Searching for a Song

I often have songs going through my head. If someone says a particular word and there’s a song I know that has that word, you can bet I’m singing that song in my head (or out loud depending on the situation I am in at the time.) :)

When I am at home I will just randomly start singing or humming songs out loud. I am pretty sure I can be really annoying sometimes. But that’s beside the point. 🤷😂

I tell you all of this to say that the other day I started humming a song where I couldn’t remember any lyrics, but I clearly knew the tune. And I was singing some sounds along with the tune, Eeeee oooo eeee aaaaa eeee aa aa. I only knew a small portion of the song, but I felt like it was a distinct song. 

I hummed the song to Siri and he didn’t know. I sent a voice memo with me humming the tune to some family members and they didn’t know. I tried googling the sounds that I thought might be part of the song and that didn’t help. I tried listening to random old songs that I thought might be it and none of those were right.

I tried for a day or two to figure it out but then gave up. I just decided to accept that I was not going to know what song it was. But then one day my brother, Tim, played a song that he had found and it was the song I had been humming!!!! I was so excited!

Tim said that he remembered an old music video he had watched and what was going on in the music video but did not remember the name of the song from the video. He googled “early viral video of guy lip syncing at his desk”. He found the song by googling that.

I definitely had heard the song before because it sounded familiar but it had probably been years since I’d heard it. I have now listened to the song multiple times and I actually kind of like it! :) It’s called Dragostea Din Tei by O-Zone. O-Zone is a Moldovan band and the song was released in 2003.

After finding out the name of the song I googled to see if there were any movies or tv shows that had the song in it that I might have seen recently. There were a few movies that had the song but none that I had seen. 

I did find another song that had a small portion of the O-Zone song in their song, Live Your Life by T.I. (Ft Rhianna). It was the portion of the song that I had been humming. 

It’s possible I either heard the O-Zone version or the T.I. Version of the song recently and I just didn’t realize it but whichever one it was I’m glad that Tim was able to figure out what song it was! Although I had given up searching for the song, it would have bothered me not knowing. 

And here’s a random picture of me in my narwhal outfit for this blogpost so that it’s not just all words. 😂

Ruby Chocolate

When I went on my trip last year, one of the cities I visited was Antwerp, Belgium. While there I went to Chocolate Nation, a Belgian chocolate museum. I felt like that was a place I must visit while in Antwerp since one of the things Belgium is famous for is their chocolate. :)

I loved visiting the museum!

One of the things they had on the tour were chocolate tasting stations. They had the stations set up from the lightest chocolate to the darkest chocolate. There were some chocolates that I had never heard of before. ;) There were two in particular that I really loved and I might have gone back for seconds with both of them, Ruby and Gold chocolate. 

What it says on the Ruby sign in the picture above is:

The recently discovered ruby chocolate is a naturally pink chocolate with intense fruitiness and fresh, acidic notes.

I don’t have a good picture of the Gold chocolate sign but that one says:

Intense yet well balanced caramel chocolate, with rich notes of toffee, butter, cream and a surprising dash of salt.

I tell you all of this to say that I may or may not have asked for some Ruby or Gold chocolate bars for Christmas. And I received a 5 lbs bag of Ruby chocolate and I was really excited!

This is what the ruby callets look like. Honestly I really like just eating a handful of them at a time, but I decided it would also be good to try baking with them. 

The first thing I baked with them were brownies. They were decent but I accidentally overcooked them and the Ruby chocolate flavor didn’t stand out to me. They were definitely still edible though. 

The second item I baked were Ruby Chocolate Crinkle Cookies. These were delicious!

The recipe called for melting some ruby chocolate and mixing it in the dough. They don’t look like they should (according to the pictures where I got the recipe) but they sure did taste good. :)

I also want to try making Ruby chocolate chip cookies but that will have to wait for another day. :)

Zoo Lights 2024

In December one of my friends and I went to the Zoo Lights in Washington D.C. It cost a little bit to visit ($6), but it was worth it because the lights were fun and I didn’t mind supporting the zoo!

Usually to get to the zoo via metro, I would get on the train closest to my house, ride it to downtown D.C. and transfer once to the Red Line. But the Saturday that we went to the zoo, they were doing track work. I had to transfer to different train lines four times. 

Thankfully, the trains were pretty efficient that day and I didn’t have to wait too long for any of the trains, but it was still quite the experience. I rode on a metro line I had never been on before. 😂

Heather and I met up outside the metro near the zoo and walked to the Zoo Lights.

It was a bit cold that evening but not too bad. It was fun to see the Zoo Lights and I’m glad that we went!

Enjoy the pictures!

Thanks for inviting me to go to the Zoo Lights Heather! It was a fun evening. 

Kdrama Wrapped 2024

 It’s that time of year again to look back at my top Kdramas I watched this year!

My top Kdramas of the year:

1. Twinkling Watermelon

2. Brewing Love

3. The Midnight Studio

4. My Sweet Mobster

My top songs from Kdramas this year:

1. Our Night is More Beautiful Than Your Day by NewJeans (from My Demon)

2. True by Yoari (from My Demon)

3. Count on Me by Ningning (from The Midnight Studio)

4. I Wonder Why by Elaine (from The Midnight Studio)

5. Shining (from Twinkling Watermelon)

Total Kdramas watched this year:

16

Here’s a link to my Kdrama wrapped from last year. 

Happy New Year!!! 

My Tooth

Two weeks ago, I had one of my back teeth pulled. It was no fun, but it needed to be done. 

A couple of months ago, I noticed a weird bump on my gums under a particular tooth. I had no pain, but the bump was weird enough that I made an appointment to visit the dentist about it. 

The dentist said I had an infection in the tooth that I had a root canal on last year. Then she recommended I visit the endodontist to see what they say about it. The endodontist said I could get another root canal on that tooth, but more than likely the infection would keep on coming back. So she recommended I get my tooth pulled and an implant put in. 

So my dentist recommended an oral surgeon and I had my tooth pulled two weeks ago. I must admit I was pretty nervous about my tooth being pulled, but I survived. The process of getting the tooth pulled and an implant put in is a long process. 

Right now, I have a gap in my back teeth (with socket preservation graft in the gums where they took out the tooth). In a few months I'll go back to the oral surgeon and they'll make sure my gums are healing properly and measure for the implant. Then I'll go back a few months after that and have the implant put in. Then a little while after that I'll need a crown over the implant. 

It's an expensive and long process, but I think it'll be worth it in the end. At least I hope so.  

This is what my face looked like the day I got my tooth pulled. It stayed puffy for a few days. 

Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob

Fallingwater in Pennsylvania had been on my list of places to visit someday for a long time. I kept on putting it off for various reasons though. 

In October, a few weeks after my Europe trip, something reminded me of Fallingwater and I decided to try to make the visit there happen this year. I invited my brother, Tim, to join me and we found a Saturday in early November that worked for both of us. 

We started researching things to do around there. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere but we actually found there were two other Frank Lloyd Wright homes in that area. We ended up going to one of the other homes, but not both. It was a great trip!

Since our tour was at 8:30 on a Saturday morning and it was a 3-1/2 hour drive from here to there, we decided to drive most of the way there on Friday evening and then stay at a hotel nearby. We stayed in Cumberland, Maryland, which is still about an hour from Fallingwater, but we got to wake up at a much more reasonable time to get there for the tour.

The picture above is the view we got as we walked up to the house from the visitor's center. 

There were varying levels of tours to choose from. We chose the one that cost a bit more, but we were allowed to take pictures inside and got an extended tour of the house and had full access to the grounds. Although it cost a bit to take this tour, I think it was worth it. It was really interesting to learn about Frank Lloyd Wright and get the in depth tour. 

See that water behind the statue on the right hand of the picture. Well the Kaufmann's (the owners of the house) used that little pool as a polar plunge pool. (It's hard to tell from this picture though.)

Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann were the people who hired Frank Lloyd Wright to design the house. The Kaufmann's mainly only used the house on the weekends and holidays. 

The kitchen! Look at those windows! 

The main entrance into the house! ( I think).

The main common area was large and was divided into sections but still open to all of the different areas. This part was the office/library. 

I loved the big common area! It was an open concept living area before open concept living areas were popular. The house was designed and built in the late 1930's. 

This was one of the sitting areas!

Another sitting area. I love all of the windows!

This was the music area! They had a record player with speakers there on the left. 

The dining area!

This was the main bedroom. It was large room and had a lovely balcony. 

The whole house had a lot of outdoor space. Every room in the house had a door to an outdoor balcony. 

This was part of the main bedroom.

The balcony of the main bedroom. 

The Kaufmann's loved the outdoors so Wright designed the house around nature and with lots of outdoor living space so that the Kauffman's could enjoy the beauty of the area. 

The balcony of the main bedroom was right above the waterfall!

This window was cool because the way it opened up. Because this wall of windows was not load bearing, the windows were able to open up fully as seen in the picture above (although it may be hard to tell from the picture).  

I loved this staircase lined with bookshelves!

The Kaufmann's had one son, Edgar Jr. When he stayed at the house, this was his room. 

Edgar Jr's room from the inside. There was another part of his room also, but this is where he chose to put his bed. There were no blinds or curtains in his room, so it seems like it he would've had to wake up with the sun. ;)

Although we were allowed to take pictures inside the house, I didn't take a ton of pictures. (A lot of the pictures from inside the house are Tim's pictures.)  

Fallingwater has a main house and a guest house. We also got to visit the guest house. I don't have many pictures from inside there, but this is the view from the front of the guest house. (Looking down on the main house.)

Inside the living area of the guest house.

A Frank Lloyd Wright chair in the guest house! Actually one of the only Wright chairs the Kaufmann's had at Fallingwater. 

Looking at the door of the bedroom of the guest house to the outside. 

This was a pool right next to the guest house (just outside the door of the bedroom in the picture above) that the people staying there could use. Although the water doesn't look so nice now, when the Kaufmann's actually lived there, they made sure the pool was kept clean.

At the end of the tour, we were allowed to wander around outside and on the balconies that were easily accessible. I really liked our tour! I learned a lot about Frank Lloyd Wright and loved seeing his unique architectural design. 

Look at that view of the house! Isn't it so cool?!

I am so glad that I finally made it to Fallingwater! It was worth it to go!

I bought postcards at Fallingwater and wanted to get them sent before the post office in town closed for the day. I wrote the postcards in the car and then I needed to find the post office to buy stamps and send them. 

Since we had a little bit of time before our tour at Kentuck Knob, we parked at the waterfall while I went in search of the post office and Tim went to the waterfall. I went to the waterfall after I dropped off my postcards at the post office. 

I liked the waterfall! I thought it was pretty cool!

Ohiopyle Falls on the Youghiogheny River. (Youghiogheny being pronounced Yock-i-gheny. Who knew      -ough could be pronounced as -ock?! 😂)

We made it to our tour of Kentuck Knob. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the house. 

Frank Lloyd Wright designed the house in the mid-1950s for I.N. and Bernadine Hagan. The Hagan's were friends with the Kaufmann's who owned Fallingwater. They loved the design of Fallingwater and wanted Wright to design a home for them too. 

Once Kentuck Knob was completed the Hagan's lived in the house full time for almost thirty years. 

The shapes in the windows have meaning but I can't remember what they were. 😂🤷 I thought they were cool looking though!

This is one of the views from the back porch of Kentuck Knob. Isn't it gorgeous?!

Another view from the back porch!

And another view from the back porch!

This was the roof of the back porch. The holes in the roof have coverings, it's not just open to the air. 

The back porch!

Another view of the outside of the house!

This was the view from a certain part of the Hagan's property. Isn't it beautiful?!

So pretty!

At the end of the tour, we went back to the front of the house and took pictures there. 

Although we were allowed to walk back to the visitor's center after the tour, my leg was hurting (from my injury I got on my Europe trip) so I took the bus back down the hill. Tim walked back to the visitor's center. 

I got back to the visitor's center before Tim did so I was just hanging out for a little while. 

I got ice cream at the visitor's center while I waited for Tim. I don't remember what flavor I got, but it was tasty!

After we finished at Kentuck Knob, we started driving back to Virginia. We made it back to Viriginia safely! 

I am so glad that I was able to visit Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob. It was worth the time and money it took to get there! And it was a really nice day the day we were there!