wouldn't it be nice to eat without your conscience nagging at you?

Ok, so I'm not the most healthiest of eaters but neither am I a complete junk food foodie. I try to balance out my KFC Snack Plates with my own home cooked, low fat (I hope) meals.

I've been driven to write this because my conscience is being noisy in my head. It's berating me for nearly finishing off a bag of Kettle brand lightly salted chips during pre-dinner snacking. I left a third of the bag. What's the big deal? So I didn't share it with anyone, big whoop. As a consequence, I'm now reduced to one rice cake topped off with a layer of cheese mixed with chives & onions and a cup of iced Skinny Cow Hot Choclate mix for dinner.

Ok, usually I do have more self-control but I went online and became engrossed in the whole Brittany Murphy cardiac arrest death stories that I ate without thinking. When I finally realized that I had been pigging out, well, it was at the part where my fingers were beginning to scrape the bottom. At least they were Kettle chips, au naturel, oven baked, so on, so forth.

I think a lot of women go through life feeling guilty about food. I know I do get struck down by my own inner voice lecturing me when I've indulged a bit too much on something that is perceived as sinful. What confuses me is how much food is really too much in a day?

Take for instance, today for breakfast I had 2 plain rice cakes and a cup of Nescafe mild 3-in-1. For lunch, I had a plate of fried chicken noodle. I drank a litre of water. I ate the chips and ended with the abovementioned dinner. Oh, and one marshmallow with choclate filling. Is that a lot? I wasn't being particularly healthy today and the whole chips bingeing made me feel worse about my eating habits.

Sigh. Getting this down doesn't seem to have given me any clarity. The guilt is still lingering.

what is the holiday season to me.....

if I don't go around spending money on things I don't need but want because I can't seem to control the overwhelming urge to spend money? Now that we've gotten my shopping impulses issues out there, I thought I'd post pics of my latest beauty purchase, the L'Occitane Discovery Set.


Aside from their bath products, I'm not a big fan of L'Occitane but when I spotted this set in a magazine, I just had to get it. My second sis is the L'Occitane worshipper and is actually a cardholder so when we went to one of the stores and were told they were in the middle of restocking, they offered to give her a call the moment the new shipment comes in cos the set was selling out faster than they could put it on the shelves.

And for good reason too. The set, which has some full size products retails in at just USD45. That's a really good deal considering the 2 50 ml riz rice bottles and the 2 full bar soaps alone would cost you 30 bucks! So when my sis got the call last week, I just didn't think about the fact I didn't need any of it nor the fact I just spent 20 pounds on a Bliss bath/body set in London, I told her to go right ahead and get me one too.

I've heard good stuff about their shampoos and have had a chance to try 'em out (via my other sis who doesn't know I occasionally nick a dollop every other time I'm at her house) so it's great that there's the 50 ml travel size shampoo and conditioners for me to try before I decide to jump into the higher end hair product pool (I'm just a head and shoulders gal for now). The set also includes the infamous L'Occitane Immortelle cream which is purported to be a "fountain-of-youth" sorta thing. I'm not quite sold but if it's there to be tested, might as well give it a go.


There's also a tube of hand cream and a purse size tin of shea butter salve. You can't have too many hand creams I say and isn't shea butter supposed to be good for everything? Once I finish the Bliss hand cream I got from Harrods, I can get started on the L'Occitane tube.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the ridiculously cute tote all of this beuaty goodness comes in. It's got a whole retro feel to it and since we're in the day and age of being more environmentally conscious, it's definitely an adorable and functional piece to be seen toting around with you when grocery shopping or whatever else. I usually buy these as flight tote bags cos I'm usually hauling a lot of crap as carry-on and don't want to carry a cabin luggage.

Unfortunately, just as is the case with my leatherbound books, the set's not here. I'm waiting for a visit from my mum, an aunt and aunt's friend in early January before I can get my hands on the stuff. But till then, I have these lovely piccies of my new beauty purchase to look at to tide me over :D

the fantasy has arrived!!!!

Four exclamation marks to signfy the four fab leatherbounds I got last Saturday! No, as per usual, I don't have them in hand as yet but like I always do, I badgered my sis to take pics of 'em outta the box. They're over back in the home country which is approximately 621 miles away by air with a whole other country in between. I googled it.


Anyways, my sis agrees. They were DEFINITELY a great buy. Looking at the pics, they look so gorgeous and read-worthy. A stupendously stunning set (say that really fast 5 times) to have on anyone's bookshelves. I'm sooooo happy I went ahead and got these classics! Can't wait till January which is only when I'll be able to get my hands on at most one of 'em. I really want to flip through the Grimm's Fairy Tales since that was on my original list last year when I was talking about starting a leatherbound book collection.

Thanks Barnes & Noble and b&n.com for making it affordable to own such beautiful books!

since we're talking about books.....

I realized that when it comes to romance novels, I am a complete sucker for period romance. I have no idea why the egalitarian times of English aristocracy (and hypocrisy) at its height is the setting in which I'll find myself being swept away on clouds full of fanciful (and idiotic) notions.

Judith McNaught is the best, the only one I truly enjoy reading (again and again and again). I mean many "ye olde England" novels can get a tad corny (and tawdry if I'm completely honest) but my good friend Judith does it in the most classiest of ways. Which just means that I don't find myself rolling my eyes or laughing out loud in sheer disbelief more than once while I'm reading.

I love everything about JM's period stories. The description of the clothes, the funny (weird funny, not haha funny) social practices, the whole lord-duke-earl-marquess business are just some of the things that I find makes me smile so foolishly while I'm reading these books.

Recently I tried reading Meg Cabot's offerings in this genre and while it does not hold a candle up to Judith McNaught, it's passable on the whole corniness-eyerolling ratio. I did prefer the ones she wrote for the young adult genre ("Victoria And The Rogue" and "Nicola And The Viscount") rather than the books for adults ("Educating Caroline" and "Lady Skye"). One reason is I found her writing the more "adult" scenes in the book to be rather weirdly executed. In the YA versions, they are of course nonexistent since the target audience are too young for such explicit content. Plus, I also thought that her heroines, especially in "Lady Skye", were far too easily shaken free of their morals for women of that day and age. Am I being a prude? I mean, I can think of only one time that Judith McNaught wrote her heroine to have had sex out of wedlock. Weren't these unmarried women and their virtue supposed to be guarded like the crown jewels of England back in the day?

Anyway, I recently concluded Cayla Kluver's first outing "Legacy" and although set in a fictional time, in a fictional world, it is essentially a period piece at heart. One of those times where the men are the "lord-of-the-manor-I-am-master-of-all-I-can-see" types and the women seem to be mere accessories (she implicitly writes that it is the norm for husbands to beat their wives should they see fit - i.e: wilfull women who don't kowtow to their significant other as they should). This is a 16 year old girl who created a whole other vividly portrayed world and managed to spin a 464 page tale. I admit, the whole 16 yerar old award winning author gimmick had me (I am after all a sucker for awards).

And it was a leap of faith for me to spend money buying her book without firmly knowing if it was going to suck or otherwise but I'm glad to say that the book was great to read. I'd say I liked it better than "Twilight" however blasphemous that may seem. The plotline and ideas that is. The writing was flawed a bit by her age. There were times when I was reading and thinking, "What a typical teen!". And though the protagonist is about 17/18 years old, I shouldn't be thinking that her actions/thoughts are typical to that of a modern day teenager. It's a period piece where women in that day and age don't particularly behave as how she sometimes portrayed Alera. Otherwise, I will definitely like to read the next book in her planned trilogy.

have i mentioned how much i love books?

Ok, still alive. Just being lazy like I usually am towards the end of the year. Been catching up on my tv shows and books, haven't been surfing much.

So I've talked about how much of a read-aholic I am. And I've also talked about how much money I've spent buying books. I have to also mention that I recently got into eBooks.....as a way of saving the trees. Ok, ok, my acceptance of eBooks are in no way altruistic like that, it was purely a logical and financially fiscal decision since I could practically just download most of the books for free. The whole tree-saving aspect is a boon. So is the shelf space I've managed to save.

But anyways, despite having downloaded a whole lot of books in the past coupla months (and not read a third of them as yet), I find I still have the need to buy books. Hence why I got myself the Barnes and Noble Leatherbound Fantasy Collection (which arrived on Saturday). I also actually shelled out cold hard credit card cash for 2 kindle books from mammoth e-tailer Amazon.com which is a real milestone for me considering that I think electronic paper of any kind should be free (I still have a mild lingering preconcieved notion that things I can't actually physically feel should not cost me. Trust me, I DO understand the concept of copyright and such).

Which is really want I wanted to talk about. I guess, after my experiences with the Kindle books, I've come away feeling that I really do not mind paying for a paperless version of a book. I realized how much of a physical space saver, delivery time saver and shipping cost saver eBooks really are. The two books I got were Jen Lancaster's Pretty In Plaid and Cayla Kulver's Legacy which totaled at $19.98 ($9.99 each) and I got to read them instantly.

I've been trying to get Jen Lancaster's latest offering for some time now since it was released earlier in the year but since this book was only published in hardcover, the prices inclusive of shipping was something of a deterrent. While I was shopping around on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble hoping for some holiday deal earlier this month, I thought I might as well see if there's a digital version of the book. And since I'm here talking about it now, obviously there is. Just none that could be downloaded for free :P

It didn't take long for me to decide to just go for it and cough up $9.99 for a book I wouldn't be able to turn it's pages with my fingers or get a whiff of that new book smell. What I did get instead was the satisfaction of book delivery within 15 minutes of my pressing on the search button. I also found to my extreme delight that reading electronic versions of books are great in that at a click of a mouse you can just jump to a different page to look at the glossary or illustration or in Jen Lancaster's case, her footnotes and with another short click jump back to the page you were reading.

eBooks are also great for buying when the paper variety is constantly out of stock. I've been trying to get Cayla Kluver's book Legacy in paperback since June when Amazon's newsletter informed me of their latest Amazon published bestselling author who happened to be a 16 year old girl. I've made it pretty clear that I still like to read young adult fiction and so I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been hunting for this book for nearly 6 months. Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble were out so again, I decided to see if they had an eBook version. Barnes & Noble didn't but since Cayla is on the list of Amazon published writers, they'd of course want to make more money by exclusively (I'm simply assuming this is true) holding the rights of eBook distribution for themselves.

And that solved my waffling between which eBook reader to use. I had only previously used third party eBook readers as well as Barnes & Noble's but if you buy Amazon, you have to install their Kindle reader application. I hate the fact that I have to use too many different types of readers to be able to view different eBook file types but I have to say that besides the Microsoft rtf reader, Kindle is really a great pleasure to use. In fact, it's definitely the best one out there.

So after working around the whole stupid "no-delivery-outside-the-US-for-Kindle-digital-content" thing, I am now the proud owner of two paid eBooks. And a slew of other free eBooks I found on Amazon. And it's not just the classics but recent authors like James Patterson have also offered their books for free download. It's a marketing strategy where they offer the first book in a series for free and when the story hooks you, you'll most likely end up buying the next book. It's also a great way to introduce authors to a wider audience. I just finished reading "Serial" which I got free and is on the Amazon Kindle Bestseller list. The product description reads:

"Remember the twin golden rules of hitchhiking? # 1: Don't go hitchhiking, because the driver who picks you up could be certifiably crazy. # 2: Don't pick up hitchhikers, because the traveler you pick up could be raving nutcase. So what if, on some dark, isolated road, Crazy #1 offered a ride to Nutcase #2? When two of the most twisted minds in the world of horror fiction face off, the result is SERIAL, a terrifying tale of hitchhiking gone terribly wrong. Like a deeply twisted version of an "After School Special," SERIAL is the single most persuasive public service announcement on the hazards of free car rides. Beyond a thrilling piece of horrifying suspense, SERIAL is also a groundbreaking experiment in literary collaboration. Kilborn wrote the first part. Crouch wrote the second. And they wrote the third together over email in 100-word exchanges, not aware of each other's opening section. All bets were off, and may the best psycho win."

It's a joint effort by two thriller writers Jack Kilborn and Blake Coruch. I loved the story they collaborated on, although it is completely sick and twisted, more so than I usually enjoy but it did pique my interest to see if their individual books would reel me in as much as this free effort did.

Right now, I'm trying to decide if I want to get the Kindle version or the paperback version of the sequel to "The Nanny Diaries", "Nanny Returns: A Novel". The tipping point will definitely be cost :)

it's that time of the year again

No. I'm not talking about company performance appraisals although my form is supposed to be submitted by the 30th of this month. I'm talking about that wonderful time of online Christmas holiday deals!

And I made my first purchase of the season. My Europe trip is over and though I am a lil bit in debt (to my sis, not the banks), I am no longer on my self-imposed book ban so I am treating myself to this great deal from my favoured online book e-tailer, Barnes and Noble!

Four. Read that...FOUR gorgeous leatherbound classics for the absolute deal price of $53.95! I love books! I love deals! I love leather! I love bookstores that give me great deals on leatherbound books!


I'll be getting a lil bit of Lewis Carroll's Alice, some gruesome tales from the Brothers Grimm, beautiful stories by Hans Christian Andersen and the epic adventures in C. S. Lewis's immortal prose revolving around Narnia.


I can't wait to get this round of books. I guess I'm in that phase where I'm becoming a collector aside from just reading the books. I love how these books look on book shelves, they lend an air of....seriousness. Ok, I don't know if I have a thing about being taken seriously but my real intent is to own these classics that I read when I was young. The stories that developed and fueled my love of the written word. I'm the last of my generation who grew up on these stories. My nephew and nieces are in that time where they are learning to read about Dora the Explorer, Bob The Builder and Ben 10. They'd rather see the movie than read the words that inspired the celluloid version. They basically have no interest in the fairy tales of yore.

So I thought I'd buy myself these classics as a keepsake for myself.....and I hope for my nephew and nieces to get the chance to read one day.

needs to be recorded for posterity

I figured since an announcement has been made, rather than follow my gut and ignore the news, I'd record it for posterity's sake.

I came home from work and after showering and whatnot, settled in front of my PC. After going through the motions of checking my work emails, I did what I always do, go to the Kimi Raikkonen support thread on the Planet F1 forum to find out the latest in the ongoing will he/won't he sign for McLaren debacle of 2009.

I'm feeling rather numb right now. And when I mean numb, I mean I don't feel anything. Not panic, not despair, nothing. I'm not convinced I'm in shock but I could be. My reaction has me confused. I'll be honest, Kimi IS the be all and end all of F1 for me. I said I would likely still follow the sport after he leaves but in hindsight, I may not have gotten into the sport because of him but I have a strong feeling it's pretty much guaranteed I'll stop following it fervantly because of him.

So apparently Kimi's decided to take a sabbatical ala Mika. I know Mika certainly didn't come back to F1 so does the fact that Kimi is taking one actually is just a precursor to an unfortunate early retirement? I was 97% convinced he would still be in F1 next season driving alongside Hamilton in the McLaren but to have quite reliable news reports stating otherwise is supposed to feel disheartening I guess.

Is this it for Kimi? Are you leaving me Kimi Raikkonen? Have I just been dumped? I guess I can't believe it. Looks like I'll be waiting till the 2010 drivers lineup is fully realized before it completely sinks in.

when i say "I never...."

I stand by the saying "Never say never". Unfortunately, I don't always live by it so there have been a coupla times, ok, more than a couple, where I've been caught out by myself. I try to avoid saying "I'll never....." but there are just those moments in life where I'm just so high up on my moral high horse that life is just setting me up to fall and hit the ground hard.

Anyways, the "I never....." moment in this post that has come to bite me in the ass concerns handbags and paying more than 500 hundred dollars for one. I remember the moment I had uttered the words I have been forced to take back now. It was just after I watched my eldest sis hand over her credit card at the Gucci store. The till rung in at a price of 1500 dollars. I'm pretty sure I had the most incredulous look on my face as I watched this transaction go through. In my head, and later out loud to friends, I was tsk, tsk-ing and thinking what a dope my sister was to be spending that much cash on a bag. I mean I loved bags and all but hellooooo? You don't have to spend more than 50 bucks and you can get a nice bag. 20/20 vision is useless in hindsight. I should have really kept my mouth shut and perhaps I wouldn't find myself in this predicament years on.

I love me some handbags, I completely do. I own a lot of 'em and most are within the 100 bucks and less range. I use to flip thorugh magazines and look at the designer bags and think who in their right mind would spend that much money on a piece of leather. All I can say now is that I must not be in my right mind because here I am, at the cusp of thirty, and I'm in posession of not just one, but THREE, handbags that retail at a price of over 500 dollars each. *Sob*

Where has that idealistic gal gone to? How did I manage to slip through the cracks and fall into the pool of women who own luxury handbags? I have to admit, I AM disappointed with myself. I never thought I would become one of these girls but here I am. It gives me guilt when I think that I spend that much money for a pretty trinket and there are people out there who don't have money to even buy food for themselves.

Then I think about the flip side. I work hard, there's nothing wrong with giving myself a treat. At the very least I'm not spending more obscene amounts of money. I still can't bring myself to push through the 1K barrier. I'm not saying never but I'm not saying I will either. I'll leave it up to the Fates.

Okay, I've let my buyers' guilt to have it's say. Now I can start to enjoy ownership of my new LV Speedy and Mulberry sling :)

interlude

I'm still on (mental) leave. The European trip has thrown my whole life a bit out of whack and I can't seem to find my bearings as yet. Oh, I sooo want to blog but can't figure out left from right and up from down so my posts would basically be nonsensical. When I've gotten myself in order, I'll be back to jotting down my thoughts. Cheerio!

veni, vidi, vici

Well, I've returned from conquering Europe. Ok, just London, Lancaster, Liverpool and Paris. And it's the cities that conquered me since I returned home half dead, completely dehydrated and sick with viral fever. Spent the last week in bed moving as minimally as possible. Had to even go get a fluid line straight to the veins, THAT'S how badly Paris and London chewed me up and spat me out.

Ok, dramatics aside, now that I'm not delirious from fever I can look back on my European sojourn with fond memories :) The trip was delayed a bit due to our plane not getting in on time and we lost a night at Hilton Euston London because of it but then we just rerouted ourselves to the St Pancras train station after landing in Stanstad and that's when our trip truly began.

Taking the Eurostar across the channel was interesting. It's fast, it's smooth and I would definitely use it again. Our apartment in Paris was a wee bit teeny in the Marais but we made do. It was fully equipped with everything including high speed internet access which I promptly took advantage of by downloading anything and everything to my hearts content. Paris in a nutshell? THE place to purchase luxury items. I ended up getting my LV epi leather Speedy 30 in noir and even managed to get my initials tastefully embossed on the strap. I saw the Mona Lisa up close and personal and Van Gogh's starry night. I went up the Eiffel Tower and watched an authentic cabaret show.

The trip to the UK was equally as great. Very nostalgic. I spent my childhood in England and visiting the old house and the farmhouse we first stayed in was a real trip down memory lane. EVen got to stand right outside the school I attended when I was there. Also, West End was awesome. Les Mis was truly a wonderful show and the guy who plays Enjolras was so devastatingy good-looking! What can I say about the production of Lion King except thatit's such a visual spectacle and truly makes use of the theatre space. The actors were all over the place, coming in from the back of the theatre and even from above. It's a shame that both my sis and I did fall asleep at certain parts due to extreme tiredness - our schedule was just so tight! Aside from one racist incident, London was fabulous!

The question remains though. Did I or did I not get something from the Mulberry outlet in Bicester Village. Short reply: YES :p Clarks also took my money. Shopped quite a bit in Paris at H&M and when we were in London I totally went a bit nuts at Topshop and Dorothy Perkins. Even got some stuff from Asda not to mention this really cute tunic from John Lewis. And a total impulse purchase from this shoe shop I kept walking pass coming from the Avenue Montaigne LV store - Eden. I got a pair of open-toed leather booties, they are gorgeous but not completely comfy, lol. A woman suffers for fashion, no?