The hills are alive.... with the sound of music

Vienna! Prague! Berlin! [insert another city name]!

I just booked our tickets for our first real vacation since our honeymoon (yes, its been a looooooong 2.5 years). We're flying to Vienna! After searching for cheap flights the last few weeks, I finally decided to cash in my United FF miles. The process was rather painless. The customer service rep was rather pleasant and she said that there were flights to Vienna for the dates we wanted, so I booked them :)

I can't wait to go to the library tomorrow to checkout some Lonely Planet guides. For now, I'll settle for dancing around the room singing songs from Sound of Music and driving Sean insane :)

I just did a search for Vienna pictures on Google - man, the city is beeeeaaautiful! Can't wait :)

baking soda + vinegar = lotta fizz & unclogged sink

I've been on this "green" kick. I know... I know... its so mainstream. I'm really quite disgusted that I decided to hop on the "green and organic" bandwagon. Bah.

They say reading and knowledge is good for you, but all its done is making me wonder what kinds of long-term, unreversible damage I'm doing to Sean and I when I'm using 409 or Drano. I mean, you would think that when one is cleaning, one should feel good, blah, blah. But now when I clean, I get a guilt conscious too. What gives?!?! It just make the whole cleaning thing suck even more (which I didn't think was possible).

Our bathroom sink has been seriously clogging up. It's making simple tasks like washing my face difficult. Now I have to wash the left side, stop, let the water drain. Wash the right side, stop, let the water drain. And then do an overall wash. (I think I've been running around with facial cleansers permanently adhered to my face b/c of this whole 3 step process). Usually, this is an easy fix, I run to the 24 hour Duane Reade, pick up a bottle of Drano and voila! Instant declogging. But now I have this "Go green! Say no to evil non-green products" nagging in my head that prevents me from making that easy trip. So we live with the clogged drain.

Yesterday, I finally decided to try the ol' baking soda/vinegar trick that I read about on Friday. I poured in 1/2 cup of baking soda, then 1/2 cup of vinegar, watch it all fizz (which was pretty cool). Let it all sit for 20 minutes and then flushed with hot water. You know what.... it actually worked. Now I have this sink that allows me to wash all of my face at the same time. Yea!

Maybe this au natural cleaning thing won't be so bad. It's like of like conducting a science experiment. Though word of warning, don't combine baking soda and vinegar before you pour. I tried it (I mean, it just seemed to make sense to combine the two so that it'll drain easier), and I really don't recommend it.

The blackhole known as Etsy

Recently, I've stumbled upon the brilliance that is Etsy. The web site is a blackhole. I start browsing (of course, when I browse, I must look at all 146 pages of pillows) and somehow *poof*, 3 hours have passed. So if you are now hopping onto the www.etsy.com site - you've been warned.

Sean and I have been looking for a light for our bedroom. It's a long and challenging process. We apparently have very different taste when it comes to lighting. Sean likes simple, clean (translation = no personality), I like the more quirky, funky (translation = weird). We've been butting heads on this for a while.

We finally saw a light that we both liked from Room & Board, but (there's always a but), it was $225. I mean, I just can't see myself ever paying that much for a light. It's a light! It needs to turn on/off. The kicker is that I didn't even like the shade - just the base. So $225 for just the base. Umm... no.

Yesterday, I saw a post on Apartment Therapy (another site that sucks up many minutes of my day) for some beautiful china with a cherry blossom pattern. I'm a sucker for cherry blossom. I think its the Asian in me :) I clicked on the link and it brought me to a store at Etsy. There... I saw a light that was nearly perfect. So close, except the decor on the light was wrong. I wanted red cherry blossoms, the light had green/orange leaves and flowers. But, since the seller sells china with cherry blossoms, I figure I'll ask if she can make a light with red cherry blossoms. I emailed the request - she said "yes!" and it was $40! She painted it today, firing it tomorrow, and I should receive it next week. Ooooo... I love the Internet :) Isn't the light beautiful? So perfect for our Zen bedroom :)

The seller's name is Olga and her store is at Olga Designs. She has beautiful items at really reasonable costs. Plus, she's very responsive and super nice.