My New Year's Resolutions:

Read more, Love more, Laugh more.

Start running.

Mike cooked Pot Roast.

He is such a good cook. ;)

I had terrible Christmas this year. I suffered from a strong cold virus, so I was stuck on the sofa all day in his mom's house. I'd have liked to go to the party that day, but I couldn't move at all. I was sad at home. But, I got a lot of Christmas presents from many people. They were so warm. Especially these old cooking books from Jennette, his mom's friend, are very a meaningful present to me. They have many kinds of old baking recipes. I just loved them. How could I not! :)

I just felt warm there even though it was very short Christmas trip...

I like to watch the snow fall.

I love the brightness of the morning after it has snowed all night.

We had our small Christmas party tonight-opening our cards and gifts, just for us. I spent all my afternoon and evening baking desert for the Christmas dinner party tomorrow. We are going to go to Indiana tomorrow morning to meet his mom. I am excited!

Merry Christmas. :)

Inspiration-

Doing things I have always wanted to do.

Stay tuned! :)

Shuffling along with the cold air on monday afternoon.

His friend invited us for holiday chili lunch tomorrow. So I talked confidently I could prepare desert for everyone. I had a plan to complete these mini pecan tarts tonight and let them cool one night. I like the crunchy taste of tarts after one night. But, I made a big mistake!!! :( I burned the caramel filling within moments and put the pecans in the burned caramel. It was supposed to be light brown color not like this picture. I instantly noticed I should have not done that. But it was already late, so stupid! I was out of mind because I was really exhausted today. I worked on my screen printing for 7 hours without a break-I think I had such super concentration for printing. Besides, I wore my high heel boots all day... hooa...

Luckily, I rescued some of pecans inside the pan. I just finished these pastry shells tonight and have to make new filling tomorrow morning as soon as possible. I think I should go to bed right now~~~

Tasting caramelized macadamia nuts from a street vendor at the Christmas market. They were cooking all kinds of nuts with sugar caramel inside. It was little expensive, but it was worth to pay $5 for one small bunch.

flower card

I tested printing my flower patterns on our left over wedding invitations. Honestly, we still have over 100 copies. :) I couldn't throw away these very expensive invitations! The emboss of this paper was perfect to express the flower's natural lines. I combined these flower forms from a botanical dictionary published by Taschen that I bought in Japan. Although, I can't read Japanese at all, this book is very useful to me for studying the shape of flowers.

We have been super busy these days. He keeps studying so much. I worry his brain will explode from all the knowledge... Please somebody give him a break. Me, I baked 18 Whoopie pies, but we couldn't eat them all. I thought about some of my friends in Seoul who really love sweet deserts. If they were here, I could give them some. I was little sad. So, I gave some pies to our apartment supers instead of them.

in and out

the view from our kitchen-

Here is my printing class studio. I like the smell of ink, the feel of the paper's texture, and the completely unexpected mess. The result is pretty straightforward and depends on my elaborated movements. I never hurried, and press my screen gently on every sheet of paper with my best effort. :)

Me: "How passionately do you believe in our marriage?"

Mike: "Wholeheartedly."

My life with this man is a perfect one. And my decision to get married with him was the best one I ever made.

I am a chinese delivery food lover, especially vegetable noodles. When I first visited New York, Mike asked me what restaurant I want to go to eat. I just answered, "chinese delivery food in a paper box." But, I finally realized it was very oily when we ate it like he always complained. So, he tried to cook it with egg noodles for me, it was really delicious! The secret was that his version contains 고추장 in the sauce.

Looking around at Christkindlmarket Chicago. They had a lot of pretty artisanal ornaments from Germany. I wholeheartedly want to hold on to this moment before Christmas.

Finally, it is really really cold here. I realized how severely COLD it is in Chicago as everybody advised us. But, meanwhile, it is romantic to walk with ear muffs and a thick coat in the windy and snowy weather. I feel like that in a funny way. :p

Homemade Chili Soup-