Happy New Year!!! 2016

New Year + Me = Endless Possibilities.

Greetings everyone! I hope your holiday festivities were delightful. 🙂

2015 was a huge huge year for me. I reached a healthy weight and moved on to striving to live life fully every day finishing my Golden Year Project in the process. During this time I have really come to appreciate how life is truly a journey and is always moving forwards. As such, I intend to continue striving to be the best version of myself, including taking better care of my health.

One of the foundations of good health is a good diet which is supported by cooking skills. Historically speaking, cooking and I have rarely seen eye-to-eye. My juvenile culinary attempts long resulted in burned water, salty cookies, dusty gingerbread, scrambled pancakes, and, the one my siblings won’t let me forget, the puke-tastic peanut butter balls. (How was I to know that substituting half the ingredients would result in tragedy???)

But as a sign of the times, there have been changes which give me cause to update my perception of my abilities. Over the past six months I have surprised myself by showing an aptitude for preparing edible food, meals even, for the consumption of others. My most recent successes have merited accolades from formerly skeptical family members. Which leads me to my main resolution for 2016…

I am going Paleo. 🙂

I wish you all a wonderful 2016.

Thanks for reading!

-AnnaSan

Undead Tako

For years my brother has praised his Quality Analyst, saying how amazing she is, how she looks out for all the guys at work and is always stating that he really needs to do something special for her, however… never gets around to it. As a QA myself I know how important it is to feel appreciated, so I took it upon myself to make her a little sumthin’ sumthin’ to make her V-day special… :3

Undead Tako

She really likes zombies so I made her an “Undead Tako.” LOL! I’ve never made one before so I think it turned out okay – prolly nix the hair if I made one again tho!

Thanks for reading!

-Anna San♥

Happy Birthday Mom!

13″x9″ Carrot Cake

Today is my mom’s birthday and being the thoughtful, loving and caring daughter that I am, I made her a carrot cake – from scratch.

This year I followed along with the recipe from Food Network with the exception of a few things such as pastry flour (All Purpose will have to do), omitting salt, not using a sifter (mine died T^T), using a 13X9 instead of three 9″ round pans and not following the time guidelines. (24 hours before frosting the cake??! Not happening. ) The carrot cake is topped with cream cheese frosting and walnuts – and of course I had to do the obligatory carrots on top. 😀 Since the batter tasted so good I am confident that when it’s time to serve, the completed cake will taste even better! 🙂

Milestones!

Today WordPress officially told me I have 100 followers, so yay! Thank you everyone!!! Secondly today was my 6 year anniversary on WordPress.com! Woot! Thirdly today marks my 4 year anniversary of moving out and lastly I have reached my 90 days at my new job! 😀 😀 😀

Today was definitely a day for celebrating, so I extended my Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/shop/everythingannashop) coupons through September 30th! Pick up your adorable Tako today! Free domeestic shipping: WPF100; $3.00 off $10 purchase: WPF100I

Mother’s Day Preparations~!

Tomorrow is Mother’s day and I don’t know about you, but my Mom has some pretty high expectations of how her many children will bless her on this special day…

So the traditional gifts for mother’s day are pretty similar to other holiday/event gifts. Such as flowers, candy, health and beauty items, breakfast lovingly burned- I mean prepared, love coupons, handmade cards and items, jewelry etc. Except in the case of Mother’s day, you want to remind her that she has children and you’re thankful that she gave you life. So commence the mom-ized items! 🙂

This year the offerings include:

The Handmade Card

Made by my little sis Nina

 

The Special Corsage

Selected by moi. (instead of a generic bouquet)

 

The Personalized Jewelry

Almost a decade ago my mom bought her own custom birthstone necklace (similar to the one pictured above) and she loved it! However, after only a few weeks of use, one of the charms slipped off the heart and was never seen again. The store that it was ordered through couldn’t order replacement charms – she would’ve had to have bought a whole new necklace. Needless to say my mom didn’t wear it after that. 😦

But it is my desire to overcome this negative memory and try again!

So the base for the custom birthstone necklace was a gorgeous silver necklace with a heart pendant that I ordered from MaiJewelryShop on Etsy:

 Then toss in the custom birthstone charms I ordered from NatureWalkJewelry on Etsy:

And then combined into one necklace by moi. 🙂

 

I had to play around with several ideas before I came up with the “least likely to get lost” attachment solution. (the charms are attached to the pendant instead of the chain)

And then last but not least:

Personal H & B Products

…Which my sister Maru has squirreled away to surprise mom with. 😉

Are you ready for Mother’s Day?