Christmas Party

This is our second year of Christmas away from home, but it's our first time ever hosting a Christmas party. It was quite an exciting event. Tim and I felt so blessed by all the wonderful friends we got to meet in Boston. So even though we can't be with our family this Christmas, we've made our home a place for those away from home to enjoy fellowship and good food. For that, we're extremely proud of ourselves. =) Praise God for all the blessings!

Shrimp cocktails

Smoked salmon

Grape jelly meatballs

Pineapple glazed ham

Lamb leg

Simona's home is in Europe

Little Joshua, the only one born in Boston

Nisha and Jayan, from Great Britain

Ben and Brooke from Oregon

Tomoko from Japan

Bess and her mom, from Taiwan

The spread

Four kinds of cookies baked by me

These are made by Brooke

Now we're just anticipating for the new year!
Happy New Year everyone!

該寫些甚麼呢？

2009 is coming to an end. I mean really ending, within a matter a few days. For the first time in my life, I felt the stress of the holidays. When I was a child, the stressing belonged to my parents. They had to figure out who to give gifts to, who to write cards to, what food to cook during gatherings... All I had to do was to just run around and breath in the holiday cheers. This year, I had to be the one stressing about all of the above on my own. Luckily, I bought a book before all this stressing started, and it's called The Purpose of Christmas by Rick Warren. This book is a constant reminder of what Christmas is really about: not the gifts, not the cards, not the dinner parties, but it's about Jesus Christ who came to this world to save us. He had to give up everything to become this helpless infant in order to live amongst humans without us being scared to death by His glorious and almighty self.
It's really not easy to be childlike once you become an adult, but let us still try. Despite of all the stress of the holidays, let us focus on our Lord, and let us celebrate His birth, even if He wasn't born on December 25, He did came for us 2000 years ago and has completed salvation for all mankind. If you think your spouse loves you, your parents love you, your children love you, then times that by ∞, and that's how much God loves you. He created such thing call love, and He is love.
May your Christmas be filled by Christ's love. May your holiday stress fly away and may it be replaced by joy from above.

Rewards

Yesterday as I went to teach my two students from a same household, the girls came running down the stairs to greet me. I was surprised by their enthusiasm, and then I found out that they were all prepared to present me with a Christmas present. The gift is in white tissue paper containing in a red gift bag that says "Noel" in gold font, and there's a little tag that hangs from the side which they have signed their names on, addressed to me. This has made me so very jolly.
To top that, the younger of the two has finished learning the entire book of Christmas songs which we've only started a month ago. I've only taught her at the most 4 pieces in the book, but she went the extra mile and learned all the rest on her own. (It amazes me how much knowledge kids can learn and absorb, if they're willing. Repeat, IF they're willing). So to have fun, I played my teacher's duets with her, piece by piece, and we finished the whole book in a breeze.

As I came back home afterward, I taught another student from my home studio. Recently, she had developed the habit of stopping and repeating the music over and over again. First of all, I can tell that she didn't really practice during the week, so when she comes to me she'd feel more nervous and therefore tends to make more mistakes. As a result, she pauses a lot, repeats a lot, and if you're listening to her play at this point, you would feel very agitated. To help with the situation, I told her to mark in the things she kept on messing up on with a pencil, and she had to do it herself in order to reinforce her memory. Then I put in my teacher's duet to make sure that she could hear the rhythms correctly. After several practices, she was almost good, but there were still some spots she had to stop and repeat. At this point, I knew she could play the piece through without stopping, but she just needed some more help. So I whipped out my iPhone, and by using the voice memo application, I told her that we were going to record this piece, and that there was to be no mistakes and it had to sound perfect. She was so excited about this, she agreed to try it at once. The first try, she messed up a little bit, and the second try, she fixed the mistake from the first try, but messed up on another spot. I stopped the device. I asked her to focus on the music and not the iPhone. She nodded, took a deep breath and gave another try. She did it! No mistakes, no repeats, just perfect! I was so proud of her. She was so proud of herself.
At the end of our lesson, we sent the recording to her dad via email. Her dad replied back saying, "Thank you, this is Super!"

Instances like these are so rewarding and reaffirming to my investment of time and energy on these little ones. I absolutely love what I do!

Why Why Why Why Why

I don't understand...

Good Read

I just finished another book. This one is a pure delight. The entire book is composed of letters, back and forth between characters each so unique and distinct. It gave me a better picture of W.W.II., and the various degrees of sufferings people experienced in Europe. I will not give away the story, but I must say that the ending is very satisfying. If you have time, pick up this New York Times bestseller: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows and see it for yourself.

Tim and I

I love this picture taken by Brooke during Thanksgiving at her apartment. The lighting is pretty special, and the plant was from us to Brooke and Ben during Valentine's day this year. It has grown so much since Brooke had planted it.
The rest of the pictures taken that night can be found in http://dalingphotography.com

A Day of Feasting and Laughter

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, Tim and I enjoyed a night of pure indulgence on food at Brooke and Ben's lovely home. The 22 lb. turkey that Brooke made was one of the best tasting ones I've ever had. She's even kind enough to pack us all these leftovers to take home (didn't they say Thanksgiving leftovers taste even better?) Oh boy, I drank 4 mugs of tea afterward, attempting to rinse down the calories I took in, don't know if that worked or not, but hey, it was worth the try. ^_~

We played board games, watched Up, and took a whole bunch of pictures. It was a great!

After we came back home though, we took some quiet time just to pray and give thanks to God for this year. Even though this year isn't the smoothest year for us, (my grandpa died, Tim's dad had a stroke, Tim's mom's job got relocated, Tim's grandpa had cancer, my grandma lost her ability to stand up and had almost died, our baby died...)but we could clearly see that God is with us all the way, sometimes through the valleys of the shadow of death, sometimes through the mountaintops. God is the love source in our lives. Without Him, love would not be whole because God is love, only He knows how to love in fullness, unconditionally.

Thank you Papa!

Uncle Benny

As I have vaguely mentioned in a previous entry, our dear friends' father (we refer to him as Uncle Benny) had a severe stroke. His children created a blog to update on his condition since a lot of his friends are overseas. I would like to also ask for prayers for him from you. If it is on your heart to pray for a family in a troubling time, then please do not hesitate to do so.

It is the loneliest to be sick on a hospital bed during the holidays when there is suppose to be celebration and feasting. Tim and I have experienced that when my father-in-law had a stroke last December in Vancouver. Tim and I were in Boston at the time, and along came new year's eve. My mother-in-law called just before the countdown thirsting to hear another family member's voice for comfort as she had been staying with her husband the past couple of nights in the hospital not knowing what more to do. The countdown on the phone was full of emotions, anything but happy though...

Luckily, my father-in-law recovered pretty well, even though it took almost the whole rest of 2009 to do so, but at least he is better now.

So if you would pray with us for Uncle Benny, I am sure God is listening.

Grilled Chicken

4-5 Chicken breasts or chicken thighs cut up in smaller pieces. Marinade in one tablespoon of cooking wine, one tablespoon of soy sauce, one tablespoon of red chili paste, half teaspoon of ginger powder, one teaspoon of sugar, and a dash of sesame oil. Let it set for at least 15 minutes, and then go ahead and grill until the meat is tender and golden brown. Plate them on top of few pieces of lettuce leaves. Best to eat it with a bowl of steaming white rice. Um~!

The Shack

«The Shack»
I happened to stumble upon this book in the store. I didn't even read the synopsis before I decided to buy it.
It took me only a few days to finish it, but the impact lingers long after I put down the book.
Again, I am not here to critic the book or do any kind of analysis on it. I just want to say that I am deeply touched by this book, and I am more convinced than ever that God is with me, and He loves me, and He also loves you very very much. We might all have a dark, old shack somewhere in our hearts that's messy and dirty, but God can make something wonderful out of it. And if you still don't believe it, then read the book yourself. ^_~

Samgyupsal

I made grilled pork belly in lettuce wrap tonight. It's a Korean dish that Tim loves. It's also my way of getting him to eat vegetables. Lots and lots of vegetables. *Chuckle*

So first you've got the grilled pork belly. I bought the ready-sliced ones from the market. In a nonstick pan, at high heat, grill the pork bellies until they are golden brown but not dried-up. If they start to look like bacon, then they're probably overdone.

Now the sides can be many kinds. I have some fresh leek cut to 1.5 inches, some fresh lettuce leaves, radish slices in white wine vinegar and sugar, and for the dip I put half Korean chili paste to half miso paste, little bit of roasted white sesame seeds plus some sesame oil, ginger powder, rice syrup, and finally chopped scallions.

Finally, the way you eat it: take a piece of lettuce, put on a piece of radish and some leeks, take a pork belly dipped with sauce, wrap them all up and enjoy!

From Dali's Kitchen

So I've been cooking healthy these days with very little oil, less salt, but still delicious with appropriate amount of spices that enhance the natural flavors of each dish.

The first dish I made was for lunch. It's a very light noodle soup dish with fresh handmade noodles from Korean market, two shrimps, two kinds of mushrooms, seaweed, radish cubes and scallions. For the soup base, I boiled the seaweed, the radish cubes and some anchovies. 

For the chicken wings, I simply put half soy sauce to half water, some sugar, chili flakes, a little bit of cooking wine, and some fresh ginger slices along with the wings. Boil for about 30 minutes, then plate them and ready to eat.

For this dish, it's even simpler. First cut up one English cucumber, marinade the slices in a little bit of soy sauce, a little bit of red wine vinegar, some Korean chili flakes, some roasted white sesame seeds, a dab of rice syrup or honey, and finally a touch of freshly grounded ginger or ready-made ginger powder. All you need to do is mix all the ingredients together and eat.

Little Cutie

I found this picture in my file last night, and my first reaction was, "awwwww!" How I miss that little angel. Maybe not so angelic when her mom has to take care of her from day to day, haha, but she's absolutely adorable. Her smile melts my heart.
Praise God for creating Tabby and bringing her into this world, into my family!

Prayer

Sometimes there are things in life that are out of our control. Like illness, death, car accident, layoffs, theft and other things that can turn our lives upside-down in an instant. In times like these, all we could do is pray. Pray for an easier coping process, pray for a faster recovery, pray for a heart open for comfort, pray for direction, the next step...
Maybe that's why we kept having hardship in our lives, so that we won't forget we need God constantly. It can be very unpleasant at times, but we must keep in mind that God is bigger than all our problems.

Today, I am praying for two dear friends that are going through hardships. May God watch over them and help them through their difficulties.

The One To Grow Old With

Tim and I are married for over 2 and a half years now. To our parents, we might still be newlyweds. No kids, no mortgage, no burdens. Truly, we've been fortunately enough to live very worry free. When Tim and I first met, we were just 21 and 19 year-olds. Now he's 28 and I am 26. How time flies. These 7 years has been a wonderful journey. We have tasted the 酸甜苦辣 (sour, sweet, bitter, spicy) of life altogether.

In Biola, when we first started dating, we would see each other everyday: after classes, during lunch breaks, church, fellowship, club events... After Tim graduated, I stayed at Biola for 2 more years before I graduated too. During that period, Tim would come see me at least once every 3 weeks. He was working in Berkeley at the time, which is a 7-hour drive to get down to Biola. Whenever he did come down, he would leave Berkeley after dark and just drive through the night, when he'd get to Biola, it'd be around 4,5 A.M., and he would just take naps in the car and wait for me to wake up and come down to meet him. And whenever he'd leave, I'd cry and look like a pile of mess. (What a great way to leave an impression for your boyfriend to remember you by?)

One time, he came down during my birthday weekend, took me to Disneyland and asked me to marry him in front of Tomorrow Land. From that day on, we still spent another year long distant since he had moved to Vancouver, Canada and was working there instead. He came to see me less after that, because he couldn't just drive down to LA whenever he wanted, he had to fly, and not just domestic flights but international flights.

Many people gasped at our two years of long distant relationship during our course of 5 years total in dating. They said some people would have broken up by then, first of all for the 5 long years of dating, and second of all for the 2 years of not being able to see each other much. But I am glad we endured through tough times and have kept our love fresh to this day.

Three months ago, we lost our first baby to miscarriage. That to us, was the toughest thing to overcome by far. The day before the dreadful news, it was Tim's 28th birthday. I was making a birthday dinner for him including a homemade cake. He was so happy and satisfied. That very next day, I told him I was nervous to go do ultrasound. He said no need to be, everything would be fine. He took half a day off from work to drive me to the hospital. When we talked into that ultrasound room, he was still smiling, and so was I. We told the nurse that this is our first, and the nurse smiled at us too. After that, everything was a flashed before me. Tim looked at me as I laid numb on that ultrasound table. The nurse rushed out to get the doctor, the doctor called my OB/GYN doctor. We quickly got out of the hospital and drove to my OB doctor's office. My doctor confirmed the bad news with a thorough check up. We discussed options to have me go through surgery to clean out the remains or to have it naturally come out. I told my doctor I didn't want to wait because I was afraid that if Tim's at work when I miscarry then I'd be bleeding heavily and I wouldn't know what to do, I wanted to go through with the surgery. So my doctor scheduled two days after to operate on me. Tim called his manager and took the rest of that day off too.
Tim cried. The first time was 7 years ago when he yelled at me and made me cry. This was the second time, the third, fourth...

Since the recovery, I felt I have gotten older, so has he. And we will continue to age, until our hairs turn gray and our faces full of wrinkles, but we'll still love each other to death.

Standing Up For Myself

This past weekend, one of my students' parent emailed at 11 asking if they could come at 11:30 for a lesson instead of the usual 12:00 lesson. I did not check my email that morning. And since they ALWAYS come late. I was still waiting for them at 12:15. At that point, I got a phone call asking if I got an email this morning. After our conversation, they said they're heading over right now, and if they could just do a 1/2 hour lesson instead of the 45 min normal lesson. So I kept on waiting. And at 12:30, I got another phone call from the parent saying, they can't come anymore, the schedule didn't work out...

That just set me off. I am a teacher, not a relative whom you can come visit whenever you want. I am running a business, even though it's a self employed, small business, but it is regardless a legitimate business. First of all, you're already always late for lessons, that just shows that you don't really respect my time at all, and now you want to reschedule things at your own convenience at the last minute without giving me a 24 hour notice? That's a basic ethical procedure that everyone should automatically live by for the consideration of others even if it is to your own friends and relatives.

Actually, those people are harming themselves, because think about it. If they're always late for everything, what are they teaching their kids? That being late is okay? Procrastination is okay? Time is not relevant? So when they grow up one day and have to go to school and go to work on their own, people are going to see them as slackers. And if they don't learn to respect other people's valuable time, then other people are not going to respect their time either.

Also, you don't want to make the teacher mad. What's the benefit of sending your kids to a teacher that's already too upset for waiting for you for 20-30 minutes just to give you an half an hour- 45 min lesson? That's more than an hour of time total if added the waiting time altogether. You're not paying me for 1 hour worth of time, why should I wait for you in vain? In addition, your kid is going to think that, "oh maybe I don't have to go to lesson today, then I might not have to practice for it." So the kid never improves, and you're wasting your money, and you're wasting my time.

On that note, I must add that for the students whom I travel to for lessons, I am always right on time, which makes things so much easier. On Monday, as I walk into on of my students' house, her mom approached me and said, "She [my student] has been asking me all week, 'Mom is it Monday yet?' She really likes your lessons. Thank you so much!" Now that's something to inspire me to teach better.

For finally, about the late student parents, I emailed them and told them to either change the lesson to another time when they can come on time or something else have to be done, and they have to figure it out. Also to give me 24 hour notice if there are changes to be expected.

What can you do? I just want to teach, I don't want to deal with these housekeeping issues, but since I am running a business myself, I have to do everything.

More Food

Tim and I have had hotpot for two nights in a row. The weather is getting cold outside, and it's the perfect season for hot and spicy food.

Dipping sauce


Soontubu

New Designs for the Holidays

This is my first real Christmas tree. It's table size, but perfect for our little living space. I bought the star just today. I am ready for Christmas!!!

On another note...
I made spicy seafood stew for lunch, very healthy: sea bass, shrimp, clams, 3 kinds of mushrooms, scallion, tofu, radish, egg and watercress. ^^

Tim and I

Tim and I over the past few weeks. We went on a cruise together to Maine and Nova Scotia, we took a New York trip this past weekend to see friends.
We love traveling together because it takes us away from the internet, the daily chores, duties, work...so that we can focus on nothing but each other.

Changeling

Tim and I watched the movie Changeling last night. First of all, Angelina Jolie playing the roll of Christine Collins was phenomenal!!! The movie itself was very heavy. After I watched it, it took me the rest of the night to recover, and I woke up around 5 am this morning, dreaming about the movie.
Personally, it touched me deeply. I wouldn't recommend this movie if you just want to enjoy an evening with laughter and fun with friends, but its definitely a great movie to see when you're ready for something GOOD!

Dumb Dumb Dumb

Today my cousin, cousin-in-law and I were at a Japanese restaurant eating lunch. We order bento boxes and some special rolls. At first it took them 45 minutes to prepare our food. We only had 1 hour to spend on lunch since they were catching a flight. So after 40 minutes of wait, we asked them if they could speed things up for us. One waiter called the other waiter by his name, and the other said something back, then, that was it...no response from any of them, not even translating to us what the other waiter was saying. Then, finally we got our food. My cousin immediately told me that the rice was sour. My cousin-in-law told them that the rice was smelly. The waiter came, smelled the rice, gave us a look as if we were lying, not even apologizing to us. My cousin-in-law tipped them accordingly, not a penny less. But they tried to avoid us the whole time, standing in the back, talking behind us. I was so mad, is that the right way to treat the customers that come to your restaurant? After that the owner stood in the back and watched us too. I boldly said out loud, "I am NOT coming back again!"
This restaurant is located in Coolidge Corner in Brookline, MA, called Tsunami. Please save yourself from misery by not visiting that place EVER!

Face Face, Save Face!

I want to introduce this product today. I bought it from Whole Foods the other day, and I didn't get a chance to use it for a while, until...... last night when I fell asleep without removing my make-up...bad, bad, bad... This morning when I woke up, I head straight to the bathroom and took out this Burt's Pore-Refining Mask. It's made from all nature ingredient plus French green clay. After you use it, your face might get a little flushed, and that's because putting on that mask enhances the blood circulation under the skin, but it goes away in a few minutes. After 15 minutes, I just simply washed away the clay, put some facial toner on, and then facial serum and facial milk, and my face is back!
I hardly promote any product on my blog, but I just can't hide this one away for myself. It's only $7 in Whole Foods and $8 if you order it from the Burt's Bees website.
Cheers and HAPPY WEEKEND!

Vote

So I made two design with a set of pictures of Tim. I don't know which is better. The first one is more artistic, but I thought the second one is very simple, which is sometimes more preferable. So if you could, please help me to vote in the right window.
Thanks so much!

Third Night Alone

Missing my Tim. I went out today to a craft store. They have so many things on sale right now. I guess it's Columbus Day, which I didn't expect and happened to run into a extremely busy shopping center. I bought some ribbons, and some papers, hoping to turn them into Christmas gift ideas. We'll see, we'll see...
I tested out some designs tonight. Like-em?

A Random Drawing

I was doodling after dinner tonight while watching TV. I guess I just drew what came to my mind. Then I did a little bit of coloring on the computer. I am going to sleep early tonight. Church tomorrow~!

Tim Gone

Tim left this morning to see Howard, his brother, at his new college. It's quite exciting actually. I remember the first day when I went to college. I met the friends that I became so close to, and I said goodbye to my parents, which made me cried. It was a new chapter of my life, a new step toward independence. It was fantastic. I wouldn't trade my college experience for anything else.

So with that said. I am happy for Howard for taking this step going to college. I am happy that Tim gets to see him and visit his campus and dorm room. I felt lonely when Tim was going to leave, but now that he had left, it's actually not that bad.

I have practiced piano, designed new frames for my photos on dalingphotography.com, and also made Soontobu for the first time. All were successful!

I want to go shopping, but I'll wait until tomorrow when the weather is a little bit sunnier! ^_~

This is for Tim, whom I miss!

That's it for now with my blogging. Thanks for coming by!

Fall Pictures

I posted some pictures of my weekend trip to the Stone Zoo on DalingPhotography, come visit!

Defiance

I just watched the movie Defiance on Neflix with Tim tonight. It was very good. I am not a movie critic or anything, but I just want to say that I was really touched by the story.

It's about three Jewish brothers that lived during World War II in Poland, and how they led a group of nearly 2000 Jewish to survive in the forests as free people. The experiences they went through were amazing but at the same time horrific. It reminded me of that ugly part of world history once again, and it made me appreciate the time of peace so much more.

We watched the extras afterward, which has the interviews with the main characters' descendants in US; their testimonies had made the movie more truthful and raw.
I would recommend this movie to everyone.