Monday, January 9, 2012

All the drama in the house

Now I am sitting on the deck, although it is cloudy and may even look like it is going to rain any moment, I feel much more peaceful than last night. Therefore, sitting down, with a "Waikato Draught" I can write a bit about the drama last night... Before that.. "Waikato Draught" is known to the Kiwis as the local red-neck beer...to us, it is cheap and delicious .. nothing can beat a $12.99 for a 20-bottles pack (meaning each bottle of beer cost about 65cents!).

Here goes the drama - the evening actually started off really nice. We bought 4 corn on the cop which cost 95cents each and mince beef for $6 which was enough to last us 2 meals. We made sloppy joes and corn on the cop. We were all happy and proud that we can make such delicious and yet inexpensive food. The evening ended even nicer after watching the cheesy action movie "Fast Five". It is one of the most cheesy action movie you will ever see...a great combination of all the Fast and Furious series, Die Hard and The Expendables.

The better part of the night - Sloppy Joes and Corn on the cop


















Well...then I called my mom, and here is where all the drama started! My mom was pretty stressed these few weeks - she had to take care of my sister's new born baby, the older kids..bringing them to school and other activities, and then my sister's whole family got chicken pox! Now, the additional stress from my wedding which is about 1 week away. I am sure the relatives has been calling her as well to check on the wedding and what time they should turn up etc.

Hannah and I had originally wanted to keep the wedding simple. We had decided not too many people, no crazy Chinese traditions etc. Somehow, without any of us noticing, the guests list had slipped from 30 people to 45 people! This means more costs and more hassle! Hannah's wedding dress had not arrived yet, and even though she had been tracking that dress every single moment it left the dressmaker, it was still in the NZ customs! We were too late in ordering items for decorating the location, nor did we bought any thing as favors for the guests! Dogsitter is also getting married in a couple of weeks, and she had not decided whether she can help to take care of Jet and Kaly while we are gone.We wanted to have a simple wedding cake, but it costs $282 and the champagne cost a whopping $800! What are these items made of? Are they dipped in gold and framed up with diamonds!? Scheduling the wedding event is quite an operation... who is coming at what time, what are we doing at any single time, where is the location? How to get directions for people? What type of food? Any allergies and preferences? The sitting plan - will the guests who are sitting in the same table ended up fighting with each other? What about the music? What about streaming a video so that overseas friends and relatives can watch the event as well? etc...No wonder average people only opted to marry once because planning for the wedding is crazy! So a quite happy night ended up with my mom and I having a shouting match over the phone!

Well, I am sure after this beer, I will call my mom to say I am sorry for losing my temper. We will work things out eventually. The wedding dress is finally here. While we still do not have the favors nor the decoration, we will try to pull something together when we reach Singapore. Breathe...

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Toys for the big boys

Woke up this morning and while I was going through my daily emails, this offer came in on one of my email alerts. Oh boy, if only I had $1000 stash away somewhere :P
AUCTION : Space Invaders Machine













Then, when I was waiting for dinner to be ready, I went to the NZ "ebay" equivalent website to check on some of the auctions I have been keeping a look out for and this came up on the side!... Wow.. must be one of those days!
AUCTION: Star wars vintage action figures

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Not for the faint heart!

Warning : The following post may contain some images which so people may find disturbing!

Anyone who knows me well enough knew that I think Twinkies are one of the best food invented in US! The other food I swear by is fried chicken, especially Southern fried chicken. So today, I had a bright idea!... why don't I combine the two food I love most into one! Thus, I decided to make deep fried twinkies. According to a "reliable" website, here is the breakdown on the the amount of calories we ingested yesterday.

1 Twinkie = 150 calories
Batter and oil = 275 calories
Total calories added to our body = 425 calories!

Fried twinkies... absolutely appetizing! 
Hannah all thrill to ingest 425 calories of goodness!




























Some people would probably wonder how I stay so slim when I loved calories so much! :P ... well, a very strict regime of exercise - running and P90x! and of course, Hannah's lovely and delicious quiche helps as well :) Hannah made a delicious ham quiche for dinner in between the sampling session of the fried twinkies. We got the Christmas holidays left over ham for $14 from the supermarket (originally a whopping $50) . We presume it should not go bad since ham is already well preserved! After making ham quiche, and previously split pea soup and hopping john etc, we still have enough ham to last us for another week or so!... Thus, here is a quick tip for money saving - buy lots of ham after the Christmas season!
Delicious ham cheese quiche

Yummy!



























Happy Me