More than 1 year later...

Hello folks...if any of you are still out there reading blogs instead of doing Instagram or some other micro platform.

I am back...It has been more than one year since my last blog post which was dated June 18th, 2019....

I meant to continue posting our Maui trip from last summer...

(somewhere along the way up Hale'akala...)


(View from the Garden of Eden, on the way to Hana)


(Keanae Lookout, on way to Hana)

As well as  my 50th birthday foodcrawl where we ate at places that were part of the Filipino food movement. I had blogged about the now closed Irenia in Santa Ana(Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here)...

We enjoyed meals at Ma'am Sir in Silver Lake (I went twice; the second time was in May 2019 with the Educator GF's)...

and Tatang Noho in North Hollywood:

as well as an epic high end dinner at LASA located in the Far East Plaza in Chinatown:

While checking out new murals such as this one in Historic Filipinotown...

(Parking lot of Rideback Ranch, creators of the Lego Movies, located on Beverly Blvd)

and trying ube EVERYTHING here on Sunset Blvd.,

I also meant to finish our Spring 2018 Portland trip...

I really loved my lemongrass coffee with condensed milk from Kopi...

and our appetizers from the soon to be defunct Pok Pok Noi, which was part of the Pok Pok empire by Andy Richter; because of covid-19 and the death of a chef friend of his, he is scaling way back. (Read the article here).



(one of the many iconic bridges Portland, OR; this was the St. John's Bridge with Cathedral Park underneath it)


(Figo House - reminded us of the house in the Pixar movie, "Up")

But none of that happened.


I actually forgot my password since I hadn't logged in for awhile.  I had a backlog of posts but at this point, am wondering if it is worth it to even put them out. I still keep pix in my flckr account and they are there just for the record but may not necessarily be posted.

A lot has changed in the world since then.  More pressing matters.

To fill you in, I had stopped blogging last year because we had renovated our downstairs and our new furniture was not comfortable for me to sit and do posts.  My neck and back were starting to hurt so I took care of my health instead.

My blog entered it's second year of being a "teen", FOURTEEN.

The months went by really fast. Our daughter, TC (who is technically an adult at 19 years of age) has finished her 2nd year of college.

My sister moved in with us last October and moved to her own place this past April. It was nice spending more time with her, cooking together, going on walks and exploring neighborhoods and trying new restaurants together.

Sadly, racial tensions and violence against blacks  are at an all time high, as evidenced by the protests against police brutality in the U.S. We saw, and will probably continue to see protests in the U.S. as well as worldwide. It may be uncomfortable for some, but it time for the ugly reality of systemic racism to be addressed and changed.

The pandemic happened and is still happening. School for the kids turned into "distance learning". My role as a counselor changed drastically. No more in person meetings. I had to work from home. We had to learn new platforms like Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams.  I was thankful to still work in my profession as an educator but it just wasn't the same working from home.

Now I am on summer break (from June 5 up to July 21)...

Thanks to Kirk for nudging me to do a recent post. I wanted to fill in some of the blanks. I'm sure you all have had your share of dealing with the "new normal" (face masks, working from home, if you weren't laid off, being quarantined from March to May, etc)...

Bert and I will celebrate our 25th Wedding Anniversary this year as well!

A lot has happened and will continue to happen. It just may not make it on the blog. I think people  have moved away from reading blogs in general but I still can't let mine go just yet.  I do have an Instagram but because I like writing in longer form, I prefer the blog. I just prefer to do the quick pix with some explanation on IG but it's not the same.

I hope you are all well out there. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.  There will be future posts but I won't wait another year to do my next one!