So many celebrations. So much frustration.

May went by fast. In the month of May, we had a lot of celebrations going on. At the same time, there has been a lot of stress and frustration. I guess that is life.

I turned 32. I mean you don’t really count the years after you turn 30 until you are about to turn 40 right? I don’t know if it’s just me, I feel that I kinda lost the ability to gauge people’s ages these days. The other day, we had someone giving a talk in church and he mentioned that he is 23. Somehow it just hit me like wow, I feel old. Not in a sense that I feel bad about myself but maybe this was the first time I felt like I am getting old. Then another day, I looked at my three little kids and I felt like I am such a young mom in a sense that I’m still in the thick of it when it comes to motherhood. It’s a weird feeling. With that being said though, I do feel grateful for being one year older. I do hope that I am one year wiser than before. Oh, and I for sure enjoyed all my birthday freebies.

Soon after my birthday, we had the mother’s day celebration. Being a mother myself now has helped me appreciate my mom’s effort in raising me to be a good person more. It is a hard job to be a mom.

Jonny and I celebrated our 8th anniversary in May with a little staycation sans kids. It felt great to be able to just spend some time together as a couple. I mean, we definitely still have our date night every week but with the pandemic this past year, we have resorted to mostly watching TV or movies at home. So it was really nice to be able to not having to worry about taking care of the kids for a little bit. We were looking at some of our notes from our dating time and one note referred to something as “evil cat—black powder“. We both have no idea what this means anymore but it brought us a good chuckle. I’m glad that after 8 years of marriage, we still love each other. As a matter of fact, we probably love each other more now than before because we’ve experienced so much more together and we have gotten to know each other so much more. Anyways, here is to at least another 8 years. How about that ;)

Well, you probably have noticed by now that I don’t have a lot of photos to attach this month. Not because I have fallen into a creativity rut. I have been shooting A LOT. But I have not been able to sit down to edit and I’m so backed up that my computer is screaming at me that my disks are getting full again.

However, I do want to share this though:

We’ve made significant progress on our own decluttering endeavor. The image above was taken in April(I finally edited in May) and now we have taken care of that entire pile of stuff. I know I briefly talked about our attempt to declutter last time but I just wanna give you an update on that. As someone who lived in different countries and cities, and who loves to travel in general, it is actually a really awesome feeling to know that if we need to move, we can easily pack up and go!

Speaking of packing up and go, well, we are not moving(yet at least). However, we have been moving things around our house for sure. There has been some new situation rising within the extended family that I won’t go into too much details about but it definitely has affected us in big ways. Currently, we are trying to figure out what boundary we need to set and what role we should play in a complicated situation like this. There has been a lot of frustration on my end for sure. The frustration is actually not so much towards anyone but towards the fact that I don’t know what I should do and the fact that I kinda feel helpless when it comes to situation like this.

It’s kinda ironic that May is Mental Health Awareness month. To be honest, I am definitely guilty of brushing off the topic of mental health in the past. To my defense, I was never really taught to pay attention to mental health growing up. However, I didn’t really try much harder either when I become an adult. Now I am forced to be aware of this issue and to face it head on. I so wish that I could have had more education before. I so wish that this topic is more widely discussed. I am glad that at least I took the Emotional Resilience workshop this year so I have some tools to handle some of the difficult choices in front of me.

If you are someone who believe in the power of prayer, I would really appreciate if you could keep our family in your prayers just so we could have the strength and wisdom to make the best decisions we can.

Since I am always looking for the silver lining, I have found myself focusing on counting my blessings these days. I am grateful that I have photography as a way to process my emotions and to keep me distracted when needed.

I am also grateful that my kids have been of good cheer like always. Kids at this age don’t quite understand what is going on however I do believe that they feed on our energies too. They can feel our stress. They can feel our anxiety. They can also feel our joy if we show them.

We had been doing a hybrid homeschooling model for this past year and we are on summer break now with the public school districts. With homeschooling though, I don’t really think there is a need for an official summer break. We have been working as a family on our science units these days. It has been really fun to have this family study time—we learn together. My kids are learning different skills at their own level—my oldest learning about the actual academic content, my middle one more on fine motor skills as well as some of the academic stuff while my youngest on how to not scream constantly. lol. Me? I learn as well about how to be more in tune with the spirit so I can recognize the individual needs and talents of each of my kids. I still get frustrated because wow do we even need a reason for the kids to start whining?! However, I do feel that I have become more chill.

I am also grateful for Jonny who is working very hard every day to bring home the—water. I don’t even want to start to think about the number on our next water bill but honestly, I’m glad that we are in a relatively good position where we are ok with the kids just playing with water pretty much all day every day. It is fun. I have always loved water so sometimes I feel that I am having more fun than the kids.

Speaking of Jonny and work, due to the current situation, we have decided to try and see if we can actually self-sustain with just our little house without expanding our space into other areas of the property. After a year, Jonny is finally officially working from home(he was working in the basement at the front house on the same property). We moved our furnitures and I reorganized our spaces. I told Jonny now it feels like we moved into a new house. Ha! And surprise surprise, when we don’t have much stuff any more(except for Chinese books), we actually have “a lot” of space. I might do a photo project on our attempt to live and work and school from our little house.

I am also grateful for my new calling in our Primary Presidency. It is truly an amazing opportunity to work with all these children. When I was little, I always said that I would become a teacher when I grow up. I definitely did not see myself as a teacher this way however, I couldn’t be more happy about where I am now. I was preparing for the lesson and I had a little inspiration on how I could teach the concept of agency a little better. There is something special about sharing my knowledge to help others, especially if I am sharing with little ones.

Here are some of the things I’m currently working on myself and I figured that with all the craziness these days, I probably should have it listed somewhere so I can hold myself accountable.

• I am taking two photography workshops so I need to stay focused on my assignments and continue to practice daily.

• I am working with a mentor to edit the images I took on our trip to Wuhan and see if I can get that story together into a book to publish and to get it into gallery exhibitions.

• I am working on my emotional health awareness. I am slowing down and be intentional and mindful about my feelings. I need to get back to my morning pages. Well, I need to get up earlier.

• I am working on—always working on—being more patient.

• I am working on my garden. Hopefully I can take good care of the garden so I can have more stuff to harvest this season.

Let’s see if writing down the to do list helps me to be more organized and focused on the important stuff.

Well, it’s getting late and I probably should get to bed, like 5 hours ago. Ha. Thank you for reading my ramblings this month. We will see what June holds!