The Prettiest Grocery List

14 Apr

Whenever I do groceries, I have to have a list. It’s a habit of mine that I prefer the old fashion paper and a pencil to check things off over a list keyed into my iPhone.

Sometimes I even add little doodles next to the items to make the list easier to see than read. After all, I am an artsy person, why not apply my skills to make the mundane more interesting?

When M2 was younger, I used to make her do my grocery list. There was once after she was done, she said excitedly, “Mummy! Here… You now have the prettiest grocery list!”

“See the flowers? They are growing!”

Indeed, my grocery list had very neat cursive hand-writing peppered with some decorations and a short sequence of the growing flower, from pod to bloom.

Pretty. I should make her do my grocery list more often these days.

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Setback

13 Apr

You know you’ve got it bad when you’re at the grocery store and can’t even pick up a head of cabbage! And it’s not even like it’s the biggest one on the shelf. Uh oh.

I injured myself again last weekend during my Saturday golf game. I suspect it’s from the week prior when I played in a monthly medal game and the pain suddenly flared up.

This time it’s a tennis elbow problem and not so much my old injury on the left wrist recurring. Funny it’s called tennis elbow when the injury is actually from golf. Regardless, the right elbow needs to be rested and no golf for at least two weeks or more. Super sigh.

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All Things Tiny

11 Apr

I love tiny kitchen gadgets. I think they are so cute. Obviously I am not one who cooks a lot and needs to have the latest or biggest equipment. For me as long as the gadget can be used, it’s good enough.

I have a tiny chopping board. Okay I admit it’s actually a cheese board. My house mate who was also my landlord gave it to me when I lived at her place on Upper East Side during my summer internship with WBMG, Inc. in the Big Apple dinosaur years ago.

I also have two mini cleavers and I use these kitchen tools all the time especially to cut fruits. Sometimes even vegetables…

I also have a tiny skillet that I bought from Las Vegas but this one, I don’t use.

Over the weekend, I was doing my weekly grocery purchases and stumbled upon a cute tiny cheese grater. How miniscule? Smaller than those Ikea cheese grates and looked simply adorable.

Did I buy it? Of course I did! How could I not add another tiny thing to my collection which I am known for?

  

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Butterbeer

10 Apr

At the height of the Harry Potter years, M2 like every other fan, was Harry Potter crazed. She would read and re-read the books and knew lines by heart. It was rather heart-warming to see her (and M1 as well) do so much reading.

But thank goodness the craze was limited to just the books and not any collectibles although there were some Lego sets purchased. And both girls have a magic wand each, gifted from a friend who went to the Harry Potter theme park. I remember one day, many years ago, M2 came to me with a butterbeer recipe and asked if we could make it.

The beverage was of course served in the wizarding world of Harry Potter and back then, she thought it would be awesome if she could drink what Harry and friends drank. I still have the recipe, dating back to 2012 in my iPhone. I think we tried making it only once but don’t recall the outcome.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, at our local grocery store, lo and behold we saw a bottle of butterbeer! Of course we had to purchase it to try. And I must say it was quite refreshing but once the coldness ebbed away, the sweet side of the beverage became too much. Well, if we never tried, we would never have known.

I just wonder will this lead to a renewed interest in reading the books all over again? Only time can tell.

  

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The Perils of Long Hair

7 Apr

Having long hair is hard to maintain. I for one, have had and still have short hair all these years. But my girls have long hair. The maintenance is a constant thing not just for themselves but the surrounding as well.

One weekend many moons ago, we had to fix the sink problem in M2’s bathroom. Hubby suspected it had something to do with hair going down the sink. Sure enough, the bottom trap had eight years’ worth of hair stuck down there! Ewww… put it this way, if we can weave a pet out of it, it’d be a little kitten.

But the problem was not resolved. Water was still going down slowly. Surely it can’t be something stuck along the way. We checked again and this time, the problematic area was from the top. The passage from the sink before it hit the S-trap below had another furball, the size of a hamster this time, lining the pipe! Double eww… no wonder water was going down so slow. There was hardly any room for the water to flow down.

The perils of having long hair I say.

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Choices

6 Apr

Sammy the squirrel has been frequenting the wall and scrounging from the two trays left there. One morning, we put some leftover corn on the bigger tray, hoping it (or Lefty) would eat the corn instead but no. Sammy chose to eat bird seeds from the smaller tray. Why?

Sometimes even official pet number one, Rooney, would want some bird seeds besides his doggy treats. There must be something about the taste or flavor. Maybe I should try some to see what the appeal is.

Hmm… Food for thought.

See the yellow on the big tray? It’s corn

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Giving Up

4 Apr

I am contemplating giving up Candy Crush Saga. After being so long at it reaching Level 2139 at this point, thoughts of giving up lately has crossed my mind.

It’s not so much I am tired of it but more of the fact that my iPad is so slow when the app launches, it makes playing not enjoyable anymore. But this doesn’t mean a total give up, I can still play the game on my new office computer which is able to support the app unlike the previous dinosaur model.

I am merely deleting the app from my iPad Mini and there’s always the laptop at home should I have an urge to have a go at it. I still play Candy Crush Soda though…

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Tall People Travel Too

3 Apr

I speak purely from a shorty’s point of view when it comes to height challenging situations during my travels. The few encounters I had are definitely opposites for a tall person. A reader highlighted this to me.

It never crossed my mind that tall people also have travel woes – simple things like the hotel room’s mirror being too low and the shower head being too low as well for their tall frame. Wow. I never knew.

Hubby and the girls are all average like me. But my only sibling is a one tall dude, standing at six feet in height while yours truly, almost a foot shorter than him (5 feet 1.5 inches). I do remember brother dearest has mentioned to me before that normal beds was a issue for him. His feet would stick out of the bed but other than this, I have not heard much of his height travel woes.

Somewhere along the growing up years, he must have eaten more of something that I didn’t… How else can I explain this huge height discrepancy?

Wouldn’t it be awesome for the travel scene if the hospitality industry came up with two types of room: one for short travelers and one for tall travelers to address the height challenges? But would cost be a deterrent to make this happen?

Wishful thinking… so whether you are tall or short, keep on traveling so that there’s stories and experiences to share!!!

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Was It Really Good?

31 Mar

Last weekend’s getaway for golf was good. We got to play at two golf courses that we’ve never played before – Port Dickson Golf & Country Club and Air Keroh Country Club. Another two off the bucket list, you could say.

I played well but at a cost. My wrist injury flared up again with two consecutive games. Ouch.

It now looks like I cannot do two consecutive games. I need more than 24 hours to recover because it’s too much for the wrist to handle especially when the golf course was dry with hard ground, the rest period needs at least two days or more. Upon every impact, I could feel the pain, ever so slight reverberating in the left wrist during the second game. Ouch again.

It makes me wonder was it really good then? Maybe it was for the ego and confidence in the game but it sure wasn’t good for the old injury!

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Short People Travel Too, Part 2

30 Mar

I must say I was impressed with the ample hooks in the bathroom of Kings Green Hotel at Malacca. It’s rare because most hotels that I have stayed at somehow do not place an importance on their availability, what more on height especially for short travellers. Could this be a hotel star-rating issue? A five-star versus a three-star for such amenities?

I remember when we were in Ipoh in August last year for golf as well, we faced a similar short travellers’ woes…

The hotel we stayed at was boutique-status and you would expect a nicer setup. If having a rain shower facility is considered a nice boutique offering, having no shower curtain certainly spoilt it.  I certainly didn’t place my dry clothes on the covered toilet seat because it’s so close by and water from such a height hitting a body would definitely splash beyond the imaginary demarcation.

In truth, I don’t recall any bathroom hooks (not even on the door) to hang clothes but I do remember the towel rack was placed at such a ridiculous height, it was impossible to use. I understand they may be trying to clear the floor but touching the ceiling? Goodness! How do I place my clothes? Throw them up and hope they land safely on it? Geez.

Maybe the boutique status was more of the coffees and cakes they serve at the lobby? Hmm… Now compare it a five-star hotel…

Several years ago, I was on a business trip to Singapore and stayed at Shangri-La on Orange Grove. Their bathroom was outstanding. Hooks everywhere and at a height a shorty feels right at home. Like I said, are such little details due to the premise’s space and ratings being a higher star-rating with full amenities versus a lower star rating with basics?

You would think that amenities were just stuff in the room and its fridge and bar, but no, additional hooks in the bathroom are actually an amenity too. Think about it the next time you travel…

Society must remember there are short people everywhere and because of this, I think I will start to document this little detail every time I travel from now on.

Ipoh-2016

The square patch above is the rain shower. Too bad I didn’t take a picture of where the towel rack was! 

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