CNY 2012

CNY is over. Good things come to an end, as will bad things and all things. I guess, I can only look forward to next year.

I enjoy CNY, which is not too busy but not too boring for me. This year is not very different from past years, so I will just do some pic postings, and whatever comes to my mind..

Day 0, CNY eve, last Sunday. It was a leisure Sunday morning, so we went Macrichie to feed fish.

We couldn't find any fish, and we were hungry, so we eat the biscuits instead

Lynn saw this sign (I was walking way behind her), and she very excited called out to me to say that she knew why there was no fish. She told me that all the fishes were eaten by the birds..

At about 4pm, I brought Lynn to my grandma's house, and I went to TPY central to collect Yu Sheng. When I came back I saw Lynn and my grandma helping out with making "Suan Pan Zi", so I quickly snap a photo. I think this will be a very valuable photo for remembrance sake for a long time to come.

That night, after the reunion dinner, we celebrated WS's bd with an ice cream cake. The BD girl is camera shy without her makeup, so there's only photo of her very pretty cake.

Day 1 of CNY. We are usually very well rested, cos we never watch the variety show/do the count down on CNY eve. We did only 3 stops (my grandma, my dad at Stirling road, and my mum at Bishan) during that day. We took there photos during our way home:

That evening, May's family came for dinner. Mabel stayed at our place overnight and we set off for Malacca early on Day 2 morning.

Day 2
Our day started at 5am. Lynn was too excited to sleep well; WK's mum complained that she woke up multiple times at 3am and 4am. We started our journey at 6am, and reached Malacca at 840am.

I did a post on blog on that morning. [For some strange reasons, I can't find those photos that I took on that morning (which I already posted on that morning's blog posting) in my iphone now]

That day, as both Mabel and Lynn were there at the same time to terrorize the dog, cousin Jie actually locked the dog in the room. It was only on day 2 and 3 that Lynn actually got to play with the dog, hahah...

During lunch, Lynn used the chopstick to "scoup" the beehoon out of the bowl quite successfully.

Ater lunch, we went house visitings.
Baby payapa tree at 4th aunt's house:

Along the way to Ni cousin's house, there a lotus pond. 4th Aunt actually pluck 2 lotus flower out of the pond.

During dinner that evening, we took this pic of WK's mum with her 3 other sisters. Only the elder sis is not in this pic:

Day 3
In the morning we went to Malacca's famous Jonker street for a short walk. Here's some street deco, and a pic of a bakery sunning the pineapple tarts:

Day 4
We left Malacca at 9am, and went home to wash up and rest. In mid afternoon, we went Woodlands to visit Lynn's Nanny and WK's aunt. By then, all visitings were done.

On Friday night, I played some Mahjong at a colleague's house and won some money. Yesterday (Sat) some friends came, and today (Sun), WK has a friends' gathering. Tomorrow I'm having dept CNY loh hei lunch. So much for the Dragon year CNY. Till next year..

This is the feeling

Last week is considered my last week at Gf. As mentioned, I was extremely busy. I came to realise its because there is actually no end to work (emails keep coming in, issues keep popping up). So in order to put an end to whatever work I have by my last day, I chalked up a lot of hours last week. I'm a morning person, so I went office early and got the front row lot most of the days.

On Monday morning, I put out an out of office message about my last day. On Friday morning I sent out an email announcement to all who work with me about my last day and my replacement. Got a handful of replies, all of them touching my hearts. One of them is from this guy call Martin from our Germany office, which I was very glad to receive. I made quite a few promises to keep in touch. It's going to take me some effort to do that, cos I'm those who seldom SMS, email or arrange for meet ups, haha..

This Friday n 4 days next week, I will still go back office, just to do hand over. My replacement got the exact words for the arrangement, which is I am only visible to her and the team, and invisible to the rest. I am happy with this arrangement, cos I will have proper time to clear my reminding work, to clear my personal stuff from my computer, and to say goodbye, without any new work coming in.

Today is Tuesday, day 2 of cny, and I'm in malacca typing this post. The last 3 days have been busy doing all the usual cny stuff. This morning we woke up at 5, drove off at 6, and reached malacca at 845. I love travelling early to beat the jam and the sun. The sacrifice is worth it cos I can catch up on my sleep in the day.

From the time we reached till now, I have not been doing much. Ate some breakfast, watch the kids play, set up wifi, and blog. This is the feeling! This is the break I've been longing for..

Some Pre CNY activities

(I) Dragon!
It didn't started this way... 2 weeks ago I just casually told Aunt that every year she has visitors but she doesn't decorate her house always (depends on whether my cousin is busy or not), whereas I do (decorate) every year, and so this year, why not I just buy some extra stuff to deco her house. She said ok.

Last Sat morning, I went shopping at TPY central to buy the deco stuff for her. My aunt told me that my cousin will be home that afternoon. Suddenly I thought why not we make a dragon deco by ourselves (my cousin can be quite creative and artistic).

So i went to their house in the afternoon, and surprised everyone there when I told WS (my cousin) "can you draw a dragon head?". There were lots of "complains" around (why bother, just buy cheap and good and fast), but we still got on to it.

When she drew on the paper, the size looks ok. When we finally got them (head and body, made by ang bao) onto the wall, the dragon looks small and skinny. But it was just for the fun of it. It was really family bonding time.

(II) Reunion meals
I have already attended a lot of reunions this year, but I didn't use my phone for some of the events.

Last Sat we had one at Winny's house. I enjoyed this year's food much better than last year's. The few pot luck dishes (peng cai, mushroom chicken) + the steam boat were great. If I remember correctly, probably it was CNY last year that the pot luck included KFC, which just can't make it. I think CNY needs chinese food, unlike other gatherings.

Friday night was my family's turn. As unusual at Ming Xiang. More expensive then dinner at home, but every family has it's own style, and I like both styles (home for WK's family and restaurant for my family). The familiar place the familiar food selection, the same taste, and also the very joyous mood, smiling faces at every table there.

Didn't get the kid to take photo together because Joyce and Anthony are unwell. This pic, I realized has my 3 favorite persons in the world in it:

(III) Floral arrangements
As mentioned above, I told my aunt that I will decorate her house for her which will include a floral arrangement. Last Sat when I was there to do the dragon deco, she took out all her hamper baskets for me to select. All the baskets were big. After I picked one, Lynn insisted in bringing another one home.

Yesterday morning, I wanted to wake up early (7am) to go far east floral. In the end I reached there only at 9, and it was already JAM packed, so WK dropped me off at the junction. With the experience gained over the past Christmas, I knew that in order to have the correct variety of flowers for one arrangement, I will have to buy flowers which is enough for 3 to 4 arrangements. So I did one for mum too.

As the baskets were big, I used 3 hours to complete them. I'm really very very proud of the one I did for grandma. I think it's beautiful.

Mum's arrangement in the basket that Lynn insisted in bringing home. When the "Feng Xing Zi" blooms, it will be beautiful.

I put some of the extra flowers in a vase and brought it to May's house when I went for reunion dinner yesterday night (I didn't take any pic). There's still a little bit of flowers left in the pill, and I will get to them this morning.

Today is CNY's eve. I love the eves of holidays. Hope everyone enjoy their day, and have a prosperous Dragon Year!!

CNY Home deco

As per past years, I decorated my house for CNY. Actually this year, we have not invited anyone to our house yet, so the deco is really for our own amusement and for the CNY atmosphere.

This year I did some floral arrangements for mum and grandma. Whenever I do floral arrangements, there will be extra flowers left, which I would put in small vase, or make into smaller arrangements to place all over the house.

Here's the photos.

The focal point of every year, Yin Liu

This really spice up the house with the mood

Instead of real flowers for my fake round ball, I placed WK mum's handicraft flower on it

The left over plants

Birthday, count down, new yr resolution

1) turned 38 on last wed. Unlike most ladies, I don't mind growing old. I ever say to some friends, that my age is not a secret, my weight is, hahaha! 不怕老，但怕肥。hahaha...
At least 2 persons ask me how come I never take leave to celebrate my bd. I never do that, cos I'm in accounting so I never get to celebrate my jan bds.

2) had a super super busy week; year end closing + 2 projects is just so crazy. So tired, so hectic, so much issues to resolve, so frustrating, AND soooo looking forward to my last day. Counting down, so excited about ending it all...
5 more days to 拼, one last week of 拼。

3) during the farewell dinner with my team yesterday, nancy asked me: on the first morn that u r not working, what would u do. Don't know, have not thought about that (first morn) in particular. But I know what I want to do during my break, eg lose some weight, settle some financial stuff etc. One of it is set new year resolution.

My first bd cake for the yr

My first bd cake for the yr is only one slice. Wk asked Winny to buy a bouquet of flower and a small cake to celebrate at May's home. We were quite amused that she bought a slice. I managed to cut it into 5 pieces, so we had a small portion each. Must say I was pleasantly surprised, so thank u to Winny n wk!

Year end closing

Still counting down; only 2 weeks left.. happy me!!

Had a very busy week doing year end close. On tuesday, worked till almost 12 mn. Yesterday was the first fri of the year, worked till almost 9. This morn, took Lynn to office (wk not in spore again). I thot that we can leave in time to go to her 1115 Chinese speech n drama class, but in the end she missed it totally. Feel guilty about it, but what to do? Work is work, must finish; I guess that's why I quit..

Here's 2 photos of her taken at my office.

Spring cleaning

It may look the same to u, but it's not to me. My last spring cleaning of my cubicle at Gf. I take good care of my cubicle; it's where I spend a lot of hours in.
I have been neglecting my "zhu", which is already nearly 5 years old. So I thoroughly clean it today. Today is new year's day; I cut away some of it's rotten roots. So it will either die or grow more beautifully. Something new, something to look forward to in 2012. Happy new year to all.