A belated Happy Deevali to all my friends who celebrated it. I miss eating gato ladoo, gato rasgoola, gato di lait!!!

Since it was a public holiday yesterday, I went to Daiso $2 shop

Bought a big cup for my green teas or smoothies

For lunch, we headed to this Japanese place

We ordered some sushi, terriyaki beef hamburg (If I had seen the word “hamburg” behind, I wouldn’t have ordered it. I wanted pure beef), chicken wings, some fried oyster tempura, mushrooms and sashimi

Dinner Time

I made stir fry beef with cauliflower

And a veggie with some dried shrimps

After they finish painting the doors, I’m off to work

Have a great Thursday!

In the mornings, I would check my emails (or my YouTube subscription). I ain’t gonna miss this room, now that mum is discharged.

Yeah we are back home now! And it was time to de-clutter this guest room. Yikes.

So for the first Project Get Organized activity, I started with something simple. Mum is staying here tonight.

This was my last oil painting … I saw so many nice abstract floral oil paintings at the hospital and now I feel like painting something again.

***

For lunch I made a healthy quinoa tuna salad. I replaced the mayonnaise with yoghurt and trust me, you won’t know that it’s yoghurt. Here’s the recipe.

Healthy Quinoa Tuna Salad

Ingredients (4 to 5 servings)

• 1/2 cup natural plain nonfat yogurt (without sugar)
• 2 tbsp dijon mustard
• Salt and Pepper
• 1 can tuna, packed in water, drained
• 1 cup diced cucumber
• 1 cup corn kernels
• 1/2 to 1 cup cooked quinoa

Method: Mix everything together. Simple as that!

Say hello to my cat :) He  has done more damage to the carpet (which used to be this new) than I did. He loves to scratch it.

We have this kettlebell at home which we seldom use … Kettlebell exercises are pretty popular these days especially in CrossFit workouts <– I’ve never tried CrossFit btw.

The treadmill is still in our bedroom! Haven’t moved it back into this room yet …

***

No time to train? Try this 10 minute cardio workout by Tony Horton. 10 is better than 0.

* Enjoy while it’s still available on YouTube :) — not uploaded by me.

All shiny now

Then it was time for lunch. I used this Sharkfin melon to make spaghetti squash.

Oh yeah, sharkfin melon = spaghetti squash. You can find sharkfin squash at any supermarket.

Cook the sharfkin melon in preheated 375 F oven approximately 45 minutes or until flesh is tender.

Top with spaghetti sauce. Yum.

Me after last Friday’s visit to the hairdresser. Shorter hair, shorter bangs and more layers at the back. I like messy and non-straight hair.

***

Yesterday lunch was kept very light as I wasn’t feeling too well. I only grabbed a smoked chicken salad from a nearby cafe. Thank goodness my flu-like symptoms went away later that day!

Very light lunch = growling stomach by mid-afternoon. I had some homemade baked banana oatmeal cakes.

These banana oatmeal cakes were made using only 5 ingredients (excluding baking powder and baking soda). I enjoy very simple and easy-to-make food.

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oat
• 1/2 cup cornmeal (for crunchiness) – or 1/4 cup cornmeal + 1/4 cup dried quinoa
• 3 medium ripe bananas
• 3 tbsp peanut butter
• 2 tbsp raisins or cranberries
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda.

Method: Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Shape into balls and place onto a baking tray. Flatten lightly. Bake until brown and crispy on the outside.

These and there will be some more

I made a trip to IKEA yesterday with the intention of buying a few things for our living room.  Sadly, what I was looking for ran out of stock. Or probably ceased production (!!!). Bleah …

So guess what I bought instead?

Things for my. little. space.

And that is none other than my so-called gym room. I consider it mine because I use it the most!  Besides, The office corner (which is in a messy state as we speak) is his … so this is mine hehe…

My little space has undergone several transformation in the past 2 ++ years.

Gym Room in 2008

Gym Room in 2009 – After adding some colours (you can read my blog post on this here)

Gym Room in 2010 – Now it looks like this! The husband got rid of the sofa while I was in Mauritius. So glad he did because I didn’t like that sofa!

I do a lot in this small room … from working out to watching DVD concerts to blog surfing to chillaxing & enjoying a cuppa hot tea … I heart my little space :)

I only bought three things for this room.

1. Floor Lamp – I should have probably chosen a larger shade … Current one is green to add colours to the room.
2. KOMISK Triple Cushion (cover +cushion) – They had black, green and red. I chose the latter for a more cheerful and colourful feel.
3. HELLUM Carpet (140 x 200cm) which was on sale – I replaced our old one. I chose a dark colour (brown) again because of my cat’s fur. I <3 carpets!

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I’m off to chillaxing and enjoying the rest of my Sunday. Enjoy yours too. And the World Cup finale as well!!! I’m not following the World Cup at all and I’m not even sure that I’m gonna watch it tonight.

Some typical Chinese New Year foodies — nuts (pistachio), Kuih bangkit (very soft cookie that melts in the mouth), pineapple tarts, love letters, pork bakkwa (salty-sweet dried meat) and yusheng.

The husband likes Kuih bangkit (the white ones – coconut flavoured cookies) and I like love letters (those rolled biscuits).

These are bakkwa – bbq sweet salty pork slices.  They are really really fattening and addictive but they taste good. We eat them once a year during the Lunar New  Year time.

This is Yusheng, which I will bring to my sister tomorrow for dinner. I’ve bought the smoked salmon separately.

***

Yesterday (Saturday) I spent 4 hrs cleaning my house. Vacuumed, mopped, uncluttered the kitchen cabinets and re-arranged my spice bottles. I found an x-box console in our wardrobe! Toilets were scrubbed too.

I got rid of 4-5 bags of unwanted things, mostly our old clothes … My wardrobe is less messy now. I have a carton box full of old school books. I am not sure what to do with them. What do you do with your old school books? Throw or give them away? Give to who??

I was too busy cleaning and re-arranging things that I didn’t even eat my breakfast. And I didn’t feel hungry at all!

Lunch was a simple noodle soup – clams, mushrooms and veggies. Yummy!!

Some Fuju Apples as dessert

***

Dinner on Saturday was at my mother in law’s place. She cooked quite a lot for just the two of us. Not pictured was steamed prawns, steamed fish, braised mushrooms and fish ball soup.

Today I’m not sure what the plan is. I am going to take a nap now! Tata!

A closer look

I used to take, like a year ago but for some reasons I stopped.  I’m starting to take these multi-vitamins (left), minerals (center) and plant concentrates – asparagus, cranberry juice, kale, rosemary extract etc. (right) again.   Whether I’m getting enough nutrients from my current diet or not, I still prefer to take supplements. It’s a personal choice I think. I just take half of the recommended dosage. Too much is also not good.

Tonight, dinner was supposed to be my regular lasagna-style eggplant with prawns. Well, the sliced eggplants shrank so much after baking them just a little, that they were too small to be used as layers. Instead I added them directly to the prawn tomato sauce and they tasted the same (minus the breadcrumbs + cheese) as the lasagna-style eggplant. The other mushroom dish was similar to yesterday’s one i.e stir-fry mushrooms with some soy sauce and beansprouts. I love this combination. You can also use Terriyaki sauce instead of soy sauce.

Now, on a completely different note … The carpet arrived during the weekend.

I’m still deciding whether to place it underneath our coffee table in the living room or somewhere else, maybe in the bedroom. I like the whole house to be carpeted. Unfortunately with the Singapore weather, it’s impossible.

The bedroom is where I spend most of my time. Next is the kitchen… I love to maintain our small kitchen. It must always remain tidy and neat (if you want to know why, scroll down to the end of the post). I think I maintain it way more than our bedroom! The counter top near the hob always  remains clear and uncluttered. After I cook something I will always clean the hob immediately.

Before when we were still doing the kitchen …

And after … photos taken today. A little dark because I didn’t switch on the top lights. Natural light is the best right :)

This is the other side of our kitchen. I wish our kitchen was bigger. I would have loved an island kitchen! Guess where the dishwasher holder is hiding? Well it’s inside that cabinet on top :) I wanted to have the dishwasher holder directly above the sink, but with a window right above and in front of the sink, this wasn’t possible. I like to keep things behind closed doors. Again I try not to keep so many things on the counter top. Less is best.I like a minimalist look.

Can you spot my “Nigella Feast” book? hehe :) I have more cooking books but they are still in boxes.

If I could turn back time, I would have changed a couple of things to our current kitchen:

1. Get a granite or marble counter top instead of a solid surface counter top. I didn’t really know much about granite vs solid surface counter top a year ago but now I can tell that it’s important to get a granite one if you cook regularly!
2. There’s more to cabinetry than just good looks. A functional storage is very important. Get some pull outs — easy to reach for spices  or other cooking items. Make a customised pantry too.
3. Don’t get a white counter top if you plan to keep a lot of stuffs on the counter top. Despite not keeping a lot of things on mine, I still ended up with some yellow marks (thanks to a mango!!) which can’t be removed even with “Cif” cream! But it’s not very visible, so it’s still okay. If anyone knows how I can remove that stubborn yellow mark, please let me know :)
4. Don’t get glossy black cabinets if you can’t maintain them. Well I haven’t had any problems with mine so far. You just need to know how to open the doors without leaving fingerprints hehe.
5. Get cabinet downlights (below the top cabinets). The kitchen will look warmer  :)

I think that’s all I would have changed :) We moved in only a year ago, so maybe in a couple of more years the list will become longer! I will save that for my next kitchen hehe.

I use the “Oven Power” to clean the oven and to remove grease from sticky surfaces. The “Cif” really removes a lot of stubborn stains trust me. The “glass cleaner” is obviously for glass surfaces like my black glass backing, kitchen door and windows.

The reason why my kitchen must always remain tidy and neat …

Before we moved into our current house, I was renting an apartment which was vacant for more than 5 years and was already housing a LOT of cockroaches (especially the kitchen) prior to moving in. I had called the pest control but their sprays didn’t help as there were cockroach eggs hidden somewhere. Everyday for one year I would see one or two (and even more) dead cockroaches in the kitchen. It was very traumatizing! I never dared to keep anything inside the cabinets and the fridge was empty most of the time. Needless to say I was not cooking at all except for a few smoothies or some simple things using my portable electric cooker. If you have been following my old blog (which is not available anymore),  you must have seen couple of photos of those cockroaches! Click here to see one of those photos and another one when the pest control people came.

Here’s how I made that room a little bit more colourful. Adapted from About.Com

• Throw a Few Pillows Around. Done.
• Add a Bit of Mother Nature. Done. But it’s not always in there.
• Add a Whimsical Lamp. Soon.
• Reflecting Color. Done.
• Snuggle Up With a Throw. Done

From this bluish dull colour

To this more colourful one

From another angle, I added some mother nature. And yeah we still have the plastic on the stationary bike.

Although it’s not the best looking room around, I like it way more than before :) Doesn’t look so manly now hehehe. I will continue to find ways to improve it especially the other corner where the TV and cabinet are located.

Photo taken on another day

So the morning household chores are done.

• Vacuum the house
• Mop the house
• Dust-off the shelves and other dusty stuffs
• Clean & scrub the toilets and bathrooms including the shower screens and floors
• Clean & scrub the balcony
• Throw away unnecessary stuffs

All shiny now :)  The living room looks dark in this picture because of the strong light in front. Mikey is scared of the vacuum cleaner and the mop hehe.

I am blogging from the tiny balcony right now and having a late breakfast. Speaking of the balcony, did you know that we were almost planning to make it an enclosed balcony with window panels around? Good thing we didn’t!

I didn”t want to eat until I was done with everything — I did grab a couple of grapes though. Last night I shifted the wireless router from the living room to our room because the signal is always low when we access the net from our room, making the connection unstable. Just now I had to shift the router back to the living room because I couldn’t get any signal from the balcony!

It’s egg whites and fruits on the plate and a strawberry tea in the glass. I don’t like egg yolks. So before I fry my eggs I remove the yolk, which I either freeze for later use or throw away. But it’s better to freeze :)

Well other than the household chores, I went for an 8 km run at the back of my place first thing in the morning. I ended with some resistance exercises back in the home gym.

I brought a small camera along to snap this!  This is where I normally do my interval runs or runs that are less than 10 km. The whole stretch is only 2 km long but I always run back to back twice.  There are distance markings on the ground, so it’s easy to figure out the distance without using any distance sensors.

The weather is lovely so far  — cool and breezy. I am preparing lunch later. Probably a noodle soup.

A couple of things that I want to do this weekend:

• Plant catnip and corriander
• Bake a condensed milk cake!
• I also need to look for a skirt but I am lazy to shop for clothes …
• Watch the dvds that the husband rented (Marley and Me included!)

What am I having for breakfast?

Crunchy grapes, a half left-over apple and strawberry tea from Cameron Highlands. Flipping through my Baking book again. I have been on a baking craze lately.

A couple of days ago our office corner was kinda messy — his books and papers were scattered on the table. So we got some storage boxes from Ikea and used them to keep our stuffs. It’s neater this way and saves us the trouble to look for our misplaced papers.

So this is our office space but most of the time I am using the laptop on the bed. He is the only one making use of the office desk. I don’t have a liking for desks. Well the picture frame is still empty (just got it too and haven’t had time to print something) … doh …

If you are an Ikea fan, check out this site to see what others are creatively doing with their Ikea buys.

Christmas tree gift from sister. Brings back good old childhood memories like  setting up and decorating the tree together, special food & snacks prepared by mum, gifts, watching christmas movies together etc. etc.

Christmas table setting on the 24th

Christmas table setting on the 25th

Dinner on the 24th with my in laws and friends

With dar

Dinner on the 25th with sis, bro and cousins

I made some cranberry sauce

Some baked swedish meatballs as well. I prefer the baked version as it doesn’t get dry + it’s slightly more healthy too hehe

And some roast potatoes. Peel, dice into bit chunks and boil them first. Drain the water and give the boiled potatoes a good shake while they are still in the saucepan with the lid on top. Then season with salt, pepper and dry rosemarry herbs. Drizzle with some olive oil and place into the oven. Bake for 45 – 60 mins. The potatoes will turn out very nice.

I started preparing the turkey since 1pm. At almost 3pm it went into the oven and it was only at 6.30pm that it came out! I cooked the 2nd turkey wrapped in aluminum foil unlike the first one. I also coverd the top part with back bacon. Cooking it wrapped in aluminum foil produces very moist meat because the turkey steams in its own juices. I removed the foil for the last 40 minutes of cooking to let the turkey brown.

And here’s my pancetta-sage bacon-rosemarry turkey! I couldn’t find pancetta and sage ran out of stock! Good thing there was fresh rosemarry and thyme. Always let the turkey rest for a couple of minutes (40 – 60 mins) so that the juices settle before it is served. While the turkey was resting, I prepared some turkey sauce, sis prepared her rocket salad and bro prepared his seafood spaghetti.

Dinner time

Sis and me

Merry Christmas!!