Recent happenings

I haven't been updating my blog in a while so there has been quite a few recent happenings around this household.  Here we go!

So this is what 2 cups of butter really look like.  YIKES!

I made another batch of holiday shortbread for a friend and her family after the New Year. They have recently been recovering from Covid and even after 2 weeks, she has yet to get her sense of taste and smell back. That is just scary!

Here is Graham's pasta mobile.  Too cute!  He is still attending a class called Science Olympiad and that was one of his recent assignments:

I finally oiled our teak shower stool.  I'm not sure who is enjoying it more in the shower - me or Charlie??!  He loves taking showers in our bathroom now and says that he props his leg up on this stool to wash his legs. LOL!

Graham is still busy making his devices from these "crates" that we order online.  His last one was a pinball machine.  It's fun to see him build it but after a while, these "toys" just sort of sit somewhere unattended to. We've decided to not renew these crates for now. Charlie has even yet to do his last one!

I did start a new subscription to the "Maker" crate instead and I figured it would be a good one to have all 3 of us work on together. It is a bit more complicated and above the age bracket for the boys. Okay... so perhaps it was for me.  But you'll have to check out what they are learning to do in a future posting :-)

Charlie finally decided he had enough of me at the dining table, so he has moved to have his Zoom classes at his new desk in his bedroom!  I still have to monitor his progress throughout the day as he would come out to the living area and say "School's done!" and it's still 10:30am. I would walk him back into this bedroom and have him re-log back into Zoom and his teacher is still talking. Stinker!

I finally took down our Christmas decorations but I guess I should have thought about how much double-tape I should have used to hang these lights.  I totally ripped up the wall/window frame!  Urgh, as if I don't have enough things to fix around this house.  I swear our next house is going to be turn-key!!!

And it doesn't help when this "somebody" is just sitting around playing Nintendo Switch.  Not like I'm naming any names or anything like that :-P

I still love you, honey!!! :-)

I decided to make one more gnome hat for a friend.  I decided to use a different yarn for the nose and forgot how much thicker this other yarn is.  I think the nose looks too big! But the boys didn't think so, so I guess if they approve then it's all good:

By the way, remember that bottle of bubbly that we were trying to save after our wedding anniversary?  Well, Bobby and I opened up the rest of it 3 days later and look, it's still bubbly!!! Nice job, honey!

We finally caved in and bought another vacuum robot.  I'm not exactly sure what happened to this one but it actually fell over the step!  Thank goodness it was just the one step.  I think it was somewhat running our of battery too so maybe it got confused?!  Still better than having to grab the vacuum and manually do the job though ;-P

And oh, a week after taking the Christmas indoor and outdoor decorations, I finally motivated to take the Christmas tree down.  I'm so glad I remembered about this ornament box that I probably bought a year ago during clearance.  I swear I'm going to do a better job this upcoming Christmas in telling the boys not to hang EVERY SINGLE ornament on the tree!

Can't believe this tree has followed us around since our days living in Oklahoma! That's probably 7-8 years ago now!

Charlie's eye/chalazion is finally healing!  Except now I think we see another bump further up along his eye lid.  Urgh, that's a few more bucks to see the ophthalmologist again in another 2 weeks!

As for my nail, this is what it's looking like after about 1.5 months.  Yikes, pretty ugly! Although maybe I should be glad that the nail did not fall off:

These buttermilk biscuits are looking much better though.  I'm probably making them about 2-3 times a week.  Look at all the air pockets in this one:

I suppose it doesn't really matter how much air pockets there are when you're going to make a hole in the middle of the biscuit and fill it up with mounds of jelly!

Phew! That's it for now.  More updates to follow next time! :-D

Virtual Open Stage - Graham

As per everything else that's happening recently, Graham's music studio is hosting a virtual "Open Stage".  This is where kids from the music studio can show off what they have been learning so far.  It's been a while since the boys have performed at an Open Stage.  The last time (which was also their first time) was December 2019 in the studio! 

I recently moved my chair away from this corner, so I think it's a good spot to set Graham up for Open Stage.  Looks like the spotlight I bought recently will come in handy too.  Ha!

Here goes Graham - playing Minuet in G by Beethovan.

View video here: https://youtu.be/lAwIZc8fzNw

I thought Graham did great, so did he!  He said he would give himself a 15 out of 10.  What a little stinker.  He didn't look like he was nervous, or at least he didn't show it. 

After the show, we snuggled up and watched the rest of the kids perform:

We probably could have transmitted the Zoom call to the TV and view it on the big screen but we're sticking to my little mini laptop,... that's stacked upon a double decker tupperware, a box, and also a tissue box.  I needed to get the right height for Graham's performance:

I wonder at what age will the boys' feet surpass my foot size. At 15 years old perhaps? It's scary to think that Graham is already 10 years old.  Where has the time gone??!

Garden update

I'm so excited about our vegetables that are starting to grow!  Well, first off - I was shocked to see the size of this green pepper.  It had been a few days since I had checked the garden.  The recent rain must have helped!

We've been eating a lot of kale but I can't wait until these get bigger and ready for harvest.  Here's the cauliflower:

And a couple of our broccoli plants are doing quite well too:

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I hope we don't have any pests. That would be really disappointing after having to wait so long! There are a few holes in the leaves of our kale plants but so far we still have plenty of kale to spare. I might look up some natural pest deterrents.

In the meantime, my Fuchsia plant is recovering quite well! New leaves are starting to sprout.  Yay!!! I hope it will flower again:

That's it for now.  I just put down some dandelion and weed killer in the yard on Monday.  I hope it also takes care of all the clovers that are overtaking the yard!  It's been unseasonably warm this January, which is suppose to our wettest month.  We've only had less than 2" of rain so far (normally 5" by now).  At least both the rain barrels are still fairly full. I've only used the water from there to hand-water the flowers and veggies when I don't run the sprinklers.

I'll post more on the garden when we're ready to harvest! :-)

No more Fishy :-(

Fishy was acting up last week or so.  She wasn't swimming as much. She would lay on the ornaments or just on the gravel.  It was really weird!

So of course I had to start researching on the internet as to what may be wrong with Fishy.  Based on what I found, possibly "clamped fin" as I did notice that her bottom fin was not spread open like it normally was.  And that could sometimes be caused by water being too cold.  Betta fishes actually live in tropical places so they prefer warmer waters.  We've been waking up to about 66F in the living room. Yikes!

By the way, I just realized a few days ago that our new snail Blue has tentacles!

Anyway, after a few more days and also moving the fish bowl on top of our portable heater, Fishy's behavior became more erratic and then at times really lethargic.  I have no idea what's going on!  I finally decided to order a heater and thermostat... but on that same night, it seems that Fishy decided to move on to the next world.  This became more obvious as Blue was crawling on Fishy that night:

I had prepped Graham about Fishy dying and he seemed a bit upset.  And so when I did realize that Fishy was dead, we decided to tell him that night instead of in the morning.  I wasn't sure how upset he would be during school. 

The next day, we decided to scoop Fishy out of the tank. It definitely looked dead by now. Graham said he wanted to bury her at the same spot where we put Tiger, the previous snail that died.  Unfortunately I had planted vegetables on this same spot, so I said ~ Why don't we put Fishy in the compost bin?  And Charlie chimed in and said something about how people (Native Indians?) used to put fish remains in the soil.  So, that settles that!

I left Fishy in our small bowl that is used to be taken out to our compost bin.  For such a tiny little fish, I couldn't believe the smell she was starting to give off after a few hours!

Fishy lasted 4 months and 3 days.  That's probably 4 months longer than what Bobby had predicted!  So I suppose in that sense, we did pretty well.  Ha ha! Although, I am still quite upset that Fishy had died.  I keep thinking back on what I could have done - maybe put her in a separate bowl and see if she could have recovered that way.  Not sure if the new plant is making her sick??!

Anyway, it seems that Graham has gotten over Fishy pretty well. It didn't take long for him to suggest buying another one!  I told him I'd like to figure out this whole temperature thing first.  The thermometer that I had purchased online came yesterday and after taping it to the bowl, there wasn't even a reading! Hmmm... the coldest it would register was 64F.  Could the water be that much colder than 64F??!  Well, the new heater is coming today.  I couldn't find a small heater for our fish bowl so I hope I don't mess up with this bigger sized one and cook up our snails.  That would really bad.  Wish me luck!!!

Boys biking (Dec 26)

These were actually from the day after Christmas.  I'm not sure if Graham and Charlie are actually biking when they go for these bike rides.  Here are the photos that Bobby would send to me while they are out and I'm home.

So, okay... they look like they are riding here:

But then, there's this:

And then there's snack time:

And then getting hands dirty from a fallen bicycle chain.  Actually I'm glad Graham's hands are not as dirty as I thought it would be handling greasy chains. And at least his shirt is still clean too!

Some more resting and relaxation... or sun bathing?!

Time to go home and there's some black smoke in the distance. Hope we're safe!

Not exactly sure where the smoke was coming from but no further incident by us, so all is well! I'm glad the boys love going out biking with their Daddy. Bobby doesn't like riding on my bike so maybe he needs to get an adult-sized scooter so he can keep up with the boys?! 

Happy 14th Anniversary (Jan 6)

Woah... 14 years!  Has it really been that long? Ha ha! To celebrate, we decided to finally open up the bottle of champagne that we forgot about during New Year's eve.  Oh, our neighbor gave us some oranges so we made Mimosas to go with dinner.  Actually, Charlie kept asking if he could have a few more sips. LOL!

We decided to order some fancy pizza for dinner - brocolli rabe with white sauce. Yum!  And wait until you see our dessert!

Mommy got a nice massager from Daddy:

And Mommy presented Daddy with the Paint by Number canvas.  I'll have to figure out how to frame it.  The frame was suppose to come with the package but it didn't.  So it's just going to stick on our sliding door for now: 

The canvas is located awkwardly to the top right because Charlie had his Santa artwork in that void/space and I had taken it down yesterday.  Speaking of which, we're suppose to take the Christmas tree down this weekend. Seems like such a chore.  Can't we just leave it up until the end of January???

After all the pressies, it is time to have dessert! And super yummm... it's a S'more pizza!

When are these boys going to learn to eat properly and not get food all over their mouths?  Actually, surprisingly Graham looks pretty clean here:

After dessert, it's time to try out the new massager.  OOooohhh.... seems that boys are enjoying this new gift too:

And oh, we didn't finish the fancy champagne and was figuring out a way to store it in the fridge.  Hmm... don't think this method will work.  I probably could have looked something up online like I normally do. But maybe Bobby's suggestion with work? Guess we'll find out soon if these bubbles will escape:

We didn't buy any cards this year but instead made some handmade ones instead.  I copied one off the internet (to the right), Bobby made his original work (in the middle), and Charlie also made us a card.  Graham is obviously not as excited with card making, but that's okay:

And Charlie gifted his 2 snowman projects (from years past) for me and Bobby as anniversary gifts.  Ha ha, how funny is that!

And I came to realize the day after our anniversary that I had ordered another gift for Bobby during all the Christmas shopping.  I didn't want to really encourage the wine drinking but thought this would be a useful gift for any special occasion that did require a nice bottle of wine:

 

I think we are all be interested to see how this wine aerator works!

Happy Anniversary my honey bun! We've gone through a lot of up and downs throughout the 14 years of this relationship and perhaps being tested for what's more to come. Looking forward to more adventures in our lives together and also with our two monkeys! XOX

Paint by Numbers

I was trying to figure out what to do for our anniversary this year.  And so I thought, what about a Paint-by-number project?! It seems to be the rage these days.  Well... so here we go.  I ordered it as part of our Christmas gift so Bobby wouldn't be suspicious. Not sure if he actually did find out that I was working on it.  I had been somewhat hiding it in the she-shed.

So many numbers!!!  I decided to start with the darker colors first, as you can see to the top left corner of the canvas.  This was just a couple of days before Christmas:

And then 2 days prior to our anniversary (on Jan 4):

I finally finished by the evening of Jan 5th!  I did spend a lot of time on it the past 2 days before the anniversary.  The boys were back in school so I did have some quiet time in the she-shed:

It looks pretty amazing from afar!  But from up close, almost eerie because I don't really have any eye balls.  Hmmm....

See what I mean?  There was a sheet of all the numbers for the painting.  The numbers are quite small and also lots of them were overlapped too so that made it difficult sometimes.  And it doesn't help when my long-sightedness is getting worse! My bifocal contact lens in one eye was making it quite tricky to focus on all these little numbers. Ha! 

I was hiding all the evidence in this metal drawer:

Here was my "Paint Station" in the she-shed, among all the tools and "stuff".  I'm glad I had my stool and even had a little portable heater because it did get so cold outside!  

By the way, here is the original photo.  I do love how those fall colors shine through in the background.  And at this very moment, I was trying not to fall off the swing when our photographer Andy told us to try and kiss each other. LOL!!!

So unless the boys are interested and want to do another Paint-by-number project together, this might be a one and done.  Maybe it seemed just a bit tiring as I was also trying to get it done on time/by the anniversary.  But then again, I figured if I wasn't done, I could just finish it at a leisurely pace and have it ready as a gift for our anniversary the following year :-D

In any case, I do love this photo.  It brings back memories of when Bobby and I got married at the park nearby where this photo was taken.  We had our wedding photographer come out to the same spot in Moorestown, NJ 8 years after our wedding to take photos of us and the boys. Hopefully someday we will be able to do the same again. Look how cute the boys were then! 

Nov 9, 2015

Graham and Charlie were only 5 and 3 years old respectively in this photo.  So adorable! And Bobby and I were so young then. And even younger when we first tied the knot on Jan 6, 2007:

Awwww... we were so young (although I guess 30 years old back then was not so young to just be married).  Gosh, have we aged since then.  Ha ha!!!  I'm going to blame the kids for that, and also Bobby! ;-P