Five things Friday 5/1: Good weather

It is May already? I felt April was the longest month of the year. I feel I finished April with my brain feeling fried with back-to-back-to-back community donations at the hospital. At the end of April we went from having one floor taking care of COVID patients to having two floors. Please people, stay the eff home. Don’t go to the beach, don’t go and protest. We do not want to exhaust all our ICU areas.

If you really want to go outside, maybe take a job as an essential worker. At my hospital, we are hiring only custodians and food service workers because a lot of them quit. If neither of those jobs sound glamorous to you, we are also hiring nursing and medical staff for the COVID floors. You’ll have the option to not go home and see your loved ones for a while.

Anyways here are some things that have made my week.

1. Weather. The weather is great and I understand it is tempting to go to the beach. Good weather is SoCal’s real test for the stay at home order. I could see that people were getting antsy on social media. For me, I just enjoyed an iced latte.

2. DIY projects – We are keeping ourselves occupied with small DIY house projects like placing film on the windows and gardening. We are grateful for our handy friend for offering to build our side gate.

3. Supporting small businesses. I’ve been buying more candles and reed diffusers since I am home more.

4. “Asian Enough” podcast. I found this podcast incredibly refreshing and relatable. Growing up, I always felt I was not Asian enough. I fully owned this fact from childhood into adulthood. There were times I joke about it, and there were many times I steered far away from Asian cliques. My immigration story is different from most Asian-Americans; my family did not flee from poverty, war, nor a revolution to come to the U.S. Because of that I know I am incredibly fortunate, however many of my peers have “othered” me or called me “out of touch.”

5. 52 Places, virtually. Armchair travel all day for now. That is how I spend my weekends.

Five Things Friday: Get some rest

What a week.

If I wasn’t pregnant, a beer would sound good. But instead sparkling water is fine.

We’ve had lots of donations this week at the hospital. I anticipate next week will be the same.

What have I been up to? What have I been enjoying?

1. Some Good News – I’ve been following Some Good News with John Krasinski. It’s a good spin. So far my favorite is when they featured the Hamilton cast.
2. Walk at Home by Leslie Sansone – Do you spend a lot of time sitting on the couch, sitting in front of a computer, or laying bed? This YouTube channel will re-invigorate you to move more.
3. Ordering take out – So a new ritual I’ve been doing on Fridays is ordering takeout at a restaurant in downtown LA. I am taking advantage of no traffic. Also, I don’t have to drive and meet my husband at home and go drive elsewhere for a night out. Instead I pick up takeout and bring it home. I guess I can count it towards my new restaurant count even though we are not dining in.
4. Re-reading Ready Player One. I was compelled to re-read it because I wonder if COVID-19 created the setting for Ready Player One. It takes place in the 2040s — not too far from now. The world escapes the real world for the virtual world.
5. New FitBit! After having a busted FitBit Charge HR for a year, I finally bought a new FitBit!

Five Things Friday: Lots and lots of TV

Yup, I want to write something not related COVID-19 and nothing related to my work since it’s all about mitigating COVID-19 in the community. It’s been a tiring week. My mind has been running on COVID-19 day and night for the last several weeks. There were many days where I felt uninspired to write or try a new recipe. For my pregnancy, my focus is to stay quarantined on my off-hours and my days off, eat a balanced meal, exercise, and get plenty of rest. I decided to stick with these basics for my prenatal care– the fewer things I need to deal with, the better. I haven’t even created a baby registry…it just hasn’t been on my mind. I told my husband we should prepare ourselves to not even have a baby shower. That’s okay if we do not get one.

1. Drinking a smoothie daily — that is my hack for being able to meet and most of the time, exceed, my daily fruit and veggie intake during my pregnancy.

2. The Crown – I finally finished “The Crown.” Since I am not a binge-watcher and I don’t watch Netflix during the workweek, finishing all three seasons took me weeks.

3. Free HBO – HBO has made 500 hours worth of their content free without a subscription. Unfortunately, that does not include “Big Little Lies.” But I did see “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley.”

4. New work schedule – I now have a new work schedule. This was a result of closing our office on Saturdays due to COVID-19 restrictions. To be honest, I kind of miss having Mondays off. I enjoyed sleeping in on Monday when I knew most of the world was going to work on a Monday. Also, it was easier for me to schedule appointments.

5. “Community.” More TV! “Community” is out on Netflix! I did notice on the “Top Ten” of Netflix there are some older shows that made the list like the first “Hangover” movie. I guess people finished all the new content on Netflix, they are now reminiscing older movies and TV shows.

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: Happiness looks like this

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!

☺ Electric blankets

It has been incredibly cold. The new door has helped seal the house keeping the drafts away. We do not have a heater in the house, but an electric blanket will do.

😁 Cocofloss

The hype is real! My hygienist said I did not have a lot of tartar and buildup from my last visit. Phew!

 🎥 1-Second Videos

This is part of my 20 for 2020. So far it is not so bad. When I did a daily photo challenge many years ago, it was easy to start. But towards the middle, I had a difficult time coming up with good photos or writing something to say. In retrospect,  I may have been more concerned about always having the “perfect content” and that I was not going, going, going. It gave us the unhealthy rise of influencers who seem like they are going, going, going but fueled by debt. Documenting the “seemingly mundane” is fine too.

Backup plan

We were planning to go to Italy, France, and Switzerland this February but it looks like plans may need to change. That is because of the transit strike in France and it may potentially affect our plans. We greatly rely on public transit when we travel abroad. So on to creating another itinerary for Italy, Switzerland, and Germany. That’s the backup plan!

🐕 Koda rolling on the grass

And I played it in slow motion. Check out the video! That is what happiness looks like!

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.”

5 things

A quick post on 5 thoughts at the moment. I see this post as opportunity to reflect on the week. I try to make this post a regular on a Friday or Saturday — it depends how tired I am.

The Victorian at Santa Monica

1. I love Jessica Chastain’s call to action to see more authentic female characters on film. What made her call so powerful was you can hear the slight fear in her voice as speaks up thinking to herself “is it ok for me to say this” and carefully crafting her words — something I encounter all the time at work and at life.
2. Using my TAP card to take public transit to work or to other places. Ever since I got back from vacation, I’ve been trying to make a conscious effort to use my car less. Portland and Seattle don’t have perfect public transit either. It took a little bit of research how to get around and the same applies to Los Angeles. So far this week, I have been car free 4 times. I’ll share more details in another post which will include mileage and greenhouse gas emissions.
3. This leads me to the next thing:  Greenhouse emissions fall for another year in California. It’s equivalent to removing 300,000 cars from the road. Way to go! 
4. The Comey Trial on Thursday was exciting to watch (see full transcript here). It started at 7 AM in California; I watched via Facebook Live on my phone and took my time listening to it on my way to work. Man, no wonder why employers canceled their meetings and broke out the popcorn in the employee lounge. Though this is CSPAN’s Superbowl show, it left a lot of questions unanswered and will be answered in the closed session. It was like we got the clean version of a rap song. Closed session version to reveal all the answers.
5. Not having to look at a computer screen of every minute of every hour at work. My job is typically sedentary because it’s an office setting. I need to make an effort to stay away from my desk every once in a while.  Maybe I should step away after every meeting or conference call or when the little voice in my head tells me to do so. I am trying to fight burn out and promote wellbeing every step of the way. I am also coaching my husband to do the same. For examples, yesterday I went to the Bay Area for a business trip for the day. I’m glad my husband works around the corner from the airport so he can pick me up when I land when I come home from these trips. Well, my husband started work at 7 AM and I didn’t expect him to stick around work to pick me up at 7 PM when I landed. In fact,  I recommended him to just do his 8 hours for the day, drive home, take care of the puppies, rest, and come back when I land in the airport. Yes, it’s a little bit of back-and-forth driving albeit our house is not very far from the airport, but I felt it was more important for my husband to get some rest rather than stay until I land. Because who know… what if my plane lands late? Also, I can always find ways to go home whether it is by Lyft, bus, or train.