sweetisu

Hi! Remember me? I’ve missed you.

I’d tell you that it’s been a fun couple of weeks in the Greek Islands, or Hawaii, or somewhere WARM, but truth is, I’ve been here in Iowa all along. Haven’t gone anywhere and nobody is gravely ill so thank goodness for that. But I’ve had it with this weather. I know I complained every winter when we lived in Minnesota but this feels just like Minnesota winter / fickle spring. WTH. Did it follow me here?!

In any case, things are rolling along here. Very busy with work, the kids, and not folding our washed laundry.

Today I heard from a long lost friend (HI!) and she’s going to move here in a few months! Her work is going to be literally within walking distance to our house! Well, 15 minutes is walking distance right? I think we mid-westerners are really spoiled with driving everywhere, but I can’t seem to bring myself to walk anywhere when (a) it takes a while to walk anywhere (b) it’s so darn cold (c) no one else do it around here so we’d look like lost souls strolling the sidewalks. It was good to hear from her and even better that she’s moving here soon. Very excited! She’s one of the few people I know who can out-talk me, when I’m in the talkative mode. I think we’ll have a great time! Oh yes, she has never met our kids yet. We did see each other when I was pregnant with our now 4.5 yr old son; that’s how long I haven’t seen her.

Did I also mention my in-laws are coming this summer? All the way from Malaysia? I can’t wait for summer, in more ways than one. Seriously, I have a great set of in-laws and we get along fabulously, most of the time.

If this is not the most disjointed post EVER, I don’t know what is.

I’ve been busy. Will be busy for a long while, which is a good thing!

Before they go into the Digital Black Hole which is the iPhoto* archives, here are the Halloween pictures from this year. Seb was a doctor (he was a doctor last year, too), and Fiona was a Tigger (Seb’s costume from 2 years ago). What that meant was, NO costume shopping or sewing was needed. Yay!

My happy cheery models:

Seb even checks our ears, eyes, and heart, and then “writes” prescriptions for us. He’s a great doctor!

Fiona loves showing off her tail. She requests this pants frequently even weeks after Halloween is over. It is difficult to refuse when she’s having so much fun, and the giggles that ensues makes it impossible to resist.

* I LOVE my Mac. LOVE love it.

** It seems digitizing pictures have become a way of shoving everything into some byte form and not many makes it into print. Do your pictures get printed out often? How do you manage 2 gazillion+ pictures.. ?

19 years ago tonight, after what seemed like a never ending flight (more than 20 some hours), 8 of us landed in Chicago O’Hare Airport. Jet-lagged, hungry, cold, shivering, and shocked to the core from culture-shock, we headed to our relatives house to stay for the night before going to Iowa and reunite with my grandparents.

Dragging along 16 bags of our life-belongings (two per person, containing mostly clothes), my aunts family of 4 and our family of 4 were like deers in the headlight. We had no idea where to go or what to do. We followed my great-uncle closely, fearing he might lose us in the massive sea of people.

I was 12. Bewildered by the scenes and people that we passed by, I was speechless. I couldn’t even cry.

All I wanted was to go home, where everything was familiar and not scary and where I knew practically everyone in my surroundings.

Tonight, 19 years later, I can’t imagine any other place I would rather be but right here. Right here in Iowa with my husband and two kids.

I got tagged by the pretty Goofy Andie. I spent some time reading back in the archives… lots of weird things and weird writing.

*** INSTRUCTIONS: ***
1. Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given below.
2. Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.
3. Don’t forget to read the archived post and leave comments.
************************

Link 1 is a little bit of FAMILY: How about a little something about a growing new family member?

Link 2 is a little bit of FRIEND: Amie, after she found out she’s having a girl!

Link 3 is a little bit of YOURSELF: Wow I talk about myself a lot. How do I limit to just one link… Here are two that I wrote during last year’s Nablopomo: Part I and Part II.

Link 4 should be YOUR LOVE: How we met.

Link 5 can be ANYTHING YOU LIKE: Dos & Don’ts that I wrote nearly 2 years ago. Cancer, baby that I linked in that post has since passed away. She was 33 (if I remembered right).

As far as tagging others… who to tag?! I’m going to leave this open to everyone again. If you do wanna play along, let me know when you’re done so I can go read

Yesterday:

“Mama, I made a turkey at school! My turkey says gobble gobble!” — 26 month old Fiona, proudly showing me her creation immediately upon arriving home from preschool.

Today:

“We’re going to the grocery store. Who wants to go?” is met with silence.
“We’re going to buy a turkey!” I said with a tone of excitement.
“For meeeeeeee?” Fiona grinned and asked.

I hope she’s as enthused when the turkey is actually cooked and ready to be eaten, coz guess who’s the picky eater around here.

“World peace can be achieved; be kind. World peace starts with YOU!”
— Author: unknown.

This quote is very simple, yet very powerful.

Be kind to your friends, to your families. More often than not we hurt our loved ones the most, emotionally. We take them for granted, we say things without it really passing our brain, without realizing the what we say might hurt them. We would never say such things to people we aren’t familiar with, so why do we do that to our loved ones?

Be kind to your neighbors, to your colleagues, to workers at establishments you go to, etc. They are there in your life whether you like it or not. So why not make the best of it.

Be kind to strangers in the street, at the mall, at the corner store, anywhere. You don’t know them. They don’t know you. But you never know, they might just become an integral part of your life down the road, whether it be your personal or professional life.

Be kind, pass on a smile. It is contagious. Really it is. Say something nice; say Thanks often. Encourage others by setting good examples yourself.

People don’t have to have the same values as you do in order for you to be kind. Kindness knows no borders, no gender, no race, and no religion. Kindness is simply, kindness.

World peace might not be achieved by such simple measures, but it is a good start. This might just work.

It was the year after Seb was born that we started this tradition. Here are some glimpses of this years Apple Orchard / Pumpkin Patch visit.

Enjoying the apples freshly picked from the tree.

Big brother pulling little sister on the wagon.

“My turn to pull you” she says, “Ughh……”

“Let me help you” he says, and proceeds to put one leg out and guiding the wagon forward.

Yesterday I slept in. I worked until the very wee hours in the morning and just could not get up with the kids when they woke up at 5:30a.m. (their typical wake-up time is 5:30-6:00, we’re lucky if we get 6:30a.m.) Hubby got up with them, changed their clothes, got their breakfast, played with them and baked cookies together. (We take turns at sharing these “morning duties” so this is hardly the first time he’s done it).

When I got up it was mid morning already. I rush downstairs and started working. Soon I heard the office door open. Hubby brought the kids with him, one holding a bowl with cookies in it and the other one with a glass of milk.

Tell me your heart did not tug a little when you read that.

I’m the luckiest woman on earth, and I’m extremely lucky to have all 3 of them.

May your weekend be joyous and filled with love.

Growing up, everything around the house that is labeled “man’s job” were done by my dad or my brother while all the cooking/housework were done by my mom. I helped with whatever I can and learned a thing or two, but never had to do anything single-handedly.

All that changed when I went to college, more specifically, when I got married.

My husband, bless his heart (it’s OK to say not-so-nice things as long as one says “bless his/her heart,” according to my friend Stephanie), my husband has not a bone of handiness in him. He’s very talented in many areas though. He built the entire KangarooBoo site from scratch using a new language called Ruby on Rails he just learned a few months prior, and is extremely good with caring for our children. He’s responsible for all their baths, how much cooler can he be! But he just isn’t the handy hands-on type who can use a leveler and a power drill without long strings of curse words, or one who knows anything about the inner works of a car.

Hours after we moved into this house, we discovered there is no hot water coming out of the faucets. After fiddling with the water heater trying to start it and many beep-beep words, I went to take a look. The pilot light was off. The previous owner had turned the whole thing off. Within 10 minutes I had the thing up and running, cranking out hot water for us to shower.

I consider myself fairly handy. But I refuse to learn how to hook up all the wires that goes in and out of the TV, printer, fax machine, cable modem, etc etc. Just thinking about those things make my head spin.

I think we’re a pretty good match for each other.

Hubby and I had a 93% match on the pet peeve quiz (on facebook). How crazy is that.

Happy Friday thought.

This is the quiz. You are to rank the 10 items below in order of most to least annoying (the order of the list is not what I would put). What is emo? I don’t know either..