15-Day Picture Challenge: Day Twelve

"A picture of your favorite book."

Hmmm, book as in singular? No such thing. I don't really have a favorite book because I freaking love books.

It's hard to pick just one so here are pictures of some of the books I love.

One of my favorite book series is the Harry Potter series. I remember my cousin Katherine was astounded when I finished "Goblet of Fire" within a few hours. I'm a pretty fast reader.

Here's a picture of one of my favorite classics, "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck. I love this book so much that I have three versions of it, one classic paperback edition, a hardbound edition and the one in the picture is the Steinbeck Centennial Edition. It looks like a really old book.


I really need to get back to reading books and reading classics again. I only read book when I'm traveling and it shouldn't be that way.

15-Day Picture Challenge: Day Eleven

"A picture of someone you miss."

I figure I might as well try to finish this challenge.

I miss my grandma. To me, she's the best grandma in the whole entire universe. She cracks me up all the time. I wish I can see her as much as I can.

Gah, I miss my entire family. I wish it's easy as 1-2-3 to move back to California.

Here's a picture of her holding my little baby cousin.

15-Day Picture Challenge: Day Ten

"A picture that can always make you smile." Well, cute Sophiekitty pictures always make me smile.

This was taken the day after my husband came back from Atlanta. I believe Sophie thinks he's leaving again. This is her way of saying, "I'm going with you this time."

Anyway, it's been a busy week. So much stuff is happening and I kind of don't want to talk about it right now because I might jinx it, ha ha. My head is reeling.

I'm also trying to come up with another photo challenge. It's looking pretty nice outside. The daffodils and tulips are poking out of the ground!

15-Day Picture Challenge: Day Nine

"A picture of something you're afraid of."

I am afraid of the dark.

I was browsing through my old pictures and I think this picture is perfect.

I think this was taken during a blackout. I freaking hate the dark.

15-Day Picture Challenge: Day Eight

"A picture of your biggest insecurity."

I was going to talk about my nose because that is my biggest insecurity right now. I freaking hate my nose. It's flat and it points downward. Whenever I see pictures of the side of my face, I always think my nose sucks. My husband thinks I have a cute nose but whatever, I hate it but I guess I have to just keep living with it.

Okay, enough about my nose. Let's talk about my old biggest insecurity and it used to be my weight.

Yup, I'm not insecure about my weight anymore. Here's a story: I used to be kind of obsessed with it but one day, I decided I'm going to stop caring about the stupid numbers. When I was in the Army, I used to step on the stupid scale every day, measured myself with a tailor's measuring tape and check this stupid chart to see if I'm still within the bracket of what the Army calls "a healthy weight". Can you believe my max weight was supposed to be 113 lbs at 24 years old? I was fluctuating between 113-115 lbs at that age. There was no freaking way that was going to work for me! A little bit of muscle weight gained and I would have been considered "fat" according to the Army's standards. Overall, it was effing exhausting, stressful and insane.

You know what, I think as long as I'm not constantly eating junk food, fast food or any type of crap that's bad for me, I have no reason to worry about my weight. I do loooooove junk food but trust me, I have self-control (too much of one thing makes me sick too). I think as long as I stay active and not sit on the couch and eat pizza all day, I should be fine. I think that as long as I feel good in my clothes and my clothes fit me well, I should be fine. I am going to be fine, dammit.

I'm so sick and tired of trying really hard to stay size 2/4. I am happy with being a size 8/10.

I'm just going to love the way I am. Seriously, you should do the same. It helped me keep my sanity and feel soooooo much better about myself.

15-Day Picture Challenge: Day Seven

"A picture of somewhere you'd love to travel."

My husband and I love traveling together but it's really too bad because we don't have much time to do it. Sometimes, we wish we can just drop and leave everything behind and travel around the world but of course, easier said than done. Also, having to jet set from point A to point B in a kitty carrier is not going to fly well with Sophie either.

There are so many places I would love to travel so let's narrow the list down to one place. For this entry, I pick Rome, Italy.

Rome and its richness of history has always fascinated me. When I was a kid, I remember wanting to visit Rome so bad after reading about it from a world history book. Then I read the photo illustrated version of "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown The darn book is full of pictures of Rome and again, I wanted to go so bad. Then, I took a number of history classes in college and learned more about Ancient Rome and now, I am so determined to visit this place. If my husband is not working, I'll be dragging him to the airport like, right now!

Yeah, I took a picture of a map of Rome from a book. Sadly, I've never been there and don't have actual pictures to post. The good news is we are planning to go to Europe this upcoming summer (if certain things work out and if my husband is able to get time off from work). Rome is definitely on our list of places to visit. Hopefully, I'll have actual pictures of Rome to post as "shot of the day" sometime this year!

Gah, all this writing about Rome...looking at plane tickets now!

15-Day Picture Challenge: Day Six

"A picture of your favorite band or artist."

My favorite artist right now is Lady Gaga but I already talked about her before so let's talk about a different artist/band. Let's talk about Blink-182, one of my most favorite bands of all time.

I love, love, love, love Blink-182. I've been listening to their music since high school. I actually have their entire discography in my car's MP3 player right now. I listen to their stuff during my drive to work sometimes. Some of you might think I'm too old to be listening to this band but I don't think I can stop jamming to their music. Their music cheers me the hell up!

My husband and I's first date is at a Blink-182 concert in Raleigh, NC. We both love the band. I remember my cheeks were hurting because I was so happy to be there. I remember being pretty upset when I heard the band broke up in 2005. I also remember being super-duper happy when the band got back in 2009. The very same year of their reunion, my husband and I drove all the way to Vancouver, B. C. to see them live in concert once again. Ah memories, great, great, great memories. I freaking love Blink-182.

By the way and just in case you're wondering (you're probably not but just in case), I decided this past weekend that I'm only going to be doing the 15-Day Picture Challenge and Shot of The Day blog entries during the weekdays. Usually, I don't have time to blog during the weekends. I was able to write blog entries this weekend because I was bored due to my husband being out of town.

15-Day Picture Challenge: Day Five

"A picture of something you love."

Well, obviously, I love my camera (duh!). I love my husband, our cat Sophie, my family, my friends and MANY other things but for this entry, I decided to pick something random.

I have this undying love for perfumes in pretty bottles!

Gosh I'm so cheesy. We need some cheesy and cheer today so bear with me!

I mean come on, who doesn't like perfumes in pretty bottles? For me, I'm always attracted to perfumes in pretty bottles. Whenever I walk up to a perfume counter, the pretty bottles caught my eye first and I automatically think, "Ah, this one gotta smells good." Most of the time, I'm right on target but some of them, the bottle is pretty but the fragrant is too strong for my taste...or it smells like ass.

I've been collecting perfumes since 2002. I think I have about 25 bottles sitting inside a medicine cabinet right now. Supposedly, storing them in a dark place makes them last longer. I am really crazy for Juicy Couture perfumes. They smell sooooo good.

Well, enough about me. How about you? Name one totally random thing you love and tell me about it.

15-Day Picture Challenge: Day Four

"A picture of something you hate"

I hate working out. I hate that I need it to stay in shape. I hate that I feel like shit after a workout. I hate that I feel guilty whenever I skip a workout. I freaking hate it.

But you know what, I do love the results.

Hah, I guess today's theme is "HATE". I sure woke up full of hate today.

15-Day Picture Challenge: Day Three

"A picture that makes you laugh."

Hah, I have a bunch! My husband and our cat, Sophie makes me laugh on a daily basis. My picture picks are either Sophie's pictures or my husband's pictures but I know he's not going to be thrilled if I post his goofy pictures online for the whole world to see. So, I went with Sophie. =)

Sophie likes to be up in our business all the time. This picture was taken when I was putting up decorations this last Christmas. She pretty much looked at me and said "Yeah, this garland is mine." and plopped herself on top of the darn thing. I left the garland on the floor for about a week and it became one of her napping places for a little bit.

Look at those crazy eyes. Crazy cat.



The picture below is taken before a workout. Crazy cat stole mah shoes! I don't know what it is but she loooooooves rubbing/headbutting (and hugging) shoes all the time.

Gosh, I sound like a crazy cat lady! Anyway, how about you? What or who makes you laugh?

15-Day Picture Challenge: Day Two

"A picture of your most treasured item."

Well duh, of course I'm going to pick my engagement and wedding rings!

Why? I have two reasons. First, it's freaking expensive (Well, not as much as some other people's rings but I think it's pretty pricey.) so I better treasure and appreciate this thing. Second, I adore my rings like there's no tomorrow. They're my "preciousssss" *flashes my Smeagol smile*.

How about you? What is your most treasured item?

15-Day Picture Challenge: Day One

"A picture of a person you'd love to trade places with for a day."

This is pretty challenging to me. I have this long list of people I would love to trade places with for a day but I for now, I pick Lady Gaga (go ahead, laugh now, ha ha ha.)



Why did I pick Lady Gaga you ask? Because I admire her zaniness, her willingness to just let go and her guts. She works hard as hell. She's so fascinating to me and it would be really cool to know what's in her head for 24 hours. Maybe I'll find out that despite of the crazy get-ups, maybe she's just a normal and boring person inside.

Okay fine, I really just wanna wear the crazy outfits and headgear!

And I wanna be carried around in an egg.

Well I might tackle this...

The 30-Day Picture Challenge. I guess many people...er, bloggers are doing it.

But since this is my blog and I get to to whatever the hell I want, I'm not doing the 30-day challenge; I'm going to try to do a 15-day instead (and take note, I said "TRY".)

I think I'm supposed to copy and paste pictures but since this is my photo blog, I will not be copying and pasting pictures. Since I have nothing better to do lately, I'll take my own pictures instead (*screams quietly* Yay, I have something to do, OMG!)

Anyway, I now present to you....the 15-Day Picture Challenge.