Unknown Virus Attack..again!!

Yes :(

Nowadays my throat seems to be more vulnerable than ever :( 

From young, I always get virus attack on my throat, which will evolve into a phlegmy cough. Mum always talks about how bad my childhood asthma was and why she forbid me to take part in all the strenuous ECAs. I know she cares for me and it was not easy bringing up a sicky baby. But sometimes I feel that overprotecting a child may lower the chances of him/her getting viruses, at the same time disallow the body systems to build varieties of antibodies. Hence these children will grow up having lower immunities against many viruses too. It's like I know my biggest 'enemy' in my life and hence the possible reason for my death in my old-age is throat related illnesses. 

Of coz it doesn't mean non-stop exposure to the viruses too. But we should just let nature takes it course. Let the body builds its immunities to fight its own enemies. Let the body learns to survive on its own. 

Anyhow I am feeling sick this morning :( and I know this throat infection will last 2-4 weeks as usual. Hope it doesn't hinder my slimming progress. This morning, I saw weight loss and will confirm this later at the salon. Am going for sculpturing treatment today which is part of the slimming programme. Share more about this new treatment I going through later! Heard it will smoother the wrinkled appearance of my skin, due to sudden weight loss.

Have a great week ahead! 

Monthly SAHM Day

Once a month I feel like a SAHM. Not only I have to take care of both kids, I also have to do some basic housework eg wash milk bottles, wash dishes after meal etc. And of coz anything I 看不顺眼 I will want to do something about it.

And yes, I am referring to my domestic helper's monthly day off.

Though it's tiring, I enjoy my time with the two little monsters. As the months go by, I have less difficulties handling my little monster James. But yet I noticed a change of behavior in Princess Jamie. Either she has became lazy and bossy or she felt neglected coz of her little brother. 

As much as she becomes more mature as a little big sister, she also becomes more complacent and demands more attention. In other words, things that she usually does on her own, she now waits for people to do for her, eg throw rubbish into dustbin. 

But I guess it's inevitable coz the more mature ones are those who are neglected. It's the simpler lot who attracts more protection. Nowadays I no longer feel as irritated with James when he screams. Instead, I like to give him the extra attention and pamper him a bit more BUT expects more sensible behavior from Jamie. 

I am still trying to adjust this mindset and hope Jamie will improve in her behavior too over time. 

Oh yes, I will like to thank Yvonne for always so on the ball when I call for help! I texted her at 9am for help and she arrives by noon! So grateful for loving my kids and spending time with them. And yes, what she said is true. She even cooks for us the other time she slept over! 

Yvonne, when I can start eating like a 'normal person', I will hope to cook some decent food for you when u visit me ;) Meantime I will 借花献佛 by asking Pyone to cook her yummy chicken wings for you!! 

Thank you Godma, for always being there for us!!! 

James, the Food Lover

Despite having no tooth at all, he eats almost everything he can 'chew' and swallow.

Yes, he will be like a little puppy who 'runs' towards you in his walker, whenever he sees you sitting at the dining table. When he reaches you, he will give you the widest smile, which seems to say 'feed me'! 

He tried quite a variety of food over just 2 months. He started cereals at 4 months and loves celerac white rice cereals the most. 

I guess my two children are really very different. Jamie preferred brown rice cereals to white rice cereals. These are the two brown rice cereals Jamie had loved. 

James would struggle when fed with brown rice cereals. And even after his porridge with potato, carrots and fish for dinner, he will still need a bottle of 200ml milk added with two scoops of white rice cereals! 

Yes, it's good to be able to enjoy food but sometimes he can get upset if you don't allow him to eat what's in your bowl! Haha! He is so cute when he asks for food!!! 

See how much he enjoys his food! In this picture he is eating tempura ebi!!!

Indulged in a 'New' iPhone game - Hay Day

Why did I use the '' for the word new?

Actually this game is not a new new game. Many of my friends had started playing it for a while. But it's new to me lah! My manicurist was the one who introduced the game to me last Sunday. I will write a separate blog post about my pretty gellish nails!

See the number of friends already at high levels in the game!

And they have really pretty farms!!! 

Show you the best farm at level 100 (I think he is either the creator or moderator or administrator n this game) Eventually we can have ships and mines too!!! And pretty garden structures!

Okay! Now you know what you can look forward to in this game.

Let's have a look at my farm ;P

It's something like FarmVille or Country Story BUT the crops and products you produced DO NOT rot or expire if you do not have time to attend to it!!! Think this is a major challenge to most of us who are working and has no time to follow the 'dateline' of each processing crops or products we put on tasks!

And the animation is really cute! The farm animals even wear clothings and accessories! What's more, you need to think a bit to play this game because to make cheese, butter, cookies, bread, popcorn, pancakes etc, you are actually using up the crops meant to make nimal food. Hence you need to plan properly so that our animals have food to eat, yet you can create the products to fulfill the order list. 

Cute Animals

The Order Board and Random Customers

There is this order board in the game, which is something like the quest list in other games. However the good thing is none of the order will expire, so you can take your time to produce the ordered items. And the list will just go on and on, for you to decide which to meet first, especially if the orders are similar. So you can think a it whether you want to use the corns to make corn bread to meet the corn bread order or simply just sell the corns you harvest. Other than the order board, there are also random customers who offer quite good prices for different items. You can also sell to theses customers if you feel they offer a better rate then those on the order list.

And one of the most interesting part of this game is.........

Marketplace Stall

You can sell what you make to other players, they could be your Facebook friends or simply any strangers who need to buy certain products to meet certain orders. How do we reach out to these strangers? There is a newspaper advertisement running 3hrly. You just need to select the items you want to sell and put it at a market stall in the game. And the items will appear in the newspapers! The magic is that if you happen to sell something that most people don't sell, then you can quote a high price for it. However, the bad part is, you cannot remove the items from the market stall once you put it there. It has to be there until someone buys it and no changing of selling price too. But you can 'throw away' the items you no longer want to sell. It will be a waste isn't it to throw the unsold items away :( you could have use it to meet your new order list. So only put on sale all your 'extra things' or if you just want to earn money and not meet your own order list. Well, you may earn more from the marketplace stall after all too ^^

Interesting right? 

You can also sell things to your friends too by placing the items into the stall and asking your friends o go buy from there! It suddenly reminds me the Neopets in the good old days! But this is even better! You can to think through and plan, yet you have little risk on waiting any resources sinc you can always buy the crops in the market place ^^

And if you are impatient like me, you can pay to buy diamonds or coins to speed up the building of your farms too! :P But th game also rewards a good number of diamonds fo completed tasks! So if you are not too impatient, you can slowly accumulate your diamonds to use it during 'emergencies'.

Enjoy the game! Tell me if yo like it k!

Making Sense of the Blog Labels

Good Evening Singapore!

Finally, I squeezed out some time to touch up on the Blog Labels again!

I tried to group relating topics into the same categories so that there will not be a LONG list of blog labels. Hope this helps readers who want to read about the archived posts :)

Just some explanation on what the blog labels mean:

1. iVain - Replaced <爱美日记> so that English readers can understand. Readers can look out for the whole series for 'The Making of Hot Mama' under this category.

2. iDrama/iMovie/Reviews - Drama and Movie Reviews that I will like to share. If you don't see any Review lately, it may not mean I hadn't been chasing dramas or catching movies. It just means I may not like it that much till I wish to write a review on it :P But of coz it may also mean coz I am busy busy busy :(

3. iSpot - It could be something new from food, products to any interesting incidents I encountered. If there is some food or products you hope I can try out, do let me know k :D So that I can share with the rest of the world :) If it's just a clearance sale you will like to shout out to the world, let me know too so that more people can benefit from it!

4. iLoots - Every woman loves to shop! But of coz different types of women will shop for different things. In this category, I will like to share all my shopping conquest from baby stuff to household stuff ^^ If there is any good product you feel that is worth to buy and try it out, let me know! I can buy to try the product and write a review on it.

5. iGames - I always tell people that Facebook saved my life during my pregnancy with Jamie. As I was not working and most of my friends were working, I had no one to chat with me at times. Facebook games became my saviour and I became 'Number Ones' in many Facebook games. When iPhone came along, I then switched to mobile gaming on iPhone! So if you know of any must try iPhone games, let me know k? So that I can try it out and write a review to share with the world! 

6. iCook/iBake - I had created KPIs for myself to try to cook once a week and try to bake once a month. The KPI for cooking was hard to achieve, especially now that I am on strict diet. I will try to catch up on it once my strict diet ends, so that I can enjoy the fruits of my 'labour' too. As for baking, I made twice so far - chocolate chip cookies with my mini toaster oven and chocolate chips muffins with my cupcake/muffin maker. Will catch up on my baking experiences after my strict diet plan ends too!

7. Advertorials/Spnsors - As far, I had only done advertorials and sponsored posts with Rustic Nirvana after I delivered Jamie. I was lucky to be shortlisted and approached by RN's then marketing executive. I was sponsored 5 home-based Jamu massages and 5 salon-based Jamu massages. It was a good experience and I slimmed down a lot after the 10 sessions of Jamu massages. I will hope to work with more sponsors and advertisers. As I am at the moment urging to slim down, I will say beauty, health and food related advertisements and products/services will be most relevant to me now. Hope interested advertisers will drop me an email soon :)

8. Bad Times - It just sharing of some bad experiences I had.

9. Celebrations - This includes all kinds of celebrations, eg family events, festive events, anniversary celebration, kids' parties and friends' birthday celebrations.

10. Travel - Love travelling and we will always try to have minimum one high key travelling a year. However, sometimes I am lazy to find time to post photos and share about my itinerary. This year, I will like to set KPI for myself to upload new blog posts at least 3 times a week and to upload all my travel info, itinerary and beautiful photos :)

Let me know if you find this grouping okay! 

Stay Tune for the next Blog Post on my 'secret' to Slimming down so fast!

Oh yes, if you have anything you want to share with me or if you will like me to be your product ambassador, please email to jolene428@gmail.com. I will reply you as soon as I can.

Seeya soon!

iVain - Obasan to Hot Mama #5 (My Slimming Journey - Losing 16kg in 3 months) - My Horrendous Diet Plan that Works Wonder!

Good Morning Singapore! 

The time is 6.56am and I am on the way to work now. Time is so limited lately due to the various commitment. Leveraging on mobile blogging should help to buy myself more time to keep up with my blog posts! 

I hope it's not a long wait for this post. And I realized I am really very wordy. As much as it's my  风格, I don't wish to scare new readers away with chunks and chunks of paragraphs. Do throw in suggestions on how can I improve on my  blog posts k? I will try to adopt and adapt all the suggestions! 

Okay, the topic of the day is how I did it. You had a glimpse of what I ate for the 3-5 days of my slimming programme. Now I will like to share what I can eat from then on till the 14th session of the programme. 

How long is the programme? It really depends. I signed up the basic package which includes 20 sessions of acunpuncture and sculpturing treatments. In average, it takes at least 12 weeks if you go for 5 days continuous at the start and once a week for the next 10 sessions. 

Seriously when My therapist guaranteed me a weight loss of min 8kg, I didn't know to believe her or not. I saw 'A' slimmed down but I also know every person has a unique body system. Well, i now am a believer. It worked for 'A' and her friends and it is working for me. 

Anyhow, i just completed my 9th session and I already lost 7.5kg! I will be doubling up my treatment speed from next session onwards and my therapist will include sculpturing into the treatments as well. I am really excited becoz despite losing weight, I know I still have a lot of draping loose skin and fats dangling around. All these have to go too to look my best :)

As much as possible, I tried to bring home-cooked food for my breakfast and lunch. Lucky for me, Pyone can really cook well. See how delicious she made my 'boring' breakfast and lunch looks.

Breakfast 

Lunch 

I had most dinners at home because it's the toughest to follow in the whole diet plan.

So what if I really cannot da Bao to work or have to eat out? Well I usually try to follow the diet plan as close as I can. But there were times I also get sick of it. 

When I am feeling guai, I will bring this from home to eat out for dinner. 

But when I want to cheat a bit, I will eat these for lunch and dinner. Well, the effects not that bad too but it really depends on different body system lah! So if u end up put on weight instead of losing weight, don't quote me hor! 

I guess now you know why I very seldom meet my friends for dinner outside now! Coz there is really nothing much I can eat! 'Best' of all, I cannot eat any salad sauce that's sweet and most sauces are sweet. So I end up has to order wasabi with soya sauce or eat it plain!!!! I think cherry tomatoes taste nicer than plain raw vegetables! So most of the time, I will da Bao cherry tomatoes to chew for dinner :P

Doesn't look that bad right? Hehehe, have a thought about this, I share more about the other part of the slimming programme - acunpuncture, in the next posts. I will also share how to 'prepare' yourself and know if you are ready or need to go for this slimming programme. 

Seeya! 

iVain - Obasan to Hot Mama #4 (My Slimming Journey - Losing 16kg in 3 months) - Lost 6.5kg in 1.5 months!

It has been a terrible two weeks of coughing and sneezing. Even my children were sick. I was hesitant to eat the medicine though I was voiceless. However, I was told that if I don't get well soon, my body had to spend more of its 'resources' to fight the virus, than to burn my fats.

So I guai guai ate medicine for a week. But the timing was 'just nice' because I could not go for my treatment too, as I was having my menses. But to my surprise, I still lost quite a significant amount of weight! Resume my treatment last week and noticed I lost 2.1kg from the two sicky weeks! Woohoo! 

Went for my 8th sessions last Saturday. Lost another 800gram for the week. Somehow I was not too satisfied, though my therapist assured me that I was doing well to lose 6.5kg in 7 sessions. I confessed to her that I had not been drinking as much water for the week because I went for visits almost every day. Due to the long weekend, I did not sleep as much too :( 

Frankly, I got a feeling that I did not lose as much weight for this week, even before I stood on the weighing machine. i think it was good that I know what actually went wrong, so that I could prevent it from happening again this week. So you must know your daily routine very well before you can start this programme. 

Those who wish to try out this programme, please take note you need to drink min 3 litres of water by 7pm everyday, of which you need to finish 2.2 litres before 2pm. You are also required to sleep min 6-8 hours everyday. Best to sleep before 11pm to achieve best results! 

Now comes my menu again! After the intensive first few sessions, I had to make slight adjustments to my menu due to my job nature (need to go for visits so can't have all my meals in office). I love to socialize so I may need to meet friends after work, during dinner time.

I tried to be as guai as I can when comes to my lunch options. I know you will be wondering how to sustain this 魔鬼食谱 and not get sick of it before the end of the programme. Actually, I am a bit sick of my menu now. So I always try to make it more interesting and also test my 'boundaries'. This of coz may mean to risk weight gain or no weight loss. So as much as possible, I try to stick to the rules, and only bend it under certain circumstances.

This post will be endless if I go on and on  about my menu :P So I am going to end here and talk about my menu in the next post! 

Am sorry that I always take so long to write my posts :( But recently, my hands are very full. I will try very very hard to catch up with my postings k? 

Don't leave me! Come back often to read my postings :) And to accompany me in my journey to a slimmer me! It's really tough so I need lots of support and well wishes! 

Look at me! I have slimmed down from this fat and round Jolene......

February 2013, CNY Lou Hei with my Uni friends - 67kg

To this slightly better me in June/July 2013, just before my treatment - 63.4kg

To this slimmer and healthier Jolene on 9 and 10 August 2013 - 56.9kg!!!

And guess what? I took sooooo long to find the photos I took before my slimming programme!!! Coz I had refused to take any full body photo :P Oops! 

Hahaha! This is me, today! 

Stay tune! 

In the next post, I will share my menu and how I made it this far!