Early Christmas presents

Sis made me these lovely dragonfly wing pendant and earrings.

 

HM gave me the gift early so that I can use one of the items (the socks) for my Taiwan holiday next week. I won't be using the cute mug anytime soon since the ones at home and office are still in good condition. The tin container will be useful to hold my little stuff although HM has meant for it to be my coin bank to save up for my dream home.

I was telling A as we grow older, we seem to want and buy less things. Maybe partly because my friends keep getting me gifts too :)

Work and interests

Earlier in the week, I was feeling a bit stressed at work but it subsided as my colleagues helped to provide advice and support. I always count myself lucky that my colleagues and I work together as a team. However, every now and then, I will be asking myself what I would like to do, as even though I have doing the same work for a decade and always do my best, I don't feel passionate about my work.

A new colleague who know me for about 2 months was asking me during lunch time about my career plans and encouraged me to be proactive and consider pursuing overseas studies. He has done that and feels that he has learned a lot from his experience. I might have seriously considered that if I don't have strong bonds with my family, cats and also S. I have no desire to leave them and stay overseas for a year or 2, especially when I believe I can still learn and grow while staying put in Singapore too.

On Wed evening, after a satisfying 4km jog with Fion and her friend Anna, we had dinner at Anna's place with her family. Her triplet 4yr old daughters are adorable and friendly. Anna and I were sharing the recipes of the cakes we have baked and like. I'm itching to try baking them when I'm free. I enjoy time with friends as well as time by myself doing stuff that I like. Of course it will be great if I can feel similarly at work, but I guess I can't have best of both worlds and have to be contented in the meantime that my job can feed me, the cats and my interests :)

Gift wrappers

On the few occasions where I have to wrap up the gifts for friends, I will activate my stash of wrappers I have saved from old gifts, sis' overseas packages or colourful magazines. I haven't bought any wrappers for the past few years and feel a sense of satisfaction giving the old wrappers a new lease of life :) This gift will be mailed to my friend in US soon.

Feasting & baking with friends

SP invited FR and I over to her place to bake gingerbread men yesterday afternoon. We had a feast of SP's potato salad and grilled cheese mushrooms and FR's "Frankenstein"'s chicken (Indian style mint chicken). The warm apple juice with spices was lovely too. We made some premix sugar cookies while waiting for the gingerbread dough to harden in the fridge. It was a pity after our efforts, the gingerbread didn't turn out very well but we enjoyed ourselves :)

Shadow and the rain

Shadow hid in the bushes when it was raining this evening. Dad managed to get her to follow him to the sheltered pavilion. It's good to see her safe and sound. We waited till the rain was subsiding before we left Shadow grooming herself.

Walk @ Labrador Park & my big breakfast

This morning, I went for a walk with 3 friends @ Labrador Park. I've been there some years back with Joan and Harry her dog. The park looks more spacious and bigger than in the past. There may not be many flowering plants but some parts of the park are quite scenic.

I had breakfast @ home but I always have space for more food. HM brought us apples, roselle and butter cake and we had that towards the end of the walk.

We headed to Vivocity and ate at Toast Box. Of course, I could resist taking kaya toast and teh c kosong :)

Dear lunch mates

Yesterday I had lunch with 4 friends cum ex-colleagues. We have known one another for more than 6 years. As we are working in the same office building, we can arrange to lunch together. We may not lunch as frequent as before, but we do make the effort to meet up for lunch to celebrate birthdays and catch up. Our lunch was at a cafe nearby. I had green tea and masala chicken wrap while some of them had chicken fillet burger and roast beef sandwich.

Lunch, movie, dessert & love

昨日,SとSun with Moon レストラン (Wheelock Place)で昼ご飯を食べたり, Tin Tinの映画を見たり,しました。デザートが好きですから, PS Cafe (Paragon)で Jaffa pudding を食べました。チョコレートソースとバニラアイスクリームが美味しかったです。楽しかったです。Sがだい好きです。

After a busy morning at work, I treated myself to an afternoon off yesterday. S and I had a nice meal at Sun with Moon Japanese Restaurant. The lunch crowd had disappeared after 2.30pm. We watched Tin Tin at 5pm. I didn't bother to read any of the reviews and I've not read any of the books, but I enjoyed the movie. S too.

The malls and streets of Orchard Road were surprisingly crowded for a weekday. I couldn't think of any nice warm Chinese dessert, so we went for PS' cafe's Jaffa pudding. I love the homemade choc sauce, vanilla ice cream and of course the pudding. I love S too :)