Kiss 08 Goodbye

We made it! Last day of 2008! What a challenging year! It wasn't pretty but we learnt a lot this past year.

Besides a day for reflecting (and drinking), New Year's Eve is also a memorable day for us. Stakit and I have been committed to each other for 10 years now! He proposed 10 years ago today! I vividly remember that evening. It's not like how we see it on the silver screen but that's what makes it even more special. hee hee :)

I love New Year's Eve, moving on to a new beginning! Of course we can't have New Year's Eve without The Song. I just played Auld Lang Syne on the piano about 20 times; hope you heard it and joined in!

Happy New Year! Have a Wonderful 2009!

Auld Lang Syne
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne!

Record breaking?

There has been a lot of snow in the NW (where we're from) this Winter! Seattle and Portland are on the national shows or TVs pretty much everyday! I heard we are very close to tying or breaking the records too? Is that really happening? We've been looking at pictures; they look pretty and cold! We are missing out on all this. Honestly, I think it would be fun to get snowed in ;)

Well, we hope everyone stays safe & warm in this unusual weather!

First day of Winter

Has it been crazy or what?? We have been checking Northwest weather. Burrrr! I'm sure they don't feel like this is only the first day of winter! On this corner of the country, it's been high 70s for a good while. However, the next 2 days will drop down to only high 40s and 60s and gets pretty cold at night, in the 30s!!!!

Since this is the new mark of the "new season", let's talk about what's going on last season, Fall (+ Summer... maybe Spring!).

Things for us finally started to look better. Physically, I started feeling normal at the beginning of Fall. I was able to reactivate my gym membership and started exercising. By October, I think I was pretty much all healed; I felt great and Strong!

Fall was also the time we mentally started to feel better! As some of you know, we had a very tough year. Even without our depressive feelings from the relocation, I don't think that it would have been easy. You may notice not only that I quit updating this blog here, Stakit also was not super motivated to write a little something here either. Sorry :( There are times we felt better, like when Cindy & John, in-laws, and Andrea and Andy came to visit us. Additionally, phone calls and emails from some of our friends really helped us out a whole bunch. (Correct, we didn't want to talk much, please don't take it personally.) Boy, we just really don't need to go back there! We are glad that we have moved on.

As far as the house, Fall was also when we figured out there's no way we're willing to lose a very big load of money selling this house and move to anywhere. We know we will be in this house for a L-i-t-t-l-e-W-h-i-l-e. Oh well, it is what is it. It's funny how once someone's attitude / expectation changes, their perspective completely changes. We allowed ourselves to enjoy Florida, to do stuff with new people (w/o seriously looking for friends), and to get a Wii.

In Fall, I also become a new auntie. I was very fortunate to get to meet my new niece and took a bunch of pictures of her for later days. She's a sweet little baby girl.

Let's come back to 'now', we are enjoying our mild winter here. I am very excited that I have Christmas this year! Last year was a scam, I barely could function. In-laws were here to spend Christmas with us but I felt like they ended up taking care of me. I felt bad. This year I sure will enjoy My Christmas with my family. My in-laws are on the way here and I am so looking forward to spending some good time with them!

Fav time of the year!

It's getting cooler here, finally! Sunday night was in the 50s. Tonight, we suppose to get down to 50s too. It's almost midnight and it's still in the 60s. I like this light-jacket-weather! It's not too hot to sit out in the Sun, highs around 70s, feels like low 80s with the blue sky above us. It's perfect!

School starts this week!

It's time to go back to school tomorrow. I took the summer off and I'm glad that I did! I enjoyed the last three and a half months!

UNF is where I'm going but somehow, this year, I'm very excited. No, it's not because I could go back to school shopping; no, it's not because I enjoy that forty-mile-drive (one way); no, it's not because I miss the school's coffee shop that bad (it's a pretty campus, however. It's a much newer school. It's about 100 years younger than where I graduated.). I'm just very ready for a new challenge! I'm sooooo very ready!

Watch out, World!

Tropical Storm Fay went bye-bye

Over a week of tracking Tropical Storm Fay, we can finally bid adieu~~

We gathered our important documents, pulled out our photo albums, packed our bags......and were getting ready to go. Just right before heading our way, Fay decided to swing over to the Atlantic ocean for a quick visit and came back to Florida for the 3rd landfall!! Yes, 3rd of the four! I guess Fay really enjoyed hanging out in Florida. Even after she left this area, we still had tornado and flooding warnings. Since she headed west, we then knew that we could stay home. At the same time, the closest city to us, Jacksonville, has a lot of flooding. It's very sad to see how many families have to deal with the floods and power outages. Some of these houses have more than a foot deep of water inside their house!

Back in this area, we had the very same warnings, tornado and flood warnings. It turns out that we are fine. There was a lot of rain. We are very fortunate that our neighborhood has well designed drainage and underground powerlines. We didn't see any flooding here, just very high water. Due to the high winds, Stakit and I stayed home for a couple of days. He didn't have to go to work (a lot of bridges were closed around here and schools were closed for two days as well). We were sitting at home going between The Weather Channel and Olympics back and forth. It reminded us of Snow days! Yes, we're "snowed in" during the month of August! I have no complaints, bonus 4-day-weekend with Stakit.

As Floridians still work on getting their electricity back and water out of their houses, Fay is getting weaker, a Tropical Depression. We stopped by the beach yesterday; the water was still very rough, sand was still blowing into the parking lot. Did we try the water? Oh, no thank you! We headed back to the intercoastal area and hung out and had wine. As banks, restaurants, the Y, ... were open and back in business this weekend, we had a sense of normality restored.

Still alive

We are still here and alive. It's been a lot going on physically and mentally. I know we have been slacking on this blog and flickr. I see you guys checking back on a regular basis and I figure it would be nice if say something here. I'm hoping to get my Flickr up-to-date (I am too cheap to pay for that $25 right now.) One of these day, I'll get my credit card out and sign up again.

Hope all it's well. Drop me a line if you feel like it :) Peace!

Yoga, ballroom dancing, I'm restarting 'life'

I'm finally getting better from the surgery! I started back with Yoga a couple weeks ago. I can't go to a normal yoga class yet. I am just taking a modified yoga class right now. My friend Anna is teaching it. I am amazed how much I CAN'T do! Oh well, it's a start. All my no-sew-incisions are finally closed up; yes, after FIVE and a HALF Months!

Last month was a bad month for us. We are trying not to 'live in the past'; we are moving on. Early this month, we had Cindy and John visit us. They shared their wonderful experience from their around-the-world-trip with us. THAT was very cool! After that, Stakit's parents were here. We were able to spend Mother's Day with them; that was great too! Beside spending some good quality time with family, we also started ballroom dancing again, CHA CHA CHA! With the super long break we had, we did pretty good! (I forgot how much I looooooove to dance! Even I don't look all that great. I don't give a dxxm.)

Also, we will be doing a little road trip. This year's anniversary trip will be a road trip to Key West. I'm so excited. I never have done a road trip before. (I know, where have I been?? right?) Another reason I'm so excited is....our friends Andy and Andrea will be joining us for the second half of the trip! It's going to be great! cause Stakit won't get tired of me by the end of the trip ;) OK, seriously, we are so excited to get to share some Florida Sunshine with our friends.

Before all that will happen, I have one issue! My neck got mad at me. It's all locked up. I can't really turn my head nor look down. Stakit started doing the robot when we were at the store tonight, Great! Since I can't turn around and make faces, I used another body part to "respond", a _ f i n g e r. My upper back, shoulders, and my neck are really tensed up! I don't think I have a pinched nerve. My body is just not too happy; maybe I overworked it or something. I think I just need a 5-hour-4-hand-massage! Hope it will go away soon before the trip.

I broke me. Again.

Frittata!
Originally uploaded by kc-star

It has been over FOUR months. I had my surgery back in December. I still have one stubborn incision that is still bleeding. I moved a little too much this morning and I broke myself again. That (now) little incision started bleeding again. However, overall I do feel stronger :)

I have been very good; listening to my doctor with my low-carb diet (for my insulin level). It's tough as I Love food. I started back in October last year. I did ok even during the holidays... until ... around the new year. I "re-started" the diet again last month. That's 2 weeks NO-carb, no fruit, no dairy, no nothing.... I did it! Now, it's the fun part, adding carbs back into my diet. Only the Good carbs and I have to keep it around 15 - 20g per meal. What happens if I go over? My head will scream at me in just a few minutes after I "cheat". This time around, I'm doing much better. I am adding good carbs back slowly. I even started exploring all different new ways to cook.

Possible side effect for low carb diet: decrease dining out, increase trips to farmers market, decrease body weight (my dr had to ask me to gain some back; i'm at the ok weight now), decrease sluggish feeling after eating; .......start to love yourself / your life....

The Ides of March

OK, the title of this particular blog entry is a little misleading. However, it has been raining quite a bit. It kind of reminds me of the NW, except when it rains here, it's like 65 degrees outside. The rain is good, because FLA is still trying to recover from drought-like conditions over the last couple of years.

Since the last entry was back in January, I should probably give a brief recap of what we have been up to over the last month:
1) We went to Tampa/St. Petersburg over one weekend. That was a lot of fun. We visited the Dali museum (largest in the US) and the Pier in St. Pete. We had dinner at a GREAT tapas restaurant. KC still talks about the shrimp ceviche. We also visited Honeymoon island, which is just north of Tampa. We wanted to at least take a look at the water on the Gulf side of the state. We did a bit of shelling on Honeymoon island, before we ended up heading back home.
2) Due to health concerns, KC had left her position at the pre-school in early February. She is feeling a lot stronger now, so it was definitely the correct decision. She can now concentrate solely on school. She is really enjoying her classes, and feels like she is learning a lot this term. And yes, she is applying what she learned already. I wouldn't say that I am a guinea pig or anything, but....
3) A Dim Sum place has just opened up in JAX. This was HUGE news for us. We have eaten there several times now. The chef is from HK, so the quality of food is quite good. We also managed to find a really good Korean BBQ place down in JAX as well.
4) We have been working on home improvement projects. We painted the master bedroom, and have installed some new lights in our dining room and entry-way. I'm not going to tell you any details, out of the hope that some of you reading this might feel intrigued, and feel obligated to come and visit us!
5) KC is visiting a friend this weekend, down in San Antonio. Based on an e-mail that she had read to me, her friend plans on taking her to see the Alamo, the Riverwalk, and some sort of caverns. When she gets back, I promise to pester her to blog about the trip.

Slow Recovery

KC is still recovering from her surgery. She is still experiencing a good deal of pain (1 1/2 months later), although given the severity of her endometriosis, I guess that should not have been too surprising. Nevertheless, she is a little bit frustrated because it is taking longer than expected to heal. Fortunately though, she does appear to be healing (per a series of invasive tests), just not as fast as she wants.

I went walking with her last weekend. We walked a long loop through the neighborhood, probably about a mile or so. She was walking at a fairly fast pace, stopping only to look at various neighbors' yards. I believe that she has palm envy (we don't have any palm trees in our yard).

A funny story - probably typifies what it means to live in a small town in the South. We decided to go to a local restaurant for wings (over 31 different flavors!). We ended up sitting in the bar section. A family with a 6 month year old baby ended up sitting to the right of us (Look, it's a baby. IN A BAR). I looked straight ahead, and there was a 6 year old kid, sitting on a barstool, talking to his dad. To the left of us, was a mother with her 3 year old kid. A few minutes later, a policeman walks into the bar to order some take-out. The cop walks by the baby, the 3 year old, and the 6 year old. He waits for his food, pays, and then leaves the premises. The cop NEVER SAID A WORD!!! I guess, it shouldn't surprise me, since this is the same place that will serve you a mixed drink in a styrofoam "to-go" cup.

Two Thousand WHAT?!

We are in year Two Thousand What? How did Christmas blow by? What about New Year's? It seems like it was just last week that I had a surgery (and the surprise) and my finals while I'm on pain killers. Once I released the CO2 that the doctor pumped in, my in-laws were here and 3 friends from the NW came soon after.

We had a Great time with everyone. I do remember having a great Christmas with Stakit's parents here and celebrating New Year's with our very, very close, special friends that came all the way across the country... We were having such a wonderful time that I had some scary rash all over me on New Year's day from some yummy fudge BUT I didn't even care. 'cause we haven't had good times like that for a loooooong, long time. It was fantastic! It's like a beautiful dream. Wait, was it a dream? I'm confused. I really think it was real. I would like to thank Stakit's parents, T, G, & B came out and visited us!

It looks like we really are in Two Thousand Eight.... (I still don't know how that happened) so,

To my loyal readers (it always warms my heart when I look at the log and see that you have stopped by to read my blog. Thank You!):

HAPPY NEW YEAR! May you and your family have a wonderful New Year with Happiness and Good Health!

Love,
KC & Stakit

Surgery Update

It has been a couple of weeks since KC had surgery. She is feeling better but is still experiencing quite a bit of abdominal pain. By no means am I a comedian, however, when I make her laugh, she ends up being doubled-up in pain and has to tell me to stop. She is a lot less bloated now, and is happy to begin wearing her own clothes. For a while there, the only thing that she felt comfortable wearing was a pair of flannel boxers (which were even too big for me), wool socks with leg-warmers, and her favorite white sweatshirt. It kind of made her look like she was wearing a kilt, so she often times would talk to me with a Scottish accent.
A couple of days ago, we had the post-surgical consultation with her doctor/surgeon. The doctor showed us a sketch of the endometriosis as well as pictures that he took with the camera (through her belly button - which KC has mentioned, will never be the same again. She actually took a picture of it before the surgery as a keepsake). After viewing the sketch and the pictures, I completely understand why the procedure took 4 hours - there was so much of it that he had to take care of. He felt 99% confident that he managed to excise all of it. He also mentioned, that by excising the endometriosis, there would be an extremely low likelihood that it would come back in the excised area. This was good news, because we both had feared that KC might have to do this again every couple of years or so.

Surgery

A couple of days ago, KC was scheduled to have a lapraroscopy to remove 2 cysts, a fibroid, and to determine whether or not she had endometriosis. She had been experiencing a lot of pain, and her doctor recommended this approach to alleviate the pain.

The procedure was scheduled to begin at 2:30 pm. Of course, it did not start until 4 pm. However, the procedure ended up taking 4 hours (we were only expecting it to last 2 hours or so). It was determined that KC had Level IV endometriosis (the most severe). Fortunately, the surgeon was able to excise the endometriosis - he believed that he had managed to excise all of it (along with removing the cysts and fibroid). In any case, due to the severity of her endometriosis (she had some on her liver), the procedure took a long time.

The surgery concluded at 8 pm. KC was admitted to a hospital room at 2:30 am after the nurses determined that she was way too dizzy, nauseous, and dehydrated to send her home. We finally left the hospital yesterday (at around 4 pm).

Thanksgiving Trip

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.

This year, we did not have any planned turkey dinner, no family or friends around. We decided to go for a long weekend trip. We went up to Atlanta and stayed at downtown Atlanta for 4 days! It was fun but just too short ;)

Atlanta is about 5.5 hours away. We drove up on Thanksgiving day and stopped for supper. Of course not many places were open and we didn't expect too much on food. We didn't even think we would have any turkey until we get to Atlanta. We stopped at Cracker Barrel and it turned out they have Thanksgiving dinner! They were not bad! We giggled the whole time. This is the first Thanksgiving dinner I didn't have to do Anything. I enjoyed cooking but I also enjoy not having to do anything :)

When we arrived at our hotel, we discovered that they just finished their Thanksgiving party (that we could have got to) They had a lot of good food and it's for Everyone! Oh well, we were tired from the drive and wanted to go for a walk anyway. After we checked in, we headed toward Olympic Park and had dinner at McCormick & Schmick's @ CNN center.

On Black Friday, we (I) had to go to the Mall (of course). We visited 2 malls: Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza (I did go to Tiffany but didn't get anything this time). In the evening, we checked out a cute neighborhood, Virginia Highlands.

The following 2 days we visited the High Museum mainly to see the impressionism and the Louvre exhibits, Atlantic Station, and we even had Dim Sum!!

That was a great trip! just too short! We still want to go visit the Georgia Aquarium. I guess next time.

Finally feels like Fall

Highs around 70s
Low around 60s

Summer. Still.

Weather report:
Highs: mid-80s
Lows: mid to high 60s

We are pretty much done with the whole summer thing. I'm in shorts. Students are still wearing their beachwear. Yes, they go to classes in beachwear. I don't dress like they do. I could..... and I will just look funny walking around on campus. BTW, the university is 10 mins away from the beach. That reminds me of what Stakit saw. There were a couple of kids, waiting for a bus with their surfboards.

We haven't been to the beach lately. There was a red tide warning. We heard there were people out at the beach; they're most likely from out of town and not aware of the red tide. We are going to wait a little while before we get out there again. Regardless of the Perfect beach weather, not too hot in the sun and not too cold to swim, we are going to just wait.

Right now, we are just very ready to have cooler temperatures, jacket temperatures. Cool enough that we would need a jacket.

Hope that's the last box

We have been in this house for over a year now. Some rooms are painted; our rooms have been rearranged for hundreds of times; we are half way through changing out all the light fixture; this past week, out of the blue, I had this idea. I wanted to turn one of the rooms in to an art / project room. Before I do anything, I want to clear out all the Stuff in that room. We have managed to piled a number of things in this room (we barely can touch the wall). This evening we were uncluttering and we were getting almost to the wall! There was a box sitting in the corner....still taped! An Unopened box from the move? You gotta be kiddin' me.

I was hoping it was something good in this box. No, just some stuff from my old busniess that I had been looking for. I hope that's the last box.

Birthday

I had my b-day last week. I was hoping I will be another year wiser but I don’t see that happening ;) My Birthday week was pretty crazy.

My Birth-DAY itself was good but too short. That day was the busiest weekday in the week and also my longest day at school. I’m (far) away from 7am to 7pm. I felt like only the evening was my birthday; a 3-hour-long birthday. During the day, I managed to squeeze in a little spa getaway during the day between classes. Stakit and I went to a French restaurant in Fernandina’s Historic District for dinner. We also had a bottle of bubbly too. That was nice.

Even though I didn’t get wiser, I’m overall pretty happy. I’m very pleased with my back-to-school decision. I thought about having a day off from school but why? That’s what I wanted to do. So, I went to school and enjoyed it. Come to think about it, it has been Four Weeks! I have been with the new routine, school & work, for the whole 4 weeks! I am keeping up with it ok.

As I mentioned, this week was crazy. We got a new car a month ago but it’s in the shop right now. Already! I know! (eye-rolling) Someone backed into my new car at my work’s parking lot. It had not been even 2 weeks old, we are still trying to come up with a name, have not had 1,000 miles yet….. The person hit it did write me a check for repairing and a rental car. It went into the shop last week and I was trying to save that person on the rental expense. I thought Stakit and I can work out with one car for 3 days. We had all our rides lined up. The car was supposed to be ready last Friday. When Friday rolled around, of course the car was Not ready. They said it’ll be Monday. Well, we will see.

One last week of my vacation

I have retired from the IT world for 1 year and 5 months now. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. I started my "retirement vacation" in Portland, ORE by hanging out with some of my closest / 'best-est' friends for a few months. I had a blast. I was not ready to move across the country.

We moved to the sunshine state about a year ago and had a very tough transition. We have been all tied up with the new place, new culture, and the new house. We had a hard time. I really appreciate our friends that are still in touch with us and try to be supportive. Meanwhile, I was still searching / narrowing down what I want to do. As of spring this year, I was down to 2 possibilities. Yes, school is one of them and that's what I'm planning to do. The classes I signed up for really excite me. The tough part will be the GRE test.

I'm going to continue on the preschool this year. The preschool will be a good laughing / balance place for me. However, I won't feel like this is my vacation job anymore.

School (and that drive, 40 miles one way) and work will keep me plenty busy! All these will start one week from Today!! Say Bye-Bye to my extended vacation!