Happy New Year Eve! Tomorrow is the first day of the Lunar New Year and since I live in the US, it’s not a public holiday, and the kids are in school. But since they go to a Mandarin immersion programme (it’s in a public school and makes up half the school population), there will be a celebration on Wednesday, with a carnival of sorts, a lion dance performance, and a class party after.

Meanwhile, I’ve been busy cleaning house, tidying up, doing lots of laundry, and putting up some New Year decorations – lots of reds and golds and lucky symbols. I don’t have any Pig Year-specific decor though.

I also made some pork floss cookies (recipe from Bake with Happy Kids). Delicious sweet-salty shredded dried pork is added into this buttery cookie mixture along with sesame seeds. So good.

Also, this wasn’t a great week health-wise. First, on Wednesday morning, the 7yo came down with a fever, cough and runny nose. So he was out of commission for two days. Then on Friday morning, the 5yo got the bug and he was home while the 7yo went to school. So this weekend was a stay-home weekend, where I got more cleaning and baking done. And the kids watched TV, read books, played video games. It was a rather rainy weekend anyway, so I guess if there was a weekend to be sick, this was it.

 

 

 

Currently…

 

Reading:

 

 

 

Watching:

More West Wing. And also, I got tired of hearing Octonauts and other kids shows so together we watched The Great British Bake Off. Luckily the kids are ok with watching cooking shows with me!

Listening:

Heavy by Kiese Laymon

 

Eating:

You tiao or Chinese-style dough fritters with condensed milk

Drinking:

Water

Cooking:

We always do a hotpot for reunion dinner (Chinese New Year eve, when you’re meant to return home and have a meal with your family). See my How To Hotpot post from last year for more details.

And the soup is always even tastier the next day! So we keep aside some ingredients and cook them again (this time on the stove) and serve it with noodles or rice.

Browsing:

It’s Reading Ireland Month soon on 746 Books. It sounds lots of fun!

Powell’s book buyers recommend 22 books of 2019

I’ve seen the #6degrees meme before but haven’t joined in yet. I like this month’s starting book!

Added to my TBR:

The Frangipani Tree Mystery and The Betel Nut Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu (via TBR313)

Seventeen by Hideo Yokohama (via Dolce Bellezza)

 

Last week:

I read:

Fruit of the drunken tree – Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Likely Stories – Neil Gaiman, Mark Buckingham, Chris Blythe (Illustrator)

Shutter Vol 1: Wanderlust – Joe Keatinge, Leila del Duca

Roughneck – Jeff Lemire
Master Keaton Vol 5 – Naoki Urasawa

 

I posted:

Comics reviews: My Brother’s Husband, Roughneck

Reading notes: George; The Lowland; The Clothing of Books

Library Loot (January 30 to February 5)

10 additions to my #TBR list