Hello and welcome to my corner of winter wonderland. Please come in, shrug off your coat and join me for one last conversation in 2021.

Well, what do you know? We made it through 2021, another year in this incredibly annoying world of pandemic. I think congratulations are in order.

I would tell you the recovery from my recent surgery is going well. I am now back to my regular diet, except I’m still staying away from nuts, potato chips, and anything with bones like ribs, chicken wings, and chicken drumsticks. I still have quite a bit of discomfort but I suppose it’ll go away in time.

I would also tell you I have been keeping myself busy this week by completing a project proposed by mom but really, I should’ve done this long ago.

I have been scanning and digitizing all the photos in this box. There are over 2000 photos in there, can you believe it? It’s only an estimate, I think it’s closer to 3000.

These are photos of my mom, dad, and me, spanning probably 5 decades from their baby pictures to mine. The most recent photos were from 2006 and as far as I know, we went completely digital in 2007. Some of these photos actually went through quite a journey as they had to be brought over from China. They were brought over when my mom’s family came for a visit in 2012. They carried little clothes in their suitcases while stuffing a trunk-full of photo albums.

It took me 3 days (each day working 8-9 hours) to scan my pictures spanning from 1991 to 2004. My dad’s meticulously labeling actually came in handy for me to organize the pictures into folders sorted by year and month. Otherwise, I wouldn’t had been able to tell.

Seeing these photos gave me an impression I was special person in my family’s eyes. The reason might be it was prior to my male cousins’ existence, prior to me getting a doze of harsh reality that I was treated special was because I was their only grandchild back then. I would later learn my grandparents wanted grandsons, not a granddaughter.

I’m glad my dad documented my early life so well as I don’t remember a thing from it and it made me feel special he shot so many pictures prior to his untimely passing in 1996. He was a hobby photographer like me but he liked photographing people and I like landscapes. Looking at the photos, it sometimes felt like my dad was my paparazzi, taking photos where I wasn’t aware. Here are a few of my favorites:

Thank you for joining me for this #weekendcoffeeshare. I wish you a happy new year and hope you will join me back here in 2022.