First post after a month at work

Where have I been you ask?

It's been about 1 month since I've started at my new workplace. In summary... I'm on a ridiculously steep learning curve.

I've had 1 traumatic event, which happened to be my first ever case done as an employee. That sure was scarring, but I learnt valuable lessons: to not be intimidated, to find ways out from being cornered to give solutions.

And then though i had expressed reservations about working with a certain population of folks, i'm now working with them and I must say they are generally a delightful bunch once you can engage them.

There have been times that i mentally try to plan an escape route for myself... I entertain strange thoughts like running away to work in a cafe, run away to be employed in something less taxing on the social front... Things like that. Because things can get so hard. In the initial weeks, I was really shaking in my shoes, worried that I'll be assigned a counselee. I felt like I wasn't ready, I felt indescribably anxious. I was a wreck behind my desk. Stressed, worried, desperately praying, fearful, feeling inadequate. You name it.

To some extent, my anxiety has lessened... and I'm not sure if it's because my self psycho-ing is working or whether it's because I'm suppressing my fear. I've written out all the words of encouragement and prayer that people have given me and stuck them on my cubicle walls. I read them and meditate on them when I'm afraid. I have to constantly tell myself that I want to love my job, i'm just here to help, I'm just here to love, just here to be human to another human being. I want my life's purpose to be in sync with my job, and I want to see it as part of my life and not separate.

I knew this was a journey with the Lord, my choices have all along been made with the intention of following the Lord's guidance. I also knew that this wasn't an easy path to take, but I know that the Lord has meant for me to be here, right now. That's the thing that gives me the assurance to carry on and to carry on in good faith that He will protect me and lead me through no matter what.

I know that it's not an easy path to take because i began with the understanding that it's part of God's plan to mould me. And as we all know, a moulding and refining process is never easy. Hence the struggling. I'm faced with my personal fears every day. Which would explain my heightened levels of anxiety.

Yet looking back, i think i've come some way. About 2 years ago, i was way more anxious. While I waited for a student to walk in for counselling, I was in a state of near panic. I would be getting sweaty palms, elevated heart rate, racing thoughts. I remember jumping in my seat every time i heard the sound of the lift landing at the floor I was on.

I don't feel that kind of panic now, but i do still feel pretty stressed. So i take the time to examine my thoughts and try to plant more helpful thoughts in my head to stop myself from over thinking and reacting.

So yeah. This has been the state of affairs. Some might think i'm being too hard on myself. Maybe I am. I guess it's because i just don't want to hurt anyone. I just want to get better at what i do so that I would be able to bring more help than confusion.

Lord. Let me know that You are near. That I'm never alone in that counselling room. You are the greatest counsellor who ever lived and who still lives. Help me to love your people just like you do, and attend to their deepest needs wherever they are at. Help me to grow and mature, and to sharpen my skills so that I can help bring light to what has been in darkness. I'm determined to walk through this because you have ordained this so. Lord, have your way! In Jesus's precious name I pray, Amen.

Coupla new food adventures over at the food blog, take.eat. I've added the link now under Bare Essentials. :D

Marina Barrage

Went to Marina Barrage and the weather was looking iffy over in the west, but NEA said that it was merely going to be cloudy over at our destination. So, with faith we journeyed to the marina barrage!

It was the first time in my ENTIRE life (so far), that I stepped onto Marina Bay Mrt station. Seriously. And so, here we are! This was the less "open" way in though it all leads to the same place. The architecture of the barrage is quite something to behold. And then it opens up to reveal a wide open space. But that's not all...

Us on top where everyone is either kite flying, picnic-ing, snapping photos, playing cards, lying around, frisbee-ing... oh, it was grand. :) There was so much happiness going on up there. These grassy slopes remind me of the architecture of the arts faculty in NTU.

What seemed like the residential kuching. People stopped by to pat the little girl. She was such a pretty ginger cat.

She had orange eyes!

She looks like she's having a word with God now.
No sitting? I lie down. :) Metal sculpture of something along the lines of: What goes around, comes around. Can you see us in the reflection?

Not very nice composition but I loved the sky... For some reason, the red from the sky was captured on the camera's screen but not when i uploaded it and viewed it on the PC. Meh.

Gorgeous skyline.

Pilgrimmage to a macaron place...! ($3 per macaron. omg. Flown over from Belgium.) Every time I encounter a macaron "degustation" session, I would scrutinize them like a mother in law would scrutinize her future in laws. HAHA. I stare, squint, touch, assess... I'm thinking: which mac is this? French? Italian? What do the feet tell me? What do the shells feel like? Why is it not shiny? Matt? Where is the filling? It's suppose to be visible! Are the shells hollow? Are they fully matured? How does it feel at the first crunch, where's the chewy texture???

The first nom. We had, vanilla, passionfruit chocolate, gingerbread, hazelnut and caramel. They were delicious but I notice something rather interesting. My first bite was met with crunchy shells! It was so odd! It was also biscuity and wafer like. It was CRISPY?! Though the inside was slightly damp looking from the filling. But it was just pure strange. As recommended, i let them rest for a few more minutes before taking another bite The insides did soften but I must say, they still had quite a bit of crispy going on, which I thought was rather odd. And i think I will conclude that it's because they had to fly over from Belgium and being in the dry cabins, the moisture got sucked out. Hm, it's just my hypothesis because I remember when my sister brought the Pierre Herme's macarons back, they also had this same dry, crisp, texture that was biscuity which i thought seemed very contrary to what I thought macarons were suppose to be like. But of course, then again, I've not had macarons STRAIGHT from the store, so I wouldn't know what its original texture was suppose to be. Anyhow, I still enjoyed them, though $3 a pop is quite... bah. Paid for their air ticket to Singapore.

The last nom.

This was the place.

Beautifully lit trees outside. Loved walking along the wooden boardwalk.

The End! :D

Hey folks! Man... I'm not sure if anyone comes by anymore, other than my dear friend Zzen. :)

Guess I've just been enjoying my time while waiting for my results of the dissertation, which is back. Not too great, not to nasty either. Out of two reviewers, one called for major changes. I'm given 2 months to complete it, but I'm not going to take all that long... Yes, I'm enjoying my student life, but I think it's about time to get out and earn my keep. Time to save for my big day as well... :)

I've been cooking more, doing stuff in the kitchen so that mum doesn't have to prep dinner when she gets home. Which is fine with me. I love cooking Every opportunity i get, i'd do it!

Posted a couple of posts on my food blog... With more to come. *sly smile*

A church mate asked if I would like to be her baker for her wedding dessert table. OH. HOW COULD I GIVE UP THAT OPPORTUNITY?! I'm honestly THRILLED by the prospect. As much as I would LOVE to do table deco, I know I don't have the experience for that, so we're leaving that to her aunt. I'll just be concentrating on the food.

The theme is "summer" and "pink". So I've got a list of 7 items right now (jie and i sat together to think and research), and maybe I've got to think of a few more, that I'm going to propose to her. I'm not going to do all 7 of course. I'm pretty much a one man show, so... it would be too heavy on me! Thankfully, the choices I've picked are not too fussy. Maybe except for the macarons. But those... those are Divas. And Divas are fussy.

So, with these 7 items and more to come, I'll be doing my experimentation and there'll be photos aplenty. Hoo yeah!

Goodbye KTM

Gem and I visited the KTM railway last sunday. It was quite an experience walking along the railway without fear of, you know, getting zapped to death by the power lines or mauled by an oncoming train. The stuff we saw along the way looked so old that it was a little difficult to comprehend that the trains stopped running only just a couple of weeks ago. We felt like we were visiting ancient ruins from another era.

Just some of our snaps from the day. :)


Us. Before starting our 1.6km walk.

Can't have a railway post without the obligatory track photo.

Train traffic light?

Nice shot of a flower by Gem. :)


We saw some tadpoles swimming in surprisingly clear water.

Super duper ultra kazuper ooooolllddd 3 pin socket and switch.

Old BRICK drain. BRICK!

Tall creepy climbies.

Gem's nice shot of a resident dragonfly.

-.-" Me and my nonsense.

Uh. Like I said.

Very hardy wood plank, part of the train track. Had very beautiful grooves, almost like, i quote Gem, "tiger stripes".

The bridge at rifle range road where we got off the tracks.

Top of the bridge.

We were pretty famished, so I actually gave in to our (yes, our) McDonald's cravings. I hardly ever patronize Macs because to me, Macs food isn't real food. Don't ask me for any rational explanations, I have none. My irrational (?) explanation is that the food comes across to me as plasticky. It's only good when it's hot, and once it cools, I feel like I'm biting in fake rubber food.

I was hoping that our little trekking excursion that afternoon would lead us all the way to the rail mall, but fat chance! Haha. It was one looooong short 1.6km trek.

And yes, from now on, all my food rantings will now be logged in to my new wordpress blog. Hopefully I'll still have the time to cook and bake when I start work! In other news... the results of my dissertation is going to be released soon. *quiver*

I've done a little updating on my food blog. :) Just sayin'! (http://takeeat.wordpress.com)

I'm going off now to get some ingredients for something that I've been dreaming of making ever since I saw it on Giada at Home. Blueberry and mascapone cheese turnovers. Mmmm... :D

1) My god brother's dad gave me his old iphone 3GS which is still in fabulous condition. I feel sooo blessed. Until now, it still hasn't sunk in tt i now own an iphone. It's not something i would rob the bank for, but it's certainly something i did wish i had from time to time when i see how handy it is in remaining accessible, and accessing people and information. My whole family (plus god brother's) all carry around those coveted devices while i was the only one carrying a lookalike: a white Samsung Jet. haha. I don't have a plan with the 12GB data plan though, so i'm still relying on wifi for now. If you told me 2 years ago that i would be receiving an iphone for free, i would tell you, "that's impossible" and say you're nuts. Well, now lookie here. :) Like i said, very blessed. :)

2) Dissertation has been HANDED IN, believe it or not! Even i cannot believe it. I have looked back and wondered... HOW IN THE WORLD did i actually WRITE THAT?! It's practically a book. For all the months of whining, or moving in gear 1, stalling, and starting up and chugging on... It's finally done. It has not been approved for official printing and hard cover binding YET. It's just been handed in to be examined. Supervisor says she does not foresee much amendments to be made. I sure hope so...

3) Though supervisor tells me to take a break, she then proceeds to tell me about a publication opportunity. I thought: Why not? Good for me, good for her as well. And so... i now have to begin a feat of condensing the 22,600 words dissertation into a 8,000 word document. Good luck to me. I was also told that the process of writing and publication can span from a few months to years, and the journal can also REJECT your article even after you've spent precious time and effort to write it to meet their requirements. I need to be prepared for that.

4) Macaron madness is about to ensue... All for the upcoming WEDDING. I CANNOT WAIT. I can now focus ALL MY ATTENTION on making sure that they turn out nice. In the past, having to multitask between macaron baking, dissertation and washing up meant that my macs would mess up because i wasn't able to watch the oven like a hawk. As a result, the temperature goes way beyond and my macs go boomz. hurhur.

5) Many many meetups with friends to be done. :D Finally!

6) I think i might have discovered a way to ARREST the FLU when you know you're starting to get sick! Disclaimer: this has happened to me only ONCE, so i cannot confirm if it is 10% effective. Anyway, recently, i caught the flu bug from a friend and when i felt the sorethroat, i immediately burst into action: breathing in the aromatic pure essential oils that i have. I have quite a nice collection because i like not just the smell, but the other uses and benefits they have.

I used my aroma lamp (novita, that my group of close pals gave me for my b'day. whee! :D) and practically positioned it beneath my nose and mouth while i was working at the computer. I'd inhale with my mouth wide open. Sure, i DID choke and sputter because the intensity of the oils in the vapour can feel quite uncomfortable (stinging feeling) in your air passageways. But, i noticed that my symptoms started to cease at the runny nose stage. I did have some help from salt (gargle at night to stop soreness and 1 clarinase pill to stop the runny nose on one particular day when i needed to be outside). But other than that, all i did was breathe in oils like clove, cinnamon, lemon, eucalyptus, tea tree, pine, thyme, peppermint, lavender, when i sleep or when i was doing my work at the computer. And really, to my surprise, the flu development STOPPED. Well, it could have stopped cos Gem said he's pray for me. Haha. But yeah. The next time this happens? I'm going to replicate it and see how it goes.

This sounds weird to me, even. But yes, i'm going to be catering macarons for a friend's wedding. I'm quite dazzled by the whole prospect because i'm really just a novice baker and all i've done is to give macs away for fun. And yes, i still do get downright ugly macarons no matter how many times i've pursued making the perfect ones.

And true, i've ever toyed with the idea of setting up an online store for my baked stuff but even then, they were just dreams... Dreams encouraged by those around me to bring to fruition but gained no real ground because i'm not confident of my ability to commit since i'm suppose to be getting a "proper" job after i graduate. (Friends see the potential but i'm not sure if my family would balk at me becoming a stay home baker. Hmm.)

So yes, to my surprise, a request from an old classmate came around on FB and i readily said yes. It's a great honour. Being able to provide something for a friend on her special day is a great privilege i don't take lightly.

And it's certainly a wonderful opportunity! I'm not sure if you can call it a big break, but we'll see how it goes... I guess i'll only know how good my stuff are when i get feedback from a wide range of people. 500 people at the wedding. No small number, yo. I'm glad i'm just starting off with an order of 200. I cannot fathom making 500 macs at the moment. D-8

Gem and i have had a few conversations on what happens if it really takes off. Not in a large scale way, but what if people begin to write in asking for orders for various events like birthdays and baby showers. Would i be able to manage it all? I don't know. I count myself really blessed that Gem is a designer! He not only designs environmental sets for events, he also has had a hand in designing wedding invitations, namecards and the like. Heehee. So, no mystery as to who will be helping me with my namecard if i even decide on making one. Haha.

So, yes. Although this is going to be my first time doing something like this, i'm going to have to pray hard... That the macs don't mess up on me and my friend on her special day. I hope that everyone will enjoy my handiwork as much as i enjoy making them for their eating pleasure. :)

Little update on my progress writing my book. Uh, i mean dissertation. I don't think people would be very interested reading about this, so this is just me recording down my milestones somewhere so that i get it off my chest. Journaling it somewhere.

I would say I'm doing pretty well, meeting the supervisor vetting deadlines for Chapters 1, 2 and 3. I've currently got my paws wrapped around chapter 4 which is the Results section and all i can say is: This is madness. Just this one chapter has got me laying out 79 pages full of qualitative data. Really tiring and tedious work but you know, this is my hardwork. And honestly, things achieved simply aren't all that worth it.

My brain is feeling pretty taxed at this point. I'm nowhere near giving up of course, but yeah... Currently I'm pretty darn exhausted mentally. I just don't feel like looking at 79 pages of data and doing my write up on what i have found in my research. I'm actually 2 days behind schedule for this chapter because of the sheer amount of consolidation of data for just 8 participants.

Yet, i'm glad i'm here right now. I've come pretty far. What would i do if i could do anything i wanted right now? Make macarons.

But it ain't happening today, baby.

I'm glad i've got a list of things planned ahead of me once i hand my work in for examination. Tea with my ex-boss and ex-colleagues (yay!), attending an old friend's recital (yay!), and cooking myself nuts on the 1st of May at a friend's place for a boardgame gathering.

You can't imagine how STOKED i am about that! Big house, big kitchen, Joline is the Executive Chef of the day and i even get a Sous Chef (okay, his domestic helper) to help me! How cool is that. :) It's like a dry run for my future cafe. *ahem*

And then it's whipping up macarons for people who've asked or who are on my mind, whipping up macs just because, for experimentation... meeting friends that i need to catch up with. Boy. I'm glad the gov is giving out the growth dividend on 1st may too then. Imma gonna need it.

So yes. I'm looking forward to all that.

Not bad. Productivity has gone up like, 5x? HAHA.

Have done and submitted Chapter 1 and 2 for vetting. Chapter 1 has been approved, Chapter 2 is in the process... A little worried about that one though. It's easy to pick out poorly written and thought out arguments. Meh.

Have done 5 out of 8 transcriptions. That is a FEAT. In the past, a 1 hour interview took 8 hours to transcribe. That's 1/3 of a whole day. Madness. But with the digital recorder i now have, it cuts down the timing to about 4-7 hours, depending on level of concentration and how long the interview was...

I hate that there's no way around this, i HAVE to do transcribing by sitting still for literally hours on end. But oh well. At least i have managed to bulldoze through half of it already. Thank you LORD!

Speaking of which. I have an awesome testimony i want to share. Will do so soon. :D

TO THE FINISH LINE!
DISSERTATION, I KILL YOU UNTIL YOU DIE!

Ok, need to enjoy the process. Ahem. Last moments of being a student.

i hereby announce house arrest for myself from today till mid march.
no casual social gatherings unless absolutely necessary, eg. friend flying off, friend in hospital.

the heat is ON to finish off this dissertation. the deadline is so near.

i have my 'game on' face.

CHIONG AH!

My literature review draft 1 is out! Such a relief it is... so now i've got to get all my interviews done and transcribing done which is the no-brainer work just before the brain squeezing part: the analysis. But that's okay by me, qualitative study is more up my alley than quantitative.

And it's Chinese New Year this week! We'll all be getting extra long weekends... So lovely. :) Nice to have family around, though that means i probably won't be able to get much work done though but i'll try.

i don't know why. i'm beginning this year with very strange negative vibes and feelings. it's as if, i'm angry at something, angry with a group of people, just plain angry at everything. it's making me just want to retreat to a very faraway place, to just communicate at the minimum level with people. although i know that that would make me feel lonely after a while. but still.

i also get this feeling of intense dissatisfaction. i don't know if this is because i've been away and i've seen another side to life. i wonder if other travellers feel the same way too.

it's feelings that come from knowing that there is so much more to life out there than here in Sg. The market here is so small, our daily occurrences are so small in comparison to what's happening out there. Basically, perspectives are so limited here.

You have to FIGHT for what you want to do. It seems like such a tough and unforgiving kind of society. Or, seems so. Life here seems to be about neverending striving, pace of life keeps you stressed and wanting to keep up to par with everyone and with expectations of society, of yourself and others. It's all about the doing, doing, doing, doing.

I know how Jonah from the bible feels. Knowing God's calling but wanting to run away from it. Running in the opposite direction, far far away. While Jonah knew God was calling, I have simply forgotten. I find myself wondering: did God really call me into this field of work? I can't remember.

Where has my heart gone, Lord? I feel it hiding underneath so much disappointment, angst and dissatisfaction. Can you revive it Lord, like, genuinely revive my heart? I feel so dead.

L to R: Green tea, Peppermint, Lemon and Tiramisu

The fruit of many hours in the kitchen. Credits to Weizhen for giving me the idea of doing a tiramisu version... V (close friend) really liked it even though she isn't even a macaron person. One of Gem's friends also enjoyed the tiramisu one. Whoopee! :D

Thinking that i would be leaving on sunday for my Canadian adventure, i thought i had time to do up the literature review of my dissertation. But instead, i discovered that the 31st is THIS friday. Good job, Jo. So now i'm rushing out my literature review and am guessing that i'm making more headway in these few hours than in the last 7 months.

Just thought of sharing this photo with you, as part of my macaron madness journey. :)

it's been birthday meals after birthday meals (treats from friends and family. love.), and then doing my research's interviews in the last week or so.

and today, i spent 14 hours in the kitchen baking macarons for parties i'm going to. it was a real macaron marathon i tell ya. started the morning off with coffee-chocolate shells (zen's great idea of making tiramisu macarons), and moved on to making green tea shells, then lastly, lemon shells. from 10:30am to 12:30am, thereabout. I really enjoy the process, i'll admit. though the repetition of steps and the worry over whether the macs will crack/will not have feet/will have lopsided feet drives me a little nuts.

and i found out 2 keys things to prevent macaron death. 1) get level trays. 2) Air-con

Spoilt biscuits, aren't they? Even i don't rest in air-con rooms. hurhur. the lengths i have to go to to make them, just because i live in singapore where the humidity is high.

can't wait to experiment with flavours! going to attempt to deviate from the usual flavoured white chocolate filling and try making a buttercream. It's lots more work though. Meh.

hopefully i'll have photos to show you tmr. :) for now, toodles, good night.

Made green tea macarons today! They were pretty much a success because i decided to be patient and pipe less macarons on each baking tray. It minimised the number of fail macs so for once i had more "pass" than "fail' mac shells. Gave most of them to 2 friends by the end of the day and i'm hoping they like 'em. It's really a pleasure to just bake and give the outcomes away. I'm enjoying the baking process so much so that the pleasure is all in the baking and not the eating.

I kept the fail ones to eat and one nice one to take a shot of and post it here tomorrow.

So far i've been achieving some level of success with the italian meringue method, but i still have that annoying problem of having a hollow space in between the shell and the base. Oh well. They taste fine, but perhaps the texture isn't quite so satisfying.

I'm quite determined to achieve success with the french meringue method. In all my 4 attempts, i've failed 4 times. But i'm not throwing the towel in yet. I've already got my egg whites aging on the dining table, waiting for their turn to be made into macarons... i need ideas on what flavour i should attempt next.

So far, i've done:
- rose with white chocolate filling
- chocolate with chocolate and vanilla-peppermint filling
- green tea with white chocolate and passionfruit ganache/chocolate peppermint filling
- lemon/orange blossom with lemon curd filling

hmm, what's next? Maybe...

- chocolate with salted caramel
- vanilla/chocolate with peppermint buttercream
- chocolate with butterscotch filling
- some fruit thingy...?
- some cinnamon thingy?
- some lavender thingy?

I owe my sister a pure peppermint one with crushed candy canes in the filling. Am trying to devise a yummy way of making that macaron.

Going to zonk out now, in 3,2,1.

Short note to self:

1) too much green tea powder killed the green tea macaron!
2) but this time, my french macarons didn't fall flat and didn't have that hollow beneath the shell which is a good thing. so, aged eggs do work. i left the egg whites on my dining table for 24 hours before using it. no feet still though, but it's an improvement nonetheless.
3) mom questioned me on how much money i throw away every time i make an inedible fail batch.... i've made a calculation, and depending on what i put in the batter, it can range from $4-$17 bucks. So far, that is. my heart breaks every time macarons go straight into the bin, but what am i to do? they are just simply not edible.

in other news, my 4-5 year old Acer Travelmate has died. Hard disk crashed. And has taken away all my recipes with it. Really sad but what am i to do? Dad and i also discussed that paying a base cost of $350 that can balloon to $3000 for the lost data is not worth it. So... it's goodbye school work, music, photos, recipes. May whatever cyberspace god that that is out there watch over you. sigh. :(

Note to self:

1) the left/back side of my oven sucks big time. Temperature rises really really fast, i finally saw it objectively with my oven thermometer.
2) the right side sucks small time, so beware.
3) To increase number of successful macarons, pipe batter in the middle of the tray and place in the middle of the oven, (therefore, try to "undermix" the batter a little since i'm going to have the batter sitting in the piping bag), OR,
4) Pipe as per normal but place tray in vertically and to the right side, and shift tray around as per needed. Eg. When macarons start to puff up, crack, etc. I'll still lose some though... I think i might go the way of point 3. Much less heartbreak and wastage.

Made some lemon ones with my newfound technique. Some got destroyed due to uneven heat but otherwise, i think i can now finally finetune my baking time to achieve a less dry macaron. 14 minutes seems a little too long. Shall try 12-13minutes the next time.

Chocolate shell with dark chocolate mint filling, and the other one is lemon with lemon curd filling. I can't wait to make my green tea with white chocolate ones! The green tea powder is pricey so i've to make sure that i can consistently make okay macarons before using the matcha powder.

It's no fun being stuck: I can't write my literature review because i haven't read enough, and I can't read enough because i keep fallin' asleep while readin'! It's so annoying! Despite my nerdy-nose-always-in-a-book kind of face, sorry, me and Books ended our relationship since junior college and university. Academic reading killed the reading star.

I did love reading, i did. Past tense.

So, if you've ever let me borrow a book of yours out of sheer goodwill to share knowledge, I'm sorry you haven't seen it in a while...

I ought to start a self project, to pick up a book and begin enjoying a good story, for a start.

On a completely different note, and for the sake of having pictures in this post, here are two REALLY PRETTY DRESSES! Plucked them off xinmsn.com. Inspiration for a wedding dress. :)

Love the blend of cool, calm, flowy colours, like water and the sunset sky coming together into one canvas. And the overall structure of the dress. Too bad I lack long legs. Meh.

Love the print, colours and structure.

(Photos courtesy of xinmsn.com, from the Monique Lhuillier Spring/Summer Collection 2011)

I'm (already) dreaming of a white Christmas...

And all the food I want to cook.

In actuality, i've not exactly perfected any one dish yet. It's just that i've experimented and tried out different recipes... but it doesn't mean that what i want to cook again will turn out the same way.

The only dishes that i know reasonably well that will turn out well (but not always the same way) is my potato gratin and carrot cake and butter cake. Stuff to put onto bread is also relatively safe. (Eg. prawn and avocado or the egg, red pepper and basil filling). I think my button mushroom burgers are pretty good too. :)

Anyway...

Christmas is coming. And i CANNOT wait!

This is Jed licking his lips. Just like the way i am now too.


OH. and HELLLLOOO CANADA!!!!

***

My mum was real sweet, she came home after work a few days ago and put this magazine on the kitchen table saying, "Nah, i got this for you."

It was a copy of what looked like a new women's magazine called "beautymap". Mummy knows daughter loves make up and beauty products. :D

And so i spent a short while on sunday morning relishing the articles inside and came across a short tutorial on how to put on eye liner. And i can say that FINALLY, FINALLY a women's magazine has SUCCESFULLY taught me how to put on eyeliner the way i like it without confusing me to the point of just giving up.

I'm so happy with my discovery that i foresee myself wearing thicker eye liner now. Hohoho.

I really enjoyed that really rare just-me-alone-time, sitting in the living room with the morning sun coming in and fiddling about with make-up, making a mess of myself and laughing at how ridiculous i look or going ah so des at how i've discovered how to do something new.