Next Week Will Be Tet Already

And I am not even going to be as ready as I would have been 5 years ago. There is no way I can have the house as clean and neat as I would like it to be unless I take off work and do nothing else but prepare between now and Monday. Yikes. That's not going to happen so we'll do the best we can. Tomorrow is work and then prepare ourselves for bee class Saturday morning. Then maybe a visit to the gym before they close. Saturday evening will be for taking stock of equipment to see what we need to purchase (hopefully not much) and ... hmm ... there was some other big bee biz thing we said we'd do but I can't recall. Oh yes, look at the application for submitting an Adult Continuing Education course with Comal County. We're going to write up something for GBR. This reminds me of the fun days of knitting class with Sary in SA. The teacher was horrid as a teacher but a great knitter. Somehow Sary and I got through it, as everyone else in class, and we went on to teach a LOT of other friends. And out of that, the Knit Night social gatherings were born. Seems like a long time ago right now.

Back to Tet. At least I have door decorations and sweets this year! Hooray for trips to and through Houston. I love that 99 Market - so conveniently located along IH-10. :) Now, gotta get to bed. I need an early start tomorrow. The other job requires some data pulled together for a 2p meeting. I feel like I'm in college a bit. At least I have until 2p to finish my data gathering assignment. Nighty night.

Reminds Me of Mom

Fresh off my visit to Florida to see the family, my parents have been on my mind a lot, especially my mom. She and my dad are getting up there in years so it meant a lot to me that we could go see them together. I have not done a lengthy Christmas visit since I've been out here in Texas. I think we did go a few years ago but it was a very, very short hi-bye trip as we were actually going to pick up bee supplies in Georgia. Took a slight detour overnight.

Mom often gives us cuttings of plants. She is amazing with food and plants. A natural. You give her a dead plant, she gives you blooms by the end of the first year. Love it. She gave us another Bong Mai for the new year coming up (Tet, that is). I shall keep this one inside to see how it fares as the climate in South Texas is not really for it. Besides, having it inside on the counter allows me to see it everyday and so it reminds me of mom several times a day. Not that I need a plant to remember mom. But when I see it, I have a nice, short, different memory of the past.

She once also gave us a lemongrass cutting from her gigantic bush in Florida. We planted it here and it also grew gigantic - even Smokey loved it, chewing on the blades daily it seemed. We lost it to a harsh freeze one year and I really wish I had dug it up to take it in. Anyway, the last time we went to Houston for the opera, I saw frozen stems of lemongrass and thought I'd see if I could root them - they rooted! YAY! In spring, I will plant them in a big container perhaps. I'm not sure yet. I'm just happy it rooted because it also reminds me of mom. When we felt under the weather, she'd cut some blades and make us a steam bath with it. Soooo incredibly soothing and smelled divine. I haven't cooked a lot with it as of late but I want to pick that back up when we have enough for me to do that. We did stuff some in a turkey one year and then had it fried. That was good eating.

Anyway, happy new year my friends. My one resolution for myself this year is to post more regularly on La China as well as on the Seguin blog. It's always amazing to me when I meet people and they tell me they still follow my poor, neglected blog that I can't bear to turn over to someone else or to turn off. Sigh. So...I shall endeavor to keep it up.

Random Tuesday Thoughts from VA

I picked a random picture from my Flickr for my random thoughts. Here they are:

1. I love coconut! And since this is coconut candy typically consumed only at Tet (Lunar or Chinese New Year), that reminds me - OMG, Tet is next THURSDAY!!! WHAT??? I need to clean and find festive things for the house. I better get to it when I get back to Tx.
2. We are expecting snow/ice tomorrow! Woohoo! But I won't get TOO excited as the last time I was here, they said we'd get 3 inches and we got less than an inch. Really. Couldn't even make a midget snowman. This time they SAY we may get 6 to 9 inches. Again, we'll wait and see. But still, I'm a little excited. It's not suppose to be here till Wednesday evening so hopefully we'll not have to stay too late at training.
3. My feet are super warm right now in VA, thanks to my super warm $20 boots from Academy. I didn't want to join the "boots" craze this season but this is strictly for functionality (non-frozen toes in frozen northeast) and not for a fashion statement. And THEN I realized that I technically had like FOUR pairs! What? I go pretty much all my life without owning boots and then boom, within the past couple of years, I accumulate the following, amazingly -

These are my Academy-keeps-my-toes-warm-in-VA boots. Very light believe it or not and quick to get in and out of at airport security.



These are my steel-toed boots I got from CMC when I came to work here. Wear these only if you want to work out your legs. HEAVY. But cool.



These are my walk-safely-around-fields-and-beeyards boots. Makes me feel cool to wear these - very safe in the pastures.



And these are my walk-in-muddy-beeyards-without-worrying-about-dirtiness boots. Light but doesn't breath whatsoever so your feet get HOT. Or is that just me?

Happy Year of the Tiger!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and a great start to the new Lunar year! I, unfortunately, ended up fighting a bad headache that turned into a migraine so I could not post new year greeting until today. Nor did I make my round of calls to wish the family well. :-( Well, making up for it this evening.

This is a flower from the beautiful arrangement Mark gave me for Valentine's Day but the yellow is nice for New Year celebrations as well. I am very blessed to have such a wonderful husband and a great life. My goals this year include taking better care of myself physically and emotionally (stress) so that I can get better control over my health. Mark and I are back at it at the gym and we're very excited about goals we have set for ourselves! :-)

Here's to a happy, healthy and prosperous new year for everyone!