littlewonderlog

I got a call from my nephew.

As I spoke with him, I noticed my tone of voice changing. My usual nonchalant, dry voice is gone, and it has become warm, tender, and a little bit sweet. It almost feels like I’ve suddenly become a daycare teacher.

It’s something that usually doesn’t come out. Not even with my husband. I don’t really try to do it, and I’m not even really conscious of it. It just comes out like this. Listening to myself, I feel like, “Why is this woman talking like this?”

Why does talking to my nephew change my tone of voice? Is it because I’ve known him since he was a baby?

Every time I talk to him, my own voice surprises me. What’s up with this, seriously?

Sometimes, the biggest obstacles to effortlessly and naturally conducting of a task are the pressure of “I need to do it well” which nobody really imposed and an excessive “I want to do it well” desire that outruns the task.

Don’t let them get to you. Just do what you always do and what you can do.

…made my arm muscle bulge a little bit. Only 20 reps.

Although my body was born to be pretty much muscleless with my fat hanging like a curtain, pushups tend to make my arm bigger than I expected (maybe I expected so little). It’s just amazing what 20 reps of pushups can do.

Of course, I think muscles on my upper and middle back got a bit firmer, and my shoulder and arm strength slightly improved. My husband sometimes pokes my back and tells me that I got good muscles there.

Still, I’ve decided I won’t accept any more bulging arm muscles, and I will no longer do the Judo pushup. So, what should I do now for my upper body training?

I need to find an alternative quickly to prevent any muscle loss (like I have a lot of muscle).

My husband told me that he didn’t have anything to feel joy about. I asked him to write down a list of things, including very small things, he felt good about this morning, and then I wrote down mine.

– I felt good that my leg splits were slightly (very slightly) better than yesterday.
– I felt good that reading while doing the pigeon pose allowed me to stretch and read at the same time.
– I felt good that Ken Fisher’s book was interesting.
– I felt good that the leaves were vibrant green during my morning walk at the park.
– I felt good that the egg yolks of the boiled eggs I had for breakfast were just perfectly cooked to my taste.
– I felt good that wrapping half-milled brown rice and crunchy cucumber rapee with roasted dried laver tasted like sushi.
– I felt good just thinking about cooking and eating clam Jjambbong with Chinese cabbage and bok choy.

There were 5 items on my husband’s list, most of which were related to food. What a perfect couple. I asked him to add to the list if he came up with something later during the day. How many more he will add by the time he comes home?

I like the joy of achieving big tasks, yet small and trivial joys are also good.

No, they are actually better because they are more abundant and last longer.

I avoid the temptation to be good at English, Japanese, and the piano. It’s because by maintaining a habit of input and practicing output, output will come naturally without my control.

Today, I avoid the temptation.
The temptation to control the output.

I was writing about the spacing rules of the Korean word, “Cham-na” (참나). Is it supposed to be “”Cham Na” (참 나) or “Cham-na” (참나)?

But then, I realized that I don’t even know the correct meaning or origin of that word. The meaning we typically use is basically “Unbelievable!”, or “How ridiculous!”. The origin that Gemini or ChatGPT told me is not convincing enough. It’s not in the official Korean dictionary, so the National Institute of Korean Language can’t offer any guidelines on it.

Unbelievable. At this moment, I’ve decided I am going with “Cham-na” (참나).

 

When playing catch, my mind is only on the ball. Of course, I get busy getting mad at the pitcher (my husband) when he’s not throwing the ball right, and I get busy running around when he’s not throwing the ball right (well, full disclosure, it’s actually my excuse a lot of times). Still, most of the time, I only focus on the ball. How liberating it is. I don’t really care about the person playing catch with me (maybe I should), the ball and I only exist in that world. Sometimes, I feel muscle tightness on my right middle back (Did you throw the ball a hundred times or what?), and other times, my left knee makes a squeaky sound (Did you throw….). Still, when playing catch, it feels like a meditation in motion. How good it feels.

So when you feel blue, go play catch.

It wasn’t actually that I was feeling blue or something, yet I just wanted to use that phrase.

A few months ago, I was reading Dale Carnegie’s book, “How to Win Friends & Influence People” but tossed it aside after a few pages. There was something about that book that just didn’t intrigue me. Sentences were woven in a strange way, it wasn’t really fun and almost felt like I was dragging myself through those pages. That was strange, because I think I enjoyed reading the Korean translation a long time ago. Then, after reading some other books, I picked it up again, and voila. It reads smoothly, it’s fun and I find myself nodding a lot of times in agreement with the contents.

I don’t know the reason of this, but I know this – The perfect moment to read a certain book is when it reads effortlessly.

 

It was the blink of an eye. It felt like only a few days ago when I told myself, “Ah, now trees are getting light greenish”, but now the park is covered with greenery. It’s not like the green shades of June or July, yet it’s full of green. When did that happen? Maybe they all grew quickly after a rain shower.

It’s the season of the green leaves almost embracing us with their big arms. It’s a good season for taking a walk. Nothing is really different since I walk all the time, but it feels much better as I can walk enjoying the greenery.

It feels great that there are many things I can feel great about.

It’s strange.

Like a ghost, my body just knows. Once the weather gets a bit warmer (or hotter), suddenly, I want something cool and something sour. A bowl of Makguksu (Korean buckwheat noodle) would do the trick, yet buckwheat noodles that usually contain some portion of wheat is out of the reach of someone on 10th month of cutting out wheat (already!).

Then my husband pulled it up (that’s my man). There is pure buckwheat Makguksu which is made from 100% of buckwheat. There are actually quite a lot of places selling it. The pure buckwheat noodle is not coarse or crumbly as I expected. It’s got its character and I liked it.

It would be great to go on some pure buckwheat Makguksu quest. Hahahaha. I am very good at finding excuses to eat.