A Means to a...New Beginning

It's been three weeks since I left my non-profit job of 8 years and already it has been an amazing journey. People asked if I planned to take time off or if I would sleep in my first week, and the answer was no.

I literally, with no intention of doing so, hit the ground running the very next day after my last day at ICA. That Saturday I began touring pet shops with my friend and now new boss. With a different pair of eyes towards our new business venture, I was looking at product placement, packaging, etc. We checked out national establishments and independent shops as well.

On Sunday, Two friends who have been thinking about creating an art exhibition, asked me to meet up with them. I came away from that meeting as their project manager. My task was to keep them on schedule and handle all logistics for not just one show, but now potentially three shows if not an ongoing series. I suddenly had a new project to keep me busy.

On Monday, my boss said I need to come up with my own business name so that I can properly invoice his company for my work. So that night, without too much pondering I came up with a buisness name. We bought the domain name and created email addresses to go with it so that Tuesday I could walk into my boss' current place of business and sign in with confidence that I was representing a consulting firm that was there to assist with their online marketing sales.

On Thursday, one of the independent pet store companies that we visited on Saturday requested a meeting with my boss and I. They said they wanted to start selling pet products online and wanted advice. My boss essentially told them we could do it and that I would be the main point of contact. I nodded and smiled. Do I have any idea what I'm doing? No, not yet But I had my first legitable and billable client.

On Friday, I went to register my fictious business name with the county to make it legit and opened a small business account at my bank. The following week I built a very generic web site just so I had something for my "client(s)" to view should they want to find out more from my email address.

While trying to quickly come up with a company name that fateful Monday night, my husband suggested, with a straight face and a deadpan delivery, "Scrotum International."

So, why Cloud 8? while my web site explains most of the thinking behind the name, I left out the main inspiration. My name in Chinese actually means perfect cloud. While I'm not so perfect, I was also born on the 8th, which made 8 my lucky number growing up. The number 8 is also extremely lucky in Chinese. My web site goes on to explain that 8 is the common symbol for infinity and I believe that there are infinite possibilites to my new company. While cloud 9 refers to someone who has their head in the clouds because their euphoric and happy, I tout that I'm happy, but I've got one foot on the ground of reality. Hence, Cloud 8.

Why consulting? Meh, because it's vague enough to mean I can help with anything and that's what I'm doing. I'm doing a little bit of this and that.

Week three I ended up meeting with a couple of co-workers on two seperate occasions and I will now be helping them with their side businesses. I've got a meeting this week with another co-worker to assist her in her side business as well. And this week my boss and I will be concentrating the main reason he brought me on - to launch our own big pet product business. Stay tuned!!!

Hi. I'm a business owner. Look at me, look at me! Wow. Amazing.

The Trials and Tribulations of Turnip Cake

Turnip cake, also known as Law Bak Go in Chinese, is one of many favorite dim sum dishes. I've never had a desire to learn how to make it until my sister-in-law's mother served it almost daily for breakfast over the Xmas holidays in 2011.

How is that even possible? Isn't the novelty of going to dim sum is because you can't whip up those dishes yourself in a timely manner? Turns out Mrs. Chen actually makes the turnip cakes herself and claimed it was very easy. At some point my mom got into the mix and there was a bit of a turnip cake throwdown. Mind you, my mom does not really cook.

My mom steams hers, Mrs. Chen bakes hers, my mom adds ingredients that Mrs. Chen doesn't, my mom reuses the mushroom water for flavor, Mrs. Chen doesn't. To be honest, both are good. So I took what I learned from both of their recipes to come up with mine, which I sucessfully created on January 23, Chinese New Year's Day 2012. I opted to bake mine because I just don't have a steamer of that size. The hardest part of this whole recipe was waiting for the mixture to turn to paste! I was convinced I was doing something wrong, but, here it is. I bring you the Young/Chen Lao Bak Go recipe:

-- One average size daikon (12 inches in length), peeled and shredded
*use a Cuisnart! Saves time and energy
-- One cup dried Shitake mushrooms rehydrated and diced
*save the mushroom water
-- 6 cups of water in total (with mushroom water)
-- 4-5 chinese sausage sliced
-- 1/4 dried shrimp, diced
-- 1 bag of rice flour (1 lb.)

In a large skillet stir fry mushrooms, sausage and dried shrimp until sausage is slightly brown. Then add shredded daikon. Season to taste. Stir until diakon softens.

Using the leftover mushroom water, measure out three cups of mushroom water and regular water and add to skillet.

In separate bowl, add 3 cups of cold water to rice flour and stir until smooth.

Add rice flour mixture to skillet. Keep stirring on low to medium low heat to prevent bottom from burning. Mix until pastelike (approx 20 mins.). Spread mixture into 13 x 9 casserole dish.

Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes. Making sure the top is not browned. Let rest. When ready to serve, Cut out slices to brown sides in a pan.

Enjoy!

My Last Week at ICA

During my last week at ICA (January 9-13) I was fortunate to have someone take me out to lunch every day, which was really nice.

On Wednesday, instead of our regular managers meeting, the managers surprised me with flowers and cake. There was no agenda for that meeting other than to share stories about me and my 8.5 years of work at ICA. Needless to say, there was a lot of crying going on from everyone, but it was really nice and touching.

The rest of the week flew by quickly.

On Friday, my last day, my office door had been decorated and at the end of the day, my co-workers threw me a small get-together at the restaurant bar down the street. They reserved a long table and decorated it with balloons and streamers.

Shortly upon arriving, a party horn was blown and there was a presentation I was not anticipating. The ceramic instructors made these beautiful plates with a map of ICA's campus on it. Each staff member signed their name where their office or studio was. Words cannot describe how completely touched I was. I immediately started to cry and couldn't stop crying pretty much for the rest of the night.

Susie gifted me with a framed 3 Musketeers candy wrapper. We, my two closest friends and former work colleagues Susie and Karin, used to call ourselves the 3 Musketeers - One for all, and all for one. I believe we were the core of the development department and we worked well as a team.

Karin also presented me with a pin of pilot wings. She actually spent her birthday day (that Friday) driving all over L.A. looking for this gift. When we used to have to sit back-to-back in our first "office" space, our big leather office chairs made us look like two pilots in the cockpit of an airplane when we were both facing the same direction. So we dubbed each other co-pilots and that's also how we often worked. It took the both of us to fly some big events and land that thing perfectly.

I also received my very own clipboard that everyone signed. At events, you rarely saw me without one. Now I have my very own. My favorite saying was written by Jennifer Carroll. It says, "No one f@#ks with a woman with a clipboard!" Especially this one! ;)

I cried a lot that night and initially people thought it was because I was sad, but that was not the case. I was crying because I felt so loved. I didn't know what to expect, and I was more than taken aback by everyone's effort and generousity. I will miss them greatly, but I'm also excited for my new journey in life.

Chapter 5: Be Serious About Play

Let me first start this blog entry by saying that being happy is hard work. I may have said that before, but upon returning from vacation, work got crazy and being happy is truly a job within itself. While I didn't keep up all of the "projects," I'm proud to say that at the very least I have continued to tamper down the morning grunt at my husband and express notable interest during conversations instead of coming up with a snarky retort. Making that effort made me realize how uncomfortable I get recognizing when I do fall into those two bad habits. Boo on me.

This chapter's projects: Find More Fun. Here's one observation I do want to mention about the book's author -- I appreciate the fact that she so eloquently expresses things that I often feel. It's like she put it into print so I could cut and paste it for my own purposes. Rubin first shares that studies have proven that the absence of feeling bad isn’t enough to make you happy; you must strive to find sources of feeling good. One way to feel good is to make time for play. Researchers define "fun" as an activity that’s very satisfying, has no economic significance, doesn’t create social harm, and doesn’t necessarily lead to praise or recognition. Research shows that regularly having fun is a key factor in having a happy life; people who have fun are twenty times as likely to feel happy. But then Rubin said something startling that smacked so true for me: "just because something was fun for someone else didn’t mean it was fun for me—and vice versa. There are many things that other people enjoy that I don’t."

Rubin said she loved the "idea" of playing chess, doing crossword puzzles, or having season tickets to the opera. She understood why other people enjoyed those activities, but those weren't necessarily her ideas of fun. My husband and I have friends who can go out every weeknight to events, cocktail parties, etc. While that idea sounds great and glamorous and we wished that we did have it in us to rally like that every night, the reality is -- we are homebodies. Coming home after a day of work sinking into the sofa and watching our favorite shows with our dog by our feet is our idea of heavenly. We were once given tickets to a performance at the SF Opera from my brother and sister-in-law who were season-ticket holders. I marveled at how cultured they were and gosh, ok, we'll go! Within minutes, we were bored to tears and struggled to stay awake through the first act, but vowed at intermission to try an appreciate this amazing art form. Ten minutes into the show, I look over at my husband and he's fast asleep and I only looked at him because I was dozing off myself! We rudely "pardon me, excuse me" bumbled our way out of our seats and left. Oh, the sense of relief! We stumbled across a restaurant next door called Jardinere and enjoyed the most incredible meal instead. Now, THAT was fun. Turns out the restaurant was owned by the very famous, now celebrity chef, Traci De Jardins.

According to Rubin, studies show that common interests between people boosts the chances of a lasting relationship and also brings about a 2-percent increase in life satisfaction. My husband and I have a lot in common and I marvel at it often. I appreciate that we enjoy many of the same things. So, finding more fun, is not a problem. Sure, we like to be home, but we also are two very competitive people. Not having children was almost incentive to make sure that our life was not held back. This year alone we've done some amazing things -- dog sledding, skeet shooting, and mud races just to name a few.

For Rubin, thinking about what fun meant to her and accepting her likes and dislikes made her also realize that you can DO ANYTHING you want, but you can’t DO EVERYTHING you want...and it made her sad. I've had that moment of realization myself. For me, age had always been just a number and time was infinite. As a teen-ager, my bucket list included sky diving. I have tried to do it twice and both times the weather was not in my favor. As years passed I realized that I may be trying to accomplish this only because I put it on a silly bucket list, but did I actually want to do it anymore? The answer was no. Another epiphany moment was when I was looking at beautiful dining table in a store. All my life I envisioned a dining table similar to that one in my future house. Wait. I do have a house. Wait. I already have a dining room table. Wait. I will never have that dining table because I will never have the house that would actually fit this type of table. Not in this lifetime. It was like someone shook me into reality that age is no longer a number and time is not infinite in a person's lifetime. So what must you do? Enjoy every moment that you do have, be happy with what you do have.

Take Time to Be Silly. A happy atmosphere isn’t created merely by the absence of nagging and yelling but also by jokes, games, and tomfoolery. Studies show that in a phenomenon called “emotional contagion,” we unconsciously catch emotions from other people—whether good moods or bad ones. Taking the time to be silly means that we’re infecting one another with good cheer, and people who enjoy silliness are one third more likely to be happy. The way my brother and I were brought up, there was no silliness, no joking around, no pranks. I think that was to our detriment because I don't take kidding around well, especially if the joke is on me. I think the lack of that in our childhood has made me overly sensitive, I don't recover well when the joke is on me and I tend to over-analyze why the joke was played on me and I actually hate that about myself. I can only hope that my brother makes an effort with his kids to bring the silliness to them. To me, I think being silly is a life-learning lesson. It could potentially teach you to let something roll of your back and not take it personally is a struggle, and also to work on being able to come back with a witty retort, etc.

Most recently, I've noticed that when I am with kids, the silliness comes out. The same goes for my husband. I know parents can be silly with their kids, but I think it surprised me how silly we could get with other people's kids. I've played hide and seek behind baby car seats, I've had water-gun shooting contests and my husband has done his share of play wrestling, video game playing, horsey rides, etc. So the good news is, we've got it in us to be silly.

Go off the path. And this is where the author loses me and the doubt about her to starts to creep in. Rubin says the reasoning for this "off the path" project was meant to push me to encounter the unexpected thoughts, unfamiliar scenes, new people, and unconventional juxtapositions that are key sources of creative energy—and happiness. Instead of always worrying about being efficient, I wanted to spend time on exploration, experimentation, digression, and failed attempts that didn’t always look productive. I get what Rubin is getting at, but I don't get her methodology. Her way of doing this was buying magazines she typically wouldn't and read them cover to cover. She admitted that she dreaded those days and it felt like work but in the end she was glad she did because she learned something new. I hate this example. Why would I waste my time doing something I don't want to do? If I'm interested in something then I'll try it, but I won't do it if there's no interest behind it. And that's what Rubin's effort sounded like. She initially starts off this particular project paragraph about how she admires her mother's adventurous spirit who travels to new places for new experiences. To me, her mother does that because she likes to do that! If traveling falls along the "go off the path" category, then I believe my husband and I succeed regularly. But doing something you aren't interested in doing, like forcing yourself to read a magazine about horses, paper crafts and Christianity, to me was just plain silly. To me, Rubin has her projects switched on this one! Irritating.

Start a collection.You can't be serious. The irritation continues with this project, or also follows under the "silly" project title. A collection provides a mission, a reason to visit new places, the excitement of the chase, a field of expertise (no matter how trivial), and, often, a bond with other people. Rubin decided to collect bluebirds. Then she posed the question to her readers and asked them what they liked to collect. Replies came back with people who collected books, hearts, etc. I could only relate to one reader who wrote: As for collections, too much “stuff” displayed around the house makes me feel suffocated...On the note of collections, I’m sure they’re fun for others, but I simply don’t want to store, clean, and maintain more things. I’d rather spend my time reading, decorating my house, or trying new recipes. Amen to that. If there's a gun to my head, then I will say that I like to collect happy memories through my photos. That's happy clutter. How's that?

Chapter 4: Lighten Up

Having recently gone on vacation, I'm a few chapters behind on the Happiness Project. Sure, I could have brought the book with me, but that just seemed like homework so... I left my homework at home and enjoyed my vacation instead. Upon returning, I delayed my homework and was quick to recognize that all of those things involved in The Happiness Project like; act the way you want to feel, enjoy now, or work smart, promptly got ditched and was replaced with the chores of returning from a vacation - laundry, cleaning the house, buying groceries, catching up on work and emails, and downloading photos. So it's kind of interesting that the first chapter I return to is one that encourages me to lighten up.

This chapter's projects are: Sing in the morning. I don't even sing at karaoke. Of course Rubin's point is not to be taken literally, although singing in the morning works for her, the point I believe is about lightening up even if means singing in the morning to get there. She also mentions something very early on in the chapter that I suffer from. It's called "Fog Happiness." Fog happiness is the kind of happiness you get from activities that, closely examined, don’t really seem to bring much happiness at all — yet somehow they do. Fog surrounds you and transforms the atmosphere, but when you try to examine it, it vanishes. She states throwing a party as a perfect example. The minutia of what it takes to put on a party can cause dread, anxiety, nervousness, annoyance, and irritation, so that when you're in it, it's not fun, but when you step back and think about it, these activities undoubtedly do make you happy. I'd say I suffer from fog happiness regularly. Maybe because part of my job involves event planning. The end results, however, I'm almost always proud of, which makes me happy. So I think singing in the morning, really means enjoying even those details that get you to the end results that way I'm not experiencing the dread, anxiety, stress, etc. but that I make an effort to enjoy the whole process along the way, not just the end result.

Acknowledge the reality of people’s feelings. In other words, don’t deny feelings such as anger, irritation, fear, or reluctance; instead, articulate the feeling and the other person’s point of view. Rubin came up with her own strategy to tackle this project with her children. What's important to remember is that what may be effective to children can also be equally effective for adults so I've gleaned for myself the following -- Studies show that 85 percent of adult messages to children are negative—“no,” “stop,” “don’t”—so it’s worth trying to keep that to a minimum. Studies show that people tend to persevere longer with problems they’ve been told are difficult as opposed to easy. I loved Rubin's example: “It’s not tough to pull off your socks, just give it a try.” I switched to saying things such as “Socks can be tough to get off. Sometimes it helps to push down the back part over your ankle, instead of pulling on the toe.” Experts say that denying bad feelings intensifies them; acknowledging bad feelings allows good feelings to return. This all makes good sense.

Be a treasure house of happy memories. Studies show that recalling happy times helps boost happiness in the present. When people reminisce, they focus on positive memories, with the result that recalling the past amplifies the positive and minimizes the negative. However, because people remember events better when they fit with their present mood, happy people remember happy events better, and depressed people remember sad events better. Depressed people have as many nice experiences as other people—they just don’t recall them as well.

Family traditions make occasions feel special and exciting. They mark the passage of time in a happy way. They provide a sense of anticipation, security, and continuity. Studies show that family traditions support children’s social development and strengthen family cohesiveness. They provide connection and predictability, which people —especially children— crave.

My husband and I love taking photographs on our trips. I take it upon myself to put those photos in an album. One day, he left our room to go get something. He went missing from our room for quite a long time. When he returned and I asked him what took him so long, he said that when he was at our book shelf he pulled one of our old photo albums down and he ended up flipping through it and recalling the good time that we had. It made him happy and it made me happy that the effort to put those at-the-time-burdensome albums together was well worth it.

When we were growing up, my brother and I never enjoyed Christmas. Hearing holiday music would actually cause me to twitch. Christmas was filled with bad childhood memories of forced time with relatives we didn't want to be around, eating really bad, bad food and sometimes knock-down, drag-out fights between our parents. Probably the only time I distinctly remembering singing Christmas carols at the top of my lungs with my brother was when our godmother Auntie Nancy initiated the singing in hopes that it would distract us from our parents' yelling. Even at that young age, I knew what Auntie Nancy was trying to do. At some point while growing up, my brother and I vowed that when we were old enough we would make our own holiday memories. Now, Xmas has taken on a better meaning for us. It means good food, good company, and happy memories. I'm still working on enjoying holiday music though.

Chapter 3: Aim Higher

This chapter's projects:

Launch a Blog. Done. Well, not specifically for this project, but I have one. Well, my husband and I have one. Well wait, I am the one that contributes to the blog the most so I guess it's mine.

As much as I've tried to get my husband to post, he really hasn't... even though it was his idea! Thanks to the Happiness Project though, I know that I can't change him, or nag him. See, I'm learning! What the Happiness Project has helped me do is make it OK for me, and just me, to write in this blog. I've always loved writing and I like to think that I'm good at it. I'm opinionated and I love to express it. Writing is a great outlet to do so. So I dump here and not on my husband, how's that? Heck, you should read my Yelp! reviews. Ha. My husband is an amazing writer. He spun amazing love letters, er, emails to me when we were first dating that I still have today, but you can't make someone do something that they don't want to do, right? Right. And so... I write. And I have found a reason to do so again.

Enjoy the Fun of Failure. Rubin says in order to have more success, she needed to be willing to accept more failure, then quoted Robert Browning -- “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” - Robert Browning All I can say is, OK. I'll try.

Ask for Help. See answer above.

Work Smart. See answer above.

Enjoy Now. I couldn't agree more. And it's definitely something I do need to learn how to do better. I truly believe in what Rubin's research found about the "arrival fallacy" - when you anticipate great happiness in arrival and when you arrive it rarely makes you as happy as you anticipate.

Rubin says it's because your arrival brings more work and responsibility, like having a baby, getting a promotion or buying a house. I can site many of those milestones in life that disappointed. My prom, for instance. All that hype and I came away feeling gyped. What happened to that fuzzy, glowy, magical, fairytale-like effect you see on TV? Another poignant moment that was a let down was when I bought my first car. I remember driving it off the lot and I wasn't the least bit elated, I felt incredible burden, fear, and responsibility. What if I got into a car accident as soon as I got on the freeway? I have to make monthly car payments for the next five years? College graduation in real life is also not as it is on TV. Literally no pomp and circumstance AND the announcer pronounced my name wrong. Bitch. kidding.

With such early milestones that have been a letdown in my life, I faced other big lifetime moments with apprehension. My strategy has never to expect too much so you won't be disappointed. That way of thinking is a defense mechanism that applies to not just lifetime milestones, but to every day things like work. I used to be a wedding planner as a side gig. I absolutely loved the end result, which was a happy couple on their special day.They're happy, I'm happy. But since doing events for a living, it's been a burden. As Rubin says in her book, there is too much concern about whether she was getting praise or blame, too much anticipatory anxiety about what people would say -- all those fears spoiled Rubin and also my ability to just enjoy the now. I can think of only one work-related event that I organized that I literally jumped up for joy because it was a success and that was planning Bob Bates' 70th Surprise Birthday Party. Once again, I saw the happy results in the end.

Not ever lifetime milestone in my life failed in its delivery. I was definitely afraid that THE one lifetime milestone that almost every girl dreams about would also not live up to the hype...but it did. My wedding. It was exactly all that. It was the happiest day of my life.

Here's to many more of those moments by enjoying now.

Chapter 2: Remember Love

SHE BLOGGED: This may just be the hardest chapter of projects. Is that bad that I'm saying that already and I'm only on chapter 2?

This chapter's projects are to quit nagging, don't expect praise or appreciation, fight right, no dumping, and give proofs of love.

Rubin says that she learned one critical fact about her happiness project: She couldn't change anyone else. As tempting as it was to try, she couldn't lighten the atmosphere of her marriage by bullying her husband into changing his ways. She could only work on herself.

Rubin loves to quote other people and I actually like to read them. Sometimes it takes someone else to say what you can't put into words.

"It is easy to be heavy: hard to to be light."

"There is no love; only proofs of love."

"What you do every day matters more than what you do once in awhile."

Here's what I know. As far as this chapter's projects were concerned and after reading the chapter, I know that my husband is a better partner than I am in many ways. It's not that I didn't know that, it's just the first time I'm acknowledging it, out loud I guess.

This chapter focused on the fact that you can't change anyone but yourself, but also a reminder to be more observant and appreciative of all the things that your partner does do, not the ones you want him or her to do, but doesn't. And so began the exercise of reflection.

I'm not a morning person, no matter how much sleep I try to get. I wouldn't say my husband is a morning person, but he always greets me with a cheery "good morning" while I in turn manage a grunt back.

Before he leaves somewhere, he always kisses me goodbye. When I leave the house, it's a "see ya!" over my shoulder and I'm out.

When I come home he greets me with a kiss and the first thing that typicallly pops out of my mouth is something like "Did you take out the garbage yet?" He never calls me on it even though he has absolutely every right to. If the tables were turned, I'd lay in on him. And yet he never does. Meanwhile my dog will scamper over to greet me and I immediately drop down to pet her, my voice raises in octave and I coo at her no matter what kind of mood I am in. Yikes. I suck.

So this past weekend, I took on a mantra that hearkens back to chapter one's suggestion of "act the way you want to feel" and it worked. When I would typically point out certain things out to my husband that I thought that he should or could do better, I bit my tongue. Why ruin a good day? I had the foresight to see it might lead to me or him being grumpy afterward.

This was/is tough work, but part of Rubin's commandments is also "letting go." If my husband still doesn't clean up as he cooks like I do, then I need to let it go. It will get done eventually -- and that is OK. That's me letting go and only trying to change myself.