Merry Christmas

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, 

I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord

Luke 2: 10-11

To all my blogfriends, may God bless you this Christmas!

Thank you for reading my blog, taking the time to write comments (I read every single one of them!) and sharing your blogs with me and inspiring me all year round.

wet weekend

On Saturday, I went to watch Apple of my Eye (a Taiwanese movie) with my daughter. The movie made me think back to my days in school before I went to university. At age 17 to 18, there were so many things I did not know back then. In retrospect, not knowing was better, it made life simpler, more idyllic and less complicated :)

On Sunday, we went to hear my son play with his school brass band in the School Band Fiesta at the Botanic Gardens. He is the little guy playing the baritone, sitting right in the front. This is the third year he has played at the Botanic Gardens in December. It's going to be his last time performing with his school band there because come next December, he would have graduated from primary school. I hope he will continue to play in the band in secondary school. It was a rainy afternoon, but this small crowd (mostly family and friends) braved the rain to hear the kids.

I started knitting the lace edging for my bolero. 

Food pics to round off this post. Hainanese chicken rice at Boon Tong Kee. Chicken, gizzard and liver, and chee cheong fun. 

My daughter's fave 3-egg dish: steamed egg with preserved century egg and preserved salted egg. In the background is another of my kids' fave: crispy beancurd with mayo sauce.

Hope you had a good weekend too.

December nights

I have been more relaxed and enjoying my free time at night.  My husband has been in a cooking mood lately, planning what to cook for dinner, preparing the ingredients, doing everything. He doesn't follow recipes. Just throws in a dash of this and that, but it always tastes good.

His latest concoction: Crab Bee Hoon (rice vermicelli). There were 2 crabs in there, braised in lots of ginger and garlic, chicken stock and seasoned with sesame oil, soya sauce, pepper and mirin. It was so delicious, I hope we'll have it again soon!

I have finished knitting the pieces of my bolero. Seamed it up while enjoying kueh bangkit and chrysanthemum ginseng tea. I am now reading up on how to knit the lace along the edge instead of knitting a long strip and sewing it on.

In between knitting, I been browsing holiday magazines. I did not buy any holiday magazines this year. However I do have a stash of old ones. In the spirit of recycling, I'm browsing cookie recipes and crafts from Christmases past.

I have also found time to sit in the dark for a quiet moment and turn on the snowflakes string lights and star lights from Ikea strung around our wooden screen. From my wing chair in the corner I can also enjoy my Christmas tree lights. Hope you're having some relaxing December nights too.

christmas high tea

My girlfriends and I had tea at TCC. We had the christmas high tea set.

Can you see the tiny not-gingerbread man? No? Well, we put them together for a close up. Notice how one is smiley and the other is glum? He is not gingerbread but strawberry cake. This is the first time I took pictures of the food when out with my girlfriends because I wanted to show my daughter the cute little not-gingerbread-but-cake men. She usually joins us, as she has known these aunties* all her life, they visited her in hospital the day she was born! But she couldn't join us this time as she was having exams. My friend took pictures too for her daughters :) The wonders of technology. We all had handphones with cameras! One of my friends who has 3 sons and no daughters commented, "that's the difference between sons and daughters. If I took these photos of the food, none of my boys would be interested".

* they are not aunties by blood, not related at all, but here, older women are called "aunties" and older men are called "uncles" 

gift wrapping

I'm meeting my girlfriends for tea this week, and we will have our gift exchange, so I sat down to do some gift wrapping. I don't usually give handmade gifts but this year, I started knitting washclothes in February. Knitted washcloths, Body Shop bath gel and Face Shop masks.

Took only one photo of the washcloths with my phone camera before I wrapped them up. My Canon Ixus died after being my blog's official camera for 6 years. My husband wanted to buy me a camera to replace it but I'm not in a hurry. After all, there are 3 other cameras in this house aside from 3 phone cameras. I just need to learn how to use them :)

Crocheted gift tags.

Hot pink star (left) from the royal sisters grandma twinkle tutorial

Yellow, blue-grey and white stars (middle) from woolnhook

Tree (right) from the royal sisters grandma tree tutorial

This is a gift for my friend's niece, a teenage girl. Forgot to take a pic of the cute Hello Kitty bath set inside. How about you, have you wrapped up your gifts yet? 

bolero next

After completing my vest, and in the mood for more swingy knits, I was going to knit a delicate swingy lace tunic. But when I tried the lace, it gave me a huge headache because it was knit in lace on both sides. The lace was too advanced for me, so I had to quit. Then I swatched for a lace wrap cardi, but I couldn't understand how the star shaped lace stitch is supposed to be knit. So another attempt went down the drain. Defeated, I dug through my old issues of Vogue Knitting and spied the Lace Trim Bolero from Spring/Summer 2005 that I wanted to knit a long time ago. So I cast on for that. Wasn't too sure if it would work, but it was worth a try.

Meanwhile, here is progress pic. Nothing very photogenic. The yarn is ancient stash yarn. Bought around the time my son was born. He's now 11. The yarn is Palermo cotton from Stahl sche Wolle. It needs an eagle eye to knit with because it is something like 12 fine strands of thread plied into a tube of yarn. Very splitty = slow going. I have finished the back. That lace strip is the lower edge of the sleeve. The lace is also knit on both sides but it is 7 stitches and a 4-row repeat so I can manage.

I am behind in blogging my food pictures. Last month, or was it the month before, when my daughter was still on her long semester break, we went to Yomenya Goemon at 313 Somerset for Japanese style spaghetti. I like Japanese style spaghetti because the sauce is lighter than creamy or tomatoey sauces. It is closer to agli olio. I had scallop and Japanese chives spaghetti.

My daughter had mentaiko, pork and Japanese pickles (pickles karashi takana) spaghetti. We shared a dessert - a tiny chocolate cake with cookie and ice cream. No more one-on-one girl-time with her till next year. She's got quizzes, projects and mid-terms coming up.

little corner

Have you put up your Christmas tree? We've put our little tree in this corner near the front door. The french doors by the way are not our front door, they lead to the stairway. I like to see the lights through the french doors when I come down the stairs. 

cold

Earlier this week, I was down with a bad cold, blocked stuffy nose, groggy and heavy head. But I had to go to work because I had deadlines that could not wait. My handknits helped me battle the cold in my air-cond office.

Scratchy Noro Silk Garden (bottom)
Stretchy Rowan Calmer Capri (top)
Soft Sirdar Breeze (right)

This bobbled cardi was originally knitted for my daughter many years ago. I'm not sure why, but it "grew" over time and fits me now, in a slouchy, oversized way, which is perfect when all I want is comfort and warmth.

There are bobbles on the sleeves and the back too. The Sirdar Breeze yarn is 60% acrylic 40% cotton and it's one of my favourite cotton yarns.

It was raining all day today. In fact it's been raining almost everyday for many weeks now and it would have been so nice to have a steaming bowl of spicy ramen like this for lunch at work today. This is Ajisen Ramen's spicy ramen which I had for dinner last month when my son was away at band camp.

The closest thing I found in the canteen was noodle (kway teow) soup and hot milk tea. Comfort food. I still can't quite taste anything yet and I really wanted steaming hot soup to clear my sinuses.

Today's photos are courtesy of my handphone camera, which I realised is not too bad. And, by the way, I'm feeling much better already and it's great to be able to breathe normally again! Have a good weekend!