Apples

Together with Fairy God-sister and the Husby, we went apple picking on Saturday! The weather was perfect, lovely shade of blue with not a single cloud in sight, none at all. What better day to pick my perfect apples? ;)


I have been going around telling everyone that I am going to pick apples the entire last week, ever since I saw the listing on the Baltimore Citypaper for "Best picking 2007". Isn't it exciting?? =D At first I was wondering what in the world is "picking"? Then I realised it was apples, and gosh, you mean apples do not grow in supermarkets??


So I had to go down to the farm to see it for myself, that apples actually grow on trees/shrubs/bush (whatever you call it)! ;) In case you are in Baltimore, check out Larriland Farm.



The entrance to the farm is the Red Barn, where they sell produce from the farm. So if you are lazy to go pick the apples, you can just drop in to buy them here. Pumpkins are in season now, and these were so huge that kids could sit on them. Either than apples which were going for $1.49 per pound, there were pickings for broccoli, spinach amongst other vegetables.


Lumbering along the rows of apple plants! Now which apple should I pick? I almost forgot I had a bag to pick apples, as I was just happily looking for my perfect apple. You know, apples that are the right tinge of red, blemish free... (I have high expectations!)




Either than apples, the Red Barn had other produce on sale. I found the mini-pumpkins very adorable (compare it to my shades), and I love the Indian corn. They remind me of my favorite genetic classes back in JC.

Check out the apples I picked! Ha, just pulling your leg there. On the left: Those tub full of apples were spotted at the H-mart that very evening (Fairy God sister: Now we know where tub full of the apples disappeared to!). On the right is my pickings for the one hour we were at the farm: three perfect apples! The rest in the bag were what the Husby picked. I cannot tell what varieties they are, but they do taste... like every other apple I have had! Maybe I detected a extra hint of sweetness in them, since it was the fruit of our labour! ;)

I like this photograph best, perhaps it is because I hardly get to see such open spaces and greenary these days. Remember to eat your apples!

Thank you cookie!

Look what arrived in the mail last Friday!

A lovely postcard of Laos together with this green bag and ooo I just love the shawl/scarf! Thank you so much Cookie, I am very touched that you brought back one postcard all the way from Laos for me. The bag even has a zipper, which is perfect for shopping or even to the lab. Thanks babe, I hope to catch up with you soon again! ;)



Left: The birds are thinking of flying to Laos someday - they now wish Cookie would tell them about her adventures there! Right: My new green stuff!

Missing box mystery

Today something really strange occurred in the lab.

A box with some 30 samples went missing, and I was probably the last person to have seen it. The problem is I do not recall where I placed it, as the other person passed it to me while I was performing other tasks.

Everyone in the lab chipped in to search of the elusive box. After an entire hour of rummaging through freezers, fridges and drawers, I called it quits. I was not sure if I should laugh or cry. I had retraced all my steps, and every room I went to.

No box in sight.

How perplexing!

There can only be several explanations for what has happened:

• My actual age is more than 100! That would explain my poor memory!
• Aliens! They actually exist, and I have been abducted! That would explain the lapse in my memory because I wasn't in the lab to began with. I like this theory from the Husby, sounds like something from X-files!
• It was a magic box that flew away/walked off/poof! disappeared!
• The box decided to go on weekend vacation.
• Cookie monster ate it up by mistake, thinking there were cookies in there.

Non of the reasons above sound scientific at all, which goes to show what is actually going on in my head. I am not making much sense now. Perhaps it is an indication I have been working too hard. Embrace the weekend!

Word play

I saw this ad on TV for Last Man Standing where one of the contestent said something like: There is going to be one serious fatality.

You mean there is a non-serious fatality?

It is just like sterile. It is either yes or no, nothing like "not very sterile".

Or to help you remember it better, like my boss says, it is just like being pregnant, there is no such thing as a "little" pregnant. (We were referring to the mice in case you were wondering why the boss would talk about such things).

Spotless please

I am actually feeling quite blue at the moment, and it warms my heart to see that although I am so far away from so many of my dear friends, I still feel your presence. ;)

You see, I have been having spots, blemishes, pimples, acne - whatever you choose to call it graciously popping up on my face since back in March. Perhaps it was the weather, the food, the whole change in environment, stress in moving over here. What the heck, I sometimes even blame the gravity too, if it would help to make me feel better. At the end of the day, all humans are all alike; who likes having spots on their faces? They spell one thing in caps: U.G.L.Y. It is eating away my self-esteem like a hungry worm, making me feel self-conscious and brings me to an all-time low.

I hear you consoling me, nah, its just spots, what is the big deal? Everyone has time from time to time! On the bright side everyone tells me it is a sure sign of youth. But hold on a minute, I am way out of my teens, and no longer that young. Surely you mean adult acne? *SIGH* Why me!

And today, it has gotten a little worse than before. I suspect I am having an allergy to something I am using. It is not so bad that it warrants a visit to the doctors pronto, but it sure is obvious. Can I wear a paper bag to work tomorrow? Wait, I only have plastic bags, maybe those are not so great right?

It brings back haunting memories to when I was in Secondary two, where it was a constant battle against pimples. I had used a certain product, together with another moisturiser. Somehow the two, when mixed had a really potent result. I still remember every horrible detail of that fateful morning when I woke up and had a sinking feeling something was not right. My whole face was swollen, it looked like I put on several kilograms overnight. It was to the extend where my eyes looked so small, and the face in the mirror did not even quite look like me.

Panic set it. I did not quite know what to do. It was hard to describe the exact feeling. Fear, desperation to look back to my normal self, anxiety - it must have been all of these.

Should anyone ask if I ever felt suicidal in my life, the answer is yes. It would be that exact moment, puffy face and all, that I looked out the window and three stories down wondering if I jump out and just die please, so all these would go away. Distinctly I still have a snapshot of the view I saw that morning, which will probably stay in my grey matter for the rest of my life. Dying for the sake of vanity sounds so shallow now, yes, I can even laugh about it now. Ha, the follies of a teenager, what was I thinking about!

But at the moment, trapped in a body of a fourteen-year-old with a puffy face was hell.

Little did I know, the worst was yet to occur. As I was staying with my uncle's family then, where everyone was either at work or school, leaving only the maid in the house. I never liked her. Correction -I still do not like her. To cut a long story short, her shriek laughter and mockery when she saw my face haunts me to this day.

It took an entire week before my face was back to looking like myself, during which I stayed home. Therefore you can surely see how my self-esteem was so bruised from that incident. Not having my parents by my side and few comforting words made it more difficult too.

Anyway, I have lost sight of why I told this story. Maybe getting rid of it helps me break free of the past, and hopefully the spots. May tomorrow be a better day, spots or spotless!

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

Happy Mid-autums everyone! Oh how I miss my share of mooncake and my lantern which my dad bought for me last year.

If you are in Korea, I hear you get at least three days of vacation for this holiday. Now I wish I was working there! ;)

The past week

Ah, last week was a wee bit lazy to update on what was happening in what I collective call my life.

Look what Fairy god sister got for me, thank you so much my dear! I really love the brooches, especially the frog pin - it is the most unique frog I have ever seen. I have quite a collection of brooches now, tell me if you see quirky ones! She also gave me a cute frog bath set; I really feel like a kid with that! ;)

Some of the things from my sister - I think the pig is jealous of the frog notepad! The paper cut owl is all the way from China, I am looking forward to hanging it on the wall/door. Is it just me, but somehow after staring at the owl, I think it blinks?? Are you hypothesized now?

When the Husby and I were looking for sweet potatoes in the supermarket, the section was labelled as sweet potatoes / yams. We could not decide which is which, and bought what we assumed to be one yam and one sweet potato. It turns out that both of them are sweet potatoes, with orange flesh! If I am not wrong, a sweet potato is also called a yam here, which adds to the confusion. I thought all yams were purple!

Our weekend walk: another of my I-love-shadows-photographs! I particularly love how the tree has shades of green and yellow, which stands out against the blue sky.

Frogs

Look what lovely photographs Cookie took for me, behind a waterfall in Malaysia!

Thanks my dear, I hope you do not mind me sharing them here! ;)

The story of soup spoons

Love is... getting the only soup spoon in the house to eat soba noodles in miso soup while the Husby goes without his. =)

Once upon a time, there were two soup spoons, one for him, and one for her. The couple hunted high and low for such spoons in Baltimore to no avail, and what a nice surprise to find the spoons at the basement of a Chinese store in NYC.

She was very fond of the spoons, because she enjoys having noodle soup, and they bring the nostalgia of home.

One day, the inevitable happened - she broke her spoon soup, right in her own hands. The feeling was really dreadful, akin to having broken the wing off the one and only beloved airplane toy you owned. That made her really upset, for it would not be replace until they make another trip to NYC.

For now, there remains one lonely soup spoon in the drawer. It trembles in fear when ever she smiles fondly at the soup spoon! *evil laughter*

Taste of asia

Yipee! I found an online site here selling prawn mee paste! *rubbing my hands in glee*

Here is the link: http://mytasteofasia.com/

These would be wonderful with the kang kong we found at another Asian supermarket - we had to hunt high and low for these vegetables. While I am at it, I will probably order some sambal paste too - sambal kang kong anyone? ;)

Ooo, they sell moon cakes too!

It's alive and hungry - continued

As promised, here is the photo of my hungry plant! Hooray, this is evidence that it is a real plant after all!


I hope you are not terribly squeamish about seeing insects up close; if you are, hopefully you managed to keep your breakfast/lunch/dinner down in your stomach. As the plant is still placed in its original plastic packaging to keep it humid, thus you will notice some water stains inside the plastic bottle.


Once again, I would like to reiterate that the cricket was dead before we placed it into the plant. The Husby stepped on it out on the streets, thinking that it was a small cockroach (they look alike under dim light!). Somehow I am feeling sad for the cricket. It reminds me of those grasshoppers I used to catch when growing up in Malaysia - those were the care-free days!


Anyway, are you ready now? Here is goes!

It's alive and hungry!

Guess what, the Husby just stomped on a cricket on the way back, and we scooped it up so it can be recycled as food for the Venus flytrap! It is like one science experiment to observe what will happen next.

As the cricket was lowered onto the open trap, that particular trap snapped shut with a loud clap within seconds! What a really amazing sight to behold, a carnivorous plant in action. Apparently at least two of trigger hairs in the trap have to be activated before the trap would snap shut, trapping its prey.

Now we are really curious to see what will be left of the cricket. I shall post photos when I can good shots, the lighting are night is really bad. Be patient yah?

Another short weekend flown by

Photo assay of the weekend:



Top: Sunday morning breakfast of mickey mouse pancakes! Do you see a smiley face there? I found the recipe here, just in case you want to make some pancakes too. No prizes for guessing who was flipping the pancakes, after all I had the task of taking photos and you know, it is a tough job too! *wink wink*
Bottom: Bread! I finally baked my first ever yeast bread which requires me to proof the yeast is still active. The recipe was taken from this wonderful collection of recipes, I must be one step closer to being a domestic goddess!



Blue blue skies makes one very happy suntaneye. I love to see the branches full of green leaves sway in the breeze, and hear the rustling of the green foliage; will definitely miss them soon.

We had our very first guests over for dinner: Fairy Godsister and Ian!!
On the left you see our modest appetiser of vegetable platter, salsa and chips, and sweet potato fries. The main course was hearty vegetable lasagna. And on the right is a box of Annie's cheddar bunnies (see Grocery shopping) - a very special box! I'll post what is inside sometime this week.

It is cold!

Brr... The temperature this evening has dropped to 15oC, even my cardigan is insufficient against the chilly winds. That means one thing - I should go shopping! ;)

Tomorrow we will be having our first guests to our new place! Meanwhile I better get back to cleaning the place, so our guests would not have to stumble over newspapers and fall over boxes. I leave you with the view from one of our windows - have a good weekend, hopefully a warm one at that.

All in a day's work

Work is building up, and this evening I only left the workplace only at 7pm even though I was there by 9am. There is always so many things to do that, which is good since I like to keep busy.

Here is a peek at what I experience everyday:

• Wear gloves, take out tubes, hunt for my markers (my markers have the ability to walk and travel to benches far behind during the night), label tubes...
• Phone rings, takes off gloves, answers the phone, scan for the person in the lab who I swear was just beside me one moment ago...
• Walk out of lab to the work stations and around the various rooms to hunt for the person...
• Along the way, someone asks where to find the tubes/plates/reagent/results,
• Point them in the right direction/room/file...
• Come back to the phone, take a message (since people in the lab seems to have the mysterious ability to disappear into thin air - mental note to self: ask them how they do it!),
• Wears back gloves, mumble to myself "Good, I can get back to work!"...
• I knew it! The delivery guy has to appear right there and then...
• Out goes the gloves again, sign for the packages,
• Pack away the reagents that arrived, keep receipts
• Get back to work, stare at centrifuge as it spins the tubes and ponder at the fact that I have just spent 1 minute of my entire life waiting for the tubes to spin - now how many minutes of my life are spent doing these things again?
• *Beep beep* goes the phone again... Grrr....

And wee... the day slips by! Isn't it fun?

Still I am rather enjoying it, learning new techniques and maintaining the lab. And hooray, this week is payday again! =))

Not-so-hungry venus flytrap

My dear venus flytrap, please eat up all the fruit flies!
The bottom left photograph shows a young trap about to open its jaws.


I spotted the venus flytrap at Walmart last weekend while wondering through the garden section, at a steal of $4.99, it had to come home with us. This plant has always fascinated me and I am sure many others; isn't it so cool to see it in action, *SNAP* and bye bye bugs?

After anxiously watching over the plant for the last few days, I am feeling rather despondent to report all the traps are still open. Too bad. Which on hindsight is a good indication that there are no bugs around the house! We wanted the plant to eat up the fruit flies, but it has not worked. Perhaps I have been watching the plant like a hawk, therefore scary all the flies away. Anyone wants to spare some extra bugs they have? ;)

I found this "Time-lapse photography of a growing trap of a Venus Flytrap" video on Wikipedia - now we can all marvel together at how this carnivorous plant is born.

Sneaky autumn

*Gasp* More of such leaves on the floor each day!

You know what, I have always imagined that all the leaves on the tree would turn brown, then fall off ALL TOGETHER at the same time. Somehow, that is really not the case! Oops, I sound so much like a bimbo now. =P

Pink bunny

Swede has a new friend!

This pink bunny is still missing its eyes and tail, but it does not stop Swede from getting to know her (Since it is a pink bunny, it has got to be a girl). Swede says they are alike, because they are all furry. Hee... It is like making a stuffed toy for my stuffed toy!

You can get the pattern here from this talented lady.

And Sam, will make you a happy bunny someday! =)

Grocery shopping

Going to the supermarket

on a empty stomach is a big no-no;

falling for unusual favours and packaging

is next on my list of big boo-hoos!

It is the first time I see green tea yogurt, and as the logic goes if I like green tea ice cream, the yogurt must be good too right? For the record, the green tea yogurt was not as good as my taste buds had envisioned it to be; the ice cream wins hands-down. As for the cheddar goldfish snack, I cannot resist the milk carton packaging - I call it cat food as it is in a milk carton, and contains gold fish!


PS. Lately I have been craving these chocolate Graham bears. I realised that the way I have taken the photograph makes these two bears perfect candidates for missing posters.Hmm, I wonder who ate 'em.


*burp*

Belated birthday presents

From right: Thank you very much BB for the pleasant surprise - a lovely Timex watch which will come in handy for the lab as well as for when I go jogging! Hee, it is very nice to know that you have a similar watch too; how I wish I could have been there shopping with you. =)

Middle: Kermit ring! This was from the Husby, after I launched my "Where is my present?" campaign. Although somehow I recall telling him at some point that I do not need a present, ha, you must understand that need and wants are very different, plus that I change my mind ever so often!

Left: Thank you so much Sam for the magic money holder! The package arrived at our old rental place a while back, and I finally received it this week. The money holder is still a mystery to me - I have twisted it left, right, upside down and made it all tangled up! So worried that I would spoil the present, and show you a photo of the mess I made. ;P And I was just counting the other day, we have been friends for some 18 years now!

Red and white

Here is a sneak at another craft project that is coming along really slowly - if only I would stop chatting online!

I fell in love with the intense fiery red felt, and decided that the white thread would make a striking contrast. The stitch running across the felt is known as the chain scroll stitch, one of the few basic embroidery stitches. Right now, the only problem is, I have no idea how the end product will be like; the idea was conceptualised in my head, and I should really put it down onto paper before I lose that thought. Keep your eyes peeled!

TA

I just had to write about this incident here, as I am still pretty freaked out by the sheer coincidence of it all.

This afternoon, I was talking to my colleague in the lift, and in came a group of people.

Suddenly this Chinese lady interrupted me, rather excited: Are you from Singapore? I looked at her and replied that I am. I was thinking to myself: My accent must have been a dead give away!

"I know you! Are you from NUS too? You were once my TA (teaching assistant)!"

What a small world indeed! I was stunned to meet her in the lift, many miles away from Singapore. It feels like a piece of my past catching up with me, even though I am all the way here in Baltimore.

Swede and Fuzzy

Swede and Fuzzy had a blast during the weekend too.

The two of them were better acquainted with the newest addition to the house - Frog prince! He is a inflatable stool for children we discovered at Ikea - too cute to resist. Frog prince wears a cap which the Husby says he looks adorable in (Psst, the real reason is because he is jealous of the crown on Frog prince, hence the cover-up! ;P ).

Swede and Fuzzy also had a blast watching "The Sound of Music", which was always fun to sing along to. Their only complaint? There was no popcorn. I did not know my stuffed toys were so fussy!

Speaking of food, look at them gazing at the plate of sushi the Husby made! It is our second attempt at making sushi, while these are not pretty to look at, importantly they taste like sushi. I was inspired by Sam who made some drool-worthy rice balls some time ago. Swede was curious how it would taste like as he has never had Japanese food before, but he was too timid to try. Next time he says!

This morning, the two fur balls tried to read "Stumbling on happiness" on the couch, but could not even open the book. Needless to say, they gave up and concluded that they are already very happy, and it is a good life.

Wait, I hear them saying now that life can be better, if only they had some popcorn!

2 birds

You can do this too, it is really simple. Just download the file and cut out the shapes - chicken feet! Or should i say bird feet now?? ;)

Instructions:
1. Download the template file from this lovely site 3-eyed bears.com
2. Print on thicker white paper, or regular paper will suffice (which is what I did)
3. Using a pair of sharp scissors, cut the outline of the shapes. Ask the hubby for help (Optional - I was getting lazy)
4. Fold along the dotted lines as instructed
5. Seek help from the hubby as to where to glue the model (Optional - I just could not figure it out!)
6. Wait for the hubby to complete the models with a camera ready to capture the 2 birds
7. Update on the blog! Ta-da! ;)

Sunny weekend

I woke up today, and felt very much better - it must be the effects of a holiday, Labour Day to be precise! ;)

Here are some updates on the weekend:

Clear skies and strong sunlight make stunning shadows of plants on the sidewalk - one of my favorite things!

On Saturday morning the Husby and I dropped by Towson, and I was instantly attracted to the building which houses the postal office. There were framed photos of the construction of this building, which was in 1938 according to this declaration on the wall . Essentially most part of the exterior still looks the same; the interior, however, is like your modern-day post office. As the Husby was settling his matters, I was waiting at the window watching out for traffic wardens since we did not pay for parking - hee, it was only for a while! And nope, that is not our car, only a rental car! The lady behind the counter then noticed me and my camera, and warned us that there are surveillance cameras here, and I should not take any photos of the personnel. Oopsie daisy. If I become on the wanted persons list, or that this blog gets yanked off the internet and disappear from the face of this earth, you know why! Or if you think this photos are inappropriate, please let me know so I will take them off.

Arts and Craft stores = one ecstatic Suntaneye and one bored Husby!

I am very happy to discover that there are two art and craft stores at White Marsh (Michaels and AC Moores), and another Michaels right in Towson. These stores are like the Spotlight craft stores from Australia, perfect for buying supplies for my itchy hands. The poorthing Husby spent what must be his longest two hours in there with me - I had no idea that time flew by so fast and would have stayed there the entire day! We concurred that it is one of those stores that I should never go in by myself, because I would blow my paycheck on many of the $1 ribbons and jewellery-making bits. See my pretty stash?