wakinghour.net

Today, I skipped lunch to go shopping for a dress to wear to a banquet this Saturday (in two days). It was a totally spontaneous, spur of the moment move that I just “had” to do. I gracefully made my way to White House Black Market, and in twenty minutes, I spent $286 on one black and white dress, one black dress, one necklace, and one pair of earrings. That was super fast, efficient, decision making. Ha! Ah… I have such a weak spot for classy, timeless, black and white pretty things.

But the whole time, voices were having non-stop dialogues in my brain.

One says: “NO, you can’t get another b/w dress, because you have 3 at home already!” Then another one says: “Why not? b/w never goes out of style.”

One says: “You wore b/w to the same banquet for three consecutive years already!”. Then another one says:”So why not continue the tradition?”

One says: “You didn’t even want to go to this banquet until last night. And now you are shopping for it?” Then another one says: “You should have shopped for it long ago!”

One says: “What will John say when he sees another new dress?” Then one says: “You had wanted to attend this banquet with him last year in a b/w dress, but you ended up going alone. Why not make up for it this year in a new, beautiful b/w dress?”

One says: “But you are engaged! You don’t need to be the Bell of the Ball.” Then another one says: “Since you are going to sport the most handsome guy on your arm, it makes perfect sense to look darn good yourself too”.

One says: “But do you absolutely need it?” Then another one says: “You are still young! Flaunt it while you’ve got it! Flaunt it before God takes it away!”

One says:”But you already have many dresses!” Then another one said: “So what? You are a GIRL!!!”

Evidently, the GIRL won.

There are too much going on these days: personal, work, wedding planning, plus lots of obigations to non-profits organizations that I am involved in. There’s something going on in the next upcoming three weekends. I wonder how those organizations all pick September to hold large events. But, while all organizations need me to do something for them, all I wanted to do was to paint, and to create something in the kitchen, or to get away doing something I’ve never done before, like go on a fishing trip!

I must be approaching some sort of temporary burn-out from being enthusiastic.

Last night, I turned off those screaming alarms in my mind for a few hours, and selfishly spent some tranquil time in the kitchen to make my family dinner. It was a “I don’t care, just let me do what I want to do first” action.

I made a very simple and healthy bowtie pasta dish, plus made-from-scratch splitpea soup. Both of which turned out delicious, and I earned lots of praises from my family. Yay!

That was good.

Ok, now that my personal needs are somewhat fulfilled, I can pick up tedious work for non-profits again, I think.

It is officially seven months and eleven days till my wedding.

OH MY GOSH!

I figure that a lot more will start to happen from now on — wedding planning wise, and to keep myself on track, I’ll start writing wedding planning update posts at the end of each month. So, here it is for the month of August.

So far John and I have: 1). Found our wedding site. It is going to be in a beautiful vineyard in Temecula, California. 2). Set a date. It is going to be on April 11th, 2009. 3). Decided on a format. 4) Figured out who’s going to be on the wedding party. I’ve asked two very good friends to be my bridesmaid, and my sister to be the maid of honor, while John has identified three gentlemen on his side as well. 5). Decided on our wedding colors. It is going to be lavender, silver, and white. 6) Came up with a preliminary guest list.

Oh yes, and most importantly, I have 7) Found my wedding gown!!!

I hope I am doing alright given the time frame… finding the dress took a while, but I am proud to say that the dress I found is one of a kind. Thanks to my good friend and bridesmaid Yvonne for going to all those different places with me to find that one special gown.

In the upcoming month, I think I should work on bridesmaid dresses, plus start interviewing vendors, right? 

After baking brownies successfully, I got encouraged enough to try baking biscotti. The Italians traditionally like to pair it with wine, and since my fiance, John, is a big wine drinker, I thought “hey, why not bake something he can drink wine with?”

So I found this recipe online and tried baking it the first time five days ago. I did exactly everything the recipe calls for, but the dough was dry and it was difficult to form a log. The end result tasted fine, but it was a little too dry and too hard. As I read the reviews for this recipe, I found out that other people also had the same problem. Luckily I only made a little for a tester.

Last night, I gave it another try, with some modifications. I cut down on flour, added milk to the mixture so it wouldn’t be so dry, and I also cut down the baking time a bit. Oh the whole house smelled SO GOOD!

This time around the biscotti are crisp, but not dry or hard, and they look better as well. Yay! I consider the second run a success!

Now they are sitting in an airtight container, ready to go to Las Vegas with me to see John later on today.

For no reason really, I’ve been feeling very low, for almost a week now.

I feel fat, I feel ugly, I feel dumb, I feel uneducated, I feel unaccomplished, I feel tired, I feel old, I feel empty, I feel useless, I feel isolated spiritually yet I don’t want to do anything about it. I know I am non of the above unpleasant words but I just feel that way. I’ve been really quiet, to an extent where people at work asked me what’s the matter. I just shrugged as I told them “I don’t know what’s wrong”.

Like a reluctant pebble being pushed on shore, I just want to lay there quietly, invisible among millions of other reluctant pebbles.

I really don’t know what’s wrong, but I hope I’ll get out of it soon.

A year ago, I made up my mind to REALLY get back to painting. At that time I had just completed my term as a beauty queen and was freed from a lot of obligations, and I decided that it was absolutely time to end my 5-year hiatus as an artist.

But, it wasn’t easy to paint again after 5 years of not painting anything. My hand was stiff as I hesitated to make a mark on a blank canvas. I felt I needed some kind of structure to get myself started again, therefore I enrolled myself in a nighttime painting class at the nearby Fullerton College.

It was this week a year ago that I picked up the paint brush again for the first time. And tonight, I can’t be more proud to say that I’ve kept up with it, that I’ve completed several very satisfactory works, that I am still pushing myself to take nighttime painting class after long hours of work, and that I am still absolutely determined to keep on painting, and painting, and painting.

At the end of last year I secretely set a goal that I want to complete 12 real good paintings this year, and make a calendar of my paintings to give to close family and friends. Although, I am currently behind on that goal, I am still proud to say that in the past 12 months, I’ve regained my confidence as an artist, I’ve been in one art show, and the Fullerton College arts department liked one of my paintings so much that they borrowed it to hang in the school’s theatre lobby for a whole year, and I’ve framed a few paintings for my parents to keep. And most exciting of all is that after a pretty prestigious selection process, one of my paintings was chosen to be published by City of Los Angeles!

For the upcoming months I’ll continue to work on my painting calendar goal, in addition to “trying” to be in one more art show before my wedding.

Wish me luck!

A year ago today, he asked me if I would consider being in a serious relationship with him. A year later, we are planning our wedding!!!

John is this man that I’ve always dreamed of meeting someday, but I never know this kind of man actually exists. He came to my life in a gentle, subtle, sweet, low-key kind of way. Despite all his impressive achievements, he is a very humble, soft-spoken person, and compare to all the guys who pursued me before, he was among the least aggressive, but most sincere, and most caring. Flowers and gifts and elaborate dates don’t matter, but a sincere heart is what counts.

It has been a blissfully happy year, and the best thing about it all is that the more I spend time with him, the more I learned that he is all that I’ve always wanted, plus more. Now that we’ve been together for a year, I still get that girlish joy sometimes when I look at him. Oh my gosh, how can I be this lucky? To actually meet the man of my dreams, and to be engaged to him? To be planning a future with him?

Happy 1-Year Anniversary, John! As I write this, I have happy tears circling in my eyes. I don’t know if I can ever find enough words to thank you for all that you’ve done for me since we met, or show you how much I love you, but thank you, thank you, and thank you, for accepting everything about me, for caring for me so much, and for loving me the way I’ve always wanted to be loved. Although I know I can’t possibly be as perfect as you, I hope in the past 12 months I’ve been your good friend/supporter/girlfriend/fiancee as well.

I love you with all my heart.

John’s back! John’s back from his 6-days, off-the-trail, backpacking hiking and camping quest in Yosemite National Park! As I wrote in a previous post, John went to Yosemite National Park with his colleagues to collect some samples from remote lakes above elevation 10,000 feet that don’t even show up on maps. It was tremendous amout of hardcore hiking while carrying all camping gear, work equipments, plus food and clothes and everything else on their backs! And my dear John made it!

He came back happy and sound, and he got a lot darker than before the trip. He also brought back with him interesting stories, such as a curious baby bear that checked them out from only about twenty feet away, catching tadpoles, seeing deers, golden frogs, and wild flowers, plus bear stealing their food at night and eating everything, including tiny seasoning packages for instant noddles …

He also showed me at least two hundred beautiful pictures of Yosemite backcountry side and made me very envious…

Anyways, to celebrate his heroic return, I took him out on a dinner date to Flemings Steakhouse & Wine Bar over the weekend. We had a lovely time over delicious prime rib, red wine, and absolutely heavenly desert. Their chocolate lavaflow cake is absolutely divine!

Can’t you tell I am very happily engaged? I really adore John, and admire him many things about him.

He’s my hero!

In the evening of August 11th, 2008,

Something historical happened…

I baked for the first time!!!

The lucky choice of sweet was…

Brownie!!!

My house was filled with the delightful aroma,

and it turned out really, really well!

I cut out four pieces to serve with milk.

I had one piece, while the other three went to my brother’s tummy.

He gave me two tumbs up!

Hehe, I am so proud of myself!