Turkey Weekend 2009 part 1

It was a long weekend of gluttony and games:

Thursday noon:  Turkey with the Asian works at my family's house (no cranberry sauce or green bean casserole but plenty of eggrolls, shrimp salad, kimbap, etc)


Afterward we played Monopoly.  I love family get togethers where the TV is off, video games are put away, and the only entertainment is a good old fashioned board game. 

Thursday evening:  Hot pot night for Anderson Biz school vagrants who didn't go home for Thanksgiving or who don't celebrate it 

My favorite are the fish and shrimp balls!

One of our groomsmen

That die is HUGE!!  (We played a version of BS using dice)  I called 12 threes and won!  For those who didn't drink, they had to do truth or dare.

Believe it or not, this was not a dare.  It was just boys being boys, riding a disproportionately sized bike down the hallway.

Then we busted out Taboo.  Guess who was into it the most? Lol.  My team spoke the least amount of English, but we still beat the other team!  One girl on our team was confused at first and kept reading the taboo words haha.  The person with the buzzer also was confused so she didnt buzz her either!  We had to stop and reexplain the rules in Chinese.  Another girl skipped Waikiki and ghetto b/c she didn't know those words!  The international girls had fun playing but later said, okay let's stop, this is becoming an English lesson haha.

Black Friday:  I had to work but it was a quiet and productive day so it went by quickly.

There was more turkey that night though...TBC

Happy Turkey Day!

Things I'm thankful for:

The usual suspects:
Good health
My job
Shelter
The 4 F's: family, friends, fiance, and food

Honorable mentions:
Glee music and Slapsgiving
Online coupon codes
Amazon Prime
Martha Stewart's craft/entertaining/decorating ideas
Ready-to-cook rice pilaf
Live crab that is on sale

What are you thankful for?

My Next Time Suck

For me, one of the downsides of spending so much time on the internet is finding out about really neat (or not, to some ppl) and random things and then being obsessed with it to the point where I'm sick of it by the time other people get obsessed.  I have a pretty addictive personality- I'll find a song I like and listen to it 50 times in a row for a whole wk.  And then I'm over it.  (drives Jer crazy) And then that's when the radio will play it non stop.  (Example- Kings of Leon "Use Somebody"- that song came out a year ago! When I radio surf, I'll hear it at least 3 or 4 times a day now!)  It's totally all my fault for ruining things for myself :P

Examples:
Taylor Swift.  I got into her music way back when she released her first album.  The song "A Place in this World" was on repeat for weeks!  I've blogged about her here, here, and here.  I even went to her concert last spring.  And now, people are finally liking her?  After hating on her for so long?  I know there are still ppl out there who pretend that they are too good for her music but the girl has sold over 10 million records and over 20 million downloads.  What she may lack in talent (subjective) she makes up in business acumen (not subjective, the girl made like 20 million buckaroos in 2009).  Anyways, I still like her but I am SO sick of the song Love Story.  Officially over it.  Going to avoid listening to it until I have the DJ play it at our wedding next year.  Then maybe it will be fresh again haha.    

Konami code: After I found out about it last month I proceeded to try it on a whole bunch of websites like my google reader and fb.  What a way to kill a boring afternoon :P  My favorite is the effect it has the southwest website! (try it!! cute!)  Anyways, now I see it popping it all over fb.  What took it so long to go semi-viral?  I dunno.

Twitter:  My friend introduced me to it summer of 08.  Over 550 tweets later it's getting way too cluttered and annoying for my tastes.  And people are just barely joining now?  It's getting to be no fun anymore.  And judging from my friend's lack of updates, I suspect she's over it now too :)   You know who u are!!

Okay, so I need a new time suck:

Things I'm considering:

Getting on the Twilight bandwagon (books first then movies)
Trying out Google Wave (that thing is soooooo confusing though, does anyone have a clue on how to work it?)
Any artists I should be getting addicted to? (I have gone through the Regina Spektor, Ingrid Michaelson, A Fine Frenzy, The Weepies, etc stage)

Quotables

Some quotes that have caught my attention over the years:

You wear 20% of your wardrobe 80% of the time.

So true!!  I am so guilty of this whenever I don't put much thought into my outfit (i.e. early Monday mornings, grabbing the closest and cleanest thing out of the closet).  I tried to cycle back older clothes into my daily wardrobe and let's be honest.  It's so not working :P  My newer clothes are so much cuter haha.  So instead, I decided to donate or throw away my old clothes.  It feels so much better to purge!  It's a work in progress...I'm a work in progress.

Better to be an hour early than a minute late.

Pretty much self explanatory.  I try really hard to be early or on time but occasionally I will have those days when I am just inexcusably beyond late.  I don't think I even try to hide or blame it on something.  But I really try not to make a regular thing.  I do occasionally make plans with ppl who are chronically late and while it annoys me, I kind of expect it...I mean what can you do?  Everyone has their "thing." So I deal with it when it happens to me, and I try not to impose that on others.  I'm going to elaborate more on the late thing in a wedding related entry to come.   

Every hour before noon is worth twice as much as every hour after noon.

I don't know why, but this is also so true for me!  I am very used to naturally waking up early on weekends (8am is considered sleeping in for me) so that is when I get the bulk of my errands/chores done.  Come late afternoon/nighttime, I'm pretty much a useless person.  I can't concentrate well when it gets darker.  I envy ppl who can function any time of the day :)  But since I can't- I gotta take advantage of the AM hours.  It's working well for me so far.  I better enjoy my set personal schedule for a few more years before I start popping out baby Jungs and then there goes any free time for the next 18 years. 

Any quotes that you live by?  Translations from other languages welcome too!  (My mom has some but I forgot what they are at the moment).  Anyway, I would love to hear them!

Flashback Fridays: 1.13.04

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

HERSTORY I've known my grandma for all my 20 years of my life and yet i can't say that i know her. All I really know (which I barely found out tonight after talkin to my mom) was that she was born and raised in China and when she was 20 she was whisked away to Vietnam to marry my grandpa. He was half vietnamese and half chinese, so i think that someone on his chinese side introduced them. So my grandma came to vietnam not knowing a single word of vietnamese. she had 10 kids and raised them all and somehow my family all worked together and managed to get enough gold to pay their way to america. so my grandma comes to america not knowing a single word of english. she's been here since...and she hasnt come back to china to visit the family that she left so many years ago. it makes me sad to know that now she's lost her chance because she's too weak to go. she sends some of her social security money to them to build houses and stuff but thats all i know. i dont even know where in china. i think she had at least a dozen siblings. my grandma tells me random stories. often she'll repeat the same ones over and over. nostalgically about the family pets in vietnam ("and the cat was peeing in the toilet!!!") proudly about how she passed her citizenship test ("i knew the names of those presidents, including that bush guy!!!!!") (not george w) fondly about her youngest daughter, my aunt, the aunt who i never really knew b/c she passed away when i was 6, but apparently she spoiled my grandma like no other ("man-re really knew how to dress up an old woman") exasperatingly about me running like a crazy mouse out the back door into the street ("and it was like a blur and you were GONE!!") these are just a few glimpses into her experiences, the little narratives. theres some more, but not that many. and im afraid, thats all i can remember or know. this woman raised me when my mom had to work. she fed me porridge cause i hated baby food. she wiped my butt and gave me baths. she chased after me when i'd dash through the back door into the street when i first knew how to run. she was a buffer between my mom and i when we'd have our mother-daughter spats. and i think about the way i treat her now and then. with absolutely no fucking respect. i talk back, i ignore her, i snap at her, i get frustrated. theres no bond between us. she left her family in china, she almost got caught by the commies hoardin money for our family to leave vietnam, and she raises me, and look what she's had to deal with. a granddaughter like me. a granddaughter who seems to not give a shit about her or have any respect for her. i do love her but i do such a terrible job at showing it. god, i could do better, i could right things again. now i FINALLY realize what kind of awesome supergrandma she is, and how strong she is. even though now she needs help getting up, and someone to hold her arm while walking, she's still strong inside. but now she's 84. i remember, for her 81st bday we had a nice family get together. we had a cake and candles. an 8 and a 1. and it was funny cause my cousin accidentally put it so that it said 18 when we were takin all the pictures. so we were all jokin that she's still so young. sigh. she doesnt have many years left, not years that i can squander like i did the past 20 or so years. i think i know what i have to do, what i want do. i know my grandma's had such an eventful life and its not just highlighted by those random events that i mentioned earlier. i want to find out about her childhood, about what it was like to live in two completely different countries (vietnam and america) not knowing the respective cultures and languages. im afraid though, that i'll stir up the bad memories that she left behind. but hopefully i'll stir up more happy rememberances. but her memory's slipping away everyday...but im gonna do it. im gonna find out her story.

1:02 AM - 1 view - 2 eprops - 1 comment - email it

Taken May 2008. At that moment, the oldest member of the family with the youngest member.

My grandma passed away last January. I never did find out her story.

Summer of the Bowl

One of my favorite musical venues is the Hollywood Bowl. Great place to mingle with friends and listen to music under the stars. This past summer we went to 3 events at the Bowl:
1. Death Cab for Cutie with the LA Philharmonic. Such. An. Awesome. Experience. We weren't expecting any fireworks (concert on 7/5) but for the last song Transatlanticism the fireworks starting shooting and it was so lovely!
2. Yo Yo Ma with Placido Domingo. They are world renowned and all, but I could not stay awake for the life of me (note, do not go to classical music concerts on worknights). Went home early.
3. John Williams. Second year in a row that we've gone to see him. We were pretty disappointed that he did not play any Indiana Jones music! Grrrr!! And he spent forever on Harry Potter music. Boring. Oh well. Still a good concert.

Chicken pasta from Hurry Curry.

Used our 70-200 for these shots. We also had great seats, front row in our section (M), so no heads in the way.







Light sabres come out as always!

All in all, it was a great season at the Bowl. Looking forward to next year's line up!

Cho Dang Tofu

Had a craving for Korean food so Jerry took me to Cho Dang Tofu in Torrance. Decent place if you're too lazy to drive to Ktown.


The menu was small! Probably only offered around 6 unique items and about 10 or so varieties of soon dobu.

I like Asian dressings, nice and tangy

My bi bim bap. I should have asked if it came in a stone pot. I would have preferred the hot version but this version was fine.

Ubiquitous side dishes. Nothing special.

Cho Dang Tofu
22549 Hawthorne Boulevard
Torrance, CA 90505
(310) 373-7055

At night, there's nothing open in the plaza except for this place and a bowling alley. One stop date night if u like Korean food and bowling!

Flashback Fridays: 11.19.99

How uncomplicated my life was 10 years ago:

"Today was Early California Days. We all worked so hard! I hadn't peeled so many cucumbers in my life. We made $130. I saved the day 'cause there were no more baggies and I thought of using trays for the food. :) Christina [Mendez] also tied my hair up into two pigtails. It hurt like hell to take them off. I finally found the goblet in Might and Magic II and I found the sons of Nurdonna and now I'm on the next level."

Early California Days is an annual high school fundraiser where all the clubs sell food to raise money for activities. We sold cucumbers with lime and chili powder. Fun times.

Might and Magic II was a computer game that I was super addicted to. Me, addicted to computer games? Who knew!


Too lazy to scan so here's picture of pictures.

I am such a DORK!

MVHSers, do u recognize anyone?!

Dry

Things that are dry:
Brush
Humor
Climates
Skin in the winter
Mouths
Weddings

Wait, what? Weddings?! No way, there is no such thing as a dry wedding if you're under 30 and not Mormon. To some people, it is blasphemous to not serve some sort of spirit during our day of matrimony. I can already hear the choruses of "Who the f*** has a dry wedding?"

Well, we are!

Now hear me out- our reasons are two fold. I know some people can handle their alcohol. Unfortunately, there are ppl who think they can, but they really can't. And they end up puking or starting fights. No thanks! I've been to those kinds of weddings, not really fun to watch. Also, we don't drink ourselves and contrary to most Asian families, neither do ours. Jerry is allergic to everything except soju (I don't know why, you'll have to ask him) and I no longer really care for the taste or how it makes me feel the next day. I also really hate all wines except for ice wine and I would rather drink apple juice than champagne. I used to also like beer but now the smell makes me gag. Call me uncultured, but I honestly have reverted back the beverage palate of a 5 year old since grad school. And I'm fine with that. Although I am bordering on being more defensive as this paragraph goes on, huh? :P

Anyways just b/c we're not serving alcohol doesn't mean that we're going to be boring and offer only water and soda. As soon as I saw these beverage dispensers, I knew I had to replicate it for our wedding:

So pretty!! Currently we are researching what kind of beverage dispensers are on the market. Haven't made any decisions or purchases yet but I'll be sure to update when we do.

In the meantime, we're also thinking of ideas on what to fill these jugs up with.
So far our list includes: sweet tea, arnold palmer, strawberry lemonade, jamaica (juice made from hibiscus flowers), passion fruit green tea, etc. Five might be too many- we may narrow it down to 3 or 4 at the most. I'm very excited to serve our guests these treats at the wedding- let's hope we can execute it!

The Not-Fat-but-Still-Flabby Bride

Time for the ubiquitous post that every blogger-bride-to-be has in her queue.

So. I am what you would call not-fat. And I think that many other ladies who call themselves fat aren't fat either. But hey, we're female and we live in America. Of course we're fat. (Not.)

Now being toned and not flabby, that's another issue. I have gone through stages of my life where I have been very toned, and then I have my muffin top/arm flab stages. Now is one of them.

It started with the cap sleeves on my favorite tops. They were a bit too snug...

Then it was a bit harder to button all the buttons on my pants...

Things that used to require a belt now didn't.

My clothes still fit me- but just not comfortably. It was time to do something about it.

Armed with a 24 hr Fitness 2 year dealy for $299 from Costco, I have been joining Jerry at the gym about 5-6 times a week for the past month. Jerry has been a member for so long (over 15 years) that he has a Ray Wilson card and only pays $5 a month lifetime. We have a really good system going on- workout 3 days, rest 1. Repeat. Given that we only live a mile away from the closest facility and it's on the way home from work for the both of us, there's no excuse for us to not take advantage of the convenience.

Not every workout is the same, which I appreciate. There are days when all I do is run, run, run to build stamina and have a good sweat. Then there are workouts where a light run is paired with a more intense weight lifting session (hello, buff bride!). When I don't feel like thinking, I join the aerobics class of the hour and I "down, and up, down and push it up" over and over again, like a robot. There are times when all I feel like is phoning it in with some elliptical work and then calling it a day. But that's okay. I don't want every session to be intense. I just want to do something that involves engaging my body physically.

Even though only a month has gone by, I've noticed a bit of a difference. I can run longer at a faster speed w/o stumbling off the treadmill. I'm growing out of my 5lb free weights and getting used to the 8lb weights. I can do more sit ups w/o gasping for breath. And my clothes are fitting slightly better.

The real challenge is not to just get to where I want, but to keep this up. November and December are months of gluttony. Let's see what happens- stay tuned!