I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

Before we start commenting like crazy, I hereby ban Wantunn, Eh Don, Ah Leongsan, Netjackal and any other engineer from commenting on the question above. NO COMMENTS FROM YOU LOT!! Zip it.

Ok. Back to that. Am I? No right? Everyone has breakfast! I like to have mine about 10am. No biggie. Then naturally everyone has lunch. I like having mine at about 11.30am. Still no biggie. When you have lunch at 11.30am, naturally you have to have a tea break at about 4.30pm, cos it’s a whole 5 hours later! Also, that way you can have dinner again at about 7.30pm or so, everyone has dinner, it’s antisocial not to have dinner. And then if I sleep a little later, I’ll need a night snack at about midnight. That’s all.

Maybe people in temperate countries eat less because their metabolic rates are slower. But holy moleys, I received 3 restaurant gift certificates for Christmas!!

Not that I’m complaining. I likey free dinner.

Well, Christmas is more about giving, and I’m happy with my gift choices this year. All the purchases were made online, from the comfort of home. All but one gift got here on time, intact. For the record, I’m not ever shopping at The Children’s Place ever. The order never arrived, and they took 3 weeks to tell me it got lost in the mail. How is that even possible these days? And each time I asked, it was with a different courier. Lame.

I’m looking forward to the new year. And home.

I didn’t have tang yuen this solstice. That’s on the backlog for now, until I get my own kitchen. In fact, until we get our own place, I’m stuck without a place to cook, hang out, blast my music, use my essential oil, laze in bed, and feel at home in general. Yes its uncomfortable, living out of a suitcase for half a year, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not the worst out there.

I could be living out of a suitcase for 2 years.

So on weekends we try to spend some time hanging out on our own. Today we wandered over to North Beach after work, and found Franchino between a very crowded Stinking Rose and a suspiciously boring Mona Lisa. We looked at the menu, and decided to give it a try. It was deceptively uncrowded, but the food was pretty darn good. I had a capellini mare and KF had a tortellini. My capellini was fantastic, nice chunks of large prawn, chicken and mushroom in a garlic tomato sauce. Very satisfying.

After dinner we drove around and ended up at Fisherman’s Wharf. We did the touristy thing and walked around, made sure to check out the crabs that were back at the stands at the wharf after the Cosco Busan fiasco. Crabs were out in full force, like the tourists. It was cold too. Temperatures tonight were about 9°C. Good thing I got myself a new jacket.

Anyway. Happy Christmas and peaceful Christmas.

I didn’t have tang yuen this solstice. That’s on the backlog for now, until I get my own kitchen. In fact, until we get our own place, I’m stuck without a place to cook, hang out, blast my music, use my essential oil, laze in bed, and feel at home in general. Yes its uncomfortable, living out of a suitcase for half a year, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not the worst out there.

I could be living out of a suitcase for 2 years.

So on weekends we try to spend some time hanging out on our own. Today we wandered over to North Beach after work, and found Franchino between a very crowded Stinking Rose and a suspiciously boring Mona Lisa. We looked at the menu, and decided to give it a try. It was deceptively uncrowded, but the food was pretty darn good. I had a capellini mare and KF had a tortellini. My capellini was fantastic, nice chunks of large prawn, chicken and mushroom in a garlic tomato sauce. Very satisfying.

After dinner we drove around and ended up at Fisherman’s Wharf. We did the touristy thing and walked around, made sure to check out the crabs that were back at the stands at the wharf after the Cosco Busan fiasco. Crabs were out in full force, like the tourists. It was cold too. Temperatures tonight were about 9°C. Good thing I got myself a new jacket.

Anyway. Happy Christmas and peaceful Christmas.

It’s getting colder these days, it’s between 5° and 8° at night. What bites is when you have to change clothes – after a shower – I hate it when the new clothes are cold. This morning, I cheated and put my jeans under the sheets next to KF while he slept on, so I’d get toasty jeans after my shower. But I needed a better solution.

I finally relented and got a bed buddy. It’s like a new-age hot water bottle. Put it in the microwave for a couple of minutes, and it retains heat for a couple hours. So when I get home now, I pop it in the microwave, and then wrap my pyjamas around it. Nothing beats warm jammies after a shower!

Back at the Big Why, this is about the time of the year I kick back and just annoy the engineers everyday for the heck of it. Other times of the year I annoy them just to keep them on their toes. But come Christmas time, everything pipes down, and I have time to just kick back and irritate my friends.

I think I’m paying the price for it now.

Towards the end of last week, orders at the store started ramping up, and what accumulated this weekend was pure bizarre. A flood of orders came in, and kept me busy and on my toes the whole day. What annoyed me the most was for all my hard work, the UPS dude comes in with his extra large cart, and carts it off in 1 swoop. UGH.

I guess I shouldn’t be complaining, after all I was one of those last night who finally had a little time to myself to complete my Christmas shopping. Last night, the main beneficiaries of my generousity were:

• Amazon – I love how they have *everything*, where else can you get a men’s Parka, formal flatware and a video camera, all with Free Super Saver Shipping?
• Red Envelope – Pretty gifts in pretty boxes. What’s Christmas without a few pretty boxes?

This rounds up my holiday damage, I think. The previous culprits include

• Drugstore.com – but admittedly, most of the stuff there was for me, cos I didn’t even have time to do my toilettries shopping!
• Bluefly – mostly because I wanted some decent (ok, fancier) cardigans
• Target – saw something at the store, but was too lazy to go back to get it

What was disappointing was that both Amazon and Target didn’t really have any good kids stuff, so I ended up shopping for the kids at home over at The Children’s Place and Gymboree. The kids here will get their stuff from Costco and Red Envelope.

I think I’m done with my shopping. The problem is, it’s not going to make it back to SG in time for Christmas!

One of the best things about being here in the US is the shopping.

I did all my Christmas shopping online this year. And because we’re not driving around so much anymore, I now do my weekly odds-and-ends shopping online too.

The result, unfortunately, is a complete mess in the room we inhabit. Hopefully it’ll ease a little when I send the Christmas presents out.

I need space.