Michelle's Place

"It's Soooo Pretty!"

Lately, whenever I see something and am overcome by girly delight, I exclaim, "Oh, it's soooo pretty!"

It happened last weekend, when Mr. Boyfriend and I were walking around outside the Breadwinner's Café (a lovely place). I walked by the window of this incredibly beautiful store, and saw that it was the famed Paper and Chocolate. And can you imagine two things I'd love more--beautiful paper, and chocolate?! I couldn't help myself, "Wow, it's soooo pretty!" I said. Giggling ensued.

I wanted to stop and look, but the store was closed for the morning, and besides, I'd have spent so much time in there, we'd have missed our reservation! Perfect stop on a girly shopping trip, though.Their website contains some gorgeous images, as well. Tiny colorful items, just perfect for small-scale photography... I wonder if I could bring my 50mm?

It's snowing outside right now. I ran to the windows, accompanied by my cat, and I said to her, "Look, the snow! Oh, it's soooo pretty!"

Uncredited photo from paperandchocolate.com.

Wii Were Disappointed

So three weeks before Valentine's Day, I ordered the wildly popular Wii chocolates that I discovered via Shiny Shiny. I thought they'd make a perfect gift. Not only is Mr. Boyfriend a tech guy (although he doesn't have a Wii) but this gift could be personalized--I could order the girl avatar in dark chocolate and the boy avatar in white chocolate. How unbelievably super-cute! So I promptly placed an order, right before they sold out.

It took over 2 weeks to arrive, and I happily opened the box. But instead of a "replica wii box" I got this.

On the box I received, the cover was peeling off and the photocopied paper was faded. But surely, all would be redeemed when I saw the little interracial avatars, right? Perfect mirrors of us--how adorable! But I opened the box and saw this...

What?! These are not personalized wii-people, although they are very cute. These are just two little now-irrelevant pieces of chocolate, and one with a broken-off head! ::sigh:: So the box looks cheap and my order was wrong. I checked my order three times--both my receipt and the notation on the bottom of the box state clearly that I ordered Male-white chocolate, Female-dark chocolate. :(

I got my boyfriend a better gift and wrapped that instead. Since it was too late to send these back and I am avoiding sugar at the moment, I decided to explain my dilemma and give the chocolate as a secondary gift. To his credit, I was more disappointed than he was. He just wanted to eat it!

"Your head is delicious!" he exclaimed.

A clever idea and admittedly very cute (and tasty!), with some flaws. Oh well; maybe next time, Mr. Pape!

Disgraceful Service at Urban Taco

I was at Mockingbird Station today to see the new film Talk to Me. While looking at something else online I found reviews for Urban Taco which recently opened. Restaurant critics and customers alike fawn over this new establishment, a purveyor of authentic Mexican food. "Authentic" is a key word here since I've long been craving Mexican food that doesn't involve sour cream & cheddar cheese. It sounded great! Since it was walking distance from the theater, I decided to check it out.

Big mistake.

The place is very nice and was hopping with activity. Everyone looked happy. I saw that the quiet lunch I'd anticipated wasn't going to happen, so I ordered my three tacos para llevar. The server suggested I wait outside (because there were no tables or chairs available indoors) and so I waited. And waited. And waited.

After 25 minutes in 102 degree heat I asked what happened to my order. I was given the standard "We're so busy!" response and was asked to wait 15 more minutes. The helpless server suggested I talk to the "manager" but it was clear that I would have to wait 15 more minutes for him, too. And they already had my money. So I continued waiting. I was not offered anything; even a cup of ice & tap water would made waiting easier.

During this time, I saw at least two people who came in after me being served their food. Also, another "to-go" order had been served during this time. I have no idea why it was my order that was ignored or overlooked.

After a total of 45 minutes (?!), I was brought my order. By then, I glanced inside and saw several empty tables. I asked the server what type of compensation I was entitled to, since I waited all this time, and in such awful heat. At the very least, a bottle of water. But she said, "We don't have enough people! We are so busy!" and she walked off--leaving me with the door literally swinging in my face.

I am not sure what I could have done here. I could have demanded more service, or compensation or my money back, but what would I have gotten? Another 15 minutes of waiting for a "manager" who frankly, looked as though he couldn't have been bothered? That's a little more confrontation than is necessary for some tacos.

And how was the food? Well, per the reviews, it was excellent, or even "amazing." In fact it is probably some of the best food I've eaten in a long time. But good food by itself isn't enough.

I really wanted to like this place, just like the reviewers and the seemingly happy customers. But the server was right--if this is the kind of service to be expected at a place like this, they indeed won't have enough people... but they'll have a shortage of customers, not employees.

The Look for Less

My bed is finally finished, which means now I can commence decorating around it. After several years of not having a real bed, and not having any new bedroom furniture in 20 years (my parents bought me a lovely white furniture set when I was in 2nd grade--thanks Mom & Dad!), I am THRILLED--God bless my wonderful friends who have heard about my happiness many times now.

I'm certainly not the first girl to list one of my hobbies as "shopping," and I really mean it. When I set about choosing my bed linen, I could have gone the easy, Bed Bath Beyond route, but I just couldn't do it--it was too cookie-cutter for me. Instead, leave it to me to pursue & fall in love with the most expensive linens around--formally dressed beds by Peacock Alley (which has an incredible outlet store, btw) and Sferra. More specifically, I loved this image and my bed is inspired by it. The linens in that picture, if purchased as shown, total more than $1500. I spent about 1/5 of that (in fact, the linens and the bed itself didn't total that much). Click the image to see notes on how I did it. I think it needs more pillows!

And of course, you can see the ongoing progress here.

Shopping credits: Duvet cover & embroidered pillows - Horchow Finale; Matelassé & Shams, Euro Pillows - Linens & Things; Sateen 410 TC Sheets - Tuesday Morning

Inspired By...

After my trip to Mexico, I am ashamed to admit that I was surprised by all the pink everywhere. If you are an American, when you think of Mexico you probably think of primary colors, mostly red. Almost the moment we arrived my misconceptions were totally turned around. I was so excited to find lots and lots of pink everywhere--it's currently stylish, for sure, but also in natural things, fabric dyes and huichol paintings, serapes. It's used liberally as a wall color, also.

While in Mexico I tried taking as many pictures of this shade as I could. Here's an attempted close-up of some super-bright Oaxacan flowers, and here is a better example of it used on a wall. Pink is my favorite color and so in designing my bedroom, I definitely wanted to use this beautiful shade of buganvilia pink. Since my bedroom re-do has been in the making for a year or more, I've had plenty of time to look at examples and be inspired. Here are some of them.

At first, I was really drawn to the modern/contemporary look and for a long time, I hoped the room would look like this example from West Elm:

I loved the pink and the trendy energy in the room. But once I really got serious about things, I realized that I didn't want things to be so harsh--that room is cute but doesn't look inviting to me. Plus, I realized that I loved this post featured on apartment therapy--I like the way she used the bright color pink but it didn't really jump out at you. The cat in the room didn't hurt, either!

And the cool vibe of rooms inspired by cakes(via decor8):

Plenty of ideas swimming around in my head at this point... we'll see how they translate to the reality of (a) my small-ish apartment and (b) my actual budget.

A Good Sale is a Blessing from God

Well, it might not end up looking like something from the pages of decor8 or the super-cool apartment therapy, but I'm currently re-decorating my bedroom and it's a fun proposition so far--certainly one of many highlights this summer.

So far, the most fun aspect of this project has been the *shopping*! I've become acquainted with lots of the little housewares shops in Dallas, the ones I've read about in the back of Lucky magazine or on the Dallas News shopping blog, especially the little outlets.

I loved the Peacock Alley outlet, the Crate & Barrel Outlet, but my favorites by far are the *three* Horchow Finale (Neiman-Marcus) houseware outlets (Dallas, Plano, and a brand new one at Grapevine Mills mall). I also really enjoyed the global vibe of the Anthropologie stores. I visited the Simmons mattress outlet and they had some incredible deals... but I got nervous when the shifty-looking guy insisted repeatedly that he was not responsible for what happens to the mattress when it leaves the store and that there's no warranty and he's not liable etc., etc... sometimes a good deal just isn't worth it.

Before I went shopping, I told Mom what I wanted--a sophisticated looking room for less--and I confessed my intimidation at going to some of the fancier boutiques. But Mom reminded me that she has raised me to shop for quality things at a good price, and she also said that everything eventually goes on sale and she was right. The most fun part of this is getting so many things at such unbelievable prices. When the room is finished I'll post it with a price breakdown--to show off all my deals & steals!

Next I'll post some of my inspirations for the room--we'll see if it lives up to my hopes & dreams. You can check the status of my decorating project on my flickr set "My House: A Work in Progress."

Receiving the Oprah treatment in Southlake

My best friend Eri and I *love* shopping, and so I was thrilled to realize that there's a shopping center nearby that I hadn't checked out yet. (Actually I was kind of dismayed--I'm known for having memorized the routes to every shopping center within 30 minutes of me--and I missed one?!)

Anyway my friend is Japanese and I'm me, and we're an odd pair. We get stared at whenever we go out because, well Dallas isn't San Francisco and how often do you see a pair of people like us? So I'm used to it. But on Friday when we went to Southlake, we got more than just stared at--we were treated like crap.

The Southlake Town Center is a shopping center that's new but designed to look old, and it really is very cute with lots of very cute shops and weird sculptures of cows. But as we were walking around to the different shops, the reception by salespeople ranged from lukewarm to downright "get-out-of-my-store" rude. Sometimes we were ignored outright. The worst place was L'Occitane, whose staff member  literally stopped us at the door when we inquired about their merchandise. We didn't even have a chance to let her know how rude she was, we just left immediately.

Two notable exceptions were James Avery, the Christian jewelry place, and Lane Bryant. Both stores were very sweet to us and they were also the only ones staffed by minorities--this is no coincidence. Looking around the shopping center, it was obvious who the intended clientèle was. My friend and I were well dressed and we are very nice, we were not being loud or disruptive and there was no reason for us to be excluded from any store, except the obvious.

My mother reminded me that she used to receive this treatment all the time when shopping in Dallas, when we lived here in the 80s. She also reminded me that even Oprah got this kind of treatment more than once (no, not just the Hermès scarf incident). She also said that too many blacks fought and died so that we can have the privilege of shopping wherever we want! Then she suggested I write it on my blog. So here it is. Go, Activist Mom!

I do plan to go back to the shopping center though, because (a) I like the shops there, mean salespeople be damned; (b) maybe there are other, less-racist staff members present on different days; and because (c) let's face it, my mother is right.

So excited!!!

After over a year of dreaming about it, I finally bought my new camera! It's so very beautiful! Now I can take more exciting pictures. I've had my old hp crappy-cam for three years and it was way past time for an upgrade. My new camera has lots of exciting features, including full manual mode, which I can use to teach myself more things until I upgrade to a DSLR in a few years.

I spent the weekend running around taking pictures (see them here). I took the camera around my neighborhood, and then to the Arboretum. I thoroughly enjoyed it! I overslept, so I didn't get there very early, and the place was full of people. Lots and lots of brides & quinceañeras. Many cute kids, families, people just walking around--and every one of them had a camera.

I was so excited to get pictures of birds, bees, flowers, trees... and people--happy spring things. Thanks to my friends for listening to me jump around with excitement at my "new toy" and to my mom for being proud of me. I took this picture for her--when she comes to visit I think I will bring her to the arboretum. She likes plants, so I think she will enjoy it..

It wasn't until I got home that I realized I was probably the only person there by myself--but I was so happy to be out in the sunlight and have something meaningful to do, so it didn't matter much to me. It was a great weekend.