Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from March, 2018

Welcome, Baby A.

  On Baby A's birthday, the c-section surgery went as planned. I walked into the OR around 9:30am and was pushed out around 2 hours later. W was instructed to wait outside while the team was getting me prepared for anesthesia. He then got invited to come in and sat next to me while the team worked on getting Baby A out of me 😂. W was a good DJ and Baby A was born while Taylor Swift's Shake It Off was being played. So...did I feel any pain during this life-changing surgery? No, I didn't. I had a spinal block. I never felt any type of pain during the surgery. Getting the anesthesia injected - however - was the most uncomfortable part of the surgery. There was a lot of pressure. I felt my back being pulled or pushed, or something. It just felt very uncomfortable, not painful, but very uncomfortable. It was also hard to try leaning toward the source of that uncomfortableness. Learning to relax while being uncomfortable was a very hard thing to do. But it was necessary. Once it...

Dissertation

Warning, this is a vent post.  Yesterday, I got a phone call from my school's Thesis Office. A gentleman told me my dissertation has been read, unfortunately, I still have corrections that need to be made. On my correction sheet, a list of items were marked as "missing." In a split second, I got so frustrated. The items marked missing were what the school called "multiple author release" forms and copyright/agreement for using published works. These forms were signed by coauthors of papers I've published before. Basically, each coauthor signed a form and stated they were ok to let me use our published work as part of my dissertation. I got everyone's signatures (a total of 9 forms) the week of my defense in January (many were signed right after I passed the defense). I personally submitted these forms with my printout dissertation to Thesis Office on the very day after the defense in January (the office requires everything in hard copy and submitted by t...

Drama queen

Just needed a place to vent, so my blog naturally is a go-to. I hate drama queens. I know some people will say hate is a heavy word. Well, I have this heavy feeling so it's a fitting choice of word.

SFO 2/11/2018-2/15/2018

Hubby and I spent our anniversary in San Francisco this year. It was kind of a "convenient" type of anniversary travel since hubby had a conference to attend to for work. It was nice that more than half of the trip's expenses were paid by the company because of the conference. I paid for my plane tickets, meals, and leisure stuff. Hotel was a big ticket (hundreds per night!)  for this trip so we're very glad that was taken care of by the company - yay! This post is very long . So go get a cup of tea or something 😜.

Bottom watering plants

Nearly 2 weeks ago, I stumbled upon a Youtuber - Gary from The Rusted Garden. It was in the middle of the night when I first came across his videos...I have this habit of reading stuff (or watching stuff) on my tablet until I fall asleep because I tend to take a while to fall asleep (sometimes I lay in bed for hours before sleep really catches me). It was one of those "hard to sleep" nights that I watched some of Gary's videos and learned something I never really thought much about - watering plants from the bottom!

Regrow a cabbage in water

So this post is about cabbage hehe. Sometime a couple of weeks ago, I read about regrowing food from kitchen scraps from someone (forgive me I forgot to save your page so I can't reference you, random blogger). One of the tips I read about was to just put the leftover cabbage in a shallow container with water, and that's it! So I thought - hmm, seems pretty easy, let's try it! So I did. 😺

Progenity and healthcare costs

So earlier this month I shared our recent frustration over a claim summary letter  received from our insurance. I didn't mention the name of the lab we had my blood sent to for the genetic test. Well, I no longer want to avoid mentioning the name because it gave us so much unnecessary headache. The lab that we used for the test is called Progenity.

Damping off

Today's Day 16 since planting of the swiss chards. Earlier this week I said I would give an update on the swiss chard seedlings. So here's an update: I think these seedlings are experiencing what many indoor gardeners have shared online - the "damping off" disease. A quick internet search shows this condition is very common among indoor seedlings. I'm almost positive it's because I gave them too much water on Day 10. Since most pellets were still moist when I gently squeezed them, I probably shouldn't have watered them that day. I watered only because a few pellets had some light brown spots and were dry on the surface. I probably should have only watered those dry pellets, not the entire tray. Anyway, what's done has been done. I also know plants are resilient and want to live! So I hope some seedlings will survive.

Stir fry cabbage with bacon [培根炒高麗菜]

Last night, I was craving for some sweet Taiwanese cabbage and..bacon. The craving naturally led me to make the dish "培根炒高麗菜" (which translates into "stir fry cabbage with bacon"). This is a very common dish at homes in Taiwan because it only uses two ingredients - cabbage and bacon! It's also very easy to make and is delicious to go with rice. Yet, to us, this dish is not easy to come by because there is no Asian market in where we live (Taiwanese cabbage is not available in the local markets / King Sooper / Safeway / Walmart / Trader Joe's in Fort Collins / Loveland / Windsor, at least I haven't seen them at these stores yet). The nearest market we can buy Taiwanese cabbage is Pacific Ocean Marketplace in Broomfield, which is about 1 hour drive from where we live. As a result, anytime we head to Denver area, we almost always stop at an Asian store and bring back some Asian food including some of our favorite veggies like Chinese napa and Taiwanese c...

This year's Lunar New Year

This year is the year of dog. My mom's year, though we didn't do anything special, sorry mom (plus we're thousands of miles apart). I just know my mom was born in the year of dog. I was born in the year of tiger so it'll be a while before it gets to my year again. In my faint memory, I've enjoyed Lunar New Year as a kid. As the only child in my family, I got all the "red bags" (aka money bags!) from my family, from uncles, aunts, grandparents, and sometimes very close friends of my parents.

Hereditary Cancer Test

So about 3 months ago I had my blood drawn for a genetic testing, per the suggestion of my doctor. The reason for this testing is to see if if I have certain genes prone to cancer. To be honest, I'm actually not sure what types of cancer the lab has tested my blood with. The result is good news - my genes are alright!

Swiss chard seedlings

It's that time of the year again, well, the growing season is coming up and it's getting harder and harder to resist this "urge" to try grow something. It's still pretty cold AND WINDY in Northern Colorado.  This last weekend was quite warm (comparatively) but the temperature still dropped to below freezing at night. 

I'm back! New home, new life!

Like the title suggests - I'm back 😀 Also, quite the opposite from the last post, we moved again...and again and again individually. And now, we're in our new nest - in Windsor, Colorado.