Lazy mazy

3/30

I was in a super lazy mode today; too lazy to even cook breakfast lunch or dinner so everyone ate leftover, which was caper lime chicken, some quinoa, and sweet potatoes. I also cut up a whole big watermelon snack for everybody throughout the day. I was too lazy to make breakfast so the night before I took out Trader Joe’s frozen almond croissants. These babies were left to rise overnight and I simply just heated up the oven to 350°F then baked them for 25 minutes and *BAM* we got breakfast!

Peanut didn’t have a good day today doing his distance learning. I spoke too soon about how much he enjoyed doing the work independently. The teacher assigned one math lesson per day and he didn’t like it. He thinks it’s too much work for one day and as we are near the end of the school year, all of a sudden he seem to lose his motivation.

He whined, and he cried, and he complained and all that shit. So with that he had some temper tantrum, and it took a large part of my time to manage his behaviors and deal with his whining.

But he managed to finish two lessons and he is one lesson behind, And he will take the time tomorrow to finish that.

OK I am going to randomly switch the topic right here…

In my dream last night, my dad appeared again. He was yelling and scolding me about something very significant that I put in a rage and I verbally fought back. In the dream last night, I yelled back at him too, but how could he pick somebody over his own daughter. This is something as a remnant of a point in my life that my resentment towards him was kind of heavy.

This is kind of strange because I thought the point of conflict between us in our past, or at least in my past, I have let it go for years, specially after he passed away in 2017. But I guess, somewhere in my memories, that significant part of my life sunk heavily at the bottom. It is hard sometimes, and it came up in my subconsciousness.

Anyway too much of mushy mushy stuff. The moving boxes arrived late today soI guess the packing party will begin tomorrow. Packing will keep me busy this week because we have to move out of this apartment by next Friday. Mr. O Have to work until next Tuesday. Actually, his last day is Monday and then he takes two weeks off for the move to the Hill home. I guess you can call it a staycation since coronavirus has helped us save some money and put a lot of our saving into buying this home. The home on the Hill, with lush palm trees, will be our staycation destination. I’m kind of excited!

Executive order

02/30

Mr. O has a problem when it comes to sweet and carb-galore treats. Knowing his GERD and indigestion problems, I try to have dinner at 5 p.m., 5:30 at the latest, so that he has time to digest the food before going to bed at 8:30 p.m. Last night while I was in the shower he raid the fridge made himself a toast with peanut butter at around 7 p.m.

Guess what happened?

He gagged all night long and had to sleep sitting up. This morning he woke up with a muscle spasm.

I was so upset and frustrated with him not being able to have some self control. This man was so spoiled as a child coming from an affluent family (imported coca-cola and Nutella from It-ly) with and his bad eating habits (eat sweet treats any time of the day and can forgo main meals) have eventually caused him so many medical issues. I am the health-control freak at home so with him living with me for 17 years has helped reverted the course a little bit.

This afternoon, he came home from a doctor office and told me he lost about 7 pounds since before the shelter-in-place time line. I told him I saw his waist line and tummy slimmed down already.

I have fed him so well and healthily, mostly with a Mediterranean-like recipes, that he has been able to control his cholesterol level and reduce the LDL. The fact that he no longer travel in high frequency for work has lended a hand in helping him being more health conscious. Home-cook meals are also helping as well.

Today, for dinner I made him eat salad with homemade olive oil dressing, with pears and grapes in the mix. The main dish was lemon caper chicken (I was out of lemon so I made it with lime) and steamed a basket of Japanese sweet potatoes for him to eat. Sweet potatoes will keep him going without feeling hungry, preventing him from eating a snack again closer to bedtime.

Ealier, before I jumped into the shower I warned him just to drink his decaffeinated chai tea if he feels the stomach needs food. It was an executive order, with the power vested in me, that he has to follow. I cannot have him losing another night of sleep from gagging again. He has too much stress from work that pounded on him already, and the last thing he wants to have is a loss of sleep.

I also told he two minions to be my guards, and if they see their father getting a snack they should do all they could to stop and deter him. They become my watch-group!

Later, I came out of the bedroom to the living room where the three of them were watching TV, and the minions eagerly reported back, “Abbo only drinks his tea, Mẹ, he didn’t get any toast!”

At least I am training two minions to work in my operative. 🙂

Hello, June!

1/30

I have a big migraine attack today. It was unbelievably painful and prohibited me from doing many chores. Fortunately, I made a big batch of chicken ramen yesterday that extended to lunch and dinner today; I just had to make eggs and pancakes for breakfast.

In between preparing meals, cleaning up, and teaching the kids when needed, I just laid on the couch whenever available.

Yay, school will be over next Tuesday. The kids look forward to not having to do homework. The teachers eased up their daily schedules for this week and the boys are really enjoying doing their homework. They don’t complain as much as they did during the previous weeks of distance learning. That makes my job as a home-tutor easier.

They also made the announcements to their respective classes about the move. PP even made a video to thank his classmates and teacher. They make me feel a bit emotional when they showed the depth of their relationships with peers and teachers.

Last night, they were watching videos of themselves that I recorded over time to capture their childhood. PP asked me why I haven’t done any video or photographs of them lately. I told him of my lost inspiration and he said that when we move to the Hill home he will pose again for me to get my inspirations back again. What a nice thing to say from this kid!

Little by little

We ordered 30 packing boxes of various sizes from Amazon but they won’t arrive until next week. For now, we started packing using Trader Joe’s brown paper bags, doubled them up for sturdiness, and repurposed them as our packing vessels. I am itching to get the packing started, and do as much as I can, starting with my kitchen items.

This morning we put about 10 bags that could fit the space in the back of our Mazda rental car and headed out to the Valley (from now onward, the Valley is the name given to our new city). First, we stopped by Panera Bread to pick up some muffins and bagels for breakfast; I didn’t have time to make breakfast at home today. We too our time taking half the interstate and two-third in we chose the country road to take a breather from the fast lane. There were many nurseries lining up along the country road, and a few tent-shop where vendors from local farms put up fresh flowers and produces to sell. Its seemed that we are in avocado season, because most vendors advertised freshly picked avocados for sale. I didn’t have any cash on hand to stop and grab a few. Mr. O told me that one of his colleagues lives on an avocado farm so if we want any she will let us come and pick them fresh from the trees. That sounds like a fun experience for the boys!

We got to the Hill (name of the new home!) around 11 a.m. and started bringing the stuff in. The purpose of us going up to the Valley today was to so some measurements in the laundry room and assess its space before making new purchases of laundry appliances.

We also did a thorough walk-through of what needed to be done and in which order. There are so many things that we need to prep for the move, and what worried me the most is cleaning and disinfecting the Hill home to ensure health-safety for the kids.

Taking about the kids — we had the conversation with them about Mr. George Floyd’s death that was prompted after we drove by an intersection where a peaceful protest took place. They asked questions as to why and what the protest was about. Mr. O and I took turn to share and teach them base on what we learned, read, and experienced.

I don’t expect them to fathom the depth of what’s going on — the injustice, police brutality, the opportunists who took advantages of the protests to do more harm for Black communities, the violence and what Dr. King had, and still has, stood up for people of color in America. It was a long and heavy weighted conversation, but we also felt that it was important not to shield them away from this kind of reality.

Tooth and key

First, Peanut reminds me to write that he just lost another tooth, the bottom one on the the left (his right) that is next to a canine. I don’t remember and can’t keep count of which number this lost one is now. Perhaps the 6th one. But yes, he insistently wanted me to record it so that he can read when he is old enough to read my blog.

This kid is funny!

Second, we drove up to the valley to pick up the keys to our new home this evening. On the way there we hit some bottleneck traffic and ended up taking a meandering country road that wrapped around the edges of the mountains. It was a beautiful drive!

The house is emptied for now. We need to bring it some love to make it into a home.

New adventures await us!