I've been listening to Damien Rice these past few weeks and I just don't get tired of it!

This is the song I listened to at 12 midnight on my birthday.

I've been obsessed a little too much with red lately, as you can see.


Velvet + red, two of my favorites! So these mary janes are just perfection!

It was my birthday yesterday and it was one of the best ever! I will tell you all about it later!

I really love eggs benedict. This is usually what I order for breakfast when we eat out. As someone who cooks, I am not easily pleased when it comes to food so I try to only order what I cannot cook at home myself.
This was one of them.
Last night at Trader Joe's, I found ready to use Hollandaise sauce. I didn't feel like attempting to make this from scratch so I heard church bells when I saw this. So, this morning, I came up with my own version of Eggs Benedict.

I used hash browns instead of biscuits. These were from Trader Joe's too (yes, we love Trader Joe's!) I fried two of them then cooked two over easy/fried organic eggs. You can poach the eggs but you can also fry the egg in low heat to get the same effect minus the mess. Put the eggs on top of the hash browns, one on each. Then spoon over the Hollandaise sauce on top of the eggs. I also added crumbled feta cheese (optional) and rosemary (for some color) and slices of french bread, freshly baked. You can use any bread you want or for an even heavier breakfast, you can have it with french toast or pancakes.

Trader Joe's Hollandaise sauce was tangy. I was not used to hollandaise being citrusy but it's a good contrast for the richness of the hash browns and eggs.

I'm trying to get rid of all the clutter and things I don't need around the house. I felt the need to just keep what I use and just learn to let go. I have a hard time letting go of things, not only things, of people too and feelings like love and anger.

As I was organizing some things, I saw piles and piles of letters from old loves and friends from the place where I grew up.These letters are filled with love, promises, sadness, happiness and longing. These letters kept me sane being so far away from home. It gave me hope, It gave me something to look forward to. Getting the mail from the mailbox in that tiny mail room on the first floor of our apartment building was the highlight of my day.

I wrote to them like a diary. Writing something each day for weeks before finally putting it in an envelope to mail it. That was before the internet and the only way to communicate was overseas calls that were so expensive and snail mail.

I would put a stamp on my letters and put them in the outgoing mail box for the mailman to mail for me. I remember one day, when I went to the mail room to see If I had letters in the mail box I saw one of my letters on the floor, ripped open. I wrote the letters in that envelope for days and there it was laying on the floor and it was like my whole heart was ripped out of my chest for everyone to see. I picked it up and cried and cried on my bed and after I cried, I rewrote everything on the letter to mail it.

I know I have to learn to let go of things but I don't think these would be some of them. These are a part of me that I'm just not willing to let go. At least, not yet.

I miss getting letters and sending letters. Things are so different now. Some of my old friends are just a click away and a chat away but I feel like they are farther from me now than how they were during those days when we wrote letters to one another.

 

As a film buff, there are a few things that a movie should be or it doesn't make it to my ultimate list.
First, it should be visually stunning/stimulating/ may it be the graphics, cinematography or beautiful faces or architecture and interiors.
Second, it should make sense. It should have meaning or I should be able to relate to the plot somehow or it's characters.

Third, clever writing, may it be the story or the dialogue or both.
Fourth, it should change my life in a way, may it be to inspire me or make me change something small or big in my own life or something I learn from.
Fifth, the movie should be unforgettable.
Sixth, it makes me want to see it all over again as soon as the credits come up.
Seventh, it makes me smile or laugh or both.
Eighth, It should be blog-worthy.

All of the above was met when I saw this movie called SIDEWALLS on Netflix. It's an Argentinian film. I've never seen a film from Argentina before so I didn't have any expectations. I was just really starved for a good film in quite a long time. So I gave it a go.
I was blown away.
From beginning to end.

As someone who has so many fears/phobias, I could so relate with the characters in this movie. I completely understand the ordeal they were going through, the loneliness and how they try to fight those fears everyday just to survive or feel alive.
The dialogue is superb and so timely. You can't help yourself from nodding in agreement because you see it, you know it, you feel it. It's your life and mine. You'll feel claustrophobic, scared and yet you'll feel inspired and hopeful.
I love it so much, I think you'll find me on the bed in the middle of the night tonight, watching it on Netflix on my phone.

I have three girls and a four year old son. So, this is all new to me. This boy loves snakes, reptiles and dinosaurs like any other boy but planets away from how girls are.
The Lair recently opened at the Los Angeles Zoo and my son is in reptile heaven. I love, love how amazed he was and I found a new appreciation for these creatures that used to scare me. I love looking at them at a whole new light. I can't wait to go back.

This week has been busy and exciting! A couple of baby shoots (photos above) and fashion shoots for an upcoming relaunch of my handmade avante garde eco friendly clothes (sneak peek soon) and a lot of planning and prepping for scheduled engagement and wedding photo shoots for this coming months! It's been crazy but I love every minute of it.
Today, I need to catch up on laundry and chores that had been waiting for me all week!

The family dog.

He had his photo shoot today and he looked oh so fine. He posed like a pro too! I have a love-hate relationship with him. He gives my vocal chords some exercise when he runs out through a half open door then goes near the street and I have to chase him in my pj's at noon (when it's odd to still be in pj's) and then he pretends not to hear me when I call his name. He also constantly scratches my arm as I am watching an important show on tv, as if he has an emergency that I must attend to which often turns out to be a real emergency because he happened to pee on the carpet again because he couldn't hold it any longer and then I chase him around the house but I really never get to catch him and I don't really know what I'll do when I do catch him. He never really sits when asked and he still barks at my mom and sister after 4 years. He humps our leg when we laugh and get really loud. I don't know, that turns him on or something. When I'm trying to sleep, the sound of his feet on the wooden floor is the most annoying thing to hear, as if a woman in heels can't decide where she should go. It drives me crazy!

But you know what, at the end of the day, he is still the baby in this house. The youngest of all my kids and when he looks at me with his puppy eye (because the other one is usually hidden underneath all that fur) it still melts my heart like a popsicle in the summertime. We love our Story.

Sometimes I spend a whole  hour just surfing through Netflix. There is so much junk there but sometimes I stumble on a pot of gold. My recent find, Or should I say---my kids' recent find was a korean tv drama entitled 'you are beautiful'. I loved it (not as much as boys over flowers) and if you are a hopeless romantic then you'll love it too.

I don't want to give anything away. I love watching something when I have no idea what it is about. So, I'll give you the chance to have the option of not knowing too. This is available on Netflix streaming, if you don't have Netflix. It's available on<a href="http://www.viki.com%20/" target="_blank"> www.viki.com.</a>
Enjoy!

My son only goes to school every Monday. So, every Monday, my mister and I go out to have breakfast so that's what we did after dropping our son off at school.

Today, this was breakfast. It was special because it was at my favorite restaurant, Bottega Louie in downtown L.A.