I am feeling fat. And lazy.

I read that Wen was complaining about her sagging boobs. Maaann, what can be worse? I'm fat. My boobs are sagging too. Arrgh, and the worst is, sometimes one is bigger than the other. Arrrgh.

I think it is more than two months since I last went for yoga. It's lots of ice-cream and junk food lately. Sigh. When one hits the big three, there is no more turning back. The fats just creep up quietly and sticks there for a long time. Yucks.

I really need to do something healthy. See my tummy? Someone actually thought I was having another baby. *sniff*

Breathe in deeply .... hold ....

*****
Life was a bit depressing lately because of all the hoohah over a certain matter. I was quite disappointed. Really really quite disappointed. If you'd ask me, I'd be very happy to pay for it, if I can get the most up-to-date ones as well as good quality of course. Monopoly is just tyranny. In this day and age too. Can't we just have a peaceful hobby?

Anyway, I'm still feeling a little blue over the whole matter. Where's my psp? How else can I destress? Maybe can grab PM out one of these days and blade with her. She asked me but how can I with my boy? *sigh*

Speaking of which, I signed my boy up for this most atrociously expensive enrichment class. After speaking to a neighbour who mentioned something about dunnodunnowhat school, dear hubby and I popped down to have a look, and somehow got persuaded into paying over a thousand dollars for a twelve hour lesson. Hmm, I'm still feeling a bit surreal over this thing. What right-brain training? Don't really need actually, but I guess I was just feeling a little bit guilty for not spending enough quality time with my boy. He is growing up so fast, and I don't know how to teach him, how to play with him etc. I think I lack the patience, and I just let him play with all those toy cars. *sigh* Sometimes it's so hard to be a mother. Well, hopefully this money will be well-spent because I get to learn alongside him. :)

The other reason being I think my poor boy is feeling very lonely and doesn't know how to socalise with other kids. Hopefully this will let him mix around more with kids his age. When he sees other kids, he becomes so shy and twiddles his thumbs. Poor him, no cousins to play with. Or little kids. The neighbour girl is a bit violent. My poor baby got smacked on his head when he refused to return her her toy car. He was shocked and cried a bit. But after she got canned by her mom for doing that, he pitied her and quickly returned her her toys. Later when I asked him if he still wanted to go over to play with her, he said 'dunwan!'. Whoops. :P Then again, he doesn't want to share his toys with her when she comes over too. haha. Kids are so funny.

Ohh ... something to look forward to ... hop hop :) Lunch with Min. :) Dim sum. yum yum. :)

Anyway, I figured that I haven't been going for yoga, so that saves quite a lot of money. All the exercise I get is from carrying my boy up and down the stairs, and I didn't manage to get a slot for the bobbi brown make-up workshop. Wen didn't ask me to go with her. *sniff* *sniff* :( So that is some money saved. Not that I've been saving a lot. Just been spending on different things. *bleah* There's just so much things for a girl to buy!

*****
Have been watching some rented dvds with hubby. He borrowed three over the weekend. The first was something called The Last Dance (I think), the second was 300 and the third was some Japanese movie.

Hubby was quite impressed with the first one and he told me it was some award-winning show. I wasn't very impressed at all, especially when I saw that it was a 'raintree' production. I raised my eyebrow. Isn't that local? It's not that I have anything against local production, but I mean, how impressed can you be? In the middle of the movie, hubby asked me, 'Are you being tortured yet?'. I can't agree more. Oh man ... it was the worst movie I've every caught in my entire life! I thought it was some exciting Hongkong flick, got HK actors what, but the entire plot was sooooo lame. It was like trying to be some momento-wanna-be (but failed miserably), some matrix-wanna-be (but failed miserably too). I mean the still shots are ok-nice, but for goodness heavens, it's a movie, not some photoshots. Arrgh. And it is just simply so unreal. Spore is too clean. Too too too too damn clean. It send shivers down my spine. Maybe Stephen King can do a horror show, those fouth-dimension thingy, where the whole world is seen through filtered lens. And the story seemed to be written by some nine year old school kid. Well, that was what hubby said, and I damn well agree. Pretty arty farty with a big F. For failure. Actress is ugly. The HK actors with their dubbed voice grated on my nerves. The only redeemable feature is the chemistry between the two vetern HK actors, the police captain and the assasin. There is absolutely no chemistry between the lead actor and actress. And the little girl. Arrgh, can't they choose some cute girl? And what's with that one quick shot of some half naked old man with guitar and prostitute with nipple-piercing in S&M style? So absolutely unneccessary. It's not even a redeeemable feature. Maybe they thought it was so bad already that might help? Gross.

300 wasn't that great either. Lots of half naked men with rippling muscles, not bad actually, but close to 30 men rather than 300, and what's with that smooth black tight underwear? And another arty farty show. Rolls eyes.

Baby's awake. More critisism if I ever got time again.

*****
Finally one little thing that really make me really warm and fuzzy and proud of my dear hubby. He's in the news. In a good way. *beamz*

And that is the only incentive that makes us go out to get a copy of the newspaper. Heh.

Baby, 20 months

We are the indulgent parents all right. What to do? Only have one precious kid. I'm not sure if it's because of the guilt we feel because we don't really spend lots of time with him, or we truely in our hearts just want him to be happy, or simply because he looks really good in it. Whatever.

But here he is, aged 20 months, and he owns a German car. In the likes of Volkswagon, BMW, etc. A red sporty one which can go at a topspeed of 40km/h and take up to 80kg.


Yes, he's actually posing in it. And he smiled when I told him to. And he refuses to let anyone else sit in his car, although he was rather mild about it when we tried. He'd say: Papa, go away. Mama, too big. Go away. The neighbour girl came over and tried his car. He was so worried but was too polite to tell her to get lost. You should have seen his eyes go as big as they could get and he started wringing his hands. Good thing her dad told her to return the car and my boy quickly reclaimed his prized possession. Heh.

Ah, next time when he's twenty and asked for a car, we'll tell him he has already got one at the age of 20 months. So no more, eh?

*****
More milestones.

Took his toothbrush and started brushing his teeth himself. Refused to put it down even after his bath. I guess I needn't be worried about him brushing his teeth after all. Heh. Was a bit worried for a while though cos the last time I thought I saw him brushing the toilet floor with that toothbrush of his. Hmm.

More words.

Commented that 'man wears specs' loudly in the lift whilst said man was carrying his 26 month old boy who had a pacifier in his month. Said mom then pulled out said toddler's pacifier and exclaimed that so big still use pacifier. Said people in lift seemed impressed with my boy. *glowed*

Have started asking questions: Mummy doing what? Papa doing what?

Have started answering his own questions. That Ah Gong's car? Noooo.

Can answer our questions correctly: Is that Ah Gong's car? No. Is that Papa's car? No. Is that a taxi? Yes!!

Is very demanding: Sit car. Take off shoes. Then drink milk. Gugu go away. Close door. Mummy sit here. Then drink milk. Go upstairs. Sit on bed. Then drink milk.

I love him to bits. He's just so cute. :)

*****
Have been busying playing on my psp so have not been doing any other things else like blogging. Found this game called Puzzle Quest. It takes Yahoo! Bejeweled to a higher existance. If you loved Bejeweled to nutz like me, that is. It's simply amazing what the Japs can do. Turned a simple game into a RPG quest which comes with magic, hit-points, pretty exciting story-line. And you can even play with a real opponent. Like my dear hubby, whom I got him addicted. Who is also so extremely competitive. Humf. Am so not going to play with him anymore. Yep, we each got one psp to ourselves. :)

What's the next game going to be?

And the latest anime crazed is Denno Coil. The storytelling is simply amazing. I'm still reeling from the last two episodes, one which made me laughed till tears come to my eyes, and the other was so sad that I cried. Definitely a gem.

*****
So have been pretty anti-social. Should go out and meet up with old friends. Have not seen or heard from Wen for a long time already! I guess she must be busy with her studies. And I'm so busy with my boy. It's so hard to bring him out by myself nowadays. His table manners are so totally spoilt by my parents. So I've been going out for dinner with them. At least they can pander to him while I eat in peace. Relatively peace, that is.

In other news, poor baby has been sick again. Thankfully last night seemed to be the turning point. After he vomited onto me, that is. And twice diarrhoea today. Otherwise we'll have to be drugging him with his flu medicine again. This time he caught it from me, and I caught it at the clinic. Life sure is tough! We couldn't go to the zoo as we had wanted. The flu medicine works wonders though. He takes it and is completely knocked out for two hours at least. That's why I only took it for one night when I was sick. Don't have the luxury to sleep so much!

Sis-in-law was in town. To be more accurate, bro-in-law's wife that is. The whole family was in town. Exchanged some gossips with her and am assured that MIL has been extremely tame towards me. I guess I should be feeling lucky. And to think that she actually bought TWO sports cars for my boy. They're not that cheap too. Gosh, she wouldn't even spend that sort of money on food! I guess he's also extremely lucky. But then, back then baby was calling her auntie for a time. That might have made her rather worried. Now she got him to call her correctly. heh heh.

I was so thirsty after that MSG laden Ramen, that I drank coffee milk. Right now I'm feeling zombified. Brain's not working too well. Darn.

Thoughts and sniffles

People (not my parents) have been asking me when I'm going to have a second kid. Not that I'm not seriously considering, now that my boy is pretty big, but it's rather tough to get around the idea of doing it all again. Can't we just skip that nine months of pure torture and get down to business? Hubby said I shouldn't have anything to complain about, seeing as how I did not even experience any morning sickness and was for the most part very happy-go-lucky throughout that period. But one wouldn't know what the second time would be like, ya?

I was just tired most of the time, and couldn't get up on time to go to work. And my reporting officer sure made my life hell making me feel awful all the time about that. Now that I think of it, I really dislike her. There, I've said it. I should have just asked my doc that time to give me lots of MCs. Ha. The way some of my colleagues are doing now. Doh.

Then again, do I really want another kid? We are still financially unstable, and I don't think I've been a good mother at all so far. Sometimes I feel like I'd rather work, and free time? I'd rather have the time for myself. To do my own things. As it is, I've not been doing to yoga. And there are still so many things I want to do. Watching animes is definitely one of them. :P

I guess I'm just tired. Baby is cutest when my parents are around to take care of him. He is so difficult especially when it comes to feeding time. Why did it turn out this way? He was such an angel once upon a time. Arrgh.

Oh no, he's awake.

...

I think I've caught some bug. *sneezes*

Tra...la...la

Things my boy can do at a tender age of 19 months:

1. Use a pair of chopsticks to pick up food. Well, at least he could hold his chopsticks pretty well now, and he managed to pick up his favourite prawn once. After a while, he threw his chopsticks down because his fingers were tired. (I got photo and video to prove) :P

2. Help me vacumn the floor. I got photo and video to prove too.

3. Play the piano and read music. At least that was what he was trying to do. Playing my piano and flipping through my score sheets like he knows how to read. Ha. Whenever I wanted to practice my Schubert, he'll quickly come look for me, and demanded to 'sit here sit here' and starting pushing me off my seat, [Mummy, go away] and even pawed (poured) at my music sheets like he can read the beansprouts. Yeah right. *rolls eyes* When he's done, he say 'close piano', and I have to close it and he'll squeal with laughter whenever I'll narrowly miss his fingers.

:)

In other news, Schubert is coming along nicely. I can play the first two pages of the sonata pretty well now, and that's because I've only got the first three pages with me. And besides now that I listened to Nodame and followed the score, I realised that she only played the first two pages and skipped to the end. Darn, must get a Schubert CD. I hardly have any Schubert at all, or do I even have any of his music?

Come to think of it, it's so much easier to learn a new piece when you get to listen to it. To think that when I was little, my teacher was/or appeared to me, at least, to be quite against listening to tapes of people playing the pieces. I think he once said that I shouldn't listen because I shouldn't be playing like that for exams. Only can listen to the exam pieces played by exam-approved players. It's no wonder I hate playing the piano when I was little, when each piece was an exam piece. School ya, Yamaha, ya. Got to make sure the little pesky kid pass her exams ya. It wasn't until I stopped learning, and made friends with Xel that I started listening and appreciating classical music more. If I have not known her, I think I'll never play the piano ever again. Or learn the violin. I wonder how many people have teachers like mine and got their interest killed.

I love Nodame Cantabile! The anime is extremely cute too! :)

Just watched Blood Diamonds last night. Thought L D'Capro looked extremely good in this show. No more that immature silly boy look. Heh. The story was pretty good, but we felt that it was too hollywood for anything. And I'm just too poor to afford so many diamonds. War is war is war. I wonder if the chap is a real story.

The wheels on the bus goes round and round ...

So I have this piece of music going round and round in my head. Schubert Piano Sonata in A minor. At least it's better than my boy's children's music going round and round in my head!

Eversince the first time I heard it, and saw it being played (by Nodame) I just fell in love with it. Managed to get my hands on the sheet music, and am wondering when I'll get to try it out. The last time I did, my boy quickly ran up to me, and started demanding that he 'sit here! sit here!' too, and 'Mummy go away!', trying to push me off my seat.

Maybe later, he's still asleep. :)

The things my boy says nowadays:
'Excuse me! Go away!' and he tries to push you off your seat
'Hand, go away!' and he tries to slap your hand off from holding him
'Ah Gong eat what?' Last night, he saw his Ah gong munching something, he actually asked that!
And lots of other stuffs. He's very chatty for a nineteen month old.

Last weekend we went to eat at Le Maison (spelling?) at the new Central (Soho?) place. It's a kind of fusion Japanese place, my younger brother said. I thought it was French infused Japanese. Anyway, food was really good. I love it, except that portion was rather small. Was still a bit hungry. Not too expensive too. Nice, can go back again. I remember the last time Wen and I had French. Portions were really small. *shrug*

Oh well, I think I'd better get some housework done before everyone wakes up!

Baby, aged 18 months

It's been a while since I've put up any of my baby's photos. Here are some taken from my handphone. Gosh, the resolution's pretty good, eh? I was thinking of buying a small camera to carry with me, but maybe this handphone also can do. The only problem is the lag time is very slow. What to do?

Baby is learning to twirl his pen. Can probably do better than me.


At my hair-spa salon. Not that he has got any *hair* to speak of.


I love him so. :)


He is a big boy now.

Life is tough

There, I've finally done it. Fell asleep at the wheel and kissed someone's butt. There was just a slight scratch on my number plate, but boy oh boy, the lady's fender was totally bumped. Plus she bumped into the car in front as well. Hmmm. *sigh* I guess I'm just too tired and stressed nowadays.

Baby is really very very tiring. I need to stop pandering to his whims. Really stop. Harden my heart and let him cry. I need my life back. I need to have time for myself and stop running around like a headless chicken. I need to stop. Period.

*****
Bad stuffs aside. On my last day of my holidays, before all the horrid meetings (which took up two days of my holidays), I invited PM over my place to do some baking. She was supposed to come at 10am in the morning for my pancakes breakfast, but I'm sure you can guess what time she arrived (finally). Almost 1pm. Oh well.

Anyway, breakfast was pancakes which I made for dear hubby.

Hmm, does it look good? I didn't quite drown it in the maple syrup because hubby didn't like it too sweet. But it tasted pretty good. I cooked more for my neighbours and for PM when she arrived. Baby took a couple of bites from hubby before refusing. He always refuse food from me out of some principle only he knows.

Lunch was more japanese udon with PM, after which we baked apple crumble again. PM made my crumble too hard and we ran out of flour, but I substituted with a little self-raising flour and crossed our fingers hoping it'll work. It turned out pretty good I must say, except the crumble wasn't as crumbly as I had hoped. My boss liked my crumble too. I hope he'll give me a raise next year. But then if he does, it'll be hard for me to leave. *sigh*

Do I really want to stop work? Baby dearest is the one who'll suffer. Poor baby.

Part Two

Okay, so the clothes are up. I've got a sneaky bad feeling about tomorrow, but let's not think about it right now. There's nothing I can do about it now anyway.

Min's vouchers bought me two more cookbooks. Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries, and Donna Hay's Classics 2. I'm always a sucker for Donna Hay's books. Her pictures are beautiful, although the instructions aren't always a hundred percent clear. But then again, I never follow instructions to the dot. Furthermore, if I were to compare with Nigel Slater's book, gosh, some of his instructions are even worse! Like how long am I supposed to leave it in the oven for? What in the world is *blank*? Hey, where's the recipe for this one side dish etc. Still, it was pretty fun to read. It's a different style of a cookbook all together. Very refreshing!

My birthday book present from Wen: Shunju New Japanese Cuisine, is a bit more complicated. It has those kind of very beautiful pictures, really mouth-watering stuffs, which looks really difficult to make. They're those kind of stuffs which you'd really like someone else to cook for you. But it's really nice to look at the pictures and drool drool drool drool. :) Well, maybe I might try the oxtail hotpot. I feel like making oxtail one of these days!

All together I have now ... wow. More than 20 cookbooks! Including bake books. Waah. :) My collection is coming along nicely. I wonder how many books does Wen have? :P

*****
Am going to try making pancakes. Bought some ingredients and some utensils. Heh, it's always nice to buy new toys. :) Am looking out for a simple hand-held mixer. I remembered mixing some dough manually and being extremely tired after that.

Holidays are coming to an end, it's kinda depressing to think about it. I haven't really got a chance to cook something really different and special and nice or bake something yet. *sigh* It's quite difficult when my boy is into this super clinging stage. Plus he's only eighteen months and yet undergoing the terrible twos stage already. I can write a whole chapter about his naughiness. But, mothers are always terribly proud of their babies, and we are terribly proud of him because he's starting to speak in sentences. :)

Like: Ah gong sweeps floor. Lenny wears hat. Papa drives car.

And he can use many different words to express the same meaning. His favourite meaning now being:
No. No no no no. No need. Mai. Bu Yao. Dun want. Plus vigourous shaking of his head, and sometimes hands as well.

To chocolates, it's always a nod of his head.

Did I mention that he can say 'McDonald'? Especially whenever we pass by the McDonald's place (and I think whenever he sees that clown, whatisname). Can we send him to earn some money for us as their poster boy?

:)

My yellow lamborghini, revenge of the cow and all things domestic

Over the last week, a stamp of approval was given to get a new expensive vacuum cleaner. Ohh, just because it was the colour of one of his favourite cars. The infamous yellow. Yep, even my little boy likes it too, and quickly sat on it while I was playing with the controls. My boy didn't quite go vrooom, but he helped me with the vacuum for a while until his arms got tired. Metal tubes this time, not plastic. And it's so quiet.

Five minutes in all to vacuum the carpet. The old one kept dying on me which I think because the bagless bag needs emptying. So it got overheated. Heh. That was supposed to be the hubby's job. Anyway, my part-time maid was on leave, and a couple of times of using the old vacuum cleaner drove me nuts. I'm a happy vacuumer now. :)

Will continue to vacuum the floor during weekdays. Hey, it suddenly became fun!

*****
I've also got my lovely table-top electric grill plus hot pot. Can only do one thing at one time though, but who cares eh? So I went and buy the corn-fed beef especially for grilling. And we had grilled beef plus pork (because I didn't realised the packet contained pork as well, kinda felt cheated really!) for dinner tonight. Plus special lemon dipping sauce, from my Japanese recipe book. Oh ... the beef was mouth-watering. Even writing it here now makes my mouth water.

After dinner, I realised the drawback of grilling in the dining room. The whole house is oily. Arrgh.

So it took half an hour to mop the floor, wash the dishes and mop the floor again.

Arrgh, I just remembered I haven't hang up the clothes! Arrgh.

Much ado about nothing

I haven't been able to log in to blogger recently, I think there's a problem with netscape. Now with IE, everything seems to be smooth going. But somehow something is irritating me. Using this verison of IE. Maybe I should upgrade to the latest version. Hmm. The alternative is to login via someone else's page. Hmm ... anyway, no worries, here I am.

If I could have written something a couple of days back, the title of my post would be 'The things that made me angry'. Oh, I had a whole list of things that made me angry. So angry in fact, that it's not going to be good for my health. Venting it out might be good, but writing it down may not always be a good idea, since it serves as a reminder how angry one can get. So perhaps it was a good thing I did not write them down after all.

Then again, I'm still angry because I couldn't quite vent them all out. The next best thing is to indulge in guilt-laden shopping spree. Yep, Tods sale is around the corner. I shall have my shopping therapy. Paid up my credit card bills in anticipation of spending big money. hahha. There's a feeling of recklessness. One bag and at least two pairs of shoes. How's that to soothe my anger?

Of course all the money I spend will be from my own account. Here's to pay-raise and some bonus. I think there is some bonus, isn't there?

*****
Anyway, I just came back from visiting my Granny in Malaysia. It was a short trip of two days and nights. In future, I must remember that my aunt has very low taste. Of course she meant well, but her idea of an excellent hotel and an excellent breakfast fell short of our expectations. One look at the place instantly placed it to at most two stars. I rolled my eyes and muttered under my breath to hubby who rolled his eyes at me. Hey, and it wasn't cheap for a two star hotel too. Grrr. I mean, I don't mind if I've to stay in a two star hotel, but I don't expect to pay so much for that sort of place! I'd rather spend slightly more and have at least a four star resort. Grr. Next time I shall book online myself. The other place wasn't too bad. It was new if nothing else. New places are always nice. Until it gets old.

Grandma is stil very strong, if not a little forgetful and blur. Baby allowed himself to be held for a short while. On the second visit, he pointedly decided that pretty girls are much preferred over old ladies. He played with his little aunties so delightfully, and had so much fun being the center of attraction with my cousins aged twelve and below. He obviously didn't care who were the ones giving him angpows. Nope, not interested right now, except for pretty girls who swoon and held his hands. Lady killer, him. No, make that pretty ladies only. heh.

My poor dear came back with a fever, a bad cough and runny nose. It's been almost a week, and he's still coughing away, with lots of phelgm too. It breaks one heart to hear him cough like that, plus wheezing away when the phelgm blocks his airways and he coughs till he throws up. It is the nights that are bad. Moreover, giving him his medicine is also a nightmare. One look at the bottle and he starts crying. The teaspoon comes out and he starts struggling. And flailing his little fists. We had no choice but to syringe it, hold him down, and force feed him. And he's smart, he wouldn't swallow and goes phuuuutt and onto our face and hair and clothes. Or he'll just use his fingers and dig all out. So we have to grip him tightly, and pour it down his throat. It just make it worse, for he cried and cried and cried and eventually he threw up everything. Last night he seemed to be better. Last night I tried giving him his medicine with a bit of a bribe. One hand holding chocolates, he nodded his head decisively. The other hand with the medicine bottle, he shook his head and cried. Oh he knew what he wanted definitely. So I tried a sleight of hand, but it could only work once. I finally resorted to putting the chocolate (a smear of it) at the tip of the spoon and poured the medicine into the rest of the spoon. He saw, he knew and he grumbled. And still grumbling, he conceded. I guess he agreed to compromise.

So today for the whole day he seemed to be much better and I missed his medicine all together. It's stressful for both him and myself when giving him medicine. Sometimes I really feel like a single mother. Alas, he seemed to be worse tonight, and a few mintues ago, we fed him his cough syrup and phelgm medicine again. I hope he'll be okay for the rest of the night.

*****
The other thing which irritates me is some inane remark made by someone at work. A couple of weeks back. One's special profession doesn't make one a god. Ask me if you want to know what inane remark that person make. I'm just grouchy, because baby is still sick, and I missed yoga on Monday.

My cleaning lady will not be around for the whole month. I just scrubbed my yard three days ago, and it's cleaner than ever she could clean. This morning I tidied up my little terrace garden. The plants are growing nicely. Hubby sees me watering the plants and commented that the poor plants undergo draughts and floods. I think I shall pour some bleach on the floor on Friday. My vacuum cleaner works for about ten minutes before it dies everytime. I think the bagless idiot needs to be cleaned. But I'm allergic to dust, so I shall get a new vacuum cleaner instead. It's someone else's job to clear out the dust in the vacuum cleaner, but that is never going to happen. I shall get a better cleaner. Besides the dust and hair always get stuck in the duster (or whatever you call that thingy). Yep, certainly due for a new vacuum cleaner. :)

Other wants: a hotplate grill and steamboat. I've spied a tiger. I thought of getting one of those electronic rice cooker, but the sales lady said it takes like 45 minutes to cook rice. Hello?! Forty-five? You gotta be joking. I'll save my money then. Must get a new hood. Actually I'd like to change my whole kitchen. But that's another story for another time. Have been slowly putting things away too. The house looks just slightly neater now. Just ever so slightly. It's still too messy really. I'd like to visit Ikea too before the holidays end, but the next week seems to be looming up fast, and next week equals no more holidays.

*****
One last thing. The use of the miso paste I bought in the last post was a failure. Must. read. recipe. again. and. carefully. too.

Play. Start.

Blogger login seems to have a bit of a problem. Everytime it kicks me out of my browser when I tries to login. Have resorted to some tricks to get in. *sigh*

It's been a busy and tiring period of time. I'm really glad it's holidays now, although my first week is so burnt. Nevertheless, it'll be nice to be able to spend more time with my baby dearest. He's growing up so fast and oh-so-cute. He talks a lot sometimes, and has a really cute sense of humour. He'll do things like pretend to give you something, then take his hand back and chuckles. Or he'll hide behind me and do peek-a-boo at his daddy. And he'll hug and kiss you when you ask him to. The kisses come with a big smacking sound too. :)

Dearest baby my big boy is now fast asleep though.

The Great Sale has started, but I don't really have anything I wanted to buy. Thought of getting some nice kitchen stuffs, but don't really feel like buying anything especially when it's so crowded. I hate crowded places. Perhaps get some nice storage stuffs to make the house look neater and nicer, but lazy to go shop actually. This year, I've decided I'll save my money and wait for Tods sale. It's time again to get a new Tods bag and maybe even shoes. Heh heh. I spied a white Tods bag. Hmmm .... Then again, usually I'll end up not using them because they're just too damn heavy.

A friend called asking to catch up for my birthday. That day is long past, and somehow it just didn't feel very sincere in asking me out. Seems like she was more interested in telling me someone had a girlfriend. I wonder if she was disappointed that it was not her being the girlfriend. I used to tease her about him, but she always adamently insisted that she wasn't interested. So why is she still so interested in his love life? Am I missing something here?

My birthday itself was quite disappointing. Nothing much happened, and to make things worse, my phone broke into two parts on the day itself. I was one week without phone then. Somehow some things seemed rather forced. The birthday cake didn't arrive in time, only one week later, and three hours late. Still, it was a lovely birthday cake, and I left one bite-size in the fridge which I consumed five days later, and boy, that really tasted good. Baby dearest celebrated my birthday with me, and looking at the photos, one wonders whose birthday exactly it was. I bet six more months later, he'll be all ready to blow out the candles on his birthday cake. I haven't really bought anythine really nice for myself this time. Perhaps something T might be nice. I've spent a bomb on my face care, and don't really feel like buying anything else. But face care doesn't really count as birthday presents right? *bleah*
Yep, something T might be nice, but $900 for a piece of silver is just too steep. Silver oxidises too fast. I wonder how Wen can stand it. So we'll wait for the Tods sale. Yep yep.

On animes. Ouran High School Host Club is such a kick. I wondered why I thought it wasn't nice at all last time. I laughed and laughed. My cheeks felt rather tired after that. The rest are still on a weekly basis. Dennou Coil is really really interesting. It reminds me of Studio Ghibi's type of animes.

Other news, just bought a packet of miso paste. Time to try out some new recipes! :)

Bits and Pieces

The other day I wanted to blog, and tried logging in but my computer kept hanging. I'm still not sure why that happened, but I'm glad that today I managed to get through! It's been quite a while since I've written anything. I'm still lurking around reading other people's blogs and being super duper busy otherwise.

My boy is growing up very fast now. He's a big little boy, and he's super duper cute. :) Well, everyone says so. Heh. Here are some pictures of him I managed to take recently. Nowadays it's quite hard to take any pics of him since he's always in motion.


My dearest boy trying his hand at housework. See the mess he makes?


He loves sweeping the floor. I must show him this when he's older and tell him that he loves sweeping the floor. heh heh.


Awww ... actually I hate to complain, but after he swept the floor for me, he left lots of broom hair on the floor. Grr. And the broom isn't very clean. Looks like I have to buy him a broom for him. A real broom no less. When am I going Daiso again? :)

*****
My baby boy all ready to go swimming!

I guess he'd rather just play with the water.

Kick Wireless Ass

Oh yeah. I didn't know that it was free. Yep, the best part of anything is always when it's free eh? I didn't even know that such things existed. Not until PM came over and started surfing on her laptop. Whoohoo, now I'm on it too! Hip hip hooray!

Of course the downside of it is that I can only open one window. Anything more than one hangs my computer and/or slows the whole system down. But heck, it's free, so who cares if one can only open one window?

It's free!!! And it's much faster than the 56.6k modem running on telephone lines. And I got connection with my laptop! Yay!! :)

It kills a bit of boredom, but it certainly gives me a good break. Now I can surf on my laptop. Anywhere. Well, almost anywhere. But most happily, in the clinic where I am right now.

It's 8pm, and I'm hungry. Both of us had not have our dinner yet. They came one by one, and lots of odd screwballs around tonight. Some drove hard bargains, but with firmness, they don't get what they want. Those people are really annoying. We don't need such people here. Shoo.

I spent the whole day on data-entry. Keying in invoices and stuffs. All these should be done month by month. Thank goodness, it's still less than a year. Will have to be more diligent in keying in then. Am supposed to do some work of my own, but now my eyes are tired. And I feel tired. What would be nice for dinner?

I dream of the Japanese place Wen and I went for her birthday. I dream of the riceballs we had. I love their riceballs! If only someone can go there and pack some for me. Hear my tummy? It's growling. :(

Anyway, I'm still suffering from post-GH blues. No more GH to look forward to. *sigh* Some kind soul is doing some novel translation snippets, but it's too little! Too little!! *sob sob* :(

To destress, I need to get out and do more shopping! *bleah*

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! :)