Second-hand crap at Target?

Ick, ick, ick, ick.

On Tuesday, we purchased a coffee maker & electric coffee grinder from the Target in Salt Lake and was pretty disgusted with what we discovered.

Yes, that's crap inside our 'brand new' coffee grinder. Crap = leftover coffee grinds from someone who previously owned and used this machine.

If that wasn't bad enough, after plugging it in, John discovered that it doesn't even work.

Target, if you're going to take returns and reshelve them, please at least make sure the product isn't soiled AND broken. Mahalo.

I don't get it.

These are clutches. They're by Judith Leiber. They're expensive and shiny. But I don't get it. The one that scares me the most is the dolphin clutch.

Domesticate me.

I'm a wife. But I'm hardly the perfect domestic goddess. Lately I've been thinking that maybe putting on one of these aprons will magically transform me into one.

Adorable aprons that almost look dress-worthy from Anthropologie:

And some vintage-inspired selections from Jessie Steele:

Surviving a craft fair...

My husband (John) and I are self-proclaimed photo junkies. An addiction to photography is never cheap but his addiction is quite a bit more expensive than mine because he does underwater photography. So, in order to support our habit, we do craft fairs.

We're doing a craft fair this weekend and we always end up eating tons of junk food. Here's a peek at some of the stuff that helps us through a typical craft fair weekend.

Bentos or plate lunches. This is a mini bento from Gina's BBQ. Two scoops of rice, two choices of veggie sides, and your choice of bbq beef, chicken, or a mix of both. John always gets the mix with kimchee and mac salad. I always get the chicken but yesterday's chicken was lacking a bit in flavor and I ended up not eating most of it.

Shave ice. There's a vendor at the Kapiolani craft fair that sells shave ice. They give you a huge mound of plain shave ice and then you go over to the syrup station and choose whatever flavors you like to make your own creation. My favorite combo: strawberry, pineapple, and vanilla. I ALWAYS get this. Yesterday, John came back with this combo: strawberry, watermelon, orange, and banana. It was good, but not as good as my favorite.

Snacks. I brought some Corn Pops from home yesterday. 7Up and Corn Pops, the breakfast of champions! (I also had some Cadbury mini eggs hidden in my bag, so I could hog them all to myself.)

We also had some spring rolls, deep fried bananas, and Doritos..... Sorry, no pictures of those.

And just so you don't think that craft fairs are just an excuse for us to turn into slothful gluttons, we actually do work. Here's our high tech inventory system:

Yeah, we're sooooo high tech.

Cute or cruel?

These are some shots from the Hawaiian Humane Society's Petwalk from 2 years ago. Petwalk is held in October every year at Magic Island (Ala Moana Beach Park) and is the one day out of the whole entire year that pets are allowed there. There were many dogs (and a few cats and other animals) that were dressed up for the special occasion. Personally, I think dressing up animals is cute. John thinks that it's cruel.

You be the judge.

So what do you think? Cute or cruel?

Big Island Candies = YUM!!

Big Island Candies is probably best known for their chocolate dipped macadamia nut shortbread cookies but on our recent visit there, we skipped the cookies and opted to indulge in their brownies instead.

We picked up a small box (8 pieces) of their chocolate dipped brownies and as of late last night, we only have one piece left. I'm already starting to go through chocolate dipped brownie withdrawal...

While we were at the Big Island Candies store, we also picked up their brownie ice cream pie to enjoy on our ride to the botanical garden.

A softball sized scoop of Roselani's vanilla ice cream in a Big Island Candies' macadamia nut shortbread cookie crust topped with Big Island Candies' macadamia nut chocolate brownie bits.

If you think an obscene amount of brownie bits top this ice cream pie, brace yourself because there's more. After you dig into the ice cream, you'll find brownie bits INSIDE as well.

Don't attempt to eat this thing by yourself. It's HUGE.

Goodbye for a week!

So just when I start to get into the habit of updating my blog on a daily basis, work calls me away to the Big Island for an entire week.

I'll make it up to you by posting gratuitous shots of creamy goodness, otherwise known as Bubbies.

If you're not lucky enough to live 5 minutes away from Bubbies like I am, you can find them in pre-packaged boxes at places like Whole Foods and other specialty/gourmet supermarkets. They're not cheap but they're sooooo worth it.

Do you geocache?

This is basically a high-tech "treasure" hunt where you find something hidden with the aid of coordinates and a handheld GPS device. It's actually a pretty big thing with lots of geocaches and participants all over the world. There's even an official website where you can track different geocaches, find one in your area, or even create your own.

Here is our first one that we discovered in Hawaii, right in our backyard, a public park.

As you can see, metal containers are probably not the best storage containers as they tend to rust when exposed to the elements. Everything on the inside was intact and luckily, the little slips of paper that was this cache's "logbook" was protected inside a ziploc bag.

And while we were there, we saw tons of buzzing bumblebees so we also spent some time taking pictures. The lens I had wasn't quite the right one for taking pictures of bees so I went off on my own and found this:

The one on the right has been tweaked a little with a vintage Photoshop action. I kind of like both and not sure which one I like better.

A remote controlled what???

For your enjoyment, in addition to the more common remote controlled cars & planes, there's also the remote controlled fart machine. My mother-in-law has one of these. If you want to be cool like my mother-in-law, you can get yours here.

And for the seriously sadistic, check out the remote controlled tarantula. Yes, if you have friends or family members who suffer from arachnaphobia, this would be the ultimate party game to bring to your next gathering. Watch everyone jump, scream, and have heart attacks as you control its movements from the little remote you've got hidden away in your pocket.

This is the lovely description the website gives:

"This remote-control tarantula scurries across flat surfaces like an actual arachnid, moving forwards, backwards, and rotates 360°. It has a hairy exterior, similar to the urticating hairs that cover a tarantula's abdomen and serve as defense mechanisms against predators, and the spider's eight legs move independently and the eyes light up, allowing you to frighten unsuspecting arachnophobes day or night."

Yes, they want you to go out and scare people with it. They're giving you permission to do so. So what are you waiting for? Go out and order yours today!

Let me introduce you to....

Cassis soda, one of the most easiest, quickest, and foolproof drinks to put together. Take a look below:

All you need is some sort of clear fizzy soda (7up, Sprite, gingerale) and a tiny bit of cassis liqueur. I'd recommend putting in some ice but if your soda and cassis are already chilled, you really don't need more than a couple of cubes.

How do you make it? Pour, mix, and serve. Yeah, it's that easy.

Note: I've had certain brands of cassis liqueur turn my drinks brown instead of a rosy pink so my cassis liqueur brand of choice is Lejay-Lagoute. This is what the bottle looks like:

Happy Easter weekend, everyone!

Make Art Not War

Whenever we'd be driving on H-1 (westbound), I'd see a bunch of these posters plastered along the wall of a skate ramp in Makiki. The colors, the graphic, and the words always seemed to grab me and whenever we passed this spot, I'd always smile.

About half a year ago, while we were driving past that same spot, I was saddened to see that the posters had either been taken down or painted over. All that stared out at the freeway was a plain beige concrete wall.

BUT...a few months ago, I noticed a couple of these posters had been put back up. Just a few, nothing like how it used to be, but it was nice to see something familiar in that spot again.Upon doing a bit of Googling, I discovered that the artist who created this was Shepard Fairey. Don't know who Shepard Fairey is? You might not recognize the name but I'm sure you'll recognize this:

Yeah, that guy.

A few other pieces that I like:

All artwork from http://www.obeygiant.com/, a site featuring Shepard Fairey's amazing and cool work.