Friday Five: A Fancy name for skipping breakfast

Five Things Friday is a post where I share five things that either made my week, what I am thinking about, or would like to share with all of you!

Crunch time

This week is considered crunch time because this weekend is our housewarming. I finally finished refinishing my furniture. I especially would like to thank spray chalk paint and spray metallic paint for helping me complete these projects in a short period of time.

I’m so proud of my refinished table

New York Times Cooking Facebook Community

I love my community of home cooks. Its inspiring and it is the reason why I like to go to my social media feed now. As an Asian-American, it is heartbreaking to learn that the people I know in my real life are awful, racist, poor hating, Trump loving trolls. They maybe nice to my face, but reading their posts shows their true colors — deep down they resent me for thriving and advancing through life. As long as I fill my feed with my favorite groups around Schnauzers, Pomeranians, cooking, journaling, and travelling, I’ll be willing to interact with social media.

Recharging my social battery

I work on Saturdays and there are good things and bad things I like about. Pros: I get Mondays off. Since I work in the mornings on Saturdays, it is like I get a three day weekend every week. On Saturdays after work, I go out. The cons about working on Saturday: when I go out right after work, I’m exhausted. I’ll admit, going to my husband’s work party last Saturday was rough. It’s nothing personal. I am not anti-social, I just want a nap.

Intermittent fasting

Most days I’ve been doing the 16 hour fast followed an 8-hour eating window. So far I think of it as “skipping breakfast.” I am surprised to find myself feeling better than ever. Plus it saves money with less coffee shop trips indulging in sugar-laden lattes.

Eight Stones Method

Those who know me would say I tend to pick up plenty of hobbies from exercising to DIY-ing to writing. It can be a juggle and I am guilty for occasionally dropping the ball. I learned about the Eight Stones method from the “Happier” podcast. Each project is considered a “stone” and with each completed project, you replace it with a new project (or new stone). You can have no more than eight projects at a time. To me,  eight items feel like a lot to tackle, but it is still doable and it keeps me occupied. I even apply it to my work life.

Five Things Friday: Baby Yoda fever is real

Five Things Friday is a post where I share five things that either made my week, what I am thinking about, or would like to share with all of you!

1. Finding our door vendor

In the beginning of November, we ordered a door from Home Depot because their turnaround time was the quickest out of all the vendors we’ve asked. We wanted our new front entry door to arrive by Thanksgiving. Then Thanksgiving past and the door never arrived. My husband followed up with Home Depot on the status of the door and it turned out Home Depot lost our door. Home Depot wanted us to reorder the door but it would arrive either late December or early January. We did not want to take our chances with Home Depot for a second time to have the order again lost in transit. So we decided to find a different vendor.

How did Home Depot lose a door in transit? I’ve heard our door was likely sold to someone else. That’s absolutely unacceptable.

After a little bit of research and going in person to visit different vendors, we have found our vendor. Plus the turnaround time with this vendor was much quicker, plus one of the components of our door was readily available.

2. Waking up at 5:30 AM

My goal for this week was to go to the gym three times which required waking up at 5:30 AM. This week I have succeeded. Let’s hope I keep this up and maybe even increase the frequency of going to the gym before work.

3. Celebrating the holidays at work all month long

I am loving the creativity!

4. Free time

Since I finished my Master’s I have more free time! I can occupy it with loads of house projects like refinishing my dining table and bookshelf.

5. Baby Yoda fever is real

People are calling my Pomeranian, Koda, “baby Yoda.” We don’t have a Disney Plus subscription, so I have not seen “The Mandalorian.”

State of the yard

Welcome to homeownership. I’ve been meaning write about homeowner life and the projects around it. It’s a lot of work and we DIY quite a bit.

Last month my goal was to build a pergola in the backyard but this project requires a lot of steps. I thought it was pull weeds and add pavers. But we found a large part of the backyard has concrete below the a few inches of dirt. The last owners did an awful job with the concrete which is why we need to get rid of it too, not just the weeds.

Gladly, we invested in renting a drill for a day to break up and move the concrete in the yard. We can repurpose concrete for other things in the future. It was the best 70 dollars spent ever.
We also learned we need to slope the backyard away from the house. Right now the yard is sloped to the house and it’s bad because when it rains, it would ruin the foundation over time. We need to reslope so water can go away from the house and feed into the river.

Weeds, concerte, dirt.

This pergola project requires more steps.

Welcome to homeownership.

May Goals

I decided to follow along and post my May goals on my blog since everyone in the blogosphere is doing it. For me, I like to reading other people’s goals on their blogs so I was inspired to put together mine.

1. Start the Pergola Project

We bought a fairly cheap house in the Valley. It was built in 1953 and has not been updated since. In other words, we need to remodel the crap out of it. Last year, we updated the home electrical to code and added recess lighting. There’s other major resource-intensive projects such as remodeling the addition but we’re still doing research. This pergola project is fairly small and I would love to have a beautiful shade structure in time for summer events. Is it going to be professionally done, is it going to be a purely DIY project? We’ll find out.

2. Hike 3 times

Since the City Slicker Challenge, I want to take it a little easy on hiking. In March, I hiked 10 times. Though I told myself to take it easy on hiking so I can focus on my home projects, I’ll still do some hikes. Maybe not a 8-10 mile hikes for this month. I’ll place my focus on smaller, more hyperlocal hikes like Fryman Canyon, Lake Balboa, or Tujunga wash. Or when we go to Portland and Seattle towards the end of the month.

3. Clean my closet and drawers

This  was on my to-do list in April. I started this on April 30th and will continue to do so for the month.

4. Remove weeds in the backyard

This is a tie-in to the Pergola Project in the beginning of this list. For us to have a pergola and patio, we need to remove the weeds in the backyard. Last Saturday, I learned a little background on the last people who lived in our house from our neighbors: First, they were renters, and second, they made the house a mess. Ding, ding. We’re cleaning it up. It’s a lot of work since we are doing that on our own. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth getting a professional to do the job. Or maybe…we can leave it to the professionals to do the harder things like remodeling or placing pavers on the patio. You see, when you are a homeowner, all one sees are dollar signs. You’re already paying mortgage, property tax, all the utility bills –Dollar signs can scare people away. You need to see dollar signs from two sides: one for the services being done by a professional versus the services you are doing yourself. It can get tricky. Sometimes, it may cost more if you do it yourself because you purchased the wrong items or you purchased tools you end up using once. Then there’s the cost of the learning curve of practice and other potential wasted resources.

5. Donate books

I have a few books in my office that I am ready to clear out. I am open to doing a book-crossing, donate my books to a used bookstore at my public library, or donate to my local little free library. I hope whoever is the recipient of the books are people who’ll enjoy the books as I did or more than I did.

6. Post all my hiking trips from the 52 Hike Challenge

To date, I’ve hiked 21 times this year  and I need to document them! I plan to write about them all during May. It’s been a wonderful experience and a unique way to explore LA.

Los Angeles Zoo 2013 — Summer is almost here!

You’ll see some random photos in posts like these. I have a whole collection of old photos in my phone that probably deserve some spotlight, not just my wedding and engagement photos. I’m looking at you former brides who continue to post photos from their wedding though life moved on after the wedding. Because we’re nearing summer, I thought to share a photo of a little waterfall from the Los Angeles Zoo.