my ikea hack

in our bedroom, we have a small wall in between 2 closet doors. this wall is perfect for a dresser. we didn't want a very tall dresser since we are mounting a television on the wall as well. to convince my husband to spend money on a quality dresser was pretty impossible since we can't seem to agree on a style. so i scoured the internet for what could be a cool looking, affordable but not big box dresser. yes, it was impossible to find. what i did stumble upon was this ikea hack for a night stand. i loved the warmth of the wood w/ the clean white dressers. well, i figured, i can be "crafty" when i apply myself and my husband can certainly help me since he is quite the paint / stain expert. so we paid a visit to ikea to pick up 2 dressers, osh hardware for the stain & paint and anthropologie for the knobs.

 

dresser: ikea 3 drawer chest $34.99 each
knobs: anthropologie $8.00 each 
stain: minwax dark walnut
paint: chantilly lace by benjamin moore

yes, the price of all the knobs cost more than the actual dressers. however, i love anthro's knobs and how beautifully painted they are. a year later, they are holding up fairly well! i'm actually itching to do another hack.

mommy and son time

aaron and i took a last minute trip to maui. my friends convinced me that this is a really great opportunity to take a vacation and REALLY relax. so i found some cheap flights to maui and a great deal on a resort in wailea. this was also a great chance for steve to have some "me time".

traveling by myself w/ a 5 yr old might seem brave to some but really, as my sister would say, aaron is almost like an adult. he literally does everything himself. he actually had to remind ME to bring our room key when we left our hotel! the four days we were in wailea absolutely flew by. it was definitely an experience that i'm SO grateful i was able to have w/ my son. although we both missed daddy, it was nice to spend some quality time w/ my son.

 waiting at sjo for our flight!

 dinner at alan wong's amasia

 yummie pineapple sangria

 ahi tartare

 braised short ribs

 amazing coconut sorbet

 wailea beach

 vibrant beautiful flowers at the grand wailea

 nothing like a romantic stroll along the beach w/ your 5 yr old son

 my favorite - lava flow

 view from our hotel room

  our "partial" ocean view

 our upgraded large lanai. amazing what empathy you get when you are traveling solo w/ child hahaa

 dining at humuhumu

 seriously the MOST delicious dish i've had in awhile...

seared ahi loin w/ foie gras dumpling, mushrooms and snow peas in broth

 aaron's dessert - macadamia nut ice cream

 independent little man; wanted to stroll our luggage

thankful for...

...all my wonderful and supportive friends and family
...the most amazing and healthy 5 yr old son
...my jack of all trades hubby who puts up w/ me
...this time to refocus on my personal life / reevaluate what i want to do next professionally
...our home; grateful for all those who serve and sacrifice to protect all of the above =)

thursdays...

aaron goes to preschool 4 days a week. on thursdays, he and my nephew actually spend the day w/ my parents. my sister and i felt that it was nice for them to spend some time w/ their grandparents. well, now that i'm not working, it only makes sense for me to spend the day w/ the boys. we do still see my parents; we'll usually meet up for lunch or dinner depending on what i have scheduled for the boys.

month one

three weeks of unemployment has flown by. it's been relatively busy catching up on tons of things that i wasn't able to get to since i was so busy previously. boring things such as different doctor appointments; house appointments and other errands. many of those things are one-time occurrences since i've just been putting it off. i feel like it is a lot about organizing my life, family or house.

i am starting to get into a good routine:
- mondays are all about getting the week ready and cleaning up the house from the weekend. it's so nice to go to costco or target or the grocery store during the week. it's just so much more calm and quiet. 
- tuesdays / wednesdays are about the house. we purchased our house a year ago and we haven't done much with it. we are finally starting to remodel one bathroom. i've been helping steve w/ the demo. i need to start sourcing and buying materials.
- thursdays are spent w/ aaron and my nephew joshua. spending an entire day w/ a 5 and 4 yr old is quite exhuasting. 
- fridays are reserved for my 6 yr old nephew. i pick him up after school and take him to his tae kwon do class. 

i'm cooking dinner every night. that is probably the most shocking part. when i was working, i never cooked - i mean never. even on the weekends, i never cooked. i never even washed the rice when we had to cook rice. how many times did i say never (i mean just in case you guys didn't get it the 1st time around)? 

weekends are also different now. since i'm running all the errands on the weekdays, our weekends are more enjoyable. the quality of what we do is better because it's not about having to check things off our list.

one chapter closes; another one begins

i am now on day 7 of this new chapter called unemployment aka stay at home mom aka lady of leisure.

let's do a quick recap of my last chapter with some background:

i was employed at a private retail company where i started over 7 years ago as a manager. i had always been very ambitious and wanted to be on the fast track. i had the same amazing manager for the first 6 years who always found a way to get the best out of me and our team. after he left at the end of 2012, i was promoted to vice president. in the last year since becoming vice president, life had been anything but fun. work was insane: we were extremely understaffed, were given additional responsibilities (without any being taken away) and had no tools, resources or systems to do anything well.

it was a very imbalanced life:
1 - i was working on average 65 hours a week
2 - we had so many meetings that i wouldn't have time for lunch at least 2 days out of the week
3 - with the stress and lack of time to eat: i went down 3 pant sizes!

that doesn't even describe the emotional strain on my personal life or the imbalance in our home. on weeknights, i would come home and steve and aaron would already be done eating dinner. on weekends, steve would take aaron to the park and i would be at home working. i never got around to doing any housework because i always had work to do. 

needless to say, it was not sustainable. i was struggling to find the right answer. just say no to the executives to all their projects / requests? quit and take a break? look for a new job? well, it was answered for me because i got LAID OFF.

it came as a complete SHOCK (to me and to everyone in the company). we had some changes in our leadership team and the new COO was not a fan of mine. it was a hit to my pride. i thought, how could someone possibly say i was not successful when i've built 7 years of solid results and teams, credibility and amazing working relationships in the company? how could this possibly happen to me? i became the 10th VP to leave the company in the current year (that's north of 40% turnover). 

many will say, it's par for the course when new leaders come into the company. sure, if they want to make me a scapegoat, fine. however, i feel for my team that is still there and all my other colleagues that i've developed great relationships with. 

this entry is long enough already so i'll end it here; more to come on what are my next steps...

*the artwork is buttefly by aldo luongo. my colleague gave me a bottle of wine w/ the this painting and i just fell in love with it! it's a great symbol of a woman flying to her freedom. =)

my boys...

i'm extremely lucky that my sister and i are super close. she only lives 4 blocks away from me and has 2 boys, one that is a year older than aaron and the other is a year younger. the boys get along really well and my sister and i look forward to seeing them grow up together. here are just some shots of them together. they are soo adorable!! yes, we go on vacations together too.

 tahoe aug 2011

 disneyland may 2012

 boston oct 2012

 

water park jul 2013

tahoe aug 2013

serpentine

one sunday, we made an early morning visit to the sports basement in the city; getting ready aaron's first camping trip. while we were in the city and in the neighborhood, we decided to try a new brunch spot, serpentine. On yelp, it's actually described as not "kid friendly" so we were a bit hesitant. however, i'm so glad we went! it is definitely one of the new restaurants that i definitely would recommend and go back.

 aren't my nephews precious?

 aaron's buckwheat pancakes

my delicious salmon benedict w/ grapefruit mimosa

entryway

these were the pros and cons of the house we purchased back in october:

pro:
- great location
- close to the city; shorter commute for steve and i
- decent floor plan
- good lot size

cons:
- EVERYTHING is original
- everything needs to be remodeled...the bathrooms, kitchen, windows, lighting, front and backyard...you name it; it needs to go.

before we purchased this house, we lived in our old house for 5 years and spent those 5 years doing exactly that:
- remodeled 2 bathrooms
- remodeled the kitchen
- replaced all windows
- relandscaped the front and back yard
all of the above was also done by the husband (and some great friends and family); with the exception of the landscaping.

1st thing to tackle: the entryway

 before:

after:

steve put in the rails when we first moved in. there was urgency in that for safety reasons obviously. i hated the old, dirty and cold tiles. once steve started scraping off the tile, the wood underneath was actually in good condition. so, after several weekends / rounds of sanding and staining, we have ourselves a new entryway! my brother helped put up the new light fixture and this antique persian rug was from esalerugs.com. kudos to steve and shoutout to my brother for his help!

april: prospect

benu and morimoto were my selections. for april, steve made reservations at prospect. this also served as our anniversary celebration (9 years woo hoo!)

it was actually a blast from the past, as the restaurant is right across the street from gap inc, where i worked at for 6.5 years. dinner was good; service attentive but i didn't leave there thinking i had to go back w/ any urgency. it was more like, good to try since we've never been there but would rather try a new restaurant that go back to prospect. also, since we were there on a friday night, the bar brought back too many memories of happy hours in my younger days. =)

 bubbly for the mrs and their prospector scotch cocktail for the mr

oops...

so clearly, i still need to work on this work / life balance. as you can see, i haven't posted anything in almost nine months. i'll have to play some catch up as steve and i have been fairly disciplined about our monthly our dinner dates and we've done some work around the house as well. however, i did lose several months of pictures as i upgraded the os on my phone but absentmindedly did not save and lost several months of pictures (mostly february - march).

to backtrack to the months that i lost my pictures:

feb: benu
mar: morimoto

to date, morimoto is one of my new favorite restaurants. if it weren't for the fact that it's in napa, i think i would drag steve and everyone else there all the time!

happy new year...

i'm not usually one for resolutions. however, i did create a "pact' with my husband. once a month, we will go try a new restaurant. it doesn't have to be fancy and can occasionally be w/ our son. it just has to be a new restaurant that we've never tried. we have restaurants lined up for the first 3 months already!

3rd times the charm...

...as that is how many times i've tried to maintain a blog.

my first attempt was in 2006 when i was transitioning between jobs. i started my blog to document all my travels. the 2nd attempt was when i went on maternity leave. obviously, with such a life changing event, i wanted to have a record of all my experiences of motherhood. notice the common thread...both times were during a break in my professional life.

so, that brings us to now. no, i don't have a break in my professional life. if anything, my career is even more demanding of my time. however, i'm taking to heart what my new boss has told me, "you need better work / life balance." which honestly, i haven't had a boss tell me that in probably 8-10 years. so, there it is. perfect timing for the new year. i'm recommitting to blogging. =)

so, what is going on? well, i still love to travel (though still not as often as i like), my son is even more adorable than ever (if that's possible), motherhood is still a work in progress for me and we have SO much work to do in our new house. i'm pretty excited and have some fun content ideas already. from time to time, i might have some "throwback" posts where I republish some entries from my previous blogs for nostalgia sake.

Photo courtesy of our family friend, Donald Chan