TIPS AND THOUGHTS
Eventhough I know we'll have a few more good heatwaves until the cold weather really kicks in, the shorter days are already making it feel like Fall. I recently looked at the calendar for October and realized that Halloween falls on a Saturday this year. I was pretty upset about it, even more so than my kids who have already been planning our "alternate" Halloween plans this year. I can't believe that the long awaited white whale of a saturday Halloween lands in a COVID-019 year! That really sucks, I was already mourning the loss of a relaxing trick or treating year without having to worry about waking up for school the next day. My mother have always advocated for Halloween always being the last Saturday of October, regardless of date. But luckily, the kids are very adaptable. Mr. BAW already promised them that they can still dress up and do a candy hunt at the house and have a Simpsons Halloween marathon.Now on to a couple of tips I wanted to share. When California instituted a mandatory mask at restaurants and stores, I started looking for a quick and easy way to make our own masks. Especially the thought of the kids having to go back to school, they would need at least five masks each even if we do laundry every week. I have a sewing machine so I made a few masks for the whole family using old T shirts. But it was still a pain to have to sew masks. Finally, I found this no-sew method that is really quick and easy. I've been making masks for the whole family this way for months now. All you have to do is measure the width of your face from ear to ear to cut out the right size of cloth. Then you just fold the cloth (cut to a rectangular shape) along the vertical axis then again along the horizontal axis. Now, snip the corner to make slightly rounded edges. Then, simply cut a slit down about two centimeters from the edge down to make the earbands. The masks will not fray and lasts quite a while. It literally takes less than a minute to make a mask. Plus, I've used Ahgoo's old T shirts with some pretty cute patterns to make her masks.
The second item I wanted to share are essential oils. Every winter, I've had to suffer the wet towel mildew smell in our bathroom for years! Even if I never close our bathroom windows, the towels still never completely dry. So mildew smell always linger in our bathroom. Well I finally tried using an oil diffuser in the bathroom. It's been life changing. I ordered some essential oils from Amazon and use this lovely diffuser which I already had in our master bathroom. The mildew smell was completely gone after just a few hours of running the diffuser. Now, it just smells like fresh lemons! Why did it take so long for me to try it? I always worried that the oils would just mask the mildew scent to make it scented mildew! But I was so wrong, now I wish I had tried it years ago. But better late than never. Happy Fall!
Posted on September 23, 2020
SEPTEMBER HAPPENINGS
So far, September has been happening...quite a bit! Besides the usual; start of school, heatwaves, and West Coast fire season. But what's unusual this year is that schools are all distance learning for our district for now, our normal heatwaves are even hotter than ever (one night our temperature logged in at 88 degrees at 11:30pm), and fierce fires all over the entire West Coast. The fires are so bad that Oregon's air quality is worse than China or India! September has shaped up to be even crazier with the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (a wakeup call for people to vote in the upcoming election) and an earthquake with epicenter about 5 miles (in San Gabriel) from my parents' house! Thankfully, the earthquake was very brief and didn't cause any real damage, it logged in at magnitude 4.5 on the richter scale.On the home front, we celebrated another wedding anniversary (our twelve), peahen Madame Curie (aka Madame Curious) visited us and spent a whole afternoon hanging out in our backyard, found a sweet little nest on the ground, and I bought a new dining set with metal legs! I spent almost a year looking at dining sets to replace our chewed up old set (thanks to Kepler's insatiable wood chewing habit). The new set has to have metal legs so Kepler can not chew it up. After pinning tons of pictures on Pinterest and looking at tons of online magazines, I decided on this mid-century modern style. I love the color of the chairs. It took Mr. BAW a few days but he got used to the style, which is very different from our old classic dinning set. Plus, the best part of it all is that it's Kepler-proof! We are also in the middle of interviewing landscape acrhitects. We are going to make some big changes to our home exterior to make it more useful for our life style. That's our September thus far. Hope your family is doing well and adjusting to the new way of school/work-life balance. We are making things work for us so far.
Posted on September 20, 2020
MAMMOTH LAKES
The whole reason to go to Mammoth is to ski...at least that's always been for Mr. BAW. Thus, we've actually never visited Mammoth in the summer before. With the whole world still in quarantine and our travels are limited to within diving distance, we decide to spend our last week before school starts at Mammoth and visit some of the lakes. Especially since Kepler finally decided to like swimming. There are many lakes in Mammoth, we decided to drive around and explore a little. We ended up at Gull Lake which was more recreational, with boat and padle board rentals and butts up against a little park with ducks. The cutest thing was went Kepler decided to swim after the ducks. The ducks didn't seem to mind since they could just fly off if he bugged them enough. But for some reason Kepler kept swimming after those ducks. It was just the cutest thing and I wish I caught a video or a shot of it.Going with a recommendation from a friend, we also decided to check out Convict Lake. This lake is more prestine and quiet. The lake is flanked by gorgeous mountains. Mr. BAW even saw deer when he took Kepler for a walk around the lake. The kids found a large drift wood and spent over an hour floating on it in the lake. The water was cool but not too cold. Enjoy my pictures from these two lovely lakes.
Posted on September 14, 2020
A HORSE IS A HORSE
Unless that horse is a mule. The highlight of our Mammoth trip last month had to be going horseback riding at the Red's Meadow Resort. I've never been horseback riding before so I was slightly nervous and nervous about Ahgoo riding on her own (they don't allow double riders). But the animals are super gentle and they tell us that kids as young as six can ride alone and that the animals are kept at a walking pace, they don't even trot. Even though Ahgoo has been on a horse by herself before, she doesn't remember it at all. Everyone was super excited for the adventure. The tour we selected was a two hour ride to and from Rainbow Falls. They also offer four hour and half day rides. But not knowing whether the kids would like it, I imagined the horror in my head if Aghoo refuses to ride by herself or if my legs and back can stand the riding, we decided on the shortest tour. That was a good idea since it was very hot and we were hungry by lunch time.We all had a wonderful time and two hours was just enough. Rainbow Falls was spectacular, even at this time of the year. Interestingly, even though it's horseback riding, Buzz and Mr. BAW both rode mules! But I would not be able to tell, they all looked like horses. The only minor difference is that the mules don't have the long main but have shorter main and a tuff of hair on the top of their heads. They were all about 15-20 years old, their life span is about 25-30 years old. My big guy was Sam, Ahgoo's horse was Duke, Mr. BAW rode Clifford, and Buzz rode Emma, the only female! Emma was the rebellious, hilarious one! She tried to pull over to eat a bush (twice), she needed to relief herself while we were all trying to cross a little stream. But all in all, the animals were super gentle and just lovely. I highly recommend this activity. The only thing I discovered is that there was so much dust going on that my hair was completely caked after the two hour ride. I couldn't wait to wash my hair that night!
Posted on September 13, 2020
GETTING DIRTY
We know dogs can be dirty, we just didn't know that they can get THAT dirty! Ever since Mr. BAW got Kepler to swim at
Posted on September 4, 2020
FINDING CALM
With everything going on in the world, I think it's important to seek out calmness and quietness whenever possible. While I enjoy going on trips, they can be stressful to prepare for and unpack for upon returning, even during normal times without COVID-19. That's why I love it when we discover little pockets of beauty and peacefulness that is close to us. A friend of ours recently told us about a little park in San Pedro that he used to live near, called Averill Park. The park also has pretty awesome views of the Los Angeles Ports. Although we have to drive about 20 minutes to get to the park, we've been there several times already.I hope people can also discover little gems near them and find ways to feel calmness. Enjoy my pictures below, I especially love the one where Aghoo just ran down the hill all the while jumping, such freedom, such happiness!
Posted on September 2, 2020
VOLUNTEER TOMATOES
I always believe that you should grow what you love to eat. For me, I love basil, green onions, spicy peppers, and tomatoes. I have a very beautiful spicy pepper tree that produces amazing peppers every year. I also grow basil plants which I usually have to replant each year from my own propagated stems. But beware of a basil fungus that tends to kill basil plants. They are a pain to get rid of. I also love to grow tomatoes. But I've only been able to have mild success, getting maybe 20 cherry tomatoes per season...until a few months ago.Last winter, Mr. BAW was cleaning out the right side of our front year and discovered what he thought were ginormous weeds. So he pulled them out, only to discover little green fruits on them. He showed it to me and I yelled, "Those are tomatoes!" Turns out a volunteer tomato plant had grown in our front yard. But sadly, Mr. BAW pulled out the plant in its entirety, fruits and roots. So I took a chance and replanted it on the left side of our front yard, where there are more room. I figured it would just dry up and wither away. Fast forward to March of this year. I discovered that the tomato plant not only didn't wither away, it grew enormous!! The main branches were about an inch in diameter. It stretched out on all sides, climbing up our pony wall, crawling over my roses, and stretching into the neighbor's yard. When I was looking at it, I thought I heard it say to me,"Feed me Seymour!"
Since my discovery about three months ago, I've been harvesting cherry tomatoes at least once a week. At the height of summer, I was harvesting daily! I was eating the tomatoes like candy, trying not to let them go bad. The ones that were not perfect, I threw them back to the yard and let new plants grow. I must have harvested over ten pounds of tomatoes. Lately, I've had to give some tomatoes away to my neighbor. Linda Ly of Garden Betty also had a volunteer tomato plant in her garden, though mine is not nearly as big as her's. Still, I'm absolutely loving the tomato plant. There's nothing sweeter and juicier than homegrown fruits and vegetables.
Posted on September 1, 2020
