What I'm thankful for

Thanksgiving just passed for a few days but I think it is still appropriate to pen down things that I'm thankful for. Now that I've grown older and wiser, I realized that grateful is the key to happiness. Not trying to be preachy la but I've found that feeling grateful and thankful has help me to feel better and happier.

1) Smooth pregnancy
Okay, this is of course is on top of my list. I'm 4 weeks away from my due date and so far everything has been smooth for me. Albeit some hiccups during the last trimester, everything else is doing fine especially my baby. My baby is right on track for her development except that she's in breech position now and we probably will see her earlier if she's still not turning till next week.


2) The husband

I have to say the husband is the reason that I'm at ease and feeling stress-free during this pregnancy. He's been really good and always putting me as priority. Although there are times when things are challenging for both of us, I'm glad that we worked it out. Now that we're becoming parents, I can see the obvious changes in the husband. Last time our priority would be planning holidays, eyeing gadgets and went out having fun. But now he is all about saving for future and looking for more opportunity to improve our financial so that he can provide the best for our child and me. Yeah, you will start to worry about future when you have child even though she's still in the oven baking.

3) My family

Distance makes the heart grow fonder and it is true in this case. My siblings are all in different districts now due to work commitment and study and we all grow closer than ever now that we're not living together anymore wtf. We even talked more and texted more now which brings all of us closer than ever.

4) The opportunity to travel

I'm so grateful that I got a job that pays the bill and let me have the freedom to travel the world. The addiction to travel started when I got my first paycheck and I always set myself to visit at least 3 countries per year. So far I have been good except for this year because I have to forfeit my trip to Perth but for a very good reason (I'm heavily pregnant during the travel period). And my plan for next year is looking good with two trips confirmed but I'm still hoping to squeeze in more holidays even with baby.  

Disneyland Hong Kong

Angkor Wat Cambodia

Bali

Krabi

5) My friends

I don't have a lot of friends but I have a handful of friends that I know I can count on. And these are the people that I had known for more than 10 years. We had been through a lot from hitting puberty to first love and now figuring out adulthood. Having these friends around really makes my life happier and livelier. 

All of my thankful points are probably sound cliche but it is true. These are what I'm really thankful for. All of the above made up a big part of my life and add meaning to it. 

October update

So what's up, you guys ask?

It is pretty much the same to me. Wake up, work and sleep and repeat the whole cycle again. But I have to say, I kinda love this. I'm trying to squeeze in as much alone time with the husband before baby arrival. So our nightly routine pretty much the same. After work, we would have dinner and watch movie together or sometimes he watches his movie and I read my book side by side. I'm finally getting back into reading mode again and I really love it. Just last week I've finished Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult and as cliche as it sounds, Picoult touched my heart again with her story. 

Anyway, let's the photos do the talking. These are the photos that I took this month.

Was scrolling through my phone and I found that I rarely take selfie now. So decided to take one on the way to work. Putting on mascara every morning is such a hassle to me, so I have been playing with the idea of eyelashes extension.

I thought of doing it on December so that I can have pretty lashes during confinement wtf. I mean if it makes me happy then why not. At least I can be pretty and happy without hair wash for a month lol.

This was taken during my 28 weeks and now I'm 31 weeks and the bump has grown significantly bigger which means limited wardrobe choice. 

Since my wardrobe choice is limited and I'm not planning on getting anymore new clothes to accommodate the bump, I'm rotating my clothes that fit on heavy rotation. I will make a dressing the bump post soon. Right now, the dress above is my favourite because it is so comfortable and doesn't restrict my movement.

Was attending dinner with husband and his family early October. Bummer that we didn't won the lucky draw this time because last time in Kuching, we won quite an impressive lucky draw. I have to say our baby brings us so much luck. I'm feeling really really grateful for it.

We managed to squeeze a visit to Brunei on long weekend in early October to visit my cousins. 

It was an impromptu plan because my aunt wanted us to come over to pick up some hand-me-down stuff from Kelly for our baby but we couldn't manage to find time. Plus, we need to drive all the way from Sibu to Brunei and bumpy car ride doesn't sound like fun when you're 6 months pregnant. But we realised that the long weekend in October is the only long weekend left before the baby's due.

So, we just went ahead. I'm really glad we did because I had wonderful time catching up my aunt and cousins. But the ride came with big price, we drove straight back from Brunei to Sibu and the whole journey took 12 hours. I couldn't felt my bum and back afterwards. 

I had the best dim sum breakfast ever and it is halal.

I was beyond tired when we reached Sibu and the next day I had a Modified Glucose Test scheduled early in the morning. I thought I was okay and went ahead with the test. 30 minutes into the test, I threw up because I got dizzy and started to break into cold sweat. Bummer but I already scheduled for another one next month. I've asked the doctor is it necessary to do glucose test, she explained that is it the hospital policy to have expecting mother aged 25 years old above to do the test. I guess there is no escape then.

Say hello to my 29 weeks bump

And this is my 30 weeks bump

Someone is taking advantage of my bump as his resting spot. 

I feel so guilty for spending less time with Pino now. So when I'm home, I'd make sure that I bring him for long walk which is his favourite activity. He's 8 years old now and I could sense that he's not as active as he was before. It's sad to know that my little pup is growing old.

Many has asked whether I eat clean during the pregnancy, honestly I tried to but I didn't stick to any diet. Most day I have my meal on time in small portion. I do snack in between and this is where I get naughty. During my first and second trimester, I diligently snack on fruits only and totally avoiding junk food and carbs such as bread.

My favourite fruits are kiwi and seedless grapes.

Sometimes, I do have instant noodles such as maggie curry as dinner. This is my guilty pleasure and if it is up to me, I can have this as dinner every night. During this pregnancy, I've developed sweet tooth. Another guilty pleasure of mine that I had almost every day is ice cream. Husband knows that I love ice cream but what he doesn't know is that I had it every day. Hehehe I sneaked a few scoops when I'm alone. 

I never thought that I would love chips and chocolate too because pre-pregnancy, I detest junk food and anything sweet. But now, I can finish a packet of chips on my own in less than 10 minutes. Even the husband is shaking his head. 

Yup, this is our groceries.

But when it comes to carbs, I still try to reduce it. During my last checkup, the nurse did mentioned that my weight gain is slightly fast. I'm 7 and half months pregnant and has gained 10 kg. So, I guess no more sneaking ice cream for me then. sobs

This year the husband decide to go back to basketball and joined a competition. 

It is refreshing to see him back in the court. They're playing in semi final now and some games were very nerve wrecking because the points were so close. Even the baby in my bump is as tense as me when I watched the game. We just got back from the game now and too bad that the husband and his team lost by one point. It was so close but it's okay, they'd played well.

That's all for my October update!

My episode of UTI

So this is what happened to me last Sunday.

I woke up late and rushed through lunch and forgot to drink water. I had chicken soup for lunch and thought it was enough la. Normally I have a glass of water once I woke up but that day I was rushing. We had quite a busy day ahead of us from picking up the bf's sister from airport, buying grocery with his mom and visiting his grandparents.

Then the super hot weather also not helping. I suddenly feel the pain ermmm down there. It was not exactly pain la but more like discomfort and had the urge to pee but no pee or very little pee came out. Sorry ar, this is a little too tmi.

So I've concluded that it must be because of my lack of water consuming and my body was dehydrated. To make up for it, I've downed lots of water. The urge to pee came even more frequently and it was really really uncomfortable down there when I was peeing.

I thought nothing of it and continued to drink as much as I can. Then Monday morning I woke up with abdominal pain and the same discomfort down there. It didn't matter how much fluids I was drinking. going to the toilet was a pain in the ass.

I got curious and Googled UTI symptoms since I know some people who had it before. I've got:

- Burning sensation when peeing
- Frequent urge to pee but very little urine
- Abdominal pain

Then that afternoon, I had blood in my urine wtf. That was when I was 90% confirm that I have UTI. Went to the doctor after work and they took my urine test.

And yes, I got UTI or more specifically cystitis. Got prescribed antibiotic and now everything is slowly getting better. No more blood in urine, no more abdominal pain and less discomfort down there.

I'm so grateful that this is just a minor infection. So ladies, listen up. Never took your health for granted. Always always take good care of your body and hygiene. After this episode, I am really anal about cleanliness, been washing my hand multiple times per day and really take care of my lady part.

Be happy and grateful

I have not writing any personal musing on this site for quite sometimes. I have no idea why but maybe it is because I still have so many back log travel stories to share. But today I'm going to write about something really personal.

Life has been quite tough for me lately and I was not sure what was wrong up until recently. Since I was young till now, I was generally a happy person, I took bad things with a pinch of salt and completely forgot about them soon afterward and be happy again.

When I was happy, I realized that everything in my life turned out good for me. It is like the universe is aligned to make happy thing happened for me. I didn't realized about this until I read The Secret by Rhonda Byrne recently. I knew about The Secret 2 years ago when I read Xiaxue's post about it. I was dealing with difficult situation and practiced The Secret to overcome it. And yes, it worked.

Few days ago, I read The Secret book and now I fully understood how it works because believe it or not, I have been practicing gratitude since I was young. My family is not fully Christian but I was exposed to Christian teaching since young. Every night before I went to bed, I would pray to God and talked about my day and thanked him for the good things that happened to me. Subconsciously, I was practicing Gratitude. My life thus far has been very good and I'm happy and content with it.

Not sure what happened but since 2012, I had stopped praying before bed. Life still work out well for me but I forgot to say thanks. In The Secret, the author mentioned that if you want something, you should ask for it, be thankful to receive it. It also mentioned Law of attraction in the book which means that you attract what you feel in your life.

For example, if your thoughts are happy and jovial, you will attract more happy things to happen in your life but if your thoughts are bitter and sad, more sad or unfortunate things will happen to you. This statement I believe wholeheartedly. I have seen people complaining about their life all the time and nothing has changed for them except that things get worst. It is because they always said negative statements such as "I don't have enough money", "My workload never finish", "I am fat" etc, they are sending the Universe those messages and yes they will receive more of those things,

So instead of being Negative Nancy all the time, why don't be positive and say something like "Money will come by easily", "I will clear my backlog job today", "I'm getting the body that I want". Of course just by sending this positive message is not enough, you have to believe in your affirmation and visualize yourself receiving it.

One of the most important lesson that I have learn from The Secret is to be happy and grateful. It mentioned that thoughts translate into things. To have happy thoughts, first you must have good emotion because it is impossible to have happy thoughts if your emotion is the opposite. The joy is within yourself so you must find it, be contend and grateful for all the things in your life, be it small or big. If you want people to like you, first you yourself must like your own traits. Then the Law of Attraction will attract more people to like you. But say real one, if you are a positive person to be around with, for sure more people will enjoy your company.

Right now when I'm faced with any difficult things, I would just brush it off and turn it into something positive. I no longer dwell on sad things but instead focus on being happy and positive. Think about something that make you happy, a happy memories, a funny jokes, your favorite song and surely you will feel a whole lot better.

What I want to say is that you are in charge of your life. How you want your life to be is up to you, ask from The Universe and you shall receive it. Keep your thoughts and emotion happy so that more happy things will come to your life.

Christmas 2015

Just realized that I have not written about my Christmas for 2015 yet. I did updated my Dayre but not on this space yet. So here we go.

My sister and I wanted to go away for the Christmas. Our initial plan was Kuching but cancelled last minute and we decided to drive to Miri and spend the Christmas with my aunt and her family at Brunei instead.

First time driving long journey on my own - checked!

The 6 hours drive was fun because we talked so much. We literally talked for the whole 6 hours about everything. We got lost a little bit at Bintulu when trying to figure out which way is the coastal road to Miri and ended up using the old road. We got lost again when we reached Miri because Waze directed us to the empty old airport runway wtf.

Sneaked out for breakfast at Jackfruit with my aunt while the rest still sleeping

On the actual Christmas day, we prepared some food for buffet like usual.

Grilled chicken salad with no dressing which surprisingly tasted so good

Very simple spread. We had grilled lamb, lettuce to wrap the lamb, mixed veggies, chicken curry and grilled chicken wing done by air fryer. I really want an Air Fryer because it is the magic. You can make any grilled/fried food without even using the oil. So much healthier but still taste as good as the real deal.

Red wine to go with the lamb

Mangoes for dessert. I think I had half of the serving but the mangoes really taste so good. I bought some to bring back home but it was not fully ripe so it did not taste as good.

With my loves

We finished the day by watching Alvin and The Chipmunk 3 at the cinema. Tutong, the town that my aunt stays in has definitely improved a lot. Last time I was there when I was just 13, they have no cinema.

Early dinner at Excapade Sushi, Kelly is still trying to learn to use her chopstick

Shared this ramen with my sister, the broth was good

And my favorite, salmon wrapped asparagus. It did not taste as good as it was before sadly.

Stopped by supermarket to pick up some ingredients because we decided to make curry puff out of the blue. Googled the recipe and quickly grabbed the ingredients because it was past 8 and we wanted to make it that night. My sister and I were leaving early in the next day.

Ingredients for curry puff is simple. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, curry powder, minced meat, onions and wheat flour. But the process of making the puff is very tiring, I kid you not. My arm and wrist were numb the next day from all the rolling.

So much effort for making such a simple curry puff. We spent 3 hours on it, so not worth all the time and energy spent. I think I'll rather buy next time than doing my own.

We had emoji playdoh challenge too. Be the judge and let us know what emojis were we doing and which row is the best.

We also filmed some videos doing challenge and a little vlog but my Window Media Maker is not working and I did tried editing with IMovie but I think I need more time and tutorial. But at least I still have those great memory in my SD card. 

My Christmas was simple and spent with my loved ones. It is exactly what Christmas is all about for me. A little trip to see the loved one and spend time bonding. My Hong Kong food post is coming up next. I already spent 2 weeks on it because it is so long since we had so much food. 

Stay tune for that one. See you soon!

2015 in rewind

I wrote my 2015 in rewind in my Dayre, so I figure I should paste it here too to immortalize it on my own blog. Writing this post is really fun to me because I can look back at what my life is all about through photos taken in my phone. I've edited and adding more photos here because I forgot to add in my Dayre.

January

January is my birthday month. As I grew up, my birthday celebration is getting simple. I used to have birthday week when I was a student where I celebrated my birthday throughout the week and I think I ate around 3 or 4 cakes.

Welcoming 2015 with dinner with my girlfriends. We also had another dinner for hoe and I my birthday.

Looking back at my camera roll for January and I realized the majority of the photos are food wtf. So that concludes that I ate out a lot in January.

February

February is another month filled with birthday. It is my brother and little sister's birthday month. Also one of the few times that all of us are available for family dinner. My brother and little sister now are away for uni.

3rd Chinese New Year together with the bf. And in less than 45 days, we will have our 4th Chinese New Year together.

Valentine's Day doesn't mean much to us because we do not celebrate V day. No specific reason but the bf is not the romantic kind so I'm slowly getting used to it. Past 2 years we been fighting a lot about this but now I'm just like nah, I don't care either.

March

Scrolling my camera roll I saw that I started to be active in kitchen. My interest in cooking somehow sky rocketed this month that I decided to cook birthday dinner for my mom.

This is the month that I've spent hours online researching recipes and watching cooking show. Don't know why so suddenly got the domestic spirit in me but I'm happy that it happened because now I can prepare a proper meal. Mind you, I once burnt a pot when cooking and I have melted chopstick too when cooking maggie mee at the bf's house. Lucky nobody saw that and I quickly threw the chopstick away. 

I also went to Cambodia and visited Phnom Penh and Siam Reap. Visiting Angkor Wat is definitely the highlight of my trip. Although it was tiring (try walking under 35 degree hot sun for the whole day) Angkor Wat really wowed me. The history of Khmer Rouge and genocide in Cambodia open my eyes about the world. These are the stuff that you never learn at school. This is why I love travelling. Hopefully I can explore more places in year to come.

I'm also stepping out of my comfort zone by going on this Cambodia trip because I went with a bunch of strangers. Actually it's my best friend uni mates. I decided to join her with her friends for the holiday despite never meeting them. They say the people that you travel with can either make or break your trip.

And they definitely made my trip. Hehe

April

April is the month where I really learn to be independent. Of course the highlight of this month is my solo trip to Bali.

Everyone was worried about me going to another country on my own but I feel nonchalant about it, I was very excited instead. I myself know that I had done enough research and been very very careful throughout the trip. Praise God because everything went well on my trip alone.

Of course there are some hiccups during the trip like I got followed by a very persistent motorbike driver (I got really annoyed and yelled at him to leave me alone and he did) and got scammed by leech like vendors at Kuta beach whom literally forced me to buy their stuff.

May

This month I started to try juicing and been doing it dilligently for the whole month.

I tried juice detox but failed because I couldn't stand the hunger la.

In this month, my bf got into road accident but thankfully he escaped with only scratch knee. Another accident happened to my cousin too. He's fine but our car is wrecked and still under repair in workshop till to date.

June

This is the month that I took lots of selfies, no kidding, when I scrolled through June camera roll, almost 70% are my selfies. With great hair too.

I tried went back to cardio and yoga class because I wanted to be toned and healthy again but sadly the determination didn't last long.

Had a colorful nightlife this month because my bestie was back to town.

July 

Nothing special happened in July. Work and life went on as usual.

Oh yeah, my nightlife still pretty busy. Birthdays and dinners with new friends whom I still keep in touch with now.

Also went on lots of dates with the bf to check out new cafes in town.

I also started to properly learn baking. My first attempt still not quite there yet but I have improved a lot now if I may say so myself. 

August

Went on team building programme and did Leap of Faith which is the highlight of the programme for me. I'm not a fan of height, my knees got weak but I went ahead anyway. Quite proud of myself hahaha

I was on a roll with eating clean this month. I'm determined to kick start eating clean again now.

This is also a hard time for me. I got into big fight with my father. It was a very serious matter and I was very upset at him for jeopardizing our family future. I remembered we spent the rest of the month not talking to each other. I was really angry at my parents and quite depressed this month. I was forced to let go of my car too.

I went cafe hopping again with sisters a lot this month because my little sister went to uni in September, so we want to spend as much time as possible.

September

My sister got married in September. Feels so nice to reunite with my cousins which I just spent Christmas with.

My baking passion is growing strong too this month. I channelled my negative energy into baking and slowly getting better.

October

I found another new hobby this month which is gardening. I wrote about my gardening adventure in Dayre under #dayrebotany.

I wrote about my gardening experience here.

I continued to bake a lot. Looking back at the photo makes me want to bake again. Maybe tomorrow I'll bake lemon cupcakes.

November

I cut my hair short this month. I can see that I was slowly getting better emotional wise. I started to talk to my parents again.

I bought my new car which is the best decision I'd made. I no longer have to ask for ride whenever I went out. Actually one of the reason I baked a lot last few months is because I been cooped up at home. Now that I have my car, I bake less and less now.

December 

Kick start my December with a week long vacation in Hongkong where I experienced my first winter.

Fulfilling my dream to go to Disneyland.

Drove long distance for the first time too. Wah looking back at my year I feel like I have lot of achievements this year. Quite proud of myself.

My sister and I drove all the way to Miri to spend Christmas with my cousin.

I'm not one of the mushy kind but I want to pen down my feeling for 2015. I feel like this is the year that I have grown the most. I have fallen into the dark times but somehow I managed to stand up again. When picking myself up throughout the year, I've learnt that people change and it is nobody fault. Every choice that you make, you have to pay for the consequences.

So now I know what is important to me, what makes me happy and what I want my life to be. I'll be striving to be the best version of myself. Cheers to 2016, I'm ready for you.