Watering plants have become a daily routine for D & I since our landscaping for the garden was completed abt two weekends ago... It's pretty time consuming but the imagery of chio willows and a thriving spice garden has kept us pretty conscientious so far. Unfortunately the weather this week or two has been quite scorching n so the new plants aren't doing that well. Tonight - I discovered a snail at the spice garden... Being a gardening idiot I had to google before I was able to ascertain if it were a friend or foe. Alas, it's no friend of our garden and so I got brave D to displace it, ie gently toss out of our garden. I then decided to further inspect the sPice garden soil with my iPhone LED torchlight and to my horror discovered a small community of 6 - 8 snails all ready to feast on my various young herbs! Was really grossed out n consequently the tossing out became a bit more violent... Upon checking up further on my garden enemies and where they come from I realized that they lay eggs and are hermaphrodites.. Bleah.. Ok I suppose that is enough unsolicited info abt snails anyone can take for a night. I just hope I don't find more tomorrow :(

Blueberry pancakes for breakfast!

This morning I decided to try out a oatmeal pancake recipe, but alas, when I got to the neighbourhood NTUC I realised that they did not stock buttermilk! So I got a ready-to-use pancake mix instead heh. And two boxes of blueberries on offer! And made some blueberry pancakes! 

I happily laid the finished product on the nice blue plate we bought from Vancouver, and carried them up to my balcony, newly lined with artifical grass... and yay I get a relatively summery feel right at home :)

Home-made egg tarts and frozen yogurt! 

I decided to try out my 8-yr old egg tart recipe this afternoon; and thankfully it's still pretty good! This is my first time trying to make them again after a really long while. Was afraid I'd burn them so I took them out a little earlier. But seems like I can keep them in the oven for a couple more min the next time, to give a more burnt/ crusty look :) Wld also like to figure out how to make portuguese egg tarts..

 Egg tarts and milk - perfect for an afternoon snack! 

 I also decided to try out my ice cream maker (thks to Jeannice!) - since it's my first time using it, I attempted to do something basic - vanilla frozen yogurt. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be freezing very well in my freezer after I took it out from the machine. Maybe it's got to do with the type of yogurt i bought :( 

 

 Was quite surprised that the ice-cream maker doesn't come with a solid cover...  But the huge "spout" allows you to see the ice-cream making process. It's also designed to allow us to pour in toppings in the last 5 min as the ice-cream gets thicker! Shall try other ice-cream flavours next time!

Be Kind to Sticker Lady! 

I often look down on myself for feeling neutral about many things most of the time. But yesterday the "Sticker Lady" saga really got me rather upset and puzzled about SG's strict vandalism laws. Basically this lady decided to stick some humorous stickers at various pedestrian crossings (at the button you press to get the green man to appear). She also spray painted "My Grandfather Road" on a public road (incidentally at the junction leading to the MND building) and "My Grandfather building" on a public building. The punishment? The police arrested her yesterday for acts of vandalism and she's currently out on bail.

Netizens are lobbying for MHA to move the charge from one of vandalism (where she can be fined up to $2000, or jailed up to 3 years, or both) to that of an act of public nuisance (in which case the penalty is a fine of up to $1,000). As at now, some 12,500 netizens have signed the petition and it seems to be going strong.

This "case" is ongoing but I just hope the authorities don't go down the harsh road - in the first place, isn't it subjective what counts as vandalism/ graffiti and what counts as street art? Surely they can close one eye in this case, since her "vandalism" was pretty harmless mah. Am quite curious how this case will be assessed and plays out over the next few days. D thinks that a harsh penalty shld be in place as deterrence; but somehow this rather practical reasoning did not go down very well with me haha.

The long weekend in pictures

I had a good long weekend, which began with a little floral surprise from D! We spent some time on Sat morning putting up some of our photos at the wall leading to the kitchen... and the Hanoi propaganda poster at our washing machine area. Home improvements are still under way. The living room/ dining area will be somewhat complete by mid June, when the new sofa and sideboard arrive. The rooms upstairs look a lot more unfinished; and they will prob continue to look somewhat blah till later part of the year :P The grass on our balcony floor shld be up by this weekend if all goes well though!

 

 Before and After - Kitchen Wall/ Kitchen!

 the tiny visitor with huge eyes - ready to jump

 Cute popsicle containers that I got from Holland V over lunchtime today!

Ingrid Michaelson is coming to perform in SG!

http://is.asia-city.com/events/news/ingrid-michaelson-perform-singapore-first-time-september-10

I'm really excited 'cos I think she's cool and we used her song "The Way I Am" for my church wedding opening video ;) Now I must stalk the SISTIC website so that the tics dun get sold out before I know it!

And yay I am on leave tmr!!!  :)

Half my weekend was burnt working on someone's speech for tomorrow afternoon; but it was otherwise productive as we managed to find 2 more dining chairs and a sideboard for the dining area at discounted prices :)

Someone also shared this Christian song at service today and I thought the song and lyrics were beautiful. These two stanzas especially spoke to me - I suppose it's true that we learn through trials and not-so-pleasant experiences. But it's usually on hindsight that we appreciate the lessons they taught us.

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel you near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if each promise from Your Word is not enough
And all the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise?

Last Sun, I spent 3 hours and $80 attending a sewing workshop organised by Books Actually... They had a tie up with someone to do this craft workshop. I felt like I was ripped off for paying so much to sew a little pouch I can easily buy for like less than $20 online; but oh well, I was trying to explore and made something concrete out of a few pieces of cloth!

 Today's dinner & dessert!

We attempted to cook the 2nd time this evening, drawing inspiration from a Food & Travel recipe for our soba with tomatoes dish. The dou4miao2 and shitake mushrooms was an impromptu addition to introduce more veg into the meal :) D also baked some chicken thighs with crispy skin but unfortunately that didn't turn out too photogenic so no pics of it here heh :P

A yummy and nutritious dinner - all thanks to my hubby :)

I was also quite excited to chance upon an easy lava cake recipe and attempted to make lava cake... Alas, one of my lava cakes decided to really erupt and all the lava flowed out 3 min before I was supposed to get the cakes out!

The midway 'eruption' made me slightly frantic and so I ended up leaving the lava cakes in the oven longer than I shld have and all the 'lava' got toasted in the end :( So there was no nice molten chocolate in the end but a pictorially lava-ish cake... FAIL! Nmind as it was kinda funny; and since this is easy I shall try to make it again!

Someone's DIY party blog post inspired me to try making my own party fans and hats this morning. Am supposed to help out with D's nephew's bday party in June - the art part. And this can be one idea! Thought it might be cool to use recycled materials so as to teach kids to be more environmentally conscious. Sadly my fan is quite flimsy so nice to see but not so nice to play with till I find a more hardy solution heh.

These were flowers we bought for Mother's Day last Sun - bright and cheerful :)

I made some home-made barley drink this evening for falling-sick D and felt v proud of myself! Haha. It turned out to be quite simple; just that being unfamiliar with our induction hob, wasn't too sure which power level to leave it at and the over-efficient cooker caused the water to overspill again.. :P But one whole pot with half a packet of barley only yielded me two cups of barley water.. Think I shld put less barley and more water next time heh.

We also i-roboted our living room floor for the very first time (all thanks to j & s)! The machine turned out to be a lot noisier than expected; but was amused how cleverly it could go around (quite closely) the legs of our nice green chair. It seems to go around in random spirals and knocks its head all the time; floor seems clean enough though it failed to wipe away the footprint a guest had left at my living room floor tile :P

I have been quite a crybaby lately..

This evening, I suddenly started tearing in the middle of dinner and got my family very worried. My mum thought that my sis had said something mean to me, which made me cry. But I started tearing uncontrollably after sis' narration of a "bullying" episode in sch - it's her bday today and some ex-students (now in Sec 1) decided to visit her and got her a cake. Somehow many colleagues in the staffroom got to know about this (cos the students created a mini commotion) and they were not very nice about it. One even sarcastically commented, "Is this for Mother's Day"? My sis took all this immature and mean behaviour in her stride and tried to share the cake with others; but seemed like many of them remained jealous and pricky. I felt so unjust and terrible for my sis - to have such a nasty episode happen on her birthday and almost no one come to her defence.. It must have been so upsetting. And I didn't even buy her a proper bday present due to silly excuses like busyness with work.

I hope that much better things will happen to dear sis cos she deserves much better!

The weekend has gone decently well; but there's less than 25% of it left :( We bought some egg tarts from NEX for breakfast today! Was very happy there were still a few with the green tea crust available. The crust was pretty crumbly and egg custard soft and yummy; am inspired to make egg tarts again some time in the near future, with the foolproof 7-yr old recipe that Jacqui gave me eons ago. I need to find it first though heh.

We were really gluttony and had 4 egg tarts for breakfast heh. Two green tea, one original and one orange choc.

I also attended a church song comp yest and made a little recycled corrugated board sign for one of my cell grp members who got into the semi-finals... Quite pleased with my little art project - though it will have to go into the recycling bin (minus the ribbon and decal sticker) tonight :P

At Home on Labour Day :)

I made simple breakfast for us this morning - scrambled eggs and toast with blueberry jam and butter... and fresh blueberries in our cute Anthropologie bowl :P I discovered that the little egg roaster we got for our induction plate was not induction plate-compatible; and so had to use the huge pan for the eggs in the end :( Shall go shopping for another one soon.

My family also came over for lunch - and we got mum a yummilicious apple caramello cake from Cedele! There are bits of apple inside; with caramel cream and lotsa toasted oats, sliced almonds etc on the top. We finished half the cake at one sitting :P

We had our first mini cookout and used the oven for the first time this afternoon! The recipes from the book that C sent me were so tempting it made me feel like baking again! So I decided to buy new bake tools from Courts/Ikea yest and attempted a simple honey wheat pound cake recipe.. It was decently delicious; though the grainy wholemeal kinda texture may not appeal to everyone. The sides were also a bit chao-da :( After the dessert/breakfast cake was done, D attempted a everything-goes-in nutritious salmon cum roasted veggie dish, which turned out quite tasty though a tad too salty :P

I feel a little 'lousy' and weak as I have been feeling teary everytime I leave my parents' place to come back home... I wasn't even so lousy when I studied overseas; so not sure where the sudden abundance of sentimentality came from. Everytime we go back to eat, am sure to come home with some treats/ fruits/ or items for the next day's breakfast. I occasionally brood over my lack of friends/ a social network; but I really ought to be content and give thanks for my very nice family! And that most of the friends I do keep in touch with/ the couple of colleagues I know well enough are all very nice people!

Durian season in the heart of Toa Payoh

This afternoon while walking to the koka mee coffeeshop for lunch, I once again walked past the eye-catching durian stall that appeared last week. The rows and rows of neatly displayed durians; the yellow sea of durian meat in styrofoam boxes on the tables and the basketfuls of durian shells tucked away at one side just triggered a photojournalistic urge in me... I am not exactly a fan of durians, but this durian stall in the middle of the row of HDB shops at Toa Payoh had this very authentically local flavour about it (pun not intended) that its very presence somehow made me feel happy... Like it suddenly made that 20sm of space feel and look very Singaporean.

After lunch, I wanted to go back to sneak a picture of the stall; but it was just too difficult to snap a picture directly in front of the lady who was enthusiastically calling out to passers-by to buy the durians... and so I sheepishly stole a bad picture of another more ordinary-looking and less visually appealing durian stall. There were in fact 3 of them within like a 15m radius - I suppose it's durian season!

I'm actually supposed to be catching up on some work (to make up for being slow in office) NOW but there's zero motivation... Am feeling more at home at my new home; though the stealthy strolling of neighbours' cats (that had stolen their way into my garden earlier in the night) past my living room sliding doors towards the gate (as I laze in front of the TV) will take some getting used to!

The sky has been rumbling and lighting up (without actually raining) for more than 2 hours now. Not that I am complaining, 'cos the cool weather has sent in some nice breeze into my study room... where I now sit on a $9 little Ikea stool in front of my iMac. It feels nice to be back home, back in Singapore :)

A walk down memory lane

I hadn't returned to Berkeley since I graduated in May 2006; and part of the reason why I decided to visit SF for the honeymoon was also to kinda revisit the sch and check out places I used to stay and hang out at.. Many of them were still very recognisable, though the shop mix at certain streets have not too surprisingly changed since. There is now Daiso on Telegraph Ave! Feels odd but kinda nice for students i guess. Was rather disappointed that Intermezzo burnt down last year though; and I doubt I'd ever get to taste my fav sandwiches and salads again.. :(

D commented that my campus felt really green; with really nice trees and all. Somehow I never really noticed nor fully appreciated all the trees in campus... but it really is a very pleasant campus. I wanted to re-taste all the crap food that made me fat - like the sinful cream-cheese rich black-bottom muffins at Moffitt Library cafe; but in the end I only treated myself to the original bagel at Hummingbird Cafe. Sadly it wasn't really the BEST BAGEL IN THE WORLD anymore; because I forgot to ask the guy to toast it nice and soft! It was still quite yummy though. We even hunted down ABC Cafe at SF Chinatown, in search of the cheap egg tarts... they weren't that cheap anymore; but still tasted alright. Crystal Jade egg tarts win hands down; but I suppose that's not the point :P

Since we were in Berkeley, I also revisited 1230 Josephine St... the walk from the Shattuck bus stop was unexpectedly long though; perhaps cos I always used to drive home and seldom walked home; and from one bus-stop too early! My memory of street names and their relative distances had grown hazy... and somehow tog with the sense of familiarity was a layer of foreign-ness... of knowing this place; yet not quite knowing it anymore. I think the place will never be as nice and memorable as I remembered it to be anymore; certainly not when the people I hung out with so often are no longer there. Actually I also had many long stretches of solitude in the campus - studying on my own, eating lunch on my own, walking from class to class on my own... 

 

Today is Day 2.5 of 'new life' at our new place and thankfully our living room area is no longer a warzone of clothes and random stuff! TV and internet also got set up this morning, and this is my first time logging in from a very bare and messy study room at our new place. I went home to pick up some more stuff + iMac earlier this afternoon, and I was unexpectedly terribly sentimental about moving out. Somehow looking at my little messy haven and nice comfy bed just managed to make me cry as I was packing... I remember wanting to move out when I first returned from the States; but somehow the warmness of living with my family has won me over and I was sad to "leave"... Dear mum also packed me lots of fruits, warm chicken soup etc to bring home with me; though I could very well get fruits from the mini NTUC just 3 min walk away at the HDB void deck... I hope I adjust well to staying on the ground floor, where cockroaches, rats and pooing cats can now easily intrude...

I finally caved in to temptation to buy a full pint of ice cream from the supermart just now... So we got Ben & Jerry's new flavour red velvet cake n before I knew it, a third of the pint was gone!! :( it's been a while but I suppose I remain perfectly capable of finishing a pint on my own. Gd thing D was more sane n helped relocate tub of ice cream back into the fridge ;) The honeymoon is turning out to be a comfort-food trip of sorts... :( I really need to work away the calories when we get home this Sun!