the last of 2011

HAPPY 2012 EVERYBARDI!!!!!!

didn't party as usual, but spent my new year's eve afternoon in office, and then new year's day quietly just having quality time with YZ, haha. we had a movie marathon and watched Harry Potter 7 part 1 and part 2!!! quite draggy, didn't think it was that good. i still like the books best! but i had such a relaxed two days that it feels strange for Monday to still be a public holiday! guess i've been working too much through the weekends, and i don't know what two full rest days feel like anymore lol.

yet another new year D: time is passing by so quickly, i feel like i don't even have time to catch up! :( and this year i'm hitting the dreaded quarter century age..... i don't even want to think about it. on the other hand, life has been treating me well, and every year has been bringing about new blessings and treasured friendships that i sometimes feel undeserving of. i mean, i hardly have time to go out and meet friends to maintain relationships, and most of the time i have so many things on my mind, i don't even like, check Facebook and realize that it's a friend's birthday or something??? and if my friends want to meet me, they either have to book me 1 month in advance, or come down to office to look for me. *guilt stricken* i'm such a terrible person! (in fact, i only remembered it was my little sister's birthday some time ago on the afternoon of the day itself cos she mentioned she was going out for a birthday celebration with her friends cos i didn't even know what the date was. YES. i'm that bad)

nevertheless, i don't know how i still have so many wonderful friends and people around me, and they're such a blessing to me! i must have accumulated a lot of good karma in my past life or something :D :D :D

went out for a Christmas dinner with this bunch of lovely girls during Christmas week! wanted to eat XLB one, but it was so damn crowded everywhere, we settled for a spot at Skinny Pizza, Raffles City!

 

as usual, we had the early birds and late comers hahaha so we went ahead to place our orders first cos we were starving already, plus i guess cos it was Christmas week or something, they needed us to place our orders for mains within 15 minutes or something! oh well. 

anyhow, it's not a very good idea to be writing this entry right now when i'm like OHSOHUNGRY but cannot eat cos i busted my calories on lunch today.... more on that later =_=

here's the food we ordered for sharing! Skinny Pizza has a good selection good for sharing, ranging from pizzas to mains to pastas. four of us (who arrived earlier) had two pizzas, one pasta, and a selection of side dishes!

 

squid ink pizza, which is supposed to be a must-have! i liked the flavor but the squid was a little too tough for my liking. the crust is really crispy and crunchy, cos their speciality is (obviously) their skinny thin crust pizzas! :D pretty awesome. especially if you're the kind who doesn't like too much dough in your pizza!

 

black pepper prawn linguine. would rate this a 7/10, tasty but not super good until want to keep on eating kind. the prawns were huge but i felt the pasta was slightly dry! had a nice peppery taste to it though :)

 

selection of three sides, we chose truffle fries, sweet potato fritters and a sausage! yummeh. liked all three! especially the sweet potato fritter thingamies! :D

 

my favorite dish of the lot, don't know what's the name hahaha but it comes with a sunny side up and bacon!!!! awesomeeeeeeeeeemax. very tasty and the crispy crust was really shiok with these ingredients :D

Joyce and Steph were late: but forgiven cos Joyce showed up with delish cupcakes from twelvecupcakes!!!

 

this is really not doing my self-control to diet any good right now. boohoo.. i tried the oreo one and the salted caramel one!!! super sinful, but very rich and decadent!!! NOMS.

 

when everyone had arrived and all our tummies were fed, we moved on to our gift exchange!!! :D this was my idea ok. HAHAHA. gift exchanges are always fun!!! bwahaha Steph has a sad emoticon next to her name cos she said she bought a paperweight and no one wanted her present LOL. 

 

yay all the gifts up for exchange!!!

after a few mishaps, we all managed to pick a name each LOL. but we still got swap gifts around so that everyone would get something they would use!!!

after swapping around, i ended up with this! :D :D :D miniature mail polish set and facial masks from Fel! yay!!! still got a sweet little handwritten card from Fel as well! thank you dear!!

 

Nancy handmade this gorgeous frame and printed out photos of us to put in it :D :D :D wahahaha i kept on telling Nancy i didn't want to get her gift cos it looked so bulky, but awwww it's such a sweet gift!!! Wendy ended up with it in the end! :D

 

and the "paperweight" went to Fel... LOL. it's actually a loooovely Christmas musical box!!! exactly what Fel likes hahaha. not such a bad gift after all!

 

uh, dunno what the siao kias doing. hahaha

 

Joyce and Steph! oh i think Joyce got my gift in the end lolol it was a REALLY CUTE hand cream and lip balm from Etude House!!

group picture!!! ♥♥♥ missing Noi that day! ): we need to have another gathering with full attendance soon!

always happy to meet up with this bunch of girls that were brought together by chance via the WWW! wahaha, like those online dating websites like that. who would ever know that i'd actually make friends online, and friends that would actually become close in real life??? ah, the wonders of technology never cease. isn't it amazing?

those following me on Twitter or Instagram would know that i've been busy with getting our new office in order of late... Vera is not in Singapore so i've been settling most of the stuff, renovating, repainting, cleaning, and getting the racks up! YAY, so happy that we're almost ready to move into our new space soon!!!! EXCITEDMUCH!!!! now, we just need to get the furniture and studio set up in place! oh and internet as well :D this time round, making sure we have a big enough refrigerator so that i can keep froyo in the freezer compartment and fruits in the fridge! wahaha.

deng deng deng deng!!! all our racks up last Friday!

and my lovely pixies Trish, Shirl and Xuan were even more excited than me to start packing LOL. these girls are a bit siao one. hahahahaha. we shifted up half our stocks to start organizing neatly onto the new racks already! :))))))

MAD NEAT!! come 2012, we're gonna do a total overhaul to TVD's operations, and this will mean more organization to maximize our efficiency, so that we can serve the customers better! such a daunting task, but i hope we're more than ready to do this!

my pixies didn't just come down to help with the packing, they even got me little gifts for Christmas!!! ♥♥♥ i told you i was blessed already. thank you girls! sigh. i really dunno where all these good karma come from ;')

and the last sunset of 2011. it was just gorgeous! :) so glad i managed to catch it while on the roads.

on the weight loss/ dieting front, i've been quite good this week! thanks to myfitnesspal, counting my calories is really easy and i'm being a lot more conscious of what i'm taking in, cos my calories are precious and i don't wanna waste them on sinful food!!!

went to the supermart to grab some healthy/calorie light food earlier LOL. strawbies and grapes!! and CP wonton has amazingly little calories!! miso soup is good for a quick fix as well. bought some other snacks too that are somewhat more sinful like digestives and granola cookies/bars, but it's all about portion control!

wahaha been quite addicted to myfitnesspal :X it's quite fun, plus you can change your settings so that your friends can view your food diary! stalking all my friends to make sure they're keeping to their diet. LOL. hope all the friends who's joined me so far will keep up with their diet too! cos it's only a short 3 weeks to CNY!!!! horrors. happy to report that i've lost 2kg already!! that were probably mostly food weight from all the overeating during Christmas :X i'm still 1.5kg above my regular weight!! =_=

went for lunch with Daddy and Mummy earlier cos i wanted to spend more time with them! good for tummy, bad for diet. today's lunch busted all my calories for the day which is why all i had for dinner were five miserable strawberries!!!!! hai. trying very hard to keep to my calorie count! cannot cannot cannot overeat.

i'm so determined, i drove out to buy roti prata and mee goreng for daddy's supper last night, and i didn't get anything for myself!!!! the temptation......

on the plus point... i still managed to keep within my calories for the past seven days!! yippee!! MUST.. KEEP... IT.... UP..... determined to shed off some weight by CNY! (and hopefully not gain it back during CNY, lolol)

last self portrait for 2011 :D with crappy iPhone frontal camera that makes everyone look good :D

and my OTD! boho frock that i haven't worn for ages. still love it :D

my new year resolutions for every year almost always remain the same: stay happy, healthy and love those around me :) this year, i also want to remind myself to work hard, and not bum my time away cos time is so precious. i will love, work, and play with equal fervor. i'm so blessed already, so i'm not gonna take it for granted.

jiayou to a bigger and better year ahead, with a slimmer, healthier and happier me!!!

christmas was a blast but now i'm fat

just a shitload of random pictures from Christmas weekend! i really didn't do much this Christmas weekend, on Christmas Eve, i spent my day in office clearing emails and stocking in new stuff at Kissjane, then YZ and i went to collect our turkey and quiche we ordered from Hans and went home to happy happy happy family Christmas celebration!!! ^___^

my family ain't big on Christmas, but mummy cooked her awesome beehoon and curry and together with the super delicious turkey and quiche and cookies Gina baked and baby donuts from J Co we had a wonderful time feasting :D so happy! 

$2 cheap cheap christmas hats and accessories all from Daiso! :D as usual, QQ is so bad at taking pictures. she refuses to keep still for the camera!

 

with mumsy!

 

the best freaking turkey i've ever had :D :D :D sooo good!!!!!!!!

 

mummy slicing up the yummy bacon quiche

 

mumsy and Lina

 

poor QQ kena forced to be an impostor of a reindeer hah but her head so small can only fit one antler! ahaha.

and all i did on Christmas day itself was sleep sleep and sleep more!!! :D so shiok! and then YZ and i went out to catch Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol at night. quite a good watch with lots of action! funny, too. we hardly go out to watch movies :D so it was a nice date ^_^

followed by family lunch on Boxing Day! i secretly enjoy spending time together with my entire family cos it's so rare to get all five of us (+ YZ) all together at the same time. had fantastic lunch at Thai Village and went to Taka cos mummy needed to exchange something at LV. 

 

 

heehee. and then we all went back home, and Gina and I started on our spring cleaning cos we're renovating our room before CNY! i barely got started =_= all i did was to throw out lots of rubbish and organize my makeup. didn't even get to my wardrobe wtf which is in the biggest mess!!! it's a disgrace. mummy can't stop nagging at me to start throwing out and packing the clothes.

instagram pictures!

 

Christmassy on eve!

 

the sisters :D

 

bought this cake from Taka, it's yummy! tastes like a marriage of chiffon sponge cake + kueh lapis. expensive, though!!

 

oh and i was so excited to realize that my teeth have started shifting already :D :D :D :D DO YOU SEE IT???

 

YZ found my Urban Decay Book of Shadows palette while helping me pack! YAYYYY *dances in joy* i thought mummy accidentally threw it out, but nooo she packed it together with my storybooks LOL. 

my domesticated BF. bwahahaha. 

 

and then i started organizing my make up... look at the number of Kpalette eyeliners i've gone through!! crazyyyyyyy

 

and i seriously have tooooo many eyeshadow palettes for my own good!! i need to curb this buying eyeshadow palettes thing. i only have two eyes hello?? and some of the colors are sooo repetitive! like i have a similar shade of blue from three different brands! =_=

i had such a lovely Christmas with my family and YZ even though it was nothing spectacular . i'm so happy to be able to spend some time with my parents, most of the time, i get home late and i don't even see my parents everyday cos they're already asleep when i'm home. so i'm glad that this long Christmas weekend was spent together with my family!

***

as you might be able to tell, i've been eating and snacking a lot and pigging out, and i've put on weight quite significantly.... D: D: D: HORRORS!!!! i'm not exaggerating, my face is so chubby in all the pictures above, and i feel really really flabby. i went to weigh myself this morning and it was terrible D: i put on like 3kg!!! FML ): 

this won't do at all, so i restart my diet today and i'm making sure i'll keep to my diet this time round, and i found this really amazing app that's gonna help me!!! y'all know how in my weight loss post, i was talking about how keeping a food diary and having a weight loss buddy will really help you in succeeding in losing weight? now we can be virtual weight loss pals together on myfitnesspal!!! (this is not an advertisement!)

go and download myfitnesspal from the app centre, and add me as a friend (my user name is yinagoh) to join me on this weight loss journey together!!! it's really cool, you can input your current weight/height, targeted weight, and then you can clock in your calories everyday into the food diary and the app will calculate for you how many calories you ought to be taking in! can even calculate calories for our local hawker food and all that cos the database is very extensive! can't think of any better way to keep track of your calories.

 

me on myfitnesspal. 0 kg lost so far :D but i will work to losing at least 4-5kg!

 

supposedly i only get 1240 calories to spend a day. so from now on i will try to be religious in keeping my food diary to make sure i don't exceed my daily calorie intake!

so that's for today.. i just had Red Mango after Pilates! :) gonna be going for Pilates 2 times a week as well to work out and keep fit :)

i will really work hard at the diet this time, especially when the app is able to track all my food intake D: you have to be diligent and conscientious, if not the app won't help! do come and join me on myfitnesspal if you're struggling with weight loss as well, we can help and motivate one another! ^_^

lastly, posting three VERY VERY CHIO pictures of myself to motivate myself to look better and lose weight successfully. LOL.

 

iphone front camera shots are the best. can take your most chioest angles ever

 

partying at Zouk KL, i look kind of spastic but in a cute way LOL i like.

wahahaha love iPhone apps. all kinds of nonsense apps also have!!!

aite. come look for me on myfitnesspal okay! really!!! i can't wait to see results real soon! in time for CNY i hope :D stay happy and healthy everyone!

Review: Sophie Monk Strawberry Byebye Blackhead!

 

i'm sure i'm not the only one who's fascinated with blackheads/whiteheads and removing them.. LOL.. it's damn shiok and gross at the same time to squeeze blackheads, but we all know that removing blackheads by yourself can be very problematic, cos it might lead to your pores getting infected and even cause pitted/enlarged pores!! D:

if you don't know what blackheads/whiteheads are....

A blackhead is a yellow or blackish bump or plug on the skin. A blackhead is a type of acne vulgaris. Contrary to the common belief that it is caused by poor hygiene, blackheads are caused by excess oils that have accumulated in the sebaceous gland's duct. The substance found in these bumps mostly consists of keratin and modified sebum (an oily secretion of the sebaceous gland), which darkens as it oxidizes. Clogged hair follicles, where blackheads often occur, reflect light irregularly to produce a blackhead's "black" hue. For this reason, the blockage might not necessarily look black when extracted from the pore, but may have a more yellow-brown colour as a result of its melanin content. 


In contrast, a "whitehead" (more commonly known as a pimple or a closed comedo) is a follicle that is filled with the same material, sebum, but lacks a small opening to the skin surface. Since the air cannot reach the follicle, the material is not oxidized, and remains white.

i've tried many blackhead removers on the market, including stuff like Biore's pore strip (shiok to peel off but abit pain!), massage oil like Faceshop's Green tea oil (leaves my nose feeling oily...) and masks like Kose's mask white (super freaking expensive)! however, Sophie Monk's Strawberry Blackhead ByeBye set is really special cos it comes with three different products that you need to use all together for maximum efficacy!

Strawberry Blackhead Byebye set comes with three products labeled 1, 2 and 3! 1 is the Deep Sebum Softener, 2 is the Sebum Purifying Mask and 3 is the Pure Treatment Essence! it's really very simple to use!

 

make sure your face is clean, then just use the Deep Sebum Softener to gently massage your nose, so as to allow the blackheads and etc to be removed more easily! make sure your nose is still wet when you proceed to step 2, which is application of the Sebum Purifying Mask!

this is what the texture of the mask looks like. it's more watery than i expected, so be careful when you're squeezing it out of the tube, cos you might end up like me, squeezed too much of the product out! D: anyway, it smells totally yummy!! kind of like strawberry flavored pocky :D there are also little beads in it so it's slightly grainy!

you need to apply the layer of mask thick enough, if not you won't be able to peel it off properly when it dries! apply it all over your T zone if required, for me i just did the nose and surrounding area!

 

WTF PPL!!! look at all those disgusting blackheads!!!

you gotta wait til the mask is totally dry before peeling it off, if not you'd be left with bits of wet mask all over your nose!! i think it takes at least 30 minutes to dry properly, after which you just need to gently peel it from the bottom to the top! not painful at all! i was like super grossed out with all the blackheads and tiny facial hairs that the mask removed!!!!! D: D: D: included a close up HAHAHA for your viewing pleasure. (i think i'm a little obsessed cos i couldn't stop staring at all the blackheads on the mask it was just so grossly fascinating....) 

in conclusion, i pronounce the blackheads removing a success!!! some of the blackheads that didn't come out (too big i think!) were easily squeezed out (since they were already softened with the Deep Sebum Softener...) with that metal extractor thingy. i squeezed them out before using the Pure Treatment Essence to tighten my pores! :D :D :D the essence dries to a non-sticky/oily feeling so you don't even have to wash anything off after using the product! two thumbs up for this product, cos i really love it! ;D

 

some other products i got from Sophie Monk are these Double Lifting Masks, which are among the best selling items in Singapore and in Taiwan! the masks have a full chin wrap that hooks onto the ears, these masks create a lifting effect while allowing its active botanical ingredients to penetrate, moisturize and firm the skin.

the Double Lifting Masks cater to five different skincare needs:
1. Whitening (Makiyo's favorite Double Lifting Mask)
2. Hydrating
 3. V Shaping
 4. Pore Minimizing
 5. Moisturizing

i havent gotten a chance to try these masks yet, but i heard they're really good! :D once i've tried them i'll do another review again ^_^ for those who're keen to try these products, the Strawberry Blackhead Bye Bye set retails at $25.90 and the Double Lifting Masks retail at $2 each. All Sophie Monk products are available at Guardian!

***

my latest look! kind of going for natural but still with colored contacts and falsies ahaha. i tried this double eye lid tape from Sasa recommended by Qiuting, in an attempt to even out my eyes (i have ptosis in one eye and my eyelids are uneven) love the falsies from DUP and the brown contacts from Freshlook are really natural but help to brighten the eyes! :D

gonna have a quiet Christmas this year, all i want for Christmas is to nua my weekend away and get some lazy time together with YZ! haven't really spent time with him properly for awhile now cos we've been working pretty hard at the office the last few weeks to churn out new collections in time for the festive season, and all my dear friends have been in and out of office to be my very willing Christmas elves. appreciate them all so much!

drowning in parcels D: my self-sacrificial Eils baybeh came to help us pack when she was supposed to be out celebrating her birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY EILS BAYBEH. your present i pass to you on Monday so you better come and have lunch with me :D love love.

hope everyone has a superduperfantasticawesomemax Christmas, with your family and loved ones and friends!!! ^_^ spread the love, show some appreciation for those people around you, and i'm sure your Christmas will be a wonderful one! oh. don't eat so much or you'd end up like me ): i keep on binging non-stop on junk food, i don't know if it's cos i'm feeling festive or just cos i'm too stressed from the crazy amount of things to get done everyday! =_= i am gonna get so so so so fat! *depressed* don't mind me... just ranting. it's like my diet always fails. ugh. ok let's talk about dieting again once CNY is over. hahahaha.

til then, STAY HAPPY!!! :D :D :D love love love *sprinkles stardust and love all over*

have yourself a MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!