Goodbye my friend

Earlier this week I lost a friend to cancer. I've been thinking about her every day since I found out. Throughout the day I would forget and then my thoughts would gravitate back to her. We were high school friends and roommates during our freshman year of college. I remember our conversations about love, our dreams, korean dramas, and Youtube beauty guru stuff. We didn't see each other often, maybe once every few months for a new foodventure or lunch at our favorite restaurants (Jazz Cat Cafe or Boiling Point) to catch up on each other's lives. More importantly, every time we hung out we are always able to pick up as if we talked all the time. We shared so many common interests and I admired her for developing not one, but two cool blogs. 

She was only 25. It shouldn't be this way. I keep thinking that I would get the news that she was in remission and that she would be ok. I can't believe that she's gone. I'm a nurse, I see devastating stuff all the time but this hits so close to home. My heart hurts for her and her family. She is one of the most optimistic and strong people I know. When she told me about her diagnosis, she never once asked why this was happening to her. She took it head on and was so full of life even after her surgery. She will continue to motivate me everyday. Because of her, I will strive to live life to the fullest and not keep putting things off to do later. 

Thank you for the memories, our foodventures, and your friendship. Rest in peace, Kristine.  

25!

Lien found some baby videos of us this past weekend. We spent hours watching it with mom and dad. Even though it's been 23 years since then, things are no different. I still secretly pick at foods in the kitchen when my mom isn't looking and she still asks my dad what he wants to drink with dinner. It was so much fun going down memory lane. Which reminds me why I love Instagram...I can look back a year later and see what I was doing. I love the idea of this. Finding those videos reminds me the importance of documenting life as it happens.

This post is over a week late. I will work on writing posts and keeping up with this blog in a more timely manner :)

Last week, I turned the big 2-5! It's just a number but I do feel different. It was a big milestone and I was able to celebrate it with my favorite people and my family. I'm glad Minh's family was able to come, including my favorite babies! They are so much fun :) My dad's speech nearly made me cry. We celebrated with a tea party/Vietnamese food party. It was perfect and well worth the work. To me it was less about celebrating my birthday and more about making an occasion where friends and family could gather and catch up. I very much enjoyed every minute of the party and all the hard work we put into prepping was well worth it!

It was a very Pinterest inspired event. We decorated with DIY pompoms and even made our own photobooth. My sisters and I slowly collected fun photobooth items weeks leading up to the party.

I've accomplished a lot at 25 and I can't wait to accomplish more in the future. I know the future will have a lot of exciting things in store. It already is proving to be a very good year for myself and other important people in my life who will be embarking on very exciting new adventures in the coming months. I'll be starting a 30 by 30 list soon so keep posted for that. I will also be starting a new chapter in my life come fall 2013. I'll be going back to school at Cal State Long Beach for my master's degree to become a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner! I'm very excited for that. I feel very blessed and loved. Can't wait for what the future has in store!

Drowning in "what-ifs"

Don't you hate it when you're presented with so many options and don't know where to even start? If you think about it, we are presented with choices every single moment of every day. It can be simple things.What should I have for breakfast? What route should I take to work? What should I wear? Should I exercise? Should I eat that cookie that's just calling out my name? And then it could be complicated. What do I want to do with my life? Should I go to graduate school?

I am the most indecisive person ever. Unless I'm having a craving for something specific...don't ask me to decided where we should have lunch because it'll be dinner time before I make up my mind. I just think way too much. As soon as I make up my mind, I think of another alternative almost immediately and that is why it takes me forever to make up my mind. Sometimes I get so frustrated at myself when I spend all day trying to make a decision and by then it's too late to get anything done. Do you want to know what's even worse? I spend all day making a decision and then end up feeling guilty about my choices or second guessing myself. The dreadful cycle just continues and nothing gets done. Drives my sister bonkers.

Lately, I have been working hard to change this bad habit. If my mind starts to think about all the alternatives, I have to mentally remind myself that there's a reason for the decision I made and I should stick to it. I think that this has already made me into a more productive person. It's a work in progress though. For example, I had several tasks to complete today before going to work. I spent a few minutes trying to rationalize with myself and push some things off until tomorrow but then had to remind myself that it's important to finish things off my to-do list. I was pretty proud that I got everything that I needed to do completed before heading to work...even if that meant not being able to watch the new episode of "Once Upon A Time" lol, there's always time for that later before heading to bed this morning.

On another note, I have suddenly learned that if you don't inquire...you won't ever receive. So I took a chance and emailed someone a question because it was better than trying to plan my future based on what my assumptions are. I need to know what's out there before I can make a choice because it makes no sense to worry about options that might not even exist. There's another thing I need to stop doing...in addition to thinking too much I also worry way too much. I'm going to work really hard at this because life is too short to waste.

Ah...I'm going to be a quarter century old next month! I can't believe it. Excited but scared at the same time.

Lessons learned from used car shopping

Great news! My boyfriend, Minh, finally bought a car yesterday after about about a month of looking. Helping look for this car was one of the most stressful and difficult things I've done. Minh has never done this before so he didn't know where to start. I also know next to nothing about cars because I'm super spoiled by my Daddy, who takes care of all our auto affairs. We also needed to find a car fast because he and his sister needed the car to get to school and work. 

As the weeks went by with no luck, I quickly became very antsy and stressed about the whole situation. We decided to sacrifice precious time so we could find a good car to invest in that was safe, reliable, and within our budget of $6000-$7500. The time riding the bus paid off because the car we got was a steal! I am, by no means, an expert but I just wanted to share some things I've learned from this whole ordeal, hopefully it will help someone else in the same situation.

Consumer Reports sample

• Patience.You'll need it, lots of it. It takes a long time to search for deals and research cars. We really didn't want to rush into anything and make a mistake. Sometimes you find a good deal but can't make it out to see the car and it gets sold to someone else so you're back to square one. And sometimes you find a good car but look it up on Carfax and find out that the seller was lying to you. If you have time and patience, you'll likely end up with finding a good car.
• Decide what cars you want. I went to a local Barnes and Nobles and looked at the consumer reports magazine to see what cars were the safest and most reliable. There's a used car reliability chart towards the back that looks like the image on the right.I was only looking at cars from 2000 onwards. My top picks for reliability and price are the Toyota Camry, Toyota Corolla, and Honda Accord. 
• Meet my new friends, Mr. Carfax and Ms. Kelley Blue Book (KBB). Before going to see a car, I always look at the KBB values and the Carfax report if the car's license plate number is available.
• I paid about $60 bucks for a Carfax subscription, which allowed me to search an unlimited number of cars within a month time frame. 
• This allows me to search the history for all the cars I was interested in. I look for reported mileage, ownership history, and if the car has been in any accidents or if the car is in salvage condition. This research is very important to ensure that you are not being lied to.We were about to buy a very nice Honda Accord with only about 70,000 miles on the odometer however, the Carfax report said the last reported odometer reading for this car was over 200,000 miles...!
• Look for deals in your local newspaper. I religiously perused the classified section of Vietnamese newspapers because they had a lot of ads. We found our car in the Người Việt newspaper. I preferred this method because the cars are mostly from private owners. I felt this was less stressful for me because I don't enjoy working with dealers. This method was also convenient because most of the cars are located in Orange County, which made going to see the cars much easier. Be cautious of sellers who routinely buy cars from the auction to fix up and resell, they tend to do a crappy job because they care more about making a profit. I preferred to look for people who were selling personal cars because they tend to take better care of it.
• Check out local bulletin boards. I found a great car looking at the bulletin board of a local grocery store...you never know.
• Scan Craigslist cautiously. I was a little weary with looking for cars on Craigslist because my parents had a bad experience where they were almost robbed when shopping for our last car. However, there are lots of cars on here and it's in English :)  My recommendation is to get a Carfax account and look up the cars before you go. Many sellers post pictures of their cars with the license plate and I would look up cars first before I set up an appointment to go see the car. 
• Ask a person who knows cars to go look at cars with you. We were lucky to have my dad help with the whole process. I would look up everything initially but he's the one to tell us if it's worth checking out or not. He also came with us and inspected all the cars.
• Paperwork business. Let me tell you, I did not know the paperwork would take so long to go through. This was mainly because they were a first time seller and we were a first time buyer.
• If you are buying a car from a private seller in California, visit this link for all the paper work information. 
• I learned yesterday that you can still buy a car if the title or pink slip is missing. You just need to fill out this form.

Oh the joys of becoming an adult! I'm so glad it's over and done with but I'm also glad that I've learned so much because of this experience. I now know what to do when we're shopping for our next car! I hope someone out there finds this blog post helpful. Happy hunting!