the beautiful & the difficult 🌸 spring vlog + storytime

Hi my loves, welcome back to Lavendaire. It's spring, it's my favorite time of year and I just wanted to capture my life lately and share a little behind the scenes of what I've been up to. I'm starting my day with a little kitchen reset, just putting away all of our clean dishes. This is basically my daily life. I do a little bit of tidying each day. Sometimes it's tedious, but at the same time I get so much joy and satisfaction from having a clear and organized space so it's important for me. Next I'm making Togi's food. I've been trying to feed him healthier meals with more whole foods and alternating between different proteins and ingredients each meal. Today we're doing some chicken, rice, carrots, greek yogurt, and mixing it in with his kibble. Now to make myself something. Today I have some time to make a batch of kale bean salad. I was inspired by Violet Witchell on Instagram to start making dense bean salads. They're basically protein-rich salads that you can make a big batch of and eat throughout the week. It's a great way to get in your veggies and have a healthy side always on hand. Today I'm adding chopped kale, great northern beans, cucumbers, roasted red peppers, pickled onions, and mini mozzarella balls. For the dressing, I'm doing olive oil, red wine vinegar, juice of half a lemon, Dijon mustard, agave, some kosher salt, thyme, and rosemary. Mix it into the salad and then I'm serving it with some grilled chicken breasts that I made yesterday. After eating, I'm packing the rest of the salad so I can have it throughout the week. This makes it easier to prepare my other meals and save some time. Hello my loves! So it is spring over here, the weather's been beautiful, the hills are green, the cows are out. Yes, I feel like one of my biggest luxuries and biggest flexes in life is that from my backyard I can see nature and I can see cows roaming and eating grass. So anyway, I wanted to do a little vlog before my big trip. So tomorrow I'm actually going to Coachella, but the day after I come back from Coachella, I'm going to go to Korea and China for a month. So Korea, I'm going with my girlfriends. It's just going to be fun shopping skincare. And then I'm going to China. I'm doing some solo parts by myself. So like maybe a week and a half is a solo trip. And then I'm going to connect with my dad and see some family in Shanghai, which I haven't seen them since 2019 and some 2018. So it's been many, many years. So yeah, I'm doing kind of like a revisiting and reconnecting with my ancestry. And I'll talk a little bit more about that trip later. I'll pack later tonight, but in about 30 minutes, my friend May is coming over and we're going to do a photo shoot for her new beverage brand. I'm super excited because she is like a lawyer turned entrepreneur. And I think she has just the coolest story. And I'm so proud of her for like starting this new brand. And we're just going to take some photos of her products. I am actually really excited to just be a photographer because I have so much fun, like art directing and just being the creative. There's just so much that I want to share with you guys. And I really haven't found the time to turn it into content. So I thought a vlog would probably be the best way because in the past couple of weeks, life has been pretty dramatic. And I just feel like there's a lot of lessons that I want to share around it, but I'll get to it later. Let's get some work done first. Quick plug. If you haven't checked out my podcast, The Lavender Lifestyle, check it out. I'll link it down below. But today I'm recording an intro for a bonus episode. And I have a new mini series called Dear Eileen that I'm going to test. So I don't know. I was going to shoot it today, but I might end up shooting it tomorrow. That's life. I'm always pushing back content. Oh, yeah. Perfect. Oh, this is good. Yeah. Just give a little extra oomph. I don't know if it's bright enough for like... The followers. Yeah, I think it's better with the color on top. These are product photos, like from the shop. For sure. And then like a horizontal photo. Like a horizontal photo. Mei came with some example photos she wanted to do, and I was a little uncertain we can pull it off since I didn't have studio lighting like her examples. But like with any creative process, we figured it out and found our flow as we went on. Maybe we did the flower there. Or do you have more flower? Yeah. We are chasing the light. Since we are shooting with natural light, I kept having to move our setup to chase the light as the sun was setting. Oh, what a cute flower thing. Huh? I'm just trying to get it right, you know? There's some potential. Do you see the potential? Oh, I see the potential. I think it's because it's like too messy. Is it the blocks? We moved upstairs for the flatlay since it was brighter in my office. I was much happier with the lighting here, and eventually we got some really great shots and had a lot of fun. Oh! Okay, so Mei just left. We took Togi on a walk and had dinner and then cleaned up. We basically did like a three-hour photo shoot and in the end, it was so much fun. I just have a lot of fun being a creative and when I get in the flow, I just keep wanting to continue. It's almost like we were done getting all the shots we needed, but at the end, I just like, Oh, let's try this. Let's try this. So I had a lot of fun. Now I'm gonna look through her photos and pick my favorites, help her edit a little bit, and then I'm gonna see if I can get some packing done tonight. Alright, it's the next day because last night after editing photos, I was exhausted and so I couldn't vlog and it was too late anyway to vlog. But I just wanted to catch you guys up on the big trip that I'm taking and life as of now. Like I mentioned, I'm gonna be traveling for a whole month to Korea and China, and then a little solo time for myself traveling and writing. And I'm gonna spend time with my dad in Shanghai who I have not seen since 2019. It's been a long time. I already know that's gonna be a very emotional and healing type of trip. But yeah, I guess I don't know until I get there and we'll see how it changes my life. I feel like every time I see him and we reconnect, it always shifts something in me because growing up, I've always had that interesting type of relationship where I only see my dad every few years. And so there's a lot of things left unsaid and there's a lot of things that want to come out when you do see each other. But yeah, I definitely feel like I'm in a new era. Like I'm going as my adult self. In short, my relationship with my dad has given me the most pain but also the medium to find the most healing in my life. And that's where a lot of my story and a lot of my healing videos kind of stem from. That story of my childhood. I told this story in a couple of my older videos. I'll link them below. Story of my 20s or my self-love, self-worth journey. But anyway, another thing that I'm excited to do when I go to Shanghai is I have a grandma who's still alive, but she has Alzheimer's. So I'm definitely going to see her, even if she doesn't remember me. I'm going to cry. Okay, like I said, it's going to be an emotional trip. I am basically doing a week and a half solo. So part of my solo trip, I'm going to go to two cities in China. One is called Suzhou, one is called Wuxi. And the reason I'm going there, not only are they like beautiful cities with a lot of sightseeing, but those are the two cities where my grandparents are from. My grandpa's from Wuxi, my grandma's from Suzhou. And so I want to just go there and just reconnect. You know, like my grandpa's not here anymore. So I'm going to visit his grave. My grandma's still here. I will try to see her. But I also just like, you know, I just want to reconnect. And I have so many questions for my dad because I don't get the opportunity to ask questions. And I just realized we're getting older and older. And there's so much that I have to ask, so much that I want to know about my family. So that's kind of what I'm doing. I'm also about to start my period. So this is why I'm emotional. So yeah, that's why the first part of my trip is going to be fun, social, connecting with friends. Also very special because in my 30s with my friends, some of them are moms. It's so hard to like get together and make time to actually travel somewhere together. So this is an epic trip that I'm super excited for. And then the second part of my trip is going to be a lot of reflection, a lot of solo time, writing hopefully, and then healing or whatever, just connecting with family and seeing what comes of that. The past couple of weeks have also been kind of dramatic in our lives. And it's really given Wilson and I a deeper perspective on life and what truly matters. So about a couple of weeks ago, Wilson and I went to Vegas. It was a four-day golf trip that he planned with two other friends. And one is his business partner. Another one is like an older friend from his golf club. And long story short, while we were at our first dinner, like the first night in Vegas, one of the friends, the oldest one, started feeling unwell. And it became this whole thing where we had to call the ambulance, paramedics or whatever, and they took him to the hospital. Basically, we found out that he had a heart attack at the restaurant. And luckily, we were in a Vegas hotel where they had medical people on site. They could take him to the hospital. Like he was attended to pretty quickly, I would say. And he was able to have surgery two days after he got into the hospital. But we learned after the fact that his heart attack is called the Widowmaker heart attack, which means that it's like one of the biggest arteries to, you know, bring blood to your heart. And with that type of heart attack, if you're not in the hospital within 90 minutes, you have like a 10% chance of survival. Something crazy like that. And so luckily, he's doing fine. And so it was like a very dramatic kind of wake-up call, but also like just gratitude of life. Like we're so happy that everything worked out okay. We just felt really lucky that all the circumstances around the situation made it work out, because if anything was different, it could have easily gone the other way, right? He could have easily not survived if he were like, if it happened on the way to Vegas, where you're in the desert with no one around you, or, you know, because he's older, his English is not good. He only speaks Chinese. If he didn't have Wilson and his friend James doing the translation, working the doctors, calling our doctor friends and this and that, they would have had a harder time managing that. Basically, it was a lot of things, but at the end, we're just very grateful for life. The second part of this dramatic story is literally one week after this incident happened, Wilson had another friend from his golf club, like someone that he chats with in his group chats, like just one of his friends that he knows pretty well. He basically passed suddenly this past weekend. So it's been like, I don't know, a few days and Wilson was in shock. He's processing, all his friends are grieving and they're still not sure what it was. It happened either in his sleep or something, something at night. It may have also been a heart thing. Anyway, we don't know, but he was young. He was like 45, I think. So it's just two people that we know in our lives where something scary health related happened to. And what's also ironic is these two people that this happened to are literally two of the most successful or wealthy people that we know. And it really puts into perspective a lot of things like you can have so much money in the world. You can have this and that, but it really doesn't matter if you don't have your health. It's also just a reminder that life is short. So there's no promise that you and I will be here tomorrow or if our loved ones will be here tomorrow or the day after. So really live your life the way you want it. Make the most of it, right? If there's something you want to do, go do it. Don't waste your entire life sacrificing and overworking yourself or overstressing yourself. It's not worth it because there's so much life to be lived. Like, yes, do the thing, right? If you have a goal, if you have a career, if you want to work, do it. But know what matters to you in life. Know what your priorities and your values are and make sure you're living aligned to that. And so that's why I'm also excited to just embark on this trip because it gives me an opportunity to spend time with my friends and reconnect with my family, which is really important to me. I can be a really busy person. I have so much on my plate. I have an endless to-do list and it's like I can continue going on and on. And sometimes as an entrepreneur or a content creator, you literally feel like you're not doing enough. You could be doing more. You see someone else online. Oh, they're so successful. Oh, they're making so much content or they're coming out with these new products or whatever. And you feel a little bit like you're behind and then you're like, oh, maybe I should work more. Maybe I should focus more and do this and whatever, which is fine if you have the drive, right? But also don't forget everything else in life that you are leaving behind or sacrificing if you are spending too much time on one thing. So although I have a lot of unfinished tasks on my to-do list, a lot of videos that I wanted to do, wanted to make for you guys, but haven't been able to, I'm still okay because I am spending my time on the things that really matter to me. And it's okay to not be the best and go be super perfect and super productive all the time. It really is okay to devote your time and energy to those areas of life that matter to you, even if it doesn't show on the outside. Work will always be here. It will always be there when you're ready to do it. I don't know if some people will always be there, especially if you have aging parents or I don't know, you just never know in life, right? So if there are people that you want to say something to, that you want to reconnect with, make time to go do it. You know how I talk about how life has seasons, there's ups and downs, there's winters and summers and springs. And sometimes, yes, your life is one of those things, but sometimes I feel like your life can be multiple of those things at the same time, right? Like you can be in a winter in one area and a summer in another area at the same time in your life. And there's just all these, yeah, I don't know. Life is just like a chaotic, beautiful mess. On that topic, have you guys watched When Life Gives You Tangerines? It's on Netflix. It's the best K-drama ever. It will make you cry every single episode. I loved it so much. I'm sure a lot of people watched it. It's super popular, but if you haven't seen it, I recommend you watch it because it's just the human experience. It's so moving. And the two lead actors, IU, Park Bo Gum, two of my favorite people in just the K entertainment. It just really puts into perspective the ups and downs of life, how life can have beautiful celebratory moments and then really tough rock bottom moments. But at the end of the day, all of it is beautiful. And what's most beautiful really is the love, is the connection between the family, the people, the stories of their lives. And because their stories are so crazy, it makes you really love them and really proud of them. So... Why am I getting emotional? Literally, I sobbed so hard to some of those episodes. It's very healing. Just watching what happens and crying it out makes you feel like you're healing your own childhood traumas and your own family stories. The point I want to make is, this show really drives down the point that your life is beautiful, not because it's perfect and not because everything went exactly the way you wanted it to, but your life is beautiful because of everything that you experienced and everything you went through and who you became in the end. That's why we have those ups and downs, rock bottom moments. It's not always going up. Sometimes it's going down, and sometimes it's going up and down at the same time, right? Sometimes you're in a summer and a winter at the same time, a spring and a fall. And that is just what's so interesting about this experience. That's all I can say. All right, I guess I'll leave it at that. I'm gonna get to packing, driving to Coachella tonight. Sending you all lots of love. Do you want to say something, Wilson? Oh. Sending you lots of love. Stay tuned for more videos from this channel, but please don't leave if it's been a while because I might be a little bit more sporadic with posting for the next month and a half-ish. But I will be here. I have a lot of plans, a lot of new content I want to make. And I'm still chugging along on those big projects, the book and the app. So I'll keep you guys updated when I have updates. All right, my loves. Bye!