It's Summer!!! Ummm...What Now?

Good Monday morning to you!

I hope you guys are having a wonderful Memorial Day weekend...as the proud daughter  of an incredible American soldier, I always support honoring our heroes. I know that I am truly blessed that my father came home from every single one of his missions and that there are far too many people that cannot say the same...my heart goes out to all of the families that have lost a service member and my respect and gratitude go to all veterans and active service members. Great sacrifice goes into everything that they've done and continue to do for our country. [Aaaaand, without them, there wouldn't be the holiday that many are going to enjoy...just saying /grin]

I hear that there are a lot of fun things to do today...lots of sales to shop and such. Guess who's not got the day off...yep! Me!

Happy...Monday.../faceplant

I've got a mountain of appraisal work to get through and a sick little one to boot. But, hey...complaining doesn't change anything, but coffee makes it more bearable! [That being said, if anyone would like to bring me some coffee, I'd be forever grateful...]

Some good news: the kiddo and I survived Kindergarten!! The school year wrapped up last week and his first official summer vacation has begun...and now I'm beginning to fully understand the despair that is the working parent's perspective on summer break.

How do parents handle it?!?

I'm less than 3 full working days into the summer and I'm already freaking out a little...how am I to balance keeping him safely occupied and entertained while working full-time hours+?!?

My usual 'go to' arsenal of babysitters [my parents] is woefully unavailable for the time being, and likely will be unavailable for the majority of the summer...we are unfortunately in the middle of quite a significant family crisis.

I feel like there's a delicate balance between leaving a child to entertain themselves and having the child feel neglected...it certainly doesn't help that my son's one of those kids that always wants someone to play with him, so he's asking for people to play with him after about 5 minutes of playing by himself.../sigh it's going to be a long summer.

Learning to Love K-Pop...

I've recently decided to make more of an effort to embrace my Korean heritage. [For those of you who were mentally playing the "guess the ethnicity" game, that's the answer! Half Korean, half Alabama-grade white...]

Now, I don't want to be misunderstood...I've never 'not liked' my Korean heritage. Going to middle school and high school in a backwoods, country town with an Asian population of 2.5 [that's counting my mother and siblings...], it's rather easy to lose sight of how awesome Korean culture is.

Of my siblings, I remember the most about the years that we lived in Korea, simply because I'm the oldest. My brother doesn't remember much at all, but he was 1-3 years old...at one point, he was actually fluent in both Korean and English! But of course, he doesn't remember any of it now, nor does he remember being able to speak Korean at all.../shrug oh well ^_^

So, taking baby steps into the whole ordeal...I've started to look into the musical phenomenon that is "K-Pop" music. [K-Pop music literally means "Korean pop music."]

This cat...I love him!!

It's huge. K-Pop can be to blame for bringing the annoying, albeit catchy, "Gangnam Style" to the radio waves.

No, worries...there are many, many other singers that you might like if PSY wasn't quite your fancy. It's a music movement that's been going on for years, so I'm playing catch up...but a few internet searches and BuzzFeed reads and I can already remember the names of at least half-a-dozen artists/bands...

Here's what I think I'm going to do...

I think I'm going to make it a goal of sorts to utilize this blog to become more familiar with the music that's being pumped out of...I don't know...what should I call Korea? My 'Motherland'? Bwahahahaha! That's awesome...it's literally my Mother's land...

Anyway...[I'm tired, you'll have to look over my goofy randomness...]

Here's the first song that I'm going to post as definitely listen-worthy: Unbreakable - Kim Hyun Joong. I love the incorporation of some traditional Korean elements in his music video! And, it is now a life goal to learn how to paint a dragon like the one in this video...

Whatcha guys think? Anyone have any K-Pop recommendations?

Friday Updates...

Good news! My kiddo's first day of kindergarten was a success! Morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up both went off without a hitch, and he survived his first lunch in a cafeteria. He even said that PE was fun! I'm so glad that his first day of "big kid school" went well for him, I'm hoping the rest of the school year continues to go well...definitely makes all of the aggravation leading up to the beginning of the school year worth it. His school reminds me of some the better schools that I went to as a child. (Being an army brat, my family moved around a good bit. I went to about 10 different schools for kindergarten through finishing high school and have seen my share of really good schools and not-so-good schools...) I signed up for all sorts of parent-volunteer opportunities...guess I'm going to be the mom that shows up for everything! I know that will drive my kiddo crazy when he gets older, but I'd much rather be involved than have no clue what's going on with my child's education. (Knowing that he's going to a great school makes even the traffic more bearable!)

Holy Cow! Morning School Traffic!

Ouch! :(

Elsewhere in Gotham City...I'm supposed to find out the fate of my car sometime this afternoon. My insurance company is sending one of their agents to inspect the car to see if it's going to be deemed fixable or if it needs to be totaled. Everybody please cross their fingers that it comes back as fixable...I won't be able to afford a car to replace my poor Saab if it isn't fixable.




Found out yesterday that the motherboard in my personal desktop computer is most likely fried. Luckily, my parents have ordered me a new computer for my birthday (read: computer for work stuffs) otherwise I'd have to add "fix computer" to the list of expensive worries that have been plaguing me here lately. But the lack of computer, both laptop and desktop, are certainly to blame for the delay of the birthday post I've been promising. I've written posts from the iPad before but it's terribly inconvenient for posting pictures, links, and videos. The post is coming though...eventually. Maybe I should write snippets of it whenever I can and then copy and paste them together...darn computers.