Kat

Meatball Mondays at Bucca di Beppo

March 17, 2019 By Kat

I love a good deal, so when I was driving in downtown Palo Alto one night, I saw a sign outside Bucca di Beppo (the Italian restaurant), which caught my eye.

It said Meatball Mondays – 50% off spaghetti and meatballs!! I made a mental note. A couple weeks later, when Vince and I were hungry on a Monday night with no dinner prepped, I said, “HEY! It’s Monday! Let’s go to Bucca di Beppo for Meatball Monday!” He loves Italian food, so he was down.

We drove there, parked in the downtown Palo Alto Ramona Street garage, and saw this tasty meatball truck parked there too. Made us even more excited to head to dinner.

Apparently they have a Sunday night special too!

Unique decor inside.. how to describe it…cozy?
I never understand the photos on the walls..

If you’ve never been to Bucca di Beppo, the restaurant is family-style Italian food. You can order the typical salad, pizza, pasta, appetizers, etc.. from the menu, but all portions come in family sizes – small (feeding 3 people) or large (feeding 5 people). No portions are individual sized.

Ok so we ordered the spaghetti and meatballs! You would think we would’ve ordered the small size, per the recommended portion sizing. However, Vince adamantly wanted the large family size – which is for 5 people!! and we are 2 people!!! Sigh. Why?! But we did so anyways.

Free bread and butter!! Yes please! I’ll happily fill up on that.

Hungrily waiting for our food.
Eyeing the empty table next to us where they left meatballs! So tempting.

Finally our LARGE family size of spaghetti and meatballs came! And boy, was it large.

Here’s his hand next to it for comparison.

After I had about 2 servings onto my small plate, I was already full. By the way, I couldn’t even eat a whole meatball. They’re ENORMOUS!!! Maybe it was because I was still chomping on the free bread through dinner. I can’t help myself.

P.S. to Bucca di Beppo if you’re reading this, Vince’s chef commentary is that the dish should come with 5 meatballs if the dish is meant to serve 5 people. Otherwise people would have to split meatballs…

Okay he finally gave up. This is how much was left. He did an admirable job.

Leftovers for many days to come…

Alright, that’s a wrap on our experience at Bucca di Beppo for Meatball Mondays! Next time, we need to bring a larger group. Plus I would probably like to order some other dishes next time. Eating plain spaghetti and meatballs can get a tad boring. Definitely add a generous sprinkling of red pepper flakes to add flavor. I think I actually prefer spaghetti with bolognese sauce instead of spaghetti and meatballs – spreads out the meat to pasta ratio better. 🙂

Okay if you try this out, let me know how it goes! Happy eating!

No more meatballs for us for awhile.

How to Create a Booth Display for Your Business

March 15, 2019 By Kat

Last month, I had the opportunity to showcase my personal styling business at the Four Chamber Business Expo in Palo Alto! The event was hosted by the Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, and Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce organizations. As a business owner, you can purchase an exhibitor table / booth at the expo, which is held during one evening.

I wanted to write this tutorial for those of you who may be wondering about this method of advertising and promotion. Sponsoring an event or purchasing an exhibitor table at a event can be a great way to spread awareness about your business and meet potential clients or collaborators in the community.

In this current age of digital advertising, I think there is still a lot of value in meeting people face-to-face and building a relationship on that foundation. It doesn’t necessarily scale as fast, but if you have the time and financial resources, it can be a marketing option to explore.

Last year, as my first year in my business, I had setup a booth at this event as a children’s book author to promote my first book.

Last year’s booth at the Four Chamber Expo

This year, I came back with a different career, haha! My booth was for my business as a personal stylist. I offer styling packages for helping clients upgrade their wardrobe with closet consultations and shopping trips.

This year’s booth at the Four Chamber Expo

Honestly, when you’re figuring out whether to invest in having a business booth, you first need to figure out whether the cost makes sense to you. Depending on the event, it can cost several hundred dollars and beyond (even thousands of dollars) to have a table at an event. For this event, it cost $200 for a 6′ table. You should weigh the cost of how many products / services you must sell in order for the cost of the booth to be worth it. It’s easier when you have higher-priced services like coaching or styling, as opposed to lower priced items like books. You’ll just have to sell a lot more books to be equivalent to the cost of selling a couple of the bigger service packages.

But of course, marketing can’t just be measured in short-term returns on your investment. There’s also the benefits of increased awareness and exposure, so people even begin to realize that you and your business exist. This is harder to measure and takes a lot of persistence and consistency – to keep showing up, so people can start to associate your business with solving a certain problem they may have in their life.

Part of maintaining that consistency is to collect business cards (brought a jar for that) and email addresses to build up your mailing list. Then you can continue to send out useful information to interested people.

Mailing List

To increase the incentive for people to sign up for my mailing list, I decided to do a giveaway. Chocolates and cookies are a popular giveaway, but may not help them remember the specifics of your business. On the other hand, schwag like pens or water bottles personalized with your business logo is useful, but can be pricey. At this point in my business, I’m not ready to buy branded schwag yet. I don’t even have a formal logo yet!

I wanted to go with something fashion-related, so I decided on lint rollers! They’re fairly inexpensive and I had seen them on sale at IKEA, so I went and picked up a huge pile of them! So if someone signed up for my mailing list, I’d give them a handy dandy lint roller. These were pretty popular, so in the future, if I had budget, I may get them personalized with my name as schwag.

Business Info Materials

The next thing I had to prepare was the actual handouts / materials with my business information and services. That included business cards. I used a template and same-day printed them with Office Depot.

I wanted to prepare a whole bunch of pretty materials and pamphlets on my process and services, but alas, I ran out of time. So at the minimum, have some handout about your services that people can take with them. I created a one-pager that listed the 3 different tiers of styling packages that I have, with pricing information and a special event discount for anyone who signed up that day.

If you want something a little fancier, you could use the free tool Canva to design brochures and flyers. They have great template designs. (I wrote a Canva tutorial for social media graphics earlier on my blog.)

Anyways, I came up with that handout, then rushed to Office Depot to get a stack of copies printed. Speaking of printing, if you’re going to do marketing for your small business, you’re probably going to have to print frequently. Luckily, the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce has a great partnership with Office Depot so members can get discounted pricing on printing. It saves a bunch of money!! Printing costs can add up!

Client Testimonials

Another thing that new customers love to see is your work in action, a.k.a. your portfolio. Since my work is very visual, and people would be passing by the booth fairly quickly, I decided to print out before/after photos of 3 of my clients.

Speaking of printing, in my experience, Office Depot does a great job with black & white copies (and they’re very fast with turnaround time). But their color copies don’t turn out as great. The color looks weird – too yellow or something. Hence I opt to go to FedEx for my color printing jobs, which is a little pricier, so I use it more sparingly.

By the way, it’s easier if you have the email addresses of Office Depot and FedEx on hand, so you can email them the files instead of bringing a USB there directly.

I sent them the copies and printed them. I trimmed them to fit my clear frames, which I had bought earlier at Michaels.

Before & after photos of my clients Ines, Paula, and Michael

I also included before/after photos of my own style transformation!

The photos were quite a hit, people liked seeing the transformations.

Payment Methods

Another thing I prepped for is to accept payments in-person. I use a Square payment reader with my phone. I setup the Square app with the items that are available for sale. Last year, it was the book (and I had to make sure the sales tax percentage was correct for the city I was doing the sale in). This year it was the styling packages with the discounts applied. I also tested out the reader with my own credit card to make sure the whole process would go smoothly and that the receipt looked the way I wanted.

This should be setup as early as possible. Last year, I panicked because I was going to use a PayPal reader but then my account wouldn’t activate, so I rushed to get a Square reader on the day of the event. Avoid those last-minute scares!

Decor of the Booth

The last part is the fun part of adding the decorative finishing touches onto the booth.

I had actually envisioned what the whole booth would look like as step 1 of this whole process. I sketched out what I wanted the booth to look like (see below). I thought about what props I already had from last time or around my home that I could reuse. It helped me to also think about what I needed to purchase/create.

A later, more refined sketch of my booth

Some decorative items I used were: some faux flowers in a vase, some twinkling lights, basket for the lint rollers, a vase for the business cards, a trinket tray for my business cards, Vogue magazines, velvet clothing hangers, candles, jewelry box holder, heels, fashion tape, and fashion books.

I also got a letter board from HomeGoods (where I got a lot of decor items for last year’s booth), where I could display my name and title. Otherwise I didn’t have a big sign with my business or name on it.

Get Yourself Ready

After all the work of running around and getting your booth ready, don’t forget to get yourself ready! I planned out my outfit ahead of time, did proper self-care and grooming, and allowed enough time to do my hair and makeup before the event. Since you’re representing your brand and your business, you want to look polished and professional – even if it’s been a frantic day, ha!

Extra Hands

If you’re a one-person business owner, try to find a friend or family member who can help you out at your booth. I asked Vince, my fiance, who I am grateful for. He helped me move and setup everything, as well as talk to people at the booth with me. It’s hard to handle all of that as one person! Let alone, sometimes you need to go to the bathroom and don’t want to leave everything unattended! Thanks babe!

Conclusion

To summarize, this is the process of how I designed and prepared my booth to promote my business at a local business expo. Overall, I thought it was great exposure for my business. I met many new contacts in the community, and have leads that I’m following up on now. It is a lot of work, so it’s not something I would do on a frequent basis, but it’s a good marketing tool to use every now and then. And once the primary legwork is done for setting up a booth, it’ll be easier for me to do the same setup for a booth at a different event.

I hope the article helped you understand what the experience is like and helps you decide whether you would want to do it in the future for your business! Again, in early stage businesses, it’s important to pay attention to costs (me learning from my mistakes) so be cognizant of how much you invest in the price of the booth and the materials so that you can get the most value from the experience!

Celebrate

After the event, we were exhausted and starving, so we went out for a little impromptu dinner date. Sushi, yum! Cheers to a successful event!

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this article, you can check out more tutorials on business topics on my blog.

Or you can sign up for my mailing list, where I share more behind-the-scenes of my life as an entrepreneur.

The Miracle Morning 30-Day Challenge

March 13, 2019 By Kat

I had heard great things about the book The Miracle Morning, so I finally got around to reading it and it was awesome!! I liked that it was short and to-the-point. No one needs another self-help book that goes on and on lol.

The author Hal Erod says that many people may do 1 or 2 great habits in the morning, but rarely do people combine all 6 habits, which he advocates for. By doing all 6 of these practices each morning, you can have lots of energy and motivation to focus on your goals and be your best self (as evidenced by all the people who’s lives have been transformed by this routine. ) Hal came up with a handy acronym to make it easier to remember: SAVERS. Or he calls them lifesavers, a cute name!

S – silence
A – affirmations
V – visualization
E – exercise
R – reading
S – scribing (also known as writing or journaling)

He emphasizes flexibility and customization to each person’s lifestyle. He says you can do this in an hour (10 minutes for each practice) or even in 6 minutes!! 1 minute each! See his 6-minute miracle morning guide here. I like how 6 minutes seems a lot more accessible than a new routine that could take hours.

I’ve been struggling with finding a good morning routine. I realized that I was primarily doing journaling, spending a heck of a lot of time on that, and I still felt off balance. So I realized that by adding silence, visualization, etc.. that it gave me a lot more balance and energy in the morning. Literally after I tried the whole routine for the first time, it felt like rocket fuel for my brain! I was so alert and energized!

By the way, affirmations felt awkward for me at first. To say affirmations out loud just felt weird. But I found a one page list of affirmations online that I can just read from, so I don’t have to worry about coming up with any on my own. And the more I practice verbally saying these affirmations, the more the words feel true to me.

Snapshot from my journal – tracking that I did each practice!

I’m still trying to find a good rhythm for the miracle morning routine, exercise is still my weak spot. But I want to commit to the 30-day challenge and do it every day for the month of March! I haven’t done it every day so far (oops), but I’m committed and hopeful to do so for the remaining days. I’ll update you on my progress afterwards. That’ll also give me incentive to stay accountable. (Last year, my publicly announced 30-day podcast challenge gave me lots of motivation and momentum.)

What does your morning routine look like? Share in a comment below!

If you’re interested in reading more about the Miracle Morning routine, you can check it out here:

The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. And of course, I would recommend this book regardless.

Interview with Co-Founder of Ava James NYC: a New Workwear Brand Exclusively for Sizes 8-18

March 2, 2019 By Kat

At the end of last year, my friend and classmate from MIT, Eugena Delman, launched a brand new clothing line called Ava James NYC with her co-founder Saena Chung. It is a workwear brand with high-quality tailored dresses for women who are sizes 8-18. This is an underserved market, as the fashion industry has a long way to go in terms of inclusivity and creating a range of options for all body types. Hence, I was thrilled to hear about how this duo is working to create beautiful and sophisticated clothing for this target audience. Furthermore, they manufacture locally in New York City, which is awesome!

Read on for the story behind Ava James NYC.

Isn’t this pic so elegant??
All photos from Ava James NYC

Co-Founders of Ava James NYC: Eugena Delman (left) and Saena Chung (right)

I’m fascinated by people who have the courage to start a new clothing line, so I had lots of questions for Eugena! Below is my interview with her. Hope you enjoy!

Eugena Delman

KK: First off, what inspired you to create the Ava James NYC clothing line?

London Dress in Baby Pink & Black
London Dress in Black

ED: I was inspired by my older sister who lives in Hong Kong and has been a size 14 her entire adult life. I had just left my corporate job and was hanging out in Hong Kong with my family (I grew up in Hong Kong although my family is Korean).

I was mulling over my next steps when my sister jokingly suggested that I start a wholesale business that would import plus-size brands into Asia. She had mentioned that there was a large expat community and there were more and more women who had struggled to find larger sizes in stores. Having grown up there, I knew that any clothing options greater than teeny tiny was difficult so I thought that this was an interesting business proposition and I started doing my research.

Pretty quickly, I started to realize how limited options were in the US, where the average woman is a size 14-16! It didn’t make any sense to me that a huge swathe of the population was massively underserved by the fashion industry. So I figured if it doesn’t exist, why not try to create it?

I knew I couldn’t do this on my own so I tapped my bestie from Hong Kong, Saena Chung, to join me on this venture. She had graduated from RISD and had spent her entire career in fashion so I knew she was the perfect partner.

KK: How did you meet your co-founder Saena?

ED: I met Saena when we were tweens in 90s Hong Kong. We actually have no recollection of how we met – it was probably at Korean Saturday School (every Korean in Hong Kong was forced to go to Korean school on Saturday mornings which was universally hated) or at church (super stereotypically Korean!).

KK: What was your background prior to starting this business? How did you know when it was time to make the leap?

ED: I worked in finance at Goldman Sachs for 9 years before making the leap. I held several roles while I was there – I was originally supposed to start in the Public Sector and Infrastructure team in Investment Banking but the recession hit almost immediately after graduation and I was moved to the market risk team.

I eventually switched to a structured product marketing role where I stayed for 7 years. It was a great place to be as a junior person but as the years went on, you could feel that business was starting to slow down. A lot of new regulations started popping up and directly affected the bank’s ability to play in super structured and illiquid products. I could see the writing on the wall.

Moreover, I had just turned 30 and had my first kid – I felt like I hadn’t really pushed myself in the last few years and knew I had the energy and risk appetite in me to do something totally crazy.

KK: Sounds like perfect timing! How did you pick the name of the brand Ava James NYC?

Berlin dress in Salamander
Berlin dress in Salamander

ED: I wish we had a better story for this! Originally we wanted to do something with our first names but every combination we came up with sounded like an insect or biological specimen.

We finally decided to come up with the name of a woman who could be a potential customer of ours – a sophisticated and elegant name that is easily spelled and pronounced and could (hopefully) last the test of time.

KK: Where do you manufacture your clothing?

ED: We manufacture everything locally in the Garment District here in NYC. We decided to produce here because we were very particular with our quality standards and wanted to make sure we worked with a factory that was experienced with higher end brands. We wanted to observe the entire production process to ensure that our standards were maintained.

Moreover, because we were very particular about fit, we knew we were going to have multiple fit sessions during our pattern development process. It would’ve been logistically impossible to handle all of this in an overseas factory.

KK: What distinguishes your line from the other clothing brands out there?

ED: There’s been strong growth in the offerings available for plus size women, particularly at lower price points. We wanted to offer a premium product with a super feminine and sophisticated design aesthetic that we felt was missing in the market.

Moreover, our size range is meant to capture women who just about size out of the “straight size” designers (many of whom produce up to size 8 or 10) and are too small for the traditional plus retailers.

Berlin dress in Dove Grey
Berlin dress in Dove Grey

KK: What has been your proudest moment so far in business?

ED: Getting our first collection designed, developed, and manufactured in about 5 months was incredible.

My partner is an amazingly creative person but sometimes needs a little prodding to get deadlines in place whereas I’m no creative genius but I get things done efficiently with the financials in mind. We make a great team!

Also, I launched this business while I was pregnant with my second child and gave birth to my little girl, Chloe, the day after Thanksgiving.

People thought I was crazy for starting a business while pregnant but to be perfectly frank, there is NEVER a good time to be pregnant. I figured I would just deal with it and it turned out not to be so bad. My husband was a saint – he helped me with some of the fabric deliveries and dealt with all the ups and downs of starting a business / being pregnant. The poor guy had to deal with all of my emotional highs and lows and we hadn’t even had the baby yet!

KK: Haha sounds like you have great teammates in work and life! Where is the best place to find out more about your brand?

ED: We are online! Check us out at www.avajamesnyc.com and on our Instagram @avajamesnyc. We also have a showroom on 30th and 7th and happy to show our products in person to anyone who would like pop by. We do participate in pop-ups on a pretty regular basis (we are heading to Florida for the World Equestrian Festival in Wellington in March!) so keep an eye out on our instagram and sign up for our email newsletter.

New York dress in Black
Madrid dress in Charcoal

Chicago dress in Dark Spruce
Chicago dress in Dark Spruce

KK: Eugena, thanks so much for the inspiring interview! Wishing you and Saena amazing success above and beyond your wildest dreams!

Check out their website and social media to support these ladies!
Ava James NYC
@avajamesnyc

All photos courtesy of Ava James NYC. Note: this is not a sponsored post, just posting about awesome female-owned businesses!

The Joy of Work

February 26, 2019 By Kat

Last week was a really hectic, but fun and fulfilling week of work for me. I wanted to write this post because my work now has a different feeling to it, compared to when I had internships / jobs at corporate places. In the past, I’ve been lucky to have some very rewarding experiences on projects had a lot of purpose and meaning. But somehow it feels different now.

The word that probably best captures my sentiment about work now is: joy. A close second is probably the word stress, haha! 😉 But the joy outweighs the stress and keeps me going!

As I drive to meet my clients at the mall or at their homes, I have a lot of excitement about what’s coming up. I have excitement to talk to them, spend time getting to know them, and being able to figure out what knowledge or resources I can share with them to help them with their challenges. It’s very mentally stimulating because it involves deep listening and empathy and drawing on the best of my communication skills to articulate my thoughts as clearly and compassionately as possible.

With each work experience, I learn and grow and gain more confidence in my chosen career path. And of course, what follows joy is gratitude for this joy – gratitude for the people, places, and events that led me to my personal styling business. And gratitude to myself for making the leap of faith that this seedling of an idea (that fashion would be something I’d really enjoy doing) actually did come true!

Who knows what’s to come, but right now, these days, I feel so happy.

Happy doesn’t mean everything is easy and working 100% in my favor. But I feel happy as in fulfilled and feeling useful to the world.

A long time ago, my church gave out this card that says “God Use Me” to whoever attended service that day. We were supposed to take it home and pray about it, ask God how we could be of use to Him. I decided to frame it and leave it on the mantle. I prayed about it but not much happened. I still felt lost as what I was to do next.

As glamorous as it may sound to not have work and to just sit around with no obligations, it is quite stressful actually because I was always wondering, should I be doing something productive? Or I wish I had something to do. Or I wish I could make progress towards my next step in life. Anyways, that whole period of time in my life deserves its own detailed explanation, which will have to be saved for another time.

However, my point here is that when you’ve experienced having “no work” to do, you really do cherish when you have meaningful work to do. The other title I was considering for this blogpost was: “The Gift of Work.” Because now I do see that having work is a gift, to do something meaningful and contribute to someone’s life in a positive way – however big or tiny. It’s a gift for ourselves, really.

If your current work doesn’t feel that way to you, then maybe you’re doing the wrong type of work. If it’s draining or you loathe doing it, perhaps it’s time to consider if something else would make better use of your talents and skills.

Try to listen to what pulls you or attracts you. That may be a sign for the next big change in your life.

For more behind-the-scenes insight on what Kat Kuan’s life as an entrepreneur and personal stylist is like, subscribe to her mailing list here.

Photo by @lailaniafrica of @chicreativeagency

New Favorite Sandwich Place in Palo Alto – Driftwood Deli

February 18, 2019 By Kat

Apparently this place has been around for a long time, but this was our first time trying it! Their sandwiches are really good! It’s a bit hard to notice, but it’s next to the Creekside Inn on El Camino Real in Palo Alto, CA. Read on for a peek inside and to see what we ordered.

This is what you see when you walk in.

The staff is very friendly! And very patient while you try to choose among the many, many sandwich options lol. How to choose?!?

They said their most popular sandwiches are: #16 California Club, #29 Heaven on Earth, #23 Kevin’s, and #18 Turkey Pesto. They also do half sandwiches if you want to try different kinds.

Your meal’s not complete without a satisfying bag of chips! And boy, do they have chip options. Again, a very difficult decision lol.

Or if you have multiple people, you can opt for the bigger bags of chips and split it, which is what we decided to do.

If you need a drink or candy bar, they’ve got you covered.

After you’ve got all your food, you can sit at their cute little tables inside or outside. This guy had to get 2 sandwiches…

Ok here are the close up Instagram shots of the sandwiches you’ve been waiting for:

All of them were really good!!! My favorite was “The Customer’s Favorite!” That’s literally the name of it. They used to have it as the daily special, for a really long time (several months), and then they took it away, and customers kept asking for it, so they brought it back! It’s so good!!! *drool*

Other people in the community also agree that these sandwiches are the bomb.

We were SO stuffed from 3 sandwiches. I recommend going with 1 sandwich for each person, haha. Before I forget, they also have a cute coffee bar if you want that type of drink!

By the way, that’s Roberto in the picture. He’s a nice guy. Say hi to him if you see him there. He’s worked at the deli for 19 years! The owner of the shop is Steve, and he’s also around and friendly to talk to as well. Steve is in the video on the Yelp business page, which I watched before we walked in, so I recognized him, haha.

Anyways, back to the coffee bar. Here’s the menu of drinks available. And yes, they have ice cream too! From Dreyer’s.

Not done yet! They have breakfast sandwiches and salads too. I believe they have gluten-free options for bread as well. So there you go, they have everything!

This place has got a homey small-town feel to it, where they recognize the frequent customers by name. I like those types of places in the community. Sadly, they’re becoming rarer and rarer. So if you’re in the Palo Alto area near El Camino, stop by this place to support a small business!

Before we even finished our food, Vince said, “Let’s come back 38 more times!” Because we have 38 more specials on their board to try. LOL wow.

Public Speaking Outfit for Anti-Bullying Activist

February 18, 2019 By Kat

New style makeover YouTube video up on the channel! This is Paula Orrego @starfire1408. She is an anti-bullying activist who is using her voice to change the narrative for future generations. 👏

In this episode of Transformed By Kat, follow along as we find a public speaking outfit for her!

#styledbykatkuan

If you have a presentation or special event coming up and need help finding an outfit, email me and we can discuss how we can work together to get you confident and ready for the event!

Kat Kuan – styledbykatkuan@gmail.com

Thrift Shopping at thredUP IRL Stores

February 6, 2019 By Kat

In recent years, I’ve been hearing more and more about a company called thredUP which started as an online website for people to sell and buy secondhand clothing.

A couple years ago, I tried out Poshmark, which is another website to buy and sell fashion. I tried to sell a bunch of items, but had little luck – I sold one item. While buying things from Poshmark was tempting, I wasn’t sure of the quality of the items from the photos. It seemed like a lot of hassle to deal with an individual seller if I ended up not liking the item.

Meanwhile, I heard about how thredUP started opening up stores – called thredUP IRL (“in real life”). <~ Millennial talk lol. They had a pop up shop in Walnut Creek in the Bay Area, but that’s pretty far from me. Then another one popped up in Los Gatos and I was considering going there. But then one day, I was walking down the street in downtown Burlingame and saw that thredUP IRL had popped up there! I was excited to walk in and check it out.

It was a small store but the merchandise on display was very well done. The outfits they had picked out for the mannequins and on the wall were very cute and made me want the items!

Heart eyes for that black and pink Kate Spade purse!

So you basically browse the store and the racks, and then try stuff on! Everything has a thredUp tag on it with the discounted price. They have a range of brands available – from affordable ones (JCrew, H&M, Ann Taylor) to more designer brands. They have jackets, shirts, dresses, jeans, pants, shoes, and more. This store only had women’s clothing at the time that I went (in October 2018) but you can find the other types of stuff like kids clothing on their website: ThredUp.

I would also say that the quality of the items are pretty good. Many of the items look new or are in very good shape. thredUp is highly selective about what items they accept, which makes it easier for shoppers browsing their inventory.

Clothing is organized by color, type, and size

Once I picked out a couple items, I headed into the dressing room to try them on.

Right away, I loved this maroon faux leather jacket! It looks badass, especially with the quilting detail on the shoulders. It fit perfectly as well – snug!

The best part was that it was only $14.99! Yes! Thrifting for the win!

I didn’t have as much luck with the other items. They didn’t fit as well, so they were meh. I didn’t get them.

So in the end, I decided to take home the maroon jacket. Woohoo, what a deal!

I had a great experience at the thredUp store – the staff is very nice too! There are other discounts as well (see below). If you sign up for their mailing list, they’ll also email you when they have in-store sales.

After your visit, they may send you a survey about the in-store experience where you can also score some free $$ credit to use in the stores!

So the summary is if you’re looking for some trendy items at a lower price point, I highly recommend you check out thredUp online or in-person at their stores! Shopping secondhand is great for the environment as well!

Next up, I’m going to order a kit so I can send in some of the clothing I no longer wear and see if I can get cash/credit for them. Whatever they don’t accept will either get shipped back or you can choose to have them recycle it for you. I’ll let you know how it goes! 😉

Check it out for yourself – get $10 off on thredUp online with my referral code!

Or check out their store locations here. I’ve been to the Burlingame location and the Stoneridege Mall location in Pleasanton (pic below).

Happy shopping!

My Word of the Year for 2019

January 27, 2019 By Kat

I wanted to pick out a word-of-the-year. One thing to focus on for the year. But I couldn’t decide which word to pick!

Top contenders:

Massive action – phrase borrowed from Tony Robbins on how to take charge of your life and achieve your goals.
Focus – self-explanatory, we could all use more focus and less distractions.

However, I realized that “massive action” was not working for me because I kept trying to pile more things onto my plate and keep moving in many directions, making little progress on any one thing.

I also realized that “focus” was too narrow of a word for me. It didn’t excite or motivate me that much. The word made me think of limited options and a smaller focus area. It wasn’t very invigorating to wake up and feel like you must focus for the day. Felt more obligatory for me personally.

But then I was listening to this amazing motivational YouTube video Live Your Dreams over and over again. Then I decided on my word for 2019.

Courage

I believe that the word “courage” will steer me in the right direction at each step of the way during this year. Courage means doing the hard thing. Doing a single hard thing can give you more progress than doing 100 easy things in the wrong directions.

Oftentimes the “hard thing” is the right thing to do, and probably the thing that we fear and dread the most. But that’s when we stand to have the biggest gain both in potential external results but also in who we become as a person.

If I have to measure each day, then I’ll need to ask myself, if I did things that required courage each day. It freaks me out thinking that I’ll need to face a fear each day, but if I don’t, what is at stake? If I don’t face a fear today, if I just stay in my comfort zone, then I’ll likely stay the same. I won’t have grown that day.

Sure, one day without growth is no big deal. But if you multiple that by 7 days in a week, spent hiding and procrastinating from your fears, that’s one week of your life gone by that you didn’t grow. And then a month passes by, and you didn’t grow. You make more excuses about why it’s “safe” to stay where it’s comfortable. And then years pass by, and you’ve settled for even more things and you’ve come up with a laundry list of why it’s too hard to change now. And then life send you a wake-up call that you are ill prepared for because this whole time, you didn’t grow into a stronger, better person. You’re essentially the same person as you were 5 years ago.

The Movie: Revolutionary Road

Another way to think about this sobering thought is illustrated in the movie: Revolutionary Road. (This movie reunited Kate Winslet and Leonardo DioCaprio on the big screen since Titanic. Omg I just had to watch it! It’s available on Amazon Prime if you’re interested.)

It’s about April and Frank Wheeler (played by Kate and Leo respectively), who are a married couple in the 1950s living with 2 young kids in Connecticut. They live in a picture-perfect neighborhood in a picture-perfect house. He goes to an office job, while she stays at home to take care of the house and kids. The problem is that their life is on autopilot. They had ambitions when they were younger (her to be an actress, him to go back to Paris – a city he loved) but then they settled into married suburban life and those dreams got put on the backburner. They get so numb with their life and by staying static, and as the movie unfolds, they actually find that there are consequences. I won’t go into details in case you want to go watch it.

Honestly, it was a depressing movie, but I can’t help but find how truthful it is. Staying still in life is so tempting because it seems safe (it’s what you already know and are familiar with), but it is actually the riskiest option. But we can’t see the consequences until the long term, and by then, it may be too late to change our choices.

Many people are dead now. Many people are allowing their dreams to die. Many people have allowed their ideas to lie dormant and collect dust. Many people have all this talent and ability that they allow to be buried inside of them, that they will take to their graves. Because they didn’t have the courage to be who they are.”
Les Brown

Thoughts on Courage

Courage is hard. There’s so many uncertainties and things to fear and worry about in the world.

Does it mean that valiant people are not afraid? No, it means they experience that fear and they move forward.”
Les Brown

What I’ve been trying to do is feel the fear. To feel the trembling fear when I’m about to do something I’m scared to do. And then to acknowledge it and DECIDE that I will do it anyways. And the quicker I do it, the less painful it will be because I won’t have to agonize over all the worst case scenarios.

Cowards die many times before their deaths, The valiant never taste of death but once.”
Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)

I’m far from perfect, and still very much working on being brave. It’s daunting because just as every day is a new day, every day you’re faced with a choice of whether you will be brave or not. And I hope that for me and you, we both decide to be brave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNgIvxZ4m8U

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Interactive Sushi Experience at Kura Revolving Sushi Bar

January 20, 2019 By Kat

I had the chance to eat dinner at Kura Revolving Sushi Bar in Pleasanton with some friends, and it was so fun, I had to blog about it!

By the way, this is located near the Livermore Outlets by the way, if you’re in the area for some shopping, and still have money leftover. 😛

Eating at Kura Revolving Sushi Bar was an interactive experience, almost a game, and I loved it. Here are the basic instructions of how it works. Once you sit at the table, you can order items from a menu on a tablet at the end of table.

Then things start magically coming down the conveyer belt! You pick them up and enjoy your tasty food. They have so many menu items from sushi and hand rolls, to ramen!

The food comes in these little containers that pop open and you grab your plate.

Here are some snapshots of the food! I got a California roll of course. I know I’m so American.

So many choices on the menu!

I think the most thrilling part was ordering things from the tablet and eagerly anticipating them to come down the conveyer belt. Sometimes it’s a little too easy to order and you get carried away with too many orders in the queue!

Also because they’re geniuses, the restaurant also gamified the ordering/eating process. I believe the game part was called Bikkura-Pon. Every time you finish a plate, you discard it into a plate drop at the end of the table. The tablet keeps a count of how many plates you’ve put in there (so it can tally up the price of your meal – a set price multiplied by # of plates). BUT you also get rewarded the more plates you put in there.

After like 10 plates or so, there’s a fun little cartoon animation that plays on the tablet screen. And after 15 plates or so, there’s a little prize thing that drops from above. That was exciting! It was like automated, so it seemed like magic! And of course, it made us want to EAT MORE – in increments of 15 plates to be exact!

I captured a little video of it here: Bikkura-Pon Game Kura Sushi Bar

The prize that came out!

The anticipation…

A food keychain of a creamy tart..meh it’s alright. I don’t know who ended up keeping it. But the process was more fun than the end result. Ha!

Anyhow, we had a great time eating here! I would love to come back. Note that the line is really long, but I think they have an app where you can “get in line.”

And after you’re so bursting full, you can head several doors down to 85C Bakery for some dessert!!