A Case of the Runs

Once again, I find myself in the last day of the year, which seem to come so much faster these days. I'm getting older.  For the first time in life, I am really starting to feel (and see) this "getting older" rather than just fretting about my chronological age, mostly because the holidays always feel a little less magical every year. Yet, somehow, I still retain many of my immature habits that I hope will start disappearing more with my age.  And I think if there is anything I want to commit to acknowledging and working on in 2013, it would be those.  I'll leave it at that. As was the case this year, I am not overly concerned with how many miles I run in the coming year.  Besides maintaining my weight and fitness level (and surviving LA Marathon 2013), I don't think I have any real running goals besides the hope that it will be fun again and remain a part of my general fitness activities.  It is really strange to see such a lack of "Upcoming" rac

One night, I decided to order fries for dinner.  While not the best choice, I wasn't exactly hungry and just wanted something to pick at while "The Ukrainian" ate his meaty dish. The fries were supposed to come with ketchup and garlic aioli, which is essentially mayo.  Mayonnaise is a friend of mine because although it does contain egg, it doesn't contain any dairy/ lactose , which results in this situation: About half an hour into my fry-eating and dipping, I suddenly got familiar stabbing pains in my stomach.  I actually had not had this happen in quite a while, in spite of consuming things like: - cheddar, gouda, swiss, and other such cheeses - pizza slices - pancakes and other baked goods I'm assuming were prepared with dairy - cakes (though I usually don't eat all the cream in my lactose fears), even tiramisu and cheesecake - butter on my bread, buttery things, etc. Yes, the "aioli" did seem a little runny... and did taste a l

This past Friday, I had just finished my 36-mile trek to have lunch with my boss, and when I looked at my phone, I saw a slew of disgust on my social media feeds regarding the shooting in Newtown, CT. I was almost late to meet her because I was kept digging for more.  Digging for the name and photo of the culprit, perhaps because I wanted to start making attributions in relation to his behavior.  I wanted to know what kind of person would have the nerve to point guns at small children and pull the trigger. According to evolutionary psychology, we aren't supposed to be killing ANY children -- they could very well belong to us or someone genetically related to us.  We are supposed to help them, and their cute faces kind of compel us to do so.  Obviously, there was something very wrong for that evolutionary instinct to have failed in this young man.   This public shooting thing is getting old.  Besides mentally processing them as they occur, I am reminded yearly of the an

I just stumbled upon this Geekologie article about the top Google searches of 2012. Given that I regularly check my blog's stats to see what searches are driving traffic here, I was definitely intrigued by this. While 2012 isn't over yet, it's kind of interesting to see what were the "hot topics" of the year. Here are the overall ones for the US: My initial comments... - Who is Michael Clarke Duncan?  I think I saw him on the Ellen DeGeneres show?? - Jeremy Lin, you've done us proud - What an eventful year! - I'm glad Katy Perry isn't on here, though she did rank in the "Top Celebrity Searches," ugh And just for kicks, here are the searches in Vietnam, where my parents are from: In other news, "The Ukrainian" and I got a couple of texts yesterday wishing us a "happy mini anniversary ."  Yep, that's right, we've made it through a month and are getting close to beating Kim Kardashian.

I'm fairly certain this will be my last wedding -related post, at least for now. ;) A couple of days after the big day , "The Ukrainian" and I went to Oahu, HI.  I've been wanting to go to Hawaii since I was a kid, so to cross two items off my " list " (marrying and going there) felt great.  I've gone on some business trips this year, so I've covered a lot of miles relative to the norm and found the airport-ing fairly routine by now. Most of our five-ish days there were fairly relaxed in pace, which is exactly what I wanted after all the excitement.  We had spent the previous days before we flew out there relaxing, visiting family, not cooking in favor of eating out, getting massages -- basically spending time away from our stupid upstairs neighbors who are seemingly awake very early and late, constantly walking like their feet are made of lead and don't seem to work during the day. =/ Anyhow, I'll start the barrage of photos now: R

I'm not a very crafty person.  Okay, everyone says that about themselves to fish for compliments, but this is how I really feel, so get over it. I should say, I used to be a crafty person, until I lost confidence in my crafting abilities.  I'm not really sure how I internalized this belief about myself, as I flex my creative muscles almost yearly for Halloween ( here  and here are some examples).  As you can see, self-efficacy  isn't among my frequently-used self-management tools. Although I walked into this wedding-planning process with the best of intentions, I ended up relinquishing control of a lot of things I otherwise would have "DIY-ed."  I remember working on many other things myself, feeling a tinge of sadness but then thinking it was ridiculous that I'd be sad about assembling such a small number of things for the size of our wedding. Here are some of the details of our ceremony/reception (all-in-one), in case anyone needs ideas.  And as alway

A number of things have been keeping me from blogging as regularly as I would like.  I also have a few products that I have not reviewed yet...  This is not like me, at all. For some reason, even though the wedding is over, I find myself with less "down" time than I expected.  I have been working on some post-wedding projects such as name-changing, our album, and thank-you stuff... but honestly I had to (finally) finish watching the Game of Thrones box set that I borrowed from my friend too long ago. Still a couple of episodes left. Besides that, I think work has been somewhat of a hindrance, though I won't go into anymore detail at this moment. In spite of rain that has finally arrived in Southern California, I've also been running more, sort of.  Due to my newfound unwillingness to wake up early in the morning, I've primarily been running during lunch time, both outdoors and on the treadmill (sometimes).  Last week, my mileage total was 19, which