I love driving especially after I got my new car in 2018. In 2017, that wasn’t the case. I hated my commute back then, hated the fact that I had to everyday sit through miles and miles of crawling traffic listening to the same song playing on the radio, hated the fact that I couldn’t pick my own hours so I didn’t have to endure peak-hour traffic, hated my job period.
That was 2017. I got my current job in 2018 and no longer need to drive to work. I could take public transit for free. It’s why it took me over 2 years to get 10,000 miles on my brand new car.
Now is 2020 and my commute changed again. I no longer need to be in the office 5 days a week. I am now only required to go in one day a week aka Wednesday and because of the pandemic situation, I needed to switch back to driving, which I actually love because it allows me to get out of the house and away from mom.
Instead of 5 things I miss about driving to work, here are 5 things I miss about commuting to work:
This week’s Blogging Insights – hosted by Tanya at Salted Caramel – asks:
Continue reading “Blogging Insights # 60 — Blog Organization” →
What is your favorite type of cookie (they’re called biscuits in Europe I believe)?
There are two kinds of cookies I love – the soft, melt-in-your-mouth cookies and the cakey cookies. My favorites are snickerdoodle and my homemade chocolate chip cookies especially if they’re still warm.
Continue reading “Share Your World – Week of December 21, 2020” →
When I think of the holidays at the end of the year, I think of the wonderful and marvelous light displays at local parks. Not only are the lights pretty, it allows me to practice my night photography and bokeh photography on my wide-aperture lens.
Continue reading “Lens-Artists Challenge #128: And Here Comes the Holiday Season” →
I am fairly new to the “Guilty Pleasure” food world since I had just got out of a life-long relationship with diets. For a long while, I didn’t allow myself to be indulged in aesthetically pleasing foods. Instead, I obsessed over nutrition label and would stay away with any foods that either had chemical preservatives, ridiculous amount of sugar, or had an insane amount of “empty” calories where the more I consume, the hungrier I’d get.
Continue reading “My 5 Guilty Pleasure Foods” →
Since coming back from blogging after a long hiatus, I’ve discovered quite a few new blogging challenges. My initial plan when I first decided to come back to the land of blogging was to write mostly original materials and not rely on participating in challenges but can I help it? These are fun, interesting, and helps me to not only get to know my fellow bloggers but helps me discover bloggers with similar interests.
Continue reading “Blogging Insights # 59 — Blogging Personas” →
What news event do you vividly remember hearing about as a child, and where were you?
Continue reading “Share Your World – Week of December 14, 2020” →
If 2020 has gifted me anything good, it would be the abundance of time spent at home and the lack of opportunity to eat out. This really allowed me to explore the diverse world of food over the world-wide-web. I have fallen in love with so many different dishes and foods I had never thought I would like.
Continue reading “5 Foods I Enjoy Because They Are Good For Me” →
Do you enjoy skiing or ice skating or if it’s warm where you are, hiking or enjoying outdoor sports?
In the recent years, I have become somewhat of an avid hiker though I’m still mostly sticking to easy and moderate level hiking trails – the difficulty is based on alltrails.com.
I would love to try snowshoeing in the back-country. I can imagine it’d be fun and different.
I tried skiing a few years ago. It was a painful experience because I haven’t had the calcium accumulation taken out of my leg which had caused a lot of pain walking in the ski boots. I would love to try again though as I’d think it won’t be as painful now as before.
Do you give to charities or homeless that you might encounter, during this time of year, more than you do otherwise?
I donate when I can – usually to either nature conservation agencies or World Wildlife Fund – it doesn’t matter the time of the year. When I have some spare change, I would donate.
What is the most enjoyable activity you engage in during December? Is it a tradition for you and your family?
Office parties and the 12-days of Christmas hosted yearly by my department.
Is it sad to say those are the only things I enjoy about December? Being from China, my family doesn’t celebrate Christmas or any of the year-end holidays and my mom’s always bitter during this time of the year because there’s always problems with one of her two tenants during November or December.
What changes will C-19 bring to your festive celebrations this year?
All the fun holiday activities at work got canceled – year-end company party has moved to virtual, 12 days of Christmas is canceled, and departmental Christmas dinner has become ordering from DoorDash and virtually sharing meals over some unpredictable and limited internet bandwidths.
2020, what a year, right? So many things happened this year – pandemic, earthquakes, on-and-off mask mandates, wind storms, social gathering restrictions… but even in this weird pandemic universe we’re living in where Mondays and Fridays are just another day, giving thanks is still an everyday-must and a definite-must on Thanksgiving.
Here are my 5 major thanks for 2020:
Last but not least, I want to thank all the readers of this blogs who followed me through the years. Even though I’ve been away for most of 2020, some of my long-time readers would occasionally comment to check up on me. I am thankful for the thoughtfulness and to have a great bunch of friends in this ever changing blogging universe.
I’m sure I sound like a lot of people from the younger generation. In fact, what prompted this blog post was because I watched a video on YouTube about how there were so few people from the 18-29 age group that had voted in the last Presidential election – only 46%. I was 25 then and I voted so I guess that makes me one of the minority.
Did I tell you I hate politics? Even though I’m fascinated by the study of politics or political science, I’d never watch CNN or CSPAN or any news networks that talks government 24/7. To me, watching politicians debate is like watching a bunch of dudes and gals arguing over the simplest matters using extremely technical jargons, to the point that no one can understand what was said.
As part of my 7-year college education, I had been there – trying to squeeze in as much college-level vocabulary as I can while trying to use filler words to make my essays as long as possible.
Did I mention my mom and I have been working from home since the March 18 earthquake?
It’s been a rough eight months. She works in the living room while I work upstairs in my room. During work hours, she has an office-issued desktop, a laptop, a tablet, and a phone opened to YouTube and from each device, there’d a video playing. Most of the time, it would be either Chinese news and gossip or presidential rallies with the songs “God Bless the USA” and “YMCA” playing on repeat.
To be honest, I can barely hear anything else other than those things nowadays. Those things are blaring 24/7, not kidding. She has headphones but refused to wear them, saying she doesn’t like the wire. So I bought her some wireless headphones but she’s indecisive about which device she should connect the headphones to. It’s been about two weeks and those brand-new headphones are still sitting on the dining room table. I’m pondering about returning them.
No, I won’t deny that fact. My mother is a big Trump fan (she said it herself). She listens to every word the man says and when someone says something awful about him, she would say that person is stupid.
Did I also mention she actively donates to the campaign and buy the merchandise? In my mind, I think that’s a little bit crazy. How does she know she’s donating to the right cause and not just some scam?
I can’t say I’m a fan of anybody or anything. I don’t have an opinion (unlike my mother) or a sway of one candidate for the other.
All I know is the music has got to stop before I go insane. All I know is government politics created this situation and I want the noise to stop before I go insane. Being woken up one night with loud music coming from my mom’s room is okay but every night is not okay.
With the election days away, everyone in the family is talking about it even though the only two people with voting rights are me and my mom. Then when I want to change the topic, everyone would either try to talk over me or they’d shush me.
Last night over dinner, my cousin was talking about how he would vote for Joe Biden if he could. “Well, you just got kicked out of the family.” My mom said half-jokingly. She had said that exact thing to me after interrogating and pestering me on who I voted for ever since I dropped my vote at the ballot drop box last Tuesday. “You voted for Biden, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
“I’m not telling you.” I said. “Who I voted for reserves to be my right.”
“If you voted for Biden, I will disown you.” Whatever, I rolled my eyes after she finally left the room. This is my house, you first need to move out.
Back to dinner last night, after my mom mentioned about placing bets to see who would win the election, everyone began shouting and asking me where they could place bets.
What am I, Google? “Look it up yourselves, you all have phones…” and a pair of hands and a pair of eyes. Surprise, surprise, I didn’t get to finish my sentence. My mom shushed me, she was watching election news on YouTube.
One of these days, I am going to get back on a writing schedule. I don’t know how but one of these days, I’m going to get back to writing. Continue reading “One of these days…” →
Can you believe we’re already at the end of July? Continue reading “What have I been doing? Why I haven’t written?” →
I got a haircut at a professional salon recently. When I got home a few hours later, my mom began to pick at my hair. I shooed her away. “What are you doing?” Continue reading “Tell Me a Lie” →
I was startled awake by a nightmare three nights ago – bolted upright in bed, hands around my neck, checking for the wetness and blood before exhaling the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
Continue reading “I Need to Calm Down!” →
So we’re now 5 months into 2020 and I think you’ll agree with me when I say this, “2020 sucks!”
Continue reading “5 Months into 2020…” →
Almost 3 years ago, I moved into my current home. There were raised beds in the backyard and the front yard was incredibly bare except for a Japanese Maple tree which my mom has threatened to cut it down many times since and I have to keep reminding her that this is my house, not hers.
2 years ago, I started creating my garden. I planted 2 cherry trees, 2 plum trees, 3 strawberry plants, and 6 dahlia bulbs hoping to stop my neighbors’ weeds from invading my yard.
Continue reading “Creating a Container Garden…” →
Looking at my posts, I can’t believe I haven’t written anything since the end of February. What’s wrong with me? Continue reading “So Much has Happened…” →
Where do you get your news?
Google, either that or from a friend on Facebook. Google news is taiilored to the type of news I want to read so I’m only getting news in the areas I want to read, i.e. finance, entertainment, no politics mumbo jumbo.
When was the coldest you’ve ever been? The warmest?
By coldest, do you mean temperature as in what is the coldest place I’ve ever been? Because the coldest place I’ve ever been would be where I live now which is the frozen tundra of northern Utah. It’s been pretty chilly since September and these days, the temperature hardly moves above 32-degrees-Fahrenheit or 0-degrees-Celsius and when it does, I’d be sweating like crazy.
On the other hand, the warmest place I’ve ever been is Las Vegas and vicinity. That heat was so unbearable when I visited last summer. I felt like I somehow got put into a giant oven with a temperature setting of “bake until charred.”
What ‘old person’ thing do you do?
I like to talk on the phone instead of text or tweet or snapchat because by the time I type all I need to say on my phone, I would’ve already spoken it and received a reply. I am very impatient when it comes to waiting for a reply.
Do you eat food that’s past its expiration date if it still smells and looks fine?
I have admit, yes, I do do that. In fact, I did that last week when I used a bottle of rice vinegar that was expired in 2017 to make some salad dressing. I don’t think vinegar goes bad and that rice vinegar didn’t taste funky to me.
I spent this Christmas Eve sitting in my car in a near-empty mall parking lot, calling the only person that would understand my situation while listening to the rain peter-patter on the roof of my car. Continue reading “The Meaning of Christmas” →
This is Another Story