The bookworm that I am

Fantasy, romance, mysteries, thrillers, children's fiction, erotica, court thrillers, women's fiction , magazines, comics, graphic novels, ebooks, blogs and the occasional autobiography.
These are the types of reading materials that used to keep me occupied for hours on end and though my tiny little library at home is packed and overflowing with books, the only thing I miss the most after having LR is having the luxury to sit down with a good book for hours.
Admittedly, my passion for books is still strong and I still continue to cram my bookcase (which is my library, by the way) with new books. Sadly, many of these books are untouched and waiting to be read.
After LR, our lives have been thrown upside down and our schedules pretty out of whack. Instead of having tonnes of time by ourselves, Steve and I now have to share our time with LR. Cute and darling as LR is, I miss those solitude times for myself. Gone are the days when I could spend a whole evening just curl up on the sofa devouring the latest book I bought.
Now, the books I read are picture books and pop-up books during bedtime for LR. Just like his mommy, LR has picked up a passion for books and though he can't read, he recognized all the animals / creatures in his books. In my books shopping sprees, I have picked up a new habit of browsing through picture books to look for beautifully and colourfully illustrated ones for LR.
Gone are the days when I am found in the fiction section of the bookstore looking for the latest Nicholas Sparks bestseller or Mary Higgins Clark's new thriller or Nora Roberts' romance books or Kay Scarpetta's new cases by Cromwell or even a John Grisham's courtroom drama.
I used to read a variety of authors ranging from detective to horror to children's fiction. I also love Enid Blyton and Diana Wynne Jones. Whatever book which I find interesting, I would buy.
Sigh..if only I have enough time. I have been reading a children's fiction book for the past few months and till today, the bookmark is stubbornly stuck in the middle of the book. I wonder when I shall ever have the time to finish that book and move on to another book. Let's not even talk about the dozens of ebooks I bought and is stored in my laptop unopened.

Simple chocolate ball recipe

I accidentally discovered how great this tasted after trying to make energy balls for LR, the finicky Mr Food Critic Number One in my house. My efforts were wasted on him and it all went straight to my hips!
Here's the wonderful, crunchy, mouth-watering recipe to satisfy the chocolate and peanut butter lovers out there!

Ingredients:
Crunchy peanut butter
roasted peanuts, crushed
crackers, crushed
Cooking chocolate (dark or milk depending on your taste), chopped

Use a spoon to scoop out a dollop of peanut butter. Then roll it over the crushed nuts and crackers until covered and you are able to shape it into small balls. Melt the cooking chocolate by placing it in a heat-proof dish and place the dish above a boiling pan of water.
Dip the balls into the chocolate and coat it evenly. If you liked it covered in nuts, you can sprinkle some nuts around it before placing it into tiny paper cups.
You can alternatively place it on a thin sheet of baking paper on a tray before refrigerating it for several hours. Once the chocolate harden, it is ready to eat. Enjoy it cold!

Have you lost weight?

There is nothing more satisfying, especially when you are on a stringent diet, to have people coming up to you asking if you have lost weight!
I absolutely felt great and thin. It was not an easy task to finally have people asking me that as approximately six months before I started this diet, I get asked 'Are you pregnant again?' questions a lot! That was not good. It made me feel absolutely crappy and horrid. It made me feel bloated and when I looked in the mirror, my thighs looked bigger than an elephant's leg and let's not even talk about my butt!
Well, that is now all in the past. I just wish I could keep this weight off for good and then I am home free!
Before I embark on this dieting and exercising journey towards a slimmer me, I had a 'before' picture taken and had held off taking the 'after' picture for quite a while. Perhaps it is now time for me to do so.
I can just imagine the difference of both pictures. The before with me slouching, thighs thick, hips wide, arms flabby and tummy protruding. The 'after' of me would be a slender stranger with a flat tummy, slim thighs and small waist with just curvy hips. Yep, I am gonna look like a regular model, I am!
Well...ok...maybe my tummy is not so flat and my thighs not so slim but I am certain it must have shrunk since I started this diet! Darn it, all those weeks of less chocolates must account for something!
Oh well, at least, my collarbones are showing and my wedding ring is really loose. That is a good sign, no? Sigh...the loose skin on my tummy will probably be there to stay unless I have a tummy tuck but at least it is not bulging anymore.
Hmm...my weight? It's been stuck at my threshold weight for awhile and I have decided to be satisfied with it for now. I mean, I don't want to end up too skinny. All the chocolate companies will close down if they lost one of their loyal customers, ME! Heh heh.
Gotta go. I have to find a great pose for my 'after' picture. And NO, I will not post it here. Not unless if I absolutely look like a swimsuit model or something.

I have an admission to make...

*Head hanging, feet shuffling, eyes downcast*
Ok, ok, I admit it. I am a farce.
I know nothing about blogging and the hows and whats and wheres of blogging. Nothing. Nada. Zilch!
I do not even know what the heck is a feed, how to use html and whatever applications with strange looking initials. It is a struggle for me to do something simple such as customising my own blog. It took me weeks to finally get the hang of it and that is just to do minor changes. I wanted to create my own template but obviously that is much too advance for me!
Then there is the html, javascript, css and whatnots. These are nothing short of foreign language to me. Oh gawd...it is back to surfing the net to find out how to do this or that!
However, thanks to some really savvy bloggers with even one of them giving step by step tips on how to do this or that, I have learned quite a few tricks but some things are just way too complicated for me to understand!
To think I am on the web every day to do research (and blog) but I do not know simple things such as feed url and widgets and such.
Better get back to the drawing board...I am still trying to figure out some things. So look out for really weird changes to this blog over time, that is if I ever get the hang of all those foreign initials.

TT # 7 of quotes I like

Thirteen quotes I like
On friendship:

1) The world is round so that friendship may encircle it.
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

2) True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
- Charles Caleb Colton

On love:

3) Marriage is not a noun; it's a verb. It isn't something you get. It's something you do. It's the way you love your partner every day.
- Barbara de Angelis

On life:

4) Be not afraid of life. Believe that life IS worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
- James Truslow Adams

5) There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.
- Maya Angelou

On happiness:

6) Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
- Guillaume Apollinaire

7) Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.
- Democritus

On death:

8) It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
- Marcus Aurelius

9) Pain and death are part of life. To reject them is to reject life itself.
- Henry Ellis

On success:

10) I'd rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate.
- George Burns

11) Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally.
- David Frost

On dreams:

12) Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.
- Langston Hughes

On character:

13) Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.
- Anne Frank





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