Operation Healthy Living

do you liketh my beautiful fruit tarts?

on monday i started this healthy diet & exercise regime which i'm proud to say went very well for the week. although i am grateful to be blessed with rather non-variable weight relative to the gargantuan proportions of food i eat daily ON TOP OF being perpetually sedentary, i decided it's time to do something good for my body.

hence the beginning of operation healthy living, planned and executed by yours truly. exactly how long this little operation will last, i don't know, but if i'm fortunate enough (and by fortunate i mean strong-willed and disciplined) i'll be on this regime until i leave for australia mid-May because it will be more than foolish to be eating heathily when one is on holiday.

so what constitutes operation healthy living and what programme am i really following? actually i don't know lah. i just do as i like. hahaha. but i HAVE been very disciplined! besides, i really enjoy preparing meals for myself and doing exercises in front of the tv all afternoon with my giant stability ball. i lift light weights once in awhile and also run on the treadmill every other day. plus my dog will get depressed and sometimes even pissed off (!) if i don't take her for her evening walks by 6pm. trust me, you don't want to piss a miniature pinscher off. it gets ugly. so i take evening walks as a simple form of exercise, too.

what i learned about suddenly changing eating habits, though, is that we must give ourselves regular breaks. as for me, i still have my everyday dinners of rice & dishes, only that i cut down on my rice portion, which is a big deal because i can eat an amazing amount of rice. i also decided that i should "rest" on weekends although i must make sure i don't over-engorge myself with all that tempting weekend food. so let me tell you what my meals have been like all week :)

(btw lately i've been waking up past 11AM so i have brunches)

monday brunch: egg white omelette with mushrooms, tomatoes and a little cheddar cheese (had to compromise. what omelette has no cheese?)
monday tea-time: strawberry and banana smoothie (my favourite, but with low fat milk minus my usual vanilla ice-cream)

tuesday brunch: sautéed mushrooms with garlic in olive oil, on multi-grain bread

tuesday tea-time: miso soup!

wednesday brunch: a big bowl of garden salad, but with vinaigrette to substitute the fattening thousand island dressing
wednesday tea-time: strawberry and kiwi smoothie (used apple juice instead of milk this time)

thursday brunch: mum wanted to go to Indulgence and i was so upset with her for "not being supportive". haha. i mean i know that place has many healthy dishes but i'd usually go for all the sinful ones. anyway i ordered this baked fish dish with wasabi which i hadn't tried before and omg it was so good! AND HEALTHY TOO. and i skipped the cakes, although i was really tempted! bravo, me!
thursday tea-time: toasted some multi-grain bread

friday brunch: small portion of grilled chicken.
friday tea-time: chawanmushi! used organic dashi stock and added in some chicken slices and shiitake mushrooms. made for the first time. turned out really smooth and tasty. i love myself.

saturday & today: the taste buds & stomach get to party! but no over-indulgence, of course. oh and i made fruit tarts last night (see pics above). yummy! lucky me, i have a lot of strawberries cos my dad got them for free from his friend in Cameron Highlands. hehe.

also part of my diet: no more breakfasts of hawker noodles on weekdays. no more midnight snacks of cookies and cakes. no more 3 cups of tea/coffee per day. instead, i have 1 cup of earl grey with bergamot & rose petals during brunch.

and SO! that was my first week of operation healthy living. haha. i sure hope i can keep this up.

Bitch, I want my money!

The Landlord from Will Ferrell

THIS... is my favourite video of the month.

Retrospect

you know how there's always this ONE drawer in your room which has just too many things that you never feel like clearing them out?

ok maybe it's just me.

but yes there's this ONE drawer in my room which has wayyyyy too many things that i've collected over the past 16 years (i assume i started collecting stuff at age 6). i've not opened that drawer since i left home for college.

today i decided to see what's inside. i immediately felt a giant smile being plastered across my face as i slowly dug out each and every treasure i had chucked inside that very drawer- things that were deemed too valuable to be discarded and childhood books that i would never allow to be given away to my cousins or the salvation army.

among the many things: autographs, books, gifts, stray photos, my "stamp collection" which was actually ready-made stamp books bought from bookstores, 2 Sirius Black bookmarks given to me by Bala omg, Winnie the Pooh stickers, a Winnie the Pooh folder (i had this winnie the pooh phase la), very old music scores, notes from teachers...

hehe one of the nicer autograph pages by my friends. done from scratch by sherms!

this was when we were leaving high school, where all the messages written were long, meaningful and ada banyak isi. no longer shit like "red ship blue ship the best ship is friendship".



no prize if you can guess whose page was the ugliest.

k la, it's the message that counts. and that retarded picture.

a personalized book called When I Grow Up from my aunt on my 8th birthday. LOL.

(btw i cant paint for nuts)

seeee i did end up pursuing a career as a doctor.

it's been quite some time since i last reminisced my school days. was thinking of all my good friends- most of whom i'm still good friends with today, fun activites, birthdays, sleepovers (once we even camped in my garden! with tents and everything. and my dad cooked for us alfresco a la scouts)... even thought about my teachers too. you won't believe how many clowns i had for teachers. it's astounding. i had a science teacher in std 5 who told the class that if you drank cold water, you'd just pee all of it out. so dont drink cold water, she said. drink warm. haha. i remember her name. it was puan aishah. she was ugly but quite pleasant, though obviously not very bright and had no scientific mind whatsoever. she was also the one who gave chongkz a C in science which made her (chongkz) bawl her eyes out that she nearly flooded the entire classroom with tears, only to find out that she had gotten a better grade in the end.

haha. so funny.

thanks for all the memories.

i'm glad i opened that drawer today. :)

I hear the train calling me home

i love taking the intercity train to and from kl. it's strange, but i do. somehow a 3-hour me-time on board seems very different from all other me-times. there's just something about the train. i occupy two seats (because i refuse to be subjected to torture by sitting next to strangers who almost always have body odour and bad breath - so i buy 2 tickets) as i immerse myself in music and a good book in hand. occasionally i stare out of the window and watch the world flick past me; wooden villages, rolling hills and groves of oil palm trees rush by like a race against time. amidst the thundering sound of the speeding train on its tracks, i feel at peace. this kind of peace, it is different. i don't quite know how so, but it is different. it's like being in a whole other world. my world. with not a single soul in sight. sometimes all we need is that kind of a world. that kind of peace. dive right down into our quintessential thoughts and understand what we truly want and what makes us happy. organise our thoughts and put certain things into our very perspective, with no external stimuli and input from the people around us. because that's how most of us live our lives, isn't it. always having to take into account what people think. what people want. how people feel. oh how wearying is that, to always put others ahead? sometimes, it's okay to drown ourselves and rejuvenate in our personal worlds. anywhere, anytime. as for me, my world comes alive on the train.

now you know why i love taking the train.

Squeeze my baby ginger

hello baby Ginger.
this was when she first came home, at 2 months.

currently 3 months old, post-grooming. taught her to sit still in less than 5 minutes (about 3 repetitions). learned to shake hands in a jiffy, too. proof that poodles are indeed one of the brightest dogs in the world.

hehe super duper cute.

i already dread leaving. 4 months - that's a long time to go, i know, but i already don't want to leave. start life anew. make new friends. study. stress. urgh. will miss my dogs like mad. will miss lying on my cool marble floor while i glare blankly at the ceiling. and playing karma police on the piano over and over again. and reading terry pratchett. and having all the time in the world to patiently decipher the complexity of wuthering heights. and watching old movies. and going out for good meals without having to take out a single cent from my pockets. and going to the hair salon. and grocery shopping with mum. and tea-tasting with dad. can time just stop right at this moment? i'm very contented and comfortable. lukewarm in every aspect. which, i'm aware, is rather unhealthy. but i dont care. really, if i could freeze time, it would be now.