Winter Storm Gail Preps

We're expecting Winter Storm Gail tomorrow and into Thursday. Around 12-18" of snow is expected. 

So, we've prepped the gas for the snow blower.

The husband has yet to start up the snow blower. Sigh. I do not know why he keeps putting it off,... in  any case, it'll be more of his problem if it doesn't start up tomorrow. 

Separately, I picked up a portable heater and a four-pack of propane cylinders. I've actually been itching to get my hands on a portable inverter generator from harbor freight but this was an easier decision (cheaper too!).  

We may still get the generator at some point but that's a whole different conversation.

Meanwhile, I've got to make sure that our rechargeable batteries are charged and that our camp lamps are ready. 

------

Edit: The husband found the snow blower manual and we got the snow blower up and running and by "we", I really mean him =) 

It works. 

The engine sounds loud. Hope it also means it is powerful.

and yes, the plastic wrap is still there, we haven't used it yet. Hopefully, we'll actually get to use it tomorrow. Whohooo!

 

Tribeca

Had a big scare last night. 

We had driven to our fave bubble tea place in Montclair and was on our way to McDonald's (a treat for our kid) when the Tribeca started sputtering, seemed to have lost power, lost the driving lights  and later, stopped working. Thankfully, we had enough momentum to pull over to the side when it eventually lost all power altogether, I am also thankful that despite it being a busy street, there were no cars behind us when we lost power.

If you can think of movies where an EMP goes off and the entire power grid - everything that runs on computers or has power - basically just shutting down and dying ? That's how it went with the Tribeca last night.

I immediately called AAA to ask for assistance, told them we were on the side of a dark but busy road, no streetlights, the street had no shoulder and we had no lights at all - the emergency lights weren't working. AAA gave us priority because of the situation. AAA does come to the rescue in around 5 minutes, guy loads up the Tribeca on his flatbed and we ask to have it towed home. Meanwhile, the 3 of us took an Uber home. Swe-cha was so well-behaved, he made us so proud!

Super thankful: 

- that God kept us safe and prevented accidents

- that Swe-cha coped really well with the situation 

- that while hubby goes to the office 2 days a week, I do work from home full time till June 2021. Swe-cha is doing remote schooling so technically, can really share 1 car for now (no pressure to get a replacement). 

So far, theories for what happened last night revolve around a bad battery, dirty / bad battery terminals or a bad alternator. If it's the batttery or terminals, we'll get this replaced. If it's the alternator, we'll have to look for a replacement. 

On Pinoy seryes and movies

 So I had a chance to take a breather recently and found a pinoy teleserye on Amazon Prime and I started watching "Karibal Ko Asawa Ko" In a nutshell, it's a story about Nathan, a closet-gay, knocked a girl up and got married. He wasn't happy with the marriage, he later started cross-dressing, liked it. He faked his own death and the death of their daughter and ran away to have sexual-reassignment surgery and changed his entire appearance. He became a transgender woman, Venus. Venus would get involved with a guy named Gavin who is unaware of his real personal, break up, Gavin meets and falls in love with Nathan's ex-wife, Rachel. And Venus/Nathan tries to get Gavin back.

What really enticed me to watch was my curiosity in how they were going to accomplish the "transformation into a woman" part. Obviously, they'd be switching actors, and you can explain away the differences by saying he had extensive surgery but one thing you can't change is height. The transgender woman, Venus, should appear as tall as the person who played Nathan. The actor playing Nathan, aside from being tall, was also muscular so I really wanted to know how they were going to spin this. 

I found myself engrossed with all 114 episodes - alternating between feeling aghast at Venus' propensity for evil and heckling the production staff for all the inconsistencies. 

These are the things that I noticed, in no particular order:

1) Nathan was tall and his post-transformation character, Venus, looked tall too which is good, but why would the show,  every now and then, deliberately show a closeup of her feet walking in platform stilettos (pa-suspense effect), edi nabuko na that she's not really that tall.

2) Home fixtures - at some point, the characters were supposed to be living in the Los Angeles and they were shooting INSIDE an LA home. Bakit yung light switch mukhang Pilipinas na light switch ? 

3) The timeline for the transformation from man to woman was unrealistic. Nathan left for LA when his daughter was about 1. they didn't say how long the transformation took but at some point, he became Venus, met Gavin and they lived together for 5 years. They broke up, Gavin went back to the Philippines and some time later, they were celebrating Nathan/Venus' daughter's 7th birthday. 

So if we backtrack a bit... if Gavin lived with Venus for 5 years, that means he met Venus just before the child turned 2. If Nathan left for LA when the child was 1, he became a full woman in 1 year ? 

4) The surgeon they talked to for Nathan's transformation described the extensive procedures and what they were doing in Spanish. When the doctor paused, nathan and companion looked at each other and companion said "are you sure about this ? This is a totally new person na" (or something along those lines)... and my thought was, "teka, naintindihan nila yun ? walang translator ?" 

5) Venus' child grew up in LA. Bakit hindi siya American accent mag English ?

6) In the beginning, when they showed Nathan living in his family home, the door frame had distinctive carvings / designs. Later, they showed Daniel in his rented room, the door frame had the same distinctive pattern.

I get that they used the same house for different locations but perhaps next time, they should look for houses with less-distinctive features.

After this, I wasn't sleepy yet so I started watching different episodes of Mano Po and I was flinching the whole time. 

1) the Mano Po movies I've watched always had Teresa Teng's The Moon Represents my heart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XXTUJJIsfA  BAKEEET ? 

2) A lot of the characters wear CheongSams and Changpaos. Ours must not be a typical Tsinoy family because the only one I recall seeeing in a cheongsam was my Ama and it was a huge portrait of her and my Angkong. I have never seen - EVER - any of my male relatives in either the Philippines, China or HK wear a Changpao. 

3) the way the elders speak in forced Chinese-accented tagalog. Annoying and a tad bit insulting.

4) And when the actors are try to speak their Hokkien ? hurts my ears. 

5) And why do these people walk around in their homes in shoes ? Again, ours must not be a typical Tsinoy family because we walk around in comfy slippers at home. Shoes are removed at the door and we change into slippers. 

Ceiling fan lights part 2 + remote control

<-- Before - we just had a ceiling fan, no lights. The switch that controls this fan is also in the middle of the room, far from the door/entrance.

Still on a high from yesterday's success with replacing the ceiling fan lights in the blue room, we decided to go ahead with the plans to DIY the installation of ceiling fan lights in the 4th BR - we had purchased the materials already and planned to have them professionally installed (or wait for Ahya to visit). 

This was a bit more ambitious because we also wanted to either have the switch transferred to the entrance area (if we were hiring a professional electrician) and/or have a remote control installed.

Since we decided to DIY, a remote control would have to do. It also works out well because we can always install the remote control holder near the door. 

For this, we purchased a Harbor Breeze 4-light Incandescent light kit for $33 - they also sell a 4 light LED light kit for the same price, we decided to go with the incandescent kit because of the higher wattage capacity (you can always install lower-watt bulbs) and a Yukihalu remote control kit. 

The Yukihalu remote controls both the fan and the light, got this for $18 at Amazon. Per the product description, they have the smallest remote module in the market, other brands' modules are much bigger (harder to fit in the fan housing).

This was a super simple project, electrically-speaking (is this a proper term?) as everything was neatly labeled. The hardest part was attaching the remote module and getting everything attached to the wires and getting it out of the way of the main fan. We eventually had to attach this outside of the housing because there was no way for it to fit inside.  

This isn't fully finished yet as it currently is using the 60 watt incandescent bulbs included in the kit. We've ordered 60 watt equivalent daylight bulbs from Amazon ($15 for two 3-packs). 

Ceiling Fan Light - blue room

<-- Before photo

So far as DIY projects go, this weekend has been a very productive weekend for us.

This week, we decided to tackle ceiling fan lights and what triggered this DIY frenzy was that when we set up Swe-cha's study area downstairs and moved our torchlight beside his table, it left the blue room dark. Blue room is where the husband set up his home office, it does have an existing ceiling fan with a light, but the light is a single halogen bulb and it gives off a dim, yellow light. 

I started looking for electricians and getting quotes for installing overhead lights (recessed lights, most probably) and found that it will cost between $500 - $700 to get them installed and this quote snowballed when I also concluded that since we were going to have someone come and do this, we might as well get lights installed in the 4th bedroom as well. 4th BR is a longer room and will probably require 6 lights and will cost another $800 - $900. 

Now that we were looking at around $1600,... it didn't seem so simple anymore. 

So I started looking at what we already have and what we can do.... and it occurred to me that we already have ceiling fans installed in ALL BEDROOMS! So perhaps we can just go on from there.

It took a while but I did find the Minka-Aire K9515-1 Universal 12 1/4" light kit with frosted white glass. This was a good fit for blue room because it had a low profile. It takes 3 candelabra bulbs (E12 base) and hubby quickly found 100w-equivalent daylight bulbs for it. 

Cost: 

- $41 for the Minka-Aire light kit

- two 2-pack Feit 100w equivalent daylight bulbs for $17 each. Yep, the bulbs almost cost as much as the light kit itself).

- Labor: free 

Also found this awesome fixture from Amazon for $8 - it attaches to a single bulb socket and allows you to attach 5 more bulbs. We installed this in our garage where we only have the 1 bulb in the ceiling and instantly, the place looks so much brighter. 

Pictured is the new light fixture with five 60-watt equivalent daylight LED bulbs (just 8 watts each). Suddenly, it makes our garage so much brighter and I see how old & dingy-looking the garage is - we'll probably want to plan for a garage-related cleanup & remodeling project next spring. 

Study Area ver 2.0

 

When Covid-19 came out last schoolyear and we stared doing remote-schooling in March 2020, we set up Swe-cha's laptop in a corner of the dining table. That worked because they met with the teacher 3x a week, no more than an hour each time. 

When this schoolyear started, we initially stuck with the same set up but after a week, I knew it wasn't working. There were too many distractions because it was also where we ate and sometimes played games on tablets, phones and game consoles. 

So last week, I ordered another work table for Daddy (a 6-ft folding table or a training table), we got it yesterday and set Daddy's workstation up on the new table. The 4-ft folding table he was using was then brought down to this corner where we set up a study area for Swe-cha.  

I think this will also work out better because he has Physical Ed on some days and he will have enough space to exercise in front of the camera in this area. 

Hope this works out!

Snake Plants

 

I must be lethal because I've killed a few of these "hard to kill" plants and the latest casualty is the plant whose photo I have posted here... or rather, what remains of it. 

I was checking my plants and saw that this particular one had root rot - the root just melted in my hands, it was already hollow (seems like it rotted and then dried out) so I tried to salvage the 1 remaining leaf by cutting it up and then planting it in soil. Hopefully, these cuttings are still strong enough to propagate. 

Week 20: Cleaning up

I can't believe how long it took me before jumping into cleaning mode.

Anyway, I joined a Freebie community for my city recently and got a chance to offer the large soup takeout containers. Surprise, surprise, there was a taker! That large bag in the photo is around 100 containers + lids. Finding someone who wants these containers has freed up my counter space - I actually see counters!

 I also found a post looking for toddler hangers. I've been thinking about using adult hangers for Swe-cha's clothes but just haven't gotten to it. Seeing someone look for it propelled me into making the move so I can give these old hangers away. I was able to put away 50 hangers.

Needs vs Wants

Swe Cha : Mommy, I need a Mario and Luigi Hotwheels race cart

Me: You don't need toys. You just want them but you don't need them.

Swe Cha: I'm spoiled..

and then he walks away, didn't ask for them anymore.

Masks for kids

I've made several DIY masks for the husband and myself (and for family and friends too!) but haven't gotten around to making one for Swe-cha until last week.

I finally made him one but thankfully, I also did find a good deal for children's masks on Amazon. I got 4 masks with ear loops, the metal nose strip and 8 filters - all for $10. Not bad at all.

Week 18: Menudo

I've been in a cooking funk lately - it has been so hot and despite the AC going on full blast at home 24/7, I didn't really want to cook.

We almost always have rice for our meals but lately, we've just had salads, sandwiches, corn or the pandecoco that I've been ordering weekly from a friend-turned-home-baker. We've also been ordering takeout and pizza often.

Today, I went to the Shoprite to get a few items and ended up with $100+ worth of groceries.

I ended up cooking Menudo this afternoon - my style, I always make sure to say "my style" because mine wouldn't compare to the yummy menudo one can get from the turo-turo - and ended up with 4 servings. So aside from tonight's dinner, we'll be having it for 3 more meals in the next week or 2.

As of today, we should be good for the week, even if laziness strikes (or so I think). We can make (hot) sandwiches, tapa (tapsilog) and grilled kalbi (if I get around to making the marinade).

Car falling apart

My car, the Tribeca, is 11 years old. It runs great, I'm happy with it but it does come with 11-year-old car woes.

I've known this for a while but it will need a new set of tires soon. My plan was that if we replaced the tires, I'm going to want to keep the Tribeca for another 3-5 years to get the most out of the tires.

Yesterday, we found out that that lever for releasing the front hood latch is broken. Again. Yes, this  broke years ago and we had it replaced and it is broken again now. I know how to remove the panel to access the steel cable that releases the latch so I'm leaning towards just not fixing it, not replacing the tires and since my company is not making us report back to work in 2020, I won't need the new tires immediately.

When it all goes bad, will just trade it in when I get a new car.

Ano kaya ?

Yard work

Got a lot accomplished this weekend.

Admittedly, most of it involved the husband catching up on chores around the house.

Saturday, I saw a small bottle of Armorall protectant in the store and bought it for my Tribeca. It's an 11 year old car and desperately needed some pampering. Swe-cha was in front on his bike and the husband was watching him. It was a cool day so I decided to clean my car's interior (long overdue!) and when I started applying it to the interior, husband got curious about how it was coming along and sauntered over. Soon, siya na gumagawa while I was vacuuming the back of the car.

Then Sunday, we also watered the lawn and applied Weed & feed - this bag is actually from last year or the year before. Husband keeps putting it off and I finally got him to doing it now.

The joy of being a kid

Today is the last day of school.

Swe-cha woke up (by himself) extra early today. When he saw me, he declared, "Mommy, tonight I am going to pray to God to take away the coronavirus. Mommy will pray too."

If I may provide some context, he has been enjoying online learning so far - mostly the staying at home part and a little less on the actual learning part - and has been praying "Dear God, please don't take away the coronavirus" every single night. He even went as far as to declare "I LOVE coronavirus" during a class video call when the kids were talking about how much they wanted the virus to go away so that places (moviehouses, libraries, parks, ...) can open up.

So today, he has started praying for it to go away "God, please take away the coronavirus, I got to summer camp."

"Anak, it's too late. Summer camp is cancelled, you should've started praying for coronavirus to go away in May."

"But I don't want to go to school!"

Oh-kaaaaay. May priorities siya. I bet he'll be very very sad once it sinks in that he's not going to summer camp at all.

Doordash

I wasn't up to cooking last night. Thankfully, the husband is easy to convince and we decided to go get some Japanese food. We tried this place for the first time last week when we had food ordered and I really enjoyed their kani salad.

We decided to try some rice bowls this time too.

As I was finalizing my order on Doordash and saw the total, I thought it seemed expensive at $51.xx. 2 rice bowls, 2 kani salads = $59.xx ?

I looked at the breakdown and saw that it had automatically suggested an $8 tip. I looked further and saw both a delivery fee and a service fee. Both fees add about $9. So all in all, I could see that if we went with Doordash, I'd have to pay $9 + tip more. I looked up the restaurant online, checked the address and it was only 2.8 miles away. I figured, nah, not worth $9+tip.

So I called in my order and went.

And guess how much I paid ? $37.
My original total was around $39 and got a 5% discount for paying in cash.

Yun pala, food prices are padded in Doordash pa and on top of this, they charge service fee AND delivery fee. I did some reading and found articles saying that if you send a tip, the company gets it too (or part of it).

Not sure if the price hop is because of Doordash or from the restaurant, I did read that on top of the delivery fee and the service fee, they also get a 20% commission from the restaurant - that probably is the reason for the price difference.

	DoorDash	Restaurant
Kani Salad	7.99	5.99
Kani and Seaweed Salad	8.99	6.99
Chicken katsu rice bowl	9.99	8.99
Chicken teriyaki rice bowl	9.99	8.99

Six Flags Hurricane Harbor

Last night, I overheard Swe-cha talking to my sister and telling her that he will be going to Hurricane Harbor in August.

That made me think - is Six Flags open now ? I checked and they're not.

Interestingly, I will mention that I've been purchasing Six Flags seasons tickets for our family every year for the past 4 years but for some reason, I didn't buy them for 2020. No reason. I remember going to their website, checking out the different season's pass levels, picking one and adding them to my cart but I hesitated as I was checking out. Then, naisip ko, I'll just buy day-passes when we decide to go.

Who would've known that Covid-19 would happen and theme parks would not reopen ? Not yet, anyway.

I'm pretty sure Six Flags would do something to honor passes. So far, I've seen that all tickets - even dated ones - will be honored on any operating day till Dec 2020. That is, of course, assuming that they operate within 2020, right ? Season's pass holders will have one free day in the 2021 season and this, I think is lugi.

Sourdough Garlic Knots

My friend, A, is an avid sourdough baker. She shared her sourdough starter with me last Mother's Day and I've been feeding it and just putting it back in the refrigerator.

I'm not ready to make sourdough bread yet as I have yet to decide on which Dutch oven  to get but I wanted to use the sourdough discard in some other recipe. I decided on Bread Experience's sourdough garlic knots.

I took my (still-unnamed*) sourdough starter  out of the refrigerator on thursday morning and fed it. It happily bubbled and doubled.

That night, I ran late and wasn't ready to start the prepwork until around 10p. I decided not to go through with it because this prepwork also involved around 2 hours of fermentation before you can put the dough back into the refrigerator.

I wasn't up to staying up till midnight so I decided to postpone.

The next night, I prepped according to instructions. In retrospect, I should have lessened the water a bit more than I did. The recipe author did caution against adding too much water if your starter is 100% hydrated which mine was. Unfortunately, this was my first time doing this so I had no idea what texture was good.

I divided the dough as needed and tied the knots. They were uneven, some bigger / smaller than the others but they did look like knots.

I put them back in the oven (not lit) to proof and waited for them to rise & double and when they did, I had to split them into two baking trays.

I will mention that by this time, my knots have sort of "melted" into what I could only best describe as blobs. My husband suggested a less-palatable term. Eek!

Despite its questionable looks, the sourdough garlic blobs did turn out okay.

Miele

I finally got someone to come in and take a look at our dishwasher.  I was pleasantly surprised and relieved to see the man put on a mask when he got out of his truck. I did see "contactless appliance repair" in their flyer and website but didn't think to ask what PPEs they have.

Our dishwasher had been out of commission for more than a year, perhaps even 2 years, and I've been having a hard time getting someone to service it. It probably also didn't help that I've been pronouncing it "MEE-LEE" all this time when the correct pronunciation is actually "MEE-LA".

We've been given the verdict. The WPS (Waterproofing system) or the system's water inlet system is needs to be replaced, the cost is $450+tax. If we say yes within 2 weeks, today's service call fee of $64.99 can be deducted from the total cost.

... meanwhile, we are still reeling from the cost to replace.

When we replaced our dishwasher in the condo last time, it cost us ~$320. To give context, this was in December 2012, the cheapest model then was $240 (a Frigidaire) and we got the next higher model because I was trying to prove that I wasn't cheap ;) haha!

We haven't decided yet but I am leaning towards repairing the Miele for the following reasons:

- per the service tech, Miele is the Ferrari of dishwashers. Sayang naman if ours is repairable.

- I checked prices and Miele's start at $1200+.. going upwards of $5k. Ours will be sayang if it's repairable.

- ours already has a front panel that match the rest of the kitchen cabinetry. It might cost us more to look for a model that supports custom front panels. If we choose not to attach the panel, it won't match the rest of the kitchen as all appliances - the refrigerator & the refrigerated drawers - all have the matching cabinet panels.

Project: UV Sterilization Box

My college friends and I were talking the other day and one shared her HomeSoap UV sanitizer - it's basically a box that uses UVC light to sanitize any object that you can fit inside.

I was intrigued but it was out of stock.

... and truth be told, $199.95 + tax + shipping was a bit too steep for me.

So I decided to look into other options. I had the UVCare Portable UVC wand that my brother sent me from the Philippines, but it took effort to slowly wave over our groceries. I wanted something quick and easy. Okay, .. and cheap too.

There were many UV sterilizers available in the market. Most are for smaller objects like baby bottles, small stuffed toys, cellphones,.. I wanted something bigger. I wanted to sterilize bigger objects - something along the lines of groceries and other dry goods.

And then I saw this. It was bigger, compared to the others, and is about 1 cu ft, give or take, I didn't bother looking up the dimensions anymore.

But, I wasn't happy with the price-point (~ $110 + tax + shipping). It was basically just a collapsible fabric box with a reflective layer inside and 2 UVC lamps and I thought to myself, "I can make this."

As it turns out, many people have had the same idea. Googling "DIY UV light box", "DIY nuke box", "DIY mask sterilization box" or any other variations gave lots of ideas.

Here's my UV Light box.

For the light box itself, I used an insulated bag. It turned out to be too soft so I built a cardbox box around it and clipped the sides to the box to lend it more support.

I got a 13w UVC sterilization light and taped it to the lid using vent tape which is both reflective and also heat-resistant.

I got a dollar store cooling rack for the bottom of the box. it was a bit too long but I folded the sides with pliers to make it fit, it also had the added benefit of lifting up the rack so that there'd be space at the bottom for the light to reflect.

I may or may not get a 2nd UV light to put below the rack so there's light coming in from top and the bottom.

Week 9: Rainy Day and Laundry

Laundry has been on my mind the past few days, I keep reminding my self to fold up the clean laundry to free up a basket so I can wash another load.

A few minutes ago, it just stared raining and as I watched big, fat droplets land on my window, my first thought was "Oh, no, paano ako maglalaba ?"

So I resigned myself to not doing laundry today.

Around 10 minutes later, it hit me. What does rain have to do with laundry ? It's not like we hang up our clothes outside to dry them under the sun. Ang labo.

Week 8: Pizza

So at week 8, I'm really really sick of cooking.

Yes, really.

Tonight, I decided that we'll just do delivery.  Spent an hour poring over the menu before deciding what we wanted to order and surprise, surprise, the restaurant has since closed (they used to be open for delivery before).

So it's Domino's to the rescue.

I eat pizza but am not really a fan. I'll eat it if it's free (i.e. office lunches, etc) but if I have to pay for it, I'll get something else and considering that we just had free pizza courtesy of the bosses last week, I shouldn't be looking forward to pizza... not for several more months anyway.

... but tonight ? I'm actually drooling at the thought of pizza.

Guess quarantine brings out a different side of us.

Week 8

Coming up on week 8 of quarantine.

It's not the month of May and the news is filled with stories about stage governors making plans on reopening their states. NJ state parks have been reopened on Saturday May 2, 2020.

Interestingly, it took 8 weeks before we finally really stayed home over a weekend - not one trip out to get supplies. I did plan on going out but when I reviewed my list, there was nothing critical or essential so I didn't go out anymore.

Meanwhile, I am still craving for bread - pandesal or any crusty bread - but with no yeast, there's nothing much to do. One of these days, magkakaroon rin :)

The thread I ordered 2 weeks ago finally came and I finished up the masks for my family in CA (this is batch 2 and also includes masks for my bro and SIL, if/when Mom and dad are able to fly back home).

I think I will make the husband another one since he doesn't have a spare - ang dami kong ginawa and have given everything away so far ;)


A few days ago, I caught Swe-cha praying...

      "Dear God,.. Thank you for our blessings... ... "

and at some point, I saw him cast a sidelong glance at me and say ".. and please don't take away the coronavirus. In Jesus' name, Amen."

Hindi ko na ni-correct. Sincere naman yung prayer nya. i figure, it was similar to when we were young and prayed for Typhoon Signal #2 or 3 para suspended ang classes.

Week 7: More facemasks

Finally wrapped up the batch of face masks I was making to send to my family in CA and they've gotten it and distributed it. I sent a bunch of masks in Small and medium sizes.

BIL got the 2 medium ones. Mom got 2 small ones and everybody else got 1.

Made a few masks for friend R&E and R did pick these up.

I started on another batch of masks for my family, the goal is to have everybody have 2 so they'd have something to alternate while one is being washed. Also making masks for my brother and SIL... but at this point, I ran out of thread. Yep. Thread.

Week 6: Scrub caps

So yesterday, I reached to a friend to ask if she still needed home made face-masks. I remember seeing her ask another friend to make masks for her and her child a couple of weeks ago. I didn't hear anything afterwards and now that I've finished the masks I was making for my sister & parents, I could not make them for my friend. 

Yun nga lang, R replied and said she already had masks, but if I wanted to make her something, can I make her hair caps (scrub caps) instead ? 

*Ulk*  Paano yun ?

I said, I'll have to check it out ... :
- what sorts of patterns are available
- and if there is a pattern out there that I can follow
- and if I had enough continuous (in one piece) fabric to make it

So I found a few candidates, printed out the patterns to "dry-fit" it and they all seemed too large.
I finally got a good pattern from www.twelvebees.ca and this was perfect in all aspects. The author gave clear instructions, the pattern was easy to put together and the size seemed just right (all other patterns I found were too big and I didn't feel confident adjusting the pattern size myself).

It turned out pretty good for a beginner, if I may say so myself. The 2nd one I made was much cleaner than the first one.

I did have to watch some instructional videos to learn how to use my sewing machine and which stitches to use.

Week 5: Bissell Spinwave!

So while everybody's been obsessing about cooking & eating, I was obsessing about my floors.

My floors have been dull and lifeless - dirty, really - and no amount of swiffing with microfiber cloths is doing anything. So a few days ago, I took to looking for an electric mop / buffer / polisher and found the Bissell Spinwave which I promptly ordered. Amazon was nice enough to deliver it this morning even  though the original ETA wasn't until next week.

The Spinwave PLUS model came with extra bottles of cleaning formula and extra cloth buffers. I used the scrubby pads with the cleaning formula to clean my floors (ugh!)

These were how dirty the pads were after I ran them over the floors. This was in the kitchen and:

- we don't wear outside shoes / footwear into the home
- the kitchen regularly gets wiped with a wet swiffer (wet floor cleaner)

The Spinwave is such a great upgrade over plan old elbow grease. The last time husband and I tandem-deep-cleaned & polished our kitchen floor, it took us the better part of the day and we had to down painkillers afterwards for our aching muscles. Today, this was absolutely painless.

Note: I used the included cleaning formula for wooden floors to clean the floor and afterwards, I mixed up my own DIY wood floor polish (vinegar, olive oil, essential oil and hot water) to bring out the glossiness of the floors.

I've already ordered more pads so that we can clean the rest of the house next time.

Week 5: Chefs

Going into week 5 of self qurantine.

Recently, I read a post on FB where someone said that with everybody cooking at home and trying out different dishes, everybody will be a chef when all this is over.

I'm far from chef-material but I've tried different dishes last week - even ones I used to cook before but haven't made in years.

1) Steamed pork with salted duck eggs

I used to make this a lot when we were still living inthe condo. Not sure why I haven't made this since we moved to our current home.

Note also that there's too much green onions for the garnish, this was because the husband bought too much last weekend.

2) Braised Crispy Tofu with Shrimp

Recipe here: https://omnivorescookbook.com/braised-crispy-tofu-with-shrimp

Was looking for a tofu - seafood dish for Lent and this was it.

3) Sweet and sour meatballs

I made a large batch of meatballs last weekend and froze a few. I'm particularly proud of this because I thought about making it into a sweet and sour dish to "upcycle" the meatballs instead of just heating them up in the oven and serving.

Week 4: Face Mask Realizations

Read this in my FB feed today:

and realized that I have something to add:

4. don't burp.

'nuf said.

Costco today

This is my Costco. I went there this morning to get milk and eggs, I saw lots of cars and a crowd of people outside the bldg and decided to just ditch it. I went to a Stop & Shop, they were out of eggs and the milk that Swe-cha drinks. I then went to Shoprite, I was able to get eggs but still no milk. 

I just called up different Costco locations within a 15 mile radius and got the same answer - "yes, there is a long waiting time to get in". I'm not really up to going out for another try again today. 

Week 3: Social Distancing and Waiting

The husband went to Ranch 99 to get groceries this afternoon and lined up for 1 hr and 30 minutes outside before he was even able to step foot inside the door. This was how the line outside looked like. He says that they were given numbers and by 5pm, those who didn't have numbers were sent home - the store closes at 7pm.

I commented that the distance seems a lot more than the requisite 6 ft and he agreed. he says that this was how far apart people were staying and even with the store staff asking them to come forward a little bit, nobody was heeding the repeated requests. People are scared.

The price of rice has also increased. The same 25 lb of jasmine rice we purchased 3 weeks ago for $17.99 is now being sold for $25.99. I initially asked husband to hold off on buying it but changed my mind when I saw that our rice container is down to less than half and realizing that the Covid-19 situation is just getting worse and worse in our state. I quickly gave husband a call and he was just about to pay at the counter but was allowed to run off to grab a bag of rice. This would be a good time to start dieting, perhaps.

He wore a mask I made for him with a folded paper towel filter stuffed into the filter pocket for added protection. It is made of 3 layers of cotton fabric and is worn with elastics that go around the head - more comfortable, I think, than loops that go around the ears.  The mask went straight to the wash as soon as he got home.

On the work front, my work is going on as usual while husband's work hours were cut beginning this week. I see this as a blessing because it leaves him with 2 whole days a week to work with Swe-cha on schoolwork. Hopefully, this is all temporary and that things go back to the regular normal before the situation escalates.

.... and just like that, we're done with week 3 of the quarantine and are all set to start week 4. Swe-cha gets a break from schoolwork next week - sort of - because it is spring break but we do plan on catching up with the remaining tasks in google classroom that we haven't completed yet.

Face Masks

So this morning, I start checking the news and see articles that NJ hospitals are now being stretched thin with the volume of coronavirus cases. I start worrying more than ever when I find out that my town has 131 cases as of today.

We don't have masks, I didn't buy any from before as I didn't want to be among those panic-buying PPEs so I thought I'd better start looking for ways to make our own.

Thankfully, Mr Google has been a lot of help and there are lots of easy instructions and free patterns out there. I made one for each of us in different sizes and instead of ear loops, I opted to just put in longer elastics that would go around our heads, I think that would be more comfortable.


Thankfully, I had all the materials on hand, as well as the toy sewing machine I bought 17 years ago for $12.80.

For the fabric, I went through Swe-cha's old clothes that I had set aside for donation and pulled out a few ones that were 100% cotton and salvaged fabric scraps from the outgrown shirts. I also still had braided elastic cord left over from when Mom brought some over for me to repair PJs.

The first mask took me 2.5 hours to make and the next, 2 hours and probably less than that for the 3rd one. The only thing that gave me a hard time was that

(1) my toy sewing machine keeps breaking
(2) the threads keep snapping
(3) I didn't have any tailor's chalk or anything that I can use to trace the pattern(s) onto the fabric.

And yes, I'm aware that these have to be washed after every use to prevent contamination so ideally, husband and I should have 2 each. Swe-cha will most likely not be going out.

-------------

Edit: the sewing machine broke. I guess it must not be used to being used this much.

Week 2: COVID-19 Quarantine

So we're at week 2 of self-quarantining due to the COVID-19 pandemic and things are a bit messier.

We've (temporarily) lost R and B, our ABA therapists. Their agency has closed so we're on our own. Today, I gave Swe-cha his worksheets and daily journal to complete and while there were complaints, he did finish them by himself. I will need to sit down with him a bit later today to work on the more difficult sheets.

On the home front, we have a healthy supply (from pre-COVID-19 days) of food and groceries except for milk. Swe-cha chugs down a lot of milk and Costco is limiting the purchase of  Lactaid to 1 container / person. So far, the workaround seems to be getting 1 whole milk and 1 low fat (the limit is 1 container on each variant) and then just mixing them up together before serving. No complaints so far.

I also had a realization that while we thought we have plenty of rice in stock, that may not be the case. We're still good, no worries for the immediate future, but I will have to consider buying another bag of rice if/when we get the chance. I've found that I've been cooking rice more often now that we've been having 2 rice meals at home per day instead of just dinner. Also, not getting takeout is also putting a serious dent in our rice supply.

Husky

Just got the batch of jeans that I ordered for Swe-cha and the size is good. It took me a while to look for "husky" jeans for boys and these were at a good price point too ($8/pair at Target).

This brings back memories of those days when I'd have to look for pants that had elastic garters so that you can shorten the waist. These days, we need elastic that would do the opposite - expand!

He does feel chunky :) We should start calling him Twa-cha.

Drinking water

When we moved in to our house years ago, we already had an in-sink water filtration system. Ours also had a hot water tank installed so we could have both hot and cold filtered drinking water.

In 2018, one of the levers (the hot water lever) broke and water would not stop flowing. Unfortunately, the unit itself is sealed so there was no way to repair the faucet.

We took a look at the plumbing under the sink and sighed at the complex piping and tubing going to and front the faucet, the water supply, in and around the hot water tank. 

Also, as I was trying to look for dual-lever faucets, I was surprised to see replacement costs going upwards of $350.

So far, prospects weren't looking good.

As a quick fix, we decided to just get a cheap, $10 single-lever faucet. Hubby sorted out the maze of pipes and tubes under the sink, relocated the filter to a place where it would be much easier to replace, disconnected the hot water tank (temporarily) and connected the faucet.

I would eventually be able to find a replacement dual-lever drinking water faucet at a more affordable price but by then, we were already comfortable with just the cold water dispenser so the "temporary" solution stayed in place for 1.5 years ... until this morning when the lever broke off.

Thankfully, a few things were going for us.

1) I had not forgotten where I had stashed the dual-lever faucet

and;

2) While I'd already forgotten whether or not we have the right quick-connectors for the tubes,... they conveniently turned up when hubby opened a kitchen drawer.

So now, we have this baby in the kitchen.

It's technically half-installed as of today, as the only the cold-water connection has been put together. We hope to get to the rest in the next few days.