Moments in My Life

A big earthquake hit Mexicali this afternoon around 3:40pm.  The magnitude recorded was at 7.2 which is consider a big quake.  We are all OK.  Nothing was damaged.  At that time, my family and I were at home.  I was sitting in front of my laptop, resting after gardening work at our front yard.  My back was pain and for a moment, I thought I was having a migraine.  But I quickly changed my thought when I saw things in our home was swaying, especially the ceiling fan.  My husband came out from the study room and said, “Earthquake!” 

What did we do?  We all gathered around the family room area and observed.  No, we didn’t hide underneath the dining table.  That wouldn’t be a good idea because our dining table is made of glass.  Then we heard water swooshing around back and forth in our backyard swimming pool.  We walked towards the back of our house and noticed water splashing out on both sides of our pool.  The water inside was still dancing back and forth.  I ran back inside the house, the windchimes were ringing and took my camera and captured a video of the water in the pool. 

I don’t know what I will do in an earthquake that big if it happens nearer to Los Angeles.  Mexicali is about 200 miles away and we felt it here.  News reported that high rise buildings around Downtown LA and San Diego were swaying.  I think I should start reading on what we should do in an earthquake to prepare ourselves.  Actually I read it a few times before but I guess I forgot. 

We arrived in LA last Wednesday at 9pm.  Got home around 10pm.  There was so much to unpack.  Brandon had a good sleep on the flight, probably 8-9 hours of sleep out of the 11 hour of flight time.  And I watched three movies during the whole trip (KUL-TPE-LAX) - Twilight Saga: New Moon, 2012 and Everyone’s Fine.  It was actually a good trip considering Brandon was able to rest for such a long time in the plane, but then he had jet lag when we got home.  It took a few days and he is back to the normal sleeping time now.  He still wakes up at around 230am and came over to our room to sleep with us, but now at least he sleeps through the night and wake up the right time in the morning.

This is our first Monday since we got home.  We hope to get back into schedule with school/play/park/library soon.  Brandon will be starting pre-school at Lollipop next month on April 13th.  He will go school 2 times a week (T, Th) 2 hours a day.  I had wanted him to enrol into another preschool for M, W, F but the school we paid our registration fee a year ago is full and can’t accept anyone until the new term begins in June 28th.  So for now, we will probably stick to library and park for M, W, F. 

We are at Taipei airport now.  We just came out from EVA Air lounge because I felt it is too crowded inside.  I rather stay outside which has more space area and less people.  And we have a long couch to ourselves, and Brandon was able to lie down on his back for a little bit.  He was complaining that he couldn’t sleep sitting up during our flight from LAX to TPE.  Although he slept but it wasn’t for too long. 

Our flight is at 940am, which is about an hour plus from now.  We’ll be heading to the boarding room in 30 minutes.  I have a bit of a headache because I didn’t sleep too well on the flight and because of my non-stop questioning from my son.  My head is spinning sometimes. 

Oh ya, we had a lot to eat and drink while inside the lounge.  We do not have more rooms for our special meals later.

Our trip is coming up soon.  We will be flying on Eva Air.  This has been my regular airline to fly with when I travel to Malaysia.  I have accumulated enough miles for an upgrade from Taipei to KL from economy to Premium Laurel Class (Business Class).  It requires 15,000 miles for an upgrade.  Even Brandon had enough miles after his last flight to KL, he has a little bit over 15K miles on his account.  So both of us will be flying in style from TPE to KL, which has a flight time of 4 hours 45 minutes.  We were given a choice to pick our own meal online before the flight and I hope they are good.

We will be having these as our main course:

Panfried Salmon Fillet Toped with Light Curry Cream Sauce
Accompaniment:
• Our deep-sea salmon is rich in healthy oils like the Omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA served with light curry sauce. Let you engohighly nutritious meal that is as good for you as it tastes.

Din Tai Fung Stewed Beef Shank with Noodle Soup
Accompaniment:
• Stir Fried Preserved Vegetable

Are the pictures making you hungry? They sure did to me. My stomach was growling as I was typing this and posting the pictures up.

In about a week, we (Brandon and I) will be flying again.  We will be celebrating Chinese New Year in Malaysia this year.  It will be Brandon’s first CNY with style.  Why I said so?  Because CNY here in Los Angeles is nothing compared to the CNY in Malaysia.  Although the CNY back there changed so much ever since I was growing up.  Each year, there are less and less festive, but it will be much better than here.

We do celebrate CNY here.  We have dinner at my IL’s place on the eve.  They live just 2 houses away, so we don’t really have to drive at all.  We just walk over.  Then on the 1st day of CNY, if it falls on a weekend, then my Hubby will join us to visit my IL’s relative locally.  We will vist 3 families - FIL’s older brother (2-bakfu), MIL’s 2nd brother (2-kaufu) and 4th brother (4-kaufu) and usually we are done with them in 1.5 hour.  And that’s it. 

So I hope that we will have a better and more colorful CNY in Malaysia.  The last time I was there for CNY was 2005.  It was different, may be because my mother was not around anymore.  But we did have a lot of fun at the reunion dinner that year at my uncle’s new home in TTDI Hill.  Looking forward for the trip.   

A section of our front yard fence had a wood wagon wheel on it.  But it was breaking apart under our bright and strong sun in Southern California.  It doesn’t look good if we plan to sell our home in the next few months.  So I called up several fence companies to get estimates. 

The first company whom came out told me the whole fence has to be replaced because the bottom part was rusty, no point in replacing just the few vertical metal.  He suggested to do the new fence in wood since it will be more economical that way.  He said his charge is $250 to replace the fence with cedar wood.

The second company I called didn’t show up at the schedule appointment and we rescheduled for the next day.  So the third company, Gonzales Iron Work (from Gardena 310-538-5593) came out and looked at the fence.  He said to replaced the whole fence plus labor would be $295.  But I had to wait till the second company give me the quote before I decide.

When the second company came out the next day, he looked at the fence and asked me how much the other companies had quoted to replace it, I told him $280.  And he was laughing at me.  He said if I found that cheap, I should let the other company do the job.  Because he said he knows ‘no one’ will replace that fence for such a low price.  I told him, “Yes, there is!”  He said for him to do the job, he will charge $600-$700.  He left.  I immediately called Gonzales Iron Work and gave them the job.  It was Friday afternoon.  I asked them how many days they need to do the job, the owner said a few days (may be 3-4).  The owner came out on Friday evening to let my Hubby sign the contract and said he would stop by on Saturday morning to remove the fence to use as template.  The owner didn’t even ask for deposit for the job.  

 The next morning around 9am, they were already here removing the fence.  That’s timely!  I told Brandon that the fence would be back up there around Wednesday.  He likes to see people working so I was hoping that he will get to see them putting the fence up. 

On Sunday morning we went to Camarillo Outlet mall and came back around 1pm.  And guess what?  When we turned into our street, Hubby said to me that the new fence was up already.  I was surprised!  But it was there, painted too to match our existing fence color.  Although the color is a bit off but close enough.  That’s really fast work and the quality is good too.

I will definitely recommend Gonzales Iron Work from Gardena to anyone that needs to get a new fence.  It is people like this that I love to do business with.  Work done on timely manner.

I forgot to take a picture of the old fence but I managed to go out this morning to take the picture of the new fence.

I am becoming insane more and more everyday.  All because of my son.  Everything I tell him to do, his answer is, “No!”  Then he kept repeatingly asking the same ‘why’ questions over and over again.  I told him the answers gazillion times, he still asks me.  *pulling hair* 

And the worst is whenever I sense that he needs to go to the bathroom, he always says, “NO!”  But I always bring him to the toilet and he would be so rush and sometimes wet his pant before I pull down his pants.  Why can’t you just tell me that you need to go to the bathroom???  And he has been wetting his bed quite frequently now at night.  At least once a week. 

Brandon: Mommy help me take this toy outside.

Mommy: OK OK.

Brandon: Ehh ehh … Mommy don’t touch my toys!!!!

OK, how do you want me to move your toy outside if you don’t let me touch your toys?! O_o

Hello 2010!  Now that I am saying ‘Hello to 2010′, 2011 won’t be too far away from today.  LOL! 

After a long week of lazying around the house and doing very little, now I am back to the weekly schedule and chores around the house.  As Chinese New Year is approaching, a lot of cleaning and organizing has to be done around the house again.  This time, I will pack away some stuff that I don’t use anymore.  Who knows, we may be moving away and selling our home.  Have to make the house looks nice and presentable if we are planning to sell it, so have to store away all the junks.