Review: In Good Taste Virtual Wine Tasting through Zoom

Can we just reminisce on the days of early 2020? When everyone hopped on Netflix to watch Tiger King, everyone was always on Zoom trying to figure virtual life out, and when wine and toilet paper were staples of grocery shopping? What happened to those days that blurred together after being locked up for months on lockdown orders?

Well, I got tired of doing nothing. The creativity DIY energy lost it’s sparkle, just like eating banana bread and drinking the same wine every week. Don’t get me wrong, I love Chateau Ste. Michelle as much as any other Washingtonian… but it was time to try something new! So I used the Googles to find In Good Taste. A wine company that hosts virtual wine tasting events for friends and family. All you have to do is order the kits, pick a date, and voila!

What’s in the kit?

The one we chose to go with was the Wines from Down Under. It is a selection of 8 different wines from New Zealand and Australia. The box comes in beautiful glass jars that can be reused for oils and sauces, it actually contained 2 stoppers to use! Had I opened the package earlier, I would have been able to prepare my tasting with foods recommended in their tasting guide. Luckily, charcuterie boards go very well with wine. You must order 6 kits minimum in order to verify your reservation. They will verify this through the order numbers. I found it was easier to collect everyone’s addresses, and pay with one card. The website allows you to enter multiple addresses making it easy to verify the orders.

Our Sommelier

Our host was Ashley, from In Good Taste. She did a fantastic job educating us on the history of the wines. She is a certified professional sommelier, and actually has the hometown of El Paso! She was very friendly, and courteous about waiting for everyone to hop on the zoom call. It was very easy to talk to her during the tasting, which made the experience comfortable - we will definitely be booking through Ashley when new wine flights are released.

How did I like the wines? Was it worth it?

The wine packages run for $65 USD, and are delivered straight to your door with an adult signature required. They recommend ordering the wines at least 2 weeks prior to the event. Your Sommelier will email you beforehand with some tips on how to prepare each wine for the tasting. Out of the 8 wines we tried, I only disliked one because it was too much tobacco flavor for me. My favorites from the flight Orange Belly Chardonay from Tasmania and the Grimson Rosella from Adelaide. Fun fact, I almost moved to Adelaide when I was 18 to attend culinary school there. I definitely think that the wine flight and experience was well worth the money!

the one

I love life.

Or at least I used to.

I mean, I think I did.

When I think back to my childhood, it’s just mixed feelings of,

being smart and successful and helpful,

but all of that backed by feeling worthless and never good enough.

It didn’t matter how many awards I had, or what my grades were,

I’d always be second best, because there was always someone as number one.

And I wasn’t that one.

I am never number one. Hell, I’m never the one.

I’m the stepping stone so people can become their greatest potential,

all while I’m left in the rubble, piecing myself back together,

because I’m just never,

good enough.

My childhood troubles and why today is so important

May 7 is Keiki (Children) Mental Health Awareness Day.

I was thinking about my childhood and how much my friendships had affected me. Honestly, I didn’t hold too many friendships in high school. Not very strong ones at least. There are only a few people I still talk to today from high school, and I could name them on one hand. These ladies know me like we just met in 7th grade yesterday. Outside of that circle, everyone knows my life from what they read on social media, which isn’t too much.

I was actually bullied in high school when I moved to Japan. My junior year wasn’t bad, but when it got to my senior year, it was really bad for me. I remember when I was on myspace one day, I saw a song on someone’s page. I listened to it, and it was a rap that three boys had made… it was about me. I knew it was about me because they spelled my name backwards in the song, and told me to tell my boyfriend at the time to go back to Hawaii. It was a diss rap and honestly, it was really hard to fathom that someone would take the time to record it.

I was really distraught after that. I remember my dad being so mad for me, and we brought it up to their parents because of the status one of the boy’s dad held on post. I remember being shoved around in the hallway for no reason. I remember getting thrown into a bush on my way to the library. I remember eating alone in the library because I had lost my friends to those bullies. They had all known each other for so long, why would they leave their side for me? I was a loner my senior year, and I tried to say I was okay because I had my boyfriend… in Hawaii…

I remember that year, I stopped eating. I’d tell my mom I had eaten when I was cooking so I wouldn’t have to eat dinner. When they’d all go to sleep, I’d throw up what I ate. When I couldn’t stand the hunger anymore, I’d eat Honeycombs cereal because they were empty calories that were easy to vomit. I remember taking solo trips to Shibuja and Shinjuku just to feel surrounded by other lonely people.

I don’t have a lot of memories of my senior year except sad ones. I lost my best friend to suicide (OD), and that’s when a majority of the bullying had picked up. I wanted to kill myself. I don’t think my parents really knew the extent of my sadness and depression then. I started smoking and drinking. I didn’t care for myself anymore. It didn’t get any better when I moved to Seattle to start my young adult life. If anything, it had gotten worse. I started hanging with the wrong people. I started smoking and drinking more, and eventually started smoking pot.

Anything felt better than what I was doing. I was promiscuous. I’m not going to lie and say that I was an angel. My life was in shambles, and I didn’t feel worthy of anything. I didn’t feel worthy of love. I didn’t feel worthy of trusting relationships. I stayed the night at one of my auntie’s house, who was at the time, married to my childhood molester. He tried again when I was there… He had my photos up on his big screen TV and was looking at my photos. He said I could use his tablet but when I opened it up, it was Teen porno. That’s when I tried to kill myself again, because what was my worth?

My childhood is nothing too good to think about… It’s hard to notice the positivity in my childhood when the trauma is so strong. I guess my biggest point of this post, is to be kind to those who you don’t know much about. You never know what people are going through, and if you are the person to make their life worse, you never know how far off the edge they really are. I know there are positives in my life that I appreciate. After saying all this, I have to tell everyone that I am grateful for what I had in

One of the people who used to bully me, apologized to me last month when I lost my shit on Instagram. It was nice closure to a hard chapter in my life, but still, the scars still carry.

So be kind, to anyone and everyone. No matter how annoying, no matter how loud and oboxious, no matter how rude… Because you never know what is causing them to be that way…

Raising a strong boy

Today is an important day for me as a mother! I think that the way I want to raise Maverick is a little different than how I was brought up. I definitely want to be part of his life and be way more involved than my parents were with mine. This is actually one of the big reasons I decided to leave the Army. Being present in my child’s life is so important to me, especially in these early years of attachment.

Research shows that the attachment styles that a child has when they’re at a very young age are the attachment styles they’ll have in future relationships. So I want to make sure that Maverick has a secure attachment style growing up. I’ve seen it in myself as having an anxious attachment style (up until Sean) because my parents weren’t around often. Actually, they left me in the Philippines with my Lola (grandmother), so I mean… lol.

I also want to raise Maverick to be independent in his thinking and problem solving skills. Instead of scolding him for doing something bad, I want him to be able to fix the problem or think through why it happened. Honestly, he is still very young and babbles most of the time… but if Sean and I start using the appropriate language now, it’ll be easier for him to understand when he does start talking. Vocabulary is important!

Maverick and I cuddle a lot. I do believe that Maverick’s love language is physical touch. He hates being away from me, and even when he is playing, he comes back to hug me (awww.) So that tells me a lot on how I need to comfort him and how I need to change how I speak with him when he does something less than pleasant.

How are you doing in your parenting realm? Whether it’s with babies or fur babies?

What's it like on the ward? A trip into admission.

It never really occurred to me how many of my group mates had never been admitted to a psych ward. Well, I’ve got two different perspectives on being on the ward: as a nurse and as a patient. It’s definitely eye opening when you know what it’s like on the other side. It’s hard knowing that every staff member on that unit has read into your file and knows what your deepest secrets are, and they casually talk about it during their lunch breaks with comments like, “God I feel bad for her” or “Jeez, I didn’t know she was crazy like that.” It’s definitely painful to know that I’ve worked alongside some of those nurses too. Which is why it was so hard for me to seek help in the first place.

But I’m not here to talk about being a nurse. I’m here to talk about what it’s like being admitted to the unit. First of all, it’s absolutely terrifying. Most of the time, no one voluntarily goes into the psych unit. You’re usually placed there involuntary because you’ve said the magic words, “I want to kill myself… or someone else.” Me telling my OBGYN that I had thoughts of hurting myself and taking my baby with me was what landed me in the psych ward the first time. It’s still hard to admit that because I look at Maverick every day with love, and I couldn’t imagine taking him with me like that…

Stripped, uncomfortable, & cold

I hate the initial part of admission because you always spend so much time in the ER. Both times that I went, I was told to change into patient pajamas, and I couldn’t have anything with me like shoes with shoelaces, my cellphone, my wallet, nothing… I hated it, because as I was sitting there slipping deeper into my denial of what was happening, I couldn’t communicate with my husband - my only support person at the time. This is a problem for me. I hate that when we have suicidal patients, we take away their only means of communication to their support. I also hate that family can’t be the one to stay with you while you wait. They made it uncomfortable for me having a higher ranking officer wait with me, who knew nothing of what was going on with me. Unless the patient states it is a safety hazard for that person, hospitals should let the support person be the patient’s choice. I mean, come on guys.

The first time I was admitted, I waited in the room for almost 6 hours. In the ER, the room for suicidal patients is an empty room with 3 sets of double chairs. It’s a cold room. You have no pillow, no blanket, no call bell. Your safety attendant sits in the room with you, awkwardly staring at the same popcorn ceiling that you look at, because they also can’t have their phones. Also stupid. After a few visits with the ER doctor and your nurse, they all congregate in the back with the psychiatrist who makes the ultimate decision of whether to admit you or not. They wand you down to make sure you’ve got nothing on you that could be used as a weapon, and then take you up to the ward and do the longest admission process ever.

The stigma of the ward

The hard part about being on the unit for me was already explained. I hated being admitted and knowing that people could see that I was there. I begged to go elsewhere because I didn’t want nosey people in my chart. I almost asked to use an alias instead. It almost hurt me more being there than it helped.

In all honesty, the unit wasn’t very helpful to begin with. It was so dark, that you could barely tell the different between night & day. The windows were barricaded with a metal sheet that had holes you could literally peep through. They didn’t allow for much light to get in. So you could only tell the difference because you saw fluorescent lighting in the day time. You’d sleep in a room where there was a plastic bed frame, and foam doors. You weren’t allowed to sleep with the light on because it wouldn’t let you get “restful sleep”. Even if that was the only thing keeping you from thinking there were demons out to get you. The day would start early with vital signs, and you could either go back to sleep until breakfast, or wait in the milieu room. I always went back to sleep.

Breakfast was brought up, and there would be a morning huddle. People would choose who would be a leader, introduce themselves, and then choose “sponsors” for new patients. It was stupid, but it gave the ward some order. I never volunteered, and I rarely spoke. Group sessions were held throughout the day, but when I was there, it was a very poor group setting. Nothing particularly helpful. It was more helpful talking to the doctor, and that’s usually not the case.

I’d rather do outpatient treatment

When I was admitted to partial hospitalization, it helped me out more. I was able to see my family and have their support, while also being with group for most of the day to talk things out. I don’t normally talk to my husband about these things, because a lot of the time, I want to be distracted from them. If you need the help of your family, then opt for outpatient treatment. If you’re having a crisis, opt for inpatient treatment to stabilize before going to PHP.