day 667 | february 23, 2013 | Ice Cream Entrepreneurship

Red was pretending to give away free ice cream at the playground. Kids were lining up at her booth, taking turns to order various ice cream flavors one at a time. She takes it so seriously, that she also operates a pretend ice cream plant by the slides, where she pretend manipulates some levers and knobs, and pretend directs her employees. 

Lesson 1: Find what you love, and do it!

Looking at her, she obviously loves running her factory, definitely more than interfacing with her "customers." It takes her more than a couple of minutes to address one customer (she takes her sweet time at the plant and orders her customers to "be patient!" and mumbles to herself). Surprisingly, the older kids were still there, lining up, and happy to wait for their ice cream. 

Lesson 2: Discerning customers understand that good things take time to make right. (Perhaps that. Or maybe, if you've got a monopoly, people are more willing to accomodate your quirks.)

day 664 | february 12, 2013 | Exit Dragon, Enter Snake

Since experiencing Chinese New Year celebrations for the first time around 7 years ago, I've come to associate CNY with huge family reunions, lots of food, and at least a set of new clothes. After moving into our first home, I've also come to associate it with the mad panic of spring cleaning. I like the reunions and food bit; the shopping and cleaning, not so much.

This year, I had three goals for the CNY: First is to get a snap of all the little cousins together. Second is to train Roo and Red to independently wish their elders "Happy New Year" without my constant supervision (More coffee time for me in the future), and lastly but more importantly, to get some quality playtime and "hanging around" moments with the little ones to make up for my constantly crazy busy schedule these days.

Chronicled our first three days of the new year in images, and if this sets the tone for the year ahead -- then even this not-so-lucky pig might have a great year despite all the numerologists' and feng shui masters' forecasts. Oink!