Friday, November 30, 2007

What's on my mind

My throat started to get sore yesterday. Hubby, Danielle and Secondo had this cold before I did and I finally got it too. I was hoping to escape the cold by diligently no sharing food from the kids and hand washing. I'm trying Zicam and so far my sore throat went away in 1 day but I don't like the taste of the cherry rapid melts tablet. Hopefully it works and I'll be all better by tomorrow.
Tomorrow night is my company's Christmas party and I don't really feel like going anymore. I've been working long hours and I rather stay home than spend more time with people I work with. Attending seems more like a chore at this point in time so what am I going to wear? Hubby's Christmas party is on a Wednesday Dec 12th and spouses are not invited. My interpretation of the rule is that they don't really want anyone to attend or only single people are welcome.
I took Danielle to their on campus holiday shopping. She picked out one give for my mom and her friend Natalie. She wanted to get Nicole Dora the Explorer ornaments but they were the size of choking hazard so we passed.
I finally finished the book "Life of Pi" and I would recommend this book. Some part of the book shared too much details but from a scientist point of view, Pi is an excellent scientist/zoologist. Now I'm listening to "The English Patient" and so far it's putting me to sleep. I'm not sure if it's because I've been tired lately or the book does not interest me. I'll continue listening for the next 2 CDs and decide.

Monday, November 26, 2007

I've been busy

I can't believe that I have not blogged for the pass 22 days. I believe that's record breaking for being away that long. There are too many commitments in Nov so blogging got neglected as before. Between now and the last time I blogged
  1. We celebrated my dad's birthday on the 17th along with 30 to 40 of their friends at my parent's house.
  2. We celebrated Thanksgiving with hubby's family. I made Vietnamese beef jerky papaya salad. We stopped by my parent's house afterward and give my dad his present.
  3. The week of thanksgiving, Secondo had fever for 3 nights in a row and now she has cough and cold
  4. I've been hooked on Nintendo game "Brain age 2". It's a cool game that calculate your brain age by how fast and accurate you are on answering math questions or remembering numbers. When I got started, my Brain age was 80, after some lengthy training, I was 28. Danielle is very competitive and does not like the fact that my brain age is younger than hers. We both train regularly in hope to open new activities to train with. I've never played Sudoku before and now I'm really into it. I'm on the basic mode where I'm allowed to make 5 mistakes to complete the puzzle.
  5. Hubby made a delicious orange cheesecake on his first attempt. I took pictures but not sure when I'll be able to post it.
  6. I've been reading " The life of Pi" and can't wait to finish the book. The writing is humorous but Pi has been a castaway for way too long. Some one please find this poor guy and get him to Cananda.
  7. Hubby put up most of the lights on our house.
  8. I've decided to give Danielle and I a break from piano lesson. She has been practicing much and I don't have time to sit with her when she's practicing
I'm stressing out at the moment because I have not started X'mas shopping yet and December is right around the corner. The one gift I got so far is Brain Academy for my nephew.

Monday, November 05, 2007

Weekend in Fresno

I was up in Fresno the pass weekend with my parents visiting old friends. Our family had known the family in Fresno date back to when my parents were in high school. They live away from the city in front of a serene lake, semi man made. Hubby and I took the kids out on the paddle boat and explored the other homes. At first, we didn't really know how to steer so the boat would go straight so I let hubby be the Captain. After a while, he figured out the steering mechanism. Hubby didn't have much fun so he got off the boat with Secondo crying for me while Danielle and I took off. The boat was so much lighter with just the 2 of us. I didn't have to paddle as hard and we took turn being the Captain. When we got tired, we floated and let the boat drift where ever it wanted to go. That Friday was also the opening of Big bluff's 3rd restaurant name Sakura Chaya. If you are ever in Fresno, you must visit Sakura Chaya. They have the best Sushi and soft shell crabs. Big bluff was so busy that night that we didn't get to spend much time with him. Hen dog and his wife stopped by and said hello and went to the bar to watch a game. We also saw Big bluff's new baby boy who was 2 months old. He was a quiet baby and slept through our whole teppan dinner experience. Secondo enjoyed watching the teppan chef until he started a large flame. From that point on, Secondo watched chef from behind the chair and told me her face felt hot.
On Saturday, we went to California Wok that belongs to Mr Bond, Big bluff's 2nd brother.for lunch. I had the teriyaki BLT with yam fries and it was delicious. Hubby had chow mein and Danielle had spaghetti with meat ball. His restaurant was also busy and Mr Bond was able to sit down and spent several minutes with us. If you are ever in Fresno, please try out California Wok.
After lunch, we went back to the home by the lake and spent time with his kids. The baby girl is very cute and his boy is kind and gentle. Before dinner, we watched their Taiwan wedding reception video and saw how elaborate it was.

I finished listening/reading Snow flower and the secret fan and I would give it a 3/5 rating. It could be the reader who I'm not so fond of or the story was too predictable half way through the book. I'm glad that she went in to details about foot binding and I can't stand Lily's character in the story. Her character was not believable, felt artificial and may be I don't want to hear again and again that women are "useless branches on a tree" or women's worth is measured by how many sons she's able to produce and how small her feet are.

Now I'm reading the Kite Runner and I'm really enjoying the book. Their writing style is more to my taste and I fell more entwined with the characters than previous book. The kite runner brought back memory of when I was a 7-8 year old kid in Indonesia, my dad used go on the roof top of our house and kite fight. I was his assistant, holding the string spool for him while he cut the other kites or handed him new kite when ours was cut.