French school interview is Friday!

This Friday is Olivia's French school interview. Olivia will be interviewed separately so I won't know how she does *I'm not worried about her at all*. I know being nervous is silly yet I have terrible butterflies in my stomach. I have been waiting for almost two years to get this interview. I feel so much pressure since this is our top choice school for her and once she gets in, she'll be there all the way until she graduates in 2028!

Only fourteen more years to go!

Everyone keeps telling us we are gonna get in with no problem but it's really nerve-racking. I thought it would be a good idea to share our thoughts behind choosing this school for Liv. It is very expensive but also reasonable in comparison to other private school tuition in Los Angeles.

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My RAD Life List

Welcome to My Life List

 Here is my *overly ambitious* list of things to accomplish during my lifetime. Some of these are total dreams of mine that may be far-fetched but others are quite doable and I am currently in the process of completing. 
Please email me if you would like to sponsor a dream on my list.
sunkissis at aol dot com

Things that would be Lovely

• Grow my hair long and thick so I can wear braids like this
• Learn French
• Have a photo shoot with Pauline Darley in Paris
• Cook/Host an entire Thanksgiving dinner for 8 guests served on beautiful Anthropologie dishware
• Build my dream closet/wardrobe edit my wardrobe to pieces I love/look amazing
• Give birth We had our beautiful daughter Olivia Lily, June 2, 2010

• Have our nursery featured on Ohdeedoh blog  DONE
• Grow my own peonies, strawberries and herb garden
• Attend a Masquerade Ball
• Leave a 100% tip
• Learn how to print on a hand crank letterpress make pretty business cards
• Buy My Dream House / Completely renovate our next house and have it featured on Apartment Therapy we've had our nursery & our kitchen featured
• Take a photo at the Golden Gate Bridge  DONE
• Have one hundred followers on my blog
• Volunteer at an animal shelter
• Have a confetti fight

Such a fun day!

• Officiate a gay wedding I've already officiated a straight wedding
• Live to celebrate my 100th birthday
• Take a CSS/html classs and Redesign my blog layout
• Read Classic novels *Pride & Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, The Glass Menagerie, The Great Gatsby, Atlas Shrugged, Oliver Twist, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Wuthering Heights, A Tale of Two Cities, Moby Dick*
• Dress up for a fancy night out *Opera, ballet, gala, etc.*
• Take a photo with Bill Murray
• Sponsor an animal
• Cook everything on my Pinterest food board
• Attend the Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor's Island in New York
• Celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary in 2052!
• Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge  DONE
• Add a padlock with our names on it to a lock bridge  DONE

Things That would be Rad!

• Have a best friends only weekend in Palm Springs The Parker
• Participate in a Flash Mob
• Have my November 11, 2011 11:11 pm wish come true
• See Björk play live at Glastonbury Music Festival in the UK and in her hometown, Reykjavík, Iceland
• Have Marina Abramovic make me cry
• Visit the Moma Rain Room
• Go to Fashion Week
• Visit all 50 of the Los Angeles farmers markets 29 down/21 to go
• Be a contestant on The Amazing Race with Antz
• Act in a film
• Walk on the red carpet
• Drive a vintage Fiat 
• Go blonde! DONE!
• Ride a tandem bike with Antz
• Attend an awards show  *So far been to Mtv Movie Awards/Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards four times*
• See Tom Waits live
• Help my Mom write her memoirs

My Mom & Bob Dylan on a train in Tokyo

• Own a classic Chanel bag
• Start a record collection  DONE
• See a narwhal in person
• Attend alt. Design Summit
• Be completely debt-free 
• Plant a tree
• Go camping with my friends
• Learn how to use my Nikon SLR camera
• Go on vacation with my friends on a yacht
• Learn how to knit/embroider
• Run for office with our neighborhood council and do good in the neighborhood
• Attend a TED Talks event 
• Own a vacation home like this one!
• Participate in the color run
• Smash a pie in my BFF's face *she really wants me to*
• Ride a pink Vespa scooter with a matching pink helmet
• Sleep in a tipi
• Spend a year not receiving but giving gifts
• Learn how to juggle
• Attend Dapper Day all dressed up at Disneyland
• Jump into a pool with all my clothes on    

 

Things to do with Olivia

• Teach Liv origami & calligraphy 
• Send Olivia to a French immersion school  DONE
• Take Olivia to a presidential inauguration in Washington DC
• Teach her math in a fun way so when she gets older she enjoys it!
• Have a huge food fight
• Purchase an Airstream *like this one by DWR* and road trip across North America

Cutest Airstream ever!

• Learn all 50 states and capitals together
• Take Liv to the Grand Canyon walk on the skydeck
• Host a foreign exchange student 
• Take Liv to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam  DONE  
• Have Liv's baby shoes bronzed
• Take Olivia to Junibacken to see Villa Villakuella
• Go to the summer Olympics
• Have a Snowball fight  DONE
• Take Liv to see Mt. Rushmore
• Teach Liv how to cartwheel/roller skate/ice skate/skateboard/surf/ride a bicycle
• Take Liv to see the Salvation Mountain DONE

• Teach Olivia how to swim
• Set up a lemonade stand with Liv and donate the proceeds to charity
• Take Liv to see The Nutcracker and Swan Lake ballet 
• Host a movie night in our backyard
• Go to a music festival with Liv
• Take a photo at Platform 9 & 3/4 at King's Cross train station DONE

  

  King's Cross Train Station London

• Take Liv to see Cirque du Soleil 
• Learn to sew and make this adorable pillowcase dress for Liv DONE

Liv was insanely tiny when I made this dress

• Take Liv to all five Disney parks (California, Florida, Paris, Japan, Hong Kong)
• Own a pet goat, raise Silky chickens & an Angora rabbit
• Take Olivia to the World Trade Center Museum
• Take Olivia to meet her relatives in Mexico
• Purchase "Oh, the Places You’ll Go!" by Dr. Seuss. Secretly get her teachers and mentors to sign and leave messages in it at the end of each school year. When she graduates from high school, present her with the book.
• Take Liv to a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening *it's her favorite movie and she's three!*
• Have a monthly mani/pedi date
• Take a photo of Liv standing in front of the Sorbonne in Paris to inspire her to study there  DONE

• Teach Liv to to sew, crotchet and embroider 
• Take Liv to the Eiffel Tower
• Finish Liv's baby book
• Go glamping in our backyard
• Build an in-ground trampoline to play on 
• Make a memory book for Liv every year until she's eighteen *I've been really good at keeping up with this one! I'm on year four now*
• Take Olivia's photo every week with her Totoro plush until she turns two, then every year until she's eighteen you can see her photos here

   

Travels

• Move to Paris for a year
• Take a family cruise in Alaska *see a Moose*
• Swim in the Blue Lagoon in Iceland
• Kiss the Blarney Stone
• Take a photo holding the Leaning Tower of Pisa
• Attend the Holi Festival in India
• See the Taj Mahal 
• Ride a cable car in San Francisco  DONE
• See Stonehenge
• Drink Sangria in Spain, Sake in Tokyo, Ouzo in Greece, Chartreuse in Paris and learn to open a champagne bottle using le saberage
• Go to Nuit Blanche
• Stand on the glass ledge in Willis Tower in Chicago
• Drive Lombard Street in San Francisco  DONE
• See the Colosseum and take a photo with a Gladiator
• Go to the Rain Room at MOMA in New York
• Buy an authentic Moroccan rug, fez and spices
• Road trip to Austin, Texas 
• Go to Hawaii *swim with sea turtles*
• Take a photo in front of the fake Prada store in Texas 
• Go to Buñol, Spain for La Tomatina *tomato throwing festival*
• Ride a camel in the desert *dare I say, in Egypt?*
• See the tulip fields in Holland
• Check out the Neon Boneyard in Las Vegas  DONE
• Drive in a right-hand car   DONE
• Ride the London Eye   DONE
• See the Sistine Chapel ceiling
• Bathe elephants in Thailand
• Attend Dîner en Blanc Paris  DONE 
• Last year we attended Diner en Blanc Los Angeles
• Cheer on the Tour de France
• Drive through a tree in the Redwoods 
• Road Trip to Portland
• Walk on the Great Wall of China
• Visit Evelyn & Dion in upstate NY *go on the Niagra Falls tour boat*
• Fly Eva Airlines and stay in a Hello Kitty themed room
• Take the Orient Express train ride from London to Paris to Venice
• Sleep in an igloo and see the Northern Lights
• Go to Coachella, SXSW, Bonnaroo & Glastonbury
• Make a wish and toss a coin in the Trevi Fountain 
• Go to Japan
• Go on an African Safari
• See the AquaDome in Berlin 
• Spend New Year's Eve at the W Times Square
• Attend a live taping of Saturday Night Live in New York at Rockefeller Center
• Spend Christmas at a quaint Bed & Breakfast *Montréal ideally*

This list was inspired by Maggie's Life List

CSS Pretty E-course by Pugly Pixel

You guys,


I am in blogger heaven! I am loving the CSS Pretty ecourse taught by Katrina at Pugly Pixel. She is a great instructor! Katrina moves at a pace that allows me to keep up and with every step, I am making changes to my blog *what do you think, so far?*

I highly recommend the CSS Pretty course for blog newbies. I *half-assed* started my blog in 2008 with zero coding skills so if you go way back in my archives, you can see how wacky my layout looks. I have learned how to add buttons on the top, how to place images, playing around with new fonts and designing my own custom layout. This class is so fun, I am so stoked!

I'll continue making changes here and there. I am working on a new title header this weekend. Happy Friday!!

Hello There 2014

Well, now that you're here, let's do this!

Inspiration
I feel really motivated and I feel full of energy to do big things this year. Even though I'm still experiencing technical hiccups *it's too long and boring a story but my Time Capsule still isn't doing it's job a month later!* I am determined to fill my brain with CSS/Photoshop and all the stuff most folks spend thousands to learn in college during the next thirty days. I have always had an interest in graphic arts. I love pretty fonts, stationery, handwriting, and packaging. I took graphic arts class in high school but was distracted by a dumb boy who wasn't worthy of my affection. When I was in 4th grade in Catholic school, we had a friar *like this dude* come to our class and give us an old school calligraphy class. I swear I was the only one actually excited about learning fancy cursive. I would practice everyday.

Happy New Year 2014!!

Last night we took the train with our friends to Grand Park in downtown. All Metro trains and busses were free from 9pm - 12:30am so there were tons of people but everyone was in a festive mood.

We arrived at 9:45 and it was crowded! I heard Grand park was at capacity at 10,000 people. There were lines for everything, to get a drinking bracelet, to get into the drinking area, then to buy drinks. There was a two hour line just to get into Starbucks. We were lucky to only wait 20 minutes to buy a bag of kettlecorn popcorn. We hung out and took photos but by the looks of things, we decided it was best to head home before pandemonium broke out. We squeezed our way through the crowds and just made a train before 11:40. Our train ride home was magic, some people got on board and began to decorate the train, play music, handed out hats and noisemakers and even brought a mini disco ball. We had a NYE celebration on the Gold Line! We arrived at our train stop, said our goodbyes to the party train and drove home with 30 seconds to spare before midnight. It was so exciting to go out and enjoy the city but we were so happy to have made it home safe and sound without having to endure the tremendous lines for the train and deal with all the loud drunks. Highland Park did not disappoint with a fireworks show on our front deck.

Liv's hat was a hit!