Birthday 2014: Meet Ups and Pig Outs Part 2

[This is a scheduled post.]


~*Flea-ing with Evan*~


I don't know if our flea market day is considered a birthday meet up. Evan and I would always meet up in March and May for each other's birthday dinner treat. She was busy clearing work for her trip in March and I was busy clearing work after my trip in May that we decided to simply hang out for dinner on the day of the flea market.




We haven't flea-ed for many years and our wardrobes were bursting at their seams. Some clothing items were even lying around in boxes, suitcases and paper bags in our rooms that our hubby thought they were a complete eyesore. We had been incessantly nagged at by the hubbies to do something about them. When we finally snagged a flea slot, the smiles on our hubs' faces resembled the smiles on the Smiley Face paper fans-- the fans which we used to fan ourselves as beads of perspiration glided down our skin like oil on a well-slicked frying pan on a sweltering Sunday afternoon.




We had Nando's Chicken for dinner. My plate looked like it was on a diet on its own. I had to have my greens so while I force fed kh with greens, I stole his fries at the same time.




When Chris and Kh stood talking together from afar, Evan and I could not help laughing at their similar Adidas jersey, khaki berms, casual flip flops (and their lack of fashion sense), posing with arms folded like Sir Stamford Raffles as they engaged in what appeared like a serious conversation. After that when we enquired what they were talking about, Kh revealed that they were actually gossiping about us and how we can never make up our minds on what to eat!




It was difficult to really have a good chat that day since in between chats, we were entertaining customers. We should really meet up more often. There seemed to be so many pending updates on both sides and so little time.





~*Lunch with my Other Family*~


We met up at the Bakerinz near Charlene and my workplace for a quick lunch with Cyn mommy and my godkids. The last time I saw them was in December which was considered a long time since this is only group of friends whom I would meet up more regularly.




The last time I saw my god daughter Mia, she was just a month old. Even though I often keep myself updated on Mia from Cyn's postings on Facebook, it was still surprising to see how much Mia had grown!




Her slate-grey eyes had slowly taken a more brownish hue but she is still as adorable as ever! All the staff in the restaurant was cooing over her.




Cyn said that Mia's eyes are like radar, scanning the people around her and only allowing people whom she is familiar with to carry her. If anyone doesn't pass her radar scan, she would wail very loudly upon being carried by that person. That's everyone imitating Mia's grumpy frown.




Charlene told me that Mia wailed very loudly the last time she carried her. Hence, I was quite certain that Mia would wail very loudly too since I wasn't any familiar person. But a godma has to be a godma and be insistent on carrying her god daughter.




I was surprised when she did not cry at all. She made some little "mm... mm..." noises and I almost thought she was gonna cry next...




... but Cyn mommy and God son Jase started making a fool of themselves to entertain her and keep her from crying. Lol! Mia especially loved Jase kor kor's voice and funny faces.




I didn't know that Cyn snapped soooooooooo many pictures of us. It was difficult to capture Mia's smile but at least she wasn't wailing and looked cute in some shots. Just focus on Mia's cute chubby face and ignore my stupid face for some, will you?




Wefie shot.




When Mia started laughing, I handed her over to Charlene so that she could carry Mia when she wasn't crying for once. Lol...




Here are some lovely selfies of Charlene and me with Mia at the expense of Cyn and Jase. What you don't see is Cyn and Jase continuing to make funny faces while Char snapped these.




Charlene got me a T-shirt with a kitty cat popping out from the pocket. I love it! Sad to say, I would not be able to wear this as the T-shirt went missing after I put it to wash. =(




It was a great meet up and even though there were kids around, I managed to catch up with Cyn and Char quite a bit over a short lunch. We even got to play a 3D Snake and Ladder with Jase while lunching and chatting. Talk about multi-tasking, something which I'm really bad at. I love random little gatherings like these with my dear friends/families!
View this anigif on my Instagram with Michael Jackson's Love Never Felt So Good audio as the background music.





~*Buffet Town with the F4 Minus 1*~


HS was back in Singapore for a few days and she was craving for Japanese food especially sashimi. Hence, Em suggested Buffet Town one of the evenings after work. The sashimi was super fresh and I love the raw salmon a lot. There was a slight oily fish taste which I really adore.




The other food was so-so. If you are not one who would whack the sashimi and fresh oysters, your money would  not be well-worth the trip to Buffet Town.




Unfortunately, WY wasn't able to join us at the very last minute as she was suspected of contracting HFMD during that period of time. She had since been cleared of it. We haven't gathered with full F4 force for the past 3 meet ups.
(Aside: That reminds me, I haven't blogged about our last 3 meet ups!)




Even though HS's birthday is in August together with WY, Em and I decided to celebrate with her in June since we had been missing hers the past 2 years when she was overseas.





Sweet Em was late as she was busy getting cards and flowers for HS and me! *touched*




Em said, "I specially chose hot pink coz it is hot and sweet like you gals."
Our expression was (｡♥‿♥｡) and (⊙_◎)  at the same time.




Our gifts for one another:
Behind - The Little Twin Star gift bags from me were for Xmas or rather, gifts of the year gift pack.
Middle - The boxes of chocolates were from HS from Switzerland.
Front - The cards and flowers were shared gifts from Em and WY.




Yummy chocolate snacks!




Em with all her gifts. Em was really touched by the words on the tin can.




Hs's with all her gifts. HS became a kitchen goddess with all the meals she whipped up in Switzerland.




Me with all my gifts. Hmm... why are we holding 2 flowers?




Our birthday cards contain lots of sweet words. HS wrote on behalf for WY on mine and I on hers since Em would already have to write on both our cards. When we opened our cards to read, it was simply telepathic. Too bad, Wy didn't know what we wrote on behalf for her. The cards also served as "ang pow" for our cash gift. Yay! I'm so gonna use the cash to buy something which I would use frequently to remember you gals by.





~*TCC with the OEBabes*~


This group which consists of current colleagues and ex colleagues met up at TCC for lunch to celebrate SY and my birthday.




I used to love TCC a lot but the menu at the Vivocity branch seemed to be really different. Many of my favourite dishes were not on the menu. At least the cakes were good.




Pretending to blow and cut for photo purpose.




We got a Coach wristlet for SY. My wishlist of Yankee candles is not pictured here coz I went with a group of them to choose my candles and brought them home the previous week.




It is great to have lovely colleagues at work and at play.




All the photos in this post are taken using iPhone 4s, Saumsung Note 3 and other unknown handphone with camera function.





~*Opinions?*~

Ok, so I've finally wrapped up my birthday happenings 2014 within June without having to do a serious "throwback". That's a mean feat for me! So may I hear some applause? No? Ok I will go sit at the corner, draw circles on the floor and eat some worms.

I've already cut back on blogging about every single outing whereby there are photos taken. Time and energy aren't smiling at me. Sometimes I wonder if I should just stop blogging about events in my life. Ever since I've started on this job which does not allow the use of camera/camera phones, I realized that I do not take as many photos as before even on weekends. Without photos, it seems like I'm not able to remember a lot of things that happened. In a way, Instagramming and blogging allow me to capture my memories more tangibly and it is always fun to reminisce as I write about these memories.

Do you enjoy reading lifestyle recap posts like this or do you prefer it when I write about certain topics? The latter usually happens when I'm doing filler posts in between photo-intensive ones. Let me know in the comments section.

Birthday 2014: Birthday Meet Ups and Pig Outs Part 1

~*Meet Up with 上半年 Babies at Professor Brawn*~


After a relaxing hang out at Candice's place a while back with the 上半年 Babies clique, we agreed to meet up more often. The name "上半年 Babies" which means the "first half of the year babies" was coined for our Whatsapp group chat for we have January-, February- and March-born babies in this group. We often meet up during that period to celebrate everyone's birthday except mine. It all started here in 2007. Hence during the last meet up, the gals agreed that we should also meet up for my birthday. It was a super spontaneous meet up with them during my birthday eve (24 May) as it was only arranged and confirmed the day before. Boy was I glad that everyone managed to do some shift in their schedule for the meet up to materialize.




HY recommended Professor Brawn Cafe at Novena Square which is social enterprise. The founders are parents and friends who want to make a difference to the special needs community. Their dream is to provide opportunities for jobs, showcase of special talents and to raise awareness and contributions by supporters of the cause.




Professor Brawn offers Western cuisine at mid-range cafe prices so if you like good food at affordable prices with a slice of philanthropy, this is a place to visit! For people patronizing this cafe, do show some support by being a little more understanding and patient towards the employees. The waiter who served us was a little slow in understanding but really chatty. For that short 1 minute, he regaled us with stories of the huge Fish and Chips in Australia.




We were seated in a "bird cage" and were the only customers then. However, we were soon joined by many others as the time passed.






The menu takes the form of an encyclopaedia.




Sam's Fish and Chips was the cafe's signature dish.




HY's Gourmet Rosti and Sausage was another signature dish. I do love their sausages a lot even if they are a little on the salty side.




SY's dunno-what Spaghetti and Sausage. Her sausage tasted good too. I can't decide whether I preferred HY or SY's sausage coz both tasted just as good.




My Spaghetti Bolognaise tasted like SY's spaghetti. Not pictured was Candice's Spaghetti Vongole. Vongole and Bolognaise are my absolute favourite spaghetti. Professor Brawn's Vongole smelled so heavenly, the aroma of the clams and white wine tickled my nose with delight even as Candice was sitting at the farthest end of the table.




We had Ice Cream and Waffle to share for desserts.




And as if we hadn't had enough savoury food, we also had Calamari to share. Thank you for the treat, gals! It was a delicious and meaningful lunch.




Samantha gave all of us old school Super Sour sweets after being inspired by a blog post chronicling the 80s babies' childhood memories which we read together during the last meeting. And because Sam had to leave for a meeting with her client, she was absent from all our photos after that.

We were more thrilled by the packaging than the sour sweets inside.




As we were indecisive about which flavours to choose, we decided to split the flavours equally among ourselves as seen in this anigif.




All of us tore the packet in different ways.
The rough gals: HY's packet was totally ravaged. SY tore a big portion of the packet.
The not-so-rough gals: I tore a teeny little strip at the side. Candice was the neatest. She was the only one who could pull the top seal apart. We all marvelled at her magic fingers.




They knew each other since pre-primary.




I think there's a dark-coloured theme here.




We should superimpose Sam in.




Attempting to take pictures with kids is the toughest. It was a good thing that on that day, I managed to capture lots of relatively clear and cute shots of Audrey. That was something we often failed to do.




We had to keep her hands busy by offering new "toys" to play with in order for her to stay still enough for the camera.

She could be smiling cheekily one moment and frowning the next.




I felt that this shot of Audrey was beautiful except that it was overexposed. Love her Precious Moments eyes.




Another accidental capture which I like was when she was playing Peek-a-Boo.




I made an anigif of her playing Peek-a-Boo. Hope it is displaying properly.




Cheeky-face Audrey was so excited when she knew she could peer through the tinted glass without popping her head at the top for Peek-a-Boo.




I managed to capture so many cute shots of Audrey that I cannot decide which to feature so here's a collage.




High 5!




And byebye!




Left:
My 2nd birthday card for the year came from HY. I don't usually like Victoria Secrets scent as they are often too sweet for my liking but Secret Charm smells light and pleasant.
Right:
I can't stop raving about Cuccio Naturale Papaya Green Tea Cuticle Revitalizer Complex that Sam gave. My nails are really weak and soft. After doing gelish manicure twice, my nail surface is totally rough with white specks no matter how much the nail had grown out and cut. Constant application of moisturizer and argan oil did not remove the white specks. However, they immediately lightened and smoothened out after I applied this oil. The cucumber pads are for my puffy eye bags.








~*Meet Up with Viv at Real Food*~


Instead of being sick of Mondays, there was something to look forward to the Monday after my birthday. I was gonna meet up with Viv who had lots of updates to share about her new direction in life. She chose Real Food at Square 2, a cafe self-run by 'a team of passionate and stubborn individuals who believe we are what we eat".




Real Food café is free from processed ingredients, artificial preservatives and Trans-fat. Last but not least, they are meat free! Viv and I would try to adopt a vegetarian diet at least once a week. Going meat-free one day per week is a powerful way to reduce your ecological footprint and improve your health. Making this small change in your diet can have a dramatic effect on a variety of social and environmental issues we face today.




The menu provides a detailed description of each dish.




Do you know that we are consuming too much processed foods in our diet? Processed foods are often cheap and convenient. Real Food explains why they are too good to be cheap. Honestly, I find their prices really reasonable.




We also ordered the Organic Potato Wedges and Assorted Mushrooms Bruschetta.




Yes, I'm cutting down on tea in my diet but their tea sounded too cute not to order.




I mean check out the names like "Calming Tummy Tea", "Troubled Times Tea", "Liberate your Liver Tea" and the likes. I think I need all of these!




Viv had the Spinach Arrabiata Whole Wheat Penne while I had Assorted Vegetable Balls Pasta.




We ordered a little too much! The mains were delicious at first bite but somehow the pasta grew really dry and heavy with each bite. Also, vegetarian "meat balls" are really filling in general and 4 was a little too much for me. I love the Assorted Mushrooms Bruschetta best!




I got a Lego Doctor souvenir from her trip to Legoland, Malaysia. On it, she wrote "an apple a day keeps the doctor away".




It was a great meet up and catch up!







I had wanted to consolidate all the meet ups with friends in one post but there are simply too many pictures for a single post, so I broke them up into 2 parts.

As mentioned before, people used to say that I had so many groups of good friends that I had a birth week instead of a birth day. Even as I grow older and mellow down, it is still pretty much that way! LOL. The only difference would be that instead of hanging out late at night to party, we would simply gather for a good chat over a meal. Sometimes the meet ups for belated birthday meals could stretch right up to June. I would just treat these as get-togethers and catching up with friends instead of celebrating my birthday.

Stay tuned for Part 2.