Need sugar 🍫

Taking a break. My brain needs the sugar rush so grabbed  my present.

Ms Thermie

A follow up from my previous blog entry 

Ms Thermie’s hospitalisation on the 10th, Friday coz that’s the only day I’m in to hand her over. The earliest they could take her from me was on the 7th which was considered fast after reporting this to D on 5th night. But I wasn’t in so …  I informed them that I threw away the box so they came with a box and styrofoam. Just glad that I didn’t have to send it down myself coz I wouldn’t know how to support Ms Thermie in the car. 

On Monday 13th they WhatsApp me. On 14th a quotation was sent over. $125 is considered not that bad already. No choice also, I had to service it otherwise it won’t work. 

It's been 9 days and I'm feeling so handicap without Ms Thermie.

Have been eating porridge with dishes until so sianz just coz I'm lazy to bring down my rice cooker.

Anyway don't think we're used to eating rice cooked in rice cooker now 😬. The rice tastes lighter, different. 

Finished repair on Thursday, 16th and earliest delivery they can do is on Saturday. I requested for them to deliver on a weekday coz I do not want to commit staying at home waiting for Ms Thermie on a weekend when it’s our family time, time we have our meals outside. 

Discharged on 20th. @ 1.27pm my baby is home! 

Oh no! They tore away my blue blue sticker 🤣, I should have written a memo to them not to tear off the sticker. Now my baby looks different. 

Checking that I still have my bookmarked recipes inside. But it seems whatever I had cooked is not shown in my ‘recent cooked’ 😢.  First thing I did was to run a pre-cleaning, the step that didn’t allow me to go further before I sent in for servicing. 

 Pomfret prepared, egg prepared, rice prepared. What I love about having a Thermomix is the ability to stack and cook, apart from making sambal (avoid oil splatters in kitchen). Just 15mins and rice + 2 dishes are ready. Tonight’s dinner also consist of a soup and two other dishes (one packed veggie from economical stall, one ready made honey chicken. I popped these two into the convection oven) 

I miss rice. Got so sick and tired of porridge just coz I was lazy to bring down the rice cooker. Anyway we’re not used to eating rice cooked in a rice cooker now. 

💕💕Ms Thermie, welcome home baby! But I’m sorry I need to make you work hard tomorrow coz your MC was too long and I’m short-handed. I need to make lil’ one’s pasta sauce and boil chrysanthemum drinks. Have a good rest now. 

My Mother’s Day present

❤️ ❤️ ❤️

The girls know me so well and ... they seem to learn the skills of hiding things from me. (and coz now I also give up the idea of tidying up lil' one's wardrobe who often messes up faster than I can pack) They know when to go out and secretly buy the gift with the small mall opposite us now. 

Thank you girls for the thoughtful and sweet gift! 

Nintendo switch game

I haven’t played Nintendo switch with Che-che for more than half a year. 

The girls started playing Overcooked first. 

I see Che-che keep running around. And lil’ one keeps running in circles. 

Athena to Aricia:

"The kitchen is on fire 🔥”

"Ay! I gotta pick up the extinguisher."

"You must cook the tomato you know?!"

"We only served one dish!"

"Ay! U only have one job to do. I'm doing all the other jobs."

"Ay! Can you go and wash the plates?"

Aricia to me : "mummy do you want to play?"

Me : "no i dowan to get scolding from che-che." 🤣

#bossysister#

The 3 of us started playing Mario game. Wanted to ask hubby to play but he was 😴 . We were so noisy. 

We're not supposed to say inauspicious words during

CNY but we were playing the wrong game. We said

"Aiyah! I die/lose already" so many times 🤣🤣. Che-che won the game. 

I had a good laugh when they commented that I "perplexed your opponent". How can I confuse them when I was completed baffled myself? I didn’t understand what I was doing. In one game when I was  one against the other three. I had no idea what the ON/OFF button was for so I anyhow jumped to hit the button to ON/OFF and then can kill my opponents. Let’s just say in my blur-ness, I really killed them so fast!! “Ay! You all died already?” “Ah then?”, Che-che answered.   I won that my position jumped two steps overtook Che-che to be in the first position. Eventually I was the last coz che-che can steal something from someone so she chose to steal from me 🤭 and next Luigi also switched my coins and stars with him. 

In one game we had to capture lil’ one, Che-che and I worked hand in hand to win that game. We had such good fun playing together. 

Lost & found. What a relief!

29th Dec (Mon)

Realised I lost my earring. Was resting on the floor after my shower, exhausted from scrubbing and clearing things in the PES for the last 2hrs. I touched my ears and realised nothing on my left side. I thought I just checked it when I was showering? Maybe it dropped in the shower? Checked the house, removed the drainage and pray hard it didn’t go down the drain.

Traced back the steps to basement, checked PES and near the outside PES gate area. Coz I went to the basement to throw lots of bulky stuffs. I cried when I realised it’s no where in sight 😭. No joke, a 50 yr-old crying over her earring like a little kid losing her toy.

Emotion-less hubby said "lost, then lost lor. Only earring what?!" Guess he didn't know how much this earring means to me. It’s jewellery k 我的大爷.

Sat in the room, pouty lips and the tears just couldn’t stop. 

So why did I cry? Coz hubby usually don’t buy anything for me, not on my birthday, anniversary or Valentine’s. He told me when we were newly married that if I want I can swipe his card to buy things for myself. His reasoning was coz he always have no idea what to buy for me even when we dating. “You’re flying you see more things than me. You don’t lack of anything as you can get things from all over the world while I can only get things for you in SIN. I may end up buying things you do not like.”

But have I gone crazy swiping his card for Hérmes, Chanel, LV or buying clothes all the time? Nope! Although I have access to his 🤫digit credit limit card I don’t go about buying things, not easy for him to be the sole breadwinner I cannot anyhow spend the money. If I was demanding, he owe me lots of presents over the years we’re married! 

24yrs x 3 presents per year = 72 presents.

When I saw this earrings I liked donkey years ago, I called him told the price and asked for permission. If losing this earring now means I probably won’t be able to buy another one this size for myself now that he’s retired. Must eat more instant noodles and drink rain water now, how to anyhow spend money?

My supp card

Hubby has never rejected when I call him for permission to get something. Ehh….infact I think this is the only huge purchase I made with his card with his permission. The other time was in Portland’s LV shop. I wanted to get another smaller wallet and scarf, did my research and compared prices between there and SIN. I save $$ despite the exchange rate coz it’s tax-free in Oregon! For dunno what reason I credit card didn’t do thru. So embarrassing 😆. I cleared all debts and asked for an increase in limit before the trip, hardly use it at all during the trip. So to save myself, I swiped with his card. I couldn’t call him, when I met him later at Apple store I told him I had to sign his card. He had no chance to oppose 😂.

Had to keep the other side first together with lil’ one’s missing solitaire also. Aiyah that girl ah! Lost it in school, how am I supposed to find it? Kids all running around would have kicked it away. Asked to go to the office to check but nobody submitted in a lost earring 😢

Was thinking I’m going to try to find it again tomorrow. Pray hard that I didn’t see properly coz it was dark. But if I lost it in basement I can also bade farewell to the earring. 

I picked up the remaining earrings. Worst come to worst I’d still need to come to terms with this lost treasured earring. I can perhaps make a small pendant with what I’m left with. 

I did the craziest thing to pray to 观音菩萨 please let me find it I can’t lose this at all. It’s the last thing that I have that is my present. 

30th Dec (Tue)

Went back to the PES. Despite my knee is painful I bent down to have a closer look. Eureka! It was at the bottom of shelf rack near lil’ one’s room. Wah…. So lucky the diamond not only can cut paper, it can withstand the water jet despite me splashing water so many times to move the leaves and dirts. Or maybe it dropped after I rinsed that part? Whatever it is, I’m glad I found my precious gift. I did look around the PES for the backing but couldn’t find it, maybe I washed that part down the drain? Anyway, that part is replaceable.

I cried for joy and shouted to hubby who was watching TV “ I found it! I found it! I found my earring!” The gloomy eeyore has finally brightened up, even brighter than a diamond. 

31st Dec (Wed)

Dropped by Goldheart in Parkway, bought a backing for $138. So they didn’t have to check whether my earring is from them or Lee Hwa, I can’t remember which jeweller I bought from. 

I haven’t worn this pair of rose gold earrings for a long time. Coz I’m usually lazy to change my earrings. 

Didn’t realise it’s a solitaire huge earring

I will have to check even more regularly now. I used to check every now and then in a day, now I shall put in more effort to check more intensive. No more losing the earrings please! 

Another question crossed my mind. If I really lost it, would hubby suggests to buy me another one? Hmm… pray hard I don’t lose it another time to find out the answer. 

Now I’m happy …. Akan datang while another bad news awaits me at home. tmd! Why so many things happening? Even one of my plank in my walk-in had to give way that things toppled on the floor? Am I able to find the time to look for the part? 

This video needs to be shared

Wanted to do a second video collage of my Nakasendo hike as the first video I did I couldn’t decide which was the best or the highlights, my video turned out to be 20+ minutes long. Haha! But that was one impressive video editing as well. 

Racing against time as I couldn’t delete the photos and videos in my phone until I do the second collage. As you would have read my previous post that I’m desperately cleaning up space to make way for new ones. 

My solo holiday blog entries are still being edited 🤭. I think maybe it will be posted out a year late. This new video link will be posted in there when I’m done with editing. 

This second video is 6 minutes long will not bore you for sure, but I must say there were tons of nice shots I took in that hike and it was hard not to include the photos in. 

Decided too to pen in some of my thoughts. Ah nia is not that good in writing, I wrote my grandmother story and learnt there’s an AI poem generator : https://aipoemgenerator.io/ to help me. Wah….come out with the goodest england, I’m so impressed. I attached that in the video collage but it may be difficult to read. 

If only I can write that well. AI read my transcript and abacadebra 

Please enjoy my video, click HERE

Next plan 

I miss this easy hike, I would want to go back and do it all over again. However this time I need to make sure I start in Nakatsugawa, stay in Magome longer (I couldn’t do so as I had to start my hike), hike faster and not take too many photos & videos (laughing at myself, when will I not take tons of photos and videos? When I was on solo it made it easier for me to take nicer looking photos n videos) and arrive in Tsumago early. Or maybe stay overnight in Tsumago. The whole place will be so quiet when the tourists leave (I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in Shirakawa-go where the whole place was so quiet after 5pm). Hike to the shorter distance Nagiso. 

Hike another portion from Yabuhara to Narai. Narai is another place I want to stay overnight. That said, even before I plan the newer routes I must check carefully with regards to bear activity. Want to hike but I also want my life.

Somehow I’m so tempted to do a summary of my holiday collage especially the new places, should I? Means I still can’t delete some pics for 5th June. hmm….. 🤔 

Pleasing to the eyes

When I suddenly want to make my food look a little nicer.

#additionalthingstowashnow#

Turned this plain yoghurt

Into this nicer looking serving presentation.

Added some blueberry sauce

Another new Hermes

She was so excited. Over the past few days she would check the delivery status of her bag from my phone. I saw in my phone today that it hasn’t arrived SIN so assumed that she’ll get it in two days or three. 

Then in the late afternoon there was a knock on the door and she picked up the parcel from the postman. I wasn’t expecting any Shoppee so … we looked at each other. She exclaimed “is it my bag?” She ripped the box apart like a cheetah gorging out the intestines of a deer. Suddenly this girl could rip the box apart 😂.

My happy girl. As long as she’s happy, mummy’s happy too. This bag size really suits her better

+ 1

Yesterday che-che and I were having a convo about the current SSO concert master and then somehow it lead to her asking me “what does Arena Spectacular mean?” I have no idea I thought it was new and more dramatic props or whatever for the Les Mis that I had booked in October (took advantage of the 20% early bird). Went to check and OMG! It’s just the casts standing there one stage with a standing microphone and sing just like in their 10th and 25th Anniversary performance. But I’m sure it will be the same hair raising and tearing performance. I know the lyrics to every song, can I go on the stage and sing? 🤭

Those were the days… musicals at Kallang Theatre. Poor girl had to take bus to and fro. I went with my friend, C. He was a musical fan as well so we watched three musicals in SIN together. 

The second time watching in SIN I brought the girls was on 4th June 2016. Our seats were far off and high 😂. Their second musical and I wasn’t willing to pay so much per ticket especially when lil’ one dozed off on my lap in 2011 during Lion King musical. 

. 

Alas! I thought I was going for the musical in 2026

Booked tickets for this today.(15% early bird instead of 20% coz I didn’t sign up for the waitlist and didn’t get the code.🥹) Nevertheless this is yippee news. One more musical to add to my list. This musical has a different kind of theatrical. Think it’s something like Six? Rock pop kind of music. I didn’t go to Six eventually coz had to stay at home, so passed my ticket to che-che’s friend B. 

Big girl is 23

23rd Nov (Sun)

Went HDL at Plaza Singapura for birthday celebration 

Wah…. first time it’s decorated so nice. Lil’ one is sore that they didn’t do this for her birthday celebration.

24th Nov (Mon)

Came back with small cake. Someone gave her

mango & yuzu cake

When I made the transfer the night before her birthday. I notice the time just as I was editing this photo. Should I transfer her $25.11 at either 11.25am/pm tomorrow?

25th Nov (Tue) HAPPY BIRTHDAY ! 🎂 

She WFH today but I was busy as had to chauffeur lil’ one back to school and then drop by Ikea. Initially wanted to get her a small slice of Daim cake from there but they didn’t have any.

But she didn’t want us to sing birthday song. 😂. So it’s really a quiet day for her

26th Nov (Wed)

She took her birthday leave (last year she took the same date as well) and she didn’t spend with us. Went out with HL. 

We collected the cake for her, one day late coz that’s the earliest day we can collect 😌. Hubby was suppose to collect for his birthday as it’s from the bank, but a few times he did let her choose her birthday cake, that’s coz they share the same birthday month. That was when she wasn’t so fussy over cakes also. 

We waited and waited for her… daddy was so excited to sing for her, his big baby. 

“Happy Birthday to my big baby”. Had to photoshop the people out from lighted candle cake pic coz everyone didn’t look good 😂. 

27th Nov (Thu)

Came home with another cake 🤣, must be from colleague. Tiramisu cake from Swee Heng

That’s fast! In a wink of an eye and she’s 23! 

IKEA photo

Told her I can get more nicer pics when I’m alone. 

Infact for that Korea holiday with her I was able to get some photos of her without two other people rushing me. And she obliged to be a model, tho I tell you none of my family members are natural infront of camera. pfft! 

Since just the two of us and surprisingly Ikea is not crowded at all so spent around 15mins taking pics.

Now these make good Christmas cards, right? So when anyone needs a pic for their holiday cards, please drop by Ikea. 

Adenium

Hot spell so finally this pot of adenium flowered. Like the first time in 2-3 years!!! 

Saw this in another pot. Wah…..the person who sold me the adeniums from Taiwan said it will flower fast, and I waited so long. Ah-nia just cannot take care of plants properly 

Tulips over the days

 31st Oct

1st Nov (Sat)

2nd Nov

3rd Nov (Mon)

The red double petal tulips all mati already 🤣

When I typed チューリップ to do this photo collage, I suddenly thought of the children’s song. It goes like this :

さいた さいた チューリップの 花が

ならんだ ならんだ 赤 白 黄色

どの花みても きれいだな

The girls probably won’t even remember this song if I sang to them.