YB says

It's liberating to watch a stupid show on Hulu right next to JD who is getting frustrated with H&R blog to file for tax return. I am not rejoicing in his suffering. But, I am rejoicing that I can be a responsible upstanding citizen even when I  am watching a stupid show on Hulu mindlessly.


My almost 22 months old son, Gman is doing well. Lately, he's been on the singing mode. He sings as soon as he gets up, whenever we drive to the gym, and when I work around the house doing whatever. He sings, twinkle twinkle littler star and row row row your boat. He also makes up his own song called " Ma-ma-Ma~" And he ends his day with singing another song of his own on his bed until he falls asleep.

JD is working a lot and I frankly like it a lot. You want to know why? 'Cause we get to have some breathing rooms. I get to eat out without worrying about nickels and dimes. We get to invite people from church who don't have families in town. ( Speaking of, we are also inviting Pastor and his wife next week and the young people from our church this Friday and have Sushi, etc. you know, whatever the young people like.) The pastor and his wife are excited over this new mission that we took on our own. Our church emphasizes community gathering and intentional fellowships. I think our new mission really aligns with what the pastor is trying to accomplish through our church ( Not that we knew about it beforehand and tried to take on our church's mission ).

Let me digress here just a little bit though ( I know JD will make fun of me for it): I used to like different types of ethnic food)- I still do if you consider Korean food as ethnic food), but since we got married, I am more looking for the recipe that are cheap and healthy. I cook stir fry and fried rice a lot but I often gravitate towards.... eh hem, casserole with a cream of mushroom or cream of chicken, which will cost less than $5 for three day meals. I know it's not all that healthy. But, it's cheap and easy. These young couples, ,as much as they are newly weds, have no clue whatsoever when it comes to grocery shopping and budgeting. First, they don't coupon-shopping. Second, they change their menu everyday. They make stuff like gluten free blah blah blah, vegetarian blah blah blah,  Thai chicken noodles, organic blah blah blah. It just reminds me of how I was ( except for the organic food part) when we first got married.  I would buy another set of grocery to cook Indian food while I have all the ingredients to cook some pasta dish just because I wanted something different. I would go out and buy some fancy seafood because I wanted to cook some elegant European dish for JD's lunch. And cooking the same food or same types of food seemed so boring to me. Of course, our grocery $$$ was throwing off the roof and JD went through the painful process of where we were gonna pull the extra grocery cost from to make up the difference. Sometimes it came from the gas $$. Other times, it came from savings as I recall. I don't do that any more. But, cooking isn't that fun anymore either.

The Easter dinner went very well, I think. Everyone loved the food and seemed to be having fun. They especially loved the two casseroles, broccoli casserole and sweet potato casserole. I got these recipes from our southern family friend. This friend doesn't eat anything unless the dish contains, mayo, butter, cheese, or all of the above. For instance, she makes this awesome chili, but she uses nothing but a petite tomato and ground beef. She says she doesn't really care for beans nor onions, the veggies that most people would consider as part of the regular chili recipe. (Oh, aside from chili, she doesn't eat soup period.)

The broccoli casserole recipe called for a can of cream of mushroom soup, a cup of cheese, two eggs, broccoli, a cup of mayo, and one or 1-1/2 sticks of butter. I purposefully bought a can of 98% fat free cream of mushroom for some of our health conscious guests. But, by the time I finished cooking the casserole, it wasn't even worth it. (I know right?)

Whenever JD makes fun of Paula Deen, he says "First you start with a stick of butter. Then you fry another stick of butter in the frying pan." I thought his impersonation was highly exaggerated. Since the broccoli casserole incident though, his impersonation isn't that far from the truth.

"Oh my, doesn't your friend have any health issue? like diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, etc.?" You wonder.

My answer to that is No, she doesn't. She is as healthy as a horse. She occasionally complains about that she weights 140 lbs or so due to her age and slowing down metabolism. But, that's really about it. Does she work out like a beast? It depends on what you mean by "working out like a beast." But, I wouldn't call walking around the mall for 30 minutes or less with her 70 something years old dad maybe once or twice a week  or being on some machine at Curve for 30 min. is a beast workout. But, that's just what I think.

When I refuse to take her offer on the M&M or the full on fatty potato chips that she keeps around in her house ( BTW this was prior to my pregnancy), she always says,

"Look. You only live once!."


Yep. Life isn't fair and you know it. Most people are having health issues that they are having because they eat and only workout like she does. But, she is an exception. What can I say, she is the LUCKY or blessed one.

Anyway, Back to the Easter dinner  party at our house. Everybody was having fun. Or so did it seem, except JD and I. Don't get me wrong. We loved that we were able to open up our house to church folks and this one family. But, this family that I invited over was over the top extroverted. We knew it was gonna be a looooooooong dinner, when we (actually I) invited them over. But, I still invited them anyway because I didn't want them to be alone on holiday ( Actually, the lady told me one time that her kids asked her about JD. Oh well, I guess that really opened up my soft spot on my heart and led me to invite the whole family to our house). So, she and her hubby brought a teenage boy and her daughter in college. They were fun for about two hours. When it passed two hours, JD and I were going down the hill. We were absolutely wiped out. I still can't figure out why they wipe me and JD out every time we have them over. I have some suspicion of why, though. The teen boy and the girl talk nonstop. And they talk in such a manner that before I am trying to process what the teen boy is trying to say, the girl jumps in, then the boy brings up the next topic; then everyone moves on to the next; then the next.  And, I generally end up trying to process three or four different conversations all at once while they are laughing their tails off.  They also dominate over the conversation on the table (needless to say). I guess it works for us in some aspect because both JD and I are not good at small talks and we DO NOT have to worry about even opening up our mouths ( except when laughing at their comments in response to show that we didn't check ourselves out and putting food in our mouths) throughout the dinner. The dilemma here was- I like that they talk a lot, but I don't.

Anyway, all guests went home happy at the end of the day when another guest who arrived the latest said that she and her hubby needed to take off.  Of course, this family would have stayed till the end of the day if nobody said anything. I love this family. I do. But, until I figure out how i am gonna prevent them from wiping me out again upon invitation, I am planning on holding off on inviting them over to our place again. (Whew, just by thinking about them,  it makes me feel like I was run over by a truck.)