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. :)

❤

Polly the Terrarium Terror

Pushy and I are on another terrarium mission for Christmas. This time we're working on a gift project for a grown-up and therefore do glass encased ones and also experiment with different plant varieties.

My first idea was to work on an orchid terrarium. But it's a more difficult plant to care for than the last ones we had and I was very afraid it would wilt away, so I suggested to get a backup plant. Pushy saw that the African Violet came in a lovely shade of white with blue edges and therefore we made that our backup plant.

At home, I began repotting the orchid and saw that I made a grave mistake. In selecting our orchid we chose a vanda with the smallest flowers. However I made no mental note of the height of the spikes and ended up with an orchid taller than it's container. Amateur! 

I ended up having to pick out the shorter spikes and split the plant into 2 categories - shorter and taller. Taller ones went back into its original pot, shorter ones were shoved into a cleaned out mineral water base which I cut out, together with some dried spagheum moss and charcoal bits.

The entire bottle base with the shorter spikes were still too tall for its intended container, so I went to Youtube and looked up how to trim orchid stems. Finally I ended up with an orchid plant with no flowering spikes, only leaves. It doesn't seem like an exciting Christmas gift, so I think Pushy will be keeping it for his own and while waiting for the new flowering spikes to grow out.

Having disappointed myself with a poorly thought out orchid terrarium, it took me another couple of days to gather courage and make a second attempt with the backup plant - our sweet little African violet.

I went home, whipped out the paraphernalia and began filling out the second jar with charcoal, moss and coloured beads.I eased out the African violet from it's original pot and tried to stuff the soil and roots to for the next layer. Height-wise the plant was appropriate for the new jar, but lo and behold, the width was way too much. Another amateur mistake. 

Very unfortunately, the jar was tall and it was a chore to extract the plant out to  downsize it. Numerous of the its delicate leaves broke in halves and some in entirety. After peeling away all the broken leaves, I got myself a nice size of the plant to fit into the jar. Finally.. something worked!

Now the African violet fits snugly in the jar, but it looks dirty with bits of soil stuck to the top and bottom side of its leaves. I'm still working out a safe way to clean away the soil without breaking more leaves. 

Poor plants. I feel so apologetic to them. Now I will have to monitor their colour and poise to make sure they recover from my unintended mutilation. 

No, my thumbs are not green and I suck at gardening!

Can they survive the Terrarium Terror?

♥

Cosy December Dreams..

December will be magic again.
It's time to update my ringtone with that evergreen by Kate Bush. I would be quite surprised if I met someone else having the same ringtone.

Have had some minor shuffles in my work environment and I'm having mixed feelings. Yet I'm hopeful that I'd get what I want in this new space!

Feeling hopeful, I've gathered motivation to get back in line with my fitness routine.  If only I hadn't busted my ankle from the over-zealousness. I'm thinking I should get it checked, together with my ever aching intercostal muscle, and that sharp pain in my molar.

It's time to give myself a little bit more attention and R&R.

Have a good December dream my cyber folks.

❤

Fabric Fanatic

Oh dear. I have an incurable insane obsession with silk fabric.

<3

Paws-to-Ponder: Don't Obsess, If You Digress Don't Stress!

It's one thing to be engrossed in something. 
It's another thing when you are obsessed.

Personally I experience weird fluctuations in energy levels and concentration. My energy levels tend to vary daily. On Mondays I'm usually in tip-top form and can do lots of things, no matter whether work or non-work related. On Tuesdays I'll feel really tired through the day so at night I'll fall asleep quickly and get a rested sleep. On Wednesdays being well rested, my energy is up again and I can do lots of things. The cycle goes on until the week-end when I get more time to rest so my body resets.

With all these weird symptoms going on with my body, I have learnt that I have a preference for doing different categories of work on different days. For instance challenging issues to be dealt with on Monday, and on Tuesday I do routine work that doesn't require that much creativity.

Also through the day my energy level changes. Lots of studies have been done on this. Energy changes during the day can be caused by caffeine or blood-sugar crashes accompanied with prolonged sitting and not getting your behind moving. 

This is a little harder for me but I'm consciously making efforts to move my hiney every half to one hour. Getting a drink, standing around to gossip, bathroom break.. tiny little breaks help. 

I also switch around the tasks when I want to 'reward' myself for tackling something difficult. For instance when I investigate an issue I make a few mental notes on the steps I would take. Where the task is tedious, I let myself take a break from it after a certain milestone, and flick out my Outlook to look through the new emails. Then I go back to the tedious task part deux.

These are all the little things I find helpful in dealing with my daily grind which I think may already seem like common sense to you. I hope I have planted a reminder in your head and mine, that it's ok to give yourself a break if you really need one. Don't get obsessed with fixing the next break, investigating the next issue until your bladder's gonna burst or your eyes glaze over from staring so hard at the computer monitor and begin to see stars.

Ultimately it's about understanding yourself and how you work best. So how can you be efficient and effective?
♥

Once Upon a.. Getting my Brain Fried

"There is good in you. I can see it."

"Rumpelstiltskin!"

"I will get my son. And I will have vengeance."

I think I have been getting an overdose of Once Upon A Time.

So sleepy.. yet so addicted.

And I'll sleep happily ever after this brog entry for the next 7 hours.

♥

New Year is Coming...

Egad.

Just 2 months to go!

Pulse check.
In this year.. Have you been Naughty or Nice?
♥

Paws-to-Ponder: Be Useful, Be Yourself

My Dream is not to win against anybody.
I only want to be a Useful Person.

These are the words I have always believed, but sometimes lose sight of.

I will live by my beliefs, day on day, year on year. And I'll be most happy doing so.

Be happy today too, my cyber peers.
<3

Cheesecake had a Bad Day

"Alone I face this world of dangers. 
No one to trust, every face a stranger's.

The demon who hovers above wants me for his meal. 
I attempt escape and subsequently keel.

Now at the edge of my world I have arrived to meet. 
The Great Baker in the sky I will eventually greet."

-- Last words from Cheesecake, left sitting exposed to Jimmy Johnny the Fly.
♥

Doggie-bag It: Rather Lovin' OCBC iBanking

I've been playing with my OCBC ibbanking page today. Being a girl who's really bad with managing my dollars and cents, the features on the ibanking portal are really helpful for me.

No doubt about it, OCBC's ibanking portal has the best 'human touch' to it. This is in comparison with previous ibanking accounts that I held with DBS and UOB. 

I don't get paid for this article.

All the regular features (fund transfer, bill payment, account opening) aside, my favourite feature would be the one on Goal Setting. You start by categorizing your goal, naming it and defining the amount required, then you go into details like whether you have a deadline for it. If you do, then the system calculates your minimum required savings per month to your cause. If you don't, you can play around with the amount of savings you can actually afford and the system derives the date that you will meet your goal.

Personally I've always had a few goals that I know I need to save up for. But because I'm not the disciplined sort, I tend to set aside whatevers I have remaining at the end of the pay-cycle month as general savings, and then I lose sight of how the individual causes should be carved out from this sum.

With OCBC's Goal Setting feature I've now added my individual goals as pockets of funds on to my homepage. I've set rules to direct my monthly pay to the different pockets so no goal gets forgotten. 

Also when I login to my homepage I get to see my total pool of money, split by savings that I carved out against my free cash. This is a very good summary because I can easily know my splurge limits. It is also helpful that credit card transactions that I've chalked up on my OCBC cards are displayed on the same page so I can monitor in case of over-spend.

All in all, you can tell that OCBC had put a lot of thought into making their ibanking portal useful and user friendly, all in the customer's perspective. With the relevant information displayed upfront, it makes people reminded of their saving and spending habits. 

I think the portal worked for me. That's why it deserves a shoutout!
For those out there (like me) who are bad at managing your money, you can probably give OCBC a go. :)
♥

Very Pensive

An emotional stirrup from reading recent social news. 

As I am resting here in my air-con room on my comfy bed and soaking up the relief, there are others on this same land living day-to-day without hope for tomorrow. Bad living conditions, no dignity, no skills and energy to make things better.

Not knowing what to do today, not knowing if tomorrow will be any different. Everyday sitting and watching the lifeless walls. Watching the sun rise up and go down again. 
"What can I do? Nothing I do even matters anymore."

Life without hope, without love, is really not a life at all.
Having no passion to live, whiling away today and tomorrow, is a dreadful waste of life.

I wish everyone could see that there is always hope, there is always something you can do.
Life is so precious, we must make it worthwhile.
Be strong, get a grip, and hang in there!

How can I save the world? How can I make myself useful?
Time to reflect.

♥

Achievement.. (cough) Unlocked!

"The pain in Sprain stays mainly in the strain."

Ow I think I sprained my rib from all that incessant coughing.
Cooties.. They're still here!

♥