Does any girl out there feel my way? Is there anyone out there experiencing a fork of decisions, or just always contended and happy with everyday life? Should I push ahead or learn contentment? I need inspiration...
Christmas Dinner 2008
Every year for the past ooooh so many years now we have a Christmas eve dinner, followed by a log cake, and of course the exchange of Christmas presents. This year though we broke the tradition a bit, by bringing forward the cake cutting and exchange of gifts, instead of the usual clock strikes 12am fun. Before I venture off on the wonderful presents received this year, this dinner was also different not only in terms of style, but we had a rather serious and brainy discussion. It was about the future of Dad's business. No details to be revealed here. A wee bit stressful don't you think?
The serious discussion was relieved by the holiday treat of ripping off the Christmas gifts! According to BBG, customer visits to U.S. retailers fell 24% last weekend compared with 2007, the biggest drop on record, as deepened discounts failed to attract consumers. Tough times call for tough measures! We were also more practical with gift exchanges this year. A simple present that I like from my pile this year was a book from my lil brother. "be happy" by Monica Sheehan...his Christmas greetings to me written in the book was "..Never lose sight of what is the most important thing in life.."
Today is the end of my two weeks vacation. An interesting discovery of myself during the two weeks. I didn't need coffee every morning to kick-start my system... I didnt know I could simply stay at home, read and listen to music, and sometimes idle my time away...I always thought I cannot slow down, and fear staying at home, rotting and getting bored. With this pocket of opportunity, I actually realize I can...although I am not sure if this can lasts long... but I realize I can... I can enjoy the simple joy of staying home (without any housework please...).
Christmas dinner prepared by Mum
Ice-cream log cake
Brown Sugar wrapped in each dang yuan
To make this, you will need glutinous rice flour. Well, Sri and Sumini both prepared the dough, the white and the pink respectively. The glutinous rice flour is mixed with a small amount of water till it "feels right". Sorry I don't know the recipe here, I mainly participated in the more fun bit, which was filling it with brown sugar in the middle, and rolling it into a ball.
Eating dang yuan in a must for the Dong Zhi celebration. This year, the festival falls on 21 December, Sunday. It is also known as the Winter Solstice Festival.
In modern times, many Chinese, especially Singaporeans, have probably stopped celebrating this occasion.
It is supposed to symbolize unity in a family. I ate 18 balls that evening!
Hopefully this rekindles your memory of having eaten dang yuan with your older generation. It is definitely easier to buy the frozen ones from Supermarket, but nothing beats gathering around a huge tray, chatting about the significance of this day, and rolling it for your family!Ever since the subprime crisis first happened in 2007, we have seen several other financial and corporate failures, exposing the weakness of the financial industry and the economy.
First it was the $700 billion bailout of the U.S. financial system, now Obama and congressional Democrats have entered into discussions over an economic stimulus package that would grow to include $850 billion in new spending and tax cuts over the next two years. - Washington Post. Whether this will pull the nation out of a deepening recession? Lets leave it to another post. While the economy slows down, so did I. Day 6 of my two weeks vacation. Mainly spending my mornings attending yoga class, and helped my mum a bit in the office at noon. I knock off at 5:30pm sharp. Yesterday, Friday, I went to check out the Isetan sales. Bought a hell lot of Christmas presents for my family and myself to stimulate the economy.
Read the following and found it interesting. Here are extracts of it. Enjoy!
"The New York Times", November 22, 2006.
ADDING IT ALL UP
By Rick Moranis
The average American home now has more televisions sets than people – according to Nielsen Media Research. There are 2.73 TV sets in the typical home and 2.55 people, the researchers said.
I have two kids. Both are away at college.
I have five television sets. (I like to think of them as a set of five televisions.) I have two DVR boxes, three DVD players, two VHS machines and four stereos.
I have nineteen remote controls, mostly in one drawer.
I have three computers, four printers and two faxes. I have three phone lines, three cell phones and two answering machines. I have no messages.
I have forty-six cookbooks.
I have sixty-eight take-out menus from four restaurants.
I have one hundred and sixteen soy sauce packets.
I have three hundred and eighty-two dishes, bowls, cups, saucers, mugs and glasses.
I eat over the sink. I have five sinks, two with a view. I try to keep a positive view.
I have thirty-nine pairs of golf, tennis, squash, running, walking, hiking, casual and formal shoes, ice-skates, and Rollerblades. I am wearing slippers.
ChongQing's weekly market, Oct 2008.
Spice - an important ingredient to complete every dish in ChongQing. No matter where you go, or what dish you have, it's cooked with spices. At some point, I felt that every dish on the same table tasted almost the same. The food is often greasy, but due to the cold weather and laborious nature of the economy, you hardly see fat people around.
