Passion, and rain

Right now, rain is what I am feeling so passionate about. IT just invigorates me, quicker than any caffeine, aspartame or sugar can. The smell of rain immediately brings a smile to my face. The sound of a storm just fills me with so much excitement I start flapping my hands like a 5 year old on Christmas Day.

Thank God for rain! This town has desperately been needing rain for the crop.

My colleague mentioned this planner called the Passion Planner just an hour ago, and I saw it come up on my feed. The creator has been so generous to share her hard work with (freeloaders) like us, with a simple request that we share her Kickstarter video right here: So here it is, everyone needs a bit of a kickstart and a redirection once in a while hey?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/angeliatrinidad/passion-planner-the-one-place-for-all-your-thought/widget/video.html

So here it is, everyone needs a bit of a kickstart and a redirection once in a while hey? Find out more about it here:

http://www.passionplanner.com/get-the-2015-full-pdf/

Wanderlust.. NOT

It's been far too long since this drafted post has been sitting in my blog. A full 5 weeks in fact! I cannot believe that it has already been 5 weeks since Nat has come and gone, and that I'm already halfway through yet another Term of work. 

The only decent photo of Nat and I at the top of Mount Ngun Ngun

You know how there has recently been that trend going around about being thankful or being grateful or counting your blessings etc, you get my drift? Perhaps more and more people are feeling that sense of loss, dissatisfaction, discontent, unhappiness and all despite all the luxuries, blessings and comforts that we have. If you are reading this, it means that you're already fortunate enough to actually have access to a computer, internet, the world wide web and its endless supply of knowledge and entertainment. Should you be unhappy or complaining about anything?

View from the top of Mount Ngun Ngun

I'm thankful to say that all I can feel is thankful and grateful for what I have and live in right now. It occurred to me a while ago that this current stage of life that I am experiencing, is pretty much a living, breathing, ongoing working holiday. Almost 6 years ago when I left to study in Brisbane, is when that holiday actually started, and I'm glad to say it hasn't ended yet. 

Having the luxury of finishing work before 5 (or 4 if I really wanted to), return home to rest and recuperate before heading to the gym, and having the long amazing mornings on the weekends to bake to my hearts content, to try the most annoying and failure-prone recipes, and then being able to use my skills to raise funds for Destiny Rescue is a privilege and luxury I am almost certain I would not have if I had remained in Brisbane, let alone Singapore. 

Arranging mini m&ms wasn't as tedious as I expected

Ticking that one off the bucket list

Everyday that I wake up and know that I am able come back from a day of work and not be completely spent and exhausted, is a day that I am thankful for. To be able to come home and have not just time, but energy to read and learn more about God is something I never did much of unfortunately through my years of life (even in Brisbane). It's an opportunity that I couldn't be more thankful for, knowing how easily God gets suffocated out of our lives once other distractions come in. Having people around that are like-mindedly interested in learning about God makes it all the better in a somewhat regional/rural town. 

The joys and thrills I have had from waking up to frosty or foggy mornings as such (we're moving out of winter so the last of the frost has been seen I presume)

Captured on my car window when Nat was here

Frost in Queensland??? Now that is something special!

I feel like I'm on this holiday, this super extended holiday that has allowed me to still earn my keep, and yet enjoy the luxuries of time, space, fresh air, comfort. Until there is a greater need to move, I know my days here are numbered and this is definitely an experience I do not simply want to take for granted and forget. I know a lot of people, friends and even my family, think that this life I have now is nothing great, and that I am just being a country turtle unaware of the 'opportunities' or 'lifestyle' of the city that may seem so enticing. But I say, it truly comes down to a matter of priorities and preferences, and who is not to say that I am the most happy here? I am living in a nice comfortable bubble right now, and I know that will not last forever. So I will savour it and encourage others to take it on if they ever get the chance. 

Hobby

After spending about a quarter of a century on this Earth, I think this is the first time that I have become so in love and completely madly crazy over something that I can perhaps, officially call a hobby. 

What are your hobbies?

We all remember hearing that question either as a child, during an awkward group introduction, or a an orientation of some sort with strangers or acquaintances. Most of my life I've said that playing the guitar was my hobby, although I remember never being able to answer that question with full conviction at any point of time . Yeah I like playing the guitar, but I'm not really obsessed with it, neither do I do it every other day (now maybe I'll pick it up once a month or so).

Last year and this year though, I finally did find a hobby which I have grown to love and hate with a passion at times. Love to do it, but hate it when I'm in the midst of a marathon bake or when I'm baking for an 'event' of sorts. But I know that I ultimately love it, because,after throwing my hands up in the midst of a chaotic bake session (like when I was baking about 100 cupcakes to sell at the markets last month) and swearing off butter, eggs and flour forever, I jumped straight back into it the next day to bake another batch of cupcakes for church on Sunday. (You'd have thought I were nuts if you had seen how crazy it looked on a friday night with multiple bowls of batter, stacks of cupcakes and multiple piping bags of icing strewn around the kitchen and dining hall)

Now I feel like I have withdrawal symptoms when I go a weekend without getting my hands in the oven. Every weekend if I'm free I want to get my hands into something new and exciting, whether it be making chocolate decorations or trying to find that perfect sponge recipe (I still haven't), I've found myself quite madly obsessed with it (so much so that I did at one stage, google the Le Cordon Blu courses to contemplate a course in Patisserie)

Even now as I finish tying this the craving to get my hands in making some choux pastry.... 

Stepping Up

Here is a little project for 2014 which I have embarked on...

The goal to raise $1000 for Destiny Rescue, and organisation that saves girls who have been caught in the awful sex trade, mostly against their will in countries like Cambodia and Thailand.

When I verbally agreed to doing this, in my head, I kept saying to myself 'Yeah right as if you'll be able to do that'. Then one day, I had the idea that I'd turn my baking hobby into something that could raise some funds for the charity.

And so Cakes for a Cause was born!

I had a bake sale during the Nanango markets in May just to try and get the word out. It was amazing, because out of the 80+ cupcakes that had been baked the nights leading up to the markets, only TEN were left. That meant an almost 90% sale which I couldn't really believe! I had half expected to be bringing back at least half the cupcakes!

It's been enjoyable, terribly tiring, exciting, rewarding and amazing all at the same time as I see how God has really allowed this opportunity to take flight.

Head over to www.cakesforacausekingaroy.blogspot.com to have a look if you are curious or if you would love to spread the word!


(I'm a terrible terrible sales and PR person and just really suck at advertising, so any props from you will be helpful just so that the word about Destiny Rescue gets out as well!)

Local music makes me happy some times

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5qY02VeDlg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

The Country Experience - Bakes Bakes Bakes!

  Living out here in the country has been definitely eye-opening, but occasionally mind-numbing, depressingly isolating and lonely as well. I've had a chance to spend a heap of alone time, reflecting, thinking, planning, reflecting more, organ-idling to my heart's content and finding/re-igniting hobbies and passions. 

For the past 8 months, I thought I would perhaps pick up a new hobby or skill (such as keeping a chook), or hone my existing skills in things like baking or music. Well the chook didn't happen (too troublesome and expensive to keep a chook just for it's eggs), and it recently dawned upon me how much I truly enjoy baking. Not cooking mind you, (I enjoy it, but spend most times microwaving for the sake of ease), but baking some how provides a more long-lasting satisfaction. (Probably because the stuff sits there longer than a plate of fried rice would)

I decided to compile shots of whatever cakes and bakes I've made over the past 8 months! They've all been edited with some ripoff version of instagram so that they look hippy and cool (who says I'm too grandma to use what those youngsters are using these days).

As you can see cupcakes have been my favourite thing to bake. Namely because they're pretty and bringing them to the office is such a joy. This has been one of the best investment hobbies I've had! Even if a batch of more 'atas' cupcakes might cost me a bit to bake (e.g. cream cheese, chocolate etc), the satisfaction from seeing hardworking teacher-mums in the office appreciating that mid-afternoon sugar hit is always worth it. If I can make someone's day or week for a dollar or two, why not right? Plus, I have a soft spot for working mums. :P (I rarely offer their kids cupcakes because they get enough sugar and aren't half as appreciative as their mums. Plus they don't need the sugar, it's their mums who do!)

 

One of the first bakes, Chocolate Easter Cupcakes   

One of the best hits I made, Strawberry Cheese Cupcakes (I know it's a hit when the teachers tell me their orgasmic, haha)

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes (I had a couple of oranges sitting there for a week)

 

My version of Awfully Chocolate's chocolate banana cake, hurhur 

 

Ombre Raspberry Cake with Cream Cheese Icing (for my colleague's farewell). She's quite a princess-y girl which was why I thought a pink/purple ombre cake would suit her! 

C

 Coffee Walnut (one of the earlier attempts and hence a rather bbfftttt outcome)

I think these were chocolate malt cupcakes? Awesome stuff when you use Horlicks!

 

 

Pumpkin Cream Cheese! (another orgasmic hit with the ladies) 

 

 And then recently, one of the amazing bakers at church shared her amazing bread recipe with me, you know the ones where you get soft asian white bread? OMG NEW HOBBY!! These were my second attempt the day right after because it was just so addictive baking bread!

 

Simple chocolate ones for an afternoon tea with my colleague and her kids. The kids are massive chocolate fans

 

 

And I thought I would make it look fancy for a bit! But we chucked them in tupperware and headed out to the park anyways, so this was purely for photograpy's sake! These were my first attempts at baking the buns and breads. They were fluffy but not as fluffy as I wanted (and hence the OCD person in me woke up early the next day to try again)

 

 

The original Pumpkin Cream Cheese attempt. I was trying to make them Maroon in honour of the first State of Origin game between the Maroons and Blues. That's when I realised how impossible it is to make maroon with food colouring, haha..

 

One of the random Saturday afternoon bakes.. I think it was raspberry brownies? (You can guess where the ingredients come from, haha)

 

Quite a fail attempt at Peanut Butter Macarons. Hardly any feet here

 

 

And I think these were Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcakes

I've baked a lot more but often forget to take photos, either that or they kinda half fail so I'm not too impressed with them. Many times I have awfully off days where everything on the baking tray just sucks, hahahaha

Garnier Miracle Skin Perfector (Oil-free) Review

I had heard about the Garnier Miracle Skin Perfector from one of our local bloggers early last year (I enjoy the occasional reading of our local bloggers just because it makes me feel connected to home when I feel homesick!). I must admit that I was pretty taken by the BB cream especially since it wasn't that expensive. However, I didn't want to jump in and buy the product immediately as I had always been a dry compact powder kinda person. 

However, sometime last year, I managed to get my hands on a couple of sachet samples from the EKKA and must admit that I totall loved it. The BB cream wasn't gluggy and thick like the asian ones I had tried before despite being able to give pretty decent coverage. It also didn't turn me into a fail geisha, which most of them do especially when I'm a bit browner than those silky Gong-li girls on korean/japanese ads. 

Being a fan of sample advertising (and to encourage Garnier to keep giving out samples to people like me, hurhur) I went to buy a tube of it.

The fatter tube is the original one I bought

I didn't realise that there were actual different versions of this product, and was pretty happy with the original fat tube I got. However, soon after I had bought that tube, I received a rather surprising e-mail from Garnier:

 

Now the last time I remembered ever winning any competition or lucky draw thing was when I was in primary school and Maccas had some lucky draw with every meal purchased (I won a bag or something). Most times, I'm not that lucky. Although I do tend to pick up money on the floor quite often (haha, my mum always finds it funny that I still find money on the floor even at this age!)

I was such a happy chappy when it came into my mailbox! (Aiyo look at that horrible shiny oily skin!)









Now, I have pretty crappy skin, depending on the time of the day/month/year/life cycle. Thankfully, I don't own a good enough camera to show you all the imperfections. So I found the biggest zit I could on my face and decided to do a cover-up test:

Giant pomple (what my sister calls it when it's big and juicy)

I'm no pro at doing these pretty picture things. I do what's the basic necessity of before/after shots. So don't mind the lack of photogenicity (if that is even a word).

After covering it up with the BB cream! TA DAH

And now my face looks slightly less shinier thank goodness.

There was actually quite a significant difference between the oil-free version and the oiled-up version. Although both gave me pretty much the same coverage, I did prefer the oil-free version as it was, well, less oily. Plus, for it's price (I think Coles/Woolies sometimes sells if for under $10 for sale), I think it's a great basic foundation to use when you're on the go! My housemate then still uses it! (I spied three tubes in her room that day, haha, and I myself still have the two tubes, one of which I always carry around in my handbag for the days I forget and leave the house without makeup).

It's been a life-saver for me, especially when I hadn't had a proper house to live in when I first started work, the Garnier BB cream was something I could blindly smear all over my face without a mirror and without any worry of it being uneven or cakey. It spreads like a moisturiser and feels pretty much like one. I must say that garnier has improved a lot on the range and quality of their products recently! (Either that or now I can actually bother/afford them, hurhur)

Stockholm, Sweden in 1.5 days

Some of you might know that I made the crazy journey of spending a collective amount of 50 hours on planes across two weeks to head up to what was meant to be, sunny Zurich to spend some catch up time with the family. My brother-in-law, whom my mum says has 'itchy-backside', had booked a mini 6 day trip to Sweden, Denmark and Finland once he knew I was planning to come up for a trip (meaning that essentially, I only spent about 4 days in the actual Zurich house).

I decided to talk about the places separately since they were all such lovely places, albeit not actually seeing much except the malls.

Stockholm was probably was my favourite of the three. Home to the creators of Ikea, H&M, those yummy Swedish meatballs, Alfred Nobel (and where the Nobel prize ceremonies are held each year), and where the term Stockholm Syndrome came from (duh). One of the creators of a popular app (either Spotify or something like that) is Swedish as well, so they're touted as a fairly innovative society.

Her happy face just 5 seconds before she let out a mouthful of spew on my head. Warm and liquidy.. yum

One thing I remembered most about Stockholm - Poor Ellie was down with a tummy bug! But she's such a precious little bub and didn't fuss that much despite being terribly sick.

This is her 'Oei!! Where my food go!??' look when she dropped it over the edge. Her perpetually drippy nose made her leave her jaw hanging most times and copious amounts of drool moisturised the family and every single piece of furniture at home.

 So back to Stockholm. This was one of the few places where we actually acted like tourists and did 2 tourist-y things! 

1. Buy tickets for the hop-on-hop-off bus (because Gaby just gets so thrilled when she sees a bus)

Girls thoroughly enjoying being on the top deck of the bus!

2. Visit a museum called the "Vasa Museum" that houses the only preserved viking ship . 

Peace and calm for the moment before as we walk toward the museum considering the chaotic morning we had.

The gardens outside the Museum

Our trip to visiting the Vasa Museum was bumpy and eventful. After suffering two spontaneous vomits and changes of clothes for Ellie (one at the hotel, one at Maccas, not including the one on my head), we finally made our way to catch the hop on hop off bus to the museum, which wasn't actually that far, but took a while due to the traffic in Stockholm.

And right when we're about to get our tickets to enter the museum, dear little Ellie does a third spew of the day, this time, all over daddy's jacket! It's a chaotic moment for everyone and we rush off to wash, dry, change, whatever we can (sour milk ain't that great smelling if it's on you), making our eventful day, much much more eventful than any tour could provide!

Thankfully we managed to catch on to an English tour group within the museum and learn quickly that the Vasa was a great warship built in 1628. But low and behold, guess what, as they set it on it's maiden voyage to fight against I can't remember who, the poor stability of the boat and waves cause it to flip, fill up with water, and sink after sailing barely a kilometer out from the shore! The waters weren't too deep, but the Vasa sat there until 1961 when technology was advanced enough for it to be hauled out of the murky waters. Apparently, the water had actually helped to preserve most of it's structure (something to do with salinity blah blah blah). 

So here we are, staring at this great ship, that never even made it out the waters of Sweden, hahahah... I found that quite funny. But it was pretty marvelous to see a ship built in the 17th century!

 

Of course, how can anyone leave Sweden without eating the yummalicious Swedish meatballs?? Honestly, they actually had a flavour that was pretty similar to the Ikea ones! Except that the quality of the meat was much better, as well as the actual cranberries you can spy on the side of the plate in place of that goopy jam Ikea gives you.

We spent most of the remaining time checking out the malls for cheap baby clothes for the kids, or looking for nappy changing tables, or food, or a place to sit down. Haha, not what you might call an ideal European tour, but being with family and just going through all the chaos together makes it enjoyable and memorable!


Ending off with a nice candid family shot taken after fantastic seafood dinner in Copenhagen.

Everyone was more than happy to stand there appreciating a couple of buskers as we were meant to be walking in the opposite direction with the sun in our faces. I had never felt so blind in my life! Plus the reflections off the cobble stones made it even worse. I hope the girls grow up to appreciate music as much as we do!

Foggy and Unclear

The area around the South Burnett region is slightly elevated at certain regions. This means that the temperature around here is generally several degrees colder than Brisbane. We've had a few cold weeks and days where you would find frost on the grass or on your car if it wasn't parked indoors (unfortunately I'm normally quite blind and unobservant and have yet to see this for myself).

The elevation and mountain ranges also means that we get a fair bit of fog settling in the mornings and nights across large areas. You can sometimes be driving on a clear road, and notice a distinct fog settled over the town ahead as you come to it. 

Up here in the Kingaroy area I've had my fair share of clear gorgeous days. Days like this where you drive home in the sunset feeling all calm, peaceful and thankful for the blessings and opportunities given to you.

 Yet on some mornings as I drive off to work, the land is cloaked in a heavy fog that provides a visibility of perhaps 15-20m (Ok I'm not that good at gauging). It was scary the first time I drove through such thick and heavy fog, but most people are are aware and keep their headlights on. And as long as you're not blind drunk, it's pretty safe driving in fogs (or so I think for now).

 Once again, compare the stark differences between clear skies...

...and heavy fog.

There are many times in my life where I feel that everything is quite crystal clear, where I know or am sure of some things or plans I have for the future. Times where I can see so clearly ahead and think to myself, 'yup that's what I'm going to do and going to be like'. Times where the inner pedantic planner in me has the plan down to the minutest detail. Times where it all feels like this:

These are the Wooroolin Wetlands that are across the street from my place. I like to call it the 'Tree Cemetreee' hurhur.. Basically the land area was flooded during the floods ages ago and all the trees died and the area never dried up.

 But then again, there are also plenty of moments in my life that feel just like that:























 Night driving in the fog can sometimes be scary and fun at the same time. You get to see wisps of fog streaming past your car, and it somehow makes me feel as if I were flying a plane.

 Anyways, back to what I was saying, many times I have no idea where the hell I'm going, except for the immediate, what is right in front of me. I suddenly have no inkling of what is to come, what I'm going to do, what the future holds. It gets frustrating, confusing, depressing all at the same time. Just following the road as you come to it, not knowing what's ahead unless someone with a headline is coming towards, giving you just enough warning to watch out and not crash.

 

And then sometimes skies are perfect one moment, and as I said, you see a fog that has nestled itself amongst the land ahead of you and suddenly, you can't see nothin'.