No more buying nail polish - so I said in March....


My kind of lunch


My Kind of dinner

Ski Teal We Drop compliments my garden gloves!


My reminder I do not need any more bags



So one day in Jan, D called me into the room where he had laid out all my bags on the bed and made me swear not to buy anymore bags. Took this photo and told me to look at this pic before I buy another bag...it hasn't worked...

My shopping at Changi T3, which almost cost us our flight...




First Rainbow in Autumn, taken just as I was whisked away to work



Someday I want to live in....



Childhood is this


My mum swears by this. And I lug it all the way back here only to find that just 3 days ago, they decided to stock it here. AiYarh!


But! It isn't the same formula. So maybe this wasn't in vain. D thought I was nuts.

I've been naturalized. I don't really like the term, it sounds like I got neutered. The ceremony was over in an hour and we forgot to charge the camera batteries and just at the moment I got my cert, the battery died. Anyway I came into work the next morning and there on my desk trying to be discreet was the Australian flag, and an email from my neighbour congratulating me, reminding me to rhyme talk and do away with my 'yankee' talk.(because I call cookies, cookies and not biscuits, sweets - candy and not lollies, and I used faucet once to describe a tap)

Then at 1030am, morning tea time, my team mates huddled behind me and were very proud of themselves while they presented me a laminated infamous national poem and a lamington to mark my new status. I was very happy and bemused. Australians take the whole patriotism so seriously and so proudly. They have a 'mateship' and a deep love for their country and the community. I don't think I've ever felt such national pride before, and their enthusiasm is very contagious.




My Country
Dorothea Mackellar

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Ever since S came, I learnt from her to wash veg submerged in water and wash it thoroughly to get all the gunk off (and worms yucks!). So here are the autumn veg swimming in my sink, reminding me that it is autumn and winter is fast approaching and that its time to embrace the sweetness of root veg and the other seasonal personalities.

So out comes a free range organic slab of pork leg. I don't have much luck with roasting...but after experimenting with heat, I managed to get a crispy skin! Something I have finally been able to accomplish after 5 years of roast cooking experience. Ah ha! something to put on my cookery resume. it got a tiny bit charred, but alas how else to get that chargrilled smokey taste.



And here is what that sink ful of veg turned into...Honeyed Roasted Japanese Pumpkin, Pasta and Cauliflower Cheese Bake, Garlic and Pepper Roast Pork and Stir fried Kale with bread crumbs. Kale is a beautiful green with a slight nutty taste. Ahh, it taste like kai lan but with a lemony slightly bitter after taste. Its refreshing and has a meatiness about it.

I think S would be proud to see so many vegetarian options here...

It seems like an eternity when I was at that place of dealing with a terrible who wouldn't sleep! I'm happy to say that he is back on a sleep schedule and we do not have problems putting him to bed..or rather we do not have any major issues to deal with. We have compromised now to leave his door ajar and a light on in the living room.

He's speaking loads now. Its full sentences and words that he picks up from day care and any day to day interaction. Its the important time now, where he listens to everything you say to him, and he repeats, almost savouring the words and depositing away into his word bank.

I haven't had the motivation to update this blog, plus life has been getting busy.

Winter is officially June 1st... and I am so in denial that Summer days are over :(

So last week, Ro's carer was ill for a good 4 days. We were not particularly keen to send him to another carer even though the option was offered. D preferred to stay home even though I offered to take the day off and stay home one of the days. (In hindsight I should have opted for another carer). So while D had the lovely time of bonding with Ro, he also managed to screw up Ro's sleep patterns by bringing him to our bed for naps with him. Of course who doesn't like the allure of a snuggling child and a daytime nap?
I should have twigged last thurs night when D placed ro in our bed to sleep before carrying him to his cot. We never did that before. And Friday night, Ro started protesting when he went to his cot. He woke again early morning and I unknowingly brought him to our bed.

Last Saturday was utter hell.

He simply refused to nap. But come night time. He refused to sleep in the cot all together. He was in his cot at 7pm. He called and cried and screamed till 9pm, when I went in to scold him for throwing his tantrums he eventually slept out of exhaustion. 1.30am -when I just crawled into bed, he woke. I tended to him, but he unleashed a demonic tirade of stubborn protests and pleads to sleep in our room. So much so, I had to leave the room. But his cries, especially at that time of the night, coupled with his tiredness just sounded so fowl and uncanny. When I did check on him concerned he was in pain or teething or did his potty..I encountered something other than Ro. I swear he was not my child the way he threw his tantrums. We got so angry with him we just had to leave the room. And the last I checked the clock it was 4am and I think I fell asleep out of sheer tiredness. I am not sure if he slept at all because when I awoke it was 645am and he was still calling and protesting.

Sunday - I felt so wretched and rocked him to sleep for his day nap. Come night it was the same ol crying. This time I thought I would do the controlled crying technique which worked when we returned from SG a few weeks ago. No. Instead everytime I went in, he screamed and cried harder. Tensions was blazing, and D stepped in trying his technique and basically it backfired on us. When he finally said he would be strict...Ro ended up vomiting.

Every day of the past week we have tried every possible idea we had. Out of sheer desperation I borrowed every toddler sleep technique books, and bought 2 I couldn't find in the library but was familiar with when I started sleep training Ro when he was 7 months old.

Tonight I have resolved to just let him cry it out. I've done it before. Even on Monday - but I didn't have the will and after 2.5 hours I went in to check if he really was not teething. So that backfired on me because it taught Ro then that I was going to come if cried long enough and hard enough.

Sleep deprivation is a form of torture. I have shed tears this past week, had arguments with D, I have just been a shadow of myself, and feel utterly weak and demoralised. I barely even register myself in a conversation. And I have been having dizzy spells. Its so stressful I am beginning to resent Ro. I can't even seem interested in playing with him, or feel as happy as before when he discovers new things. I have to remember that I will overcome this. He will pull through..and just pray that I do not operate vehicles during this time!

Yesterday when I stepped onto the streets sober from the morning train, I found volunteers giving out pots of plants as part of a green and healthy lifestyle initiative 'Put a plant on your desk'!


Here we are at my desk and my dual screen (makes me feel very important and efficient-dual screens)


I then decided to place my newly adopted succulent on my shelf where I can admire from the corner of my eye. Do you like my shoe a day calendar?

I call him Alex!