Wisdom

I was having a conversation with my daughter yesterday. She was telling me she wanted to live with us at our house forever. I told her I was fine with that, but she'd have to contribute significantly.

Me: You know the water you use while washing your hands or brushing your teeth? You know how you like to leave it on for a long time and run the water? Who do you think is going to pay for it later?

S: Me?

Me: Yup! And you know all the yummy food you get to eat right now? Who do you think is going to cook it later?

S: Me?

Me: Exactly! And you know all the clean bowls and plates and cups you get to eat and drink out of right now? Who do you think is going to wash them?

S: Me!

Me: Yup!

S: Does this mean later I can yell at you and you have to listen to me?

Now this question made me stop and think for a second. There are a lot of things I reprimand my children for right now and rightly so as they are learning how to be competent people in society. Perhaps I don't always do it in the best execution possible, but it's coming from the desire for them to be intelligent, independent, and capable. 

But I stopped and prepared my answer carefully.

Me: Yes, but can you yell at me nicely? 

S: How do I do it nicely?

Me: It means you can talk to me normally and use a louder voice. 

😂

I've actually thought about this before I had this conversation with my daughter. One day, my children will be smarter than I am. I actually want that. Whether or not I will appreciate it is a different story, but I want them to be smarter than I am. I want them to be more capable than I ever was. I want them to be successful in all the ways I was and more. And if all this comes to fruition, it would mean I have succeeded at parenting. And if all of this comes to fruition, it would mean they will see my flaws and reprimand me.

My forever babies.

I actually already see this in practice in small ways. My children are only grade-school age but they're already showing budding signs of wisdom. The most common occurs when I ask them a question along the lines of, "What do you want?". They respond to me with what they want, and every now and then, I respond and tell them they can't have it.

This is when they respond to me with the most true and annoying response: then why'd you ask me in the first place?

They are absolutely right. If I had something in mind, I should have just told them, not asked them for their choice. As annoying as it is to hear this response, it reminds me that I didn't think about my words before I spoke them. 

I am someone who upholds others to high standards. I also uphold myself to these same high standards. So when this happens, I either apologize and say I shouldn't have asked, you don't get your choice, or, I give them what they picked instead.  

I've been watching this play out with my dad for years. I don't agree with many of his choices for various reasons, and I also cannot change his decisions. But it's hard to sit back and not say anything, especially when I think there are better options that he's not choosing. Making decisions out of fear or desperation usually doesn't yield the most wise choices. 

Does he see it as my wisdom? I don't know. I wish he would, but that's not my choice either. 

The Greatest Compliment

Over the years, many parents of students I have taught or still teach have paid me very nice compliments. It's reaffirming to know parents appreciate me for my knowledge and talents. One parent wrote me a note when her son was stopping lessons saying she wished she had found me earlier as a teacher for him. 

Despite these wonderful praises, I don't think I knew what the greatest compliment I could receive as a teacher could be until this summer. In late May this year, I received a text from a former student:

I was wondering if you are doing any summer lessons? I don’t have a summer class this year and have some extra free time 😊 

Believe it or not, this is not the first time I've had a former student restart lessons with me. I have had students in the past leave piano for various reasons and a few were able to resume them with me after a period of time. This was the first time a graduated student in college wanted to return for lessons during the summer. 

We found Hook Hand at Disney 1.5 years ago

 
I was so excited. We had eight weeks of lessons together over the summer and it was so good to be able to see this student again. I loved that we were able to pick up right back where we left off as student and teacher. I loved how we could adapt to both being adults and it was apparent what a few more years of maturity could add to the learning process. 

This student wasn't a stellar performer or prize winner by any means. This student wasn't even someone who excelled for their age. But what this student has is something I did not have when I was the same age. This student has a love of the instrument, a desire to continue learning, and an open mind. And it's the cherry on top that I get to be the teacher who helps make it possible.

I remember all the seniors I've graduated from lessons and still make an effort to send a birthday email every year just to wish him or her well. Most of them write back to me, and it makes me smile to read their short reply.  

This student, by taking lessons with me this summer, paid me the greatest compliment without even knowing it. It is an honor to be remembered. 

InKind

I don't promote anything unless I actually believe in it. Depending on the product, sometimes it takes years, and sometimes, I never promote it because I'm never convinced. Today, I'm promoting something.

My SIL introduced me to InKind a while back. I got the app but I didn't actually use it. In short, it's a restaurant rebate program that rewards you for eating out. I browsed the restaurants on the app but didn't end up using it for a long time. I didn't really understand how to use it, and I didn't feel like eating out just to find out how.

Fast forward about 6-8 months, maybe more. We were going to New York. I was going to be taking two kids around the city by myself for 1.5 days. I was pretty terrified. I am not your tour guide/planner when it comes to vacations. I like to be the one who goes along for the trip and has someone else telling me what to do, where to go, and what we're going to eat. Needless to say, I was stressed and put off planning this trip for a long time. 

The week before we left, I finally started to think about what to do with my kids. I knew if I didn't have a plan, we'd end up sitting on the bed in the hotel room watching HGTV or Food Network for hours and hours. That was no way to spend valuable time in New York! We were even staying overnight in Manhattan - this may never happen again in my life. Planning food is one of my childhood traumas. Growing up, if we went on vacation, we ate a lot of McDonald's and Burger King. Why? It was cheap. While I understand the mentality, that is not my approach to vacations anymore with my family. Taking that into account, I had to find restaurants where I could bring my children by myself and find them safe food they would eat. This ended up being some version of chicken nuggets and sushi.  

Premade or Homemade? Make your guess!

The perk of being in NYC and using InKind was tons of restaurants were on the app. I was able to save my favorites and mark their locations in the areas where we would be. This gave me options to give my children to pick from and allowed our mealtime choices to be stress-free and enjoyable rather than stressful and angry. 

So let me tell you about this app from someone who is very particular about anything and everything. 

1. You have to pay your bill through the app. Whether you pay directly when you order in the app or pay your bill using the app, it has to go through the app. At a sit-down restaurant, this means when your check comes out, you have to get the check number and type it through the app. Then, the app pays for you with a payment method saved in the app - this could be a credit card or money you've preloaded into the app. If you are ordering at a restaurant, this means you scan your QR code at the register at the end of your order. We encountered some difficulty with this at one restaurant because I saw ordering tablets off to the side upon entering. I went to the tablet, made my order, but then didn't see any way to use InKind to pay for the order. I went to the cashier to ask and he told me I had to place the order with him at the cash register. (I didn't even realize this was an option because I saw the tablets first upon entering). While I probably felt like a dumb customer who didn't know what to do, asking meant I figured it out instead of paying for the order myself at the tablet without going through the app. 

2. The way your rewards work has some caveats. You can only use one reward per transaction. This means you have to choose between getting a % cash back on your order or using your cashback rewards to pay for a part/all of your order. Now you really do get a % cash back on your order. If the restaurant offers you a 10% cash back and your pre-tax total is $50 worth of food, you will earn $5 cash back to use on a future order. The catch is if you are buying $50 worth of food and you want to use $7 in your account that you've earned previously, you will not be earning 10% ($5) cash back on top of the $7 discount you're using. I did not know this until I went to New York and started using the app and earning cash back. On the flip side, any cash back you earn on orders is available immediately. If you earned $5 from your lunch meal and you want to go get dessert somewhere nearby which is also on InKind, that $5 can be used toward your dessert order immediately. This is a really nice perk.

3. Cash back does expire. In short, they give you 2 months, but they're nice enough to give you the full month, so it ends up being between 60-90 days. For example, I have $8.65 sitting in my account as cash back. I earned my last reward on July 14, 2026. That $8.65 in cash back expires on September 30, 2026. It is the end of the second month from the date I earned the reward - 75 ish days. 

If you live in a more urban area, this app is very convenient and handy. I will definitely be using this app again if we travel to larger cities - Seattle, Chicago, LA, NYC for sure. It's a great "bonus" in additional to any normal credit card rewards you'd earn paying with your card when eating out. If this sounds like something which would benefit you, give it a try and sign up for $25 off a $50 meal! (Yes, the discount is instant.)

Storage: Eggs!

As my kids get older, the amount of food we consume has increased.  One grocery item specifically is eggs. We can go through a dozen eggs in about two days depending on what I'm cooking. Because of this, I've started buying eggs from a wholesaler near us. I can get 30 eggs for $2. These are not the kind of eggs I would be making homemade mayonnaise with or using raw, but for how I use eggs, they fit the budget and work for us. 

Because of our refrigerator is constantly holding over 15 eggs at a time, I needed a better way to store them. Back in April/May, we were at the store browsing and came across egg drawers. The idea was cool but I couldn't fork over the money. They were around $12 each to store 18 eggs. The plastic felt thin and cheap. Some of the ones on the shelf were already cracked. I looked online to see what else was out there and found ones sold at The Container Store. These were over $20 each. We didn't end up purchasing anything. 

Earlier this month, we were facing an egg surplus in our refrigerator. I always like to have eggs on hand because they're an easy meal-maker if I don't feel like doing any serious cooking. This time though, I overdid it a bit. We still had eggs at home and I added to our collection by buying another 2.5 dozen from the store. What resulted was 43 eggs in our refrigerator at one time. 

I saved egg cartons from the stores that hold two dozen, but I didn't have enough to hold all 43 eggs. What resulted was a weird mishmash of three containers in our refrigerator to hold them all.  

Chaos.

Storing these eggs precariously in our refrigerator like this drastically reduced our storage space. I couldn't put anything on top of the eggs in this level anymore. It is true this setup doesn't stay forever as we eat the eggs, but it does make for an inconvenient use of our refrigerator for at least a few days. As we ate the eggs, I rearranged them in the fridge to be more organized, but even so, it wasn't ideal. 

I was able to consolidate the eggs to one side of the shelf, but still 
couldn't stack anything on top. The ones in the bowl are raw.

After enduring these days of precariously storing eggs in our refrigerator, I decided again to look online to see what was out there. I remember seeing The Container Store advertise their big clearance event. I had even browsed a few pages of their clearance online for fun but didn't see anything worth purchasing. This time, I searched their egg storage again. Did I get lucky?

I did! They were 70% off regular retail so I was able to get two for the price of one. I've purchased their brand of organizational bins before so I knew their plastic quality was much better than the ones I'd seen at the other store a few months prior. I ordered two of them and waited patiently for my in-store pickup confirmation. The eggs in my refrigerator are now organized nice and neatly in two stacks of 18 (when maxed out).

Open.

Closed. I should probably remove the front stickers...

 

I am super happy with how this turned out! I have room for 3 dozen eggs in my refrigerator now, and if somehow I happen to have overflow, they're going to live on top for a little bit in my half dozen carton. It is true my refrigerator will have two egg drawers taking up space on this shelf even if I have zero eggs in my refrigerator. The likelihood of that is pretty slim though. Regardless, this organization works for us because I know exactly how much space I have in my refrigerator to use and it will not be affected by how many eggs I need to store. 

If you want your own egg storage drawers at a good price, they still have some left (in my area)! Not sponsored by The Container Store. 

Eternal Company

 

I went to visit my aunt this summer. I've met her three times in my life. The first was when I went to Taiwan as a toddler. The second was when she came to visit us in Texas at our old house before we moved. I remember it being after my mom had just been diagnosed with cancer. My aunt had been diagnosed with an illness herself about a decade before. I remember loving the week my aunt came to visit us. She could speak English so we felt very comfortable talking to her. We moved the following summer and then my aunt came again to visit, this time, with my grandparents. That was the third and last time I saw her in person. 

My aunt always made it a point to show she cared about us. She sent us Christmas cards from overseas. She gave us small gifts and trinkets. I still have a key chain she made for me. She had drawn a design and written my name on the other side. 

 

My aunt died four years after my mother died. My dad didn't fly back when she passed. To give him the benefit of the doubt, I think he was torn. He was still working, and he had two children he was taking care of. On the contrary, he could have flown back if he really wanted to. I was a junior in high school who had a car and was driving myself. My brother was in college. He was already living on his own and I could have made it myself for a week or two if I had to - my dad could have left me some money for food and I would have been fine. But that's not what he chose to do.

(My dad has not been to visit his sister since she died. This, I can no longer give him the benefit of the doubt because it's been 18 years and he has been back overseas numerous times. I'm sure he has a set of "logic" which he makes his decisions by, but this is "logic" I will never agree with. )

When I told my dad I was pregnant with my daughter, I had told him my due date. The first thing he told me was, "That's your aunt's birthday." Mentally, I made a note how cool it was if she could be born on the same day as my aunt. (She didn't end up being born on her due date, but later, I'd find out for myself that my dad was wrong.) 

When we went back to Taiwan this year, we spent most of the time with my family. It wasn't a tourism visit. I knew we were going to be spending a lot of time with my family and doing "simple" adventures together. We visited a lot of parks. We walked various neighborhoods in the area and joked about buying houses to live as expats and raising our children overseas. We ate a lot of home-cooked food and shopped downstairs at the closest grocery store. 

One thing I almost forgot to do was to visit my aunt. My grandparents were more on the forefront of my mind because my grandma had just passed this year. But then, I remembered my aunt. Her resting place is in the same city as where my family lives. My uncle was able to drive us to go see my aunt. 

My aunt's birthday is February 20th.

 

When I saw her marker, the first thing I noticed was the Bible verse. It's written in Chinese, and it may be the only verse I can recognize and read in Chinese. It is the same verse that we picked for my mother. 

 

If you can read the characters, you'll see they match the ones on her marker. It's the last verse of Psalm 23.  I really couldn't believe two different people in my family, laid to rest in two different countries, unbeknownst to each other, share the same verse for their legacy. 

Happy Birthday, Mommy. I hope you're enjoying each other's company. 

Deja Vu

My kids are responsible for their own water bottles. They don't carry purses or wallets, no money or credit cards, but the one thing I've expected them to keep track of by themselves is their water bottle. About two and a half years ago, I met a friend at a Dunkin' Donuts and my son came with me. He did some homework and sat on the side eating donuts while I chatted with my friend. We left Dunkin' when I had to go pick up my daughter from school. I don't remember how much time had elapsed until I realized, but my son didn't have his water bottle anymore. That afternoon, I called the store to ask to see if they saw it. They told me they did not see a water bottle. 

His teal water bottle...that we almost lost. 

The day went by and I was completely baffled by where his water bottle could be. That evening, I told my husband I was convinced it was at Dunkin' Donuts still. He drove back to the store, and 'lo and behold, the water bottle was in the store on the chair at the table where we had sat that morning. The employees probably didn't see it when we called because the water bottle wasn't on top of the table and they didn't walk out to the area to inspect closer. I was impressed it was still there nearly 12 hours later. I guess not a lot of people sit at the tables and eat in.

*** 

My son has now had two more years to mature since this incident. But once again, I found myself asking him where his water bottle was. We had just gone to Braum's for ice cream and driven back home. I had opened the back door to put my purse and water in the back since I was driving my dad. It didn't even occur to me I didn't see his water bottle anywhere.

After parking at my dad's, I was in the back seat grabbing my things when I realized his water bottle was nowhere to be seen. He wouldn't respond to any of my questions when asked so I looked up the phone number for Braum's and called to see if they had it just to be sure before I drove back. 

I asked them about a gray water bottle with a blue band around it. They looked and told me they didn't see it. In my head, I was thinking you've got to be kidding me. I'd literally experienced this exact situation just years before. I went back to the car and searched the backseat again, not that it was very big to begin with. I craned my head and peered under the two front seats to see if it had rolled. I couldn't find it. 

I ended up telling my dad and the kids I'd drive back to Braum's and just go look myself to see if it was there. Thankfully, it's not too far from my dad's. I parked the car in the same vicinity as we originally did just to make sure his water bottle wasn't rolling around the parking lot somewhere. Then I got out of the car and started walking toward the entrance. I saw the bottle on the table even before the sliding doors opened for me since they built out a glass window. 

Different water bottle. Same name band. Different year. Same situation. 

I walked in, grabbed the water bottle, and left, wanting to shake my head at how similar once again this situation was.

And then I remembered something. I called the wrong location.

If you don't live here, I have to give you some backstory. These two Braum's are less than 3 miles away from each other in the same city. They are located on the same street. It would be less than 10 minutes drive to get from one to the other. But there's one catch. The street name changes after you cross the highway. When I did my quick Google search to find their phone number, I only looked up Braum's and the city name. I failed to remember to check the street name because in my head it was the same street. 

So when they told me over the phone they didn't see a gray water bottle with a blue band around, they really didn't, and the water bottle in fact was not at their location at all. 

This was extra drama I really didn't need added to my day, but we had a happy ending.  

Sticky Rice Dumplings（粽子）

I have a vague memory of watching an old family video of my grandparents at their third to last house. We're in their kitchen and they're wrapping sticky rice dumplings. I'm probably no more than 2-3 years old. I've always loved these, but they're not an everyday food because of how labor-intensive they are to make. When I moved to China for a year, I remember wanting to find some. I flipped back through my scrapbook of photos from that year and I didn't find any photos of sticky rice dumplings. Honestly, I don't remember eating any that year. If I did, there's a high chance it was a sweet one filled with a date. 

Although by definition, it is still a sticky rice dumpling, it wasn't the kind I grew up with as a child. I wanted the savory salty ones filled with pork, peanuts, and mushrooms. A few years ago, I told myself I'd try making them. After reading some recipes and realizing it wasn't a spur-of-the-moment type cooking endeavor, I gave up on it. 

Last year when we went to Taiwan, we bought some sticky rice dumplings from a food market. We bought a few different flavors to try, and one of them was the kind I grew up with. For the duration of that sticky rice dumpling, I was teleported back to my childhood when I was able to eat this flavor because my grandparents made them. 

This year, I planned ahead and purchased ingredients to make my own sticky rice dumplings. 

• bamboo leaves
• cotton twine
• sticky rice
• split mung beans
• pork belly
• shiitake mushrooms

mise en place

 

To make these, I consulted various recipes including the ones from Woks of Life, Made with Lau, and a video to teach me how to fold them. Between these three recipes, I came up with a blended version of my own. Primarily from Woks of Life, I used their rice seasoning as well as meat marinade. I consulted Made with Lau on cooking time as well as other marinade variations. Then, it was time to get messy and get folding. 

 

I don't have great advice on how to fold these. It's pretty tricky at first. Once you get the hang of how to hold them and fold the leaves, it goes much better. I ended up using a mixture of two leaves and three leaves to fold depending on the size and quality of the leaves. The smaller leaves I used three just to be sure I could get a good seal on it. If the leaves ever cracked, I would just add another leaf on the outside as a "bandaid" to keep everything together before tying. 

 

We ended up making over 60 of these with the ingredients we had. For a first-try, I'd say it was quite successful overall. The first batch I cooked according to the recipe and boiled for 4 hours. This was way too long. We had already soaked the rice overnight so I think 4 hours yielded way too sticky of a texture for my liking. Even cutting off 1 hour would have made a big difference. The later batches we boiled, we cut down the cooking time to 2 hours and even without soaking rice overnight, I think they turned out fine. 

For loving sticky rice dumplings so much, I didn't actually know the story behind why these are eaten. My kids and I watched a short video summarizing the history of this holiday. In short, there was a Chinese poet named Qu Yuan. Due to corruption, he was banished. After this, he walked into the river holding a giant rock and was never seen again. Balls of rice were dropped into the river to prevent fish from eating his body. These balls of rice have evolved into the sticky rice dumplings eaten to celebrate this holiday. 

I personally don't think about the cultural reference of these very much. I just enjoy eating them. 

Yum!

 

Along with my own nostalgia after eating these, I got great feedback from sharing these with family and friends I view as family. The highest compliment came from an auntie friend of mine whom I view as a motherly figure. The closest translation of her response would be, "It was very similar to the ones I ate in Taiwan - very sticky and fragrant."

My dad on the other hand had a very different response. I had brought these over to eat with him for lunch and didn't say anything regarding where they came from. While we were eating, he asked me, "Did you buy these or did a friend give them to you?" I told him I made them. His eyes flashed wide for a split of a second and that was it. He didn't even tell me if they tasted good or not. 😂 Sigh. 

I'm not going to do the cost breakdown on these like I did last year during my Takeout series, but realistically, these are being sold at the store for approximately $4-5 each. Maybe one day if I get desperate, you may find me selling these somewhere...🤣