Dusting the Cobwebs

Look at the cobwebs over here. Geez!

As you know, time is always of the essence and there's rarely enough time for me to spare for this little blog of mine. Granted, I do miss scribbling my flyaway thoughts but gawd, I do not have the patience to wait for my laptop to start up and for this page to load. 

Instead, I prefer to bury my nose in a novel whenever I can. I love the libraries here ... the books are in great condition and I don't have to buy them anymore! I don't have any space on our bookshelves now that Brendan's occupy 1/3 of it. I've stashed my favourite books into boxes and they're hiding in the closet of one of the spare rooms.

Such is my love for my son. :D

So, books. And library.

Yes.

I get to borrow up to 40 items and books can be borrowed for 30 days. It's really such a good deal. I've renewed several toddler books twice and that's me hgging the book(s) for up to 3 months. Gosh. 

Well, just this 1 book. 

Image taken from https://shop.abc.net.au/thomas-amp-trains-of-world-bbk

He's a bit Thomas-obsessed at the moment. I'm not sure how long it will last, but he likes looking at books in general. Thank goodness for that. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but when he was younger (before he was 1 years old), he didn't seem keen on books so I was quite disappointed with his lack of interest.

Now I'm a secretly proud mama. :D

OK, back to me, before I go on and on and on and on about the love of my life. Brendan, not the hubs, mind you.

Last year was spent dedicating most of my time to B. This year, I hope to regain control of my weight and fitness.

My 1st event is coming in 2 weeks and I haven't trained as much as I had hoped. B and I fell sick after we returned from Malaysia last month, and we spent 2 weeks on the mend. It's funny how the unexpected happens, and now I'm rushed for time to get back into shape.

A 10km distance still needs some form of training.

When I first signed up for it in January/February, I had a goal which was to set a personal best (PB). Now I know that it's NOT going to happen. Argh!

Seriously, running 10km today was SUCH a struggle for me. I hope I won't suffer too much on race day.

Anyway, I don't really want to talk about running. Let's talk about food.

Once upon a time I used to judge people who had their freezer packed with frozen food. Now I understand WHY there's a need to indeed stash your freezer with some form of convenience. 

While I'm chopping meat of veg or preparing food to cook for dinner, my son would come to me and ask me to play cars with him. With such hope in his eyes, I do my best to spend a few minutes in between food prep to play with him. I can't deny him just a little bit of attention. Because it's not nice.

I do try to cook 1 pot meals or have the food prepared while he's napping. 

Recipe: http://msihua.com/2012/03/revisit-claypot-chicken-rice-with-a-rice-cooker-recipe/

I've made 'claypot' chicken rice in the rice cooker twice because I really like the convenience of it. It was also because I still had some leftover Korean sesame oil my neighbour had given me - it is REALLY good.

Its aromatic fragrance is more intense than say, the Malaysian ones we're so used to. I am sorely tempted to purchase a bottle (and use it sparingly) as the Asian grocer nearest to us has 1L retailed at $18. My neighbour says that's quite expensive.

Recipe: http://thesweetspot.com.my/?p=5833

Dry chilli pan mee was a almost a disaster for me. I used dried SMALL chillies for the chilli and boy, the heat was ridiculously intense that our heads were perspiring! The only saving grace was my first attempt at making noodles from scratch. They were nice and bouncy. 

The only problem I had was cutting the dough with a pizza cutter and then stretching them a little, before dusting them with flour (to prevent sticking) was a very time consuming job. Dinner was served late, it was almost 8pm when we started eating.

If I'll have to make them again, I'll have to start in the morning!

(Or buy a pasta making machine ...)

Oh gawd. It's time to prepare dinner.