Advisory

Just noticed that the url:ellen.litratos.com doesn’t work anymore; it goes to my host’s blog instead. If you have me bookmarked with that link, please change it to http://www.litratos.com/ellen instead. thanks!

Update: ellen.litratos.com is working again, yay!

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been feeling some sort of irritation in my right eye. It’s ok in the morning, and as the day goes on, it gets kinda red, and it feels like there’s something in my eye. The vision also gets kinda blurry, and my eyes feel reaaaally tired by nighttime. So as soon as we get home, I’d remove my contacts to rest my eyes.

Since we had time today, we went to our optometrist to have my eyes checked. We did the usual computer test with the house that kinda goes backward and forward and clear to blurry and back, as we would do in Manila as well. But this time, there were also some more apparatus that could test the pressure of my eye (the machine blows air at your eye), and checks the state of the pupils and cornea. The pupil and cornea machines are hooked up to a computer, and images of your eye are taken and shown in the pc’s monitor. I was amazed at how high tech it was, since the shop was just located in a relatively old mall (People’s Park), but it was better than the optical shops I’ve been in Manila, that’s for sure!

Now for the good news: eye pressure and my pupils are okay. But my corneas, particularly the right one, showed signs of injury in the first layer of my eye (there are five layers). However, Stella assured me that if I rest my eyes, put eye drops constantly, and don’t wear contacts for the next five days, it should heal on its own. I sure hope so, because having injured eyes ain’t a party. So we bought a box of Tears Naturale, and it’ll be glasses for me till my next appointment!

* * *

Meanwhile, it doesn’t count anymore (since it’ll be the wedding anniversaries which we’ll start counting now), but I’m still amazed that officially, H and I have been together for 8 years today. Wowie.

One thing that I hate here in Singapore are the obscene prices for maintaining beauty. A mani-pedi cost around S$60, maybe more, so I just do it at home on my own.

But haircuts and coloring is another matter altogether. That’s not something I can DIY. The last time that I got those was around November, and I was floored by how much it ended up costing H. Granted that it was for the two of us, but c’mon, it shouldn’t have been thousands more than what my salary back in Manila if converted to pesos!

And that’s the reason why I haven’t been wanting to get a haircut or color for so long. But I couldn’t stand it anymore. The hair at the back was getting scraggly; I was having a hard time styling my hair since the ends were just ugh, and H said that my hair was getting a bit too long, to which I agreed fully.

So off to the salon we went yesterday: me, my sister-in-law, and H. I swear, this haircut and color should last me a LONG time. I was again staggered at how much it cost, it’s THAT unbelievable, trust me. I dunno if that’s how it is for all salons here, maybe the salon where we go to just charges exorbitantly, but it was just TOO much, I think. And all I could think of while going down the escalators was how many hair treatments I could have gotten in Manila for that price.

Take me back to Manila parlors!!

Congrats, Tin!!!

Husband tales

My husband has found an early morning source of amusement. For a couple of days last week, when he woke up before me, he’s been touching the tip of my nose gently. What makes him laugh though, is that apparently, when he does that while I’m sleeping, I do bunny noses..you know, scrunching up my nose in reaction to what he’s doing.

So one morning, he decided to get my phone, pulled up the shades to get more light in the room, and then took a video of me while he was doing that. I was sound asleep, while he kept poking my nose and I kept doing the bunny nose. The finale? I made what can only be a groan as if to say: stop disturbing my sleep!

Meanwhile, it’s a wonder I didn’t give him a heart attack earlier. I was about to finish my bath, and I was calmly washing my face inside our clear glass shower stall. I had my eyes closed while rinsing out the suds. When I opened my eyes, I was SO shocked when I saw a face pressed close to the glass from outside that I let out a bloodcurdling scream worthy of a horror movie damsel in distress. It was H, who had come in to pee and decided to surprise me. Surprise is an understatement; I don’t know who ended up being more shocked – him or me.

Yesterday morning, our condo had a basic health screening at the basement sponsored by the NKF. For only S$5 per person, you could find out your weight, height, body mass index, body fat analysis (ouch!), blood sugar, cholesterol level, and blood pressure, as well as a free hand therapy afterwards.

I was a bit nervous to find out my weight; I don’t think I’ve seen the weighing scale since I arrived here in Singapore. Not that I was trying to find it, mind you. So I found out I’m 1.61 m, and I weigh…something that I’m not about to publish here, heh. But suffice it to say that surprisingly enough I only gained around 2 kg more. And I say that because I would have thought I’d gained more already, so I was pretty thankful for that! But boo, I’m not as fit as I should be, based on the Asian standard. Surprise, surprise. Based on universal standards though, I’m still ok. In this case, unfortunately, I am an Asian. This just means that yes, I reaaally need to buckle down and exercise.

But at least apart from that, everything else was okay. Blood sugar’s ok, cholesterol level’s ok, blood pressure’s ok. I was actually scared that my blood sugar would be up the roof because 1) my grandma was a diabetic, and 2) i’ve been eating M&Ms. You might even call me an M&Maholic. But thankfully, everything was within normal levels. H wasn’t so lucky – his blood pressure is just a tad above the minimum for high blood pressure. Time to watch our diets!

So this is a wake up call — not that I ever needed any; I’m well aware that exercise is key. This weekend hasn’t helped, since we’ve been eating out for every meal except breakfast, since we had visitors from Manila since Friday. Oh, help.

It’s time to dust off my cross-trainers and hop on the treadmill. Crikey.

It’s been ages since I’ve felt like blogging. I’ve been too preoccupied with the business of getting our business to work that I just haven’t felt like it. Plus, it doesn’t help that H and I share this PC, and sometimes I’d just rather have him use it and I’ll just go to bed with my books or something instead.

The past two weeks has been interesting. We’ve been inside hotel kitchens, met chefs, executive chefs, pastry chefs, executive pastry chefs. I’ve had to do quick spiels of our sales pitch – thing is, I don’t know how good a salesperson I am. And now that we’ve given them samples, I don’t know what’s the appropriate time frame to follow up. I guess that’s why until now, I know we’re still learning the ropes continuously.

But the good thing is, despite all the things we have to do for work, we still find time to relax. I’ve managed to catch some movies on DVD – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which made H and I crave for chocolate bars!), Kung Fu Mahjong (with the auntie and landlord from Kung Fu Hustle, funny!), Memoirs of a Geisha, and King Kong.

We also took in a funny, riddled-with-sexual-innuendos play called The Magic Fundoshi, a a saucy comedy made up of three parables (The Perfect Servants, The Magic Fundoshi, and The Misplaced Goddess) poking fun at human frailties and our fleshly instincts.

There were shadow scenes of two servants who detest each other who unwittingly do the dirty deed together for their lazy masters’ sakes — and end up enjoying it thoroughly! There was the absolutely bottomless scene where the actor showed his bare behind to everyone in the audience, after he was fooled into thinking that he was wearing The Magic Fundoshi — male underwear that only women can see, and will attract them to no end. And there was the temple made of three HUGE phallic structures housing the lost nude goddess — leading three of the men there to take her nude place to avoid being accused of stealing it!

It was laugh out loud funny; in fact, the French woman looked around to look at H, who was hysterically literally laughing oh-so-out loud. Now that, was funny.

And now it’s the Holy Weekend – Good Friday is upon us. Time to rest for some, time for pious prayer for the others. For me, it’ll probably be a mixture of both. Have a blessed Good Friday, y’all.

One of our maids left for the Philippines last Friday, and she’ll be gone for two weeks. With the other one taking on the full-time care for my grandfather-in-law, this leaves her with little to no time to cook. Since my mother-in-law and sister-in-law don’t cook, and my husband loves it when I do, I am once again having to sharpen up on the domestic side of being a wife.

As H always reminds me, even when both our help are around, he really does enjoy it more when I’m the one who cooks, and I guess for him, this gives me the perfect opportunity to do so. Aside from one meal last Friday though, we’ve been mostly eating out at restaurants, buying fast food, or ordering in. Today’s lunch was leftover pizza from last night, since H and I had an early morning business thing to take care of.

But tonight, dinner was on me. Luckily, last Friday, I had found a recipe I wanted to try. So when we went to Katong Mall yesterday, we stopped by Cold Storage for the ingredients to make Cashew Chicken. So right after lunch, I marinated the chicken so it would be ready to cook by dinner time.

I was pretty alarmed because the marinade turned out to be so dark (uh, dark soy sauce, duh). And when I started cooking the chicken, I wasn’t sure how I would be able to tell if the chicken was done, since it was all covered with the dark marinade. And I was still a bit nervous when H saw the finished dish and asked why it was so dark, and wondering if it would end up being too salty.

But yay, all’s well that ends well. The chicken was tender, with just the right amount of saltiness, sweetness, and spice. And it went perfectly with the brown rice that we had prepared. And, everyone got second and third servings, so that makes me happy.

Am I on my way to being a domestic diva? Teehee.

Random things we did last week:

• Watched John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Doubt” at the Jubilee Hall in Raffles Hotel.
• H and I tried Indian food at Shahi Maharani. Food was good, price was astronomical. We really enjoyed it though, since the food was just so flavorful and tender. Funnily enough, we wanted to do it to make inggit his best friend, who lurves Indian food. That was fun.
• Printed and assembled brochures for our biz. I came up with a different way of presenting the brochure aside from the usual three-fold brochure thingie, but of course I had to pick one that was pretty labor-intensive. Snip snip, fold fold, and there ya go. My middle finger was getting numb from the pressure of the scissors, but thankfully, I found an easier way to do it as compared to the one I found on the net. We still have to make more. *breathe*
• Baked Apple Coffee Cake, which H liked, but didn’t turn out as fluffy as I had expected it to be. And grr, I hate it when my actual baking time doesn’t match the one in the recipe. Why is that?!
• I loved Louise Bagshawe’s latest novel (I think) Tuesday’s Child. I discovered her a couple of years ago, then proceeded to buy all her available novels, so I was quite happy to see her book in Kinokuniya a couple of weeks ago. And I’m glad to note that it was again an enjoyable read.
• For the first time ever, I watched The Lord of the Rings! Believe it or not, before last week, I have never ever watched a single episode of the trilogy, nor read any of the books. So at least now, the names Aragorn, Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, and Arwen, don’t seem so strange and unfamiliar to me.
• And oh, oh, can I just say, I absolutely luuuurved Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Wererabbit! I wasn’t expecting much based on the title, but now, I’m just crackers about it!

Here’s to another busy, but fun, week ahead!