pizza & egg yolks

gourmet pizza...handmade and baked in a portable wood-fired brick oven...in a parking lot in the middle of Kalihi.  how cool is that?!

finally went to Inferno's this weekend for fresh-out-of-the-oven pizza and it was heavenly.  my favorite is the brisket with their special sweet & spicy bbq sauce.  if you end up taking your pie home, make sure you snag a slice before you jump in the car because it just tastes soooo much better hot and fresh.  of course, the pizza is still yummy if you take it home to eat but the crust ends up getting chewy and your jaws may or may not enjoy that. 

i learn something new every day.  today's lesson:  don't warm up an egg yolk in the microwave.  or at least cover it up if you do because it will explode and scare the crap out of you.

spacing issues?

i'm a blogger novice and just realized that there are spacing issues between paragraphs and images on certain computers.  anyone know how to fix this? seems like most bloggers compose in a separate program and then copy and paste the html into blogger.  thanks!

give me back that filet-o-fish & other randomness

give me back that filet-o-fish

give me that fish

give me back that filet-o-fish

give me that fish

what if it were you 

hanging up on this wall?

if it were you in that sandwich

you wouldn't be laughing at all!


hahahha i love that song :)  does a filet o' fish taste better when served on Versace china?

princess jasmyn has been limping since Friday so i finally took her to the vet yesterday. turns out that her left front foot pad is infected :(  we're not sure how it got infected but the topical antibiotic seems to be helping.  for now, she's wearing one of tiramisu's socks to keep her from licking it and to protect it when she walks outdoors.

no, this is not a jack-o-lantern...it's my grill!  

i'm currently in the process of straightening my teeth with Invisalign.  i actually started the process in February 2009 and was on tray 16 of 22 (each tray is worn for 2 weeks) when i stopped wearing them because it was aggravating my morning sickness. rather than continuing the trays when the morning sickness dissipated in the second trimester, i got lazy and decided not to wear them at all. HUGE MISTAKE.  i went back to the dentist a few months ago and learned that my teeth are 100x more messed up than my original teeth.  WTF.  the dentist said that once you stop wearing the trays, the teeth shift and go c-r-a-z-y.  i wish i had known that a year ago.  live and learn.

so now i'm having a "mid course adjustment" that just happens to be 15 trays long on the top and 24 trays on the bottom!!!  if you're keeping track, this "adjustment" is actually longer than my initial treatment.  it totally sucks but it is what it is.  i promised my dentist and myself that i will not run astray from my trays this time around, especially since i don't think i can last another round of that disgusting, gag-eliciting goop that they use to make the impressions.  i didn't take any pictures for trays 1 through 4, unfortunately, so we'll just use tray 5 as the starting point.

fff & sss

if you are lucky enough to work for the State of Hawaii, last friday was another FFF (fabulous furlough friday).  i feel for those who were forced to take a mandatory pay cut but at least it gives you another day to play and enjoy life.  and if you're lucky enough to have Martin Luther King day off, it's a 4-day weekend!  

meet my favorite state employee, miss tg.  she always tells me that she'll be swinging by on her next FFF to visit the little tiramisu.  i usually don't hold my breath but yesterday was a good day because she actually showed up...and with LOTS of gifts in tow for the tiramisu and some snacks for me.

this is tg, pre $200 digital perm

i don't drink coffee but i love coffee ice cream and coffee candy...so it makes sense that i would love these cappuccino cream "lucky sticks" that tg brought me :)  fun snacks like this make me want to return to japan. i can't wait until the tiramisu is a little bit older so we can travel to places far and away.

 

anywho, when tg left our house, she had loooong artificially straightened hair as shown above.  $240 ($200 + $40 tip) and four hours later, she looks like this.  what do you think of her digital perm? she's having issues about it being too bushy and curly but i think it looks cute.  i'm waiting for her to get 3d acrylic nails so she will really blend in with the tourists in waikiki.

tg's fob hair inspiration (left) & tg post-$200 digital perm (right)

while researching digital perms, we were both astonished by the abundance of blogs that feature stylish women who take photos of themselves and blog about it.  tg is fairly stylish.  she wears brand name shoes -- her most expensive pair of sandals cost $800.  yes, $800!  makes me want to run out and get a State job, too.  

i'm on the opposite end of the fashion scale.  post-baby, i hardly leave the house besides going out to walk the dog or grab the mail so i'm usually wearing my "home clothes" which typically consists of mens boxers and a tshirt or tanktop.  my "going out" attire mostly consists of black pants or jeans and a simple shirt.  my "work" attire is the same as my "going out" attire (luckily i've never had to wear "business attire" to work).  for the last couple of years, i've been perfectly happy rotating my wardrobe of 10 outfits but now find that i need a wardrobe makeover.  rather than going to the mall and buying clothes that everyone and their mama is wearing, i've decided to start something fun, creative and cheap -- THRIFTING!  vintage thrifting to be exact.  and my goal is to make one complete outfit from head to toe every week for under $20!

yesterday, i embarked on my first thrifting trip for my SSS (sustainable style series).  i went to my local Goodwill and was shocked at the amount of people roaming the aisles.  i browsed for about 1-1/2 hours and hardly made a dent in the inventory.  you really need a few hours to go through everything, especially since the sizes can be mixed up. unfortunately, i don't think i can survive in a Goodwill for more than 2 hours without sneezing from all the dust in there.  anyhoo, i got through what i could and walked out with a dress and skirt.  i wasn't able to find accessories or a top to make my outfit complete since i ran out of time but stay tuned for the first SSS installment anyway. i hope it's as fun as i'm imagining it to be!

why is it that my posts become soooo wordy?! 

well, hello there...

...and welcome to my own little space in the blog world!

i'm miss t & one of my current purposes in life is to provide nutrition for my little tiramisu.  for 7-1/2 months now, i've been hooked up to a nifty machine that goes wa-ka, wa-ka, wa-ka for approximately 382 HOURS and have expressed over 48 GALLONS of milk!!  and yes, i have been counting.

the hubby was testing out some lighting gels while i was putting my milk away.  

i thought the photo turned out to be pretty funny so i decided to blog about it.  

tmi for a first post?  hahahahah

long before baby was born, i decided to breastfeed.  after all, women are adorned with special body parts made specifically for this very purpose.  breast milk is "liquid gold" and no synthetic formula can replicate the special composition of fat, carbohydrates, proteins, minerals and especially antibodies that are found in it. and the best thing...there are no bottles to wash and food is just a lift of the tshirt away!

following delivery, one of the hospital's main post-partum goals is to make sure that breastfeeding is established before mom and baby are discharged.  i worked with lactation consultants (LC) and nurses for two days and believed that we had the procedure down as baby was having lots of wet and poopie diapers. however, when we went to the pediatrician's office on baby's 4th day of life, she had lost over 12% of her birth weight and we were instructed to "medically" supplement her with formula to bring her weight up asap.

i had my heart set on solely breastfeeding so the doctor's orders were a major slap in the face.  i started wondering if my boobs were dysfunctional.  and then i questioned my baby's innate ability to latch on and suck. after all, dogs can do it without a human manhandling their puppies.  no pun intended haha.  (btw, witnessing a nurse manhandling your 1 day old newborn to establish a latch is another topic in and of itself.)

anywho, i was pretty bummed that we needed to give her formula.  at least the doctor gave us some ready-to-drink samples which were really easy to use as they are premixed.  i still tried to breastfeed hoping that she would receive some valuable colostrum until my "milk came in."  i waited and waited and then later that night, my boobs started feeling really warm...and fuller...and kinda sore...and then felt like they were on the verge of exploding.  HOORAY!  the jugs were finally full!  

i attempted to get baby to latch on but she would get fussy and cry and we both got frustrated. it seemed that my boobs just weren't made for her mouth...think square peg in round circle. and, babies are extremely smart and quickly learn that the bottle is waaaay easier than starting the milk flow from the boob.  after many tries, i realized that it just wasn't going to happen and was forced to express milk using my trusty Medela breast pump.  newborns eat every 2-3 hours around the clock so i had to follow suit and pump 24 hours a day for the first 12 weeks or so. this also helps with "building up your milk supply."  i tried to get a 5 hour period of sleep when i could but strategically had to get at least 1 pumping session in between the hours of 1 am and 5 am when the body's prolactin levels are highest.  yes, milk production is a science.

the first couple of weeks were rough and all the pumping and dishwashing (bottles, pump parts, etc) started making me crazy and sad.  not only was i tired and cranky, i felt like i had no time or energy to simply hold and enjoy my baby.  but things got easier with time, and as soon as the mister and i had established a routine, my sanity was slowly reestablished.  and then i realized that "exclusively pumping (EP)" definitely has its benefits.  the mister would feed her during the night shift so i could sleep :)  and my mom was able to watch and feed her so the mister and i could do errands or go out to dinner.  and we know exactly how much milk the little is drinking, which is both good and bad since we tend to get paranoid when the quantity dips below a certain number.  

i now pump 5-6 times a day for 20+ minutes per session.  i dropped the night pump a few months ago and happily manage to get 6-8 hours of sleep per night.  yay!  these days, i express about 800-900 cc's (27-30 oz) per day.  my crowning glory is producing 18 oz in one pumping session...that's over 1 cup of milk per boob! crazy.  in the first 4-5 months, i expressed more milk than baby drank so i ended up freezing gallons and gallons of milk.  unfortunately, i've also ended up dumping gallons and gallons of milk as the freezer shelf life is only 3 months.  i wish we had a milk bank in Hawaii because i'm sure there are many preemies and other babies that could've definitely benefited from the extra milk.  oh wells.

EP is definitely a science and i'm

so why am i blogging about literally emptying my jugs on the first blog post of my life? because if all goes well, i will be doing this for FIVE MORE months.  and my plan is to blog to the tune of the wa-ka, wa-ka, wa-ka since my brain desperately needs exercise outside of the things i typically do during my pumping sessions (facebook, chat, read blogs and play words with friends).  i plan to blog about anything and everything, including things that have happened this past year that i don't want to forget.  the days are flying by and i don't want to regret a poor memory later.

if you made it this far, thank you for reading.  i promise to have some less wordy posts in the future :)