Just how many more different ways can I exaggerate this situation?
I don’t know what gave anyone the idea or the impression I can single-handedly put together a Thanksgiving dinner in 4 hours.
4 HOURS!!!
There I was, slaving away in the kitchen – turkey, vegetables, and stuffing in the oven, potatoes ready to mash, and all there was left to do was dessert.
“Marge!” Came a holler.
I must had turned too quickly because next thing I knew, I was on the floor. “Ow,” I moaned. My leg was turned at an awkward angle. Crapulous.
Please note: the word “Crapulous” in this story does not mean what it actually means if you define this word in the dictionary. In this story, this word is the antonym of Fabulous. Crapulous, Fabulous, get it?
So I have recently started writing on paper again. After such a long time of just typing my thoughts out on a Word document, I was surprised that my hands still knew how to hold a pencil or how to write with one.
It was, as people say, just like riding a bicycle, which is a poor analogy as I don’t know how to ride a bicycle – poor hand-eye coordination, blah blah blah…
Anyway, as I said, I began writing with a pencil (just a good old pencil) and it made me wonder why I ever switched to a mechanical pencil. The simple answer would be pencil sorta became outdated in the mid-90’s (around the time I was in elementary school). I guess all the sharpening and lead breakage got on people’s nerves.
My early experience with a mechanical pencil was a frustrating one – NO ONE told me I was supposed to insert the lead from the side with the eraser, not trying to jam the lead through the tiny opening of the lead-clamp (the small metal piece that was supposed to clamp the lead in place. Let’s just say I broke a lot of lead and ended up with black fingers most of the time.
After I learned (finally) to operate a mechanical pencil, I never went back to the pencil (even though I was strangely gifted with a lot of very weird-looking and sparkly pencils) until these last two weeks, which leads me to this post.
What I like about using a good old pencil:
No hand-cramps – for some reason, my hand cramps up after about 10, 15 minutes of writing with a mechanical pencil
Nice and light – if you hold a good old pencil in hand and a mechanical pencil in the other, you’ll notice the difference in weight
Lead doesn’t break easily
Compare that to a mechanical pencil:
No need to sharpen every 30 minutes – a piece of lead can be used for quite a while but definitely need to watch out for the type of lead as not all pencil lead are made equal
The tip doesn’t become blunt which, in turn, makes the color of the writing lighter in color.
It doesn’t get shorter like the good old pencil – it can literally last forever if you treat it right
People may ask, “Why not use a pen, like a normal person?”
Well, unless your thoughts are perfectly clear and not jumbled like mine, go ahead with a pen. I am sticking with the pencil so I don’t have to use a whiteout on every other word I write.
After speaking to my dietitian/therapist this week, I decided to start this weekly series as a way to de-stress from everyday life, to scream at my inner voice and so forth. It might be very random things and some might be humorous. I’ll try to keep it light.
I don’t know how to relax. Is that a weird thing to say? I don’t know how to relax. There, I said it. Can you blame me though even though I’m sitting here now writing this, feeling stressed to the brink?
From what?
From work, family, life.
Do you sometimes feel like you’re being rushed from place to place and never have a moment to just stop and look around you or contemplate on the present? That’s been me for the past twenty-some odd years. My mom wants things done right away. When I was living with my step-dad, he, too, wanted things done in the moment. When I was living with my relatives in China, everything must be done in an instant. It was what was expected of me but it’s never reciprocated.
You know what’s strange?
I never really noticed it until the recent years when I began working multiple jobs while going to school and then I’d come home and my mom would want me to do this and that. Maybe my internal stress meter has been slowly peaking and I didn’t realize it. Or maybe my age is catching up. I’m not as young as when I started this blog 7 years ago. I sometimes would look myself in the mirror and would find crow’s feet at the corners of my eyes.
I recently watched a documentary about stress. In it, eating was mentioned. It turned out sugar is less sweet when a person is stressed and foods are more delicious when one is stressed. Really? I decided to do a test and it’s absolutely right.
Maybe it’s why I’ve been overeating again, even being on an anti-diet. I think I am overeating because I’m stressed. “I feel like pulling my hair out,” I told my dietitian and honestly, I feel like I’m about to break down into one big sob.
I’m overeating because I’m constantly working excess of the 40-hour standard work week. My mom was saying, “the more overtime you work, the better.” I overeat because of the constant disruption. Everybody wants something from me and it seems like that’s the only time I worth something to them. Other times, I’m just a “silly” girl.
My 24-year-old cousin needs help registering from college classes, guess who he turn to? My uncle needs to shop for a car, guess who’s going to do that for him? The family needs health insurance, who will help them buy insurance?
It is so incredible the other 7 individuals in my mom’s clan think I can bought with money. “Here, take this $100.” One of them would toss an 100-dollar bill in my direction whenever they want something done for them.
What am I? I would often wonder. I’m certainly not a dancer at a strip club.
I am someone with two college degrees and a steady job, making more money than them. I don’t need the money. I don’t want the money. It would screw up the accounting of my money. Besides, I am a person, not an object. Why do they think I can be bought?
For the last two years, ever since my mom’s entire family immigrated to the U.S and re-entered my life again after 15 or 16 years, I feel like I have been under constant stress. There were some days, especially during the last few months, I’d find myself feeling down because not only my family doesn’t respect me and constantly trying to change me but they only come to me when they want something.
Then, there have been some days, it makes me so angry I want to punch something or someone while some days, I just want to curl up in a ball and cry. Unfortunately, after so many years of breaking down and getting back up again, I can no longer shed tears as easily as I could a few years ago.
Stop acting like a dictator!
After two years of formally getting re-acquainted with my mother, my aunts and uncles have all developed a kind of fear toward my mom that is associated with dictators. So they mostly come to me when they want something, instead of going to my mom because according to everybody, I don’t get angry. Oh, but I do, just not on the outside.
I bluntly said a few months ago, “Stop acting like you rule the world. You act like a dictator sometimes, you know that?”
“Oh, I’m a dictator now?” My mom replied, half-jokingly.
“That’s why they’re afraid of you. You’re so controlling.”
When I went on a solo hike the day after, she had her entire clan call me to check on me. My phone might had blown up if I could receive those calls but no service. That day was heaven.
Everybody needs me
There are days when I want to bang my head against the wall and it’s not because of work stress even though I do work 9, 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. Work is actually more relaxing than dealing with family matters.
The phone calls, blood work reports, doctors bills…sadly and annoyingly, none of those are mine.
Several things would happen during work days:
Mom would come up and ask, “What does this sentence mean? How would you translate it?” or she’d complain, “this makes no sense to me” or “what a horrible grammar this is?”
Then my aunt would trudge over from the next door, “Can you take a look at this text and reply for me?”
Shortly after that, my mom would stomp in and request I look at my other aunt’s lab results and tell her what it mean. “I’m not a doctor.” I’d tell her. “Consult Google.” Okay, maybe that’s worse but at least I won’t be blame or maybe I will still get blamed (for not taking a look at the report). My mom loves to blame me whenever anything goes wrong. Whatever.
A wise man named Google once said it takes a person 20 minutes to focus again after a disruption.
I can’t remember how many minutes I spend each day staring at my work inbox before I realize I was working on something that had nothing to do with writing emails.
I’m not made of steel
After a 2-mile hike last weekend, I arrived home, craving to sit down and enjoy a glass of water. My mom had other plans. “Your lettuces are dry as a bone. You need to go water them.”
“Give me a minute, let me take a breather.” It seemed like she wanted it done at that moment because there she was, filling a plastic bottle with water and marching to my mini-greenhouse to pour water on my growing lettuces. “Geez, I just hiked 2 miles, let me have a break” I also drove and listen to you criticize my driving again, I wanted to say. “I am human, not made of steel.”
“I never said you are.”
“Then stop demanding things, I will do them when I’m good and ready.”
I have been hearing people say this, “Oh you’re young, you can do anything.”
WRONG!
It doesn’t matter how young or old a person is, he or she is still human, and humans have limits. I don’t believe in such thing as “limitless.” Nobody can do everything and just like all machines, humans break down too. It’s just a matter of time.
This has been on my mind for a while now ever since I began my balanced diet lifestyle but I’ve been too preoccupied to write it all down. So here it is, my experience with intermittent fasting and reasons it did not work.
I have been on many diets throughout my life – limited-calories diet, low fat diet, low sugar diet, and clean-eating-to-the-extreme diet – so intermittent fasting was just another diet to lose enough weight
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…”→
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.
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.”
Credit Alexander Andrews via Unsplash
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”→
Another April gone, another A to Z Challenge done.
Overall, I am happy with my theme chosen for this year’s challenge – Wordless Photo. One photo every day for each letter of the alphabet. I chose this theme to fit my busy schedule and I thought I was wise to do so. Ever since my co-worker quit on April first, I have been taking on double-duty at work while my co-worker, who previously performed the other half of my duties, shifted to do my former co-worker’s duties.
And it’s not just work. When I’m at home, every time I attempt to relax, someone was and is calling me to help them. It’s been so incredibly overwhelming at times that I just wanted scream and yell, “Why can’t you people understand I have anxiety issues?!”
With that said, I no longer could find the time to keep up with blogging and I don’t mean the part about creating blog posts. It’s the reading part I was having trouble keeping up. The creating posts part was easy, I already had all except for a few of the letters figure out by the time the challenge started and the photos I wanted to use. Then, all I had to do was plug in the pictures.
You can check out every A to Z Challenge posts ever posted on this blog by clicking on this link.
With the hectic schedule at work and the chaotic life at home, I decided to pause blogging for a while, to take a break. The break will not be indefinite and it does not mean I am stepping away from blogging. I will still check in once in a while to read a few posts, and write a post or two but no more daily posting.
After 6 years of writing posts and participating in challenges. I think it’s time to slow down and perhaps get back to what I originally set out to do when I started this blog – write stories to satisfy my wild imagination but now, with a few photos added.
I hope you will stick around because I have a lot more stories to tell.
I have been on many diets throughout my life – limited-calories diet, low fat diet, low sugar diet, and clean-eating-to-the-extreme diet – so intermittent fasting was just another diet to lose enough weight
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. 
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?” 
Good morning, let’s drink some coffee and have some breakfast, shall we? 
Good morning, it’s been a long while since I’ve done this. 
It seems like only cool people attend high school reunions, but that’s just my opinion. 
Oh my goodness! 😂😂😂
This is Another Story 