Merry Christmas 2012!

It's probably been about a year since I posted. =(. Time is going too quickly.
I have a reason to post today though!
First of all: MERRY CHRISTMAS... EVE EVE!
This is my fourth (and almost definitely my last) Christmas in Korea. =( It's been a great almost 4 years though. :)

Second: About a week ago I found an advertisement in my favorite coffee shop for making soap. I've been wanting to make soap for the past year or so, but haven't had anyone to show me what to do. I guess I could have bought a few books and worked from there, but it's hard to figure out the right supplies to buy and to know whether I'm doing things correctly. Anyway- this ad. I texted the number on it- and got an immediate response in English! Making soap with Jin was a blast. She's a nice lady, had three cats, AND loved Muse. Basically, amazing enough that I want to go back next month and learn how to make a different kind of soap. I didn't get any pictures while I was there, so when I go back I'd like to take some pictures with her and of her workshop.
Here's the soap I made:

 It's packaged here as a Christmas present. The pink soap was Cranberry and Fig scented. Little Christmas trees! There are little bits of yellow pieces in the trees- I made a joke that it looked like Korean radish. I'm just glad it doesn't smell like Korean radish.

And my favorite soap I made tonight. It even smells like Christmas! It's a present for Nic!

Nic's tidbits:

Happy Holidays! Here we are again in Korea for Christmas, and once again I am not allowed to open presents yet, even though they are begging me to release them from their paper prisons. Think of the children!

So Debra went on a soap adventure today, and released her inner chemist. I'm not sure if the ingredients came from the many plastic surgery clinics around here, but I'm sure we'll get to talk about it at [Rules 1&2 Nic] this weekend. The soap also granted me... POWER.
                                                       

We get Christmas off from work here (which is surprising, only get the two most important Korean ones off) so we want to open presents and then go see The Miserables for the day. Also eat food.

We went to go see Phantom of the Opera today as well, super cool. Hearing the theme music blaring and seeing strobe lights flash was quite impressive.

We're nearing the end date here in Korea, the wedding date is fast approaching!

Here's hoping that everybody's Christmas presents arrived on time, and hope to spend the holidays with more of you next year!

From Debra: P.S.:
Speaking of weddings, Nic and I recently went to a co-worker's wedding. She was gorgeous, so I want to post a picture of her here. Well, a picture of her... and Nic and me. We're such narcissists.

Big 'Ole Heart for you

Korea is hot. Yeah, I know... almost everywhere is hot in the summer. But yeesh, it's been hot. The air- conditioner broke at our place, and Nic and I have been suffering with a measly fan for a week. But good news! While Nic and I were at a coffee shop today, the magical air-con fairy came into our apartment and (hopefully) fixed it. It's a bit weird that people can just come into our place and do that. I prefer to think that it was a magical air-conditioner fairy...

It's been too hot to make things. Haha, actually, I wish that's all it was. Nic and I have been busy with things lately, although what we've been busy with is kind of hard to say. I've been making stars though and I finished a pretty glass jar worth, so I'll post pictures of that. :)

<3.
And other news! Nic and I were in a tap dancing show! We're still beginners, so we performed the beginner's song at the show. I'll have Nic talk more about it.
Here's the videos though:
Curtain Call (this song was for all performers to do at the end of the show): You might want to fast forward the beginning a little bit. Nic and I come out for our bow around 4 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SyysZKzJFI&feature=g-all-u

Our performance song (skip to about 0:58) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXl-ePXwyK8&feature=plcp



Nic's Tidbits:

Lately I feel like we've been drowning in pools of our own sweat. Debra hasn't had much need to go to hot yoga either, it's been hot enough at home! Well, it's getting better now with the new a/c so I guess it's all better now.

It's the summer term here in Korea, so our work schedule has changed a bit. We go to work earlier and leave earlier, so we have a bit more time in the evening. We spend this time mostly sitting at home wondering what to do.

The tap dancing event was pretty fun, but it was also a lot of waiting. We had our ~3 minutes in front of a crowd filled with parents who only came to see their kids, and besides that it was about 7 hours of sitting and reading/ playing on the iPad. It was fun and I'd do it again, but next time I'll bring more to do in the downtime.

Attending wedding #3 soon, and we're hoping to start planning a little vacation or at least a weekend getaway trip. It will be nice to get away from the city. Debra has sold a couple things on her website too, so she's super excited about it.

That's about it from me, hope everyone that reads this is having a good time.

-Nic

"This picture is taken here because it's lined up with our now working A/C!"













"Hey Nic, what do you think of Gangnam Style?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

When I have inspiration, I have no time. When I have no time, suddenly I have inspiration!

Hello July! And hello horrible HEAT. I was really happy about the changing of the seasons-- after all, no winter= nice weather for headbands!....
.... And then I couldn't think of any headbands I wanted to make. Now, everyday is full of the blazing sun and that horrible hike to our apartment.
And of course, when I thought of an awesome hairband I wanted to make, there was magically no time to make it.

So I've ended up with a clip instead. Actually, a barrette. Definitely not a favorite, but the satin-y ribbon IS shiny, and after wearing it a few times, it's starting to grow on me :). (Isn't Nic super cute?!)

Things have been a bit hectic lately, which somehow means a little more monotonous and full of things to do. I've had more responsibilities added to my job; I don't mind it, it just takes a lot of time. Working on my nutrition class and Latin class, while hoping to continue Japanese and Korean soon. I'm enjoying most of it, but I suppose Nic and I ought to go out and enjoy some of the sun.

Anyway, enough babbling. I'm sure Nic will mention some of the things we've been up to in his part of the post:

Nic's Tidbits:

I'm adorable!

Ehem. Lately, we've really fallen into a predictable pattern of blah. We've adjusted to life here in our new 6-month old apartment, and while we have actually done quite a bit, it hasn't had as much as an impact as our earlier adventures.

It has been really hot lately, but we've had quite a bit of rain to cool us off. As a Vulcan, I enjoy the rain more than a sunny day most days within reason. Debra however can't quite make up her mind over which she dislikes more.

The view from 63 building. 

We went up into one of the largest buildings in Seoul called 63 building (63 stories, of course). It was fun, and we went into the worlds highest art gallery. Also, we saw an IMAX about ancient giant reptilian sea creatures that scared me about as much as anyone who knows me would think.

At the art gallery!

Debra's been busy doing about 200% more than she should, with so many projects it's hard to keep track of them. Doing my best to keep her smiling ^_^

On that note, it's time I actually started doing something other than sit around, so I'm looking for online classes to take to learn some job skills. Going to start with a computer management course, and hopefully devote some time to brushing up on my Japanese.

We're hoping to get a bit of vacation time in later this year, and it would be my first vacation since coming to Korea. Yay!

Anyway, enough jibber-jabber. Hopefully we'll have another post later this week with a video of us or another Debra project.

Bye!

-Nic

Oops... I did it again...

I don't even know the last time I made a post. How embarrassing. Nic and I haven't been incredibly busy- but the weather is getting nice, so we've been enjoying Spring. Leaves me with less time to make things, although when I'm in the apartment I can't bring myself to be productive for the blog because inspiration has been lacking.

Luckily, I had a good excuse to make something. Today was the wedding of one of our co-workers, John. Nic and I have been working with him for about a year. The ceremony was nice- happy looking families getting together+ happy looking coworkers celebrating too! To celebrate the wedding, I decided to make a hair clip for myself to wear to the wedding:

This is Nic's face for: "Really Deb, this one took you too long to make." Which it did. I started with felt material to make this, then realized that since I had to sew it together, felt was too thick. Then I went to
satin-y material, only to have it all fall apart. Ended up with thick, gauzy ribbon. Voila! The panda behind Nic says, "hi!"

Strangely, although Nic took about 150 pics of the wedding, none were of us together. Dear friends that went to the wedding, HELP! Do you have any pics of us we can share?

Nic's tid-bits:

I went camera crazy this weekend. Debra has a new DSLR camera she bought to help out with her shop (probably helped) but I just like taking pictures of stuff. I don't like taking pictures of people who know they're getting their picture taken though, so people were giving me exasperated looks through the wedding.

It was a very nice wedding though, and for every 20 pictures I managed to get, 1 would actually be good. Bride and groom were lovely, and very very busy.

The day before on Saturday Debra was in town waiting for me when she turned around and saw this guy:

Handsome?

This is Jordan; he and his wife Bethany are our newest co teachers at work. They were in Itaewon with another of our co workers in town and we said hi to them while we ate our Cinco de Mayo Mexican food. We met up later for drinks as well. Nice to see them enjoying "our" neck of the woods.

Debra's flower did actually take a while to make, she cut up one of my (old) shirts for no reason, kept us up late, kicked me off the computer, and missed yoga in the morning to top it all off. But, it came out very well so I'm happy and supportive.

Debra is having difficulty stocking her store with stuff, so hopefully once that's ironed out we'll get some more posts.

Stay Classy!

-Nic

OOPS! We're back!

So it's been about a month since our last post? Valentine's Day? I told Nic. This was his reaction:

I know, RIGHT?!

Anyway, I can't say it's actually been a busy month, but it really feels like it has been. Nic and I started new classes for the term. It's always a little stressful getting to know new kids and gauging how to make the class fun without being too crazy. For the most part I'm enjoying my classes. :)

New thing! I got a dslr camera. Expect higher quality photos, even though my picture taking skills are pretty poor.

As for new shiny things, I've been working more on stars. Mostly cause it's something I can do easily with my hands when watching tv or sitting around. The end result is that I finally opened an Etsy shop!

These are the three things I have posted so far:

I have three more postings to add to the shop by the end of the week. I'm hoping to add non-star items (earrings, headbands) before the month is out. Here's the link for the shop:

www.etsy.com/shop/supershinybits

Looking forward to working on the shop a bit more in the coming weeks. Also, adding things to the shop = (hopefully) more blog posts.

Nic's Tid-Bits

So eventually I bugged Debra enough to start making up for all this lost shiny time, and at first she was like:

But eventually she decided to get on it. She even opened her shop on etsy! Well, we got the banner going today as well. Once we get around to mass shopping for supplies we should have more up for sale.

Her new camera has been the chief concern making the posts lately. She really wanted to get it before she opened her shop, and she really wanted to open the shop before she made anything new. It is a really nice camera though, and the pictures have great detail. For example:

Aren't we cute?!?

As for my life, the new term has treated me very well. I seem to have all great kids this term and don't have any complaints with them even after 4 weeks (which is when they usually would have become crazy). Otherwise, I've been doing well.

With all the photo taking I'll be doing for Deb's shop, I might just catch up to my sister (a great photographer in her own right [Hi Tee!])

Well that's been long enough. Hope everyone reading this is doing well!

-Nic

Happy (day after) Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!! Hope everyone's day was filled with lots of love and happiness =).When Nic and I worked at the elementary school, one of our co-workers mentioned how his family made presents for each other every Christmas. Well, with our new move, we decided to go on the cheaper side and make things for each other for Valentine's Day.

Nic's was by far more romantic, so I'm going to start with his present:

It's an ice sculpture in the shape of a heart! AND it has a real rose inside of it!

It's currently living in the freezer. I'm hoping to keep it as long as I can.

As for what I gave Nic:

It's a magnet made from perler beads. Hahaha, I remembered playing with these when I was little and having a lot of fun with it. Seemed like a cute, fun to-make present. And of course, I felt the need to appeal to the nerdier side of Nic with these:

They are coasters of Mario related things! Actually, it was supposed to be a set of 6, but I had the perler beads shipped to Korea and ran out of colors to do them all =(. I was super disappointed and kept saying things to Nic like, "I'm so sorry Nic, but I'm out of colors and can't finish your present." Disappointed!!!!! But, at least these ones were ready for Valentine's Day. Next year, I'll just have to get him chocolate.

Nic and I:

Nic's Tidbits:

Happy Valentine’s Day Two!

We had a good little holiday out here in Korea with each other. As Deb showed, I decided to make an ice sculpture this year. It was a lot of fun! But trickier than I thought it would be.

For anyone interested, I took a heart shaped bowl and laid plastic down on the sides. Then I filled it with water and pushed a rose down with a small weight. It came out easy thanks to the plastic, so now it's super cool looking!

Also, I had just been freaking out about getting coasters. The coffee table in the living room isn't ours technically and I didn't want to hurt it.

Bonus! Here's a picture from our welcome party!

I have a couple more, but since Deb veto'd them since she's pretty silly looking in them (mostly "take the damn picture already Nic" face).

See you next time!

-Nic

Star earrings**

This blog was meant to be updated weekly, but Nic and I just seem to run into the stupidest of problems when it's time to post something. For example, tonight.
Debra: Where's the camera?
Nic: It's here!.... or not. I stood here and took a picture and then....
30 minutes later- the camera is found!! (it was hiding behind my black angry bird stuffed animal)
So, yay! Camera!! And then...
Debra: Where's my earrings that I wanted to use in the post for tonight?
15 minutes later- the earrings are found! (they were camouflaging with my other stars)

I posted about 2 weeks ago that I went a little star crazy. This is what came of it! Star earrings!
After folding the paper into cute star shapes, I glossed them with glossy varnish stuff to make them shiny and hard enough to wear without falling apart. Here they are up close:


Lastly, a picture of me. It's passed 9pm here so I wasn't in the mood for getting dressed up for the pic, so this is the best shot that I could get Nic to take. =).

Nic and I have finally finished moving all of our stuff into the new apartment- it was no small feat to get all of our stuff here. I don't even want to think about the nightmarish trips that we made to lug all our stuff from the old place to the new place. Now the place is just in that messy stage of trying to figure out where we put everything and where we shooooooooould put everything. I'm hoping that by the next shinybits post that things will be more organized in the apt, and thus, we'll be more prepared for making awesome posts.

Nic's tidbits:

Oh good lord. I never want to carry another giant bag/ suitcase on the subway again. Or drag something up a hill. It was awfully Sisyphiean. Debra wasn't kidding about the mess either- we've got clothes of all shapes and sizes, random Nic's Knacks (and Debra's Knacks) on every surface... sheesh.

We installed a giant set of bars across one of our storage rooms to act as a wardrobe/ makeshift walk in closet. They were designed specifically for that purpose but I have no idea what to call them. I got them since we needed more closet space (or any, really) and we were given $70 worth of gift money at our local emart (think walmart) for signing up with our internet service.

ANYWAY, once I had installed the dang thing we realized we didn't have any hangers since we didn't have any place to put them before we bought this thing. Now I have to go buy 50+ hangers in order to have enough floor space to walk... sigh.

All in all, I learned quite a bit more about moving. I thought I knew quite a bit already but a lot of the particulars always went to Mom and Pop. Also, not having a car kinda increased the difficulty.

I know none of that was relevant or interesting to most of you, but I had to get it out of my system. We're almost through winter here and since so much of it has been about this move or Christmas or New Years or whatever, Deb and I haven't gotten around to having ourselves a nice trip for ourselves. I hope we can manage that before all the ice is gone (we haven't even had a snowball fight!).

Thanks for coming to visit the blog everyone, and I hope that We'll have a nice Valentine post for you soon!

Happy Dragon Year!

It's been a little difficult keeping up with the posts because of the move- although Nic and I had a great four day weekend here in Seoul thanks to Seolnal (Lunar New Year). Nic and I are now 26 years old! Looking back on it, I can't really remember what we did for four days! I'm almost convinced Saturday didn't actually happen. On Sunday Nic and I finally got to see Millennium (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). I was pretty much in love with it after the first 4 minutes of awesomely-done music (thank you Trent Reznor!). And now I need the soundtrack. Oh, and the next two movies to be released.
And now.... new shiny post!
Oh no!... No headband!.... That's cause you need to look at my ears!
I got the materials in Dongdaemun (where I get the materials for all my projects) on Saturday. Just had to put it together to make cute studs. Not only that, I saw a very similar pair in the mall the other day at 14x the price! I'm very excited to have been able to get and make them so cheaply =).
They look good on Nic too:


Nic's tidbits:
Aren't I cute?

Seriously though, as far as jewelry is concerned, I'm a bit sad not being able to wear my earrings. For those who don't know I got my ear pierced back in high school (hadn't planned on it, Dad pushed me to because Taylor was getting hers [again] and the cute salesgirl asked). I didn't go without an earring in my ear again for 9 years. Since it's not that professional for a guy to wear one I took it out.

I think the hole is closing too, it takes awhile to get one in there, and it hurts for awhile afterwords. This makes me very sad, I really liked my pirate-y gold hoop thing my momma got me. Thanks mom! Still have em!

Oh well. The weekend was busy, which isn't so bad. We finally got most of our stuff into the new place, so we had a massive cleaning project. Massive cleaning projects are the only ones that I actually enjoy (much like my sister who constantly used to re-arrange her entire room).

It's been a bit bothersome when we've tried to find something only to realize its across town in the old/new house. Glad it's pretty much over and we can enjoy our housewarming party this weekend.

Best wishes to all and I hope that the year of the Dragon finds you well!

(This was written a week ago and is finally posted. YAY!)

Nic steals Debra's Intro Bit

Bit late, but Happy New Year!

Hi all, we were going to post a video of the apt, but it won't load easily. Instead, check out these pictures I took!

(our couch is on the wall)

It was really cool moving into a new place. We actually took these last week for last weeks Shiny Bits, but it had to be postponed until now. We've since moved in a bit (we have our own furniture, etc.) but it's still mostly the same.

It's winter vacation for the kids, so you know what that means, more classes at after school-school with Nic and Debra! Deb and I now teach morning classes (which we had just STOPPED teaching less than a month ago) and whats worse is that we teach on alternating days. We don't ever see each other in the mornings =(

While we're teaching the morning classes we're still staying in our old apt for the most part as well. It save us an hour of travel time that, while fine in the afternoon, we don't wish to make at 7:00 am. Debra's class is a pretty boring listening/grammar class, and I've got a strange reading/ self esteem class. I'm reading Anne of Green Gables with two girls and five boys. Then we talk about things like who to talk to if you are having trouble at home. I'm getting my life counselor degree on the side. Anyway, it's pretty awkward.

Things are moving along here at a pretty fast rate. We're well into winter now and soon it will almost be too late to go snowboarding again. Years just seem so small these days. Well, I'm looking forward to the cherry blossoms already I guess. Guess I'm gonna have to take myself to the gym some more to get ready for swimsuit season at this rate.

Best wishes to everyone bothering to read this, and hope to hear from you in the comments below (even things as inane as "Good Job!" are appreciated.") Happy New Year!

Debra's bits:
Hahaha, Nic has to get ready for his bikini. Although we haven't actually lived in our apartment for more than a weekend, it won't be too hard staying fit. We didn't take a picture of it, but there is a HUGE hill that we must hike in order to get to our place. It's a bit terrifying going up the hill in a car because the area is so narrow and steep. It's troublesome to climb, but since Nic and I live next to some amazing food places, it's probably good that it's there. The walk too and from the train station will give us an extra 30 minutes of walking per day!

I've been going a little star crazy (I think I've made about a thousand stars in the past week and a half or so) and haven't had much time to do other things. Star post coming soon!

For those of you that thought Christmas was over, it is. But not really. Please click the link and sing along with Nic's masterful drawings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TktAaCplscI&feature=related

Since the 12 days of Christmas start on Christmas day, Nic came to my classroom everyday to draw out "The Twelve Days of Christmas" song on my whiteboard. Since he wrote, "Do not erase" next to it, my board was getting pretty filled up by day 7-8, haha. Of course, all the kids asked about the song. "Teacher! Sing it to me! Show us videos of it!" One class even sang the Starcraft version of it. An hour into class, the students of that class ask, "So teacher... uh... what are those drawings on the board?"

I think my favorite is either the Colly/calling birds or the 6 geese a-laying. Gotta love those Angry Birds. According to the December 2011 issue of Times Magazine, to actually buy the 12 days of Christmas now costs over $100,000. This is definitely the most expensive gift I've ever received! ;)