In the Mood for Romance

Getting ready for spring.

here are some really drool-worthy accessories, just take a look at that pearl necklace and those shoes!

1. Rosantica Osiris gold-dipped pearl necklace

2. Elizabeth and James Magdelena stretch-ponte mini dress

3. H&M fitted coat in powder pink

4. Moldavita cotton pearl earrings

5. Charlotte Olympia Cindy suede platform pumps

6. Aerin Beauty Limited Edition lipstick in beach beige

7. Fendi Peekaboo mini satchel bag

8. Gorjana Camila beveled ring set

9. Michael Kors wristwatch in rose gold

Cooking for Cheats - Poached Egg Over Ham and Toast

My kitchen has seen a fair bit of activity lately.

with JJ taking up most of my time and no additional help, i now have even lesser time for chores and caring for the household.
since i breastfeed, nutrition is a major concern. i didn't want to resort to reaching for chips and cookies to curb my hunger pangs, so i have been on the prowl for speedy recipes that put food on the table in less than 20 minutes.

i have always been a fan of simple, straightforward cooking because anything that takes more than 5 ingredients and longer than an hour to prepare is really best eaten at a restaurant.

these days, in addition to taste and speed, the amount of time needed for cleaning up after has become another important requirement when i cook.

meals that taste great, cook easy and clean up fast after are certainly not easy to prepare, but i realise that with a little bit of cheating, the challenge becomes pretty enjoyable.

i have been wondering about eggs benedict ever since i saw them on television, but in my present state there would certainly be no pottering around the kitchen for hollandaise sauce.

so my curiosity led me to make the best of whatever i had in the fridge, and the results were fast, dead simple and very delicious.

1. i started by toasting two slices of bread while browning two slices of ham in a frypan.

2. in a small pot filled two-thirds with water, i added a tablespoon of vinegar when the water came to a boil and reduced the boil to a gentle simmer.

3. after cracking an egg into a bowl, i gently slid the egg into the pot of water before covering the pot and waiting for four minutes.

4. i then stacked the ham on top of my toast, and topped it with my poached egg.

with some freshly cracked black pepper, this made a quick and yummy breakfast!

Note to Self

2013 has come and gone, and we've all succeeded in rolling over into a new year.

this year i won't be making any (lofty/ambitious/unrealistic) promises or resolutions, but i would really want to remind myself to love my family.
put more specifically, to love each and every one of my near and dear ones as equally as possible.

put even more specifically, to love my husband every day of our days together and not have the daily grind eat away at the foundation that was us, before JJ came into the picture.

the married-with-kids will probably know what I'm getting at.

once a baby comes into the picture, a husband is somehow relegated to the bench.
he becomes the one-with-the-heavy-diaper-bag, the why-arent-you-doing-as-much-as-i-am part of the marriage.

it's all very sad, so i swore to myself when i was pregnant that i won't be one of those who ended up relentlessly picking on her husband post-baby.

but i fell into the same rut.
i would very much like to blame it on my changing body shape, postpartum hormones, the fact that we now have a screaming infant in the house, but there really isn't a good enough reason for constantly finding fault with your own husband.

i realised how monstrous i had become last christmas, when i was searching for JJ's lost sock and my eyes wandered over to the foot of the christmas tree, where ken had left a present for me.

i used to be the one with the surprises, but last year, i bought ken's birthday gift 5 months ahead and handed it to him at the shop register, and i neither planned nor did anything for our wedding anniversary and christmas.
i became icy and snappy, and ken was made the convenient victim of all my thorns and prickles.
the baby had become the excuse for my forgetting our marriage, and his gift made me remember.

it reminded me that we existed before JJ, and our love is the reason why JJ ever made it into the picture in the first place.

so this year, this monster of a wife will try to be nicer. there will be no equating the number of times he changes JJ's diaper to how much he loves me. there will also be no faulting him for not being home more because of work.

and if the husband wants five eggs in his breakfast omelette, so be it.

Fleeting

It's 12.30am and he just fell asleep in my arms.

the husband is away at work so it's just me and the bub for the night. the lights on the Christmas tree are twinkling, and the television turned down low. I see the soft rise and fall of his chest, the gentle flutter of his eyelids as he finds his way into deeper sleep.

he feels both light and heavy at the same time cradled in my hands. how soon it has been, he has already turned two months old. I remember those trying first nights when I wished he would grow up faster so that I would have it easier and be able to have more uninterrupted hours of sleep.

funny but now I am already missing him as a newborn. I wish it could always be just us both, him small enough to fit in my hands and always looking up at me with that disarming toothless smile of his.

very soon his tiny hands will no longer be mine exclusively to hold, his head will no longer seek my chest for comfort. his legs will grow strong and wander into the world beyond and away from me.

and that day will come sooner than I think. so let me always remember tonight, with the fairy lights and the way you look and the way we are.

it won't always be this way, you and me. how fleeting this all really is.

goodnight my dear, and see you in the morning.

An Ode to Our Grand Dame

We finally decided to let her go.

13 years. ken and i have been together for ten, and when i first met him she was already in his life.
back then she was just fresh out of adolescence, still shiny and new.

no one knew us as well as she did. our entire love story literally unfolded within the space that was her, and she was part unwilling witness to all of our petty lovers' squabbles, teary confessions and romantic expressions of love.
she helped mark every milestone of our time together - from friends to lovers, lovers to husband and wife, wife to expectant mother.

i always thought i would have the chance to introduce JJ to her, to let her have the glory of carrying the fruit that came from all those years of silent observation.

it wasn't always smooth sailing though. we've taken turns at hurting her; she suffered her worst injuries ever under my hand when i dragged the entire left side of her body across a concrete wall when i was still inexperienced.

mounting injuries and years of relentless wind and rain slowly robbed her of her beauty. she became battered, chipped, dented and rusted.
her back window didn't work and we always had to pull up the glass by hand.
the speedometer and gauges stopped working and the air conditioning gave up.
rust created holes in her carriage, and rain found its way into the interior.
the melodies stopped floating out from her radio and speakers.

but she never once complained. she never begged to be fixed and she bore all of her scars like a proud horse out of battle.
and when life handed her lemons, she made them into the best lemonade. like the time when she was made an innocent victim of a collision while she was waiting for us to finish our shopping at a downtown mall. (we ended up making an unexpected windfall from the insurance claim.)

it was a sunny day when they came to pick her up for good. we took pictures, talked about the glory days and cleaned the past out of her.
we told the man who came for her to be gentle when the time came to lower the axe.

and we stared and stared until the truck that carried her away from us went out of sight.

she was my first car and i loved her so.

farewell my dame, you've had a good run.

Saying Hello All Over Again

I can't believe it's been so long.

in my long absence life remained pretty much the same, although

some old friendships were strengthened and renewed while others quietly faded into the past
a few old mindsets gave way to a set of new perspectives
i put into action the thoughts in my head and co-started a store in japan
and then another in singapore a year later

and now, our family of two has become three.

meet JJ.

life has changed indefinitely. some changes are good, others not so.
but the richness of the experience has taught and moved me in ways i never expected.

there really is a greater love.

お初。。。

。。。の「アンデスメロン」です！

値段はそんなに高くなかったが、「果物に400円もかかるなんて」と思いがちのシンガポール人のわたしにとって、かなり大きな買い物をしちゃった気分です＾＾

アンデスメロンは、実にアンデス山脈と全く関係無い。栽培しやすいことから、「作って安心」「売って安心」「買って安心」より、「安心ですメロン」というネーミングで売り出す予定だったそうです。しかし、名前にセンスがないとのことから、略して「アンデスメロン」となったらしい。

まっ、名前はどうであれ、おいしければなんでもいいや。
明日のおやつタイム、楽しみだね～

Summer Skies.

Iced tea.

Fireworks.

Cicadas.

Sun.

Blue skies.

We're Famous!

Imagine my surprise when I saw this on TV.

five old japanese men collectively known as SMAP (one of the biggest boybands in japan) having a good time at our very own MBS.

smap shot a series of commercials (four in total i think) in singapore for softbank, one of japan's fastest growing cellular phone companies thanks to their monopoly over the sale of iphones in japan, cheap subscription plans and ads featuring a white dog as the father of a very dysfunctional family.

watch for the end of the commercial...the merlion gets turned into mr. white dog!



here's another one:



and here's one of the white dog and his off-kilter family:

Summer's Here!

The sweltering heat is back.

the best part? the green mobile's air-con isnt working so the both of us sweat like pigs every time we sit in the car.

that aside, it's the third week of work and so far things are pretty interesting. although it's only a part-time job, i help administer scholarships and summer exchange programmes at the university's foreign students' centre and the work isnt repetitive, which is something that i like. plus i get time for myself in the afternoon since i leave work at 3.30pm every day. it's my idea of a good compromise between earning some pocket money and still having the leisure of spending (late) afternoons at home.

just this afternoon, i was on my way home from dropping ken off to a work dinner when i decided to make a quick detour to the department store.

the following is what happens when i am left to my own devices. two belts of the same design in two different colours. i just got too tired trying to figure out which colour to buy.

just allow me to say this: hurray to pocket money!!