Giving Thanks in March

8th Mar (Sat)

celebrated Yuan's hatchday @ Kin Kao Mai Authentic Thai Restaurant, Grassroots' Club... 

Ai Ling was super on form @ 5-10 and hence 我欠 yuan 26 mouthfuls of 酒... 😅😅😅... 正在愁怎么还, 几时还?!?!?!... next hatchday is mine!!! 完了!!!

food was good... the song so 有年代感 that i wanna bring my mummy there for this year's mother day's dinner... 😂😂😂

7th Mar (Fri)

wanna give thanks to the relief team for giving me such a manageable timetable this week to ease me back to work after my HL... felt really blessed to be surrounded by people who take such good care of me in this way & that way... 😍😍😍

5th Mar (Wed)

90 minutes of 撸串 followed by 45 minutes of 撸猫 @ A.K Zai Lok Lok with mx...  

why do 猫猫 always give me the 别来烦我 look seh?!?! 😅😅😅

4th Mar (Tue) 

blessed to receive these luv from Sylvia, XD, Jeo, Boss & Ai Rin to welcome me back to work... 

Thank you kiddos (& Eunice) for keeping me in your thoughts too while doing appreciation activity during ur FT time... 😍😍😍

3rd Mar (Mon)

lunch @ Wasabi Tei, Far East Plaza with Mich & Claire before attending rubrics & feedback workshop @ Grange Road despite still being on HL, last day though... 😭😭😭

Happy to see fellow starchamp Prisc @ the workshop and congrats once again for finally having a full team after being a 1-woman dept for the last 2 years !!!  

1st Mar (Sat)

of dance, songs, colouring and taking pics with 小黄人 for the residents... 

only 3 of us didnt have other appointment thereafter so Bernice, XP and I followed Victor to Tiong Bahru Market for lunch... 

went in search for the chua's almost once a month Sunday dinner at the old old super dirty & crowded market / food centre at this exact site more than 3.5 decades ago ... 

it was ALWAYS a frustrating dinner because it was so difficult to get parking lot, so difficult to find a table to seat the chua's family with maid & baby/toddler alfred in tow, so difficult to avoid being splitter splatter by the rain / random dripping water from the zinc roof while slurping down the super yummilicious fried pork intestine porridge... 

sadly, the current version was a far cry from the original... disappointing and totally not worth the $8... 

& what a coincidence that today is papa chus's hatchday if he's still around... 

went back to the chuas and was pleasantly intrigued by this pair of chickens 'patok-ing' along our corridor @ level 2??? 

according to the 3As, they have been 'nesting' just outside our gate and roaming the corridor since the night before... 

#Inktober 52 2025

 Inktoker 52 is a spinoff of Inktober...a WEEKLY prompt is released for artists of all mastery levels to response to on top of the daily prompts in the month of October... 

giving this a go this year to reduce the lack of motivation and stress of completing a DAILY drawing for the annual Inktober... i even allocated half a page of my weekly planner pages for this!!!  💪💪💪

inspired by this interesting sad news of an angler fish on its 自杀 journey... 😓😓😓

the first Pisces who popped into my head... 

inspiration from the minion movie... 😂😂😂

surprisingly, this was the easiest to draw thus far cos a little off proportion, a missing or an additional part here and there also make no diff that this is a dripping monster.... wahahahaha

one of my bucket list.... to be the human in the cage, watched by free-roaming animals... wahahahaha... 

included the Aquarius in my life... 

the only 'tick tock' that was in my radar this week was on the 'tik tok' ban then an almost immediate revival! 

i luv shrimps (prawns?!?!?)... big, succulent ones that are already peeled for consumptions... gave up trying to draw the noodles & kway tiao... not my level yet... 😓

a tequila sunrise at sunrise - a tai tai lifestyle that i want seh!!! 

 

Happi SG60 with 60 I - eat in Singapore

Singapore is 60th this year!!! so super valid reason to set this 60 Singapore hawker food quest for myself to indulge in since our hawker culture was successfully inscribed in UNESCO... 😋😋😋

(12) my favourite 水饺面 from Li Fatt Wanton Mee too... only get to eat it if i leave work earlier as it's sold out / closes by 2pm... luv the black sauce & chilli with the noodles and the 3 满满的 meat & prawn 水饺s...

(11) Hungry but no appetite to have rice nor noodles, so 2 kosong prata with sugar & curry to the rescue for dinner... 

3 Mar (Mon)

(10) Fishball Meepok @ $3.30 from Jiak Mee Fishball behind home sweet home... my go to whenever i had to collect shopee parcels from the bubble tea shop next door... luv the soft soft QQ fishballs lots... 

2 Mar (Sun)

(9) Prawn Noodles from Jiak Pork Ribs Prawn Noodles... new found place for this flavourful dish after my favourite one @ Defu closed down... 

27 Feb (Thurs)

(8) Yong Tau Foo from the famous 永祥興豆腐 that's only open for order from 12-3pm per working day and it's a very day thingy that it's sold out before the 3 hours is up...吃闭门羹 before at 2.30pm... 😓😓😓

queue was ridiculous long at 11.30am when we arrived but moved fast when they started serving at 11.55am... reason being that there's only 1 option available...9 pieces @ $6 per bowl... luv the soup and though there's NO option to add any kind of noodles / rice to go with it, it was filling enough!!!... very 霸道 way of doing business!!! 

20 Feb (Thur)

went to get my favourite bubble tea from Woobbee since we were in the vicinity... been ages since the last visit till the 口号 for my "passionfruit aiyu @ 0%" is no longer valid... 😅😅😅 

heng, it's still as tasty!!! 😍😍😍

(7) Masala Tosai from Srisun Express, just opposite home sweet home too... always forgot the actual name and would order it as potato tosai... thankfully, most prata places understood my request... 😅😅😅

18 Feb (Tue)

(6) potion for 1 @ $5 from SK Kway Chap, just opposite home sweet home also... other than its yumminess, the other thing that i like about this stall is the extreme cleanliness... watching uncle prepare each dish with a wipe wipe here, wipe wipe there is kind of interesting... also luv spotting the 夫妻档 having dinner in Nex occasionally when i was a frequent at Nex long long ago... heee 

3 Feb (Mon)

(5) my favourite ban mian from 全心面, just opposite home sweet home too... a tiny one chef auntie store that has no digital footprint at all... anyway, chef auntie is super generous with the 面 and the 料 that i have to ask for 少面 every time... 😍😍😍 

7, 25, 27 & 28 Jan... this is how much i like this ban mian, especially on a cold cold day... 

(4) my favourite wanton mee from Li Fatt Wanton Mee just opposite home sweet home... luv the generous black sauce with green veg and yummy wanton... has been eating it when it was just $2.50 back in 2011, now it's $4... the power of inflation!!! 

23 Jan (Thur)

(3) one of the healthier version of char kway tiao from 91翠绿炒粿条面 @ Golden Mile... see the green veg, i like... spot the mini fried whitebaits that looked like 菜虫s, i like too... see the two big prawns, i luv... all these @ $4.50... 😍😍😍

22 Jan (Wed)

(2) Bak Chor Meepok @ 乐满园 coffeeshop... 重重的一包 at only $3 !!! 😍😍😍 

10th Jan (Fri)

(1) buy 2 free 1 姜葱田鸡 with veg & tofu @ Chang Jiang G1 as 开工大餐

3 Jan (Fri)

Beneficial Reading in 2025

after a year of 'forceful' reading in 2024, i found out that my reading preference is at two extreme > romance in Chinese and self-help books in English

reading Chinese romance books started way back when i was only 12, a year or two after 蔡妈咪 picked up the habit as i had to tag along her to book stores to rent them so very often... every visit would last at least an hour so might as well make my time and her money worth...

in my peak, usually during the school holidays, i could finish 3 books a day... headache was a norm from long hours of reading and crying over all the misunderstandings and unacquitted love of the characters...my eyes would be so puffy from the crying that i had multi-layer eyelids... 😂😂😂...

i stopped reading them during JC times, after an S-0 told me that they made me form unrealistic expectation of him... and i think i also got busier with school, then with work and definitely with more fun things to occupy my time with...

then Covid hit, confined at home, watched one show after another on Netflix and i was hooked onto a C-drama that was adapted from a "juicy" novel... and the floodgate is open once more... now even more because of the many many online platforms... 就是喜欢谈恋爱的感觉, 甜甜的... 以前是希望发生在自己身上... 现在是接受现实, 享受想象就可以了... 😍😍😍

i think i was only a English reader in primary school... have recollections of reading all, if not most of the books by Roald Dahl and the series of Nancy Drew, Secret Seven, Hardy Boys, Famous Five, Sweet Valley Twins... moved on the Reader Digest in Secondary school and stopped reading altogether when silent reading was no longer mandatory in my life... 😂😂😂... completed the first few books of Harry Potter before it got too dark and sadist and Twilight because of the movies...

Read an English suspense / adventure book hoping that it would ignite my love for reading in English... nah, didnt like it... too adulty for me with the much violence and sexual references... eventually it was books on how to be better at my job and how to better my life that kept me willing to continue reading...

so for this year, i'm gonna continue my love for trashy romance novel in Chinese as nutrients for my heart and self-help books in English as tonic for my brain...

the trashy romance novels that i read / listen to are so trashy that i'm too embarrassed to mention the titles to anyone... hence the title of this post is "Beneficial" reading where i only document the worthy books... 😅😅😅

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(VII) completed on : 2 Mar 2025

simple short story about alien invasion with many many 'ink' sketches; the style of drawing that i like... 

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(VI) completed on : 25 Feb 2025

so familiar... over committing then under delivering and the endless boom & burst cycle... yet it's not a valid reason for dishonourable choices & actions... 

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(V) completed on : 10 Feb 2025

finished in one seating cos it's a comic book about the life of 8 local artists and i was super bored while being confined to my hospital bed... 😅😅😅

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(IV) completed on : 8 Feb 2025

about the author's journey thru grief over the sudden loss of a 青梅竹马 > bf > fiancé... a sharing on her 10 years of escape, depression, 放飞, attempts to seek help, guilt, struggles...

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(III) completed on : 27 Jan 2025

interesting read about the 典故 behind the idioms... 😍😍😍... suitable for kiddos who need to write compos...

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(II) completed on : 6 Jan 2025

started this book on Friday afternoon and received the heart aching news that night... it's as if whoever / whatever here there is prepping me for the terrible news... my viet green bean cake whom was under my form-ship for 4 years has passed on last December... if only... but there's no 'if only' in life after it happens... 早知如此 何必当初...

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(I) completed on : I.II.MMXXV

> happy breathing technique to wake the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex when the amygdala is in control

> notice, comment and celebrate character strengths that lead to achievement and not of achievement itself

> additional printable @ myHappymind

Giving Thanks in February

27th Feb (Thurs)

Dr said that i should move about more to get my energy up so that i can last through my work starting next week so i happily joined these two to go see & test more sofas and mattresses and electrical appliances @ Sungei Kadut... 

they really laid down on almost every mattress and could feel the difference between the comfy & firmness level between them... power...   

26th Feb (Wed)

half yearly eye scan for my 老宝宝

good news: no need eye drop for glaucoma liao

bad news: need eye drop for dry eye... 😅😅😅

我们母女两这个月的医疗费 is 🙈

25th Feb (Tue)

am just super blessed that my post-procedure consultation was rescheduled to today where i could download all my whining about the endless cramps & gas & poor appetite & the swings between constipation and diarrhea since the procedure two weeks ago !!!... 

晴天霹雳 when Dr said that it's the usual side effects and would last for a month since my fibroids were massive!!! 😭😭😭... 早知道就把整个窝 剪了 丢了 一了百了... 😡😡😡

Biennial thank you meal from me to them @ Banana Leaf Apolo... 

22nd Feb (Sat)

a super happy 蔡妈咪 with the duck lugged back from JB... 

21st Feb (Fri)

enjoyed yummy pizza & baby ribs @ Roberta's Pizza 

before being a judgy critic in Sunset Boulevard; a musical about 一郡道德绑架的 cuckoos...😅😅😅 

16th Feb (Sun)

rss-mates gathered to celebrate XT's hatchday @ Smokey's BBQ, Joo Chiat 

8th Feb (Sat)

spent the morning with the residents, 2x 财神s and 2x cute pinky lions... 

then met up for Jas' hatchday lunch @ Lou Shang... we were seated along the corridor outside old old flats!!!... very interesting cafe set-up but not conducive for long conversations due to the enclosed noise so we headed over to Typhoon, PS instead for more chits & chats over souffle & 美人茶... 

happened that our going home time coincided so mx and I reconvened for another 2 hours of catch ups @ Junction 8

blessings from mx... 我也感恩有你... 😍😍😍

last stop of the day > cheng san library... where i got a little too ambitious for the next two weeks of HL... 😂😂😂 

7th Feb (Fri)

thankful to be working alongside angels... received a 头头 kiss from J at the beginning of the week and 2x 补品 and well - wishing notes from AR... 😘😘

no worries... with all the luv, blessings and prayers for me, All is Well ! 😇😇😇

6th Feb (Thurs)

by right, i have a scan today but as my relief was on 4 days ML due to a rare eye infection since monday, i rescheduled my appointment so as to cover his/our classes... regretted being a '好人' when i saw today's relief plan... on top of his/our 4 periods, i was allocated another 4.5 periods... faint!!!  早知道就乖乖去 scan 了... 不止可以晚起, 还不会这么累... 😅

thank you 😍😍😍

CNY celebration @ work with a louhei, goodies and a funny trivial quiz... 

5th Feb (Wed)

thankful for the luxury of time and passion to complete my artwork @ work... so pretty that it deserved to be displayed @ my work cubicle... 😍😍😍

enjoyed Genki Members' Thankful Day @ 20% discount with HF... we ordered fast & furious, the food also came fast & furious....😍😍😍

went for treatment @ Two Herbs... i'm so so thankful that my hair is back or should i say...i'm so thankful that my hair decided to stay on my head... also luv the multiple nuggets of head massage at the various stages of today's treatment... a bonus when there arent many customers on a weekday afternoon... 😍😍😍

Two Herbs, highly recommended!!! i could feel the effect within the first session... the number of strands that i see in my hand per brush through decreased tremendously... 

most importantly, they dont hard sell at all nor promote their packages... a poster on the different promotions was at the cashier counter and i had to ask them about it... very reasonable pricing even without the package deal and when i had to go for once a week treatment for the first month!!!... now i only go once in 2 months!!!... 😂😂😂