Mamalogues: Happy Birthday, Mommy

Today would have been my mother's 66th birthday. Sadly, she didn't even get to turn 50. 

We often look at age as a curse - we think of it as getting older. We think of it as our life getting shorter and our days being numbered. None of this is wrong, but it's definitely looking at it with the glass half empty. Age means you've lived longer. You've learned more. And most importantly, you get to experience and witness more out of life. 

Raising kids without my mother is probably the most difficult thing I've ever had to do and may ever have to do in my lifetime. I love looking at pictures of my babies and watching them change over the months and years and grow up. I love watching the way their faces and expressions change, and I've even purposely captured pictures of their screaming faces. Because I simply want to remember someday when the sleep deprivation and repeating myself 100 times a day stops. But at the same time that I love looking at photos of my children and the memories we're making together, I'll forever know that my mother will never be in them. Not one photo of my children will ever include her. 

I've shown pictures of her to my daughter. We went through a phase where she'd look through photo albums while eating her meals as a way to bribe her for bites. I pulled out some of my old family photo albums and showed them to her. She could pick out my dad and refer to him with no problem. But of course, she didn't recognize the other woman who appeared in the photos. I didn't go into detail now as she won't understand nor am I ready to explain to her. But one day, she will ask. Or I will choose to share with her. And that's going to be a hard day. She's going to look at this stranger and think to herself, "I don't know who this person is." And I'll have to tell her: "She's the grandmother you never got a chance to meet. 

***

After my daughter was born, I really missed my mother. My daughter was quite the handful of a baby. We were tired. And most of the time, we were just guessing at what we were supposed to do as new parents. I wondered what it would have been like to have my mother there. Chances are, in all honesty, illness aside, if my mother were alive when we had kids, she would have probably given me a little too much advice, done things in ways I didn't appreciate, and gotten on my nerves a little bit. And that would have been totally normal. But knowing what I do now, wishing that I could see her holding my babies would make those annoying moments worth it. 

Since having my son, I've wondered what having my mother around would have been like. It's hard to envision because she was so sick the last few years of her life, I don't remember my mother doing normal day-to-day activities. I don't remember her cooking. I don't remember her cleaning. I don't remember her sitting down and having a conversation with me. 

What do I remember? I remember administering her shots. I remember helping her drain fluid from her lungs and cleaning the area where the tube was inserted and re-bandaging it up in a way that was comfortable. I remember being careful which way to coil the tube so she'd feel it the least. I remember her saying she liked it best when I did it rather than when other people did it. I remember watching her take packets of pills everyday and swallowing them with food rather than water, because if she took a sip of water with every pill, she'd fill up and never want to eat anything. 

You know what else I remember? I remember the days when I was selfish, and I didn't want to help her. I didn't want to spend the 20 minutes it took to drain the fluids and re-bandage the area. I wanted to get on the computer and talk to my friends. I wanted to watch my show on television. 

I was 11 or 12. 

***

My mother and I weren't close. I didn't have deep, meaningful conversation with her. In the 9 years I had with her as a healthy person and the 4 years I had with her while she was sick, I remember my mother as the person who took care of the house. The person who picked us up from school. The person who washed my hair. The person who cooked. The person who disciplined me. The person who took care of us when we were sick. 

There's lots of things about my mother which I believe she did wrong as a mother. A lot of my parenting philosophies were based on things I didn't want to do because I was the product of them. My mother's personality is still within me, and there are moments when I feel myself become her as I parent my children. But I'd like to think I removed the parts of her which scarred me and took all the best parts of her and made them better. I hope my kids do see me as the person who takes care of the house, the person who picks them up from school, the person who washes their hair, the person who cooks, the person who disciplines, the person who takes care of them when they're sick. But more than that, I want them to see me as the person who loves them and cherishes them and supports them. 

Regretfully, I don't have many good memories with my mother. And because she was sick, the last memories I do have with her are tainted. But that doesn't change the fact that we loved each other as a mother and daughter do. 

Happy birthday. I miss you. 

Mid Year Check-In

At the beginning of the new year, I wrote a post with a few goals I wanted to accomplish. It's my version of a "New Year's Resolution." Well, Unfortunately for most people, 2020 has turned out to be one terrible year. You can read about my take on the terrible twos here, more for comedic relief than real talk. 

A whole six months has gone by. I can't tell you half of what I did in these six months, But I know the time has gone by because:

• I'm not pregnant anymore
• I have a second child
• There are more gray hairs on my head (I think...I'm not really counting...)

I started the year with three general "goals" I wanted to accomplish. 

1. Finish my cross-stitch
2. Find a new work-life balance
3. Keep my sanity

1. Finish My Cross-Stitch

I did! I finished my cross-stitch. I put in extra hours early this year, stitching at night, but I didn’t finish it before he was born. Somehow, after my son was born, I found time here and there to finish! It took me about three and a half years, but I finished it on June 28, 2020. This is my second large-scale cross-stitch that I've finished. Once again, the irony is that when I purchased this cross-stitch, I was living in China and single. When I finished it, I was living in the USA, married, with two kids two and under.

Originally, I bought this cross-stitch with a goal of finishing it before we had kids. That didn't happen. So then, I wanted to finish it before we were done having kids. That didn't happen either...but to my own credit, I only missed that goal by about three months.

Here it is!

Something often overlooked about cross-stitches is actually the back. If you enter a cross-stitch into a county fair or contest, they actually judge you more on the back than the front. Why is that? The back tells about the journey. Anyone can come up with a nice looking design on the front, but it takes dedication and patience to have a beautiful cross-stitch back.

So what is it about this journey that's so important? 

1. No Knots - cross stitching doesn't involve tying any knots. The ends of each thread are secured by looping your stitches on top of the ends. Every time you start a new thread, it must be secured in this way. 
2. Reaching over vs. starting new - I don't know if there's a technical term for this. If anyone's savvy enough in cross-stitch terminology, please let me know! But this is where instead of cutting the thread and starting in a new location, you take your thread from your last ending point and reach across the canvas to start it in a new location, therefore resulting in a very long piece of thread traveling on the back. It makes the back look messy and sloppy.
3. Consistency - The Xs on the front need to be crossed the exact same way in order to appear consistent and neat. This means if you stitch the bottom left to top right first, it has to be stitched first on every single X. When done correctly, the stitches on the back will all appear to be in the same direction instead of alternating vertical and horizontal stitches. 

Is it obvious to tell if someone's taken their time and cross-stitched the correct way? Yes. If you know what you're looking for, it's extremely obvious. One of the most telling signs is that the back of your cross-stitch should look exactly like the front.

Here's my back:

I have to say, I did a really nice job on this cross-stitch. I've been sloppy on previous ones in the past and learned the hard way, hence how I've been able to come up with my mental list of "what it takes to have a good cross-stitch." The design itself is not a difficult one, especially not compared to the last one I finished, but it fits perfectly for why I wanted to finish it: it's for my children. 

2. Find a New Work-Life Balance. 

I have been able to find a new work-life balance. In doing so, I've cut my students in half, I limit the hours I work, and I'm only teaching online right now. For most of this, I have to thank coronavirus actually. If the virus didn't exist, I would have pressured myself into taking all my students back which would be 12+ hours of teaching a week in five days. Add that onto taking care of my kids during the day while my husband was working as well as breastfeeding, or attempting to breastfeed my son, and that results in one crazy mom. 

I'll never forget the day I put my pump on the kitchen counter and pumped during my 30 minute break in between two lessons while cooking spaghetti on the stove for dinner at the same time after my daughter was born. I don't even know where she was. I think my husband was watching her. 

I'll be eternally grateful for coronavirus that I will not have to do that with my son this time around. But that's pretty much the only reason why I'm grateful for this virus. For everything else, it's ruined a lot of plans, trips, outings, and life in general. 

3. Keep my Sanity

As mentioned above, this virus has helped me to keep my sanity in certain ways. In others? Not so much. It's been a new learning curve to figure out how to plan grocery trips now and be intentional about what I buy. I've had to train my daughter into a daily routine/schedule that doesn't involve going on playdates or wandering stores for fun. But we've found other things that she has enjoyed during these last three months of staying at home and staying out of public places, which has also kept us from going crazy ourselves: going on bike rides in the bike trailer, swinging in our front lawn and "blasting off", swinging in our hammock, watching our neighbors mow and trim their lawns, going swimming in our neighbor's pool, watching bunnies and squirrels, digging in our flower beds which don't have flowers, and learning how to be a big sister, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. 

Overall, I think the transition to having two kids while maintaining both of our jobs and general lifestyle has been pretty smooth. The kids have kept me busy during all this staying at home, and to be honest, it's been nice. I wonder to myself what quarantine with no kids would have been like. I think I would have had a lot more time to do the things I wanted to do and no will to do them. Chances are, I would have sat at home, watched a lot of TV, or spent a lot of money shopping online, neither of which I have time to do now.

I hope despite all the terribleness this year has brought for many of us, you've been able to find some silver linings to reach some goals or discover something new for yourself. 

Here's to the second half of 2020. 

51 Mosquito Bites

I've been trying to think of something meaningful to write about in the last month with everything going on in society. I wanted to show that I was aware of what is going on. I wanted to show that I cared. But everything that I seemed to want to say or thought I should say seemed meaningless.

The other day, a mom dropped off a check to pay for her daughters' piano lessons. I went outside to say hi and we stood outside distanced from each other and talked for what turned into about 30 minutes. During that 30 minutes, I got feasted on by mosquitos: 51 bites. Mosquitos have always been extra attracted to me for some reason - something about certain blood types being more preferable than others. Mine is the most favored apparently. Never in my life have I been bitten this many times at once.

Needless to say, when I came back inside, I immediately washed my legs and feet to relieve the swelling. My husband asked me why I didn't just excuse myself and say I need to go inside because I was getting bit. I'm not sure why I didn't. I think it was a mix of not feeling like she and I were that close in relationship to be able to excuse myself but also that I enjoyed having some adult conversation with someone other than my husband since it happens so rarely now since we don't leave the house except for food.

For the next few days, I felt this insane itching that would continue throughout the day. Occasionally, I'd distract myself with something long enough to forget about it for a while, but it would come back. Sometimes, it was the bites on my feet. Other times it was the bites behind my knees. And sometimes it was the bites on my knees. It was always at least one of them, somewhere, itching, beckoning me to succumb to the feeling and scratch.

When I knelt on the floor to change my daughter's diaper, or sat on the couch, or when my daughter kicked me with her feet when eating, it caused me to think about them. It caused them to be irritated and itch. I'd wake up in the middle of the night scratching, subconsciously. I tried all sorts of home remedies to make the itching stop and wish them to heal. I'd poke them with my fingernails hoping the pain I felt would overpower the itching I felt. 

And then it hit me. These annoying bites, 51 to be exact, were causing me an incessant frustration for more than two days - they haven't healed yet. In the tiniest little way, it allowed me to experience a fraction of what the black people out there feel when they can't leave the house at certain times wearing certain clothes with certain things. It allowed me to experience what it's like to be constantly reminded that there is something to be wary of, a reason to be careful, a reason to fear. 

I read an article online about a boy sharing the rules his mother told him to follow when leaving the house. Some of you may have seen it circulating on social media as well. 

– Don’t put your hands in your pockets.

– Don’t put your hoodie on.

– Don’t be outside without a shirt on.

– Check in with your people, even if you’re down the street.

– Don’t be out too late.

– Don’t touch anything you’re not buying.

– Never leave the store without a receipt or a bag, even if it’s just a pack of gum.

– Never make it look like there’s an altercation between you and someone else.

– Never leave the house without your ID.

– Don’t drive with a wifebeater on.

– Don’t drive with a du-rag on.

– Don’t go out in public with a wifebeater or a du-rag.

– Don’t ride with the music too loud.

– Don’t stare at a Caucasian woman.

– If a cop stops you randomly and starts questioning you, don’t talk back, just compromise.

– If you ever get pulled over, put your hands on the dashboard and ask if you can get your license and registration out.

Someone, male, not black, commented something along the lines of "I was told to follow all these rules, too, growing up. What's so special?"

What's so special? What's so special is that if you, or anyone not black, were to forget to follow one of these rules, it would be an "oops, I messed up" kind of moment. But if someone, black, forgets to follow one of these rules, it may cost him his life. I'm using the masculine pronoun simply for ease of understanding. It's highly possible that black women feel the need to follow these rules (with a few changes) to a certain extent as well for fear of losing their life.

This is a menial comparison when it comes to even trying to begin to feel the pain, frustration, and anger that black people do. But these bites have allowed me to feel just a little bit more for them. 

Are you feeling yet? 

"Terrible" Twos

My daughter is two. Are the twos as terrible as they're infamously named? In some ways, totally. She, on occasion, wakes up from her naps screaming hysterically, and we don't know how to calm her down. Sometimes this lasts for 15-20 minutes. 

She likes to play the "I don't actually know what I want" game. Not familiar with it? It goes something like this:

S: I want ice [in my water]!

Me: Ok. *adds ice in water*

S: No. No. No ice.

Me: 🤦🏻‍♀️ *Takes away bottle. Dumps out - refills water only. Hands back bottle*

S: Ice! Ice! Ice!

Me: Are you kidding me?! 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

She likes to sleep with her door open, but if it's not open enough, she'll scream at you to open it more. 

She needs all her stuffed animals lined up in a particular place and way under the blanket and if they move even the slightest bit (even if she moved/kicked them around), she'll start crying for you to come back and fix it.

Are you exhausted yet? That's just the start.

**

On the flip hand, she amazes me at how helpful and capable she already is at just two years old. She can help me unload the clean clothes from the dryer into the basket, and sometimes, she'll even drag the basket to the living room for me to fold if she's feeling extra cooperative. She can help me bring bags of light items from the grocery store into the kitchen for me to put away. She can turn on and off light switches when asked to. She can retrieve items for me when requested. 

So is she really that terrible as a two year old? 

Sometimes. The answer is sometimes. 

**

It's the year 2020. We've only had a handful of years with two 2s so far: 2020, 2012, 2002, 1922. Unfortunately, many people started the year with high hopes, only to have them be squashed. Some would say it's been a terrible year. It has indeed been a year filled with uncertainty and unrest.

Two Zero Two Zero

14 years ago on New Year's Eve, I started writing predictions. It was what I thought the next year would bring in my life and some notes on teenage thoughts regarding those around me. Mostly who was dating whom and the drama of high school. The following year on New Year's Eve, I would read what I had written the year before and then write a new one for the next year.

Props if you know what television series I got this idea from.

I kept up this tradition for the next 9 years and then stopped after that. I stopped partly because I simply forgot to write a new one on NYE and partly because it lost its meaning and purpose. As I reread ones from the early years, they mostly sound like a teenage girl writing about high school drama. Later, I became more sophisticated and they were more appropriately categorized as "predictions".

In the last few years, especially since having children, I've found myself being envious of others for their accomplishments, successes, and adventures. I see my friends with their doctorate degrees, friends who travel the world whether alone or with significant others, friends who design and execute their own DIY projects, and friends who simply just look like they have it all together. I know social media tends to glamorize only the positive aspects and paints an extremely skewed image of real life, but this is just how I feel.

Is anyone out there envious of me in my part-time working full-time motherhood lifestyle of craziness? I count a day when there's food to eat, clean laundry, a presentable house to teach out of, and keeping my daughter alive as a huge success for a day's work.

I don't make predictions anymore and I don't really have resolutions, but there are things I'd like to get done and accomplish without trying to be too ambitious or unrealistic.

1. Finish my cross stitch.

Now if you've kept up with my blog, you may remember a post from 3 years ago about a different cross stitch which I completed. This is another one I started a few months after completing that one. The image is the silhouettes of two children blowing bubbles between two trees. I bought it before I left China in the summer of 2013...and well, here we are nearly 7 years later. I've made some progress on it but the time to sit and focus on my cross stitch is few and far between now. Ironically, the two children pictured are a girl and a boy, and how appropriate it would be if I could have this completed and hung up in my house....soon.

2. Find a new work life balance.

When I career changed 3.5 years ago, it was the scariest and best decision I'd ever made in my life. Yes, people must've thought I was crazy, and even I thought I was crazy. There was a lot of learning in the beginning and finding my way, but I've been incredibly blessed in being able to build up my own business from nothing. I'll never forget that first month when I made less than $300. It was terrifying, exciting, and humbling.

After having my daughter, I thought I'd have to reset and start over to some extent. To my surprise, I was busier than even before I had her. This last year and a half of work has been the busiest and most enjoyable. Having to take another maternity leave really stresses me out to think about. And I haven't wrapped my head around how continuing to work untraditional hours with two kids will be feasible.

3. Keep my sanity.

When I think about last year, I don't remember a lot. It's not that I didn't do anything or that I didn't keep my sanity, but it was a tough year.

• we took an international trip with a 1 year old
• I mentored a college freshman for a summer
• morning sickness round 2
• lots of sleepless nights with the toddler
• new retaining wall and fence (not DIY, thank goodness)
• new windows for the house (not DIY either)
• 2 road trips

Kids change daily so much when they're young so you never truly feel like you have things figured out for more than about a week or two before something changes again. And my daughter, as cute as she is, is a handful. Keeping my sanity? Not easy.

But there are still moments when she'll actually cuddle next to me and stay calm and not squirm, and her face is of peaceful wonder, and I just watch her and think to myself, wow, you're beautiful. I can't believe you're mine, even for just a little while. 

So if you've got it all together and things are going great, maybe stop once in a while to help me keep things partially together? Taped? A little?

I'll go put a few stitches into my cross stitch now.

Chef Mommy

Mostly for tradition's sake, I still like writing and blogging for New Year's Eve and/or New Year's. Back in high school and even some of college, I liked to fill out those survey questionnaires and post them. They seemed so trivial at the time, but they're nice snapshots of a moment in time of your closest friends, favorite foods, hobbies, and a tiny glimpse of personality during a time when your life and you are constantly changing. Well, things don't change that much anymore.

I thought about what I could write about this year, but everything seemed to be occupied by baby. For good reason. I mean I've had lots of time to sample the best diaper brands (we've used about 7 different ones), the most necessary and unnecessary baby items, and must-have baby gadgets worth the splurge even as frugal parents. Being that my every day is filled with baby, I wanted to write about something different for a change.

After Sasha was born, I really missed cooking. Not cooking with the perspective of a chore of cooking food to eat because we were hungry, but cooking as an activity of being creative and combining ingredients to make something delicious and wonderful. Trust me, cooking because we are hungry is still a laborious chore.

So throughout the last 8 months of the year, I've been lucky enough to have moments to enjoy my kitchen again as a creative outlet. Here are some of the items we've cooked. This isn't meant to share recipes because there would be so many in one post, but if you see something interesting, please don't hesitate to ask me questions or ask me for the recipe! Also, in the same thinking as Ugly Delicious, these are not perfectly plated Instagram worthy pictures of food, but just what I've managed to document through the year. And honestly, I like it that way.

 1. Biscotti

One of the first recipes we attempted to make was biscotti. It was the frontrunner of our Friday night baking experiments after the baby learned to sleep longer stretches without waking up every hour to eat. It was also a way for us to spend time together as a couple while keeping the budget low and staying in without having to hire a sitter. Not as crispy and hard as store-bought biscotti, but I think my teeth appreciate that. :)

2. Radish Cake

I've made this recipe before many times before the baby was born, but it was nice to be able to make a big batch again and freeze them for later. Makes a great midnight snack or quick meal with a few hours of thawing time.

3. Cookie Cake

I already had a great recipe for chocolate chip cookies, but out of curiosity one day, I decided to make it into a cookie cake. It was wonderful. 

3. Bao Zi （包子）

I blogged about our first try at steamed bread （饅頭/馒头） a while back here. Since then, we have been able to try twice at making baozi. This time, our second try, we also had a 3-tier steamer which made the steaming process go much smoother and faster.

Another great food to spend an afternoon making large batches and freezing them for later snacks and meals.






4. Double chocolate chip banana bread

I use Pati Jinich's recipe for this. I really enjoy watching her cooking show on television and there are some other great recipes she's made before. I'm not the biggest fan of authentic Mexican food, but she's introduced me to some dishes that are truly delicious. I also just love listening to her say the word "mushy" in her accent. 

5. Fried chicken

I can't remember when I started making these fried chicken tenders, but it was amazing when I figured it out. It's almost restaurant quality. And I only say almost because these are not deep fried but pan fried.


6. Blueberry Crumble Cheesecake

I found the recipe for this cake when I was pregnant and saved it as a bookmark. Months later I went back and found it and we decided to make one as one of our Friday night date nights and went out and spontaneously bought a springform pan because I've never had one. It was very good.

So good.

7. Dutch Oven Bread

A friend of mine once made a dutch oven bread and I got really curious a few months ago and decided to try it myself. I found an easy recipe and gave it a shot. I always have beginner's luck and my first try turned out wonderfully. My second one...had some errors. Yes, you absolutely need to flour the bottom of the dutch oven.

PS - see those browned bits at the bottom that get burned onto pots and pans from the oven? Baking soda removes them without damaging your pot! I could write a whole post on the wonders of baking soda.

8. Pork Sung/Meat Floss （肉鬆/肉松）

I've loved this as a child. I never actually knew it was made with real meat (it is!) until recently. Who knew meat could dry to become a fluffy texture? I'm too frugal to buy this from the Chinese supermarket myself, but it really is one of my favorite foods from my childhood. The store sells it for about $10 a pound, sometimes more. Keep in mind that is the dry weight, so you'd probably need 2 pounds of meat to make 1 pound of meat floss. But even at 2 pounds of meat, it would cost you about half to make it yourself if you knew how.

I tried, and then I realized why people pay $10 a pound for this stuff. Unless you are very experienced and know exactly what you're looking for by texture and feel, this is not a recipe for amateurs or something you want to try "just for fun." Mine was a little too dry and turned hard and crispy more than dry and fluffy. What went wrong? I think the heat was too high...that's ok. It still makes great sandwiches with peanut butter (My friend told me about this recently. So. Good.) and an add-in for rice porridge. Will I make it again? Probably not....unless I can get my hands on a bread maker which can automatically stir and heat for you. Otherwise it's a high-maintenance recipe that involves lots of babysitting.


9. Biscuits

I haven't bought frozen biscuit dough in so long because it is so easy to make and only requires 6 ingredients: flour, butter, milk, sugar, salt, baking powder. They're also way more delicious (and healthy) and cost a fraction of the price. It's also a great recipe to know so you don't have to make a trip out to the grocery store just to buy biscuits last minute if you ever realize you want them and don't have any. 

I make mine rustic (aka not round) so you don't waste any of the dough or have to roll it out twice. The recipe has said they can be frozen and baked later, but I haven't tried that yet. The fresh ones are amazing though!

10. Char Siu （叉烧/叉燒）

I've always loved this Asian pork. My dad used to buy it once a week or so and we'd add it to our dishes for a meal or two. The ones from the store have the iconic red color which actually doesn't give it any flavor (who knew?). A few years ago I bought a flavor seasoning marinade and tried making some. It wasn't bad, but it didn't have that Asian flavor I was looking for. I found a homemade recipe and tried it sometime later, and it was good, but it still wasn't anything like at the restaurant.

Then, I came across a second recipe and tried it, and we loved it. It had the most authentic flavor of the three versions I've tried, and was the closest I've ever had to the ones from restaurants. It's also not as sweet as some of the ones at restaurants which I appreciate. I have frozen some of the raw marinaded meat and baked it later in the oven and the results are still fantastic. This one's a keeper.

11. Baby Food!

My daughter eats her colors. I've included this on the list, not so much because this is for us (although I have tasted every single thing I've ever given her, pouches, homemade, and all!) I actually find making baby food very therapeutic. I don't make giant quantities at once, only about 4-6 jars at a time, and each jar lasts about 2-3 servings. It takes me roughly an hour start to finish and I usually make a batch once a week. But this is way more efficient to me than spending 2-3 hours at once to make 2-3 times the amount. Because chances are my daughter naps for an hour no problem. Anything over an hour is a bonus to me and hard to come by.

I choose to use vacuumed jars and not freeze in ice cubes because that eliminates the thawing step. And let's face it, the thawing is what takes forethought and we don't have time for forethought when it comes to babies. We also just conveniently have a Foodsaver and the jar attachment already, so why not? I bought two dozen jars for $1.00 each including the cost of shipping and they have been well worth their value to me.

It's been quite the year and we have been super blessed with our baby as well as the good food we still manage to eat. Cheers to 2019 and many more recipes to try.

Messy eating only looks cute when you're this small.

Who Wore it Better?

I was at my dad's one time during my pregnancy and I found an old baby shirt I'd kept for years and years in my closet. I showed my husband and I said, "If we're having a girl she can wear this!!! It'll be so special."

He thought it was the ugliest shirt ever with a creepy bear on it. Later, after I looked a little closer, the bear really was kind of creepy.

Well, we were having a girl, and I was prepared to let the shirt go and just throw it out until we found pictures of me wearing it as a baby at my dad's house.

I win at baby hair hands down.

Why of everything "baby," this is the only thing I had to save...I have no idea. But there was no way we could simply throw the shirt out now without getting some pictures of Sasha wearing it.

I didn't try especially hard, but I had bought her some pink fleece pants, and she had a few long sleeve onesies in the blue spectrum I could put underneath the shirt to recreate this photo as close as possible without driving myself insane over details.

The shirt is size 6-9 months. I'm assuming we're about the same age in both photos if not close enough.

As a mother, it often crosses my mind that I won't be one of those women who gets to take maternal family line photos with grandmothers/mothers/daughters/granddaughters/great-granddaughters. I won't be one of those women who gets to watch my mother play with my daughter. I won't be one of those women who gets to share the experience of being a mother with my own mother. But I do get to show my daughter these pictures years later when she's older and can understand.

And maybe, if I'm lucky, she won't think the yellow shirt is so ugly.

Raising a Baby is like Picking Produce

When I was little, my mother would take me grocery shopping with her. I remember sitting in the cart as she pushed it through the store, and if she ever walked away a little too far for comfort because it was easier just to walk over and grab something than it was to push the whole cart over, I would start to get antsy. I still remember passing the bakery section of the supermarket, and if there were cookies out on the display case, she would get me one. I think subconsciously, I've had memories of that supermarket ingrained in my head because it has reappeared in my dreams and I can still remember the layout of the store almost to the tee. It's now a Home Depot. Bonus points to anyone who knows which supermarket I'm referring to. But now I digress.

I distinctly remember watching my mother pick produce at the grocery store. She'd pick up an apple, examine it, and either put it back down, or put it in the bag to purchase. I'd watch her do this for tomatoes, oranges, lettuce, and just about all the fruits and vegetables. In my mind, it was magical. My mother had the magical touch and knew exactly which ones to buy and which ones to put back. I wondered when I would develop this magical touch and be able to do the same.


Fast forward about 15 years to my junior/senior year of college. I was living in an apartment for the first time in my life, and I was doing my own grocery shopping. Sure, I'd driven to the grocery store before ever since I had gotten my driver's license, but that was to pick up the occasional teenage want: snacks, drinks, or one specific item. This was trying to meal prep for a week, shop on a budget, and be wise in my spending.

My roommate and I would go grocery shopping together since she didn't have a car and our schedules were similar enough that we could carve out this time on most Saturday mornings together. As I found myself pushing my own cart through the produce aisles of the grocery store, I ran through what I knew in my head: look at the produce, feel the produce, smell the produce, and make a decision. I carefully picked up and examined apples, oranges, broccoli, tomatoes, etc. Some I put in my bag to purchase. Some I placed back. But it felt different. I didn't feel the magical touch I saw in my mother as a young child. There was no magical touch. She simply looked at the produce, felt the produce, smelled the produce, and made a decision.

In my year living the apartment life in Austin, I bought some bad apples, I bought some vegetables with bugs in them, I threw out some rotten tomatoes, and life went on. I may not distinctly remember my mother throwing out any bad fruit or vegetables, but I can almost guarantee that she picked more than a few bad ones in her numerous grocery trips as well.

I feel the same way now about my daughter. Watching all my friends and other mothers who have children, they made it look so easy and effortless. Crying? Needs a diaper changed. Different cry? It's time to eat. How much milk should I make the bottle for? 4 ounces. How long should she sleep? She'll be awake in about 3 hours. It always seemed like they knew exactly what to do and how to do it.

Me? I feel like a complete mess right now. Crying? I think it's the diaper. Or maybe not. She's still crying. Darn, it wasn't the diaper. It's time to eat. How much milk should I make the bottle for? Let's try 2 ounces. Oh she wants more. Give her another ounce. Wait this time she didn't finish her 2 ounces. Why didn't she finish? How long should she sleep? I think I have about 3 hours. Why is she waking up after 1.5? She's supposed to be sleeping still!

Is this a cry? Or a yawn? 

Of course, I never spent a complete 24 hours with any of my friends and their babies, and I'm positive that only the cute pictures and sweet moments make it on social media. (Okay, some of the unglamorous truth might make it onto social media as well, but only if it elicits a laugh.) And it's only been 3 weeks so I should really cut myself some slack.

If it's one thing I know for sure, raising a baby is like picking produce: there's no magical touch. You simply look at her facial expression, feel for body temperature (and then actually use a thermometer), smell the diaper, and make a decision. And of course, the only thing being tossed out are foul-smelling diapers.

"Beautiful Girl, You Can Do Amazing Things"

She likes to bend her legs. This 0-3 footie is
also too large for her. Oops.

Our little girl is a week old! I can't believe it. I also can't believe I'm not pregnant anymore. I haven't really had time to think about and process it because there's a lot more to postpartum recovery than I imagined. Of course, experiencing it first-hand now is quite the eye-opener.

We wanted a spring birthday baby because most of our special occasions are celebrated in the fall. Lump that with all the holidays that the fall and winter bring, it's a pretty loaded season of celebrating already. But her birthday is slightly bittersweet for me. She was born on the day my grandfather died. I didn't plan it to be that way, but that's kind of how everything lined up. Her actual due date was a Wednesday. I wanted to give her as much time as possible to come naturally without having to induce. However, my doctor's on-call day is Tuesday, so I figured I'd schedule for the Tuesday after her due date to induce if she wasn't ready on her own. It just happened to be April 3rd. My doctor didn't even end up delivering her because she got caught up in a C-section at a different hospital, but that's another story.

She's goofy like her daddy. She also has his appetite.

My grandfather spoiled me growing up. My mother didn't let him buy me the moon and the stars, but he spoiled me with his attention. It was kind of inevitable. I was his youngest daughter's daughter and his only granddaughter. But even more important than being spoiled, my grandfather saw something special in me.

On one occasion after school as an 11 or 12-year-old when I was eating a snack, he walked over and asked my grandmother, “Which do you think has more nutritional value, cooked carrots or raw carrots?”

My grandmother responded, “Well, of course raw carrots. What kind of a question is that? It’s common sense.” My grandfather looked over to me and posed the same question.

“What do you think?”



“Well, since you’re asking this question, I think it’s cooked carrots, otherwise you wouldn’t ask such a question if the answer was so obvious.” After hearing my response, my grandfather smiled and nodded.

“This girl is smart. She really knows something.”

I feel that way about my daughter, not simply because she is my daughter, but because she has already displayed so much strength and character. From the very beginning, she showed herself a fighter. We renovated our bathroom last fall and did the demolition ourselves. Once I found out I was pregnant, I did the math and realized she was about 3 weeks old when I was slashing away at our bathroom. At the time, I knew my energy levels were different and my body was sending me different signals than the first time we renovated a bathroom, but I didn't think much about it because I knew it was very labor intensive work and just took it slightly easier.

This was at 39 weeks. (We'll just say 40 for the record because
I didn't get much bigger after this photo was taken.)
I could still get away with larger non-maternity tops in my
existing wardrobe. Please excuse the mess.

Starting at my 28 week pregnancy visit, my doctor had me go in for extra ultrasounds because I always measured small. Okay, to be fair, I looked really small my entire pregnancy.

At my last few doctor's appointments, she kept telling me I was measuring small but that was normal for my size and I was just making a small baby. Well, she came out just ounces shy of 8 pounds. She was a week late...but she would have been perfectly sized still if she came on time. It's too bad my doctor wasn't the one who delivered her. I would have really wanted to see her reaction when the nurse read her birth weight off the scale after delivery.










We tried to stay as minimal as possible with her nursery decor and preparations, but as with all things "first," we still went above and beyond in small ways. I've never been one to buy wall art as decoration just to have, but her nursery wall is one where we actually did purchase a few pieces.

We purchased three pieces for her wall and I made the other two, not specifically
intending to put them on a nursery wall, but it just happened to work out that way.

The frame in the middle says "beautiful girl, you can do amazing things." I believe she will. She already has. I'm really blessed to be able to call her my daughter, and I can't wait to watch her grow up and do the amazing things she will. 

Designed to Slow Down

Life is going by really fast right now. Between prepping my kids for substitute lessons and planning ahead to buy the books they'll need for the next two months, creating practicing "schedules" for the students who want to take two months off from piano (which I never recommend if you don't plan on straight up quitting,) buying last minute baby things to prepare for her arrival, meal prepping and freezing food for the months to come, life is busy.

And life is moving fast.

It really feels like a day or two ago when it was Monday afternoon and I was getting ready for my weekly lineup of kids to teach. Well, that was about four days ago. Before we know it, these last four weeks will be gone and our baby girl will not be so safely, well-contained and easily transported anymore, and she will be a part of the outside world we already know so well.

Our friends just had a baby recently, and his first month of life seemed to fly by to the rest of us. Of course, for them, such was not the case. I'm sure nights when the baby wouldn't sleep for more than a few hours at a time felt like an eternity. There are probably more moments than one as a parent when you wonder why it takes so long to eat "one meal" as an infant. And the amount of attention and needs they have for being such simple human beings at that age is quite unfathomable in the dire moments. (Simple being their job and role in life at the moment. They are very complex when it comes to their human body and what they are capable of which adults are not.)

I woke up this morning with the thought that perhaps we were designed this way to slow down time so some of these moments would be captured a little longer. We pay attention more when the needs are greater. And although stressful and hard, we slow down to notice things. The way her hair has grown longer. The shape of her eyes. The shape of her nose. The lines in her lips. Because let's all be honest. If our babies slept through the night in the first six months, we'd probably never truly stop to look at them enough to notice what was different or how fast they were growing. We might notice something everyday and be like "wow you look different today" but we probably wouldn't be able to instantly attribute it to a specific feature. Everything would just flow on by.

It's definitely easier to say and think through this when I'm not sleep deprived or overworked. Someone please remind me in about two months when all of this becomes my reality and I may be questioning at moments if I enjoy parenting and motherhood due to lack of sleep and foggy thinking.

There was purpose to this design: to allow us inadvertently to "slow time down" so we notice the subtle nuances.

Capable and Efficient

*I've had so many thoughts over the last few months, but things have just been so chaotic and I haven't had a chance to really process. So here's the first of catching up on months worth of blog posts.*

Jonathan and I joke around that my middle name was efficient. That's just the way I like to do things: very orderly, in an organized fashion, efficiently, and well. If I didn't know how to do it efficiently, I would figure it out. I would even joke with him that he married me because I was capable and efficient. We all know that's not true.

Well, after I got pregnant, I learned very suddenly and very quickly that I was going to be neither capable nor efficient for a while. I was not one of the lucky women who breezes through first trimester without feeling sick. I didn't wash the dishes. I didn't cook. I couldn't look at a computer screen for long periods of time. Any hint of smells sent me running. I didn't want to eat anything. We couldn't eat meals together or even in the same room. My stomach felt like it was churning constantly. I could barely get myself to shower. I went from being the wife who could work an eight-hour day, leave the office, run to two grocery stores, come home, and have a home-cooked meal ready by 6:30 pm, to this slob of a person who only changed when she had piano lessons to teach, and spent the other waking hours of the day in bed sleeping or hugging the toilet.

There was one lesson when one of my younger students even commented, "Is that your kitchen? It looks messy." I just politely smiled back and said, "Yes, that is my kitchen, and yes, it's a little messy. I haven't had time to clean it lately." Of course, in my head, I was secretly muttering, you have no idea what my life is like right now, kid. 

Despite my inefficiencies and lack of capability to do much of anything for myself, my wonderful, sweet husband stepped it up about 500% and took over at home after working a full day's work. We were blessed with friends who shared food for us him so he didn't have to live a bachelor lifestyle of PBJ and cold cut sandwiches for weeks on end. He washed the dishes, or I got used to living with dirty dishes piling in the sink for a while until he had time to load the dishwasher - this is where two people having 12 sets of plates and bowls and silverware for eight is NOT excessive. He fetched things for me when I felt too sick or too afraid to move for fear to get sick. He went out a countless number of times to buy things for me to eat or drink because I just had to have that specific item right then and there, and because hardly anything was staying down, we tried everything to find something that would.

Not only did he take over the daily household chores at home, but he singlehandedly finished the remaining DIY parts of our bathroom after the contractors did their part. He painted the cabinets, patched and painted the walls where we had removed old shelving, installed two vanity lights, two faucets, two P-traps, two towel rings, one toilet paper holder, and one towel bar, swept the floor, mopped the floor, and re-caulked the baseboards and crown molding. This doesn't even include the night he exterminated an ant infestation in our kitchen at 10pm at night.

And he did it all without complaining or getting irritated at me for not being able to do more.

I'm very grateful to be finally feeling better after what feels like a very long two months. It's refreshing to be able to get up and do things around the house without feeling like a complete potato (which we joked I wasn't even comparable to a potato because at my lowest, I probably had less nutrition in me than a potato). I'm slowly feeling more and more like myself, although some moments of queasy still sneak up on me here and there.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever go back to being my old, normal self, but I don't think our normal will ever be the same again. And honestly, it's okay. What needs to get done will get done whether efficiently or messily. And everything else finds a way.

Your Biggest Competition

One of the hardest aspects of life is to prevent external influences from changing your opinions. There are some instances where this is actually a good thing. Like when all your friends are telling you to stop smoking or to drink less or to stop playing computer games for a few hours to spend with your girlfriend (haha). These are all good examples of external influences. I'm talking about the external influences that cause us to go from positive thinking to negative thinking.

I will never forget my very last competition as a young pianist. I was 17 and somehow conveniently forgot to tell my dad I had a competition on a Saturday because I just figured my dad wouldn't be doing anything and had time to drive me down to Dallas to compete. Well, it was about 4 hours before my performance time, and my dad told me not to compete that day if I wasn't comfortable driving. I knew I wasn't going to do that because I had worked so hard.

I looked up directions on Google Maps on how to drive to Dallas taking all local roads because I was too scared to take the highway. I didn't want to add extra stress to my day, but I wanted to compete. So I drove myself. I gave myself ample time, drove slowly, and made it to the church. I performed well enough to land myself a spot in the finals, requiring a second performance, this time open-audience. I was used to competitions at this time in my life so playing for others didn't phase me. I ended up placing 3rd and earned myself my final trophy among my collection of musical accolades. I drove home very satisfied and proud of myself for having driven myself all the way down and back.

I told my teacher my results and he was happy for me. He probably told me "Good job" or something along those lines, not too congratulatory but enough to show he was pleased. He took a trip to Hong Kong right after and I had a few weeks off from lessons. After he returned, he asked if I wanted to have a lesson, and instead, I quit, and he was furious. I won't get into the details of why I quit, but he did not respond well. In his angry email to me "subtly" telling me I was making the worst mistake of my life, he said, "To be honest, she could have won the first prize....if she had tried a little bit more harder [sic]." This logical fallacy still makes me angry to think about because it's exactly the kind of thinking that is incorrectly ingrained into the heads of students. How could my teacher say this with such confidence? There is no merit to what he said. He was not the judge of the competition. In fact, he was not even at the competition. We as individuals all have the capability to perform our best performance. However, our best, even in the most perfect way, may not be good enough to win first prize. My teacher didn't even know the backstory about how my dad told me not to compete at all because he couldn't drive me.

Your biggest competition is always yourself, and you should always remember that. I have been the performer who has had memory slips in a competition and still ended up being chosen as one of the top 3. I have been the performer who has performed what I thought was a near-flawless performance and ended up winning nothing. We can only control how much work and effort we put in and our performance during our short five minute window to shine. The rest is someone else's opinion.

Parents, teachers, friends, when you know someone in a competition - your child, friend, or student - don't be like my piano teacher, suddenly changing his perspective because of an external situation. Let your praise be praise and your criticism be constructive. Be kind, be supportive, and know that the student is going to be his or her own toughest competition.

Mondrian Inspired

So if you read in my previous post about the garage art I had created last summer, you would have seen in there that the Mondrian inspired piece was another one I wanted to work on at some point. It took a while, but during winter break when all of my kids (except one!) decided to cancel for the week before Christmas, I had a lot of time on my hands. Finally found some time to write about it so I'm now getting around to sharing.

I went about the process a little differently than the website I got the idea from (because I actually didn't read the website and after seeing the picture, created my own process on how to go about it in my head.) My was a little more tedious than the other way, but it worked.

The first thing I did was tape to paint the black lines.

If you remember from the previous post, I had explained how my husband had picked up gallons of paint randomly on his way home from work one day for free after seeing a Craigslist ad for free paint. Lo and behold, one of those gallons of paint was black.

Now here's where I start telling you all the DIY secrets. I found the can of black paint, but the instant I cracked it open, it was so sour and bitter and repulsive smelling that I knew I was not going to be using it to paint my wall. I closed it right up, made a mental note to make a phone call later to dispose of it properly, and went on to plan B. Plan B was using another dark shade of paint that we had which I originally thought was black, but after using it for a small project, realized it was a very, very dark shade of blue. Seeing as this project is completely my own and only inspired by Mondrian, I veered from the true black lines in his paintings and opted for the very, very dark shade of blue.

Completed lines

As you can see, the dark blue does its job of being a dark contrasting color and doesn't make that big of a difference.

With the first color - blue!

As you can see, I also did not stay true to Mondrian colors. He used completely primary colors whereas I am using softer pastel shades of each of the three. The reason for this was that coming in, I knew I did not have a true red. The closest thing I had was a milder pink, and this was supposed to be a project that did not require spending any money. So I was not going out to buy red paint. Also, I later realized (which worked out in my favor) that the can of yellow paint we had was also a soft yellow and not a bright yellow. Initially, I had wanted to mix the blue to a lighter baby blue because of personal color preference, but it ended up complementing the other colors better.

The pink paint has gone on.

Finished!

As you can see, I pretty much lightened each shade of color from Mondrian's....by arguably the same degree for each color. I purposely left the edges fuzzy and soft because I wanted a "materializing" effect. Once in the heart of the painting, I made sure to fill everything in with crisp clean edges. 

If you stare at it long enough, you'll actually see the illusion of grey circular dots at the intersection of the dark lines. I don't know how to explain this one, but it's just one of the many ways that our eyes can play tricks on us. 

This is actually my smallest piece of artwork in the garage. It only spans about 4 ft wide and tall. My other pieces are pretty massive and measure about 5 ft wide and 6 ft tall.

I don't know how proud my Humanities teachers or my art history teacher in high school would be, and I didn't do exceptionally well in either class, but I do still love art and find ways to be creative with the space I'm given. I'm slowly running out of walls in my garage to paint,  but I'll think of something. ;)

Resolution

It was Tomb-Sweeping holiday (ancestor worship in Asian countries) in 2013, early April. We had a few days of break from class and I went shopping with one of my teammates. We took the bus down a few stops and went to an underground shopping strip we had frequented that year. Having picked up a new hobby of cross-stitching during my time in China, I wanted to buy a more challenging one to continue working on. We stopped by one of the stands which sold them, and I sifted through the piles of packages. It was a difficult choice between buying one with an attractive image and trying to match the difficulty I was looking for - not too beginner, but not too advanced.

After being indecisive for quite a while, I finally settled on one that had a beautiful picture, but was probably much too difficult for my ability. I told myself I'd work on it and finish eventually. It would just take some time, right?

A few weeks after that, I was video-chatting with a friend back home in the states. He saw me cross-stitching and rolled his eyes. I asked him why he was so turned off by cross-stitching. He said, "I hate it when people start them, work on it halfway, and then never finish them." The thought occurred to me - if I didn't finish this cross-stitch, I would be one of those people he just referred to.

After moving back home from China, I made pretty steady progress on my cross-stitch that summer. However, in the fall, I got a full-time job, so my progress drastically slowed. I had a full-time job for two years after that as well so I definitely did not have a lot of time to work on it. In those two years, we also got married, bought a house, did renovation projects, traveled, and the list goes on.

Earlier this year when I took a spontaneous trip to visit friends out of the country, I brought my cross-stitch with me on the plane. On the first leg of my trip, I cross-stitched. The gentleman who sat beside me saw me cross-stitching and was very familiar with what I was doing. He knew how time-consuming it was and how detailed things were. He asked how long I had been working on it. I told him, "About three years."

He told me, "Keep working on it. When you finish, let me know." He smiled, and left me to work quietly the rest of the leg.

On November 16, 2016 at 3:27 PM, I stitched my last stitch into this cross-stitch. It is finished.

My 3.5 year masterpiece. Pre-washing.

For those of you who aren't too sure how cross-stitches work, they come two ways. The first way you can buy them is a completely blank piece of cross-stitch cloth and a template. These require counting the squares to the tee in order to complete. Extra intense. Not the kind I had, especially for this large of a scale.

The second way you can buy them is with the colors labeled for you. This entire piece of fabric had the colors pre-printed on it. The key on the right side of the fabric allows you to match the color that's printed to the color of thread you use. Don't be fooled - this still requires quite a bit of brainwork, especially when your cross-stitch has six different shades of green thread all mixed in next to one another, AND, the key used six very similar shades of green to mark these squares for you. So all six shades of green look exactly the same next to each other and you still have to consult the actual instruction manual that came with the cross-stitch which is nine pages long.



These two images give you a size reference for the span of this cross-stitch. It is 290 squares wide by 200 squares tall. If you do the math, that's 58,000 little squares. By looking at the design, you can approximate 85-90% of the fabric stitched and merely 10-15% of the fabric that's left unstitched in the top right corner. That's almost 50,000 squares that need to be stitched, not to mention stitched twice to make the X. So that's a total of nearly 100,000 stitch strokes that needed to be completed in order to finish this cross-stitch.

This was truly a labor of love, but I'll have to be honest with myself. If it weren't for that friend who made that comment while we were video-chatting, I would have been less resolute to finish it. I texted him this afternoon after I finished. He can't roll his eyes at me. :)

Unfortunately, I don't have contact with the gentleman on the plane. He was just a very nice neighbor for a two-hour flight who sympathized with my hard work.

So what am I going to do now? Well, I have more cross-stitches to work on. But, I'm going to take a nice long hiatus first.

Washing my cross-stitch to remove the instructions and grid lines.

Washed

Life Lessons from a Nine-Year-Old

I was at a party just making small talk with the people around me a while back. About halfway through, one of the guests finally made it with his son. There was a basketball game that night so they arrived late. As the boy walked over, I said hi and asked him, "Did you win your game?"

I actually don't remember whether he won the game or not, but I do remember what he tacked onto his response: "Why does everyone ask me that?"

Now that was a question which made me stop and think. Why was I asking him that? I realized my question was formulated out of a natural response to want to know the outcome of the game - did you win or did you lose? But it also made me realize that by asking this question first, I had inadvertently moved the focus onto the result of the game rather than other more important things: sportsmanship, fun, skill, etc. We all tend to do that, don't we? Caring more about the result than the journey.

His question is very legitimate. And it's true, I do not want to instill the wrong idea that winning is always the end goal of every competition, contest, or race. Instead, I should have asked him, "Did you have fun at your game?" "Did you play well/do your best?" "Did you enjoy playing with your friends/teammates?" Those are much more lasting impressions than simply winning a game in itself.

This nine-year-old reminded me of an important aspect of life that I (and perhaps we collectively as a whole) tend to forget. Rarely is it ever simply about winning the game.

Screen Time

It is officially the 1st of November, and having been a quite warm Halloween evening last night, I am ready for lower temperatures and no longer hearing my AC unit kick on. Now the screen time I'm referencing is not looking at a computer/Ipad/phone. We do have a little bit of that, but I'm talking about something else: our window screens!

This weekend, we decided to do another little DIY project. We actually attempted this project a little under two months ago and failed miserably because the Home Depot we went to was completely understocked and depleted of window screening materials. It was a big flop, although we did repair one of our existing screens by reusing what we already had.

The project we meant to attempt was creating two completely brand new screens for two windows which did not have screens when we bought the house. No idea how that happens, but with this house, we learned not to ask the "why" questions. In order to make new screens, we needed some materials and tools:

Window Screen, sold in rolls


Window Screen Frame


Window Screen Corner Frames


Window Screen Clips


Window Screen Pull Tabs


Window Spline


Spline Roller


Hacksaw


Utility Knife


Measuring tape and scissors. Of course we all know what measuring tape and scissors look like, so I don't think I need to identify that for anyone :) Safety glasses might be good to have, although nothing went violently flying for this project, but I don't want to say you don't need them because there is some cutting involved.

Needless to say, what we thought was an easy, beginner level DIY that we thought could be accomplished in an evening....took a little longer than we thought. The first screen we made ended up taking over 2 hours to finish. The second one, we finished in about 1 hour. I guess we should have known, however easy something is to do, the first time is always going to take longer. And a key note I should always remember: messing up is easier than doing it correctly.

If you want to learn how to make a window screen, you can check out this link here that has a nice video. A few things this video does not include instructions on : springs and pull tabs.

From the outside. You can see the wavy mesh material of our screen!
And if you can't...well, it blends in pretty well because it's the right size to fit :) 

Our newly screened window that can now be
opened to allow our living room to breathe a little :)

I'm excited for this fall and winter because it means I can now open two of the largest windows in our house to allow for some outdoor air to penetrate into our once extremely musty (now only slightly musty) house. We missed out big time last year, but now we have no excuse :)

Total Cost: $25
Total Time Spent: 3 hours
Total Experience Gained: Priceless