New Year of the Fire Rooster

It has been a long weekend...

Our church has a large Vietnamese community.
They always celebrate the new year with dragon dancers.

And loud firecrackers!

I got three lucky money envelopes!
(sorry, the other two were given to Mom and Dad!!!)

They have one dollar in each and sometimes a prayer card.
The tradition is to give money, especially to kids.
Some kids fed their money envelope to the dragons outside the church.

I wish I had a good picture of the dragon's face!
It has two people, and a big head with a muppet mouth.

I felt like I should have given something in return, but I don't know the custom!
Maybe next year!

Over the weekend, I didn't make much.
I bought some glass beads with painted metallic stripes.

Inspired by the beads and the firecrackers, I started some earrings, but didn't finish.

I ran out of fine chain.


They say it's bad luck to clean the house AFTER the New Year.
But Sunday was warm, and it was the only day to do this.

I washed the dogs and vacuumed the house, and washed the cars.
And, apparently washed away some good luck!


The Red car has been having trouble starting.
If it is cold, it will start just fine.
But if I drive it a little, like go to the store, when I try to start it the second time, the motor wants to die. I have to give it throttle or gas to keep it alive.

Finally last night, I couldn't do anything to get it to start!
Dad came and tried to jump start it, to no avail.
The consensus is a fuel issue, maybe the fuel pump.

I called my insurance company for a free tow, but they couldn't find any drivers for about 3 hours.
I was pretty cranky, but grateful when somebody finally showed up!

Tomorrow I will see Don the mechanic.
He is planning back surgery for a complicated issue, but he said he has been feeling really well this last week.