Sublimation

It’s been a busy Saturday. Aside from the usual gym to the gym, my daughter’s dance class, budgeting, and cleaning up the house, I met up with some friends planning our upcoming trip in October. Initially, we were planning on going somewhere in Europe but we’ve been hearing about a lot of flight nightmares around cancellation and delays. Plus we decided to keep our trip down to a week since one of our friends has been very busy with work. Our trip choices are narrowed down to anywhere in North America which also includes the Caribbean — how broad. This week each of us will be creating itineraries and we’ll vote on the best itinerary (of course factoring in our budget and what kind of weather we’d be willing to tolerate). It’s been such a long since I’ve done any trip planning, so I find this assignment quite exciting!

My daughter won an iPad!

This week had quite a bit of high notes. My 1.5 year old daughter won an iPad from the library. We did this reading challenge through the Los Angeles Public library and the challenge for the kids was to read 40 books from June 6th to August 6th. Once the child complete the challenge, they’re eligible to enter a raffle. The prize was either tickets to the LA Zoo or an iPad. I was so surprised to have received the e-mail letting us know that we won. I’ve been reading to her everyday ever since she was born so 40 children’s books in 60 days was a breeze.

Honestly, I don’t mind her using an iPad. As long as we place a timer to lock it out, it should be fine. I would tell her “it’s broken” and it only works on certain hours. It’s just like how I tell her the Baby Shark channel is over at 7PM even though I could play it anytime on Youtube.

Playing Family history detective

I’ve had a 23andme account for many years. Aside from the ancestry feature, I’ve enjoyed the DNA relatives. I recently learned one of my college friends is a 3rd cousin. She lives in the Bay Area and I reach out to her anytime I’m in the area and she does the same. We haven’t done a deep dive to find out how we are related but honestly, it doesn’t really matter. We’ve been friends for far longer and that’s all that matters.

I received a recent inquiry from one of my DNA relatives who is a 3rd cousin from the Bay Area. She has my mom’s maiden name and is very close to my mom’s age. She’s been working on her genealogy project for the past five year. My mother was very intrigued because she saw that this 3rd cousin listed a familiar birthplace. After many correspondences and playing detective with my mom and her siblings, it turns out that their grandfather (my great grandfather) and the 3rd cousin’s grandmother are siblings. They are born one year apart — my great grandfather being the younger sibling. I learned from my mom that her grandfather passed away about six weeks after I was born. This week has been quite a discovery.

This Would have been a closure difficult to process

Last Thursday when I was going to my local gym with my daughter, the receptionist told me there were going to close the on-site daycare after Saturday, August 13th. I was really upset to hear the news because it’s been hard for me over the past two years to maintain an exercise routine. When my husband was gone all of July and some of August, I did not have convenient care where I could go to the gym for less than an hour until I came across a gym that offered on-site daycare. Since my Urgent Care visit, I’ve been prioritizing exercise where I have to put it on my daily planner. When my husband came from his annual training, I had to ask him to support me too. So on Thursday when I got the news about the on-site daycare closing, I was fumed. I wrote a complaint e-mail and called their corporate office that taking away this service would be awful for a lot of members who happen to be parents. Sure there are other locations that continue to offer on-site daycare while the parents exercise, but those locations are far for most members who chose to exercise in their neighborhood location. I said a lot more in the letter like how their gyms could separate themselves from other gym brands by showing that they support busy parents because they offer daycare. My years of complaining and giving feedback to vendors have prepared me for this moment :-P.

What came out from my letter and phone call is a response from the corporate office two business days later saying they’ll reverse the closure. I called the gym to confirm it was true. This past Tuesday, I went to the gym and dropped Lana at the daycare. I was speaking with one of the employees at the daycare and said, “I see that daycare will continue here.” She responded, “I know it’s such a relief.” I was a little shy about mentioning it, but I told her how upset I was that they were going to take away this amenity. I told her how I wrote an e-mail and called to complain and the daycare employee thanked me for doing that. She told me last Thursday she and another employee were informed that their last of work was going to be on Saturday, August 13th. Because the gym will continue to keep daycare, they get to keep their jobs. After that gym visit, I felt accomplished that my “little” complaint made a difference.

What am I loving lately?

Tying from the gym incident, I’ve been loving the fact that I am speaking out lately. If I am not happy with something, I should say something. For many years people have told me to lay low and not complain and always be agreeable. I don’t want to live like that because NOT speaking out has only led me to lost opportunities. Imagine if I (or anybody) did not speak out about taking away on-site daycare to the corporate office? Employees would be laid off and members would stop going to the gym and the organization would have lost a lot of business.

Tag: Weekend Coffee Share and Happy Place, Happy Space