It’s been almost a year since my last post and last time I recapped the year before. Instead of doing that this time, I thought I’d jot down some things I’ve been thinking about recently. I saw a lot of family over the holidays and it really got me strolling down memory lane. All from my childhood. Some memories are fun, some not so much, but I thought it’d be neat to write ‘em down and share them with the world wide web. Be warned that all of these are completely random and I’m just going to list them out in no particular order…

I remember …

• When I had to share birthday parties withmy brother. Our birthdays are a month a part, but we had one party and a giant cake that said “Happy Birthday Chiumo and Daisy”
• Going to Disney World. I’m not sure exactly how old I was, but I was little. I remember wearing a white shirt with a yellow ringer collar. I remember going through a tunnel with a bunch of colored lights and holding my Aunt Sai’s hand. I also remember being lost (Despite people telling me that never happened)
• Having to be a my parent’s restaurant from morning till night and my best friend there was the dish washer Arthuro. I had a orange plastic fish and he use to let me put him in the drain of the big dish washer and watch him go up and down with the water level. (I was sad when Arthuro left)
• Also at the restaurant, we had a customer who was a regular. She had a bunch of kids and they were all boys. She said she wanted to take me home with her and I was terrified of her. I called her Fat Teacher. (I don’t know why) I would hide in the back store room if I ever saw her coming up in the parking lot. I am still scared of her…lol
• Sometimes I would go to my friend Lisa’s house to hang out. Lisa had some friends that lived a couple houses down from her and we would play with them. One day for some reason we decided to have a war with them. I got in a fight with this girl Mimi. She was bigger than me. She picked me up and body slammed me. It hurt. I lost that fight.
• A lot of days I stayed home with my brother. My neighbor Deniss would honk the horn on her bike when she wanted me to come out and play. One day I was outside playing and my brother told me to come in and I didn’t listen. He got mad and punched his fist through the window.
• The first day of 6th grade I had to ride the bus to school. I had never ridden the bus to school before. But the bus actually stopped at my house cause I lived on the corner. That morning the girl who lived acrossthe street also came out to ride the bus. I didn’t know her name but we were both nervous about the first day of middle school so started talking and we became friends. We would hang out pretty much every day after that… but I think I didn’t learn her name was Robyn until about 2wks later. (Not cause she told me, but because I saw it on one of her papers)
• One day Deniss let me borrow her bike. (My parents never let me have one till I was like 16. I had a car by then) Anyway, I took the bike and rode it down towards Andrea’s end of the street. She was sitting on the curb with Crystal Young. Crystal let the air out of one of the tires. I walked the bike home in tears cause my feelings were hurt. Why did she do that?
• Speaking of bikes, one day Robyn and I decided to ride our bikes to Stop & Go. It had rained earlier and the rode was wet. We decided to race. When we said “Go”, I started to bare down on the pedals, but the bottom of my shoes were wet. My feet slipped off the pedals and I ended up flowing end over end over the handle bars. I flew about 4ft in front of my bike and scrapped up my knees. Robyn was cracking up and me being me didn’t want to show pain. I toughed it out and rode on to Stop & Go. When we got there I had blood soaking through my jeans and running out the bottom. I still have that scar on my knee. That was the same day our brand new big screen tv was delivered to the house. (Isn’t it weird the things we remember?) The box it came in was huge. Robyn and I played fort in it.
• Since my parent’s were always at the restaurant, Miko would pick me up from school. Sometimes the windows would fog up in the car when it was cold out. Miko use to tell me that I was fogging the windows up because I talked too much…lol
• The name of my parent’s restaurant was Jin Bo Restaurant. One day Wayne Dolcefino came in and I had to seat him. He asked me if I was “Jin Bo”…. I don’t like Wayne Dolcefino…
• My parents made me get braces for my teeth. In order for me to get them I had to have NINE teeth pulled out. I had them all pulled out in one appointment. I got 4 shots of novocaine (sp?) in the roof of my mouth. NOT FUN.
• When I got my braces off I had to wear a retainer (bottom and top). During band, I would take my retainers out and put them on the stand… GROSS!
• One day Andrea and I went to Target on Spencer in Pasadena. There I noticed this weird dude who was dressed in Atlanta Braves attire. After Target, we went across the parking lot to Blockbuster. While in line I noticed that same guy there as well. I told Andrea “I think we are being followed.” As soon as the guy’s attention was diverted I signaled to Andrea to head towards the door to leave. As soon as we did, the guy came running after us. We jumped in the car and sped away. I think we must’ve drove an extra half an hour before going home to make sure we weren’t followed home.

Alright it’s getting late and I’m getting tired. I’ve got a bunch more… I’ll jot them down another time. Nite Nite.

Well 2009 is well over and what a year it has been. I got a new baby niece, a new car, and a new house!… Wooo… that’s a lot to take in. Unfortunately I was bad at blogging last year (as I am every year) so hardly any of this is documented.. until now….

Feb 7th, 2009 – My nieces Addison and Jasmine turn 2!!! – Wow, how does time fly by so quickly?? Their hugs are so precious and I’m grateful to live closer to them now. 

Feb 19th, 2009 – Sabrina Quant Lee was born. – My 3rd baby niece. Her smile is contagious. You can’t help but smile when you see the corners of her mouth go up.

Mar 14th, 2009 – Deniss and Chad get married. – FINALLY! After years and years and years of planning, the wedding of the decade happened.

Mar 22nd, 2009 – bought a new car. 2009 Nissan Pathfinder – Yikes, the negotiation process was brutal. But in the end, I paid what I wanted, so that’s a win for me.

June 30th, 2009 – Closed on my first very own house. – I kept it secret that I had even found a house up until after I closed. Having watched HGTV way too much before buying, I kept thinking something was going to go wrong during the entire process. I didn’t want to jinx it by telling people that I found a house and was ready to buy, so to most people it was a complete surprise when I told them I had already closed!

July 3rd, 2009 – Jourdyn came to live w/ me – The circumstance in which J came to live w/ me were unfortunate. But I think we’ve turned a tragedy into positive. She is a great person to live with and she is so patient w/ me. I know I can be a pest sometimes, but she puts up with it so Thank you!

July 22nd, 2009 – 3:31am AJ was born – 5lbs, 18.5inches. What a little guy! But he’s growing at an exponential rate. I think Andrea is raising a giant…lol

Nov 6th, 2009 – Locked myself out of my first very own house…lol. – And yes, we had to call a locksmith. Jourdyn and I starved for 2hrs waiting for him to show up. Ended up costing over $100!!! So stupid!

Dec 2nd, 2009 – Milla talked to me. – Actress Milla Jovovich joined the twitter universe late Oct, early Nov while she was filming Resident Evil 4. After sending a few tweets to her, she actually replied back to me a couple times. As you can see, I was very excited about this.

Of course there were many other extraordinary events that happened scattered in there somewhere, but way too many for me to remember to list in this post! This next year will take me out of my 20′s and into my 30′s… YIKES!… I’m looking forward to starting this next phase my life. So far life has thrown a multitude of great surprises. Of course, like anyone else, I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs, but thankfully I consider myself lucky to have had more of the “up’s”. Overall, 2009 was a great year for me and I’m hoping that 2010 will bring more of the same.

Eek.. it’s been quite a while since I’ve written and I know I am way over due on the “new house” story (with pics), but I am compelled to share my dream with y’all first. I don’t remember a lot of it so it will seem a little choppy, but I thought it was funny… and a little scary.

It started off with me walking into work like I always do every morning. I got in the elevator and pushed 10. Just like any other morning, I was crammed in the back of the elevator with about 20 other people. The elevator started to ascend and we all soon realized that the elevator was going up at a speed faster than normal and it was not stopping at any of the lit floors. Everyone immediately started freaking out and someone at the front started banging on the call for help button. The elevator finally stopped at the 12th floor and everyone let out a sigh of relief. The doors slowly opened and everyone cautiously piled out except for me and one other girl. I looked to the girl standing next to me and it was Kristen Stewart (aka Bella from Twilight). Apparently Kristen was going to my sidekick in my adventure here, b/c she began talking to me as if we were bff’s. She kept babbling on about being freaked out and wondering what was going on. I remember being annoyed with her studdering, much like I am annoyed when watching Twilight…lol. Just spit it out Kristen!!!

We finally stepped out of the elevator and I was suprised to see that we were in a hospital and not an office building. (I work in an office building) There was a nurses station straight a head down a long hallway so we walked toward it. The first thing I noticed was the creapy deafening silence. (Where did the 18 other people from the elevator go??) The only sound came from the clicking echo of our shoes as we headed forward. As we got closer I noticed that the nurse was not wearing the modern day scrubs that are worn today. Instead she was wearing the classic all white nurses uniform… hat and all. The nurse was looking down reviewing some charts and either she didn’t hear us approach or she didn’t care to acknowlege us b/c she didn’t look up. Sitting next to her was a patient wearing a Hannibal Lecter mask struggling to get out of a straight jacket. His eyes were blood shot and he made no sound as he wrestled with the jacket. I remember watching his eyes darted back and forth between me and Kristen as if he was trying to decide which he would go after first when he got free.

The next thing I remember is the nurse looking up at us and her face was nothing but a rotted old skeleton. This must’ve freaked Kristen out b/c she grabbed my hand and pulled me off to the left and started running down another hallway. Funny thing is after a few steps, she ended up tripping and face planting down on the floor taking me with her of course. Classic Kristen… I turned around and here comes crazy eyed Hannibal Lecter chasing us down the hall. I guess he got out.

I picked Kristen up and we ran for it. We headed through some swinging double doors and into a enormous dark room that was lit only with black lights and neon signs. It was like being in a haunted house. Here’s were it starts to get a little fuzzy…

I remember running through the maze of the haunted house/room being chased by zombies, werewolves, chainsaw man, and other sci-fi/horror characters. How we ever got out I don’t remember, but we ended up in another wing of the hospital standing at the end of another really long hallway. Straight ahead of us at the other end of the hall was who I guess was suppose to be the grim reaper. He didn’t say anything out loud, but telepathetically he told us we’d never find our way out. So I guess the goal was to get out. The rest of the dream was just a bunch of running around looking for a way out. Kristen fell down a lot and I ended up tripping over her more than a few times. It really was like a bad horror movie where the character is trying to run away, but he/she keeps falling down.

We never did find our way before I woke up this morning, which I was very disappointed with. Even though I knew it was just a dream, I woke up feeling like I had failed… lost the game…lol

Perhaps tonight I will try to go back into the dream and try again. Hopefully I’ll have a less clumsy sidekick. Any suggestions???

Well I did it. I finally pulled the trigger and got a new car. I settled on a 2009 Nissan Pathfinder. I’m happy with my purchase and I think I gotta pretty good deal on it. It’s not anything that I thought I was going to get. Even the color is different than what I imagined in my head. It has a bunch of stuff in it that I know I’ll probably never need or use but the deal I was offered was too good to pass up.

So I actually ended up going to the dealership after I wrote my previous blog post. It was kinda funny when I brought the car home, b/c many of the things I said would happen did actually happen. And b/c I had already predicted it made it less infuriating for me, and I was able to laugh it all off. When my mom first looked at the car, she took a peek inside and she said “why is it so small?”. She then asked me how much I got for my trade-in… I told her $4000. She said that’s it? Okay for those of you who don’t know, I traded in a 2002 Ford Explorer XLS (base model) with 116,600 miles on it. It had  A LOT of problems. ABS light was on, Rear differential was leaking, and the transmission needed to be rebuilt. For me, the repairs would’ve cost about $2500-$3000. The NADA trade-in value of my car was listed as 3,200 in excellent condition, and 1,775 in rough condition. Resale value of it was listed at $4900 (in excellent condition). I had gone to a few other dealerships and the most I was offered was $3000. So this dealership offered me the most for my trade in. But of course mom still says “That’s it?”…lol. My car came with a backup cam so when you put the car in reverse you can see if anything is directly behind you. Mom asked if the car beeps when you get close to something, I replied “no” and she said “oh well Chiumo’s (my big brother) does that. I realise that Mom only says these things cause she wants the best for me, so I let all this slide.  I’d like to think deep down inside that mom actually likes the car.  But her comments about the size of the car and the rear sonar senors make me wonder if I should’ve in fact gone with the Armada. (The Armada is of course larger and comes with both the back up cam and front and rear sonar sensors that beep when you are close to something) Of course I’m sure had I gotten the Armada the comments would’ve been, it’s too big and eats too much gas.

In spite of all that I am happy with my purchase. In the end I purchased the vehicle for about $2500 below invoice and I got $1000 more for my trade-in than I was offered at any other dealership. I would have never had the confidence to negotiate as effectively as I did w/o Jackie’s help. I really appreciate her help with getting the ball rolling and teaching me a thing two about the negotiation process. She inspired me to get the best deal possible and I think I did. Oh yeah, did I mention I also negotiated in free window tinting?…lol… I know this seems very minor, but this was really important to me and I would not have bought the vehicle without it. It really was an absolute deal breaker for me. And it was hilarious to see their faces when we were at the end of the negotiating process and they were as low as they were willing to go and I said “will you tint the windows?” They of course threw their arms up in the air and gave me the whole “We are losing money on this car and you want us to tint the windows too??” spiel. Finally they caved and I have an appointment to have my windows tinted next Sat. I’m pretty sure they didn’t really lose money on the car and they probably did make a couple hundred bucks, but I still think I got a good deal. After all, I didn’t expect to get the car for free!

Next up – Finding a reasonable price on a Nissan extended warranty. I think I may have found a dealership to sell it to me at cost rather than the 100% market-up they normally do! 

 –

My family thinks I’m incompetent… and maybe I am b/c I just had to look up how to even spell that word…lol. No but seriously, my family (particularly my parents) thinks that I am unable to succeed or do things on my own without their assistance. And even if I do do (hehe DODO!) something good or something that other people think is good, they are never impressed. In their eyes I could have done better. You know all those stories where the kid is never good enough? The ones where the kid makes a 99 on a test and instead of getting a pat on the back the parent asks “why did you miss one point?”. Yeah, that was me growing up. I graduated 13th out of 400 in high school and of course I was asked why I didn’t make the top ten. I think this sort of affected me when I went to college. I kind of gave up on trying, b/c what was the point right? It would never be good enough anyway.

Thank God I grew out of that phase. I’ve learned to stop trying to meet my parents expectations b/c as soon as I come close to meeting them, the bar just keeps getting moved higher and higher. But at the same time it is frustrating to know that my family doesn’t know me like my friends do. For example, everybody knows I’m in the market for a new car. My friends that know me, know that when I set my eye on something, I research the hell out of it. I do not make impulsive decisions when it comes to things like this. I look up invoice prices and dealer hold backs from multiple sources and even search forums to see what other buyers are paying for the vehicle. I search dealer inventories, not only here in Houston, but all over the state and even out of state to see how much different dealers are offering the vehicle for. I do competitive price shopping against dealers and pit them against each other to get the lowest possible price. I recruit people like my friend Jackie who is probably the best negotiator that I know. She also knows a lot of people in the biz and has the good “hook-ups”. I really do a lot more than the average car shopper when it comes to things like this. So much more that it probably is getting on my friends’ nerves just cause I have a hard time pulling the trigger on something and for weeks I talk about nothing else. For me it’s not about getting a nice shiny new car. For me it’s also about knowing that I got the best deal possible on something. Once I focus in on something, it becomes an obsession. That’s why it’s so frustrating to hear my cousin or my dad or my mom telling me I need to take a male figure with me to buy a car. Because apparently I’m so stupid, that I’ll be taken advantage of. And the thing is, I really could get an outrageously good deal, but I know when I bring that car home the first thing my family will say is that I paid too much. I could buy a car with an MSRP of $35,000 (Invoice $31,000) and pay $25,000 for it and just b/c my dad didn’t go with me, they will say that I paid too much. They will say, oh you could’ve gotten that for $23,000. And what’s great about it is they just make these random accusations. B/c they know what the car is worth right? B/c they’ve been researching it for weeks, right? Nope, they will know b/c apparently if I, Daisy, was able to get it for $25,000 then surely someone else would be able to get it for cheaper. And this folks is what is taking the fun out of buying a car for me. B/c I know that no matter what happens my family will not be happy with what I get or what I paid.

I’ve hardly looked at any domestic cars b/c I know that my family would rather me buy foreign. So I’ve been looking at Nissan. And what’ll happen when I bring that Nissan home? I’ll be asked why I didn’t buy a Honda. I was looking at the Armadas. Oh I know if I brought home an Armada there would be hell to pay. Why do I need such a big car right? If I bring home a Pathfinder they will say it’s too cramped in the back. If you were going to buy an SUV, why not buy one that is roomier?… As I write all this out and reread it, it’s really quite comical. Everything contradicts everything else, but seriously, this is my life! And this is what will happen. It never fails… no matter what I do someone in my family will find some kind of negative thing to say about it.

So maybe I’ll just pay the money and fix my car instead… Unfortunately, then my dad will get on to me for wasting money on a beat up car…. whatever I do… I won’t win. So just screw it all…

Land Rover… here I come!