Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame. I’ve smashed my thrice-a-week blog post resolution to bits, but wait! Hold off on the waste-throwing, because I made progress in a few other areas. It’s an uphill climb, my friends.

New Year Resolution Scores:

1. To read the Bible for 10 minutes every day (3/5)
2. To publish a blog post of at least 300 words, 3 times a week (0/5)
3. To spend at least 10 minutes writing fiction every day (1/5)
4. To take 1 great photo a week (2/5)
5. To update Project Life once a week (5/5)

Out of the 8 weeks since my last post, I’ve read the Bible daily for at least 6 of them. I’m finally past the 100-day mark of my 365-day plan! I’m awarding myself a 3 out of 5.

I went off the ARFI grid completely, so that’s a big, fat zero for me. I didn’t write 10 minutes of fiction everyday, but I did write the second chapter of my thesis project (a 60,000-page novel), as well as two short stories for class. That’s got to count for something, doesn’t it? Even if they’re for school. Jenna gets a 2 out of 5.

I spent a week in Salt Lake City (ski trip) and a week in Washington D.C. (writers’ conference), and I took a couple of great shots during those trips. Back in Philly, though, I reverted to hermit mode, living off the stockpile of meat in my freezer. So the only shots I took were of my husband and my beautiful Le Creuset. I’m awarding myself a two.

Ah, resolution no. 5. My only perfect score. For the first time in my 2-year love affair with Project Life, I’m up to date. In case you haven’t heard of it, Project Life is scrapbooking made easy. It’s a photo journal that helps you, in Project Life’s own words, “Cultivate a Good Life and Record It.” I’m a huge fan.

For more information on Project Life, watch the video below. You can get them in Malaysia from this website. I use an Epson Picturemate 310 to print my photos at home. They turn out better than if you print them at a shop, and fit perfectly in Project Life’s photo slots.

In Other News

I caught a bad flu after being exposed to a freezing day in Washington D.C., which resulted in my missing most of the conference I had travelled there for, and a topsy-turvy sleep schedule (because I was in bed all day). For almost two weeks after my return to Philly, I was running on Malaysian time—falling asleep at 9am, and getting up at 5pm. While this facilitated my catching-up with friends back home, I started to miss the sun. On Sunday, I took advantage of a short story deadline to stay up for 24 hours, crashed, and was finally able to get up when the sun did. Now I get up at 5 am and crash at 6pm. Better, but not ideal. Hopefully, by the next time I post, I’ll have gotten back to my 3am-11am sleep pattern.

What else? As I mentioned two months ago (shame, shame), I recently took up photography, and I’m loving it! I bought Bryan Peterson’s “Understanding Exposure”, which really helped me understand the basic ISO/aperture/shutter speed trio of previously daunting photography terms, then registered for a free online digital photography course on alison.com (the course has since been taken down). Once I understood the basics, my DSLR (a Nikon D7100) became my new best friend. I’ve always envied friends who are able to draw/paint/design (I suck at drawing. Like, really suck), and photography has opened the door for me to be an artist, too.

Writing is a form of art, but it’s much less spontaneous and much harder to do well. Plus it’s harder to get your friends to read your stories than to look at your photos.  On the other hand, writing is free. The cost of new glass (that’s fancy photography-speak for lenses) is insane. INSANE.

You’re all caught up now. Two months covered in one blog post. Boy, I need to start living it up if I’m to blog three times a week.

Thanks for checking in, guys.

Love,
Jenna

Have you ever dreamt a dream so bad that you were bummed out the entire morning? In your dream, a parent has died, or you relive a break-up, or it’s the morning of your pre-u chemistry test and you’re running late.

Last night, I dreamt a real doozy. In the dream, hubby broke off our engagement because I had lied to him about something, and before I could bring myself to believe that our relationship of five years was over, he found someone else.

It was horrible. Everything moved in slow motion. I couldn’t believe that a lie had caused this; it wasn’t even a big one. I remember going over our entire relationship in my head, picking out all the Hubbies in happy moments, and kind moments, and loving moments, and comparing them to the Hubby who had just broken up with me. How could a person change overnight?

How can someone just stop loving you?

I sought closure — Hubby wouldn’t give it to me. I sought forgiveness — Hubby told me that trust, once lost, could never be recovered. Anyway, he was with someone else now and really shouldn’t be talking to me.

I obsessed over the past. Memories of our courtship, our meals, our trips, and our days in the Christian Fellowship all marched past my mind’s eye, and because this was a dream taking place in the past, memories of what could have been followed suit. I watched as our wedding day, and honeymoon, and family dinners, and moving into the new house — every precious, mundane moment — shimmer out of existence, ghosts of futures past.

I woke up devastated.

It took me a few minutes to realise that it was just a dream.

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about all the ways my life would be different if hubby and I had, at any point in our five-and-a-half year courtship, decided to break up. It wasn’t the big, surface things that came to mind, like “I probably wouldn’t be in the U.S. now”.  The first thing I thought about was the fact that if we had broken up, I wouldn’t have the exclusive family pass I have to [insert Hubby’s last name] family gatherings.

I wouldn’t have gotten to hold my little niece on her first day in this world, or watch her learn to use a fork (she’s a genius). I wouldn’t have gotten to know my sister-in-law better, or be there for important family announcements of engagements, promotions, new jobs.

I got up and looked for Hubby, who was in the living room, and made him hug me for a really long time.

About a month ago, I had dinner with a few people I had just met. Upon discovering that I was recently married, one unmarried guy asked me how married life was different from when we were just boyfriend and girlfriend.

I rummaged through my head for an answer, and the best I could come up with was that I could have my best friend around all the time.

So cliché lah Jenna.

Ya, I know.

It’s bothered me that I didn’t give him a better answer. I felt that I did a poor job advertising marriage, because it struck me as the words were coming out of my mouth that if you have a live-in partner, then my answer sucked.

Unmarried guy, I wish I had told you this instead:

I think your married life can only differ significantly from your pre-marriage life if you don’t believe in the concept of divorce. If you keep the option of divorce on some back shelf in the storeroom of your mind, then your married life won’t really be different from when you moved in with your partner.

Knowing that Hubby promised to take me to be his wife,

to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death.

and knowing that he meant it — there’s no room for divorce in the marriage vow — gives me a security and a feeling of being loved that nothing before marriage could have given me.

When we were dating, there were a few times when things were hard, and I toyed with the idea of breaking up. It didn’t happen very often, but sometimes I would imagine an alternate reality, where I was single and could try out that Tinder thing all my friends were talking about.

The option of breaking up gave me a sense of relief when things were bad, because I knew I had an exit, but it also meant that Hubby had an exit as well. What if he decided that one of his colleagues/church-mates/schoolmates/Facebook friends was a better fit for him?

What if he meets someone who’s prettier/skinnier/more ambitious or — God forbid — smarter than me?

He has, but he’s stuck with me.

And that’s the beauty of marriage.

Soundtrack moments are rare, but this morning’s awakening could have been perfectly accompanied by this song, which I share with you because how often does a song perfectly describe a moment you’re living in?

Lean back, close your eyes, open your eyes to click the play button, then close your eyes again and prepare to fully identify with the feelings I had this morning:

If this makes you emo, remember —

There’s ARFI.

Jenna

I turned 28 last Saturday, and this is how I spent it:

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Hubby and I toast my birthday with glasses of Mike’s Hard Lemonade

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I open the package that’s been sitting on the living room floor for the past few days. What can it be? What can it be?! It’s … every housewife’s dream dutch oven, the KitchenAid of dutch ovens, Julia Child’s dutch oven, the dutch oven you see in stock photos of dutch ovens (the way the KA Artisan is the stock photo stand mixer)…yes, yes, you guessed it! Hubby gave me the green light to get…

THE LE CREUSET DUTCH OVEN! Isn’t it bee-yew-tiful? Oh, Le Creuset, I am not worthy to use you in the kitchen, but I’ll try to be. I could go on and on about the Le Creuset, but suffice it to say that there have been anecdotes about siblings arguing over who would inherit their mother’s LC. My children won’t have that problem; I’m taking mine to the grave. Better still (I don’t want to take up so much land),  I’ll ask hubby to cremate me and store my ashes in it.

My hubby spoils me. I like it.

0030

I wash the Le Creuset. I dry the Le Creuset. I place it lovingly on its throne upon my stove. I kiss it good night.

0050

Hubby and I set up house, him assembling our IKEA dining table, and I washing and putting away our stacks of IKEA dishes and cutlery.

0300

Exhausted, we fall asleep.

0800

We wake up, go down to the lobby, and watch the Olympics badminton men’s singles match. You know how that went. You felt what I felt. And, like me, you still think Lee Chong Wei is a hero. Malaysia boleh!

1100

We had lunch at Shake Shack, and because it was my birthday I got a milkshake and a ShakeStack (“Cheeseburger and a ’Shroom Burger topped with lettuce, tomato, ShackSauce™”). On ordinary days the budget doesn’t allow for a milkshake, and I have to choose between a cheeseburger and a ‘shroom burger.

1300

Hubby had planned to bring me to a museum, but a nap sounded even better. So we napped. When it’s your birthday you get to decide what to do, so we ended up having a really lovely nap.

1830

Refreshed, we went out for dinner at Tria Cafe, which serves absolutely scrumptious food. We had

• chicken liver mousse
• apple tree goat cheese with basil pesto
• claudio mozzarella sandwich
• flourless chocolate torta

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Finally, we walked over to the Kimmel Center to watch Nick Offerman and Megan Mullaly’s live comedy show, “Summer of 69: No Apostrophe”. It was funny in parts, too vulgar in parts, draggy in parts. I give it a 6/10.

2200

We caught Pokemon on the way home, then spent the last two hours of my birthday surfing the net on our phones.

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The end.

By the way…

Thanks for checking in on me! It’s nice to see views from all over the world, and be able to pinpoint some of you. I’d like to shout out to Elena in Japan, Jason in Germany (am I right, is that you Jason?), Kuharnesh and Kenneth in the UK, and all my friends back home.

You guys are the best, you make me feel loved.

Jenna

With a couple of free days on my hands till classes start next week, I was prepared to spend lots of time in Downton Abbey (courtesy of Amazon Prime Video), comfortably sprawled out on the only piece of furniture we currently own – the bed.

Alas, it was not to be. I was barely past the intro of Season 2’s first episode when the unthinkable happened – I ran out of data. Watching videos doesn’t eat up my quota, but once I’ve used 6GB browsing and Skyping (Skype was the main culprit here – I completely overlooked the fact that Skype eats data, I used it like I was using the phone), my Internet speed is capped and becomes too sluggish to stream videos.

The sudden loss of a modern housewife’s best friend had me getting out of bed, taking a shower, and loading the washing machine. With nothing left to do, I put on my Converse shoes, grabbed my sunglasses and shoulder bag, and went for a walk…

…to T-Mobile. Where I learnt there was nothing I could do get my high-speed Internet back except wait till the next billing cycle.

So I decided to really go for walk. It was a lovely afternoon, and there were lots of people strolling along the streets, shopping and eating and talking on their phones. People don’t really jay-walk here, but then drivers respect zebra crossings.

After wandering around aimlessly for a while, I decided to conclude my walk with a visit to Trader Joe’s. It’s a good thing we’re currently only capable of microwaving food, because there were lots of ingredients pleading with me to buy them. I told them that their time would come, and headed over to microwave meals. Trader Joe’s has an amazing Asian microwave meals section. According to one of the TJ workers, who came up to me when he saw me scrutinising a packet of Trader Ming’s Chinese Style Pork Buns (3.99$ for 4), the Asian section is their most popular section.

“Do you need help?”

“Oh no, thanks…I’m just amazed that you have these!”

“Let me see, I don’t actually know what these are. How do you cook them?”

“Huh? Um well at home we steam them…”

“Oh so they’re like dumplings!”

“Uh. Yeah.”

I put the packet of char siew baos in my cart, next to the bibimbap and wan tan soup, and rolled away.

I’m back at the apartment. I’ve put the groceries away and folded the clothes.

I’ve blogged.

I’m going to go down to the lobby and see if their wifi can handle Downton Abbey.

If not, well, I guess I could read a book and have some Ben & Jerry’s. I’ve had some leftover pizza, but, well –

There’s ARFI.

Jenna

The first few days in Philly went by in a whirl of errands – setting up our bank accounts, selecting the best mobile plans, buying a mattress. The weather on the day we arrived was sunny (though the next four days of drizzling rain showed that it’s not always sunny in Philadelphia), and the low humidity makes walking a breeze.

The people here are pretty friendly, and getting smiles and greetings of ‘How are you doing today?’  from everyone from the doorman to the cashier takes some getting used to.

Unfortunately, tipping also takes some getting used to. Confession: I didn’t tip the mattress delivery guys from Mattress Factory; sorry mattress guys! I wasn’t thinking. Hubby told me to wrap my mind around the idea that everything we buy has the hidden cost of a tip. I’m too Chinese to give tips without a pang and not Chinese enough to not feel bad about not giving any. Give me service tax any day.

I’m too Chinese to give tips without a pang and not Chinese enough to not feel bad about not giving any

Shopping here has me doing a lot of mental math. With the exchange rate being what it is (1 USD = 4.04 MYR), buying a 80$ top that’s 60% off has me running this calculation through my head: [80$ – (8×6)] x 4 = RM128. A day of clothes shopping and grocery store browsing (hello, Trader Joe’s) has me forming the general conclusion that clothes cost about the same as they do at home, while produce and prepackaged food cost maybe RM2-3 cheaper per item.

Eating out here is expensive. Restaurants which are supposed to be on the cheaper end here still have you forking out about 12$/meal, which gives you some insight into why microwave meals and fast food has so much appeal here. Hubby and I had a happy rummage in TJ’s 4$ microwave meal (for 2 pax!) section.

I can’t wait for my kitchen to equipped. Our apartment is unfurnished, so I’ve been having a great time shopping for cookware on Amazon. Until the cookware arrives, it’s going to be eating out and microwave meals for us (ka-ching ka-ching!).

Cost-calculating aside, I really like it here. I thought I’d be dealing with homesickness for at least a month, but instead I’ve found a bunch of things that had me saying ‘I love America!’:

1. Amazon Prime Free Two-Day/Same Day Shipping
2. 2 pints of Ben & Jerry’s cost 6$
3. The Apple Store gave me a brand new phone when they couldn’t fix the screen of my old one
4. Everyone speaks English
5. T-Mobile’s ‘Binge On’ offering that lets you stream unlimited Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, etc. without taking a byte of your data

Have a great day, guys! And remember:

There’s ARFI.

Jenna