Bluebellia

Our house has a nook which we love. We might very well have moved into this house because of this nook. It’s a perfect spot for Arwen to read books, take cat-naps, or to shirk. At some point we notice that the surface has become rather unflattering so I want to do something about it. This is what I get from Dollar Tree for a hefty amount of $1.00! A scroll of cover with wood pattern. This is how it looks when spread out. Don’t be discouraged by how wrinkled it looks! Everything is gonna be okay! This is the difficult part which requires some carefulness. I measure the dimensions of the nook surface as precisely as I can, and map it out on the cover. Then I trim the cover to have the exact shape of the surface. Unfortunately, the cover is not as big as the entire surface so I have to prepare several smaller pieces to put together like a puzzle. (It’s a price for being ghetto!) It’s now showtime! I carefully peel the back of the cover and apply it onto the s...

Thank you, A-ron, for your help with this post. One day, at the monthly meeting of the company I was working for, the CEO owner told all employees to write down what he/she would consider the most important thing in life, and text message it anonymously to this one number. The app would gather all of the responses and build a “word cloud”, and the company would base on that results to form the company’s core values. Below was what we got: “God” was the most common answer, and “family” came second. If you look closely, you can see that the “God” response can arguably be a lot more significant, since there are other similar answers such as “church”, “faith”, and “hod” (which is a typo in case you’re wondering – “g” and “h” is next to each other). So I thought that was really interesting (while comforting): what on earth was the company gonna do about this kind of response? Were we gonna have morning praying times? Would there be weekly Bible studies, company-wide? Considering how ...

I don’t really cook. As I have mentioned before in my previous posts, during the years I lived by myself, I invented “dishes” to cook for myself. Among them, my fried rice is among the successful few, something that I can actually let other people eat. Arwen actually craves for it at times. This post is about how I make it. The ingredients: - Eggs (I love eggs!) - Hot dogs. - A small bag of frozen veggies. - Leftover rice (not in the picture). - Whatever leftover meat/food that you may have (optional). Here I have some ground beef from the burritos last night. - Soy sauce. - Cooking oil. - Pepper. Step 1: Dice hot dogs into little cubes. I try to make them the similar size of the diced carrot in the frozen veggies bag. Step 2: Heat the oil. About 2 spoons is enough. The hot dogs will produce extra grease. (What “spoon”, you ask? The one you eat with, of course!) Step 3: Fry the hot dogs. So I don’t like raw meat. Packaged hot dogs are debatably cook...

I saw waiting at the bus stop in Lawrence, KS, for a Grey Hound bus to get back to OKC to my dear wife. It had taken me 30 minutes to find this “bus stop” because “707 Vermont st.” was NOT a bus station: it was Lawrence Public Library. The place for the buses to stop was across the street from the library where we could see the bus stop signs and the benches for people to sit and wait. The Grey Hound bus was supposed to arrive at 2 PM, but it was delayed until 3:30. So I sat there and waited. I would have no problem waiting for a couple hours: I had my Kindle Fire, my sketch book, and my bottle of water. Little did I know, it wasn’t gonna be just “a couple hours”. (Some sketches I made while waiting for the bus.) The GH bus kept being delayed. Every time I checked their website, the expected arrival time would go a bit further out. So I waited and waited. Eventually, I got bored of reading and sketching people walking by. I wanted the wait to be over with. The bus finally le...

Vietnamese egg rolls are different from Chinese egg rolls in two things: the wraps and the fillings (so basically everything!). Arwen makes wonderful egg rolls so I want to show them off to the world. The raw ingredients: Ingredients are mixed and separated into smaller portions: Start wrapping them into rolls: Paper towels are prepared to put the fried egg rolls in to absorb the excess oil: Frying time! This is pretty much the only step I can help with (I love frying food): The fried ones are put in the paper towels: A tray full of yummy egg rolls! I prepare some random shrimp chips so get myself some sense of accomplishment: The egg rolls and the chips look great together though: And that is that. I hope you enjoy the pictures! I feel so hungry posting them!