Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Jed and I

The above photo cracks me up... His goofy half bared teeth expression he shows me while i'm playing with him.
Him twisting and turning upside down while i tease and poke at him.


Was doing some journal articles readings when i decided to try to... well, resurrect my dormant sketching skills from my more arty farty days which was a good 10+ years ago. Didn't turn out that bad... considering i did it with a pen and couldn't erase to make changes.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Wedding Band 1

This isn't just ANY Yamaha acoustic piano. It's a grand piano! My friend for the morning.
Stuck my phone in to take a random shot of the insides.
Shot from the back of the stage, while waiting for the church hall to be filled.
The piano's mine for today! But ok, it wasn't really in perfect tune. I was suppose to wear a longer dress befitting of a wedding pianist playing in a presbyterian church but my original dress was pulling wardrobe malfunctions on me. So it had to be changed at the 11th hour. meh.
The Wedding Band-ers. :)

Friday, May 28, 2010

Jed and I

Was reading my newspaper when this Jed came and lay down on it. I don't know why he does nonsense things like this. So, i fell asleep on the floor as well, holding my pet dog's paw on my palm. It's such a peaceful feeling. :)
I've got nothing to say.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

In recent snaps... (part 2)

Movie night with the folks. Mum had fried some rice at home and we tapao-ed it. We were eating dinner in the car, in the car parking lot. It was delicious and spontaneously fun.
The rice looks a little pale but trust me, it was tasty yum. Diced assorted fishcake, chilli padi, beansprouts, soy sauce and rice.
My attention was caught by these beautiful flowers growing along the outer perimeter of a particular JC. Lovely!
Lovely view from the corridor at sunset... And yeah, the white dot is the moon. :) I love sunsets.
This was taken from my seat at a malay-muslim coffeeshop at Tampines. It's adjacent to the Tampines Round Market. It was a bright, hot, beautiful blue sky-ed day. We were there having brunch after sending my sister off at the airport. I had delicious rendang, chilli veg, and some other stuff i cannot remember but it was lip smackingly good. And i also had that gorgeous teh halia. Milky and sweet but it didn't overpower the tea and ginger taste.
This was the nutella crepe cake at Everything with Fries. Very unique... But something was just missing in it. It was chewy, at room temperature, and just mildly flavoured (bland...?) with the supposed nutella. It didn't taste as exciting as it looked in the glass display.
My mains from Everything with Fries. The fries were nice (freshly cooked and piping hot, tasty), coleslaw was cool and crisp and tasty and the burger was good too. This was the kid's meal because i knew that this was all i could manage. The burger is tiny, as u can see. But i was stuffed after the meal.
Was at Tanjong Pagar food centre with 2 classmates and this was our dessert after dinner. I decided to create my own dessert so i asked for "durian ice". The aunty gave me a funny face and said that she has never made that before, so i said "i'll just have your ice jelly but with durian topping". I could see that when she set to work, she was exercising her brain's creative centre as she made my dessert... It was yummy. :)
Was roaming Novena Square after my practicum one day and stopped by this salad bar for dinner. I ordered this Indian salad wrap, which was good. Healthy ingredients, yet satisfying and tasty to boot.
Jed giving me an ultra cute dipped-nose-eyes-looking-slightly-up expression.
Another cute pose, cuddling on my bed, blanket and pillow.
Shot taken at Kovan, near a friend's house. The expanse of wide, uninterrupted sky and the wide road was really refreshing. I felt like i was standing in some sort of strange combi between urban land and countryside.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Baked eggplant with tomato sauce and cheese.

In not wanting to waste the eggplants sitting in the fridge, i decided to try making that baked eggplant with tomato and cheese dish that i had once at this Italian restaurant, Amici. I remember falling in love with the dish and wanting to try making it on my own. So, here you go... Another one of my cooking adventures again.
Above: Spagetti sauce ready made by mom. I'm defrosting it here. Sorry guys, don't have the recipes for this... Though i know it consists of fresh tomatoes, garlic, onions, and herbs.
Above: My eggplants, olive oil.
Above: Leftover cheese, mozzarella and cheddar.
Above: One of my favourite ingredients.
Above: Mixed herbs.
Above: Random bottle of wine. I have NO idea what this is or its significance.
Above: Jed knows what to do whenever i open the fridge. When he sees me open the door, he would automatically lower his head so that the door can pass over his head. But when he saw me grab the camera for a shot, he scrambled to get up and away... Haha, i think he thought that i was going to use flash, which he does not like.
Above: All sliced up, mixed in the olive oil, oil from sundried tomatoes and the whatever-wine.
Above: Some other wine.
Above: Playing around with the depth of field.


Above: Into the oven to bake and soften. They took forever to do so.

Above: Whenever i checked on the eggplants in the oven, i would feel a sharp pain on my neck. It was because the metal from my necklace was heating up and burning my skin. :( HAHA. Had to take it off cos it was THAT painful.
Above: After the eggplants got cooked, i buanged in the sauce. But later realized that the eggplants were still hard, chewy and tasteless. So i let the mixture simmer in the oven for a longer time till it passed the taste test.
Above: The final touch. Cheese and herbs (see above).
Done!
The End.
My baked dishes always look the same hor. Cheese on top all the time.

Yesterday was our 4th year and 8 month anniversary... It's almost 5 years since we've gotten together. But if i were to hazard a guess, just for fun, of the amount of time that we've ACTUALLY been in each other's physical presence, i think it would only come up to... 2 1/2 to 3 years? HAHA. Mostly because we're both quite busy in this phase of our lives. Busy-ness usually ISN'T and SHOULDN'T be a reason to explain away the lack of time spent with your partner. But, we've been REALLY busy.

I guess we're both independent individuals who also enjoy our space and own activities, but of course each other's company as well. There is a comfort in being both apart and together. Perhaps that is easier to say and do for now since we've not started living under one roof. But still, we are who we are and we are perfectly fine without clinging to one another.

I've learnt though, that being TOO involved in your own life has its pitfalls because that sidelines the other person and s/he may be prone to wander... in whatever ways you can think of. It is never good to take the other person's presence for granted. So Gem and i do keep the smses going, though not all that often, but at least one sms conversation a day. Or a call.

There's been a lot of "wedding talk" around me recently. Friends talking about getting married soon and friends talking about the things i should do in prep for my own wedding... Not that he has proposed anyhow. hurhur. I can't wait to be at my friends' weddings, i don't mind being a jiemei over and over if they don't mind the supposed "inauspicious" aura around that. :P

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Heh. This is Jed poking his nose around my Loef and BonitoChico stash that arrived today. After the postman (whom he could not bark at because i buanged him in a room while i peacefully collected my registered mail) left, Jed made a beeline for my goods. He poked, scratched, sniffed, licked, and even ripped off... Oops, he wasn't chewing my "letter", i meant, envelope.

In recent snaps... (part 1)

Lunch at Tony Romas with family and friends. :) With a (heavensent) $100 voucher. Happiness.

My french onion soup, the MUST ORDER for me since i was a kid. Sadly, the standard of the soup has dropped DRASTICALLY since the heydays when Tony Romas first opened. The soup bowl used to be filled to the max with soup, and there would be huge chunk of bread immersed and soaked with soup just below like a mountain of chewy cheese that would engulf the whole of the top of the bowl, with cheese sliding down the sides. Now? Erk. I really don't know HOW it got to this level and why no one in the management seems to be keeping tabs on the quality. But still, it's the only place i know that serves french onion soup this way (soup with bread and cheese). Let me know if you've tried better! Mountain of fried onions with a special sauce (cos i cannot remember the name, only remember it being nice), and the standard potato skins with sour cream. Lovely. More pictures below.
Did i mention that i've attempted to make potato skins? In my opinion, they turned out awesome. ;) i think u might be able to find photos of it on this blog, somewhere.
Fried onions: Quite a tasty dish as you chew slowly to get the taste of onions and the batter out, not too salty, unexpectedly huge. Goes well with the sauce, but oily of course.
Ah hah! And the baby back ribs.
Salad. By the way, i had an AWESOME moroccan salad at California Pizza Kitchen some sundays ago (also had a voucher, thank God). Mm... Yum. But no pictures of it, oh well.
The End
***
My attempt to create hot foam on top of my sunday earl grey tea.
After having tea with hot foam on top at a cafeteria, i was hankering after tea with foam one sunday morning. Having no machine, i sought the all knowing Google to help me find people crazy enough to think up of ways to do this without a machine. So i did! One person suggested that you take a glass bottle with a cap, fill it with the desired amount of COLD milk (skim or full cream does make a difference to the outcome, apparently). Cover the bottle and shake madly for 45 seconds. After which, buang it into the microwave for a few seconds to warm the milk just enough such that the glass is not too hot to handle. Pour milk into your cup of tea. Well. This was the outcome. Pass or fail, i dunno. But i was happy to have some semblance of foam la. Hur.

Jed doing a Cleopatra.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

One main gripe about dresses from blogshops is that they tend to be a little short for me! Ragh.
I wish they would make office dresses at least a decent 33"-35" long, as it makes a world of difference. Casual dresses could also be at 33" at least... 31"-32" is just... TOO SHORT. Woah lao eh, cannot sit down without having to make sure i cover my butt before my behind hits the chair. *growl*

There are times when i have to wear my black running tights underneath the dress to preserve my modesty. Guess not everyone is my height lah. But even then, i'm not even that tall. I stand pretty average at 1.59m.

Ah, another gripe is that the clothes can be on the small side, though they are the exceptions of course. Most times, you see free size clothes, or clothes that fit XS to M sizes. The measurements for PTP (armpit to armpit distance when you lay your garment flat) is usually 13"-16" as the minimum (though i've seen 12". Mad.), and usually can stretch to 16"-18". However, you need to be aware that not all fabrics (like SATIN!) are as stretchable as fabrics like cotton, so you may have a hard time fitting into a top or dress of such materials. For example, I may be able to fit into a cotton top with a PTP of 13" to 16", but i may not be able to do so for a satin top. (Thankfully, Tracyeinny has been merciful in this area... but the stuff are a little pricey.)

Which also means... there's no way that i can happily eat, not exercise and put on weight during the lifespan of my current stash of online goodies otherwise, i won't be able to fit anything anymore. HAHA.

Think i'll feedback to the sellers about the length of dresses (which i have more of an issue with) if there's some kinda feedback system.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

EDIT: Note that released collections on Jipaban is usually smaller than releases on the retailers' blogshop itself.

Dear girls (esp. diehard online shoppers),

You will love me for this. Go to http://www.jipaban.com.sg/ (if you already knew about it... WHY NEH TELL ME?! HAHA.)

It is a treasure trove of online goodies... They've collated a whole bunch of online stores for your perusal. It certainly WIDENED my list of favourite stores now!

At Jipaban, you can create your filter (eg. price range, types of items you want to see, whether the shop is rated or not), create your own "mall" with your shortlisted group of favourite online stores. You will be updated on new items put up by the sellers, you can create a wishlist of items, share your items (that you are eyeing) with your friends to see what they think, make purchases... Woah. I kena stunned liao by this creation of some really clever person(s).

Yours truly,
Joline-the-online-shopper-because-shopping-outside-is-too-expensive-for-me

PS: hang on tight to your purse strings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, May 10, 2010

After what a certain leader did, i feel quite shortchanged, doubted and discouraged. I don't know for sure why it was done of course, but it sure makes me feel 2nd class by the sheer action that the deed was done.

Honestly, i can face up to difficult truths and i prefer it that way. Yet, I don't want to make myself improve just so that i have to prove myself to anyone. I only have Father God to be accountable to. But still. If only such choices made by others didn't have to elicit such emotions.