50% Completion

Yippie! We are at the halfway mark. Halfway more to go! It is so exciting. Although it has been a pretty tough process, we still can't wait for project completion. 

Image source: Unsplash.com

Limited Edition gift from Sample Store

I got a gift from Sample Store. It's a small mobile power bank designed for Sample Store. Happy. The packaging is cute though badly dented while being delivered. 

Asience Treatment Hair Mask

Asience Treatment Hair Mask, a new hair mask by Japanese brand Asience made for Asian hair, will be launched in Singapore in June 2014. Having used Asience products before, I love how nice my hair smells and feels after using Asience hair products.

With the new Asience Treatment Hair Mask, in just 5 minutes of treatment, the hair feels silky smooth for up to 96 hours. The new hair mask also provides an enjoyable spa-like experience with its relaxing oriental fragrances formulated with Ginger, Ylang-Ylang, Menthe. Our hair is kept hydrate and moisturized with the natural Asian Beauty Essences.

Asience Treatment Hair Mask

• Intensively moisturizes and heals hair, repairing it from inside-out for smooth and soft locks.
• Effects last up to 96 hours with one application.
• Contains natural Asian Beauty Essences: Lotus flower, Korean ginseng, camellia oil, Aloe essence, pearl and shell ginger leaf that keep hair hydrated and moisturized.  
• Oriental fragrances relax and soothe.

 How to use:

• After shampooing, squeeze water out of hair.
• Apply product liberally on hair, starting from the mid-section to the ends of hair.
• Leave product on for 5 minutes; wash off thoroughly and dry hair.
• Use once a week for best results.

Asience Treatment Hair Mask on my hair
The hair mask smells so nice upon opening the bottle. I took a little of the mask as I now have short hair, spread it all over the mid section to the ends of my hair. It feels slippery on my hand and hair.

Here's the results after 5 minutes of treatment and blowing drying. Before (left), my hair looks dry and "crispy". After (right) applying the hair mask, my hair looks hydrated and feels softer and silkier.

Click here to redeem a free Asience Treatment Hair Mask sample: http://www.ksgpromo.com/AsienceMask/

Purchase your Asience Treatment Hair Mask for S$18.90/180g, available from June 2014 at NTUC, Cold Storage, Sheng Siong.

Advanced Wedding Anniversary Present

The hubby got me a surprise on Wednesday. He faked tummy ache and an urgency to get something from the car immediately. I was pretty surprised. And shocked. Happy that I got a present, but then it's super over budget. Nevertheless, grateful the thoughtfulness. There's a great deal of reasoning behind the choice of gift. Haha.. Thank you.

We are spending our wedding anniversary with my family in the neighboring country, hence the advanced present.

Happy Wedding Anniversary, my dear hubby. It's our 6th year together as a married couple.

Homemade Nutella Frappuccino

The hubby saw this recipe for a homemade nutella frappuccino and wanted to try it. So we tried. I made some adjustments to suit his taste. He's not really a sweet tooth, hence the cut in sugar, and of course no whipped cream was added.

Serves: 2 servings
Ingredients

• ¾ cup strong coffee
• 2 cups ice
• 1 cup milk
• 4 tspn sugar
• 3 tbsp nutella

Instructions

1. Melt the coffee, sugar in hot water.
2. Place all ingredients together in a blender and blend for a couple minutes until smooth.

Here are the ingredients we used. The ice is missing here. I was worried about having the ice melting even before I start blending.

Here's the final product. Sheesh.. We do not have any transparent glass for a proper photo.

It's very foamy on top.

One hindsight, I did not notice that this was for two servings. I should have cut the ingredients by half. And the taste was a little weak. I wonder which part was insufficient. Maybe we were too used to the sweetened taste from cafes.

Here's the recipe:
http://www.jocooks.com/other/drinks/homemade-nutella-frappuccino/

Here are more Nutella recipes to try out:
http://mashable.com/2014/05/19/nutella-recipe/

High alert mode

My not so little stalker is always on the high alert mode. When he's resting or sleeping, he will open his eyes or even sit up to look at me at any little movement I caused. When I shift in my seat or attempt to take my phone to snap a picture of him, he got all alert. 

Maybe that's why the area below his eyes look a little darker recently. Haha. Hmm do does have dark eye bags like human does?

He's our beloved, troublemaker, cute, notti boy. Just hope he grows up to be a less notti boy like now. 

NDP 2014 Tickets Balloting

The annual event is here again. Time to try our luck and ballot for tickets to our Nation's birthday celebration. Ticket application starts from 17th May to 25th May 2014.

Singapore Citizens and Singapore Permanent Residents are eligible to apply for tickets for the Actual NDP on 9th August 2014 and the NDP Preview on 2nd August 2014. All successful applicants in the NDP 2013 ticket e-balloting exercise will not be eligible for the NDP 2014 ticketing e-balloting exercise. Each applicant can only apply for 2, 4 or 6 tickets.

Successful applicants will be notified via SMS from 5th to 14th June 2014 through their preferred contact numbers provided during their applications and are to reply via SMS to indicate the acceptance or rejection of the tickets.

I had submitted my chance. Have you? Go try your luck this year.
http://www.ndp.org.sg/index.php

[Update 21 May 2014] Yesterday, a blogger shared about a security loophole in the balloting system (read here), that may cause leakage of our submitted personal information. (I am praying hard that no one has attempted to hack for information) Today, NDP Facebook has released a statement that they will be enhancing on the website's security and assured that no confidential information has been compromised. I think the safest way to ballot, for now, is via AXS, SAM and SMS.

Mini Donuts

I had gotten bought a mini donut maker about a year (or more) ago and have yet to try making mini donuts. The machine makes 7 mini donuts at one time, and it is pretty easy to use. I'm unable to find more information about the machine, guess it's really that old and outdated. Haha..

Here's the more successful looking batch of minis.

Here's the ingredient list and the recipe provided in the manual

Ingredients
250g                 Flour
125g                 Sugar
250ml               Milk
2 teaspoons   Vanilla sugar or a few drops of vanilla essence
3                       Eggs
50ml                 Vegetable oil
15g                   Baking powder
1 pinch             Salt

Preparation

1. Place flour, baking powder, sugar, vanilla sugar or vanilla essence and salt into a mixing bowl.
2. Make a well in the middle of those ingredients and add the milk egg and oil
3. Using a mixer, mix all ingredients thoroughly to produce a smooth batter.
4. Allow the batter to ferment for 2 hours before cooking.

These are the tools I had used to make the mini donuts. I think the weighing scale can be thrown away after this one time. Very inaccurate. I kinda think that my proportion of the ingredients are measured very wrongly.

The ingredients. The list did not mention what kind of flour and what kind of sugar, so I got the two that I would be using for the next project =P

Everything's in...

... and stirred well, I hope. Hahaha manual mixing won't be as good as using an electronic mixer. So now we have to leave the batter to ferment for two hours.

After two hours, it's time to work. Fill each mould with the batter and close the lid. Mini donuts will be ready in less than 3 minutes.

The better looking donuts from the top. The bottom side actually looks nicer. Haha..

Flipped all the donuts over. Wouldn't you agree that the bottom side looks better? The better ones were sugar glazed and ready for "takeaway".

We tried spreading Nutella over some, but the outlook is not very appetizing and looks messy.

Amazingly. the batter makes around 74 mini donuts. The batter can make even more, but we lost count of how many we tested and I poured too much batter in some moulds, making oversized minis. The baking time taken to complete the batter is around 2 hours.

OWL Soya Beancurd Pudding

While we were doing some grocery shopping, the hubby decided to try out the OWL Soya Beancurd Pudding. We saw this during the previous shopping, but was considering whether to try. So we decided to try this time. OWL Soya Beancurd Pudding is selling at $5.50 from NTUC Fairprice.

On the packaging, this big pack of OWL Soya Beancurd Pudding states that it consists 5 servings. And in my mind, I was thinking instant mash potato style. 5 small packs of soya beancurd pudding powder to mix with hot water, stir and it will be hardened.

But I was wrong. The big pack contains one big pack of soya beancurd powder and 5 oven safe disposable bowls. Ahh. I have to make all 5 at one go. And the powder needs to be boiled. Hmm.. Cham.. How to finish them?

No choice then. To eat, we have to make all of them together. Here are the steps provided.

1. Dissolve a packet of OWL Soya Beancurd Pudding Powder into a pot of 1000ml water. Stir well until boil.
2. Pour mixture into containers provided and set in room temperature until cool.
3. Chill in refrigerator for 1-2 hours until firm. Serve chill. Makes 5 servings.

So, I dissolved the powder into a pot of 1000ml water. Mine is not really a pot, but any pot works. And I have to keep stirring.

Initially, the powder was a little clumpy when mixed into the hot water. But with consistent stirring for sometime, the clumps were dissolved. Be patient. (I was impatient haha)

Next, was to pour the mixture into containers provided and set in room temperature until cool. Happy with what I did, even though it wasn't much effort here.

After cooling, it's time to chill them in refrigerator for 1-2 hours until the pudding becomes firm. Looks like I'm in some production line making many bowls of OWL Soya Beancurd Pudding eh?

And, TA-dah... the final product after being chilled for three whole hours. It was still pretty watery after two hours. I guess my refrigerator was not cold enough?

Even after chilling for three hours, the pudding is still watery, although much better than the recommended two hours. Sighs.. Let's try overnight chilling. Hopefully it will be better. (To be updated tomorrow)

[Update: 16th May 2014 3:00pm - The pudding is still as watery as last night. Total chilled time: 20 hours. I think if we were to buy and try again, though I doubt I will, I would use 900ml of water instead of 1000ml]

I wonder how long can we keep this in the refrigerator. To be safe, I think we have to finish this in two consecutive days.

Here's someone who wishes to try out the beancurd pudding too...

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers in the world. With lotsa love to my beloved mother. 

Cakes and flowers from the sister. Yummy. Thank you dear. 

And I doubt the boy knows what's happening... Grabbed him for a photo. 

And the pretty flower from the sister. 

I was dreaming...

I woke up to a pretty ridiculous vivid dream this morning. Even the hubby LOL at it. Unbelievable. 

Source: google image

There was a gathering with the guys and we were waiting by the road for LH to pick us (BTW she don't drive in real life). Her black hatchback car then arrived. The four of us got into the back seats, and amazingly, there is still alot of space in between us. 

Then I realised that the interior of the car was incredible. The back seat is actually a four seater comfortable sofa, with a big side table on the left and a small side table on the right. The most incredible part is, even though LH is driving, there is no windshield. Only a small monitor in the middle of the white "wall" showing the front view of the road (think of those small screen building security monitor), with a 15inch computer monitor to the left of the view of the windshield monitor and a big 21inch monitor on the right. And LH is sitting in front of the three monitors driving and doing work at the same time. All using just a keyboard and mouse. I don't see a steering wheel. 

I asked LH, if it is safe to multitask? And I do not feel like we were moving on the road. She assured me that it is perfectly fine. The others seemed oblivious to all that. 

Then we were chatting and the topic of 端午节 Rice Dumpling Festival came up. I saw some wrapped small rice dumplings on the right side table and asked if we can eat. But all the dumplings were empty, although the shape is still there, still wrapped up. Then E and L saw another bunch of bigger dumplings on the left side table. Some were empty, but still in the dumpling shape, with only one or two filled with the rice dumplings. We were very happy to find those. Then A saw a super big unwrapped dumpling, and upon looking in, there were many of those bigger dumpling that E and L saw and they were placed in a position that looked like a Christmas tree. 

All of us were amazed to find more rice dumplings and why were they positioned in a Christmas tree and...... I woke up...

Lol. What does this dream even mean? Haha but I would love to have such a spacious car. It's like a moving apartment. 

Bornga : Never to visit again. EVER!

To celebrate the hubby's birthday, I suggested eating Korean for dinner. The hubby is a fan of Korean bbq (and alot of others cuisines). I remembered our last trip to Bornga at The Star Vista was pretty good, the food was great, the service so-so (but we can't really blame that as it was the New Year Eve, there were loads of people), and the overall experience was great. Hence that place was suggested and the hubby was keen.

Bornga

Upon reaching, at 6.45pm, there were loads of empty tables and only a family of four was in front of us. Some empty tables had the Reserved sign. We did not know that reservation was possible (previously we can't do that), and so we waited. The waiter, A, said to wait 15minutes. And after 25 minutes of waiting, we were finally shown to our table at the outdoor seating. The queue got horribly long and people was fustrated with waiting especially with all the empty tables. Some customers even went to talk to waiter A. And to my surprise, the queue somehow cleared out in less than 10minutes, all being ushered to those empty tables. So we were the foolish ones to think that there were so many reservations that we have to wait 35 minutes to be seated.

When we were seated, we were not poured drinks immediately. We saw that those in the indoor seatings were being attended to almost immediately they pulled out their chairs to seat down. We were not so mean as to want immediate attention, but even after calling out to the waitress, B, who is serving another table in the outdoor seating, a few times and everytime she just looked away and walked off to do something else, never once acknowledging us AND after going up to another waiter indoors to get some attention in placing our orders (35 minutes of wait is more than enough time to decide what to eat), only to be brushed off saying we have to wait for waitress B to attend to us, AND trying again with another waiter to happen to walk by serving sides to another table, and told to wait for waitress B. But waitress B never once looked in our direction despite walking up and down to place order for that SAME table, preparing and serving their sides and serving their ordered drinks. By now, I am super pissed off. There's a limit to my patience and I feel that I am already very patient. My FIL is diabetic and he needs to eat at the 30th minute after his medication. We are already long past the timing and have to place our order FAST.

After THAT long, FINALLY, waiter A came over to take our order. By then there was already zero people queuing for a table, and most of them were already settled inside ordering or ordered and we were still looking around, waving for attention. Anyway, our original order was the big pot of stew ($40) and one pork belly ($24) for bbq. With only three of us, that is considered a pretty huge order. But waiter A said, we have to order a minimum of two meat for BBQ. So we changed our order to pork belly ($24), pork slice ($22) and a kimchi stew ($15). It was after ordering, when I checked into Foursquare, then we got to know from the tips that, it's not a minimum of two meat BBQ, but every seated customer has to order a dish. That sounds ridiculous as the big pot of stew is more than enough to cover all three of us. By the way, my FIL and me eats usually only eats half the portion of a meal. Pissed off point two.

The pork belly that we ordered. 

In between taking our orders, waiter C came over to our table and asked waiter A. "That fatty, in black, got people let him in? Or he just walked in himself?" The hubby and I almost popped our eyes. Seriously? That is how you describe customers? And worse, in front of other customers? So how does he describe our group? Best of all, the customer heard that and demanded an explanation from waiter C. I did not really bother about them after that as I can't really hear anything apart from being exposed of being THAT rude. This is so damn rude... Pissed off point three.

Oh, we were still not served water after ordering. Waitress B finally came and served us sides and drinks much later. As I can't drink the brown rice tea, and asked for water. Guess what? The water took as long as our waiting time. Nevermind. When our pork for BBQ was served, waitress B came and asked, what's our order, and after we mentioned that the stew still not yet served, she went off. We thought she was going to BBQ for us?? Being hungry, we decided not to wait. Then we realised, all the other tables, waiters A, B, C all helped them BBQ and just not us. Like WHY??? Waiter A did come to our table to want to help us, but we were already done cooking with the last piece of pork and it's just left cutting and putting in on our plates. We rejected his "help". Pissed off point four.

Waitress B bbq-ing for other table.

We are NEVER EVER going back there again. $75 for such an experience and not being able to eat the food that I want (I want to eat that big pot of stew). Sucks.

I am so sad that my hubby birthday dinner celebration ended up like this. Such a bad bad experience and it made us so pek chek. I am very unhappy. Even after leaving the place and even before sleeping. And even until next day.

Shark Sonic Steam Pocket Mop SM200

The hubby wanted to get a electronic steam mop, selling me all the benefits of owning one. And as a doting wife, I agreed (again) to let him buy what he feels is good. Haha..

We went around some electronic stores and saw that electronic steam mops are EXPENSIVE. From high end $300+ to over $500. They are way way over budget. Haha.. I was still thinking that we can get one a little over $100. Oopsie...

Then, I went online to search whether there are cheaper alternatives and we saw this Shark Sonic Steam Pocket Mop SM200 on sale at Qoo10 for $79.90 (plus $18 delivery fee). That's $97.90. Under my $100 budget. Cool. So we decided to get it.
http://list.qoo10.sg/item/SHARK-SONIC-STEAM-POCKET-MOP-STEAM/415169016?selectedOptions= (AHH.. They are selling it even cheaper now. $4.90 cheaper than what I bought)

Placed the order on the 27 April night and got the item on 4 May. Exactly one week, and it's delivered from Korea. Nice. Pretty fast delivery.

Item arrived. Tightly bubble wrapped.

All the parts that were inside the box

Ta dah~ We fixed it and it's time to test it out.

The hubby tried the mop on the day the item was delivered. Fixing was easy, although the user manual was in Korean, but we managed it by deciphering the diagrams.

Korean user manual

He said it's pretty easy to use after figuring out that to get the steam, the handle has to be pushed down. Happy hubby = happy wife ^^

Latte vs Postman

Do you remember that during our younger days, we saw cartoons on TV showing postman being chased by dogs whenever they go round houses to deliver mail?

I truly believe all that is accurate and not exaggerated. Haha..

My dear notti boy will ALWAYS bark very loudly whenever a delivery person comes to my place, even before he/she knocks on the door. And when they do, he will bark even louder, to a point that I am unable to hear what the delivery person says (to check against my name or to sign somewhere). I feel so bad for the delivery people that they were barked at. It's pretty rude, I feel, but I have not been able to hush him. Yet.

So far, deliveries from BlackBox.sg (Taqbin), SampleStore (Singpost), Xiaomi (Fedex) and eBay (DHL), were all been barked at. Sighs... Hopefully he learns soon that these delivery people are doing me a favour of sending things to our door step and not causing me any harm. Haha.. But amazingly today, he did not bark at the delivery man from Qoo10. Maybe he was too sleepy to notice.

Darlie All Shiny White Charcoal Clean

Darlie, my all time favourite toothpaste. I have been using Darlie ever since I was young. I love the refreshing, clean feeling after every brush. Now Darlie came out with a brand new toothpaste, Darlie All Shiny White Charcoal Clean toothpaste, with natural bamboo charcoal molecules that absorb dirt and deep clean the mouth and together with the Speedy Whitening Agent, this toothpaste brings us double whitening benefits.

I love the minty, refreshing feeling of the Darlie All Shiny White Charcoal Clean toothpaste. It makes me feel confident that my teeth is cleaned thoroughly of stains and oral cavity and even more confident with a fresher breath.

Get your tube of Darlie All Shiny White Charcoal Clean (160g) at only $3.20 today.

Darlie All Shiny White Charcoal Clean $3.20/160g

• Clinical proven effectively whiten your teeth in 14 days
• Speedy Whitening Agent (SWA) removes yellowish stains
• Contains natural bamboo charcoal molecules effectively absorb dirt and deeply clean your mouth. 
• Contains natural bamboo charcoal molecules which absorb dirt and deep clean the mouth. Combine with SWA whitening agent which delivers effective whitening result, bringing dual whitening benefits.
• Fluoride for healthy teeth

Where to buy Darlie All Shiny White Charcoal Clean : 
Available at selected major NTUC FairPrice, Giant, Cold Storage, Sheng Siong, Prime and other leading supermarkets, Watsons, Guardian, Unity and other cosmetic stores from March 2014.

Redeem the Darlie All Shiny White Charcoal Clean sample on SampleStore.com here:
https://www.samplestore.com/product/details/2814/0/name-darlie-all-shiny-white-charcoal-clean-

LIKE Darlie SG Facebook page for more information on the Darlie All Shiny White Charcoal Clean promotion. https://www.facebook.com/DarlieSingapore

Gek sim

Gek sim. Hokkien. Means. Sad and disappointed to a point that the heart literally hurts. 

This is the bottom of my bed. Initially it was a smaller hole and last night, it had gotten to this, a much bigger tear. 

First my glass door, then some cables, then my sofa, now my bed. The thing is, I feel, he knows that it is wrong for him to do all these as he always run to hide whenever we discover what he's up to. But he just want to test us. 

We treated him so well, free roam in the house, play with him, give him treats, clear his pee and poo mess (esp when he decided to not settle those acts in the toilet), give him his bath and dry him up no matter how he attempt to bite us and so much more... It just saddens us that he just want to try our patience. Our limit.

Gek sim ah...

 

Here's the culprit... 

Happy anniversary to my parents

It's Labour day, a public holiday in Singapore, and it is also a day to celebrate the love of my parents. Their wedding anniversary falls on May first and this year is their 32nd anniversary. 

We "kids" bought takeaway crabs from Master Crab at CCK Sunshine Place to eat with them. Two Chilli Crabs, one Salted Egg Crab and 15 fried Mantous for $138.xx. 

My mum happily ate the crabs and not talked much throughout the meal and my dad happily ate bread dipped with the sauce (he ate some crabs but can't eat too much). Glad it was a fulfiling meal for the parents and us children.