Little Cozy Corner

Written on 7/8

It’s been 2 days since I really used the net and I’m just wondering how many nudges I’ve since received from my Scrabulous challengers! *lol* Although I really miss being online and all, it’s still not too bad being disconnected as well. After all, I know that I can once again get back online on Sunday. I guess this is somewhat of a way for me to practice internet abstinence. The main consolation for me is that I know for a fact that the connection IS there, just a matter of time before I can get back on.

That sad fact aside, my shame admission is the fact that I have SO much time on my hands that I’m actually finding for stuff to do around the house. I’m no where near being a clean freak but all this time found me dusting more, vacumning, sorting all my junk out and trying to clear boxes from our move. Yes, some boxes have actually remained untouched - very bad me. I personally think this is a blessing in disguise because come Saturday, it’s Arianna’s first birthday and we’re having a small BBQ do at our place for some of Ted’s friends. My cousins are coming to join us too.

So I have been a little bit of a busy bee. And I’m also stressing out a little as well. Although it’s a BBQ, and the meat will pretty much be the main dish, you can’t just have meat, right? Sure very muak so I’ll be cooking my fav fried macaroni. On top of that, I’ve been thinking of making some jelly too, for the kids. Will need to get that tomorrow, along with that some fruits as well. So it’s going to be steaks, sausages, my fav dip [which I'll be sharing the recipe with you because it's just SO delish and you should try it too] with nachos & veggy sticks, fried macaroni, fruits and jelly. O, I guess I should make some sort of salad too eh? Sound as if this should be more than sufficient food to keep the people going.

Wish me luck that I don’t mess it up! **

** It didn’t mess up at all - it was great!!

Here’s one of my quirky habits. I guess most guys would appreciate it as they normally do this but get a hell of a beating from the opposite sex for doing this deed. What is it you say?

It’s my preference to leave the toilet lid up.

Weird eh? The reason is very simple. I don’t like surprises. I’ve just had too many ‘obscene’ encounters that whenever I see a lid down, I’m very wary when lifting it for fear of facing that vulgarity. As a matter of fact, whenever I see a lid shut in the public toilet, I would rather wait for one which didn’t have its lid down unless I’m too desperate la.

Sometimes I wonder why people make such a fuss about always keeping the lid shut. Other than the fact that it looks a little nicer, why do so many place such an emphasis on it? Maybe I’m just being clueless or ignorant but that’s just one of my quirky habit. If you think that’s weird, I know someone who’s got a weirder one! *lol* I’m not about to divulge the information but let’s just say that he doesn’t ’sit’ on the throne when he’s doing the do for one rather practical reason. And I shall leave it at that. Heh.

So, do you leave the lid up or down?

The theme ‘dark’ has so many concepts to it that I couldn’t quite decide which one I wanted to do. So I decided to go with one which was the topic of conversation when  Arianna was born. Her lovely dark hair…she was born with a head full of it and my MIL was simply over the moon by it. Apparently she prefers dark hair over light.

Here is the little cheeky vegemite about a couple of days old and still in the hospital gown. Although the smallest full term baby in the ward, she was the most gorgeous.

And here she is today, still sporting a mop of dark hair albeit a little static from all the balloons I placed in her play pen. We had a small BBQ birthday party for her yesterday. She’s turning 1 on Tuesday!! Where has the time flown??

Hope you enjoyed that.

O M G…..last night was soooooooooooooooo good! Hhhmmm……

 *sighs blissfully and contently* 

*sighs blissfully and contently*

*sighs blissfully and contently*

Hell, yea….and from now on, it will continue to be as good too. YES! My electric blanket arrived and I wasted no time fitting it on. What did you think I was talking about???

 *sighs blissfully and contently, happily* 

I was literally ooo-ing and aaa-ing in pleasure as I slid into bed last night coz it was just SO warm and toasty. It was simply so tough to get up and tend to Arianna when she woke up for a feed last night… *blek* But I still did it anyway focusing on the fact that I will be returning to a nice warm bed. I have been kicking myself and wondering why we never got an electric blanket earlier! Bodoh betui….all that torture of getting into an icy cold bed and the need to put on multiple layers of socks AND clothes. Haiyo….but I’m so super glad that the electric bed is now on.

Aitelyu, it is such a must for winter time unless you like the cold so much that you prefer a cold bed la. That’s just SO not me - I may like winter a tiny bit but never a cold bed!!

No more cold nights for me! YIIPPPEEE!!! I is so teh happy.

O, and happy 08.08.08. It’s now 7.48pm and the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympic starts at 10.08pm here so the countdown is on!

*Written offline then posted later on

Gone are the days I could tell you straight to your face that I couldn’t live without blogging because at one point in the past, I really lived to blog. I couldn’t imagine how I’d live my life 5 years ago when I never knew what blogging was all about. Thinking back, I realised that back then, I spent most of it chatting online instead. I was hooked on chatting back then and I could go on for hours if my body didn’t need food or water. After all, I always had people to talk with from all around the world - the beauty of having friends in all the different time zones.

And then Friendster came along and I was adding and accepting multiple friends requests that up to one point, I realised that there were so many people in my network that I really didn’t know. Although many will say that networks like Friendster and Facebook are used for finding new friends, I personally think that it’s best to keep and maintain the friends you have rather than add so many new acquaintances. I had to delete many of those people because they were just adding up to the number of friends I already had in there. I can honestly say that the people that I now add to my Facebook account are people I genuinely know from the past and present. And a small number are new friendships which I forged for my obsession with snail mail  and postcards - yes, I still have penpals whom I write to and I still get letters in my postbox.

Also, I must add that my blogging has suffered tremendously for various reasons ranging from the fact that I am responsible for Arianna’s being hence blogging time is rather restricted, to the fact that I’ve lost the spunk for blogging as I’m as dry as the Sahara and lack ideas and thoughts to pen down, to spending a huge chunk of my spare time playing Scrabulous and if you are still in the dark about Scrabulous in the USA, there is the all new Wordscraper which I don’t really fancy that much but it’s still fun to score a 276 point word. With so many distractions, I’ve pretty much lost my focus on what used to be my favourite past time.

However, for the next couple of days, because we’ve gone over our monthly bandwidth limit which was most likely my fault, I’ve been banned from using the net until Sunday. This will indeed give me time to “be more productive and not play Scrabulous the whole day”. But I bet it’s not really my fault….sometimes must be sucking the bandwidth - our service must be scamming us la! We never used to go over our limit of 1GB back in our old place but apparently 2GB seems to be just pouring down the drain like water. Unbelievable! In any case, I hope to make use of this time to try and get back on track to some good ol’ proper blogging and be more productive as Ted has pointed out to me. The perils of being a SAHM…hehe, please don’t quote me on this though. There are many successful mums out there who are doing a great job of balancing housework, kids, internet and some even have their own business. Sadly, I’m certainly not one of the posse!

I have been looking forward to this week’s theme so much!!! I was simply over the moon about the theme which is clouds. I used to enjoy looking at clouds when I was growing up. It was a norm to just lie down in the school field or play ground and look up into the sky and watch the clouds float by. What a life it was! But after my first experience flying on a plane to Holland in 2002, I have been hooked on clouds!!

Almost everywhere I go, I take pictures of clouds. My favourite place to take cloud pictures is New Zealand. Known as the land of the long white clouds, it truly literally lives up to its name. SADLY, my home pc crashed and along with it, thousands of digitals memories were wiped out. I do have some of them burnt on a CD but they are not with me currently so here are some of the shots I took around NSW.  

This is Anzac Bridge and me being artistic, I like how the clouds look like in the background. I just wished that it was brighter that day…. 

A view of one of the many vineyards found in Hunter Valley, I thought this one looked particularly fairy-tale like. What do you think?

I know I should only share ONE picture a week but when you have so many to share, I find it hard to pick which one!! But this is one of my favourites… 

A shot above the Darling Harbour - just a note to mention that I did not meddle with the setting at all. This is an actual shot, no ‘makeup’ done.

Hope you enjoyed that - have a blessed weekend! 

Just added :

Ppssstt…..turns out that I have 2 more pix that I just HAD to share….

How cool is that???? I absolutely love how the sun shines through the clouds like that. Ted took these shots from his room while we were attending a pre-marriage course in Penang. Must be a ray of hope….