Brian’s Work Dinner at Firebirds
Posted on February 8, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.
It’s been a while since we were last at Firebirds. Has it really been 10 years? There’s no way! Grandma’s 92nd birthday was the most recent blog I could find that mentions the restaurant and she’s turning 102 this year. It’s crazy how quickly time flies. Anyway, Brian and I met his work team there last weekend for dinner because their boss Rune Larneng wanted to take the team out for a celebration.
Since it has been quite literally a long time, I guess I owe you all some pics.
Right as you enter the restaurant, you are greeted by the fully stocked bar with a really cool pineapple light fixture. I don’t remember this from before so it must be something they added within the last few years.
I thought it was neat and worthy of a pic. I feel like it distinguishes the Firebirds bar from all the other bars in town. I like when restaurants have unique elements like this. Anyway, I kinda want a pineapple lamp for myself now. It will go fantastically well with my Sand Cloud pineapple blanket!
Brian and I were the first ones to arrive so we took a selfie while we were waiting. I don’t know how Brian managed to talk the group into going to Firebirds because everyone on their team lives on the West side of town but I am grateful they picked an East-side restaurant because Firebirds is just a few minutes from our house.
While we were waiting, we also took a moment to peruse the extensive drink menu.
I didn’t get pics of everyone’s drinks but these were some of the cocktails we tried.
The ladies (April and Debbie) had martinis. They had a good selection of them. Mike had some old fashioneds (not pictured). I think Cory had rum and cokes. Brian just had the red wine we had with dinner.
I pretty much stuck to my “go to” drink – sangria. The white sangria at Firebirds is made with moscato and it fruity and refreshing.
Rune picked a Cab off the menu called Two Hands Sexy Beast that none of us had ever heard of or tried before and he ordered two bottles. I’m pretty sure he went through the list and just picked the one with the most fun name. Anyway, it was a risky move considering we didn’t know what we were getting but I guess, as red wines go, Cabernet Sauvignon wines are a pretty safe bet.
Everyone enjoyed it. Brian liked it so much he said he would look for it at Groves next time we go. I looked online and I think you can get it for $30-40 a bottle, depending on the vintage. The restaurant charged almost $90 for each.
Dinner was fantastic. April and I started with the spinach side salad that our server recommended. It’s not on the menu so you just have to ask for it. It was really good.
April didn’t want hers doused in dressing so she asked for her dressing on the side. That’s the picture above. Below is what the salad looks like tossed in dressing (mine). Not being much of a vegetable eater, I always cover my salads in dressing. I joked to April that I only ask for dressing on the side when I want extra. LOL.
This was easily the best side salad I’d had in a long time. Below are pictures of our entrees. Everything was fabulous. I did not hear a single complaint about the food the entire evening.
At the end of the meal, we ordered three kinds of desserts.
Cory and April shared a five layer lemon cake and Rune had a slice of it for himself.
Mike and Debbie shared a carrot cake.
Brian and I shared the big daddy chocolate cake. Our server told us they only had one slice left when she last checked and so our alternative was going to be the brownie. I am sure the brownie would have been good too (everything we had was great that night), but I am so glad we got the last slice of the chocolate cake because it was amazing. I am seriously still dreaming of it.
I don’t know why we ever quit going to Firebirds. The place is fabulous. Brian and I decided it was time to put this restaurant back on the regular weekend dinner rotation. Thank you for the fabulous dinner, Rune!
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Local Flavor with My Baby
Posted on February 2, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Pictures at Local Flavor last week. I took Brian there to try it as he had never been. I think this was only my second time there.
If you enjoy food with lots of flavor, you must check this place out. Not only do they have a wall of various hot sauces from all over, but they also have a wide array of homemade salsa and homemade BBQ sauces.
I had the smoked mac and cheese. I still like the one at Station 8 better but this was pretty good. Specially topped with chopped brisket.
I got to try both of the sauces and they were excellent. The brown one is more of a traditional, sweet BBQ sauce and the white one has a great ranch flavor. We will be putting Local Flavor in our regular dinner rotation. Whenever we aren’t making Hello Fresh food at home, that is.
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Solly & Jude’s
Posted on February 1, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Last week my friend Chris Townley and I went to check out the new sandwich shop across from Intrust Bank Arena.
Here are some exterior and interior pics.
They don’t really offer anything fancy. The sandwiches are pretty basic so I think the prices are a bit on the expensive end. I had the traditional corned beef which they sell for $15 but you can really get at most places for $10-12.
You do get chips and a cookie but both were just okay. I think I’m spoiled because I’m used to getting my delicious pork belly banh mi at the Belmont for just $3 more and I get house-made chips instead of bag chips.
The sandwich I had was good but I think you could probably get a better value for something similar elsewhere. I can think of going to Watermark Books & Cafe instead for one. But yeah, there are so many good sandwich shops in town.
Probably the one edge that Solly & Jude’s has over the others are the beer offerings, which I can’t really enjoy during my lunch hour. I took a picture of their list of radlers and hope to try these sometime when I return with Brian.
I didn’t hate it so I’ll return and have Brian try it and form his own opinion but this place didn’t quite make my top ten. Until next time!
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Zumba Is and Will Always Be
Posted on January 29, 2024 by Ching under Hobbies, Zumba.
I’m not sure if anyone has noticed but, now that I’m less focused on pickleball (I don’t plan to play any tournaments this year – so far so good), I’ve had a bit more time for self-reflection. Today, I thought about reflecting on my Zumba journey. I’ve had many hobbies come and go over the years but Zumba is the one passion of mine that’s always been a constant.
Now that I’m back to teaching at the Y (will expound on this later), someone in class recently asked me how long I’ve been doing Zumba. Well, I’ve been teaching classes for about 12 years but I’ve been “doing” Zumba since the beginning of time. I first discovered Zumba through an infomercial (back when those were a thing) over 20 years ago. I bought the VHS tapes and started doing Zumba at home. A few years later, in-person classes became available. Much like my pickleball addiction, shortly after attending my first class, I found myself driving all over town to various gyms just to get my Zumba fix. There was a period of two years when I was a member of both Genesis Health Clubs and the YMCA and I was going to Zumba classes at independent studios and rec centers.
As with most of my hobbies, I tend to go all in so I was completely obsessed and was spending a lot of money on Zumba wear. In 2012, my friend and Zumba mentor Gina Ann encouraged me to join the Zumba Instructor Network. I didn’t necessarily want to teach classes. The biggest selling point was the 20% OFF discount on Zumba merch. I completed my training in April 2012 and joined the network but had absolutely no intention of teaching. However, in June of that year, my friend Patricia told me they needed someone to teach Zumba at Evergreen Recreation Center. I didn’t really want to teach classes but, because I was trying to learn Spanish at the time and the rec center is in a predominantly Hispanic area of town, I figured why not? That was my introduction to teaching Zumba and I haven’t looked back since. Nowadays, I get input from class participants on what songs I should add to the playlist but, at the time when I was first starting out, I didn’t really know any of that mattered so I just built my class playlist around all of my favorite songs. When I was a student, I used to take a water break or go to the restroom whenever the instructor would play a song that wasn’t really my cup of tea. Now that I was in full control of the playlist, I found it totally liberating. I thought, “This is awesome! I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner.” I only used my favorite songs. It was great.
I was enjoying it so much that I started to add more classes. At one point, I was working for Genesis, the Y, and the city of Wichita just teaching classes all over the place. Once I was more established, I quit teaching for the city (they paid the least), and mostly just taught at the Y. My regular full-time job was also a contributing factor to giving up some of my classes. There was a period from 2015 to 2018 when I was mostly working in Topeka and Kansas city so I could only teach classes on the weekends. By 2018, that project had wrapped so then I was back to mostly working from Wichita and not having to travel anywhere for work so then I could get back into a regular routine. When VASA opened in Wichita in August 2018, I joined their team. From then until 2020, when the COVID pandemic hit, I was teaching classes for the Y, Genesis, and VASA on evenings and weekends. I peaked at 9 classes a week at various locations — a class each night on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; two classes on Saturdays; and three classes on Sundays.
I was also so obsessed with Zumba that I attended all the conventions, went on Zumba cruises, and completed training for nearly every form of Zumba imaginable. I even got licensed to teach Strong.
When I got into pickleball in 2019, I gradually started giving up classes so I would have more time to play. I got to play pickleball quite a bit before the gyms reopened in 2020 (after the “stay at home” mandate was lifted). When the gyms reopened, I decided to only return to VASA because I wanted more free time for pickleball and they paid the most out of all the gyms. For the last few years, I had been mostly teaching Aqua Zumba because we couldn’t find anyone else available who was licensed to teach that format besides me but there were many other Zumba instructors on the roster. I enjoyed teaching Aqua so I didn’t mind but, I have to admit, when I decided I wanted to pursue opportunities to teach Zumba again it was rough. I had forgotten all the land routines so I basically had to relearn and memorize choreography again. Thankfully, it’s a lot like riding a bike and it just comes back to you naturally.
I am currently teaching one class a week. I’m teaching Zumba at West YMCA on Wednesday nights from 6:30 PM to 7:30 PM. I’ve been back for two months and I have enjoyed every minute of it. My friend Andrea Burk who was a regular at my Andover YMCA classes and also a former Zumba instructor has been coming to class and it’s been great reuniting with her. I also got a couple of my pickleball pals (Colby Fugit and Susie Ternes) to come and try class a couple of weeks ago.
Words simply cannot express how grateful I am to have Zumba as an outlet. I’ve had many hobbies over the years — hobbies that I’ve enjoyed for a time but no longer pursue (racquetball, crocheting, bowling, sword-fighting – just to name a few) — but there’s only one thing that has remained constant in my life over the last couple of decades and that is Zumba. Maybe years from now I can look back and add pickleball to my list of life-long hobbies. Check back in with me in 2030 but, for now, Zumba is and will always be my #1 passion.
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Quick Health Update
Posted on January 26, 2024 by Ching under Health.
Every now and then I get a random text from a friend asking me if I got my results back or if the doctors have figured out what’s going on with me, etc. I forget who I have shared my health problems with and who I haven’t so I guess it’s time for a general update. This is for anyone who has been aware of my struggles and wants to know the recent developments.
My problems really started a couple of years ago. Since I started menstruating, I have been blessed with a very predictable and consistent monthly cycle. I have zero cramping. I bleed heavy for a couple of days (heaviest on the second day) but, by day four, my period is over. It is as regular as the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening. And, up until a couple of years ago, pretty painless.
Over the last couple of years, I started getting headaches and menstrual cramps. The period cramps are excruciating and terrible to the point I just want to crawl into a ball and die. My periods have become quite irregular also. They’re not coming on schedule. Sometimes I’m skipping months. I have spotting in between periods and sometimes I bleed for several days. It is completely abnormal.
The unpredictable bleeding is very inconvenient (and quite embarrassing at times) but I was thinking maybe this is what happens when you hit menopause? I was enduring it all but the cramps were getting worse and, having had to play in pickleball tournaments while suffering through the agony of period cramps, I started to wonder if this is at all normal. Not having period cramps for most of my life, it definitely did not feel normal to me. It finally bothered me enough to consult my doctor at my last well-woman exam, which resulted in a succession of tests including lab work, a sonogram, and even an MRI.
First there’s the fibroids, which I have known I’ve had for a long time but have never bothered me. Brian thinks the fibroids flaring up are probably causing my cramps. Anyway, what’s special about my fibroids is that they’re not in my uterus lining but rather outside in the muscle. I don’t even know if I’m explaining it right. Speaking of my uterus, it also has a very weird texture apparently.
One of the solutions we talked about was an ablation but, because of where my fibroids are, you can’t really scrape them out. Also, the texture of my uterus is just that way it is so even if you scrape the lining eventually it’ll be back to the way it is again. A more permanent fix would be to get a hysterectomy. But I’m thinking, I should be menopausal. If my cycles are going to eventually come to an end, is it really even worth it to go through surgery. Also, I am very anti-surgery and would rather not have anything removed that doesn’t have to be removed. Honestly, if the doctor hadn’t been so stern with me years ago I probably wouldn’t even have gone through my thyroidectomy.
We agreed maybe I should get on birth control pills to help regulate my monthly cycle. They’ll be more predictable and the pills could help alleviate the period cramps as well. So I am now on Lo Loestrin and, with the exception of the time in November (while we were at Nationals) when my period lasted two weeks and I suffered from menstrual cramps almost the entire time, it’s actually working. Brian really wanted me to pull the plug on the birth control pills because he was concerned about the side effects and didn’t really think it would work. And then, having suffered through two weeks of hell, he was thinking that maybe the pills were actually making things worse for me. However, I was only a couple of months into the treatment and so I was thinking maybe my body was still trying to make sense of everything and trying to establish balance. I decided to keep going and my period in December was almost like it was before I started having problems – short (about four days) and painless. It’s been pretty good since then. I haven’t had menstrual cramps since November so I think it’s working.
So my cramping problems are pretty much resolved but now we’re looking into some other things. Because, as with anything, when you start investigating stuff you end up finding some other potentially related or unrelated issues. After my well-woman exam when I shared all the problems and symptoms I’ve been suffering the past couple of years, they looked into my labs and it showed that my prolactin was elevated. I had to provide a blood sample again a couple of weeks later just to make sure it wasn’t a false reading. Anyway, it was still high so then that’s where the MRI came in. Apparently, sometimes your prolactin can be high if there’s a tumor in your pituitary. We did the MRI to make sure I didn’t have some sort of tumor that we didn’t know about. MRI results came back good. No tumor but no answers as to why my prolactin is high either so then they decided to refer me to an Endocrinologist, who was supposed to call me to schedule an appointment.
When I had my follow up appointment at Center for Women’s Health late last year, the doctor asked if I had seen the Endocrinologist yet. I told her they haven’t called me. She’s like, “That’s strange. I need to look into this because they should have seen you by now.” Come to find out, the Endocrinologist’s office had been trying to reach me but they had an incorrect phone number down so they never could get a hold of me. It was really a blessing in disguise because, in the meantime, I asked Brian to see if Dr. Dany Zayour was still in town. He is the doctor who helped me with my thyroid issues. As luck would have it, he’s still practicing. He’s just not with Ascension Via Christi anymore. We ended up not going with the Endocrinologist I was referred to but we ended up scheduling with Dr. Zayour instead. Even though it’s been ten years, I felt more comfortable seeing someone who knows my history.
While all of this is going on, Brian and I went in for our annual checkup and screening with our general doctor, Dr. Scott Hane, last month. A couple of years after my thyroidectory, once my medication was stable, I didn’t have to see my specialist Dr. Zayour anymore so he turned over monitoring my thyroid hormone levels to my general doctor. Dr. Hane looks at my labs at our annual checkups and decides if my Synthroid dosage needs to be increased or decreased. At my checkup last month, Dr. Hane and I both agreed I probably need to increase from 112 to 125 (because I’ve gained a bit of weight in the past year) but, after I told him I was seeing an Endocrinologist again, he decided that we should wait and see what the Endocrinologist says. They are, after all, the expert on these things.
Here’s a picture of me and Dr. Zayour when I met with him last week. He looks almost the same as when we first met over 12 years ago. He was a new physician at Via Christi back then. Now he has tons more experience and several awards and accolades to add to his CV. LOL.
Part of me hesitates going through with all of these doctors visits and tests (all of which I have to pay for) because the birth control pills have pretty much resolved the main issue that I needed help with anyway. I am no longer suffering from my debilitating cramps and my menstrual cycle is under control. My high prolactin is a concern but it’s not really hurting me. I don’t think it’s causing me adverse symptoms as far as I can tell. I think my doctor at Center for Women’s Health (and also my general doctor) recommended that I continue down this path to cover their bases. Their obligation is to inform me of what they found and refer me to a specialist and then, if I don’t take their advice and something happens to me, then it’s on me and not on them. I think it’s just everyone trying to cover their butts so no one gets sued. Honestly. Because I feel totally fine right now.
I love all my doctors but sometimes I feel like I’m just paying for all these tests and it’s just busy work. It would be nice to know why my prolactin is high but is it keeping me up at night? Not really. I feel healthy. I feel good. And, other than the fact that I’m actually starting to feel my age, I have zero complaints. And, I am extremely grateful for it.
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