end of week 1 - go!
- started off the new year with a (brief) hike through castle rock.
- brushed twice and flossed everyday this week (+ listerine)!
- made baked halibut and chocolate pots, courtesy of jamie oliver.
- also made make-ahead steel cut oats.
- tried making lemon curd and lemon marmalade but the results were not edible…
- tracking expenses - yes! saving money - no!
- taking a picture everyday back on track.
not a bad start - only 994 days left to go.
here we go again.
Ringing in the new year (and procrastinating my quarter-life crisis until now) by starting a new list. Is it sad that I can’t think of anything else I’d like to accomplish in the next 2.5 years? Other than travelling and baking of course.
Well let’s not start off on such a pessimistic note. My mantra (hopefully) for the upcoming future:
10 Ways to Love Others (via)
1. Tell them about their brilliance. They likely can’t see it and they don’t know its immensity, but you can see it, and you can illuminate it for them.
2. Be authentic, and give others the gift of the real you and a real relationship. Ask your real questions. Share your real beliefs. Go for your real dreams. Tell your truth.
3. Don’t confuse “authenticity” with sharing every complaint, resentment, or petty reaction in the name of “being yourself.” Meditate, write, or do yoga to work through anxiety, resentment, and stress on your own so you don’t hand off those negative moods to everyone around you. Sure, share sadness, honest dilemmas, and fears, but be mindful: don’t pollute.
4. Listen, listen, listen. Don’t listen to determine if you agree or disagree. Listen to get to know what is true for the person in front of you. Get to know an inner landscape that is different from your own, and enjoy the journey. Remember that if, in any conversation, nothing piqued your curiosity and nothing surprised you, you weren’t really listening.
5. Don’t waste your time or energy thinking about how they need to be different. Really. Chuck that whole thing. Their habits are their habits. Their personalities are their personalities. Let them be, and work on what you want to change about you—not what you think would be good to change about them.
6. Remember that you don’t have to understand their choices to respect or accept them.
7. Don’t conflate accepting with being a doormat or betraying yourself. Let them be who they are, entirely. Then, you decide what you need, in light of who they are. Do you need to make a direct request that they change their behavior in some way? Do you need to take care of yourself better? Do you need to set a boundary or to change the relationship? Take care of yourself well, without holding anyone else in contempt.
8. Give of yourself, but never sacrifice or compromise yourself. Stop if resentment is building and retool. Don’t do the martyr thing. It helps no one and nothing.
9. Remember that everyone you encounter was created by divine intelligence and has an important role to play in the universe. Treat them as such.
10. If you want to keep growing emotionally and spiritually for the rest of your life, accept this as your mantra and try to live as if it were true: Everything that I experience from another human being is either love, or a call for love.
71. The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade by Sally Wade
71. She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor
71. Mastiff: The Legend of Beka Cooper by Tamora Pierce
92. Develop a Sunday routine.
This was my 奶奶 - my dad’s mom. In the fall of 2010, she contracted pneumonia and developed a buildup of phlegm, causing her to cough constantly. In addition, because of her advanced age (90+!), her epiglottis - that flap that blocks food from entering the windpipe - was weakened and she had trouble keeping food from going into the wrong pipe.
Basically, she had trouble eating, making her weaker, which made her want to eat less.
My dad asked me and my sister to visit her on the weekends to make sure she ate lunch. During the week, she had a helper come in during the day, as well as lunchtime food delivery. However during the weekend, she was usually by herself and ate reheated salty Chinese takeout/lunchbox leftovers from the week. Since we were the grandkids, she felt obilged to eat while we ate lunch with her, and even more compelled to eat what we had brought/bought specifically just for her. Haha! Yes, we used common courtesy to coerce her into eating.
And so my sister and I went to her apartment on Sundays to bring her food, make sure she ate, and maybe take her out for pearl milk tea or a walk around the block.
Her health didn’t get better over the winter. I still don’t know how this happened, but her dentures stopped working (??) and all her bottom teeth fell out (???) so she stopped being able to chew real food. Either the lunch delivery takeout would be sent through a food processor or we’d buy her congee. We also started sneaking Ensure into her “mochas” (aka Ovaltine) to help supplement her meals. Seeing her every so often in the summer quickly turned into every Sunday and once or twice during the week.
And then, at the end of February, things got worse.
She stopped eating. She couldn’t get up or walk. She had to be lifted from her chair to her bed. She was hospitalized. The nurses gave her an IV drip which hydrated her and gave her lots of nutrients, giving everyone a sense of hope. People were talking about temporary hospice stays and regaining muscle strength.
She died March 14th, 2011.
71. Bossypants by Tina Fey
71. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
71. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
71. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
71. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
sorry guys, I know I keep promising updates, but things have been… keeping me preoccupied. soon!
sorry peoples…
I know I’ve been MIA for the past 2.5 months (holy-crapola…) but I’m trying to get back on track. Please to be expecting a big update in the next two weeks.
mahalo!
47. Tom Yam Kung - Spicy Soup with Lemongrass
via vatcharin bhumichitr’s gourmet thai in minutes
serves 4
2.5 cups chicken broth
1 lemongrass stalk, bruised and chopped into pieces
4 kaffir lime leaves, roughly chopped
2 small fresh red chiles, finely chopped
button mushrooms
shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp sugar
cilantro leaves
in a saucepan, heat the broth to boiling. add lemongrass, lime leaves, chiles, and mushrooms, and return to boil. add shrimp, fish sauce, lime juice, and sugar and simmer until shrimp cooked (about a minute).
(Source: deliciousness)
