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.:: Friday, December 31, 2004
::.
another year past...
the
highlights of 2004 - things i'll always remember:
1. getting
married, of course :)
2. our trip to japan and finally going to
TAS
3. moving out of fog city and into sunshine!
4. leaving an
employer that didn't value me and my talents. their loss. :P
5.
finally getting rid of my credit card debt...free at
last!!
the lowlights of 2004 - things i'd like to
forget:
1. the re-election of bush, need i say more?
2.
realizing we can't afford to buy a house in the bay area
3. being
unemployed, but that's my fault for quitting i guess
4. oracle's
hostile takeover of peoplesoft...hopefully things work out for us
5.
buying my first bottle of anti-wrinkle cream. damn laugh
lines...
my 2004 favorites...
video game: taiko drum
master
new tv show: desperate housewives
dessert discovery:
chocolate pecan pie (thank you martha)
magazine: cook's
illustrated
purchase: our dining table, it's the coolest table
ever
store: sur la table, i could spend days there
candy: cherry
coke flavored mike and ikes
kitchen appliance: tie between our
waringpro waffle maker and our crock pot
things to look
forward to in 2005:
1. the success of our business
2. having
more time to spend on my hobbies (and resurrect one in particular)
3.
learning something new, maybe to play the guitar or to speak spanish or
japanese
4. hopefully taking advantage of all the fresh powder in
tahoe!!
5. the success of our business...
::
joyCleeP 11:06 AM [+] ::
... .:: Thursday, December 30, 2004 ::.
watching oprah makes me paranoid. i feel
like i need to vacuum and do laundry now, and just disinfect everything.
::
joyCleeP 7:20 PM [+] ::
...
i don't know how to explain what i'm
feeling. maybe it's a sort of quarter life crisis, part II. i guess this
period of unemployment has been harder for me than i'm willing to admit.
the last time i was unemployed, i knew what i wanted to do. i had
specific jobs in a specific industry that i was looking for, so it was
easy, cuz i knew what i wanted to do. but i got the job i wanted in the
industry i wanted to be in, and i realized it wasn't what i wanted to
do, nor the industry i wanted to be in afterall. that was hard enough to
admit. and now, i have no clue what i want to do. no clue whatsoever.
and the thought of having my own biz is exciting, but it's really scary.
i've never done this before, and everything seems so foreign. it should
be exciting and fun, right? maybe i'm just not a risk taker. well, that
i knew already. it's been hard for me to get motivated to go forward
sometimes, cuz i just don't know wtf i'm doing anymore...just hoping i'm
doing it "right." well, i guess we'll see. i just hope i get out of this
weird bubble soon, cuz i hate it. i hate it i hate it i hate it.
::
joyCleeP 11:38 AM [+] ::
... .:: Sunday, December 26, 2004 ::.
i can't believe it's been a year since W
proposed!! gosh, that seems like such a long time ago...so much has
happened in the last year! SO much. 2004 has been one of the best years
so far. i think this will be hard to top.
christmas was
fantastic! for christmas eve, we went to W's dad's house where his
stepmom created a mexican feast. opened a million presents under the
tree and wished A a merry first christmas. it's weird that they fuss so
much over the baby's first christmas, when she has absolutely no
appreciation for all the fuss that's being created over her. nor for all
the great toys she got. i think she was more interested in the ribbon
around the gifts than the actual gifts themselves. go figure.
christmas day, my parents came over to our house for dinner.
this would be the first time i ever cooked for my parents. ever! the
weird thing is, i love to cook, but my mom is the best cook in the
world, and i would never even dream of competing with her. so she cooks,
and we all eat. but this time, it was my turn. and thankfully, my
traditional turkey dinner turned out quite nice. altho, i'll admit i was
a bit nervous, being that i've a) never cooked a whole turkey in my life
and b) was using a new roasting pan i've never used before so had no
idea if i was even doing it right. and my chocolate pecan pie (my second
time ever baking it) came out so good, i think that will be my one
yearly tradition. i may bake it more often than just christmas, cuz it's
deeeeelicious! we all ate so much, and everyone was happy. we opened up
our gifts and called it a night. it was a really nice evening.
entertaining is so much fun! and we have lots of leftovers, which is my
favorite part about cooking big meals!
well, i'll save my
year-end wrap up for another time. now that we have our pictures from
our photographer, our new project is to tackle those thank you
cards...yea.
::
joyCleeP 11:18 PM [+] ::
... .:: Monday, December 20, 2004 ::.
had a most fabulous
weekend!
thursday night, drove down to oceanside.
friday
hung out with mother-in-law and went to the san diego wild
animal park, which is part of the SD zoo. it's really cool, the
animals get to roam around in a more natural habitat, so you get to
really see them in the "wild." the best part was the lion exhibit,
they're sooo cute! they had 6 1-year old cubs. very playful. afterwards,
went to benihana for W's sister's birthday. < sarcasm >i love
being the only asian in the entire restaurant!< /sarcasm >
actually, our chef was japanese, which was definitely a
rarity!
saturday, the main reason for our visit, went to fontana,
to the california speedway for the first ever JGTC (japan grand touring
championship) event in the US. and for the first time ever, the main
race was a night race! it was just about the coolest race i've ever
seen, with a bunch of cars we'd seen at TAS2004 last year in tokyo. it
was even cooler to see the cars race at night! what's crazy is that the
GT300 and GT500 class cars race together, so things get very interesting
with the passing situation. we saw a couple good crashes, which is
always painful when one of them is an NSX. just before we left, the D1
drifters from team japan and USA did a little warm up demo for us. i've
never seen professional drifting, and man they make it look way too
easy. it made me really want to learn! it's so crazy though, saw a crash
there too. the tandem drifts get so close to each other! pictures to be
posted shortly...still working out a few bugs. hope to have video
too.
saturday night and sunday, hung out with more of W's friends
and headed back home.
it was in the mid to upper 70's in the
SD/orange county areas. way to warm for christmas... but still a nice
getaway from our 30's and 40's.
here's a pic of me and Isami
Amemiya! we saw him at TAS2004 last year! hahaha, and now i have his
autograph and a picture!! :) whee!!
this was him at TAS2004, with his RX7 (which
crashed during the race on saturday)
.jpg)
::
joyCleeP 3:43 PM [+] ::
... .:: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 ::.
a few thoughts on the amazing race
6
that jonathon guy really needs anger management help. i
seriously think he beats his wife. he practically beat her down on
national television! i'm scared to see what happens when they don't win
the million...
it's nice that they always have an old couple, but
it's sad to see them go, even tho we all know full well that they don't
have a chance. but this old couple was too lovey-dovey. cute and gross
at the same time. heh.
was anyone else as annoyed as i was at the
dumb model who kept complaining about the third world conditions of
africa?! hullo, we all don't live the perfect little life you do! get
over it, enjoy the fact that you're travelling to places in the world
that most people will never get to see! and at no cost for you!! can we
say ungrateful?!
i would have done the brats thing. i have
experience. i took a processed meats class in college, and we had to
make sausage. haha, it was actually pretty fun. :)
regarding
scott peterson's death sentence
there are over 600 inmates on
death row, just waiting to be executed. by the time it's scotty's turn,
he'll be dead from something else, i'm sure. W had a great idea what to
do with all those ppl waiting to die. it's so costly to keep them in
prison, why don't we donate them to science? instead of testing on
animals, let's test out our new drugs on these inmates. well, i thought
it was pretty clever. so what if it's inhumane? it would solve several
problems, you have to admit that.
::
joyCleeP 11:51 PM [+] ::
... .:: Sunday, December 12, 2004 ::.
we had our first party at our new house
on saturday night. i really wanted to decorate the house for the
holidays, and my friend suggested i throw a holiday dinner so everyone
could come over and see, so i did. the food turned out great, and the
dessert was soooo good!! i will definitely be making the chocolate pecan
pie again!! the best part was the stockings. i made everyone big
stockings and told everyone to come with stocking stuffers, and it was
so much fun opening all our little gifts! fun times, must do it again.
playing hostess is pretty fun. :)
but we also did yard work
saturday morning, and you know, spending 3 hours weeding and raking is
not good for my body! my back is sore, my hamstrings hurt, even my hands
are aching! i feel like i worked out too hard or something!
and
to wrap up the weekend, spent time with my parents, celebrating my dad's
birthday. sometimes it really frustrates me, this language barrier my
mom and i have. it takes me so long to explain things to her, using the
basic korean i know, mixing it with the basic english she knows, trying
to form a cohesive sentence. it's pretty sad. i really wish i could
spend like a year in korea to become more fluent. but that's probably
never going to happen. so watching korean movies and tv shows will just
have to suffice for now...
::
joyCleeP 11:54 PM [+] ::
... .:: Saturday, December 11, 2004 ::.
new coffee drink find: kahlua mudslide
mocha from border's cafe. yum! tastes just like a mudslide, but warm. :)
oh, and also recommend peppermint mocha from starbucks (you were right
pearls, it's delicious!).
::
joyCleeP 2:44 AM [+] ::
... .:: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 ::.
they wouldn't let us give blood today!! W
and i signed up to give blood, cuz the red cross was at his work, so we
got there bright and early, and during our "health check" they asked us
about our travel history and cuz we were in cancun, and took a bus to
chichen-itza, we were somehow exposed to malaria by driving thru the
rural areas. hrm. oh well, we tried. i hope we don't get
malaria!!
on the upside, met with D and got our wedding photos
today! whee!! they turned out AMAZING!!!! we're so thrilled. now, to
decide on which ones we want! too bad we can't afford to buy an album
yet (we're talking another $1800-2900).
must go watch amazing
race 6 now.
::
joyCleeP 10:01 PM [+] ::
... .:: Sunday, December 05, 2004 ::.
the best part about going to ikea is
coming home to assemble furniture! haha, i admit it, i love to put
things together. growing up, one of my fave toys were my lego sets. i
had some cool legos. and i wanted to be one of the assembler people at
stores like service merchandise. it's just FUN!!
the worst part
about going to ikea is thinking how cheap everything is, and getting a
ton of cheap stuff, only to realize that you've racked up a hefty bill.
yikes, what the hell did we buy???
we vow never to bring home
anymore cardboard!! since we moved, i think we've dumped enough
cardboard to build a house. seriously.
::
joyCleeP 11:30 PM [+] ::
... .:: Friday, December 03, 2004 ::.
inspired by V, i thought
i'd do my own holiday wishlist:
1. U2 special edition iPod - i
have no use for an iPod really, cuz i don't listen to music anywhere
outside my car or home, but i love U2 and i am willing to collect
anything and everything U2.
2. my very own karaoke machine -
with 30k programmed songs! of course, half of them are chinese, but
that's okay, my chinese friends will love it! i wonder though, how do
you update them with new songs??
3. seinfeld
boxed set. i really want the salt and pepper shakers. :)
4. bowflex
tread climber - not that we have room for this, but i really need to
(a) get my butt back into shape and (b)start building our home gym so i
can cancel my gym membership!
5. mini
cooper s - in dark silver. too bad i can't link the one i built,
it's pretty bad ass (it should be, for just under $30k!). after seeing
"the italian job" i thought a mini cooper s would be the perfect track
car! whee!!!
6. and finally, a
cayenne turbo - okay, i've never really cared to ever own an SUV,
but as far as SUV's go, i think this is the creme de la creme. 450
horsepower? sh*t, that's beefy. i'll take one in titanium metallic
please. i'm nowhere near in the market for a new car, but if i were to
buy one right now, that's what i would get. oh, and if i came across
$100,000.
we bought a lotto ticket last night...keep your
fingers crossed!! ;)
::
joyCleeP 9:16 PM [+] ::
... .:: Thursday, December 02, 2004 ::.
according to regis and kelly, the most
searched word on webster's online dictionary is BLOG!
::
joyCleeP 2:36 PM [+] ::
... .:: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 ::.
ohmigawd it's soooo cold! the other night
it was only 26 degrees here!! yipes! i've never experienced this kind of
cold before...it's chilly. *brrr* i continue to drink hot tea to warm
myself from the inside out. haha. okay, no more dilly dallying, i have
baby shower invitations, birthday cards and holiday cards to make!!
::
joyCleeP 3:15 PM [+] ::
...
holy cow, we saw this on the plane ride
to cancun, but didn't realize it was still going on! well, til yesterday.
sheesh, 74 games? insane.
::
joyCleeP 10:27 AM [+] ::
...
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