Maintaining Is Tough

In 2013 I was ever so motivated to do something about my weight because I was getting married. Always being much more heavier one in my family, maybe it could be with the fact that I am big boned and I have a larger appetite than the rest of my family. So I decided to give Dukan Diet a try and it worked well for me, I lost a lot of weight (a little too much weight actually so I had to stop it before the end of the diet plan) and was able to fit comfortably in all my gowns.

After the wedding it was festive meals time, Christmas parties, lunches and dinners, and next was Chinese New Year. Non stop feasting, Birthday meals, etc etc. And being off the Dukan Diet, it felt like freedom to me and hello to my favorite pastas and instant noodles! Needles to say I gained back all the weight that I have lost by mid 2014......all 10kg! Sob........

Being a typical human behavior, I kept getting comments and questions from people around me. "Have you gained weight?" "You seem to have to on some meat." "Oh no, why never maintain?"
I am not blind to the fact that I have gained weight, I have always been a bit more "meaty" as I would describe it. All I can say is, maintaining is tough, especially when I was on sorta like a crash diet where I changed all the food I eat daily. I did try to restart Dukan Diet, but it wasn't working out as well as it did last year.

I was talking to the hubs the other say and I complained, "Why can't people just leave my weight alone? Let me enjoy a nice meal! Do I have to get pregnant in order to get people to stop talking about my weight?!?!" And the hubs was panicking, and trying to get me to cool off. Guess I got to start watching what I eat again and watch my portions.

Recently I stumble upon a YouTube channel, Blogilates and I am loving all the lessons there. So here's to loosing weight and toning up the traditional way, exercising and eating healthy. Good luck to me!

Just like any other day? Not so much.

Just like any other morning before I get ready for work, the first thing I would do is check my messages and Facebook notifications. 

It was a Friday morning when I opened a news link that the brother in law shared in the family whatsapp group, it was about a MAS plane, MH17 that crashed in Ukraine. As I read the article, I started to feel uneasy when I saw the words "returning to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam....." because I remembered that my cousin always joked about flying past my dog, Ginger's homeland (near Ukraine) everytime he flies to and from Amsterdam.

Just as I was reading towards the end of the article, Jenn sent me a message on whatsapp "Are you awake?", before I could reply, another message followed "Our cousin is gone........" I froze, I did not know what to feel, the meaning of those words doesn't seem to register to me at that moment. Sadness? Anger? Shock? Confusion? Disbelief? I did not know what to feel. 

My thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of my phone, it was mom, I knew what she was going to tell me, that's when I started to cry angrily and cursing whoever it was that shot at a civilian plane! I was asking if it really was his plane? Could there have been a mistake? Mom said it was confirmed at 2am....it was really his plane, on his usual route coming home from Amsterdam. No survivors.

Families, friends and loved ones ... gone. In just a blink of an eye.

I had so many questions, who do I ask? How do I even find the right words? What's going to happen to my cousin in law and her sons? Who is with them at their home now??? The whole world was in shock.

I have lost a cousin. My dad has lost his favorite nephew. My uncle has lost his eldest son. A wife has lost her soulmate. 2 young boys have lost their hero.

We still have a lot of unanswered questions. Will there be a body for us to bury? Will we be able to have a proper ceremony to bid our final farewells? All we can do is wait.

All we can do now is pray that it was painless and quick, that God has taken all the passengers home to a better place without any war or suffering. All we can do is pray for strength and peace for all the families affected. We are all going to be okay, in time. 

RIP Captain Eugene Choo, you are dearly missed. 

Paper Butterflies and Flowers

Coming up with our Wedding Theme was quite a challenge at the beginning of our wedding planning, because I was stuck in an indecisive phase while my now Hubby wanted to do everything he lays his eyes on! But after much debate and hours of pinterest overdose, we have decided on our favorite colors and a Butterfly theme.

Ninja Ryan : Babe! Let's have paper butterflies! Oh Oh Oh how about paper flowers or pom pom! Maybe those light bulb vases you did for your friend? DIY Queen yo~ Do your thing! How hard can it be?
Me : Time...dude....time....I'm more worried about the time needed to make those DIY rather than the difficulty.
Ninja Ryan : I can help? Just cut cut and glue? Easy right? Right? *big smile*
Me : ...........

And then its down to preparing the decorations DIY style to save cost. We main invested on a large butterfly puncher for our Guest Book, and large quantities of coloured papers. I also grab a lot of origami paper, because I decided to make my own origami bouquet (inspired by pinterest posts) for the pre-wedding photoshoot. Making it was fun and so satisfying because it turned out better than I hoped it would. So we decided that we would make more origami flowers to spread on the dinner tables for our Wedding Ceremony in Passion Road.

We couldn't find the right shade of origami paper to match the table cloths and paper butterflies, so we bought coloured A4 paper instead to cut up into the right size which Ninja Ryan promised he would help. It was straight down to major crafting business when we got home, and he was happy then he cut like 300 pieces of paper thinking he was done for the evening. But after I calculated, i told him we need like another 1000 pieces. Ninja Ryan said it was time we called reinforcements, time we call the bridal party in for help. Although some of the crew couldn't make it, whoever that was available was all hands on deck!

I know that it was going to be a challenge for Kel Li who doesn't do complicated cutting often and Jenn who tends to clumsily cut herself a lot when using sharp tools, so I was worried they may hurt themselves. But Kel Li was champion at folding the origami flower petals, Ninja Ryan was helping out with the folding too. Nora, Jenn and the now sis-in-law Hanna got busy cutting the paper butterflies. We all did all we could till our hands got tired and called it a night. Really grateful for everyone's help. The rest is up to me now to finish up!

All the late nights of cutting, folding and gluing sure trained me to multi-task in watching series while keeping my hands busy sure paid off. Everything turned out so perfect after the bridal party set everything up just before the Wedding Ceremony.

Here are some photos of the process and finished product :)

 The work in progress.

Valentine's Day Flash Back

Ryan and I have been together since 2007, which means by now there would be many memorable romantic Valentine's together, right? Well, I'm not really much of a romantic or big on lovey dovey surprises. I normally don't even know how to react on situations as such.

We went through 7 Valentine's before we got married, but I don't think I got the order right because I am really forgetful....booo......

There was the time we had a lovely cozy candle light dinner at Moussandra – Mediterranean & Tapas Restaurant @ KL Plaza, Bukit Bintang. Once I was in Singapore while Ryan was back in KL during Valentine's because I was spending Chinese New Year with my relatives there. Then there was the year that I was sick with acute bronchitis where all I could eat was steam pork or fish with soup or porridge for a month!

First 2014 Post

Wow, almost 3 months without a blog post. Maybe because every time I click "New Post" I just get memory lost or word block, or maybe just plain lazy like this little puppy....