Can't believe I'm looking at BTOs now when owning a house used to be a 35-year-old and older plan. -____-"

My office is super noisy now with consultants talking over each other (zzzzz) while here I am, sitting in my tiny corner, trying to tune the noise out. This is what happens when your confined office space (i.e. the Jail Cell) doubles up as a meeting room.

Here's my activity filled weekend. I really think weekends should be a 3-day long affair. 2 days to play and meet people and one day to rest and recuperate! Sounds good? I'm a strong proponent of Me Time. ME TIME IS IMPORTANT PEOPLE!!! Don't lose yourself in the middle of all the hustle and bustle. Take time to chill, slow down and do whatever nonsense that you enjoy!

And lately I miss my Me Time :( Don't get me wrong, of course I don't mind being busy and spending quality time with friends and all but yeah. It sometimes gets a bit. Overwhelming. Like I can't even say yes to impromptu meetups and Nepal training sessions now because my weekends have been filled up months ago. When in the past I was probably the freest and the first to agree to everything. Rarrrrr.

Ah well what was I going to say? Oh yes. My activity filled weekend!

Was at Legoland on Saturday after we postponed our original trip in June due to the bad haze. It was pouring really heavily in the morning in Singapore. Throughout the day the rain came and went and came and went. And the roller coaster stalled 2 out of the 3 times we were on it. Meh. There's just something about us and theme parks!

  

Einstein made entirely out of Lego

 

Hello Ribena Berry!

 

 

Miniature Singapore

 

Taj Mahal

 

Forgot what building in China

 

Angkor Wat

 Went home with Ninnnnnnja Banana and Purtato!

 

And this iz the tower we built to test its stability

And then I went to play mahjong/poker/I'm the Boss again at Mabel's house (looks like we are moving Headquarters soon!) and I won money again! Yay! Mabel's house has good fengshui :)

Sunday. Stumbled on the St. Anne's church 50th anniversary carnival. Dropped by VivoCity for the Hair for Hope event but the queue was so long we decided it was not worth the wait. Nua-ed a bit. Went for baking class!

 

The BEFORE: Cranberry cream cheese country bread

 The AFTER: warm, crusty buns (but a little hard) haha. Actually the before and after photos don't look any different except for slight browning.

And yup so I had no time to jog, iron or nua and watch Running Man. This is why I need a 3-day weekend! Hahahaha.

But I am trying to consistently watch a little bit of Running Man a day since I now have all the subbed episodes from 1 to 153! Making good progress, I'm going to start on #17 soon!

Been neglecting this space quite a fair a bit I know. Sometimes I have nothing to say about my life, other times I just don't have the time to put them down into words.
 
Did quite a fair bit of baking and some cooking recently. The bakes were pretty expensive since I attended classes for them but oh well. For the fun of it! :D

Plus usually the stuff that comes out from baking classes looks pretty decent and tastes excellent. Hahaha.

So I'm taking the easy way out and shall spam pictures. Haha.

Easiest banana cake to bake ever! I like easy to bake stuff coz washing up and carrying the standing mixer out from the storeroom is damn leceh. So when I found this recipe I had to try it. This is as easy as it gets. Recipe here.

 

Warm and soft and delightfully fragrant, fresh out of the oven!

 

The day we baked Caramel Popcorn cupcakes. This vanilla cake base is awesome, I think I shall use this recipe for all my cupcakes from now hahaha.

 

After slathering the frosting on!

Topped with Garrett's popcorn and drizzled with salted caramel sauce. 

I NEED TO EAT THIS NOW

 Yup this is seriously good stuff. I'm imagining the taste of it right now as I look at the photos...

OK must bake this again when I'm free.

 

We baked again the following weekend! Yes that's two consecutive weekends spent baking. 

Guess what this square is going to morph into?

 

Cake coated with raspberry cream! Not a fan of normal whipped cream but I love this version coz it's so light and fluffy!

 

And it's a double-tier cake! Don't be deceived by the photos, the actual size is actually quite tiny.

Here we have Paul trying to squeeze raspberry jam out of a tiny hole

 

ARGHHH SO HARD TO SQUEEZE IT OUT!

Turns out that Paul has quite a talent for slathering cream onto cakes and frosting them evenly haha :D

 

My completed Raspberry Cake! Before the cream collapsed that is.

 
Top view. My "waves" around the cake got squashed by the fruits :(

 

 

Cross section of the lovely two-tiered cake!

 

Banana cake again for Mabel's housewarming! I had the honour of breaking in her new oven haha :D

Well it was supposed to be banana cake with walnut and chocolate chips, but we were out the whole day and I was lugging the ingredients all around so the choc chips melted when mixed with the batter. Hence it became chocolate banana cake haha.

 

It's not a brownie!!! Although it does taste fabulous with vanilla ice cream :D

Oh and btw I won money at poker!!! Was up almost $30 at one point but I played a little too recklessly and ended up halving that. But still walked home $16 richer hurhur. Considering I have supremely bad luck when it comes to gambling (mahjong, slot machines, blackjack...) this must have been one of my good days. Hurhurhur.

 

The next day after Mabel's housewarming was le 100th day hurhur and I had been dreaming of aglio olio for a while prior to that so we decided to get busy in the kitchen! We looked to the holy grail of cooking for noobs for assistance - Noobcook! Followed this Prawns Aglio Olio recipe.

Btw photo above is a lot of pasta for 3 pax.

 

Essence de prawns

 

Not in the recipe but shrooms!!! for me and bacon!!! for the pork loving Paul. 

But poor Paul is allergic to shrooms :( ok nevermind I'll eat them all next time! 

 

Oh btw Paul also has another hidden talent in de-shelling and de-veining prawns :D

Here we have the prawns cooking nicely!

Le Master Chef

 

Must have for every meal - some veg for fibre!

 

So basically I didn't do much because this was chopped by Paul haha

 

And here we have it! The completed dish! Nom noms

 

Topped with parsley and a lot of black pepper. Rating: 7/10!

Also July is bonus month and nope, didn't get promoted (which was entirely expected to be honest - considering how slack I am sometimes). Bonus is also sadly not as good as last year's, which is tragic because I really really really really really really really really need the money (as of now I have $300 in my bank account till PAYDAY! hahaha and that's really almost all the cash I have except for the Untouchable Savings which, I'm almost on the verge of Touching).

So yup the job search's now on! Albeit really slowly. Applied for a few - all in the civil service hurhur - zero response thus far, but ah well, we've all got to start somewhere! *cross fingers and toes*

Random Thought Catalog read - How We Let People Go

And that means letting go of everything they meant to us, proving to ourselves that life can be just as good, just as beautiful, without them in it. When you realize, long after the fact, that you no longer care about someone — that what they are doing in life has no bearing on you, and vice versa — it feels very much like a small death. Who they were with you no longer exists, and you cannot even preserve it in your memory, for the sake of your own mental health.

What's up with forcing me to key in a title in the title field box Blogger?! I used to be able to publish my posts without any titles. >:( Now we have this big ugly title field that I can't get rid of.

Also it's almost 4.30am and I'm not sleeping! Maybe I should go play some candy crush.

[11 July edit: NOW I can publish posts without any title input!!!]

 

#fatbuthappy 

Ahahahahahahahaha friend sent me this. How apt! LOL.