Sunrise EP 24 - The Wood in the Bathroom

We spent hours after hours to pick bath towel hooks. Etsy has lots of cute stuff from around the world. It was funny that when I was ready to hit pay, then, the page started to show other similar items the customer like me might like. And indeed, I picked the other one instead and we really loved it! We now had a huge tree to hang our towels and also little bears to help clean up the toilet. 

Sunrise EP 23 - Master Closet

September 2 was the Labor Day of 2024. That long weekend, we talked about doing a short visit to Ashville in North Carolina or Greenville in South Carolina. But we ended up working on the house project instead. And here's the beautiful outcome!

Sunrise EP 22 - Bill and Jiang Hua (Hanna)

On September 1, Amber invited us for a boat ride. It was very relaxing. Then, in the evening, she had her neighbors visited. They were Bill and Jiang Hua (Hanna). Jiang Hua was using a translation gadget. She said it would be 3 years in February 2025 since she had come to US. Ducky asked if she had an English name and that how we came to know the name "Hanna". I remember spotting her English name in her phone and it was Hanna without an "h" like Hannah. What interesting was, Bill did not seem to know that name. 😀

Amber told us that Jiang Hua was a great cook, and she served like 10 dishes for them. Jiang Hua told me that before coming here, she was not that good cooking but because the lack of understanding English language here, she needed to find an alternative strong point to be able to stand out in a certain way. 

Bill used to work in military for several years. He had been travelling around the world. He always had lots of stories to tell us. Some seemed to be confidential matters in the past. 😜 I did not catch all of what he said and could not remember everything. He was holding 2 citizenships. I could not remember what was the other one. It was a small country with political issue or so. He mentioned obtaining the citizenship by helping their government (I hope I got this right). Bill married a Japanese woman who was his first wife who passed, he divorced his Thai wife who owned a Thai restaurant Kevin and Amber dined in from time to time. And in 2024, his girlfriend (or new wife?) was Jiang Hua. He sure loved Asian women. Oh, and he could play guitar and sing very well. Maybe he could teach me guitar lessons. 

Jiang Hua was a very smart woman. She used to work as a key management for a Chinese company supplying bottles to Coca Cola. (LoL, I needed to check with Ducky if I remembered that correctly.) She traveled around the world as well. I would like to know but did not ask how come she ended up in USA and what she was doing for living here. Bill praised her along with raising the point that her dad was the first pilot of some sort of an important plane. Jiang Hua refused to talk about her dad mentioning it made her sad. She liked Guinness beer. She could shoot as well. Wow! She sure was a smart woman. How come she did not pick up English after living here for almost 3 years. Or actually she knew English but could not let others know about that fact. There were still some mysterious points to think about her. LoL

Ducky and I met Bill and Jiang Hua 2 times during my one month with Ducky at Sunrise. 

Well, that's not Bill though. 😀

Sunrise EP 21 - Convection Range

After coming back on August 20, Ducky had not been deployed until September 30. It was unpredictable. I thought I would only have 1 week with Ducky, and we also rushed to complete the master bedroom and bathroom, and the 1st move from my house within the 1st week he came back. Then, he was told that he would not be deployable until after September 19. I was so happy to hear that. So, we spent time to arrange things in the kitchen's cabinets. We shopped grocery and we did our first stove top cooking. 

I made easy fried rice as the first stove top cooking meal! My first time using convection stove! I also fried salmon and cooked beef stew with Chinese Five Spices powder on stove top. I was a bit surprise that when frying salmon, the oil did not splash like crazy.

My first bake good in the oven was Red Lobster Biscuits bought from Costco. I forgot to buy cheese to mix with it. I had to learn the oven, and the rack position being used was too close to the top. I later swapped the rack position and finally the biscuits were ready!  I needed to learn the oven more.

We made chicken casserole together. Ducky is my whipping cream maker. The casserole was a success with the oven. 😉

We did bake goods couple times; pumpkin bread/cake, banana bread/cake, and blueberries muffins. Some of these bake goods taste better the following day. I guess it takes time to absorb all the ingredients together. 

Ducky bought temperature measurement to sit in the oven. He learned that the oven is off by 14 degrees. I have learned that to wait until the oven is at the set temperature said in the measurement, and stick the mixture in, outside get burned in no time before the inside is cooked. There are several things that might contribute to it as well: the type of baking tray, the rack position in the oven, etc. When baking the banana bread/cake, we did our own way by setting to 350 degrees and waited 10 minutes to stick the mixture in and waited 30 minutes then, it was done nicely.  

I will definitely read about convection oven before I go to the Sunrise home next time. We have to practice couple more times to understand the oven. 

Oh, and I cooked Greek Chichen with yogurt and beef stew in the crockpot. We also enjoyed yummy salads. Apart from that, Ducky introduced these new drinks to me, Caucasian 😁 (White Russian), Daiquiri, and Umeshu with peach sparkling water.

Our first stove top cooking!

Our first oven cook!

Sunrise EP 20 - The 1st Moving to complete the Guest Bedroom

On August 24, we rent a moving truck from Home Depot and went to move the guest bedroom suite from my house to Sunrise home. We also moved couple other things like the black storage shelf from the piano room to the storage room at Sunrise. Kevin and Amber came to help. Phew. Thanks Kevin and Amber! 

I am writing this EP on October 12 and Ducky just told me that Aunt Linda is coming to visit from Oct 29 - Nov 2. I am glad we have the bedroom ready for her. I just ordered couple of queen size bed skirts. I hope one will fit!

Sunrise EP 19 - Tada! Finally, the Master Bedroom was ready!

I went to the Sunrise house on Sunday August 18 with lots of kitchenware and other stuff from Marietta house. Ducky came back from Kansas City on Tuesday August 20. I took 3 days off from work from Wednesday to Friday so, I could help Ducky to get the Master Bedroom ready for the first furniture move from my Marietta house. 

Wednesday August 21 - I worked on getting kitchen cabinets and drawers liners ready. Ducky worked on the master bathroom vanity. Ducky accidentally drilled a hole in the water pipe, so, he ran back and forth to Home Depot to find the parts to fix it. 

Thursday August 22 - I helped to fill the trim holes, caulk the trims and paint them. Ducky continued to work on the master bathroom vanity. The water was still shooting out from the pipe behind the vanity, this time the 2nd hole.  It was a fun day as I got to practice Opera by screaming out loud as a signal for Ducky to know to turn the water main off. Phew...at last after Ducky's magic touch, the pipe was happy again. Kevin and Amber stopped by. Kevin helped to lift the super heavy stone sink with Ducky and Hooray! Done!

Friday August 23 - I put away kitchenware that I brought from my house and continued to paint the trim. Ducky helped to caulk the ceiling trims and paint them. Later, I mopped the wooden floor and gave the master bedroom a nice clean sense.  Then, Ducky and I moved the temporary furniture from the guest bedroom down to the master bedroom. I vacuumed the guest bedroom and made sure it was ready for the new furniture from my house. 

Wow! Finally, the vanity installation was completed, and we started to use the master bedroom for the first time. 

(Pictures TBD 😁)

Sunrise EP 18 - Kitchen Backsplash

It has been a while since my last update. Let's rewind my life events back to the time when we had the kitchen's backsplash installed. Ducky went to Kansas City on July 22. I went to Sunrise home on Thursday July 25 and the contractor came to do the backsplash template on Friday July 26. I then went back to Marietta to continue to purge and pack stuff back to Sunrise again on Tuesday August 6. Then, the crew came to install on August 7 but they could not continue due to the lights under the cabinets. Mike came to take the lights out first on Friday August 9. I went back to Marietta on Thursday August 8 and yep to purge and to pack stuff back to Sunrise again on Sunday August 11. Finally, the backsplash got installed on Wednesday August 14. Hooray! It's so beautiful!  I went back to Marietta the following day. Mike came to install the lights under the cabinets on Friday August 16. Oh My!  It had taken almost 1 month to complete the kitchen backsplash project. 😉 

Pictures taken right after it got installed! Beautiful!