Saturday, Chien Chien came back and she has a new haircut now, I think it is too short, but it is the matter of time for her to look like herself again. We went on a stroll and took some pictures on the 35mm film camera and then some antique shopping where I found an 80s Vinyl Solo Album of my girl Agnetha from ABBA and a china rose teacup and saucer. 

On Sunday I worked a wedding makeup job, when I got home I made beef taco with parsley and onion for lunch and took a long nap till 5pm. Then we went to the neighborhood park and played some basketball and watched the sunset, all while the weather was dropping to 40 degrees. 

In the light of watching Tidying Up with Marie Kondo Netflix series, I have come to realize that I too have to let go of what doesn’t spark joy anymore. For me my area of weakness is clothes, my love for shopping for clothes, combined with fascination over sewing my own clothes, perhaps there is no surprise over the years, I have gathered many yards of fabrics and bags full of half-sewn pieces aside from clothes I've purchased, not to mention accessories and shoes in this mix. 

Thus, I have decide enough is enough, last weekend, I took a 6 hour private sewing crash course that helped me trouble shoot common issues with my sewing machine, so I am ready to tackle all those half sewn projects. I also started the first round of decluttering my closet, and the result are as follows. As I have posted these outfits on Depop (app) I am crossing fingers I could find a new home for them soon. Wish me luck!

ChienChien has stayed in San Antonio for almost a week now, to help her aunt who is a Vet Nurse with her school project. Since she is a calm dog, her aunt could use her to take some X-rays that she needed to complete her school work. I miss her very much and the house feel empty without her. We also learned that since she is 8 years old, her spine is getting old and cannot have her jump anymore. Considering how excited she usually gets when we get home or we have guests over she will be hard to manage, because she runs super fast. Gotta think of new strategies to keep her healthy as long as possible, we have now an official elderly dog in the house. 

Josh has recently been getting more into film cameras, these images on this post are from his first roll on his inherited Grandfather's Nikon FG-20 camera. I am excited to get back into shooting on film again myself too, waiting for the weekend to dig my film Camera back up! Honestly I think I still have a roll of film in it from many years back when I was experimenting with it and then somehow I never finished it. ​

We have been spending most of our weekends in coffee shops studying or editing pictures. This week we went to Counter Culture, a relatively new place in east Austin, I ordered their Japanese Green tea and it was absolutely amazing. We have also been antique shopping a lot lately, this week I score this beautiful 70s boho white lace dress (which is 2 size small for me, but whatever I still bought it anyways) and a vintage Samonite train case. 

The weather in January has been typical Texas weather, one second it's 38 degrees another 68 for the most part it has been combination of rain, wind and cloud with occasional sunny days. ​

Every morning I struggle to say goodbye to this angel

First two weeks of January I have been extremely busy with a project that I was assigned to. The issue was not the project itself, but the vendor we hired to handle the shipments and to say the least we won't be working with this vendor anymore for the amount of mistakes they made. ​

As crazy as life was with working  11 hours a day, I did everything to prep my meals
I also was able to re-create my favorite Persian food lentil rice randomly. ​

By the time I get home, it is dark

After getting home, eating something for dinner and a workout DVD of some sort, I have been watching Game of Thrones pretty religiously - I am pretty surprised at how much of it I could watch

 I have been able to work from home on Fridays . . that's when if there is no meeting etc I get to rest a bit longer in bed, and have a warm breakfast and lunch for once in the week, though with that crazy project I have been working till 7 or 8pm every Friday straight with no break during the day. 

Other notable things is that I made peace with Josh's ancient rice cooker, because mine is tiny and only can make enough for one meal, but meal prepping is asking for larger container. 

I also renewed my passport after months of procrastinating 

and made friends with coffee 

Chien Chien and I got some amazing gifts, she became an angel, I got my all time favorite shoes, a scooter, 85 mm lens, couple other things and two jars of sour gummy bears +  worms ~ HAPPINESS 

For the Christmas we traveled to San Antonio and spent time with Josh's family and some friends.

We also hosted a couple of dinner parties in our house with friends and family and with each I felt like our cooking and hosting skills improved a bit more. The night on picture below my parents came over, Josh made the brisket with mashed potatoes and I made chicken pot pie with salad.