Recommend to a Friend

When I worked for American Express, one of their biggest metrics was the Recommend to a Friend metric. That metric is important to a lot of companies. Because the biggest advertisers for things are us. We recommend good things to family and friends all the time. I did it often on my last blog. Because when I really like something, I want people to use it and know about it. I had a conversation earlier this week about restaurant services. We talked about tipping. I will always leave a tip at a restaurant, regardless of how crappy the service was. But the other part of that though, is that I will never go back to a restaurant that I had a bad experience in. So yeah, they'll get that 15% or so tip for a crappy service, but they will lose out on at least one customer's patronage forever. Dramatic, I know. But that's money. Lose a customer, lose a lot of money.

So, anyway.. back to why I even wrote Recommend to a Friend as my title... I wanted to mention a website that I do like and will recommend. It's a photo services website that has a ton of products that you can create and personalize with your pictures. It's ArtsCow.com. They give out a ton of different credits for you to use such as 100 free 4x6 prints (which I just recently took advantage of), 10 free magnets, 1 personalized purse mirror, really great deals on photobooks, and many many more. The ones I mentioned are the ones I ordered yesterday. I found it amazing that I got 10 magnets, 1 purse mirror, and a 20 page 7x5 photobook for just a little over $13! (including shipping!) That's less than how much I would pay for a double set of pictures printed at CVS or any other place that prints pictures. So yeah, I'm pretty hyped about this site. I plan on using it a lot for my pictures from the wedding, shower, honeymoon, summer time, etc etc. In fact, the photobook I made yesterday was of our honeymoon pictures. So, I was pretty excited about that. I like printing out pictures so that I can send them out to family too.

On a different note, Tim and I had some avocado salmon sandwiches last night for dinner. They turned out pretty yummy. Nothing fancy about them.

Season the salmon with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Broil it for 8-10 mins. Slice up some avocado. Place the avocado, salmon, and cheese on a hamburger bun. Squeeze a little bit of lemon juice on the avocado slices before putting the salmon and cheese on them. Place it back in the broiler for a little bit to melt the cheese, then place the top part of the bun on it to toast that a little and that's it! Enjoy.

Yum yum. Another side note, I am not good with using knives.=P I'm not good at taking the skin off of fish or trimming the fat off the chicken without wasting a good chunk of it. heh =P Whoops. Live and learn, and practice. I guess.

Ibaan Fiesta

HAPPY FIESTA IBAAN!

Tim and I drove to the Chicago area on Saturday to go to the Ibaan Fiesta. Ibaan is my hometown in the Philippines. There are a lot of people from Ibaan in the Chicago area, California, and Canada. There was another fiesta held in California too. Fiestas are held on the birthday of our patron saint - St. James the Greater. It was a fun time - lots of food. We hung out with family and family friends there. I haven't been to an Ibaan fiesta in awhile. After hanging out with family friends and family after the fiesta, we headed to downtown to meet up with our friends Daisy and Michael. We ended up staying overnight because it was just too late to drive back home =P

The next morning, we all had dim sum in Chinatown - and of course, we got some bubble tea. =) Good times.

Tim and I have been enjoying some good food lately, like I mentioned in my previous post. Last night, Tim made some steaks. Very yummy. We also tried out a different restaurant in Bloomington that we liked. So far, only a handful of restaurants have impressed me here. Swingers was one of them.

The pizza I made the other night was a chicken pesto feta cheese pizza with roasted pine nuts. I'm a fan. Turned out yummy. I followed the recipe from the My Kitchen Cafe food blog. I'm not sure what I'll make this week... I need some inspiration. =) I've been craving sushi alllll weekend. (hmm)

A New Grace (with a side of Tim)

Yes, that is me in the picture.. I recently got married in May of this year. I loved our wedding. It was so perfectly beautiful (in my opinion). =) Tim and I got married in Salt Lake City, Utah and had our reception in a Deer Valley ski resort in Park City. After our wedding, we headed to Mexico for our honeymoon. Then.. it was good bye Utah. We drove to Illinois - where Tim lived - to our first home as a married couple. heh Just a little apartment overflowing with his stuff, wedding presents, and my stuff trying to find its place.

We can't even believe it's about two and a half months for us already..

I'm not sure yet of what this blog's purpose will be. I have already had a blog and livejournal in the past... and I usually just talked on and on about what I've been doing, so I'm thinking this one will be pretty similar. On my last blog, I occassionally posted arts & crafts that I made. I think I want to continue doing that...mainly because I want to get into making things again. I'm currently looking for a job, while also training for a small consulting company. A girl needs to keep her right brain entertained right?

And oh yeah, seeing that I'm married and all - I guess I should start cooking more huh? =P Gone are the days of going home to an empty apartment and calling up a friend to have dinner with. Now, I have a constant friend around. haha And I guess, he gets hungry when he comes home from work hm? No, but seriously - I want to improve my cooking skills. I'm pretty sure I can cook stuff, but I'm just not that comfortable in the kitchen yet. I didn't really cook that much before I got married. But recently, I have been making some things that turned out pretty yummy. It's actually been fun to cook dinners. I really love food. =) Maybe I'll post some of the meals I have made this week that turned out really good.