Adventures in Budgeting and Daughter-in-lawing

We spent our next couple weeks back at home in West Liberty, Ohio with my parents. That's when I discovered that I was not only losing hair off my head, but growing strange patches of it on my back as well...

Actually, that was just part of JooYeon's self-taught haircut training course. She's doing much better these days and only exclaims "OOPS!" about three times per haircut now.

Since our jogging has died down a bit recently, we did some walking in the park with my parents. JooYeon had her first (and probably last) experience on a merry-go-round and mom was elated on the swings.

As they say in Korea, "Jagi jipesaw gajang jeil mashisaw kim-chi issumnida" which means "Kim-chi is always most delicious in your own house." Actually, they don't really say that, but I think they would agree, and anyway, my main point is that it was good to have some of Mom's cooking again. Although to be fair, Dad can hold his own on his five trademark dishes and grilling. After the meals, JooYeon would some times clean up, and other times, Mom, Dad, or I would clean up. When JooYeon's parents heard about this, they chewed her out for not cleaning up every time. In Korean culture, it's tradition for the daughter-in-law to do all the work - but then again, Korean daughter-in-laws tend to have horrible relationships with their new families so we've all decided it's better to go Western on this particular issue.

When I first met JooYeon, one of our only points of incompatibility was our slight difference in shopping habits. She tended to buy a new wardrobe of name brands every couple weeks to eliminate the need for washing clothes, while I recycled old high school cross-country shirts and even dug through the occasional dumpster. Since then we've settled on a happy medium - thrift stores. Now I know what you're thinking... thrift stores would tend to be much closer to my end of the spectrum, but have you seen a modern thrift store? No more of this digging through barrels for 25 cent finds - shirts are now between 3 and 4 dollars, and their quality is significantly higher as well. Anyway, Joo has found some clothes that look great on her - for example...

Granted, some of the clothes are a bit worn and need a little bit of work, but as illustrated in this picture, this patchworking can be a good opportunity to personalize the clothing (yes, Mom helped me do this for JooYeon's jeans).