If you are wondering why I suddenly have the time to post, it is because the long-awaited school holiday is finally here! However, I am pretty busy this holiday as I will be preparing for my wedding dinner which will be held at the end of this year on 12 December.

Today I went to choose my wedding gowns and managed to settle on 6 of them after 2 hours of choosing and trying them on. It was fun but tiring. The staff in the studio were pretty accommodating (even though we were late by an hour due to some confusion and traffic jam) and even helped me to pick two of the final gowns that I would be wearing for my photoshoots in two weeks time Not to mention catering to my indecisiveness because at the last minute I decided to change my mind and swapped one of the chosen gowns with another over the phone!

The next two blog entries are going to be about one of the most exciting (and I am sure tiring) parts of my life - my indoor/outdoor photoshoots. Two days of constant smiling and posing, walking about in grand-looking gowns in high heels and basically just trying to look my best - let’s see how they will turn out to be.

Called the maintainence department and hopefully can arrange them to come over to take a look. Keeping my fingers crossed as the repair fees is still undetermined yet. It is not cheap at all to repair my organ. Furthermore they told me that they may not have the available parts as my instrument is coming to 14years old, sighz. A brand new one costs $15k…

These days I have been listening to the songs I have recorded. Really should have record more of them if I knew. LOL, too late to regret.

Some of the songs that I have recorded.

(”How wonderful life is”, need to check the song title)

Shion (紫苑)

The Whole 9 Yards Theme Song

Arch of Heavens

True True

He & She (他她)

Canon in C

Sadded….

And gosh, I want a better camera, or a good tripod. My hands are shaky whenever I take photos.

Here are some pictures detailing the process:

Preparing cookie batter for baking

Baking in the oven

Our self-designed greeting card by dearest hubby

Hubby wrapping and packing the cookies

Ta-da!

Ready to be given out

Merry Christmas everyone!

Besides lazing around, I have also been trying out new recipes to test out the new oven in my kitchen. I am happy to say that the oven has been working fine and I am now totally on a baking frenzy!

Some of the dishes which I have tried out:

Chocolate Chip Cookies ~ Made 4 batches (around 40 cookies) which were gone in a week’s time!

Fruit Cake - filled to brims with dried raisins, fruits and nuts. This is one of the hardest thing I have ever baked. I have to keep a lookout so that the bottom and top didn’t burn and make sure the middle part is cooked at the same time. Totally torturous but the end product is really satisfying. Plus the longer you keep it, the nicer it tastes!

Shepherd’s Pie with Stir-fried Broccoli

I love the colors of these two dishes. And since my hubby does not eat beef, I replaced the meat with chicken breast meat. Turns out quite watery at first but I popped it back into the oven for another 15 minutes and voila! It’s perfect. Thinking of making it again some time this week

Do let me know if you are interested in the recipes for the dishes!

A quick update on what is going on in my life:

• I have survived the first half year of my teaching career and am now enjoying my end of the year holiday. I have just received news that I will be teaching Primary 5 (Grade 5) again next year so hopefully it won’t be as overwhelming as what I had felt before.
• I have also moved in to my new house early this month, as scheduled. So far, I have been enjoying my new house…my contractor has done a good job beautifying the place.

Main entrance

Cabinet facing the main entrance

Kitchen

Living room - facing the balcony

Living room - facing study room

Study room - Book shelves

Study room

That’s all for now…I will be putting up more pictures in my next few posts

Let the cute little nendos help describe it in more detail, hehe.

Miku: Leave it to us!!

Kureha: Bean sprouts, tied in a cute way using a red ribbon.

Kureha: This is broccoli.

Cute Rin: *looks in awe*

Miku: Although this is not my favourite leek, it is still a healthy vegetable.

How the panels are stacked together, with the clock.

It is pretty amazing that once a couple get their first house, their shopping habits will significantly change. These days I tend to look at more furniture, appliances, house decorations rather than my usual games and electronics. Getting more ‘homely’? Haha

Which reminds me, I am due to complete the last section of the “Price of Marriage” mini-blog series on rin-wendy.com. Last section is on house which previously I stopped writing due to lack of experience in that subject. Now is a good time to continue on, stay tuned for it.

I have not been updating for the past few weeks because it has been crazy over here, especially with my work. At one point, I was so stressed by it all that I started having diarrhea and had to go to the doctor, who told me that I am suffering from gastric pains, which could be due to my stress level. Luckily after taking the medicine, I am now feeling better though the gastric would act up once in a while when I was not eating proper meals at the proper time.

In a blink of an eye, two months have gone by since I took over the form teachership of a Fifth Grade class…and they would be having their termly examinations the whole of next week. I am rather anxious about how they would do in this exam and am crossing my fingers that they would do well or at least show some improvements as compared to their previous results. I hate to be so result-oriented but that’s the reality of teaching here - in the end what matters is whether you can deliver the results or not. But I know I have tried my best with them

I am also at a dilemma currently as I am supposed to be choosing my preferred teaching level for next year and I am stuck at choosing to choose either Third Grade (which I used to teach) or to follow my current class to Sixth Grade, which would be a crucial year for them as they would be sitting for their school leaving examination. I know I have been complaining about the high stress level and how challenging this class could be, but I guess the students do grow on you after a while I had not thought that was possible in the beginning of the term but now I think I would really have some good memories from the time that I have spent with this class.

It is now pouring outside and past midnight so it seems like a good time for me to stop and go to sleep now. Good night!

Without further ado, let me present to you all some of the plans and pictures of our new home.

Some house technical specs:

• Area : 126sqm (1356 sq ft)
• Age : roughly around 12years.(A resale flat)
• Type : HDB 5i

Current floorplan of the house

Proposed renovation idea

We will be getting a contractor instead of an interior designer to save on costs. The only bad thing is we have to manage the renovation on our own and come up with our own space planning and design ideas.

The proposed floorplan is drawn using floorplanner, a free online flash application for simple house planning. Do check them out.

Some current house pictures prior to renovation