxes with lots of popcorn, it was like x-mas for the kids.