But I won’t give you up
I won’t let you down
and I won’t leave you falling
If the moment ever comes
I’m back to being mad about Muse right now, playing their songs on repeat mode. Absolution has got to be one of the best records ever made and Endlessly, one of the best tracks out there. Check out the gothic organ solo in that video, it’s simply haunting. I can just imagine it in the Twilight movies.
On that note, the soundtrack for New Moon looks awfully strong. Death Cab for Cutie, Thom Yorke (!), Muse (!!), Grizzly Bear, OK Go, The Killers (!!!)…it’s such an amazing lineup.
It felt so surreal watching them live, almost eight years after we had first caught their joint concert with Coldplay. Can you believe that? We watched Travis and Coldplay jam together at ONE VENUE. It was one of the best concerts we have ever watched. When is that ever going to happen again?
Anyway, it’s three in the morning and I need to get to bed. Coco was meowing like crazy at eight this morning and when we let her into the room, she started meowing like crazy because she was bored. Husband then let her out of the room, only for her to meow like crazy AGAIN at 10.
I always tell her that if she wasn’t so damn cute, I would have put her right back onto the streets again. Hah. As if she cares about what I say anyway.
Not the roads nor the nose, but my mind. Haven’t been able to string together a proper sentence – probably because I have been editing documents at work and when I get home, the brain is going NO MORE WORDS.
The good news is, the weekend is here! Husband and I are off to the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix tomorrow (just walkabout tickets, we didn’t want to splurge) to see Travis (!) and err the qualifying, of course. And then there’s the nephew’s birthday on Sunday. In between, there are lots and lots of chores to be done but that’s okay because I love our home.
Oh, Popartgirl and I will be at Flea Fly Flo Fun at HOME Club tomorrow. If you want to grab some pre-loved items from us, come look for us from 3pm on. Or you could come up and say a big HELLO. 🙂
After a hectic three-day conference where I started at 10am and ended with drinks at 1am, I was craving a good rest over the weekend. Saturday started with excruciating abdominal cramps and ended with a trip to Ikea where husband and I put up a shelf in our study at 2am. Goodbye clutter!
Sunday was my cousin’s wedding luncheon, which has got to be the simplest and most casual reception I have ever been to. Doesn’t mean that it wasn’t good though – it’s always lovely to have a new addition to the family. Sunday was also a day of slight disappointment but I’ll get over it, there’s always the future to look forward to.
And today, I lazed in bed till noon despite the kitten meowing her tiny lungs out outside our door at 10:30am, and got up to a clean floor. Husband had thoughtfully mopped the floor while I snoozed. I love that man. But that’s not all – I made a new friend today and saw her impossibly cute little girl for the first time.
If my kid isn’t as cute as yours, I am blaming my husband, I joked.
It poured and poured, the skies were gloomy and grey, but I was happy.
Bright lights
(PS My second roll of Holga shots was successful. YAY.)
On the spur of the moment, I decided to take leave from work in the afternoon so that I could come home and cook dinner for our anniversary.
I have to say that it felt really, really good to just focus on cooking and nothing else. Usually, I’d be pressed for time to fill our growling stomachs or multi-tasking but today, it was all about the cooking. The music was playing in the living room and the kitten was an angel and everything was perfect.
Besides a whopping salad made up of cherry tomatoes, arugula leaves and plenty of mozzarella, I also made a second starter of scallops and chorizo sausage. Based on Nigella Lawson’s recipe, I had thought that it would be simple to create. Which it is.
BUT. The only problem was, my chorizos were not giving out oil as they were supposed to! In the end, I had to pour a glug of olive oil into the pan. Towards the end, after squeezing in the lemon juice, a wave of inspiration hit me and I poured in about two to three tablespoons of white wine and let the scallops and chorizo simmer in the broth.
The additional step made all the difference! The sweetness of the white wine and the tangy lemon juice combined to form a stunning sauce that complemented the juicy scallops and salty chorizo. Happiness! Husband slurped up every bit of the sauce.
Scallops & Chorizos
The main course was going to be lamb chops except that our local Cold Storage had run out of lamb. Bah. Plan B: the pork chops that were already in our freezer. I took the pan-fried glazed pork chops recipe from Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food but since we lacked the apple sauce/honey in our kitchen, I made use of what we had – yuzu! Thanks to Popartgirl’s recommendation, we had gotten ourselves a ginormous bottle of yuzu drink, which had a similar sticky, gooey texture as honey.
Pan-fried glazed pork chops
It turned out to be sweet, sticky and nice. Dessert was sorbet, again a recipe from Jamie Oliver but instead of lemon, lime and peppermint, I had lemon and orange.
It was a wonderful evening, albeit a tad scorching, and we decided to wash the food down with a glass of chilled, white wine. What a heavenly treat on this sultry night.
Every morning, he lets me sleep in for that extra 15 minutes while he gets up to quieten the meowing cat and to make breakfast. But not before he leans down to give me a morning dear kiss.
And when we are on the train to work, he automatically adjusts his shoulders so that they are of the perfect height for me to put my head against.
He holds my hand when we are in the supermarket shopping for groceries, when we are navigating the busy traffic, when we are walking to the bus stop, when we are waiting in line…we hold hands just about all the time.
We laugh a lot – before we sleep as he fumbles in near darkness to kiss me goodnight (only to land one on my nostrils), when we are eating breakfast, when we are waiting for the train, when we are crossing the road…we laugh just about all the time.
He does whatever I tell him to when I am holding the camera, even if it means making a milk mustache.
We go into Toys’R’Us and have mock fights using some random foam stick things.
And when I cry during sad movies, he leans in closer so that I can bury my wet face into his shoulder and let my hot tears wet his shirt.
He lets me have the last piece of chocolate.
I make silly, lame jokes and he laughs as if they are the funniest things he had heard that day.
He would rather sleep without the covers and freeze than to get under them and risk waking me up.
And if I do wake up and get really grumpy, he gives me ample space to thrash around the bed until I finally find a comfortable spot to snooze in. Even if I happen to cross over the middle line.
There are a million and one reasons why I love him.
Everyday, I look at him and think to myself, thank you God for putting this wonderful man in my life.
On the journey together
Dear husband, happy anniversary. You mean the world to me.
This weekend, we celebrated our first anniversary! The real date is actually September 14 but it being a Monday, we decided to bring forward the celebrations by a couple of days.
Now, when I say “celebrate”, I use the term rather loosely. There were no big bouquets of flowers (well, I had that a month ago) nor did we go to a fancy restaurant. No presents were exchanged. It was all very simple and, well, usual.
Husband and I went to the gym on Saturday and killed our legs by going for a RPM class. Then we checked into Grand Park City Hall for a weekend spa stay. The hotel is not the most luxurious by any standards, but it’s clean, comfortable and pleasant. I had indicated that it was our anniversary when I made the booking and the hotel was kind enough to upgrade our room and extended our check-out time. Nice touch.
Off we went to jalan jalan. Didn’t buy anything but we had a great meal at The Handburger. I love cheese so we had the blue cheese burger and can I say that the combination of the blue cheese and the caramelised onions was FABULOUS. Smell my cheese!
Dinner was at Shashlik – one of my fondest restaurants in Singapore. The wait staff are usually a bunch of grumpy elderly folk and stepping into the restaurant brings you right back to the ’70s. There’s been more than a few complaints about the grouchy waiters but seriously, don’t take it too personally. There was once when a grandfather-type waiter scooped a dollop of sour cream onto the table instead of into the borsch in front of me and he didn’t even bat an eyelid. It’s hysterical and really part of the charm.
We each had steaks and then the evening ended with a Russian coffee for husband. This is how it’s made: one part vodka, one part kahlua (or something similar) poured into a glass that’s been heated up by flames shooting up from a gas stove. Set the alcohol on fire and then proceed to pour the coffee into the glass, topped with a dollop of cream. Voila! Husband’s face upon taking the first sip was hilarious – it’s super duper strong! Coming to Shashlik is always a treat because they like to do the flambe in front of their patrons and it’s always so fun to watch!
Wave, husband, wave!
We had our 60-minute massage the next day (ie. today) at Spa Park Asia as part of the package and boy, did we need that. When the aunty masseuse rubbed my hamstring and shoulders, my mind immediately went “Ooooohhhhh…” She was thorough and firm without being rough. It was a pretty decent massage, although I was a little taken aback that we weren’t informed what sort of massage it was going to be, she didn’t ask me if the pressure was just right and she also did not give me a chance to tell her about my problem areas.
We then packed our bags and went home to our kitten. And then, what did I see but a series of tweets from Stella, who went into labour early this morning! It was all very exciting – Imp and I were cheering her on via Twitter. Don’t you just love the wonders of the Internet!
Anyway, say hi to the super bright-eyed and adorable Dylan Ng: Baby Dylan
Isn’t he just too cute? And you gotta give it to Mommy – she TWEETED AND BLOGGED throughout labour. When I am about to pop a bawling babe out of my va-jay-jay in future, one word: EPIDURAL.
And that is/was my weekend. Oh, in case you are wondering, we didn’t take many photos because neither of us brought our cameras. We survived on the holga, my iPhone and a disposable camera.
When we first moved in, we had wanted a wall where we could put up the pictures that we have taken. A mini gallery of sorts, if you like. Our style is quite Scandinavian – lots of sunlight, white walls, simple pieces and bold colour accents. No fancy schmancy feature walls with mirrors and panels for us, we wanted to make sure that the house is easy to maintain and has clean lines.
Almost six months after moving in, the photo wall has finally been created: Mini gallery
These are mostly my pictures because Mr Thick hasn’t been able to curate his photos (coughprocrastinationcough). He’s the better photographer so there will be more of his pictures than mine, eventually.
The other day, I popped back to my old home in Sengkang to see my GP. While waiting for the clinic to open after lunch, I was surprised to see that Daiso had opened an outlet at the mall across from my mom’s place. Darn, why couldn’t it have opened while I was still living there?
Being the avid shopaholic, I of course picked up a basketful of things for the house. A toy for Coco, two small jars of cinnamon and nutmeg, a heart-shaped silicon mould for cooking eggs (husband wanted it) and some cute and gorgeous decorations for the balcony.
Little chalkboard sign
Signboards for the herbs
Hanging tools
Aren’t they just cute? I love it when I come across things unexpectedly and they just happen to be the perfect fit. I have a thing for chalkboards which husband cannot understand. But it’s just like how I adore vintage cameras and old school Olivetti typewriters. I still harbour dreams of having a display shelf full of such goodies, probably in our next home.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a kitten to catch. She’s biting off the leaves of my plants!
There are days when taking public transport just pisses me off and drives me nuts. Today, as you can surmise, was one of those days.
Having not been to yoga for a while, Trev and I made plans to go for a 6:30pm class at Millennia Tower. At 6 o’clock sharp, I shut down my computer and made a mad dash to the bus stop. Arriving 10 minutes later, I texted Trev to let him know that I was going to be some 10 minutes late for class.
Obviously, I was being overly optimistic because this was what ensued:
Twitter rants
At 6:30pm, I was frantically texting Trev and feeling rather mad. I had been waiting for 20 minutes for Bus 75 during peak hour and it was not good. Four minutes later, I was still there and seething as the other buses zoomed past me for the umpteenth time. Another three minutes later, I was just ready to tear my hair out.
Finally, at 6:44pm, a grand 34 minutes after I had arrived at the bus stop, the bus deigned to make its appearance. By then, I had given up all hopes of attending the class. I could have gone and done my own thing at the gym except for the fact that I had not brought along my shoes. I usually would, even when I am going for yoga, but I DIDN’T BRING MY SHOES. No workout for me.
By the time I got to Millennia Tower, it was 7:05pm and all I could do was have a drink at the members’ lounge and then take a shower.
So dear SMRT, you bloody ruined my evening. I wasted 34 minutes of my precious youth and ended up doing NOTHING at all.
Thanks a lot, my trusty and reliable public transport provider.
Yannisms 