Coffee Club

There was a statistic recently about how much Americans spend on liquid (i.e. drinks). Can't remember the exact number but it was a huge portion of the grocery tab. It has gotten me thinking about our liquid consumption too. Coffee is what we drink around here. I've weaned myself off several times but always manage to get back on it. Definitely something soothing about the dark, hot drink in the morning. And it tastes even better in the Starbucks mug (it's the tall design, I think). Ironically we don't usually drink Starbucks coffee; mostly we grind the shade-grown, bird-friendly, fair-trade, non-child-labor-organized-union, totally sober, global-welfare-conscious, nonhumorous kind of coffee bean.

Sorry the picture is blurred.... can't stop the shaking in my hands.

Cough, cough

Our weekend has been special indeed, with Robert and Al here with us.

We've had the little cough that's going around, either allergy and mild cold. The weather has been wild with severe thunderstorms from Thursday until early this morning. Today was warm, sunny and breezy, but tonight the wind shifted and it's cool again. These weather swings don't help the cough situation for sure.

Also, the heavy rains caused the flowers to fall over completely! It really is a special (and unique to me) talent to knock off all living plants and flowers! I've managed to keep a couple indoor plants alive so far but they are the kind that are resilient. Maybe I should take some gardening class or something.

Leaning Flowers of Season

Even with stakes, these hyacinths like to lean over... too heavy on top.

I guess the 80's were 20 years ago...

Here is a list of things I've been seeing on campus that remind me of my older sisters' junior high and high school careers. Especially my two oldest sisters. They didn't wear/have all this stuff, but their classmates did.

-Upside down glasses
-Knee socks with white rings at the top
-Running shorts as every day wear
-Neon
-Running shoes with neon accents
-Classic 10-speed bikes
-Head bands
-Neon head bands
-Guys with feathered hair
-Guys with poofy hair
-Frisbees
-Rubix Cubes
-Huge square glasses
-Totally mirrored aviators
-Guys with tight legged jeans
(in colors like purple)
-Belts that really aren't attached to anything on the lower body
-Black sunglasses with the neon colored sides

Things I'm just waiting to see:
-Crimped hair
-Huge bangs
-Huge earrings
-Huge bracelets
-Jelly shoes

Anything else I should watch for?

Wednesday Update

These past couple of weeks have turned up some interesting diagnoses and cases, which makes life exciting and challenging at the same time. For example, one young lady's preliminary lymph node biopsy was read as a metastatic malignancy; another young lady came in very dyspneic, underwent many tests (all normal) and saw multiple specialists with no answers yet; a young man feared the possibility of having contracted an infection from an ex-girlfriend and unfortunately did; one middle-aged lady had severe abdominal pain and diarrhea and ended up discovering a congenital hemangioma; a teenage girl complained of anterior chest pain for one month likely caused by ill-fitting undergarments; not to mention the multiple cases of gastroenteritis, sinusitis and bronchitis....

This week's bookshelf

I've been looking through some kitchen remodel books. The full scale project is down the road yet but it doesn't hurt to browse and store up some ideas. There are lots of websites too, although none have been too outstanding. Wonder why kitchen trends change so quickly in comparison to other rooms in a house? Light versus dark cabinetry preferences seem to evolve every few years. Some argue that white is the most timeless, where others state that medium wood-tones stand the test of time the best. So far, I've learned that a galley kitchen like ours is supposedly the most efficient style (i.e. triangle work flow), but an island makes a kitchen really useful. Uh, don't think that's going to work in ours.

So far in our house remodeling efforts, we've chosen clean lines, natural materials, simple decor and calming colors. Seems like there are endless decisions in remodeling, but it's been an enjoyable process.

Little Seouls

Yesterday was Minah's 100th day celebration (paek-il). It's a Korean tradition to celebrate a baby's health and survival of the most arduous period of infancy (by historical standards). Sharing rice cake is supposed to promote long life for the baby, and of course, 100 is the magic number. We wished we were there with the family but we'll await pictures!

While surfing the web to find an adequate description of the celebration, I bumped into an interesting blog which led to the all-things-Korean store.

Myrmecophobia and Donut-philia

Maybe "phobia" is too strong of a word, but certainly ants are not my favorite things. Yesterday about 20 were roaming around the one little part of the kitchen... visual enough for phantom ants to be crawling on my skin. They are all gone now, thankfully!

For you creative types, New Englanders especially, Dunkin Donuts is having a donut design contest which ends April 7. It's almost dangerous to spread that word, here in Krispy Kreme land.

Signs of Spring

Being inspired by our neighbor a couple of weekends ago, I tackled the windows today. Some are newer and easier to clean.

The others take a little more work.

Non-winner = loser?

Who wouldn't want to live in a Sonoma, California dream home?! The reality of not winning the sweepstakes is obvious, but it did come true for one out of 29 million entries. Someone said that as the weekend progressed and no camera crews showed up at the door, the dream house slipped away. In one sense, it's a no-brainer to want the house, but considering all the factors people usually take into account when relocating, purchasing a house, establishing in a neighborhood, etc... maybe losing is winning.

Good ol' time with good ol' friends

Our buddy flew into Raleigh last night and several of us met for dinner near Southpoint. Paul was our wedding photographer. He also had an role in instigating Troy to start emailing me long ago :) Found out last night, Paul has had influential roles in the lives of other couples there, too. Nice! We wish him and Cheryl well.

Sooo....

For those who are wondering what in the world Youngin is posting about, here's an explanation.

The person I came home to looked like she was this guy's sister:

Apparently they were trying out some new spray tan stuff at the office and Youngin was a test subject. Luckily most of the bronze washed off!

Troy's Surprise

So, Troy walked into the house tonight and was met by a strange woman. He stopped, blinked really slow a couple of times and then stared for a f-u-l-l-l-l minute. He was expecting his wife to ask him about his day and to be rumbling around the kitchen as usual, but was apparently shocked to encounter a different lady occupying her space.

Story to be continued...

Shooom

And another week flies by! After the busy and wonderful weekend, plus the early Monday morning start, plus the time change, plus a little ding by a neighbor's friend into Troy's truck, plus overbooked schedules everyday.... the sum is that it's the middle of March already.

On a happy note, my bulbs are now popping up and hyacinths will soon be blooming. I'd love to coax them to go quicker so I can take some pictures but it doesn't seem to work that way.

Dad and Mom returned from their trip down to Texas for two weeks, which included a weekend foray into Mexico. Several sun-birders from the Midwest congregate in Texas every winter so they really enjoyed their time with friends, new and old.

Weekend photos

Princess Minzie graces North Carolina with her presence!

Beautiful Minah! Waiting for the famous North Carolina BBQ at Allen & Sons...Yep, that's the plate. Yum-O!

Dessert with Uncle Troy at Carrboro

Daddy sure knows how to make little girls happy...
"Uncle Troy, Who are you pushing?" Minzie is wondering.

The serious princess at the zoo...

Happy princess...

Gomo and Minzie loving the aviary

Sunday family photos

Ultimate Restaurant

HERE

Saturday

Today it's off to the zoo.

Check it out.

And Chik-fil-A for lunch!

Visitors

We have had a great time with Younguk, Hyesoo, Minzie, and Minah!

They arrived at the airport about 11AM yesterday. We went home, had lunch, and everyone except Aunt Youngin had a good nap.

Then for dinner we went over to S-Mart and had some good Korean food. Then we headed to the NC State campus to walk around for a while, which was fun.

Today we're headed to Duke and University of North Carolina. While we're around Chapel Hill, we'll hopefully have lunch at Allan & Sons, the ultimate NC Barbecue!

Tonight we're planning on dinner here at the house with Donnie, Rosemary, and Riley.

Off we go...

Lucky Break

Sunday night Youngin pointed out a lot of running water in the neighbor's driveway. I blew it off because we had just had a lot of rain. Turns out she was on to something! Our underground water line was leaking, so there was water bubbling up in our yard, running downhill, then streaming down the neighbor's drive.

Here's what our yard looked like yesterday morning:

Why call it a lucky break? Because the water was bubbling up about six inches away from the water meter buried in our yard - ON THE TOWN OF CARY'S SIDE. That means they were out there digging yesterday instead of me! (Of course, it did require six town trucks and various personnel.)

It reminded me of Daddy and me digging in our front yard in Ohio during sub-zero weather. If I remember correctly the only reason we could think of for the leak was that we had driven the Farmall over that spot in the yard several times. Anyway, these things always happen in the nastiest weather.

Our backyard this morning...

Work is delayed this morning as we had a couple inches of snow overnight. Apparently the roads are slick, too. Looks like Chicago outside, more than NC. Donnie mentioned after the last snow storm that the Farmer's Almanac had predicted two late winter storms for us... and here is number two in March!

The forecast for this weekend (take note, Wisconsinites!) is in the 70s.

Tradition by definition

Once is chance, twice is a pattern, and three or more times is tradition. Troy and I now officially have a Sunday night tradition of homemade pizza. We used to have the Chicago-style deep-dish pizza on an occasional Saturday, but now we've established a Sunday night routine of thin-crust pizza usually topped with pepperoni, sausage and some veggies. Our Kitchen-aid mixer makes awesome dough!