leaving the nest

So son no 2 has found the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with. I am elated.

And sad.

Just like with son no 1, my baby leaving the nest and staring his journey into adulthood is bittersweet. Yes I know, at 33 he has been an adult for some time.

is that what parents are supposed to do..

As an Asian parent we keep our little babies with us till they marry, and if they marry late, we could have babies in their 40’s still at home..

Parents know that their babies have to go forth and prosper, we know that we only have the initial 20 years or so to mould and guide them to become decent human beings.  I have had more time with my boys and while parenting is never over till the parent drops dead, the babies still are on their own once they leave home.

Which brings me to the point of all my ramblings.

I know they have to leave and make a life with someone who will be their best friend and partner for life.. its what all parents want but it leaves a gaping hole inside our hearts.  It does make it easier knowing they have found wonderful women to share their lives with.

I will miss son no 2 when he leaves but I am excited to see him as a husband and to see which path I choose once I am alone again.

Maybe that’s what prompted my second attempt with tinder..

docs & doctors

So at my age I still have not learnt whats good for me and whats not…. Being older does not mean wiser..believe me I know.

the docs

I recently bought myself a pair of Doc Martens shoes… not the big heavy boots but a simpler lighter (or so I thought) pair of shoes.

I wore them with jeans and to work and after 3 weeks of wearing the shoes (not everyday) I realized my back started to ache more and I was popping too many muscle relaxants at night.  It got to the point of me not being able to move on a weekend.  I spent all of Saturday and Sunday laid up in bed fluctuating from hazy medicated bliss to groaning in pain and trying to find a comfortable spot in the bed.

Something just didn’t feel right, and as son no 1 pointed out, if a pair of heavy shoes could do that to me, there had to be something else in play.  So, I went to see a chiropractor as all the medical doctors were doing, was to throw copious amounts of muscle relaxants at me.

I have had one session, need to get some xrays so they know what they ae dealing with but the difference was immediate.

I don’t know if its because I stopped wearing the Docs or the session really helped.  Last night was the first time in 2 weeks I did not swallow pills before bed time and woke up without a backache.  I still have to go get my Xrays done and go back to the Chiropractor and hopefully if the chiropractor can figure out how to heal me.. I wont have to put my Docs up for sale..

unscrambling the mind

Hello my old friend, i have missed you.

I havent written anything in ages and my mind is quite scrambled.

I now work 3 days a week, which one would think would give me more time to do things for me... well it doesnt.  apart from usual household chores, there is also Mum to consider.  My sister and I share the responsibility of taking her for her doctors appointments and as I work only 3 days, Mum usually coerces me into doing more.
and I let her.

I finally took a me day, a day with the camera at the zoo.  The last time I went to the zoo, I fell in love with the Chimps, so regal, so sad, so trapped.  I had to go back to take more pictures of them.

It was what i needed, a good day out by myself to not think just take pictures.

not the chimps but...

one of the Chimps

more pictures on my flickr

https://www.flickr.com/photos/102809648@N06/albums/72157701063316585
https://www.flickr.com/photos/102809648@N06/albums/72157695228932410

I was carded

I was delighted to know that I now qualify for the senior discounts at the cinema.. I pay half price on any day for the movies before 6pm.  I pay $4 at some cinemas!
All Singaporeans aged 55 and above get seniors discounts at all cinemas.. and when  I asked for the discount recently I was asked for my ID.

I suppose its a reverse ID checking.  Once a upon a time we got carded trying to sneak into places or trying to buy alcohol..  now we get carded because we want discounts..

the grown up bed

I finally have a grown up bed

My old bed from IKEA lasted 18 years... yes ...I still dont believe its been 18 years, and that includes the IKEA mattress too.. 

I have always had issues with my back muscles, and as I have progressively aged, my back in tandem seems to be acting up more, the old bed didnt help, I would wake up in pain and have to use my hot pack several times a day just to be able to move without wincing or moaning.

So after weeks of scanning websites, sales and going down to try out mattresses I finally bought a new bed. 

the old bed

My old bed was low, about 1.5 feet off the ground, which made it harder for me to get off the bed after a night of painful back breaking sleep on the woefully inadequate support mattress I had, but the bed frame was still in pretty good shape.  

Which led to weeks of agonising debate within myself, on wasting a perfectly good bed frame.. but it had to go.  So I did the next best thing, I put it up for sale on Carousell, where we in Singapore sell everything (I have sold my old corelle tea cups and my old winter coat) The bed frame sold within hours of me putting it up on the site which made me happy to know that the bed frame was going to be used and not just wasted.

The mattress however would not be good for anyone, so I would have to throw that away... to the landfill it goes I guess..

the new bed..cant see the bedside table in the corner

My old bedside tables are dwarfed by the bed, but I wont be getting rid of those as they are mid century pieces that my grandmother used.. but I finally feel like a big girl now with a nice adult bed..

the gluten free singaporean

I have always loved baking and cooking, trying out recipes and creating delicious meals and treats.

When I realised that gluten didnt quite agree with me I was pretty upset as it would be difficult to continue baking with normal flours.  That led me to experiment with different gluten free flours which took quite some time till I found the right blend of flours that would mimic wheat and gluten.

Once I got the balance right, I started experimenting with recipes and found that I could successfully convert recipes to GF baking.  There were plenty of disasters, I have had to throw loads of experiments gone wrong in the bin.
With practice came almost perfection, and the best compliment I get is, you cant tell its Gluten Free, so with the encouragement of the sons and the daughter in law and son no 2's girlfriend, I actually thought why not make it a sort of business..

I was never going to be the corporate goddess, I hate the corporate world and all the ass kissing that happens.  I am too blunt, sarcastic and just downright naive to excel in a world where the ass kissers and ball carrying  thrive.  So with me being employed (from tomorrow) on a part time basis, I needed something to pump up the income... hence the GF baking and the birth of the gluten free singaporean -  The facebook page

Salmon & Spinach Quiche

 the cinnabuns

The next step is awareness of my brand and baking.. which leads to more experiments in the kitchen of tarts, GF bread and cinnamon buns.  Bread is quite a challenge, GF bread is very dense so am still trying to get the right flours to make it lighter ( like they have in the supermarkets in the UK, best GF bread!)


I used to be the one eating all the baking I did, which had my waistline complaining, so now as I try to make rough puff, hot water crust and short crust pastry, I need a new plan on the ingesting of said experiments.

I  did give some to mum but after the last time I gave her the first attempt of
cinnamon buns ( they werent wrapped tight enough so the sugar melted and leaked out and created a burnt bottom on some) she complained that they were terrible... I may need to find volunteers that are aware these are experiments and I promise not to give them the totally gone wrong ones.....

I am also lactose intolerant, so the cream and butter in the quiches and tarts will have me running to the loo so I desperately need volunteers to eat all the stuff I bake.. any takers?

GF choc brownies - these are pretty good.. not on the taste test list..

epic fail starhub

so my cable company sent me a happy women's day coupon.....
ignore the very bad attempt at covering my name on this thing but seriously, to celebrate women's month, I get to feel like I need to achieve my ideal figure and get greater body confidence...

recuperating needs nourishment

While son no 1 was in hospital, he had to rely on eating what the hospital fed him..

Eggs and muffin for breakfast.. 

roast beef..... dried tasteless.. I tried it..

I figured that there must be some nutritionist somewhere deep in the bowels of the hospital that worked with the kitchens to prepare something resembling good decent nourishing food for the patients.

beef stew.. 

Unfortunately it wasn't so.
The nurses and staff at the hospital were wonderful, the care he received was brilliant but . the food, oh my the food

turkey meatloaf - not too bad pity about
the frozen veg

We feed our souls, we feed our bodies the right nourishment to get better.  I have always believed in that, the food we put into our bodies has to be fresh and cooked well.  I could not fathom the chefs on TV extolling the benefits of buy fresh and cook fresh, I thought that was what people already did, why was it such a 'new' thing to do, we had been doing it for ages.   then I came to North America and saw how people ate here.  Its scary.

Whats worse is that they feed that food to patients trying to get better in hospital.  It doesn't make people feel better.  One look at the food only made one feel worse.. much worse.

hard boiled egg... with shell.. how does a patient who has had surgery 
and cant use an arm, crack open that egg..

winter wonderland

So i got my first taste of what its like living in wintery conditions..

Vancouver

If adequately dressed its fine but when you have boots that arent made for icy roads it can be hazardous.. slippery and scary as I found out..













While son lay in a hospital in Vancouver post op, his wife and I were in a hotel close by and we would visit with him each day, getting to him early in the morning and going back to the hotel after 9pm.  and its been cold, -5 cold with snow flurries.. its really no fun walking in that kind of weather.

its not easy for me breathing in the cold air, its like the air supply suddenly slows down and you have to take deep gulping breaths just to get a smidgen of oxygen into the lungs.

on Vancouver Island.

but the snow is pretty, it makes everything look so calm and peaceful and when its falling its just magical. 
I know it disrupts everything, roads get wet and icy and its hard to walk on the snow without falling over and getting hurt for some but its just simply beautiful, for someone like me who lives in 30 degree weather all year round, winter has been quite simply beautiful.

delays

I arrived in Canada last night, tired, jetlagged but happy to be with son no 1 and my daughter in law.
why do i have to call her daughter in law.. cant I just say my son just gave me the daughter i never had..but then that would be weird as my daughter technically cant marry my son... my head hurts..

well anyway, after delays on the ground in Singapore, there had been an incident on one of the runways, the airshow is being held in Singapore and one of the aircraft crashed on the airport runway which led to flight delays. I hope the pilot of that plane is ok

I was supposed to be airborne and on the way to Taipei where I would get my connecting flight to Vancouver by 3.45pm, but because of the delays, we only took off at 6.45pm which is a 3 hour delay....
which meant that I could miss my connecting flight out of Taipei.

so before we landed in Taipei, I spoke to the cabin crew and they put me up front in business class, for just the landing,  no i didnt get to stay in business class all the way, so I could be one of the first to get off the plane and try to run to catch my connecting flight.
I made it to the connecting flight on time, but was worried about my bags..... I did not want to end up with no bags..

In Vancouver, much to my relief, my bags were on the belt for me to take to domestic for my last transfer but there was another flight delay on the last leg of the journey... a 30 min delay to take a 13 min flight from Vancouver to Nanaimo..

all in too many delays, 24 hours of traveling, but finally arriving in Nanaimo.

Son goes in for surgery next week...

i lasted 5 days on tinder

I thought why not give it a go

P thinks I hide away at home and avoid meeting people and I thought yeah maybe I am hiding. But I also realised that I enjoy being at home, alone, watching Netflix. So thats not really hiding is it?
But it does get lonely sometimes and I do wish I could find someone to play house with, but as I dont go out or put myself out there, the chances are very slim.

I realised quickly that there were scammers galore on tinder.  I was really disappointed and maybe I should have given it a bit longer but as everyone keeps telling me that I dont know what I want so how the hell am i supposed to figure it out on Tinder, I deleted my account after 5 days.

Maybe I am one of those that will end up all alone, with cats, and a shotgun... for unwanted guests.

the love life

I have been at this blog writing thing for a few years now and each year I check how many posts I do a year.  2017 was the worst, only 21 posts, each year they seem to be getting less and less and I am getting more miserable as time goes by, and not writing enough.
no wonder I am miserable, I am not writing enough!!

I quit my job last year and had one project to do, and was totally with nothing to do from the middle of November.  I went off to Europe to catch up with P and have a good holiday.
To sort my head a bit and think about what I wanted.

I did go see P to see if he and I had any hope of having a relationship, but P didnt want a relationship and I wasnt sure about him.  Its like if someone doesnt show any interest, you automatically revert to being friends, so P and I are just friends, good friends and I seriously enjoy his company.

I had stopped seeing A since June, I hadnt talked to him since then either.  He texted a couple of times but I didnt reply.  I did start talking to him when I got back home after the holiday.  Not to go back to the way it was, I missed talking to him and I wanted to try to be friends.
Things did escalate to the point of him trying to persuade me to go back to where it was but I cant.  He thinks intimacy can be achieved without sharing a life. I cant do that.  He doesnt want the drama of living and being with a woman.  He wants the peaceful balance to remain in his life, being with a woman will upset that.  He isnt wrong in wanting that and I am not wrong in wanting a live in lover/friend/companion/partner.  its a pity we both want different things and as he keeps reminding me, "you cant always get what you want"
So after 8 years of fighting, going back and forth and trying to do things his way, I am done.

I still will talk to him, still text but hopefully we can keep it as just friends and not revert to old habits of flirting etc.

so that leaves me wide open to go find someone..... am I up to it?  Can I be bothered to start from scratch and trawl through online or tinder for a match?

Who knows..

almost done

The contractors have left, my home is back to what it was, well almost

I got rid of all the junk i had accumulated over the years and re arranged some furniture, got new curtains for my room and as I had to move lots of furniture around, the whole place got a marvellous purge of dust and grime. Oh and I finally cleaned my windows after 3 ( or was it 4 ) years.

There are still some bits left to do , like getting a new water heater, as the old one is rusty and leaking now..why does one need a water heater in hot and humid singapore, well because we're pussies and cant shower with cold water..
and had to change one of the old taps that suddenly sprang a leak once the contractors replaced my fittings in the bathrooms, and no they werent about to give me a new tap.

nice accent tiles

welcome to my wet room

The place still has a thin film of fine dust, after they hacked away at the bathroom tiles but I think another good mop of the place should do the trick. 
There are exposed copper pipes in the bathrooms ( HDB does not allow water pipes to be hidden in walls as our walls are concrete and tiled) but I kind of like those pipes and I had them painted white before so could do that some day. and the grouting work sucks..


Bathrooms in singapore especially in the HDB flats are tiny and more like wet rooms, they get wet all over when you shower, unless you spend money to box yourself into a minuscule shower cubicle.

But I got  new tiles and everything for an extremely low price and all in my home feels refreshed, like a new start, just like for me...

nightmare

So today was the day the contractors would be fitting all the toilets and sinks ( the one they saved) and the accessories like towel rails, shower and bathroom cabinets (the one they broke).

But, there is always a but, they had not finished tiling my bathroom, it was impossible for the plumber to start.  I also had an issue with the section they blocked off for the shower area, it was too small to stand in and actually have a shower....

retiling today.. 

It was an exhausting day, i was yelling at them, getting riled up about wall plugs and fittings they had broke ( another thing they broke) and didnt tell me.

The best part was the plumbers supervisor telling me that the plumbing company will dock the workers pay for my broken bathroom cabinet.  I was horrified, and that supervisor knew he had a sucker on hand and he milked it.

 I found out later that docking the workers pay was illegal...
the lengths these contractors go to.. I was not amused!
Am i going to get my money for the cabinet... i dont bloody know!

So its been a nightmare day, for me and for the men working in my place today as I am sure I gave as good as I got.

Tomorrow is the final day and the handover... I hope there will be no more surprises...

i want to go home

So the Housing Development Board (HDB) in Singapore is  the government body that builds and sells high rise flats for the populace.  They also run and organise the upgrading of the older estates.
Singapore mainly consists of housing that is made up of high rise condos and these HDB housing estates.  These HDB estates are called heartlands where the middle to lower income citizens live.  These government built flats are by no means cheap to purchase but cheaper than private developments in land scarce Singapore.

I bought my flat after my divorce in 1997, and have lived there for the last 20 years.  HDB first did upgrading to our lifts, we didn't have lifts stopping on every floor, but now do.  The most recent upgrading was to our bathrooms.  Those of us that didn't do any earlier renovations to the bathrooms could opt to participate in the upgrading exercise to have both bathrooms in the flat completely gutted, and refitted.

furniture all wrapped and covered ready for contractors

I changed my toilets and sinks a few years back and was pissed with myself and the HDB because I knew that I had to do this upgrade as my tiles were in need of an urgent upgrade and that would mean losing my relatively new toilets and sinks
With alot of begging and cajoling I managed to get them to promise to save my sink when they were going to demolish the bathroom.  I am glad to report that they managed to do that.....but they damaged my bathroom mirror cabinet (some call it a medicine cabinet), I get to go get a new one which they will pay for... and rightly so!
They also broke my bathroom ceiling light...

all covered up...scene from dexter..

The whole upgrading of my flat will take 9 days and as there are no functioning bathrooms in the flat, I moved to stay with Mum for the duration.  I have had to go each morning to my flat to unlock the doors, then to lock up again in the evening which is excellent exercise time for me... however I wonder about the flat being left open all day... i have no faith in my fellow man and I am hoping some delinquent wont go in and damage or steal anything from the place.  I have locked most of my items that can be carried out easily in the spare rooms but one never knows.....

gutted...

I am missing my home.  I am missing my space and its only day 3.  Its not just the space I am missing, I am missing being by myself.  I am also stressed that I have errands to run and things to do, and make sure I go open and lock up each day.  The control freak in me wont allow me to relinquish responsibility to someone to help with the locking up.  I am stressed, out of my comfort zone and I just want to go home....