Voila

Late night preps for Little Baby's 1st birthday celebration tomorrow with both sides of the family. 

Loving the tissue paper balls. Ordered them online and I've been making them since a week plus ago whenever I get the chance to. Time to put them up...question now is where...hmm....

Recalibration

前两天心情有点烦躁。 告诉自己要调整以下， 平复一下心情， 不要让一件事或一个人破坏自己的稳定。要把精神和精力花在该花的地方。爱身边重要的人， 爱自己多一些。

Was feeling a little down the last 2 days. Telling myself that I need to let things go and recalibrate myself and my thoughts. Don't let an unpleasant incident or a particular person get me down. I should channel my energies to the right places. Love the important people in my life more, love myself more.

work relations

You can't please everybody. It is inevitable that some people won't like certain things you do or won't like you as a person.

So long as you remain true to yourself and whatever you are doing and your conscience is clear.

Just found out that The Coll has told others that I have a bad temper and has bad-mouthed me on other aspects.

Sigh. So be it. Maybe she doesn't realise that sometimes I just don't want to talk to her because she has stepped on my toes. I'm perfectly fine with others in the team. And if the majority of the team generally doesn't want to hang out with her. Then who's the one who is not doing things right?

Seeing red

A line was crossed. My limit was breached earlier on and my anger shot to high levels. 

Ranted to 2 colleagues in a brief manner cos I was rushing home. 

Took many deep breaths. I am still fuming though. The anger has only dissipated a little. 

Having an asinine colleague (The Coll) has brought me some measure of grief. Sigh. 

Off for more deep breathing. 

===========

Update: 

It's 915pm now. 3.5hrs since the incident at work. Recanted the episode to K and he agreed that she did things on purpose. Some anger is still there. I tried my best to put a lid on it. Guess I only succeeded a little. Still some bubbling and simmering within. 

It has been a very long while since I was so incensed. Well done The Coll, you managed to get under my skin this time. 

Was that why Nadya was rather cranky before bed tonight? She might have picked up on the bad vibes. Sorry Little Baby. Mummy wasn't great company tonight. 

Coincidences.......

Inlaws told me they were going to a wake this evening. When I asked where, they mentioned a road and I said a good friend was staying there. They then mentioned the unit number and it was my friend's address. 

Turned out that it was his grandmother who had passed on. She was a month short of hitting 91yrs old. 

This brings the tally to a total of 3 good friends whose grandmother or grandfather passed on this year. And my own granny passed on this year as well. 

Mal a tete

Never quite realised how debilitating a headache can be. Till now when I have a kid.

Here you are trying to placate a fussing wriggling tiny human. And there you have "someone" pounding away at the sides of your head. 

And somehow the baby's cries get magnified to be twice as loud as usual. 

忍

The Panadol doesn't seem to be working today. 

Our nest

It's been almost 2 months in our new home. And you tend to get more familiar with your immediate surroundings:

- there is a resident cat. A black and white fella with a red collar which I think the security guard uncle put on it. Relatively friendly cat prone to lots of "meow-ing" whenever anyone approaches. 

- I've a talented neighbour who plays the piano. Practices almost everyday. Lives on the ground floor, 3 units directly below me.

- there are a few other babies in the development. :) 

- I've another talented neighbour who plays the recorder. Or it may have been a flute? I don't know really. But anyway my jaw dropped one night when I heard this neighbour playing Kitaro on his/her recorder. Not radio recorder hor, but that flute-like musical instrument. Might be the same neighbour as the piano fella.

- there's another neighbour who loves Bruno Mars. Sometimes you can hear his playlist being played and/or repeated. 

rant

Working with people who can't even take ownership and follow through with things.
Frustrating. And you wonder how and why they are a grade above you in terms of rank.

But, no time for anger now, for there are many things to be done.

Mind is on several things all at once. Including Little Baby's menu for this weekend.

Shepherd's Pie

As opposed to multiple dishes, sometimes I prefer making one-dish meals. It is more fun, less mundane and more convenient. 

Yesterday's one-dish was shepherd's pie! The taste was good to me, but I added too much salt and the last few mouhthfuls were a little cloying to the taste buds because of the saltiness.

The pics aren't very appealing but here they are. 

Saturday

Sat was a day of many appointments. 

During the day we had the following vendors pop by:

1. Opennet - their 4th visit and finally they manage to solve their cable issue

2 StarHub - only when Opennet fixed their issue could StarHub come in to settle our fibre connection. Glad that this was fully settled yesterday. 

3. NTUC - I had ordered groceries online.

4. Painter - he swung by to paint the skirting in the balcony. I think all the touch-ups of the house have been completed? 

And of course, we went out for my mum early bday celebration in the evening. 

Busy Saturday. 

A look back

Let's see, what have I been occupied with during my weekends since mid last year?

• June/July 2013 - Felt much better compared to the initial nauseated feeling and there were much less giddy spells. So K & I were out running errands and buying things in preparation for Little Baby's arrival. 
• August/September 2013 - I remember thinking at the time "We bought so many things but how come we are still short of things for her arrival?" We were still running errands and buying things for Little Baby. By this time, I couldn't walk for long and would need to rest very frequently.
• October/November 2013 - Little Baby's arrival. Brought much joy to us and much havoc to the household as well. The initial weekends were busy with well-wishers, friends and family members visiting me. Of course, K & I were occupied with learning how to deal with the little angel (who was not so angelic when she started bawling her lungs out).
• December 2013 / January 2014 - Mad rush to get presents ready for Christmas. And it was our first few times venturing out to a shopping centre with Little Baby. I remember a scene vividly. I was carrying her to the washroom to change her nappy. Two aunties started staring at me and I realised that she had vomitted on me. So I was walking around smelling like sour milk and had milk curds dribbling down my T-shirt and down my thigh. The weekends in January were spent getting ready for CNY, wrapping angpows and such stuff. And oh yes, house-hunting started in January.
• February/March 2014 - House-hunting reached a feverish peak. Weekends were spent visiting homes. And eventually, after we settled on our current place, weekends (and some weekdays) were spent on getting the administrative procedures ready.
• April/May 2014 - Weekends were spent visiting IDs and contractors. When we finally chose one, we had to spend time with him to discuss concepts, and decide on colours, materials, etc.
• June/July 2014 - We still had to have meetings with our ID and we were also running around madly trying to buy things for the home. Fixtures, fittings, groceries, etc. End July was spent packing. 
• August/September 2014 - Ah, this is the now. August weekends were spent trying to get a grip on ourselves haha. Cleaning, cooking, looking after Little Baby, getting the laundry sorted out, ironing, etc. And till now, there are still areas of the house which have not been cleaned. (Sigh!). September is underway and I think we are slowly getting into a weekend routine. We are getting better and we are getting there.

Come to think of it, our weekends have been so occupied each week since last year.

Can't remember when was the last time we went for a movie date. I think it was at least a year ago....

bah....the old man is grouchy today

老板出国公干，今天回来公司了。心情很不好， 皱着眉头， 脸黑得很。
一大清早已经被他“鸟”了。。。嗨， 今天应该不容易过。。。

Good luck to all of us...

Sigh...

I saw someone's FB status today. She was pregnant and probably in her 3rd trimester already. But her post today was quite heartbreaking. She lost her baby. I don't know what happened exactly but I feel very sad for her and I hope she stays strong. She and her husband seem to be Christians so I hope their faith in God keeps them strong throughout all this.

R, we are not close and we have not caught up with each other in more than 10 years. You will probably never see this but I am sending my silent wishes to you. I really feel for you and sincerely hope that you will take care of yourself and stay strong in this time of grief. May God bless you and your husband....

LinkedIn

For the longest time, I resisted the idea of having a LinkedIn account.

I couldn't see the value of it and also I didn't want to have another online profile to manage. Just one Facebook account and a Blogger account is enough for me thank you. I don't have a Twitter account. I don't have an Instagram account. I don't have a Dayre account, nor a Tumblr account. So I really don't know how those things work. For a brief while I started a GooglePlus account and toyed with it for a few weeks before eventually abandoning that account as well.

These days though, I am opening up to the idea of having a LinkedIn account. Maybe it is because there is a sudden influx of connection requests coming from people within my industry.

And I have seen the effects of how these virtual "connections" on LinkedIn might help in one's career and also how search firms actually trawl through LinkedIn to identify potential candidates to fill their clients' job vacancies.

I shall explore it soon. Once I get some time on my hands and an opportunity to do so.
Hmm.....

This is a record

It is the fastest I have ever killed (or almost killed) a plant. :( 

5 days.

Sorry little basil...I don't know what I did or didn't do. 

Auntie-fied

I swear I've morphed into an auntie. 

What with the disheveled hair and the bags of NTUC groceries I lug back from office ever so often. (I dislike it that I don't have a shopping mall at the MRT nearest my home). Anyway, I usually throw them all into my recyclable bag because it makes for easier carrying onto the bus. My trusty $2 bag from Daiso (see pic below)

Because I take the bus, I can't buy many things at once and usually break my purchase into smaller purchases on different days. Which makes it seem like as if I am buying a lot of things. My colleagues always ask me why I keep going to NTUC lol. 

I've already bought a whole bunch of things online from NTUC. But I can't buy frozen meats nor fresh veggies online...and their online portal does not carry all items too.

So tak glam to carry the recyclable bag around but no choice I guess. 

Scrunched up baby face

She suddenly started making "angry" faces at me yesterday lol. The entire night she was doing this and snorting out of her nose as well. She kind of looks like a girl Popeye in the upper left pic haha.

Oh and pardon the bits of pumpkin and cauliflower on her lips. I was feeding her halfway when she decided to go all drama on me with these expressions.

our nest

While our home is fully functional, there are still lots of things to be done here and there....

• I've not cleaned the pedestal in the spare room yet.
• The storeroom is a mess. Managed to clean it up a little last night but the other half of the room is still ....oh well. 
• We are not utilising the space in our kitchen cabinets very well. Need to think about how to repack the things there and shift them around to achieve optimal space utilisation. 
• We kept the chrome fittings in our bathrooms but the previous owner did not do a good job at all in maintaining the fittings. Lots of tarnish and grime. Which we are having some trouble sloughing off and polishing up. Need to spend a long time on this.
• The windows in the master bedroom need cleaning. Actually all the windows and glass doors in the home need cleaning.
• StarHub and Opennet have screwed up our fibre network installation. Things seem to be at a standstill, in limbo right now. 3 appointments have come and gone. Technicians from both parties have come and gone and till now the issue has not been fixed. K is just about to blow his top already if they still don't settle the problem. Thankful though that StarHub lent us a cable modem so we still have internet access. 
• And....the....list....goes on.......

the good stuff

Things I was thankful for since last week:

1) The boss usually gets grouchy and a little stressed before a work trip. He flew off on the Saturday just past and I was glad that he was not that grouchy at all last week. In fact, he came by my desk a few times to chat about mundane issues.

2) A dear friend seems to have good news to share! Pending confirmation from the doctor though. :)

3) The curtain guy came on Saturday and finally, after 3 appointments, all curtains in the home are up and functional. And we no longer have the sun shining in our faces on weekend mornings when we wake up.

4) Little Baby had sufficient naps during the day on Saturday and when she went over to my parents place to visit in the evening, she was such a sweetie and charmed the socks off everyone lol. I felt happy seeing my family being happy and seeing my mum and dad grinning from ear to ear.

5) Managed to catch up with TH over lunch. Was his listening ear for awhile when he griped about both work and personal life. But anyway, glad that things are moving along for him. Happy too that his wedding date has been fixed! 2nd May 2015, here we come!

6) K's tummy was finally ok by Tuesday or Wednesday and he was eating normally again thereafter.

Taking time to give thanks and appreciate the good in my life.

Agar agar mooncakes

Oh yes, before I forget. A guy teammate made this for all the Chinese folks in my team for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Each one had a box. That's 7 boxes. And a total of 14 of these agar agar mooncakes.

Effort leh! Am so impressed! 30yrs old and still single. From Malaysia. Any takers? Lol.