WW - Dova Dances in her Purple Leotard

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Ruby Tuesday - Chinese New Year Decoration

This is a red decoration of a cute ox that my mother gave me for Chinese New Year to decorate my home. I know that you should decorate your house in red papers for Chinese New Year, but when do you get to take them down? Since the Chinese are steeped in tradition and superstition for everything, I decided to consult the internets for the answer.

I found this site which describes all the days leading up to and following the Chinese New Year. There are no less than 15 days of various celebrations after Chinese New Year! The funniest one is the 12th day of the Chinese New Year Festival - The Diarrhea Day: "Many people keep eating with greasy food from Chinese New Year Eve for 11 days. They might have a trouble for diarrhea on this day...."

The last event is the Lantern Festival on the 15th day, which was February 9th this year. Since we are well past that, I'm probably clear to take it down now!


Hosted by The Teach at Work of the Poet.

Knitted Kitties

I knitted a pair of knitted kitties for Adam and Dova from this pattern. Adam's striped kitty on the right was knit with variegated yarn from my late cousin Ruth. I made his kitty completely to the pattern (oops, I forgot to give him a nose).  For Dova's kitty, I knit the tail using I-cord, but it definitely looks a bit odd considering it is striped with smooth stockinette.  Dova's kitty was made from the sleeve of her sweater that I previously knitted and took apart. Now, instead of a sweater she won't wear, she has a cardigan vest which she won't wear.  She does love her kitty as it is the perfect size to hold in her hand when she falls asleep.



Apparently, my cat Wysiwyg thought that these were her knitted kitties and wanted to pose with them. I was just setting up the shot and she just waltzed in and sat down between them.



If you're a knitter and love social networking, you must check out Ravelry. I had joined ages ago and hooked up with a few knitting friends and bloggers that I knew. I had since let it languish as I haven't knitted any new projects. A few weeks ago, I uploaded the knitted kitty photo and almost immediately, someone left a nice comment.  I also had birthday wishes in my inbox and an invitation to join a group called "Angela knits".  As on every other social networking site, you can find me as moonfever0.  What a cool community!

PH - Warm

There was only one warm day during our Florida vacation last December where we could check out the pool. Here's the "interactive water feature":



And the water umbrella:









Hosted by tnchick.com.

PSF - My First Photograph

When I was five, my parents handed me an Instamatic 126 cartridge film camera so that I could take my first photograph. We were living on the 7th floor of an apartment building in Flushing, NY. I saw a fire truck peeking out of the firehouse on the street below and I framed the shot. I was very gunshy about pressing the shutter because I wanted to make the photograph perfect. I kept looking up and then through the viewfinder to make sure the shot looked good. My mother urged me to take the picture but I wasn't ready.  After five minutes of deliberation, I pressed the shutter. Click, my very first photograph.

Later that day, we went to the Queens Botanical Garden, where I took more photographs. Here is one that I took of my parents:



I meant to put them on the edge of the frame, right?  To commemorate my first roll of film, my father took this picture of me (right) and a friend.



We were both wearing bright purple winter coats and I had a long stocking cap tucked into my hood. How dorky! My mother saved this camera which I loved just playing with through the years.





Our kids have taken tons of photos with their own digital camera. I can't honestly say which was the first photograph taken by each of my children, I may have even deleted it! But at least I have my own memory of leaning on the windowsill, giving birth to my lifelong love of photography.


Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

When in Doubt, Interview Your Kids

Are you looking for something more substantial from me lately? Yes, the blog has been long on photos and short on prose because all of my writing energy has been put into BlogHer posts recently. In my latest post about playing doctor, I was at a loss for material so I interviewed my kids as I sometimes do. I used the free iTalk application for the iPhone to record the interviews.



Adam had such a blast being interviewed that he requested to do a second interview about soccer. I decided not to post the audio on the interwebz because it would require way too much editing, but at least I'll have them to remember their sweet voices when they're all grown up.

Check out all my posts on BlogHer so far (you can even subscribe):

• The Creative Play of Playing Doctor
• Leaving the Innocence of Family Love
• Do Competitive Sports Start Too Young?
• Breastfeeding and Weaning - It Should Be Easy, Right?
• The Choice Between Cloth and Disposable Diapers
• When Grandparents Spoil Their Children
  

While you're there, check out the new BlogHer social networking. There's friending and chatter and all sorts of fun stuff. Won't you be my friend?

And if you're here to see where I've interviewed my kids here, check out:

• Proverbs by Adam, First Grader
• A 4- and 8-Year Old's Wisdom on Mothers and Fathers

On a separate note, I am going to BlogHer '09!! Hope to see you there.

WW - Snowball Fight

Making a snowball.


Good throw, Dova!


Snowball collision.


Easy target.


Upside down.

Visit by Wordless Wednesday or 5 Minutes for Mom for more participants.

The Doer and the World

Nothing like quiz filler for a post!  I've been getting over yet another cold and had two BlogHer posts to write in the mean time.  Here's a quiz that I found from Mo at It's a Blog Eat Blog World:

You are the World

Completion, Good Reward.

The World is the final card of the Major Arcana, and as such represents saturnian energies, time, and completion.

The World card pictures a dancer in a Yoni (sometimes made of laurel leaves). The Yoni symbolizes the great Mother, the cervix through which everything is born, and also the doorway to the next life after death. It is indicative of a complete circle. Everything is finally coming together, successfully and at last. You will get that Ph.D. you've been working for years to complete, graduate at long last, marry after a long engagement, or finish that huge project. This card is not for little ends, but for big ones, important ones, ones that come with well earned cheers and acknowledgements. Your hard work, knowledge, wisdom, patience, etc, will absolutely pay-off; you've done everything right.

What Tarot Card are Yu?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Wow, outstanding!  I've always wanted to be a cervix.  And Melissa at Taking What is Left showed me the Typealyzer, which analyzes your web site:

ESTP - The Doers

The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

Analysis

This show what parts of the brain that were dominant during writing.

ESTP?  Hardly, I am always INTJ.  But I do classify myself as a doer for the most part.  Just to make sure I haven't switched types, I took the Myers-Briggs test at HumanMetrics and came out:

YOUR TYPE
I	N	T	J
Strength of the preferences %
33	25	50	89

Ah yes, good ol' INTJ still.  And in good company with Stephen Hawking, Andrew Grove, Marie Curie, Guy Kawasaki, Igor Sikorsky, and Hillary Clinton.  And apparently according to their career indicator, I have the perfect career as a computer programmer.  Life is good.

PH - Nautical

During last year's whale watch, I also took shots of the kids searching for the whales. I could also just call these series of shots "overexposed", but I like the way my kids are exposed fine. It was really bright that day.

Hair Color Part 2 - Chinese vs. Black

This post title isn't meant to incite controversy, I just had to keep to the theme of Hair Color Part 1 - Men vs. Women.  It means just because I'm Chinese, doesn't mean that I have black hair  (I have no experience with African American hair - sorry!).


Awesome photo of Vanna Venom.

I recently had this instant messaging conversation about coloring my hair with an Asian friend (who prefers colour over color):

Me: I went from dark brown with gold back to dark brown.  I like the gold better, makes me look like Dova.

Asian friend: huh??

Me: hair color?
Me: colour?

Asian friend: your hair is BLACK!!!

Me: no way! never been!

Asian friend: yes it is!! You are CHINESE!!

Me: OMG, you're making me ROFL at work

Asian friend: don't mess with my head!!!!
Asian friend: you are evil and must be destroyed!!!

Me: seriously, dark brown.  I once got black by my hairdresser by accident and it looked totally wrong
Me: my ends are still black and my roots are dark brown (with gray of course).

Asian friend: what colour is mine then?  I would say black

Me: yours is darker than mine.

Asian friend: bottled black

So there is an assumption that all Asian women have black hair.  I beg to differ.  I've always thought that my hair was dark brown.  The first time I went to color it, my hairdresser carefully matched the color and came up with "Cappuccino".  I've since gone the do-it-yourself route, especially since I only visit my hairdresser once or twice a year for a haircut.

In reference to the "dark brown with gold", I had tried Clairol Natural Instincts Golden Shimmer Hair Color, Golden Cappuccino # 28G. For a few weeks, I really had Dova's beautiful golden highlights.  Unfortunately, it was only a level 2 permanent, so it washed away after a month.  And they don't have the golden blended colors in the level 3 permanent colors.

I'm extremely sensitive to hair color.  Once I had reddish highlights and I hated it.  Once it came out black as mentioned in the IM and it was horrible.  It was as though I had blue highlights - totally unnatural!  See this photo if you dare.  I spend what seems like hours looking at hair color in the store.  Nothing too warm, or it will look too red.  Nothing too cold, or it will look too blue.  If only I can adjust the white balance of my hair in Photoshop!  And my hair is still darker on the ends than it is at the roots from that previous mishap.  This proves that I have brown hair!

Hair Color Part 1 - Men vs. Women

Just for Men Brush-In Color Gel for Mustache, Beard & Sideburns

I was standing at the back of a high-powered meeting with important big wigs of my company that flew in from headquarters.  I was just part of the dog and pony show and had to stand and smile for an hour as the minority female engineer, I mean as a Technology Team Leader.  In most long meetings where I have little interest or input, I write blog posts in my notebook (this very post was written during a "New Development Process" meeting).  In this case, I was standing without a notebook.  So I scanned the room absentmindedly.  There were twenty or so men in their 40's through 60's and three women including me.  The other women were in human resources (I often kid about being the token female engineer/manager, but there is a serious lack of them in my company).

I noted how many of the men were balding, how many were graying, and how many colored their hair.  Now women's hair color is a well-developed art and science, with blended colors and very natural looking results.  Older women who wish to be gray still color their hair gray to provide a softer, more even look.  And most women look great with colored hair.  That's not to say that some still totally botch it.  At least every women in this room looked great in their hair coloring (including me).  Men's hair color has stayed in the stone ages.  It looks flat and unnatural.  Just look at that guy on the box!  The majority of the men did not color their hair.  And it looked perfectly natural.  The ones who did color either looked fake, or had that unnatural gray/blond look.  I prefer salt and pepper over obviously dyed men's hair any day. (I must be getting old when salt and pepper hair is attractive.)  Is it a cultural expectation that men not color their hair?  And then there are men that don't gray and don't need to color their hair (like my husband).  They get wrongly accused for coloring their hair when they don't.  You can't win.  If you're a man in your 40's or 50's, you're expected to have gray hair.

So what do other people think about during meetings like this?  Are they as distracted as I am?

See also Hair Color Part 2 - Chinese vs. Black

WW - Dova Loves Her Lil'Kinz Hummingbird

Of course I failed to capture the Hummingbird in the first shot because I was so focused on Dova's beautiful face!

Silly Monkey Story - Death by Laundry

In our house there is a loft on the second floor where you can look down onto the floor below. On laundry day, we love to throw the dirty clothes from the second floor into the basket below. And Adam loves to ham it up. Here he is acting out "death by laundry".


Hosted by Karen at 3 Garnets and 2 Sapphires.

Photo Hunters - Bridge

Even though I love winter, you know I must be getting tired of it if you start seeing warm summery pictures. This bridge is at beautiful Rancho Capistrano in California.

What Exactly Is a Fat Choy?

Every year around this time, I have to write a post about how I'm so not Chinese.  Either my parents have overcome all the superstitions around Chinese New Year, or I was totally oblivious.  Every year I learn something new about Chinese Year, either from books (yes, even children's books), the news, and even bloggers.  For example, I learned from Momisodes that you're not supposed to wash your hair on Chinese New Year.  And according to the children's book, My First Chinese New Year, you're also supposed to cut your hair in preparation for the new year.  Except that I purposely didn't cut Adam's hair because I knew that Grandma loves his hair long.  She said he looked handsome like Harry Potter.  Harry Potter, Chinese New Year, what's more important??

This year, I also learned from NPR that you can leave an offering of a whole chicken for the kitchen god at Chinese New Year.  I didn't even know there was a kitchen god until I read Amy Tam's The Kitchen God's Wife.  And see our hot pot dinner?  Lots of beef, pork, shrimp, fish, dumplings, squid balls (yuck!), veggies and noodles.  No chicken.

I read My First Chinese New Year to Dova that evening and at the end, there was the greeting "Gung Hay Fat Choy".  She immediately asked what a Fat Choy was.  To which I replied, "I don't know, it's Cantonese."  I couldn't remember the Mandarin greeting until I saw it on Asianmommy.  Of course, Xin nian kuai le!

So Happy Year of the Ox to everybody!


Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

13 Things I Learned About Carbon Footprint

The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Your Carbon Footprint: Nancy S. Grant

I had planned this post long before Thursday Thirteen went away and old habits are hard to break.  I consider myself pretty savvy when it comes to all things green, but there were definitely things that I learned from reading this book.

1. The three main greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.  Their main sources come from fossil fuels, mining and fertilizers respectively.
2. SHGC is the "solar heat gain coefficient" for windows.  Depending on your climate, you may need a higher or lower coefficient.  This is different from the U-factor which measures how well a window stops heat flow.
3. Add a water bottle filled with sand to your 3 or 5 gallon toilet tank to reduce the amount of water per flush.  I also learned from wrestling with my mom's toilet that you can reduce the amount of water by fiddling with the screws on the float.
4. Burning local wood in a wood stove reduces greenhouse gas emissions because it uses less transportation and distribution networks than other fuels. It is also considered part of the natural carbon cycle.
5. Green roofs use soil and plants to insulate and moderate temperature of buildings.  Doug and I saw lots of houses with grass roofs in Norway on our honeymoon, and I was completely fascinated by them.
6. Ethanol produces less greenhouse gases than regular gasoline.  Ethanol from cellulosic plant material (stems and leaves) can reduce greenhouse gases up to 100%. Ethanol from corn starch (the majority produced in the US) can reduce greenhouse gases 25%.
7. Electric and hybrid cars have up to 72% fuel efficiency rating compared to gas powered cars at 20%.
8. Turning a fluorescent light on and off within 15 minutes can shorten its life.  This fact has been driving me bonkers because I'm always switching off our CFLs only to flip them on a few minutes later.
9. Low pressure sodium lamps are the most energy efficient lights that are readily available.  They are used mostly for street lamps.
10. More than half of the energy to power a large data center is used for air conditioning as opposed to powering the equipment.
11. Heat islands occur where there is a large expanse of asphalt or concrete and can be mitigated by planting grass and trees through the space or using planter boxes.
12. Xeriscaping is the practice of using drought resistant plants for landscaping in dry climate areas instead of grassy lawns.
13. The average food travels 1500 miles before reaching customers.  Lower the carbon impact by buying local foods in season.  This time of year, I see lots of fruits coming from South America!

If you also have a lot to learn about carbon footprint, check out The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Your Carbon Footprint.  If you live in the US  and would like to win my review copy (used but acceptable condition), please leave a comment saying so.  The winner will be picked on February 20th at 11pm.

WW - Escape to the Beach

Since Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on Monday, we are in for six more weeks of snow and cold. But I can always pull up these pictures to remind us of how we had escaped to the beach last December in lovely Melbourne, Florida.

Silly Monkey Stories - Rolling in the Dough

Adam's favorite game is Monopoly, that is when he is winning. During this game, I got two monopolies naturally (light and dark blues) and felt bad for him, so I made him an awesome deal (pinks and oranges for reds) which he jumped at. Of course this meant the end for me and he started to clean up. We got to the point where I had mortgaged everything and he had over $5000, and I told him that he was "rolling in the dough". He had never heard this expression before and thought it was hysterical.  And then he proceeded to roll all over his money.  This picture was shot when he was supposed to be putting the game away.  It was obviously much more fun to keep rolling in the dough.


Hosted by Karen at 3 Garnets and 2 Sapphires.