Milk Stash - Nov 2010

Guess who has reached a milestone ?

We've officially breached the 100-bag mark on our frozen breastmilk stash. That's 54oz per bag. And at 100 ziploc bags, we have 5,400 oz milk frozen to date.

Of course, our freezer contains much much less than the 5400 oz as we have been constantly giving milk away as the freezer nears its full capacity.

To Do

Eep. While cleaning up that bookshelf downstairs, I found the software that A lent me for drafting wills (Sorry, A, I'll return this to you ASAP, promise!). It's been months since she lent this to me and I have not gotten a chance to use it yet. If you don't already know, "free time" is very rare in our household.

This also brings to mind that we still need to Buy Life Insurance for my husband and my own policy I purchased years ago also need to be updated to reflect not just my married status (I told you it was outdated) and new surname, I also have to change the beneficiary to include my husband and Swe-cha.

So our to-do list for November currently reads as follows:

- Christmas gifts for MOCPLG kiddies

- Christmas gifts for nephews and niece

- order and install new tires for car

- replace weatherstrip on windows

- seal windows w/ silicone
- Buy Life Insurance

- replace axle assembly on car (scheduled for tomorrow)

- bring car for inspection (DMV)

- renew AAA membership

And for Swe-cha's birthday:

- birthday outfit

- book photographer and videographer

- order cake and cupcakes (?)

- finalize decorations, souvenirs, prizes and loot bags

- go over program details w/ host

- finalize headcount and confirm ribbon / tablecloth scheme w/ caterer

I hope I am not forgetting anything.

Eggplant and Pork

We love eggplant.

We love pork.

We love eggplant and pork dishes. One day, I decided to look for the recipe of one of our favorite recipes and found a Szechuan Eggplant and Pork Recipe on Food and Wine.com. I followed the recipe exactly with the exception of the chili bean paste, I substituted salted black beans instead.

We loved it so much, we cooked this three times in one week. Then we realized it was excessive :)

Life at 10

My son is 10 months now and while taking care of him has become easier in some aspects, it has become much harder in other ways.

For starters, he's sleeping much better now during the day, taking naps on almost-predictable times. You could say that he has a regular schedule. Night times are still iffy because he still wakes up crying occasionally when he's feeling gassy and while he sleeps through* the night already on most days, he still wakes up at 5:30a to snack.

During the day, he usually demands a lot more of my time. When I leave him alone in his play yard, he climbs his yard fence (check out previous post) and he would shake and rattle it with his whole body much like a monkey in a cage. It would be so amusing, if it weren't so scary for me to watch. Anyway, I don't go far from his play yard because of that.

This afternoon, I found some time to organize and arrange his jars of food in the cabinet (they've been accumulating on the kitchen counter as we don't have time to make space and rearrange the cabinet) while he happily played by himself in his play yard. I was also able to set aside a bit of time to check out webhosting reviews for when we get our (my partner and I) online shop launched and officially move to a better hosting site. And, hey, I also got a few minutes set aside to post an entry here, didn't I ?

After I hit "publish" for this post, I will be moving on to dismantling those shipping boxes (all those things I ordered online since September) and getting them off to the recycle bin. Then I need to get to that stack of paperwork accumulating on our dining table. I need to scan then shred. Sigh.

My ultimate wish for Christmas is to have a not-so-cluttered home.

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*sleeping through - defined by 5 hrs of straight sleep

My Son, The Escape Artist

My son has started climbing the fence of his play yard now. It's yet another item added to the already long list of reasons why I cannot and will not leave him alone for more than a few seconds.

Weeks (or months) ago, I was lamenting to my friend, R, that I could never get anything else done at home. "How do you do it?" I asked her, and she told me that I should learn to let go and not hover so much.

When he was climbing that fence last night, his Dad and I were having a discussion...

- that, maybe, we shouldn't be encouraging his climbing

- that, maybe, we should flick him or raise our voice to show him that it's forbidden

But we thought he was cute and we let him climb. More importantly, we decided that it was best that he be able to practice and gain confidence while we're there to supervise and make sure that he does not hurt himself because he will surely find other ways and opportunities to climb and I'd rather that he be more stable when he attempts it by himself.

In any case, here I am, lamenting stating the fact that I still won't be able to do any housework in the near future. I figure, we could live in a disorderly house but if something happens to my son while I'm cleaning the house ? I wouldn't be able to forgive myself.

My dream is that when I'm back working and we have the added income, we should hire a nanny or a housekeeper to help out.

Pouring

Once again, we are testament to the adage that when it rains, it pours and in our case, it is partially literal too!

(1) In the early part of October, building management asked to check out my windows. The unit downstairs had been reporting a leak coming through its walls and management has exhausted all other options and decided to check the walls on my part of the building. Sure enough, there was a crack on the outer wall and water was getting in because the weather strips around my windows were worn out and water was getting in and pooling around the crack. Bldg management will take care of sealing the outer wall crack but we now have to replace all the weather stripping on our windows. Cost to replace weather strips, including tax and shipping: $40 (not bad).

(2) This afternoon, the super came by to seal the outer wall crack and he noticed that our windows need to be resealed too in the area where the glass meets the frame. *sigh*. Estimated cost of sealant (needs to be same color as the frame): $10 ?

(3) This item on the list is what concerns me the most. Our bathroom ceiling has been leaking on and off for the past two years. Each time I report it, the bldg super either just replaces the vent cap on the roof or repairs the roof over our part of the bldg by pouring some sort of sealant or compound. Two nights ago, it started leaking again and what worries me is that it's dry out. It wasn't even raining! So where was the water coming from ? There are no units above us.

The thing is, we have a textured finish on the bathroom wall ceiling. If part of the paint has to be stripped out to see what's underneath, the entire thing needs to be stripped and refinished. And if the whole ceiling is to be redone, I would prefer that the entire bathroom be redone as well because it really is outdated. So this is sort of a cascading expense.

Part of me wants to ignore for now if the leak stops (super has promised to reseal our part of the roof) and part of me wants to strip it and see if mold is growing underneath but the latter option scares me because of the cascading expense it might start.

estimated cost: $10 (for mold testing kit) all the way to $5k - $7k for a bathroom remodel

The next items concerns our old(er) car:

(4) New tires, there's really no way around this. Cost: $600-900, depending on brand and model of tires.

(5) Right inner axle boot cover is ripped. Subaru is charging $286 + tax for just the boot cover replacement. I called different repair shops to get estimates:

• Midas: $305 + tax for just the boot cover
• Meineke: $135 + tax for just the boot cover but they recommend replacing the axle as well because if dirt / grit got in already, then damage has already been done. The entire thing will cost $185 + tax (only $50 more).
• Aamco: recommends replacing the entire thing as well, estimates $180 - 190 + tax.

Looks like we'll be going w/ Meineke and will have the whole axle assembly replaced. We decided to go with Meineke over Aamco for the simple fact that Meineke is open on Saturdays while Aamco is M-F only.

(6) November is property tax time again. We pay every quarter so our next payment will be in February, 2011.

(7) And last, but not the least, Christmas season. It's the season to be jolly and the season to spend... add that to Swe-cha's upcoming birthday celebration. Eek.

Hoping that 2011 will bring lots of blessings and good karma, especially on the job front. If expenses keep mounting up like these, we're going to need the income.

Craving

I have a craving for cake. I want yellow / white cake with sickly sweet vanilla frosting.

I'm thinking that since it's getting awfully chilly here at home, it might be time to break open that box of Betty crocker instant cake mix and crank up the oven. I'm just feeling lazy to take out the baking pans.