Unfolding December's Folder Part I

WARNING: Long long, picture-ful post. Go get your drinks and popcorn while waiting for the pictures to load. You could even savour your main dish in front of your PC.

I'm a lot worse than what I mentioned in Unfolding November's Folder. I'm actually updating backdated entries at a rate of more than a month interval.



So, were you naughty or nice last december? I think I was pretty nice. Sorry, did I say I was pretty nice? Ah, I made a Freudian Slip. I meant to say it was a pretty nice December.

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~*Dinner at Strictly Pancakes*~

It was a meet up of in between. We had wanted to gather for bei's birthday but she was not in town. We kept postponing the meeting till it was nearing xtina's birthday and decided to do a meet up of in between at Strictly Pancakes.

I heard of the long waiting time during weekend brunch. Fortunately for us, we met on a weekday night and almost had the whole restaurant to ourselves.



As its name suggests, Strictly Pancakes is a restaurant that serves pancakes at all times of the day and their menu includes both sweet and savoury pancakes.

We shared our main course of fluffy savoury pancakes.



I chose the Garlic Buttered Prawns.

Anyway do you know that whenever we had cook out sessions at friends' place during our younger days, I would cook butter garlic prawn? That was my so-called signature dish. I still can't get the consistency of the buttercream sauce right but those who tried gave the thumbs up in the taste department.

Snuggle Up consisted of hotdogs wrapped in fluffy pancakes while Beef Me Up resembled a thick hamburger topped with mushrooms. The former wasn't too bad but the latter didn't quite satisfy our palate. It has something to do with the meat.

The syrup made everything better. A little slab of butter was included to which we tried to spread generously on the pancakes.



Bei got a book of meaningful quotes as belated gift. I absolutely adore the bicycle illustration and basically the whole book jacket.



Xtina got a jar of bei's self-made rose scented handcream named "Cleopetra's Seduction" and a complimentary hand massage, exactly the same treatment as what I got for my birthday from bei. I hope xtina was able to seduce her fiance that night as what bei claimed of her hand cream.



xtina made a scrapbook in which she put together the whole process of her taking part in Hair for Hope.



Bei and xtina are always not in Singapore. Can we pweety pwease meet up more often?



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~*Dinner at Coffee Club*~

Random Saturay night dinner at Coffee Club with the hubby



The mains and soup, made even more unappetising with my nokia camera, weren't good at all. Caesar salad could never go wrong.

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~*Reg's Birthday Lunch at Nanbantei*~

It was a coincidence that reg's birthday was
1) on my off day and
2) when Karen and her hubz were on leave/off

and so we were all able to meet up on a weekday afternoon to have lunch at Nanbantei.



Nanbantei is one of reg and jw's favourite restaurant. It was my first time there even though I would always walk past that place whenever I go for my facial and IPL appointment. I must say that I love the food too! You see the grilled cod fish up there at the bottom left corner? That's my absolute favourite! I culd eat a whole cod fish myself if I was feeling selfish. All their yakitori were good except for the chicken balls (not photographed) which was f***ing big for chicken balls. We couldn't finish such big balls of course. The garlic rice (not photographed) was good too.

When we were almost done with dinner. Jw excused himself and reappeared with a chocolate cake and reg's favourite flower -- Eustomas.





After that, we headed downstairs to Old Town Coffee for iced coffee and chocolate as well as to let reg unravel her bag of assorted gifts. Whatever that we got for her, I got almost everything for myself too! I hate buying gifts for friends that way. Haha... I'm such a sucker for everything I buy for friends.





Karen and her hubz had to leave after that, leaving with reg, jw and I to catch Tangled (aka Rapunzel). Rapunzel, Flynn, Pascal the chamelon and Maximus the horse are all so cute! I love that cartoon!

After the movie, we parted ways for reg and jw got a dinner date while I had a dinner and xmas phototaking date with evan.

I'm glad to have been able to spend time with the people who mattered and I'm sure reg enjoyed her bday spent with people who mattered too!

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~*Orchard Road Xmas Light Ups with Evan*~

I met up with evan at Hot Tomato (do you wonder about its name?) for dinner. It was crowded, food was so so, service was fine. Well I would give them some credit for service as one of the waitress allowed us to shift to the huge couch seat when we requested even though there were only 2 of us.



After filling our growling bellies, we embarked on our xmas light ups walk and snap.

It was blue around Somerset area.



It slowly became purple towards Orchard.





Next, we treaded onto the yellow zone.



We simply had to do our signature bauble shots every year!



I feel the compelling need to explain why I always smile an idiotic ear-to-ear smile in such bauble shots. I was trying to replicate the Chip & Dale feel in the classic Disney short film, Pluto's Christmas Tree which was one of my favourite cartoons when I was young. Fast forward to 2:39 to see that look.



A whole collage dedicating to miu miu.



Then, it was a mish mash of colours.



I always love to look at TANGS window display. Once they had real models as "mannequin" for Triumph... yeah that lingerie brand. Wouldn't you guys love to be there?



Our last stop was ion where we sat on the bench outside and chatted till we had to catch the last train and last bus and continued our chat on the phone.



ion is one of the newer malls in Orchard which houses many designer labels under one roof. Check out the brands behind the musical instruments!



I wasn't supposed to do this as I ran the risk of being electrocuted but do I look as if I cared?





Outfit of the day:
♥ Alano butterfly sleeves top with inner lace spag
♥ Alano shorts
♥ Green Petals bird and rose necklace
♥ Chinese zodiac watch
♥ Ferragamo bag
♥ Americaya shoes

I promise Part II will not come in more than a month later. I'm waiting for some xmas party photos from my colleague. Those photos are saved in my company's folder which requires some time for her to locate. Part II will be all about Christmas Christmas and Christmas. I'm half a year late and I sure hope I don't give anyone the Christmas blues.

To all my blogger friends with comment form embedded under your post,
If you don't see my love notes to you, it's not coz I dislike you or something. I'm still not able to comment on your posts using my blogger/google profile. I hope blogger fixes this problem soon. However, I would still be able to comment if you've enabled Anonymous settings or have some chatbox somewhere. I always reply to comments left on my blog (just that it takes a long time at times) so remember to click and check back!

Updated on 18 June 1:13am:
Ignore the above! Bibi the genius suggested trying a different browser and Modzilla Firefox does the job! All along I was waiting for blogger to rectify the problem to no avail. Those who also experience the same problem, try using a different browser. Hope it solves your problem too. Cheers! I'm gonna unleash all my verbal constipation on your blogs in time to come.

Sharing some photos of my lil princess

I know some of my friends do not keep up with my god daughter's blogthat frequently so here's sharing some recent photos of little Charmaine after her emergency tumour op on her spinal cord late last month.

Captions are from Cyn mommy.


In ICU post Op on Saturday (28 May 2011)





Barely 48hrs post Op on Sunday. Showing me her trade-mark smile n peace sign. Still in pain and couldn't move lower limbs BUT she still smiles for me.




Plug on one hand, needle in her port-a-cath and swallowing medications like they are her daily meals... My little girl is unfazed. Shld have seen her look of determination when the needle was poked into her hand. NOT a single sound literally! No resistance. No shakes and trembles. She kept her hand as still as a statue, held her breath, shut her eyes closed with determination, a face of sheer concentration. Even I was in awe.

I asked her, "How do you do it honey? Even mom can't." She replied, "Actually I was going to cry but than I heard you say it's OK so I just thought it's OK." Her words brought such warmth that I feel so loved. There I was inspired by her bravery and strength, and here she is crediting all that to mommy's words of "It's OK". If only, if only it's truly OK. If only I could have the same strength as hers with just hearing those 2 simplest words from the person one loves most.




Char missed having the cake from her fav shop so we ordered one and celebrated ourselves inpatient! Just my princess and me! She was so HAPPY!




My little princess with a swollen leg, pain, fever, dizziness, nausea and constipation issues... And yet, her spirit is amazing and just look at her posing for her mom despite it all!

There is also a video of lil char and jase singing but I'm not able to upload that.

Seriously, lil char is able to grit her teeth and bear with so such sickness and pain that I feel so ashamed of myself feeling so sickly every single off day for 2 weeks and counting.

Love,
Jolene

Made with Love

I received lots of belated surprises for my birthday this year which I would share when I start to edit my June 2011 photos.

For now, the biggest surprise I received was when my gal friend, karen, specially baked me a cake and delivered it right to my doorstep just now. It’s awfully sweeeeeeeeet of her and she really sweetened my sickly sleepy Sunday.

I spent SGD92.60 to have a cute doctor telling me to see a specialist for my sinus!

Ok other than the cute factor, the fee includes a smorgasbord of colourful medicine and a nasal spray which contents doesn’t creep down my throat. It still tickles the nose though.

Please help me pray for my goddaughter Charmaine

I’ve been MIA on the internet realm over the weekend as my hubby had booked us a weekend stay at a hotel here. I’m now back where I’ve got more time to use the internet.

On Friday evening, I was shocked beyond words when I received a call from Charlene telling me about Charmaine’s emergency operation of her spinal cord. Charmaine woke up that morning not being able to move her lower body and to urinate. The cancer has attacked her spinal cord and the doctors advised an emergency operation which had a degree of fatality.

Two hours away from Singapore, I kept praying and sending positive energy to Charmaine. When an sms from Charlene came beeping again at about half past ten, my heart was pounding hysterically as my cold hand pressed onto the buttons of my handphone. A wave of relief washed over me when I saw her good news of the op being a success and that char was to be wheeled in the ICU ward.

Right now, Charmaine is in pain especially in her legs and gradually, her wound. Cynthia has asked for fewer doses of drugs and thus, char is beginning to feel the pain. She is still unable to urinate and her nervous system would take some time to heal. She’s in a very foul mood and didn’t want to talk to me over the phone just now.

I ask of all my friends and readers to help me pray for Charmaine’s smoother and less painful recovery, for the tumours to miraculously disappear and for her to be able to move her lower body again.

Your kind thoughts and gestures are deeply appreciated.

Love,
Jolene

PS:
I seem to be having problems commenting on some blogger blogs. This is especially so if your comment box is displayed as embedded below your post. I’m not too sure if it’s due to my current location. Does anyone of you experience the same problem this past week? I had to keep logging in and posting in my Google/Blogger name only to be brought back to the log in page again and again. My comment would only be successfully posted on my own blog, on blogs with anonymous-enabled commenting or on blogs whose comment form appears as a full page or pop up form and on disqus as well. For once, I’m thankful for disqus. Rinny, Winnie, Sugar etc whom I’ve always whined to you about disliking disqus, I’m taking back my words now.