Time is really flying by so quickly. It’s already mid November, it’s the holiday season, again!! Shopping goers packing the malls. I was at the big mall last Saturday which of course filled with weekend shoppers. I have to say not all shops are busy. Sometimes I do wonder how these shops that are not busy with shoppers, how in the world do they survive in a big mall. I suppose that’s where small business loans come in handy to help with the rent, at least!
- Blogging on my life events & whatever that comes to my mind!
Weekend appt
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I was invited to an engagement reception of a church member. It is on this weekend. I wanted to go since the first and last engagement I ever attended was my own eons ago!! 
The weird thing is the invite came kind of last minute and how much that couple has been talking about buying diamond engagement rings from Reeds. I really have to forego the invite because I have an appointment with my former coworker at Panera Bread on that day. I can always see this couple some other time, but my former coworker is back in the city for a visit. So yeah, a girl to girl chat will be more for me this weekend!
Warmer weather saves energy
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This fall, the weather is perfect with temperatures in the upper forties to the lower fifties. I love it. Love it because it definitely saves us a ton of gas money and electric, too. The man wants it warmer in the house but hey, I think it’s perfect in the house with the temperature set to 65. I wanted to drop the temperature to 63 when I got to bed but the man said it’s too cold since we do not go to bed at the same time. Nevertheless, 65 degrees is good enough. The furnace is hardly running except on occasional nights, the temp drops to the twenties.
When we rented this house, the landlord gave us a choice if we wanted to enroll in the energy saving plan, the same as Texas energy plans. We did not sign up for any of the plans. We thought we will pay the bill with what energy we use for the furnace and heat for water. The energy bill so far is bearable, not a killer yet which I hope it would not be. We did sign up for the service plan which also include servicing the dishwasher. Knock on wood, every thing in the house is in good condition and no problems. So yes, if the weather continues to stay within the above mentioned ranged of temperature, I will be a very happy camper because my energy bill would be in a minimum amount!
A reminder for myself…
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I found this after reading the news about the Duggars expecting their 20th kid! So I was being a busy-body continued to read about the comments others wrote on this dangerous pregnancy the mother Duggar is going through. One of the commentersput the below list that she copiedout from the Duggars’ website. My opinion is it is a list I myself should be mindful of.
- Always use soft words, even when you don’t feel well.
- Always display kind actions and joyful attitudes, even if you have been mistreated. Have the right response by quickly forgiving others in your heart even before they ask.
- Always be enthusiastic and look for opportunities to praise others’ character.
- Always deflect praise and be grateful to God and others for the ways they have benefited your life.
- Always use manners and be respectful of others and their belongings.
- Always do what is right, even when others may not, or when no one is looking.
- Thank God for how He made you, for what He has given you and everything He allows you to go through. (Romans 8:28)
- Don’t mock or put others down. Develop compassion and pray for others.
- Never argue, complain, or blame. Quickly admit when you have done wrong and ask for forgiveness (even if you were only 10% at fault). Don’t wait till you’re caught. Be sure your sins will find you out. He who covers his sin will not prosper, but he that confesses and forsakes it shall find mercy.
- Have a tough accountability/prayer partner to daily share your heart with and to keep you in line (your parents, spouse). The power of sin is in secrecy.
- Be attentive and look for ways to serve others with sincere motives and no thought of self-gain.
- Think pure thoughts (Philippians 4:8, Romans 13:14).
- Always give a good report of others. Don’t gossip! Never tale-bear unless physical harm will come to someone. (Use Matthew 18.)
- Never raise a hand to hit.
- Never raise a foot to kick.
- Never raise an object to throw.
- Never raise a voice to yell.
- Never raise an eye to scowl.
- Use one toy/activity at a time. Share!
- Do your best to keep your surroundings neat, clean and organized.
- Never let the sun go down on your wrath.
(Don’t go to bed angry or guilty) - Amendment J.O.Y. -
-Put Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last.
What are we doing?
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Guest post of the week by Brittany Booker
We didn’t know what we were doing when we started our food truck – all we knew was that we made some mean Mexican foodand we wanted to share it with everyone else in the world. But you know, for us there’s something soulful about cooking for people you love and I just wanted to do something I LOVED doing every day instead of working on spreadsheets and things like that. Anyway, I got put in charge of all the logistical stuff like going to smallbusiness.xo.com and talking to the permit people with the city and my husband Max decided to get into the food side. He dealt with vendors and developed the recipes we’d use each day and you know, it really only took about three months before we were off! Business is great and I love the flexibility of having a literal moving business. I also love being able to cook all the time – it’s special to me to share my life and my work with my husband, too.
Updated: The 2 boys
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To the dogs now. The two dogs are loving the much cooler weather. The colder it is out there, there’s less and less panting. The day temperature so far is around lower 50′s F and evening is down to 40′s F which is really nice for outdoors. I have been spending a lot of time outside since it is so much cooler out.
Ok, back to the dogs…. Ranger is itching on his very bad hot spot. I forgot to take a picture of it . I will when I get home and upload it. The hot spot started off as a very small spot and was getting worse the beginning of fall which we sent him to the vet. Vet said it was infected, cleaned the wound and gave us antibiotics for him. It sure seems like every darn infection on a dog, the vet will prescribe antibiotics. The antibiotics were administered and done with in 2 weeks. Ranger also quit itching much but now….for some reason, he suka-suka scratched the spot till it bleeds. That night when I saw the blood on the carpet, I knew he was scratching it and I had to clean it up. I used diluted tea tree oil (melaleuca) to clean the wound. Surprisingly the bleeding stopped very quickly but the hug spot is still the same. Occasionally it will ooze blood. Dang, I really have a very bad feeling especially reading about the top 10 cancer related claims from VPI (Veterinary Pet Insurance). I took a snap shot of it from my email. However when I clicked on the links on my email it takes me to PetPlace.com.
It really makes me sick to see that Lymphoma is the number 1 on the list and worse was seeing number 5, Eyelid Cancer. Cooper had that too. Take a look at the picture I took which was taken 5 days before he left us. Can you see the lump under his eyelid?
I had mentioned the lump on Cooper to Dr M, maybe couple years ago. It was growing and was actually leaking blood and some times water. It looked lika pus. Dr M said it’s nothing to worry about. Again, it’s an infection from the oil glands around the eyes. He prescribed antibiotics and eye ointment. Those two medications work but it was just temporary. Oh well, there’s no sense crying over it and same with reading over his blood work (they were very bad). He is in better place now, seriously.
Ok, now to Chase, he is the replica of Cooper…..he whines for every thing like Cooper was, but Chase’s whines are loud as if someone is slaughtering him. The worse is when we get ready for our walks. I guess I should have trained him better when he was younger. Like the saying goes, you spend and give a lot of time and attention to the first one, when the second and third one comes into the picture, all obedience training goes down the sewer! Hahaha expecting the young ones to learn from the older ones. What a joke. He is actually getting some grays on his snout. He will 5 on December 28, no signs of slowing down with this fella. It’s alright with me. Get me running all the time when I take him for his walks. This guy here is as happy as a clam. Tail is forever wagging and jumping around like a little gremlin!
I’m going to take a picture of Ranger’s enlarged so-called hot spot. I said so-called because I don’t believe it’s a hot spot. I will send that picture to my friend’s son who is a veterinarian, an ophthalmologist, but I’m sure he will have some idea.
Updated: Here’s there best I can get of the lump. Cleaned it as much as i can but there are still dried up blood on it.
What’s up?
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That’s right, what’s up, peeps? There is nothing new on my end, for sure. It’s SSDD – same shit, different day. All I know is it’s already November and daylight savings ended last Sunday. However, I am feeling the winter blues already. It’s absolutely crazy.
I have going to bed around 9-ish every night and up at 4:15 am, yet I’m still tired, so tired that I actually nods off at my desk with eyes opened. Looks like i have to get back to some serious exercise to boost my energy levels. Moreover, I don’t see the sun much maybe that’s why the winter blues. I have to start using the SAD light, you can click on the link to find out more. I bought it last year and used it every day (15 mins max). I didn’t know about till I started talking to my coworker, she told me to get the SAD therapy light. It works if I used it religiously and for 1 hour. However, I don’t use it for 30 minutes or the recommended 1 hour. Now that I know my problem, I better take care of it.
I have been doing a lot of window shopping for my trip which is about 3 weeks left. It’s a scary thought coz I have not shop much…well, take that back. I did shop for my sister’s boys and some of her stuff, but the biggest headache is what to get for the older folks, i.e. my mom and our family friend (my mom’s age). I don’t want to get them any knick knacks or blouses. I thought of getting them chocolates, cookies, handbags (maybe), and then I’m left blank. Maybe get them a huge bottle of fish oil (1500 mg/capsule) since it’s so cheap here. I haven’t even clean out my luggage from the previous trip, and when was that??? July 2009! I have some bits and pieces of papers, flyers, books and no idea what else are in there.
This weekend I really have to buckle up to finish up what’s left I need to get – non parishable stuff. The parishable stuff are honey crisp and another newer breed apples for my sis, dried cranberries, munchies and not sure what else. I did write down what I needed to buy but I misplaced the list. This is call procrastinating!
Ok, next up is about the dogs! Woof, woof!
Filed under Personal
Facial oils
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I have been incorporating some different facial oils for my face. Some are good, some are not because the oils caused me some small zits. I gave up the bad ones and used them with body oils. That work great. My coworker gave me a sample of an anti-aging oil which she received from an all organic beauty company. I am not sure if it is suitable for me since I started using it two days ago. So far there are no zits popping up. My coworker loves the products from this company. She is now looking out for the best eyelash growth products, natural if possible. I told her we (she and I are about the same age) as we age, we are vainer, and we are experimenting on facial oils.
Career path in medical field
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I read a few websites on careers. One of the best jobs out there that will withstand layoff are in the medical field. I heard of some folks who were laid off went back to school for medical coder so when they are done with school, they can apply for Medical Transcriptionist Jobs. I have also read a lot of stories on the web about folks totally changing their career paths to the medical field: from a sales manager to an RN (registered nurse). Yeah, nurses are hot commodities now.
Camping adventure at William O’Brien State Park
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My camping adventure started on Friday, October 14. DB got ready all the camping gear for me when I’m at work. When I got home, he loaded them up in the car for me. I brought 2 single oversize sleeping bags, tent, stuff for setting up the tent, 2 coolers, rugs, charcaol, lighter fluid, towels, change of clothes, pots and pans, some food, water and i cannot remember anymore!
Drove to my friend’s place, unloaded my car into hers. Seriously, the next time, we are taking two cars. We stopped to get some sandwiches at the Vietnamese restaurant and we started our journey. It takes about an hour from St. Paul to Stillwater.
This is our camp site at William O’Brien State Park in Stillwater. Picture taken the day we left:
We arrived at the park grounds and registered at the park office. We got our permit, paid for it, bought a bundle of fire wood and got to our camp site around 7-ish. Its was pitch black. First thing we did was set up the tent and our sleeping bags. Two rookies working in the dark with just flash lights. Should have just turn on the car head lights and we would have done a quicker job. Since it was our first time, we weren’t that equipped. We didn’t bring or buy any good fire wood. We bought one small pack from the park office. The wood were cheap fly wood that are good for starting a fire.
Our pathetic fire we started with the cheap wood.
We stayed up for a while in front of the fire, ate the sandwiches we bought on our way in, set up the propane stove to boil water for our Milo and crawled into bed. Yes, we practically crawled in since the tent is only for 2 persons. It was a damn cold night with the wind blowing at a good speed!! The worse thing was we didn’t put the top of the tent (rain cover) on, so we had a good draft coming in. I seriously didn’t know coz the last i went camping, it was not put on!
And this is what it looks like without the cover. We had dew inside the tent!!!
And basically this is what it all looks like the next morning since we could not see a thing without much light.
After we had our breakfast of muffins, tea and Milo, we went out shopping at Walmart for a proper propone stove, loads of water, munchies, and grapes. We then stopped over at Menards hoping to buy firewood but they didn’t have any. We then drove to Cub Foods which was across the street for good firewood. Yes, good ones like oak will burn much longer. The bundle of wood were mixture of oak and birch. We bought 4 bundles. Next we saw a sign for rummage sale at the high school. Crazy us we went in and spent about 2+ hours.
Our loot!
THere are 2 single sleeping bags, a blanket, bags, sweat shirts, pants, books, and soft toys (for my friend’s school stuff)
On our way back, I had to stop at Starbucks for coffee….need my coffee for the day. Once we got back to camp, my friend started setting up the new stove and cook some comfort food of rice and stir fry.
While she was cooking, I re-do our sleeping quaters. I put the 2 sleeping bags and the rugs I brought under our current sleeping bags so it’s not so hard on our bones! Next, I prepped the fire pit so we could start the fire later in the evening, however, we rookies didn’t bring a lighter or proper matches to start the fire or stove.
Get this, this was how we lit the stove: pulled out a lousy floppy match (those matches you get from hotels or bars), lit up the cigarette lighter, lit up the match and the other person has to turn on the knob on the stove so the person holding on to the lit up match could light up the stove!!! OMG!!! We were so pathetic. We had a good laugh at ourselves though.
So we lit up the stove but my friend accidentally lost the fire on one side of the stove, not once, but several times. We rolled up some newspaper lit it up and started the other side and my friend ran over to the fire pit and dump the lighted newspaper. Hence the fire going in the pit:
The munchies we bought at Walmart:
After we stuffed ourselves with rice and stir fry veggies with sotong balls (heaven!) we had to go for a walk along the river to walk off the rice!
Too bad we came at the end of fall, most of the trees are botak! There were hardly any colors to see.
After the walk, we started our fire and feeding our stomachs again with the munchies, grapes, tom yum noodles and more noodles.
Since none of us had a DSLR, we tried our best to get a good picture of the fire, but these are what we were able to come up with….which spells P A T H E T I C.
And it rained on us that night. We had to scrambled to put the top on, again, in the dark with flash lights! Shortly after we had our feast of “siew yeh”, we got ready for bed and
Oh and I forgot, there’s free wifi at the park! My friend was able to watch her Korean dramas. Crazy indeed. We are not exactly in the wilderness.
The next morning, we woke up and made our breakfast of hash browns, eggs and tom yum noodles and down it with tea, coffee and Milo! We were pigs. Remember seeing the two bikes hooked up to my friend’s car? We wanted to go biking after our dinner last night but I opted to walk, plus the trail were all gravel. We thought on Sunday morning after we woke up, we could go for a bike ride. Yeah right, I woke up at 8:30, and my friend at 9. By the time we had our breakfast and cleaned up, it was time to pack up even though check out time is 4 p.m. I wanted to get home around 2 to get ready for work the next day.
We finally left the camp site and out of the park at 11:20 a.m. Got back to my friend’s place and unloaded her car and loaded up mine. We were getting ready to go to IKEA to get a desk for herself around 1:30-ish, she accidentally locked her house and car keys in her apartment, plus she has no spare keys. My handbag and her cellphone are sitting in her car. I have my cellphone so we called and left a text message for her landlord. Her landlord called at 1:36 and said he will come by within the hour.
To kill time, we went for coffee around the block. Came back, we BS a little, took pictures, BS more and I was getting grumpy coz i was very tired – eyes closing and yawning till my jaw was about to lock. I looked at the time which was 2:46 and told my friend I’m going home without my bag. She said she will drop my bag off when the landlord shows up and after her shower.
Good thing I left coz her landlord texted my phone saying he is running 20 minutes late and the time he texted was 3:20 and I was already home in the garage unloading my stuff. I even went out to toss the frisbee for Chase for about 20 minutes, no call from my friend. When i was half way on my walk with Ranger, at 4:15, my friend call saying she just got into her apartment!!! Good call on my own.
All in all, it was a good adventure. We weren’t that prepared but still a good experience. All my other times of camping were well equiped but i never lifted a finger to do anything. Hence, the rookieness I’m calling myself.
Homemade mask
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I have been trying out home made mask. I’m not using yogurt or honey that I read on beauty blogs. I bought some Dead Sea Salt clay at Garden of Wisdom. Add some distilled water or hydrosol of my choice and a teeny bit of tea tree oil, mixed it all up into a paste I favor. I put the paste on for about 10 minutes or till it drys up, and rinse it off with water. I read to wash it off with a warm wash cloth but I didn’t. I am now curious to know what are the benefits of seaweed powder. I might have to try that out. I gather it’s no harm if I start off on my hand first.
New Macs at coffee station
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What a surprised when I walked into the company’s coffee place and saw 5 brand spanking new Macs replacing the digustingly old PCs for employee usage. The company even got rid of the black chairs and replaced them with white chairs, plus painted one side of the wall white! A co-worker and I were upstairs in the afernoon and tried our hands on one of them Macs. It definitely had a different feel and the white keyboard is one mini keyboard waiting to for it to turn “gray” or with brown stains. So my co-worker ask where is the icon for IE which of course is not IE but is Safari. When we found it, she wanted to type in “where can I buy ps3 games” but there was no where she can type in for her search. I told her it is going to take some time for us old timers to get use to Apple prods!
Hooray, it’s Friday!
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Happy Friday, peeps! I cannot wait to get off work today. My friend and I are going camping at William O’Brien State Park. It’s about 50 minutes to an hour drive and I have to say it is a very last minute decision of ours. Of course, DB is not too happy about it because he said my friend has no not been camping before and I’m still a rookie! Hah, we didn’t care, we are going for it. I don’t even know how to set up the tent. It was always done by others, not me!
Anyway, he and I already made plans to clean our carpets again as our carpets are extremely dirty. The thought of shampooing the carpet is really daunting!! Actually shampooing the carpet is not bad, just the hassle of rinsing it. If it is our house, I am not so picky about it, but since the house is not ours, I want to keep it at least presentable. For those who lives in Austin, TX, The Steam Team does carpet, upholstery, air-ducts cleaning and a lot more. Check out http://www.thesteamteam.com/ for more information.
So, I am planning to leave my house to my friend’s house around 4 and hopefully we get to the camp grounds before dusk. DB is the Mr. Paranoia, so he said to get there early. He wanted me to bring Chase, as a “body guard”!! I could but I’m not going to. He will totally go wild. Last night, DB asked again if I want Chase with me. He said it would be easier for him if there is one when he cleans the carpet – vacuum, deodorize and shampoo. What we need is professional carpet odor removal austin. I told him to make do with how we have been doing when we had 3 dogs. Hah, that really kept him quiet.
This week is the last week for camping. Camp grounds will be closed after this weekend. Some state parks will be open for hikers but not all. I am pumped for this weekend.
Lost tooth
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DB found a tooth in the kitchen, right next to Ranger’s food bowl.
We think it’s this guy….
He has been eating slower for a while but then I didn’t pay much attention to him eating. He always eats fast but not as fast as Chase. I was paying attention to Cooper then because Cooper definitely was eating slower. Now I have Ranger and Chase, Chase inhales his food. Ranger I can see he is actually chewing his food.
I tried to see if the tooth came from Ranger’s mouth, well, that guy’s has a steal trap of a mouth. It’s as if he has diamonds in his mouth, man!!!
I know someone is going to ask if I brush the boys’ teeth, the answer is not anymore. Only Cooper allowed me. The other two, difficult cases – once the toothbrush with the pork/chicken flavored toothpaste is in their mouth, they will use their tougues to lick the paste as much as they can and clamp their mouth shut even with my fingers inside. Buggers!! After a few months of having my fingers chomped, I gave up. So, me bad dog owner.
I really ran out of ideas how to brush their teeth!! Ideas, anyone?
Back to sewing
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I have been working on my sewing again, not every day though. I am thinking of bidding for some printed knit fabric from eBay. My friend has done it before and she said it is addictive! Nadine’s hubby is a cigar smoker, he gets his cigars from cigar auction online. And since I got Nadine into sewing, though she sews crafty stuff, her hubs told her to bid her fabris on eBay instead of paying the full price on Etsy. He just has to becareful what he tells the wife, because Nadine is the type who is easily influenced!