My Journey…

Dear all,

I have moved to http://mylifeonthemove.wordpress.com/

Happy New Year!!!

2007 has been very kind to me and my family. Here’s a list of happenings (I will skip the bad ones) in 2007 that I am thankful for.

Jan - moved into a new apartment and we absolutely loved it. Adam’s dad and step mum visited us in Houston and we had a great time together.

Feb - Adam’s mum and step dad visited us. It was a surprise visit for Adam’s birthday. The look on Adam’s face when he came home was priceless.

March - Adam asked me to marry him (which has to be highlight of the year).

April - Went on a holiday in England (my first time there) and visited Surrey (where my MIL lives), Oxford, Nottingham and Cambridge.

May  and June - Was back in Malaysia which was great. Alot of eating and drinking. This is also the month that wedding planning officially started.

July and August - nothing much happened which should be great news won’t you agree?

September - Went on a holiday to Cabarete in the Dominican Republic.

October - Another trip to England, this time we went to Brighton and London.
My first trip to France. We were in Paris and then to Blois and Tours in the Centre Loire Valley.
My first live rugby match and it was the Rugby World Cup!

November and December - parties, parties, parties…

I hope 2008 would be another great year. This is the year I turn 30 and get married.

The wedding is in March and we will be going on our honeymoon right after that. That should keep me occupied until the end of April. There’s a holiday planned for September and who knows, we might be leaving the US end of this year. If we do leave this year, there will be loads to do.

I wish that 2008 will bring all of us great health, good luck and happiness. Cheers to a great year ahead of us!

Wait, what? Resolutions? Nah… I think I will skip that this year. It doesn’t really work for me.

What happens when 2 girls about 5 ft 3in buy an 8 ft Christmas tree? Alot of hardwork, cursing and laugh… that’s for sure.

A few days before our Christmas eve dinner, Beatriz told me she needs to get a Christmas tree. One morning I went to my usual grocery store and noticed that all Christmas trees are on sale! Only $10 each! 

A few hours later, we were there picking a tree. We wanted something small, something that looks healthy and something that will fit into the Jeep. We found it!

The guy working there was helping us to pack the tree into the Jeep. It wasn’t easy, there were still bits of the tree that was jutting out and I can’t shut the back door. Hmm… we shall just leave it unclosed and drive home slowly.

Once home, it was only the 2 of us trying to get the tree out of the Jeep. It proves difficult. Beatriz was pushing the tree from inside the car and I was pulling from outside. Finally the tree is out, Beatriz held the top and I held the bottom of the tree and dragged it into the house. Finally, it’s home and in the spot we prepared for it. We then realised that the tree was not as small as we thought it was. Once in place, we see that the top of the tree is almost touching the ceiling!

When we thought the job is done, we realised it was just the beginning of a hard working day. While we were dragging the tree in, alot of its needles fell. There’s a trail of needles from the car leading into the living room and then in the dining room. Not only that, since the tree was in the Jeep, can you imagine the pile of needles and branches which came off from our yanking? Loads! I spent 30 minutes vacumming the Jeep to rid the mess in it.

The same day we spent 1 and a half hours shopping for decorative items and set up the tree. It was so much fun.

This is the outcome from our hard work.

The guys can’t believe we did it ourselves. Initially they thought we were lying when we said we brought the tree home ourselves. Knowing us, they expected the tree to be delivered but no, we surprised them this time.

Our Christmas eve dinner was really good. We had the usual Christmas meal spread and alot of booze. It was a pretty cold day and it was nice to start the cold evening with some Vin Chaud (hot wine).

Adam (and Kim) all ready to dig in.

There were so much drinking that night that the guys were drunk before midnight. I am not kidding, we didn’t get to countdown to Christmas since everyone was drunk. Oh well, there’s always next year and they promised to behave themselves for our New Year’s eve party.

I have my wishlist! I went shopping yesterday and saw a few things I like. This year’s list have things from Tiffany, Gucci, La Mer, Victoria’s Secret and a few books (of course one of which is a cookbook).

I know what I am getting for Adam. I will get his gift today. I can only tell you after Christmas what it is as I do not want it to get back to him.

Now that that’s out of the way, it’s time to plan Christmas dinner! We will be spending Christmas this year with Beatriz and Richard over at their place. Some other friends who are not going home will be there with us too.

Beatriz and I will be doing the cooking and the guys… well… the guys will be drinking. We will have a turkey for sure so either we get one ready from the deli or I roast one.

I will be making roast potatoes, stuffing and gravy since that’s on Adam’s must-have list. Richard is Norwegian so Beatriz will make his traditional meal which is roast pork ribs glaced with Norwegian fruit preserves.

There will be salad and some other sides (which I believe will include bacon and ham) which we need to plan later today. As for dessert it could be pecan pie since we are in Texas or maybe my favourite cream brulee.

The girls will get the food covered and the guys will get the drinks. Richard loves whiskey so we will be taking a bottle of single malt over, I bought ginger ale yesterday, so that’s done. We just need champange, beer and wine which the guys still have time to get.

What else are we missing? I have the santa hats, Beatriz has got the Christmas tree and decorations up, Richard has the songs covered… what else?

I think I should think of pre-dinner munch… olives, pistachios, cheese and dips with crackers and some fruit. I guess that’s all. I will start making a list soon just so we have enough food. Somehow I have a feeling we will have too much to eat and drink, we’ll see.

Last year around this time I gave Adam my Christmas wishlist. In there are a list of things that I want with their price tag. Last year’s list had stuff from Gucci, Tiffany and some kitchen stuff I want like an ice cream maker and some other items which I don’t remember now.

Price range of stuff I wanted was $60 to $700. Adam had been making good use of that list throughout the year so having a list of things you want is very useful. You might want to start one and send it to your bf/husband if you have not done so.

Adam asked for my wishlist last night and believe it or not, I don’t have one. I was browsing my usual sites last night but somehow I couldn’t find something I want. It’s so unlike me. I wonder if I was tired or just bored of shopping since I have done alot over the last 2 weeks.

I’ll start on my wishlist today, together with a list of things I want to achieve today.

My friend Beatriz was going on a holiday to California for 10 days and asked me to petsit for her. I agreed to take her 2 Bettas (fighting fish) in for 2 weeks but they have ended up staying here for a month now and they are still here.

It’s pretty easy taking care of them. When they first arrived their home was abit too small. They only swam up and down their glass vase. The whole day I saw how depressed they were in that small home so I moved one into a big glass vase I have. Unfortunately for the other one, I didn’t have anything big enough except for a salad bowl… so yeah, I transferred him into a salad bowl.  Hey, I rather he be in a salad bowl until I get him a new home than to die of depression in that small house.

Once I moved them into their new home they were so happy! They were just swimming around enjoying the extra space they have now. Great!

The following day it was time to change their water. The weather that day was pretty cold (about 4C) and I was fussing around not knowing what to do since I was worried the freezing water might kill them. Adam came to the rescue and came down with a few rule:-

1) mix hot and cold water together, test the temperature of the water with your elbow. If it’s comfortably warm for you, it should be good for them

2) put in a drop of conditioning liquid into the water and stir well.

3) wait 30 minutes for the conditioning liquid to blend in with the water (only an engineer can come out with this one!)

So that was what I have been doing on alternate days since then. I bought the little one in the salad bowl a new home the following day. After checking out 5 shops with Adam, we both agreed to get him a really nice triffle bowl as his new home. This is Red in his new home.

The other one is Blue because he has more blue colour on him. Please don’t blame me for the non-creativity with names, I didn’t name them.

Believe it or not I talk to them everyday. Red is on the dining table and Blue is on the mantle piece. Every evening when we have dinner, we both look at Red and chat with him. Yeah, we are abit silly. I am sure we will miss them when they go back to their owner’s home, which should be soon. I think they should be back for Christmas.

Last week while doing Christmas shopping for the kids, I was also shopping for myself. That was only because Schlumberger had a Christmas party on Saturday at Westin. I wanted a new dress. Since I didn’t find anything for myself while shopping for the kids’ Christmas gifts, I spent another day out with a friend shopping and while she bought 5 dresses, I bought none. Somehow I don’t fancy what I see and I don’t need another black dress.

This is the woman who bought 5 dresses.

Anyway the Christmas party was alright. They have a photographer on-site for couples who wants a photo taken. After the party they will develop the shots and send the photo to the employees. I am now waiting for ours to arrive.

They didn’t have an open bar, for liability reasons. In the US, if someone attends such functions, gets drunk and get into trouble, they can sue the organiser. So we were given 3 tickets each to get drinks at the bar and over dinner they provide free-flow wine. That should work out ok since the party has to end at midnight but somehow we ended up with 15 drink tickets.. hehe. That was alot of drinking if you include the wine we had with dinner.

They served a buffet dinner. I dislike buffets at such events because there’s always a long line to get food. My strategy that night was to have dessert first and main meal later to avoid the long lines and it worked out perfectly well for me! I was never in line for anything.

That’s us at the Christmas party. Now you know why I need to lose 5kg!

That’s the first Christmas party we went to this year. There will be another one this Saturday by the pool with some friends. Just an excuse to meet up and have some drinks before some of them travel home to celebrate Christmas with their families.

Houston is nicely decorated and wherever you go, you hear Christmas jingles. It feels really festive here and I love it.

I have been very busy last week. There’s wedding preperation and also Christmas shopping. This year we are doing things a little differently, only the kids (Adam’s niece and nephew) get Christmas gifts and everyone else gets a personalised calendar.

Adam is not a great shopper and has bad sense of timing so I ended up doing the shopping for him this year. If I wait for him to make time for shopping, we will end up spending the whole weekend shopping for gifts, Adam ends up with a sour face because he can’t decide what to get and we will send the gifts via courier and pay double the amount we had to just to make sure the gifts get to their destination by Christmas.

I spent 2 days shopping for the kids (and myself). I went to 2 stores and bought the things I think the kids will like. Adam will then pick from my purchases what to give them and once the selection has been made, I return the rest of the items I bought but don’t need anymore. I love the return policy here, it makes gift shopping so much easier!

Last week I also have some pretty weird dreams about the wedding. You can read about it here. It’s strange. I spoke to a few people about this but they didn’t have this problem when they were planning their wedding! Oh well… I just need to chill I think.

I made Chicken Parmesan last night after watching a program on Food Network. It’s not a difficult dish to make just that it requires some time and a few extra steps because you would need to cook the sauce first, then pan-fry the chicken before baking it in the oven.

I am rubbish at taking photos of food. Can someone please teach me how?

Tomato sauce (if you are not using store-bought sauces like Prego…etc)
Yellow onion - diced
Shallots - sliced
Garlic - chopped
Bay leave
Fresh basil - cut into strips
Canned tomatoes - crushed or petite-diced
Red wine
Salt
Pepper

Fry the onions, garlic and bay leave with some olive oil.
Add canned tomatoes, stir well.
Add fresh basil.
Season with salt and pepper.
Let sauce simmer for 5 minutes.
Add red wine and let the sauce simmer until thick.

Chicken
Salt
Pepper
Dried bread crumbs
Season chicken with salt and pepper.
Dust with dried bread crumbs
Pan fry it for no more than 4 minutes each side (just so the chicken does not get too dry)

Finishing touches
Parmesan - shredded
Mozzarella - shredded

Once done with the chicken, base a cooking tin or casserole dish with the tomato sauce.
Sprinkle a layer of freshly shredded parmesan chesse.
Place chicken on top of the cheese and spoon more parmesan on the chicken.
Cover the chicken with tomato sauce.
Top it with mozzarella cheese.
Bake it for 15 minutes in a 400F oven or until cheese is bubbly.

You can serve this dish with pasta (any sorts you like) or salad. I served mine with store-bought fresh ravioli.

If you decide to use pasta, remove the chicken from the baking dish and then pour cooked pasta into the dish to soak up all the tomato sauce with the gooey cheese which is in there.

If you have some time to spare over the weekend and don’t mind working about an hour in the kitchen, this is a great dish to make. Better with wine. Perfect with a loved one.

It was Thanksgiving last Thursday and everyone in the US had a long weekend (Friday is a given holiday too). It’s our first Thanksgiving in the US and could well be our last if we are leaving next year so we thought we will do a little celebration at home with the traditional Thanksgiving meal of turkey, stuffings, potatoes, veg, gravy and pumpkin pie. Unfortunately all our close friends are away on holidays, so it was a party for 2.

My date with a table full of food

I roasted a turkey, only a bone-in turkey breast instead of the whole turkey since we won’t be able to finish it. I bought an oven-ready turkey (yes I cheated) because I don’t really know how to ensure that the turkey comes out juicy.

I made turkey stuffings. I followed a recipe from Martha Stewart (with a little changes of my own) and it came out great. Do you know that in the South of US, they call stuffings dressing. It’s confusing when dressing is used for salad!

I made 2 types of potatoes, roasted and gratin. Steamed some vegetables and gravy came ready with the turkey I bought so no work there.

Food on Adam’s 1st plate

Adam and I have not had pumpkin pie before so for tradition sake I bought one from Sara Lee and that will be the last time we will have pumpkin pie. The one we bought has such strong smell and taste of cinnamon it feels like you are chewing on a cinnamon stick.

The infamous pumpkin pie

No celebration is complete without a happy drink right? Instead of champagne we had prosecco this time and we loved it.

With that meal I made which could feed at least 4 people, we had more than half the turkey left. I managed to cook 2 meals out of it the following days.

1) Turkey pie - like Sheperd’s pie just substitute the meat and add some remaining gravy into the meat so give it a more Thanksgiving feel.

2) Turkey pasta - pasta sauce with turkey meat and spiced it up with some tobasco sauce so that it has that spicy tangy taste.

So what am I thankful for this Thanksgiving?

• Lovely friends
• Crazy friends
• Drunk friends
• Great family
• Good food and drinks
• Holidays
• The man I am marrying