does true love exist

why do we remain friends with an ex, because we hope someday that the ex will realise what a mistake it was to let us go and want to be with us again..

well thats what I have been doing.

 with A with P

holding onto to something hoping one day something will happen
it doesnt.
the reasons we split up are still there and they dont go away, they dont miraculously resolve themselves.  All it does is to hinder moving on.  I have not been able to move on from A and from P.
Hoping one of them would suddenly realise I was the one that got away.

It stopped me from wanting to meet new people, to date again and to pick up and start making a new life for myself.

Its been really hard facing up to the truth of firstly how I felt about those 2 men, then the fact that I had to sever all ties and stop pretending that we could be friends.

I hated hearing about how P was off in Europe without me, living his life (he says he isnt happy but he made the decision to not make a go of it with me) The thing with P was that I adored him, he was like my best friend, someone I trusted and wanted to be with,  in the beginning I pulled away and said lets just be friends.  
P then very quickly found another girlfriend and I did feel  that he was just into me as a friend as he found someone else so quickly.  Then when he split with the new girlfriend, we started hanging out more.  that was when I really started to fall for him, but he left for Monaco...

So I figured I didnt have anyone, might as well just go get what I could from A..
Just sex and nothing more... but I was with A, on and off  from 2009, and it was hard to get him out of my system.. I made excuses to have him in my bed just one more time..

A is a different kettle of fish though, he just wasnt into me and I wasted so many years not listening to my instincts and thinking if only.. He did take advantage of how I felt about him to get what he wanted.  He was callous, dismissive and brutal, and I let him do that to me.
My instinct was always to get as far away from A as possible, but he knew what buttons to push to bring me back to him.  

I have written about A so many times, how I say no more and swear that I will never go back.. I delete his number and when he texts a few months later, I am like a woman dying of thirst,  given that first drop of cool water..

I want to move on.  for my sanity I have to move on.  I want a partner in life, I want that person that I wake up with every morning.  I know relationships are hard and i am naive that I think that 2 people with baggage and hang ups can actually try and work things out.  I believe in happy ever after and true love

Its just that I dont seem to be able to find it..

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...