no churning, shaking or kicking

 

*squeal*

Home­made ice cream! :D

I once want­ed to get one of those ice cream balls that one throws and kicks around for a while and out comes a tub of ice cream (well, one has to put cream and sug­ar and salt into it first). 

And then one day my friend Annie point­ed me to this recipe on Kevin and Aman­da. It involves con­densed milk (one of my favourite things!) and with­out the use of an ice cream machine! (thanks Annie!)

Whip­ping up 2 cups of whip­ping cream (ah, sor­ry, messy kitchen :S)…

Dis­solv­ing 2 table­spoons of matcha pow­der with a bit of hot water (I’d use more next time, the green tea flavour is a bit too faint)…

Mix­ing the dis­solved matcha with one can of con­densed milk…

Fold­ing whipped cream into matcha/condensed milk mixture…

And mix­ing it all up :D (see? the green tea was rather pale)

Freeze overnight — makes an ice cream tub full! :D

It’s quite a bit rich­er and sweet­er than reg­u­lar ice cream, so I’d say it’s best eat­en in small serv­ings, but it’s quite delicious! 

Since the recipe makes a full tub it would be fun to divide up the base recipe and mix with dif­fer­ent flavours!

Won­der how I could make laven­der flavour with the laven­der tea I have… 

 

Have a sweet weekend!

 

 

 

party flowers

The hall­ways in our apart­ment build­ings are pret­ty dark and grim. There was a new neigh­bour who moved into the apart­ment across the hall and she hung a small flower wreath on her door, and it made such a dif­fer­ence! So, inspired by my neigh­bour, I decid­ed to make a small flower wreath for our door too! I took the idea from the flo­ral par­ty hats on Oh Hap­py Day.

Ta-da! 

 

A close up of the tis­sue paper flow­ers. If you look care­ful­ly you’ll see the half-ripped neigh­bour­hood watch stick­er I was attempt­ing to cov­er with the flowers.

 

And I actu­al­ly did make flo­ral par­ty hats. We were going to a wed­ding show­er for a friend this week — so excit­ing! I love weddings. 

 

The one with the bit of tulle is for the bride-to-be — here she is! :D

 

And us par­ty-goers :D

 

Cakes at the par­ty! They were as pret­ty as they were delicious.

 

And when we got home I con­tin­ued par­ty­ing with a friend who came over to make a col­lage thank-you card for a prof (art-mak­ing par­ties are the best kind of par­ties!), and she so kind­ly brought over some macarons!

 

Feel­ing total­ly spoiled!  And the card we made was so total­ly awesome!

Wish­ing you a won­der­ful Tuesday! 

 

 

 

this week’s awesome finds

Eye bomb­ing! How awe­some is that? 

 

Cud­dly cud­dly cud­dly. From the always awe­some Purl Bee.

 

Very neat way of braid­ing the neck­line of a t‑shirt, by Her New Leaf.

 

Sun­ny day friends :D Pat­tern from Hap­pi­ness is Scrap­py.

 

Cutest mouse pat­tern I’ve seen. Espe­cial­ly love the stripy one! By Kate God­frey on Rav­el­ry.

 

Pat­tern for both the cork gnomes and the toad­stool, by Anna­boo’s House.

 

Like a field of cher­ry blos­som petals! Afghan square by Julie Yea­ger on Rav­el­ry.

 

Life size knit­ted bees by Han­nah Haworth. Pat­tern for sale! 40% of pro­ceed goes to a bee con­ser­va­tion trust!

 

Cher­ry blos­soms made with cof­fee fil­ters! From one of my favourite blogs, Aunt Peach­es.

 

Ted­dy bear toast — isn’t he the cutest? Spot­ted on Mini-eco.

 

Have a great start to the week!

 

 

 

 

signs of spring

It felt like the tem­per­a­ture went from just above freez­ing to 25°C overnight in the past week. It was so warm today it felt like July.

Part of me thinks that it’s rather unnerv­ing. It is, after all, only the third week of March. But anoth­er part of me is thor­ough­ly enjoy­ing the warmth of the sun, the bright blue sky and the plant life com­ing out of hibernation.

 

Yes, I took quite a few pic­tures of the cher­ry blos­som buds :D They’re just out­side of the build­ing where I have all of my class­es this semes­ter, and it’s look­ing like I might see them bloom before the semes­ter ends.

I’m notic­ing that I’m appre­ci­at­ing nature more and more as I grow old­er. Not quite sure why that is. But see­ing the pink cher­ry blos­soms just filled my heart with inde­scrib­able joy. 

I hope your day is filled with joy as well.

 

 

 

playlist shuffle

 

 

Have nev­er done this quiz when every­one was doing it a cou­ple of years ago, because I did­n’t have a playlist. I don’t lis­ten to music much on my own, but I do enjoy lis­ten­ing to Mike’s music when he has it on.

Late­ly I have been look­ing for instru­men­tal music to play when I’m writ­ing papers. I real­ized that music helps with writ­ing some­times. So Mike gave me a bunch of songs in his col­lec­tion. So I thought, I can final­ly do the playlist shuf­fle quiz! :D

(and the pic­ture is one of my favourite album cov­ers by Sleep­ing at Last — jellyfish!)

 

How? 
1. Grab your music play­er
2. Put your entire library into the playlist and turn on shuf­fle.
3. Use the song titles that pop up every time you hit the next track but­ton as answers for each of the ques­tions below, in order.

How does the world see me?
The only moment we were alone — Explo­sions in the sky 
huh? 

Will I have a hap­py life?
Umbrel­la beach — Owl city 
sounds pret­ty cheerful. 

What do my friends real­ly think of me?
Unob­struct­ed views — Death cab for cutie
I am a pret­ty open book… 

How can I make myself hap­py?
Bird steal­ing bread — Iron & wine 
beats pig steal­ing eggs! 

What should I do with my life?
All this to say — Sleep­ing at last 
now I just have to fig­ure out what to say… 

Will I ever have chil­dren?
You can do bet­ter than me — Death cab for cutie
haha, yes. 

What is some good advice?
Armel­lodie — Gon­za­les
it’s open to interpretation. 

How will I be remem­bered?
Nat­ur­al anthem — Postal ser­vice
bet­ter than unnat­ur­al anthem, I guess. 

What is my sig­na­ture danc­ing song?
The tourist — Gon­za­les
I love being a tourist! :D 

What do I think my cur­rent theme song is?
Long divi­sion — Death cab for cutie
chal­leng­ing. nev­er been good at men­tal math.

What song will play at my funer­al?
Some­day you will be loved — Death cab for cutie 
I thought I’m already being loved… 

 

That was kind of fun…

Have a hap­py Wednesday!

 

 

delicious delicious delicious

 

March is an extreme­ly busy month, with cours­es com­ing to an end at the same time and presentations/papers due at the same time. (has the school admin­is­tra­tion thought this through?) 

Any­way, it means that I have to make a con­scious effort to make and eat good deli­cious food so that I don’t end up hav­ing ramen noo­dles three times a day (even though ramen noo­dles are awe­some). 

My friend and I went to the Dumpling House in Chi­na­town after school one day — must go back! Check out the lat­tice pat­tern on the fried dumplings (above). Also ordered spinach dumplings for the dis­ease fight­ing ben­e­fits of leafy greens.

 

Made cur­ry beef — with coconut milk! So proud of myself. Actu­al­ly quite easy. Just was­n’t sure whether coconut milk would cur­dle like reg­u­lar milk. I don’t think it did.

 

Then with the left­over cur­ry sauce Mike made cur­ry fish ball! It’s a kind of Hong Kong street food :D

 

And last week Mike made the per­fect fish con­gee.

 

I’m off to mak­ing myself some lunch :D 

Hope you’re enjoy­ing this ear­ly spring weather!

 

 

 

trilobite at work!

Mike took one of the trilo­bites to work.

He took some nice pic­ture of it. Bet­ter than the ones I took of them and you can see that the orange trilo­bite is made of a spark­ly yarn :D

Here the trilo­bite is help­ing Mike pick out colours for a tote bag design. Trilo­bite chose the red it’s sit­ting on. Mike agrees.

 

It was a good day at work :D

Hope today was a good day for you, too!

 

 

the kindness of a stranger

 

Today was a real­ly bad day.

It’s not real­ly about one thing in par­tic­u­lar. It could be an accu­mu­la­tion of dif­fer­ent things. Either way, I just felt so pro­found­ly sad for no par­tic­u­lar rea­son, so much so that I had to leave in the mid­dle of a class and broke down in the bath­room sobbing.

So, as I locked myself in a stall sob­bing, I heard some­one else entered the next stall. I con­tin­ued to sob.

Then, I felt that I was ready to leave and as I was leav­ing, a voice came out from the next stall:

“What­ev­er it is, it’s going to be okay. Be strong.”

I thanked the voice, feel­ing ever, ever so grate­ful, and start­ed sob­bing again.

 

I then found a pot­ted plant to sit next to in the hall­way and let its branch­es fall over my one arm, breath­ing in deeply its scent of dirt and basil (but I don’t think it was a basil, it was too big to be a basil), wait­ing for the class to end so I could get my backpack.

The woman came out from the bath­room, “give me a hug,” she said, “you’re going to be okay.” I don’t know who she is, she did­n’t ask for my name and I did­n’t ask for hers. 

A young woman from my class whom I’ve hard­ly spo­ken with came out of the class­room to microwave her lunch. She asked if I were okay and if I want­ed her to sit with me. I said it was up to her.

She sat down and said, “we’ll sit in silence.”

And we did, as I sobbed intermittently.

She did­n’t ask me why I could­n’t stop cry­ing. And even if she did I would­n’t know how to answer her. It was just one of those days.

 

One of those days where I did­n’t want to be alone but I don’t real­ly want to be talk­ing with peo­ple about why I’m sad.

One of those days where I like to sit with plants, hug trees, because they don’t judge.

And that, to me, is kindness.

The two women today gave me great gifts of kind­ness. They did­n’t ask what I cry­ing about to judge whether I was deserv­ing of their kind words and ges­tures. They just offered it to me with­out even know­ing me.

These are the moments that I will store up in my mem­o­ry to keep me going on days like today. 

 

A great quote I saw the oth­er day:

Look at the sea. What does it care about offens­es?
— James Joyce

 

I was speak­ing with a very wise woman about Nia­gara Falls. I told her that the falls is cer­tain­ly full of ener­gy, but the water that flows over the table rock just before it falls, I could stare at it all day because to me, it feels like kindness.

“What is it about the water that reminds you of kind­ness?” she asked, smiling.

I could­n’t quite think of the rea­sons then. I could only think of the way it caress­es the rocks and gen­tly sways the under­wa­ter plants at the bot­tom. But I think I’ve fig­ured it out today.

Because it does­n’t judge.

 

Late­ly Mike and I have start­ed going swim­ming at the pool in our build­ing. I can’t swim, but I like the feel­ing of being sur­round­ed by water. Feels like I’m being hugged. And the muf­fled sound one hears under­wa­ter, it makes me think that maybe that’s what it sounds like inside the womb. (An idea I prob­a­bly got from watch­ing TV shows, and it makes sense, does­n’t it?)

 

And so, the women who offered kind­ness to me, a stranger, today showed me that it is pos­si­ble to be com­pas­sion­ate and non­judg­men­tal with­out hav­ing to be a plant, a tree, or the sea. They showed me how to show kind­ness as a human being to some­one who real­ly need­ed it.

 

And I think of you, my friends whom I’ve nev­er met in per­son but vis­it me reg­u­lar­ly or once in a while or for the first time, being inter­est­ed and read­ing what I have to say, even leav­ing mes­sages that are so encour­ag­ing and kind and make my day over and over again — I’m so very grate­ful for you.

 

 

 

any time is ramen time

 

A blog vis­i­tor sent me an awe­some info­graph­ic on ramen :D 

It’s got fun facts on ramen and recipes! I’m espe­cial­ly intrigued about the dan­de­lion ramen… will need to try that in the spring!

It’s also inspired me to make ramen for break­fast this morning… 

 

… with a fried egg! :D

That was a good start to my day…

 

Have a great evening, everyone!

 

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