Saturday, October 27, 2007

Today's Lunch!

I prepared some batter for cinnamon pancakes a few days ago, and decided to have a pancake lunch today. Doesn't this just look yummy? *grin*

My friend said I should keep life simple, but why do that when you have pancake batter and egg rings??

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Urgency

Megan was playing with Dylan's markers the other day and accidentally put one to her mouth. Being the good brother that he is, Dylan got alarmed and went straight to my sis.

Dylan: MUM!!! Megan put the marker on her tongue! Quick! Pray for her that she'll be ok!!
Mum: (reading) Mmm... ok... (continues to read)
Dylan: (alarmed) MUM!!!
Mum: Oh! Oh! Okay!

Adults... Tsk, tsk...

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Recent events have got me thinking a lot about how I want to live my life and what really brings me greatest joy. In fact, the year has got me thinking a lot about these issues.

Being pregnant has been the most significant thing to have happened to me this year. And more than just being pregnant, but feeling ill or physically unable to do what had previously been easy to accomplish for most of the last 8 months has been a most frightening and humbling experience. To think that there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop or prevent yourself from feeling sick (or not), putting on weight (or not), or even influence how baby is growing and developing. Everything out of your hands. No meds you can take to stop the nausea. No exercises to help determine how your body will shape up. No amount of planning. No amount of worrying. None of these would be able to affect the state of things. The only thing you can do, is to trust in God's plans for you and your baby. For you and your entire life, what it is, what is to come, what is to be.

In the whole scheme of things, suddenly, the mess at work seems not too important afterall; bitchy colleagues and ungracious people somehow seem very trivial; and wanting to be one up above the rest seems to be the wrong value to hold after all.

I find that what brings me greatest joy now is to take care of my husband, and soon, my little one too. Their happiness is my happiness. As a friend said to me today, "So much for feminism and emancipation, huh? When all that makes us happy is being a wife and mother." Well. I've always thought feminism was dumb anyway.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Is It Time?

My cousin recently asked on her facebook, when one would know if it was time to leave an organisation. My answer was, when your values were no longer aligned to that of the organisation.

I am now at that point myself where I am questioning the integrity of the people I work for. It upsets me greatly, things I have seen and heard as a 3rd party observer, and things I have experienced for myself. I am not angry. I am sad. I am in tears because of it. And I now ask myself, "What next and when?"

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

No More Flour

No more butter either. And soon, I'll be outta sugar. Been baking lots and lots till I've run out of ingredients at home! And it's not like I can eat anything I bake, and there's only KM and our domestic help at home... so I end up with a mountain of cupcakes and brownies, and um... they look like a task to consume. :P

But, but, but... despite the sugar sensitivities, I did try one of my teeny, tiny, mini brownie cupcakes last night. I dare say food that come out of my kitchen taste very decent! I did go to bed with a bit of a lousy tummy after that though...

Tuesday, October 16, 2007


Finally baked some brownie cupcakes and iced a few. These are for my mum-in-law. Didn't manage to celebrate her birthday with her, so this is a small make-up treat. I have no idea how any of my cakes taste since I'm still not keen on sugar, but I hope she likes them.

Monday, October 15, 2007

I feel so blessed, truly.

Just on Saturday, a friend who's going back to London soon, came by and dropped off her baby cot, baby changing bed, milk bottle steriliser, breast pump and travel cot! That's gonna save us a lot, and I am so, so, so grateful for the stuff!

Baby's just so blessed. And so're Mummy and Daddy. :D

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Scrapbaking

KM took me back to BIY yesterday. I finally bought me a cake decorating set, some food colouring, a cake caddy, and a cupcake magazine. It's been a long time since I've baked cupcakes, about 4 years, to be exact. Somehow, when I got posted to HQ, I stopped having the time to muck around with my baking tools. Then when we got married, we lived with my in laws who had an oven that was really more like a glorified cupboard. Now, finally, I'm re-kitting myself with all the necessary bakeware any home should have, and reacquainting myself with an old hobby.

As we stepped out of the shop, KM said to me, "Happy Scrapbaking, hun."

*grin*

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Baby's Plump!

Had another visit to the gynae's today. She said Lauren's plump! She weighs 1.8kg now, and the gynae reckons she will be a good weight of about 3kg at birth, which is great! She said too that my weight gain's been very "efficient" too, cos I've only put on 4.6kg thereabouts in total, and 1.8kg has gone to Lauren. The rest is probably the water and the placenta.

Lauren's now lying mostly on my left side, with her head to my right. Explains all the kicking I get when I lie down on my left. She doth protest the lack of space whenever I do that. Hahaha!

Anyway, I'm glad baby's doing good, though doc said my health is equally important, and my anaemia has returned at an all time low. Have to start taking iron tablets, which I *so* dislike. No choice though. I wish drinking Essence of Chicken was sufficient this time. Apparently not. Bleah.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Cupcake or Muffin?

I've been wondering. What's the difference between a cupcake and muffin? My American colleague says a cupcake has icing; a muffin doesn't. But muffins to me have always been savory breads ala McDonald's Egg McMuffin.

Then came the question from my American colleague - what's a biscuit? And cracker?

So, what Americans call "biscuit", the Brits call "scone"; American crackers are English biscuits; English crackers are American crisps; American fries are English chips.

Napkins and serviettes?

Have I got it right? Wrong?

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Edible Scrapbooking

I got KM to take me to the Bake It Yourself shop along Bt Timah Road today. The first thing he said when we walked into the shop was, "I can see why you wanted to come here. It's edible scrapbooking!"

Hahahaha!!!

Indeed. It was like walking into an edible scrapbooking shop - all the tools, the icing decorations, the bottles of colouring...

My next obsession yet. But first, I need to find racks for the oven so I can actually bake!

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Restless @ Work; Growing List of Want-to-Dos

I've been extremely restless at work. A lot of it has to do with the sheer amount of work to be done, the feeling of being unable to do it all in time, and the boredom of facing the same sets of things to be done day in, day out. And in my restlessness, I think up more things I'd rather be doing, but will likely never do them 'cos I'm getting heavier, sleepier and consequently, more restless. This is a vicious cycle.

Round and round the garden...

I want to bake. Cupcakes. Big ones, small ones, chocolate ones, butter ones, those with icing, those without, dum dee dum. I don't even know how to work the convection function in the microwave oven my sister gave me 'cos she gave it to me with no manual (and no baking trays either). Duh. But I want to bake anyway. Not like I will eat them. Still mostly sugar averse. But, but, but...

And I want to do up some Christmas presents now. My desk top is dead though. So I can't print photos or cards or make tags and all. No matter. Can still think about doing them. Highly likely they'll never get done though (see above reason). Nevermind.

First things though - must finish baby's knit top and start packing my bag. 8+ weeks to go. I'm slacking a bit too much on the baby front...