Little bits of something

CNY 2012

circepalace — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:16:05 +0000

Picture taken before guests arrived

This year is the first time we are hosting a potluck party in our humble abode for Chinese New Year. Due to our shortsightedness, we forgot to bring out the foldable table which is much longer than our dining table. Nevertheless, everyone lingered long after the meal to chit chat..etc…so I conclude that the party is a huge success!

Chinese New Year is probably the only time where chances of getting everyone together for a meet up are higher, specially when the guests are all living in the west area. That was why I organised this party though it was a tempting thought to have a whole day free to laze around. Tempting because we did spent Sunday & Monday in Malaysia(was rather tired when we got back to Singapore), joining my mother-in-law’s huge family in the new year’s celebrations. The whole night was filled with fireworks set off by the neighbours. One pranky neighbour shot a series of fireworks towards our house so for a period of time, it rained fire & brimstone over the porch. Spectacular close up view of the fireworks but too close for comfort.

I’m glad we were able to go over to Kulai during the weekends for CNY sure feels alot different when celebrated there!

Pockets of time

circepalace — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:53:15 +0000

Exercise by the lakeside

I spend most of my mornings by the lake either cycling, jogging or walking my dog. It’s been increasingly easy for me to go along my sports while having Molly by my side because she is getting used to the routines, rules & boundaries we have established for her. Having a docile dog by my side means that I have more opportunities to think, reflect & pray while appreciating the view. That’s the pros of my work where the mornings are mine & mine alone. The cons are that due to changes in work, I may have to work nights. This means Hubby will only get to see me for 2-3 hours before it’s bedtime. Hubby & I are best friends & we enjoy spending time with each other. That’s why he sulked a little when I told him that for the coming 4 mths, I’ll be working on 4 nights per week.

Oh well, at least I can enjoy these 2 weeks before that upsetting schedule comes in place.

I envy my dog at times. She gets the company of mistress by day & master by night. Winner.

New stuff in the house

circepalace — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:48:45 +0000

Just when we thought that there isn’t anything we could possibly add into our puny 3 room flat, hubby came up with a pole system for hanging up both our bicycles in the living room & hence, some rearrangement of furniture.

That's mine. Hubby's previous bike was stolen so he's getting a new one tomorrow.

Shifted the living room table to make room for the bicycle pole. New location: nearer to the windows

My camera couldn't capture the light in the bedroom well. Hence I ripped this off some catalogue.

There are nights where I’m in a reading mood. While I enjoy the ambience lighting in the bedroom, I’ve always lament about it being unsuitable for reading. I definitely need a direct light source that fit in with the whole design of the bedroom. When hubby & I saw this $29 ceiling uplighter+reading lamp in Ikea, we grabbed it. Each of us spent the night doing up these stuff in the house & ended up sleeping after 1am. Needless to say, both of us were rather tired the next day but we individually managed to catch a couple of winks in between jobs.

Molly only managed to get her real serious walk at around 6pm. She usually gets them in the mornings. Not today. It was just a short 10 mins pee wee break.

I’m glad I had the opportunity to catch sleep during lunch time. Else the walk would be hurried & I would have missed the wonderful view by the lake. Though there was a proper walkway, I chose to walk by the banks, enjoying the breeze & the uneven ground.

Life is great.

My new toys

circepalace — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 02:20:51 +0000

Went from Apple to Motorola

My 1st tablet

A few weeks ago, I took a bold jump to go all Android devices instead of Apple. Reason being I found Apple products a little on the pricy side, restrictive & the design of the latest 2 iphone too bulky for my liking. Though many question my choice of Motorola over Samsung Galaxy Note, I still happy with my purchase. I didn’t want a phone that is too pricey & since hubby bought me a tablet, a phone with large screen display is not gonna be of much use. The tablet that hubby bought is rather cheap, so it doesn’t comes with the easy to use Android market. It does makes downloading applications troublesome but still achievable. I just have to find specific apk files for the applications I want & install them in. Viola, I can use my tablet for work!

Notti Molly

circepalace — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:55:18 +0000

Molly hasn’t been on her best behavior after been left at the dog sitter’s place for 3 days. My guess is that she has been spoilt rotten by the dog sitter’s family & was pretty much left to do whatever she wanted. Hence, she pretty much carried on with her princess prima donna behavior when I picked her up after I returned to Singapore from a weekend getaway with hubby. Though it’s kinda irritating that I have to retrain her to get her back into shape, it’s something I have to do. You would think that a dog running into the lift before its owner is a perfectly normal behaviour. Yeah right. My friend had the worst fright of her life when her dog ran into the lift just as the doors were closing & the collar was still attached to the retractable leash. Good thing the leash broke before the dog’s head rolled.

A dog following its impulses in a city can lead to dire consequences.

Molly’s an extremely intelligent dog. Some stuff, I don’t have to keep repeating like a broken record. Take today, I realized that she was making a mess with the apples & so I decided to have her eat on a piece of towel. Every time she lifted the piece of apple off the towel to the floor, I placed it right back. I only have to repeat it thrice & she got the idea.

I’m not so confident she’ll obey if I’m not around though.

Learning point

circepalace — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 11:09:39 +0000

One good thing about being an early bird is that my day feels longer & I can accomplish certain things in the morning before I go off to work. Spending time with my furry friend, Molly, is always the highlight of the day. These days, I’ve been making a deliberate stop at this fitness corner in Jurong Lake Park, teaching her some new tricks. The process was not without mishap. Each barrier is higher than the other & Molly needed a lot of coaxing to cross the final one. There was once she hesitated, lost momentum & hit the rope instead of going over it. I didn’t react to the mishap because I didn’t want her to associate the last barrier as a thing to be feared. I repeated the whole drill, increase the amount of praise & excitement with each barrier & when she finally cleared the 3rd barrier, I rewarded her with plenty of praise & treats.

Training Molly isn’t without its peaks. Other than developing a better relationship between the 2 of us, I also tried applying some of the techniques I did with Molly in my work as well. Often, we Asians focus too much on the failures & gave too little encouragement. We thought that by criticizing, it’ll motivate the other party to perform even better. I do make this mistake from time to time as this culture is too ingrained in me(yup, I had it hard from my mom), till I did some research on dogs & then applied the techniques in Molly’s training. I try to remember each success I had with Molly whenever I hit a roadblock with my students. Work isn’t smooth sailing all the time but I’m beginning to see some results in the behavior of 2 of my most difficult students.

Whatever we do in our lives, does make a difference. It’s just a matter of recognizing the opportunity & act on it positively. Of course, the same darn old pessimists will just look at me & say,

“You’re so full of optimism.”[sarcasm]

Hectic but happy

circepalace — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:01:14 +0000

Usually the last 2 months of the year are supposedly my slackest but I find my work pace picking up again 2 weeks after exams. It’s good because being a freelancer means that I’m only paid if I’m hired & if I’m hired it means the clients like me enough to keep up the lessons during the holidays. The bad is that the 2 weeks of slack flew past too quickly. These days I’ve been leaving home for longer periods of time than usual & was rather worried that Molly, my dog, will continue her new destructive habit of chewing the chairs’ leg socks off & rearranging all the carpets in the house. What I did for the past few days was to cycle her for longer distances in the mornings & making her jump across barriers. All these really seem to work because so far so good. Everything is intact when I come home.

Morning routine of running through some basic obedience commands

I must really be a born optimist. My in laws & the kids followed us to the West Coast Dog Run last Sunday & within 10 mins of our arrival, it began raining heavily. Everyone was whining on & on about the cold & the rain as we huddled under the shelter…eeewwwwing alot when a big wet golden retriever came splashing by…blah blah blah. Yes, the rain was a big joy killer but I refused to let it get me down. When the rain lightened, I walked Molly to where the other dog owners are & was amazed to hear casual chit chat. No one was huddling looking sorry about themselves or bitching about the weather. The dogs simply ignored the rain because the owners thought nothing of it.

I’m glad that I’m not the only adventurous happy-go-lucky lady around. Yeeehaaa!

XX Days of Alvin & Ally..still counting

circepalace — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 17:58:25 +0000

My beloved hubby striking a funny pose

After watching the wonderfully refreshing romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer, hubby started recalling his own personal – (Still counting) Days of Ally, which started 4 years ago on an evening in Toa Payoh Pizza Hut. Subsequently, he shared that before he met me, he always felt he plays the supporting role when it comes to romantic relationship. The main actor gets the girl while the supporting actor looked on. Such remarks are hardly believable by anyone (because of his good looks), except for me since I’ve known him way before our relationship started. Yes, when I first saw him, he looked really fit & gorgeous. Though he has put on some weight over the years, he still has the ability to turn heads.

Still, his good looks doesn’t really worries me. Mainly because hubby will address any issues of insecurity appropriately & that we agreed that while we should be accountable to each other, what truly binds us to this relationship is our God. I don’t have to resort to playing politics, mind games to keep him by my side. I don’t believe in doing all these anyway.

Right now, we are trying for kids. I’m not sure if it’ll be successful given my unpredictable menses. Friend with similar conditions hit the jackpot after 7-8 years in her marriage. Well, we’ve talked this over before. No stress in this area. Whatever the outcome, we will still be us.

Very much in love.

Digital doorlock

circepalace — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 05:10:23 +0000

We had just installed a digital door lock at the main door last night, adding another new toy to our cosy hotel-like home. Gleefully, we took out all the house keys from our key pouches & replaced them with keys from our parents & in-laws. No longer do I have to worry about a break in to our house when either of us lost our keys OR carry an exploding key pouch with us wherever we go. Both of us can walk the dog without carrying anything with us. We are also able to give access to our dog sitter without giving him a set of keys.

Some background about this device. The operating mode is either by password entry or card reading via scanning. Any card that matches the frequency of the lock can be programmed too. It acts as a burglar alarm as well. Another benefit of having a digital lock is it removes the possibility of having someone pick locking the door. Of course, I would never think of my house as a bank vault just because I’ve installed a digital lock.

If someone is carrying a portable flame gun, they could just burn through the whole door!

Boleh!

circepalace — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 04:09:22 +0000

Sometimes, I wonder if our neighbouring country knows that what they’re talking on national TV. Got this link from David, hubby’s nephew from Malaysia.

I’m feeling bouts of tiredness ever since the peak period in my work is over. Must be my body fighting the virus. Nevertheless, I still pretty motivate to bring my dog for a walk & do some fun stuff with her. It’s pretty hard to take videos or photos of her doing tricks at the same time while I’m giving the commands. Today’s my 1st try in teaching her to jump over the barrier & she was pretty exhausted after a few takes. I love an exhausted dog at home because it leaves me free to do my own nerdy stuff while she naps. Of course, I rest better knowing that I’ve kept a mid-energy dog happy too.

I hope I get well enough to bring her to the dog park on Sunday. I really love being with all those different kinds of dogs.