Hot.

The temperature in Adelaide has been fluctuating around the thirties over the last few weeks. Weather forecast for Saturday will be a scorching 34 degrees Celcius. Argh. It's too hot to be outside even though it's summer. Staying more than 10 mins in the sun feels like someone's barbeque-ing you over an open fire. Plus this stupid PC just died on me while I'm watching House. Am in a bloody pissy mood. I'm hot and bothered and the stupid PC doesn't work. Bugger!

"All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.."

It's almost that time of the year again! Toyed with the idea of making gingerbread man but decided against it. I'm not sure I'll be able to get the icing right. And gingerbread man without icing for his eyes, nose, mouth and cute lil' buttons just doesn't seem right. So scraped that idea.

But I digress. Let's get down to business.

So... I'm drawing up my Christmas list. Please feel free (and I know you will) to add to the comments for this entry what you'll like for Christmas!

Enjoy!

(added) p/s: Before you guys go out and celebrate thinking I'll be buying the sky OR a yacht with full diving deck & compressed air filling station for the scuba tanks *pointed look at D*, let's get our feet back on the ground. Think along the lines of perhaps a sticker, or tiny bag of cookies, or at best a pair of socks?!?! *wink*

(added) p/p/s: Ahem! I have taken the liberty of shamelessly posting my Christmas list on my blog! *megawatt grin* I figure I'll save everyone the trouble of cracking their brains to come up with the puurrr-fect present for me! Oh btw, the list is non-exhaustive. I'm just getting started. There'll be more items added... of course! *beam*

I love Melbourne!

just in case you didn't read it right the first time - i love melbourne!!! well my love for the city might partly stem from the fact that i've been cooped up in a godforsaken adelaide for so many weeks. thank god we'll be moving out soon!

i like melbourne for its mix of the old,

the new and the quirky.

i found degraves street in melbourne that reminded me of staunton street in hong kong on a sunday morning. love its numerous sidewalk cafes and the lazy crowd that gather to have sunday brunch. cosy... :)

my newly acquired ballerina pumps from witchery.

us on a night out at the meat & wine co along yarra river.

i miss getting lost in a crowd in a city, miss being able to walk around for ages and still be IN the city (don't laugh. it takes roughly 40 mins to finish walking the downtown area of adelaide and then if you keep walking you'll probably end up in a suburb.) i miss the buzz of a city, the nightlife, the shopping where late-night shopping isn't until 8pm. i miss the lights, the sounds and even the air is different. i know i know - i am a city girl through and through. hell to me would be being cooped up in a farm with no cable, no internet and a 5 hour drive to the nearest town. kill me then please!

Good luck charm

as elvis once sang:
"don't want a four leaf clover
don't want an old horse shoe
want your kiss cuz i just can't miss
with a good luck charm like you."

for those of you with exams coming up, essays due, bills to pay, the world to save - good luck! (not that you'll need any. heed the king, no need for a good luck charm when u've got me! *shameless grin*)

seriously, deep breaths. takes lots of breaks (even if you are intending to take over the world. u still need breaks in-between.) i'm sure you'll do brilliantly well. big hugs all the way from down under.

Hear-ye Hear-ye! Cast your votes!

i have added a poll to my blog. have a quick read and select your answer. i have no idea where we'll end up next year. i'll only know after our trip to melbourne this weekend. S is having a meeting with the management there to find out more about his next posting. so cast your votes now and i'll let u know who's the smart one next week. have fun!

Baking frenzy - chocolate chip cookies

i've been baking all afternoon and the whole house smells like a chocolate factory. i ripped off a recipe from the internet last night and because i'm not exactly miss martha-stewart-bake-a-lot, i followed the said proportions on the recipe, which probably was meant to feed the entire family, block and neighbourhood. as a result, i had enough to make about a zillion batches and ended up with a gazillion cookies lying all over the countertop cooling off. (okok a gazillion is slightly off mark. say about 60 cookies? give or take 10.) here's a photo of my labour of love.

the recipe is pretty good cuz the cookies turned out well. one thing to note: go easy on the sugar. my gawd, i'm never gonna buy off-the-shelf cookies anymore. do u know how much sugar goes into those little bite-size thingies?! major sugar overload! i followed the receipe to the T and found that the cookies were a little too sweet for me. i never had a sweet tooth so this was a little over the top.

thinking of what else to bake next... any ideas?

Matthew twenty-seven: forty-six

"Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?"

Old Macdonald had a farm

ee-aye-ee-aye-oo
and on his farm he had some cows. ee-aye-ee-aye-ooo.

and a moo-moo here and a moo-moo there.
here a moo, there a moo, everwhere a moo-moo

and on his farm he had some puppies. ee-aye-ee-aye-ooo.

and a ruff-ruff here and a ruff-ruff there. here a ruff, there a ruff. everwhere a ruff-ruff.

old macdonald had a farm, ee-aye-ee-aye-ooo!

Ah-soh-dom

one realises that one has finally arrived at being an ah soh when one is preparing the dinner menu for the day and sees a sell-a-vision ad on tv proclaiming the merits of a duster which can remove dust from bookshelves, window sills and those hard-to-reach places. one thinks to herself that that duster might come in handy at home and reaches for the phone to place the call. (i mean, the duster costs only nineteen ninety-five and it uses static electricity and is supposed the best ever duster known to man. how can one reisist a bargain like that?!) fortunately, one catches herself at the very last moment and prevents the desperate and inevitable spiral towards ah-soh-dom should she have really made that call.

"Come be my light"

i'm currently reading this book - the private writings of the saint of calcutta. it's a collection of mother teresa's reflections, correspondence and writings. she is known for her selfless service to the poorest of the poor, to the sick and dying. this book however reveals a darker side to her life, her doubts, fears and feelings of utter desolation during moments of her spiritual journey. it's an interesting side of her that i haven't really read about.

i've been to the mother house of the missionaries of charity in calcutta. it's a modest, nondescript building with a small sign hanging outside like this:

Inside, there's a prevading sense of peace (perhaps partly due to the fact that cellphones have to be turned off!) okay jokes aside, it really is a place of refuge amongst the craziness and poverty of calcutta city. personally, i feel that it is calcutta's one saving grace. during my month-long stay in calcutta, i went back to the mother house several times. at times it was for mass, other times it was just to sit and wait out the craziness of the day.

My first-est ever attempt at baking...

this is my virgin attempt at baking scones. wait a minute. it's a first-iest attempt at baking anything. i tried yesterday to follow this really funky "best ever" recipe for scones which i found online and i totally messed up the dough. it was, putting it nicely, plain eeky! well decided not to be too adventurous today and found a another relatively easy recipe online and used that instead.

dough actually turned out pretty well. it was soft and doughy for a start and not eekky! plus i happily added raisins to the dough which worked pretty well except that i should have put in more.

after 15 mins in the oven, they turned out looking like this. not gourmet food or anything but it looks halfway decent and doesn't taste too bad either.

all in all, very proud of myself. did not burn down the kitchen. nope. last i checked, it was still standing. did not set off the smoke alarm either. (well i made it a point to open the windows. just in case!) none of my fingers were hurt in the process either. a pretty *safe* and decent first-est attempt!

What's new?

we might be moving to melbourne. maybe some time end of january next year. i'll know more by the end of next week.

Introducing...

*drum roll please*

puppy hayley!!! a spunky name for a spunky dog. (well as of now, that's what i'm gonna name her. not sure if i'm going to change my mind in the next few weeks. we'll see we'll see.)

as you can see, she's obviously is quite a character. refused to cooperate and sit still for the camera. her breeder had to chase her down so that i was able to capture these shots. spunky little thing. here's a better shot of her...

she's from a litter of 5 girls and 1 boy. i picked her out of 2 puppies. the other 3 girls have been booked. she has a more solid color pigmentation than her sister and she's also the naughtier and more active of the two. she's pretty responsive and doesn't really balk at loud noises. (ok. nugget has got compeition now!) she's quite the whiner as well. heh! i think i'm gonna have my hands full with this one.

Afternoon delight

we discovered this amazing little nook at the bukit timah saddle club yesterday and had a delightful afternoon. was there with the usual suspects:

mom with yq (who is basically a camera whore! sorry sis. there's no better description then that) and...

myself with the very available bachelor boy, D. (fyi for all you ladies out there!)

we arrived at mimolette pretty late at 2pm for lunch and the restaurant was still so packed that we couldn't manage to get a table inside the restaurant. good thing they had a patio with a nice alfresco area.

menu looked promising. we ordered the french onion soup for starters, followed by mains of duck confit, pork rack and macaroni fromage. french onion soup was really good but the mains were a let-down. the confit was too dry, pork rack had a stale pork stench to it. the restaurant threw in free desserts which tasted in fact pretty good, much better than the mains, which we actually paid for. the irony of the situation.

yq, of course, took advantage of the scenary of the surroundings to posed for a gazillion shots. some of her crowning moments...

despite the mediocre but pricey food and the sub-standard service, the restaurant redeemed itself with its ambience and surroundings. loooove the wide-open spaces around the restaurant. in my opinion, don't bother going for lunch or dinner. mimolette is more of a breakfast/brunch kinda place.

Contributing to the unemployment rate

not working has its pros and cons.

cons: the obvious one is the lack of in-coming funds and if you're a person with a short attention span (like me) you'll get bored very quickly (like how i'm feeling now.)

pros: i think (!) i've lost my road rage tendencies! hah! some very brave lady stole my parking lot the other day and i let it slide. for those who know how i am behind the wheel, this would seem impossible. before my little change of heart, i would have killed her on the spot there and then, without remorse mind you.

so i've joined the ranks of the unemployed. what next?

All Hallows' Eve

we swung by fosters - the english rose cafe for a quiet halloween dinner, or so we thought it'll be quiet. it turned out to be quite a night with the restaurant manager, wait staff and even the in-house musician dressing up and going around scaring the patrons.

meet mr johnny ghost-man who made our night by harrassing not only the patrons but also kids who were unfortunate enough to be walking pass his restaurant that fateful night.