The Sunday Post: NOVEMBER!

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted at Caffeinated Reviewer.

Sorry I've been so MIA lately! So much is going on here... well, it's slowed down a bit now but wow, October was INTENSE! We literally had some sort of party or travel, or thing every night for two weeks straight. It was fun, but so very crazy. Anyway. Here's my report!

LISTENING:

I had fun making a Thanksgiving playlist on Spotify. Here's the link if you're interested:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5fCPsYTuMrWulb6JBWyh8N?si=b34c3b47fd0b4a47  

One of my favorite songs from the past month is this from a boy group now called TFN (formerly T1419) and they are a less well known, new-ish group. We got to see them at the festival we went to in October (see below) and then they come out with this new song shortly after. I love love love the choreography! And it's so fun to know them better now after seeing them all in person. They are awesome!

If you want something a little more mellow, I'm in love with this guy's debut solo album. Seriously so good.  He's the dude from a brother sister duo group called AKMU. Anyway, this is the title track:

 

 WATCHING:

Doing pretty well at keeping up with Survivor and Amazing Race. Finished Young Actor's Retreat (which I reviewed here) and trying to find a kdrama that captures my attention. Struggling in that department. I haven't really watched much else lately.

READING:

I finished Feed by Mira Grant (reviewed here) and Fingersmith by Sarah Waters... review to come soon. Both strange books. I started The Maid by Nita Prose for book club. I can tell I'm not quite in the mood for it. I may wait another week and read something more... fun... for a minute. I really need something fun right now. What should it be??

WRITING:

I pledged to write 10,000 words as a NANOWRIMO rebel! So far I've done 1000! Woot! I haven't done much this weekend though, so that's not good. But seriously, having this bite-sized goal feels so awesome... and I don't know what it is about doing a big community event like this that makes writing more fun... but there's something there that drives me.  

BLOGGING:

I uploaded two posts this week lol! And I already linked to them... my review of Feed and of Young Actors' Retreat. This week I hope to review Fingersmith, maybe do a Top Ten Tuesday, and not sure what else. 

YOUTUBING:

I've posted several videos on the new booktube channel. The most popular one so far is a tour of my bookshelves. Go check it out if you haven't yet!

 

 We are now working on a video of us organizing the books. Look for that one to come soon!

The kpop channel has my favorites of the month compilation. So check that one out for some awesome songs that you might fall in love with! There's a bunch of mellow ones on the list this time, if that's your style:

    

In mid October we went to a thing called KAMP LA 2022... it was a brand new kpop festival that we were so excited about, but it turned out to be quite the fiasco. Half of the artists that were promised to come, didn't come because of visa issues, which is the fault of the festival organizer. We think they didn't have enough money because people didn't buy tickets like they thought and so they messed up the visas on purpose since they wouldn't have money to pay them. In they end they were giving away free tickets (that I paid hundreds of dollars for) and begging people to show up. It was crazy. But still we went because we just wanted to see Super Junior and thankfully they showed up! So... after six years of being into this kpop thing, I finally got to see the group that started it all for me. It was amazing. We did a vlog about the whole experience, with clips from the shows... here:

EATING/EXERCISING: 

Struggling. Always struggling. I finished the first month of doTerra's Metapowr stuff and it was all good, but I didn't lose weight or anything miraculous like that. I plan to at least continue with the collagen drink. 

MISC:

* I've been so devastated by the tragedy that happened in Seoul last weekend. My sister was there with her friends (in Seoul) but chose to go to a concert that night instead of partying with her friends. Her friends were in the area (Itaewon) where the crush of people happened, but hunkered down in a bar until it was safe to go. It took them hours to get back to their airbnb they were all staying in.  They are very traumatized by everything. But I'm so glad that they, and my sister are okay. This is an area my daughter was in just a few months ago and one I've visited myself when we went to Seoul. It's crazy to imagine such a tragedy happening there where everyone is so happy and having fun normally. It will never be the same again.

* Some of the craziness that's happened in the family since I last wrote: a trip to LA for the crazy kpop festival (see above), a trip to Oregon to look at houses and visit my daughter (we decided not to buy a house for now,) a birthday celebration for my husband, a wedding for my nephew, book club, church parties, work parties, an author event, Halloween, cheering on runners for a half marathon... and I can't remember what else. 

Seeing the grandkids while in Oregon.

* Oh, and the hot water heater broke, so we have been with out that until just yesterday. 

* Now the holiday season is here, so things will just keep being crazy, yes? We might be hosting Thanksgiving at our house, so that should be interesting. Wish me luck!

Currently: It's STILL winter???

 

I know today I'm supposed to be doing a Top Ten Tuesday post, but I had no idea what list there, so instead you get a little life catch up, since I've been gone for a bit.

Listening:

One of my favorite groups had a comeback last week and I love love love their new song. It's called X-Ray. Their dancing kills me every time.

 

And for something totally different from that, here's a group called Kingdom singing a song called Promise that I totally can't get enough of.

 

Watching:

Just finished one of the best kdramas I've watched in a while. This show is a perfect example of everything I love about kdramas. It's called Business Proposal (you can find it on Netflix) and I'll do a review here soon. But yeah, used nearly ever kdrama trope there is and I giggled through the whole thing. Here's a scene everyone went crazy about. This is the second lead couple, who got such as great a storyline as the first! 

 Reading:

While on vacation I finished a couple of books. The first one in Trish's new kdrama series, Summer Rain. And Nicola Yoon book that's been on my list forever, The Sun is Also a Star. I enjoyed them both! I've also been doing some beta reading for new writing friends. I wish I could clock these on Goodreads!

Meanwhile I'm still working on Iron Flower and I've started Lemon Drop Falls. 

Writing:

I haven't been writing at all lately. Just doing the beta reading. I need to get going again.

Blogging:

Well. I'm obviously VERY behind again. I need to do a couple of book reviews and one kdrama review. 

YouTubing:

I compiled 50 of my favorite BTS songs into one fast video.

 

And I put all my favorite songs so far this year into an even faster video:

 

Health Watch:

I'm gaining all the weight I lost in 2020 back very nicely. So much fun. I'm addicted to this collagen drink, which I like to think is helping me be healthy somehow. And I am still love love LOVING going into the virtual world to exercise. 

Misc:

* we survived our trip to Mexico. Sat on the beach beds and read a lot. And also got to visit Chichen Itza. 

* got together with old collage roommates last night (and I mean OLD in both senses of the word!) and that was fun!

Actually we don't look too bad for being so old!!

And that's about the sum of life around here lately. How's life where you are?

Where Have I Been? Aka. An Attempt at Catching Up

Many many things have happened since I was last on here. And I am so far behind that I've had trouble motivating myself to keep going. Which is such a sad thing given that this blog is over 12 years old and how can I just stop. You know?

So since I was last here... early June, this is what's gone down:

The big Asian trip happened. Two weeks in Korea and one in Japan. We picked up Toto when her four months and one semester had ended. We spent a weekend in Busan with Sangi (exchange student from two years ago) and her family. We did lots of kpop stuff and lots of not kpop stuff. We met up with my sister Megs, who is there teaching English, and spent a weekend doing touristy stuff in Seoul. Everything was awesome and lived up to the high expectations. When I stepped off the plane, I instantly felt like I was in the middle of a drama and it felt so surreal. That feeling didn't leave the whole time. But, after three weeks, we were exhausted and happy to come home.

At home it took us awhile to readjust. But back to work we went. I can't remember what else happened during those few weeks, but it must have been busy!

In early August we had our couple days at Arches and Canyonlands for a family reunion with just my kids. It's the first time we have all been together in years. We did a lot of hiking in the heat and some picnics and bonding. It was great, but again, we were exhausted afterwards and glad to be home out of the sun.

Then we had one week to prepare for KCON. This year we were again invited to be special guests and had three panels to present. Only Toto and I went to represent the channel, but we still had a great time and now, a week later, I'm missing being there. We went to four nights of concerts, spent time in several mosh pits to see bands up close, did the three panels, hung out with the famous people in the green room, met up with Twitter friends, and had a fantastic time. We screamed louder at that last concert than I think we have ever before. It was so much fun!

Two days after driving home from LA, we got in the car again to drive Toto to school. There was a fire and they shut down the freeway, so we had to go the long way around. Then I had to came back the long way around. It ended up being another 12 hours in the car, twice what it should have been. So that was crazy. But she is back now, after being away for so long, what with Korea and such. Hopefully she gets the groove back there and adjusts yet again!

Now we are all adjusting here at home since one of my sons has moved back in while he deals with some health issues. Life is never dull, and always crazy. That is for sure.

There are still two kpop events coming up in September. Another concert in LA and one in Las Vegas! Woot! 

On the reading and watching front... since we last talked:

• I have finished three books, and almost re-read another. I am half way through a huge massive fantasy that I'm reading with my son, and it's HARD!
• I have finished only 3 dramas (one of them really short and tiny) and almost done with a 4th. These dramas all star a dude named Yeo Jin Goo, which means I guess that I'm having a binge of his stuff and a bit of a love for him going on. Dang, that boy can act.
• I have not been to any movies. 
• I may have been to a couple of musicals, but I can't remember. Well, there was that one we went to in Korea that blew me away, even if I couldn't understand the language. :)

Maybe I'll do some mini reviews of these things? Hmmm.....actually I probably won't. I will do regular reviews. Wait for it....

Does it seem like enough has been going on that it would keep me away for three full months? It doesn't seem like it. But it does seem like the summer flew by and that I didn't do much but try to keep up with life!

How have things been with you all? 

The Trip Part 2: Vienna

After our Prague adventures were over, we moved on to Vienna. That morning we met our driver at our apartment and he (his name was Milo) drove us the four hours to Vienna (we used a new site we found called On Day Trip and loved it.) On the way, he took us to a couple of different places to see. 

The first one was the bone church. I forget the real name, but they always need to make more space to bury people so they dig up bones and use them to decorate this church. (Paris has done the same thing and made the famous catacombs.)  It's both creepy and cool at the same time. Nearby, we also went to another cathedral that was up on the hill and had a cool view and was really beautiful.

Then we stopped to see the palace. We took a tour (it was all in Czech, but we had an English paper to read, lol) and then ate lunch there. 

Milo was a fascinating dude and talked our ear off the whole trip. He dropped us off right at the door of our next airbnb apartment in Vienna and made sure we connected with our next host, then he went on home to Bratislava in Slovakia, only 45 minutes away. I wish I would have managed to take a picture of him....ah well.

The apartment we had in Vienna was amazing. The first thing we did was go grocery shopping. When doing airbnb's it's vital to have at least some breakfast stuffs on hand. So we always buy things like bread, jam, yogurt, cereal, milk, juice, maybe a pastry type thing, bananas and etc. Sometimes we get cookies and cheese and lunch meat things too. Anyway, it was good to be now in a German speaking country. Strange that German suddenly seemed familiar after Czech!

The next day we walked to the main center of Vienna, taking pictures all along the way. We ended up visiting Mozart's house (that dude lived in a lot of places, but I guess this where he stayed for the longest time during his Vienna moments) and we ate lunch on the busy tourist-y square. We came back to the apartment and rested up in order to be ready for our big evening out! The Vienna Boys Choir! Strangely, they have switched locations I guess and are now performing in a new place so our taxi driver had a struggle finding it, but we arrived and joined the tourist-y crowd for a fun and awesome performance by these amazing boys. Boys of all shapes and sizes, all races, all beautiful. It was a much less formal event than I expected, and felt a bit like going to a school performance, only with these boys who can sing like no regular school kid! It was fun. 

Afterwards we had schnitzel for dinner at a place recommended to us by the girl at the theater (it was very good!) and got an Uber dude to drive us home. 

The next day we braved the subway to get out Vienna's famous palace. It's where the Hapsburg family lived, if you are into history, and is much like Versailles in France. We spent most of the day there going on a tour of the place and then walking around the gardens. So beautiful. I can't remember what else we did that day except eat Italian at the restaurant just below our apartment. One thing is certain, I didn't get to see as much of Vienna as I would have liked, which only means, we have to go back!

Pictures:

A bone chandelier!

A church in the Czech Republic somewhere
on the way to Vienna!

Inside the church.

The view from the church.

Palace in the Czech Republic

The door to our Vienna apartment

The kitchen inside our apartment

Main square in Vienna. This is a monument to the plague.

I loved this picture that meshes old with new.

Random shot as we walked through Vienna.

Mozart's apartment.

The famous public WC there at the main square in Vienna.
Beware the grouchy attendant!
(They had a dude running the women's, which was
especially off putting. He leads you to your cubby and locks you in, all with a gruff demeanor!)

The Vienna Boy's Choir theater

Pork Schnitzel

The Palace in Vienna: Schloss Schonbrunn
The front.

A selfie showing the garden and the back of the palace.

View through the fountain.

Me in the maze.

The fountain

The Adventure is Over!

Do you remember back last summer when I announced we would be getting an exchange student? Well, can you believe that it's over?  Ten months and one school year later, we sent her home. That was last week and now we are trying to get used to the new normal. It's truly like having a kid that you have to GIVE BACK! What's up with that?

Here's a goodbye video we made of her last day:



(The song is saying "bogo shipda" which means I miss you in Korean and it's about wishing one could keep in touch with old friends. This is also the phrase we use at the end in Hangul.)


Many of you follow my Instagram so you've probably seen all these pictures, but if not, I thought I'd share a few to illustrate the fun we've had this past year with Sangi.

First day!

First day of school

Turning 15 years old

Going to Comic Con and meeting BillyBoyd

Visiting the Utah mountains

Hiking in Bryce Canyon

Seeing the Grand Canyon

Her first Halloween!

First time carving pumpkins

Meeting authors

Making pies for Thanksgiving

Holding a cat for the first time!

Sitting on Santa's lap for the first time!

The lights at Temple Square

Christmas Eve

Kpop stuff for Christmas

Seeing Blue Man Group in Las Vegas

Giving a presentation on Korea

Going to the BTS concert!

Visiting Alcatraz in San Francisco

Seeing her host sister graduate

Hiking to Delicate Arch
(obviously this isn't her, but doesn't that picture crack you up?!)

Experiencing southern Utah

And finally, cooking s'mores on the last day!

And that's only SOME of it! It's been a great experience and we are sad it's over. Here's hoping we can visit her in Korea some day!