It’s alive after transplanting - 2

Same thing as this plant’s transplanting, only, by far, I do still not know what plant is this, however, my best guessing, is, a cherry tree.

I tried transplanted these two tree at the same day, one after another, it too survive, except, I was not so careful when I dug out the roots for this little guy, I must lost patients and strengths after I dug out the avocado tree.

It is astounding, how lives can be so strong sometimes, never lose hope and keep trying and yes, miracle do happens all the time, let go and let God, will you?

It’s alive after transplanting - 1

It is an avocado tree, but, at first, I was merely guessing about what kind of tree is this.

I didn’t actually try to grow any plant at the first place, just buried some kitchen wastes into the earth as a natural fertilizer and reduce the trash at the mean time.

And then I thought I should transplant it to a spacious place for it to grow, if it is an avocado tree, then that’s when I tried dug out it with the more roots with it as possible, and found the avocado core is still attach to the roots, amazing!

At the beginning of the transplanting period, I really don’t know will the avocado tree going to survive or not, I do try my best to take good care of it by watering it and pray for it, after all, we all are the creations from our Creator, if He cannot take care of us, then who can?

broad bean!

When I saw them in the market, I truly have no idea what is this, and how do I cook or eat them, “then you shouldn’t buy it”, says my son.

I was so glad that in the end, I bought these fava beans and when I open the pods, I was shocked by how the inside looks like; it has a think cushion for the beans, that’s how tiny are those beans compare with the size of the whole pod, the proportion.

Seriously, if you try to touch the inside of the pod, it feels just like the softest cushion that you can ever get.

It also is the first time ever that I get to eat the broad beans fresh.

It tastes really good, especially, cook with some meat; it absorbs the juice from the meat.

lamb soup with figs & apples. 無花果蘋羊肉湯

You must wonder how I came out with superb idea about this lamb soup.

I got some free homegrown figs from a coworker, figs are really a healthy food, unfortunately, my kids don’t like it, and I was desperately about that I have to consume this wonderful food all by myself.

And then I also thought about that we have some homegrown apples, the apple skins are tough, the flesh are not so delicious as the store buy, again, so, you know the kids, I was forced trying to get some recipes for it so the apples can be transformed into something edible for my kids, mostly that I could find or thought about were deserts; I really don’t want to add more sugar or butter or some other ingredients into the natural ingredient.

Therefore, I asked my best friend, google for help, astonishingly, I found this so called three-fruit-pork-soup.

So here, I have 2 of the fruits, the figs and apples but I skip the snow pear, it becomes two-fruit-lamb-soup, I replaced the pork with lamb.

It’s deliciously good, it has the sweetness from the natural fruits and I flavor it with some cumin and ginger.

Believe it or not the cooked apples taste like potatoes, I mean the texture.

Fellowship

Another reason that I may skip my Friday fellowship meeting; during the weekday, I do either meet up different group of people or call them up according to our schedule regularly.

Rush weekday - 3

The second day, Saturday, when we heading out, we suddenly remembered that I parked the car outside the curb, for the day before, Friday, I assumed that we will go to church, that way, for me, it was easier to drive out than to back off the car from the drive way.

Our city, or is that every city doesn’t allow overnight parking on the street, why do I know? I had a ticket before; unless you applied the permit ahead.

We were really lucky, we didn’t get a ticket this time, and I was joking with my son, “the Parking Enforcement Officer must have gone to the church fellowship on Fridays”.

Rush weekday - 2

Yes, that Friday, we all had to skip our fellowship meeting.

But, I’m kind of feeling that I don’t want to go back the fellowship later on, maybe I should spend more time myself instead, do some bible study on my own or write more on my own blog, I have like more than 4 hundred of the drafts waiting for me to finish them. 

talking and yawning

A couple, no offense, from the language that they were speaking, they are Korean.

They just constantly talking kind of loud and yawning with mouth open widely, why do I know? They sat right across from me.

The lady even put one leg up on the chair while they were talking; I found that was quite disturbing, well, obviously, the librarian didn’t care.

They left, yeah!

Rush weekday - 1

I had a rush weekday.

And last night, I thought, finally, I could have my regular Friday church night, a relaxing and soothing night.

Then, was when I pick my son up earlier from his band practice and rushing everyone to get ready for the church.

My son came out from bath, complained about severe migraine on his right side of head including his nose.

Quickly, I asked some questions regarding the headache; make sure that was not something serious that I need to rush him the ER or urgent care.

Tried anyway that I could think about to allay his pain by gently fanning him, provided him a cold drink, and then a bowl of warm soup, asked him to lie down.

At the same time I recalled that he called me and left the message around noon said that he walked to and from library, the library is not too far from our home, but in this hot day, almost 100°F and he didn’t even eat much, though, I did prepared a complete meal for them before I headed to work.

Shortly after that he went to the park for band practice. I meant, he sweated a lot and drank a lot of water, which is good, but he hadn’t’ eaten enough. Quite frankly, this led to a temporary electrolyte imbalance and a headache occurred.

I prayed for him silence and play this song over and over.

Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) [Lyrics] - Hillsong UNITED

Thank God, he recovered after hours sleep and he ate some more food after.

I never except this rush weekday end with pain and worry (not Penn & Teller, ha).

I’m my sons’ private nurse or Dr. Mom.

grow & raise

I remembered that when I was little, we used to have a coconut tree in our backyard, every time when the coconuts were ripe; a guy will knock on our door and offered help on picking the coconuts for us for free in exchange of some coconuts from us.

Long time ago, when the money was not invented yet, people grow fruits, vegetables, raise pig, chicken and so on, and then they trade with each for needs.

Starbucks

Two weeks ago, a realtor friend invites me to a home buyer and seller fair host by West San Gabriel Valley Association of REALTORS; it’s quite a useful event with couples of seminars and random drawings in between.

I won a $10 Starbucks gift card, lucky me, during the break time my friend told me, “So we can have coffee together now”.

Shortly after, my friend also won a $10 Starbucks gift card, and then I was joking to her, “now that we can both treat each other to the coffee”.

Cherry

There hundreds of different variety of cherry, among them, Bing and Rainier are the most popular, which one that you prefer?

Bing cherries, you may sometimes experience some sour ones, the flesh is firmer, the size is smaller and color is dark red purplish with similarly colored flesh.

Rainier cherry has translucent yellowish softer flesh and yellow skin with a rosy hue. Rainer cherries are delicate and bigger than Bing cherries; no wonder Rainier is more expensive than the Bing.

I also found some interesting variety of cherry trees, Sonata, Symphony, Sweetheart, Blackgold, Whitegold, and Sunburst.

Both of them taste really grant, but if based on the Nutrition Facts and price, I probably will choice Bing than Rainier.

Bing Cherries

Rainier Cherries

Serving Size of 1 cup (173g) Calories 57 Calories from Fat 9(15.8%) % Daily Value * Total Fat 1g - Sodium 5mg 1% Carbohydrates 13g - Net carbs 13g - Fiber 0g 0% Protein 1g Vitamins and minerals Vitamin A 468μg 52% Vitamin C 68.4mg 114% Calcium 20mg 2% Iron 0.2mg 3% Fatty acids Amino acids * The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs.

Serving Size of 1 cup (140g) Calories 90 Calories from Fat 0(0%) % Daily Value * Total Fat 0g - Sodium 0mg 0% Carbohydrates 22g - Net carbs 19g - Fiber 3g 13% Glucose 19g Protein 2g Vitamins and minerals Vitamin A 18μg 2% Vitamin C 13.5mg 23% Calcium 0mg 0% Iron 0mg 0% Fatty acids Amino acids * The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs.

Candied Nuts

Ingredients

1 pound walnut halves

1 cup white sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons milk

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spread nuts in a single layer over a baking sheet. Roast for approximately 8 to 10 minutes, or until the nuts start to turn brown and the smell of roasting nuts fills the kitchen.

Stir together sugar, cinnamon, salt, and milk in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat for 8 minutes, remove from heat. 

Add walnuts to sugar syrup, and stir to coat well. Spoon nuts onto waxed paper, and immediately separate nuts with a fork. Cool, and store in airtight containers.

P.S.

You can substitute with some other nuts, like peanuts, pumpkin seeds as you desire.

Also I always try to omit salt, should I add it back next time?

I made this because my son said that we should have candy walnuts for the spring mix salad.

But they end up eating the candy walnuts separately, they said that that is not candy walnuts, it is sugar walnuts, there’s no glaze.

Again I can’t help to add some other ingredients into this ready to eat spring mix salad, Lentils and Onions, and again them complaining about it.

Banana Ice Cream!

You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream!

Homemade Banana Ice Cream without sugar, only two ingredients; bananas plus Half and Half.

First I freeze both ingredients separately around 4-5 hours, then blend them all together and then spread the mixtures into a glass baking pan evenly, freeze again for 6 hours.

Naturally delicious, serve and enjoy it!

Next time I’ll try different kind of fruit, or maybe add some nuts or chocolates and add some lemon to prevent browning.

Wasp nests

This is the second time that I have to bravely remove the wasp nests.

Weren’t I scared when I tried to remove the nests? I was (p) terrified!

But apparently, they leave no choice.

When there is something that may harm your family, you stand up and fight for it, no matter what.

Of course, I was very careful when I did that, first, I observed that when the wasps were least at the nests and when of day that they are most inactive; that’s the right time for me to do so, I assumed.

Then, I have to think and plot an easiest and most safe way to remove them, and I rehearsed it inside my brain couples of time before I did the job, and yes, there were three nests all nearby, but luckily, two of them were tiny.

And then I quickly remove the tiny ones first, the biggest one the last; using a cup to cover the nest swiftly, and I could see the wasps were either angrily or nervously flying and hitting the cup, lastly, open only a teeny tiny gap to rapidly use the cover to cover the cup, one of the wasp flew away and one was killed when I slid the cover on, done!

onion

The other day my son tried to show a video clip on how to cut the onion without tears.

Believe it or not, the best way is, have someone to cook for you!

rain

This morning when I headed out to work and it started rain, “yes, please rain harder”, I said, then the rain stop.

Agree to disagree!?

If you are the worship leader and every time you have to pick 2 of the songs from the worship songs list over and over again, how do you feel?

To me, it’s like you share the same testimony over and over again, whether it’s to the same crowd of people or not.

You receive the blessings, the grace each and every moment of your life, don’t you?

Every song that we pick should touch ourselves in the first place so you can share with other and may touch others through it.

And it’s crucial for us including senior to learn new things am I right or wrong?

I totally understand the importance of Repetition Makes Familiarity, but……………

busy

This week, I’m not going to visit any friends; first of all, I’m busy at work and kind of tired of going place to place in this hot day, most of all, sometimes, I doubt that are those friends appreciate my visiting, they maybe just shy to say no to me, you know Asian, for sometimes, they may want to rest and be quiet.

I’m just going to wait and see, if they really want my company, they’ll contact me instead, right?

What if my concerns become other’s burdens?

grocery outlet - 2

When you use the coupon, $5 off $10 purchase, will you buy almost exactly $10 in order to use the coupon?

I wish that I’m a multimillionaire so that I don’t care to use any coupon when shopping or I should say, I don’t even need to do my own grocery shopping. 

burpee

The exercise is named in the 1930s for American physiologist Royal H. Burpee, who developed the burpee test. He earned a PhD in applied physiology from Columbia University in 1940, and created the "burpee" exercise as part of his PhD thesis as a quick and simple way to assess fitness.

A new word and exercise that I just learned, when I first see the word, I thought, "burp + pee", is that mean if you do this exercise you'll burp and pee afterward, ha-ha.

bat wings

Since latest time’s terrible experience of the arm-shoulder pain and I accidentally did some gentle moves with my old dumbbells and my pain gone surprisingly, I, now continue the dumbbell exercise almost every day since.

And I reminisced when I was young, how fit was my arms, and shoulders, no bat wings.

Knowledge

Knowledge Without action and passion is dead.

1 Corinthians 8:1
Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up.

"Without knowledge action is useless and knowledge without action is futile".  - Abu Bakr

“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”  - Edward Abbey

Or even worse, speaking one and act another way.

medication

A scary fact to learn that a lot of people, they being taken bunch of medicines (including vitamins) each and every day without knowing what are that for.

Some brag about their insurance pay for it.

Some have the doctor prescribe excess medicines and save them for the future usage, for example, when traveling aboard or for the spouse. Some dispose the unwanted medicine without a proper way. 

Medicines cure diseases could also damage your liver or kidney or both and etc.

Note that you are not just abuse your own health but the medical system, and the environment.

team

I’m neither a team leader nor team player.

Have a bad feeling that I want to quit something in the near future, being solitary.

our time cafe

Everything is terrible, except the A rated for the restaurant.

patient and temper

My biggest frailty, especially with my kids.

IQ

The higher your IQ, the more you dream.

This better be the true fact, because, I dream a lot.

Sad

Days ago, one of our pastors announced his decision of leaving our church and going back to Taiwan within a year.

I have been staying in this church for 14, 15 years, in between, 4 of the pastors left the church.

Pastor Chang, the one that warmly welcomed me the first day of this church, led me to a fellowship that is most suitable to me and my two young kids, he always say that I’m his lost sheep, indeed, at that time when I returned to church and resumed my church life, his and the fellowship’s passion truly impact our lives. He was also the zone pastor of our fellowship. Shortly after he then left the church due to the contract suspension with the church.

Pastor Chen, left the church because of some kind of concept conflict with church vision.

Pastor Tsai left the church, by the reason of different belief on something that I believed.

After pastor Chang left the church, pastor Jiang became our fellowship’s zone pastor, at the beginning, I didn’t have much connection with him, it was until I joined the ministry of nursing home service, and he was the one who led our team. He attended almost every single services with us, prayed during our services, kindly gave his praises and suggestions to our team members, I learned a whole lot from him and this service. He then determined to go back to Taiwan more than a year ago.

Now, pastor Doong, the fifth one, told us his decision. The past 2 two years much changes and things happened in our church. It seems everything finally settle down and I just changed this fellowship which pastor Doong is the zone pastor.

The past Friday when I heard this news, after went home and before went to sleep, I recalled back those far but vivid memories and literally, I cried myself to sleep.

As a mom

As a mom, I sometimes feel, I fail.

Months ago, both kids had a promotion prize separately, a free large pizza from Papa John, so I said to him, “it's your prize, so, you get to decide which Papa John to have it, what kind of pizza that you want and when to order it”.

Guess what answer that I got, “as if it's for my decision, I’ll order and eat it all by myself, without telling you".

Well, at least, he did tell me know and share with me this time.

Meeting

Totally got lost in that meeting; some younger coworkers told the meeting leader that they rather have a separate meeting from us, simply, because, they are afraid that we are the bad influence on them.

I understand that some of us are either talking, using cellphones or don't even bring their brains to the meeting (someone, like me).

So you are pointing the finger to the meeting leader, us or yourselves.

指著禿驢罵和尚; 表面罵第三者，實際是指桑罵槐罵對方.
指桑罵槐;指著桑樹，卻要罵說是槐樹.

Sprout - 3

Bulk foods, you can buy as much or as little as you need, recently, when I shop at Sprouts, I saw people sampling the bulk foods by sticking their fingers in the bins!
 
I understand that they probably want to try it before buying it, but that's disgusting and selfish.


Should the store find a way to let people try out the foods before they make decision!?

The cool you down noodles! 涼快的麵

I love this cool noodle, it's easy and delicious, I especially like the raw cucumbers, and it surely cools me down in this hot day.

 

And of course, for the sesame sauce, I have plenty of sesame paste in it; in addition, there are sugar, lots of lemon juice, a whole garlic bulb, soy sauce, water and some random leftover roasted nuts, including, peanuts, almond, and pecan.

 

I also turned the leftover dumpling fillings, by re-flavoring it with curry powder into meat sauce.

busy day

The past one and half day, I visited 4 different groups of people; we chatted, sang and prayed together.
 
And in between; I worked, shop and cook; what a marvelous one and a half day!

joke of the day

A joke from one of my Facebook friend, after her short vacation.

牙齒美白最快的方法莫過於把臉曬黑了((對著鏡子燦笑

The quickest and natural way to whiten teeth is tanning the face ((smile merrily at the mirror

Agree!

Pumpkin flowers

I didn’t really planned on when to plant the pumpkin until I waited too long to cook it and it was getting rotten; so, I planted it.

Its flowering now can’t wait for the harvesting.

毛毛蟲在我家！Caterpillar in the yard!

Both butterflies and moths are holometabolous; they have a complete metamorphosis from egg to caterpillar and from chrysalis to adult. 

I wish that I can identify whether this will turn into a butterfly or moth and which kind?

Slush

An easy and healthy way to cool down for this hot summer; slush! 

Have as many as frozen fruits ready to blend them into slush; from mangoes, bananas, blueberries, strawberries, grapes, cherries (pit them after frozen, to reduce juice lose), lemon juice ( this one can just use a fresh squeeze juice) and so on.

I always have one whole lemon juice in each cup, give it a tastes of sour, if you cannot stand any sour, then add a bit of honey to it. Vitamin c is one of the way on preventing browning.

Have fun and be creative to mix different color of fruits, you'll be amazed by all the vivid natural colors that you can get. 

I tend to buy bulk on fruits whenever it’s on sale, freeze them, one of the way to extend fruits’ self-life.

Also, thaw the frozen fruits a bit and add some water before blend them into slush; don’t defrost it for too long or add too much water to it, otherwise, it’ll become too watery like juice.

Or you can just use frozen fruits and lemon to make ice cream, http://praisedance123.blogspot.com/2014/02/yonanas-ice-maker.html

Diner in main

Last night, again, the restaurant fundraiser for my son’s school band.

Wondering why I didn’t have any group picture of the dishes this time?

First of all, I decided to order for takeout instead of dine-in.

Secondly and lastly, my younger son decided to dine-in with his friends. I’m probably the only one that enjoy taking pictures.

And after I paid for the takeout, I determined to pay for the whole table of my son and his 3 friends rather than just pay for my son’s. No doubt that I was paying with hurt and joy in my heart, in mean, the bill.

Wishes; they'll all go to church together and become believers and be good friends forever.

wear

How do you decide what to wear? The occasion? Your mood? Or what type of person that you going to meet?

If I know that the people that I’ll see that judge you by what you wear, then I’ll wear the most comfortable yet the oldest clothes.

If I’m going to visit my senior friends, I’ll wear the most vivid color clothes possible.

One drop of water

To most of the people, save one drop or two of water is nonsense.

That’s only the matter of money, just pay more, so what? Besides, my boss or my landlord or my parents or my kids pay for it.

Help save the resources of our mother earth.

People are easily to take granted of someone or something; he or she will always be there to help, we have plenty of this and that; just take good use of them without appreciations or care.

We are not wasting money but consuming nature.

Sometimes, I wonder, if there’s one day, the earth, shut all air conditioner down, what’ll happen? How many Fahrenheit degrees will it lower in our environment?

ALDI - 8

Got a real good deal on watermelon last week from ALDI.

Feeling so contradiction at the same time; price is good, rind is thin, and flesh is juicy and red and sweet; too good to be true.

It also is the third time that I saw the CVS shopping cart at the parking lot right in front of my car, and the second time that I used this shopping cart to shop at ALDI.

With shopping cart, I sure can shop longer time and buy more.

interesting

My name appeared on my Facebook friend's posts twice in a row today; one, I’m pretty much sure, it's talking about me, the other, i found out it's a restaurant, Alice’s restaurant (http://www.alicesrestaurant.com/).

I guess it's probably either I’m too popular or my name is just too common. I’d like to think, I’m special.