Wednesday, August 29, 2007

this i believe

One of the CD that was on the shelf of the library was this I believe. I've heard this segment on NPR once in a while and am glad that they've decided to compile the essays into a book so had to borrow and listened.
So far I liked Be cool to the pizza dude essay.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Kids & Reading

This past weekend was nice and low key which is what I've been longing for a while. No commitment to anyone other than Danielle's play date.
Saturday started with my usual upper body weight lifting & boot camp workout followed by Danielle's friends who are sisters, coming over for a play date. Let's call the two girls N who is 7 years old and B who is 8 years old. They've been wanting to come to our house ever since we have our hamster. When they saw the hamster they got excited about man handling our hamster which made me nervous. We don't normally let the hamster run around the house freely unless it's in a rigid plastic ball. After they got bored watching the hamster inside the ball, the girls ran up stairs with the hamster and I thought they were going to put it back in her little cage. While playing with Secondo, downstairs, I started to hear loud thumbs on the ceiling. When I checked on them moments later, they had the hamster running around on Danielle's bed.
Me: "Please keep the hamster in the ball because it poops frequently"
B: "We know, look at how many poops are in the ball!"
N:"He did poop on Danielle's bed so I picked it up and put it in the ball."
Me: "That's it girls, put the hamster back in the cage and go wash your hands. It's time for lunch"
They pointed out to me that they've put pillows on the foot of Danielle's bed to prevent the hamster from hiding under the bed in case the hamster ran away from them.

It was interesting to see that even at the age of 2, Secondo wanted to tag along and be accepted as part of the older girls group. She wanted to tag along in Danielle's room and her older sister didn't want any part of that. She'll say: "Hey guys, come back here!" but girls went on with and left her out. Her friends however,were a little more attentive to Secondo and didn't completely shut her out. During lunch, B sat next to Secondo and when Secondo mentioned that her chicken nugget was hot, B would wrap it with a tissue paper and asked Secondo to hold the tissue instead of direct contact to the nugget. When Secondo ate all her nugget and wanted more, N offered to share half of hers with Secondo. Danielle on the other hand didn't want anything to do with her little sister. I know deep down she loves her little sister but she's not generous with sharing her things with Secondo. She would only give Secondo things that she doesn't really care for.
In Mandarin Chinese there's a word called "rang" which translate to yield in English. As an older sibling, one of the phrase I heard all the time growing up is "Jie-jie rang di-di" which means, Older sister should yield to younger brother in many situations let it be toys, food, or TV shows. Older child has the responsibility to let younger child have his or her ways because little ones can't understand the meaning of yielding. I know Danielle felt resentment towards me because I asked her to rang mie-mei (little sister) often when Secondo acts up and I can't get her to snap out of it.

While they were watching Disney Channel, I went to the library alone to return and borrowed some more books. I was so happy that I found 1001 books you must read before you die at our local library. It's a thick and heavy book with little excerpts of what the book is about. After reading "Never Let me go", I do agree that it's one of the must read book even though the first several chapters seemed boring and irrelevant. It's one of those book that I'm re-reading again to tie the links together to better understand the story. The first set of books that I'm reading will the the ones that are on CD so it's going to be ones written after the year 2000. Within that bracket,there are 69 books to choose from so I'm going to rotate authors between different nationalities. Has anyone read the book "Life of Pi"? I've read mixed reviews about this book and I'm curious about how good it really is. Please let me know your take of the book if you've read it already.
When I got home the girls were getting ready to go swimming and again Secondo felt left out staying home with mom & dad.
After dinner, Danielle and I played Mario party 8 on Wii and we had fun teaming up battling computer characters Yoshi and Toad.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

I'm gonna love you.....


Check out this cool video made by my friends Patricia, Greg and her crew . Aren't they creative?

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Change in life style

I recently had a physical where they did the routine blood work that showed my blood cholesterol was borderline on the high side. When I discussed the result with hubby and some friends their natural advice were to minimize shrimps and other seafood that have high cholesterol content. I also recalled a conversation with my friend Patricia who’s husband is also working on reducing his blood cholesterol.
Me:"Does it mean that G can’t eat shrimps and crabs anymore?"
P: "Not really. He has to reduce his saturated fat intake."
After researching on the subject of blood cholesterol vs. cholesterol content, I’m happy to report that my friend Patricia was 100 % right. I don’t have to give up eating my favorite food in the world, seafood but I do have to reduce intake of trans fat and saturated fat which if found in food such as coconut milk, butter, cheese, ice cream, red meat. Even though shrimp has high cholesterol content, it doesn't increase blood cholesterol. Such a relief to know that shrimp is not bad for me because I still can eat Tom Yum Kung as long as I don’t add coconut milk in it anymore. I used to cook curry with coconut milk, eat dessert with coconut milk but now I'm going to take it out of my recipes and replace it with skim milk when possible.
I've also started to eat oatmeals for breakfast and that is suppose to lower the LDL/bad cholesterol. Researches showed that oatmeals only lowers it by 2-5% after 2 month so all the advertising on the oatmeals being the sponge for cholesterol is not 100% true.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Food I like to eat


I don't really know what to write today so I'm going to share pictures of food we ate last June to celebrate our My wedding anniversary.
We used our good China for the occasion and it adds mouth watering feature to the Tom Yum Kung which I'm salivating over as I'm writing this post. The difference between this version versus your standard on is that we added coconut milk which gave it a richer taste. My mom likes this version but personally I prefer the traditional version without the coconut milk.
This appetizer shrimp kebob is also my favorite. It's really easy to make and tasty. Marinate the shrimp in chopped up garlic, chili powder, tiny bit of salt and olive oil for 30 min. When you are ready to grill, add a little lime juice give it a little tangy flavor. I apologize for the picture being a bit blurry.
The rice dish is Indonesian Fried Rice/Nasi Goreng. It's very easy to make especially if you have a jar of the Kokita Nasi Goreng Sambal in your pantry. You can find it at 99 Ranch Supermarket off of Jeffery, Irvine. I throw in eggs, mixed veggies, ham and shrimp. The flash is too strong for this picture so may be natural lighting would have been a better.

Here is Pad Thai made by my friend P. It's a low fat version made with egg substitute and if anyone is interested, I'll ask her for the recipe.









This is my mom's creation of soy sauce marinated short ribs with tofu and eggs. Every one loves this dish from adults to kids. I'll post the recipe at another time.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Random Thoughts

  1. I'm craving salty food so I've been eating potato chips today.
  2. It's that time of the year for the annual OB/GYN check up so I called up my Dr's office for an appt. and the earliest appointment available is in Nov. I hope the mammogram office can give me an appt sooner than Nov. Sigh..
  3. I'm starting a new book titled "Never Let Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro and not really into the story after listening for 3 chapters. Everything so far is vague and difficult to relate to so I'm going to give it a break for now or I'll fall asleep driving home. With the Author's name being Kazuo Ishiguro, I thought the story would take place in Japan. It came highly recommended so I'll give it another chance when I'm more alert. I may start listening to "The world is flat" and see how interesting that book is.
  4. My folks are leaving for Taipei, Taiwan because my friend Jo's Father has colon cancer. The Doctor told her family that he doesn't have much time left. Sigh... He's over 80 and lived an interesting life in China and Taiwan.
  5. This week is Danielle's last week of swim lessons for August. I hope she'll remember all her stokes for September.
  6. The rebuilt transmission of our Odyssey broke last week and we had to get it fixed again. I hope the newly rebuilt transmission will last at least 3 years.
  7. We attended 3 birthday parties last weekend and that was exhausting. First was a Pokemon theme at a park for a 7 year old, 2nd was Cinderella theme for a 2 year old and 3rd was Surfer dude theme for a 2 year old by the pool. I'm glad that next birthday get together is in Sept.
  8. Secondo has a tendency to poop at public places.
    1. We were at the Library on Sunday to borrow some books and she pooped there. 4:30PM
    2. We were at Target last Saturday, shopping for gifts and she pooped. 11:45AM
    3. We were at the waterpark and she pooped there too. 6:30 PM

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Working out, a love hate relationship.

I usually arrives to my Sunday cycling class 1 hour before the class starts in order to a) to ensure I get a bike and b) upper body weight training. I noticed that other folks who take the same cycling class are doing the same but one person that grabbed my attention is a gray hair older gentlemen who took the class every single week even though he lives far from this gym. He seemed to be older than my dad and he's in really good shape. He usually kept up with what the instructors asked of us and made me realize that there's no racial and age boundaries in sports and I am my one true competitor.
In my working life, there are seniorities or connections people may have with certain individuals that can get them further in their career even if their performance is average or less than average. I rarely observed or experienced occasions where hard work and dedication alone were able to get one self promoted at the reasonable rate.
In cycling, that man can easily beat me or anyone else because his hard work and diligent training. Only if I train harder and smarter, I'll be able to beat him in a race. There's no glass ceilings for women to overcome.
I've ended my 4 am workout after doing it for 2 weeks. Waking up that early was taxing on me and effected my performance as a wife, a mom and a human being in general. I was cranky, resentful, forgetful, wore my gym shorts backward one day and basically functioned as a zombie. It's amazing how hubby is able to continue with his AM workout and he does show fatigue when 8PM rolls around every night.
I still kept up with my lunch time walking and spent more time in the pool to reinforce Danielle's swimming skills. I'm still formulating a better plan that works with the needed beauty sleep I so need.
Last Tuesday, one of the Kickboxing instructor declared that she has been cancer free for 2 years and reminded us how lucky we are that we were healthy enough to workout.
I do appreciate that I'm healthy and able to workout regularly with some minor aches and pains here and there. I'm also proud of hubby who still workout even when his toe hurts like hell due inflammation.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Exciting day

During Bulleye's (my younger brother) last visit, he wanted to surprised Danielle by giving her the Wii console. He wasn't aware of the high demand and short supply scenario for Wii so he went to Best Buy, Target and had no luck finding it. Before he left he promised her that he'll order it and ship it to us. When I told this to Danielle, she was really excited and asked daily as when will her Wii arrive? It finally came on Friday and she was playing Wii with our next door neighbor boy all night. They like shot put game the best out of the Wii play games but it's quite loud. Thanks Bulleye for the game.
We celebrated Hubby and his brother's birthday last Saturday. We held on to the tradition of everyone being late except for my parents and the reason this year is that they all had traffic issues. I've also invited my friend P&G who made a nice little music video for her friend.
I don't remember if I captured the food we served but I did capture people having a blast playing Wii. Dad liked playing golf, and kids liked boxing, bowling and tennis. Wii is a great way to get the observers involved in the games.
On Sunday, when I was going to the gym, I can't open the garage door. Hubby had to manually pushed the door up. When I got back, he showed me the broken spring and had called for a repair man to quote to cost to fix it. It cost us $700 to fix it and it's warranty for life.