NostalgicRosette's Xanga

I caved in..

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:16:36 GMT

to Facebook!

So I finally set up a Facebook account. I know... I know... it took me long enough. I didn't really want another account to be addicted to, but while chatting with my high school friend, I realized that many of them have Facebook accounts. So, my friend and I both signed up on Facebook and saw some really old elementary and high school pictures. It's amazing how popular Facebook is in Asia.

I knew it's second to Myspace (which I still refuse to sign up for it), but I have no idea Facebook is THAT popular outside of the US. I wonder if Myspace is as popular. I know the MSN Spaces are pretty popular in Asia as my friends and my brother and sister have blogs on it.

How many more of these websites are going to pop up in the future? Our generation is not getting any younger. We're in our 30s already! Are we going to sign up for all these websites whenever they pop up??? Geez, I can't keep track anymore. I guess I a really getting old. I am still trying to figure out Facebook.

On the other hand, I am still suffering from morning (more like evening) sickness. It was gone for a week and it's back! Grrr.. enough already! I am 15-week pregnant and last time when I had Dan Dan, my morning sickness was gone at around 12 weeks. I have a feeling it's a girl this time. Wish me luck! I'll get my ultrasound on the 23rd!!

I am...

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:31:28 GMT

That's one of the reasons why I haven't been blogging much. Did I tell you last time how much I hated morning sickness? It's been 3 years, so I don't quite remember how bad it was last time. I remember last time I couldn't eat much, thus actually losing weight during my first trimester. I vaguely remember puking a few times and telling my coworkers it was bad during the first three months (when they found out I was 4-month pregnant). This time around, I was puking almost everyday the last couple of weeks. I have to eat every couple hours, if not I will feel nauseous. Thank goodness, I think the horrible time has passed. I still feel indigestion and heartburn, and occasional nausea when I am hungry. But I haven't puked since Sunday night! Hooray!

I couldn't fit into my old jeans anymore even though I am only 3-month pregnant. I have to buy new clothes. Thank god for the warm weather this week, I am able to wear dresses and skirts. So much better than wearing pants. Oh, and my baby is due November 21! A week before Thanksgiving! It's going to be one grateful Thanksgiving this year.

After 8 years of waiting...

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:09:00 GMT

I GOT MY GREEN CARD!

WOWOW!!

YAYAYAY!!

p.s. It's not really green.

I am still alive...

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:37:35 GMT

Remember this old friend? I am back from Asia, and yes, I am still alive. I know it's been a long time and I am just getting lazy in blogging here. I am a tad little better on my other blog.

Let's see if I can sum up my life within the last few months:

- Was sick 2 out of 3 months in 2008
- Was sick 3 out of 4 weeks during my trip
- Owe a lot of taxes! Who said having a kid and getting married is going to be a good thing??? Filing jointly and filing separately don't make a difference! This is the first time in my life that I owe thousands of dollars in taxes.
- Might have to move again in the next few months. Landlord might need to do construction.
- Debated between buying a condo and continue renting. Still can't really afford a house or a condo even with the market these days. How come we never win the lottery!! And rent is ridiculously expensive!
- Even thought about moving out of the Bay Area, which would be our last resort for the sake of our children.
- Trying for baby #2
- Went for my Green Card interview last Thursday. Have not received official notification but I've received unofficial email notification that I might get it. Wish me luck! It's been long enough!!!
- Continues to be a wife, a mom, and a manager.
- My son is still the cutest kid in the world!
- Started touring preschools for my son. Waiting list Waiting list! Ridiculous!!
- Been reading many mommy blogs, thus, not frequently on Xanga anymore.

p.s. Wassup with the new Xanga. What's the point of those Mini thingy?

Asia Trip 2008

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:10:36 GMT

Jan 3 - Leave SF to Taipei
Jan 4-8 - Taipei : Visit H's family
Jan 8 - Arrive at Macau
Jan 9 - Aidan's Birthday Party
Jan 12 - Chinese Wedding Banquet
Jan 14 - Ferry over to Hong Kong
Jan 15-19 - Tokyo Trip/Honeymoon without Aidan
Jan 19-24 - Back to Macau
Jan 24 - Fly back to SF
Jan 24 - Arrive in SF

4 weeks is so not enough. If H can take more days off, I would have stayed for 6 weeks. I so need to get out of here!!

Did I tell you I love my job?

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:54:47 GMT

More pictures and Thoughts of my Wedding

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 12:58:34 GMT

Enjoy!
Pro wedding pictures slide show with our first dance song as the background music. The song is loosely translated to "Your name, my last name" by Jackie Cheung. One of my favorite songs. If you've gone karaoke with me, you probably have heard me sung this song

My wedding was so much fun. But of course, nothing was perfect and there were things I could have done differently, or planned a little better. There are always things that you can't control, such as, weather. The day before the wedding, it was soooo hot in Rohnert Park. During the rehearsal, we were getting sunburned. Thinking that such weather would continue since afterall, Wine Country is usually pretty hot in the summer. Of course, the day of the wedding, it was overcast! The photographers kept on saying that overcast weather was good for taking pictures, and we didn't have to squint our eyes. However, I have always liked blue skies and I was a little disappointed when I didn't see any nice blue sky. Oh well, what can you do.

Here are some thoughts that I'd like to share and I hope you will find them useful.

1) Just like all brides said, the day went by so fast. I started my day at 5:15 a.m. for an 11 a.m. ceremony. We even had an after-wedding hangout at the vacation rental in Santa Rosa. Yet, the day went by really fast. Enjoy and have fun. I had so much fun at the wedding.

2) Definitely invest on a day-of coordinator, or designate someone to deal with the last minute details such as, decorating, setting up guestbook table, favors, etc. If I didn't have a day-of coordinator, I would have gone crazy.

3) One big thing that really didn't dampen my mood until after the wedding was the number of no-shows. During the wedding, I could see that many escort cards were untouched. However, it didn't really bother me much. But after the wedding and I started to think about the money that I have wasted because of the no-shows, kinda upset me. I think I have over 10 guests who did not show up, for various reasons. If you could, call or have someone call your guests just to remind them/re-confirm that they will be attending your wedding before you give your guest count to the caterer. My RSVP date was a month before the wedding, and I have at least 2 guests telling me they forgot about it. Grrr...

4) Same with the day-of coordinator, make sure you have someone (or a team of people) to pack up at the end of the wedding. I had great help as my wedding party was super amazing and assisted me packing things up. However, I didn't really give them instructions ahead of time, and they were not sure what to pack and what not to pack. It was a little hectic at the end as I was sorta in a hurry to "get away" to the hotel, change and head back for the after-wedding party.

5) This last detail might not apply to everyone. My family came from Macau to attend my wedding. I took 3 days before my wedding off from work, thinking I might have enough time to get things ready before my family arrived. WRONG! I should have taken a whole week off because I needed time to think, plan, organize, relax.... before my family came. My wedding was a weekend-long event even though it was only 1-1.5 hour away in Rohnert Park/Santa Rosa. The last week or so before the wedding was really stressful.

I am a married woman!

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:13:19 GMT

I am married!! It's one of the happiest days of my life and I am blessed to have shared it with my friends and family. All the craziness and planning are over and now I can get back to my normal life.

I have not received my professional pictures yet, but thanks to all my friends who have been snapping away, here is a slideshow of some pictures. Thanks to Mel for putting them together on your site so I don't have to compile them together.

I am still trying to sort out all the pictures that my friends have taken, and evetually post them (or links) on our wedding website. I can't wait to see our professional pics!

1 more week! Bachelorette Party last night

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 00:31:43 GMT

Next Sunday is THE day!!!

So, it was my bachelorette party last night at AsiaSF. It was so much fun! If you have never heard of it, AsiaSf's waitresses are all beautiful transgenders. During dinner, they will get on the bartop and dance for you! I wish I could look as pretty as them!

Anyways, I am so glad some of my closest friends came out and celebrate with me. AsiaSF is definitely the place to have a bachelorette party. There were like 10 other brides-to-be there the same night, maybe even more.

We had an early reservations for dinner. Since dinners are in 2-hour intervals, they are at 5:30, 7:30 and 9:30. Of course the primetime 7:30 slots were all full, so we went in for the 5:30 dinner. The food was actually a lot better than I expected because I've read reviews that they weren't that good. It was a little expensive. 7-person dinner with drinks came out to be around $450 (Ouch!). I hope my friends didn't mind paying. But we had so much food that we didn't even finish them. They even printed out my name on the menu and I got to kee some as a keepsake.

Here's our menu: (family style so we got to share all of this food)
First Course -
Tamarind Chicken Satay (marinated chicken breasts, skewered and grilled, served with Asia Sf's spicy peanut sauce)
Porcupines (shrimp, scallops, and water chestnuts rolled in cellophane noodles, cripsy fried and served with a plum wine/soy dipping sauce)
Asia-dilla (a quesadilla stuffed with duck, jack and manchego cheese, fresno peppers and scallions, with sun-dried cherry creme fraiche)
Sesame Steak Salad (thinly sliced beef tenderloin seared and tossed in a sesame dressing, piled atop crisp greens, red onions, mint and basil)
Ahi Burgers (freshly ground pan seared ahi tuna, with a teriyaki glaze and horseradish-Chinese cabbage slaw on a focaccia roll)

Second Course-
Orange Lamb (pieces of lamb sirloin sauteed in a midly spiced orange sauce, served with coconut jasmine rice and thai cucumber salad)
Truffled Soba Noodles (grilled portobello mushroom and asparagus slices, tossed with cool sesame soba noodles white truffle oil and scallion threads)
Baby Got Back Ribs (baby-back pork ribs, grilled with a honey-tamarind glaze, served with pickled carrots, and japanese sweet potato crisps)

Dessert
Miniature Ice Cream Cones (ube with toasted coconut, langka with sun-dried cherries, macapuno topped with candied peanuts)

We were so full after all this food, plus alcohol, of course. We continued the party after dinner downstairs at the club. It's been ages since I were at a club, drink and (gasp!) dancing. Actually, it's been a while for all of my friends as well. It's like the good old days when we went clubbing and drinking. I don't even remember how many drinks I've had last night. I guess a few cocktails and a few shots. I had a good buzz and a little dizzy, but definitely not drunk. You guys that didn't show up, you missed out! Partly because of the fun and actually seeing me drink and dance, plus, all the girls there! If you want to meet girls, man... Asia SF is the place because of the overwhelming number of bachelorette parties there. There were cute girls everywhere!

We left early (in clubbing speaking sense) at 11:30 p.m. Got a headache at the end of the night, but I went home and took a couple Advil. Today I am fine! No hangover! Still manage to go to the Garlic Festival in Gilroy today!

p.s. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the night since I didn't take many. I gotta ask my friends for some pictures. There were some "interesting" dancing pictures as well. LOL

24 more days to go!!!

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 02:08:47 GMT

Oh my gosh, I've passed the one-month mark. In less than a month, I'll be getting married! Now it's finally hitting me that I have a gazillion things to do and I don't know where to start. I have been pretty indecisive in this wedding planning process, I must say. I know, girls are supposed to have started planning their wedding when they're 3 years old, but I didn't really think too much of it. All I wanted was to get married at the small chapel that I grew up going to, with my favorite priest presiding the ceremony. Unfortunately, this little wish of mine is not going to happen. Just too much hoops to jump in order to get to that point. I don't have the time and energy to do so to have my 'dream wedding'.

Well, I'm making the best of what I can do now. I finally started with the ceremony programs and I am 75% done. Just need to cut some more papers, and go to Michaels to purchase more ribbons. This weekend will be another wedding weekend.

We went to Hank's friend's 7-7-7 wedding last Saturday. It was a simple Hawaiian themed wedding with a church ceremony and community center reception. The most amazing part was the toasts that their friends gave them. It lasted a big chunk of the reception time, but I think it's all worth it. I just wish someone would voluntarily want to give a speech or a toast (besides the mandatory Best Man and Maid of Honor ones).

This wedding was simple enough that Hank was a little reluctant to do all the things that I wanted him to do for our wedding. Just because this wedding had no seating chart, had chocolates for favors, doesn't mean we have to do the same. It's my frigging wedding and you better do what I tell you to because I am relieving some of your stress!! Men! I tell ya! Of course, in the end he's going to do what I said. Besides, the things that I have him do, I can't do it myself. All I want him to do is to figure out the seating chart for his friends since I don't know them all. And he better do that before he goes off to his Bachelor Party trip to Vegas this weekend!! I didn't even get to go to Vegas but just a local celebration!

Anyways, enough venting. While he's in Vegas, I will have my final dress fitting this Saturday and will pick up my dress and get it cleaned and pressed. I'll finish up the programs, start with the wedding favors, escort cards, table numbers, and finalize the seating chart. See.. I am doing everything!!! Then we have more complicated logistics things to tackle. Those are more difficult than doing the labor intensive stuff.

Sometimes, I wish this will be over soon so that I can get on with my life.