looks like jan’s class won’t be learning that much in school the next week. they don’t report for school for two days this week while the sixth graders sit their school leaving exams. on monday, after a 4-day weekend, they’ll watch the table tennis event at the YOG and on wednesday, they will have a mini-excursion. by the time they get back on track next week, there’d be cobwebs on their school furniture… and maybe in their heads, too.
sheesh. where did the month of may go? one lone entry for the entire month? i think this must have been my lowest batting (blogging) score.
the blogger’s paradox has hit me big time. and it’s a shame because this is one month where so many things have happened and i’ve captured none of them for posterity. yowza.
there was mia’s birthday, which she co-celebrated with 2 of her other girl friends since birth. it was a great get-together of the families we’ve gotten to know because of mia. i baked her birthday cake myself– a three-tier tower or princess lillifee mini cupcakes. thank you for the help, dr oetker.
there was our saturday at the national museum where where we caught ‘monkey-see, monkey-do’ as part of the children season. jan and mia still re-enact some of the spiels to this day…
oh there was the evening where i screamed in shock as jan shaved half of his eyebrows while he was in the shower. my beautiful son! now he looks like yoda’s human half-brother.
there was the day we received jan’s semestral report card. glowing accolades from his form teacher, marks for english and maths that were high enough to put him on “band 1″, or the first tier of students. he flunked his mandarin, though.
oh there was that saturday afternoon when i thought my heart would be permanently lodged in my throat as i navigated the tree top trails at forest adventure, zipping across land and water, with my life totally dependent on two hooks on steel cables. i should have browsed for insurance online. it was fun, yes, but once is enough, thank you very much.
and birthday party after birthday party for the last weekend of may.
i’m sure i missed a lot of little things– shuttling jan to guitar and tae kwon do lessons, mia’s pajama party at the preschool, our new dslr toy, my foiled attempts at job search, my shrek date with jan… and the hundreds of photos that are yet to be downloaded, ack!
it’s been a merry month of may, indeed!
dunk tortelloni in boiling water.
simmer for 6 minutes.
while cooking tortelloni, chop tomatoes, spring onions, and mince a clove of garlic.
add olive oil, salt, and a dash of dried basil.
drain tortelloni.
transfer to a bowl, top with tomato salsa.
serve.
we’ve been having this salsa (sometimes with lightly sauteed zucchini or mushrooms) a lot on our pasta lately instead of the usual bolognese or cream-based sauces. it’s easier to prepare and the fresh salsa is a lot more appetizing in this energy-draining hot weather. a heart-healthy lunch (no alternative for cholesterol treatment, but garlic and olive oil are good for the heart) that’s easy to prep. san ka pa?
blogging has taken a back seat the last couple of weeks. eastertime has been a busy one this year. we’ve made lots of easter crafts this year and on easter sunday, we had jan hunt for easter egg nests in the living room and he found badminton rackets, play doughs,a quiz book (early lsat prep, haha!), blow bubbles, fingerpaints, pencils, eggs and lotsa sweets. mia too young to go hunting but was happy to gush with every find. we had another egg hunt planned for outdoors and were invited to another, but had to scrap them both because it was raining buckets.
the easter weekend was also special this year with my mother in law coming over and staying with us over the easter weekend til yesterday. the kids had a fabulous time showing oma around, giving her snippets of our daily life. my mil is undoubtedly one of the easiest mothers-in-law to have around, really swell to chat with, and while it would have been nice to have her a wee bit longer, it’s also nice to go back to our normal daily grind again.
holiday over. back to normal.
last week, during jan’s school holidays, we’ve started our annual easter-related activities. we’ve started painting easter eggs, and realized how most of the stores here in singapore now sell brown-shelled eggs. it was surprisingly difficult to get white-shelled ones! for the next batch, easter egg painting, i think i’d like to try marbling, rubber band designs, sponge painting, or even making a collage on the eggs! let’s see if we will have time for all these in the next few days.
jan also painted cardboard eggs.it was a pain to cut out egg shapes from thick cardboard without abox cutter, but he’s made half a dozen or so which now hang on a makeshift mobile in the living room.
next project: easter egg baskets. i’ve found some pretty simple templates on the web, but i need to make a trip to a craft store first for some of the materials. ugh, but when?
so the inevitable happened. since mia and i share spaces closely (and closed spaces), it was no surprise that the bug was able to jump prey and mia fell sick, too, two days after i did. luckily, her episode seemed to have been a milder version and she didn’t look like she was overly bothered.
not so lucky was the third victim, jan. i suspect he got it from mia, as i was already much better by this time, but he displayed the full version that i had. vomiting, lethargy, fever and no appetite (yeah, we don’t need no weight loss programs). so after a single day back in school, he’s now back to being quarantined at home, lest he spread the virus to the entire school.
will hubby be the last man standing? remains to be seen, haha!
i thought that having fishies as pets was the simplest, but well, it turns out that maintaining an aquarium isn’t that simple after all. barely a week after we’ve installed the tank and all paraphernalia, the water already turned a bit murky and obviously had to be changed. fortunately, we just have a small tank and we didn’t need water softeners, so replacing water (we just replaced half of it) wasn’t too much of an effort. we had to use chemical dechlorinators, though.
we need to empty the entire tank, though, clean it, and put entirely fresh water. how often this exercise needs to be done, am not too sure. oh well, not my problem. hehe.
when we first moved into our current flat, i loved the shine of the newly polished marble flooring. see, we had large ceramic tiles in the common areas of our previous flat, and while it was really low-maintenance, it kinda gives you the feeling you’re lounging and watching tv in your bathroom. so the marble floors (and parquet in the bedrooms) came as a pleasant change.
until i realized how difficult it was to maintain that polished shine. it was too late when i learned that spills and splatters from fruit juices and anything remotely acidic can easily leave etch marks on marble that apparently can only be removed by professional grinding and polishing. just two months after we moved in and our living areas are a nice mottled, speckled marble. ack!
any ideas for quick (and cheap) fixes?
christmas may have been over, but the little ones in our household just got new presents last weekend. jan got a small aquarium tank and 7 little fishies. he (and his father) has been bugging me for a hamster and i conceded on the pet issue by compromising on an animal that is least likely to be in the way. i already declared that i am not lifting a finger on the upkeep of said fishies. my official reason is that i am not condoning the domestication of animals for one’s entertainment and caprice. the truth is, i just couldn’t be bothered, hehe.
mia, on the other hand, got an ikea miniature kitchen and some wooden play-food
it was hubby’s birthday, and it was the kids who got special treats. 
i met a friend who has been away for four weeks and she one of the first things she asked was, “have you lost weight?”
huh? is it possible to lose weight without lifting a finger to exercise afterall? even when i consume chocolates by the bars? and chewy cookies, cinnamon rolls and raisin loaves?
the best fat burner?
flu.
for the entire family.
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| Bambi Holzer |