No Onions Please

6 Feb

Recently I was diagnosed with Infectious Colitis. Not life threatening but generally very uncomfortable. All this while I thought it was the usual monthly cramps getting more severe with age but no, it was them bacterias in my intestines all this time, having a wild party every now and then to create an unbearable pain and discomfort.

I was prescribed antibiotics for a week and it had been okay, no side effects from the meds. Because it was abdominal cramps and not diarrhoea, the doctor did not advise me what food to avoid and neither did I bother to check thoroughly although I have been careful on the choices which were nothing too extreme.

So almost a week after the colonoscopy procedure, I was fine and on the road to recovery; I even played a round of golf four days later. But I had the most unfortunate and unsuspecting setback yesterday.

I had a very nauseating spell all because I had some onions for lunch. It triggered a reaction a few hours later and was the most horrid sensation. Initially I didn’t know what it was until I got home and laid horizontal for a few hours to recuperate before going online to check.

I figured it’s best to know what I should avoid to minimize my discomfort because with Chinese New Year just around the corner, there’s bound to be a lot of eating, drinking and merry-making.

To my horror, the list included coffee, cereal, nuts, alcohol, chocolate, spicy food and of course onions, with limited intake of milk, ice cream, cheese and a whole lot of other stuff but the first three items on the list horrified me to no end!

It’s not so much of what I can eat (white bread, ugh!) but what to avoid. No coffee, cereal and nuts, my breakfast and snack staples? And no alcohol, chocolate and spicy food, my life! For at least three months! Oh dear…

I try to look at the brighter side of the situation; I will definitely shed some pounds. And unless I want to be constantly feeling bloated or nauseous, I better be disciplined about my food intake. And definitely no onions please.

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The Un-Sploot

5 Feb

You know Chinese New Year is around the corner when the weather turns scorching hot and unbearable! It’s so hot that even Rooney, official pet number one can’t take it, lying down in the oddest position at the garden terrace to stay comfortable!

Forget the sploot, this position is better to chill. Poor fella…

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Where Did Time Go?

2 Feb

We had two public holidays in a row in the middle of the week, Wednesday and Thursday. And suddenly, it’s February already! My… my… where did time go? While it was nice to have a two-day break, honestly, it’s wasting precious time when another long holiday is coming up soon.

This year, the Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year falls on 16th February and as usual, I am unprepared. With work catching up and the urgency to finish up as much as possible before we break for the holiday, I find myself hardly having any time to prepare for the festivities. Throw in my carving and wanting to play golf, 24 hours in a day is simply insufficient to prepare. Sigh…

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The Shoe Queen, Part 4

1 Feb

The Shoe Queen in me struck over the weekend! Not another pair of work shoes or sandals but golf shoes…

My current Adidas spiked pair does not seem to be holding up good. Although it has been under utilized (I haven’t played for nine and a half weeks), the leather on the surface has cracked and water does seep in occasionally if the fairways are soggy. And there’s mold and discoloration under the brand’s stripes on both shoes. Eeeeks.

During last Saturday’s game, my first game of the year, somehow the shoes held up but only because the fairways wasn’t soggy despite all that rain.

Now the new shoes was a good buy as it was on sale and I couldn’t resist, being the undisputed Shoe Queen. A Footjoy again, this brand’s a better golf shoes than Adidas.

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The Versatile Chopsticks

30 Jan

Chopsticks are the best. Most Asians use it to eat meals, be it noodles or rice. I use it too especially when it comes to noodles but I find myself doing more with it.

I eat my salads with chopsticks in the office instead of the fork, I take my toasts from the toaster with chopsticks, and I even cook using a pair of chopsticks.

From an omelette, testing the boiling spaghetti strands in the pot to stir frying a dish, I find the versatile chopsticks can do just about anything. Maybe I should pack a set with me whenever I travel. Hmm…

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No News is Good News

29 Jan

News headlines generally suck, world news suck and local news are no different. It is as though there are no positive news to update humanity. So it is better not to read the news than to learn what is going on around us to keep sane.

For this reason, I like to stay in my little bubble, away from all the shenanigans of the world for as long as I can manage.

So I carve. And I carve and carve.

After Monument 5 came about to kickstart the carving mood, everything fell into place. Within a few days, Monument 6, six Citizens and another Gnome were added to the population count of Gigglesville. No news is good news if this is the result.

 

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Serious Music

26 Jan

Yesterday I decided to bring my ‘boom box’ from home to the office to use as it is hardly used at home and just collecting dust. At the office, I must have music in the background for creative purposes. I feel the brain does not function well enough in an all too quiet environment. And I don’t like the radio because DJs in general talk too much regardless of the station.

The Altec Lansing inMotion dock speaker, although old and only works with 30-pin devices, will give my first iPod Mini another lease on its (the iPod’s) life after I retired it from use in the car last year.

It became a nuisance for the many cables required — an aux-in and a power supply, to hook up and it cluttered the gear area. These days, for my music in my current car, I use a pen drive which is hidden out of sight and not a nuisance at all. No cables necessary and everything is controlled within the steering wheel or the iDrive. This then renders the iPod even more obsolete.

So now with the speaker set in the office (all the Spongebobs, the single Patrick and the M&Ms dispenser had to make way for it but not the main gum ball machine), the iPod will have another chance with its 932 songs (it’s an 8Gb capacity) to stimulate me. I foresee creative juices will be in overdrive!

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The Sploot

25 Jan

Rooney, official pet number one also known as Senior Citizen, has become one quirky fella. Signs of old age or asserting his number one status by doing things his way? Lately, he has taken to venturing through the house as a short cut to head to the garden. He would do this several trips in a day especially when we are home.

And most times, he would pause midway and just sploot on the marble floor, forgetting his original intention of the passage. This creates a mess in the living room because of his excessive shedding and drooling but he doesn’t understand; he would just chill if the desire to make it further does not appeal.

Typically the sploot is associated with Corgis, and our English Bulldog is no different; he just loves to sploot too. Maybe this position is comfortable for him as he has short legs too. I suspect he loves the coolness of the marble floor when he lays flat on his belly and his short hind legs stretches out behind him.

We have stopped getting upset about the mess because he is getting older, and being a Senior Citizen, we close an eye or two to the situation.

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Farm Heroes No More

23 Jan

I have stopped playing Farm Heroes on my iPad, iPhone and the laptop. After such a long time at it, I find that I cannot go pass Level 1105, so no point in continuing the game. It was fun while it lasted.

As for my other games, I still do Candy Crush Soda (to collect the Daily Bonus) and Candy Crush Saga (on the office computer occasionally as it has been deleted from the iPad and iPhone) besides the two Monster Busters.

There does not seem to be a whole of appealing games offered these days, at least to me. Maybe it’s for the better as I can stay off my devices and go back to reading (which I did) and carving (which I will).

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Stuck

22 Jan

After the completion of Dinky the Dinosaur at the towering four inch height, I find myself stuck to progress with little Citizens which are only an inch tall. Oh no!

I thought I could whip out more Citizens after M1 went back to university but somehow, I can’t seem to get the carving motor going. Suddenly a Citizen’s size, being so tiny to hold (compared to Dinky), seems like a gargantuan challenge. How did I ever reach 120 Citizens and a handful of Superheroes, Friends and Gnomes in the first place?

I had to will myself to stay focused and over the weekend, Monument 5 came about. Perhaps I should get a few more monuments or bigger pieces done up before settling into the carving mood on the smaller ones. The township needs to grow to enable further migrations this year.

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