So for the whole month of April I lived out of a suitcase and had not much time for blogging. It started with a trip to New York, followed by a quick stop in Dallas to see my parents.

While I was there, they asked me to join them at a celebration of the founding …

Thanksgiving 2014 came earlier this year for me, by a week, when I was in Dallas. I was there too early for the famous Neiman Marcus Christmas buffet at the flagship store downtown so my parents and I had brunch at the Four Seasons instead.

But instead of seeing …

Every family has one designated favorite relative. The one all the kids want seated at the kiddie table at weddings and reunions. The one who leads the most exciting life according to your young mind; the adult you want to become. You might say the one lit by …

Exactly seven years ago I published my first entry here at this blog and you welcomed me into your home. Together we’ve traveled around the world and you’ve indulged my fashion antics.

I’ve heard from many of you, met up with a few, and always appreciated all of …

I’d mentioned before that I’m more into antisocial media than social media, but Instagram has definitely gotten the best of me. Most likely it’s because it serves two large components of my personality: visualization and attention deficit. Throw all the fashion …

Dear Zoe,

The first time I met you was at your parents’ Chicago house. You were squirming, pink, and about the size of a hami melon. When your mom (nervously) put you in my arms, I felt the meaning of not just life but continuity. At that point in my life, I had …

I have this theory that if you keep moving fast enough, your body will be so charged with trying to keep up with your speed of thought that there’s no room left for jet lag, or any kind of lag. I know, that’s like a totally unscientific theory, but I do find that …

My luck for favorable weather held up by the time I made it to Dallas.

It was warm without being uncomfortable and made the perfect ambiance for our belated Mother’s Day and early Father’s Day brunch at the Four Seasons.

Sure, we were all bright-eyed and …

After all these years of juggling and multi-tasking, I am still really bad at managing family with work time. But sometimes the calendar god gives me a break and I make a run for it. So for ten days at the end of last month, I squeezed in family time with my …

So while I was on the road, November 3, 2013 came and went like any other day. Except that it marked the advent of the sixth year of this blog.

If I were sticking to tradition, I would feature photos of six items of something that told a cohesive story since the …

In my first start-up company, way before we all had the luxury of using the Internet to grow our business from our mobile devices or virtual offices, I used to go see a lot of clients with not much more than an address and map printout in hand. No Google map to …

Below is my slideshow/tribute to my parents at their anniversary party–though only some of the photos are included here. My parents are two ordinary people who have had extraordinary achievements and challenges in their lives. To me, it is the way they overcame …

Is it really mid-April already? As you can tell from my recent silence on this blog, I am still in serious need of 48-hour days. Does anyone know where I can order one of those online?

Anyway, the 4/18 Club 2013 meeting took place again this year in NYC. The …

About a year ago I blogged about a photo book I’d made with Mixbook.com. It was a collection of photos I’d taken over the years to celebrate and commemorate my grand amour with CHANEL.

Shortly after that, I saw another too-good-to-be-true offer from Picaboo.com. …

I don’t have particularly bad vision, if you don’t count the whole night blindness symptoms and astigmatism stuff, not to mention the reading glasses issue. Though that’s just another excuse for me to collect Chanel frames–hey, aging has to have some upside, …

Take a bunch of gadget freaks–about 150,000 of them–put them in Vegas for a week under the guise of work and you’ve got the Consumer Electronics Show, one of the world’s largest global conferences. I’ve heard about this for years but didn’t find a work-related …

Happy 2013 everyone! Instead of taking you down the Rose Parade as I had done in years past, this year I’ll show you the parade from scratch by actually volunteering to decorate one of the floats. I’ve probably wanted to do this since moving to Pasadena in 1998 …

It’s Thanksgiving Day here in the US and the holiday season has officially begun. From now through New Year’s Day, the work pace will slow down to a skeleton crew at most places, with people’s minds on their Xmas holidays or parties. The commercialism of it all …

If you’ve been one of the faithful readers of my blog, you know by now that my tradition is to mark each year with a series of photos showcasing some of my favorite accessories from my own closet.

Five is just a number to some, but it marks a huge milestone for …

As you may have noticed, I never really identify anyone by his or her full name at my blog. But today I’ll make an exception because I think you should know this name. Ennis Howard, Jr. is my brother from another mother. And father. That is to say he’s like a …

It’s still all good. Family is managing, work is better than ever, furkids still remember me…and so I’m back. A lot has happened, quite intensely in the last six weeks, so I had to stop blogging a bit to just take a vacay from my thoughts. Writing can be good in …

What is it that they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you poorer? Or is it stronger? In my case, it’s more of the first than the latter, but I’ll have to admit: retail therapy sure is a whole lot more fun than wallowing in fear and self-doubt. We got to bring my …

Not too long ago my dad confessed that he’d never changed any of our diapers. Ever. Three daughters, zero diaper changes. He would be the first to tell you that he was never the warm and fuzzy, hands-on father type, but for as long as I can remember, one single …

On my last trip to Europe I was given a very special present from a dear member of my host family. I wrote about visiting her family farm back in 2008, where I first met her, and 3.5 years later I got to go there again to see a few renovations and additions to …

Technology has come a long way and anyone of us could “publish” a fab coffee book with just a few mouse clicks. Photography is a big source of joy to me, so when combined with my other favorite hobby (fashion) and a great Groupon deal, it led to a very fun …

On this first day of 2012 I’m thrilled to convene the first meeting of the 1/1 Club, whose official members are my dad and Lil A’s new brother, Mr. T. He wasn’t due for another couple of weeks, but just like his big sister, he was in a hurry to join us in the fun …

As we bring 2011 to a close, I’m already getting my bags packed for a trip next week. Let’s see if 2012 will bring even more travel into my life. I’m counting on it since I’ve finally taken one step toward a very big adventure that I’ve been wanting to take for a …

I hope that Santa will bring you everything you wish for. As for me, I woke up on Christmas eve to a blue sky, put on my capri jeans, tshirt, and sandals and darted outside to soak up the lovely 75-degrees weather in my part of the world. And I’ll get to do it …

When we celebrated embarking upon Year 3 last year, I’d cheekily mentioned adding a blue jumbo classic bag to my collection. A blue bag did come and go this year (turns out navy is a hard color to get just right), but for this year’s anniversary entry, I thought …

I love the 4th of July because even the moniker “Independence Day” is such a call to action. The legacy of this young country that I now embrace as my own is that we get to take freedom as a given. Every day that we wake up, freedom awaits us. There’s no greater …

So all this shopping chatter has really gotten my appetite going. Once the eyes are stimulated by fashion candy, the belly follows suit and all I crave is some really good VN food. Or a sinful chocolate cake. The former reminds me of one of the spectacular meals …

Right before my trip to Europe a girlfriend of mine, Eileen, asked if I would review one of the dresses offered at her online store, Hautehangers, here at my blog. Pretty dress? I’m in! So by the time I arrived here, there was a package waiting for me a in royal …

So the big 4/18 Club–and by big I mean we have 3 members from my clan alone: Lil A, my cousin Steven, and yours truly–is having its day today, but unfortunately we are not all together to celebrate it. However, the great thing about membership in a club is that …

As some of you may already know by now, I’ve made it across the Atlantic.

Spring is in full bloom in Europe and as beautiful as it is to be here at this time of the year, my allergies have me whipped. No, not whipped. Whooped. No signs of jet lag, but all the …

I know practically everything (and soon everyone) is made in or owned by China, but some of us Asians follow our own lunar new year, as opposed to the Chinese New Year. And that can get a little confusing sometimes, especially this year, when we recognize two …

Weather lore has it that back in the early days of the Rose Parade, officials made a pact with the churches that if January 1st ever fell on a Sunday, they would move the parade to the 2nd so that no one would skip out on church service…in exchange for a sunny …

While I’m preparing my house for another family celebration, my niece Lil A has been busy carrying on the fashionista gene. I’d mentioned before that we share the same birthday (hence, the “4/18 Club”), but as she’s developing her personality, it seems that we …

You’ve probably heard that we had almost 7 full days of rain here in California, and for SoCal, that’s practically as bad as 40 days and 40 nights. But in spite of the horrific mudslides in some of our hills, a full rainbow showed up at the end of the rains…and …

Hi everyone! I’ve not fallen into a food or shopping coma…yet. I promise to circle back to continue the Lanvin story in a few days, but for the time being, I’ve been hosting my Belgian family here so we’ve been on the go nonstop. Who knew LA was so big! And who …

As they say, 1 is a lonely number. It’s an odd number, signifying solitude for some and a finish at the top for others. The number almost everyone chases. During the early days of this blog, my solitary goal was to survive the first year without a technical …

Not much to post about today, but I finally found the photo I took about 18 months ago that I meant to include in the last few FWTWYL entries. I believe my model, Lil A, was about 19 days old here.

And just like that, there she is lugging the same classic flap …

So I’m in Dallas visiting my parents again, and as you all know by now, I get spoiled with food whenever I am home. Love registers most loudly through eating in my parents’ home, and sometimes when I’m really lucky, my trip home coincides with certain fruits in …

If you’ve been to Texas in the middle of the summer you’d know what kind of heat I’m experiencing. The kind that sends perspiration trickling down your spine while you are trying to stand very still in the biggest shade you can find. No amount of thinking about …

A sweet email from a Scottish reader reminds me what a great photographic opportunity I have right here in Los Angeles. So while I anticipate my next trip to NY to visit my newest niece, I’ll just post pictures of my hometown as I find it here and there for a …

The last thing I heard last night before drifting off to sleep was about Obama becoming the first African American president. The first thing I heard this morning upon waking up was a discussion on the probability of McCain pulling an upset in an election of …