mood shopping-deprived


Hey, Gorgeous.

I was just doing some random blog-hopping and chanced upon some bag scoop on Fashion Nation. Actually not just bag scoop per se, because what really happened was, my invisible bag-accustomised antennae went DING DING DING furiously when I saw these PS1 bags by Proenza Schouler.

In mustard

In Sand

Labels: mumble jumbles

mood sleepy


Le week-end

On Saturday I spent the afternoon making Italian meatballs. Found some recipes for the Swedish variety and I want to make it soon! Making meatballs is such a physical thing. You have to roll them into balls one by one, and sometimes laziness really gets the better of me. Haha.

There was an MPH warehouse sale at expo last weekend so I plopped by to take a look-see after my Sunday ministry in church. I think I probably went into some sort of a trance in there because in retrospect, how I managed to browse around book-after-book for THREE solid hours is really quite a feat. I felt a bit like a little girl in a candy shop. I think I sort of let loose a bit cos I figured that well, I should live a little. This particular internal dialogue happens often, by the way.







I think some of my happiest buys were the Donna Hay magazines which were selling for only 4 bucks each! A Lonely Planet Bluelist 2008 for those stuck-in-Singapore restless moments, and another Murakami book which I gleefully fished out of a box of trashy paperbacks, like finding gold in a sack of rice. I even got two children books for my tuition kid. And all of those cost me only a little more than fifty bucks.

And they were in mint condition, not dog-eared copies falling off their jackets. So satisfying, those buys! :)

Labels: shopping, The domestic goddess at work

mood full


Couch Potato

There is Amazing Race, Project Runway and America's Next Top Model back to back tonight! I am SO indulging tonight :)

Just made a big pot of Spicy Mac n Cheese with Jalapeno Pepper. *burp*

Two days ago I had a casual conversation with the HR Exec and I was just saying that perhaps it is a good idea to get a toaster over in the lunch room. That way, people can bring pizza or sandwiches for lunch and get to toast them. She said That's a good idea, we can suggest it. And just this afternoon, I sauntered unsuspectingly into the lunch room (my favourite place in the whole workplace by the way) and BEHOLD. A brand spanking new Phillips oven toaster sitting sweetly beside the microwave. YAYNESS!

Sara and I were already thinking up lunch ideas so that we can utilise that shiny new thing. *rubs hands in glee*

I gave away some carrot cake and recipes last week. And I suspect I am slowly but surely spreading my lethal domestic bugs in my workplace. haha.

Labels: The domestic goddess at work

mood calm


No more.

To your last post which I just read, I only have this to say. It's funny how you have so much insults to hurl now. Granted, those were written before you read the email. But that you had pages of abusive comments purposefully meant to cause hurt (explaining was beside the point), while knowing fully well that I was never in the light of things at that time, really leaves much to think about. Regardless of email or no email. Was I supposed to be in calm acceptance of a mere four-liner ultimatum? So it seems that apparently noone else has the right to be angry without being lambasted like a criminal.

So, NO. I do not appreciate being attacked left right and centre like a punching bag, not when it comes a couple of years too late. And NO. You had no business throwing your insults around, because things wouldn't even be what they were if they weren't so mishandled from the very beginning. I have things to say for every single accusation you have, but I guess now they don't matter anymore. And I will not bother with reciprocating your insults, because I will not stoop so low. So this is me responding to those name-callings.

Thanks for eventually bothering to clear things. If I could turn back time, there isn't a single thing I would have been able to change, because I still maintain that your feedback is way overdue. I am not sorry at all, and I am "very maturely" telling you now that I do not agree with what you think, because in retrospect, there were many occasions I can think of where things should have just been resolved there and then, or at least talked about. And all this would have been so damn unnecessary. I guess noone is to blame. Things just happened because probably that's how it's meant to be.

Yay, it is over now. I don't think I want to know anything more. Not now, not ever.



P/S: It's sarcasm. Not sacarsm :)

Labels: emo

mood confused


Disposable

It is funny, how to some people friendship is like playing a game on PSP. You ride on the highs and lows, and then you get bored because the characters get uninteresting, or you mess up, and to get rid of it you just hit Game Over. Just like that. When the least one can do is give a decent explanation and not just an effing sorry excuse.

You're right. Probably not worth fixing. Because I am not a floor mat for you to trample upon and leave crumbs of your growing pains.

Labels: emo

mood


Never felt so stupid before.

Tonight, a part of me just died.

mood blah


Drag

I've been a bit depressed lately because there is a collective negative energy all around me that is getting to me just by sheer diffusion. I come home and see a stressed up sister mugging for A levels, I talk on the phone to a stressed up boyfriend churning out essays, rushing for submissions and making models, I go to work and again the air is thick with a general tired resignation over monotonous routine, unsympathetic bosses, troublesome experiments, and boring food.

Doesn't help that I'm already feeling rather crappy myself. And it is moments like these that I feel so drained and completely devoid of inspiration. It's really hard, this thing. At this rate I'm gonna start getting wrinkles and a saggy face soon. Is it this place? Or is it just me?

Damn it, maybe it's just the hormones.

Thank God, Jakarta tomorrow! Bubye.

Labels: emo

mood silly


Cheap Thril No. XXX

I had been eyeing this Lock 'n Lock glass container for a while but always resisted the frivolous urge because I thought it is stupid to spend good money on a lunch container. But just a few days ago I received some news about plastic containers releasing dioxins when heated in the microwave and how it causes cancer and all (and I always heat my plastic containers in the workplace microwave for lunch).
So I thought, what are we waiting for, right? Of course I went ahead and bought it. I would totally try harder to live longer if it only costs $12.90 and looks this nice :)


Edit: Just read another plastic-related news here. Hmm something to think about.

Labels: mumble jumbles

mood sleepy


Becoming super domesticated, omg.

I had a really great weekend, generally speaking. The Great Eastern Run came and went, and I'm still alive. Ran about 4.5 km of the route and walked 0.5 km of it. Not too shabby at all, and I had a really good, long sleep that sunday night.

I'm a bit too darn lazy to write anything nowadays, but to cut the long story short, for the long weekend I really did a lot of cooking and baking, I kid you not. In fact, at this rate my blog might just become a food blog.

Saturday lunch, I did tuna pasta salad. Sunday, I baked my pumpkin cake! It was alright, but the pumpkin taste doesn't rock my socks enough that I'd be rushing to make it again. For dinner, I attempted such an elaborate feat in the kitchen (by my standard, at least), just because hey, I had all the time in the world. I used my Byron Bay coconut chilli sauce and mixed it with some yoghurt dressing to marinade several chicken breast fillets.



And a whole tray of cajun roasted vegetables because i figured we need all the antioxidants that we can get :)



I also made garlic roasted and herbed baby potatoes because we are a family of potato fiends. Here is a plate of the end products. The picture is crap as usual.




We had a few happy tummies that night :) On monday afternoon, I made pasta carbonara with angel hair pasta. Big mistake. the pasta was so fine and soaked up so much cream sauce that the whole thing was one lumpy tangled mass of noodles. The taste was good, but so very fattening that I could literally feel the evil-ness of it seeping into my body.

After lunch, I was cabbaging around and then I realised that I was really really itching to so something. So I rummaged around my kitchen cabinet for some yeast and flour and made Oregano bread.




The picture is crap because as mentioned, the lighting here is just absolutely hopeless. My brother, especially, had a lot of fun kneading and banging the dough around. Anyway, the bread took TWO hours to rise. And when I finally got it out of the oven I was momentarily horrified because How come it's so bloody hard?! Turned out that this was more of a baguette-like variety with hard crusts and all. The insides were soft and full of yeasty goodness :) Now to look for a soft-crusted bread recipe!

This afternoon, I had some of the leftover carbonara for lunch. And I felt like I've ingested enough cream and butter for a week that I came back and made some celery chicken salad with yoghurt dressing and blanched baby tomatoes and broccoli for lunch tomorrow.

That's to cut the long story short. So my point is, I am kinda in trouble. My grocery bill this week was so expensive it's not even funny! Did I also mention that I made spinach quiche and two more batches of carrot cake the week before?

Labels: The domestic goddess at work

mood full


So going down.

Tomorrow my sister and I are participating in the Great Eastern Run and I tell you, I am SO going to die. Haven't really been running. In fact, I've been doing the exact opposite of this supposed exercise regime by doing a hell lot of cooking and baking. Albeit only 5 km, I still don't know what possessed me to sign up for it. It has got to be that irrational trait acting up. The same trait that brought me up the Pinnacles in Mulu and nearly got me killed last December.

Did up a big batch of tuna pasta salad for lunch today :D

Anyway, next Saturday I will be going back to Jakarta for 5 days to settle some stuff. I am rather apprehensive yet excited about going back after about 8 years of absence. Heard that it has gone through some eye-opening changes and I can't wait to see it for myself. Yet it is strange how the city of my own birth can feel so foreign and uninviting. Me thinks that I might feel more at ease if plonked in Chiangmai.

Oh wells... FOOD! :D

mood gleeful


Dilemma





Did I tell you that my dear boyfriend just bought a Canon DSLR? Complete with some spiffy lens and other trinkets. I think some of the dust of his photography fervour fell on my head and albeit on a much smaller scale *cough* economically *cough*, I am now contemplating if I should bid for this Holga 120 CFN.

5 more hours before bidding ends!!

Labels: photography

mood full


Missing the days of midweek chill

I just made banana cake again. Yes go ahead, roll eyes. haha. Oh woe is to me, who can't stop being anal to save my life. This time I substituted the margarine with butter, and changed the brown sugar back to white sugar just to see how different it would taste like. Also, because the family of eggs currently sitting in my fridge are so very tiny, I actially pondered in front of my baking bowl for a good few minutes. Another egg? Or not? In the end I plonked the extra bugger right in.

Anyway! It baked beautifully :) I really wish I could take some pictures but the lighting in my house is simply hopeless.

Here is the original recipe (click).

• 1/2 cup shortening
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup mashed bananas
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup quick cooking oats
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition, then stir in the banana and vanilla.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Beat into creamed mixture. Stir in oats and nuts. Pour into prepared pan.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

You can change the shortening to butter or margarine, reduce the sugar from 3/4 to 1/2 cup, substitute half of the flour with wholemeal (you can thank me when you are 40 and trying to diet, for that extra kilo you saved). 1 cup = roughly 2 and half bananas (but please go ahead and plonk in that extra half because leaving half a banana lying around is ridiculous). Also, I baked mine for only 40 min.

And oh, an extra egg won't hurt too! :)

Did you know that Halloween is coming?! A crazy idea stopped by me today, since I am all into this fruit & vege theme nowadays. You know, making a pumpkin cake (even though I've never eaten one in my entire life) and heck, why not a Jack O Lantern too just for the fun of it! :D




I popped by NTUC today and saw humongous, perfectly orange, flawless pumpkins on sale. But MAN, you won't believe how exorbitant those things are. I picked up a soccer ball-sized one and balked when I saw the $74 price tag. Anyway, I got half of a tiny pumpkin (those Halloween unworthy ones) and I can't wait to make a cake out of it!

Labels: The domestic goddess at work

mood :)


I guess it's the journey, not the destination.

Today, R and I are 4 years old. FOUR! YEARS! OLD! Wow, how did we do that?

Admittedly, there had been many difficult times. There were some sad moments, frustrating moments when I had to fight the urge to throw stockings around his neck and haul him out of the window, and moments when I just want to curl up somewhere and pretend all this LDR thing isn't actually happening.

But on top of that, there were the blissful moments, the crazy moments when we walked around half of Tasmania breaking our legs, balancing on rocks and taking pictures of wallabies, and quiet moments of contentment knowing that noone else knows and loves me the best. Moments which make me believe that there would be many more to come.





:)

Labels: love

mood accomplished


Woot.

Two days ago, I striked one item off my mental "Things to do before 25" list.

Damn right it was painful!

And it goes right up there on my list of life's weirdest experiences. Running close second is riding on a stranger's motorbike while hugging a big jackfruit in plain sight of a village of hill tribes.

:D

Labels: mumble jumbles

mood at work


Baking Frenzy

In the typical Felicia fashion of sporadic spurts of short-lived inspirational moments, I recently had a baking fever. It was during those last few hours of work last Friday that I suddenly had this totally irrational, inexplicable urge to bake. Something. Anything.

So on the way home, I plopped by NTUC and bought stuff. And when I say stuff, I really mean the works. I lugged back a mixer (yes, a previously unowned mixer - a testament of how random this really is), a loaf tin, a kg of this and that; which consists of an assortment of flour (all purpose, wholemeal), brown sugar, walnuts, and when I finally succeeded lugging everything back home, I tell you, I had sore arms.

After pottering in the kitchen for a while, here is the fruit of my labour, my pride and joy..

Oatmeal banana bread :) It was so yummy and oh-so-healthy, the flabs on my tummy were thanking me profusely, I kid you not.

The next day I baked it again to perfect it, and then I ventured into baking carrot cake. Seriously, this baking frenzy is making me feel so useful and productive and so Martha Stewart material! Which err.. is a good thing right? I have since tweaked the carrot cake recipe a little and baked it a second time. Shall make it again this weekend to perfect it more, and then maybe I will post the photo :D

Lets see how long this new hobby will last.

Labels: The domestic goddess at work

mood tired


Contemplation

Joy to the world! Tomorrow is Ffffriday! :) I don't know why I am so jaded and unmotivated lately. Maybe I am finding excuses again, but I suspect that it being the time of the month is partly to blame. I'm feeling lethargic, bloated, like i have an entire family of whales swimming around in my stomach, and honestly I just want to curl up in bed watching Grey's Anatomy (Season 5 is out! woot!) or listening to Radiohead until I fade into merciful oblivion. Please, would you just wake me up when it's 2009.

A while back, i striked off another book on my to-read list, thanks to suz for lending. To simplify things, this book is a biography about a woman in her thirties who basically messed up her life (divorce, depression), and then went off travelling for a year to Italy, India and Indonesia to find back herself.

I was attracted to this book solely because of the travelling bit. I was curious to know what kind of self-discovery thingymagy this woman claimed to have experienced, and how the whole thing worked. But halfway into it, I was thinking, boy, this woman really has lots of issues. I mean no offense, everyone has his/her own set of problem and as long as you are responsible for your own emotions, there is nothing wrong about it. But reading this woman's life just reminded me about everything I don't want to be, yet looks almost set to become. She is so incredibly self-absorbed to me. Yet sometimes I get really sick and tired of myself too for being like that. And to be really honest, I occasionally look into my head and it always dawned upon me that I could possibly be a prime candidate for depression and manic disorder. I am too much of a control freak perhaps. And maybe Rudy is right that I suffer from reverse hallucination. I can't see the good stuff that is in front of me. In every bunch of perfect-looking flowers I always manage to spot the worms. It eats me up that I struggle so much to change.

But well, like what Ed used to say, if admitting your problem is the first step of recovery then I pray to God that I am on my way already.


What shall I do this weekend? I think I shall bake some cupcakes :)

Labels: emo

mood sleepy


Forgotten weekend

Yet again I find myself in cruise control (read: space out) mode. Oh wells. Last sunday suz and I went kayaking. No, actually it was more like a languid and leisurely paddle. Like another alternative to catching up over coffee, just sans facing each other.











I came up shore to grab my camera and then I realized how funny suz looked slumped forlornly on a kayak with the expanse of water as a background. Like a scene out of Castaway. :D




Work has been painfully slow of late, and I am in one of my reticent mood again. Go away already!

Labels: mumble jumbles

mood :D


My poo-face sister turned 18 at last!

This is very belated, but hey better late than never. And I just couldn't resist this perfect opportunity to post unglam picture of my silly little sister.




Actually silly is a bit of a gross understatement. Being the evil older sister, I always derive great pleasure from bullying her because she is simply so fun to irritate. Here is a girl who has never eaten McDonald's breakfast all her life, a little goofball I fooled into thinking that bean sprouts grow on trees, one who thought shisamo was shashuma, and an acrobat who if I were ever to take videos of her sleeping, would fill an entire episode of America's Funniest Home Videos.

I actually secretly hope that all this silliness will not go away with age. Because life is so amusing with you around :)




Happy birthday!

Labels: family

mood chill


Blessed are those who don't have to worry about countries.

Frustrated. Just very very frustrated because I don't have enough grounds to fight for the things I want. No, correction. The things I want so badly I think I am going insane.

Why do things have to be so tough? In the past one week, I have been yo-yoing through a myriad of emotions. From okay to very upset to the point of exploding, to happy and calm, and to very upset again, guilty, numb, anxious, and then very happy and contented, and now, frustrated.

I am so tired, you have no idea.

On a happier note, today work was a breeze. I am rooted to the computer for the day, writing some papers while Radiohead is pulsing through my head. This is just great. I reckon every single part of me really needs a break.



I don't want to be your friend
I just want to be your lover
No matter how it ends
No matter how it starts

Forget about your house of cards
And I'll do mine
Forget about your house of cards
And I'll do mine

Fall off the table,
Get swept under

Denial, denial

The infrastructure will collapse
Voltage spikes
Throw your keys in the bowl
Kiss your husband goodnight

Forget about your house of cards
And I'll do mine
Forget about your house of cards
And I'll do mine

Fall off the table,
And get swept under

Denial, denial
Denial, denial

Your ears should be burning

Denial, denial

Labels: mumble jumbles

mood dumb


Too many rocks in my head.

I have been way too distracted lately. So distracted in fact, that I have broken 2 conical flasks and 2 beakers since Monday. So much damages in the span of three days. What was I thinking?

I feel so incredibly stupid.

Labels: emo

mood bad


Gotta blame something for this.

You know what? I think this retarded feeling that I am experiencing right now, is what you actually call PMS. Wow! I never knew that I am actually capable of PMS-ing.

So the thing is, I am just feeling really crap now! Suddenly I feel acutely aware of things I am being shortchanged for, things I cannot control, my flaws, my unfulfilled wishes, and basically self esteem-destroying and insecurity-related stuff. And you know what's the best freaking thing of the whole damn thing? I can't even talk about it because theoretically speaking I AM NOT ALLOWED TO. Exclamation marks!!! I can't even rant on facebook walls because WHAT IF THEY SEE IT.

I am so frustrated I could cry. Yes right here at work while wearing my fancy schmancy lab coat.

For a marathon runner, sometimes the last kilometre is just the freaking hardest.

Labels: emo