Home Improvements

My coffee table is here! We searched high and low for the perfect one. It wasn't easy as we were pretty picky. But after a few months of searching and considering, we finally settled for one.

Looking back at my photos, its nice to see the slow but steady improvements we made to our little love nest. My home, Our home!

1. the very beginning

2. We added the curtains

3. We added lights

4. To top it all up, we added the coffee table!! :)

New member to the family

I bought a new plant over the weekend. Nice?

It comes in a pretty sad looking pot so I transplant it to an old pot. The previous occupant was a 水梅 who died of thirst.

Oh well.. out with the old, in with the new! I'm sure this plant would be more hardy than the previous one. I hope.

But it's so pretty anyway! :)

From CoCo's Kitchen

Salmon Aglio Olio Spaghetti

(serves two)

1. Chop up 3 cloves of garlic, 3 chili padi and 1 dried chili

2. Boil spaghetti with a pinch of salt

3. Pre-Heat the oven (200Co Roast option for 10minutes)

4. De-bone and rinse two salmon fillet

5. Salt the skin of the fillets and pat the fillet dry with some paper towels

6. Heat up non-stick frying pan

7. Without oiling the pan, sear the skin side of the fish for a minute before searing the other side for another minute.

8. By now the oven would be pre-heated. Place your fillets in the oven (skin side up) for about 5minutes (Tip: Line your baking tray with aluminum foil to save on cleaning up!)

9. While your fish is roasting, your boiling pasta would have been ready and al dente. (Not soft!)

10. Fry your garlic and chili with oil until fragrant. (Tip: Don’t wash away the oil in the pan from searing the salmon! It’s nutritious and adds flavour to your pasta) Add in your pasta and stir fry them in high heat. (Tip: Be generous with the oil or else the pasta would be very dry)

11. Add in some water and continue frying. Add salt and/or chicken powder for flavour.

12. Serve the pasta into two plates. Place your salmon fillet on top of your pasta.

Extra Tips:
A. Prepare all your ingredients so that the whole cooking process is efficient and fuss free.
B. Do not fry the pasta or leave the fish in the oven for too long or both would end up too dry. Being prepared beforehand can prevent this from happening.
C. Try to plan ahead your actions! The steps above was arranged to provide optimal efficiency.

If no major catastrophe happens, you should be enjoying a delicious and healthy pasta meal!

Bon Appetite!

Connie's Present

Hubby and I went to the Pet Lover’s Centre at Holland Village after dinner yesteday. I wanted to buy something for Connie so I settled with a toy mouse, something that she fancy, but she lost it awhile ago. Then we came across this scratch pad thingy that I was eye-ing for awhile now. I always wanted to buy it, but it was a little expensive. Besides, I was worried she wouldn’t like it. Hmm, I think the toy mouse would be a safer bet.


As I queueing at the cashier, the lady in front of me bought this giant three level cat scratch pole with dangling toys, carpeted nap hole, etc. I thought to myself, what a lucky cat.

Suddenly the thought hit me. Why shouldn’t Connie be the lucky one too? So I ended up buying the scratch pad after all. Hubby said he’d share with me. A present for Connie he says. So cute. Did I mention that he is the only man that Connie likes? She’s got good taste in men. Heehee..

Luckily, Connie loves the present! The catnip drives her crazy. She’s like scratching and rubbing and purring like mad. I’m so happy she likes it.



After playing for awhile, she got so worn out that she just fell asleep and started snoring on my bed.




Hmm, I’ll just let her sleep for awhile more before I send her out. It must be a fun day for her, let’s not spoil it.

Love Nest Updates

I promised that I will upload some photos of my new fish tank. So here it is..

It's so therapeutic looking at them swimming around...

You see that grey gold fish at the left hand corner? That's Shadow. My favourite.

A bird's eye view

Saturday

What an eventful Saturday! Met up with hubby at 9am for a Bak Chor Mee breakfast at Toa Payoh. We decided to watch 300, but since it’s a 1.15pm show, we settled down at Coffee Bean at Great World City Shopping Centre for coffee and newspaper. Coffee for me, newspaper for dearie.

Well after I’ve finished my java dear-dear is still reading the papers. So I excused myself and strolled around the mall, and finally bought my Justin Timberlake CD! Yeah! I wanted to buy a new book by Sophie Kinsella too but it’s very expensive, so I think I’ll sleep on that first. The movie is pretty ok… A lot of blood, slow motion actions and eye candy. Hubby loved it. I would guess most men would.

We headed to Borders next as dear need to catch up some reading of his monthly ‘free’ magazines. Haha… we do that once a month. I would usually go to the comics section, but seeing that it was such a beautiful sunny Saturday, I slip out when he was happily settled at the magazine section.

So hot and sunny..

I walked over to Sasa at Wisma, bought a bottle of nail polish and settled down at the outdoor seats of Coffee Bean at Borders. Such a nice day… I thought as I started painting my nails and drinking my iced tea. Some weird guys are staring at me but I don’t care, I finished my nails and went for an early dinner with hubby. (we didn’t eat lunch) I highly recommend the 炸酱面 at 鼎泰丰. Yummy…

See my freshly painted nails...

We were heading back home when we drove passed by upper Thomson road. Since we were around the corner, we decided to just drop by the lower pierce reservoir for a walk. It was such a beautiful afternoon.

So Sweet...

We ate ice cream while we strolled along, chatting and just enjoying each other’s company. We left as the day was losing daylight and headed back to my parent’s place for awhile before going home.

It was such an eventful day that we were dozing off in front of the tv by 10.45pm! We went to bed and put our tired bodies to sleep, dreaming of ice creams and sun sets on a sunny Saturday.

½ Ferris wheel

Hubby drove me to my facial appointment on Friday evening. On the way there, we saw the Ferris wheel in mid-construction. It’s only half done but we can already is how huge it would be! I can’t wait for it to complete so that I can ride on it!

Chronicles Of Pain

I have been avoiding it for awhile now, but I can’t hide from it forever. I made the appointment and I went for my facial session on Friday night.

Oh. My. God.

I forgot how f**king painful it was. My eyes are covered with a cotton pad, but frankly I don’t know what’s the point because it doesn’t make the pain any lesser. Somehow I have a feeling that April, my psycho beautician seem to be both disgusted and yet exhilarated while she cleanse my face with nightmare inducing apparatus.

I can imagine her smiling beneath her mask as she scrapes away my face, enjoying my pain while I twist my feet, clawed the bed, clench my teeth in silent excruciating agony!

I tried to distract myself by thinking of work and my wedding plans – don’t work.
Then I tried pinching my thigh to distract the pain from my face – don’t work either.
Forget it, just clench my teeth harder and ride it out!!!

Fortunately, after the painful cleansing comes the cool relaxing treatment to calm my sore and swollen skin. By 9pm, I leave the place with a red, swollen and blemished face. Well, as least now it’s clean and smooth!

Check out my 'battle scars'

Project Love Nest

I saw this cupboard set at Ikea the other day and I really like it.

I’m thinking of putting something like that in my living room and use one of the cupboards to keep my shoes! But hubby and I have other buying plans in mind, such as another TV, so I’m not sure when we would actually buy this cupboard set.

Anyway, we bought a floor lamp that day and we put it in the living room. The warm light makes the room very nice and cozy in the evening. I love it! We also set up a nice fish tank at the balcony and so far they are doing very well. I’ll take some pictures the next time I drop by.

Sigh… Our love nest is evolving week by week! Can you feel the lurve…?

Oh and I found some super good deals along the way. S$69.00 for a chair with a free domestic helper! It comes with a choice of male and female help. They cook and they clean!

(just kidding... they're my parents. haha..)

Kitty Cat

There’s a beautiful kitty cat lingering around the void deck at my block. She’ll show up once a while and I really like her. Hmm, maybe I’ll name her Hazel. I saw Hazel again this morning, just sitting there against the wall looking all pretty. I couldn’t resist! I’m late for work but a quick photo wouldn't take much time right? I quickly whip out my camera but before I can take a good shot, a pair of mom and daughter walked pass. Hazel was quickly distracted by the little girl’s meow-ing and shouting.

Tsk.

I ended up with only one not-so-flattering shot of an agitated hazel before running to the bus stop. Sigh, maybe she’ll be there again tomorrow morning. I’ll try my luck again, but until then check out this morning’s shot and a shot of my dear Connie!

Burn Baby Burn!

We survived another round of aerobics tonight! I think we are getting better; and I’m happy to announce that the instructor is getting better too!

You see, I really didn’t like the instructor at first. It’s bad enough that she speaks bad English, don’t give proper instructions and over estimate our ability to pick up her steps right from the first class. What really bugs me was how she kept chatting, joking and playing with some of her old students instead of focusing on instructing. If not for the peer pressure from Winsome and Char, I would have dropped out of class long ago! Thanks Gals!!

Like I said, the pass two classes have been MUCH better. She’s more focus and we really had a good sweat. To be honest, I was actually looking forward to aerobics class in the afternoon! I had a good time. Hoped we burnt a lot of fats tonight!!! Yeah!

Im A Cheer Bear!

	Cheer Bear You're the Care Bear cheerleader! Your spunky personality and optimisim lifts everyone's spirit. Though you want everyone to be happy, you stand your ground on issues you feel strongly about and this can bring disunity among your friends. Despite this, you are a true believer in working together.
Take the Which Care Bear Are You? Quiz!

Earthquake!

Unbelievable, today I experienced my first earthquake. We were sitting at our desk, chatting on the messenger, discussing lunch. Suddenly, I felt the walls of my cubicle shake. That idiot John must be shaking the cubicle wall. I was about to shout out to him to cut it out when I realize that he couldn’t be shaking the cubicle, because my chair is swaying! The Chinese New Year ornaments hanging around my cubicle walls were swaying gently while I gazed at them, transfixed.

The office immediately broke into excited shouts across cubicles. What was that!? Did you feel that too? Is someone doing equipment testing? It suddenly dawned on us, it’s an earthquake! The rest of the afternoon was filled with excited chatters of each other’s experience, friends and family called each other. Feigned sickness, excuse to eat chocolate (to calm the nerves)… Haha...

Apparently we weren’t alone. Many parts of Singapore felt the tremors too. My sister was screaming over the phone on why we didn’t evacuate. Duh… the tremors would have stopped by the time we walk to the entrance of the office. It only lasted a few seconds.

The evening news was flooded with news on the quake. As I switched between Channel News Asia and the local Chinese news, I can’t help but feel a little embarrassed. In Indonesia, there was chaos, destruction and death in the wake of the quake. People were screaming, children crying in distraught.

In the local news, some companies evacuated the whole building. Everybody, including their fancy cars, was unhurt and well. There were smiling faces around too as some schools and companies decide to let the people go home early. But even with such efficiency, safety conscious actions taken (overkill if you ask me), instead of thanking our lucky stars, people even complained about how poorly their management handled the “crisis”. Hello…

Looking at the news coverage of Indonesia, the reality of the situation hit me. Thinking back, I can’t believe that I actually felt disappointed that I missed the second quake because I was standing when it happened. I even joked about hoping another quake would hit again. I quickly changed the channel to some art program, hoping to cover my guilt. I actually hoped for another wave of natural disaster to strike for my own enjoyment!

I’m sorry I felt that way; I really hope that things would turn for the better in Indonesia. At least today I learnt to count my blessing, so all is not lost.

Love Found, Love Lost

I remember the first time it happened to me. The initial reaction was shock, of course. Then came a surge of mixed emotions. Pain, anger, frustration, disgust and disbelieve. How could this happen to me?? I understood then what thousands and millions of people must have felt when it happened to them and I cursed and swore like a mad woman. Unfortunately, my sister fell victim too recent. She sends me and message early in the morning that read,

“I am marking this day of my life. My newly bought bicycle has been stolen, the thief took the body and left the wheel with the lock. I am heart broken. He should have taken the whole bike.”

I tried to make her feel better by sending her consoling words. She replied,

“The feeling was like having my hand being chopped off forcefully because they wanted your gold chain. It’s very sad you know. They should take the bike. It’s a sad scene to see the one beautiful wheel left.”

Yes. My sister and I are officially victims of thievery.

My experience was with my shoes. I had just moved from a private house to a housing estate the first time in my life so I left my shoes outside the house as I always do. Being the naïve girl that I was, I didn’t believe that people would actually steal a pair of old shoe. I was utterly heart broken. They were my favorite pair of heels that I bought in KL. They never gave me blisters even from day one and they were as comfortable as they were beautiful. After the initial shock, I burst into a fury of swearing and shouting. Angry at the person, at the world that created such an evil person and at my own naiveté. I sincerely hoped that whoever wore my heels would have their feet rot away.

As I mourned for my lost heels, I suddenly remembered what my dad told me years ago. An old man came into my dad’s bakery, took a bun and left without paying. I wanted to give chase, but dad was telling me to let go. He said, if the person was so poor to the point that he can’t even afford an 80cents bun, then we might as well just let him have it. The memory comforted me. I thought, if the person had to steal a pair of worn out shoes, then I might as well let him have it.

Even today I think of my heels. They are still the best, but what’s done is done. I learnt to be more careful with my possessions now. But my sister is not someone who would go quietly into the night. True to her style, she went to all sorts of places to make her displeasure known, police post, town council and probably the housing development board. Well, as least the authorities now know that there are thieves around the area to look out for. She refused to remove the single tire still tied to the bicycle stand; claiming that it would act as a warning to others who park their bicycle there.

Yesterday she talked about her beloved bicycle again, so I suggested that she get another one. She huffed that she will never get another bike again. Well, whatever works for you. Right?