I thought at my age there will be no more zits. Thought zits are just for teenagers! Well…honestly, during my teenage years I hardly have any zits. It’s only the occasion one or two every month Aunty Flo came along. However, now, it’s a whole different ball game….it’s zits galore. Every other day there is sure one or two pops out. This has been going for so many years since I came here. DB thinks it’s the climate and food. And of course have to add the stress!!! He kept insisting I need to look into acne products which I might have to. There are scars and scars from these zits. It really makes me sad because I never had this problem before and my face was spotless before! Hehehehe….those were the days, I guess.
- Blogging on my life events & whatever that comes to my mind!
Archives for Personal
Nice to get out for lunch
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The boss took me out for lunch this afternoon. We had planned to go to one of the restaurants by Lake Minnetonka. She had asked me if it’s ok to have lunch there….I was like “Yes, mam!” Anything to have a meal by one of those nice fancy restaurants that I never go to. Her reason to go to that particular restaurant that is famous for its lobsters was to get a gift certificate for our former boss.
Well, unfortunately that restaurant does not open for lunch. So she and I landed at Big Bowl in The Galleria. It was a good lunch and we chatted about everything except very little about work. The boss is good about separating work and leisure. This lunch is just for fun, nothing fancy. During these lunches we always talk about our families. Her daughter is around my age and I have met and was one of her customers when she was doing her skincare stuff. However, the girl now is looking into a sales job that she thinks will give her more flexibility working from home. The boss’ daughter is one heck of a smart kid and a good negotiator! I hope she will get that sales job she is interviewing for.
The boss said we will do this again next month. She said she wants to do this kind of lunch every month if possible which is music to my ears! When our former boss was still with us, she and I had always wanted him to take us out for lunch, not just work and work, but that boss was just not up to it. We think it’s a man thing – not all man though, to make it clear. Now that our former boss is retired, just she and I, so she is doing the calls. It’s really very nice of her and I should grateful for her and what she has done to go all gungho to keep my job.
Do I want to go back to school?
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The thought has crossed my mind many times. Realistically, I should go back to school to get my degree for a better job. However, i don’t have the drive to do it anymore. My boss has mentioned to me about accredited online degrees that the company will pay for its tuition. Yes, I know about them, looked into and read about the programs offered too, but the motivation is not in me. I think thoughts of getting a degree for myself is out the door. I know it was a waste since I am already halfway through with my generals, with another 24 credits and I will have them done. Also I know there is no age barrier in completing one’s education, but I wish I have the drive to get her done. Who knows, one day when I’m 50 years old and all of a sudden the drive to get a degree returns! 
< 10 years anniversary >
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Saturday will be my 10 years with my company. Quite a feat as I have not work for a company for more than 3 years. My company gives its employees anniversary gifts who celebrate their 5, 10, 20, 25, and so on with gifts. They are not individually personalized gifts. There is the company logo on the chosen giftif we choose to have it on. On my 5th year I picked up a dart board which we used it a few times and it’s now in the hands of DB’s nephew. For my 10th year, I chose a mantel clock for our fireplace mantel. I think I will get it tomorrow delivered to my house. Can’t wait to see what it looks like.
< Eating badly >
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Since I have good blood work results, I have been indulging on really bad stuff…stuff that I usually don’t eat mainly because they will make me fat and super bad for the health. But recently, I didn’t care, I ate them. They are chicken skin grilled till the fats all gone – just the skin. Fat from around pork chops. Again, this is grilled too. We usually leave the fat for grilling to add the extra flavor. Bacon grease is the next one. I use them for cooking, sometimes, not all the time, and when I use it, it’s very little or if I use it to bake potatoes, then the grease will be rubbed all over the potatoes. They are really good on baked potatoes, I tell ya. I’m sure by next year when I go for my blood work I will be told to take cholesterol supplement to lower my cholesterol especially high cholesterol runs in both sides my family. The good thing is I am exercising every day, so will that really helps with the bad stuff I’m stuffing myself? I hope so!
We got what we wanted
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I have to say this, God has been watching over DB and I. Ever since we scrambled all over hunting for a place to stay where we can keep the boys, every thing seems to fall through. All till the very dayof signing the rental lease, we don’t know if we can keep Chase. But it all worked out good for us. God answered our prayers. The landlady picked us even though we weren’t one of the first come first serve lookers. I take it because of our combined salaries our application was approved even though I had to run back to work to fax her a lot of other paperwork to support my new salary.
On the day of the move, we still had no keys to our new place till after 12 noon. I got up quite early to finish up some packing and then take Chase to the vet for his Bordatella (kennel cough) shot. I was crying knowing that he will be going to the kennel in New Prague (Ranger’s breeder). I told the vet if he can help us find a foster home for Chase, the vet was sad too but he said he will call one of his client if he (the client) wants to adopt Chase. Reason is the vet had to put the client’s dog down because of cancer 2 weeks ago. The vet said he will call me if he has news from the client. Till today, no call.
We went to sign the lease at 11 on the day of our move, Wednesday, May 5, and had to go through the house with the land lady and all took more than an hour. We talked to her about temporary letting us keep Chase till we can find a foster home for him. The landlady had a meltdown and immediately said not a problem, we can actually keep him if we want to. She will close one eye. This is because since we are living in a townhome environment, maximum dogs allowed are two. Those are townhome association rules, not her rules. So, we were happy and I praised the Lord silently right then when she told us. No more crying for me. She said if we find that it’s too crowded in the home with 3 of them, let her know. Her SIL is looking at adopting a dog. The landlady said unless someone complains then we have to do something with one of the dogs.
When we got back, Justin, DB’s nephew and my friend’s hubby D were already busy filling the U-Haul moving truck. We rented a 24 foot truck – the biggest. I am glad I don’t have to move any of them boxes and furniture. It’s definitely a back breaker day. I’m sure glad that there were two younger guys to help DB, those two guys who are in lower ab workout everyday kind of guys. DB more or less were the director but helped a lot with the heavier stuff. We didn’t get everything we wanted into the truck. By the time we got to the new house, it was 5:30 pm, i think or it could be 6 pm. While the guys unloaded the truck, I had to go back and forth between the new and old house. Whatever I can pack into my car, I did just that. The final run was to get the dogs. It was 10:30 p.m. when I finally loaded the 3 boys from the old house with their beds, food and food/water bowls into DB’s truck. Those 3 guys back at the new house was unloading the last of the “few” boxes from the truck. My friend’s hubby left earlier since he work the night before and barely had any sleep. So I helped a little when I got back and finally pull the truck door down at 11 p.m. The essential stuff were put in the house, i.e. TV, beds, kitchen, pantry, dining table, chairs, piano, sofa and couple of boxes for the rooms. The rest were dumped into the garage.
Till today, we still have a few more big items to pick up in the old house. The bank’s attorneys are nice to let us take our time to clear the house, take whatever we want. Some of the utilities like electric is still on at the old house since we need electricity to turn the lights on. There is no internet and satelite/cable at our new house but utilities are set up. The landlady is paying for the trash, so we are free from that.
I have taken some pictures of the house basically the kitchen. Just can’t get use to using a so modern stove range. It’s those electric flat glass range. Hate it to the max.
We are slowly settling in – kitchen is set up except for the pantry. We still have our pantry stuff in boxes. The landlady is coming over this weekend to talk about shelving for our pantry and also to bring the plumber to fix the jaccuzzi. Yes, there is a jaccuzzi in the bathroom. DB said he can’t wait to jump into that tub when it’s fixed. This new house has no basement, so a storm room is the replacement just in case of tornadoes.
This house is newer, think it was built in 2005. Barely any trees around. Our unit is at the cul-de-sac, a corner one. So we have the side yard for the boys. I have to put them on leashes all the time now when they want to go out for their business, but sometimes I don’t. The boys are finding it difficult now since they can’t simply go out anytime they want like before in the old house. Now they have to go out only when I or DB sends them out. I still throw the frisbee for Chase. Good thing we are in the end lot, we have the whole of the side and front yard that is basically public access.
The only things we need to get for the house are curtains to darken the room and one for the entry way glass panel. We are hoping the curtains for the room will help reduce the noise from the traffic. We now live right in front of the freeway (35W), a free way that connects north of MN all the way south to Gulf of Mexico in Texas. Also DB is working nights once he gets done with his training next week, he will be sleeping during the day, the curtains will help him sleep, I hope.
I’m very grateful for what we found and all the help we had during our move. There are still a lot of junk I want to clear off and to make our house “a liveable house”. We are thankful for what we got and the good Lord has definitely provided us plenty during and so far, is still providing us. Will update with pictures once we get our internet hook up this weekend.
< Mother's Day >
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This is the first year I didn’t send or call my mom on Mother’s Day. Sad isn’t it? The reason is I have not set up my PC or internet service in our new place. We are only “stealing” wireless connection from the neighbors using DB’s ancient Flintstone laptop. (I call my mom on Skpe which is 100 times cheaper than my cellphone.) I wanted to get my mom Estee Lauder’s eye wrinkle cream but I didn’t even get it. Top priority was to get moved I guess. I know my mom understands it. Last year this time that’s when my late father was getting ill but not too bad. I mailed out my mom’s MOther’s Day card to my dad’s PO Box and turns out my dad and my mom had not gone of the house for weeks becoz of my dad’s back pains. I kept reliving this time last year – the emails, text messages and posts and then the Father’s Day card I was going to mail out the first week of June last year but didn’t happen. Time is definitely running along fast, sad to think back but life still goes on and look towards a brighter day every day.
< Less dieting >
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We moved to a town home about 10 minutes drive south of where our old house is. This new place is directly infront of the freeway, the freeway that will take us right to The Gulf of Mexico, if we want to! This is my first time living in a town home. It’s almost the same as the terrace homes in M’sia with a teeny postage stamp yard in the front of the house. But ours is a corner home so we got the side for the dogs. Although I cannot just let them out now since there is no fence in the yard, the extra yard we have is nice. I can throw the frisbee for Chase and the ball for Cooper. I still have to put the collar and leash them up for all their walks. There are extra walks for me and them now…..no diet pills needed for me, thank you very much. Two walks in the morning before I go to work. First walk is with the two C’s and then Ranger last. The reason?? The townhomes are run by an association. Association rules states only 2 dogs per household. Right now, the landlady is closing one eye. With all these walks, I actually tend to get hungry faster and eat more. Don’t feel as if I put on any weight, loss some but the constant eating is scary. I guess it’s a good thing that my metabolism is running on speed!
< Moved over with... >
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…sort of over…we still have some stuff in the old house that need DB’s nephew to help move them. The nephew has a pickup and we don’t. Hopefully tomorrow or by Thursday we are able to get those crap out of the old house and that house, my friend, will be history. All these moving crap really put a good old stress on me and DB. Stress acnes that Acneticin will not even help. Don’t care ’bout the face now, worry about the junk we still have in boxes and more furniture and boxes in the garage. I have not taken a picture of the house (inside nor outside) and the garage fill will our crap yet. Will do that soon. At least we are moved, have a roof over our heads and the 3 boys are still with us…so far. Will tell the whole story of the move later.
Stress to the max
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Today is Tuesday and we are still in this house, semi packed, still waiting for one application approval from the rental property owner, waiting for the church members to get back to me if they can find a foster or temporary home for the young-un (Chase) and I still have time for blogging!!
Most of my stuff are packed except for bathroom and clothes. DB, no idea what he had packed, his office crap were packed, i know that. We arranged for helpers – my friend’s hubby, DB’s 2 nephews and whoever the nephews can bring with them to help. We also arranged for a moving truck and booked a storage unit for just in case one of the rental properties denied our application…the rental unit we want is much x10 smaller than the other one we saw which we can store a lot more of the bigger items.
We will be bringing the two older boys with us to whichever rental unit we end up with. Chase will be going somewhere which I do not know where. Initially we looked at a house and the owner and his wife were ok and approved our application, and the owner said ok with the 3 dogs. The next day when we were getting ready to leave for the owner’s to drop the rent and deposit check, the owner called to say his wife decided to declined our application because she does not want dogs in the house!!!! Knnb, that almost blew my faith away, and I’m just hanging in there now. I was scrambling to find a place for us 5 and finally made up our decision to only keep the 2 older boys. We were torn….which one(s) to keep…the 2 older ones are more expensive since they are older and the young one is way cheaper. But we had the two older ones for 10 years and really hard to see them go to another home. So we decided to give Chase away since he is still young and someone can make a good hunting dog out of him. He has excellent hunting instincts. After making our decision, we hunt up the internet for house, townhomes, condos/apts. Saw a few townhomes (terrace homes) on Sunday and Monday. The last one we saw was yesterday afternoon and she wont get back to us till this afternoon.
The other townhome application was approved but like I said is very small and we have to put most of our stuff in storage (extra cost) and we don’t get to move to the one we want yet till next month. So we thought we will wait for the one we saw yesterday, slightly bigger and has a lot of storage space and of coz the rent is higher.
The entire weekend and up till this moment I’m typing this, I’m still worried, but the man said not to worry, everything will work out and we will be moved out by tomorrow before the sheriff comes knocking on our door and evict us.
One of DB’s nephews will be here later this afternoon. I got some sandwich meat for us coz I know I won’t have time to cook. I even bought plastic cups and use up some custom plastic cups I got from work last week, and paper plates. They are free, what the heck!
The only time I’m not stress is when I’m sitting right in front of the pc with FB games!!! Well, also when I walk the boys and especially walking Cooper and Chase…..the walk is way faster than when I walk Ranger.
Here’s a picture of Chasey, probably the last picture I will take of him. Picture taken few days ago after a lot of running and fetching, hence the hanging tongue….this dog lives to fetch.
One of the church member said he might have his parents take Chasey to northern Iowa where his parents own a hobby farm….big acreage for him to roam around, however, he has to be an outside dog which kinda saddens me, coz Chase is not an outside dog and never has been. I’m not sure, everything with him is still up in the air. I yet to hear from the other lady who arranges foster homes for dogs/cats. Keeping my fingers cross he will have a home to go to by tomorrow night coz tomorrow will be his last day with us. I’m crying now.
And by the way, the three dogs knows something is up. They are extremely clingy. I guess they think we are sending them away for good or we are going somewhere and leaving them.
Will update later.
Blood test results
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My blood test results from my annual physical two weeks ago came back. Every thing is good and especially the blood count since I’m still pooping blood. It’s significant enough that I can see on the toilet paper. The doctor suggest double intake of fiber. Wonder glucomannanwill help me. DB said we should change white rice to brown rice. I don’t mind it but then I cannot imagine using brown rice for fried rice. We did try brown rice before ages ago. I kinda like it and it does give me better poop! Sorry for being so disgusting, but I guess it’s my blog, I can write anything I want! Anyways, I quit buying becoz it’s so darn expensive and since we eat rice everyday. Yeah, I have become a “farn toong” (rice bucket). Right now I told DB I will change to brown rice only after we are done with the white.
Next thing that my doctor check was my Vitamin D. I’m so lacking in this vitamin. I didn’t bring the results with me, but my vit D count was way, way below the average. My doc told me I have to up my vit D to 2000 mg a day. That seems like a lot but I guess from the results, DB thinks it’s normal. Oh well, will do what the doc says. The next day I went to Target and bought myself both vit D and calcium. I did ask the doctor when i should check for calcium, she said only after menopause. Reason I asked was I’m lactose intolerant so I don’t take milk except for soy milk, which I guess is not enough. I know I can get my vit D from the sun, but I’m shying away from the blazing sun. So sue me!
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As I have mentioned before, DB finally received a job offer….Praise the good Lord. It’s a full time permanent job at a food packaging company maintaining machines. He and i are so happy but deep down we are just worried sick but then we both know things will fall in place somehow or rather. Just leave it to the hands of the good Lord, I kept telling myself. Also, I’m so proud and happy for DB. He came to church with me last week. He asked me on the Saturday what the man’s dress code at the church I’m going to. I said it’s super casual…..honestly some guys I saw was wearing bermudas and sandals in the summer. He thought like in his days, men will wear ties and bow ties for Mass. Not in this church. I think the churches now and back in the old days (1960′s – 70′s) have changed tremendously – men do wear their Sunday best back then Since I don’t own dresses or dress pants, my Sunday best is a decent pair of jeans and shirt/blouse/sweater.
Work rambles
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Yesterday I went for my big boss’ retirement party held at one of the Events room in the company. It is sad to know he will be leaving. He is one of my best boss. I always find working with male bosses are much more easier than females. That’s my opinion. The big boss’ last day is next week, Friday. So it will just leave me and my boss in our department….just two lonely souls. My department has shrunk a lot and the department admin too has left to a different job in the company, I’m left with more responsibilities, one of them is to order office supplies. Not too bad since I can order up whatever I fancy for Post-its pads, pens, folders and etc. But I still have this “job burnt out” that I can’t seem to shave off. It’s bugging me and making me put on a mask at work every day. I hate having that feeling and I’m praying it will go away fast.
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Since the bank is not working with us, we are just going to leave whatever we don’t want anymore, mainly big items like old broken tv stands, entertainment stand, electronics in the house. Honestly DB does not like that idea…it was my idea to leave those crappy stuff there instead of us having to drive to the recycle center, pay and dump them there. He said we could do it. I said to heck with the bank! Revenge, I called it, but seriously, the bank don’t even want to work with us anymore and the buyer is left hanging whether his purchase has gone through or not. So, the heck with the banks.
Clean as a whistle
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Warning: This is a super long write up of my colonoscopy and it could be grotesque to some since I’m talking about colon and stuff.
Yesterday was the day for my colonoscopy. I got up at 6-ish and started the rest of the mixture prep, laced each glass with Crystal Light lemonade. By 7:45 I was done with the mixture and was in and out of the bathroom purging nothing but yellow water! Yellow in color from the mixture even though the mixture is clear white. Sorry, I know this is disgusting but it’s good info for myself when I need to do it again 11 years down the road!
My appointment was at 1:10. I was cold, tired and in a better mood than the day before. I blamed it on low sugar since I had no food in me over 24 hours. I took a little nap to kill time. FB-ing didn’t cut it either. When time to go, DB drove me to Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital in St Louis Park. It’s about 35 minutes ride.
The first thing I saw when I got up to the Digestive and Endoscopy Center was all patients who were waiting at their seats were old folks. I checked in and waited 15-20 minutes before the nurse called my name. I had my last duty call before the nurse called me actually which was good coz she did ask if I needed to go one last time. The nurse is an older lady, so sweet so gentle and she is also a dog lover! She walked me in and stopped to pick up a blanket from a warmer. The temperature in the hospital was cool or DB said I’m just cold coz of no fuel in me.
She told me what to do when we got into the procedure room – undress everything except bra and jewelry and put on the hosp gown, and put my clothes and stuff in the bag provided. I should have brought my cellphone into the procedure room so I could take some pictures of the entire room with all the gadgets, monitors, tubes, this and that. A lot of weird things I have not seen before.
The nurse came back and talked to me about my medical history and praised how healthy I am. Then she had to look for the vein on my arm for IV and she couldn’t find it coz my vein was hidden – if i’m cold, my veins will go into hiding. She went out and came back with a few warm blankets, one to wrap my right arm up (IV arm) and another for my entire body. After a few minutes of chit chatting and walked me thru the procedure, I was getting warmer, she came over and set up the IV – actually to put the catheter in. She also said the doc is tied up with another patient and she has to go out to prep another patient up. She will be back and gave me the “button” incase I need something.
Finally the doc showed up together with the nurse. Doc S came in and was surprised to see a much younger doc. Was expecting a middle age doc! Doc S said I am his 42nd patient for the week. Dang that’s a lot of colon he has to look at! Hehehehehe…. Anyways, the Doc S asked me a bunch of questions on my poop, pain, blood. Looks like the best time to talk about poop is to a doc who works around that sort of thing!
After all the jibber jabbering, the nurse pumped in the meds to sedate me. Wow, after the first shot into my IV I felt “high” and the second was for relaxation. She already told me earlier I might fall asleep which some ppl do or me awake.
I was awake and watching throughout the entire procedure and asking questions as the tube goes up my colon. Can’t feel anything except for crampiness in the gut. Cramps is from the air the Doc puts in to inflate the colon for better viewing. My colon was clean as a whistle except for a part I asked if that was the culprit. The doc and nurse said yes, it’s an internal hemeroid. Oh and also the nurse kept reminding to take deep breaths, too, as she was monitoring my oxygen level. She mentioned earlier she will remind me to do that becoz of the sedation meds – the meds will make the patient breath shallower. Plus she said the deep breaths will help with the gut cramps.
When that was all done, total time was about 10 minutes, the nurse wheeled me in to the recovery room to rest before I head home. They will walk DB in to the room also. The first thing when the procedure was done, the nurse asked me what i wanted to drink…..water or juice – orange, apple, cranberry, grape. I asked for cranberry and once I got to the recovery room the juice was there for me. I sucked it down within seconds. It tasted heaven!
Here’s me in my HIGH glory look.
All I wanted was to sleep but first thing first, I asked DB to get my pursey thing and take pictures….all for the sake of blogging. Asked DB to take some pics of me first.
Then I took over the phone and took some pictures while slightly groggy.
My lovely catheter.
My bag of clothes.
And finally the designated driver reading up the post procedure instructions from the nurse.
Overall the entire procedure was painless unless you count the pain from the IV and cramps which was tolerable. First thing when I got home was snacked on crackers and drank a bunch of water. I had no water or any liquid after I finished up the prep mixture in the morning and took an hour nap.
I have definitely loss some weight and the skin is even clearer – all toxins cleared right out me I guess. So everything is positive from this outcome! The remedy to bloodless stool is to take fiber supplements – Metamucil, Fibercon, etc. As of writing this I have not pooped since yesterday! Definitely a lot of veggies and oranges for dinner.
So there, the story of my colon check, all turns out good. Thankful for no major problems. 11 years down the road, I hope I will still have this blog to remind me what the procedure is.
Filed under Personal
Apr 22, 2010