Joining the Fight (CQ Bible Study)

Published in CQ Bible Study, October - December lessons.

pdf available.

And if you're interested, my (almost) complete writing portfolio can be found here.   

Vitamins Explained From A to K

Published in Signs of the Times, October 2012.

pdf available.

And if you're interested, my (almost) complete writing portfolio can be found here.  

What About Me?

Published in Signs of the Times, August 2012.

pdf available.

And if you're interested, my (almost) complete writing portfolio can be found here. 

Kookey Bird Mobile

I learned how to crochet! I still feel like I'm using my feet to crochet and I'm completely reliant on YouTube for every single different stitch I have to use in a pattern, but I learned how to crochet! And I made birds! After years of rapid knitting and knowing how to read most knitting patterns, it's kind of a weird feeling learning a new craft again. It's like I've regressed or something.

But these little birdies are probably the easiest little project one can start off with when learning how to crochet, without feeling too discouraged.

Friends are expecting a little one in August and had expressed interest in a crocheted bird mobile, so what better gift than something they want?

Made five little birds using scrap yarn - it took me all evening to make the first one, but once I got the hang of it (did you see what I did there?), I made three in the same time it took me to make the first.

I got the twigs/branches down the back of my apartment for the true rustic handmade look and attached the birds using normal cotton thread.
 
D helped with sawing the twigs to length and constructing the whole mobile. I would have just tied birds to twigs and called it done, but he even went to the effort of finding the centre of balance of each twig, so when hung up, everything balances and twirls oh so nicely and mesmerisingly. Genius, that boy.

Rainbow cake

Thanks for the pic Jeanelle :)

It was a friend's birthday party on Saturday and I had offered to bake a cake. Said friend doesn't have a particular love for rainbows. Neither is he a strong supporter of gay pride. I really just used his birthday as an excuse to bake a rainbow cake, something I had badly wanted to do in a while.

Most of the rainbow cake recipes I found online had recommended using gel food colouring instead of liquid, as the colours supposedly turn out more vibrant. Unfortunately, I had no idea where to get gel food colouring and so stuck with good ole' Queens liquid food colouring.

However, I had read somewhere that the trick to maintaining a vibrant colour was to add vinegar, which I obeyed, and hoped for the best.

 

I'm not sure if the amount of food colouring I used constituted "a lot" - half a teaspoon each of food colouring and white vinegar for each layer. However, it had the desired effect and the colours never lost their vibrancy.

 

I had to do some alchemy to get purple and orange, but thanks to D's wonderful mathematical skills, that wasn't too hard.

Purple: three parts red, one part blue

Orange: one part red, two parts yellow

I used a simple white cake recipe for the batter and just separated them evenly by six before I added the food colouring. What I did wrong however, was to put them in the oven for the same time indicated in the recipe. With each individual colour being such thin layers, I could have left them in for about half the time and ended up with a cake that would have been more moist.

However, it wasn't a problem that sweet icing couldn't cure!

Canadian Gloves

So the only thing Canadian about this is the fact that I made them in preparation for my trip to Canada about four months ago. I've only ever made fingerless gloves before, so this was a bit of new challenge for me. To make it even more difficult, I actually decided to come up with my own design.

In all honesty though, it really wasn't that had to knit up - took me about a month, which included being distracted by other things and really only spending an average of 15-20 minutes a day. So don't let what I've said put you off. This is really a quick and easy knit.

What wasn't quick was the fact that it took me much longer to decipher all my notes and write up the pattern. But I finally did it, so you can knit a pair for yourself too!

If you would like to download the pattern, you can do so at my MelT Creations website or from Ravelry.

Ah! What am I supposed to do next?!

Plight of a Refugee

Published in Signs of the Times, June 2012.

pdf available.

And if you're interested, my (almost) complete writing portfolio can be found here.

Marriage

The saga of needing a better editor than myself continues . . .

I came up with three different coverlines for an upcoming issue of my magazine. Independently, they were (I think) interesting and worked well with what we try to achieve with every magazine.

When placed together on the cover however, they ended up reading either:

"Marriage: Better Than Ever, An Olympic Effort"

or

"Marriage: Better Than Ever, How Long, O Lord"

I wonder if it's a Freudian slip.

Don't hate me

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I have always been thin. On top of that, over the last few months, my weight has gradually declined, through no real effort on my part. I’ll admit that I do lead a fairly active lifestyle and have never had the inclination to snack. But with an extremely healthy appetite and a weakness for ice creams and cakes, my net calorie intake should still far outweigh (pardon the pun) the energy burned.

Yet, my jeans and skirts are feeling loose around my waist, and the digits on the scales continue to decrease (not by leaps and bounds, mind you). Disappointingly however, my bra size has also dropped. For the scientifically inclined, my BMI tells me I’m underweight, in both the Australian and Asian variations.

If you’re honest, you hate me right now. Don’t lie. I know you do.

Well, you can stop hating me because while I may be thin, I am not healthy. The health risks of being underweight include infertility, osteoporosis and a weakened immune system. And seriously, when you start losing weight without trying, it should be more cause for alarm than celebration.

But you want to know a secret?

While part of me is concerned, there is another side of me that’s kind of pleased. I am, after all, skinny. And at the rate I’m going, I’m probably going to drop down to a size 8 in no time. Imagine how I’ll look in a bikini in summer! In today’s society, it practically means I’m beautiful, right?

What an indictment on society that we have become so blinded by being thin, we forget it poses as much of a danger to our health as being overweight does.

People don’t tell me I’m too skinny (except my mum. But Asian mothers always want their children to look well fed). After not seeing me for a few weeks, they will instead exclaim, “You’ve lost weight!” as if I’ve just returned from successfully reaching the summit of Mount Everest.

As opposed to someone who is overweight, friends will enviously tell me how they wish they had my body shape. It’s not as if they have to furtively avoid the word “fat”, after all.

I’m showered with compliments because I’m thin (read: underweight), and the plethora of weight loss ads I’m bombarded with subconsciously tell me that I’m alright.

My current weight loss may be a symptom of something seriously bad, but unlike say, finding a lump in my breast which would send me rushing for a biopsy, I’m actually enjoying how “good” I look.

What an indictment on myself that I would prefer to be underweight, than risk gaining weight and looking “fat”.

As women, we get so caught up with society’s perception of beauty, we sometimes fail to recognise potential pitfalls. We need to start loving and respecting our bodies more, instead of trying to fit into the size zero ideal that Hollywood espouses.

And as for me, don’t worry, I’m making a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.

Volunteer for your Health

Published in Signs of the Times, May 2012.

pdf available.

And if you're interested, my (almost) complete writing portfolio can be found here.

Dislocation diary: Day 38

I think for this first time, I'm actually confident that my arm is going to get back to normal.

It's almost entirely fully functioning now and for the most part, is pain-free and hassle free.

The only thing is that it's still not completely straight or can be completely bent, but I reckon there's only about a 3 degrees gap to bridge. It really is that close to being completely healed. It still hurts when I try to straighten or bend it completely, but only around the actual elbow hinge area. I do that a few times, just to stretch out the muscle and then give it a break.

Strength is back, but I still try to go easy on it. Sometimes, I do feel the strain and that's when I really ease back.

I am really eager for it to be completely healed, but at least I'll be almost fully functioning for our upcoming trek around east Canada and NYC!

Orange cowl

I started work on this way back in July last year, and only finished it a month before I left for Canada. Ironically, it's probably one of the easiest and mindless kind of pattern I've done in a while and could probably have been finished in a few days.

 
Uni started not too long after I cast on, but it wasn't only because I was juggling two subjects last semester. Ashamed to say the main reason was just sheer laziness - I took forever to buy a new ball of yarn after running out.

But, I finished it just before I left for Canada and boy has it been a treat! The 100% certified organic Australian merino wool it's made in makes it feel so incredibly cosy, warm and soft against my neck. I usually wear it only doubled-up, but when it gets really cold and windy, I triple it and it makes an incredibly difference. 

The wool makes it warm, but the merino part means it's not scratchy and I could wear it all day, which comes in rather helpful when you're out all day in a snow-covered environment!

Really like the fact that it's a cowl, so no loose scarf ends, which makes it so easy to handle and wear. Unfortunately, the design on the edging can't really be seen, largely because the cowl prefers to curl into itself. It doesn't affect the warmness, it just doesn't show the beautiful long horizontal lines it has.

Pattern here.

Potato scones

Yes, the mission continues. This time, in the form potato scones.

Honestly, I wasn't too impressed, even though D did like it. I think I was more impressed with the strawberry smoothie that I made. It was delicious and oh so pretty! We had frozen some strawberries whole. When they thawed out they were rather squishy and not so tasty. It tasted great in the smoothie though! I'll put the "recipe" for the smoothie below.

Regarding the scone, the main difficult was trying to convert all the metric measurement into American, seeing that I've only got American measuring cups and no weighing machine. I'm not sure if I got all the proportion correct, because I ended up having to put a whole lot more soymilk into the mixture just so that it would stick. I'm not sure if my problem was that I used soy instead of cow's milk as the recipe suggested, but it took more than the four tablespoons suggested to get the dough to stick together.

Even after that, it was still a little bit flaky and it was really a matter of just piling a whole bunch of flour on top of each other and putting it into the oven.

I may have made the dough a little too thick as I didn't feel that it was too cooked in the middle after I took it out of the oven, but D thought it was fine. If I do this the next time, I'll probably make it flatter and wider.

One thing though, it was surprisingly salty. Not bad salty, tasty salty, just when you look at the pale thing, you kind of expect it to be tasteless.

The recipe did suggest doing a milk/egg glaze over the top so that it would brown, but I was too lazy.

All in all, it's a rather quick and easy recipe (albeit slightly messy since you have to use your fingers to mix and knead and stuff) for a kinda tasty meal - so long as you cook it well enough.

Strawberry smoothie ingredients (for one serve)
Ice - about four or five cubes
Strawberries - about four or five big berries
Orange juice - half a cup or so
Honey - a tablespoon or so (or to taste)
(in a different concoction, I also added oats - tasted like a great breakfast smoothie)

-- blend --

Potato scone recipe here.

Dislocation diary: Day 33

Arm still feels a bit stiffer and less bendy when I wake up in the morning. However, after morning arm exercises, a lot of the mobility has come back. So much so that I forget sometimes that I'm still nursing a dislocated arm.

It's about 175-15 degrees or so now after the exercises, which is awesome. Bruising is way less visible, except for a very faint purple mark near the side of the forearm. The main area that hurts when prodded is the elbow bone area.

The right arm is almost completely functional now. I still try not to carry too heavy things, but the weight of things that I can carry is increasing. It's still a little hard to do yoga poses, especially dancer's move, and I can feel that some muscles are still a bit tense, but being able to almost completely straighten my arm is great!

Sleep is getting better. Arm hurts less throughout the night now, but can sometimes end up getting numb. Probably just because of the way that I sleep.

Can't wait for it to be fully recovered.

Oatmeal muffins

The bid to use up D's never-ending supply of flour, sugar and oats continues and this time, I decided to go the muffin way.

After watching Alton Brown's episode of Good Eats where he pretty much dismissed the need to use papers for muffins, I decided to obey and greased the cups in the muffin tray.

Unlike Alton, I couldn't simply tip my tray upside down and watch the muffins magically fall down after taking it out of the oven. However, all it needed was the help of a small plastic spoon. I simply slid the spoon down the circumference of the cups and the muffins popped right out!

The muffins are great to eat warmed up, but can be a little dry. There is a nice slight sweetness to it and there's a great oatmeal taste but not overpowering. I haven't tried it, but I reckon it might taste quite nice if you cut it in half and lightly butter it.

Recipe here.

Ken Duncan: An "Average" Photographer

Published in Signs of the Times, March 2012.

pdf available.

And if you're interested, my (almost) complete writing portfolio can be found here. 

Oatmeal cookies

I'm still on a mission to finish up the 10kg of flour that D bought, but things came to a standstill when I decided to go dislocate my elbow.

The elbow is starting to feel a bit more like normal now though and so my mission continues.

D had a bunch of porridge oats and sugar lying around as well so I decided to make some oatmeal cookies.

Pretty simple recipe, not even too hard to mix with my munted arm!

Made several modifications to the recipe (mainly because I wanted to use up what we already had and didn't want to buy new ingredients since we're leaving in under three weeks), namely:

• didn't use walnuts, pecans, dried fruit or chocolate chips
• used margarine spread instead of unsalted butter
• used normal white sugar instead of light brown sugar, and only 3/4 cup
• didn't use vanilla extract
• used vegetable seasoning instead of salt (yes, we have no salt in the house)
• used porridge oats instead of old-fashioned rolled oats. I'm not sure what the difference is
• drizzled some chocolate sauce over the dough before placing into the oven (which explains the darkish colour on some of the cookies in the picture)

The cookies still turned out pretty yummy though. Made so much D brought a batch to work to share.

Recipe here.

I Hate Your Face(book)

Published in Signs of the Times, April 2012.

pdf available.

And if you're interested, my (almost) complete writing portfolio can be found here.

Dislocation diary: Day 27

Seems like now that I'm no longer disabled and can function like before, I've failed to update my dislocation diary.

I'm not completely healed yet, but think I'm probably 85 per cent of the way there. Several major things have happened over the last week or so since my last update:

• Stopped wearing the strap completely.
• As of today, arm straighten/bending degree is probably 170-20 (180 being completely straight and 0 being completely bent)
• Visible bruising still present, although the icky green-yellow ones are fading, being replaced by smaller purple-blue ones.
• Can now use right arm to feed myself, do light lifting, tie my hair back in a ponytail (with some pain), dress and undress in the usual manner and tie shoelaces properly! Seriously, besides the fact that I cannot completely straighten and bend, the arm is pretty much fully functional.
• Went snowmobiling two days ago. Probably not the wisest thing to do with a recovering dislocated elbow, but . . . D did most of the driving. I tried, but doing tight turns was a little difficult when you can't straighten/bend completely. For the trip, I strapped my arm, but could certainly feel the strain by the end of the day from holding on. So for anybody recovering from a dislocated elbow, avoid snowmobiling if you can until you are completely healed.
• Sleep is mostly back to normal. I don't have to just sleep on my back now, although when I'm on my side, I find it useful to have another pillow/cushion to hug or rest the arm, otherwise it gets a bit sore after a while.
• Started applying Voltaren (anti-inflammatory gel) to the area before I went to sleep (and sometimes after I wake up, if I remember/felt like it), which has been amazing. While the arm hasn't been really sore, I had been waking up in the morning feeling a little pain and tightness in the arm. Remembered reading somewhere that's an indication of inflamed body parts and so decided to apply Voltaren. What an amazing difference! Pain not completely removed, but definitely reduced and I think it has aided in my ability to straighten/bend.
• The actual elbow area still feels sore when pressed, as are the forearm and bicep muscles.
• Shoulder back to feeling normal.
• Can mostly walk around with arm hanging down by the sides, but if I try to bend it after a while, I can feel a slight pain (signs of inflammation again).

Dislocation diary: Day 19

Sitting at Salt Lake City airport waiting for my flight back to Calgary. Spent a week visiting in Idaho visiting work’s sister publishing press in the US. Doctor obviously thought I was well and fit enough to travel with a recovering dislocated elbow.

Flying to Idaho was the trickier part as my arm was still in a sling. It wasn’t painful or anything, just inconvenient as had to do everything with one hand. Still, it was a good visual warning to everybody else not to bump my poor elbow!

Have had amazing improvements to elbow over the last week. The bruising around the forearm area actually got more and more obvious as the pain receded (extremely slowly). The bruises are now this sick yellow-green colour. I can only hope the fact that the bruises are showing more is a sign that things are getting better!

Ditched the sling about three days ago. Simply didn’t feel like I needed it any more, even though the doctor did say I had to have it on for two weeks after the cast came off.

There is a significant amount of strength that has returned to the arm, although I’ve avoided doing any kind of heavy lifting and some twisting motions (like to open containers) can still send twinges of pain down the arm to the elbow.

My typing is back to normal now. In fact, in a sitting position, I doubt anybody can guess that I’m nursing a dislocated elbow. And it actually feels like I’ve got a normal arm.

Standing and walking is a different matter. I still have to hold my arm at an almost 90 degrees as I cannot straighten it completely, and leaving it hanging at its 140 or so degrees is quite tiring. Same thing with bending, probably can get it to about 30 degrees. But, I’m getting significantly more range now and am getting a teeny weeny bit more and more each day.

Sleeping has been so much better. I no longer have to wake up several times in the middle of the night to ease the sore shoulder. In fact, the shoulder hardly aches anymore. It’s still a bit tight, probably just from the way I still have to hold the elbow walking around, and probably also because of my crazy amount of laptop use.

Have woken up in the middle of the night the last two nights (prior to that, had actually slept through the night!) with a light throbbing in the elbow/arm area. It’s not so much pain sore, although there is that, but just this general soreness, probably like as if I hadn’t stretched it in ages. Then again, I pretty much sleep in one position, so no wonder.

When I wake up in the morning, the arm feels quite tired and sore as well, but after an hour or so, I suppose all the muscles warm up and things feel better.

I still put the strap on during the day if I’m out and about, and also when I’m sleeping. I’ve tried it without, but the strap certainly gives a good amount of support and I feel is much better when I’m sleeping. Have stopped taking my medication, although am contemplating starting on it again if I wake up in the middle of the night again.