Hobbies & interests » Hip to be Mom

Not too crazy about

Posted by Clairity 12 Responses »

Aug 222011

Getting phone calls after 9:30pm.
Filling out forms.
Eating with my fingers. Any food that requires more than two fingers to pick up, I’ll pass!
Sharing food or drinks with anyone other than immediate family.
Being kept waiting for anything more than 10 minutes.
People breathing down my neck. Literally.
Bad customer service. I have enough stories to fill a book half a foot thick.
Killing anything that moves. Yes, I’m the one who opens the car windows to let out that one piddly mosquito!
Talking to people who don’t answer.
Any function that excludes my kids.

How about you?

By the way, here are some of the things I enjoy.

The Thai Fair

Posted by Clairity 2 Responses »

Aug 122011

The girls and I chanced upon a Thai Fair in town last weekend as we were crawling the mall. Skye saw the signboard first as we were going down the escalator, so we turned around and went back up to check it out. Curiosity killed the cat, they say, but not this time.

We weren’t sure what the fair was about but curiosity led us first to this live hand-painted umbrella exhibit. My girls were thrilled to watch the artists at work.

I’ve been to a few places in Thailand including Bangkok (the bustling capital city), Chiangmai (nestled in the mountains to the north of Thailand) and Phuket (think sunkissed beaches and deep blue ocean). Shopaholic that I am, I confess it’s the shopping that I love most about Thailand. And Thai food, of course!

As we made our way into the fair, my main thought was retail therapy galore? I’m hoping… I’ve got my fingers and toes crossed. Yes! Rows of little kiosks tempting us with their dried food, home decor and yes, fashion accessories!

We were wandering from kiosk to kiosk and with each turn, more trendy accessories, wow! It’s hard to control the shopaholic in me but I had to limit us to only about 10 items of fashion accessories including these earrings for my girls.

The pair on the right is made of colored yarn, and the one in the middle is a weave made of bamboo. That turquoise and stone ring is mine, all mine, bwahaha!

While everyone else around us were on their�acer netbooks at Coffee Bean, I was going, ta-da, my spanking new ring! Oh so chunky and oh so me . I’m a ring noob and this is the first ring in my collection. What do you think?

Thoroughly enjoy

Posted by Clairity 10 Responses »

Aug 102011

Painting my nails. It’s therapeutic.
Afternoon naps. Something I never got to do when I was working full-time.
Working out. But you already know that.
Eating out. I love to cook but sometimes I’d rather not.
Making funny faces at little kids and watching their reactions. Could this be some kind of disorder, you think ?
A good laugh. So good to laugh at yourself too sometimes.
Lazing around over an ice-blended coffee with my teens. Maybe there’s a slow mo inside the hyper after all.

Being crazy now and then. Like breaking into song in an opera-like voice, or jumping up and dancing.
Dressing up. Finding a ball to go to, now that’s another story!
Trying new recipes. Often inspired by my picky eaters.

Okay, that’s it from me for now. Your turn…

Going bananas

Posted by Clairity 14 Responses »

Aug 082011

This is our third baking weekend in a row. The girls are really getting the hang of it and we decided to be bold and bake a banana cake this time.

Now and then, we do buy the occasional commercial banana cake with the artificial flavoring and sugar overkill. But enough of that. We’re baking our own, or at least making this our first attempt at banana cake, and if all goes well, we may open a bakery down the street , just kidding.

Okay, on with the good stuff…

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
4 ripe bananas, mashed
2/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup chopped almonds (you can use walnuts if you like)

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars till light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Add in the bananas. We used Dole, I think they’re sweeter maybe. Everything went well up to this point. This is where we got clever and tossed in an extra banana . Clearly a case of going bananas with the bananas!

Then in another bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add flour mixture, then buttermilk to the creamed mixture, alternating between the two. Stir in chopped almonds.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes or until done. The end result is this moist banana cake. Looks pretty good, huh? For a first attempt, I mean.

Actually it doesn’t taste too bad either and my girls love it. We would so make this again. Just a couple of things I would do differently next time – reduce the sugar because well, the bananas themselves are naturally sweet, and avoid that banana overkill which I’m thinking, might’ve contributed to the slight sogginess in the final product.

So can we consider this a success? Oui?

Yeah, I definitely think so. It looks, smells and tastes like the real thang. So goodbye, store-bought banana cake?

Cookie monsters strike again

Posted by Clairity 6 Responses »

Aug 012011

The weather’s been just beautiful. Heavy rain overnight for the past few nights leaving the days cloudy and breezy. Nonetheless, it’s another quiet weekend for us.

Life in the city can be mundane if you don’t consciously go and seek out fun things to do. But seeing as how one person’s entertainment can be another’s sleeping pill, this whole idea can be the subject of a huge debate.

The girls and I have just spent 3 hours in the kitchen baking more of, yes, those scrumptious chocolate chip cookies we baked last weekend …

… and a carrot cake. Some of the batter went into cupcakes for Skye’s recess.

Friday night, we were caught in massive Friday night traffic which turned our 20-minute drive into 2 hours. So on the way home, we rewarded ourselves with a yummy Chinese dinner at almost 9pm!!

An unearthly dinner hour for us, I know, but the night life here is anything but quiet, so finding a place to eat or shop is as convenient as Self-inking Stamps. Even late at night, traffic is still crazy, and restaurants, stores and malls are open late.

Saturday, we had lunch out as usual, just before our grocery run. And that’s basically it. We’ve been holed up in the comfort of home since then except for taking Tyson, our beagle, for his evening walks.

How’s your weekend going?

And we made chocolate chip cookies

Posted by Clairity 6 Responses »

Jul 292011

So Skye’s finally gotten tired of her store-bought recess food. My kids don’t eat food from the school canteen. From day one, I’ve had them bring food from home although most of the time, I have to admit they’re store-bought cookies and such.

Anyhoo, Skye decided it’s time to pamper herself with homemade recess food… and so she and Raine helped me make these amazing chocolate chip cookies.

First cream together

1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg

Skye did most of the work creaming the mixture but here’s Raine, our diva with her Batman-themed fingernails, taking over for a while so Skye could snap a picture.

Add the dry ingredients and continue mixing till the dough comes together.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (someone added extra chips when I wasn’t looking )

Raine did most of the work of plopping spoonfuls of the dough on a baking tin.

Bake at 375 degrees F for 10-15 minutes. Our kitchen quickly smelled like chocolate heaven and even Tyson, our little beagle with the big appetite, ran round in circles wagging his tail hoping to catch a treat.

Well, here they are, the chocolate chip cookies that came out of the oven. So so good that if fingers could drool, I’m sure they would .