Happy 'Niu' Year

This year's new year, we added new decorations for our place. After our Christmas tree left, we thought there was a big gap in the hall and went to get the pussy willow. And we decorated our front door with new hangings of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals (now I can recycle this door hangings every year!).














I had also added new auspicious plants like the red radish (which is the 'in' thing to grow this year). To date, the three radishes we have are growing so well that two of them had flower buds already. You can get this from the vegetable stalls in the wet market. If you buy it from the florists it'll cost you thrice as much because of the flower pots and soil. Just need to plant this radish into the soil and voila!

I've tried brewing soup with this red radish as well. Just cut the radish into quarters, 1 or 2 carrots, chicken bones or pork ribs and put everything into the slow cooker for 4 to 5 hours. You get a nice clear and sweet soup. It taste sweeter than those white radishes soup in fact.













And for the lucky kids, they're wearing the traditional chinese clothes we got from Taiwan. I thought Zhi looks like some botak monk.


Finally, an almost OK family photo except Zhi is not looking at the camera.

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

Ok, I know I'm very late in blogging this. But right after Christmas I had to pack up and prepare for our Taipei trip. Thus this entry had always been parked aside until now.

Just a brief one, our church organizes house to house Christmas caroling every year. And this year, we thought we should invite them to our place for caroling. So on the eve, we invited our family members and relatives over for a simple dinner and waited for the caroling team to arrive at about 11pm. And when they arrived, everybody got so excited, even our neighbours. They started singing at the lift lobby and slowly walked into our home. Thereafter, more Christmas carols were sung.

The next day, is present opening day for the kids. Kids are so lucky nowadays, both Ning and Zhi are so blessed to receive many presents this year. Many of you would have known Ning's love for books and Zhi's love for wheels. And this year, Ning received so many books that WF joked we can open a kiddy bookstore. As for Zhi, he got his wheels and Thomas & Friends toys too!

I believe the kids have enough toys and books that'll keep them occupied for the rest of the year.

Here's a collage of the two days. Ning had sweetly posed for the camera to show off her Christmas presents. Plus, I've included a picture of a simple Christmas banner I did for our front door. Our front door is really huge (and heavy) and I thought it'll be nice if I can do some Christmas decorations. I've put up some nice CNY decorations at the moment too. Will pose that in a separate entry.

 

Christmas is Dinner And CNY is Lunch

Like Christmas, CNY is also a time where we visit and catch up with relatives and friends (more of relatives I supposed). Other than the usual spring cleaning, notes changing, buying new year goodies etc, we're also planning our CNY schedule on who to visit, to invite and the logistics involve.

What intrigues me is that we tend to invite or get invited for lunch during CNY as compared to dinner for Christmas. WF and I were discussing and felt that lunch for CNY is more suitable and if we host a dinner, it kind of feel funny.

Hmmm... why so? And the same applies for Christmas. Its usually a dinner and hardly any luncheon.

We concluded its probably the winter versus springtime thingy. What do you think?

Amendments

Oppss... I got WF's weight all wrong. He reminded me that I should not "blow up" his weight figures like how Satyam blew up their numbers in their accounts and balance sheet.

So here are his real "statistics":
Current weight: 71kg
Target weight: 68kg

So he intend to lose 3kg in the next 12mths. Pretty manageable target here.

Goals for 2009

I'm sure many of us encounter different kinds of obstacles (real or mental) when we set our new year's resolution. It usually "die" half way before the year is up.

And I always remember in one of our training courses back in SQ CC we talked about setting goals for ourselves: A goal has to be SMART.

S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Achievable
R - Realistic
T - Time bound

I think all these elements are self-explanatory.

Last year, 2008, I gave myself a goal: To complete 2.4km on the thread mill in less than 18 minutes within the year. It was so "SMART" (in another sense) that I hit my goal in May. And happily, I stopped going to the gym and feel contented. Of course, this is just an excuse for laziness.

This year, I think I should refine this goal to: To complete 2.4km on the thread mill in less than 16 minutes and MAINTAIN this level of speed throughout the year, if not better. I sure hope this will keep me going for exercise until year end. And I promise I will update you on how much time I can complete my 2.4km in December.

As for the other goals I had, well, put it simply, I hope to be able to roller blade in ECP by end of this year and if time permits, take up a new course.

If you ask, what about WF? He casually told me his goal during our Taipei trip: Lose weight!!! (Imagine Uncle Lim losing weight??!!)

Current weight: 75kg
Target weight: 71kg

I really don't know how he's going to burn away the 4kg. Considering he's already playing serious badminton twice a week and going for a jog once a week.

Of course, Ning & Zhi are too young to have goals. But mummy hope Zhi will be able to attend playgroup independently and be potty trained.

We're Back!

WF and I are back to work this week. Ning is back to school as well. Put in bluntly, we're back to reality. No more long weekends, no more holidays (for the time being, I hope) and no more slacking.

Its a new year, a new start and 12 months of slogging before we hit another December.

I've set out some goals which I would like to achieve. Will talk more about this in another post. Right now, its back to work.

Oh... I will post some Taiwan pictures too.