Fabulous Adventures of Listgirl

They Declared a Pandemic on my Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Tue, 12 May 2020 17:19:00 +0000

I had a major milestone birthday on March 11th. We got to go out and celebrate. But it was also the day that the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a worldwide pandemic.

I’ve been meaning to blog about my birthday for a long time now (2 months). But things have been SO different since then that it’s hard to even go back to when it was kind of normal. Things like eating out and going to an art supply store. But here it is, for memory’s sake!

Todd took the day off work to celebrate with me. It was also the day that his company declared that everyone should work from home from that day on, until May 1st. They’ve since extended WFH indefinitely. The day began with Todd showering me with gifts.

I got an Apple Pencil, a tracing board with lighting, and a Baby Yoda sketch book. Great gifts! I had been into drawing already so these were prescient gifts for quarantine, it turns out.

I wore my “Fifty Years Young” Baby Yoda shirt that I bought from Disney Store online. We were supposed to spend a few days at Disneyland for my birthday. I was looking forward to all the new Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge rides and attractions. But the pandemic changed all that. Disneyland was closed, and I didn’t get to go. But I still had my shirt!

We had my birthday lunch at Bencotto in Little Italy. They had already instituted social distancing, so the seating was spread out and only at around 50% capacity max.

I had squid ink gnocchi with shrimp and it was delicious!

Todd had gnocchi with spicy marinara sauce and sausage. He really enjoyed it.

After lunch, we walked down the street to Blick Arts so I could peruse art supplies. I purchased a few pens in their loose pen section. Some of my favorite types of pens, where I didn’t have the colors yet. Then we walked over to Extraordinary Desserts, where we seem to celebrate our birthdays, anniversaries, etc. We got my favorite cake there, Truffe Framboise, and took it home to share later that day.

In the evening, we went to the movie theater and saw “Onward”, the new Pixar movie. It was great! It was right before movie theaters shut down, but after people pretty much stopped going to movies. So there was hardly anyone there and we were naturally socially-distanced. I really enjoyed the movie.

It was a wonderful birthday!

I’ve Been Drawing

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 16:53:00 +0000

Recently I’ve been drawing again and it makes me feel so alive, productive, and happy. I had listened to a NPR Lifekit podcast episode about how making art is good for your health. The podcast says that the act of creation reduces anxiety and stress. It’s not the end result that matters, but the act of creating. So I let go of all expectations and just followed some tutorials and started drawing. I loved drawing as a kid. I took art classes in high school, college, and even post-college in my 30’s. But I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it. Until now! I’m so happy to pick it back up again.

I am NOT a great artist by any means. I copy other artists a lot when I practice. If you read Austin Kleon’s book “Steal Like an Artist”, you know that imitation is a form of practice. Perhaps from that, you will evolve your own art and ideas. I love to look at all kinds of art, but I would categorize my own style as graphic and colorful. I have tried sketching still-life and making things look real with depth and shadows and such, and have found that it’s just not my style. I don’t find it fun. I like drawing graphics. I like drawing things that I’m obsessed with at the moment.

In the case of recent months… it’s Baby Yoda! I watched The Mandalorian on Disney+ when it came out end of 2019 and instantly fell in love with Baby Yoda. I have watched the 8 episodes over and over again. So I drew a few different iterations of Baby Yoda…

I integrated my favorite features from these and came up with this Baby Yoda, which I loved. I colored it and cut it out and put it on a card to give to Todd for Valentine’s Day.

And of course I had to also draw the Mandalorian himself. I watched this tutorial.

And I drew Elsa from Frozen, from this tutorial.

And I’ve been watching drawing classes on CreativeBug. I signed up for a three month special during their Black Friday sale. These are a few things I’ve done from Lisa Congdon’s More Sketchbook Explorations class. I LOVE using the watercolor brush markers with the black micron pens and white gelly roll pens!

This one I used a watercolor pan instead of the brush pens.

Both of the above I painted the colors first and let them dry. Then I drew on top of it with black and white pens. This one below I drew the graphics first, and then colored them.

The cool part is that I had a lot of the materials for drawing and painting already, so I didn’t have to buy a bunch of stuff to pick up this hobby again. I am enjoying it so much right now! It feels great to be creative again.

What We’ve Cooked Lately

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Wed, 20 Nov 2019 22:02:00 +0000

I thought it was time to round-up some of the dishes that we’ve been cooking lately. A few months ago, I took over the weekly meal planning and grocery shopping duties. Todd still does the majority of the actual cooking at the stove, but I plan, shop, and prep the meals before he comes home from work. I may do a blog post about the tools and my method of weekly meal planning, if you guys seem interested.

One of my goals in life is to learn to cook some authentic Chinese dishes similar to what my mom used to make for us. Todd and I attempted the Pork & Chive Dumplings. We didn’t make the wrappers from scratch, we just used frozen ones from the supermarket. But we made the pork & chive filling from scratch, and the chili oil from scratch.

We thought it was very good! But we’re going to try a few more different recipes and then pick our favorite.

We saw the episode of Milk Street where they went to Taiwan to eat street market food. One of my favorite fond memories of childhood in Taiwan was the grilled corn from the street vendors, so we had to try to make this Taiwanese Grilled Corn! It was also very good, but no exactly like my childhood favorite, so the search continues!

The 3rd classic Chinese dish we made was Mapo Tofu from Woks of Life. It did turn out yummy, but I think I bought pork that was too lean. Next time I’ll try with a fattier ground pork.

We made homemade from scratch pizza at home! We did purchase a pizza stone and a pizza peel for getting pizzas in and out of the oven. We used the America’s Test Kitchen One Hour Pizza dough recipe. We made two pizzas, one for me and one for Todd. The crust was chewy and crunchy, delicious!

I started perusing the site Eating Well and found a salmon recipe that we tried and LOVED! It really was so tasty! It was this Roasted Salmon with Smokey Chickpeas & Greens. Definitely 5 stars and will be making it again!

Another Milk Street recipe we made was Sichuan Chicken Salad. It was good too!

A couple more salad-y dishes we enjoyed… Speedy Beet and Bean Salad with Herb Vinaigrette, except we added rotisserie chicken too.

Farro Salad with Asparagus, Sugar Snap Peas, and Tomatos

A very flavorful chicken dish that we made for Todd’s family when we visited in August… White Balsamic and Terragon Chicken. Here we separated the chicken and the sauce.

An absolute favorite that we’ve made several times recently is Chicken Curry in a Hurry with Basmati. It is SO GOOD and it’s easy, you make it with rotisserie chicken. You can buy ready to heat naan bread at grocery stores. Also, you MUST get the mango chutney because it really turns this dish from good to GREAT!

Another Indian inspired dish we tried was Punjabi Aloo Gobi. We didn’t super enjoy this one, mainly because of the very strong flavor of the hing. If you try it, let me know what you think!

These Beef Kofta Meatballs with Roasted Vegetables was absolutely delicious! I love Middle Eastern beef kofta at restaurants! I could NOT believe that we could make such similar beef kofta meatballs at home, I was so excited when we tried it! It was great!

Another Woks of Life dish we tried was Red Curry Noodles with Chicken. We liked it! Ours didn’t look very red. It was very easy.

Seared Tofu with Sweet Chili Sauce and Broccoli – very healthy dish

America’s Test Kitchen’s Chicken and Dumplings is SO good! To save time, we used rotisserie chicken. You would need to add more fat (such as butter) to duplicate the taste if using rotisserie chicken.

One of the first things I learned to make in the pressure cooker (Instant Pot) was Tex Mex Chili Mac, and we still love it! It is from the America’s Test Kitchen Pressure Cooker book, but this one seems similar except we use ground beef.

A recent favorite is this Orecchiette with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe from Skinnytaste. Yum!

Last but not least, I’ve fallen in love with steel cut oats again, now that I’ve learned to make it in the Instant Pot! So fast, and so yummy! I put fruits, pecans, and honey in it. I make 2 cups, which is good for 8-9 breakfast servings! Just keep in a glasslock container in fridge and eat it the whole week. Add some milk and heat up.

Well, that was a lot of recipes thrown at ya. Cooking good food at home is one of our enjoyments, so we do it on average 4 dinners per week. See ya next time! If you try any of the recipes, I’d love to know what you think!

October 2019 Favorites

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Sun, 17 Nov 2019 20:09:00 +0000

A little late in summarizing a very busy traveling October. In the beginning of the month, we traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia for vacation, with a one-day stop in Seattle.

We visited the Pike Place Public Market in Seattle.

And visited our friend Cassi in Bellingham, WA.

We visited the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, and went on a Forbidden Vancouver tour.

We biked around the seawall of Stanley Park.

Went on a Gastronomic Gastown Tour.

Visited Granville Island Public Market and Queen Elizabeth Park.

Vancouver was awesome and we would totally go again!

This is definitely NOT a fave, but on our last night on vacation in Vancouver, we got a text from our next door neighbor Fred, who is also our catsitter. A driver in a Prius HIT OUR HOUSE. We are still dealing with insurance and contractors to fix our house, with no end in sight yet. Total bummer! This is what I referred to in my previous blog post about being busy dealing with this sh*t! I will write a whole blog post about dealing with this once it’s finally over, which I don’t expect until January 2020.

We watched Veronica Mars season 4 on a one week Hulu trial. Then we did a 5-day trial of YouTube TV and decided to cut the cord and cancel Dish Network. Saved us $75/month and a great decision so far. No regrets!

On Monday 10/21 I had lunch with my friend from my old job Patsy, at Pailin Thai. I totally forgot to take a photo. It was GREAT to catch up with Patsy!

Todd went on a bike ride by the ocean with some friends from the San Diego Triathlon Club.

On Sunday 10/13 we met up with Sally and her kids to walk around Miramar Lake and have lunch at Chile Peppers afterwards.

On Wednesday 10/16 I had lunch with my work friend Erecca at Ponce’s Mexican. Always so fun to chat with Erecca. We have made it a recurring monthly date to get together.

I am going to write a post about all the awesome new dishes we’ve cooked at home lately. One of them is this homemade from scratch pizza! It turned out so good!

We went to dinner with our friend Cecile at Sushi Fish Attack. It was fun to catch up with Cecile and see what she’s been up to!

I deep cleaned my Keurig for the fall season (I only drink cold brew coffee during the summer). Then I bought the “My K-Cup” (at the recommendation from my friend Jennifer) so I could use whatever coffee I want, and it’s reusable so it’s a lot less waste! I’ve been enjoying extra-good coffee!

We went to Ohio to visit Todd’s family at the end of October. We did lots of fun things, including a special tour of the Goodyear Blimp.

Making a spooky Halloween dinner.

And enjoying the fall foliage.

Noodle was extra needy because of all our traveling. And he’s more snuggly when the weather turns cooler.

Still loving his infinity bed.

$100 Fun Things Budget | October 2019

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 21:57:00 +0000

November has sort of gotten away from me. In the blink of the eye it’s mid-November already. I’ve had things going on that I will tell you about in a month or so, maybe two. Nothing to be alarmed about, but it has kept me busy.

It’s time for the belated October 2019 edition of the “$100 Fun Things Budget”! The below are the items I purchased using my $100 Fun Things Budget. To read the rules of what falls under this budget, please read my previous post that talked about it.

October 2019: $96

Adidas Lite Racer Cloudfoam Slip-On Walking Shoes $22
Max & Mia The Essential Travel Cardigan $25
Felina Comfyz lounge set $13
Sarasa 4+1 Multi Pen Doraemon Time Travel Silver special edition $15
Sarasa Select Ink refills $7
Zebra Mildliner Doraemon Time Travel edition $15

I had two pairs of Skechers slip on walking shoes that I loved and wore for like 3 years. They’ve been worn out, so I bought the Adidas from Costco.com. They were a good deal for $22 (but are no longer available on their website). I had read that they run HUGE. I’m normally a size 6.5-7 in women’s shoes. I decided to buy a size 6 and they’re still quite big! I have to wear thick socks so my feet don’t slide around in them. So they do run HUGE, if you are interested in them.

I ADORE the Max & Mia travel cardigan! They feel soooo soft, exactly like the popular Barefoot Dreams circle cardigans, except waaaaaaay cheaper at $25! I got it in store at Costco, because I wanted to wear it on my two plane trips in October. On plane rides it feels like you’re wearing a soft blanket! I loved it so much that I went back to Costco two weeks later to buy more as Christmas gifts, but by then they only had size L and bigger, and none of the people I was buying for were that size. Too bad! And it’s not on Costco online, so no dice. I linked to Amazon above but it’s also large size and above, and costs more. It’s still cheaper than the Barefoot Dreams version though!

I also bought the two piece Felina Comfyz lounge set at Costco in store. They were on major sale at $13! Both the top and the bottom are so soft and comfy. I’ll definitely get a lot of cozy use out of it this winter!

By the way, I count clothes & shoes in my Fun Budget because lord knows I have enough of clothing that I do not NEED anymore, so I have to use my fun budget to purchase them.

The next three items are all Doraemon related.

It’s a long nostalgic story, but I started reading Doraemon comics (manga) in Chinese when I was in early grade school in Taiwan. It was originally published in Japanese but translated into Chinese. (He’s a robotic cat who time travels.) I still have some of those books! Long story short, over 40 years later Doraemon is still quite big in Japan. I noticed that Amazon even have the mangas translated into English, so a couple of years ago I bought and downloaded some of them to read on my iPad. I *LOVED* reading them as a kid, and I just want to keep reliving it, you know? Lo and behold, I was on Instagram the other day and Tokyo Pen Shop announced they had Doraemon special limited edition pens in stock. I was so excited that I went to the website right away the bought the multi-pen, different colors of refills for it, and the mildliners. If you love Japanese pens and stationery, I highly recommend Tokyo Pen Shop. They’re actually based in the US (Iowa), but source all their special items from Japan.

Just look at the different Doraemon facial expressions on each highlighter! It makes me smile every time I see it!

Doraemon multi-pen with 4 gel ink colors and a mechanical pencil.

My entire pen collection is swatched in a big notebook that I call my “comPENdium” (ha ha, get it?) If you are interested I will write a post about my comPENdium soon. It’s indexed by type of pen and everything! It even includes all my fountain pens and ink refills. I keep the comPENdium updated because it’s fun to look at, but also so I don’t accidentally buy the same pen when I already have it.

That’s it for my October Fun Budget purchases! I’m making my list for Black Friday sales as we speak. I have gift budgets for my family and a few friends that I’m purchasing gifts for. I also have a budget for myself. Top of my list is a new Canon Pixma for printing photos for scrapbooking! I’m totally excited to jump back into scrapbooking. My 7-year old Canon Pixma MG5320 finally bit the dust a few months ago. I can only scrapbook if I can print photos at home, so I need to buy a new printer. Hoping for good Black Friday sales!

Ohio Trip | October 2019

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 22:21:00 +0000

We spent 11 days traveling in October to Vancouver and Ohio. We planned a trip back to Ohio at the end of October to see our new nephew Pierce around 3 months old, and before Todd’s sister Amy went back to work from maternity leave. We happened to be in Ohio in August when Pierce was born, so this time we can see him much bigger and more interactive!

We left on Saturday 10/26. Our flight was delayed by two hours in Nashville, so we didn’t get into Cleveland until 10:30 PM. We watched Ohio State beat Wisconsin on YouTube TV on the iPad at the airport.

On Sunday 10/27 we just hung out, because it was rainy there. We got to have lunch at CoreLife Eatery. I helped Amy & Luke with some financial planning as far as budgeting, retirement, college funds, etc. It was very productive for being a rainy day!

On Monday 10/28 we had a very full day. In the morning we drove to the Goodyear Blimp hangar at Wingfoot Lake, Ohio. My father-in-law Tim is contracting at Goodyear and arranged a special tour of the hangar and the Wingfoot One Blimp for us! It was a guided tour with one of the pilots of the blimp.

We got to learn the history of the Goodyear Blimps, including involvement in WWII and blimps as part of the submarine fleet in the Navy. It was quite interesting.

This is one of the blimps that you see at sporting events!

The aerial camera is mounted in the front of the gondola, below the nose.

There’s a whole rack of AV equipment for broadcasting the images to the networks for the events.

A view of the blimp cockpit.

After the tour, we drove to the Goodyear headquarters in Akron, where we got signed in as Tim’s visitors. They are very secretive at Goodyear HQ. We got signed in and they put stickers on our phones to cover both the front and back cameras so we couldn’t take photos while there. Tim treated us to the really awesome cafeteria there for lunch, and we got to visit the offices where he works.

In the afternoon we started cooking for our Very Ghoulish Halloween Dinner! Before the trip, Todd’s sister Amy planned for us to cook an entire dinner made of ghoulish things to celebrate Halloween. It was all hands on deck as we prepared the extravaganza!

I made these Crescent Mummy Dogs!

Amy made these spider cookies.

Todd got up early before the blimp tour so he could make this brain strawberry cheesecake!

My mother-in-law Sylvia made this spaghetti head with “eyeballs”. The noodles are made of black beans and actually very good! The texture was just right. Not too soggy, just chewy enough.

So the idea was to make an entire human body of food items. My brother-in-law Luke made the yummy ribs by sous vide and then grilling. Get it, ribs? He also grilled up some sausages to look like intestines.

We had some chicken legs (as legs), and some mashed potatoes and green beans.

Some more views of this ghoulish dinner.

It turned out so fun and also Pinterest-worthy! Amy got to check this off her Halloween bucket list, ha ha. The family that eats together, stays together!

We were supposed to fly back on Tuesday 10/29, but Southwest had flight cancellations and delays out of Denver, and our plane couldn’t make it to Cleveland for our flight out. The delay would cause us to miss our connecting flight in Phoenix, so we booked flights for Wednesday at 8am to Atlanta, then San Diego. But it happens that Tuesday was Luke’s birthday, so we got to celebrate with him with dinner out at Kingfish!

Some other things… Noodle’s cousin Morton is a 24 lb Maine Coon! I could barely hold him, he’s so big, LOL.

And the fall foliage is just so pretty. Something we don’t see in SoCal.

And… looks like Sylvia & Todd have their hands full with the kids, ha ha.

Cutting The Cord and Ditching Dish

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Sat, 02 Nov 2019 22:06:00 +0000

Remember when I wrote a post about our 12 month spending analysis, and how 5.5% of our expenses are utilities, of which a good chunk is our monthly satellite TV? After a few weeks of research, we finally made the leap to cutting the cord! We are now officially TV streaming people.

We, along with most people, didn’t really understand how far streaming live TV has come in the last two years. There are actually many choices to stream live TV. There’s Hulu Live, Playstation Vue, Sling TV, YouTube TV, AT&T TV Now, DirecTV Now, etc. For our needs, we evaluated Hulu Live and YouTube TV. Most of these live streaming TV services will offer a free trial of a few days to a week so you can try out how streaming TV works, how it looks and functions, and how the interface works. We did a week of free trial with Hulu Live, then did 5 day trial of YouTube TV.

Here were the functions we were most concerned about, and how the two services stacked up.

Channel Selection: YouTube TV has over 70 channels, while Hulu Live has almost the exact same number, but also includes Hulu original content and on-demand catalog. There really wasn’t any major differences in channel selection. We were mainly concerned about sports channels such as Big Ten Network, FS1, ESPN, CBS Sports Network, etc. and they all have them.
Cost: YouTube TV is $49.99/month. Hulu Live is $45/month. We also looked at AT&T TV Now, which has a $50/month plan and a $70/month plan. For AT&T TV Now, you only get the Big Ten Network on the $70/month tier, so we eliminated them immediately.
Cloud DVR: Hulu Live gives you only 50 hours on their cloud DVR, while YouTube TV gives you UNLIMITED DVR and keeps the recordings for 9 months. And you only have to tell it what your favorite sports teams are, and it will record every single game that your team is airing. Same with favorite shows. I dig it!
Number of Simultaneous Devices/Streams: Hulu TV allows 2 devices/streams, while YouTube TV allows 3 devices/streams. You can watch on your smart TV, Roku, Fire stick, iPad, iPhone. We watched the Ohio State football game while at the airport, on our iPad.
Skipping Commercials: Hulu TV doesn’t allow you to skip commercials (even on DVR recordings), unless you pay an additional $10/month. YouTube TV allows commercial skip on shows that aren’t available on-demand.

The streaming picture quality was pretty much the same between Hulu Live and YouTube TV.

A frequent question that we’ve gotten from family/friends is: Can you get big events like the Super Bowl, the Oscars, etc.? Well YES. It is EXACTLY the same as cable/satellite TV, except much much cheaper! (And you don’t pay taxes/fees like cable/satellite. The price IS the amount you’re charged.) We have over 70 channels of live TV, including all local channels, major networks, major cable channels, sports channels, etc. When we looked at which channels we actually watch, it was only a handful. Cable/satellite claims to give you hundreds of channels, but most of it is useless channels that we never watched, such as shopping channels, religious channels, double-counted HD vs SD channels, etc. The only channel that I want to watch that isn’t available on YouTube TV is the Hallmark Channel, and I plan to pay for a month of Hallmark streaming for $7 during the holidays.

After our free trials, we decided that YouTube TV best fit our needs and signed up! I called a couple of days ago to cancel Dish Network. They offered to lower our monthly bill from $124 to $80. Too little, too late! I kept saying "no thank you, I just want to cancel the service". After three times, he finally gave up and gave me the deets on returning the equipment. We are saving almost $75/month! And good riddance to Dish Network. Seriously. Why would I pay hardware rental fees for three TVs, when I can stream live TV with every channel I want to watch, on all three TVs, without equipment rental. Also no contract, so I can come and go as I please. Bye Felicia! Better late than never! And I’m saving $900/year! Woohoo!

Fall Trip | Vancouver Day 5 Granville Island & Queen Elizabeth Park

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Tue, 22 Oct 2019 19:32:00 +0000

On Monday 10/7, we decided to check out Granville Island, which is located southwest of downtown Vancouver, across a bridge. It was raining, so we decided to drive.

We were hungry and cold when we arrived, so we went into the first coffee shop we saw, GI Gelato & Coffee House, and got a latte and banana bread to share.

It really was underwhelming, to be quite honest. But we got warmed up and were ready to check out Granville Island Public Market!

I had heard about Lee’s Donuts already, so of course we had to check it out! They don’t take cash at all, so we used our credit card for a pumpkin spiced donut, LOL. (An int’l travel tip: see if you have a credit card that doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees, use that card on your foreign trip. We have one and we used that card throughout our trip to Vancouver.)

Right outside the public market, you can see downtown Vancouver across the water. It was quite picturesque!

And because of the rain, we got to wear our ponchos and rainboots we bought for this trip. (See poncho above in photo at Lee’s Donuts.)

Two days before the trip, this was what the forecast looked like. So I got on Amazon and ordered rainboots and rain ponchos, LOL. They arrived in time for our trip!

Thank goodness it did not end up raining every single day of our trip!

After the donut, we checked out many more vendors at the Granville Island Public Market. We had soups at The Stock Market.

We bought some nuts and handmade treats at Bon Mano Bon to take home to gift to Fred, our neighbor and catsitter. We got a huge “cinnamon record” pastry at Stuart’s Bakery.

They also have a HUGE selection of other baked goods. Look at that macaron display!

We also got a proper latte at JJ Bean.

We checked out a few more artisan stores at the market, including a bead store called Beadworks.

And a paper/notebook/pen store called “Paper-Ya”.

Granville Island was awesome and fun, and perfect for a rainy day versus all the other outdoor activities we had gone on, such as the Capilano Suspension Bridge and Stanley Park!

Since we were on the south side of Vancouver already, we went to see Queen Elizabeth Park. It was free! The park was on a hill, so you could see pretty far from it. You could see farther if it weren’t cloudy and raining, LOL.

We walked up and down the hilly trails for some awesome plants and botanical views. It really was quite spectacular. We can’t imagine the upkeep of this place. We saw constant gardening workers coming and going. And we were quite surprised that even in the fall, there was so much plants and flowers to see!

I think the park is a popular location for wedding photos.

I love this photo with all the colors of the plants, and the foggy background!

We got back to the hotel and took a little break in the afternoon. Then we walked a few blocks to dinner at Banana Leaf, a Malaysian restaurant. My friend Jennifer had recommended this place to me when I asked on Facebook about visiting Vancouver. They have several locations in Vancouver. We went to the one on Davie Street.

They had a Pride special of two special large plates for $17 CAD each. One was the Vegetarian Mee Goreng with lettuce, cucumber, tofu goreng, pickled red cabbage, mee goreng, crush peanuts, vegetables, and egg. We added chicken to the noodles for $3 CAD.

The other Pride special plate was Rendang Beef plate with roti canai, eggplant fries, krupuk, rendang beef, mixed vegetable curry, and a fried egg.

Both plates were mega-delicious and we couldn’t have been happier with our dinner choice!

Thus ended our last full day in Vancouver BC! The trip was so much fun and I really enjoyed the city. It was very metropolitan, yet clean! And they have a diverse multi-culture, multi-ethnic city, with a lot of nature, culture, and food to offer. Visiting Vancouver has been on our to-do list for a long time. We’re glad to finally do it on our year of anniversary celebrations. Some places we want to see next time in Vancouver: the Richmond area’s Asian malls & markets, and the Richmond Night Market. And taking the ferry ride to Vancouver Island in Victoria to see Butchart Gardens.

The next day, Tuesday 10/8, we drove south from Vancouver back to Seattle, WA to fly home. Because we both have Global Entry, we were able to use the NEXUS lanes to get through the US customs at the border really fast. There was one car in front of us, and it took us two minutes to cross the border into the US again. We showed our Global Entry cards to the US customs agent at the booth, and it was fast sailing from there. If you travel to other countries, or even just Canada and Mexico a lot, I would highly recommend getting Global Entry for fast entry back into the United States through customs. It’s only $100 for 5 years and it includes TSA Precheck!

Fall Trip | Vancouver Day 4 Gastronomic Gastown Tour

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 23:39:00 +0000

Continuing on our trip report to Vancouver… On Sunday 10/6 after we went to Stanley Park in the morning, we went on the Gastronomic Gastown Tour from 3-6 PM. We booked the tour ahead of time, because we wanted to experience a foodie tour while in Vancouver, and this one is an official Canadian Signature Experience!

We took the bus from near our hotel into Gastown to meet up at the Gassy Jack Statue on Carrall Street. It was raining slightly but our spirits weren’t dampened by a little rain! There were four other people in our tour group for a total of six.

We walked around the Gastown neighborhood and checked out the Woodward’s Building.

Our first stop was at Meat & Bread, Vancouver’s top sandwich place.

Our tour guide Jesse led us into the restaurant. They had a table prepared for us and we sat down.

For this tour, there was the non-alcohol version and alcohol pairing version. We thought that meant we didn’t get any drinks, but that wasn’t the case! Each restaurant actually prepared non-alcoholic mocktails for us! At Meat & Bread, we got a lemon inspired mocktail and a crispy porchetta sandwich.

And boy was it good! I could have eaten more of it if it weren’t for three more stops at other restaurants! The pork was tender and crispy and the salsa verde and bread were top-notch.

We walked around and checked out more buildings in Gastown.

We walked to our next stop, La Mezcaleria, a Mexican restaurant. Being from San Diego, we came to this experience skeptical of having good Mexican food in Vancouver. But they proved us wrong!

At La Mezcaleria, they had a table ready for us. We had a choice of three types of tacos: beef, fish, and pork. I chose the beef taco and it was actually really good. Todd had the fish taco but I didn’t get a good photo of it. Our non-alcohol drink pairing was Horchata de Coco, which was an iced cinnamon and coconut milk horchata. It was the most delicious horchata I’ve ever had! They also served us house-made chips and salsa.

Our next stop was Tuc Craft Kitchen, a Canadian comfort food farm-to-table restaurant.

The interiors were nicely designed and decorated.

We had tempura bacon scotch egg, pork belly crackling, and crispy parsnip fries (not pictured). Everything was quite good, but I got to eat Todd’s egg because he doesn’t like eggs.

Our last stop was Wildebeest for dessert.

I can’t recall what our non-alcohol drink pairing was. It was sour & bitter with lemon taste in it. For dessert, we had the Silky Creme Brulee with Currant Flower Gel, containing locally harvested honey and currants. It was delicious!

The three hour progressive dining tour was very fun and one of the highlights of our trip to Vancouver. Our tour ended at the Gastown Steam Clock, where we watched with the crowd as it turned 6pm and steam and music emitted from the clock.

There was a David’s Tea right there on the corner of the street, so we stopped in to buy some tea. We had ordered David’s Tea in the US a few years back and enjoyed the teas a lot. They have stores in California but none are near San Diego. We bought two types of tea to take home.

Financial Friday | The Importance of the Emergency Fund

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 19:25:00 +0000

We interrupt the Vancouver vacation posts with an important Financial Friday post. The topic today is emergency funds. Do you have 3-6 months of living expenses saved up? If you don’t, I highly recommend that you work towards that right now. Today. And I would go for closer to 6 months than 3 months. Your long term investments like a 401k will not help you if unexpected things happen to you, such as losing your job, or your water heater starts leaking. Which is exactly what happened to us two days ago.

Our water heater was 8 years old. We got it replaced in November of 2011. On Wednesday we noticed that it was leaking. Once a water heater starts leaking, it’s pretty much done. And you don’t have hot water until you get another one installed. So I spent yesterday morning calling local plumbing companies for quotes on 50 gallon water heaters with different warranty periods. The first company came out at 10 am for free to look at it and provide an estimate of costs to replace it. We will call this Company A. The plumber, David, showed up right on time. He called as he was leaving his prior engagement and gave me a 30 minute warning. Not only that, but his company emailed me my appointment time with a photo of him and his name, so that I know who’s coming and what he looks like. I really appreciated that since Todd was at work and I was home alone. Now that’s white glove service!

David from Company A helped me shut off the water to the tank so it stopped leaking. Then he got to work on his tablet to provide me with some quotes. They were all for a certain 50 gallon tank but it was three quotes for three different warranty periods (from 6 years to 10 years). He showed me his quotes and I almost peed my pants. It ranged from $3,200 to $4,000! I know we paid $1,200 in 2011 for this water heater, so I was aghast at what it cost through Company A. He probably saw my face, because next thing he offered financing.

Because Todd and I have built up our emergency fund (we have more than 6 months of living expenses saved up), we never actually need financing for these types of emergencies. But I always act like I don’t know finance and ask them to give me the details anyways, for funsies. Because I like to hear what their pitch is, and what the interest rate is, so that I could calculate how much interest I’m NOT paying, and how much money I saved myself by having an emergency fund.

He told me that the monthly payment was only $61… for 10 years! Like I said in my previous Financial Friday post, car salespeople, home loan salespeople, and anyone whose job is to SELL you things will tell you that you can afford something because you can afford its monthly payment. But what is the real cost to you if you use their financing? I asked him what the annual interest rate was, and he said “9.9%”. So I plugged that into my spreadsheet (after he left, of course) and found out the truth.

First of all, even the $4,000 quote at 9.9% APR yielded a monthly payment of $52.64, so his $61/month must have included some hidden fees. Second of all, if you pay for your water heater with their financing over 10 years, you paid $6,265 for that water heater, rather than $4,000. You are paying $2,265 in interest. That’s steep, my friends. And the water heater probably won’t even last 10 years!

So I called Company B plumbing to come out. I spoke to a nice lady named Sarah on the phone, and she gave me a verbal quote of $1,422 for a 50 gallon tank with 8 years warranty. So this price was more like it! They sent a nice plumber named John out and he also was on time and arrived around 1:30 PM. He evaluated the situation and told me the replacement 50 gallon tank with 8 year warranty would be $1,780. Say what? I asked him “What’s the difference between the price you just gave me, and what Sarah quoted me on the phone?” And he asked, “What did Sarah quote you?” I said, “$1,422”. Then immediately he said, “Ok, then I’ll honor that price that Sarah quoted you”. Dude…. really? I was actually thinking to myself, wow, I should have said, “Sarah said it was $600, and that you gave out free chocolates”. You guys! Beware of such tactics! They’re making money off you and the price is ALWAYS negotiable!

So John went to get the new tank and came back to install it. It took him about three hours to take out the old tank and install the new one. At the end, I asked what forms of payment he took. He said, “cash, check, credit card.” So of course I used a credit card. We get cash back, and it’s like a floating loan until the payment is due. We always pay our credit card statements in full.

So the moral of this story is three fold:

Build up your 6 month emergency fund so you can pay for emergencies like this. Taking cold showers is no fun! Store your 6 month emergency fund in a savings account or money market mutual fund.
Always get multiple quotes so you can get the best price. (In this case it was a difference between $3,200 and $1,400!) And ask for discounts, coupons, specials. Negotiate the price or at least ask for a little less.
Paying for an emergency like this with financing will cost you dearly. See #1, build up your emergency fund.

Fall Trip | Vancouver Day 4 Stanley Park

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 17:59:00 +0000

On Sunday 10/6 we decided to check out Stanley Park in the morning, since the forecast said no rain yet. But first, breakfast! We walked to Breka Bakery & Cafe on Davie Street, just a couple of blocks from our hotel. It was well-reviewed on Yelp and on Google, so we were excited to try it out. As you may recall, Todd does not like breakfast food in general due to his dislike of eggs and cheese. But he does like pastries!

Believe it or not, pastry boy did eat most of BOTH the apple fritter donut and the apple strudel! He deemed both very delicious. I got the spinach & artichoke pocket, which had a filo dough pastry outside, filled with spinach, artichoke, and cheese. They heated it up in a panini press. It was delicious.

Three breakfast items, one chai latte, and one Americano… it all cost only about $20 CAD or $15 USD. We can’t get good food this cheap in San Diego!

After breakfast, we walked to the Yaletown skytrain station to purchase the TransLink $10.50 CAD all day compass pass, which allows you to ride public transportation all day on the Vancouver buses, trains, and ferries. We planned to take the bus to Stanley Park, take it back to the hotel, then take the bus to Gastown round trip the same night as well. It was cheaper to get the all day pass than pay separately for the bus tickets. After purchasing the passes, we walked a block and caught the bus towards Stanley Park.

Also of note: Google Maps is AWESOME for navigating metropolitan areas. You can compare the travel time on foot, buses, bike, and by car. AND it has the city bus routes and schedules. So we knew exactly where and when to catch a bus to get to where we want to go. We also prepared ahead of time and saved all the locations that we were interested in visiting into my Google Maps into a folder called “Vancouver”. Then you don’t even have to type in locations, just choose from your “Vancouver” folder! We were VERY impressed with the Vancouver transit system. It ran on time, was very clean, and was widespread and convenient. Thumbs up! Here we are on the bus!

Another tip I have is regarding cell phone usage in Canada and Mexico. We have Verizon and they have 24 hour “TravelPass” sessions in Canada for $5/day/phone. So we decided ahead of time that we would pay for TravelPass on my phone and Todd shut off his cellular service in Canada and only used WiFi when available. We used my phone for navigation and looking things up on the fly. It worked perfectly and I was on the Bell Canada LTE network.

We got to the entrance of Stanley Park and there were numerous bicycle rental shops. We chose Spokes right on the corner across the street from the park entrance. We rented a tandem bike and it was super reasonable. I think we paid under $25 USD for almost two hours.

Since Stanley Park is about 10 km around the perimeter, we thought it would be easier and faster to see it via bike. And it was beautiful! For the first few kilometers you get to see views of downtown Vancouver.

We stopped at many points to take photos. This is Brockton Point.

You can see the Lions Gate Bridge connecting Vancouver to North Vancouver (where we went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park).

It was a little windy and chilly on the bike, so we were glad we had jacket and vest. It was not uncomfortable or cold though.

The Stanley Park trails worked wonderfully. They separate out pedestrians from bikes so that bikes are on the slightly elevated inner trail and pedestrians walked on the lower outer trail. That way bikes and people aren’t running into each other. We thought that was awesome!

We ended our circle ride around Stanley Park around noon and caught the bus back to the hotel for some rest and snacks before our 3pm Vancouver Foodie Tour, which I’ll cover in a separate post!

Fall Trip | Vancouver Day 3 Capilano & Forbidden Tour

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 23:40:00 +0000

Saturday 10/5 was our first full day in Vancouver. We had big plans! When we first looked at the weather for Vancouver a week before our trip, it forecasted rain for every single day we were there. Fortunately, the only day it rained on us was on Monday 10/7. So Saturday was clear and we decided to visit Capilano Suspension Bridge Park in North Vancouver. But first, we had to pay a visit to Tim Hortons for breakfast since we were in Canada! We walked down the street from our hotel and there was practically one in every corner. I got a breakfast sandwich and a coffee. Todd got pumpkin spice muffins and a latte.

The pumpkin spice muffins had cream cheese on the inside and were so good that we went back twice during our trip for more, ha ha!

Capilano Suspension Bridge Park has free shuttles from several locations in downtown Vancouver, so we walked about 10 minutes to the nearest pickup location and got on the shuttle bus to the attraction. The ride was only about 15 minutes. We arrived by about 10:15 AM, which was still early for a Saturday, so the line for the ticket booth was not long at all. Took us about 5 minutes to get our tickets and go inside.

We decided to do the Cliffwalk first, since there really wasn’t anyone in line for it.

Neither Todd nor I are afraid of heights. If you are, it could be nerve-racking!

Of course, the views were spectacular! I don’t get to see large green trees in San Diego, so I really loved being amongst them in Vancouver.

Looking back from the Cliffwalk, you could see the suspension bridge and people on it. It gives a good perspective as far as how high up it is.

The Cliffwalk circled around a large rock and we took photos of each other.

There were also several lookout points too.

In this photo, a bald eagle landed in the tree right above us!

The Cliffwalk was awesome, we totally loved it!

Then it was on to the actual suspension bridge.

While the Cliffwalk was totally secure and didn’t sway at all, the suspension bridge swayed side to side and bounced up and down a lot! You need to use your “sea legs” and you may start to feel dizzy. I did a little bit.

Once we were on the bridge, we could see the Cliffwalk on the edge of the cliffs.

The views from the suspension bridge were spectacular on both sides!

On the other side of the bridge, there’s a rainforest and Treetops Adventure, where you walk along a series of high up walkways around the trees. We loved this part as well.

At the beginning of Treetops Adventure, you get the statistics for the day.

Then it was lots of walking amongst the treetops! Can you spot Todd in his red Ohio State sweatshirt?

There was also an area where they put up globes of LED lights and it just looked so magical!

We saw some docents with some wildlife too. It was so cool.

We visited the Capilano Trading Post store and bought some maple chocolate fudge and maple taffy!

After that it was lunch time and we were hungry from all the walking! They actually have some nice dining options at the park. We were just interested in a bite to share, so we visited Logger’s Grill and got a hamburger and french fries.

Then at 1:00 PM, we went on a guided history tour, which was part of the regular park admission price. We learned about the history of this area of Vancouver, and how the suspension bridge and park came about. We also learned about the local First Nations: the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh.

After that we took the shuttle bus back to Vancouver downtown.

We rested at the hotel for like an hour. We stayed at the Holiday Inn downtown Vancouver. The room as not big, but it had nice views.

The reason we had a small lunch was because we had to eat dinner early! We got takeout pizza from Firecrust Pizza down the street, and watched the Ohio State vs Michigan State game.

We only had time for the first half of the game, because we booked a tour called “Forbidden Vancouver” at 7pm. We walked for 25 minutes to Cathedral Square, the tour’s meetup location.

Our tour guide’s name was Glenn. He dressed up in 1920's clothing to get in character, since the tour was about Vancouver’s prohibition period.

We found out lots of fun and not-so-fun things about Vancouver’s prohibition past, including saloons, back alley “blind pigs” (similar to Speakeasies of US prohibition times), opium dens, and brothels! We ended up in the center of Gastown, where the tour ended.

After a 30 minute walk back to the hotel, we were pooped from our exciting day! Stay tuned for two more full days of Vancouver fun coming up!

Fall Trip | Seattle & Vancouver Days 1 & 2

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 22:18:00 +0000

Our fall trip to Seattle and Vancouver for six days was one of our several trips this year to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. Since I am flying on free companion fare all year on Southwest Airlines, and Southwest doesn’t fly into Vancouver, we had to fly into Seattle first and then rent a car and drive up to Canada. We flew up to Seattle on Thursday 10/3 and landed around lunch time. After a long process to get our rental car (we rented with Thrifty and it was no problem when we told them we planned to take the car into Canada), we drove to the Crowne Plaza downtown Seattle. They let us check in early because they had a room available. The hotel was very nice.

We used Yelp and found a Korean cafeteria style place called Market Fresh two blocks away for lunch. They had a large buffet style bar, except you pay by weight after you fill your plate. The ladies who run the place will let you try any of the dishes first with a sample. They even have bulgogi beef. Our two plates of lunch was $19.71 including two cans of soda, which was totally reasonable! We were quite happy with it.

From there, we walked towards Capitol Hill to visit our favorite bookstore in Seattle, the Elliott Bay Book Company. We had been there before about 10 years ago when we visited Seattle for our 15th anniversary. But the bookstore has moved to Capitol Hill since then.

We still love the book store. Nothing makes us happier than a huge independent bookstore full of different kinds of books.

They have a cafe in the basement, just like in their old Pioneer Square location!

We shared a latte.

Because we were saving ourselves for treats down the street in the same neighborhood! We visited Salt& Straw for some ice cream. We have two Salt & Straw in San Diego now, and it’s one of our favorite ice cream places. I tried a special flavor invented by local kids in Seattle. It was pumpkin based.

And rather delicious!

Then we walked down the street and Todd could not resist Cinnaholic.

He loves cinnamon buns and had to try a place that lets you customize it! Todd tried one with chai frosting and apples. It wasn’t as wonderful as he thought it would be, but he was still glad to try it out.

After a ton of walking hills in the afternoon, we went back to the hotel for a nap. We had planned a later dinner (around 7pm) at Pike Place Market. What we found out when we woke up after 6pm was that they closed at 6pm, and the place we wanted to eat dinner at, Pike Place Chowder, closed already. Never fear! They also had a location in Pacific Place shopping center! We made the 10 minute walk there and we were glad we did. I had the large New England clam chowder and it was great! One of the best chowders I’ve ever had, for sure.

Todd had salmon fish & chips and he loved it! He only got the two piece because of our earlier treats during the day. Otherwise he said he would have gotten the three piece meal because it was so good.

Day 1 in Seattle was complete. The next morning, we checked out of our hotel room and drove to Pike Place Market to get some breakfast and check it out for an hour before driving up to Bellingham. We had gone there during our 2009 Seattle trip, but there were lots of new vendors/stores.

We went to Storyville Coffee for a croissant, a chai latte, and a coffee. It was quite yummy.

We saw Pike Place Fish Market, where they threw a fish when someone bought one!

We bought some cookies, brownies, cinnamon rolls, and pastries at Three Girls Bakery and Cinnamon Works.

The pumpkin spiced cookie was huge and really delicious!

We walked around the inside of Pike Place Market to check other things out.

Then we ran out of time and it was time to drive up to Bellingham for lunch with our friend Cassi! It was a 1.5 hour drive, almost exactly halfway to Vancouver BC. The drive was so beautiful. I’m in love with the large green trees up there!

We met our friend Cassi at The Filling Station in Bellingham for lunch. I had the El Camino Burger withpasture-raised beef, pepperjack, avocado, lettuce, tomato, jalapeños, tortilla strips, zesty pepper aioli, and sesame seed bun. It was so delicious!

Todd had Triumph chicken sandwich.

After lunch we went to Cassi’s house to check it out. She gave us some homemade cookies for the road too! Todd met Cassi at one of his previous jobs, and she and I became friends because we both love to craft!

Bellingham was beautiful and we loved the trees and the lake!

About 30 minutes drive north on the I-5, we reached the Canadian border!

The wait there was minimal. We took the alternative “truck crossing” (even though there were no trucks in line when we went through) and only waited about 5-10 minutes. After a passport check and some questions from Canadian customs, we were through into Canada! An hour later, we checked into the Holiday Inn in downtown Vancouver. We rested for a while, then we walked about to find some dinner. Of course, when in Canada, eat poutine! We walked down the street to a place called Mean Poutine.

We thought it was a restaurant but it was a walk-up place without seating. So we got our Mean Supreme poutine and Classic Hot Dog and walked back to our hotel to enjoy. And boy it was good!

That concludes our first two days of vacation in Seattle, Bellingham, and Vancouver! Stayed tuned for a few more posts about our adventures in Vancouver British Columbia!

September 2019 Favorites

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Another month has gone by and it’s time to play favorites again!

September 1st was my one-year anniversary of leaving work, so Todd and I celebrated by going to Pete’s Seafood, Extraordinary Desserts, and Mitsuwa Japanese market.

I got to look at all the Japanese skincare products. There were like two aisles of them!

And I picked out a few things, which Todd gifted me as my one-year-leaving-work anniversary gift.

On Labor Day, we went walking at the coast and it was just beautiful!

My old 7-year old computer was finally on its last legs, so we bought me a new computer. It arrived on 9/4 and I LOVE it so far! It was a pain to set up and install a new computer for a few days, but now it’s great. Such a speedy difference to my old computer!

I had to go to the dentist on 9/9 to fix a filling that had chipped. I got some breakfast afterwards at Jack In The Box and it was actually pretty good!

Ok, are you watching A Very Brady Renovation? If not, you must! I was so nostalgic I cried, LOL. HGTV bought the Brady Bunch house (the one in the external shots on the show). They are renovated the inside so that it looks exactly like the inside of the Brady Bunch house in the show. They filmed on a soundstage, so the inside of the house wasn’t real before. So great! Brady Bunch was the first American show I watched when we immigrated to the US in 1979. I watched the reruns every day after school. It’s practically how I learned English, ha ha. Which may explain why I was saying “groovy” in the early 1980’s still. :D

We checked out a few new places to eat at Liberty Public Market. I got the pork and chicken baos at Bao Bar.

Todd got a BBQ plate at The Pig’s Gig.

Our trip to Malibu for Todd’s triathlon was so fun! If you missed it, you can read all about it here, here, and here.

Breakfast at Breakfast Republic! They had some September specials that I wanted to eat. Mainly the Eggies Classic Breakfast Sandwich and the Hazelnut Creme Latte!

After dinner strolls in our neighborhood with Todd. We saw an incredible sunset one night.

Todd making regular popcorn and homemade caramel popcorn to bring to his book club meeting.

The skincare shelf reorganization.

The return of Pumpkin Chai Iced Latte at Circle K! I bring my own travel cup and it’s only 99 cents!

The return of ESPN College Gameday and college football!

Skincare window shopping at the Hmart Korean supermarket. I didn’t buy anything but had fun looking at everything!

The garlic naan bread at Bombay Coast!

Todd bought the new iPhone 11 Pro Max at the Apple Store. He knows an Apple employee who was able to get him a 15% discount. He picked it up on 9/23 after dinner. He told me the Apple Store was a zoo! This phone has three cameras!

But guess what that means? I get his 2-year old iPhone 8 Plus now! I migrated to it on Friday and it’s huge and awesome! I love hand-me-downs!

Todd got to go to Hotel Del Coronado two days last week for a conference. It’s such a beautiful place! He got to take a break and read outside.

Hang out with coworkers.

I made a new dish last week, Beef Kofta Meatballs with Roasted Vegetables. The Middle Eastern flavors in the meatballs are insanely good! I just love beef kofta at Middle Eastern restaurants, and I’m so excited that I can make this at home pretty easily now!

I got to have lunch with my friend Erecca at Gor Gai Thai on 9/17. So fun to catch-up!

My standing monthly lunch date with my friend Anne was on 9/23. We went to Grub. I enjoyed our conversation so much! Anne is an awesome writer and so fun to talk to.

We went up to our friends AJ & Meera’s house on 9/28 and made them dinner. We made Chinese Chili and Scallion Noodles and added rotisserie chicken in there. So yummy! Everyone loved it. But most of all, we love our good friends and we loved seeing them after a few months of lapse!

The Noodle antics this month are very funny and off the charts.

I came down the stairs and found this... Fairly certain that something like this was the original inspiration for the Sistine Chapel ceiling...

Behold, The Lion King. Simba (Noodle) sitting high up on his rock (soft rug), surveying the vast land (living room) where he rules.

He managed to squish himself into a drawer organizer box that had fabric matrix in the middle!

Todd cannot be left alone.

And those are some of my favorites from September! Always makes me feel blessed to capture these memories on the old blog.

$100 Fun Things Budget | September 2019

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 11:00:00 +0000

I blogged “My Year of the $100/Month “Fun Things” Budget” last month and you seemed to like it, so I’m continuing the series on a regular basis.

These are the items I purchased in September using my $100 Fun Things Budget. To read the rules of what falls under this budget, please read my previous post that talked about it. In September I went over $100, but I’m still under $100 on average for the 13 months since I started keeping track.

September 2019: $108

I wasn’t planning on going over $100, but in the last week of Sept, Target had a big skincare sale in its Cartwheel app and the CereVe Skin Renewing Vitamin C Face Serum was on my skincare wishlist spreadsheet. The $16 pushed me over $100.

The weather is starting to get a little cooler in the mornings when I take my walks outside. I decided I wanted to buy some joggers and shorts in sweat material, WITH POCKETS. The pockets are important because I like to put my keys and phone in my pockets when I walk and listen to podcasts. Almost all my joggers and exercise shorts don’t have pockets, so I decided to buy some. And the reason these items fall in my Fun Things Budget is because all clothes fall into this category over the last year, since I have so much clothes that they aren’t really necessities but wants. I also got the lounge pants because they were an Amazon Lightening Deal and super cute.

I made my annual order of my Hobonichi Cousin A5 Planner. I usually buy them from the Japanese Hobonichi site and get them shipped from Japan. But Jetpens carries it now, so I bought it from Jetpens. I didn’t count the actual planner in my Fun Budget, because I’ve been journaling in the Hobonichi Cousin A5 Planner daily for 4-5 years now, so I consider this a necessity. However, I also wanted a new cute cover and a pencil board, and those are not necessities but wants. Since I bought the planner and the cover as a set, I subtracted the cost of the planner and backed into the cost of the plaid cover. I also bought some Pentel EnerGel pens because they are one of my favorite pens and I didn’t have those colors yet. I love them because they write super smoothly, the colors are vibrant, and they also dry very fast.

And that’s what I bought in September with my $100 Fun Things Budget!

Master Bath Cabinet Reorganization

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 19:59:00 +0000

Two weeks ago Todd started a new skincare routine based on my new skincare knowledge acquired the last few months. I started my own new routine back in May. Both of us are in our late 40’s, so we really needed to step up our skincare game. The problem was, there was my skincare products, Todd’s skincare products, and OUR skincare products. And it was spread out in three different drawers in our bathroom. He was confused about where to find the items in his AM and PM skincare routines (which I put together in a spreadsheet for him). It was not intuitive and it was badly organized. So, a rework of the process and organization was in order!

We have a really large cabinet for bathroom storage in between our sinks. It was a perk from our 2009 total master bath remodel. We really have a lot of storage in our bathroom, but it was just disorganized. We have a lot of large drawers and under sinks storage below this cabinet too!

The above was the “before” situation. I can’t reach the top shelf without a step stool, so we didn’t keep much up there. It was a mish mash of stuff everywhere. The bottom shelve was mostly medicine. The 2nd shelf was travel related toiletry items. The 3rd shelf was also a mish mash of storage and travel related items. The space was badly organized and not optimally used.

So I cleared everything out. I took the shelves out too, and cleaned those.

Before I put the shelves back in, I decided that the bottom shelf was going to be dedicated to our skincare routines, and all our skincare products from the drawers below would be consolidated into it. But how could I make it easily accessible and be able to see everything? I thought back to my organization improvements from last month and the solution was clearly the 2-tiered lazy susan spinners! I measured the width inside the cabinet and it was 22”, perfect for fitting in TWO of the lazy susans at 10.5” width each! So I ordered them and they arrived two days later from Amazon.

So now, Todd’s skincare is on the right spinner, while mine is on the left. Although, I have items on the right too, since I needed more space, ha ha. But all the products in his AM & PM skincare routine is on the right spinner, so he doesn’t have to look anywhere else but there for his products.

The rest of the shelves, from the bottom up. Second shelf are travel toiletries. Third shelf has medicines and also the TSA-approved travel pouches that I couldn’t fit on the second shelf. The upper shelf has extra stock-up items such as face wash, toothpaste, and soap. We don’t need to get to the next toothpaste or soap that often, so they’re good to go on the upper shelf.

We’ve used these spinners inside our cabinet for 1.5 weeks now, and it’s vastly improved our skincare routine process! Now everything is in one place and easy to find!

Nashville Trip | Con of Thrones Cosplay

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 22:21:00 +0000

As with any fan convention, cosplay was a big part of Con of Thrones in Nashville. We weren’t clever enough to come up with our own costumes this time, we only wore Game of Thrones t-shirts. But we saw so many good cosplayers with multiple awesome costumes!

A note: Some of these photos were downloaded from the CoT app or screenshot from Instagram. When possible and I could find it, the creator’s IG account is linked.

In the first photo above, Todd posed with a Sansa Stark and a Beric Dondarrion.

We saw this group getting their photos taken. Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Varys, Sansa/Marjorie?, Jaqen H’ghar.

And my personal highlight at CoT, a photo with a dog whose real name was Ghost! And his mom dressed as Cersei. Their Instagram account is here.

Todd found a George RR Martin doppelganger! When he lifted the flap on his shirt up, it said “Not today”, ha ha!

A Jon Snow and me with my “You know nothing Jon Snow” shirt on!

Todd with an Arya Stark. She looked so good!

Me and a Varys. Really great costume.

We found a Wun Wun The Giant on stilts!

He was so good that even Nicolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) got a photo with him.

Arya executing Little Finger (Petyr Baelish) from season 7.

He looked so great and so much like Little Finger that Todd had to find him on the last day to get a photo with him!

Us with Tywin Lannister.

He and his wife got a hilarious photo with Nicolaj Coster-Waldau.

I LOVED this one of Tormund, Jon Snow, and Ghost! Just how I imagined how the three of them lived out their lives in the Far North at the end, with the Wildlings.

Other awesome cosplay…

Three awesome Sansa Starks.

Jon Snow and Little Finger

Todd and I had a photo op to sit on the Throne!

That’s it for my Con of Thrones 2019 Nashville recap! Hope you enjoyed the Nashville eats and a look at the Con of Thrones programming too. It was a really memorable trip that I will look upon fondly for years to come!

Nashville Trip | Con of Thrones Programming

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 00:07:00 +0000

We attended the Con of Thrones (CoT) convention in Nashville from July 12-14 this year. The trip was part of our all-year 25th anniversary celebration. As the time for CoT drew near, we downloaded the Con of Thrones app onto our phones to plan out which sessions we wanted to attend. There were a full seven hours of sessions per day, from 10am-5pm, plus night time fun such as cosplay contest, karaoke, game night, etc. Each hour of programming had several choices in different ballrooms, with the Ice Main Stage auditorium serving as the biggest draw each hour. Each breakout room was named after a sword in Game of Thrones!

An example of some of the sessions available in just one hour of programming. How did we even pick??!

If you’ve ever been to the San Diego Comic Con, you would know that trying to get into one of the main big panels in Hall H is impossible. That was not the case at CoT. While the convention was pretty full, we didn’t have any trouble getting into the sessions we wanted to see. That part was really awesome! Early on, Todd and I picked our own sessions that we wanted to attend. He picked mostly book discussion sessions. I picked the TV show sessions, since I hadn’t read the books. Some of our sessions overlapped. We felt fine going to our own favorite things and then re-convening for lunch or sessions that we both picked to attend.

Friday 7/12/2019 – here are the sessions I attended (links to YouTube videos where available)

10:00am - Visions and Clues: Foreshadowing on Game of Thrones
11:05am - Endgame: Breaking Down Game of Thrones’ Big Finish
12:10pm - Spotlight: Hannah Murray (she played Gilly, Samwell’s “wife”)
1:15pm - Becoming the Zeitgeist: The Evolution of Game of Thrones Media Coverage
2:20pm - The Wolf and the Crows Q&A: Life on Set
3:25pm - Spotlight: Jerome Flynn (he played Ser Bronn of the Blackwater)
4:30pm – History of Westeros: Live Recording

The highlight of Day 1 was the panel discussion on how media coverage changed as the show became more and more popular. Some of these journalists and podcasters worked insane schedules in order to publish content out on Monday mornings after the show aired.

Another highlight was the Q&A with The Wolf and the Crows, the three extras that were on GoT for almost the entire eight seasons. They talked about life on the set and what it was like filming the biggest show ever. With their own R-rated humor added in.

The Jerome Flynn spotlight was also awesome. He talked about what it was like to play Sir Bronn, what his favorite lines were, and favorite episodes and scenes. You can actually watch the entire session here on YouTube.

Saturday 7/13/2019 – here are the sessions I attended (links to YouTube videos where available)

10:00am – The Ringer – Binge Mode: Live Recording

11:05am – At Journey’s End: Brienne of Tarth

12:10pm - Spotlight: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister), Jerome Flynn (Bronn), Hannah Murray (Gilly), and Miltos Yerolemou (Syrio Forel)

1:15pm – At Journey’s End: Arya Stark

2:20pm – A Storm of Spoilers: Live Recording

3:25pm – Spotlight: Kieran Belshaw (concept artist for GoT)

4:30pm – Name Day Morning Quarterback: Why ___ lost the Game of Thrones?

Day 2 was definitely packed with so many highlights! Where do I even start??

I got to see one of my favorite Podcasts live! Binge Mode: Game of Thrones with Mallory Ruben and Dave Concepcion!

The spotlight with four of the actors from GoT, interviewed by the Binge Mode podcasters was SO GOOD. This was THE SESSION to attend during the 3-day CoT. The huge auditorium was PACKED. You can watch the entire session here on YouTube!

Getting to see a live recording of one of my other favorite Game of Thrones podcasts, A Storm of Spoilers with Dave Gonzales, Joanna Robinson, and Neil Miller!

And the Spotlight session with Kieran Belshaw, the concept artist on GoT, and now also Star Wars The Mandalorian!

The concept art he created was SO AMAZING! He basically drew out each scene and then the set designers and FX artists went to work based on the concept art!

Cersei escaping the Red Keep with The Mountain and Qyburn.

Jon Snow approaching the throne room with Drogon emerging from the dust & snow.

One tidbit that Kieran shared was that the showrunners originally wanted the circle of council in the very last episode to occur at the destroyed throne room. But the scene got moved to the Dragon Pit.

Kieran Belshaw was humble, informative, and so talented. It was a joy to see his concept art. You can actually watch his entire session along with ALL the art he brought here on YouTube! I commented on his Instagram that night and he commented back!

Sunday 7/14/2019 – here are the sessions I attended (links to YouTube videos where available)

10:00am – Making Sense of the Magic

11:05am – Spotlight: Miltos Yerolemou (Syrio Forel)

12:10pm – Spotlight: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister)

1:15pm – The Game of Thrones Effect: How GoT Changed TV Forever

2:20pm – Learn to Love Season 8 with the Wolf and the Crows

3:25pm – Game of Thrones: Right and Wrong

4:30pm – At Journey’s End: Jaime Lannister

The highlights of Day 3 were the Spotlight sessions with Miltos Yerolemou and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, interviewed by my favorite GoT podcaster Joanna Robinson!

Miltos was such a personable person with a great personality. He loves the GoT community and has made friends with many regular con attendees. He has taught the “water dancing” stick fighting to many GoT fans. He love to take photos with fans and is appreciative of his involvement in GoT.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau was also gracious, funny, and articulate. His wife called him while he was on stage and he answered it! Also, his whole family was there (wife, 2 daughters) and they even went to the marketplace and talked to the vendors and looked at the merchandise. Just a regular guy! You can watch the entire session here on YouTube!

The programming the entire three days at CoT was amazing. We had such a good experience attending our first Con of Thrones! If you ever get a chance to participate in something you love with other people who also love it as much as you do, I highly recommend it. There’s nothing like obsessing over something you love with other obsessives!

Here is a YouTube playlist with more videos available of other sessions.

Stay tuned for the cosplay post next!

Nashville Trip | The Eats

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 23:32:00 +0000

In July we went to Nashville, TN for the 3-day Con of Thrones convention. It is the biggest Game of Thrones convention, and it encompassed both the TV show and George R. R. Martin’s “Song of Ice And Fire” book series. Nashville was the first of our six trips this year, celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. Today’s post will be all about the places we ate at in Nashville. There will be two other posts about the convention itself: programming and cosplay.

We flew into Nashville on Thursday 7/11, arriving at night. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express by the airport for convenience, because our return flight was at 6am and we wanted to make it as painless as possible. The drive from the hotel to the Music City Center (convention center) downtown was only about 10 minutes. After checking into the hotel, we looked on Yelp and decided to eat dinner at Mission BBQ at Opry Mills. We arrived around 8:30 PM local time and the restaurant closed at 9PM. But the lady at the counter was super nice. She even called me “honey”, ha ha. She gave good food suggestions too. This is probably a stereotype but when we travel to the South or Midwest, I feel like people are much nicer in public than here in CA.

We shared a Meat Market Sampler with three meats, a side of mac n cheese, corn bread, and a banana pudding dessert. We chose brisket, pulled pork, and sausage for the three meats.

It was quite yummy. The portion was meant for only one person, I think. But it was enough food for us. After all, there was more noms the next day! :)

Friday 7/12 was the first day of Con of Thrones convention. We ate breakfast at the hotel, and had decent Tex Mex food at the convention center food cart for lunch. There’s convention panels and programming the whole day, including lunch time, so we didn’t leave the convention center for lunch all three days. Twice we had this Tex Mex taco salad, and then once we had pizza. They were both pretty good for convention center food.

Music City Center was really architecturally beautiful. The outside resembles a guitar. We enjoyed the facilities a lot. There was room for all the panel discussions and main stage, and plenty of bathrooms too.

Friday evening we walked over to Broadway, which is the craziest party street with bars and the biggest live music scene. It is similar to Austin’s Sixth Street.

We had no idea that Nashville was a big bachelorette party destination. We saw tons of flat-bed trucks full of women just cruising up and down Broadway. You could hear loud live music as you walk past bar doors.

We ended up at The Stillery, which had live music but not country music. We saw two musical acts and they were both very good. One was a solo artist and one was a band.

One of Todd’s ex-bandmates from The Northstar Session, Matt Szlachetka, now lives in Nashville. (The one on the right. Photo from their performance at the 2005 San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon.)

At The Stillery, we got the brussels sprouts appetizer. It wasn’t as tasty as we had at other restaurants.

I got the strawberry gargonzola salad. It was pretty good.

Todd decided to get the hot chicken tenders, which is a thing to get in Nashville. He liked it.

We were there for a couple of hours eating and listening to music. After dinner, we walked by Savannah’s Candy Kitchen and had to check it out.

On Saturday (7/13) night, we had dinner at an upscale restaurant by our hotel called Darfons. The food there was actually really good, but we forgot to take photos. Oopsies! The only thing I have a photo of is the bread pudding dessert! Todd got some sort of roasted vegetables plate and I had a salad with chicken.

On Sunday night (7/14), our last night in Nashville, we decided to visit a famous BBQ place by the convention center called “Martin’s BBQ Joint”. There was a line out the door. Luckily, it moved pretty fast. We got inside in about 15-20 minutes. Once inside, you order at the counter.

Then you sit down and they bring the food to you when ready. I got ribs with broccoli and mac n cheese sides.

Todd got beef brisket with fries and green beans.

The food was good and we enjoyed it! I guess when in Nashville, have BBQ or hot chicken! That’s it for our culinary adventures in Nashville. Stay tuned for more Con of Thrones posts!

12 Month Spending Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Mon, 23 Sep 2019 11:00:00 +0000

As I’ve blogged in previous posts, I’ve kept track of our spending for 25 years, since we got married. I was excited for August to end, because it meant that I could start my 12 month analysis of our spending since I left the workforce! This year we cut back on spending, so I was very curious to see what we spent our money on.

The common wisdom is that what you spend your money on should reflect what your values are. And I was so happy to see that our spending in the last 12 months does reflect that! It is also very startling to see the cost of living in CA, especially for home and car ownership. We will dig deep into the major spending categories for the last 12 months!

One thing I do want to clarify is that the % is the spending in each category out of the total amount spent in one year. It is NOT the % of income spent on each category. (Which is what the usual spending % that you see in finance articles.) That is another way to look at it, but if I had done the analysis as a % of income, then I would have had to include categories such as health benefits, 401k contributions, employee stock purchase plan, and all kinds of fed state and local income taxes. That really wouldn’t be as interesting.

HOUSING – a staggering 46.8% of our expenses goes towards housing. That includes just the mortgage (principal + interest), property taxes, and homeowners insurance. California coastal living really is quite expensive. But also, we refinanced our mortgage to a 15-year loan in 2010, which made the payments quite high. It also means that our loan will be paid off in six years though! So in six years, we will be rid of that 38.2% of our annual spending, which means we will get to keep a lot more of our money each month. This category is obviously not considered discretionary. While we could move somewhere else and live cheaper, we choose not to at this time.

CARS – It is surprising how much it costs to own cars. 7.7% of our 12-month spending went to our cars. Part of it is also the expensive registration, insurance, and gas in CA. Guess how much it costs to register our two cars for one year in CA? Over $550. Insurance was about $1800/year. We only have one gas car though, and it’s the Subaru that I drive. I don’t drive it a lot now that I’ve left the workforce, so the gas is only like $70 per month. Our other car that we had for most of the past 12 months was the Kia Soul electric car that Todd drove. He had free charging at work, so our electricity cost was very minimal. Not to mention we have solar power at our house, so we didn’t even have an electric bill for the past 12 months. I did have to get some service on my Subaru this year, which cost about $700. This category is also not really discretionary. When we both retire, we plan to have only one car, which would save us a lot of money. That combined with no mortgage (see above) would mean our annual spending will be much less!

CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS – This really surprised me. After the cost of housing and cars, which aren’t discretionary, the very next thing we spent the most money on was charitable contributions at 6.2%. Ever since we’ve had jobs, we have contributed a % of our monthly income to various charitable organizations that we support. These are monthly commitments that we take seriously. When I left the workforce, we decided to not cut back on this for the first 12 months and see where we are. Since we cut back on various other discretionary spending but not charitable contributions, the % we spent on it went up. They say spend your money on what you value, and in this case we are!

VACATION – 6% of our spending went to vacations. This is slightly surprising, but when I think about it, it does make sense. We have intentionally tried to value experiences over things in our spending for quite some time now. And the “vacation” category also includes airfare and other expenses involved in visiting family. Also, we paid for all five of our air travel trips this year and we’ve only gone on two so far. So this amount includes airfares for future trips. The big expense was our December trip to Orlando to meet up with my sister Joyce and nephew Andrew for Disney World. It was a a last minute decision so the airfare was pretty expensive. And we all know how much Disney admissions can be! BUT we decided to do it when my sister invited us, because we value spending time with her and Andrew. My sister has an older son Xander who is severely autistic. He’s 17 and non-verbal, and requires around the clock care and monitoring. This was the FIRST time in years that we’ve been able to get together without her having to take care of Xander all the time, so it was an opportunity I could not pass up. (My brother-in-law offered to stay home with Xander.) Even though we always try to find the best deal for travel and vacations, I always feel this category is money well-spent.

FOOD – the next two categories we spent the most money on was food-related: groceries and eating out. They combine to 11.6%, with groceries at 6% and dining out at 5.6% of spending. We value both cooking dinners at home and eating out. We usually cook four to five dinners per week and eat out two days, mainly on the weekend. I’ve compared our grocery cost for two people versus other people with bigger families, and it’s pretty much in line proportionally. Dining out is more expensive in CA. Even if you go to semi-fast food, it’s more expensive. When we travel to visit family in OH and TX, we marvel at how much less it is to dine out. But we value the experience and it’s fun for us to try new restaurants or eat our favorite meals at favorite places.

UTILITIES – spending 5.5% on utilities didn’t really surprise me. This category includes electricity, gas, water, trash, TV, phone, and internet. We didn’t incur any electricity cost this year, thanks to our solar system we installed in 2017. Our satellite TV cost the most, with cell phone bills right after that. We could cut the cord on TV, but we enjoy live sports a lot, and enjoy just turning on the TV and being able to watch live TV and having lots of choices. However, we do realize it is an opportunity to save money should we need to. Streaming TV used to seem cheaper, but now you have to subscribe to many different services to watch what you want to watch. With the divergence of streaming services (Netflix, HBO Now, Hulu, Amazon, CBS All Access, Apple+, Disney+, etc.), now it doesn’t seem like you could save that much money, unless you choose to roll them each month and do the subscribe/watch/cancel rolling schedule. But that’s a pain in the a$$ too. I really dislike how much cable/satellite, cell phone, and internet cost nowadays. It’s definitely a category where the prices shot ahead of inflation.

PACIFICA GRACE STUDIO – about 3.5% of our expenses this past 12 months is the net cash flow out of my Etsy business Pacifica Grace Studio. I had a lot of fixed startup costs with liability insurance, shelving, equipment, mailbox rental, shipping materials, container & packaging, etc. Some of this was one-time cost, while others are ongoing costs as well.

CASH – we chose not to track the money that we take out of ATMs a long time ago. We categorize it as petty cash. We use our credit cards for most of our spending and pay it off each month. Cash spending mostly consists of coffee, sodas, snacks, occasional lunches, parking, etc. This category is mostly Todd’s spending now that I don’t work anymore. I almost never use cash.

GIFTS – this 1.5% of spending is for gifts to other people, including birthday, anniversary, Christmas, and special occasions. This past year we had a 75th birthday banquet for my dad, where I paid for half and my sister paid for half. That was a majority of spending in this category, which made it bigger for this year.

HOUSEHOLD – we spent 1.5% on household, which are things like cleaning supplies, organizing supplies, tools, and home decor. It doesn’t include home maintenance, which is a separate category (and include things like exterminator, paint, stucco repair, sprinkler repair, air filters, etc.)

GARDENER – yes we have a gardener who comes 2x per month. It is money well spent, LOL. Neither one of us enjoys pulling weeds, cutting grass, trimming bushes and palm trees, etc. So we outsource it.

PETS – this is the cost of Noodle every year! We spent 1.1% of expenses on him, which includes food, litter, supplies, and toys. He is probably spoiled. But he’s worth it.

The rest of the spending categories are under 1% of our expenses. Not much to talk about except a couple of things. Haircuts are expensive! Especially the stylist that we’ve been going to. Most of the haircut expense is Todd getting his haircut every 5-6 weeks. I’ve only gotten a haircut twice in the last year, and I don’t get it colored at the salon anymore. After I quit work, my stylist kept asking me when I was gonna color my hair again. I told her that now that I don’t have an income, I can’t spend money on hair coloring anymore. She keeps trying, and I keep refusing. She has increased her haircut and hair color prices a lot since we started going to her several years ago. It may be time to find someone cheaper. But you know how it is. Once you find a stylist who works for you, it’s hard to break the inertia and go to a new person. The only other thing I’ll mention is that I used to spend a lot more money on clothing when I worked. But after I left work, I still have SO MUCH clothes that I never wear, that I really cut back on purchasing new clothes in the last 12-months. That’s why it was only 0.4% of our spending. Oh, and the negative % spending on medical is because it is netted against the contributions we’ve made to our Health Savings Account. So for the last 12 months, we’ve contributed more than we’ve spent medically.

Do you keep track of your spending and where your money goes? Does it align with your core values? What do you spend too much money on? What is one thing you could cut back on? What is totally worth the spending to you? Leave a comment if you’re so inclined to share!

Malibu Trip | The Triathlon

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 00:57:00 +0000

Guest post by Todd, in his own words. Some photos are professional race photos we purchased from Finisher Pix, since I (Christine) was not able to be everywhere on the course.

The day before the race (Friday 9/13) we headed to the expo.

I was glad we got to see the parking situation and the course start area. It’s hard to navigate all that for the first time at 5am. Triathlon expos usually have a course talk-through where you learn about sharp turns, traffic crossings and the like. I was excited that we arrived right as a talk-through was happening since I’ve never raced this course. But it was mostly, “ride north, turn around, then ride south.” “If you see a sign, go where it says.”

Perhaps triathlon is not the sport of geniuses.

With that done, all that was left is to prepare the gear, eat a big dinner, and relax.

On race day we arrived on time (5:30 AM!) and I got everything set up in transition. It was still dark.

A quick hour later I was in the water.

As usual I can’t swim straight so I went out to sea at first, then zig-zagged my way to the finish. The upside of this route is I was mostly alone. I didn’t suffer the usual kicks and punches from other swimmers. But I didn’t see Matt Damon either. And there were no nearby sharks looking for the stray swimmer so the swim was a win for me. I felt good. The bike and run were another story.

Athletic prowess peaks somewhere around 25 years of age. But lots of non-professionals can improve year over year for a long time after that due to increased strength, technique, strategy, or equipment. I’ve been on that path the last few years, each year I was a little faster than the year prior. However it’s possible the age of improvements has ended for me. Bring on the age of excuses.

Excuse #1: For the first time I got a flat tire during a race. This situation got worse when my replacement tube also failed during the refill. I had one more spare tube and thankfully it held up. I had to flag down another rider to borrow a CO2 cartridge because I was out of those. That whole ordeal cost me about 16 minutes.

Aside from my flat, the bike course lived up to my expectations. Miles of coastal road with great views. If you’re from San Diego it reminded me of the area right south of downtown Carlsbad where the 101 is on a 20 foot cliff above the ocean and you have this great panoramic view. Much of Malibu is like that and the bike route was wonderful.

After the ride I came out of transition and got a rare glimpse of Christine waving to me.

I started to run that direction but the course wrangler told me this isn’t the ocean and I can’t go whichever direction I want. He might have said “you dumb triathlete” under his breath. So I made a hard right and started the run. I mile and a half later I was back at the same spot and this time I got to run by Christine briefly. And then, Excuse #2.

It was a humid day in the mid-80s Fahrenheit. Soon after that wave to Christine’s camera I started to feel my left quad stiffen. The last time I ran a race on a hot & humid day the same thing happened. On that day I walked the rest of the course to the finish. This time I slowed before the muscle really seized up and walked for about 2 minutes.

The rest of the run went like this. I could run 1/3-1/2 mile before one leg or the other started to tighten and I had to walk. This cost me about 10 minutes of time. My finishing time was 3:30. Or 3:14 or 3:04 depending on how seriously I take my excuses.

But I have no time worries in this blonde head. I’m not out there to achieve a personal record each time. I prepared well and enjoyed the course. By managing my cramps I was able to drive home without pain. A painful 4 hour drive would have colored the whole experience in a bad way. By being smart (take that, talk-through people) I made my memories of the Malibu tri better.

From Christine: Getting up at 4:40am is no joke! But that’s the triathlon life for ya. We made it down to the Zuma Beach parking lots and parked about a mile from the triathlon transition area, where Todd racked his bike and his gear. All in all, we were there about six hours since we had to arrive so early to park and get into transition area. I waited at different places for Todd during the whole race. It was HOT! I was not comfortable being outside in the sun for that long. But I persevered and was rewarded with occasional glimpses of Todd coming out of transition for the bike, then for the run. I walked over 14,000 steps that morning! Unfortunately, due to timing mishaps, I was not at the finish line to greet Todd and take photos. I was really bummed about that, as that is what I usually do at each triathlon. But we saw the really nice finish line photos that Finisher Pix took, so we purchased the download package. Now I know what he looks like crossing the line with a big smile on his face! I’m always SO SO proud of him for each triathlon that he finishes. His training ethics that lasts for months each year, and his perseverance during each race despite adversity in weather, temps, or other conditions always amazes me. How he has added another finisher’s medal to his collection!

Malibu Trip | The Getty Villa

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 18:15:00 +0000

One of the highlights of our trip to Malibu was visiting the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades. We had been to The Getty Center in LA years ago and it was really fun. So on Friday 9/13, we reserved 10am entrance to the Getty Villa. Admission is free, but you have to reserve a date and time ahead of arrival. Parking is $20. The entrance to the driveway is off the Pacific Coast Highway 1, northbound. It is unassuming and you would never know entering the narrow driveway that it becomes a stately grand driveway uphill to the museum.

Both the Getty Center and Getty Villa are both part of the J Paul Getty Trust, one of the world’s wealthiest art institutions with an estimated endowment in 2017 of $6.9B USD.

We were there for two hours and saw a lot of the exhibits and gardens. There are self-guided audio headsets available, as well as guided group tours. We decided to explore on our own. The Villa is a recreation of an ancient Roman country house. Except it’s huge and has rooms upon rooms of exhibits of ancient Roman and Greek antiquities.

There’s an amphitheater for events, and a cafe for drinks and bites.

There was a courtyard enclosed by the building, which housed a long fountain pool and statues, along with plant life.

Outside the building, there’s a huge garden with a huge pool and many different Mediterranean plant life.

Looking towards the ocean.

Looking towards the mountains.

The antiquities exhibits were in many different rooms and grouped by origin and time. Sometimes whole rooms were dedicated to statues.

This was a statue of Jupiter.

Each item had its own explanation to read. If you’re taking the self-guided audio tour, it has the number to press for the audio.

There was also several big sarcophagi (stone coffin) of Roman origin.

Lots of busts of ancient Roman real people.

Vessels of antiquity.

And also a room of different types of Roman coins. These top ones were bronze, while the bottom ones were gold.

We saw a lot of exhibits in two hours, but we didn’t see everything. The grounds alone was beautiful and worth a visit. If you are ever near Malibu, go see the Getty Villa for sure! We definitely could have spent more time there.

Malibu Trip | Lodging and Eats

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 18:27:00 +0000

Even though we’ve lived in SoCal for 20 years, we’ve actually never been to Malibu (right north of LA). This year Todd decided to do his annual Olympic-distance triathlon in Malibu, so that we could visit a new place. This is one of our 6 trips this year to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.

We booked our lodging several months ago through AirBnb. Todd looked for reasonable hotels near the start of the triathlon and they were all over $300/night. That’s one thing we found out rather quickly: Malibu is very expensive to visit. The hotels are pricey and so are restaurants. However, Todd found this tiny house AirBnb with ocean views and only a couple of miles from the race start! It was very cute and had everything we needed, so we booked it. It was still pricey though. $549.36 for two nights, including taxes, fees, and cleaning fee. Another thing to be aware of is that the price per night you see when you look at the AirBnb website does not include the mandatory taxes, fees, and cleaning fee. You could be paying as much as $100 more per night after it’s all said and done. Buyer beware.

We drove up on Thursday 9/12. We didn’t leave until 11am-ish. If you know Southern CA (esp LA) traffic, then you know you can’t drive anywhere during commuting hours. Since we didn’t leave until 11am, we drove up to Carlsbad and decided to have lunch there at the brand-new Windmill Food Hall.

One thing we’ve come to realize about the food hall craze is that it’s actually not cheap to eat at food halls. Even though it’s a building that houses quite a few stalls, and there’s no service at all, you still pay a lot for the choices.

I forgot to take a photo of the food we got. Todd got chicken fingers from Cross Street, and I got Drunken Noodles with Shrimp at Thai Style. We got out of there for $30.

Driving up to LA is always an adventure! There was some stop and go, and finally 2.5 hours later, we arrived near Malibu. However, we couldn’t check in to our AirBnb until 4pm, so we had a couple of hours to kill. We decided to go to the outlet mall, but instead I asked Google Maps to take us to The Commons at Calabasas, which turned out NOT to be an outlet mall. We had to drive through really narrow bendy mountain passes through Topanga Canyon to get there. It was over 100 F there and just very hot. So we decided to get some frozen yogurt at Menchie’s. Todd was very excited about frozen yogurt since it was so hot!

Then we hung out at what seemed like the world’s biggest Barnes & Noble, which had double escalators to an upstairs loft. And a section just for Reese Witherspoon’s book club.

Finally around 3:45 we left Calabasas and took the Kanan Dume Rd to Malibu. We got into our tiny house AirBnb via a lockbox on the door. It was very cute inside.

Todd picked a local Mexican place for dinner: Lilys Malibu, right down the street. We looked and found it they close at 6pm, so we had to get there around 5:30 for dinner. Todd had a carnitas burrito and I had chicken enchiladas. It was fairly good, but pricey for Mexican at $28.

We got back and sat on the deck of the tiny house to watch the sunset. There’s view of the mountains, which extended all the way to the ocean. Also, since it was a point, there were ocean views on three sides!

The tiny house had a small flatscreen TV, but just with a Roku connection and no regular TV, so if you wanted to watch anything you had to log into the apps on the Roku. We tried Netflix and someone else’s account was logged in, so we didn’t bother logging out and logging in. Pro tip: if you log into Netflix or other streaming apps while on vacation, be sure to log out when you leave. We watched “Murder Mystery” on Netflix with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler. It was fairly entertaining.

On Friday morning we went to breakfast at Le Cafe de la Plage down the street. Todd had bought some microwave popcorn and Coke at the grocery store the night before, so he ate that. I got an omelette and a latte and it was $23 with tip. Oh Malibu. It was very good though, at least!

We spent the rest of the morning at the Getty Villa, which I will write a post about this week. It was gorgeous and it’s free to go, but you have to make a reservation ahead of time, and parking is $20.

For lunch on Friday, we went to the Malibu Pier. We were hoping for free street parking, but there were no spaces available. There are lots nearby that charge $15, but they were full. So we had to park at a lot across the street from the pier for $20. We walked the pier and went to lunch at Malibu Farm Cafe at the end of the pier.

Todd had a salmon plate and I had the Impossible Burger (meatless).

The food was good, but pricey (oh Malibu). Lunch cost $62 with tax and tip. You do get panoramic ocean views though, and the place is quite cute and farm to table.

We took naps in the afternoon and just hung out. Then we went to dinner at Spruzzo, an Italian restaurant on the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway, or Highway 1 – it runs up and down the CA coast, close to the ocean). Todd carbo-loaded for this triathlon the next day. We shared a salad and a pizza and it was just the right amount of food.

The outdoor deck was huge and I really loved the ambiance. It was mountain AND ocean view on the terrace.

They also had a firepit.

We got out of there for $55 and I felt like that was actually worth it. It was a really nice experience!

The next day, Saturday 9/14, was Todd’s triathlon! I’ll be writing a separate post about that this week.

Overall, we really enjoyed Malibu! While it was pricey, there’s no doubt that it’s a world-class destination with miles upon miles of really nice beaches, the mountains right next to it, and a classy relaxing atmosphere. We did not run into any celebrities while we were there (that we know of). But we still have the triathlon. I kept telling Todd that I knew that Matt Damon did the Malibu Tri a few years ago. And wouldn’t it be weird if you were swimming in the ocean and Matt Damon bobbed up next to you? Find out later this week if that happened or not!

I Accidentally Deleted the Last 50 Blog Comments on Friday

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 17:21:00 +0000

Hi Everyone!

Just a short post to let you know that I accidentally deleted the last 50 blog comments on Friday. I had gotten a bunch of spam comments. In the process of trying to delete the spam comments, I accidentally clicked on the tab with the real comments and selected all and the system deleted the first page of 50 comments. I’m very sad, since I rarely get comments these days and those 50 comments were over the last year. I just wanted you to know because I didn’t want you to come over to the blog and wonder why I deleted your comments. It was a total accident, and I’m sad and sorry. After over 10 years of blogging, I made a technical “fat-finger” mistake while on my phone. Ugh!

Christine

Financial Friday | Using Things For A Long Time Saves Money

noreply@blogger.com (listgirl) — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Recently, Todd told me about a conversation that he had with his friend, and it brought up a financial topic that should be intuitive but it’s not. A lot of saving money over your lifetime is about using something for a long time.

Todd was talking with his friend (let’s call her Nancy to protect the innocent). Nancy said to Todd, “I just paid off my car… now I’m wondering what to do next.” When he told me this, I said, “What do you mean ‘what to do next’? You keep driving it for a long time, that’s what you do.” This is where my mind goes to automatically when I’ve paid off something, or purchased something that cost a good amount of money. I plan to use it for a LONG time. But so many people default to the myth of the monthly payment scheme. They are deluded into thinking that it’s ok to continue to pay for something monthly, because they can afford it or “it’s in their monthly budget”. If that’s how you budget, then I would posit that your budget is bad and it doesn’t account for saving enough money for a good retirement.

We are so used to thinking about whether we could afford something by whether we can pay the monthly payment on it. Car salespeople, home loan salespeople, and anyone whose job is to SELL you things will tell you that you can afford something because you can afford its monthly payment. That supposition is wrong. It’s a very myopic point of view. You should be looking at the big picture of the lifetime cost of something, versus how much money you’d save if you didn’t always buy upgrades to your life because you “can afford the monthly payment”.

Let’s talk about cars first, because it’s an example of a costly item that a majority of Americans own multiples of. Since I started working after college at the age of 23, I have owned and driven three cars, and this current one is a hand-me-down from Todd. So for 26 years, I’ve paid for three cars. The first car I owned, I paid off in three years. I kept driving it, but when my sister got into a big accident and totaled her car, I drove it down to Texas from Ohio and gave her my car for $1. That was 1999 and I bought a Honda Prelude. I paid that car off in three years, but drove it for 17 years, until late 2016, when I sold it on Craigslist for $2,800. I had kept meticulous maintenance records on that car, and it was in good shape. The only reason I sold that car was because Todd got a Kia Soul electric car, and I got his hand-me-down 2011 Subaru Outback. I didn’t want to pay insurance for three cars, and had nowhere to park the 3rd car. The Subaru is now nine years old (we bought it October 2010) and I’m still driving it.

This is all well and good for you, you say. But show me the numbers. How much money are you actually saving by driving your cars for so long? Assuming you choose wisely and buy good value cars that are also reliable and don’t need much fixing, you can save over $200,000 over a lifetime span of 40 years if you buy only 4 cars instead of 10 cars.

Why am I comparing 4 cars versus 10 cars? Because to me, driving a well-made reliable car for 10 years is reasonable. Where did the 10 cars come from then? That assumes people either lease cars so they could have the latest and greatest, or they pay off cars in four years and then buy another one immediately, because they could afford the monthly payments. Of course there are scenarios in between, where someone could drive a car for 6 or 8 years. But this comparison is between two extremes, just to show how much money you could save over 40 years.

The columns with loans assumes a 3% annual percentage rate loan over a 48 month loan span.

The money you save doesn’t even take into account what you would get if you invested it over time. It’s just a straight-up amount. If you pay off a car and then instead of buying another car or otherwise spend the money every month, you invest it into a stock index fund, you would have much more than $200k.

Another reason to always drive your car for at least double the years that it took you to pay off the car, is to stagger a multi-car household so that you never have to pay for more than one car at a time.

Another secret to saving money over the long run is to not mind hand-me-down items. Todd drove the new Subaru Outback for six years. When he got the Kia Soul EV, I sold my 17 year old Honda Prelude and started driving the Subaru. The Subaru is now 9 years old and going strong. I hope I can drive it for 7 more years!

Another psychological reason that people buy things instead of using them for a long time is because they think they deserve it. You work hard and have to put up with a lot of crap. Don’t you deserve something new and shiny? Maybe. Another way to think of it is, don’t you deserve to pay your future self too? So that you can retire earlier? That new and shiny thing now means robbing your future self to get it. Is it worth it? It is something you should always evaluate when considering buying new expensive things.

I also use other things for a long time. As I write this blog post, I am using my new computer that we bought over Labor Day weekend. I used my old computer for 7 years, and it finally got to the point that the performance was so degraded that if was locking up on a regular basis. So I finally caved and asked Todd to find me a good deal on a new PC. I’m still using an iPhone 6. It’s four years old and it’s still fine. When Todd gets a new iPhone this month, the newest one coming out, I will get his two year old iPhone 8 hand-me-down. It’s paid off and I can probably use it for at least two more years. We also never pay for two phones at the same time.

Like I said, I don’t mind using things for a long time, or getting good hand-me-downs, if it means I could leave my job at age 48, after saving money for 25 years. Oh wait, I did that already. :)