 1.This week on Totes Awesome Channel, we are vlogging about Halloween costumes! Many thanks to AshleyD for switching days with me just for this week. I’m traveling today so this post was actually written Thursday and my vlog went live yesterday instead of today. Youtube Link 2.I thought I’d share a few of my small victories from this week. Small Victory #1 I ordered from the meat counter in an Asian grocery store and I did it in Spanish! I told Ashley that I’ve dawdled on my resolution of learning 10 Vietnamese dishes because the Asian grocery store intimidates me. Most of the items aren’t labeled in English, I don’t read Vietnamese (nor Chinese, Korean, Japanese), and there’s usually a language barrier because I don’t speak Vietnamese well and also a lot of workers are Spanish speaking. It can be intimidating! I definitely don’t order from the meat counter either because you have to verbally communicate and you can’t just pick up an item and study it to see if it is what your’e looking for. This week I went and found all sorts of new-to-me ingredients. Just finding the tumeric, annatto seeds, dried black mushrooms, and bean thread was already a small victory. Then I saw the meat counter and talked myself into just walking by and looking. A Hispanic man saw me eying the prawns and asked, “Cuanto?” And I robotically said, “doce.” He counted 12, gave me the bag and I said, “gracias!” I seriously had to resist high-fiving myself. 3.Small Victory #2 I bought a used but pretty car outright. Thanks to my insurance company and my emergency fund, I am not paying any interest and my credit didn’t get dinged for another loan.  4.Small Victory #3   Last week my resolution progress towards 10 Vietnamese recipes sat at 2/10 complete. I’m now currently at 6/10. I counted the first two from this week as one since they were condiments. 3) traditional pickled carrots and daikon 5.By the time this post publishes, I’ll be en route to Marfa, Texas with Kim. I sometimes forget to piece smaller details together when they are encased by an exciting big picture. The big picture here is we’re spending the night in an actual teepee! A smaller detail is that there is no proper door to a teepee to keep snakes and other desert dwellers out. To quote our lodging guidelines:
As Samuel L Jackson might say, please don’t let there be any motherf–king snakes in our motherf–ing teepee! 6.November is around the corner and I’m considering blogging every day in November as I did the last two Novembers. Oh boy! Topic suggestions are welcomed! 7.This week’s moments of bliss: ♥ Alan cleaning the kitchen (something on my to do list) while I was showering as a surprise ♥ the small victories ♥ Marfa weekend is here! Marfa weekend is here! ♥ chats with my sister ♥ glitter nail polish ♥ puppy cuddles ♥ picking up my new-to-me car ♥ seeing my parents for a short bit ♥ staying up late to kill moths with Alan after they infiltrated our home (left door open!) ♥ realizing a few things hoped for on our balloons have manifested in 2012 ♥ flowers from Treavor Question: What were your small victories from this week? |