January | 2013 | kimberly ah

Jan 14 2013

Monday, Monday

Happy Monday! Last week’s work schedule took over and I’ve become a third shift sleeper, hence the lack of blog posts (mostly because there is of a lack of sunlight for taking pictures when you sleep until the afternoon). But the weekend was a good one! Naoto didn’t work on Friday night (a huge rarity around here) so we drove out to Sankyu (for the fourth time in three weeks!) and had dinner together. For once it was me who was begging to eat there…my craving for a tekka roll (tuna & wasabi roll) could not be contained!

On Saturday, I didn’t sleep until the afternoon. Naoto & I both got up pretty early and got juice and coffee from the Juice Joint, out latest neighborhood obsession. I made us breakfast sandwiches on Hippo rolls from the Mitsuwa marketplace. Then we headed into the city so I could attend the latest letter social held by the Letter Writers Alliance. I only wrote one postcard, one note and one letter but I had so much fun talking stamps and mail and typewriters with the other ladies in attendance. My outgoing mail is pictured at the top, including my new flying envelope stamp (an LWA members -only item) & a Month of Letters postcard.

After the social, we sped home so I could make homemade ricotta and tomato jam for my work party later Saturday night. (Isn’t Linda’s fireplace cozy?) And on Sunday, I slept so late that I almost missed a lunch date! In the evening we hosted our neighbor friends for a gin tasting and Golden Globe watching party. Whew! It was a busy weekend for us! Hopefully this week I can get back on a “normal” sleeping schedule–there is a lot to do around here!

Tagged adventures, coffee, food, mail art, rubber stamp, snail mail

Jan 09 2013

3 Comments

adventures, cocktails

Cocktail Perfected: CAP

I was introduced to lychee liquor in a Chinese restaurant in Japan. It was served with sparkling grapefruit juice and it was really delicious. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so when we came home, it didn’t take us long to seek it out at the liquor store. We came home with a bottle of Soho Lychee Liquor and got to work experimenting with it in cocktails. If you’ve never had a lychee fruit, it is really unusual. It tastes kind of like a pear crossed with a grape and it looks kind of fleshy (for lack of a better explanation). They are not the most beautiful of fruits! You can buy them fresh, but I’ve never seen them anywhere around here. We buy our lychees in a can at Mitsuwa. Even if you don’t try the cocktail, I highly recommend the lychees!

We came up with the CAP* cocktail after experimenting with the lychee liquor and a variety of juices. Once we found what we thought was a good combination, we served it to our friends who found it super-drinkable (as in, they drank way too many!) and delicious. We’ve served it for both of our birthdays for the past two years and for other cocktail occasions.

*CAP is an acronym for a little joke in our home: Caucasian Asian Persuasion. (What can I say? We celebrate our inter-cultural marriage.)

CAP Cocktail

1 oz pomegranate juice

1 oz vodka

1 oz Soho lychee liquor

Shake in a cocktail shaker with ice. Pour in a martini glass and top off with a little bit of sparkling water. Drop in a lychee fruit for garnish.

I know this cocktail is a lot more “cosmo” and a lot less “old-fashioned” but trust me…it’s a nice little treat.

UPDATE: Last night, we replaced the vodka with gin (my favorite, Clearheart, which is slightly more flowery than a London dry gin) and ohmygoodness!!! So good! I can’t believe it took us so long to try this–now we need a name for the gin version! Any suggestions?

Tagged celebrations, cocktails

Jan 08 2013

1 Comment

home is a 1970s apartment

St Francis Hangs Out In Elevators

Late last Thursday night Naoto came bounding into our apartment as usual. But this time he was laughing because there was “a statue in the elevator!” I didn’t really understand what he meant, but we both went down the hall and he hit the elevator button, the doors opened and there was St Francis! I giggled and said we had to take him home because he was the patron saint of animals and because he could startle the next elevator riders and give them a heart attack! (We live in a building where it could happen!)

So Naoto carried him home, and then turned around and carried him back to the elevator so I could snap this picture. (Thanks, Naoto!) Now St. Francis is living in our entryway, but I have hopes of moving him into the living room until spring when he will go out to the balcony (to live among the birds and the flowers).

I’ve been wanting a statue for the balcony since we moved in and Naoto never takes the elevator, so I think it’s a sign that St. Francis was meant to move into our home. Thanks to our quirky, kind, mystery neighbor for leaving him in the elevator!

Tagged adventures, decorating, garden, home, retirement community

Jan 07 2013

5 Comments

celebrations

The Naoto birthday recap

Naoto’s birthday was full of friends, food and fun (and cocktails…)

We had a huge dinner at Izakaya Sankyu (Naoto & I are pictured above in a very un-flattering Instagram filter). I discovered my new favorite sushi roll, Tekka…which is sliced tuna with wasabi. It’s like a nose-clearing surprise in every bite. Just when I didn’t think I could love Sankyu more!

After dinner, we all came back to our place and had cocktails, Japanese beer and Portillo’s chocolate cake. Portillo’s is a Chicago chain of hot dog/Italian beef restaurants. If you are ever in Chicago (or the suburbs–they are all over) you should eat at Portillo’s…you really can’t go wrong: get a Chicago-style hot dog, an Italian beef (my dad never visits without getting one…or two), cheese fries, a milkshake…but definitely get the chocolate cake. You can buy it by the slice, or the whole cake (get the whole cake).

The birthday guy approves!

And we all enjoyed the Adami-Hasegawa signature cocktail, the CAP cocktail. I will be sharing the recipe later in the week…two and a half batches were mixed up on Saturday night (that’s about twenty cocktails), so there’s no denying that the CAP is a hit among our friends. I think this night was a perfect start to Naoto’s year!

Tagged celebrations, cocktails, food

Jan 05 2013

2 Comments

celebrations

Happy, Happy Birthday Naoto!

Happy Birthday to my dear Naoto! May the last year of your thirties be one of your best!

xoxo

*This picture was taken a few weeks ago at Sankyu, our favorite Japanese restaurant, where we will also be celebrating tonight.

Tagged celebrations

Jan 04 2013

1 Comment

crafty adventures, gardening, Office Supplies

Hello 2013 Calendars

Thank you to everyone who commented on yesterday’s post. I think I need to remember this: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good (Voltaire). The cards are never going to be perfect, but if I do them in a meaningful way, by doing what is important to me (writing personal notes and letters, fancy-ing up the envelopes, getting them out early in the holiday season) and let go of perfection (feeling like I have to make them for everyone) then I can consider it a job well done! (I also responded to each of you in the comments section.)

And now, on to the calendars!

On New Year’s Eve I shared my sadness about leaving my 2012 calendars behind. But now that I’ve cracked open my 2013 calendars, I’m excited for a fresh start in the new year. There is nothing like a nice clean calendar just waiting for possibilities!

For my wall calendar, I went with Rifle again. This little Garden number is smaller than the Botanicals of 2012, but it happens to be the perfect size to cover the outdated intercom in the kitchen (which is why there is a calendar hanging in the kitchen in the first place). My favorite month is March–a barometer, which is a perfect coincidence because my dad collects them and his birthday is in March. I’m hoping the garden calendar inspires me to spend a little more time on my container garden during the summer (oh and with my poor houseplants this winter)!

I have another calendar for our bedroom, but it’s a bit of a DIY that I still need to finish–pronto! And, I just ordered one of these calendars from K is for Calligraphy for my desk…there should be no trouble knowing what day it is in 2013!

For my planner, I settled on the Paper Source Date Book. This is my third year using this particular datebook…so -yawn- I guess it works just fine. The design is just really tired to me but I’m hoping to jazz it up a bit with some washi tape and some other Japanese calendar stickers. I have a whole stash of stuff to make the planner more “me” and less Paper Source. I’ll come back next week and show you how it’s coming along.

What kind of calendar do you have for 2013? And how many calendars is too many?

Tagged calendar, garden, gardening, homemaking, office supplies, organization, washi tape

Jan 03 2013

14 Comments

Christmas, crafty adventures, holidays, Merry & Bright, snail mail

My Holiday Cards Were Ridden With Guilt

I do believe all of our holiday cards for 2012 have been mailed…finally. A few stragglers are making their way through the mail right now, hopefully to arrive as New Year greetings!

I’ve been making my own Christmas cards for years now…they always start as an elaborate project, then, by the time I sit down to do them, they morph into something simple. It’s harder now because December is my busiest time (with work and holiday hullabaloo) so if I don’t get them done early, they don’t happen in a fantastic way. But it’s hard to get into the mood and find inspiration for your Christmas cards during the dog days of summer… In 2010, I met up with my friend Holly in November and we worked on our Christmas cards together….crafting in that hotel room in the Dells was one of my favorite memories that year! And my cards were simple, yet nice and I lined each and every envelope…sigh…those were the days…

Our cards this year were simple enough. I used a CHEERS stamp (from here) and washi tapes on some 4-bar cards (from here). I like making things, but I detest making the same ol’ thing over and over and over and over again… To alleviate boredom, I used a few different colors of cards and envelopes and mixed in different styles of washi tape (and some Martha Stewart tapes leftover from last year).

I really do think this might be my last year making the holiday cards…it’s just not fun anymore and I think my results show it. At this point in my life, I would rather focus on writing a nice note in each card than making each card. When I sat down to do my cards a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to write more, but the urgency of getting-things-done took over and I just went through the motions. I hate going through the motions…especially when it comes to my letter-writing friends and favorite family members. But I will hopefully alleviate my letter-writing guilt by staying on top of my mail in 2013 (a hint to my favorite 2013 resolution).

So I’m curious…do you write letters with each of your holiday cards? Do you expect letters?

Tagged Christmas, crafts, holidays, mail art, rubber stamp, snail mail, washi tape

Jan 02 2013

1 Comment

snail mail

New Stationery

Naoto has been working a lot lately. I mean, he always works a lot…between his translation job and Trader Joe’s, the man clocks a lot of hours. But lately, he’s been clocking seeeerious hours. He worked on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, which would have been really annoying if I hadn’t been still recovering from the flu. He’s been staying late to work on translation stuff at his office when he doesn’t have to go to Trader Joe’s, and when he does have to go to Trader Joe’s, he comes home and works on translation stuff all through the night. On Saturday (his only day off each week) he went into the office and put in a full day of work. He felt really bad about leaving me home alone (well, with Presley) again…

So, when he got home on Saturday night, he came bearing gifts…I know, I know…no gift will ever make up for the time we missed together, but it’s still nice to be thought of!

He brought me some new teas and this gorgeous, elegant, grown-up stationery. It is made by le typographe in Brussels and the paper has a beautiful weight. I wrote my first letter on it early on New Year’s Eve morning and writing a letter has never felt like more of a luxury. Most of my stationery collection (which by the way takes up an entire dresser drawer…and then some) is whimsical and colorful…I’m happy he chose something more sophisticated to add to my collection. And a big thank you to Chandra at Greer for helping Naoto pick something perfect from all of Greer’s beautiful choices!

Here’s to writing more letters in 2013!

Tagged letterpress, snail mail, stationery

Jan 01 2013

1 Comment

celebrations, Merry & Bright

Happy New Year!

We ended 2012 with a delicious meal at the Golden Steer under their “festive” red bar lights. We enjoyed yummy onion soup and salad and steak and baked potatoes and wine, along with plenty of sesame sticks and garlic toasts from the cracker basket. The Steer had a special New Year’s Eve menu (pictured above) that made me wish we had a couple of party hats to wear. We rang in 2013 all cozy on the couch watching/laughing at the ridiculous coverage from Times Square and then the local Chicago countdown stuff. Naoto barely made it to midnight…partly because he was tired, but also because he doesn’t have the same patience that I do for absurd television.

Today Naoto worked and I made some 2013 plans, worked on my 2013 planner, watched the fiscal cliff coverage (ugh.) and thought about taking down the tree…in fact, I’m still thinking about taking down the tree…it’s time.

Tagged celebrations, holidays, home