Telling the Time

Being stucked in a tight budget isn't a bad thing after all especially when it can help all those stagnant creative juice flowing again.

I wanted a bigger wall clock with Roman numerals, unfortunately it's out of my little budget. But I don't want to go for just a plain clock on the wall. What can I do this time? *scratching head

It's not what I want but it's wayyyyyy cheaper, only RM 2.50. Deep down inside I know I'm going to hate the way it look on my wall. I was struggling until I got the idea for world clock. I'm going to hang not one but three, yes three of it with time adjusted to two of my favourite place, New York and Budapest. 

Now I'm a happy girl whom always a little behind time because I have been looking at the wrong clock most of the time.

Teal Christmas Wreath

Princess Emma says Merry Christmas!

As I put up some Christmas decoration at this new place, I was thinking how good if I don't have to put these back into storage immediately after the festive season or maybe don't even have to put it back. It will be wonderful! Lazy people like me always think of lazy and easy ways to work around things. Hmm.....

Here's the making of my little teal wreath. It's something that I can leave it hanging all year long with the little angels guarding my house.

Some teal yarn here with my Princess Emma.

It's quite time consuming trying to wrap the yarn around the wreath base having to keep the whole thing looking neat and tight without some odd gaps here and there. 

I made two of this. One with initial J for myself.

And the other one with initial D for my BFF Danielle.

Fault In Our Stars

Okay. The movie really touched me in a different way. Not that I want to be the doomed lovers in it but it has inspired me to change my original idea for a faux fireplace to the tree branch decor in the Oranjee restaurant.

Get what I mean? 

So I made my own blue vase with a plain vase and some light blue spray paint. 

It's not hard at all.

The hardest part was finding the right tree branch. I managed to pick up one as the City Hall was trimming the trees around the town. It wasn't what I had in mind but it will have to do for the time being. I trimmed off all the leaves and most of the thinner branches.

And here it is, a piece of Fault in our stars movie inspired decor for now.

Chicken Enchilada Soup

It's just too much hassle to cook for one single meal and having to do the dishes afterwards. I always try to cook in bigger portion and divide it into single portion batches and freezes them. Same amount of dishes to clean, doubled or tripled up the ingredients and just a few minutes extra ensures a lazy person like me a home cooked hearty meal most of the time. On my busy days I'll just chuck the frozen meal into the science oven( I really adored the way Jennifer Lawrence called the microwave oven this way in American Hustle ). I'll be cooking new items and store it on other days so I won't get bored eating the same meal 3 days in a row.

There's a little prep work to be done before putting everything into the pressure cooker. The black beans need to be soaked for a few hours. Sauté chopped onion until they caramelised then add in the garlic, bird eye chilli's, cumin, tomato purée with some Hungarian sweet paprika. The chicken breast, sweet corn and black beans goes into the pressure cooker along with the sautéed ingredients with salt, bonito granules and pepper to taste. Cook them under pressure for 90 minutes and they are good to eat. Can be garnished with grated cheese and parsley according to your preference. 

Bon appetite

Simple and Easy Way for Noise Reduction

It was a plain white canvas where I'm free to dictate how it's going to turn out and I'm so excited.

First of all I'm going to seal up that door. No, just sealing it won't do. I will need to do something to reduce the amount of noise going back and forth through that door. This kind of doors are usually hollow in the middle giving them a lot of empty space for the noise to go in, vibrates and reflected to the other side. This almost guaranteed lack of privacy for both side of the house. 

I got an acoustic chalk for this purpose. Sealing up the surrounding gap of the door. What's that? Acoustic chalk is another type of sealant that remains permanently flexible rather than hardened up like the regular chalk and reflects noises to every direction. This acoustic chalk is able to absorbs noises ( never knew I could be talking about types of sealant chalk).

Then I bought a queen size quilt from IKEA for RM9.90 only (this item is out of production for now) and hang it over the door for further noise absorption. With another layer of foam tape at the gaps with cardboard and I'm done.

Noise reduction works done but it's a total eyesore as can be seen here. I've got one BILLY bookcase up and I need one more to complete it.

 And TAHDA!! Here it is as if the door never existed in the first place

281113 Nightmare

Suddenly the realization dawned upon me that I was sobbing in my sleep. It was only a stupid nightmare. Didn't even make any sense to me. 

Though it didn't make any sense but it triggered something in me....

Having this overwhelming feeling now. Afraid of losing something that I never even owned in the first place. I want to just reach out for it and keep it somewhere safe. 

But how could I lose it if I never own it? 

Taking a Big Leap of Faith

For this few months I learnt to appreciate even the tiniest things that's happening around me. It may not be significant to anyone else out there but it sure does make some difference in my life, or shall I say how I look at life/ things? Maybe this is what you called gratitude? 

Each day I woke up with a smile on my face trying to enjoy the morning. Trying to sort my mind and feelings to the right path before rushing off for the rest of the day. 

Sometimes I'll come across some hurdles in life that really upset me a lot. I'm very emotional I know that. Things can affect me badly and I felt like the world is going against me. I would then crawl to my shell and hide. I'll feel better afterwards but it's not really what I want. 

Taking the first step was hard, super hard for me. I know very well that I'm a changed person after some major incidents. I had refused to open myself up to others, keeping my feelings to myself. I fought hard against those who came near to me. I filtered a lot of people out my life due to some menial things. I wouldn't even want to look deep into their personality. I really missed out a lot of good things because of this. Defending myself from heartache, at the same time depriving myself from humanity. Sometimes I felt like a robot with no emotions at all. Eat, sleep and work.... Repeat and repeat. 

I must thank my bestie for this. We've been friends like forever now and she knows me inside out. Tried to use all kind of methods to make me realized my own problems. She tried lecturing me and threatened me as well. Very courageous of her knowing that my bad temper and she still went ahead to knock some sense into me. A very good friend indeed. 

So I just tried to opened myself a little by little. Taking a big leap of faith, it could be the most scariest thing that I've attempted, opening myself up. I wanted to turn around and give up at the beginning. Thank goodness my bestie was there to support me. It was an eye opener for me. I would give everything a try. Things that I never try before, places that I never go before and people that I never talk to before. It just feels great and I'm thankful for everything that I've been able to experienced. New friends, new places and new feelings too. 

I'm thankful for all this.