My Blah Week

This entry started with a burst of giggles in amidst of the ratting of machine guns and the sweet aroma of coffee. Haven't had the motivation to pen down all the thoughts this week, might be due to my soap opera obsession again.

I've to say, my life is still simple enough compared to many of my friends. As they hassle around their jobs, family, children and other errands, I'm sitting here blogging, sipping my coffee with my headphones on.
Chatting with one of my dear girlfriends the other day, unfortunate news arrived that her husband has been retrenched on that very same day. With a new flat and her baby princess who just started school, she hasn't lost a bit of her optimism. Back in school she's pretty strong, and she hasn't lost a bit of that virtue.
With recession floating around, many had asked about our well-being. Grateful that I'm still in their thoughts, yes I do worry at the same time I prayed and kept my faith.

Back to my week, it's been pretty blah, it would just bore you to death listening. Dog-sitting Pluto while the Lees were away was sadly the only highlight of the week and Cow's long gaming session with Ads. Other than that, Mr Mailman paid me a visit. I've been waiting for my parcel the whole week, and with fear that I might miss him, I've appointed Yumi as my faithful doorbell (Our cheap doorbell has been very temperamental). Fenced her up in the living room and left the front door opened, making it really obvious to Mr Mailman that we are home. Yesterday afternoon, her howl echoed the hallway, I flew down the the flight of steps and there he was, laughing. Throughout the signing of the parcel, he kept laughing and pointing to the door. Seemed to me that he found Yumi's weird whining noises entertaining (giggles).

Sighing

Sighing is as natural as a yawn to me, just a ball of gas that needs to be let out.

It's a habit that takes place subconsciously, to the point that I might not even notice it's happened.
The sigh count mostly increased when my mind isn't stimulated enough, meaning I'm bored. Or those times when things were beyond my control, sighing is like a way to relieve my mind.

Never have I experienced being blamed for such a small gesture. It's not like I'm kicking a fuss over nothing, or smashing stuff when I'm frustrated (my way of venting anger, it worked all the time, I'm pretty destructive when my mood gets really bad). Got the blame for someone else's assumption, my sigh was taken as the last straw,... an issue of bad timing when the ball of gas was let out.

Unjustified is all I can say. Apology accepted, but still the fact that such a small gesture ended me up with a bad migraine and not to mention wasting forty minutes to resolve the issue which wasn't even started by me,.... I can't control myself but to let out another silent sigh.

Bad Habit

Everyone has some sorta bad habit, what's yours?

Mine? Ask Pea and Cow, they would tell you that I've got a cup 'collecting' problem. I'm a soda and caffeine addict, starting off the day with a nice cuppa coffee, and that's the first cup entering the study. Few hours later, walked into the kitchen to grab another,... "Oh holy crap, left my cup upstairs",... lazy to walk up again, took another cup off the rack. That's another cup added onto the table. Slightly later went down again to walk Yumi, feeling the thirst as I reached home, ahhh some soda would be nice to beat the heat. When upstairs, and now there's three cups resting next to me..... *SIGH*

It's not surprising that I run outta cups very quickly. Instead of kicking the bad habit away, the problem's solved by creating more cups. Turned one of the flower pots from Ikea into a nice big coffee mug just by adding some floral stickers on it. It looked great, and holds more caffeine compared to my norm mugs, saves moi from running down to fetch for more.

Cow came home shaking his head commenting that I'm turning the study into some sorta internet cafe.... some habits are hard to kick indeed.

Food Talk

The kitchen has been smoking, Cow stir-fried his preserved mushrooms and fennel. Not willing to lose out, I attempted to bake some potato balls,... not a great hit, but still edible.

An deary sent some peanut cookies over last evening, displayed some on the plate to take a shot. Just as the first cookie's butt rested on the plate, Yumi started begging for one. A stern 'NO' set her back to her frog squatting position, she resolved to her puppy eyes attack. Owner gave her a short lecture on how peanuts are bad for dogs then moved on to the living room where there's better lighting for the photo. The canine's struggle got worse as now the cookies are within her reach but the other side of her vaguely remembered the stern 'NO'.

As the cookies sat on the table for five minutes, she howls to vent her frustration,.... at three in the morning,... howling,.... yes, she howled for straight five minutes, circling the coffee table. She got tired, and rested her head on the sofa... before coming back to the table again. For the food orientated machine she is, its a sad morning.

On a side note, there seemed to be a great increased in lizards in the house. I'm ok with lizards, but it still makes me jump when they pop outta no where. Just the other morning, while moving the microwave to make space for our new oven,... one fat fella jumped out from the back of the unit. Just as I recovered from my missing heartbeat, moving the unit further, another one jumped out again. The ordeal kept me awake the whole morning.

As I'm writing this entry, I'm not alone. There's another one of them sitting next to me in the study, with prying eyes on a bug on the wall.... Just as long as there's no body contact, and Yumi doesn't get any of them as her chew toy, I'm happy to live along side with the cold blooded, wall climbing reptilians.

Say Cheese

One way of recycling empty cans

The little cupboard in the kitchen is piling up with empty tins from my addiction of condensed milk, waiting for an idea to strike to breathe life into them again. Light bulb started blinking mad the moment I saw some nice printable designs.

Just as everyone in the neighbourhood snoozed their way into slumberland, I slaved away making measurements, photoshopping the dimensions required and off my printer went.

A bit of cutting here and sticking there, I've got myself a brand new set of stationary holder.
Wow.... fifteen minutes was all it took and I'm feeling contented, boy do I love recycling.

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More printable designs [here] if anyone's interested.

Happy 牛(niu) Year

With Cow working night shift, my poor bio clock is suffering yet again. Just as I'm recovering from my poor sleeping pattern, nowadays would be reversed to nights and nights to days.
Found this really simple paper toy, my motor skills don't function very well at this time of the day, even cutting the pieces out is a challenge. Despite the toy wasn't not meant for Chinese New Year, its closed enough I guess. Well, its got a cow and its year of the Ox in a couple of days.
So to all friends and well, Pea, who's so bored and kind to visit my blog, Happy Niu Year in advance. May it be a great year ahead for all of you.

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Paper toy template Mansel Co Ltd.

Volunteered Models

The Lees were really nice to pop round this evening, passing us the discount booklet for the new supermarket around the corner.
Bless An who's feeling poorly after her trip to Genting, hope she and Scott will get well soon.
Having them round, took a few snaps, well not really a few, but half a gig's worth.
And Cow, I'm afraid there's more work for you now *puppy eyes*.

All about Poo

Strange Habit

In the loo, zen moments, spare you the details. With her psychic power, Yumi sensed the dark aura of ,.... poo. In amidst of reaching my enlightenment state,... her nose plied open the bathroom door, poked her head through the gap and entered without invitation. *Sniff* *sniff*, everything's alright, end her patrol and headed back to her throne downstairs, next to Cow.

It's like a normal routine for her, to inspect everytime I go through my important loo businesses. God knows why, but she just does. Irritating at first, but as time goes by, it just became a norm.

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Walkies

Went out for a short walk with Cow and canine, grabbing the camera with me. I'm in love with the new lens, not only did it help me with my problem of having shaky hands, I even managed to walk and snap at the same time.
Oh, why did Cow looked so surprised when Yumi did her business? Let's put it this way, for her to do her business is a tricky issue. It's like trying to located the ultimate fengshui patch kinda thingy. And not expecting much from this walk, he was surprised nevertheless. And no, he doesn't scoop up the leftovers, that's my job,... he just holds the leash...

Paper Toys

my new found love.

Just can't get enough of it at the moment. For the past three days, I'm only managed to complete three toys. As I get busy with my new hobby, printed a set of paper toy for Cow as well.
When I rang him up at work telling him I found the template for Master Chief from Halo, he enthusiastically urged me to get it for him.

*Twilight with flashback to two days ago* We sat down at the dining table with scissors, penknives, gluestick and our paper toy templates. After cutting out a tiny yet complication piece from his set, he announced that he's calling it a day .... leaving me alone to complete my lil Rommy robot. Till now his set sits on the table, quietly counting down the days till its remembered again.

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[Credits]

Transformers Optimus Prime paper toy by nicebunny.com.

Rommy the Robot paper toy template by Sloth Paper Toys

Bento Lunch Box template by sanwasupply.co.jp.

Scattered Thoughts

Reduction

of what? The amount of trash photos I have, well I'd prefer to call them "artistic" shots in the past, all too blurred to make out wtf I was taking. My hands just shake too much to take any descent enough shots to be used, frustrating it is, even more for Cow who had to go through everyone of them to delete and organise coz I can't give a damn.
Almost at the verge of giving up, a saviour came along and suggested a different lens. And also thanks to another saviour who's willing to empty his pocket and invest on a new one for me,.... but before he departed with his hard earn cash, his repeat this question no less than 5 times, "Are you sure you are gotta use it?" LOL. Yes dear, I certainly am!!!

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Pumped up

with caffeine. That's my usual morning routine anyway, nothing beats a nice hot cuppa to start off the day. As if that's not enough, even the chocolate snacks I'm having at the moment is in the shape of coffee beans,... Not sure if there's any coffee involved at all, the packaging's in Japanese, and I can't understand a word of it.... Nevertheless it taste good, that's all that matters XD

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Rain

Yesterday was a torture for Yumi, went for a stroll but had to make it short due to unexpected weather. Whining and bitching, the whole afternoon had been tormenting the four-legged PMSing canine. Standing on twos at the window, constantly checking on the weather... it disappointed her everytime I announced that it's still drizzling.


The photo of her did not justify her mood, she's only two set of expressions, her hush puppy eyes when she's guilty and her smiley face. It's her noises that tells you how she's feeling, when her photo was taken,.... her cry actually echoed down the hallway....

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Growth

Its nice to have green fingers, without getting dirty of course. The herbs Cow planted are doing extremely well. He's looking forward to re-potting the seedlings soon to give them a lil bit more space. Hopefully they won't die like the previous batch we planted when we were back in the desert.

Anniversary

How time flies, its our third anniversary. Through An's recommendation, we booked a table in a Korean BBQ restaurant in Taipan.
Not knowing what's coming, we ordered two sets of meat for the BBQ and a small portion of hotpot. An did mentioned that they set a good number of side dishes which made the figures at the end of the bill seemed worth it, but that's all she said.
The waiter tried to stop us from ordering the hotpot,... well he's got a small build, maybe his appetite wasn't as big as ours, so we went ahead with our intended order. One after the other, the side dishes arrived. By the end of our meal,... 15, well, 14 side dishes and dessert in total. We were stuffed, .... paid to torture ourselves....

Overall, I loved the place, they have the best service I've ever experienced. Not only did they BBQed the food for us,.... they even took the trouble to fetch our shoes (we had to remove them before stepping onto the platform), oh,.... the manager even went ahead of us to get the lift ready before we even reached the exit.... That place left me speechless and Cow feeling bad for not giving enough tips lol.

PS: Happy Anniversary to my Super Cow. Muacks.