Numbness of Sept and Oct

I meant to write this blog probably 5 months ago, but i think I got numb of the unexpected things happened in life.

Sept was supposed to be an excited month and so was Oct for celebration. Sometimes we just don’t know when life will throw us a curve ball, and what should we do? Trying to catch it or duck it? Or just standing there and taking it like a man or woman huh? I’m always a fan of changes and always up embracing it with both opened hands, but these are not changes. You probably wonder what I’m rambling about? More than two months and I’m still dealing with it …or them, maybe sharing these unexpectedness will ease the numbness

First: Somehow on an easy afternoon after-work, I was supposed to head out to a ladies happy hour night then it turned into an unhappy hours of phone calls to insurance company and police and of waiting for the cops to show up. Got hit in the back accident happened caused my first numbness of my mind, body and restlessness. Concerning about cancelling plans, insurance reporting, and car fixing matters was messing up with my body and mind but this unexpected thing I can handle and consider it as part of life, but the second one left me breathless!

Second: My only older brother, Luis who just turned 43 in last Sept and usually wouldn’t even reply to my texts of wishing him a very happy birthday. Every time I think of him, how I wish we had a chance to grow up together,  spend more time with each other or see each other more than 5 times per year. Counting all these years I have known this man, this only full bloodline brother of mine sometimes causes me heartache. First text message from him not to thank us for remembering his birthday or birthday wish, but to tell me that he’s been bed-ridden for more than 3 weeks without holding any food down. This led him to ER, the next updates I heard I had to come back to see him the last time. Everything went by quickly. 43! He left us when he just turned 42 in 2 weeks ago. It took a while to sink in that my brother is no longer with us. I still think of calling him here and there!  Maybe he never did leave us 🙂 He is forever loved by us!

The numbness comes and goes, so do people. Life keeps spinning and we will continue to stay grounded as we needed. Got to remind ourselves, care more, love more and give more!

 

Austin Mobility for July and August!

Its almost 2 years we moved to Austin. I have no real complaint about the traffic here. Kept  hearing from my local Austin people about how busy Austin gets, traffic is bad everywhere we go, mobility is one of the issues discussing at election and on the table for everyone to discuss how should we solve mobility issue for Austin.

They talked about expanding the main freeway, adding more bus routes by Cap Metro, encouraging car pooling/ride sharing. This young and hip city tailors to bikers, moped, motorcycles anything you named it. Still Mobility is still the main concern and top complaint on the list of what makes Austin bad for you.

Interesting things relating to mobility I heard during July and August, Personal Rapid Transit, Google selfless driving car, Ridescout… and of course Uber! Yes everyone is on the same wagon and hoping to solve this major problem asap and these came with many community meetings between big/medium/small companies Google, to local agencies like TXDot, Capital Metro …bonds, moving residents (160 people/day)….all I heard opportunities, opportunities, opportunities for entrepreneurs and business owners who can take advance of these movements in Austin.

Usually to see more Go2Car around town, not as many anymore. Saw more Lyft ads on Facebook than ever, and less Yellow Cap running around town.

Do you know how many transportation choices Capital Metro offers? MetroRail, MetroRapid, MetroBus, UT Shuttle, vanpool and carpool, MetroAccess…. Last time I sat in a “Doing Business with Cap Metro” and learn so much about how much they invest in their apps to make Austin moving quicker and their transportation options you can choose from!

Guess what i want to do in Spring? Try one of those bikes rental for touring downtown! Its a bit hot right now for doing that, but Fall should be great weather for doing that. If you happen to be in Austin in the fall don’t forget to try that out.

As the time being, mobility in Austin is a continuous action or discussion. I don’t think it will improve much in 2016 and will be worse with more and more people moving to town. At least 4-5 couples of my friends are planning to come here in 2016 and they all have cars. Life in Austin is great, and you got nothing to complain about traffic if you are coming from California or back from Saigon like me!

Question: when will we have space mobile in US or this town? Okay I will settle for bullet train like Tokyo and I can’t wait to try Personal Rapid Transit for downtown!~

Sources:

1. https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/austin-personal-rapid-transit-idea
2. http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2013/04/24/ridescout-app-changes-austin-transportation
3. http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2015/08/13/how-a-space-faring-entrepreneur-intends-to-fix.html
4. http://www.capmetro.org/
5. https://mobilityatx.com/ = share your ideas about solving mobility in Austin with this site!

 

For 1st year anniversary celebration in June!

What about June? This June came and went by quickly, with everything and all the love. It’s our 1st anniversary! This June reminds me of how I wasn’t not calm last June all stressed out and doing last minutes stuff for the Vegas trip, and in a better place this part of my life. It also reminds me how lucky I am to have someone special as him, who is understanding and very supportive. Now to think back of last June why would I even be scared marrying this wonderful man 🙂

Visiting Galveston 2nd time was much better because of these things we did: stayed next to the beach, enjoyed listening to the waves since no swimming at the beach warning, hung out with a Tina at the Jacuzzi was great, saw Robert’s grandfather’s house, walked around the Strain and read its history, drove around checking the island, ate great seafood and of course the best was he planned everything!

If you asked me more than 1 year ago about marriage, I would suggest you NOT doing it lol, now after 1 year, we are happy where we are at and working toward our future home. This decision was good for me, maybe not for everyone and we intend to work hard at being happy with each other. I believed getting married is a hard decision but staying married and being happy with whom you are with is even harder.

So June was great and looking forward to July!

May and its Asian Pacific American Celebration

This May is different comparing to other May. I joined in the Asian Pacific American celebration everywhere I turn. Didn’t remember that I did this last year. With the Asian Chamber work, this is our month, we participated every events we could, and also planned our biggest annual award gala coming up soon end of this month.

I must say this May shined and highlighted our Asian Heritage and I’m glad I was right in the middle of it!

2 important things during this May that I’m grateful to be involved it.

1) Len Duong camp: This year with Rise to the Challenge with 2 tasks 1) I took on the fundraising team effort, we did good but could have been better, setting it up for next year and 2) I worked with a young Workshop Team and got a chance to learn so much from them. Lovely time at LD2015 with the staff, campers and the big family we have, just another unforgettable memories we will treasure for sure. We left camp with much to learn, inspired and full of love. You want to check out thevideos/photos? Check it out on our Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/539093829563461/ Hopefully we will see each other in Vancouver, Canada in 2016

Our LD2015 celebrity chi Duy Loan Le, awesome lady and my moments with her!

2) Ovation Gala: the whole committee worked hard especial Kim – my coworker, she did great! And we got amazing feedback, you can read about it here!

– Austin Business Journal: http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/blog/at-the-watercooler/2015/06/global-asian-entrepreneurs-gather-in-austin-for.html

– Austin Chronicle: http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2015-06-01/the-greater-austin-asian-chamber-of-commerce-ovation/

 

Got a picture with Mr. William Wang – Founder and CEO of Vizio!
PS: Got to take pictures with 2 leaders in the tech industry this May!!!

 

Not Black or White but Emotion April

Today is April 30, which is an important day for Vietnamese. It depends if you are living in Vietnamese, you could enjoy the national holiday, taking off somewhere fun outside of Saigon like I would have done when I was living in Vietnam, but back in U.S. it’s called Black April, it’s the day the oversea Vietnamese remembering how they lost the Vietnam War to the Northern Vietnamese, the Communist aka Viet Cong.

You will see the yellow flag with red stripes representing oversea Vietnamese community remembrance posts, interviews, march, telling the stories, pictures of their love ones, of them being a young refugees leaving their country, their family behind searching for freedom away from their birth place.  On the other side of the world, in Vietnam or Saigon, Ha Noi I saw happy posts, smiling pictures, and even saw a question as by a younger generation asking why 4/30/1975 they called as Liberation Day but our people were fleeing the country to find their freedom?

3 Things this April gave:

1) Remembering my grandfather, his birthday is today, if he is still alive, I might still be in CA not TX

2) No matter who won the war, all it left us wounds as this story, A father & son story regarding to 40 years Vietnamese War North South wounds fester: http://news.yahoo.com/40-years-vietnam-war-north-south-wounds-fester-104140664.html

3) We left our birth country, adopt, grew and be awesome like Dr. Tung Nguyen, you can read his article here about this 40 Years Ago: The End of the Vietnam War by Dr. Tung Nguyen https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/04/30/40-years-ago-end-vietnam-war

As for me April will always emotional one: Happy birthday Grandpa, I miss you!

March 2015 – Give and Take

March came and went away quickly.

All of my 4 weekends in March were busy, 3 out of those 4 were for fundraising for Youth Leadership Len Duong camp 2015, and I worked the remain weekend.

March is always special to me, since it’s my, my sister, and my mom’s birth month. It’s also the month of remember my grandma, who passed away middle of March. This March I couldn’t come back visit my mom, sister to celebrate our birthday together or have a family gathering in CA for my grandma death anniversary. This is also the second March I have been in Austin.

Beginning of March it was a great chance I got from a friend, who introduced us to the group teaching him to meditate. I always wanted to learn more about meditation and its wonderful benefit, suddenly it happened. I got this gift from above, and I’m so grateful for this birthday gift. I have been trying to practice more and more everyday and hopefully I will continue doing this until the last day. Want to know more about the meditation class I took you can check out this site: http://uhbe.org/

This year, I dedicated my first six months for fundraising Youth Leadership Len Duong camp 2015. You might ask what it is. It’s a program organized by Vietnamese Culture and Science Association, headquartered in Houston. I got a chance to attend their camp in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 …then I had to take a break since I moved to Asia. Last year was my first time coming back, and the new LD team had woken my passion of this special Youth Leadership program, which I loved a lot.

You can visit link: http://www.vcsa.org/ to find out more information this awesome organization

Also visit this link: http://www.lenduongcamp.org/ to learn more about Len Duong camp. This is special program for youth from 18 and above, and also provide 11 scholarships for youth to apply so they can come to camp and meet other great Vietnamese American youths all over US, Canada and other places.

I have to say it was a challenge to take on this fundraising lead task, but that’s why it makes everything so much fun. So far our 4 teams from Houston, Dallas, Austin, Vancouver hosted our own fundraising effort and did a great job!  I’m learning everyday and being very grateful for having a chance just doing that.

Personally I’m trying to raise $3000 goal but it might be such a big goal for first time doing this lol, if you learn about VCSA and Len Duong camp and want to donate for this good cause, please visit this link to donate online: http://www.razoo.com/story/Jodie-Huynh. Thank you so much!

March will always be special month, doesn’t matter what year!

February and its 3 specials

Feb came and going very quickly. It was so busy I couldn’t even grab of what did happened and what didn’t. Just wanted to write down quickly important things happened in Feb I didn’t want to forget.

Valentine’s Day, it happened on Sat, and was almost the same as other Valentines’ Day, we didn’t go out and decided to celebrate it quietly at home with specially meal prepared by my one and only personal chef, Mr. DeWitt. The different of this year, it marked our first Valentines’ celebration as husband and wife, still sounding so strange to me. We had lamb instead of steak or fish/chicken. I think he was sick of trying to eat healthy lol. I’m not sure if I would remember what we ate for our first marriage Valentine’s dinner, but I know I will remember how sweet my husband is right now!

Valentine’s special dinner

Daddy’s birthday – Not sure how many birthday we didn’t get a chance to celebrate together, this would be another thing to add on the we-miss list. Last year was his 60th birthday, and he mentioned that he’s not a birthday kind of guy, wondering what’s happened here. I’m SO birthday kind of gal, maybe I got this from the mom’s side not his. By the way my birthday is coming this weekend, maybe there will be a blog for the birthday and the whole month celebration!

Lunar New Year Celebration – yes you read that right, not Chinese New Year but Lunar New Year. This would mark our second Tet festival  here in Austin. Went to the Tet Festival here hosted by the local Vietnamese American Community and had to admit they did a better job than last year. That is a good new starting out this year right! This month was instantly busy with closing up a big project and many events for this celebration. I don’t even have time to make my Tet traditional caramelized pork & eggs stew. I ordered banh chung (Tet rice cakes) to give out as gifts but didn’t get them until after Tet. At least the people I gave the gifts to didn’t mind so much about when they got it lol. Thanks to the Mr. of the house, he made some caramelized pork & eggs stew to have some Tet festival flavor at the end. Working at the Asian chamber, putting Lunar New Year mixer was fun, and also found out there are only 3 Asian countries celebrating this special occasion, yes beside China and Vietnam, Korea is the other party goers.  I love this kind of event where we can connect many local business people and also highlight where they are from beside who they are. It was an awesome event!

Heading to Houston this weekend for a fundraising event for Len Duong camp 2015 and have lunch with some good friends. This year I’m dedicating my first 6 months to Len Duong camp!

Feb of 2015 was great, crazy busy but GREAT, and I know March will be much better! Until next time…..

 

Texas winter and looking forward to 2015

Its been a year to feel this kind of weather again. It seemed like summer was just here and left quickly. Just told Robert that I can deal with this cold dreadful weather if I can do snowboarding, and will bite my tongue wont complain at all …Snowboarding in Texas that would be something I’m looking forward to since I read an article about them building a sky resort here in Texas soon.

So not like the regular Christmas I have experienced in CA or Saigon, this was my first one in Texas. We had 2 beautiful days for Christmas Eve and Christmas but somehow something is not the same. We put up the tree, got more lights outside, more ornaments on the tree than last year and more gifts underneath the tree. Nikki even got her yummy Christmas gift. Still it’s not the same when you are not celebrating Christmas with your family. I have more friends here in Austin comparing to last year but my heart was divided into 2 parts: 1 big section for California and the other one was for the Saigon Christmases I knew.

On another note, this was our little family first Christmas: Robert, I and Nikki and as us being a married couple with a furry kid! We are heading to New Year Eve tomorrow with a cold freeze coming and us with no solid plan what to do on NYE and that would be okay too!. With this kind of weather beside cold, freezing wind and extra fogging on top I worry that the Austin NYE at Butler Park wont happen. Cuddling inside a blanket with a warm cozy fireplace might be our little nuclear family New Year Eve plan.

What I am looking forward in 2015?

1) Peace for the world

2) Health for my family

3) I want to SERVE, GIVE and BE THE CHANGE!

2015 I’m wishing you the best of love, luck and achieve what you want and hope for, be all you can be 🙂

Sweet Potatoes November!

November – Fall – even though I can hardly see the color of leaves changing around ATX but with the temperature dropping, it is telling us to put on the fire, extra jacket and enjoy a cup of hot chocolate.

I love this season and of course everyone else does too. Since the holidays is around the corner, I’m conscious about food and being healthy (yes went to the doctor too lol).

Read about how great sweet potatoes can do for our body, here is my summary 9 things it has: vitamin B6, C, D, iron, Magnesium, potassium, natural sugar for bloodstream, high in carotenoids protect against the effects of aging and last you can anything with it like: cook, roast, puree, smoothie, steam, bake or grill….

I’m dedicating sweet potatoes for November. It has colors of autumn, it can be a reminder that we need to be good to our body, and of course it tastes yummy

3 ways I love to cook sweet potatoes for this month:

1) Hasselback Sweet Potatoes: http://www.foodrepublic.com/2012/11/19/hasselback-sweet-potatoes-recipe – this one is so yummy!

2) Sweet Potato Chili: http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2012/01/05/sweet-potato-chili/ – could be great on the rainy days.

3) Honey Roasted Sweet Potatoes with honey cinnamon dip: http://www.averiecooks.com/2014/09/honey-roasted-sweet-potatoes-with-honey-cinnamon-dip.html

Try these out and let me know how you like it. Have a sweet potatoes November with love!

Sources: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/9-reasons-to-love-sweet-potatoes.html

Picture: healthfitnessrevolution.com

October – Germans’ month

October is Robert’s favorite month, since it’s his birthday and also month of beer fest.  We decided to drive to Fredericksburg, Texas, nice small German town, which is about 1 hour 30 mins away from us for OktoberFest

After stood in line,  bought tickets, drank some beers, ate some sausages, saw some German walking about, listened to some German music …..realized this OktoberFest is not that big at all but quite nice.

Here is my quick summary of the events.

1) I still don’t know anything about German and their food except their sausages and some of their beers!

2) The outfit they were wearing as shorts made by leather and hot. The ladies in their summer dresses are so cute,

3) There were some art collection there but nothing stood out to me speaking German at all

4) I thought it was a beer fest but guess what they also sold wine, since Frederickburg is surrounding with wineries

5) Thanks to this beer fest I got to try out craw fish sausages! I don’t think this is the German sausage maybe has a Texan twist to it.

6) We tried to get something German or beer fest to bring back but couldn’t fit the hats they were selling so he ended up bought a t-shirt from Fredericksburg Fire Dept. What’s up with that? lol

7) Germans at beer fest are much friendlier than the regular professional Germans? Maybe because it was beer fest and they started out with beer or just had a festive attitude at this event?…

On the way home, we know we must come back here to do a wine tasting day or weekend! If you are looking for a place close to Austin for a day trip, think of Frederickburg.

You can find more information about this city at these links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredericksburg,_Texas

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Not sure how you are celebrating your October, but have a cold one and smile!