Let go and just be

After spending so much time in the hospital with my son this year, there are a few things that I just really feel I need to let go of. These things are important, but not so important that they rule my life in a way where it completely drains me physically, mentally, and emotionally. I want to find balance in my life so I can progress in all areas, without striving for absolute perfection.

My body image

I’ve already gone into why I want to let this go. I have terrible eating habits, and I always put myself down for missing workouts, not walking enough, being sedentary… I binge, I purge. I restrict, and still purge. My eating habits are not healthy. I haven’t come to terms with my new postpartum body. I always feel the need to suck in my stomach and hide it, even when no one is around. I calculate calories in my head and compare them to my watch’s “burned calorie counter”. All unhealthy habits because I obsess over them. I waste so much time in my day just thinking about food, when I could just be enjoying the moments with my boys.

Being the “perfect parent” and “trophy wife”

Social media makes it really hard on your every day moms and wives. After spending so much time scrolling through Instagram and every perfect Montessori Momma page or every Housekeeping Fashionista page of well-kept women, I can’t help but feel like I’m falling short on my duties as a mom and wife. I guess the biggest thing that I need to remember is that social media is usually the best parts of your day. Just snippets of people’s lives, and they always choose the best parts to show. Which is why I started Okami & Company… I wanted to showcase my real life - the good, the bad, and the extremely ugly parts of life. I have to remember my “why".

Being a hustler in life

To Hell with the Hustle. I remember when I first read this book. We’re so caught up in society’s “go, go, go” mentality, that we rarely take the time to just let go and just be. This year with Maverick’s hospitalizations, I’ve definitely let go of the work hard, play hard mentality. I’ve forced myself to slow down sometimes. It’s been extremely hard to put my career on the back burner and take care of myself and my son, but since I’ve done that… life has actually gotten a lot better. I appreciate the little things a lot more, like just watching my son play. I value sleep and rest - WITHOUT having to say, “I did this task, now I deserve rest.” You ALWAYS deserve rest, no matter what tasks you do or don’t complete. So just let go, and just be for once.

things you can do to make you feel like you have your life together

Do you ever just roll out of bed and suddenly want to get your life together? God, me too. There are some days where I just want to be as productive as possible. But even on the days where I’m lazy, I try to do these few things to make me feel like I did something.

Make your bed as soon as you get up | it really isn’t that hard to make your bed first thing after getting up. My therapist always said that the bed is used for two things, sleep and sex. If you aren’t doing either of those, then get your ass out of bed. Forcing yourself to get up and make your bed really changes your mindset for the day to be more productive. Don’t believe me? Try it.

Fold and put your laundry away, right away | If there’s one thing I hate doing, it’s doing tiny child laundry. My child’s clothes have so many damn buttons… But when it’s laundry day, then I dedicate myself to the goal of getting it all washed, folded, and put away. Having my laundry lying around whether it’s clean or dirty gives me anxiety. The entire place looks messy when there’s clothes scattered all over. So pick your day for laundry, and don’t wait until it’s the day you run out of underwear or socks.

Vacuum the common areas of your home | I actually do have house slippers that I wear around, so most of the time I can’t feel the fur on my floor. I hate that feeling of it feeling dusty and gritty on the floor. My son is constantly neutropenic, so I run a tight ship when it comes to cleaning every day. Every morning after breakfast, I vacuum the entire house. I do this so my kid has less of a chance to find a fur ball and eat it, but also so he isn’t covered in my dog’s fur. If you’re feeling fancy, get a Bissel Crosswave - vacuum AND mop at the same time!

Declutter your nightstand or vanity area | I really hate clutter, or as my husband calls it, “neat piles”. Clutter around my house makes me feel cluttered inside my head. So every morning, my husband or myself will declutter the night stand. We usually bring our tea and water and Nintendo Switches into the room. It also helps when your night stand/vanity is clear after your bed is made. Your room just got cleaned and you haven’t even left the room yet after waking up!

Put your dishes away once you’re done with them | Leaving dishes in the sink annoys me, especially if it’s just one dish. I’ll use the “soak” excuse once, and after that, it HAS to get cleaned. We use the dishwasher (gasp!) Asians using the dishwasher?! Yes, well, it saves you time and money and uses less water! It’s so easy to rinse your dish off and put it away. This minimizes clutter in the kitchen, which is our most used room in the house. Another “no clutter” rule in the house!

Wash your face and brush your teeth | It honestly surprises me how many people don’t brush their teeth unless they’re leaving the house, and that’s quite… meh, disgusting. I’m not even going to sugar coat it. Brush ya’ damn teeth. And washing your face even with a gentle cleanser and applying a moisturizer (& spf!) will help you feel like you’ve gotten ready for your day.

Take a walk after dinner | I’m not going to lie and say I work out anymore, because I rarely do. I’m so busy taking care of my house and my baby, that the only work out I get is my 1.5 mile walk with my boys after dinner. It’s just a nice way to wind down after a long day of decluttering! You get your body moving, calmed, and ready for bed this way! :D

Review: In Good Taste Virtual Wine Tasting through Zoom

Can we just reminisce on the days of early 2020? When everyone hopped on Netflix to watch Tiger King, everyone was always on Zoom trying to figure virtual life out, and when wine and toilet paper were staples of grocery shopping? What happened to those days that blurred together after being locked up for months on lockdown orders?

Well, I got tired of doing nothing. The creativity DIY energy lost it’s sparkle, just like eating banana bread and drinking the same wine every week. Don’t get me wrong, I love Chateau Ste. Michelle as much as any other Washingtonian… but it was time to try something new! So I used the Googles to find In Good Taste. A wine company that hosts virtual wine tasting events for friends and family. All you have to do is order the kits, pick a date, and voila!

What’s in the kit?

The one we chose to go with was the Wines from Down Under. It is a selection of 8 different wines from New Zealand and Australia. The box comes in beautiful glass jars that can be reused for oils and sauces, it actually contained 2 stoppers to use! Had I opened the package earlier, I would have been able to prepare my tasting with foods recommended in their tasting guide. Luckily, charcuterie boards go very well with wine. You must order 6 kits minimum in order to verify your reservation. They will verify this through the order numbers. I found it was easier to collect everyone’s addresses, and pay with one card. The website allows you to enter multiple addresses making it easy to verify the orders.

Our Sommelier

Our host was Ashley, from In Good Taste. She did a fantastic job educating us on the history of the wines. She is a certified professional sommelier, and actually has the hometown of El Paso! She was very friendly, and courteous about waiting for everyone to hop on the zoom call. It was very easy to talk to her during the tasting, which made the experience comfortable - we will definitely be booking through Ashley when new wine flights are released.

How did I like the wines? Was it worth it?

The wine packages run for $65 USD, and are delivered straight to your door with an adult signature required. They recommend ordering the wines at least 2 weeks prior to the event. Your Sommelier will email you beforehand with some tips on how to prepare each wine for the tasting. Out of the 8 wines we tried, I only disliked one because it was too much tobacco flavor for me. My favorites from the flight Orange Belly Chardonay from Tasmania and the Grimson Rosella from Adelaide. Fun fact, I almost moved to Adelaide when I was 18 to attend culinary school there. I definitely think that the wine flight and experience was well worth the money!

Raising a strong boy

Today is an important day for me as a mother! I think that the way I want to raise Maverick is a little different than how I was brought up. I definitely want to be part of his life and be way more involved than my parents were with mine. This is actually one of the big reasons I decided to leave the Army. Being present in my child’s life is so important to me, especially in these early years of attachment.

Research shows that the attachment styles that a child has when they’re at a very young age are the attachment styles they’ll have in future relationships. So I want to make sure that Maverick has a secure attachment style growing up. I’ve seen it in myself as having an anxious attachment style (up until Sean) because my parents weren’t around often. Actually, they left me in the Philippines with my Lola (grandmother), so I mean… lol.

I also want to raise Maverick to be independent in his thinking and problem solving skills. Instead of scolding him for doing something bad, I want him to be able to fix the problem or think through why it happened. Honestly, he is still very young and babbles most of the time… but if Sean and I start using the appropriate language now, it’ll be easier for him to understand when he does start talking. Vocabulary is important!

Maverick and I cuddle a lot. I do believe that Maverick’s love language is physical touch. He hates being away from me, and even when he is playing, he comes back to hug me (awww.) So that tells me a lot on how I need to comfort him and how I need to change how I speak with him when he does something less than pleasant.

How are you doing in your parenting realm? Whether it’s with babies or fur babies?

Wow, that was embarrassing.

So, I got a wee drunk the other day, went on Instagram Live for the first time in my life, bawled my eyes out, probably spilled so many dark thoughts and feelings in the process… I can’t even remember what I said on Live, but I’m not sure that I want to. So if you listened, please don’t remind me. I already struggle making small talk with people, the last thing I want is to know the depth of embarrassment I had on Instagram. Thankful that I have a husband that deleted everything before even more people viewed it.

With that being said though, those who did end up viewing my feed and reaching out to me to make sure I was okay, I appreciate the fuck out of you. Those of you who reached out to my husband, I appreciate you. I mean, in the end, the cops got called to my house, my boss showed up, they made me go to the ER to do a psych evaluation and an alcohol blood level, but I ended up getting released home. I was safe, I am safe, we’re all good.

That would have honestly sucked though, because the psych unit here doesn’t discharge on four day weekends, meaning I would’ve been stuck there for 5 days hating myself for drinking that much. That place is like jail. There is no happiness that looms in those hallways. It’s just dread and misery that seeps through those cracks.

I am sad though. I constantly feel alone. I have the biggest case of FOMO, but I’m also the most anti-social person with FOMO… Which really doesn’t help. I hate feeling like I burden people with my depression. I think I’m actually pretty funny, I have a lot of dark humor, and I’m pretty apathetic to things that happen to me, but I’m really empathetic towards others. Which I guess just means, I feel like no one will ever understand me, but I’m pretty good at understanding others. I don’t think I’m super worthy of love, but I will love the fuck out of my friends.

I wish I had an easier time connecting with people. I wish people took the time to get to know me in a deeper sense. I always feel like I come in at the wrong time when I move. People are already super close to each other, they all have inside jokes and hang out on the weekends. I mean, just moving to El Paso, I literally put physical distance between me and almost everyone I know by living on the other side of the mountain. In Korea, I literally was the only officer that lived in Seoul while everyone else stayed 64 kilometers away. Geographic locations have never been on my side either, so I guess that also doesn’t help.

Maybe I just need to try harder at making friends, but honestly… and we’re being absolutely honest…

No one likes hanging out with depressed, anxious, and “crazy” people.

I think that’s the biggest reason why I distance myself. Because I’ve heard people talk about patients that come in with Suicidal Ideation, and I’ve heard people talk about people who get admitted to the psych unit, and those conversations are never 1) welcoming and 2) supportive.

So honestly… Maybe it’s okay that I’m anti-social, cause I’d rather have no friends than have fake friends.