Thinking of purchasing our first home.  So expensive.  Tight budget.  I have to go back to work.

We've been back on our budget for 3 months now.  So, I'm back to clipping coupons, shopping more at Ralphs (as opposed to TJs), and trips to Whole Foods are either for splurge or for some serious proteins.  That is, unless Mom comes along.  Then I break budget.    Yesterday I asked Mom if she wanted to go with me to Trader Joe's (I need some more salad dressing), and she said "No, I want to go to Whole Foods."  And not any WF would do, it had to be the 2-story one.  I ended up spending $94 there.  So, after our day at Sea World and other misc expenses, I've got $62 to last me the rest of the week.  This means I gotta make the food in the fridge last long.  Sunday morning starts the new week, and we get our "spending allowance" that day.  Pasta primavera tonight?  Maybe with a little pesto to up the flavor.  I can get some fresh chicken and pine nuts at the store, which won't cost me too much.  Pasta is cheap and easy.  Both KEY in my life with two kids.  I've already got the pasta noodles, carrots, zucchini, onions, and mushrooms.  All organic.  And I can snag a few more green beans from the vine, just enough to add a little more to it.  OK!  We're set for tonight.  Now I just gotta figure out what to do the rest of the week... 

 Maybe I should start a series?  So now we are getting several cucumbers a week.  Cucumber salad, cucumber sandwiches, cucumber with soy sauce, plain cucumbers, etc.  If you have a recipe, send it my way, I'll let you know how it turns out, haha.  It turns our that the green beans are starting to grow plentiful too.  I only noticed the flowers, but my mom pointed out a couple of them on the vine so when I went to harvest them, I ended up with a mini basket full of them.  The other plants are starting to bear fruit too, so I am just waiting patiently to have them grow into something yummy!  Hopefully something won't happen to the fruit along the way.

Pumpkin                                                            Sugar snap peas

  Baby watermelon

Oh, and along with a lush garden comes interesting critters I'm not used to.  Ewww...

I've taken up gardening.  It started as a pet-project for me and TJ, using a strawberry plant we bought at the farmer's market.  We thought it would be good for him to learn about gardening (and, eventually, about being mindful about our planet).  It's a fun way to teach hard work, patience, and respecting nature.  Well, I really got into it and now we've got a garden!  Here are pictures of what our garden looks like.  We got some star jasmine plants to put along the fence (hopefully they'll grow nice and tall), to separate the parking area from the garden/pool area.  The fruits are starting to come out of some of the plants and Thing 1 and Thing 2 love finding them and picking them.  Thing 2 seems to have a "red radar."  She'll pan and scan the garden and as soon as she spots something red (tomato, strawberry), she'll swoop in for the grab.  The really neat thing about the garden is the kids are starting to like fruits/veggies that they normally won't eat.  Thing 1 who doesn't eat tomatoes, will eat the cherry tomatoes out of the garden.  The same thing goes for Thing 2 and cucumbers.  It has encouraged us to grow an even bigger variety of fruits and vegetables.  Not shown in the pictures are our lime and lemon trees, which are in a different area of the backyard.  Oh, and we've got an herb garden on our back porch too.  Costs the same for a plantling at OSH as it does to buy one of those plastic packs of cut herbs at Ralphs.  We'd rather have it growing and useful for months, rather than only fresh for a week in the fridge.  So far there's jalapeno, cilantro, basil, thyme, oregano, dill, and rosemary.  No picture of herbs yet.

How gratifying it is to grow your own food!  It is healthy, yummy, and organic.  We have already started sprouting our fall plants.  I use the window sill in the kitchen as my sprouting area. 

Some of the "fruits" of our labor, hehe.
 

Thing 2 enjoying some tomatoes

Tim got the kids these T-shirts in Orlando last month.  I think we'll use these names when talking about them in this blog from now on.  Guh-Guh is now "Thing 1" and Mei-Mei is now "Thing 2." 

"I will pick up the hook.
You will see something new.
Two things. And I call them
Thing One and Thing Two.
These Things will not bite you.
They want to have fun."
Then, out of the box
Came Thing Two and Thing One!
And they ran to us fast.
They said, "How do you do?
Would you like to shake hands
With Thing One and Thing Two?"

 ........................................................

Thing Two and Thing One!
They ran up! They ran down!
On the string of one kite
We saw Mother's new gown!
Her gown with the dots
That are pink, white and red.
Then we saw one kite bump
On the head of her bed!

Then those Things ran about
With big bumps, jumps and kicks
And with hops and big thumps
And all kinds of bad tricks.
And I said,
"I do NOT like the way that they play
If Mother could see this,
Oh, what would she say!"

Throwing myself a pity party for a moment.  I am feeling very alone today. 

This week has been really rough with the kids suffering from jetlag.  On a typical night I don't get to sleep until around 11/11:30.  CC then wakes up at 1am from jetlag and won't sleep until 6-7am.  The whole time she is up, I am up as well.  Then at 9:30 I wake up for the day (and wake the kids up too) because I want to break this jetlag cycle.  So far it's not working.  On top of it all, TJ got some gastrointestinal virus in Taiwan and I've caught it.  After getting about 2.5 hours of sleep last night CC woke me up and wouldn't sleep again until just after 7.  I went to sleep shortly after and woke up for the day at 9.  I found myself with body aches and chills. 

I also realized that CC is low on milk and I'll have to make a trip to the market today or tomorrow.  Since I wasn't feeling well I really didn't want to drag two kids to the supermarket on the weekend.  Do you know how busy those things are on the weekends?!?!?  Anyway, I started to think of people I could call on to help me either watch the kids or get the milk.  I was also thinking of people I could possibly rely on to help watch the kids today for a few hours while I rested.  Tim is in Atlanta for a conference, my mom is still in Taiwan, my brother is out of town, my sister is super busy with her own family, my in-laws are all too far away.  Two cousins were working and one was sick himself.  That left no one.  I felt so alone at that point.  Many of the people I know have the assistance of at least one (if not both) sets of parents to help them on a regular basis.  Tim's parents are in Hawaii and my mom hasn't been in the best in health since before I had TJ.  I don't feel entitled or anything; Tim and I know that our kids are OUR responsibility.  I normally think my life is alright, and I handle my family just fine.  This is one of the rare moments when I felt like I was going out of my mind and I just had to cry in frustration.

Prayers are much appreciated - please pray that we can just get over the illnesses and jetlag.  Tim comes home tomorrow - yay!

In Taiwan and decided to take some fun family pictures.  This is probably my favorite thing to do when we visit.

 We "celebrated" Valentine's Day by going out to Todai on Friday.  Why Todai?  Because we had a gift certificate that was 5 years old and because since TJ was born we haven't had an opportunity where both of us can go to a buffet and actually eat all we can eat.  It's usually eat quick and rush outta there when the baby gets restless.  It was a good time for us to enjoy a quiet dinner alone and reconnect.  I used to be really big about V-Day and wanted the whole commercial bells and whistles.  Now, it's so much more important that we take time to spend reconnecting and remembering that our relationship with each other comes before our relationship with the kids.  If we're happy together, our family will be happy together.  So, Tim got off easy this year because it only cost him $30 for dinner.  No flowers, no jewelry, no fancy dinner out.  Add this to last year with us not celebrating at all (we kept postponing until we realized it was already a year later), and he's made out pretty well in 2 years, doncha think? 

Speaking of love, the kids have a lot of cute tender moments that I get to witness throughout the day.  Granted, there are also heated moments when CC's frustrating TJ by interfering with his toy project of the hour, but he still loves her and she ADORES him.  Love these moments...

Here's a pic of the kids in Hawaii for Christmas.