I have been doing a lot of spring cleaning, so I decided to update my blog too.
The last few weeks were really consumed with the Olympics. I love the Winter Olympics especially.
I noticed again that I eat a lot or at least, I take a lot of pictures of my food. A lot of friends want to go out to eat, so I have decided I will eat at home unless I am eating with someone. Last week, I went to eat with 3 or 4 people at least. Now, almost all of my Christmas gift cards are gone. Ha. It has been a few good months at Sweet Tomatoes and Disney. I do burn 500 calories by running 45 minutes a day which helps.
Highlights:
Getting inducted into the NCW FL DEC
Taking a picture of a bird that isnāt quite a duck?
Finding a Christmas ornament for $3.99 (originally $26.99)
Not eating all that bacon you in see in the IKEA picture
Putting together two shoe racks
Going to the extremely busy Flower & Garden Festival
In something I have wanted to do since I was in the college program, I was able to go to a special event in Epcot last Thursday.
A womenās business conference is held each year and the country north of us partners with the conference. Well, the conference takes place at Disney. The Consulate invited the Central Florida trade organizations to the night outing. It was a great event. All my friends were there.
We started at the Boardwalk where the conference was held. We walked to see the Canada movie and then, we went to have dinner at the rotunda in the American Adventure. It was a dream. I wonder how much it cost. It was weird to have Canada mixed in the U.S. pavilion, but it really worked.
There was a nice salad bar, a turkey and potato hash area, and a sweet potato/ Peruvian purple potato, and Yukon potato bar. I was looking forward to the dessert party, but the dinner portion was better. There was a short program and then, we went to Italy for cookies and gelato. We saw IllumiNations.
People pick and choose what events they attend at night, but for Disney, everyone was there. It was really nice.
The next day, Friday, I attended the Hispanic Chamberās luncheon. It, too, was nice.
This weekend, I worked on Oliver 3. It has been a long time since Oliver 2 for various reasons.
Here is a draft: (I see the main problem ā where his lips are not moving)
I donāt know if it looks totally professional. I do know I am improving, so I might go tweak Oliver 1 and 2, but it is more complicated than ātweak.ā
From the following pictures, you can see I like to eat.
I donāt really remember where these pictures are from. I recognize one from IKEA. P.S. When you ask for less bacon, they look at you weird/ go into a spiel how they will have to charge you the full $1.29. I did not eat all that bacon.
I think one is from Pollo Tropical. I really like their Tropichop. It is my new favorite. I also see an Indian Restaurant I ate at with Bev a few weeks ago.
Other things I did:
Supported a work event
Went to the Art Festival Epcot. I went to the Broadway concert series. I ate at a few of their kiosks thanks to my Christmas gift cards.
Found a generic Party City a mile from my apartment that has every decoration imaginable!
Went to the nationās 7th best art festival in Mt. Dora
Last Thursday, I boarded a Frontier flight around 3:45 p.m.
I went from 80 degrees to 19 degrees. Upon arrival, it was definitely cold. Due to the road conditions, I took a shuttle (a minivan) to Andreaās apartment.
We decided to walk to Blackstone where I had a hamburger. The first few bites were really good. It was stacked so high it was hard to eat. We also saw a few early performances of the Olympics.
Dad found my souvenirs from went to I went to Seoul. It was amazing that I bought an Olympic puzzle back in 2011!!
Andrea made snow ice cream which was really good. Amazing really. I think the vanilla and the condensed milk helped.
On Friday morning, Andrea and I woke up at 4:57 a.m. to watch the Opening Ceremony in Pyeongchang. I used what we saw to create a Bingo game for the Olympic Party Andrea was having night.
During the day, I went into campus and walked through the History building. It didnāt have the same smell as I remembered.
Andrea and I went to Graze for lunch. Then, we went to decorate for her work Opening Ceremony party. It was fun. Margee and a student from Korea were able to attend also. Andrea made bibimbap. I represented Sweden with Swedish waffles and brought my waffle maker. (IF you like waffles, the waffle maker is on sale at Target for $8.99. When I am not at an Olympics Party, I buy the Kodiak cake protein packed waffle/pancake mix.)
On Saturday, we waited for the roads to clear and Dad made his way up to Andreaās.
We went out to my auntās house and had another party for the XXIII Olympic Winter Games. The Olympics are great, because it is fun to cheer for the United States. The Winter Olympics are even better for me, because the events seem so impossible to me.
I can run. Obviously, I canāt run as fast as any Olympian, but I definitely canāt do a 1440 McTwist double fly off a half-pipe. (I made that move upā¦). I will never even see a half-pipe probably. I believe I saw the 17-year-old win the slopestyle competition.
Anyways, we had a lot of food from Mexico to Italy to Greece to China.
Over the last few decades, life has improved just by competition and improvement in technology. Though not always available, you can find flights for $40 round-trip from Florida to Iowa. 100 seats were open though, so I am afraid the route might leave or be re-routed to go through Denver.
On Sunday, I wanted to show Dad and Andrea my car, so we went to a dealership. Ha. After we wiped the snow away, we did see the outside of it. We also went to one of my favorite places, Texas Roadhouse and bought gelato at Capanna. I made it back to Orlando around 11:00 p.m.
I still have my Christmas trees up in my apartment and in my office. I decided to decorate my office tree in honor of the Olympics.
Update on my car: I still love my car. I still need to read the manual to get the most out of the car. The navigation is cool. It was funny to see 408 as a green field rather than downtown. See picture 4.
I am not eating out as muchā¦only if I have a gift card or if it is for work. I had a meeting on Friday and we went for sushi. We all got bento boxes. It was $8 ā $10 which I thought was a steal.
Oh yes, I got my hair fixed today!!! I am back. It looks much better. I might post a picture tomorrow. I donāt know.
On Sunday afternoon, I walked around the Festival of the Arts at Epcot. It was a beautiful day. At one point, I thought, āGreat, Food and Wine will start soon.ā I thought it was September. I couldnāt remember what month it was.
Animation Academy is back for the festival. Most of the people there seemed to be familiar with it from its day at Hollywood. I hope they bring it back permanently one day. I drew Tinkerbell. I ate in Japan with some Christmas gift cards. I do love their spicy roll.
On Monday, I went out to lunch with members of the Asian chamber. We are hosting an event in June together on International Business Etiquette. We decided to do a lunch with proper business etiquetteā¦ like how do you obtain the communal food if you have already used your chopsticks or how do you hold chopsticks, etcā¦.. I didnāt realize that the bite-size portion plates that you share is called āDim Sum.ā You can go ahead and shake your head. In China, I ate in a cafeteria a lot, but we also went out to restaurants and shared. I knew the term āDim Sum,ā but never associated it with that particular activity.
This morning, I took some interior pictures of the car. I have tested the adaptive cruise control. It is pretty cool. I was told that the braking shouldnāt be trusted/relied on. It is really just to protect you if you make a mistake/ distracted. A little golf cart was behind me this morning and the car started beeping. If I sway to the side too far, it will beep. Sometimes when there is a merge lane that has pretty much merged into my lane, I will take it wide and it beeps. I like that is shows if any car is in my blind spots in other lanes and it will beep if I use my turn signal to get over and there is a car there. Now I wish my commute was more than 1 mile each day.
I was just nominated and appointed by the Secretary of Commerce to be on the District Export Council (DEC). In the state of Florida, there are two: South and the Northern and Central ā West Florida DEC. Each DEC has 32 members dedicated in helping others export.
I applied a long time ago. I thought there could be a possibly that I wouldnāt be appointed as I help them already so much in terms of seminars, etc. I thought they bring an outside person in. There were only 2 spots open.
The official acceptance is at an event on February 23rd in Tampa.
This is really a major thing. Definitely resume worthy.
I did!!!! I purchased a car andĀ it is ā¦ AMAZING.Ā I love it!!! It is a 2018 Mazda CX-5.
To make the decision, it took a lot of research. I researched the car, how to negotiate with cars salesmen, and things to watch for in the finance office.
I believe I bought a quality vehicle which will last hopefully 10 to 15 years. The technology is unbelievable. You basically do not have to drive. If you are going above 19 mph, it will drive for you in terms of cruise control. I believe you have to steer. I havenāt tried it on my own as it is kinda scary. With the car guy, I tried it and it is crazy to trust it to brake on its own. Really cool. I got everything I wanted in terms of a preferred package AND the city sense braking/ safety package. I wish my blog readers could come down and see it. I have five Disney tickets, so let me know if you want to spend the weekend with my new car ā¦ and me. (I have a ticket for each blog reader).
Maryann, from work, went with me. We went to the dealership close to my house. They werenāt really giving me a great deal on a 2017. I feel they were giving me what I could have negotiated for last year at this time. Then, we went to a dealership 16 miles away from where I live. When you enter, you do feel like you are in Saudi Arabia ā the dealership is pristine and there just seem to be rows of men behind counters. We got there around 11 a.m. and we left around 2 p.m. They didnāt have the color of the car I wanted in 2017, so I did get a 2018, but I believe for a difference of less than $2000, I am happy with my decision. It was not an easy decision. I donāt think they like me, but I donāt care. Ha. We were about $300 a part in the end and I said that $300 means nothing to meā¦.it means even less to the dealership. I said, āguys I know would make fun of me if I donāt come back with a bigger discountāā¦.etcā¦. I played the game I believe.
I still think they won, but I feel I got a fair deal. The test drive and the negotiation were just the beginning of the hoops. I didnāt take my car, because I didnāt know how many trips it had left in it. When they priced my car, I did say that the engine was on and it was overheating. Life is too short to be shady. Maryann took me home around 2:30 p.m. I put coolant in it and drove in the right-hand lane the entire way. I avoided I-4. I called Dad around mile 11 and counted down the miles with him. ā11, 10, 6.2, 6.0, 4.6, 4.0, 2.0ā and I made it. They gave me what the mechanic said was fair for the car and it is extremely nice not to have it anymore.
Once I got back, I had to go to finance office. When I was traveling in Europe alone, I put huge radars up to sense any potential scammers. This guy was trying to be my friend and I was very skeptical. I got a little confused ā and confusion is the dealerās best friend. I āphoned a friendā a few times and I am happy with what I ended up doing. It is tricky to know ā Dave Ramsey says this, etcā¦.. The guy got a little mad at me, so I knew I did something right. Ha. He said I took the longest of anyone he has ever seen. I believe that could be a lie, but whateverā¦ I probably had the highest credit score of anyone there tooā¦.for a reason (I didnāt say any of that). (The real reason: I was put on Dadās credit card at a young age.)
Finally, they called State Farm and I got my insurance updated. It only increased by $140 for the yearā¦not too bad for the state of Florida. The same state where we realized someone stole my stickers off the car!! It says ā14 on my license plate. Evidently, that is a big thing here. They take them and put them on their car.
I left the dealership at 7 p.m. after a long dayās work.
I celebrated with a free meal from Sweet Tomatoes I had been saving.
Well, I feel I have come a long ways since last weekend. I struggled so much in my previous car that it is really nice to be at this point now. (It is nice to say āprevious carā).
(Other pictures you will see are the Economic Summit I attended and another good deal: a $10 waffle maker from Target less than the size of my hand.)
(The car has beige, leather interior seats. I donāt think I took a picture of the interior.)