3.05am!!!

Geezzz... I wanna go home. Now.

2.31am

Arghh... still in office... and I've got a 10.00am meeting tomorrow.

1.55am

Yes... still here...

1am

It's 1am in the morning and I'm still in the office...

Yes, I know I should listen to you

I had a spliting headache just now and felt like throwing up. I think it was because of bad ventilation of something. After checking out what was wrong with me, MFG's final words were "cannot go to gym!".

Huh? Why? It was just headache right? Worse come to worse I'll just leave the class, right?? Not that I'm crazy about RPM, but I need to lose all those weights I gain before I lost grip in loosing weights. That's why the once-in-every-three-months RPM schedule had been amended to weekly. Well, not exactly weekly, but I went for one last week, so it has so far been a "weekly" class. So, despite stern warning from MFG (still not allowing me to go even though I told him I was better after taking panadol because he was making sure that I stay "healthy" :). Geezz... Thanks...), I still went to the class. And I'm glad I did. TD was in the house today and I didn't miss all the actions. Great class and I wish I'm in better "health condition" to tell you more.

And I didn't throw up.

So, although I still have so much to tell, I better go sleep early before MFG says "I told you so!"

:p

So much

I've got so much to say... Haven't been story telling for a while, and there are just so much, so so much to tell.

But I'm so very tired and I've prioritized blogging of the cake tonight.

MC is leaving for Melbourne tomorrow. Will miss her. It's not easy having to miss two person at the same time.

I should get some sleep now...

TeaRoom signature Chocolate Cake goes two tier!

I was actually the one request to make a birthday cake for TA's wife and since I've got a special invitation to the birthday bash (and MC and BIL were also invited) I've decided to make the chocolate cake a two-tier.

I'm not very expert in making tiered cake, therefore, seriously requiring some good tools. So we went to Wilton to shop for something suitable.

And this is what I got after going through a few options. This cost RM38 plus, plus a plastic cake tray to hold the top tier, the bill for the "construction" of this 2-tier cake was about RM55.

The box comes with 4 globes and hidden pillars.

The instructions were clear but since this was my first time dealing with 2-tier cake, I was over eager with measuring of the pillars that I actually measure them before the icing. Which I later found was a mistake of course. But since I've already cut the pillars, they were a bit shorter than they should be.

Followed by placing the globes over the pillars.

The consequences of short pillars? The top tier squashing down onto the globes hence the cake was not as tall as it could have been.

But still looks ok, no?

Finished with my recent chocolate cake decoration.

Cake at the event.

Happy Deepavali

I don't have many Indian friends. I do have a few Chindian friends though. If you are celebrating and reading my blog, Happy Deepavali! Have a great celebration and a very prosperous year ahead!

The Meaning of Protection

I had some questions going on in my mind for some time. And by saying this, it is equivalent to "think to much". Can't help it...

And when gals are thinking too much, the chances of the root cause being a guy is very high. So, I decided to "interview" a guy to get his point of view... hence the following randomly abstracted from my recent conversation:

TTB: I've told him how I felt... would he just assume that I will stay and feel the same even though nothing is happening between us? Wouldn't he think that I might have changed my mind already some time along the way?

BIL: No. Guys just take information straight forward and will just take what he'd been told and won't think otherwise.

TTB: If I miss him so so much, I will meet him no matter how tired I am.

BIL: Sleep comes first.

TTB: Guys tend to do short sms. One word sms are some how popular e.g. can. ok. yes.

BIL: Must be cool and macho when replying sms.

MC: Guys don't like to do sms.

(Really? But I find it extremely sweet to get sms like "take care", "drive safe", ":)" etc)

BIL: He might be doing all this to protect you.

TTB: And he's not about to tell me so?

BIL & MC: No!

BIL: Must act cool.

(I can act cool too. Humph...)

Most of the time it doesn't help when we don't know what's going on and guys don't provide more information. Then again, do we need to demand for everything to be crystal clear? I guess we will just have to be able to understand things from guys' point of views.

I tried taking glucosamine the other day to see if it will help with my occasionally knee pain. (It comes with old age). I had the luxury if trying some before I actually spend money buying because MFG gave me some. He said he got value pack and there were a lot. I finished those he gave me and felt that it worked. So I told MFG the result and that I will want to go get some supply. The next day, I got more supply from him. He still hasn't finished his.

The other day we had lunch together and he was all the time ready to pay for my drinks and my fried rice, even though I had my purse held out ready to pay for them myself. I know he had previously promised to be my lunch sponsor. Looks like the deal is still on going.

Today he paid for our lunch, and later over to Starbucks and also paid for my Caramel Macchiato. And you know what? He doesn't even drink coffee. He paid for my drinks even though I was the one who ordered the drink and was the one who was standing right in front of the till. That wasn't even "our" bill, it was "my" bill.

It feels very warm to have someone who is always ready to pay for me. Trust me, it feels great to have someone taking care of you this way. It's not about the money, it's about the readiness and the "always there".

How can I not indulge this person with more cakes?

A delayed good deed

If you call it a good deed at all.

We have meant to visit the orphanage for some time. Like months ago? But kept delaying because we were busy. Lame excuse, I know. What made me gave the lame excuse was the lack of time to bake for the children. Yeah, I really want to bring them something I bake instead of just buying them something from the supermarket, or just giving money to the principal.

So, finally, this was the week we decided that there should be no more delay. I can't really remember how many children were there in this shelter, MC suggested that I bake two cakes. We just found out from one of the aunties who takes care of the children that three cakes will be ideal since the boys are quite big eaters. Haha... boys are cute huh? I got a bit erm... uncomfortable (to put it mildly) by another aunty (not the formally mentioned one, but a new one) when she started demanding for four cakes, and then cheesecakes - the ones with biscuit and Philadelphia cream cheese. Geezz... okay, she really knows what the kids want, but wait ya, I need more funding before I can afford four cheesecakes, not to mention not having enough fridge space to chill four cakes. Humph... Maybe when TeaRoom is commercialized.

Anyways, besides delaying the so called good deed, someone up there decided to throw in a couple more challenges before I could finally make it to the visit WITH the cakes. For starter, I was really juggling time between work, project work and baking. Short supply of flour (because I threw away a few packets which had grown bugs - what do you call them?), castor sugar (luckily mum has some stock of her own) and icing sugar. I didn't get so lucky with icing sugar because non of the grocery shops in my town sell it, one very promising shop was short supplied itself. So instead of getting ready the cakes on Saturday night for our Sunday visit, I had to do some last minute decoration after I got the icing sugar.

And you think I had just went out to Jaya Jusco and got my supply. No, they were facing shortage as well. Okay, what are you guys doing with buying up ALL the icing sugar? When I finally found my supply at Econsave (yeah, had to go that extend), I had to queue up for 45 minutes just to pay for 2kgs of icing sugar. Therefore running extremely late on the visit, which had later made my trip to my hair cut a super rushing one.

Phew. But it's all done now. And enough for my long winded story. Here are the cakes.

Chocolate chips butter cake with butter icing

Marble cake with chocolate butter icing

When your boss has ALL the rights to be unreasonable

If your big boss ask you "have I ever been unreasonable?" what would your answer be?

"NOOOooo! OF COURSE NOT!!"? Would this be your answer? You are lucky. Or, this is still your answer but said through gritted teeth and a fake smile?

I have no choice. My answer was a "no..." too, which I hope was accompanied by what looked like a really considered and honest facial expression. But if I can, my real answer is actually "yes, but you have all the rights".

What to do? It's his company, he can do anything he wants.

It's true, bosses will always have privileges right? Things that no one else can do, the boss breaks the rules - pardon me, rephrase, what break rules? The boss IS the rule. I suppose all of us are clever enough to figure out that if the boss comes to work late, he's entitled to it, but if we goes in late, it's tardiness. Yes, agreed. If the company policy says no denim, don't expect your boss to follow that, he's the boss remember?

He can be short tempered whereas all others need to be considerate and professional;

He doesn't need to be careful with his choice of words but everyone else must speak properly and not offend others;

He's allowed to forget things and you are not suppose to tell him off, but vice verse allowed;

If he shouts at your colleagues, he's the ONLY one who can do that. No one else. By the way, if your boss said you shouted at your colleague, EVEN THOUGH you didn't, you just did. It might sound very unreasonable but it's his rights.

LEAD. BY. EXAMPLE?

I. AM. SO. TIRED.

I just want to do my job, according to what I've been paid for and not having to waste my energy dealing with unnecessary human matters.

OR, someone give me another job PLEASE!

Compatibility

Had breakfast with MC and BIL this morning at a local coffee shop near our house.

TTB: Aunty, I want two pan mee, and one of them vegetarian.
Aunty: Okay, so don't want meat.
TTB: Yeah...
Aunty: Want shredded mushroom?
TTB: Yeah...

Aunty: (shouting from her stall to our table) Want fried onion oil or not?
TTB: (after MC who was vegetarian this week shook her head) NO!
Aunty: Want ikan bilis or not?
TTB: (BIG roll eye)
MC: (Took over) Mine no, hers yes.

We got this. MC's no meat WITH ikan bilis. Mine got meat NO ikan bilis.

!!! What happened to the "standard" one??? I only said ONE was vegetarian. Humph... after all those questioning still got wrong. Some more started nagging the waiter (the husband) AND "the customer's (a very cranky TTB).

TTB: (Raised voice - very far remember? From table to her stall) IT'S WRONG. BUT DON'T WORRY, WE WILL SORT IT OUT OURSELVES.

TTB: (Amidst Aunty's nagging) IF YOU CONTINUE TO ARGUE WE WILL BE LEAVING!!

MC later tried to "defend" the aunty by saying maybe her ikan bilis are "vegetarian animal". Right. Make complete sense now. Kekeke...

Okay, I was cranky. So what? Grrr... I was even crakier when MC said we need to visit orphanage this weekend but then had to go through a discussion about how much other activities we need to avoid and it didn't seem we have enough time. And when I said since MC had to work this Sunday, we will have to delay haircut for another week. And MC said "I can't go haircut this Sunday". Roll eye.

At second breakfast with boss and colleague later. The topic of my confrontation with THAT colleague was being brought up. And since I was in my cranky mood, I didn't even try to be nice by reserving some of my mean comments. Don't. Care.

Towards lunch time, my big boss asked me so many times about the other colleagues who didn't follow at our heels to leave for lunch "where are the rest?" ..... "where are the rest?".... "where are the rest"...................... "where are the rest".......

TTB: I do not babysit them.

Ishh.... "jaga mulut"! First of all, I wasn't in my patient mood to answer to a malfunction-radio-sound-alike (wei... watch my mouth!), secondly I was extremely annoyed by "the rest" who took their own sweet time till I had to answer for them.

So I chant on my way to lunch "Calm down TTB. Calm down TTB. Calm down TTB..............."

Right, I'm cool.

But you know what? Geezz... certain people are just not compatible with each other. For instance, some people will just make me go really cranky and annoyed. I just can't cope.

AND, don't start commenting that I am having period. Geezz... THAT, especially coming from a guy, is VERY rude okay.

Today's gym class was bad. The instructor had mistakes in every single track. I was really frustrated and went the extend of giving up some of the moves mid track. Okay, TTB was cranky today remember? I don't think instructors are supermen/ women but at least be professional and try to limit mistakes to just one or two tracks? And not 50% of all the tracks? Mistakes were noticeable not because I just went to the same class yesterday, but cueing was given and then the music ended. Obviously. No? Haiya...

Anyways... while I just can't live in harmony with some people, certain people can give me the calm and serenity by just being around me. Yes yes... so I am bias.

TTB: Can you try not to pursue your career in X Country?
MFG: Do you want to go to X Country?
TTB: Hmm... I will consider if you really must go, I will just follow you there.
MFG: :)
TTB: I want to keep your cake supply close to you, FedEx doesn't do cake delivery you know?
MFG: :D

Seriously, FedEx cannot delivery cakes. So, I'm sorry, can't take orders from Penang or JB.

TTB sounding sweet and patient to end her day... Hehe...


Oh! And you know what? My cupcake order (and physical delivery that will take up some time) is cancelled for this Saturday, which means I have all the time to bake and prepare for orphanage visit. :)

And. MC doesn't have to work this Sunday. So haircut it is. :) :)

Happy ending.

On time and enough time?

Had been a very busy weekend but one that I was not being frustrated due to insufficient time for too many tasks. For one, I didn't bake till after midnight.

Managed to submit a lot of work for my part-time project this weekend and I am very confident that I will be on time to submit all require write-ups. My deadline is 26 October.

This weekend's baking was for the open house and a chocolate cake for next Thursday's delivery, which I've baked just now. Icing will be done on Wednesday. See, no sweat in terms of baking.

I also went shopping, heee... went to MV with MC and BIL after our dim sum lunch at PJ. The mall was not so crowded as compared to many of the times I went. I wanted to get some working clothes and a dinner dress. Went to Metro Jaya and found that the prices were really very high, I didn't think I can afford anything in there, can you believe that? Went around to many more boutiques and ended up at Dorothy Perkins, which I was really skeptical before walking in - I mean, UK brand, must be expensive.

Surprisingly, I got something there. First of all, I think UK cuttings fit me better and I actually love UK fashion. I got a pair of jacket with matching skirt and pants for RM300. It felt like a big achievement!

Before we came home, we went to our official chill out coffee place, the one with green aprons and a siren.

More work after I came home, was so busy that I didn't even manage to chat with MFG on line. Well, I actually, originally, planned to drop him a few lines, but didn't want to disturb him for too long, so I thought to only speak to him much later... okay, when I came up from taking my cake out from the oven, I got a message from MFG saying "logging off. Good nite". So I actually did manage to say "nite :)".

Good night everyone. I hope I can manage my usual gym routine coming week and I hope I've got enough time to sleep, no insomnia whatsoever.

ps. I hope there's no grammar or spelling error - lazy to check. Blog ed, can you please let me know if any. Thx!!

Cheesecake Brownies

Got an invitation to Zaza's open house. Since the open house was on Saturday afternoon, I only had time to bake on that very morning. Normally brownies would be on the top of my list when I need to bake something within limited time or last minutes.

Choose a new recipe for this occasions since this is the best time to get opinions from many people. It was quite well received. Thanks for the support guys. This shall be a confirmed item on The TeaRoom menu under the brownies list.

Giving the brownies the marble effect.

Soft creamy cheese on a sticky rich chocolate base.

Do you feel it too?

Sigh...

Have been really busy for the passed one week. Although the working hours have been long - stretched up to dinner and after - I've enjoyed myself most of the time. Having said that, the major damage now is the fats that have been accumulating from all the eating and no gym for one whole week! Yeah, subsidising the gym again. Humph...

On another note, do you realize that time spent with your favorite person is normally good time regardless of the location or time. And do you also realize that sometimes certain things have become habits without you realizing that they had?

Here are pictures of dinner on Thursday with MFG...

The non-halal restaurant at The Curve

My drink - a mocktail of pineapple, fizzy water and... I actually can't remember what I've ordered.

His beer. Which I should have ordered because I thought it tasted better than mine.

Our dinner - assorted sausages. They were yummy!

There was a little episode in the office yesterday, I got so pissed off with the bossy colleague of mine that I actually "told her off". By me raising my voice, I actually "earned" myself a glance from my big boss who happened to be in a discussion at close proximity. But that's all he did, not "interfering" at all. Hah...

Been getting orders for cupcakes lately and I want to say thank you to those of you who've recently been a fan of TeaRoom.

Thank you.

ps. pictures of brownies from new recipe tomorrow

My new chocolate cake design

Got the idea from this...




The original look, with fresh raspberries on a white cream frosted cake.

I've got these soft candies that looks like raspberries (don't they?). Not only they are not as expensive as the real berries, they are also easier to handle, no need to glaze or preserve.

If you want to pipe a few different designs from a same colour icing, the best is the use the coupler, that allows you to interchange nozzles.

Pipe a bed of "leaves" and "stick" the candies on them.

Pipe some veins and more leaves randomly. I tried not to overdo the cake. Haha... Trust me, piping leaves can be quite addictive.

Drop some veins and leaves to the side if you want to decorate the cake more. I couldn't stick the candies on the side of the cake because my icing will not hold anything. Besides, the candies are too heavy.

So I had the candies resting on the base of the cake board.

There! The final look, complete with birthday tag - There's no more space to write birthday message anyways.

Subsidising gym

That's what we normally call ourselves doing when we can't make it to gym as often as we can.

LGM, if you are reading this, sorry I didn't turn up for combat (IF we were there lah), we had workshop this week from Monday to Friday and I overlooked the need to entertain the guests from breakfast till dinner (supper) and even karaoke.

Right. Off from blogging tomorrow and potentially Wednesday (and Thursday).

Happy Birthday TD!

Here are the birthday cupcakes, for my most loyal cupcake fan! (Erm... after the Cupcake Queen of course :P)

Can you figure out what this is? Thanks for the key chain TD, without that, this is not possible. Haha...

Yes, reward us with cupcakes!

These were for the quarterly launch at TC today. Did you get one too? :)



Thanks Herny for ordering with me. Hoping to supply the full set - including all classes - for the launch.

Need some workout!

Will you be there tomorrow? :)

It feels great to be able to finish baking before midnight. In fact, when I finished cleaning up the kitchen just now, it was only 10.00pm. For me that's "only" lah. Still need to ice and decorate a cake tomorrow for next week's birthday celebration and the rest of the time I should be focusing on the part time work. Tomorrow going to a pump class, hang out a bit, and back to the part time job. Looking at my schedule, there is simply no time to be missing anyone, is there?

Full story on the cuppies tomorrow. Stay tuned ;)

The Situation

I actually do feel miserable sometimes. Handling such intangible thing like feelings is a very tricky task and whoever said it's going to be easy anyways.

The situation is like this. I don't feel like giving up my feelings because I suppose you never try you never know. The tricky part is, I cannot "try" it out now. And who says he has mutual feelings and would like to "try" things out anyways? The tricky part again is, he didn't say much about his feelings towards me, it was more of his feelings and views towards "the situation".

I would like to handle this "professionally" but again, the tricky part is it's hard to draw a clear line. I mean, drawing A line is not hard, but where to draw it? The thing is, I'm not like erm... a car air-condition, I cannot just switch myself from cold air mode to warm air mode and back again. Besides, how can I switch from cold to warm and warm to cold without confusing anyone?

And then, it seems like a good idea, or the only idea rather, to work on it without really working on it because of the line drawn as above. So it would be like swimming with a handcuff on - I know I can swim and I know how far my hands could go, how strong a stroke I can make, but I can't do much because I'm being handcuffed, remember? I might not drown because I can float, but it's not a good feeling to be floating in the sea with my hands tight.

Maybe it's good that things can sometimes be put to a dramatic end. At least it's clean and straight forward that way, no dangling and dragging. The tricky part is no one told me that it's 100% impossible, yet. So the situation might not be dragging per se but developing. So, then perhaps it's okay to think that anything is possible WITHOUT putting up any expectation. In this kind of situation, there comes the uncertainty, the constant slump in the stomach and lump in the throat whenever I hear his name, see his shadow, smell his scent... that miserable feeling whenever I confirm that I am not special (yet, or never ever); or when I think that he's seeing someone already. That's when I increase my dosage of "don't expect anything" hence the depressing sense of loss. Time to run?

Staying neutral is an option, but a great challenge for me. Say if I leave it alone for now, should I leave the feelings alone to grow, or let it subside? To me I don't see a way to hibernate the feelings for now so that it remains exactly the same until I need to dig it out again later, either to grow it, or to put a stop to it. If feelings can be controlled, I have lost my remote controller to my heart.

Divert attention is fine but during situation like now, the attention creeps back to the matter which unnerves me. While I try to avoid anything extreme at the moment, my feelings are uncontrollable.

Are there any other options? Have I left out anything?

Just move on...

I am so busy and tired that I wonder why have I subjected myself to so much commitments. Two days of public holidays were of course not enough, far from being sufficient for me to clear my to do list to a comfortable level. This is like playing the game of Tetris, if I don't start clearing the stacks at the bottom, I will soon be fire fighting only able to clear the top layers to stay alive, no level up, no bonus, no combos...

But I just can't give up the game, I need to move on and get things done.

Despite tomorrow being the last day of the week (yes, I do have to go to work!) and not Monday, I still foresee me having another insomnia tonight. My weekend is going to be terribly busy and I still cannot gauge how much I have to do and how much time I have to chill out and relax, recharge and refresh for yet another crazy week.

With all these lined up, I supposed I can actually divert my attention from my heart matters to completing tasks. The uncomfortable feelings and sense of lost still nag me a lot, but I just have to put them aside and move on... and I need to move (clear things) fast before I "die".

I hope I still have many more "lives" to keep the game going. I sometimes do wish that there is such things as "last saved" in life. Haha...