A month in cakes

It's been quite busy the past one month - after 25 cake orders and one pop-up sale I think I am ready for a break! And so we are off to a holiday in Croatia/ London (mainly Croatia) to recharge :) And I hope to come home refreshed and full of good ideas for my Christmas menu! Though tiring, I am quite thankful to have been blessed with decently good business and hopefully the orders will keep coming in.

To family and friends who got something from me, thanks for being so nice and supportive. I really appreciate it; and certainly won't be mad if you choose to order cakes from cake shops from time to time :P Guess most of us appreciate some kind of variety/novelty once in a while, but do help me to spread the word!

Here's a few photos of the month past, in cakes (all photos taken with my iPhone) :)

Part of an order of 4 items for 3 birthday boys - raspberry white chocolate muffins and chamomile lavender cupcakes

A cream cheese rosette chocolate cake for E's mum's birthday. Made this more diabetic-friendly with less sugar and special low glycemic index (GI) sugar, since her dad is on a diabetic diet.

Our little pop-up sale at Merely Ice Cream on 21 Sep. The husband was nice and supportive, and helped to co-man the little stall the entire afternoon!

This has to be the cutest cake I made in the past month - a rilakkuma strawberry shortcake for a 1-yr old girl :)

A dark chocolate olive oil cake an ex-colleague bought to thank her son's teacher for PSLE coaching. 

D's friends have been pretty supportive of my baked goods, and one of them pre-ordered three things I was going to bake for my pop-up sale. And so I spent the whole of today baking; and felt like dying collapsing at the end of the day. Achy feet, backache, rough hands - so this is what full-time baking feels like! Sigh - this is also my most lowly-paid job since I started working!

I also spent close to an hour this morning trying to figure out how to get my new Cuisinart food processor to chop nuts nicely, only to realise at the end of it that I am still better off hand-chopping my pecans and walnuts. The food processor (even at the chop setting) is far too powerful and chops my nuts into minuscule pieces quickly (so you don't feel any nut crunch when biting into the cake), or if I don't chop them so much they remain large and unevenly chopped. Zesting is another task I now do regularly (since I like things fresh) - and i think it's about time to get a better/ more ergonomically designed zester so as to be nicer to my hands/ fingers :P

It was satisfying though to pack all my lovingly baked goods away nicely into boxes etc, but baking full-time is really tiring. Perhaps I would get used to it - I can't possibly be giving up after 2 weeks :P Anyways, today was an unusually xiong1 day - though it would be worse on Friday preparing for the 21 Sept bake sale. What did I get myself into?! OK I shall quit complaining and try to recuperate a little the next two days and plan less physically demanding tasks! :)

The new improved and beautified version of my date pecan walnut loaf (made with spelt flour!) with cream cheese frosting and toasted nuts

Chamomile lavender cupcakes, blueberry lemon almond cake + date pecan loaf

This is my first week as an OMO cake lady; and thankfully I've been relatively motivated and disciplined so far! I have to admit too that it's great to have a flexible schedule, and not have to waste my time and energy getting upset over annoying people you cannot change. Of course, it can get a little lonely at times, but that's something I can still manage ok :)

I've finalised and sent in my namecard design for printing, and also started to think about what to offer at my pop-up bakery later this month! Also started experimenting possible new offerings, one of which is likely to be the earl grey lavender cupcake with honey swiss meringue buttercream frosting. I also want to create a minimalist Japanese-influenced photography style for my cakes, and this is the first of many photos that I hope to take!

Today I 心血来潮, and decided to drag mum, sis and D to go watch 我的朋友，我的同学，我爱过的一切 together. I don't really know many 新谣 songs, but it reminded me how Chinese songs and lyrics can be really nice and meaningful :) Coincidentally, the movie also made several references to my favorite quote in one of my favorite books! The ending was quite blah though :P

Anyways, I think this is the nicest song in the movie.

It's been a packed but fulfilling long weekend :)

Thurs and Fri were mostly spent fulfilling cake orders - actually it all started on Wed night. Finished one cake then and then another cake cum 12 cupcakes the next morning. The cake marathon continued on Fri where I spent half the day making a cake for a church friend's one-year old child. While I generally prefer to do simple/ elegant-looking cakes, somehow this cute elephant cake won me quite a few new fans. And I found myself in a difficult position - perhaps I should learn to be more flexible, and it seems like anything that will make kids happy is likely to sell pretty well...

We also did a short staycation at New Majestic hotel on Sat night; and explored the familiar neighbourhood of Tanjong Pagar after dinner. Quite a few cool-looking places have popped up in the area since my MND days, and we managed to get some seats for brunch at a nice new cafe in the area this morning. Our Sunday ended on a shiok but unhealthy note at Satay Club besides Gardens by the Bay :)

So sad that this is the end of the nice long weekend; but oh well, I shouldn't be complaining since I've taken the plunge to leave my job and it wouldn't be that long before I regain my flexible schedule again :)

Useful quote for the day:

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves - Carl Jung

It felt good earlier this month to see my bank account balance stop bleeding, but somehow something feels amiss; and I have been feeling a little down about having to work with people who stress me up, who don't appear to value/ like me for who I am, and over a hundred other trivial reasons. Despite the down times, there were occasional rainbows - eg. when my Dad-of-few-words tried to give me some work/life advice. Dad also claims that these tough times will make me stronger, since I'd been spoilt and overprotected by them since young. I don't necessarily disagree with his assessment of my work situation, but only wished it could be a bit easier. Then again, not everyday is bad, and I should just stop whining and be thankful for the happy things I can be happy about! :P

Weekends feel really precious now and I have been having Sun night blues the past few weeks. The work week really tires me out and though I wish I could rest on the weekends I am still trying to keep the little cake business going and so I haven't been resting very much either. Was very 'in the zone' yesterday and baked 3 cakes - 2 for sale and 1 for self-consumption... :) Hoping very hard that most weekends can be as work-free as the one just past, and that I'd soon be able to find a nice balance between work and pursuit of personal interests!

It's a quiet weekend for me - with D off to fancy places for his study trip and me home alone and trying to reconcile and settle into my new (working) life.

Baking for cake orders yesterday was pretty therapeutic on Fri night after a self-assessed not so good day; but the 2nd leg of the baking on Sat morning/ afternoon got somewhat out of hand and caused some temporary anxiety ha. Thankfully all went pretty well in the end and the 2nd weekend order post starting work was successfully delivered. Am in two minds about continuing with baking, esp since the new job is likely to be heavy-going, but I suppose I will just work at it for as long as I can take it!

Also had a leisurely Father's Day lunch with family, and caught up with their adventures at RWS Marine Life earlier in the week. I feel like I have been growing more emotional/sentimental with 'age' and simple pleasures like spending time and catching up with family make me feel contented and happy. Maybe it's also this desire to want to remain connected/ close despite not being physically close anymore.

I have pretty mixed feelings about my new job. While there are several issues I genuinely find interesting (eg. how to attract the really needier ones and not the health conscious types to go for health screening ), some self-imposed stress and little insecurities are getting to me again. And so it's been a bit of a tough start... Must keep reminding myself to be positive and care less about what others think!

It's back to the daily grind for me this week and it feels like my pace of life tripled overnight. It's been ages since I last saw 30 new emails overnight and honeymoon period was practically non-existent :( on the other hand, it was nice to learn new things - just better if there's a bit more time to absorb..!

Now to destress - am on my way to a Jay Chou concert compliments of nice sis! :)

This will be my last week of rest! It suddenly feels surreal to start work again, and a little part of me feels a little worried if I will suddenly find myself unable to get used to working :P I suppose it will be rather tiring initially, but will probably get used to it soon enough.

The last week also feels very precious and I thought quite hard what I might want to do in the last week. In the end, I couldn't really think of anything I REALLY REALLY wanted to do (eg. check out some corner of Singapore worth visiting) before starting work. Maybe it's a sign that I have rested long enough heh. I figured that I will probably continue with some baking experiments, try to spend time with my parents, read a little and just chill. And maybe hunt for a chio laptop bag so that I won't have to lug the ugly black one that typically comes with the issued laptop :)

I have been feeling quite murderous towards grasshoppers lately - after finding numerous grasshopper droppings on my hydrangea pots and even some stuck on my front (sliding) doors!

Thought I had seen the last of the 2 resident grasshoppers (which I caught and threw out) but I discovered a third one this morning!!! I had better double the pesticide dosage. Sadly the damage is already done and it annoys me immensely to see black speckles all over the leaves, flower petals etc.

I hate garden pests!!

After some 3 months of procrastination, I finally got down to taking a new photo for my new IC; and uploading various scanned files for the online application. After a few failed attempts to upload photos, I finally succeeded in submitting the application. YAY. And my new address can finally and concurrently be updated haha.

The job search has also come to an end, and I will probably be back to an office life in a couple of weeks' time. I think it's about time even though I still haven't quite figured out what I really want to do. I suppose it will have to be an ongoing process and who knows, perhaps the new job will help me figure that out too.

My baking may take a back seat, but I will try my best to keep the little flame alive! I've been pretty hardworking in my kitchen - at least in the past week or two :) Check out some of my Mother's Day bakes on my food blog or on my FB page :)

I really need to exercise more and watch my diet henceforth :(

Before I knew it, it's already been a week since we came home!

In the week past, besides doing loads of laundry, I went for my first jog in a month (yes, sigh), checked out Tsukada Nojo's curious Bijin Nabe (collagen hot pot) with J, S & 'M', baked 3 cakes (one of which was for sale!) and resumed job hunting efforts. 

In other (happy) news, my little FB cake page is gaining more followers. Help me spread the word too if you like what you see! Also - head over to my food blog for some shots of a lovely cafe we visited in Queenstown during our NZ trip :)

We were blessed with lovely weather for our horseride through some Lord of The Rings film locations this morning in Glenorchy, a scenic small town near Queenstown, NZ.

Lunch at a local cafe was fantastic - had a most delicious grilled vegetable sandwich and chicken salad under the warm sun outdoors :) We also treated ourselves to a sinfully chocolatey but heavenly-tasting slice of brownie. Aargh, at this rate am pretty sure I will return home with a few extra pounds...

We had some luck with the weather yesterday and D got to visit his Hobbiton movie set after all :) today was a little cloudy and occasionally drizzly, but we managed to catch some really pretty glimpses of autumn during our long drive!

It's Day 3 of our New Zealand trip and we haven't been too lucky with the weather. It's been raining everyday, even in Whakatane - supposedly NZ's sunniest city. And so even our plans to visit a volcano island tmr morning had to be ditched :(

The first anniversary trip is starting to remind me of my honeymoon, weather-wise! It's not supposed to be raining all the time now! Hopefully it will turn sunnier, warmer soon..

In between job-hunting and trip-planning the past week, I suddenly came down with fever on Sunday afternoon - and it went up to a high of 40C last night! The fever has been on and off (typically in 3-4 hour blocks); and when the fever is really bad I just cannot muster any energy to do anything at all.. Though I seem to have one/ two other symptoms dengue patients seem to exhibit, we are praying hard it is not dengue... It's too early to tell though. Aargh :(