Paws-to-Ponder: Your Sweet Dreams Don't Come True

Your sweet dreams don't come true if that is all you do.
Your toothache's never going away, it'll stick around you everyday.
Time won't be standing still - just because you wished it will.

You'll never learn a skill if you're so afraid to fail.
Your bad hair won't be tamed itself, you'll start to look like something else.
In fifty years to come, life will feel a little dumb.

Hazy Daze Quick Oat Porridge

Today's a holiday in Sg-land and I made effort to get up especially early to get myself some exercise. Then I checked the air pollution readings and went back to bed.

Yes, it's really that bad.
Air quality had been "Very Unhealthy" since this morning. Schools will be closed for tomorrow so our kids and teachers won't be made to suffocate in class.

What a waste of a brilliant holiday today. Everyone's hiding at home. McDonald's and KFC aren't even delivering today (which is, of course, the right thing to do to protect their riders).

On a day like this, I'm not even keen to go to the kitchen to cook a proper meal - my kitchen happens to be sheltered but open-air, and exposed to the elements.

But a Poserpup can't starve on a day like this, can she? Food is King. I'm not gonna stay home hangry.

Easy recipe for a day indoors: Instant oatmeal porridge.
- 2 cups instant oat
- 1 egg
- 1 cubed chicken stock
- 2 tablespoons fried ikan bilis
- 1 tablespoon chopped spring onion
- 2.5 to 3 cups hot water

Nagalot loves ikan bilis and she always keeps a jar on standby in the fridge. These are either store bought ready to eat kind, or sometimes she gets the dried ones and fries them herself.

I have this box of chopped spring onions that were leftovers from my last major cook-off. I washed and dried them, then chopped and stored them in the freezer. Quite a convenient trick to make boring instant food a little more colourful and appetizing.

Also, we ALWAYS have cubed stock at home, it's like an obsession. Definitely these can't beat the home made ones but, well, we want an easy meal on a day like this don't we?

These are the only cheats we'll use in the recipe.

To prepare the oat porridge,
1) Freshly boil a jug of water and add to a large bowl. I'm using the electric kettle kind that you find in hotel rooms. The size gives just about the water we need. The water needs to be really really hot.

2) Dissolve cubed stock in hot water.

3) Crack the egg, and add in slowly to the bowl of hot water while stirring the hot water in a circular motion. I like to go for the 'egg drop soup' type of egg texture.

4) Add the instant oats and stir to avoid clumps.

5) When the liquid is mostly absorbed by the oats and the oats become a creamy texture, the porridge is almost done. Top the porridge with the fried ikan bilis and spring onion.

6) Pour just a little more hot water over the spring onions (mine was from the freezer so I need to make sure they thaw out and are slightly blanched).

7) Adjust the texture to your liking, adding a little more hot water if need be. Add meat or veg if you happen to have them in your fridge. I happened to have bought some mini peppers 2 days back. I popped them into the air fryer on max heat for 10mins and when the outside was blackened and soft, I peeled off the skin and added them to my porridge.

And voila! Enjoy your slightly nutritious, hazy day instant meal!

<3

Here's one to you babes

Today's a day full of prepping and attending a little girl's 1st birthday party.
The lesson I learnt was that, if you intend to give a sincere present - plan plan plan!

Because I didn't, I spent a hectic entire day sourcing and procuring an ideal gift.
I also outsourced some part of the work to Pushy, who's been the kindest to ferry me around and provide the legwork that I couldn't do myself.

The party was at dinner, and a huge one. The place was spilling with familiar faces, and their babies, and the babies had the faces of their parents' familiar faces. It was a successful gathering of old friends.

I was a little zonked and blabbered nonsense to some of them. That's how my brain works these days. Can't go without my 10 hours worth of sleep. Still I'm glad to have been able to catch up with so many friends! Left, right, up, down, full of conversations between which I hopped around. Oh, the social butterfly side of me came out alright. The not alright part was my ability to talk proper.

I wish all the little kids of my dear friends would grow up strong and healthy, and be decent people like their folks. So bab-ified today!

❤

Imagine Wild

Well, well, well.

Right after I thought of writing this short entry, I went and did myself a little googling on the topic.

Looks like it's true.
A sleepy brain thinks more creatively.

It seems when you get sleepy, you get more insightful. Your mind stops minding you thinking nonsense.

I don't quite mind this state I'm in now. It's rather enjoyable. Happiness comes easily. Just by closing my eyes I derive much comfort and feel so relaxed. Satisfying a sleepy me by shutting my lids actually feels pleasurable. Got no place for work stress in this brain fog.

Writing seems easy too I don't feel like I'm not getting the usual writers' block as I begin the entry. I'm not saying the quality of writing is better - perhaps I'll judge my own literature on another day.

They say getting tipsy brings on the same effect. It's no wonder people enjoy drinking when they are bogged with problems. Those guys are geniuses!

Just as I'm writing this I've got another 2 product ideas edging their way into my brain. Nice. I'm going to get them sketched and documented down into my sketch book. (It's a book that's actually named 'Sketch'!)

Well if the book insists, I shall obey...

<3

The Bluez

Some days I think I lose myself. 
My esteem runs really low and I keep feeling inadequate.

I think I've got the bluez.

I know I have the power to change myself. To change the way I doubt myself. The only way to deal with this emotion, as quoted by Pushy (most likely stolen from an old movie) is to Follow Your Heart.

When the mind, the body, and the heart are all aligned, then happiness will ensue.

This emo-potato will go and sleep off the bluez now.

❤

Air tickets booked!

There's nothing quite so exciting as planning for a long holiday. Especially for one with the entire family.

Expect drama, but what's a family without some drama?

Ooh boy, ain't it exciting.

<3

Paws-to-Ponder: The Calling of Names

My sweet-pie of a tiny little niece is in Sg-land to visit. At the age of 5, she's rather discerning of people, way in advance of her age. Each time we meet, her mom reminds her to greet me with the title 'Aunt', and GooeyGecko 'Uncle'. She's usually uncomfortable to do this on her own initiative, and she can tell that we don't actually mind when she doesn't.

Speaking to strangers is already a little task for her to accomplish. Calling strangers 'Aunty' and 'Uncle', and then being hugged by these strange people is way out of her comfort zone. She stares, wide-eyed, with curiosity when we chatter animatedly in an unusual Sg accent. Observing her expressions, you can tell she's trying to tune-in to the conversation.

Half an hour into our rendezvous, the princess warms up and gets her dance engine going. Grabbing the mic, she stands up front and shakes, shimmies and stomps her feet in tempo with the latest American pop hits. With half naked men and women flashing up on the MTVs, my mind goes - Aiyaiyai, why's a 5 year old watching Taylor Swift making out, and then singing well-rehearsed to the lyrics of Call Me Maybe?

But truth be-told.. It doesn't matter. There's full of sex and gore on American TV anyways. And guess where's the little one gonna grow up? 

So back to the calling of titles in the family. Should I be bothered if the little lady doesn't address me as 'Aunty'? I would like that, but it really doesn't matter. It will already be a great thing for me if she remembers me in a year or two to come. If she remembers the time we spent together singing and shaking our booties, that would be really awesome.

It doesn't matter that we have different cultures and habits, or like different things. The fact is we live 12 hours apart from each other and there are bound to be differences. So I disagree with the thought that my sweet-pea niece ought to be taught how and always make it a point to address the elders. 'Aunty', 'Uncle' calling doesn't even mean much. Not addressing elders this way doesn't equate to disrespect. More importantly, I just wish for her to grow up treating everyone with equally good manners, and being a kind and useful person.

Good night, sleep tight,
And don't let the bed bugs bite,
My sweetheart L.
With a heart full of love for dear L, 
Polly.

❤

Paws-to-ponder: You can't change your passion

A guy can change anything - his face, his home, his family, his girlfriend, his religion, his God. But there's one thing he can't change.. he can't change his passion.

movie "The Secret in Their Eyes"

Many of us urbanites, we live in the doldrums of our lives, each day waking/ working/ sleeping and waking again. Then the cycle repeats. Sometimes we look at others and wished we were leading our lives in a different way.

In today's Simpsons episode, Homer finds himself living the past 20 years of his life doing exactly the same things every single day. Same job, same home, same habits. He fishes out a stack of letters he exchanged with his Spanish pen pal, Eduardo from his childhood days and reminisced the crazy dreams and ambitions they used to share. To cheer him up, Marge invited Eduardo to meet Homer again to realize the things they wanted to do when they were kids.

I've been slightly inspired by these stories. Reel life, can apply to real life too.

What is important to you? Did you achieve what you set out to do? Are you happy with what you are doing now?

I find that if there is something that keeps coming back to you, something that makes you excited and that you'd gladly lose sleep over - that is an indication that you love it. Innately you'd want to experience more and get better skills to do the things that you love. You become focused and other thoughts melt away. Passion is powerful, it makes people strong and persevering.

If you are passionate about something, why not let it out a little more? Life would be much more fulfilling. You would be happier. As long as you're not going to harm or intrude on others' lives, that would be okay!

Unhappy about your life? Will you gripe or get up and change it now? 

In the words of Homer Simpson.. YOLO!

❤

Life's a peach!

Blog posts are now few and far between.

Well, I had some trouble signing out of one of my alter-ego gmail identities. Despite signing out from account A using tools from the top right corner, each time I launched Blogger it did a default login to account A for me. This problem persisted for some months. Today I got fed up and deleted my entire browser/cookies/password history from the beginning of time, and then now life is back to normal.

Life is, indeed, back to normal. As usual it dealt me a few curve balls, but nothing too depressing. 
After all, no one ever died from a few curve balls - did they? Let's hope the answer to that is a resounding NO.

My home renovation is almost complete. I only did basic but fundamental improvements, nothing fancy-schmancy. Despite the basic requirements, my contractor is surprisingly bad at doing what he needs to do for me. His name is Mr Poh and he only does a good job for you if you spend a bomb on your renovation. Otherwise, he'll attend to you only in his spare time.

Alas the practicalities of life. 

I can't recall his business' name right this moment, but the next time I do I'll try to remember to share it with this cyber community. Contractors engaged to fix people's roofs can't expect good reviews if the roof is still leaking after the repair, right?

[Update on 7 July 2015: 
My SMSes and my mom's SMSes sent to the contractor to ask him to reply us on when he expects to finish tidying up the loose ends (the problems he caused because he didn't do his job properly) were completely ignored. 

This is not counting a couple more items that are stated on the quotation but not yet started to date.

This contractor started on my renovations since mid-Jan 2015.
We're running low in the Patience department now. 

The business this Mr Poh Ah Tai runs is called Tai Engineering, Biz Registration No. 53119584L, registered office at Rochor Centre, but this could be the address of the corporate secretariat. Running a google search on business phone number +65 65833633, this Mr Poh guy also seems to have registered another business known as Tai Yong Builders, located in Hougang Ave 8. His mobile is +65 98181988.

My overall feedback: Mr Poh's follow-up service is very bad. He tends to over-promise and under-deliver - a big NONO when your business is messing around with people's homes. Also, he likes to make decisions on behalf of the home-owners when it comes down to the finer details like the colour of door panels.

To him, its just work. To me, this is my home. And I'm REALLY PISSED when he leaves it in a half-completed state.

If I had the chance to re-select my contractor - I WOULD NOT CHOOSE TAI ENGINEERING. And this is my recommendation to all of you who chance upon this entry.]


Enough with the negative thoughts. 
I'm off to bed.
❤

Polly Wants a Cracker

But she's already had one too many.

It's the 3rd day of the Lunar New Year and I'm already suffering the symptoms of over-consumption of new year snacks. Even if I ignored the calories, the amount of trans-fat and carcinogens I'm taking into my body over the last week would cause my downfall within the next five to ten years. All this eating, coupled with a bout of dry weather is making me dehydrated all the time, bringing the onset of a sore throat and a couple of mouth ulcers.

Bad, bad, greedy Polly.

Time to start on my detox tomorrow. No doubt its not scientifically proven to work but I think it will make me feel a bit better about myself. :)

❤