Hello...Bye!

Busy life, busy wife.

Many things have come to pass; some good, some bad. But, for the most part, I'm still very happy with my life.

I recently had a minor disagreement with my sister and haven't seen or spoken to her since. Not by my choice by the way. It's been a long six weeks and I miss her. She and I are closest out of all my siblings. Le sigh. She tends to over-dramatize and over-play situations and I'm just gonna ride this out with her. She's always dictated what, how I should live my life and, for the most part, I allowed her to. But, now that I have a family of my own, the rules are now mine. Granted, Asian cultures usually have this "your business is my business since we're family" schtick. But, each family is different and one must respect the idea of a separate household. What's worse is that my son hasn't been able to hang with his favorite cousins. He's been constantly asking for them, wanting Facetime with them on his iPad and asking to call them daily. But alas, Auntie hasn't learned to release her anger. Poor babies. I would love to see my nephews too.

So, in the meantime, I've been bringing Baby to visit Gramps more often. My dad loves having a toddler to play with since I didn't have the opportunity to bring Baby around before. Baby would follow Gramps around as he's doing his chores (as you can see in the picture below).



So I leave you for now with this iPad-addicted boy of mine. Cheers.

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Meals

Got sick...again. But this time it was a doozy. Baby caught it from one of his friends and then decided to share it with Mom and Dad. We're all on the mends but it wasn't pretty for a few days. Let's just say boxes of tissues were used up and lots of runny noses to clean. Such is the duties of a Mom.

So during the week Hubs had off from work, I had a bit more time to whip up some dishes I've always been trying to make. After a while, a little bit of change up was in need. One can get bored of the same types of dishes.

According to Hubs, I made a "bomb ass" Asian beef stew from scratch. It only took about 5 hours to make.

Ingredients:

Beef bones
cubed beef
thin sliced beef
garlic cloves (minced & whole)
cilantro stems
star anise
black pepper
black soy sauce
sweet soy sauce
fish sauce
prok rind
veggies (ong choy or chinese celery or soy bean sprouts)
any kind of rice noodles

First you roast the beef bones in a pot w/ oil till brown. Then add everything else that's not green and simmer for a dew hours. The longer you let the stew simmer the tastier. When almost done, add the greens in. Use the sauces to flavor as you fancy it.



I also made a Spicy Tuna Salad. It's quick, easy and healthy! Another dish was a Tuna Salad that Hubs loved so much he brought it to eat at work the next day. And he NEVER likes to eat leftovers!

All these dishes, and others I don't have time to talk about, were to jump start a healthy eating season; after the crappy Christmas holiday binge.

Gotta go now. Baby's grabbing at me to pick him up so he could play on the computer. Yeah, that's how much time I have.

Sick but Alive

So it's been a long while. Many good and bad things have happened but I still hold steadfast to my love for my family. They are the source of my happiness, life and stress. I'm currently sick from all the stress from holiday planning, holiday shopping and Baby's birthday shindig. So many things are happening as soon as Halloween rolls around. It's one after another week after week. Oy vey! Halloween was only the beginning. A week later, we were celebrating one of my nephews' birthday. A day after, Hubs and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. Two days after, we had family visiting for a week and had to play host. Then Thanksgiving looms ahead with just my sister and I planning, cooking and cleaning for my "clan" of 30+. A week after Thanksgiving was Baby's celebrations, hosting the visiting in-laws and a whole slew of unnecessary drama that caused me to fall ill.

Halle-freakin-luya! It feels great to have Baby's birthday party over with. Now I can just go-with-the-flow. Another nephew's birthday was this past Saturday. Then next weekend are Baby's friends' birthdays back-to-back (Saturday and Sunday). Then...dun, dun, dun...Christmas day. Again sister and I have to cook and clean; having only one week to plan everything for everyone.

But the celebrations don't end there! We have New Years' Eve then Chinese New Year. Then we can take a breather until Easter.

What a busy life as a mother, wife, sister, daughter, in-law...

Sheesh! I'm seriously tired and am in dire need of a vacation. Anyone for a girl's overseas shopping trip?

Explanation

So why have I been bitchy lately? Well, the reasons are many and my own.

I have a rather headstrong, strict, OCD personality and I do not apologize for it.

As a child, my mother told me I was very obedient, observant, helpful and too trusting. I didn't know what she really meant. I just thought I had to be all these things because she loved me and would not be quick to be angry at me for whatever reason. Fast forward to my very early college years. Carolyn and I were best friends since the 7th grade; making our friendship 13 years strong. Well, you'd figure you trust your very best friend right? Things began to unravel. She began to have me pay for her things, which were quite expensive, and promised to pay me back. Well, that never happened. For example, for Christmas, she bought a pair of Via Spiga boots and "didn't have the cash on her" so I offered to pay with my credit card and "she'll pay me back when I got the bill". So when it came time to pay up, the bitch claimed I ate $250 worth of food from her family's restaurant. Whoa! It was a Chinese restaurant and I went about once a week. So basically, each bowl of noodles was $60! WTF! Then she began to turn on me by calling me a slut. "I was partying too much" and she was keeping an eye out on me for my mother, at my mother's request. Funny though, if I was a slut then so was she. She was my partying buddy!!! I hardly ever drank, we shared our outfits, and I was with the same guy for nearly 8 years! So who's the slut? So what a disappointment when your best friend turns into someone you cannot trust.

Secondly, my abusive ex pretty much brought out a person I never thought existed in me...a dark person. Things were hunky dory for the first 6 months. Things turned downhill quickly after. He somehow got his name in all of my credit cards and pink slip to my car. He took my paychecks. He was "safe keeping" my cash for me. I had "$5 a day for food. I had to fight to buy my groceries. We'd take turns paying for the groceries. When it was his turn, I would put something in the basket and he'd say we didn't need it. But when it was my turn to pay, most of the food was his and all I had was frozen food. Fair right? NOT!!! I had 2 jobs and had to wake up at 4am to get to the first one. He was a bartender and would come home at 230am and bug the crap out of me for a little something-something. Of course I wouldn't have it. Many times, I'd end up in the hallway of our apartment complex in my underwear because "I annoyed him". WTF!!! I'm the one who was asleep before your horny ass came home to bother ME! How is it my fault that I'm in the hallway?! All in all, this relationship turned very brutal, physical and very emotionally draining. He ended up in jail for domestic abuse and I had to stick around for several more months to get his name out of my credit cards, bank accounts and pink slip to my car, etc. As soon as that happened, I moved out.

There are many other instances which has jaded me from people but that's for another time.

I'm not a dark, moody person naturally. But my personal, past experiences taught me that the world is not all butterflies, unicorns and rainbows. I gotta stick up for myself and not let others even have the slightest chance to take advantage of me. When I do sense that something is about to happen or happened, that's when Bitchy me extends my claws. It's not pretty and yet I DO NOT apologize for being defensive and protective of myself and the ones I love. These walls were put up because I was and am tired of being taken advantage of.

Thirtysomething

When I was younger, (think junior high, high school, early college) I used to think and wonder why women in their thirties were such bitches. Now, I know why. We "bitches" don't have the patience to deal with all the stupidity of others. There's already so many things to do and deal with in life and stupidity, insincere, ungrateful, just plain rude, etc. people simply do not have room in my life. If I don't like it, I'll really let you know. I really don't mind or care about being called a "bitch". Actually, it's a compliment so to speak because then it means that either you couldn't take advantage of me or you couldn't get things your way or something along that line. If you (say a complete stranger) don't really give a hoot about me, then why would I of you?

I've been stepped on waaaaay too many times to let anything of that sort to happen again.

Careful, this bitch's claws are out.

M.I.A.

So where have I been for the past many weeks? No where. I've been mostly doing the same 'ol things. It's been very difficult to say the least to be the best mother (and wifey) I can be to my boys. Each and every day is pretty much set in its schedule and it's a whole new ball game if I deviate from it. I do try my very best to keep everyone happy and healthy while, many times, forgetting and foregoing my own needs. All in a day's work of a Mom. However, this 24/7 job does take its toll and every single minute I get to sit down and just let my mind and body rest is so very much appreciated. People not in this boat don't know what and how it feels to have every single minute of the day and night planned out for you, whether you have a migraine, hunger pains, or complete exhaustion. Even Moms need a break once in a while.

Damn, I'm tired. It's been rough with having all four of Baby's incisors cutting through his gum at the same time. Poor Baby. I feel awful for him since he doesn't know how to express his frustrations and pains. I've been getting 2-3 hours sleep at best and have been developing migraines and increased lower back pains. Even Dad is feeling the pinch.

On another note, I've been M.I.A. also from Twitter. Why? Well, besides the aforementioned, I just felt like I got too caught up with the whole social media thing. Besides, people don't really need to know what's going on each and every minute in my life, no matter how mundane or important. It defeats the purpose of me not having Facebook. Many times, I just think being on a social media channel borders self-promotion and just plain, showing off. "Look what I just got"...blah, blah, blah. Initially this blog was supposed to be my outlet of my happiness, epiphanies, frustrations and what nots but, recently, I found myself starting to peruse other wonderful, beautiful, colorful blogs and thought that I could do what they did. Heck, anyone can start right? True that, true that. After a while, I realized that I'm not the type of person to go-with-the-flow. I've always felt like I was an outsider who actually rather enjoys the view of the goings-on of others. In other words, I'm more of an Observer than a Participant. I'm not what you call a Troll or Stalker but rather someone who admires from afar. There's countless bloggers that I admire - their talent for words, beautiful pictures, chic-n-sassy styles, makeup and hair tutorials ...etc. However, truth is, I simply don't have the luxury of time or money to do the things I enjoy and read about from other people's blogs. I'd much rather save some of that money towards my next Chanel piece.

I love make-up just like every girl on Earth does. But, I have only one face. How much make-up does one need to look the way they want to everyday? For me, not much. I don't need to have 10-15-20 blushes sitting my make-up bag just waiting to be used a few times. I don't need palettes upon palettes of eyeshadow to be used just once. I mean, how many shades of taupe do you need - matte, shimmery, glitter, frost, Urban Decay version, Smashbox version, MAC version? I could understand 2-3 but 10-15-20? It gets ridiculous and expensive for a common person to have so much. In my opinion, it's a waste of your hard earned cash. It seems that it's a rat race to acquire or even have the means of acquiring as much makeup, clothes, trinkies, etc. Trying to one-up on others is not my cup of tea. But, each his or her own. Makeup Artists are pretty much the only people who are the exceptions.

I've been approached to promote this and that but advertorials are just not my thing. I thought it was but when you're asked to "honestly and positively" review a product, then that's not in my "honest" opinion. Positive reviews should be from what the reviewer thinks and not from the reviewer being "bought". I will give MY honest review only.

So, moving forward, this will be MY blog, whether you like it or not. I'm not after higher membership or readership. This is all about me, me, and me.

Peace out.