Jongo’s Neighborhood

i've been busy.

and it's been fun stuff but the one thing i'm missing is having down time. i mean, the christmas tree and all the other decorations are up, but i haven't had the time to be able to enjoy it. i would love a full weekend where we have ample opportunity to sit in our living room, listening to christmas tunes and do some craft together. or read. or play board games.

this sunday might give us that opportunity, as will christmas eve. but that is all.

and i'll take that over nothing.

i was just talking to my girlfriend about christmas eve and christmas day. and how it's managed with extended family, as well as our immediate family.

we both agreed that we need at portion of time to be with just the husband and our kids - to set aside at least christmas eve and/or christmas morning for us to build our own annual traditions.

it's not always easy though - family politics can come into play. for example - if you come from two large familes (or worse, if your side and his side are like oil and water), how do you decide on how to split it up AND reserve that special time for just your nuclear family?

my in-laws do not live in the same city as us but if they did, both sides are small enough to have christmas dinner together. and i would have no problem having them over late in the morning to open presents with chaeli. but i would still want christmas eve pretty much to ourselves. a drop by from a friend is no big deal, so long as we get to stay where we are. at home.

so i want to hear from those out there - how do you do it? what's your idea christmas?

note: to all those replying, it seems as though people think that i'm having family politics over the holidays and i just want to clarify, that i'm not. but i notice it's common amongst a lot of people i know. :)

What's your guilty television pleasure?

That's easy:  Gossip Girl of course!  Despite my annoyance with most of the characters, I can't help but keep watching it week after week. 

Gossip Girl Season 3

1 comment

You know you love me.
XOXO, Gossip Girl...

this past saturday, we had our annual 'deep fried turkey and kid's secret santa exchange' party at steve and cor's house.

what a good party - i just felt like a huge release being there with good friends. laughing and talking and best of all - the kids are so good at playing on their own now. they spent most of the time in the basement with each other. ah bliss!

an important lesson learned within five minutes of arriving - even though i think people never read my facebook status updates, they SO read them.

within the first hour, the following facebook statuses by yours truely was discussed:

- that i admitted to staring at zac efron's 6-pack in '17 again'
- that i love red, orange and yellow peppers, but am not fond of green peppers
- that i almost went to see 'new moon' on my own

i think the highlight of the night was the guys chin-up contest. boys will be boys, after all.

afterwards, steve l. said, "i'm very disppointed with myself. hoa! i should hire you to train me back into shape."

to which hoa's reply was, "okay. but you HAVE to listen to me. if i tell you to do a push-up, you can't just say, 'bah! why bother?'"

hoa totally had steve l. pinned on that one because that's EXACTLY the type of thing steve l. would say.

and i think it's these little conversations of parties that seems to stick with me the most. the kind where a smaller group is off to the side, chatting and having a good laugh or two.

as you are getting ready for the holidays, you may noticed it getting a little bit chillier than usual.    why not get a head start on spring cleaning and go into your closet to see if you have any outdated or old coats you no longer want?

one warm coat is an organization will helps distributes a free coat to homeless which will keep them warm during this winter.   you can easily find drop off locations across the nation.

http://www.onewarmcoat.org/

Dear Kylie,

In two days, you'll be 6 whole months old. I am still in shock over this!

In retrospect, I am so glad I wrote you letters after your first and second month. My apologies for having missed your 3, 4, and 5th month. Thing is, your mom battled a bit of ppd and it was gawd awful those first 8 weeks, but month 3, 4, and 5? We couldn't be bothered to update on those months because we were too busy catching up and having ourselves the time of our lives. If that's not a good excuse, I don't know what is!

So... let's backtrack a little. During that third month, your personality started to form. You are outgoing, flirtatious, and easy to laugh. You are also highly demanding, impatient, and spoiled rotten.

We celebrated your 100 days of life with a little family dinner and soon after, you started to fill out.

you, 100 days old:

your great-aunt lovingly made you all of these traditional sweet breads by hand!

"put them in my mouth!"

The night after your dinner, we shaved your head. Sometimes I wonder if this was a bad move, as your hair has come back in curly!

At your 4 month check up, we found out that you were filling out maybe a little too much. 99% in weight? wow. I vowed never to be that crazy Asian parent but immediately, my first thought was, "Why are you missing 1%?? Where did I go wrong? Why didn't you do the extra credit question!?"

but one look at your chunky thighs and I know that you are 100%. probably 101% and totally G.A.T.E. material, at that.

You and I were baptized the same day, and you were adorable in a dress one of your aunties gifted you.

For your first Halloween, you were 1- a hotdog, 2- Flava Flav, and 3- a lion. The hot dog costume lasted all of 3 minutes, Flava Flav was for a church outing, and the lion because your grandma insisted.

During this month, you learned how to hold your own bottle, sit up, and outgrew the majority of your 3-6 month sized clothes. You attended your first birthday party and your first garage-red-cup-beer-pong-party. Your almost daily explosive poopy diapers have become 1x/2 week occurances and I thank you for that. You slept 8-11 hours a night, solid, and your dad and I got used to this.

We recently moved out of our rental condo and into our very first home and things have been hectic with the house remodel. You seem to know that your surroundings aren't the same as before and wake up 2-4 times a night to whine and cry. It's killin us, smalls, so please stop doing that soon.

You insist on standing instead of sitting, any chance you get. You *adore* your over-the-door jumper and laugh to yourself with every jump. You just started to get peek-a-boo and you love skyping with your Lao-Yeh in Korea because he will peek-a-boo you and coo at you and you will coo right back. and by coo, I mean shriek at the top of your lungs. It is the best sound in the entire world. 

This is the end of your 5th month, baby girl, and it makes me so sad to remember back on those first few weeks and how much I missed of your new babyness because I was too involved with dealing with my own feelings. I hope that these last 4, though, have made up for some of that. When you laugh, it makes me and your daddy laugh. When you smile, we smile. As cheesey as it sounds, you are the sunshine in our lives. I can not remember what I was living for before you were a part of my world, and I can not imagine a world with me but without you.

all my love, forever and ever,

your momma 

reef infection highly recommended these packing cubes from ebags.com for packing your clothes for a trip.  i have to agree with her: they rock!

they typically retail for $29.99 however you can get them from $25-$30, depending sale and/or promo code.   you get three different size cubes in a set.

you may think they wouldn't be impactful like i did. they made a big difference in terms of packing and organizing.  i did not to have to go through a pile of clothes to find what i was looking for.  since i knew what belonged in each cube, i simply picked up the bag i wanted something from, unzipped, zipped, and threw it back into my suitcase.   when i opened up my suitcase, i never groaned at a mess because there wasn't a mess.   these bags were awesome to travel with as they were able to carry 5 days of clothes.

 

• largest bag can hold: jeans, sweaters 
• medium bag can hold: shirts
• smallest bag can hold: socks and underwear

 

i wasn't able to fit all six pairs of jeans in the largest bag but i could fit about 4 pairs. not bad!

 

after the annual SCAW (sleeping children around the world) charity concert, we finally had a chance to try roger mooking's kultura restaurant. like his other restaurant, nyood (pronounced 'nude'), it's like a tasting menu where you share as a group.

oh yum. definitely a good choice. the only problem was that there were so many yummy items that we over-ordered. at the same time, the plus side is that the next time i go back, i'll have a clearer idea of what i want to focus on.

our crazy, long list (including appetizer, main menu items and dessert):

Edamame - Miso, Black Bean

Scallops with Gow Gee - Braised Beef Cheeks, soy Emulsion, Cripsed Shallots

Mushroom Orecchiette - Mailvoire Pinot Noir Pear Chutney, Aged Cheddar

Peppered Tuna Carpaccio - Daikon, Sesame Oil, Mizuna Cress, Miso Crisp

Naan - Garlic, Black Onion Seed, Harissa Yogurt

Indian Samosas - Shitake Mushroom, Pine Nuts, Truffled Paneer, Tamarind Date Chutney

Miso Black Cod - Yuzu Corn Puree, Pickled Radish Salad, Crystallized Tamarind

Crispy Tofu - Miso Consomme, Shitake, Garlic Chips

Chicken and Gnocchi - Rice Crunch, Spring Peas, Peppered honey

Black Quinoa Cursted Lamb Loin - Roasted Salsify, Gai Lan, Maple Gastrique

Chocolate Delice - Salted Caramel, Sesame Nougat, Twizzler Ice Cream

Flourless Chocolate Cake - Chocolate Pudding, Caramel Parfait, Frozen Lemon Curd

Vanilla Sugar Doughnut Holes - Caramel and Chocolate Dipping Sauce

keep in mind, for a lot of it, we had to order two as there were about 5 adults and chaeli, whom loved the food that she tried but was a bit disappointed that roger mooking himself wasn't there to greet her (he's one of her favouirte 'cookers' as she likes to call it, from foodtv.ca). okay, i admit it. i was disappoint too, even though i knew full well that he wouldn't be there.

my favourite was the black cod, mushroom orecchiette and the tuna carpaccio. the tofu and scallops were also amongst some of my faves.

Having spent the last 12 hours unpacking boxes, juggling the baby, moving furniture, cleaning, wiping, bleaching, building, and remodeling our new home with my husband, our baby, my brother-in-law, and my in-laws... I can honestly say that this has been the most blessed year of my life.

Fantastic family, awesome friends, steady jobs, food in our pantry, roof over our heads... I have so, so much to be thankful for!

alright - just one more observation that I have to make from my bodypump class, which i wrote about yesterday... okay, maybe two. because there's this little petite brunette who attends the class and she really is just that. petite. but with very noticeable breasts. and not in the bad way. i'm not saying that she's so out of proportion that she might fall over but seriously - she's stacked and well, it's very hard not to notice.

but other then that, i've noticed that on the occassion, we get some male clientele in the class. and without fail, i honestly do not know what they are trying to prove.

there they are, all arms but with a big pop-belly, loading up the weights and ready to go.

not even after the first exercise, are they able to last.

here is where i smirk. way more then towards the teens that i wrote about yesterday because at least those teens proved to us that they weren't there to try and prove anything and were, actually, not the typical, pain in the ass teens we normally stereotype them for.

but these men! exactly what did they think they were trying to do - impress us?

i lose count at all the times they end up dropping their weight right to the ground before we finish a set, creating a huge thud as the instructor, even with the mic, tries to talk over the noise as she brings us all to the finale. at this point, our muscles are starting to shake, sweat is stinging our eyes, and we are doing everything in our power to try and overcome that lactic acid build-up so we can finish the set together - as a team. and basically, just bring it on home.

but that loud thud? that annoying distraction?

it makes me want to just face THAT GUY and say, "did you seriously think that this is about how much you can lift/press? this is about ENDURANCE, baby - not maximum weight. take it outside to the rest of the meat heads if THAT's what you're looking for!"

morons.