Thursday, December 31, 2009

Just before the New Year


I am a self-proclaim TVB Drama addict. My supply of dramas is never ending, (lucky me huh)and to the point that I have to pick and choose what I wanna watch, in order not to waste my time on those lovey-dovey dramas which I really abhor.

Maybe I have way past the age of 'falling in love', 'wishing that a prince on a white horse can save a damsel in distress aka me from some baddits'...

Or maybe I am a woman full of vengeance, and I am especially devoted to revengeful dramas such as Moonlight Resonance, The Heart of Greed, A Pillow Case of Mystery, Last One Standing and lots more. So just yesterday, I find myself addicted to the 2009 TVB Drama - Rosy Business.

It is one of the best dramas which I watched this year. Forget the crappy Gem of Life, too long-winded (and I stopped half way). Rosy Business is fast pace and send you pressing the forward button on your remote to skip the opening and closing songs, trailers and unimportant parts so that you will unveil more schemeing plots from the bad guys. Kevin left the house at 9am, saw me, lying on the bed, starting the serial and he returned at 6pm, saw me lying on the exact same spot, same tshirt, same posture. He sighed.

Who cares! All I know is that I watched 20 episodes in a day and that costs me 16 hours of my time. And I want more! More! More! More! (Starting to sound like Ziv when he wants more Hi-5, opppsss... did he get it from me?)
P.S I have never watch Korean dramas in my life except Kim Sam Soon and Snow Queen, because that was acted by my 'boyfriend' and Korean dramas may be worth watching because of the eye candies. As for Taiwanese dramas, I don't even consider them as a drama. I wonder who the hell will watch them (maybe only old grannies), Taiwanese dramas are of inferior quality, plot, screenplay, actors/actresses... lots of mushy LOVE acts that makes me wanna puke. They should really learn from HK dramas.

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Xmas Post

Time flies and now Xmas is over and me, deprive of sleep... I think I am suffering from post-xmas depression... :(

Our Tree:
After much dalliance, the tree is finally up! A picture taken after Ziv woke up from his nap.


Pre-Xmas Dinner:
As I mentioned, this Xmas season kicked start with a dinner gathering at the Vanilla Pod. It was a great recommendation from Kooshlog, and may I add, a nice place for rendezvous. We have a special little guest this time, baby Sherlyn. This little cutie will grow up to be a femme fatale!

Xmas Eve
Venue: J (MJ Kaki)'s Abode

J and B are Kevin's family friends and J is my very best MJ kaki. Both families work in the same industry and my in-laws are the couple's baptism Godparents, the relationship is complicated. Anyway, going to their house on Xmas Eve is almost like a tradition. We feasted, juiced up and exchange presents and I mean LOTS of presents. Because they have a big family that lives under one roof, therefore, the present exchange is often MASSIVE. Check out the presents under the Xmas tree!

J and B have 2 adorable daughters and both of them always have cherubic smiles on their faces. Ziv loves to jump up and down on their bed... not very polite though...


After church we did what we do best, play MJ. Ended at 6am! We had a hard time waking up on time for the Xmas lunch with our in-laws and relatives.

Our Boxing Day Gathering
Time: 1230pm
Venue: Cel's Abode

I want to thank all my friends who make this gathering possible every year. As we grow older, we ended up having many commitments, and it is THAT something, perhaps that kind of special FRIENDSHIP that bring us all together to celebrate the joyous occasion.

The enthusiasm in us never seemed to cease as the years go by. Everyone is so flexible with their schedule and there is no tug-of-war over date selection. And my wish for the next gathering? More little members can join in the fun. Two years ago was Ziv, who joined, and now this year we have the chummy 8-mth old Abril. Who's next? Maybe Aihuey's?

Our potluck.


Limited pictures here, am still waiting for my 'arch enemy' to upload his pictures, taken from a very super duper sophisticated camera that no one knows how to use, including him. (you know what I mean).

So who is the happiest person after all the Xmas celebrations? My baby, of course.

Posing with 10 of his presents.


Ziv's favourite presents are of course the hi-5 dvds from Mummy and the Thomas the Train bag, lunch box and water-bottle set from our ex neighbour, S and A.

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Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Sleep Deprivation

It is only in the midst of the festive season that I often find myself having sleeping problem and I am feeling extremely jaded. And it’s like I am living in a total different time zone and I mean, Pacific Time Zone. Let me expatiate, just last Sunday, I could not get to sleep until 4am, after tossing and turning on bed, I decided to surf net and did some mindless stuff. I woke up at noon on the following day. Went shopping and came back at 6pm and took a short nap till 8pm. Slept at 3am yesterday night.

Perhaps it is the tumult of the festive spirits that make my already erratic sleeping pattern go even more haywire. Hopefully, my sleeping disorder will abate as the festive season comes to an end.

In another separate and totally unrelated news, I got an awfully heartwarming Christmas present from my MJ kaki, she knew that my lucky stone is ‘Pearl’ and she bought me a pearl pendant from Citigems. I am so touched, even Kevin will not buy me my lucky stone.

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Monday, December 14, 2009

My Christmas Schedule

Christmas is the season to be chubby, opps, I mean MERRY.

Christmas is so near that I don’t even have time to undergo the long-established custom of ‘losing substantial weight before the season’ in order for me to feast without a tinge of guilt. Well, I have to also admit that a part of me is recalcitrant towards the custom because I can still fit into the super skinny jeans which I have been using it to gauge my weight (apart from the cruel and impossible-to-go-wrong electronic weighing machine).

The thing about dieting is that you need to cogitate cautiously, you have to ensure that your shopping route avoid nice restaurants, you have to pack your weekend with activities with the son, pepper some sports activities in your weekday schedule etc…

Anyway, it’s kinda late to talk about dieting when we are about a week to the season to gain weight.

My schedule…

22-Dec: (can you imagine it started THIS early?) Dinner at Vanilla Pod with the usual ST suspects

23-Dec: Ex neighbour’s newborn baby full month celebration dinner at Carlton Hotel

24-Dec: Attempt to have a romantic lunch with just me and Kevin,
Dinner, present exchange, church and MJ with MJ kakis

25-Dec: Usual Christmas gathering with the in-laws and the relatives

26-Dec: Tradition Christmas party at home with the gang from NYP

27-Dec: Wedding dinner at Goodwood Park

1-Jan: Lunch buffet with my parents at Sze Chuan Court

2-Jan: New Year dinner with Emily at Conrad

3-Jan: Dinner with my family to celebrate Grandma’s birthday

9-Jan: Farewell dinner with R

What scares me the most is, the calendar is DYNAMIC, there won’t be any deletion, only addition.

How many Yoga lessons do I have to go after this??

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Saturday, December 12, 2009

Ziv's Collection

Like parents like son.

Look at the collection...


Ziv has this strange affinity in shoes. Just like his father. For all the oversea trips we went, excluding France, we bound to get some shoes for him. And each time we showed him his shoes, he will walk around the house in them! Looking very contented. Even my cousin knows about it and bought a pair of Addidas for his last birthday.

They were mainly Puma, Nike and my personal fave Addidas.

I planned to keep all of them except Crocs so he can start his collection since young.

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Baking and Me (Episode 5)

Baking is now so elementary! When you achieved sponge cake, there's nothing you can't do. And now its time that I experience cake-making using assorted flavoring. Last week I made pure chocolate and chocolate chip cupcakes for the young (Ziv) and old (Kevin).

As usually, Ziv gobbled up about 8 small ones at one go and down with his milk, and Kevin had a few. He was even telling me to make more of different flavours! Probably cookies and cream next. As for Ziv, he prefers something less fanciful, he just want butter and chocolate (minus chocolate chips cause he said those chips are EYES!).

I wanted to give myself and the family a break by not baking today but before Ziv had his nap awhile ago, he asked me for a cake and even cried when I said I'm not baking today.

It seemed that I have to bake later on but first I need to get more ingredients!

This was what I baked last weekend...

It was a great success because the sponge filled up the paper cups! I did it!



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Friday, December 11, 2009

True meaning of Christmas

It feels happy to see and know that someone is happy for something you did to them.

This Christmas is probably the last Christmas that R is going to spend in Singapore. After working for almost 2 years in Singapore, he will probably be back to the States and perhaps not coming back to Asia within the next few years. Knowing that to send them a present in future is no longer like, ‘here you go’, ‘are you in the office? ‘ or ‘can I drop by?’, I took the opportunity to send someone to deliver an early surprise to him today. A wine hamper with 2 glasses, one for him, one for his wife whom I think is one of the nicest people in my previous company.

Although I don’t get to see R’s reaction when he received the hamper but I can sense his exhilaration through his voice. Christmas season is about love, care and compassion, even if there is no return to your giving in terms of physical gifts, it will still send a heartfelt smile to your face and warm up your heart.

Well, to me, seeing them happy is already the best return gift from them.

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Wednesday, December 9, 2009

My Gym Bag

As I have been working out religiously during lunch break, it is inevitable that I lug a huge gym bag. Any some of the country pumpkins in my office told me there was this joke in the office about me. I asked one of them what it is all about. I am pretty calm because I know I made no fashion mistakes all these while and is extremely sure that I haven't do anything foolish. And guess what? They said my bag is bigger than me.

What so funny? Is that even a joke? I smiled, briefly. I wonder if they know they are talking about a Prada bag that cost more than a small Chanel and its too big for anything except for gym class.

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Thursday, December 3, 2009

Case 39

Movie-going is usually the last activity on a mother’s to-do list, probably after, tucking her kid to sleep, amuse the kid, feed the kid, dance with the kid etc. However, lately, Kevin and I have been very privileged. I have my in law to look after Ziv for us during the weekday and so Kevin and I have ample time after work, and obviously I am ‘not used’ to working OT after all these years. Sometimes, we run out of idea of what we should do after dinner and then we go back to our pre Ziv days. Pre Ziv days means more time for leisure and one of the activities includes hitting the cinemas. I was given some complimentary movie tickets from American Express and they have been in my wallet for the past half year and just recently again, another pair from Standard Chartered, it seemed that I can never be able to utilize them completely, no matter how hard I try. Cause most of the time, we end up purchasing our own tickets because we decided to deviate from the designated cinemas for these free tickets due to full house for the blockbusters.

Back to movies and cinemas, another key reason why I haven’t been patronizing the cinemas lately is due to the movie pricings, they confounded me, vastly. The thing is, since when did movie ticket pricings varies from different cinemas, and since when there are different rates for adults, kids, senior citizens, students and lastly, since when that even the day of visiting the cinemas matters in terms of dollars and cents? I simply don’t fathom.

And one more thing, since when the cheapo gassy drinks and air popped popcorn cost more than an extra value meal plus upsize at Macdonald’s and they are just snacks.

I tell myself, no free tickets, and no movies.

Back to my original intent of this post, I wanted to tell you about Case 39. Since the free tickets are expiring end of this year and I think there won’t be other movie coming out soon that has nothing to do with Christmas, I decided to go for the not-so-popular movie, Case 39. This movie sends chills down my spine.

The last movie that made me covered my ears and eyes in the theatre for a good ¾ of the show was, Audition. And man, that was a waste of time and moolahs. Case 39 is slightly better, I covered my eyes and ears throughout ¼ of the show and joined the 2 other gals sitting next to me and made some really scary yells at fellow audience. The show was mentally disturbing and I hope it is not a true story retold. This show is great to watch if you want to take a break from the typical Japanese, Korean and Thai horror. It actually sends the entire theatre of people to stop breathing for quite a few scenes. It is worth watching than Ninja Assassin though I haven’t see it, cause having yourself breathing hard is better than having Rain to do the breathing. I don’t fancy him.

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