Skip to main content

March 2024

One of my friends recently gave me her drum set for Guitar Hero, which may not be exciting to you, but I was definitely hyped. If you've ever seen Whiplash, I downloaded Caravan (the song they play at the very end), and tried it out... and it is nigh impossible. (S/O to Steph's cow cubby.) I asked Johnny, who is one of the best drummers I know, to try it out and he was also struggling, so I felt better about myself.

I took this picture to show the paint store what paint I needed each time I went back for another gallon. It has been on my to-do list for a while to paint the patio cover that the previous owner had built. Let me tell you... I never want to paint again. I borrowed a paint sprayer from a friend and even then, it was one of the most tedious things ever. It took me about 2 weeks to finally get the whole thing painted! If you enjoy painting or are skilled at it, wow. Color me impressed (haha, get it?).

The same time I started painting my patio, a large sinkhole opened up underneath a friend's house! A dozen or two people from church showed up to shovel some dirt and rocks into wheelbarrows that were wheeled over to the hole that seemed never-ending. Not pictured: the mountain of dirt that we started with, nor the deepest hole you ever did see under a house. Also, maneuvering a full wheelbarrow is tougher than it looks.

The windows on my car stopped working (pressing the buttons did not trigger anything). I tried my hand at trying to see if I could get it fixed. Luckily, I have a friend who has almost any tool you can think of, so I went to his house (as he was leaving) to just borrow his tools. It turned out to be a simple fix (thankfully). I opened up the door, unplugged the power window switch and then plugged it back in and it seemed to get it going again. WHEW.

Going along with the foods update, I tried my hand at making homemade char siu baos. They are definitely.. not pretty. But they tasted pretty good! I'm going to mark these down under the 'too much trouble to make again' category.

This is my brother's dog, Rachel. She was a rescue and had a great fear of anyone that she did not know. (She still does.) But here she is asking me for more pets. 😭

Me and Steph have gotten back into puzzling! We have a big puzzle board that allows us to move the puzzle if we need the space without ruining anything. And the drawers allow me to organize the colors of the pieces without taking up precious space. I'm definitely an organizer over someone who puts the pieces together. If you have any puzzle recommendations, around 500-1500 pieces, please let me know! Or if you have any puzzles that you've done that you are wanting to get rid of, I'm open too. :-)

We have a friend who had access to some stone slabs who offered to cut us one to match our mahjong table so that we could use it as a normal table other than to just play mahjong with. It looks so good! As you can tell from all of these updates, I'm super thankful for all of the friends we have that are willing to help us out in life! And that includes everyone reading these updates. 😍

The other day, Steph asked me if I wanted her to pick up anything from the grocery store as she was going to submit a curbside order. I asked her to grab me 3 potatoes so that I could use it for dinner. She came back with 3 5-lb bags of potatoes (lol). Luckily, it's SOW (Spring Outreach Week)! During this week, some of our campuses host a group of students from Washington during their spring break for them to do outreach on our campuses. A number of families in our churches are asked to host these students for dinner. Leah, one of our previous admins for FOCUS, does a dinner each year, and I come and help her! I brought over 2 of the 5-lb bags to make a huge vat of mashed potatoes. And to my surprise, they finished the whole thing!

I have recently been having some people over from church to spend time with them and get to know them a little better. The first week, we made dumplings and watched The Parent Trap (the Lindsey Lohan version, of course). The next week we made baked potatoes (because of the potatoes that Steph bought) and did a puzzle depicting Noah's ark. Peep the 15 or so penguins that Noah brought on the ark.

I give blood regularly, stemming from my time in high school when I was in Red Cross Club. Each year, Carter BloodCare hosts a dinner for its most consistent donors—and this year they had a dinner at the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Love Field. It was pretty cool to explore the museum without a big crowd there (though I'm not sure how many people are usually there). Here's me with a plane.




 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

November 2023

Happy Thanksgiving!! I hope y'all had a wonderful week and got to eat yummy food! :-) It's been a crazy month!! Our church had our annual fundraiser for the kids' ministry. We flew in Iain Provan for a weekend to speak at a joint-church service and Pizza Theology. I got to see a few movies—something that I've not done in a little while. Birthdays, parties, funerals, dinners. And today is Giving Tuesday! (And the month is still not done yet!) If you haven't heard, FOCUS has an annual fundraiser called Keep FOCUS Growing. A generous subset of our supporters has pledged to match over $55,000 in donations that come in during this fundraiser campaign which officially ends today! If you haven't yet, would you consider donating? To learn more and to donate, visit anyfocus.org/kfg ! We will also be posting updates on our Facebook page today. For a taste of what God is doing on our college campuses, read through this short testimony from Josh at UTA that was posted yest...

February 2024

Had the opportunity to see my friend, Kaytlin, off as she moves out of state! One of the strangest people I've met, but also one of the quickest I've connected with. (Does that mean I'm strange too?) We met at a church (not my church) pickleball tournament last year and someone asked us if we knew each other from before. My go-to response in those instances is, 'Oh yeah, we go waaay back.' But in reality, we had just met a few minutes prior. Happy Lunar New Year! I got to celebrate with these friends from church with some good food that we spent hours preparing. 新年快樂 (Happy New Year!) Alright.. my first time trying to make focaccia. It turned out more dense and bread-y than it was supposed to. But I'm going to keep trying! If there's anything you think I should try making, let me know. :-) Happy Valentine's Day! I got these flowers after the actual day because they're cheaper that way.. but the thought still counts, right? 😁 Whether you have a signi...

June 2024

  I got to spend some time with this group of guys in Colorado. It was so beautiful and I enjoyed getting to take some time off after the big SICM trip. It was also a sweet time to get to know these guys more in depth and experience their servant-heartedness while we were all taking care of each other: making meals, cleaning, and trying to include everyone in the fun.  From left to right: Stian (green hat, former UTD campus pastor, Collin campus pastor), Mick (blue hoodie, UTD alum, Collin campus pastor apprentice), ME, Kevin (tall guy, Collin campus pastor), Steven (glasses, Denton campus pastor), Brandon (old guy, UTD campus pastor), Jared (chain necklace, UTD alum), and Jonathan (Broncos jersey, UTD alum). I love seeing the stars—it's so rare to see them in the city. Obviously my phone does not do it justice by any stretch, but you could see stars stretching across the entire night sky in Colorado. When I look up and see the vastness of stars, it reminds me of how small we ...