a story of love

While darling was preparing for work, i was browsing through the internet. Came upon a photojournal in my sister's blog. I cried. I rewinded it 5 times and i cried 5 times. Very sweet and touching. Darling saw me crying and came over to me. He asked, "why are you crying, little girl?" I showed him the photojournal and he hugged me like a baby and said, "Don't be sad. At least they have each other..."


(click on picture. Then click on "Slideshow" on top right hand corner.)

Its super duper cold today

Finally i booked the hotel (Knights Inn Maingate) for our Orlando stay from 26th November till 1st December. Total cost is $154.75. This hotel provides free shuttle bus to disney world and its only 15mins away. The room also comes with fridge and microwave which i feel is very very essential. On the 1st December, darling and i will make our way to Miami Beach. Along the way, we will also stop by some beautiful beaches (Englewood) (((:

This morning, darling and i woke up very late, about 1pm. I had a shocked when i saw the clock. Darling and i seldom sleep till so late but it felt nice to be sleeping on our warm cozy bed on a cold weather.

We woke up and started to cook our lunch. Today's lunch is grilled chicken breast meat, sambal kang kong & onion egg.

The chicken breast was marinated with chopped cilantro, garlic powder, salt, Mrs Dash's seasonings (black pepper, lemon, herbs, etc) & olive oil. The olive oil was supposed to lock in the moisture so the meat will come out juicy. Darling used the newly bought George Foreman Griller to grill the chicken.

To avoid having the lingering food smell in our house, darling grilled the chicken in our balcony.

Wow...the chicken breast meat came out perfect! The appearance and the taste scored full marks!

And together with tabasco sauce, woosh...the taste is hevenly! Next time, Darling and i can have American food at home! Grilled chicken/pork chops with fries and salad! (:

I was in charged of cooking the sambal kang kong & onion egg. I already plucked out the tender parks of the kang kong last night. So all i need to do this morning was just to stir fry it with dried shrimps and my homemade sambal belacan (: This time round, my sambal belacan seems super spicy. So i did not add alot into this dish. But the kang kong kept giving out water by itself.

Darling loves onion egg and he always want me to make this dish. But I will only make this dish when i run out of dishes to cook. Suppose to make yellow squash soup but i forgot to buy yellow squash :P

For dessert, it was the super sweet grapes from Sprouts. We bought 2 packs yesterday and now 1 pack is gone!

Darling gonna be away for 10 days in November. Thinking about it made me super sad ):

LOVE.

"Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.”
~ Ray Bradbury

Menu for next week

Had my menu for next week already. Darling will be changing shift from next week onwards. Means he will again be in the afternoon shift next week..hai~. And from next week onwards, he will not be able to come home as early as before because he is made the shift ic. ): I know that darling always leave base on time as he wants to come home quickly to accompany me. Very ultra sweet of him! But i also know that all the more i should be supportive of him and not make him worry about me being alone at home! (:


♥ Mon - Lemongrass chicken, black eye pea soup, vegetable

♥ Tue - Grilled pork chop, grilled asperagus, tom yum soup

♥ Wed - Roast pork, char siew, vegetable

♥ Thurs - Pork belly braised with fermented red beancurd, corn carrot soup, vegetable

♥ Fri - curry chicken, beehoon/prata/rice

♥ Sat - Mee hoon kueh, homemade guo tie

♥ Sun - Nasi Lemak

Oh yeah, i will be trying to make guo tie with homemade skin next sat. Hopefully it will turns out good. Will make 白糖糕 again too! And probably tausuan? And chee cheong fun! And 糯米鸡! And Yam cake! And radish cake! And pumpkin cake! And 笋粿! OMG! I got 101 things i want to make and eat! (:

still raining cats and dogs now...

Just had a 2 hours phone chit chat with Toom. Wow...we really can talk! Haha! Just now after lunch, i brought some grapes for Toom but she said she had 2 packs of uneaten grapes in the fridge. I also informed her that i will not be able to attend Agnes's farewell on this coming Sat in Summit as RC people will be having a farewell dinner for Encik Ang & Zhixuan. Darling feels that i should go with him so i can accompany Waipan's wife as the rest of the guys are singles. Well, Toom's house is basically quite empty as they are preparing to move out end of next week. Toom is a great believer in feng shui. She told me that she purposely chose this house after looking at the floor plan. However her husband wants a garage, that is why they decided to move out. According to her, my house is actually very good in terms of feng shui. There is ample sunshine & wind. The direction of my front door, bedroom & toilet are facing the correct place. She even taught me to sleep on the right side of the bed if i want harmony in my love relationship with darling. The clock must not face the main door, etc. (:

Finally had our air tickets booked! Yeah! Total we spent $356 on it (with extra 2% cashback from Mr Rebates). It should be considered a good deal ya. We will take the flight to Orlando International Airport on 26th November (Thanksgiving Day) @ 7.10am. Our returned flight to DFW will be on 5th December @ 8.30pm. Hehehe, finally one thing off our mind. Now is the booking of hotels and rental car. ((: I intend to go to 5 beaches in all, woohoo~!

My 白糖糕 last night came out okie. Not fantastic but darling said it was nice. And its all gone into our stomach now (((: As I did not want to do too much, i cut the recipe into half. And i used just a metal plate for steaming. Perhaps i used a too big plate, my 白糖糕 was slightly thin. Should have made it thicker so can see the honeycomb texture. I'm kinda craving for it again right now :P But i shall take a break and do it again next week. (:

Darling and i slept at 3.15am last night and woke up at 11am this morning. Though it was raining cats and dogs, darling still wants to go to Sprouts to get his grapes & navel oranges.

He was "angry" that i finished the whole bunch of grapes that we bought from Sprouts last week. Ha!

The black grapes were very sweet and cheap @ $0.88/lb. And today is the last day for this offer.

I also got 2 pack of milk @ $1 each - fat free skim milk & chocolate milk. Well, the chocolate milk is of cos for darling. I will not touch it as i felt its loaded with calories. Ha!

Again i got 2lb of brown rice @ $0.99/lb & 3 packs of tofu.

Last day for this tofu promotion and i can see that its very popular.

I got 2 packs of organics extra-firm tofu @ $1.12 each and 1 normal soft tofu @ $0.97.

The string beans looked fresh and i got 1 pound of it at $ 0.88/lb.

Darling and i also bought 1 pack of kettle potato chips

Bought 1/2lb of black eye pea as well. Saw a recipe online using this bean & peanuts to make soup. Shall make this next week.

Actually i wanted to get the asperagus, corns etc but felt that i should buy them only during this weekend if i want to cook them next week.

After that we quickly came home to prepare lunch. Lunch was all done by darling but the ingredients were prepared by me.

Lunch was 3-beans soup, stir fry celery with carrots & tofu chicken in eggy sauce. The 3 beans soup consisted of pork bones, black bean, soya bean, peanuts, wolfberries & red dates. Super nutritious & low in calories!

I'm super hungry now. Last night, i was very hungry too. I went to open my storeroom and hmm...nothing to eat. Not that there are really nothing to eat but i just do not know what i want to eat. Haha, thats woman ya! In the end, i took out my yogurt and Kellogg's pop tarts. I bought these pop tarts very long ago in the supermarket. I was being curious initially. But these pop tarts actually taste quite nice after being toasted in my toaster. Nice for a snack but a little too sweet for me. After i tried the strawberry, blueberry & brown sugar cinammon flavour, i concluded that the brown sugar cinammon taste the best! Haha! Well, darling hates cinammon but i love it! (:

Making 白糖糕 in progress

Yesterday after i wrote my blog post, i was glued to my laptop planning the itenerary for our december vacation. Finally, i came out with a proper itineary with all the hotels. Now only waiting for my lao-ye to approve. Ha!

Darling came home at 2.45am yesterday. As usual he was hungry. So i made him a sausage bun. He also complained of a headache. Well, in order not to make him into a pandadol-slave like me, i made him a cup of Gatorade. We entered dreamland at around 3.30am.

An ultra ugly photo taken :P
Woke up at 11am this morning. Darling got to bring Waipan & his wife out for lunch. I stayed at home instead to prepare lunch. Lunch was lotus root soup, stir fried bean sprouts with beancurd & braised pork belly with five-spice powder. I like soup with strong flavour. Thus i always tend to buy alot of the soup ingredients and throw them into my pot. And of cos, my lotus root soup is powerful with lotus root, dried squid, wolfberries & red dates. (:

I seldom buy bean sprouts as i find it a tedious task to "clean" them. My parents always pluck out the heads and ends of bean sprouts. Thus i have the habit of doing the same. Darling told me that it is okie for him to eat the unplucked bean sprouts. But...but...not my style. I stood in the kitchen for 30mins last night to pluck all the bean sprouts. In the meanwhile, i watched over the fire of my soup.

The braised pork belly with five-spice powder turned out good! The five-spice powder made it very nice and fragrant. The pork belly was marinated last night with salt and five-spice powder. This morning, i only stew it with shallot, garlic, sugar, light soya sauce, dark soya sauce & water. The gravy of this dish really goes well with rice! (:

In my mailbox today, i got a surprise. Hmm...i got 2 tins of Similac infant formula & a sample pack of Curel lotion. Haha! I checked the expiry date of the infant formula. Luckily its 2012, else i may have to give away asap! Yanwen also gave me a link for free parenting magazine. Haha! Well...this is how it works in USA. You can even get free magazine! (:

I just order a customised travel mug from kodak gallery. It originally costs $22 incl tax and shipping. But i paid only $5.99 with some coupon codes. Hehehe...this mug will be good for use in the car. (: I will order more stuff using different email accounts. Ha!

I also had the weekly ad for supermarkets today. Tomorrow, i'll be heading for Sprouts again! I can buy grapes, oranges, asparagus, potato chips, corns, celery, black-eye peas, milk & maybe salmon fillet as well as lobster tails! All are on offer!

And now, i am in the progress of 白糖糕 making. Hopefully it will come out good...pleaseeee...

I want ice-cream

a busy mon

Just had a bath after a 30 mins jog in the gym. I felt as though my dinner in IHOP last night was jogged away. Ha! Feels nice. Initially i was kinda lazy to go for a jog because the weather was kinda cold and very very windy today. However darling encouraged me to go. Hmm...and of cos my first question posted to him was, "Now you find me fat huh?!" Darling's eye immediately lighted up. He looked at me and answered very quickly, "No lah, keep fit! Its healthy! I can drive you there when i go to work later." Haha! Perhaps its cold recently and my fingers seem to have contracted. My rings are so loose that they almost dropped a couple of times! Hmm...of cos it will be nicer to hear that i lost weight but nahhh...., i don't think so. ):

Along the way home from the gym, i took a photo of a tree. It's leaves are turning yellow and red. Signs of fall.

This morning, darling and i woke up at about 10.30am. Darling wanted to go for a car wash & return the Christmas tree in Goodwill store. All right, i don't mind since he will only leave for work at 4pm. Weather was good. Cold and very very windy. Every morning, I open my balcony door and windows to allow ample sunshine to shine in and fresh air to flow. Today is no different.

We conveniently drove to our leasing office to get a cup of coffee each. Darling got himself a columbia flavour while i got myself a hazelnut flavour. Usually they also have either cookies or donuts but today there wasn't any. So too bad, we had to have coffee on an empty stomach.

Also got myself a brochure from leasing office. Its advertising a yoga center. Hmm...i feel like taking up yoga! I joined yoga and boxercise lessons in Singapore before. They really can help me to keep fit! Maybe i can jio Toom to go with me. Ha!

We went to the Goodwill Store in Lewisville. First time at this branch. Quite big but very messy. You will have to look very carefully if you want to get good deals! In the end, we got ourselves 2 photo frames @ $0.99 and $1.99 & 2 boxes of multi-coloured mini light bulbs @ $0.99 each. However we are not allowed to return the Christmas tree at this branch as its not considered an electronic item. Never mind, we will return this Christmas tree maybe on Wednesday.

When driving out of the carpark in Goodwill, i wanted to bring up the coffee for darling. But i carelessly dropped the coffee! ARGH! So clumpsy! ):

Darling and i headed for car wash. Darling wanted to go to the manual car wash, instead of the automatic ones. Initially i was kinda irritated cos i was hungry already. However darling thought that probably i would wanna take pictures and it definitely would be more fun to wash a car together! Indeed it is! (: I forgot my hunger already.

I was quite amazed by the features of the manual car wash.I had never washed a car with darling before. Our first experience and its a good one. And you really must be prepared to get slightly wet. But thats the fun part of it right?

I am not a bimbo in this activity! Ha! I help darling with the washing too! (:

The bad thing about manual car washing is the drying part. You will have to use a cloth to wipe your car if you want to dry it. Else you can just drive out and let the water evaporate by itself.

Darling also used the vaccum function. The boot is the dirtiest of all. Alot of grass, all due to the golf clubs.

Finished with the car washing at about 1pm.

Time to go home and cook! My stomach was groaning already. While i was cooking, darling went downstairs to polish his leather car seat. Toom teased him by saying that she has got 2 cars that need to be polished as well. Ha!

Lunch was huai shan soup, cabbage with vermicelli & pork-tofu patties. Bought this huai shan from Yue mei. Its not cheap! But i heard from Toom that huai shan is very good for health. So for the sake of healthy living, i don't think i have a choice. (:

The huai shan soup was nice. My second attempt on it but darling did not like it during my first attempt. He said that it taste weird. However this time round, darling said that this soup is nice! (:

I forgot to add dried shrimps into my cabbage. Only until darling tasted it and reminded me about it. ): But this dish still tasted great without the dried shrimps! Its very sweet. I always tend to choose cabbage which is green in colour but darling said that the whiter the cabbage, the sweeter it is. Well, i gonna trust this gourmet expert!

My pork-tofu patties did not turn out looking nice. Darling said that i did not put enough egg into it. That was why it turned out slightly scrambled.

After leaving aside the pork-tofu patties for darling and bingbing, i realised that i only left 2 pieces of it. Hmm...its definitely not enough for our lunch. No choice, darling got to make the gyoza again. Anyway we like it, especially gyoza with black vinegar!! I love vinegar! I can practically pour the whole bottle of vinegar into my minced pork noodle! Haha!

After lunch, darling went to hang the photo frame that we bought from Wal-mart last night. Hehehe, so pleased with it.

Darling also cut some flowers from our own garden and put them into a vase. Very beautiful!

At about 3.30pm, darling bathed and got ready to go to work, while i got myself ready for my jog.

Today Darling & i also discussed about our vacation itinerary in Dec. Very looking forward to this vacation as darling & i will be heading towards Disney World & Florida beaches! Darling and i love beaches. All of our holidays during dating times were at the beach, such as Bintan & Batam. Very budget but we love the sea. Love the sound of the waves. Love the sound by the wind. Love lying side by side on the beach and doing nothing.