I try to find something that will represent this week’s photo challenge and this is the best I can do.
So I made hot cocoa yesterday. Although it’s getting warm, I still enjoy it very much as breakfast. 😉
The bird’s nest in the tree is classified as floating, right? From my angle, it’s amazing it stayed up there for so long.
Clouds floating in the sky, don’t see much ’round here. A beautiful day is usually cloudless.
For the many that do not know, Jackson Hole is a small town in Wyoming not far from Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Park. It is quite a beautiful place to go during the summer, just take a drive through Yellowstone and take its south exit to Grand Teton and Jackson Hole. Continue reading “#AtoZChallenge – J For Jackson Hole” →
Oh my gosh, I cannot believe that after so many days, I still fail to mention this… Continue reading “My Walk to My Job” →
As promised, I am presenting the shots for the pear blossoms which I seized the opportunity to capture it yesterday morning. I think they might only be around for another week or so. Continue reading “Asian Pear Blossoms” →
Remember last week, I posted shots of blossoming plum flowers in my front yard? Well, this morning, while I was letting the turtles roam free for a few minutes, I walked over and check, the flowers were like little wrinkly balls. I guess the blossom season for plums is over. Continue reading “Backyard Apple Blossoms” →
For this week’s photo challenge, I actually had to look up the word, ephemeral, in the dictionary. I’m still developing my vocabulary, you see. According to dictionary, ephemeral means… Continue reading “Ephemeral Flower and Sunrise” →
Yesterday, I took my camera on a walk with me to the park. It was such a beautiful day, the first this entire week, it seems. I couldn’t resist. It’s spring, everything is blooming. Even the air feels fresh. I walked out my front door and notice that even the plum tree in my front yard was blooming…
I tweaked my camera setting to “flower”, a setting apparently I didn’t know it existed. The resolution came out better than any other settings and now I know. I think these are my best yet. Plum flowers are incredibly gorgeous, don’t you think?
Anyway, I think more photos will come. I just have to wait for the roses and tulips to bloom.
You know what award I’d really like to receive? Continue reading “Awards for Academia” →
I have never known my home can be such a horrible place to take pictures. I am not sure whether it’s my inability to capture a good picture or what. Continue reading “My horrible first-attempt at a Photo Challenge” →
I told you we are going back today, didn’t I? This picture was taken on December 21, 2001 and it brings back great memory when I look at it. Continue reading “Five Photos – Five Stories Day 5” →
We are once again going back in time. Continue reading “Five Photos – Five Stories Day 4” →
Okay, I officially feel like I am going back in time with this challenge. The first day, I featured a picture that was taken last year, day 2 (yesterday), a picture from 2012, and now, for day 3, Continue reading “Five Photos – Five Stories Day 3” →
I actually remembered taking this picture. Continue reading “Five Photos – Five Stories Day 2” →
I’d like to thank Priceless Joy for nominating me for the Five Photos-Five stories challenge, where I post five photos, five stories, each day for five days. Continue reading “Five Photos – Five Stories Day 1” →
It reminds me of Fall 2009, just about two months after we moved into our current home. To be honest, I still can’t see why my mom had purchased this house. Of all the houses we looked at, she just had to pick this one.
We spent almost two weeks after moving in painting and cleaning the walls. It was so full of fingerprints and grease that it’s disgusting just to talk about it. We also cleaned every nooks and corners of this house except underneath the range; we didn’t clean that until we replaced the range in 2011. You have no idea what sort of weird objects we found. Currently, the only place remained uncleaned is the deck outside and I don’t ever want to touch that.
Anyway, back to Fall 2009. In our backyard, we have this huge plot of soil.
This wasn’t always like this. Back we moved in, this lied an above ground swimming pool. After the previous owner removed the pool, we were left with this awkward polygon shape plot of soil. My mom thought we’d turn it into a garden except the surface at the time resembled this:
The summer was dry that year, I remember. We didn’t get a lot of rain and every commercial on TV was screaming at us, conserve, don’t water your lawn.
In September or October, we finally got a decent storm and when the storm finally ended, I decided to take a shovel, go out into the backyard and start loosening up the soil. The day was wet and damp but the air felt fresh and breathable for the first time in a while. I set my shovel on the soil and effortlessly lifted it. The top layer resembled mud but the soil was drying up quickly, I had to work fast.
Finally, I managed to get the top soil loosened and then I began digging into the next layer and the next and the next. Of course, my mom came out and helped but after a short time, she gave up and went back into the house, leaving me out there to continue digging.
By the time I completed and went back into the house, it was about 4 or 5 hours later. My whole body ached but when I looked out at the plot of land, I couldn’t help to admire the result of my hard work. It no longer looked like a desert, it looked like a garden.
That year, we planted three plum trees (two on this plot of land and one in the front yard) and two blueberry bushes. The tree in the front yard survived but the two in the back along with the blueberry bushes died. We didn’t know why at first but we found out later that too much Chlorine had seeped from the pool water. The soil was toxic to plants.
We had spent the past five years or so neutralizing the soil with topsoil and cow manure. It’s worked so far but the trees and plants are still struggling, I can tell. You can tell too. The apple tree has been there for five years, yet it’s hardly grown. Not enough nutrients in the soil.
We planted cherry trees for the third time two years ago but it died after a few months. So last year, we decided on Asian Pear Trees and it barely survived the year.
The entire yard was covered in frost. I had to be very careful this morning when I stepped out to marvel at the beautiful blue sky. Not for long though, spring is coming real soon and we’ll have to start planting again.
I wonder what my mom has in mind this year. I know snow peas are a definite yes. I know she’s already given up on corn. We probably won’t have blackberries this year, well maybe. As you can see in the above picture, my aunt’s went overboard with the trimming. I still can’t believe she did that. Hopefully this garden will flourish this year.
Have to get back to my assignment, so ciao for now. 🙂
I don’t like taking pictures, especially of people, with people, eh… Bad experience with my mom on multiple occasions, don’t ask.
Continue reading “These Little Moments…” →
So we’re waiting for the rest of the house to wake up before we can get a move on. I feel so out of place here like my mom’s friend’s American husband. I wonder Continue reading “Out of Place and Stuffed” →
Hello and greetings from Idaho! Continue reading “A Change of Scenery” →
Last year, when my aunt from China came to visit, she brought along a whole boatload of goodies in her luggage from Chinese New Year decorations that are still plastered all over the house to this, just your plain everyday souvenir. I hung it in my car ever since. Continue reading “Lucky Charm” →
It’s raining cats and dogs outside my window! Figuratively speaking, of course. It’s been such a long time since there’s been any rain even though a storm just came through two weeks ago but nothing like this. This is truly a summer rain and it feels wonderful. Just hope it won’t ruin the air show tomorrow. Well, gotta get back to studying. 😛
Spring Cleaning, that was how I spent my Memorial Day. I didn’t do it all at once though. Like those drawers, I haven’t got to them yet, sadly. All I did was clean the floors which thankfully, I didn’t have to clean the whole thing.
My mom dragged me out of my room and downstairs so I could begin cleaning the living room while my mom moved everything out of the shoe closet. The floor was seriously dusty, dust bunnies literally blew across the floor. I guess that’s what happens when you have to turn on the heat six months out of the year, dust accumulates in the vents and ducts and out it goes onto the floor.
We finally turned off the heat tonight, though. I feel so relieved to finally be able to open my window ’cause it feels so hot and stuffy with everything closed. And of course, my mom has zero patience when it comes to slow moving work. She wants me to clean but she wants it fast. Well, you can only have one of those, either slow and clean or fast and dirty.
I wasn’t even done with the living room when she took over. Then she almost flew through the house, cleaning at the speed of superman, colliding into every furniture I could think of.
My mother used to be a housekeeper when she first came to the U.S. and a housekeeper needs to clean everyday at a record rate. The house she worked for just so happened to be owned by a family of slop. So I can imagine how she became the clean freak as she is today. I’ll bet if there’s a Olympic event for cleaning, she’d be the first to win it. 🙂
Anyway, she didn’t let me mess with her cleaning but while she went out to change the water, I took the sweet opportunity to snap some pictures. I know, it’s stupid but she tends to make me watch her while she cleans so I can learn how to do in the future. I would never get it anyways. Cleaning is cleaning.
She finished the job in half of the time it usually takes me although I am still questioning if her efforts is the same as mine. I opened the window to blow dry the floor while taking another chance to snap more pictures. Then it was done, it was all the cleaning we can manage, I can at least for today. It is hard to imagine that before my neighbor introduced me to the Swiffer mop, I actually used a cloth, got down on two knees, and scrubbed the floor clean like Cinderella.
As I sit here at my desk tapping my nails on the desk trying to decide what to write for my next post, my mom is downstairs loudly rummaging through the kitchen drawers looking for the nail clipper. “Where’s the nail clipper?” She yells. Immediately, I know that is my queue to go investigate. I rolled my eyes and sighed.
I take a few steps out of my room and shout back, “It’s in the first drawer.”
“It’s not there!” I groan and drag my feet down 10 steps down into the kitchen and start rummaging through the drawer myself.
I look down into the drawer and my eyes popped out like Spike the bulldog. Didn’t I clean this drawer just a few weeks ago? Or was it a few months ago?
I shuffled through the content looking for the nail clipper and I too cannot find it. “It’s not here! Maybe it’s in your room.” I yell while wondering, could it have accidentally fallen into the garbage? Both of us are a little forgetful these days what with our work and our GMAT exam’s coming up. One of us could have used the nail clipper and attempted to put it back into the drawer but missed it and landed in the garbage.
As my mom finished rummaging her room, she came back down while I went back up to rummage through her room some more. The second I arrived on the landing upstairs, she shouts triumphantly, “I found it!”
Whew. Now I can finally go back into my room and write that blog post. Given what had just happened, a light bulb lit up in my head. However, after seeing that mess in the most used drawer in the entire house, my head begins to pound. Because this means that within the next two weeks during my mom’s time off from work, I’ll have to spend a day reorganizing the drawers. Throwing away any expired coupons, no longer usable receipts, and other scraps of paper.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Seeing the picture above is just the topmost drawer. You don’t even want to see the bottom three drawers but here’s just a little sneak peek at the next drawer down…
It is filled with used/unused plastic bags from grocery shopping for storing meats, vegetables, and wonton/dumplings, potentially important invitations and other unimportant mail, and all kinds of junk I don’t even want to know. Then there’s the two more drawers which I don’t even want to know what kind of mystery is hidden there.
Really makes you think about the purpose drawers serve, doesn’t it?
Aren’t drawers suppose to provide some sort of organization? To help us find things more easily? So we don’t have to run all over the house looking for the thing we need right at the moment?
For about three weeks now, I’ve been looking at this piece of land with my mom. For some reason, she can’t make up her mind about purchasing the land. For me, it doesn’t really matter since I may or may not live there.
In these three weeks, she’s been coming up with excuses after another.
After once again going out to the piece of land a few days ago as well as looking at a model home, another set of excuses were made.
After her colleague/potential neighbor told her that there are snakes in that part of the neighborhood, it scared my mom out of her wits. She has been terrified of snakes ever since her high school classmates placed a tiny snake in her dresser as a prank. I don’t know if that’s the true story, although I doubt it, her classmates are way too serious to pull any sort of pranks.
Anyway, I think that’s the silliest excuse I’ve ever heard. There are snakes everywhere, does that mean you’re not going to live anywhere?
I also don’t believe in snakes just popping out from nowhere. There has to be something that lures the snake to its destination (i.e backyard, garages, house). I told her, if you see a snake in the house, you would’ve been the luckiest person in the neighborhood.
That turned out to be the ultimate deal breaker, right after she demanded the agent to lower the price. I think the agent might have a melt down after he tried so hard to negotiate the price. She doesn’t want it!!!
I feel a little bad for the agent now. 😦 On the other hand, I kind of have a feeling from the get go that this wasn’t going to work out no matter how gorgeous the view is and I have no interest of getting in the middle. The middle man always gets blamed whenever something goes wrong! I remembered how well that worked out when she purchased our current home.
More or less, I think her latest excuse is just the same as excuse #2. She just might not like the view no matter how high the house goes.
This is Another Story