A Sticky Situation

I have never been a sweets person, but my Dad is a different story. He's what we call in Cantonese "wai sick", meaning, he likes to eat even when he is not hungry and is frequently rummaging through the fridge to see what he can get his hands on. His favorite foods have always been foods that are sweet, especially ice cream and sweet breads. Lately, he's had to keep an eye on his sugar level, so he has had to cut a lot of food out of his diet - sad! I try to empathize with him by telling him about the strict healthy diet that I've put myself on, but I know that empathy cannot replace the taste of sweetness. Since there are not a lot of sugar-free sweets out there, I decided to try and satisfy my Dad's sweet tooth cravings by attempting to bake sugar free muffins. Seriously, I am no baker. Seriously.

Blueberry mix

Lesson learned: Too dense of a mix creates a holey muffin

Into the oven the Blueberry muffins go!

Um, here they are! 

Lesson learned: Not enough baking powder equals flat muffins.

Banana nut & Walnut mix

Oops, not enough mix for 12 muffins!

Puffy banana nut muffins!

Ready for delivery!

Clumsy me managed to burn myself in the process.  See the pink on my ring finger where I am pointing to?  What?  You don't see anything?  Okay, maybe I am being a bit of a weenie, but really, it's there and it hurts! :)

So the million dollar question...just how did my muffins turn out?  Taste wise, they are edible and enjoyable a 5/10, but definitely not oh-my-gosh I am a superhero-baker delicious.  Quality wise, they stick to the baking cups so when I am trying to eat one, I only get to eat half of it because the rest won't come off the wrapper!  Must. Google. Solution. so that it doesn't happen again.

I was going to give my Dad the entire batch, but now, I think I am only going to give him a few muffins and tell him "Here is a taste of what is to come.", literally.

(Day after: So apparently once the muffins have completely cooled down, they won't stick to the wrapper anymore. Heehee.)

Sleeping On the Job

I have too much going on lately and am exhausted.  Here's a real life scenario that happened at work yesterday between my client counterpart and I:

Me: Do you know whether we've covered the drop-ship process in our deliverables?
Client: Um, let me check our flows...
(A minute passes and I am getting really sleepy.)
Client: Good night Sherly
(Grogg-ily awaking)
Me: Oh!  I heard you...you said...

Client: Riiiight

Apparently, I literally fell asleep while I was waiting for him to answer me in the span of two short minutes!

Enough Said

An Amazing Artist!

I went over to my sister and brother-in-law's place the other day and noticed an amazing new piece of artwork on their wall: touchingly personalized, incredibly adorable, and impressively creative!

This is such a thoughtful housewarming gift as it captures the essence of the two of them and their moving into their new home perfectly!  Their first furniture in their new house was a pool table which at the time was multi-purpose and they are both dog lovers.  The dog on the left is our family dog Niky, and the dog on the right is my brother in law's family dog, Riley.  Here are actual photos of the two of them and the dogs.  You'll see that the resemblance is adorably amazing!

Riley

Niky

So, who is the brilliant artist behind this creation?  It's none other than Miss Grace, one of the sweetest gals I know and a long time friend of my sister's.  Thank you Grace, for letting me brag about your artwork!  =)  I love her entire collection of goodies!

I Frown A Lot

No really, I do.  I frown when the sun is shining in my eyes and I don't have my sunglasses on, when I'm reading a confusing email from my client and I'm trying to figure out the most politically correct way to respond, when I'm running and focusing on getting myself to the finish line, when I'm in deep thought or am stressing out about something, when I'm watching something violent, scary, or gross on TV but I can't turn away, when I'm playing my guitar and singing, the list just goes on and on.  And so I worry about my frown lines at my brow, and as if it'd really work, I reverse my frown as an attempt to smooth out my frown lines:

Only to realize that when I do that, I am merely creating forehead wrinkles.  Of course you can't see them here because of the lighting, but they're there alright.  Forehead wrinkles, I find, are most popular during the application of mascara in the mornings.  Anyway, my point is that by trying to fix one thing, I'm creating another problemo.  I don't have a resolution to this little dilemma, so I'll just end this with a big smile that leads to zero lines around the forehead/brow area.  But wait, doesn't smiling create wrinkles around the eyes and mouth?  Oh geez, haha.

 

And for those who are wondering, yes, I am having one of those "I don't feel like working days". Okay, back to work I go! =P