Life with the Two Crazy Dogs

My gerberras I bought couple of weeks ago are growing. The five lily plants are still sitting on the patio waiting for me to transplant them .

This is the strawberry plants I bought at Mernards 3 weeks ago. When I saw them in the store I was thinking to myself, “Hey, why don’t I get two plants, a big barrell and will have berries in the fall.” That’s what I did. Got the plants and the barrell and extra dirt. Soon after I got home, DB asked what is the barrell for. I told him it’s for the strawberry plants I bought. He proceeded to say, “You know you won’t get strawberries this year. The berries will produce next year.” The first thing that I spitted out was “What the hell??? Why didn’t you tell me??” Of course he didn’t know because I tell him I was going to get some in the first place. Then he said, “Strawberry plant multiplies itself, and when there are fruit on the plants, you need to get some sort of a netting to put over the plants to prevent the birds from eating the fruits.” Alrightie then, Mr. Gardener. Remind me again next year.

Yesterday while I was on my walk along Parkwood Dr, there is this little thing the lady stuck on her garden of freshly planted perennials “Grow Dammit”. I thought that was hilarious. I hope with the long awaited rain we had today will help with the growing.

This Friday, May 25 is Vänskä Conducts Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 at the Minnesota Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. I exchanged these tickets when they cancelled the German Requiem in March due to inclement weather.

Told DB to come with me since he didn’t want me to go by myself, his response: “Urgh”. Very nice of him. See, he does not want me to go alone but he won’t tag along, plant his butt and take and expensive nap. That’s the least he can do, right? Tell ya, he’s one of a kind.

Then, I received a call from the receptionist at the executive area on Monday and told me I won two tickets to Joshua Bell Plays Bruch Violin Concerto at the St Paul Chamber Orchestra, Ordway Center this Saturday, May 26 at 8 p.m. I didn’t expect to get my name picked. Knowing my luck……never that lucky. So happened a lady returned the tickets because she could not make it, so the receptionist picked my ticket.

Heard from my colleague that the Ordway Center’s acoustics are just superb. Simmie will be joining me for both concerts. I have heard a lot about Joshua Bell initially from my sister, and since then, I have heard him on the radio, ABC evening news and of course on the MN classical station. It was funny to see when Joshua Bell was in NY city playing in the train station for the heck of it if anyone recognizes him, no one paid attention to him except for a little girl and a lady. The rest of the commuters walked passed him without planting a glance at him.

I’m just pumped for this weekend plus it the holiday weekend. I can stay up later and just do whatever I want. 3-day weekend……Yeeehah!!!

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Ok, this post is long over due.

Just to update a little, school is done for this semester. I handed in my portfolio of two papers on Tuesday, May 15th. I am so glad it’s done with. Sixteen weeks seems an eternity. I registered for a summer class, Principles of Management, which commenced on May 31. I even signed up for eFACTS which will deduct a monthly payment from my checking every month. Paying the entire lump sum is way too much for me. Boss even approved my tuition reimbursement application. Yippee!! It’s too bad my colleague is not signing for this class. So much for a buddy. I was super busy during Mother’s day weekend. On Sunday, I made some fried rice and curry chicken for the week’s dinner. In the middle of frying the onions, I called my mom to wish her Happy Mother’s Day. It is always nice to call home whether to my mom, dad or my sis. I always want to call my brother who is in Sabah, but he is located in the jungle with no service on his cell. Back to my call with my mom, it was short and sweet. We talked for 21 minutes because that’s all I have left on my card. I keep forgetting to buy more minutes, which I think is more procrastination than forgetfulness.

Mom and dad were still awake watching football. I got all the scoop about their remodeling of the bathroom and the best thing was installing air conditioners in the living room, master and the second bedroom which was room. She said she wants to install the air conditioner in that room so that when I come home for a visit I can sleep better “shu shu fook fook” (comfortable). The last time I was in Ipoh at my parents’, I was over at my friend’s home more than I was at my parents. After I was done cooking, I went to Mernards and bought two strawberry plants and three lilies plants. I even bought a barrel for the strawberries, extra dirt and cedar mulch. I went right to transplanting them when got home. Moreover, my lavender plants came 2 days ago and I planted them, too.

Just this pass week I was just tired. The whole work week I went to bed late and when the end of the day on Friday, I knocked out on the couch while Survivor:Fiji (recorded) was on. I was out for an hour plus till DB got home and I still refused to budge. My tired ass just couldn’t move, but I had to coz I need to get my groceries done and get dinner. Since it was Friday, it’s our junk food night – Chinese take out from Satay-2-Go.

Saturday, I went to the consignment shop to get some pants and jeans for my widening butt. I think I spend about 2 hours in that store going through all those clothes. Then I proceeded to ProEx to get my passport pictures taken. I hope that the pictures will work since the background is not sky blue. From there I went to Target and Cubs and finished my grocery shopping.

When I got home, DB was getting ready to mow the yard. After I put away the groceries, I went out to pick up poop. It was warm out and I could feel the sun burning my skin on my arms. Needless to say, I already have a tan and summer is not here yet.

On Sunday, Simmie, Forrest and I went to the Minneapolis farmer’s market. It was my first time there. The wind was nippy. Despite the weather, there were so many people out there. I bought 5 more lily plants. From the farmer’s market we wanted to have lunch at an Indian restaurant but they don’t open till noon. So, we went to the oriental store to get my oriental groceries done and after that we went to Sambol restaurant in Eagan. Great lunch with great company. I was so full that I skipped dinner.

It seems my weekends are always busy. I hardly have much free time to do my stuff anymore. *Just wait till school start!!*

It’s Saturday and I didn’t feel like doing my final paper. The weather turned cool after DB and I came back from running our weekly errands. We even stop at ACE hardware store to get the usual stuff for spring - furnace filters, weed killers, outdoor pails, water hose reeler, and flash lights. Little stuff from the store costs $100….we haven’t bought the wheel barrow yet.

When we got home, I thought I should drive over to Cubs Garden Center to look at some patio and hanging basket plants. So, I spent my money on these plants….$80+

Gerbera plants. I bought four of them since they were 2 for $7 which I thought was a good buy.

This is what they look like after I transplanted them to different pots.

The two blue ceramic pots were my old pots for my dead lavender plants from last year and the other pot holder previously holds my mums plant. Obviously my green thumb was not working very well.

The two smaller plants are the dead lavender plants and the bigger one is the mum’s - all dried to the bone.

In addition to the gerberas, I bought pot of petunias with red flowers, white petunias and a pot of geranium.

Then I proceeded into the store to get a house plant since I killed one of them, the Peace Lily. I bought this plant, Schefflera Actinophylla which is also called “money plant”. Hopefully it will bring in good fortune to our household!

Schefflera actinophylla or the umbrella plant

And finally, here is the barrell of wild flowers I germinated 2 weeks ago. The empty spots, well, they were ate up by Coopster. For some reason, he loves to eat dirt, don’t ask me why. Labs are known to be garbage dog.

These are pictures taken with SD’s camera. The pictures turned out good compared to our old 1.5 MP camera.

The crab apple tree a week ago filled with flowers, and…….this is what it looks like today. We had 55 to 60 mph wind last weekend and we lost power for about 45 minutes. Dakota Electric was quick to fix the power lines.

Here is DB riding his can’t-live-without toy. It was a nice day to mow the grass. He sure looks like he’s having a fun time out there.

Last couple of days the temp went up to mid 80s. Took the boys for their walk at 7 p.m. and this is what they look like when they got home.

Coopster begging to come in. He can never decide whether he wants in or out. Ranger waiting for his dinner.

I was getting sick of the blue on this blog…so, instead of editing my papers, I’m putzing with the looks of my blog. Finally, I’m satisfy with this color. In addition to the colors, I managed to widen the margins on the sidebars where now they are not eaten up like before.

Now, I’m getting ready to “keen chau koong”.

I bought this pancake mix couple of weeks ago. We had a craving for pancakes and didn’t want to go to IHOP (International House of Pancakes) down in Apple Valley. I drove to the organic store by our home and bought this mix. (The picture is not the best.)

We have not had anything with buckwheat before. I thought it would be nice to start adding more healthy food into our daily diet.

The texture of the pancakes came out great. I forgot to take pictures of them. We were too hungry and walloped them down pretty darn quick. I also added chopped walnuts, dried cranberries and raisins into the mixture. It was delicious.

We both had 3 pieces with our usual maple syrup and the last piece I had I added organic brown rice syrup. I was very surprised this syrup has a great taste to it. Not too sweet and the consistency is the same as the maple syrup.

Needless to say, after we stuffed our face with pancakes, I skipped lunch and dinner was salad and left overs of brats and burger. The pancakes took care of the carbs for the day.

I made this herbal jelly yesterday. Mom sent several packets to me from the last care package I received.

I could not remember when was the last time I had this. This herbal jelly was manufactured in Hong Kong by the famous Eu Yan Sang Chinese herbal store.

The herbal jelly in this powdered form is easy to make - especially my type of person!

Pour the contents into a bowl, add 250ml water, and mixed it up. Boil 1 liter of water (I only boiled half of what they asked for) and pour the mixed concoction in, add sugar, stir well, and pour it into a container to cool. I put in honey and some Splenda instead of regular sugar. I don’t have any fancy-mancy containers, so poured it into a Rubbermaid container.

DB saw the packet as shown above and the first thing that came out from his mouth is, “What is this?” I told him he will not like it as there is a hint of bitterness to it. He did not say a word then.

For me, I ate half of what’s in that container and stored the rest in the refrigerator. Yummy!!

At last, she’s in an office.

We need to get a cake to celebrate!

We don’t have to listen to her loud conversations anymore. Conversations that sounded so condescending.

“LISTEN TO ME.”
“NO, YOU CANNOT DO THAT…. NO YOU CAN’T! HUH!!”
“CAN YOU HEAR ME?” Yeah, we can hear you loud and clear, clear across 4 offices away.

We don’t have to listen to her shouting from her cube to couple of cubes next to her or across her.

“ABC, ARE YOU READY FOR COFFEE?”
“ABC, ARE YOU THERE?”

We don’t have to listen to her telling her husband or her kids what to do.

“ARE YOU PICKING ____ UP? ….WHY NOT?”
“YOU HAVE TO FINISH YOUR HOMEWORK BEFORE I GET HOME.”

I’m so glad she‘s out of our area. This co-worker of mine whom I shall call Ms. Patronizing, can never talk or speak in a softer tone. Her volume is constantly set on high. Ever since I have started with this company, she is always sitting at a close proximity within my work area. The only one time I don’t have to listen to her was when I moved to the new File Room on the third floor. I was all by myself. Happiness was short lived. I moved out from the File Room after a year to a cube which was two cubes away from her. I could hear every single word in her conversations. Conference calls and Webex sessions were the worst. Sometimes other colleagues of mine would stand up, look at each other, and shake our heads.

When we knew she was going to move to an office, we were counting the days for when she will move to her office and shut that damn door.

Now, we are hoping she won’t yell from her office to speak to her co-workers 2 cubes outside her office.

Please click on the pictures to get a bigger view of them.

Whiskey barrel with wildflower seeds; chickadee on the bird feeder

eating until it’s getting round; our make-shift gate

A male bird looking out for a mate??; the stupid squirrel

Ranger’s allergy reaction; Cooper enjoying a scratch in the sun….

…and time for a dump; and finally, my life saver for Ranger!

Spring has definitely sprung. Enjoy the 60s and 70s temperatures while I can!

Ranger under the crab apple tree

Bird feeder with 1/2 the food gone

…on the ground

The lavender plants I ordered & waiting…..

A chickedie having a afternoon snack

I updated this post to include some pictures…..