nichole deguzman

I was commissioned to make a few brooklyn nine-nine stickers for a customer. I made some primarily of jake & amy, and a couple of the customers favorite quotes. 

I added this tote bag for her just as a little present, cause I’m a fan of the show too. 

Here is a pic of all the products packed up. 

I fell for all the instagram ads for this product. Even my mom, best friend, and cousin sent me links to this as well, because they know I have eczema.

I thought I ordered the regular one, but I accidentally ordered the nut-free version.

It has a tacky feeling when you apply it. But you can also put regular lotion on top of it, which I do.

I mostly use the product on my arms, because thats where my eczema is flaring up, and I am also using it as a moisturizer on my face. Before I used exh, I was using the kiehls ultra moisturizer with SPF, which was a mistake. I was using the moisturizer without the SPF prior, and when I ran out and went to buy a new one I thought “hey, its summer, I’m in the sun a lot I should get one with SPF”. After a couple days of using it I started breaking out like crazy. I stopped using that and used the exh, and I noticed that I don’t break out as much anymore and it also helps with the redness from my pimples. My pimples are always on my forehead, and its like they like to make constellations :(

I’ve been following @lanajay_art for awhile on Instagram and I love her tea witch series. And just her art in general, she’s got mad skills.

I came across her challenge last week, and of course I procrastinated, because her deadline is the 5th of this month. This morning I had time before work and went ahead and drew her prompt in my style. I’m not use to a lot of detail since I think my styles pretty simple, so I really enjoyed doing this. It brought me out of my comfort zone and made me learn a lot of things.

I’m also not the most confident yet in posting a lot of art, that whole “you are your biggest critic” saying comes to mind a lot when I wanna post.

But I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. Please check out @lanajay_art on Instagram, she also has a Etsy shop!

Here is @lanajay_art’s drawing -

Heres mine -

For this post of “Good Eats” we travelled down south to Cafe KuruKuma in Nanjo. 

Located in what I think is in the middle of nowhere, only cause it took a while to get there, and it was near a lot of farms, is this cozy cafe with a great view. They even have a sitting area outside, where you can eat dessert and enjoy the view. 

The cafe serves up a variety of japanese/thai dishes. A little bit pricey, but each dish you get enough to share with others. One of the recommended dishes was this curry plate, where you get to try all the types of curry they serve with different spice levels. In the end I only ate about 1 of the 4 curries they had, and shared the rest because I don’t have a thing for spicy food. 

We also ordered pad thai, fried rice, and fried fish. There was also a pork dish we had ordered, but by the time it came out, I was already eating and didn’t think too much of trying to take a pic.

I would suggest this place if you have company visiting you, it looked like a hot tourist spot. Everyone was taking pictures with the view. 

Just check the weather if its nice, so you can appreciate the view more. 

Here is the address -  Cafe Curcuma, 字知念-1190 Chinen, Nanjo, Okinawa Prefecture 901-1513 and click here for their website. 

Pocke Farm.

This place is our go to when we have our doggo with us.  Since its outdoors, and they haven’t said anything to us yet about bringing her here. 

When I’m here I usually get a avocado hamburger, but this time we both got the teriyaki chicken bowl. I was so hangry that I ordered a side of chicken kaarage. 

Known as the “best soba in Okinawa,” by my dad. 

Gabusoka-shokudou (我部祖河食堂) is known for their soki-soba (ソーキそば)

There are multiple locations throughout the island, but I usually go to the one in Koza. For more info click here. 

I tend to order the soki-soba, but the other day I was craving their soki-don, which has the pork ribs with vegetables and rice, with a side of soba. 

As we were leaving the restaurant, I saw this in the cooler next to the register. The infamous Oppa Milk. 

Clutter. I don’t know how many of you share this feeling with me, but when I want to work on my art, If my space is cluttered I just can’t concentrate. It gives me this weird vibe that I can’t work because I don’t know, the feng shui is off or something so it throws me off and unless I reorganize I can’t work in that space.

When I work on my art, I at home, I don’t have a studio or any remote location where I go to work. I do it right at home at my desk, in my bedroom.

My bedroom is small, the only furniture we have is our full size bed and then my desk that’s located along the wall. Cause that’s all that fits, so I don’t have the luxury of having a ton of space, I just work with what I got.

Sometimes when I want to work I get so discouraged because of clutter. Don’t get me wrong, I clean, but sometimes stacks of random things just build up and I just don’t have any room or storage to put it in. So it’s just things that move from place to place until one day I miraculously start reorganizing and toss things away to make room for them.

I also live with a car enthusiast, I don’t know how many of you are with a car enthusiast, but aren’t a car enthusiast yourself. For me and my experience, I’ve noticed they like to hoard parts. Like wheels and a bunch of other stuff, but to me if it’s not being sold or going anywhere it needs to be out of my sight haha.

It’s a constant battle dealing with the boxes and stacks or random car parts. And when you want to make your place look nice and comfy, you can’t because 5 boxes full of parts are just sitting next to your dining table. Or so many sets of wheels are on your balcony just chillin’ there. I start getting annoyed or have like anxiety when I look at it because it’s just there, a stack of clutter. Clutter that I can’t really control because it’s not mine, and then it’s another battle just trying to have it move to storage.

I know I’m ranting but this feeling visited me yesterday. I even googled “does clutter cause anxiety” just to make sure I wasn’t crazy. I actually found an article from Psychology Today about it -

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/high-octane-women/201203/why-mess-causes-stress-8-reasons-8-remedies

If you’re like me or somewhat dealing with that anxiety I would give it a quick read.

If anyone has any of their own remedies or experiences, please share!

For the past couple weeks, a coworker of mine had been talking about a restaurant that opened in our neighborhood. He described it as a joint where it’s two restaurants but they are connected to each other. One side serves pork dishes and the other chicken.

So the other night I went to go check it out.

鳥と卵の専門店 鳥玉 泉崎店 (トリトタマゴノセンモンテン トリタマ), a chicken and egg specialty shop, serves, you guessed it, chicken and egg dishes.

Z and I both ordered the same thing, the oyakodonburi (親子丼) set. Which came with your choice of soup, either a broth soup or miso soup. It also came with two pieces of kaarage.

Each set was about ¥880+tax, and it’s a cash only place.

Overall it was good, I would definitely go back again, it’s open until 22:00. I would also want to try the pork place next door to see what kind of dishes they serve.

Theres multiple locations on island, the one I went to was in Awase.

If you’d like some dutch pancakes I would suggest Mother Coffee (マザーコーヒー). 

Parking is kind of complicated, sort of limited, but usually the staff will come out to help you park in a spot when its busy. Its better to carpool though. 

I’ve been here once before and I ordered the berry pancakes. But this time around, I went for savory. 

I ordered the bacon pancakes and Z ordered the sausage. 

They are open from 0700-1700 on Monday-Wednesday, Friday-Sunday and closed Thursdays. Last order is 16:30.  They accept credit card and ¥

Here is the address: