life with the tsengs

I know, I know -we are more than halfway through this month and I am now posting up my goals for December. I actually thought of these goals weeks ago (and have been checking them off on my own!) but wanted to share it with you!

Goals are good for me because I am a total check-list, to-do list type of girl. I thrive on agendas and there’s something extra special about checking things off of a list. I plan to share more of my monthly goals on the blog in 2014 – but to close off this year, here are my goals for December!

1. Get a Christmas Tree: A simple goal – only because last year we weren’t able to put up Christmas decorations! Around this time last year – we were packing and preparing to move out to Arcadia so it wasn’t practical for us to decorate. I’ve always wanted to go out and pick my own Christmas tree but I’m not sure if we’ll be able to fit it in with Eugene’s finals week and all. We’ll see!

Here’s pictures from our first Christmas together! :o)

2. Make Something with Peppermint: For some reason, pumpkin spice never really grew on me. I like the idea of it and the smell of it – but pumpkin spiced lattes and cookies were never my thing. Peppermint, however, is an entirely different story. I can eat peppermint things all day long!

3. Do something for the neighbors. – Two winters ago – I made these peppermint/white chocolate pretzels for our neighbors. It was a great way for me and Eugene to seize the holiday opportunity to meet our neighbors and do something “sweet” for them! I might make these again, but will also consider making something else to feature my love for all things peppermint. 🙂

4. Make dumplings from scratch – In the Korean culture, it’s tradition to eat Rice Cake Soup (떡국 aka “dduk gook”) on New Years morning. It’s supposed to grant you good luck for the new year or something like that….haha. Growing up my mom always made this for us and I’ve continued the tradition in our Korean/Chinese home for the past 2 years. Thankfully Eugene loves Korean food and looks forward to this meal as much as I do! This year, I want to make my own dumplings! I’m actually planning on make these today, thanks to Maangchi! Stay tuned. 🙂

Here’s an impromptu “dduk gook” we made and ate together on New Years Eve last year since I had to work on New Years Day! Keeping the tradition alive, baby!

5. Prepare Care Packages for the homeless community in Downey – Eugene and I have lived in Downey for almost 6 months now and something I noticed almost immediately was how large the homeless community was here. There are a few people who Isee regularly in front of the Starbucks and Target I frequent, and a few of the same people who stand near my 605 freeway entrance. One of my goals for next year is to get to know these people by name and see if there is a way I can serve them during our short time in Downey. I’ve been wanting to plan a community lunch for Christmas this year – but seeing that I am scheduled to work on both Christmas & Christmas eve, a few co-workers have partnered with me in this “Bags of Hope” project!

We will be making care packages to hand out to the homeless during the holiday season! Please consider partnering with us! You can click on {this link} to donate. Thanks! :o)

6. Bake Cinammon Rolls from SCRATCH! So this was my goal two years ago and I ended up cheating because I…

1) made mini-cinammon rolls (and not the real size ones… )

2) used Pillsbury’s Crescent rolls instead of making my own dough.

But this is a new year people! I’m motivated to really live up to my goal and bake it completely from scratch – frosting, dough and all. Here are the mini ones we managed to make before. We were obviously a little too excited about rolling the dough (they were almost paper thin!) but they were so good!

Less than a month left! Better get started!!

Happy December!

Give thanks: a day off to rest, recollect my thoughts and organize our neglected mess of an apartment, starbucks and coffeebean!, a successful week of finals week done for Eugene and only two more days to go (!!!), Spotify, the iced latte I plan to drink after this – yay! :O)