happy lunar new year

Happy Chinese New Year!  Here are some treats, purchased from Costco.  Both sets are made in Taiwan, from the company, Isabelle.  The first set is the Year of the Snake assortment.  It includes snake-shaped matcha & red bean cakes, 2 flavors of ice q cakes (peach and tangerine), and taro cakes.

The peach cake is squishy like gummy candy and mochi.  It has a slight peach flavor and tastes ok.  The tangerine one, which I'm guessing is the darker orange one, has more flavor than the peach.  The taro cake is sweet, flaky and powdery.  It tastes ok.  The snake-shaped cake is creamy, and has a hint of a perfume-y or floral flavor.  The shell is like a thin mooncake.  The taste is ambiguous and odd to me.  In general, the assortment is very cute, but I probably would not buy it again.

The second set is a box of pineapple cakes.  The cookie part is crumbly and buttery.  The inside is chewy and sweet.  I like these and rate them to be 7/10.  I've gotten these before and will probably get them again sometime.

old carnations

 

Lasting over a month in the vase, here are the carnations.

flower petals

 

I usually don't buy myself bouquets, since cut flowers tend to die quickly and that's somewhat depressing.  Although, I'm very impressed with a gifted arrangement that's lasted over a month.  Whenever a flower began to wither, I'd do some maintenance (e.g. trim the stems, replace the water, remove dead leaves and petals, etc.).  All went well and the bouquet evolved beautifully through Christmas, New Year's, and beyond... until I plucked one of the browning petals on this white flower.  That single act separated a whole bunch of others, causing the flower to essentially disintegrate.  Oops.  The only flowers remaining in the vase now are carnations.

winter landscape painting

 

5. the nutcracker book

 A Nutcracker pop-up book for only $1 - what a find!  I bought this so long ago, probably over a decade ago.  The binding is too destroyed to donate, but I figured we can still partake in the holiday spirit via photos.  The ballerina in the last page has the ability to somewhat spin.

4. the polar express train set

After reading the descriptions in these photos, I just realized now that there's a Disappearing Hobo in this train set.  I don't remember if we ever noticed that feature many, many years ago when we first got this.  I've already donated it so I can't test it out.  Hopefully a kid out there will be able to enjoy it and discover the flip factor.

snow forest

 

Clothes for donation go in the donation shed, on the way to other destinations like a walk at the park.  Next time, a hat with a visor of some sort could come in handy to prevent icy snowflakes from poking my eyeballs.

3. snow globe

  

This snow globe would come out of hiding once a year at most for the holidays.  There may have been a few years where it stayed in the closet.  This time I noticed that the water was turning yellow.  There's no obvious way to replace the water without dismantling and possibly damaging its innards.  It spins and the light changes color.  I think in time, the water will turn murkier and murkier, possibly transforming into a terrifying black orb.  So I took a video (possibly posting in the future) and said good-bye.

2. color beads

  

It took some time to organize all these beads into separate colors, but then I stopped using them for anything.  They were just sitting in a container for a very long time.  They're pretty to look at in the light, but sometimes it's better to let things go.  There's still way too much stuff.

1. chocolate advent calendar

 

Although this Lindt advent calendar is cute and full of nice milk chocolates, I should probably avoid buying it again next year.  My intention was to share it with other family members, but they didn't want them as much as I'd expected.  The box says there are 28 chocolates for 24 doors.  Well, some doors had more than one surprise.  In addition to other holiday candy, I ate most of these.  Yesterday, I decided to take a break from chocolates.  I ate too many and got very sick.  Let's see how long I can go without them.  I'm also decluttering and snapping photos of some of the more interesting (imo) things to let go, starting with this item.  Happy New Year!