reflections...

deb had layout published in simple scrapbooks this month (yay deb) about NEW York. i finally got a hold of a copy yesterday and found the LO - in it she talks very candidly about being born in NY and how tough it was to move to the South when we were pretty young. her LO and journaling made me think about that portion of our lives which i hadn't thought about in a LONG time - things that shaped me into who i am today.

moving to the south WAS tough. imagine living in a place where everything was diverse (NYC) to a place where we ended up being 2 of 4 asian kids in a school. that was tough. people ALWAYS asked if deb and i were related to the other 2 asian kids in school (um yeah, we are ALL RELATED). i can remember being picked on in school for being asian all the way through high school. kids would slap me around on the school bus b/c they thought i was Vietnamese and they had things against the Vietnam war (that was a weird one). they called us names. they thought hong kong was in the atlantic ocean.

i can also remember the meanest - smoke - on - the - bus guy (who of course would have to have a locker by me) smacking me in the head and calling me awful names to the point where i was crying when i got home. i was terrifed of him especially since his locker was right above mine. but to this day, i can remember getting off the school bus crying b/c of him. i also remember my mom asking if we needed to go back to school to speak to the principal and i said no b/c i knew that would make it worse.

combine that with being a semi - smart kid and that makes for some lonely years growing up. wow, i haven't thought about all of that in a LONG time. i find it is good and catharic to think about the bad times sometimes to you can better appreciate the good times. i also find that i probably don't put up with much crap nowadays b/c of where i have been in the past. that isn't to say the south is all bad. i also have some pretty fond memories of the south growing up. but it has been a long time since i have thought about the bad.

so again speaking about the good stuff, here is another sneak peek at another product we have coming out - blossoms III chipboard (this one is as good or better than the original which bucks the trends of sequels!) - this is something deb and i have kicked around for a while but we finally got this together!