Archives – January, 2007
Ugggh, we got a call tonight from my Aunt that my Grandma is not feeling well – like she keeps coughing and wants to come back to Hawaii – NOW.
It is possible that she might have pneumonia – then again, I am just guessing, but she’s been coughing a lot for the last couple of months or so. I mean, I am kind of not surprised that she got sick considering that she went to Las Vegas twice in a week. She just loves to gamble – so much that when she goes to Las Vegas, she’ll maybe get 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night, each night she is there – unless it is the night before she has to go and then she just won’t sleep at all so she can get her gambling time in. That just frustrates me. I mean, I know she enjoys it but I just think that it is such a waste of money and I still don’t understand what the appeal is – especially for my Grandma considering that she constantly likes to remind me how frugal she is and how we shouldn’t spend money on anything. But I guess it is apparently okay to lose hundreds of dollars as long as you do it while gambling?
Anyway, I am worried about my Grandma. I think they might take her to the ER this morning to see what exactly is going on with her. She wanted to change her ticket and come back today, but hopefully my Mom convinced her to get her health evaluated first.
I feel kind of guilty and selfish though. I mean, the first thing that popped into my head after learning that my Grandma might be coming back early was “aww crap.” I am enjoying my mini vacation away from Grandma. It is allowing me to clean stuff up that I would have the hardest time doing if she was around and well, I like having some space again and a bed. I like sleeping on a bed.
January 7, 2007
Whoops. I hit publish too soon.
I’ve been really busy cleaning the closet/my future room. Fred came over Tuesday night to help me clean some more stuff out and bring some stuff upstairs for sorting. It just gets so very frustrating and overwhelming sometimes. Like, I came across this box of Grandma’s bank statements. Okay, sure, holding onto bank statements isn’t a bad thing. But, the oldest ones in there were from – wait for it – 1967! 1967!!!! Grrr. So, I’ve taken it upon myself to shred 30 years of bank statements for her. Of course, she would probably get extremely upset with me if she found out, but I am hoping that she won’t remember that she had these down there. Especially since they were in a pretty inaccessible box for almost 20 years. So, I pretty much spent Tuesday night cutting up old canceled checks for something like 5 hours. I didn’t make much progress.
So in order to keep my hand from cramping, I went and got a shredder on Wednesday. OMG, it’s wonderful. I can now tear through 5 months worth of statements in like a minute. I got one of those semi fancy ones that will also cut up credit cards, although I haven’t tried that yet and this one also cuts the paper into little diamonds instead of strips. It’s pretty neat. Of course I am not overdoing it with the shredder though. I won’t overload it and I’ll stop for a few hours if it starts to get warm. I learned my lesson the hard way on that. Tom and I had a shredder once. I think we got maybe a month’s worth of use out of it. Or was it a week? I don’t remember specifically – but it died an early death because it was a 6 sheet feeder and Tom kept putting in like 10 sheets of paper at a time. It didn’t like that.
But the room is basically all I’ve been working on for the last 2 days. I now have 2 more bankers boxes of stuff for goodwill and a gigantic pile of crap on the curb for the bulk pickup this weekend. That’s one good thing the mayor has done around here. The city pays for trash collecting and you used to have to call for the garbage guys to come out and pick up the big stuff that wouldn’t fit in a trash can. Of course if they said they would come on, say Tuesday, those guys would more than likely come maybe a week later – if at all. But now the bulk pickup guys come once a month to every neighborhood, so you don’t need to call anymore and wonder if they are ever going to show up. I have some pics of the stuff at the curb, but since I took them at night with pretty much no ambient light, they are all blurry, so I’ll try to take some when it’s light out. Of course some of that stuff may not be there anymore, but that’s cool. I left some old golf clubs out there and some carpet scraps and they were gone the next day. Hurray!
I didn’t take any pictures of the room before I started working on it, but I really should have – just so I could be reminded of the comparison. I will be taking pictures of the semi empty room tomorrow.
That’s a picture of some of the boxes we brought up to the living room Tuesday. What’s sad is that this represents maybe a quarter to a fifth of all the crap that I have thrown out over all these months. Closer to a fifth I think. (Oh yea, that is my Grandma’s giant TV in the back there and yup, I was watching “Snakes on a Plane” while working.
Hmm, not much more to add right now. I do feel like a bad ass though. There was a twin bed box spring down in the room and I was going to wait for Fred to help me bring it up, but I was in the mood to get some work done, so I brought it up the stairs all by myself. It really wasn’t as heavy as I thought it would be, but I just feel so bad ass that I could get it out of there myself. Yeeehaw.
The bulk pick up comes on Saturday, so I am hoping, really hoping, that I will be able to break down the unfunky dresser from the 70′s that is still down there and if I get that done, then I’ll tear the carpet up and take it outside. Grrr. It’s going to be a pain in the ass to break that thing down. I know I have to though since my Mom and I tried to get that thing out of there once and we just weren’t able to do it. I think we tried for a couple of hours before we gave up. I am still confused as to how it was brought in there in the first place, but it doesn’t matter. I will get it out of there – even if I have to get a saw and cut that thing to bits, I will get it out of there.
So, I’ll just end this post with a couple of pictures from our New Year’s Grilling Party.
Mmmm, Meat. Buahahahahahah
January 5, 2007
I went to the Daijingu Shinto temple on Tuesday to get an Omamori. I am not sure why, but I just felt like I needed one this year. I hadn’t been to temple in years. I think I went to this one a few years ago for a class, but I don’t remember why or if it really was this one. But, as soon as I pulled into the parking lot, I remembered the temple as the place my Grandpa used to take me for New Year’s. It’s sad, but what I distinctly remember is that I would love going there because I would get these Japanese rainbow lollipops. It’s a good memory for me though – a memory of me and my Grandpa sharing a tradition. I still look for those lollipops in stores, but I don’t think I’ve ever found them.My Mom came along with me. I think we were supposed to ring a bell before entering, but we didn’t because it’s been so long since either of us went there. Upon entering, I saw the big old donation box that I remembered being there from childhood – as well as the Omikuji vending machine. After we entered, a guy there waved a branch covered in strips of paper over our heads. Again, it’s been so long, I don’t remember what that symbolizes unfortunately.
We then headed to the Omamori table to see what was available. I was offered a little cup of some liquid out of a tea pot, so of course I thought it was tea. It wasn’t. It was sake! Sake is used in Shinto purification rituals – much like wine is used in Christian churches. You know what’s funny? I think that is the first time I can remember drinking sake. I really don’t know if I ever had any before. I thought it hit me pretty hard even though it was less than a medicine cup full. I just don’t tolerate alcohol all that well. Doh.
Anyways, of course since I am poor, I was hoping that the Omamoris would be for sale for a “suggested donation,” but alas they weren’t. Oh the prices listed were listed as donations, but it’s not like I was going to haggle the ladies there. I picked up one Omamori for general good luck and I also got some good luck rice paper. You are supposed to tear pieces off of the paper and cook them with your rice – so you get good luck when you eat rice.
I didn’t take any pictures of the actual temple. I just thought it would be disrespectful for some reason.
January 5, 2007
The party broke up a little after 1am and I got a ride home with my friend Rodney – which was cool since I was getting kind of tired by then.
My Mom and I chit chatted for awhile and I fried up some mochi for New Year’s. Rayne apparently handled the night really well, which surprised me. I thought she was going to run and hide under a bed as soon as the firecrackers started going off and she could smell the gunpowder, but she pretty much hung out by the doors or windows all night. She did run away if there were any loud booms nearby, but she would come right back out after it was over. It makes me wonder about her hearing sometimes, but her hearing seems fine – I guess she’s just a little badass.
Our neighbor Mrs. Yamaguchi invited us over on New Year’s for some ozoni – which is a hot soup with mochi in it, and some homemade tempura. She invited us over at 11am, but we didn’t get up until 10:45, whoops. We were late, but her other guests arrived a little while after we did, so it was cool. I was just excited to go over to her house because she has an elevator. AN ELEVATOR! It’s the first private home elevator I’ve ever been in. It was neat.
We hung out for about an hour and then headed back down because our cousins downstairs also invited us over for a Southern New Year’s lunch. I took a nap and got down there after everyone just about finished eating. My cousin Dillard made some awesome collard greens, black eyed peas, corn bread and ham. They are such good people, it’s so nice hanging out with them – especially since Dillard loves to cook.
We finished pretty late so I didn’t get to go to Ben Franklin to use my 40% off coupon! Doh! I also wanted to go to the Shinto temple to make an offering and get some good luck charms/amulets, but they were closed by the time I would have gone out.
I am really hoping for a good year this year as I am not sure how much worse it could be from 2006. I do have some goals for the year too – I don’t want to call them resolutions since resolutions just seem doomed for failure.
Here are some of my goals -
- Work on loving myself more – I’ve always been insecure about myself and became even more self conscious of myself while I was with Tom. I would get so worried about what he thought of me that I stopped being myself and actually started hating myself because I didn’t feel like I was measuring up to the kind of person he thought I could be. I need work on appreciating who I am and try not to limit myself because of insecurities.
- Be more creative – I really developed a passion for photography and painting while I was in college. I thought I took some pretty good pictures with my ancient Canon AE-1 – even though it had a pretty bad light leak because it was so beat up. I also dabbled a bit in painting with watercolors, acrylics and oil pastels. My paintings weren’t the best, but I enjoyed it and liked creating stuff. I don’t know why, but I just kind of stopped taking pictures after awhile. I thought I was going to keep up with the painting, but I remember I painted a little desktop clock for Tom for his birthday after I moved to Arizona. He didn’t like it. It was too amateur and not cool enough for him. I kind of stopped painting stuff after that. This year, I will start creating again. I have slowly begun building up my supplies to start painting again and like I mentioned before my Mom got me that kick ass paint set for Christmas that I can’t wait to try out. I am also trying to think of ways of getting myself back into photography. I like to browse Flickr for some inspiration, but I do need something more structured. I think I might copy this thing I saw on some random blog once. This woman made a photoset of the alphabet – not like a gazillion pictures of letters, but pictures of things or ideas that start with the same letter. I think I shall start that this week.
- Take a trip to Europe – I’ve been wanting to go to Europe for a couple of years now, but things never seemed to work out. I am committing myself to taking a trip there this year – hopefully right before or right after my birthday. I have a bunch of links that I’ve amassed during my trip research and every once in awhile, I find myself just browsing through those pages, making mental notes of things I want to do and see while I am there. I even find myself perusing sites filled with nifty travel gadgets and clothes that are fast drying, semi classy, yet functional.
- Lose at least 40 pounds – Yea, I know, I’ve been working on this awhile, but I know that if I just believe in myself, eat better and workout smarter, yet harder, it will happen. I don’t like myself when I am fat. Yea, I know I mentioned working on loving myself more, but one way of doing that is by becoming healthy and I can’t consider myself healthy if I am so overweight.
- Update the look of the blog – I’ve had the same scheme for over a year now. I do like the look of the blog, but I am growing tired of this format and want to try something different. I am looking at other themes and trying to figure out how to get this thing to look the way I really want it to look. I also want to add a few things like a gallery and maybe finally do those movie reviews I keep thinking I’ll do.
- Finally get my room fixed up so I can have my own space – I am slowly working on the closet room and I am going to really kick things up into high gear this week. I will take out the old bed, a dresser, and boxes and boxes of crap that just needs to get thrown away. I really need to do this this week since our bulk trash pickup is this coming Saturday and because I know my Grandma will get upset if she sees me throw this stuff out – if she was here. In other words, I really need to get this done before she gets back.
Well, it’s bed time for me now. I am going to try to get to the temple today and there are a few other things that I need to take care of later today too.
January 2, 2007
Next page
Previous page
