Judgment Day

 

When I got home last night, I opened the door and my little Mexican sweetheart ran out to greet me.

Since I love her so much, we decided to take her to her favorite place in the world.

The Express car wash !!! They give you a doggy treat when you pay if you have a dog with you. So we entered the machine, with Elli all alert and bouncing around.

She loves to watch the soap spray on the car.

Look at that smile. She got up on the dash and tried to paw at the bubbles, until we hit the part where the air blows.

 

 

 

Then we were free!!! A clean car and a happy Chihuahua.

So I guess you are wondering exactly how the face turned out. It has been a month since the ViPeel and two weeks of using the Clarisonic Mia. This morning, I took closeups of the right and left sides of my face, concentrating on the cheeks, where most of the spots and sun damage were.

Let's compare these pictures with the one taken the night of the procedure.

My face is smooth and soft and unspotted!!! My mustache is gone!!!This thing worked great. And the Mia helps all the creams and potions soak in better, so you get more apparent results. I would say this is $500 well spent. Now I'm good for a while. Judgment = pleased as punch.

For some reason, I took a picture of my lunch yesterday. We have good food here at the hospital, and one of my favorites is the chicken curry.

I got double veggies instead of rice. It's sooooo gooood.  So now, let's get down to business. What am I wearing?

A reptile print knit pencil skirt and a blouse made by Style and Co (A Macy's brand) . We are having a Santa Ana, so it will be in the high 80s today here in SoCal. The blouse has a gold lame bib on the front.

You can see that here. Obviously, I wore my long pearl Joan Rivers necklace. I also wore the shorter neck wire with the faux topaz drop.

My skirt is just a bit big in the waist (a common problem for me), so I cinched it in with my favorite belt.

You can also see that the skirt has two diagonal pockets with gold zippers. The black and gold allowed me to keep the same purse - my Versace messenger bag. Since the blouse has long cuffed sleeves, no bracelets. Just two favorite good old standby rings.

 

 

My Swarovski Nirvana in Black Diamond on the right, and my crystal/enamel from Saks on the left. I toyed with the possibility of wearing my new Ebay shoes, but opted for one of my Jessica Simpson pairs.

 

Didn't pick these.

These T straps are what I wore. They are tan suede with reptile accents. I like J Simp shoes.

So onto the links!!! Since it's Thursday, of course I am joining a fellow SoCal-er, Alice at www.happinessatmidlife.com for Throwback Thursday. She looks very Valentiney in her pretty outfit. You can see from her pictures that we did have some coastal fog the last couple of days. Also, I am participating in a new linkup, Rhea, at www.rheaetcetera.com for Style To Inspire. Rhea is new to me, but you can bet I will be visiting both of these blogs later today. Have a great day!!!

Linking Like Crazy!!!

I am getting a lot of lovely emails from other bloggers encouraging me to join their linkups. If you know me at all, then you know that I need very little encouragement to do anything that even hints at fun. So later in this post, I will be linking to three of these awesome blogs. But first........

This is one of my favorite outfits. I got it at Macy's in Kailua. Kailua is on Oahu, over the Pali Highway across the island from Honolulu. My nephew is an Army psychiatrist, and he was stationed at Tripler Medical Center on Oahu for 5 years. So we would regularly visit him to soak up island happiness. Sadly, he left in 2010 (I think, as far as I can remember). Anyway, the dress is INC and the short leather jacket is Baby Phat. I have usually worn all turquoise jewelry with this dress, but for today, I mixed up brown and turquoise. Here's the necklace.

The famous pearl torsade that my mom gave me for my birthday a few years back. You can see the detail on the jacket - the best way I can describe it is pleated ruffles.

The leather also has a somewhat distressed texture. I also used to wear my dearly departed JCP maryjanes, but RIP.

So today, I tried out my Carlos Santana gladiators, and I like the way they look.

On my left arm, I did choose to wear turquoise.

The cuff is a gift from Doc at the antique shop in Gorman, Ca, on the famous Grapevine that leads from the San Fernando valley to the San Joaquin valley, where most of the produce we buy in the US is grown. The ring was a gift from Luke, Ashley, and Preston. On my right arm

My Swarovski Duo - the Nirvana ring in Black Diamond, and the Platinum bracelet.

So that's about it for the outfit. Onto the house. It is being painted as we speak. The nice painter, Jim, dropped off a color chart for me to pick from. It was cool- it has color schemes specifically designed for California Ranch style houses, which is what I currently live in.

 

 

We are planning to put the house on the market in a year or so, so I went with good resale colors - medium gray for the stucco, white pearl for the ledges, eaves and trim, and navy blue for the steps and shutters. If I were going to keep the house, this is what I would have picked.

A mossy greenish grey, with ivory and black for the trim and shutters. But that's not very marketable, so I went with an updated version of the current color scheme. The last thing before the links....

My white amaryllis that my SIL, Tawn, gave me for Xmas has bloomed, and done so beautifully.
So let's link!!! First, Tameka at www.pastirespumpsandpi.blogspot.com for Who's Wearing What Wednesday. Secondly, Liz at www.shoppingmycloset.com for Style Me Wednesday. And last, but not least, a new lady, Kelsie, at www.designlifediaries.com for Valentine's Day Style. Check these dolls out, and have a great Wednesday!!!

Two For Tuesday

Due to yesterday's extravaganza about The Hobbit, I neglected to show my outfit. I was saving it for today. But first, let's see Elli's new dress.

She looks good in red. It says "Love, Peace, Paws". It's also a little more feminine with the skirt than her usual unisex onesies. She seems to like it. Also, I have decided to immortalize our Kenni in a portrait. I started as usual, with a photo.

I gridded both the photo and my canvas. Then I sketched his head.

Since he's black and brown, I wanted a colorful background. I mixed up a lovely shade of robin's egg blue.

I am going to do it in a different style than what I used for Elli. I'll keep you posted as to the progress.

Now for the two outfits, yesterday and today. Yesterday:

An INC knit dress with a paisley pattern on a black background. It also has tiny silver studs scattered throughout the print. But I decided to wear a black suede belt with gold chains.

 

 

You can get a pretty good look at the print in this shot. I layered two sapphire necklaces, one short and one long.

 

 

I don't think that the gold competes with the silver. As a matter of fact, I always wear gold and sapphires with this dress. On my left hand,

I have three gold and sapphire bracelets and a London Blue Topaz ring. On my right hand,

another sapphire ring and a gold/diamond dust bangle. I wore my Di De shoes from Nordstrom.

I had to change them for my walk, since they are actually a little uncomfortable for walking, although they don't look like they would be. It's the band across the toes that starts to smart after a bit.

So for today, I wanted another easy, comfy outfit, since I am going to the February birthday dinner at Villa Valencia, where my mom lives. So I have to wear this outfit for about 12 hours straight. I picked another knit shift. This one also came from Macy's, like the INC, but the brand is ECI. It's a bright tropical print.

I wore my Versace belt and am carrying the matching purse. I know that matching accessories exactly may be a little "old lady", but I am going to own that.

I doubled up on necklaces today, also. For the long one, I just switched out the pendant and used the same thick chain as yesterday. Today, I wore an amethyst drop.

 

This picture gives you a clear look at all the beautiful colors in this dress. I would never have thought to combine lavender and black and gold, but it works. So for a short necklace, I wore my black coral.

I continued the gold and black with a different pair of shoes, also from Nordstrom. The brand is Boutique 9. Their shoes are very well made, and worth the price.

 

 

These shoes are also super comfy - they don't hurt at all, anywhere. On my left hand,

I wore my wedding set and two gold/diamond dust bracelets - one bangle and one hinged. On my right,

Two more gold bracelets, and the amethyst ring Doc had made for me a long time ago.

Now, onto the links. As always, on Tuesday, I am participating in Tremendous Tuesday with Amber at www.induffintely.blogspot. She talks about her runner's legs, which I also suffer from. My calves are very large, and my whole legs are very muscular. But I like having strong looking legs, despite the occasional fit problems. I am not a fan of skinny jeans, anyways. Then, I am joining Laura at www.walkinginmemphisinhighheels.com for Trend Spin. Today's trend is neon, and although my dress may be slightly less than neon, it is certainly bright enough to qualify. Have a great day, and visit these two cute blogs if you have a chance!!!

Happy Anniversary to Us!!!

Well, a little something different for you all today. Today is actually our wedding anniversary, but since it's Monday, we celebrated yesterday. We knew that we were going to be having a luxurious dinner out, so we went easy on our bellies for lunch.

That's right !!! Costco footlongs. $1.50 includes a drink. Can't beat that. Then, later in the day, I got dressed for our night out at The Hobbit.

I wore my trusty silk sheath dress with an elastic waist and a waterfall cardi. This is me, in the foyer of our house, just before driving out to Orange, the city where the Hobbit is located. I don't look too happy here, but I was later.

 

 

 

I wore my pink pumps with this dress, like I always do. For my necklace, I jimmied together a matching Joan Rivers number.

 

 

It was very warm here yesterday - shorts and T shirt weather - so my jewelry had a springtime feel, like my outfit. On my left arm,

My wedding set, a diamond dust bracelet, and a multicolored gemstone bracelet. On my right,

A pale amethyst ring that Doc had made for me, another gold bracelet, and a darker amethyst bracelet.

So now, onto The Hobbit. Here is our menu for the evening.

First, Doc took a picture of me in front of the sign.

 

 

Then we got a picture of the beautiful stained glass window in the patio. All parties are seated and served at the same time. So while you wait for everyone to arrive, you go upstairs to the very top of the house, where the cocktail lounge is located. The house was built in 1930, and you move from room to room during the dinner.

 

So we'll start at the top of the menu. You go down stairs to the wine cellar, where you have champagne and hor d'oeurves. Here are two pictures of the spread that they put out - there was caviar, artichoke dip, shrimp, oysters, many many tiny unknown things on toast, poke, pate, and too much more to mention. We had a lot, because it was all scrumptious. The big flat thing is called a French Sandwich - it's puff pastry with a savory creamy cheesy filling.  This is where you also select the bottle of wine that you want with your dinner. We didn't get wine, since it seemed like champagne was enough and we had to drive 25 minutes home. About half of the tables got wine.

 

 

 

We had our picture taken, but it's very dark down there. I included it anyway.

Those blobs are me and Doc.  After the appetizers, you go back to the lounge to finish your champagne. Then we went back down to the dining room for our first course.

The dining room looks like it used to be the parlor back in the day. Here's a photo. Our table was the right rear one. I am standing just to the left of it. You are both seated so that you face outwards to where the photo is being taken from.

 

 

Here is a picture of our table. There's a little place card done in calligraphy and a GIANT rose made out of butter.

 

 

 

 

Here's a better look at the place card.

The first course was a seared diver scallop on a bed of red quinoa and golden raisins in a seafood broth. We also had popover style rolls throughout the dinner.

 

 

The scallop was big, but the entire dish was about a half cup. It was delicious. Then we had duck confit on a bed of braised leek risotto with parmagiano reggiano sprinkled on the risotto. I didn't know what confit was, but it seemed like shredded duck meat. Doc loves duck.  I forgot to get a picture. This was also about a half cup serving. Then we had our salad .

 

 

It was baby Lolla rosa (a type of lettuce) with Roquefort dressing. The square thing is a very crispy piece of prosciutto. The slices were pears that had been reduced in some kind of syrup. Then the long things are some sort of sprout. The round things are pomegranate seeds. This was likewise very delicious and all the dishes were very rich.

After the salad, you have a choice of going back up to the lounge, out to the patio or into the kitchen to observe the operation. I went to the kitchen.

 

 

The gentleman facing the camera is the executive chef. He and his concierge circulate through the tables all evening long to ask if everything is good. When I got up to use the ladies room, I came back to a new napkin all folded back up like a rose, new silverware, and a full glass of water. All the attention made Doc nervous - he's pretty shy as a rule. Now for the entrée.

Garlic crusted lamb. Yum. The square thing in the upper right is butternut squash that was so sweet and tender that the fork cut it. The lamb is served on a bed of absolutely awesome mashed potatoes. There are also some green beans and some braised miniature apples. The sauce is a demi glace.

So obviously, we were full to the gills after this. We took our dessert home with us. It was a pecan layer crisp and a chocolate mousse cake , both served with strawberries and strawberry sauce. Birthday folks got a whipped thing served in a martini glass with a sparkler, and anniversaries got either a special mix of liquors, or some chocolate truffles. We chose the truffles and took those home too. I am still full this morning. Once a year for this type of food is enough for us. But it sure was elegant and fun, and something nice to do for our anniversary. In a couple of years a big one is coming up, so that will probably be the next time we go all out. I hope you enjoyed seeing this. If you guys have done something similar, I would love to see the pictures and hear about it.

I am still going to participate in Patti's Visible Monday at www.notdeadyetstyle.blogspot.com. I will use my outfit as my entry. I must say that after eating all that rich food, I do feel quite a bit closer to death, but not dead yet!!!! See you all later!!!