10 Goals for 2017

It’s New Year’s eve, and I’m sitting on my bed typing up my resolutions. There are no champagne flutes, balloons or confetti. My babies are sleeping — one in our room, and the other at grandma’s house. Outside, I can hear the bang of illegal fireworks popping.

It’s a far cry from 2003 when I rang in the New Year in New York City’s Time Square. It’s 500x less exciting, but 500x more comfortable. This is me as a married mom in my 30s and it’s GREAT.

When I look back at my life thus far, I can’t help but think that I’ve finally reached a point in my life where I’m truly happy and satisfied — both personally and professionally. I realize that it can all disappear and change in an instant, so I want to take this moment to really appreciate just how GREAT everything is right now.

That said, I’m not one to stay stagnant for too long, so here’s what I want to work on in 2017:

1. Be a Morning Person. While I was on maternity leave, I read this Wall Street Journal article about the advantages of being an early risers and I had a moment of enlightenment. My whole life, I’ve been a night owl — it’s how I was raised and how I naturally function. But if I could become a morning person, then maybe, just maybe, I might actually accomplish more in my day and life: Take less work home, spend more time with my babies and Big D, add working out to my daily routine, and get more quality time for me.

Since going back to work, I’ve already made this change. Sometime between 5AM and 6AM, Baby D wakes up to eat. I feed him, then get ready for work. Three weeks in and I’m doing pretty good. So now, it’s just a matter of making this stick.

• This means making 5AM my regular wake up time.
• This means going to bed earlier enough to be able to function at 5AM.
• This also means doing enough prep the weekend or night before so that I’m not a hot mess each morning…since I’m not yet 100% functioning most of the time. Activities include pre-planning my outfits and pre-packing my bags.

2. Be a Good Mom. Being a mom of two babies isn’t easy, but I love it. I won’t have the luxury this year of spending six months with them day in and day out, so I want to make sure that the time I do spend with them is quality time. My goal this year is to try to give equal attention to both.

• This means reading books to Little D when I’m home or putting him to bed more (even if it means putting him to bed later after I get Baby D down.
• This means not leaving Baby D home with grandma all the time. Sometimes it’s necessary in order to take care of an errand quick or to make sure he gets a good nap, but as he gets bigger, there’s less of a reason to leave him behind.
• This means catching as many milestones as I can for both of my babies.

3. Speak More Chinese At Home. My first language was Cantonese, but now my main language is English. If I can give my sons one gift, it’s the gift of fluency in their mother tongue — this is why I’m so determine to enroll them into a bilingual school. But until they start school, all I can do is try my best to speak Mandarin or Cantonese at home. It’s a bit broken and they will likely learn bad usage from me, but it’s the least I can do.

• This means using more Mandarin or Cantonese with I speak to Baby D or Little D at home.
• This means trying not to mix up the two in the same sentence, or switching to English when I’m stuck. I do that lot when I don’t know the words or phrases in the language I’m trying to use.

4. Finish A Family Yearbook. I’m so close to finishing 2015. I need to get it done. I’m setting the bar low this year. Just get one done and hopefully start another, maybe 2016 or 2014.

• This means carving out some time each month to work on the yearbook.

5. Make Fitness A Daily Routine. While I would like to lose the weight I gained during pregnancy #1 and #2, I’m not going to make that goal. Instead, I want to make working out something I do every day eventually. It won’t happen January 1 , but as the baby needs to eat less at night, I can carve out more time — either in the evening or morning — to do something healthy for myself. I also need to experiment with trying to work out during work hours. There are opportunities — I just need to take them.

• This means doing yoga at work twice a week. May be start with one day, then work up to two days.
• This means maybe signing up for a gym and going to a class at least once a week. Gym membership is currently an unused work benefit.
• This means maybe going to the community gym and doing something at least once a week.
• This means doing Bar Method at home when I can, cause God knows I can’t get to a physical class anymore.

 

 

6. Be More Selective With Friends. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned this last year, it’s that my time is valuable to me. Priority #1 is my family. Priority #2 is work. Friends have largely fallen to Priority #3. With some friends, I feel like I’m doing all the work in trying to make time to hang out or keep in touch. With others, I feel like we’ve grown so much apart that we have nothing in common. And there are those that only seem to appear in my life when they need help with something.  I don’t dislike any of these friends, and I have no ill will against them. I just don’t want to waste anymore time hanging out with them. I just don’t have the time to try so hard anymore.

• This means hanging out with the friends that I really want to see and spend time with when I have free time.
• This means being okay with loosing touch with some people. A friendship can’t be one sided and I can’t be the only one reaching out again, and again.
• This means going to bed at a reasonable time.
• This means saying “no” sometimes.

7. Take More Personal Days. I don’t see many long vacations in my future, not with two little babies at home. Instead, I want to make a point to take a day off once a quarter to just spend time at home with the kids that’s outside of the usual holiday schedule.

• This means taking a Monday or Friday off to spend time with the kids. Maybe make it the days that I have doctor appointments for the baby.
• During these personal days, I want to take the kids swimming, to the zoo or the park. Just get out and do something.
• Or I coordinate with Big D and we just take a long weekend to do a mini vacation road trip — just us and the kids.

8. Stop Coasting At Work. Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’m not doing anything at work. I have plenty to do, but to be honest, I’ve been doing the same thing for the last six years, more or less. In 2016, the goal was to wrap things up so that nothing falls apart when I went on maternity leave. But in 2017, I want to take on new challenges.

• This means creating a new path for myself. I got the promotion I want, but now I need to really carve out this role and make a stronger mark.
• This means getting out of my comfort zone.
• This means taking on tasks where I have no idea what I’m doing and am somewhat in over my head.

9. Bullet Journal. I learned about his six months ago and gave it a try right before I went on maternity leave. I really liked it for the month that I did it, before being a stay at home mom just took over. Now that I’m back at work, I want to make this the way I get organized and stay organized.

• This means creating a system that really works for me.
• This means writing down more memories and doing more future planning.

10. Be More Creative. I have a lot of yarn and a lot of fabric. I miss crafting and making things, but I don’t have the free time that I used to have. That said, I don’t want the years where I can make my boys costumes and fun thing to pass by without them getting a single item from me.

• This means finding time to knit, crochet or sew.
• This means finishing projects that I start. No excuses.

Reflecting on 2016

In continuing my annual tradition of reflecting and resetting before New Year’s Day, I took a look at the goals I set for myself before 2016 began  (All in all, not bad) and started to think about new goals for 2017 (Lots to think about).

While the world will consider this a terrible year for music, pop icons and American politics, this was a pretty great year for me personally. We welcomed a new baby boy to the family, who I’ll call Baby D. Little D has now been promoted to Toddler D. Ha!

Here’s how I did:

1. Dress For The Job I Want. For the last two years, I’ve made the resolution to be more put together. I think I’m getting there. But rather than focusing on the clothes part, I need to care a little more about my hair and makeup during the workweek. You know, dress for the job I want: look more like an executive leader, and less like a worker bee.

• This means getting my hair cut and styled regularly (at least 2-3 times a year) rather than just a once-a-year chop.
• This means planning my outfits for the week rather than throwing on whatever’s clean in the morning.
• This means learning how to do my makeup better and grooming my eyebrows regularly so that I look sharp, rather than a hot mess (some days).

Minus the set back I took during maternity leave, I’d say I’ve made real progress on this front. While I’m NOT wearing a power suit  (’cause I’d look like a weirdo at my job), I’m definitely taking time to plan out my outfits and do my make-up. I also think I’m averaging a haircut every 3-4 months, which is HUGE.

But what was unexpected was the fact that I’ve finally taken the plunge to dye my hair a few crazy colors (read: first blue, then purple). It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do but never had the guts to do when I was in my 20s. But now that I’m in my 30s and have the job that I want (more or less), I finally feel like I have permission to do what I want.

2. Re-org and Style Our Home. At home, my house is a bit of a mess. Literally. There are pounds of laundry to be put away. There is an unspeakable disaster on my bathroom counter top. There are closets stuffed to the brim with junk. Our home is functional for the most part, but it’s not pretty. I feel like my home reflects my state of mind, so I’d like to change that by getting organized and making things look nice.

• This means doing some serious spring cleaning and getting rid of all the stuff we don’t want or need anymore.
• This means putting some pictures on our wall to make it look, you know, homey.
• This means refreshing some of our linens and decor so that things freshen up a bit.

While I was on maternity leave, I started practicing Marie Kondo’s ways of decluttering and it has done wonders for my closet. It’s never felt so organized and clean. I also finally reorganized our kitchen so that the place and cups that I use often are easy to reach. We also made lots of donations for our unwanted stuff. All in all, I’d say our home is much more functional than it was a year ago.

But as far as redecorating goes, it’s kind of a lost cause. The main reason being is that we’ve decided to move in the next year or so. As such, I’m planning to save the decorating for the future home and keep the walls clean. 

3. Be a Good Mom. While I can’t say this with absolute authority, I am assuming that being a mom of one kid is comparatively easy to two kids. It will no doubt be a lot tougher when Baby D arrives and there are two little humans demanding my attention. My goal this year is to try to give equal attention to both, but it will be hard and there will be days when someone (namely Little D) feels neglected.

• This means making sure that I’m spending quality time one-on-one time with Little D when I can, maybe a trip to the park or zoo.
• This means taking time to get to know Baby D, and taking time to let Little D get to know his little brother/sister.
• This means taking as much maternity leave as I can, ideally six months.

Mission accomplished. Of everything that I’ve done this year, this is what I’m most proud of doing. I took six months off to welcome Baby D to the family. During that time, I got to spend a LOT of quality time with Little D. Now that I’m back to work, I’m really missing zoo day, swimming day, mommy-and-me preschool day, and park day. It was fun while it lasted, but now I need to go build some college funds. Still, I am determined to improve the quality time that I do spend with my two boys when I’m not at work. 

4. Start Family Yearbook Series. 2015 is over, and I now have four family yearbooks to put together. Ugh. But it’s important. I did a good job with filling out our baby book, but I really need to become a picture person.

• This means carving out some time each month to file away our photos. Fortunately, Big D has some kind of system already.
• This means carving out some time to actually build the yearbooks for 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012.

In this case, the operative word is “start.” I started our family yearbook and 2015 is almost done. I think I’m in October right now. But now that 2016 is over, I’m not that much more out of the hole than I was a year ago.

5. Travel More, Explore More. We don’t need to go far, we just have to go somewhere new. There are plenty of places in California that we haven’t seen yet. Since becoming parents, we have — no surprised — put our international travel on hold. One day, we’ll get back to trekking through Europe and Asia, but for now, we need to do more local trips.

• This means squeezing in one babymoon before June, maybe to Portland (for the food) or Palm Springs (for the relaxation).
• This also means making time for a couple of trips while I am on maternity leave. So far, we have one trip planned to the happiest place on Earth.
• This also means taking the time to explore the greater SF Bay Area, with and without the kids. There are plenty of museums and parks that we have never visited.

We made just two non-work trips this year. One trip was a baby moon road trip down to Palm Springs and back up Hwy 1. The second trip was a family vacation to Newport Beach, during which we took Little D on his first trip to Disneyland. All pretty basic if you ask me, but still fun.

6. Take Care of Baby D Financially. When Little D was born, I made sure to get our affairs in order and to setup a bank account and 529 plan. When Baby D gets here, I want to make sure that I do the same for #2.

• This includes setting up a 529 plan for Baby D. But to diversive, I want to pick a different plan, which means I need to do more research. Again.
• This includes setting up a bank account for Baby D. This will be pretty straight forward. I just got to make time to go to the bank and do it.

I’ve got one out of two done. Baby D has a bank account but I’ve yet to settle on a 529 account. Once I do, then I’ll make up for lost time. Plus it will be easier to do once I’m back to earning my full pay check in 2017.

7. Be a Better Family CFO. I need to re-evaluate our current financial situation and update our 5-year plan accordingly. And more importantly, I need to look at the plan more than once a year to make sure we’re on track to pay off our mortgage, save for a future home, and save for retirement.

The good news is that we’ve saved money and paid off debt. The bad news is that our 5 year plan has changed in the last year and is a bit up in the air right now. More likely than not, we’ll move sooner than we had planned but it’s still to be seen. But if we do, then we’re going to need to readjust our finances accordingly.

8. Have a Fit Pregnancy, Then Lose the Baby Weight. For my second pregnancy, I would like to avoid becoming a lump of mush and I want to start the “recovery” period sooner. The goal is to actually get back to my pre-pregnancy weight by the time I go back to work.

• While I’m pregnant, this means doing as much walking as I can. I want to avoid calling Big D to pick me up from the bus stop as much as possible. I also want to make sure that I’m taking the time to do stretch and do some arm and leg exercises.
• Once Baby D gets here (or maybe 6 weeks afterwards), I want to get back to Bar Method and some other kind of workout program to get fit and lose the baby weight.

In the six weeks after giving birth to Baby D, I was very motivated to start Bar Method again and get back into shape. Too bad that my motivation lasted all of a month. The thing you don’t realize when you’re pregnant with baby #2 is how hard it is do anything when you have two babies, especially if they are 20 months apart. Some body needs something at some time, and often at the same time. I’d start a workout and stop maybe two or three times. After a while, you just kind of give up because you’d rather spend your free time sleeping.

I think I got a better workout during my outings with Little D. Swimming (in this case, holding him and playing in the water) was my biggest calorie burner, followed by pushing him through the zoo in the stroller.

9. Maintain Inbox Zero. On Dec 31, 2015, I did the impossible. I cleared out my email inbox of 10,000+ emails and will actually be starting Jan 1 with a clean slate. This may seem silly, but the act is symbolic. There were a lot of big changes in 2015, and a lot of baggage that I was holding onto from 2014. Now — with my work affairs in order — I actually feel like I can have a fresh start and do good work. The goal this year will be to maintain Inbox Zero until I go on maternity leave. By doing so, I hope to be a bit more on top of things than I have been.

• This means responding to email quickly and deleting all the junk as soon as I get it.
• This means ending my day/week by cleaning up my inbox so that I can start the next work week with a clean slate.

Mission accomplished. I started the year with Inbox Zero, then kept it that way at the start of my maternity leave. When I got back to work, I had maybe 2,000+ emails which I finally filed or deleted this week, bringing me almost back down to Inbox Zero (ok, there are like 10 outstanding items but I think that’s pretty manageable).

1o. Learn to Relax. I’ve developed a bad habit of reading my cell phone until I fall asleep some nights. Sometimes it helps me sleep, but sometimes, it keeps me up. I need to try new ways to relax and center myself.

• This means giving meditation and yoga another try.
• This means going to bed at a reasonable time.
• This means disconnecting more from my phone.

This has been hit or miss. I gave yoga another go and that was great post-pregnancy to get myself to relax and sleep until I just stopped sleeping because the baby was hungry all night long. I am also going to bed slightly earlier because I’m starting my day super early (5AM-ish) to catch the 6:30AM bus and get to work around 7:15AM…all so that I leave around 4AM. It’s a crazy schedule but it’s working for me so far. As for disconnecting my phone, it depends how tired I am. The screen often doesn’t keep me up because I can’t hang, no matter how interesting the web article is.

 

2015: Bye Felicia!

So with four days before 2015 comes to a close, it’s time to do my annual look back at the last year. If I could recount this year in one phrase, it’s “living in the moment.” Never have I literally had to focus just on the task at hand and nothing else — and that’s only because I haven’t had any time to really daydream about the future (barely write myself lists these days) or document what’s going on (not a photo taker). Since going back to work, my life has become day after day of sleep, work, eat dinner, play with Little D, give Little D a bath, put Little D to bed and fall asleep in the process. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

That said, the routine has made meeting my 2015 goals a bit of a challenge.

1. Lose the Baby Weight. Over the course of my pregnancy last year, I gained 35 pounds and only 6 of those pounds made up my baby. All in all, I didn’t put on a crazy amount of weight, but I wasn’t exactly at my skinniest when I got pregnant either. So cliches aside, my main New Year’s resolution is to lose weight.

TO BE CONTINUED: In the beginning of the year, before I went back to work, I was a model Bar Method student. I went to class 5X a week and I was shaping up. I was feeling healthier and slimmer than I’ve ever been. Then I went back to work, and could only make it to class 2X a week…then two days became one day. But even with my one day a week routine I got really close to my pre-pregnancy weight, losing more than 30 pounds since Little D was born. Then came the stork and now I’m back on the weight-gaining track. I’ll likely be back at this next year.

2. Re-org and Style Our Home. I spent a good part of 2014 trying to make our home more functional and organized, but what I think it really need to do is rethink how we use our space and how we decorate. Our walls are bare, and many of our rooms are a bit topsy-turvy. Case in point: Our office is the cat room, the nursery is our office, and our master bedroom is also a nursery. There has to be a better way!

TO BE CONTINUED: I can’t say that I’ve done much to re-org and restyle our home in the last year. While I was on maternity leave, I did manage to reorganize some of our shelves and cabinets. And as Little D has grown, we’ve reorganized our home — especially our living room — again and again. Case in point: we got rid of our coffee table, mounted our TV, and tied a fence to our coach to keep this kid safe as he learns to walk. Here’s hoping that things get better next year.

3. Grow Evergreen Garden. Spring is just around the corner, which means it’s time to try again. I had an okay run with my outdoor balcony garden and the start of my backyard flower garden, but my pregnancy got in the way (Read: I was too tired and big to want to do anything).

GAVE UP: I think I spent maybe a couple of weeks replanting flowers and herbs in our balcony and then never looked at the space again. My mother-in-law has been my garden’s savior. If it wasn’t for her, everything would have died and dried out long ago. Not sure if I should keep this as a goal for next year given how undedicated I am these days.

4. Start Family Yearbook Series. No more excuses, this needs to get started before it’s too hard to start. I need to back track and do a book for 2012, 2013, and 2014. At the same time, I want to reorganize and properly store/backup all of our old photos.

EPIC FAIL: This goal has seriously become a burden on my shoulders that needs to be lifted. But who has the time to go through ALL. THOSE. PHOTOS. Not I. Most certainly, not I.

5. Send Holiday Cards Before Christmas. Keeping with tradition, I will try to create and send my holiday cards out before Christmas, and hopefully right after Thanksgiving.

WINNER, WINNER: If there is one thing that I can be proud of, it’s that we got our holiday cards in the mail and delivered before Christmas. However, in the interest of time, we opted to use Shutterfly this year to save time. It really doesn’t matter what company, you use, photo cards are pricey. Thank goodness for coupon codes.

6. Be a Good Mom. While I spend most of my days hanging out with our baby, this won’t be the case when I go back to work. And knowing me and work, it’s going to be a challenge trying to balance everything. I know for sure that I’ll have the weekends with him, but somehow and some way, I want to make sure I get home everyday at a decent time so that I can hang out with my little nugget before he goes to bed.

WINNER, WINNER: If there is one thing that I can be really proud of this year, it’s that I made time for Little D. After dinner is our playtime and bedtime is our bonding time. At almost 15 months, I’m still nursing him to sleep for better or worse, but it’s a nice time to connect to my little nugget after being a part for a whole day. And on weekends, we hang out almost all day.

7. Be Greener. I’m not the crunchiest mama around, but I try. While we put all our paper, plastics and glass in a blue bin each week, there’s more we can do in 2015 to improve our recycling and composting habits. We used to be better at composting, but twice we had the nightmarish incidents where maggots came crawling out of our compost bin and garbage can. This ultimately led us to stop composting all together… but I think I’m ready to try again. Likewise, we have a lot of batteries and electronics that need to be dumped responsibly.

KIND OF SORT OF: If anything, I can say that I’m one green mama…and it wasn’t entirely on purpose. Most of these practices started out as me trying to save some green. We use cloth diapers and have started early potty training (via an “ancient” Chinese mom technique). But as for other green things that I could be doing, let’s just say I could be doing more.

8. Get Our Affairs in Order. Now that we have a cute little dependent in our family, it’s time to take care of some grown up business. This includes setting up a living trust, buying life insurance and starting a college savings plan. 

WINNER, WINNER: Done and done. It was my goal to get this all sorted before I went back to work and did any trips away from Little D, and it’s all done. We’ve setup a living will and 529 plan. This kid will be alright if anything happens to us.

9. Become the Family CFO. At the end of 2014, I audited our current financial situation, thought through our life goals, and started on a 5-year plan. In 2015, I’m going to refine the plan and get our ducks in order so that we can  ultimately retire on time and become mortgage free.

TO BE CONTINUED: Before I went back to work, I put together a financial plan. I have yet to look at it again since — I suspect it needs some more work.

10. Be More Put Together. For most of my adult life, my style mantra has been “be comfortable” and “buy from the sales rack” — which aren’t necessarily bad things to do. Problem is, I have a lot of clothes with a bad fit or are hard to match. So this year, I resolve to build and use a capsule wardrobe.

KIND OF SORT OF: I think I did pretty well in the first few months that I went back to work. But in the weeks since I started to really look preggers, it’s been really hard to find clothes that work. When I was pregnant with Little D, it was the spring and summer. This time around, it’s fall and winter, which means none of my maternity clothes are that warm. I’ll need some help in this department in the coming months.

10 Goals for 2016

In the last 24 hours, in the hours between the end of New Year’s Eve and the beginning of New Year’s Day, I find myself reflecting on the last year and thinking about the year ahead.

Thankfully, it’s been a good, relatively quiet week where I’ve been able to really reorganize and recharge — getting myself in the right mindset to welcome 2016.

In the last week, I’ve gotten more sleep than I have in a whole year since I’ve been working from home right now (read: no commute). I’ve gotten to hang out with Little D more than I usually can and we’ve found a new playtime at 5:30AM in the morning. Big D and I went out for an impromptu dinner at a fancy restaurant by accident (didn’t realize it was a $$$ place until we sat down), which was a fun and spontaneous thing to do. All in all, it’s been a great week — a nice break from our usual, humdrum routine.

When I looked back at the goals I set earlier this year, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I did good on the big things that I wanted to accomplish (namely, getting our affairs in order). But like most humans, I still struggle with keeping myself motivated through the year. Or sometimes, you just got to accept that things change and so do your goals.

So with that, here’s what I want to accomplish this year.

1. Dress For The Job I Want. For the last two years, I’ve made the resolution to be more put together. I think I’m getting there. But rather than focusing on the clothes part, I need to care a little more about my hair and makeup during the workweek. You know, dress for the job I want: look more like an executive leader, and less like a worker bee.

• This means getting my hair cut and styled regularly (at least 2-3 times a year) rather than just a once-a-year chop.
• This means planning my outfits for the week rather than throwing on whatever’s clean in the morning.
• This means learning how to do my makeup better and grooming my eyebrows regularly so that I look sharp, rather than a hot mess (some days).

2. Re-org and Style Our Home. At home, my house is a bit of a mess. Literally. There are pounds of laundry to be put away. There is an unspeakable disaster on my bathroom counter top. There are closets stuffed to the brim with junk. Our home is functional for the most part, but it’s not pretty. I feel like my home reflects my state of mind, so I’d like to change that by getting organized and making things look nice.

• This means doing some serious spring cleaning and getting rid of all the stuff we don’t want or need anymore.
• This means putting some pictures on our wall to make it look, you know, homey.
• This means refreshing some of our linens and decor so that things freshen up a bit.

3. Be a Good Mom. While I can’t say this with absolute authority, I am assuming that being a mom of one kid is comparatively easy to two kids. It will no doubt be a lot tougher when Baby D arrives and there are two little humans demanding my attention. My goal this year is to try to give equal attention to both, but it will be hard and there will be days when someone (namely Little D) feels neglected.

• This means making sure that I’m spending quality time one-on-one time with Little D when I can, maybe a trip to the park or zoo.
• This means taking time to get to know Baby D, and taking time to let Little D get to know his little brother/sister.
• This means taking as much maternity leave as I can, ideally six months.

4. Start Family Yearbook Series. 2015 is over, and I now have four family yearbooks to put together. Ugh. But it’s important. I did a good job with filling out our baby book, but I really need to become a picture person.

• This means carving out some time each month to file away our photos. Fortunately, Big D has some kind of system already.
• This means carving out some time to actually build the yearbooks for 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012.

5. Travel More, Explore More. We don’t need to go far, we just have to go somewhere new. There are plenty of places in California that we haven’t seen yet. Since becoming parents, we have — no surprised — put our international travel on hold. One day, we’ll get back to trekking through Europe and Asia, but for now, we need to do more local trips.

• This means squeezing in one babymoon before June, maybe to Portland (for the food) or Palm Springs (for the relaxation).
• This also means making time for a couple of trips while I am on maternity leave. So far, we have one trip planned to the happiest place on Earth.
• This also means taking the time to explore the greater SF Bay Area, with and without the kids. There are plenty of museums and parks that we have never visited.

6. Take Care of Baby D Financially. When Little D was born, I made sure to get our affairs in order and to setup a bank account and 529 plan. When Baby D gets here, I want to make sure that I do the same for #2.

• This includes setting up a 529 plan for Baby D. But to diversive, I want to pick a different plan, which means I need to do more research. Again.
• This includes setting up a bank account for Baby D. This will be pretty straight forward. I just got to make time to go to the bank and do it.

7. Be a Better Family CFO. I need to re-evaluate our current financial situation and update our 5-year plan accordingly. And more importantly, I need to look at the plan more than once a year to make sure we’re on track to pay off our mortgage, save for a future home, and save for retirement.

8. Have a Fit Pregnancy, Then Lose the Baby Weight. For my second pregnancy, I would like to avoid becoming a lump of mush and I want to start the “recovery” period sooner. The goal is to actually get back to my pre-pregnancy weight by the time I go back to work.

• While I’m pregnant, this means doing as much walking as I can. I want to avoid calling Big D to pick me up from the bus stop as much as possible. I also want to make sure that I’m taking the time to do stretch and do some arm and leg exercises.
• Once Baby D gets here (or maybe 6 weeks afterwards), I want to get back to Bar Method and some other kind of workout program to get fit and lose the baby weight.

 

9. Maintain Inbox Zero. On Dec 31, 2015, I did the impossible. I cleared out my email inbox of 10,000+ emails and will actually be starting Jan 1 with a clean slate. This may seem silly, but the act is symbolic. There were a lot of big changes in 2015, and a lot of baggage that I was holding onto from 2014. Now — with my work affairs in order — I actually feel like I can have a fresh start and do good work. The goal this year will be to maintain Inbox Zero until I go on maternity leave. By doing so, I hope to be a bit more on top of things than I have been.

• This means responding to email quickly and deleting all the junk as soon as I get it.
• This means ending my day/week by cleaning up my inbox so that I can start the next work week with a clean slate.

1o. Learn to Relax. I’ve developed a bad habit of reading my cell phone until I fall asleep some nights. Sometimes it helps me sleep, but sometimes, it keeps me up. I need to try new ways to relax and center myself.

• This means giving meditation and yoga another try.
• This means going to bed at a reasonable time.
• This means disconnecting more from my phone.

 

10 Goals for 2015

1. Loose the Baby Weight. Over the course of my pregnancy last year, I gained 35 pounds and only 6 of those pounds made up my baby. All in all, I didn’t put on a crazy amount of weight, but I wasn’t exactly at my skinniest when I got pregnant either. So cliches aside, my main New Year’s resolution is to lose weight.
2. Re-org and Style Our Home. I spent a good part of 2014 trying to make our home more functional and organized, but what I think it really need to do is rethink how we use our space and how we decorate. Our walls are bare, and many of our rooms are a bit topsy-turvy. Case in point: Our office is the cat room, the nursery is our office, and our master bedroom is also a nursery. There has to be a better way!
3. Grow Evergreen Garden. Spring is just around the corner, which means it’s time to try again. I had an okay run with my outdoor balcony garden and the start of my backyard flower garden, but my pregnancy got in the way (Read: I was too tired and big to want to do anything).
4. Start Family Yearbook Series. No more excuses, this needs to get started before it’s too hard to start. I need to back track and do a book for 2012, 2013, and 2014. At the same time, I want to reorganize and properly store/backup all of our old photos.
5. Send Holiday Cards Before Christmas. Keeping with tradition, I will try to create and send my holiday cards out before Christmas, and hopefully right after Thanksgiving.
6. Be a Good Mom. While I spend most of my days hanging out with our baby, this won’t be the case when I go back to work. And knowing me and work, it’s going to be a challenge trying to balance everything. I know for sure that I’ll have the weekends with him, but somehow and someway, I want to make sure I get home everyday at a decent time so that I can hang out with my little nugget before he goes to bed.
7. Be Greener. I’m not the crunchiest mama around, but I try. While we put all our paper, plastics and glass in a blue bin each week, there’s more we can do in 2015 to improve our recycling and composting habits. We used to be better at composting, but twice we had the nightmarish incidents where maggots came crawling out of our compost bin and garbage can. This ultimately led us to stop composting all together… but I think I’m ready to try again. Likewise, we have a lot of batteries and electronics that need to be dumped responsibly.
8. Get Our Affairs in Order. Now that we have a cute little dependent in our family, it’s time to take care of some grown up business. This includes setting up a living trust, buying life insurance and starting a college savings plan.
9. Become the Family CFO. At the end of 2014, I audited our current financial situation, thought through our life goals, and started on a 5-year plan. In 2015, I’m going to refine the plan and get our ducks in order so that we can  ultimately retire on time and become mortgage free.
10. Be More Put Together. For most of my adult life, my style mantra has been “be comfortable” and “buy from the sales rack” — which aren’t necessarily bad things to do. Problem is, I have a lot of clothes with a bad fit or are hard to match. So this year, I resolve to build and use a capsule wardrobe.

It’s Hot, But Got My Shot (Bun Log: Week 29)

I realize that compared to everywhere else in the world, 85 degree farenheit weather is not hot. But in the San Francisco Bay Area, it’s unbearable…especially if you’re pregnant. I feel lethargic, my feet swell, and I am constantly in need of water (which means I am constantly in need of going to the bathroom). I really shouldn’t complain, but it’s not fun.

Here’s me at 29 Weeks. I am moving up from medium-sized shirts to larges.

In other news, I got my T-Dap shot on Monday. This means that me and the baby are guarded against tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis. You won’t count me among the parents who think vaccines should be optional.

 

Car Seats, Strollers and Travel Cribs, Oh My!

Thanks to Nordstrom’s anniversary sale last week, I was able to snap up the car seat, stroller and travel crib that I’ve been eyeing from Nuna, a Dutch brand of baby gear that’s not crazy expensive, but looks slick and is lightweight. I haven’t taken any of them out of the boxes yet — just in case I can get a better deal in the next 10 weeks – but here’s what we got. And hopefully, they live up to my expectations.

Nuna Pepp – I like that it’s compact and can fold flat in case we need to take it in the car, train or airplane with one hand. (According to reviews, it’s really designed for parents in urban settings e.g., Europeans). And since I have no intention of taking a stroller on unpaved roads or jogging (at least I don’t know), this will work fine for us.

 

Nuna Pipa – If there’s one thing I heard loud and clear from my mom, it’s that you don’t want baby gear that’s heavy. It’ll be a pain to carry around. So what sold me on the Nuna Pipa is the fact that it’s only 7.7 pounds, make it one of the lightest infant carriers/car seats on the market. It’s also nice that it comes with a long sun shade (less of a need to wrap this in a blanket) and infant insert (in case our kid is tiny).

 

Nuna Sena – This will stay at my mom’s house. From what I read, this travel crib is the only one on the market where the upper cot layer can be folded with the frame (as opposed to needed to disassemble it each time you need to pack it up). And, it’s also easy to fold up and pack up…in case, you know, we need to travel.

 

 

Why I Don’t Love Food Festivals

Every few years, I go to a local food festival. And almost every single time, I’m reminded why I don’t love food festivals. They are crowded. The lines are endless. The food is expensive, and often not that great (cause it’s been mass produced). Yet every few years, I forget these truths and I decide it would be fun to go to an upcoming food festival. Today, we went to the Ramen Festival during the J-Pop Summit in San Francisco with DL, my brother, my cousin, and former co-worker. It was a complete cluster-fuck and waste of time. We came for the ramen, and didn’t get any ramen. Why? Just look at this mess.

(Source: Ramen Yokocho Fest)

Perhaps I jinxed us when I jokingly said in the car on the way to SF that we should instead go to San Mateo and eat at Santa Ramen or Ramen Dojo (two of the most popular ramen shops in the whole Bay Area that are notorious for their lines out the door) since everyone else will be at the Ramen Festival and there’s a chance that the lines won’t be so bad this weekend. In hindsight, that’s what we should have done.

Instead, here’s what actually happened. We drove into SF around 10:30AM, found parking by 11:30, still can’t find the end of the lines for the ramen burger by 12:00PM. At that point, we decided to give up on the ramen all together and put our efforts into finding some food. So for another 30 minutes, we search in vain for a restaurant without a line. Luckily, we get seats at the relatively empty but severely understaffed Korean restaurant, Seoul Garden, inside the Japan Town mall. How understaffed was it? I think it took us close to an hour to get our orders taken and the first dishes to arrive. We finished by 1:30PM.

Then for another hour, we go on a hunt for mochi so that we don’t leave Japan Town completely empty handed. We arrived at Benkyodo Co just in time for the last mocha to be sold out (read: we got nothing), so we go to the pricey mocha store to buy some imports. Then, only then, were we able to head home at about 2:30PM. All in all, it was a pretty miserable morning…especially if you’re 7-months pregnant.

But on the drive home, we collectively decided that this day shall not end without ramen in our bellies. We’ve made too big an effort to be left so utterly unsatisfied. So we decided to go to the best ramen restaurant within the closest radius of home: The Ramen Shop.

First, we made a pit stop at my mom’s house to refuel, nap, and pick her up (since she was expecting us for dinner anyways). Then we drove over to Oakland and put our names down on the list at about 6:00PM. As expected, there would be a wait, and with the size of our party, that wait would be 1.5 hours. Under any normal circumstances, we would not wait 1.5 hours for a bowl noodles. But after today’s fiasco in SF, 1.5 was nothing. Some people waited 2-3 hours standing in a claustrophobic in line, in the sun, for a mediocre bowl of ramen. At least we’d have seats to sit on, and and ice cream shop (Smitten — it’s pricy but delicous) nearby to help us kill time.

Then finally, at 7:30PM, we were seated and got our orders in. We were out by 8:30PM — nearly 12 hours after we started our quest for ramen, we found our Holy Grail.

While the day ended well, I hope against all hope that I don’t forget this day. Because this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am not fond of food festivals. And maybe, just maybe, by writing down, I won’t make this same mistake a few years later. With a kid in tow, I can only imagine that such an event would even more miserable.

 

More Iron Please (Bun Log: Week 28)

It’s official. I’m in the last leg of my pregnancy now — the third trimester. Just ~12 more weeks to go, give or take. Here’s me at 28 weeks. And looking at this picture, I think it’s almost time to retire this shirt…and move up a size.

Well, I had my latest doctor’s appointment this week, and I got some good news and some not so good news. On the plus side, I don’t have preeclampsia (which means I am not at risk of becoming diabetic, and don’t have to cut out sugar for the last three months). But on the flip side, I’m a little bit anemic, which means I need to eat an iron supplement now. Guess I wasn’t eating enough red meat, almonds, eggs, soy, and dark greens (sure fooled myself…cause I thought I was okay).

 

 

The Day Our Fortune Cookies Weren’t Complete BS

After cleaning out our garage and assembling our crib, we went out to dinner with my parents and brother at a Chinese restaurant. At the end of the meal, we got our check and our fortune cookies. I’m not a huge fan of these “American” end-of-the-meal treats, but I usually eat them after reading its run-of-the-mill advice or vague predictions. Well, tonight was different. DL and I got the exact same fortune (what are the odds!), and it was shockingly spot on.

That’s right. In three months, good things are in store for us. And by “thing”, we’re referring to this little nugget who won’t stop kicking me right now.