Between Rock And Classical Is Where You'll Find Me

Monday, February 07, 2011 5:48 AM

CHINESE NEW YEAR 2011
a long post

2nd; Scarlet's 3rd birthday and Reunion Dinner

Fiona and I baked Scarlet a Peanut Butter Delight Birthday Cake with this recipe i found online.

we thought the carrot looks like a limp and old, you-know, that cant get up anymore

i was gonna order a cake from US Doggie Bakery like i did the past 2 years but they barely have any new designs so i thought, why not bake one myself. plus, the size of this Peanut Butter Delight cake is just the right size for Scarlet since we(the humans) are not gonna eat it. i dont think any human in the right mind would eat a cake with those ingredients. lol.

1 cup white or whole wheat flour we used Plain Flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 peanut butter we used Chunky Peanut Butter
1/4 vegetable oil we used Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 cup shredded carrots
1 tsp Vanilla
1/3 honey
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Mix the flour and baking soda in a bowl. Sis chose to sift the flour, which was not stated in the recipe. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. We used an electric mixer meant for baking. Pour mixture into a ring mold sprayed with a non-stick spray and put it into the oven for 40 minutes. We coated the cake mold with Olive Oil instead of using the spray. Sis emphasized that the excess oil has to be removed after the mold has been coated. the cake took less than 40 minutes to be baked in the oven for us so be sure to check it time to time when its in the oven.

Frost this cake with low-fat Cottage Cheese and decorate with carrot pieces. Store in refrigerator. we frosted the cake with cheese wedges, which was bought last minute and we did not decorate the cake with carrot pieces.

so after the baking of the cake, i had lots to do for spring-cleaning despite moving into a new place just less than 2 months ago. these were what i did. you can skip this whole part cos its really random.

pack my unwanted clothes into a bag for donation
washed up the dishes and tools used for baking Scarlet's cake

steam-ironed my comforter and Fiona's bed so they'll look nice and neat when relatives and friends visit the following days(its not as easy as the salesgirls always make it look)
cleaned my Chandelier which was literally sparkling after that
wiped the top of our bookcase which was covered with dust
wiped my floor with a cloth(its more thorough than using a mop.)

i love the Spring Blossom smell of the floor detergent we use.

feather-dusted the coffee table-turned-computer table in my room

my handy duster

wiped the table surface with water
wiped the glass surface of the table again with a Glass Cleaner
wiped my floor again thanks to the dust and dirt from cleaning the table
wiped the glass surfaces of the wardrobe doors with Glass Cleaner
wiped the glass surfaces of the bedroom door with Glass Cleaner
wiped the mirror with Glass Cleaner(all mainly to remove fingerprint marks)
wiped both the inside and outside surface of the windows and also the grills with Glass Cleaners(to remove the water stains left by the crazy rainy days)
wiped parts of the red wall which had these Grey smoky marks left by fingerprints

i didnt intend to do so much but whats the point of doing half of it and yet the other half of it is gonna make the first half go down the drain, right? everythings gotta look good man.

and then right before Reunion Dinner, i prepared Sensational Salmon Cakes for Scarlet's dinner since its her special day. recipe by Rachael Ray here.

i used half the ingredients stated as only Scarlet is eating them.

and yes, Scarlet loved them!

we are all starving by the time Reunion Dinner started. we had Teppanyaki and Miso Soup at home.

and after that was time to sing Scarlet her birthday song and cut her cake.

just a slice for her and the rest for another day

3rd; The relatives come to visit

taken with Fiona's DSLR

taken with my iPhone

cousins and uncle about to dig into Mommy's cooking

when the other relatives started pouring in, Speed was suggesting a game of basketball so all 8 of us including Scarlet went to the nearby court only to find that a huge tent was set up over it and it was impossible to play so we went back for a game of Disney Monopoly in Speed's room. i had no idea how many people were in our house that night buy im guessing 20?

the 3 hunky cousins(siblings). left to right: Brandon, whos the same age as me, Brian, whos 2 years older than Speed and Justine, whos same age as my sister.they are also our closest cousins. we all grew up playing together and sort of got busy with school, etc, so we dont see each other as often anymore.

thats our youngest cousin playing Fruit Ninja on Brandon's iPad.

a funny moment during Monopoly when both Brandon and Justine make offers to buy Brian's property.

this is us ONE YEAR AGO

and us ONE YEAR LATER this CNY

and me with practically no makeup. i look bad-ass last year and like girl-next-door this year but trust me, im still the same person. pretty bad-ass ;)

we played Monopoly Deal after the board game and the cousins left before midnight.

4th; Visiting the Grandparents
as long as my mother's ex-husband is not around, im fine with visiting them.

i bought that top from HerVelvetVase.com cos it looked nice on their model. when i received it, i knew right away that it wasnt me so i didnt wear it up till now since i didnt get any new clothes for CNY. and those shoes are from Aldo, which i bought some time ago and havent worn them till now.

we had steamboat for lunch at grandparents' place. Grandpa was very happy to see us especially my brother. we havent seen them since October last year when we moved out of our new place to our temporary place.

they were playing Mahjong after lunch, Scarlet was hanging around and i was watching Armageddon on Channel 5. i've watched it so many times but i still enjoy the movie. i love it. Liv Tyler is so pretty and Ben Affleck is cute(in that film).

we headed home when Armageddon was about to end. Chris came after midnight and we played Dota with Speed on Garena before going to bed.

5th; Our friends come to visit
Fiona's girlfriends came first followed by Roy and John and then Sis's guy friends and the rest of my friends came one after another. we had like 20 over people in our house. everyone praised Mom's cooking, especially the Thai Green Curry, Tom Yum Soup and this Fried Bean Curd Skin wrapped around Minced Pork & Prawn which had the most praises.

thanks to Mommy for cooking so much good stuff for our friends!!

played Blackjack with Chris, Kyle, Juccus, Jucuss's brother, Elyse, John, Roy, Jun and June. Baby was the banker. John left for Dbl O(lol). Shawn and Vincent came to join us. Roy and Shawn left at like 2 or 3 AM. Baby lost a few hundreds before Kyle took over as the banker and lost as well. i was winning some money but started losing but started winning again when Vincent came and starting "cutting" the deck of cards. Baby, Kyle, Juccus, Juccus's brother, Elyse, June and I gambled all the way till 7AM in the morning.

most of Fiona's friends who were also playing cards and Mahjong left only after 6AM to 7AM. lol. i was so freaking tired so i stopped at like 5 or 6AM when they changed the game and had to ask Baby to wash the dishes that our friends used cos i was too tired to do so and was washing up and getting ready for bed. the moment i removed my contact lenses, my eyes could barely open and they started tearing so bad. i just went straight to bed and died. lol. Baby, thanks for your help that day :)

6th; Fiona's cheerleading teammates come to visit
woke up at like 3PM to find Baby playing Blackjack with Sis's teammates. lol. he was the banker again. i played for a while and won some money before it was our turn to have steamboat for late lunch with Mommy, Sis and Bro.

Scarlet sitting on Chris's lap after lunch

Baby and I went back to bed and slept all the way till like 10PM after Fiona's teammates left and when Clarke was over for a bit to visit and pick Sis up. Chris and I watched Blood, The Last Vampire before he went home. its a lousy film, by the way.

i feel like the time we spend together is always not enough since now we're only meeting up on weekends, staying over at either his or my place :(

hes uber busy with work and Dota after work on weekdays and im uber lazy since i moved to the new place. laziness is why i havent been going out as much.

i have not watched Shaolin. i wanna get Macarons too. been craving for them since few days back.

anyway, my CNY has been great. i like having people at our place, making lots of noise. haha. literally warming up our house for us.

its back to reality for everyone. back to work for most, and back to practicing my strings for me. i have not done so in a week, i think. i deserve to be shot over and over again.

i have quite a few items bought online that are due to arrive. my super belated Christmas presents from Baby from Victoria's Secret and Paramore online store. 2 backorder-ed dresses from HerVelvetVase.com and 1 dress bought few days ago from Victoria's Secret.

my temper has been damn bad the past week thanks to PMS. i've been cursing and swearing like noone's business. losing my temper at every single thing. i cant help it, i really cant. PMS is not an excuse. its true, it makes me a bitch. lol. i pity those around me. thanks for tolerating my nonsense. hehe. im driving myself crazy inside too. i get all these crazy thoughts. omg. thank god i hung in there and didnt do or say anything stupid with my raging hormones. hehe.

omg. its almost 6. i need to go to bed.