Bento #2

Made another cute bento for 17 year old daughter to take to school!

Made heart and star-shaped boiled eggs and also shaped the rice into hearts. She was a bit disappointed that I'd packed them in plain containers. Ha ha. Asked where her froggy was. Try as I could, I couldn't fit them into the cute froggy lunch box so had to make do with this threesome container set (which had bright lime green covers which I love).

Girl came back and told me her Japanese soya sauce leaked out of the cute tiny sauce tubes and out of the zip loc bag into her lecture notes and her water-melon (which she loves) smelt of eggs. Big oooooops. I'll have to pre-season the rice for her instead so she won't have to pour it out herself. A bit of a let down to pre-season it. Sigh. As for the mixed smells.....will have to think of something. It's a bigger heache trying to make food look cute (especially when you're a tired working mum). I joked with her that she'll be getting plain fried rice next time. But no really, I'm just doing this for laughs. Life's too short. We should be able to laugh. Even if it's laughing at a childish lunch box your mum made.

What did the girl do which is what some young tots would do? She forgot to bring home the containers. She'd left them in her tutorial room! Hmmmph. Some things never change.

Bento #1

Yesterday, I was at work when I suddenly decided to go buy some Bento supplies to make cute Bento meals for my TEENAGE kids. Ha ha. Yep. TEENAGE kids.

Awww....come one. I've always been young at heart, a bit crazy and a little on the wild side. Is making cute Bento for my teenage kids so crazy? I know it's usually done for young kids to entice them to eat. Anyway, on a whim, I went and bought two gigantic bags worth of Bento supplies. Mainly plastic shapers for the rice, cookie cutters, veg and bread cutters and colourful washable cupcake holders. I didn't manage to find any cute plastic sticks but that's reason to go shopping again, isn't it?

So I went home after shopping, quite deadbeat to find the kids starving. Fortunately, working mum had bought an entire Sarpino's Pizza and two bags of Taiwanese chicken chops (those deep fried and tossed in delicious spicy seasoning). I too was starving. Grabbed my bags of chopped veg and shredded chicken from the fridge and sat at the table downing them in sambal belachan (shrimp chilli mix) while watching the kids dig into such unhealthy and totally delicious food. Couldn't resist it (felt like kicking myself after) but I HAD to have a gigantic slice of pizza. Hmmmmm....it was delicious. But the dough did make me feel a bit too full after. I think I really do not feel so good after eating alot of carbs. Anyhow, I'm not talking about my new eating habits. I'm suppose to be talking about this:

Bento #1 - My miserable first attempt at Bento making. This was to be my 17 year old daughter's lunch for the next day. Ha ha ha. Does her mum have a good sense of humour or what?

Thought the frog Bento set was so adorable. Wait till you see my 15 year old son's Bento set. Ha ha.

I didn't intend to make the Bento set that very night but I wanted to surprise my daughter so I had to make do with some plain rice and canned corn beef. I did have the seaweed and Japanese soya sauce (for when we eat sushi) at home and I packed them in these adorable plastic soya sauce containers. I hope that at least made the Bento more palatable to her. After she took these pics, I snuck in 2 cherry tomatoes I put the whole set it in the fridge. Must eat veg, mah!

Aiyoh, terrible first attempt and she went and put up the pic on facebook. Alamak!

Hubby came home and I had intended to hide my mountain of Bento supplies from him but had failed miserably. He just sat at the table and shook his head. Asked me where our kindergarten kids were. Said I must be enjoying myself because it's like art and craft. So right he is! My teenage kids should be expecting more cute cuts on their food from now on. So should hubs. Muahahahaha....

STAY YOUNG FOLKS!!! It's all in your mind!



PCOS weight loss

I know I'd mentioned before that I've pretty much thrown out the idea of losing weight. My PCOS and the resulting insulin resistance has made it tough. Well, I think what I meant was I'd thrown ou the idea of going on any particular diet or exercise plan. Instead, I'm willing to make lifestyle changes for a healthier me.

I am NOT on a diet. I am not on any diet supplements or taking any pills. I am not exercising. This is MY reality. For the moment, housework is enough to tire me. But what I've become is I'm attempting to be more conscious of what I'm putting into my body. Hopefully, this consciousness will last.

The last time I stuffed myself silly with carbs was at Pete's Place on our 21st Wedding Anniversary which was slightly more than a week ago (ok and just today again I guess). After our celebratory Wedding Anniversary lunch, tea and tea again, we went back home, stared at our bulging tummies and decided it was time to do something about it. Well, I decided to do something. I have a feeling hubs isn't as committed to this.

So what's been up the past week? It's been a tiring week, with the Singapore Airshow on and all (workwise) but I've been reducing my intake of carbs and sugar. I realised that it's not as easy as it seems especially if you are eating out during a work day. Where I would have ordered my meepok (dry noodles), I had to remember that that would be a whole bowl of carbs I'd be downing. So I've been ordering 'Chai Perng' (food dishes with less rice) or Yong Tau Fu (without noodles) instead. When I do order meepok, I try not to eat the whole bowl. Not quite my style because I feel it's so sinful to waste food. I've also started to reduce my intake of sugar in my usual 'Teh O' (tea with sugar). Cannot tahan totally without sugar, lah but I reduce.

I've cut down on snacks (except when hubs showed me a bag of vinegar chips!!!), I've increased my intake of veg. In fact, I've become a cow (yes, yes, I know, being overweight, I'm already heavy like a cow). I've been eating a lot of veg. Even then, with the reduced rice intake, I do get hungry at night sometimes. In the past week, I did snack on peanut butter sandwiches (because hubs ASKED me if I wanted peanut butter sandwiches!!! Him again!) but I restricted myself to a single slice each time.
The result of just being more conscious of what I'm eating for the last past week? Lost 2 kgs. Have also noticed better bowel movements. 2 kgs, not too bad considering I'm not really dieting and not exercising at all. Not quite what your gym trainer would recommend but hey, it worked for me.

Hubs met me at lunchtime today for our favourite Chicken Rice. Sigh. How does one eat Chicken Rice with no rice? So I did. Eat rice I mean. A whole 3/4 plate full. Gave him my other 1/4. Which means he ate 1 and 1/4 plate! But I weighed in (at the office) and I'm still 2 kg down. Hmm...not bad. I hope to keep this up and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't plateau too soon. How much do I aim to lose? Haha. I have NO aim. I don't want to jinx it. I know it's not the norm. One should aim high, shoot low. Whatever. I don't want to stress myself over this. It's more a lifestyle change I'm aiming for, not a diet plan. I'm still eating sinful Chicken Rice, Chicken Curry and Chilli Crab. I'm still going to love pasta.

Am thinking I may actually have the nerve to post some pics of my fabulous flabs (Yes, I dont' mean abs. I mean flabs) and hopefully, if I carry on to be able to reduce my weight, some before and after pics. Meanwhile, no one else except hubs and myself will know how to navigate my contours. LOL. Oh and by the way, hubs said my weight on the scale has increased in recent years because my b**bs are way bigger now than before (saggier but definitely bigger - said the horse). Well, I guess that's the silver lining to my cloud *wink*

Singapore Airshow 2012

Every two years, the airshow comes around in Singapore. I counted and workwise, this is my 7th airshow in attendance. In the earlier days, we had Asian Aerospace (which moved to Hong Kong) and now we have Singapore Airshow.

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner (at Singapore Airshow 2012)

Took the above pic while squashed like a sardine on board a bus. The taxi queue was ridiculously snaking so decided it'd be faster to get out of there via the shuttle bus from the airshow site to Changi Airport's Terminal 3. Hah! Instead, got stuck standing on the bus, waiting a good 15 mins or so for the 'dumbass' traffic wardens to let the buses through. It was like they didn't care two hoots about the packed buses and were instead more concerned to let cars through. Finally, the two buses at the front had had enough of waiting and I could see them inching so much forward that the traffic wardens had no choice but to let us through. Smart drivers. So many on board were grumbling at the traffic wardens.

In the past, we had the car label so driving to and parking at the site wasn't an issue but now (with companies going lean), it's either the bus or the taxi. If someone sends you in a private car with no access car label, you can only alight really, really far from the show site. I mean REALLY, REALLY FAR. Don't try it unless you want to walk 30 mins.

The surcharge of SGD8 for normal taxis out from the show site is fair in my opinion. But it's the snaking queue that's a killer. Well, it crawled on the first day but today (2nd day), it was way snaking but moving fairly briskly.

If anyone from the organising committee is keen to hear, it sucked that it took nearly 20 mins to alight at the show site yesterday (first day). Yep, our taxi entered the site carpark at SGD13 and when we finally reached the alighting area, the fare was SGD21. Reason? There was only ONE spot for alighting passengers. Every single taxi had to wait for that alighting spot and it was placed right smacked behind a zebra crossing where a young traffic warden (who looked like a school kid temping) was stopping the taxis from moving from the alighting spot whenever anyone crossed the road. If there were at least 100 taxis waiting to alight their passengers and each taxi took SGD21-SGD13=SGD8 before they could alight their passengers, that was SGD800 wasted in the carpark while I was in that queue! Well, the situation was better today and the taxis didn't have to snake round the barricades ridiculously. The drop off point was extended to a whole stretch (just like in previous airshows). Made more sense.

Aiyoh, why am I talking about the bus and taxi queues. Maybe cos I'm not so excited to be at the airshow anymore. As one angmoh told me, he's been to so many airshows, they all look the same to him. I used to be really excited to bring my kids (especially my son who was an avid airplane model collector) in. But now that my kids are older, my daughter isn't keen and my son, if he's still keen, will just have to find his own way there without Mummy. Mummy's gonna be catching up on zzzzzzzsss this weekend instead.

Oh and by the way, the companies are really going 'lean'. I only managed to pick up a pin and a pen set made of paper. Pathetic. Maybe you'll have more luck on public days.