Monthly Mumbles #2

Hi, friends! After approximately half a year, I am (re-) introducing Monthly Mumbles! I want to share more personal and random things on the blog this year so I plan to write these (hopefully) monthly posts to talk about my favorite things and highlights one each month. We’ll see if I stick with it.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS MONTH

Long Weekend – I am terrible at taking time off of work, and I barely took off any days last year (partially due to not traveling any and partially due to having started a new job and feeling like I needed to prove myself). Welp, I have a good amount of PTO built up that I need to use by mid-year so I am planning to take off a couple of days every month. For February, I took off the Friday before and the Monday after Valentine’s Day for a four-day weekend. I didn’t go anywhere or do anything special but it was lovely. I did celebrate Galentine’s Day with my sisters who also took that Friday off.

Celebrating Lunar New Year with the Fam – For those of you who don’t know, I am Korean and I celebrate the Lunar New Year. I don’t have any extended family in the States, but I am incredibly lucky to have my immediate family (my mom and my three siblings) all in the Triangle area so we are able to get together quite regularly. We had a low-key family dinner for Lunar New Year, which involved making and eating lots of food per usual. We even pulled out and dressed up in our hanbok, traditional Korean attire!

Rearranged Office – Since I moved in with Alex, I turned his guest bedroom with his childhood furniture into my “office” meaning I got rid of the single bed and put my desk in it. I have some plans to decorate and hang some photos and artwork on the wall, which I have been talking about forever but have yet to do so. HOWEVER, I did move the desk and the dresser around a little bit, and I feel like a new person! I actually decided to not put my desk against the wall so I can sit behind the desk in front of the wall, and that perspective somehow just works?! And now I do not have to move all the junk around the room whenever I have to turn the camera on haha.

FAVORITE PURCHASES

Reading Light – I am a physical book person and I read almost every day. It is so dark around the house for me to read sometimes (changing the lightbulbs is on my home improvement list) and having a lamp beside the bed didn’t work for me either! I finally purchased the reading light, and it has been a game changer. This goes around your neck and is bendable so you can adjust the legs. There are three different brightness settings as well as cool, neutral, and warm light.

Strawberry Crocs – I love crocs. I love strawberries. These strawberry crocs were meant for me. Does that make up a haiku? I don’t know but I do know that I am obsessed with my strawberry crocs! I actually came across them last year but they were all sold out so when I found them in stock, I immediately purchased them! I have been wearing them almost every time I step outside of the house!

OBESSIONS

Bridgerton – This was the first show that I got really into since finishing Downton Abbey! The first episode was a tad bit slow but it picked up soon afterwards, and we finished the show in a few days! If you still haven’t watched it already, it gets very steamy. I would not watch it with my family lol. I hadn’t realized this was based on a book series so once I found out, I had to look up the books! I got a copy of the first book Duke and I and am excited to read it.

Toasting Marshmallows with a Hand-Held Torch – For Alex’s birthday, I got him a Solo Stove, which is a small, portable, smokeless fire pit (yes, I am the best gift giver). We had s’mores night where I went all extra and made a s’mores board. Because I was very extra, we had a lot of leftover chocolates and crackers and marshmallows to eat. And I had this idea to use a hand-held torch to toast my marshmallow! Alex got this one from Amazon for one of this DIY projects involving epoxy? resin? It really is perfect for indoor marshmallow toasting. I use one of my metal chopsticks to skewer the marshmallow and I go town on the marshmallow with the torch. I know it was my idea, but really genius.

Making Knockoff Risotto – Long story short, I learned how to make risotto this month, which was very involved (not hard but hard maintenance?). I am not sure I will make risotto again, at least not traditionally. To be honest, all my body wants is the combination of carbs, butter, and cheese. what I have been doing instead is getting a bowl of rice (not even risotto rice, just my regular asian rice), a tablespoon of butter, and lots of Parmigiano-Reggiano and microwaving it to melt the butter and cheese. You can judge me, but it still works for me. I do use freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (hair flip) so can you really judge me?

WHAT I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT MONTH

Seeing Friends – I have not seen any of my friends in 2021 yet. I love Alex and my sisters, but I need to see people who are not them. I hope to see a few of my college friends over the next couple of months, and I can’t wait. No specific plans made yet but they will likely involve eating and/or drinking outside. Let me know if you have any recommendations.

Three-Day Weekends – For the month of March, I plan to take a couple of Fridays off and I am already looking forward to the extra long weekends! (Also looking forward to when one day we have four-day work weeks.) I probably will stay in town, but I might go to Raleigh to get takeout or try to do something I normally can’t do during a workday.

Watching Minari with the Fam – Have you heard of Minari? It is a movie about “a Korean-American family that moves to an Arkansas farm in search of their own American Dream.” Asian American representation is seriously lacking in the media, so my family was absolutely thrilled to hear about this movie! It is also quite surreal to see Youn Yuh-jung, the actress that plays the grandmother, in an American film as I grew up watching her in Korean soap operas. My family considered renting out a movie theater (Silverspot Cinema in Chapel Hill is playing if you’re interested in that option), but we ordered it to to watch it at home together this afternoon.

Until next month!