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Golfing with Conditions

15 May

So last week, we went back to playing golf. With the new CMCO now enforced, the Club has conditions to abide by to ensure safety for all.

Wearing a mask and having our temperature taken upon arrival at the Club are now compulsory practices. Golfers have to keep their social distance from each other, so no groups and after game drinks. This is the new normal until June and we’ll have to get used to these practices.

My first golf game after such a lengthy break was quite an experience. OMG, it was so darn taxing on the legs!

The Club has put in place two different guidelines for the CMCO phase: a no buggy rule at the Hills course and a single player per buggy rule at the Lakes course. I played three times, carrying my golf bag, at the Hills course.

I don’t use a trolley for my golf bag and it’s not so much the weight of the bag but the distance to cover on foot. Being confined to the house during the MCO period, the amount of walking I do at home is nothing compared to covering the length of nine holes at the golf course.

My legs felt like jelly and ached beyond belief after my first game last Thursday (it was a public holiday) because I walked so much suddenly. I was wishing them, my legs that is, to fall off my body to reduce the agony. Obviously it didn’t work and I ended up walking weird the next day to manage the nagging pain.

But before the pain could totally subside, the die-hard golfer in me played again over the weekend. Twice mind you as I walked nine holes on Saturday and 14 holes on Sunday! The nine holes was manageable but the 14-holes was quite a killer outing.

Thankfully I had the whole week to recover before the coming weekend games. Phew.

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Tag Team Baking, Part 2

12 May

It looks like the only time we do our tag team baking is when we are doing apple pies – I’d do the filling and hubby would take care of the crust. The second time, we decided we should do a whole pie instead of mini tarts. It’s less work to have the dough in one pie pan compared to a dozen or so tart moulds.

Having learnt from the earlier effort, hubby patiently worked on the crust and it came out beautifully this second time. Needless to say, the filling was good too.

But sometimes things doesn’t go as planned. The latest third attempt failed because I got distracted by the washing machine and the filling got too mushy. And hubby’s dough wasn’t enough to cover the top of the pie despite following the same recipe as before.

I felt so unaccomplished after that so we’d have to bake another one again soon to get over the failure.

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A New Extension

11 May

Well guess what? Our Movement Control Order (MCO) has been extended but with some modification from what it has been previously. This extension is until 9 June.

A week before Phase Four of the MCO ended, the government recalibrated the situation of the pandemic for the country with a Conditional MCO (CMCO). Basically this meant certain restrictions were relaxed but certain practices were still necessary especially social distancing, donning a mask and sanitizing.

The economy was opened albeit with conditions and we actually went back to the office last week, readjusting how to function with compliance to the conditions laid out. It’s weird to be back in the office after so long.

Other sectors opened too, like golf! We can go back to playing golf. Yay… but with conditions. Everything’s with conditions from now on and we have to get used to it.

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A Timely Purchase, Part 2

4 May

I have to admit… the stand mixer was an excellent purchase as hubby has been using it. I have yet to use it though because I don’t really bake from scratch, only from pre-mixes in a box that don’t need a mixer. Heheheh…

The banana loaves and snickerdoodle apple bread
There were two batches of butter cookies

So far he’s baked three loaves of banana bread, butter cookies and a Snickerdoodle apple bread (this was oh-so-good!). There have been attempts too that did not require the stand mixer but just good old kneading and patience for the dough to rise.

All in all, the baking days have kept him busy for there have been many rainy days and he couldn’t go out to the garden. For M2 and me, it was many varieties to savor and I have been upping my exercise routine to counter all the intake.

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I Need a Haircut

1 May

I have never gone past seven weeks for a haircut but alas, it’s been nine weeks since my last haircut on 28 February! With the MCO in place since 18 March, my hair has grown to become an awful length and mess. I cannot stand it. Ugh!

One day I decided to tie the front of my mop to be what we affectionately call a ‘coconut tree’. One day during our daily video call with M1, who’s doing good in the US, she decided to make fun of my new hairdo. See what happens when getting a haircut is not an option?

😂😅

I think the first thing I’d like to do when the MCO is lifted is to get the mop fixed. I can’t wait…

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What a Nasty Woodpecker

24 Apr

Hubby is not pleased. The woodpecker squatting in the staghorn fern in front of the house has certainly made itself unwelcomed. He attacked another staghorn fern to make another home!

The first home in the staghorn must have become unsuitable or unlivable because of the peeling and holes in the shield fronds. So the Rufous Woodpecker must have decided to relocate.

The first home, riddled with holes and peeling

The second staghorn is a beautiful lush and dense pride of hubby’s, and the nasty woodpecker helped himself to it to make a second home. And in the process, damaged the beautiful plant. Grr…

The damage to the second staghorn

Hubby then decided to put a stop literally to this by plugging the entrance of the second hole on the staghorn with a stalk of cut-off plant. Let’s hope this works. We will have to monitor.

Putting a stop literally to the damage

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300 Jacks

21 Apr

Towards the end of last week, I started doing jumping jacks. With all this baking and cooking at home, and having stopped the 16/8 diet, I have to do something to counter the intake. Hence, the jumping jack exercise.

Dalgona coffee

We didn’t have a mixer and ten thousand whisks later to yield a sinful glass of Dalgona coffee

Butter cookie

Hubby baked butter cookies. So sweet and buttery, how to resist?

I think it’s an ideal form of exercise without having to go out of the way to exercise. Honestly to even exercise, I feel lethargic just thinking about it! So I find other means to exercise like going up and down the stairs more often, walking more around the house and keeping busy with chores.

Fish & Chips

Team effort for a golden beer batter dinner! So good.

Dhal curry

I even made dhal curry from scratch!

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Fresh from the oven, hubby’s new hobby, baking.

Besides I find setting up to properly exercise not conducive when there are days I actually have some design work to do in between the daily cooking and cleaning. So doing jumping jacks has worked out well.

Each time I’d do a set of 50 and they don’t actually take up a lot of time. Spread out the routine and I find myself doing 300 jumping jacks each day!

I do feel good and less guilty. Why didn’t I think of this earlier?

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MCO Extended, Phase 3

17 Apr

It looks like this Movement Control Order (MCO) is never gonna end as the Covid-19 cases keep growing. There are still idiots who are not abiding the law to stay home. So after the second phase concluded on 14 April, it was extended!

Even my Gnomes are showing the way to do it – stay home!

We are now into our third phase which started on Wednesday, 15 April and will conclude by 28 April. For the record, we have been confined, restricted, staying home and distancing ourselves since 18 March. That’s a whole month already. Dang!

Will we be the same once the MCO is lifted and we are allowed to be out? I think no. Life from then on will never be the same again.

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Baking is The New Normal

14 Apr

After the ‘success’ of the accidental bread last week, hubby urged me to bake another loaf. So I did, just to kill time. And discovered what went wrong with the first loaf.

I got the units wrong! Silly me. The measurement was correct but the unit was wrong. The teeny weeny print on the measuring cup was ‘ML’ which I couldn’t see and I simply assumed it was gram. Signs of being a dinosaur… sigh.

Thinking I had it right, I measured 350ML of flour and not 350G as required by the recipe. No wonder the mixture was watery with the flour ratio way off to the milk. Don’t forget, this was my first attempt at baking a bread after so long. To even attempt something like this, common sense to what was required was not present. Luckily we were able to save the dough with the additional flour thrown in.

So having learnt the mistake, I was more careful with measuring for the second attempt. But patience’s not on my side. I find I don’t have the patience especially when it comes to allowing the dough to sit and rise. I couldn’t wait for the yeast to do its thing.

Unlike baking a cake (from a box that is) where I just throw everything together and pop it in the oven without wasting time, bread making needs more precision and patience.

The second attempt. Ugly but edible

The second attempt turned out a little less stellar than the first loaf but still edible. And since then, it’s hubby who has been baking every other day to pass time. It’s as if baking is the new normal as we continue adhering to the MCO as laid out by the government.

He’s baked several loaves already as well as a batch of bagels. We have so much bread to eat now.

Bread, bread and more bread plus bagels!

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Days of My MCO Life, Part 2

13 Apr

The bread that I baked last week was an out-of-the-blue decision. I called it the accidental bread. I was set to bake a cake in the beginning, the instant cake-from-the-box easy peasy one of course. Then I decided why not bake bread too? Since we have all the time in the world.

Also I wanted to give the Kenwood Rapid Bake bread maker another chance but the bread maker tripped the electricity in the house again. This reaffirmed that it’s a machine problem and wasn’t a user problem the last time when I used the machine.

So Plan B had to be kicked in because we had an unbaked bread in hand.

Rather than wasting the dough because the trip occurred when the bread maker went into the baking mode, we managed to salvage it. With some modification – adding more flour to the unusual watery mixture (don’t ask me how it became like that), we let the dough sit for a bit.

Then into the conventional oven it went. The final outcome turned out pretty good despite its appearance! A pat on the shoulder for the both of us.

Tastes better than it looks

Do I look forward to baking my next loaf of bread in the oven? I’m not too sure, we shall see.

Besides these self-discoveries and time-consuming activities, I caught up with my reading, finishing several titles and I started watching a Netflix series, something I never did previously. It’s certainly interesting times with the days of my MCO life.

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