Wisdom

 This. Year. Flew. By.

Who else feels that way about 2021? A lot of it was a blur, really. Maybe it's a pandemic thing. Maybe it's a mother thing. Maybe it's an adulting thing. Time just seems to fly faster and faster. 

This year, I felt wiser. I actually started to feel like I was an adult making adult decisions and being wise. That's not to say I wasn't wise before this year, but this year, I started to feel it. 

About four to six months ago, we took my children to a more secluded playground with less people. When we arrived, nobody was there. Shortly after, another family came and their kids started playing on the playground as well. Their guardian went off to the side and sat on the grass while the kids played. 

The two kids were older than my children and playing by themselves. At one point while watching my kids play, I sat on the play structure and was sitting in front of one of the pathways. I heard one of the other kids come up the structure, and I correctly assumed he would want to cross through where I was sitting. No sooner than I had processed this thought in my head, I heard him say, "Move."

I calmly turned around to face him after his rude request and said, "Can you ask me in a nicer way?" 

He replied, "How do I do that?" Now this, I wasn't expecting. This boy looked to be at least 10 years old, so for him to ask me how to do that was slightly baffling. Had he really not learned how to politely ask a request? 

I told him, "You can say, 'Excuse me, can you please move?'" He asked me again by repeating what I had just told him, and I scooted over so he could walk across.

10 years ago, had a kid told me to move, I would have just moved to get it over with. Five years ago, had a kid told me to move, I would have probably still just moved to get it over with. Something changed after I had my own children. There's a phase in Chinese I think of to describe it. Translated, it would mean bold or audacious. These were not words I would have described myself with growing up. But somehow being wiser has brought it out in me.

***

This year, I started reading again. I know, I say again because I read a lot in college because I had to for my major. Guilty secret: I don't actually enjoy reading that much. I have to be in a mood for it and I have to mentally prepare myself to read. Also, I think most days I'm really too tired to read because if I read, I get sleepy. 

Despite all that, these are the books I read this year, and all within the last six months or so. 

Three are YA fiction, three are just fiction, and one isn't pictured. I tried really hard to read Great Expectations again but the book isn't at my house and it was really hard for me to get through it, and reading on an iPad at that. I made it about a third of the way through and lost my momentum. Sorry Charles Dickens, I'll try again later. It's not my fault he got paid by the word...

I read Enchantment in high school and Voyage in the Dark in college. Both of these books I enjoyed the first time but simply didn't feel like I fully understood the depth of it. I was also 16 and 20, respectively, probably too young to actually get either book at the time. Now, reading them in my 30s (😱 seeing that typed out) they were so much more interesting and captivating. If you haven't read Enchantment and you like historical fiction/fantasy, you should definitely try it. 

As I look at these books, I actually see a theme of wisdom (or lacking wisdom) throughout all of them. I don't think that was intentional, or maybe subconsciously, it was. 

Next year, I'm hoping to read a little more. I haven't read every book on my bookshelf, and there are a lot I would like to reread again. Maybe this is my unofficial resolution. 

Here's to 2022.

The Art of Retail

Since Covid hit nearly two years ago, our leisure shopping has decreased significantly. Only this fall did we start actually going out to "browse" with the kids, and even then, the trips were no more than 20-30 minutes inside the store tops. Thinking about the way germs spread and being in an enclosed space indoors has really affected some of the things we used to do. Right before the pandemic hit, my husband took some super cute pictures of our daughter sitting in chairs and playing with toys at Walmart and Target during my last semester of pregnancy. I would teach in the evenings and he would take her out during my lessons so I could teach in peace and she wasn't asked to be quiet.

In the winter of 2021, my daughter and I finally ventured out shopping again. I had taken her with me to run an errand and deliver some things. After our delivery, I took her to Home Goods. This was one of our favorite stores to peruse before we had kids and even before the pandemic. Almost exactly three years ago, we had taken her to the same store. She wasn't walking at the time and we pushed her around the store in her stroller. There was a giant stuffed penguin at the store for sale that day and we took a picture with it. 

Three years ago. One of us looks very different. Two of us look the same 😉.

She and I went into the store and briefly passed their Christmas aisle. I took her to browse the wall of kitchen tools, and then we made it to the toy section. She and I looked at toys for a while. Then I told her I wanted to look at my stuff and we browsed the beauty aisle. She told me she wanted to go back and look at toys. I obliged and we walked back to the toy section. She wandered around some more and we made it to one corner.

I found a Baby Shark mini tablet and pressed the music button. It started playing Baby Shark. Just days before, I had played around with the piano app on my iPad while she was next to me and came across the tune for Baby Shark. I played through it once and moved onto other things. For days after I'd hear her humming the melody or making up her own words to the tune. This girl has an ear! She hears something once and I'll hear it from her days later with her own rendition. I can't wait to start teaching her piano, but boy am I not looking forward to the sass she might give me when she realizes it's more than just fun and games. 

She and I stood there for a very long time listening to the Baby Shark song. She'd press the button, look at some other toy, and press it again after it stopped despite looking at other toys. Then, she asked me if I was going to buy it and take it home. I didn't give her a direct answer first, but after messaging Daddy and doing some googling online, we came to the conclusion that I was not going to buy it. I told her she could keep playing with it in the store but we couldn't take it home with us. So she kept pressing the buttons and listening to the music. 

The Baby Shark toy she played with for a long time.

Then, I told her to put it back because Mommy wanted to look at one more thing before leaving. Well, we ended up looking at like 10 more things. I wandered a puzzle section. We made it back to the kitchen housewares section and looked at sheet pans and kitchen shears. Finally, we were ready to checkout with our two items (and no toys!). She looked at a few more things while we waited to checkout but put everything back when I asked her to.

Normally I don't give a play by play of my shopping trip, but this is monumental. I haven't shopped like this in almost two years. When Covid first hit and I went inside a grocery store to shop in-person after a month of going nowhere, I started to make my grocery lists twice: once to list the items and a second time to reorder them in order of how the store was arranged. Leisurely shopping? What is it?!

We spent an hour and a half inside the store browsing and walking around. I had my daughter with me, I didn't buy any toys, and nobody had a meltdown. It was amazing. 

Daily Musings

When we moved into the neighborhood, I told myself I wanted to meet the neighbors and get to know some of them. It just felt more friendly that way and I wouldn’t feel awkward running into them. Pre-covid, we knew about three neighbors really well and a few more by name. 

Since covid, we’ve met another handful and now we know over 10 neighbors. A few days ago, I loaded the kids up to walk around the neighborhood and deliver our Christmas cards. We stopped at the first house and rang the doorbell. After a bit, the dad came to the door and we gave him our card. We chatted very briefly before we parted ways. The wind was a lot stronger than I had anticipated so 55 degrees felt much colder than I thought. I told myself I'd go next-door, deliver one more card, and then go home. We went next-door and rang the doorbell. We waited a little while, and I didn't think they were going to open the door so we started back down the steps. Then, our neighbor opened the door and we had a delightful little conversation with him. 

When we left his house, I decided to keep going. The wind felt stronger because we were walking on a north south street and the wind was blowing north. I told myself once we turned the corner and started on an east west street, it would feel much better. In fact, it actually did. We walked to the street one over from ours and went to deliver a card to a sweet neighbor we'd met last year during Covid. She had randomly opened her door one day and came out to talk to us. I think my son was only about six months old at the time. And now he was telling her "buh-bye." 

Our last house on the way back was the neighbor directly across the street from us. I still remember driving up to see our house when it was for sale and parking in front of their house because that's the direction my car was facing. I remember thinking to myself that their house had lovely curb appeal. Shortly after we moved in, they had their front door painted a shade of maroon. Aggie maroon. I told them I was a longhorn but would not be painting our front door burnt orange. They invited us in to show the kids their Christmas decorations. I pushed our stroller about 2/3 of the way up their steps so it wasn't sitting in the middle of the sidewalk below. 

We stayed and had a lovely chat and the children were able to explore and peruse the rooms of their house. In the middle of our visit, he received a phone call. Turns out, it was the neighbor across from their house who lived next-door to us. He was calling because he saw something that looked like a homeless person's cart in front of their house. Our neighbor laughed and joked it was his wife's. Then he told him it was our stroller. Everyone had a good laugh. 

The kids checking our their ride.

When my daughter started telling me she was hungry, I knew it was time for us to make our way home and get lunch ready. As we made our way to the front door, she found another room to explore and somewhat forgot about being hungry. Children...gotta love them. 

We arrived home and I told my husband about the stroller story. He laughed. Somehow I ended up picking the worst day to take a walk around the neighborhood and deliver Christmas cards, but it turned out to be such a fun morning. We do love our neighbors :) 

A Cinderella Story

When I was little, I was obsessed with Cinderella's glass slipper. I remember my childhood Cinderella book and I'd stare at the pictures of her blue gown and glass slippers. I vividly remember the scene from the movie where the slipper sits atop a pillow and they animate a sparkle gleaming from the shoe. Really, all those tiny details Disney added in went straight to my soul. 

As a child, I really wanted my own glass slipper. Swarovski makes a glass slipper as part of their crystal collection, but at $100+, I said no thank you. I was also intelligent enough to know I didn't actually want something breakable, because chances were, I was going to break it. So instead, I wanted a "glass" slipper ornament made out of some other material that wasn't breakable. Over the years I saw many renditions of Christmas ornament heels. Most were glittery and sparkly, some were acrylic, but none were mine.

You can find Christmas ornaments which look similar to this for a few dollars.
Pretty depending on the perspective you're taking, but not what I wanted.

As I grew up, I fell in love with a miniatures collection called Just the Right Shoe. I'd see the collectibles pop up in magazines here and there. The closest I ever got was cutting out the pictures and saving them in notebooks.

An example set of Just the Right Shoe on a display shoe.

I eventually gave up on my dream of ever owning my own Cinderella slippers. The years went on and I got married. We started a tradition of buying a meaningful ornament every year to add to our Christmas tree. Since then we've purchased eight ourselves and been gifted many with the births of our children. I even turned some old souvenirs into ornaments by hanging them up with string. 

My kids love checking out the tree.

While casually discussing Christmas gifts, my husband asked me what I wanted, and I randomly told him I wanted a glass slipper ornament. I told him it had to be a certain kind with a certain appearance. I wasn't the young child who was fascinated by all things shiny with glitter anymore. So I did a quick search online and actually found one which didn't break the bank and actually looked the way I wanted it to. And he ordered it, no questions asked. 

The perfect balance of elegance and charm and within budget!

I didn't grow up hungry or poor or lacking in any physical sense. All my needs were met sufficiently, but like Cinderella, I did not grow up with a lot of joy or fun. Christmas wasn't a big deal at our house. Our gifts sometimes consisted of rewrapped existing toys so we could simply open an actual gift. My husband has helped bring back the joy and fun I missed out on growing up, and for the first time, I have my own Cinderella "slipper."

(Technically, this is my second slipper..if you want to read about my first "slipper" check out a post from three years ago here.)

Ugly Delicious

After my son was born, an auntie dropped off food for us. One of the dishes she brought was ketchup shrimp. It was delicious. I hadn't had this dish in years and tasting the sauce on the shrimp reminded me of my childhood. After that, I looked up a recipe.

The recipe I found was from The Woks of Life. I read the recipe and kept the page open on my iPad for over a year. It would be one of my 5+ tabs open at any one time, and it stayed there for a long, long time. Why didn't I try making it? After all, we have shrimp at home almost at all times. I think it was mostly fear and a couple of other excuses.

- Fresh shrimp tastes better than frozen so you get more flavor out of it.

- I love head-on shrimp. If I'm going to take the time to make a beloved dish, I was going to go all out. 

- I'm not a big risk taker so if it's a new recipe, I have to mentally prepare myself first.

One afternoon, I went grocery shopping and decided on a whim to buy head-on shrimp. We used part of it during hot pot after the kids went to sleep so we could eat in peace. We haven't done a hot pot meal at our house for nearly two years. It was a lovely at-home date. For the rest of it, I decided to go for it and make the ketchup shrimp recipe.

I really love their blog and the recipes they post. I've learned a lot of Chinese food from their blog, so if there's a dish you enjoy and are curious how to make it, chances are it's on their blog. 

My ketchup shrimp turned out beautifully. 

I love head-on shrimp. I just can't explain. I know it grosses out a lot of people, especially people who didn't grow up with food that's beyond chicken and potatoes. But the extra flavor you get from having the head on is worth it. 

Let me tell you, this dish brought me back. If a flavor inside your mouth could transport you back to a distinct memory, this one did it for me. I felt like I was a little kid again sitting in our kitchen table at our old house with yellow-flowered wallpaper, propping my chair up on its back legs and leaning against the window ledge. The sauce combination in this dish was so distinct to me as a flavor I loved and hadn't had in so long.

Anyone else have that one dish which brings them back?

A Themed Birthday

I had two birthday parties growing up, and neither of them had themes. My first themed birthday was actually this year! It was unintentional but just conveniently worked.

Unfortunately, my youngest got sick the weekend before my birthday so on my actual birthday, we didn't do very much. We did get takeout from bbq chicken, a new chain of Korean fried chicken which opened sometime last year. The first time we ordered from them, I wasn't impressed. So we reverted back to our old kfc favorite restaurant for a few orders. Then, recently, we decided to give bbq chicken another try, and I was much more impressed. I don't know if it's because it's the second time we had it, my tastes have changed, or if it was actually better. But I enjoyed it much more the second time.

Then there was my card. My husband and I have been DIYing birthday cards for many years now. Occasionally we've purchased cards if we were short on time, or like the time I was pregnant and puking during my husband's birthday so he received his birthday card about a month later. True story. Well this year, my husband made me a card and put a specific penguin on the front of the card. It's a penguin from a scene of a k-drama we watched together.

Well, we found the specific penguin online. The only retailers who sold it were Asian companies and potential scam websites. After doing some research and scouting, we decided to take a chance from this one website which looked the least sketchy. It wasn't a cheap stuffed animal, but it wasn't unreasonably expensive for being a "famous" plush. We still weren't completely sure if it was going to be a scam or not, but to mitigate the consequences of a potential scam, we used our fanciest credit card so if we were going to have to report a scam, the credit card customer service would have been a little nicer. That was the hope, anyway. 

Thankfully, we didn't have to find out because it wasn't a scam! 11 business day later, it arrived! 

Shipped all the way from Asia in Asian style wrapping
and sewn shut with string like a rice bag! iykyk.

I might be the only one who feels this way, but even after marriage and two children, I feel like I'm aging backwards. At the very least, on the inside. 😜

Happy 18th birthday to me! 😂 just kidding.

Punished for Promptness

I’ve been someone who likes to get things done on time. My English teacher during my junior year of high school had a wonderful system where if we turned in our essays before the due date, we would earn five extra points because it allowed her to spread out her grading instead of receiving and grading 30 papers all at once.  You bet I capitalized on those bonus five points every time. I didn’t always write phenomenal papers, but those five points occasionally meant the difference between a B and an A. 

However, there've been three distinct times in my life when being prompt did not work in my favor. 

1. When I was in high school, we wrote essays for orchestra. Each year we got assigned our orchestra essay in the beginning of the year, and each year, most people would wait until about April to actually write them and turn them in before they were due. In April. The first year, that's kind of what I did. I was a freshman and I didn't really know what I was doing my entire freshman year. Sophomore year, I knew better. I planned the concert I'd attend and would write about and had everything done early. On the first day the teacher was accepting essays, I turned mine in. There was no special recognition or anything for being the first, and that's okay because I didn't expect anything. I was simply glad it was completed.

About a week later, my teacher had some candy and she randomly made the announcement that if anyone turned in their orchestra essay, they'd receive a piece. Nobody had their essay ready right at that moment, but I'd already handed mine in, and I did not receive a complimentary piece of candy for having already turned it in. I didn’t care about the candy. It was never about the candy. But why make a random statement a week later AND forget about the essay which had already been turned in? Maybe she didn't want to single me out. But if you're going to offer candy aren't you trying to single someone out?

2. Years later when I was at a conference, the director emailed about sending him rooming requests for the hotel. I sent him a reply with my roommate request that very same day. I never received a confirmation email from him saying he'd received my email, but confirmation emails get lost these days. So, fine. I didn't think about sending a follow up one to see if he'd received it because he was a busy person with lots to do. 

At the conference, I saw my room assignment and it was not rooming with the person I had requested. I didn't complain about it or tell anyone, but my friend and I knew something went wrong and it wasn't on our end. 

3. I purchased an item from a newly launched website to support a business. I received my item and was generally pleased with it. After a few months, I noticed the prices had lowered. Now these weren't temporarily lower prices. These were permanently lowered prices as far as I could see on the store's website. Including the special promo discounts which were still valid, I could have saved over $20 had I been lazier about supporting this business. That's a huge disappointment from a customer perspective because my fervent support upon the initial launch meant I paid more money. Shouldn't it be the other way around? 

It's a shame because I was going to buy more products, but after this happened, I haven't because I don't feel valued as a customer. My early loyalty was actually penalized. 

**

My memory is probably better than most to remember these seemingly minute details about life, but even the "insignificant" events shape me to be who I am today. Have these affected my perception of being prompt and timely? In some ways, yes, they have.