Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
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.
Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
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.. ?
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007
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.
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
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.
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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 
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
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.
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
“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.
Saturday, November 10th, 2007
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.
Friday, November 9th, 2007
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.
Thursday, November 8th, 2007
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.
Friday, October 12th, 2007
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..
penny pinchers
emo
stubbornness
bad drivers
people who flake
rudeness
poor hygiene
excessively flirty
indecisiveness
messiness
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
Yesterday, Seb was playing race cars on the floor with Grandma, both sitting down and facing each other, rolling the cars back and forth. Grandma wanted to go take a nap, as she normally does in the afternoon. She told Seb “Grandpa is going to play with you ok.”
Seb, who usually takes a while to transition or adjust to a new idea, plus he is in between giving up naps so he was crankier than normal, naturally protests, “NO NO NO”
Grandpa stands in to take Grandma’s place, except he is standing, with his hands hanging to his sides.
Seb, realizing that the protest won’t work, tells Grandpa “Sit down Grandpa, sit down”
Grandpa, “No”
Seb, “Sit down!”
Grandpa, in all seriousness, “No. I’m a grown up. Why should I sit down!”
Me, speechless. Grandma, speechless, then proceed to shoo Grandpa away and took over playing with Seb again.
He and I had a small altercation the day before, and it wasn’t really resolved, we just agreed to disagree in the end because it was obvious that we both have different (and strong) viewpoints. But I just couldn’t believe my ears when he told my 4-yr old son that, in such a tone. You can just imagine what it must have sounded like. Yep, just like that. I don’t know if he realizes what he said was out of line. Sometimes it is so hard to live with someone in the same house. It’s been 2.5 months and I guess everyone’s getting kind of edgy. They are leaving in a couple of weeks. I hope it will leave us with good parting memories.
Sigh.
Added note: he’s usually pretty nice and easy to get along. Maybe it’s stress related to his work, or he hasn’t gotten over the argument with me, or he just plain sucks when dealing with toddlers (he was great when they were babies, but babies as you know don’t do much and don’t ask for much..) Whatever it is, I still think it was out of line.
Monday, September 24th, 2007
My father’s aunt. I learned of this the day after. It’s been nearly one month now. I don’t think the sadness and grief has lessened any, if at all.
Monday, September 17th, 2007
I’m it. I’ve been tagged. Interestingly, I have never played the actual tag/it game as a child. How does it work?!
I’m going to do it in reverse. I was tagged by lotsacheeks in which she says she LOVES my blog! I fainted a little bit when I read that. 
I do read quite a few blogs, probably more than I should. There are practical blogs for finances and business, funny blogs about people’s kids and the funny things their kids do, painful blogs that chronicle plights, inspirational blogs that just makes you feel good because their motto is “there are more good in this world than there are bad,” and so many more others.
I read all of my friend’s blogs. However, these ones really stand out to me, in no particular order:
ac360blog (CNN’s Anderson Cooper, and his colleagues. And it doesn’t hurt that I think A.C. is very hot)
so close (Tertia. I found her after my miscarriage 3 yrs ago. She’s multi talented — wrote and published a book while raising small twins, working full time. She’s down to earth and yet damn gorgeous at the same time. And I love her recent boob job)
chookooloonks (Karen is a true inspiration, in every aspect of life. She is one of those that when I read her, my spirit and mood gets a huge lift. She is someone who I would want to be when I grow up. And her photo skills are beyond superb)
ask moxie (moxie has all the answers of raising kids, anything and everything about kids, but especially sleeping issues)
Please don’t feel left out if I didn’t list your blog. I love to read about your lives as well as see all the pretty pictures of your kids, and read about your troubled and frustrating days, and about how stupid people (friends, families, strangers) can be.
Some day I need to redo my page to add in all the blog links. Yes some linkylove!!!!!
********************
The other tag was by mumsgather to write 8 random facts about my own mom.
1. My mom and dad were born 9 days apart. Same year. Their cities of birth were less than 20 miles apart.
2. She was “sent” to the boonies to do farm work at some smaller village/community during the cultural revolution. I think this was before she got married.
3. My mom (and dad) were forced into hiding when they implemented the “One Child” law, to give birth to me. See the About me.
4. My mom is one of 9 children.
5. My mom is one of the most patient person I know.
6. My mom has one fake front tooth.
7. She was very well lactated when she was breastfeeding us kids. Sorry mom, you probably find that disclosure to be embarrassing, but you should really be proud of yourself.
8. My mom is the one of those women who stand by their husband, no matter what.
* * * * * * *
Now I want to tag anyone and everyone who comes across this post. Let me know in the comment section where I can find your own responses. You are all IT!
Sunday, September 9th, 2007
My in-laws are visiting us (only several more weeks before they go back to Malaysia). As we explore this new city and new state, my father in law has taken a healthy interest in the local wineries and vineyards. We have gone to a few, and every time we bring home 2 men who are pretty wasted (Hubby and my father in law. What were you thinking??). Two bottles is the maximum, for the 4 of us. A lot of the wineries have scheduled events twice a week for the whole duration of summer — and some in the wintertime as well. We all enjoy the free concerts / shows, kids find whatever is nearby to play in / with, and everyone munch on snacks all evening long.
I never knew there were so many wineries here! In fact, one is just 10 minutes outside of where I went to university but for the 4+ years that I was there, I had no idea it was within arm’s reach. Not that I’m a big wine drinker, or consume much alcohol at all (I’m the designated driver), but it would have been nice to know and attend some of the free concerts.
This evening though, the band was some sort of blue gra*s genre, and none of us enjoyed it. I don’t know if it’s the genre of music or the quality of the band, but it gave a few of us headaches! We’re all making notes — never come close to that type of music again.
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007
Fiona went to her first day of preschool today. I think she did very well!
It was from 10:30 — 11:30 a.m., a required “introductory” period for TWO weeks, where the toddlers attend preschool for a mere ONE HOUR, instead of the regular 2:15 hours, personally I think it should be called “MESS WITH THE PARENTS’ SCHEDULE” period because really, what can I accomplish in ONE HOUR, do groceries? The grocery store is at least 10 minutes away. Run some other errands? Again, far away from most things. And there’s no free (rip-off) wi-fi in that area either, not with the weak signals this computer gets. I might bring a book.
Fiona had NO problem at all separating from us. She is rather independent and mature, and plays well by herself or within a group of children. Half of the kids in the class were crying and or screaming for their mommies when we dropped Fiona off. We’re very proud of her.
Speaking of being proud of her, she’s turning TWO tomorrow. Where did the time go?? Tonight as I was snuggling with her before bedtime, I told her it’s her birthday tomorrow. She lied there drinking her milk, and suddenly perked up and asked “where are my balloons?” She remembered big brother Sebastian’s birthday in July, and there were balloons.
Oh I think we could swing some balloons, just for you. And probably some presents and even a cake! Happy 2nd birthday our precious baby.
* * *
Sebastian did quite well at his first day of preschool too. His first day was Tuesday (also one hour long…)
Today the delivery man brought our first inventory shipment! Wheee!
