All good things must come to an end.

I've finally caught the last episode of Ghost Hunt. It's really sad, that the anime has ended. I wished I could get my hands on the novels, and can read Japanese, but that's not going to happen today or tomorrow.

I've also been watching Nodame Cantabile, and that is one hell of a drama. We bought the live-action drama, and the actors and actresses are pretty cool! What happened to all the Jdrama? Why is it only Kdrama nowadays? I still think Japanese actors and actresses are cuter than Koreans, and their language are more musical to the ears, their jokes are more funny and ... I still like Jdrama than Kdrama. The anime for Nodame Cantabile pales in comparison to the live-action, but I'm not complaining, seeing how Ghost Hunt has finally ended, and Saiunkoku too. *sigh* Life sure is sad without these good things.

Nodame Cantabile makes me want to play the piano. :-) I need a new piano. Next promotion. Yep, I shall look for a new one. The keys in my old piano are loose and the notes just doesn't sound as nice. I brought my scores to my in-laws place and happily played a few hours there, while baby is sleeping or being entertained by them. Not too bored to be there. heh.

Anyway, there are a few things I need to write, but I'm not sure if I should do so, especially things which concern work. I'm going to post them in my new livejournal, so if you're interested, drop me a line. Blogger should come up with some option which can restrict prying eyes from seeing, but then again, I'm not sure how private livejournal is too, even if it's for friends only. Hmmmm.

Another day

It's amazing how a person's mood can be so easily changed by another person, or a word, or a look ...

I was in pretty good spirits until towards the end. Still it wasn't exactly a bad day, nor was it a fantastically good one. It's just tiring. I'm glad for next week.

Yoga tomorrow. I hope I can make it.

Big words

One of baby's first three-syllabic word was umbrella.

Hubby's friends came over for dinner the other night. They didn't believe us when we mentioned it off-hand, when they asked if he was starting to speak. So we prompted him to say umbrella. At first, Len was quite reluctant to be our pet monkey, then hubby took out said object and showed it to our baby. It was one of those full size ones. Baby delightedly grabbed the umbrella and started yelling uuuummmm-brreeeeee-lllllaaaaah! And then there was no stopping him for the rest of the night, well at least until we took the umbrella away from him. :)

Baby is also starting to say words like dangerous, it sounds more like janjanrous, and he's finally learnt to say ah-gong, which comes out more like ah-geng. Ah well, but the strange thing is that he seldom uses mono-syllabic words, I guess he prefers big two and three syllabic words. We'll be teaching him more bombastic words then. :P

Baby also loves rolling his tongue and going brrrruuuummmm when he sees a motorbike. He'll go MMmmmmmmmmm when he sees a car. And he's also very interested in bicycles. We're thinking of getting him one, a tricycle. Time for him to learn to fall! Haha.

Just another day

Dear baby is now finally asleep, and I've finally got some time to myself. That is to do my own things. For myself. That is, to blog.

Otherwise I've been busy with housechores, work and hubby's work. Sometimes I do feel a little resentful that I've become expected to help him. Maybe it's me who can't say no, maybe that's what love is. But it gets a little tiring if when one helps yet gets criticised because of upspoken expectations and standards.

Like yesterday was a pretty bad day. I drove hubby to work, and got criticised for my bad driving, like tending to keep more left than right in the lane, accelerating when car in front isn't, and god knows what. I guess it's a bad habit of mine to always tend to be a little to the left, but you know what Professor Calculus in TinTin always say? A little to the left, that's what he'll say. I know what I'm doing, and I'm not going to get into any accidents, yet. And if he's in a bad mood, he doesn't have to take it out on me on my driving!

And another thing being later at night, when I was trying to help him do more filings, and overshot his closing time. Well, he could just have easily told me nicely to stop, and help me put everything back. After all, those were all his stuffs. Grrr. The last time it happened I swore I won't help him again, yet there I was, doing stuffs for him again. Maybe I should just stay away from his workplace totally huh.

Of course the last thing which pretty pisses me off is his webpage. Next time I'll just keep my big mouth shut and never never offer anymore help. As it is, I've offered to do something about it later today. But right now, I'm really really super unmotivated at all.

Oh yes, I have lots of complains today, but I shall not say anymore, else Wen will definitely criticise me too. :P

*****
Anyway, Tuesday I finally went back to yoga. General class. Perhaps Viv isn't doing really tough stuffs after all. After almost a year of no yoga, the class really didn't feel too bad! :) Yayayayay! Must continue to go for yoga! I really need more motivation!!

I hope baby sleeps a bit longer this time. Because I've been feeling pretty down in the dumps lately, I've been indulging in much shopping. Now gotta keep the spoils and check the receipts. Arrgh, just how much did I spend this time? *covers eyes*

And after I've done that, I hope I'll have time left to watch my animes. *sigh*

Friends Forever

So we had another dinner gathering to see Lin off. I was so busy, I didn't have time to shop for something nice for her as a farewell gift. I was hoping to get a nice book for her to write her diary and stories, maybe I'll go look for one sometime and send it to her via airmail one of those days. Time flies so fast. I didn't have time to shop for something nice for Wen either. She's only interested in Tiffany, unfortunately they're so ex, I can't even afford them for myself! *sniff* Still thinking if I should get that pretty charm bracelet, but it's silver, it oxidises. *sniff* I quite like to spend time to go shopping for nice stuffs for my friends, unless you know explicitly what they like, otherwise I have always hoped that things I give my friends are nice surprises, and they're like and treasure them.

So Lin will be flying off to Berlin and staying there for three years. I wonder if I could ever have the time to go visit her there. I remember when she was studying in UK, I told her that I'd like to go visit her, but it never materialise. Now with a hubby and kid, dreams to travel and explore becomes even slimmer.

All my girlfriends are workaholics. Yep. PM was late for two hours, and she sure looked so haggard. She told us some interesting stuffs, and it just reinforces the fact that the world is changing so fast. In the past, when you're angry and frustrated with something, you tell your friends or write in your diary and that's it. Blogging online doesn't help. People will find out who you are. Especially if you're stupid/naive? enough to put some specific names and use strong language. There's no privacy in blogs. Blogs are not diaries. Never will be.

And I wonder what the person is thinking. Or maybe that's what young people do nowadays. When they're unhappy, they'll blog about it all without thinking that other people might read it and it'll get back to them. It sucks, but it's like that. So be really careful what you're writing online. If you want to vent, vent it with a friend, or write, but not post online. Or better still, what happen to the good old days where you make a voodoo doll and stick pins into it? Hmm, I'm watching too much GH. heh heh.

So saying, there's also not much for me to blog about. Maybe I'll write fanfics instead. :)

And come to think of it, I've been writing quite a lot of complainy stuffs in my blog again. haha. I guess it's good to vent, perhaps I should put in more happy stuffs here.

But I'm really not unhappy. There are a lot of things to be happy about!

Tell you next time. :)

Last night ... last week ...

Last night the moon was very beautiful. I had wanted to post this last night, but somehow I did this, and I did that, and time slipped by my fingers again. Last night we stayed over at my parents' place. So that hubby need not travel the length and breadth of the country again. It's getting rather tiring, and I have a bad throat. Last night I came home to iron the clothes, an hour into it and I had to call it a day. Last night I watched my animes again and again, and fell in love with all my animes again.

Last night the moon was really very beautiful. I thought I saw it had a crooked little nose too. The moon that is.

I've lost a friend. Irrevocably. This is the first CNY where I sent out my messages and never got a reply. I guess it really can't be help, but I really felt sad. And I've probably been blocked off at frienster too. It's really sad.

***
CNY this year was pretty hectic. The first day was spent at my in-laws place then at my auntie's place. In-laws' place was very quiet. The happening brother-in-law plus wife plus two kids were missing, and the place was definitely quieter. The rest of us weren't exactly social butterflies. They played cards as usual after the usual lunch, and I got an excuse to stay upstairs in the only air-con room with baby since he fell asleep after lunch. Oh yes, I switched on the air-con to super cold plus fan full blast. I probably wouldn't be able to do that if not for baby. Yeah. That's the way to enjoy! And I sat down, switched on my laptop and found to my utmost horror that the program couldn't run avi files. Xena heard me scream bloody murder all the way to her place. Heh heh. I complained to just about anyone who was free to listen to me. Arrrgh.

Oh, and lunch ... was a disaster. Remind me never to buy sashimi again. I bought >$20 worth of salmon belly sashimi for the yusheng, but hubby and I forgot to bring it along on the eve to go with the yusheng. So we had it the next day, which was the CNY lunch. Dear MIL plonked the whole stub of wasabi into a bowl, poured the packets of soy-sauce into it, and proceeded to stuff all my expensive salmon into that bowl. Then she picked up her chopsticks and vigourously mix and stirred and poked EVERYTHING in the bowl!!! Arrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh! All of us kept our faces as bland as possible. I think I heard my brother-in-law made a choking noise. Hubby protested a little, but MIL seemed to be in a nasty mood, and she was attacking the poor salmon like they'd done her wrong. We still ate the fish, I definitely did, hey, I was really looking forward to enjoying the salmon belly you know. I've never buy them before for myself. The wasabi was a little too much, but it was still ... edible. Until. . .

MIL came up with this brillant idea to add the sweet plum sauce from an extra packet of yusheng into said bowl. This time brother-in-law protested, saying (very gently) to take it easy. Then hubby had to go out of the kitchen for a while. Bro-in-law stood up to look for some tissue. One was out, the other had his back turned, MIL quickly and quietly poured all that sweet plum sauce into the bowl. My eyes popped out. She happily mixed the sauce and the fish. The boys came back, sat down, saw what was in the bowl, and kept very quiet. No one said a thing. I observed. She finally took one slice of the fish to eat. Her face made a face. I observed. No one else took anymore fish. Neither did she.

So question is, do you think she'd throw the rest of the fish away? Or do you think she'll actually cook them?

BTW, wasabi do not kill/ or disinfect germs. Some Japanese eat raw fish without wasabi. The idea is you drink sake after that.

I rolled my eyes. Tell me how not to be miserable. Tell me why I put my foot down and not want to live with her. Tell me what I am to do next time?

I know not to laugh or cry.

***
A few days before CNY, father-in-law had an accident, whereby after the incident, he put it very cheerfully to my sister-in-law, that it could have been fatal. Yeah, what a nice way to reassure people. So much for thinking that they are still spring chickens. One would have thought once bitten, twice shy ... but nooo. Misery as misery does. In the end, they spent more money being hospitalised, plus being tramatised plus almost being blinded and losing one's life. I spent that day running errands and driving them around. To get a CT scan, then to their home, then car inspection, then to their home, then clinic, then to their home, then clinic, then hospital, then to their home, then convinced MIL to stay with us overnight. So that she can take care of baby. I'm not that nice. Hubby is the one who will be stressed the next day having to send baby to my parent's place.

So the next day I went to school, and just four hours away and I came home to an extremely messy home. There were lots of food particles on the floor. The carpet was full of crumbs. The ants were already scrambling to harvest the food on the floor. The kichen was in a mess. The dining table was dirty. Arrrrrggggh. Four hours. I immediately got onto my hands and knees and mopped the floor. In my work clothes. Then I wiped everything, washed up, vacumn the carpet and bathed baby, then I sent MIL home. Whew.

Our personalities definitely clash. We'll drive each other crazy yeah?

On a side note: nowadays I never let baby wear nice clothes when he goes over to MIL's place. His nice shirts all come back stained and dirty and I just can't get the stains out. They're usually food stains. I put him in the oldest and dirtiest clothes ever. And probably hand-me-down from ... his father and uncles. hahaha. It makes her happy, I guess, to see baby wearing those clothes.

***
Dinner at my aunt's place on new year was wonderful. Dinner at mom's place on the eve was wonderful. It is times like that that I still retain my sanity. We played some mahjong, and even hubby got into the groove. He's pretty good at it now. :)

The rest of the holidays was work, work and work. It wasn't too bad, I spent my free time catching up on my animes. D Gray Man, Death note, Bleach etc. Yep, it was pretty nice, except that we had less time to spent with baby and the house was still pretty messy.

And it still is. I'm so hooked on Ghost Hunt nowadays that I really don't feel like doing anything else. :P

I guess things could have been better. Sometimes. But I guess things are pretty good already.

I guess everything will be heaven if the next episode of GH will come out fast, and if I could get my hands on the novels. :P

Happy Lunar New Year.

A series of events

Over the past few weeks, there were many birthdays to celebrate and many outings/gatherings to attend. I met up with Min for her birthday, then met up with Min and PM again to celebrate Min's birthday, then met up with Min, PM, YS and Lin to celebrate Min's birthday again plus farewelll party for Lin. Then I met up with Wen for her birthday, and also met up with Xel also for her birthday.

So I'm quite broke. But that didn't stop me from spending money. Haha. I'm hoping to buy a new camera, a small one which I can carry around, not like the one my hubby got, the PowerShot. I wished I had a camera when I went out with all my friends, but no way am I going to lug along a big camera (plus a big baby!)

This is one pic taken when I met up with Min and PM. We had dim sum lunch at this place at the International Building. I like their special har gua very much! Baby loves PM very much too, as she was feeding him quite a lot of dim sum from her plate! tsk tsk. And to think that I've actually fed him before we went out! One big bowl of porriage!

Baby loves pushing his stroller around like using it as a walker, and he sure walks around and around the whole place, chuckling happily everytime. And he sure likes to be photographed by Min! Someone is definitely one big happy baby that day!

Dinner with Wen was at this Jap place next to the Crazy Horse. Never even heard of the Crazy Horse, and suddenly everyone starts talking about it! I always go by that place, but never knew the existance. I guess even adverse promotion is good promotion. Anyway dinner was at Kura no Naka. The food was excellent. We shared a set of three types of appetisers, a tofu mentai, one hamachi kama, one yasai tempura and each of us had an onigiri, Wen had ume and I had mentai. There was raw squid in the appeitisers and after one mouth, Wen admitted defeat, so I had them all to myself. Haha. If you don't mind slimy stuffs, they're actually quite nice. The place is pretty dark, and you get authentic Japanese ladies serving you. It has a nice clubby feeling, and is probably a pub later on at night, in line with the Clarke Quay atmosphere. Not bad, can go again. Too bad no photos.

That day I dropped baby dearest with my parents. They were at the family place (Tampopo) in the next building. We always go there almost every weekend. I picked Wen up from her place, and baby was with me in the car. He cried all the way to our destination. After dinner, I collected baby from my parents, and sent Wen back. Dearest cry-baby cried all the way back too. Even with Wen carrying him, he cried and cried and tried climbing on my lap. There was even a period of time that he sat on my lap with his head on my chest while I drove. And he was so happy and quiet and hiccupped a bit. TOo dangerous though, I was seriously sweating, and had to return him to Wen and he screamed even louder after that. All the way back to Wen's place. *sigh* I think he needs spanking.

In other news, baby was kissed by the little girl next door. Awww. He looked a bit stunned after that. Heh heh. He also got a bit braver, and is able to stand by himself now. He is also able to take a few steps by himself, just that he's still to scared to do so, and he'll always end up squatting when he wants to start moving. Otherwise, most of the time he uses just about anything as his walker.

Baby now climbs up the stairs very fast and without supervision. However he still dares not go down the stairs himself. He'll look at me from the railings and whine and whine and whine until I go up to get him. Otherwise when I'm upstairs and he's downstairs, he'll make his way quickly up to look for me. We have gotten a gate but it's not fixed yet. :P

*****
Yesterday I was able to get off work earlier, and I rushed home to do housework. It just never ends, you know. All those clothes and dust. I even managed to cook a nice dinner for hubby and myself, since baby was still at his granny's place.

Yep, dinner was pork-ribs cooked in my own creation. I looked through some of my cookbooks, and whipped up something myself. Why pork-ribs? They were sitting in my freezer since dunno when. Usually I made pork-ribs with soup, but hubby doesn't really like them that way. So this time, I cooked it with salted black beans, and baked them in the oven. The oranges were just an inspiration, because there were lots of oranges in my frige (and some of them might be already rotten, don't ask, I haven't really looked), so I thought to put in a couple, for taste and for appearance. I know the picture doesn't look that pretty, by the time dinner was ready, I was too hungry to re-arrange everything and take nice photos. But it tasted pretty good! yay! :)

It's nice to be young

Sometimes I wish I'm ten years younger.

Heh.

I wonder if there are any people my age who goes completely gaga about animes. Definitely not any of my galfriends. They're all serious hardworking types who earn lots of money! And they work long hours, have a masters degree and are pretty highflying super achievers. Damn, make me sound like an under-acheiver. Yikes.

Anyway, I was so crazed over Ghost Hunt, I bought all the manga. Some in Jap, no less. I feel like buying the complete set (the earlier ones) in Jap, but I shall wait till there's a discount. Read: I'm definitely going to get the Jap version. Perhaps it might be better to get the Chinese version, but have to pre-order, and I figured that since my Chinese isn't top-notch either, might as well get them original and start learning Jap again. Heh.

That was one of the reasons why I haven't been blogging. Been visiting forumns and reading all about GH. *sigh* ... am still waiting for the next episode. Can die man. Will I be able to watch it tonight?

:(

**
In between anime watching, working and busy with domestic life, some days I suddenly find myself very tired. Tired of everything. Makes me want to do things. The heart and head is willing, but the body is not. I must go and attend yoga classes again, start playing the piano and learn the violin. Especially now that I have some time to spare. The latest anime Nodame Cantabile has been pretty motivating. You hear the sweet sound of Beethoven's Violin Sonata 'Spring', and you immediately put on the CD to play repeat x 100 times, and you search for the score and run through the piece with it, and you wish you could play just a little of it.

It's really uplifting.

But it's just too damn difficult to play. I tried running a few notes on Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu, and I realised that I have to start from ground 0 once again. *sigh* The piano in school have many keys missing, otherwise it was kinda showy (I guess) to drum up some Mozart and fool the kids just a little. Hahahah. Oh yeah, I was bored.

**
I got a swollen eye right now, it feels like someone punched me there. *mutter*

Sometimes how I wish time would just stop and let me do just what I want.

One more day before the weekend!

...

My darling little boy is no longer a baby. His molars are coming out. These past two nights he has been having extremely high fever. My parents drove him back on Tuesday night to return him to me. These past two nights I have not been having enough sleep. Last night his fever hit a high of 39.6 degrees. My dear boy doesn't appreciate sponging. When I left the wet cloth on his forehead he snatched it away irritatingly. Tsk tsk tsk.

I was supposed to keep an eye out for his fever, but I kept dozing off. That's why his fever went up so much. :( We woke up to give him his medicine and I stayed awake to continue sponging and comfort/feed him. I dozed off with my head on his forehead, and I could feel the heat. I even went down to the kitchen to get some ice to sponge him, then I realised that I was only dreaming. That was such a vivid dream. Strange how one subconscious can do. I didn't get any ice eventually, but hubby said the trick was to keep wiping him down so that the water evaporates off him, thus cooling him down. Poor hubby, unlike me, he couldn't take a day off to rest.

I hope baby's fever will settle. I hope he would not be feverish again. Nights are the worrying part cos that's when the fever really goes very high. Right now he's sleeping soundly, last medication was in the evening, and still no sign of any fever. *crosses finger*

Babies are such delicate creatures. If there is no one to take care of them, how will they ever survive?

So baby and I spent quality time together today. I brought him down to see the birds and cats in the morning, and tried to get him to have his morning nap. It's difficult to cook while carrying him, and he kept fussing when I put him down. Yet thank goodness, I managed to cook my lunch. :) Lunch was more claypot udon. I have given up making a different set of lunch for my boy. I gave him some of the udon plus the cod fish which was actually for him. My mother buys expensive fish for my dear boy. :P I forgot to put in my mushroom though. :(

My father came over in the evening, and I managed to cook dinner. So quickly a day flies by. Where got time to do any other thing? Am still waiting for the next episode of Ghost Hunt, but it seems the server is down. *sigh*

*****
Over at my parents' estate, my mom told me that their management wanted to get rid of the stray cats roaming around the estate. They put out food laced with poison but the cats were too smart to eat the food. Unfortunately, someone caught the mother cat and bashed her in. The cleaning lady told her, she said. Whacked the head till she died. It made my blood boil when I heard that. I'm not sure how accurate this account is, but if it's true, who should I report this murder to? The police? SPCA? Cat welfare? I told my mother to confirm with the cleaning lady if she actually saw that happening, and to note down when it happened, and if she knew who did it. I am definitely going to make a complaint. If they can do it to the mother cat, her two babies are just waiting to be done in by that person. What a horrible thing to do. Nowadays the two poor kittens are mewing away looking for their mother. What a horrible thing to do. I hope the person who did that evil thing will rot in hell.

I would understand if the management need to control the population of the cats, but they should just call in either the SPCA or the cat welfare to settle the matter professionally and humanely. Either that or let the cat be steralised. If the account is true, I hope that person who killed the cat will not get away with the murder. The cats were always around and they're very nice cats. Besides cats keep rats away. The people in the estate who complained about the cats should also rot in hell. For over twenty years there were never any such complains. Must be some new residents. I wonder ...

Underestimate not the little one

So you would think that at a tender age of 13 months, he'll not be able to tell the difference.

I took the one on the right away from his gubby fingers, distracted him a little, and passed him back the one on the left. He screamed bloody murder. Oh yes, he protested and threw the controller onto the floor and SULKed at me. Oh yes, that is my little cutie pie at a tender age of 13 months.

Even my mom couldn't tell the difference between both controllers as she was always trying to use the one on the left to change channels on the TV and failed miserably of course. How could my little one know which was which. Hey, I even held the left controller in my hands for not-very-short time and pointed it towards the TV in front of him. Oh nooo, he was still not tricked. He knew the one on the right changes channels on TV, and he'll hold it in his hand, and points it to the TV and happily change channels for me. And when given the other one, he'll get angry and throw it onto the floor.

My dear little cutie pie, really cannot underestimate him!

I missed him so. Tonight he's spending his night at his grandparent's place and the whole house is so quiet without him. I really miss him. Was supposed to have dinner with some friends but it was cancelled, so I'm all alone at home. Have washed the clothes, hope that there'll be some sun tomorrow. Am supposed to catch up with the ironing, but I'm stuck ... watching animes. :P

I missed my little boy annoying me when I'm watching my animes. I missed my little boy when he'll crawl to me and tug at my legs wanting to see what I'm doing just out of his reach. He's always curious, more curious than anything and wants to know what is happening around him. I missed carrying him in my arms. Going to be a long day tomorrow. Else I could go see him immediately after work. *sigh*

Am still coughing. Can I call in sick? :X

Much ado about nothing

It's a quiet day today. Feels so peaceful. Too quiet in fact. What has happened?

*looks around*

*gets up and walks around*

Oh, the little terror is sleeping like an angel. So sweetly. Wait, did he just twitched? Shhhhh, let's tiptoe back to our room. Let sleeping lions lie.

Baby dearest was extremely clingy, fussy and annoying the whole morning. I had to carry him while I prepared lunch, and he refused to sit on his baby chair all the way during lunch. No wonder my arms ached. Lunch was a delicious Nabeyaki udon. Yay, I finally cooked my own hotpot udon. It tasted really nice and hot and just lovely for a cold day plus I'm down with cold too. Couldn't be bothered to cook porriage for baby so he shared my udon (with extra fish). I guess it's ok for baby to be eating udon right?

Hmm ...

Baby dearest doesn't like his own baby food. I think I've mentioned this many times. So nowadays he likes eating sushi (but of course I only give him the cooked stuffs), and rice and fish (it's so much easier to feed him) and bread and biscuits. Baby dearest certainly has expensive taste! You should see his mouth opening big big when we give him 'adult' food. He's not tricked too. He can see very well what is in the spoon (or in the hand/ most of the times in the chopsticks actually) and he'll grab the hand with the 'real' food while pushing away your hand with his 'baby' food with his other hand. Something new? He'll stick out his tongue to 'taste' the food first before opening his diamond-clad mouth. I wave white flag.

It's so hard to take care of my big baby. Two weeks into work, and work is so much more relaxing. There is also a guilty feeling one tries to ignore, when one places baby dearest over at mom's place for the night. That makes two nights in a week. Not really missing him for the first night, but rather so for the second time. And have been spending long hours at work, if not helping the dear hubby. Oh, the wonders of not having to feed baby solids. Or to change his diapers, or bathe him. Suddenly life goes back to normal - the pre-baby time, except for that niggling guilty feeling!

It's so hard to be a mother, and a working mother at that.

*****
What should one do for dinner tonight? The plan was to go down to parent's place for dinner, but it's still raining, and one is feeling very lazy. And one's butt is stuck to the chair.

Whoops ... was that a wail from the sleeping cat?

. . .

This little pig went to the zoo

I realised that it really takes a long time for everyone to be ready and out of the house. By the time we reached the zoo, it was just nice for lunch. Baby dearest didn't want his own baby food of course, and he indulged in junk food too. Baby is getting really a handful to take care. He is. very. naughty. Very. Very. Naughty.

So we saw lots of animals, and strange creatures. There were these ...


and these ...

And I think baby likes the fishes.

Of course there were the normal giraffes and elephants, lions and tigers and monkeys. And the poor polar bear.

It was so warm. The so-called air-conditioning they were blowing over the polar bear was like ... lukewarm. Poor polar bears. They definitely looked like they're suffering.

Anyway, by the end of the trip, baby dearest was sleeping like one of those pigs above. Overall, I think the zoo is a nice place to go with kids, but I wouldn't really want to go to the zoo. First of all, it's really too damn hot. Secondly, the place is really small. The enclosure for each animal is really really small. I remember the wildlife place I went in Oz. This one cannot compare. All the animals seem so caged in. The poor leopard had OCD. She was going round and round and round in circles. So did one of those mountain cats. I would too, if I had to endure such small cages. Poor animals. The zoo doesn't give one a nice feeling at all. I think I hate it.

Maybe we'll bring baby to one if we ever to Oz again. :)

*****
This little pig had roast beef

More of my cooking. Still trying to achieve that elusive donobe gohan. :) Still this was nice, but I think the plum sake was just a little too sweet, and too like a cough mixture. Mom said it was good, which prompted me to buy, but I think I was tricked. I'd rather stick to the normal sake, thank you very much!

January 2007

Definitely not a good start to a new year. Maybe I should go and see a fengshui master. Yep, caught the very cute Leong ChaoWei and dunnowhatsthenamebutlooksfamiliaractress on TV about fengshui and all that stuffs.

Anyway, to cut the long story short. Baby 1. Parents 0.

Poor baby cried for one hour. Cheeks full of tears. Hairless head full of sweat. Chin - quavering. Lips - extreme down. Eyes - swollen. Hiccups and all the works. It was heartwrenching.

All it takes was five minutes. And he was all smiles again. Happy, bubbly, cheerful, grinning self. And he looked at us in the eye and wagged his finger at us and told us, 'Don't you understand Daddy Mummy? That was all I wanted!' Of course it came out as babblebabblebabbleDADAMAMAbabblebabblebabble plus finger wagging.

Hubby was too tired to walk the mile with him. It was too painful for me to hold him and watch him cry. And when he started looking and pawing and I had to say cannot, no more, he understood, he stopped, and he looked at me sooo sadly and cried and cried and cried buckets. I can't do this thing alone. But hubby couldn't help. So we're back to square one.

Forty dollars down the drain. When I saw the cost of the two tiny pills, I called PM and practically shrieked down the phone at her. So bloody expensive?!?!!?! The two bloody tiny pills was 1333 times more expensive then gold. Ok.

*sigh*

So I'm back to ice-compresses, and antibiotics and hopefully no more need of fever medication. High fever for three days is no joke. High fever with chills for three days is no joke. High fever with chills, headache and pain is really no joke. Spoilt the last of my holidays completely. I took so many paracetemols that by 6pm, I finished the maximum of eight. Fortunately nowadays there are other types of medicine and hubby passed me bifen (yep, in syrup - the ones for kids, orange flavoured - 3rd tablespoon gave me a sorethroat :P). I took three tablespoons (because hubby insisted that one tablespoon is 5ml - but I didn't pour each tablespoon full) and felt pretty strange in the middle of the night. Humf.

*sigh*

Back to square one. Everything else is moot. I think I messed up my antibiotics taking time. *sigh*

So in order to cheer myself up for such a rotten week, when I didn't have fever this morning (all other symtomes were still there), and I thought I was going to stop forever, I went to do my hair in preparation for the new year.

Heh ... finally rebonded my hair!! :)

And I got a really really strange fringe.

My hairdresser was telling me that she just came back from London and learnt a few stuffs. Would I like to try blah blah blah ... because it's the in thing now and also since everyone else here is blah blah blah, this would be pretty cool and nice? And I thought why not since 1. I've been stressed, and 2. my brain is scrambled from all that pain and fever and drugs. So ziap ziap ziap she cuts and now I got a really really strange fringe which makes people turn their heads to take a second look. hahaha.

It's just .... .

:P

Not so merry Christmas -- new year week

Am no scrooge but Christmas this year wasn't exactly jolly. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I had to work on Christmas day, and two long days of meeting immediately after that. And after the two long days of meeting, I had a spliting headache today, my neck and shoulder hurts like hell and I'm just bone-weary tired.

But Christmas day wasn't too bad really. We even had a wonderful christmas supper cooked by Wen. Although I wished we could be having dinner at her place instead. Still, supper was fantastic. Between hubby, myself and even baby dearest, we polished off everything. I was remarking to hubby that the carrot soup and mashed pea potato was soooo baby food. hahaa. Baby dearest loved it very much! Hmm ... one wonders if Wen is going to cook dinner on New Year's Day too? One is working on New Year's Day ... *nudge nudge*

:P

I think the headache is probably because the ventilation in the meeting room isn't too good, or because of being unable to express as often as I should. *sigh* I might even be having a slight fever. *sigh* Poor me. And there's another meeting tomorrow. *triple sigh*

Why do I always suffer from headaches? :(

Tis a season to be eating ... take two.

And I'm sure getting fat. Especially around the tummy. Damn. Need. to. Exercise.

Good food for the past few weeks. Dim sum almost once a week. And two new places.

The first was the Crystal Jade Korean Ginseng place, recommended by and went with Min. The ginseng chicken soup was absolutely delicious. Yum yum yum. I scrapped the bowl clean and drowned myself in the soup. Yum yum yum. The six types of veges were pretty okay. We didn't like all types obviously. So there was one little portion which wasn't finished. The cod fish absolutely melted in your mouth. I love cod fish! Can't imagine how impassionate Min was about fish. Fish is good. Fish is yummie! And cod fish's the best! Yum yum yum. How could she not eat the fish skin? I reached over and plucked the cod fish skin off her plate. Yum yum yum. Heh heh heh. Hmm, it'll be nicer if the skin is fried and crisp, but ... it's still cod fish skin. Man, to think that when hubby and I eat cod fish, we'll always fighting for the skin. How could one not like it at all?

Speaking of which, will cook cod fish tomorrow. Best way of cooking is still to fry the cod fish. Heh. I tried grilling, but the skin wasn't as crisp as I'd like. And it took too bloody long.

The dessert was pretty normal. Sweet and cold, and nice to complete the meal. All in all, can go back again. Yum yum chicken soup. Now I understand why Min is kinda addicted to it. I'm dreaming of food right now!

The second new place I went to was the Imperial Treasures - Teochew cuisine with Wen. Many moons back, I wanted to go in with my family, but the lady at the front desk was rather intimidating with her pinched face and arrogant and looking-down-her-nose attitude. So we veered away and I never gave it much thought. Obviously the lady at the front desk need to go for some coutesy training. Even Wen thought she was extremely rude and curt. However once we got in, the other service staffs were pretty friendly. Food was served pronto. Too fast in fact, that the noodles was pretty cold (and oily) by the time we could eat it.

Still, the pig stomach soup was ze best! Yum yum yum! And the Oh Nee ... ahhh .... Wen was too polite to mention that I was practically licking the bowl (or spoon, I was too polite to lick the bowl in front of her). Hahaha. Can go back again. I'm sure my mother will love the place too. Only thing is that the dim sum were still a tad too salty for teochew cuisine. But it is still pretty nice.

Man ... my mouth is watering thinking of all these food! Dinner tonight consisted of one rice ball and two pieces of califonia sushi. Healthy and therefore thinking of all those food makes me mouth water even more.

Arrgh. :P

*****
Take two. Because bloody netscape hanged and died while I was typing a lengthy blog. *mutter*

Anyway, had finished wrapping up dear hubby's present. Something simple, and something he'll definitely like, although not very special. It'll be a nice surprise for him I hope. :)

Me? I bought so many presents for myself, I guess I don't need anymore. heh. I forgot shopping with Wen is extremely dangerous. Just fifteen minutes or so and I've splurged on a lovely new bag and a new pouch. Old bag is looking rather mangy. Want. a. new. wallet. too. But still haven't found anything nice. I am quite tempted to get the same one as Wen at colette. :P

I've also finally bought a pair of new shoes for baby. It's quite a headache to get him shoes because 1. they are damn expensive and 2. he'll grow out very fast. But poor baby didn't have any shoes. My aunties gave him a pair too big he couldn't even wear them now, so I finally got him a nice one.

... to be cont.

Tis a season to be jolly! - and spend money.

Ho ho ho ... I think tis a season to be tired, more likely. I've never been so tired with my hyper-active little boy. The other day he climbed up the stairs, and down, and up and down then up again. Then I carted him off before he started going down again. *whew* Just now he wanted to climb down again, I quickly grabed him and put him in the room and closed the door and he threw a tantram. My age sure is catching up with me. One kid sure is enough.

*rolls eyes*

Now he is happily asleep. I should catch some sleep too, but then this is one of the few times I can have some time to myself. To do some reading, watch more animes, write my blog etc. Min was complaining how come I have yet to upload the birthday photos ... heh. Whatever time I have, I am watching animes first, reading my books and sleep.

Favourite anime currently is Ghost Hunt. :)

Haven't been able to do much shopping. Was very disciplined and did not buy anything at the Tods sales. Wasn't too keen on the autumn/winter stuffs. Wen told me about the sale at Betula but there wasn't anything my size. And colette just didn't have anything pretty. The wallet Wen got is really pretty, but it's super heavy, and I guess I don't want something the same as hers. Maybe a visit to Ferragammo to see their new wallets. I thought I spied something nice. Heh. Could only catch a glimpse. Nowadays shopping is pretty much non-existent.

Hmm, maybe not really. Been quite busy at the bookstores. Time flies when you're browsing books. I got a couple of new cookbooks too. 'The Japanese Kitchen' by Kimiko Barber and 'Cook with Jamie', my first Jamie Oliver's book. I didn't really have time to really look through all his cookbooks, but I guess this one with the explainations should be pretty good. Reading all these cookbooks makes me feel like cooking something from in there, but all I cook is the usual style. Tonight we had stir-fry kailan with garlic, claypotsoup - pork-ribs with corn and carrots and fish with chilli. I think kailan is also known as chinese brocolli. Hmm, would be good to get something which talks about all the different types of food ingredients. There's a book with something like that on sale, but have not decided if it's really a good book.

Last night we deposited baby dearest at in-laws place and hubby and I went out for a nice dinner. At Shashlik. The food there is just as wonderful as ever. We even shared a glass of Russian coffee, and I say, the alcoholic coffee rocks. I'm drooling just thinking of eating there! Yum yum.

I haven't been eating mom's homecook food for a while now. Sometimes I'm so sick of cooking, I wished there's someone who could cook something nice for me to eat. It's really so unfortunate that hubby doesn't cook at all and is not interested in cooking. *sigh*

We went to look at apple. The iPod Video is realllllly cute! And reaaaallllly pretty. But it doesn't play avi format. Next.

I haven't decide what I want hubby to give me for Christmas. I guess when you have to tell him to get something for you, you really can't quite be bothered, because you might as well get it yourself. So I'm still eyeing the tiffany charm bracelet, but silver tarnishes, and I'm not sure if I really really like it. Man ... I'm getting very fussy with things. :P

It's nice to get a surprise present for Christmas. :) So far, my two girlfriends have given me something. And you know what? The two of them actually gave me the SAME thing. Hahahaha. Come to think of it, both of their birthdays fall on the same day (same year too), although I think they're very different. Or maybe not. One never knows huh. :P

Damn, tummy doesn't feel too good. Mustn't eat so much chocolates and cookies .... *mutter*

Happy First Birthday!

Happy first birthday to my dearest boy. :) He's finally a year old.


This was his birthday cake on his actual day which we celebrated with his daddy. :P But then it was the third time he celebrated his birthday. On saturday, I invited some of my friends over and we had a huge ice-cream cake, and baby dearest got lots of presents! There were lots of little kids to play with him too, and open his presents for him. Haha. I was just slightly annoyed that one little girl chose to be one big bright lightbulb when all I wanted was just a photo of me and baby dearest. Grrr.


Baby dearest can be quite camera shy

On Sunday, baby's grand-aunties and his aunties came over to play with him and he got lots of presents too.


Here he is with his new walker-rider toy, but it still isn't motivating him to learn to walk, for when the thing starts to roll, he quickly squats and sits on the floor and looks up expectantly, waiting to be carried or he'll abandon ship and start crawling instead. Tsk tsk!


OH well, boys will be boys. Here's a super cute pic of him with my old pair of sunglasses. Penguin-sir? Cute eh? Heh

My dearest boy is certainly a big boy now. Every morning when he wakes up and I wake up and I stepped out of the room into the bathroom or study room and he'll cry like he's such a pityful little abandoned little poor thing. Grrrr. Even hubby cannot stop him from crying (although most of the time he'll cover his head with his pillow :P) And baby dearest only stops when I step into the room again and sit by the bed with him. How is it going to be now? *slaps forehead*

*****
Anyway, it's nice to be a ditzy gal-fan. Man, I'm so much a fan of Saiunkoku Monogatari. I so absolutely am gushing about the anime. At someone's else blog of course. Hahha. People here wouldn't know what I'm talking about if I were to start gushing here. Hahahaa. Gah .. it's nice to be so happily a big fan. :P All the characters are so absolutely cute! And the story is so absolutely cute! And funny! :)

It's almost a year!

Yep, how time flies. My dear baby is almost one year old. He's a big boy now, and he still has a cuteness rating of 10/10. Heh. :P Mothers are always bias. :P

I'm so fortunate that I have all these time to spend with him, seeing him grow up from a tiny baby to a big baby. I love the closeness both of us share, and how his eyes brighten up when he sees me. Of course sometimes I'm oh so irritated with him when he doesn't want to sleep or take his porriage and when I want to watch my anime or read my books or do housechores and he keeps wanting my attention. But now he's sleeping peacefully and all is forgiven until he wakes up and cry. :P

I love him so. :)

:)

Today I was extremely pissed off with my father. He probably didn't know why. After another exhausting ordeal, I finally managed to put baby dearest to sleep, so that I can start washing the clothes. Many clothes to wash. Two loads in fact. I scrub and scrub and huff a puff puff and the phone rang, and my father with his insignificant ramblings. Arrrgh. Yep, baby woke up. I'm all soap and scubs. And baby deaerst didn't want to go back to sleep no matter how much I tried to make him to. So all my anger was directed to my father for calling! So extremely pissed off.

So I took the phone off the hook during baby's afternoon nap.

I still managed to cook lunch with baby prattling around in the kitchen and he found the damn bleach bottle and shook it up and down spilling bleach on the floor. I shrieked and had to wash his hands, his feet and the floor. Arrrgh. Two against my father for waking baby up. Baby dearest seemed to have escaped with no bleach on him, but my hands itched. Maybe it has to do with later on, when baby was asleep and I transfered the big bottle of bleach to the small glass bottle and poured into all the drains. *eyes point daggers at hubby* Grrrr. That was supposed to be someone's elses job, but I'm doing everything nowadays. Hell, I might have to wash the bloody freaking vacumn cleaner and air-con myself. *eyes point poison daggers at someone*

And that someone had the audacity to suggest that we put up the window film ourselves. My eyes rolled all the way to heaven and I stamped my foot and no way are we doing that. Saying which, I'm not going to wait anymore for anybody, and I'm going to call and confirm tomorrow, and cancel the other viewing. So there. Humf.

I also managed to wash the clothes with baby dearest wide awake. I strapped him down in his baby seat and placed him in the toilet with me while I scrub and huff a puff puff. Baby dearest had his current favourite toy with him, so he was pretty all right. Until he got bored and threw his toy away and started figeting. Good thing I was almost done. Btw, know what his current favourite toy of all toys is? A toothbrush. (Especially mine but a normal one with a straight handle would do as well). Err, don't look at me. :P

I wonder if other people scrub their clothes before putting them into the washing machine? Hubby complains that if I don't scrub the clothes and simply wash them, the clothes stink. How leh? My poor hands are all wrinkled. I even got onto my hands and knees and mopped the floor, with baby dearest following behind me ... with his toothbrush. Heh heh. Didn't want to give him a cloth cos he tends to put it in his mouth after wiping the floor. :X

Then I cooked lunch, porriage for baby and instant mee for me, with baby dearest stealing quite a bit of my food. The fish that is. I let him try some seaweed and he seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.

:)

After that we went to shop shop and I bought stuffs for tomorrow. Baby dearest went out with his toothbrush but was willing to let me keep it while he looked around happily. Heh heh.

Dinner was wonderful. I made the donabe gohan with chicken and asari and lots of mushrooms. Couldn't find frozen peas ... oh well. :P A meaningful and exciting day indeed. :) I'm going to miss such days when work starts. *sigh*

Still ... there are some things to look forward to (like earning money and wearing nice clothes :P), but I'll definitely miss my time with my baby dearest.

I even managed to catch Ghost Hunt ep 10. It was such an anti-climax. You would think the previous episodes were sooooo good, you would be expecting something more, but the conclusion fell flat in the face. Arrgh. For a whodunit-ghost-story genre, the detective part is a bit very the obvious. The bad guy is soooooooooo predictable. The horror was good though. I was hoping for more twists in the story. :( Rather disappointing. Hmmm.

Still waiting for my all time favourite. :) There are others to fill in the gap, but still, saiunkoku monogatari is the best yet! Damn, I can't believe I've become so ... soo .... :P Heh.

Ping pong peng

So I'm in the coughing stage now, which means I'm recovering. Prospan's pretty nice (taste like honey), and doesn't have all the problems which comes with some cough syrup. People who recover from a bout of cold/flu usually have a cough after that. I wonder why some people insist on antibiotics and kick up such a big fuss on cough medication (on standby). This just shows how uneducated or boorish they are. Ha.

Anyway, it's hubby dearest turn to experience the same set of symptomes I had. Low-grade fever, neck ache, headache and sore throat which is not very painful. Man, am I not at all sympathetic! Okie, I tried to. :P But my eyes kinda rolled upwards when he mentioned viral meningitis. Well, it could be true, especially the stiff neck part, but I didn't exactly get much sympathy when I had all those symptomes either! :P Men can be such babies.

I just hope that baby doesn't fall sick again. Especially how we are always so close together. *sigh*

*****
I read one page of the chinese novel and fell asleep. Progress is extremely slow. Maybe I should have just gotten the book in Japanese. At least I can learn more Jap! When is the next episode of the anime going to be out? Arrrgh. *tears hairs*

Anyway, it's amazing how Japanese stuffs can be so nice. Just look at the music. Japanese music is always so nice. So much nicer than the chinese music. Take any song and listen, they're so much nicer. Some of the Chinese songs even came from Japanese! And I'm still so impressed by their animes, by their drawings. Give me an anime anytime. The anime characters are also so much nicer than real people! Hahaha. :X

I wish I could go Japan again. *sigh*

Falling in love ...

Is when you start doing these things.

1. Actually watching the anime with chinese subs on YouTube.
2. Actually watching the anime withOUT any subs on YouTube.
3. Buying the entire set of novels in Chinese.

My roots certainly revisited. :)

I am so in love with the latest anime I'm watching. Latest craze I guess. It's aimed at young ladies, it's funny, it has got beautiful music and beautiful drawings, and it's kinda loosely based on a historical setting. Who wouldn't fall in love if you're a woman? :P

Damn, the only Chinese books I've ever read in my entire life so far were one or two from You Jing. Now I've got like seven novels all to read, and they are in fantizi (the older chinese version) no less, and how am I going to achieve it? Where is my trusty Chinese dictionary? *sigh*

Definitely an impulse buy. Naaahhh ... let's just say it's a christmas present for myself. Heh heh heh.

Actually I'm a very traditional Chinese girl. I love my roots, I cannot imagine not speaking Mandarin at all. I went to a school which was kinda cheena in a way. But my chinese was never very good. I shall blame it all on my chinese teachers. If they were only more fun at that time, I might enjoy the lessons. All I remember is mo xie, and ting xie. And the lessons were always so boring. Oh well. Things are changing now. Perhaps if I had been more interested, I would have joined the Chinese Orchestra. Did I ever mention the erhu was one of my favourite instruement? Perhaps I shall learn that one too. :P

Anyway .... my current favourite animes are:
1. Saiunkoku Mongatari (in love ..woohooo!) *)
2. Ghost Hunt

And I'm also currently watching:
3. Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto
4. D Gray Man
5. Death Note
6. Bleach

Hmmm .....

If you're curious, go check them out! Warning: Quality on YouTube is quite the crappy. :X