Chinese New Year at the House of Red

Chinese New Year last week at home was as festive as usual. Lion dance group came and performed. Guests came for the show and communal lunch and dinner. My red pockets were at minimal amount – tough personal finance generally. But things are going to be good this year so hopefully will make up for it next year.  

mini mandarin oranges symbol of luck and gold

table setting at the house of red

living room of the house of red

main foyer of the house or red

lion dance group arriving

getting ready for the show

almost set

ready to roll

 lion dance at the house or red

more dance

 acrobatic moves

Meme and Strawberries

Blogging tag from Paris Beaverbanks

What is your blogging name?

Andie Summerkiss

When did you start blogging, exact date?

I did some awkward posts in Blogspot mid of September 2007. Then I moved to WordPress, to Goofy Andie and then moved to here. Yeah, I am flaky – can’t seem to decide what I want most of the time. I would say 30th September is my first post

What was your first title ?

The first title in Goofy Andie is Pink October. About breast cancer awareness month.

Which posting do you feel is the best post so far?

“About” It gets the most hit – statistically. That says a lot about my writing skill.

Who promote/is the source of inspiration for you to blog?

My husband is my listening ear. He is not here so I desperately need a pair. Then I got tens of pairs now.

When do you usually post entries ?

I am all over the place. Morning, afternoon, night

Where would you prefer to be when you are blogging?

I would love to get one of those water resistant laptop so I can blog when in warm bubble bath

Have you met other bloggers? Who?

Nope. I might meet Rinnah soon. That would be exciting!

In the mean time, let’s see what’s cooking in Andie’s kitchen

My first ever strawberry jam, made it from scratch – strawberry, sugar and lemon juice. We have a bit of surplus at the garden. Do you know that most commercial spread are made of only 10 percent real strawberries? They put a whole lot of other stuff in there, like tomatoes and papayas.

Fruit of love – Strawberries dipped in chocolate

How many entries you made in a month?

I am part of the insane program of Blog 365. So you do the calculating.

Would you reveal your face or your family in your blog?

I would like to say no, but I did. I think I am going to put it up again. My family photos were splattered in some posts I did last year.

Would you promote your friends to blog? Why?

No. I don’t have many friends who like to sit in front of computers. I am the one and only one. I am not sure if they have ever heard of web log. Plus, I don’t want them to read my complaints on them.

Would you feel restless / guilty conscious, incomplete if you didn’t blog for a month?

I feel guilty everytime I miss a day of Blog 365! So that explains all the back-dated posts.

Define blogging!

Great place to let off steam, to brag, to lie, to cry, to laugh and to hugs!

I am going to spare my tag buddies this time

Weekly Winners – Story of Flora

 

 

 

 

 

These are all the flowers found in our garden. Simple flowering bushes, nonetheless do a great job in colouring the simple yard

Seven Things to Approve

A tag from Ecky. This is going to be a short one, in line with the up coming Chinese New Year

1. Red dresses (Yeah, we need to wear those. Everything inside out will need to be glaring red. My mum is that superstitious)
2. Money pocket (It used to be fun when I was a single girl, grown ups give money pocket for unmarried souls. Now that I am married, I give them back to the other unmarried souls. Don’t expect too much from me. I am quite tight with money. Anyway, now the money pocket is not fun anymore – it means money flowing right out of my pocket!)
3. Lion dance (Old but never failed to be loud and fun)
4. Lanterns (Red paper lanterns are very pretty and decorative)
5. Plum blossom (Suppose to symbolize luck, I just like them because they are pretty)
6. Cookies, cakes, sugary drinks (Every house will be filled with overactive toddlers chocked up in carbs)
7. Mandarin oranges (Most popular fruit item)

It’s my most favourite holiday of the year *sigh*. You are going to hear a lot more about it
I am tagging only Sandy and Jientje

Christmas Hoopla

This is a Christmas hoopla from Sandy at Momisodes. (ps. it’s what we are calling it now. m-word is out of the picture!)

The rules:
1. List 12 random things about yourself that have to do with Christmas
2. Please refer to it as a ‘hoopla’ and not the dreaded ‘m’-word
3. You have to specifically tag people when you’re done. None of this “if you’re reading this, consider yourself tagged” stuff is allowed…then nobody ends up actually doing it. The number of people who you tag is really up to you — but the more, the merrier to get this ‘hoopla’ circulating through the Blog-o-sphere.
4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible. The Christmas season will be over before we know it.

Hoopla .. such a cute word. I looked it up, and it’s a movie of 1933 by Clara Bow. Hever heard of both. Then I asked D, he said that a hoopla is a publicity of something. Anyway ..

We don’t exactly celebrate Christmas since our family is a long-standing-traditionally-buddhism-practising one. We started celebrating Christmas last year when D was at home. So the hoopla is going to be quite limited!

1. We never celebrate Christmas till I met my husband.

2. We bought our first Christmas tree last year, it’s the pvc-most-probably-chinese-made-9-feet-crap. We gave in after searching for pine tree for almost a week. Now it is still standing in our living room even he is not in the country. One day I would like to see a real Christmas tree …

3. The Christmas presents exchanging involved very lame presents, since me and my family and relatives never did it before and it was like half a day notice. It involved soap bars, canned beer, chocolate, socks and some other weird items they found in their house unused.

4. I got shoes from D, which I bought myself with the money he gave me earlier that week. Yeah, big surprise. I’d rather get cash for presents .. or store credits!

5. I love decorations in shops and department stores. I could stare at them for hours. They never seem to run out of ideas how to do it … When I was younger, I would beg my parents to go for holiday trips to Singapore just to gawk at Orchard Road’s Christmas decorations

6. This year is the worst year in terms of card-receiving. Normally I would get some Christmas cards, this year … none! Maybe that’s because I never send any back? Oh well …

7. I love all Christmas movies. They are so magical!

8. Our family don’t have the holiday tradition yet. Maybe someday in the future we will have one.

9. Until now, my tradition is to show up at work on Christmas morning. We are never close. How great is that for holiday …

10. Reading about others’ posts on Christmas stuff brings warmth in my heart. It is such a great thing. A day to be with family, with food and presents too!

11. The most memorable Christmas day is the one on 2004, when the Tsunami disaster hit the next day. Three months later I met my husband.

12. I am getting cold sweat from squeezing all the Christmas facts for this hoopla, I think it’s time to stop now … Never ever attempt to do a hoopla on empty stomach!

Hmm … let’s see who to tag …

Cat Lady - – (the Cat Lady has not been sighted yet … )

Secret Agent Mama (this is Mishelle’s Hoopla –> Post-Christmas Hoopla)

Judith Shakespeare  (check out Judith’s Hoopla –> Because Blogger VD from Judith is like getting a Hallmark card. We only care to send the very best )

Weekly Winners

 

Schoolgirls in village

Village

Buddhist praying altar at home

Rambutan is in season! Yummm….

 

Seven Weird Andies

I was tagged by Matilde more than a week ago. After the cold-turkey period of blogless – I did check for comments though .. I feel ready and fresh to complete the meme

Here are the rules:
Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself. Tag 7 random people participating in nablopomo at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I do a lot of weird things. I have tons of weird habits. So it is quite difficult to shift through those and wrote some of the least weird ones .. Here they come :

Movies and all

I like to watch tv shows – Grey Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, 24 all the way up to Seinfeld, Friends and other archaic shows like that. But I only watch them when my husband’s not home. So whenever he leaves, I go on dvd of tv shows’ marathons for days until I catch up with every single show.

Relaxing time 

My most favourite thing to do every night is getting snuggled up in my green chair (it’s kinda getting out of shape now) covered toe-to-neck in cotton blanket (which I have always brought with me every where I go) and reading my books.

Blaze from the past

I went partying constantly before I got married. After that, not even once I did that .. I am not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. If I look at the change of habit maturely, I would definitely say that I am growing up!

Love of life

I love everything about food. I love movies about restaurants. I love going to restaurants. I love reading cookbooks. I have the most cookbooks (even I don’t know that many people, but I can say that I own a lot than most people). That is a strange thing given that I don’t even cook.

Fashion stuff

As every other girl in the block, I like girly stuff. But I don’t get too excited about them. I could be as raggedy as backpackers and sometimes I dress up quite nicely to work. I like to be unpredictable.  

Bodily and baths

I am obsessed with personal hygiene. I take the longest showers and I like to spend on bath products. And I don’t like people who comment on that like … “do you really need all those?” I just like being clean and smelling great. Was that a sin?

Shoe fettish

I secretly wish I have bigger feet. My feet are so tiny, I had hard times getting nice shoes. So everytime I find some which fit me, I will go crazy.

Lastly, I might not tag 7 other people .. So anyone who feels like sharing weird personal stuff with people you hardly know, please do so. I would LOVE to read them!

andie’s weeky winners

The past week has been quite uneventful in terms of photo taking

Busy busy busy .. as the Christmas is very near. It’s our busiest season of the year. In a week’s time I would be so busy, sometimes I have to stay in the office and sleep on the couch for a week. Have I mentioned that I work in a bakery?

2 tier rose theme birthday cake – for display only

bread, bread and more bread

cookie in baking – backroom view

cookies, cookies and cookies

more cake and stuff

 

8 x 8 = 64 Lucky Luck Meme

My second meme from Jennic at sweetisu.com.

When researching the meaning of number 8, I came across of a lot of fun trivia I wouldn’t have known if not because of this meme.

Eight facts on number 8 :

• In Mathematics, 8 is a Fibonacci number (as 3 plus 5), same way as Dr Robert Langdon of The Da Vinci Code viewed it

• In Science, an octopus has 8 tentacles – that’s a lot of hands if planning to get pedicure, but wait … it doesn’t have fingers!

• In Chemistry, 8 is atomic number for oxygen – that’s pretty cool

• In ancient tradition of Chinese, 8 immortals are most popular deities – my most favourite ones, they cover symbols of all good things in life

• In Tarot, card number 8 is “strength” – don’t know much about tarot

• In culinary experience, 8 courses-dinner is a must for a Chinese-style wedding banquet – yeah, that’s a lot of food

• In Astrology, Scorpio is the 8th sign in zodiac

• In Chinese culture, 8 is a lucky number because pronounced the same way as “wealth”, “prosper” (I know, this one is old news, but still worth mentioning!)

Eight things I am passionate about

• Family & husband (the usual stuff)
• Work & shop – it feels great to be apart of something else outside family
• Home – we live in a beautiful tropical home. There’s really nothing like home!
• Great furniture – I love good quality wood furniture, I know it’s not very rain-forest friendly, but sturdy teak high quality furniture last forever!
• Electronic gadgets – I am not techie, but great cool gadgets amazed me. They make me feel cool and chic, even when I don’t know a thing about them
• Shoes and clothes and makeups – I am a shoe gal. Boots, open sandal, strappy, flats, pumps, blablabla. The others explain themselves ..
• Art work – I support local artists! I collect paintings, sculptures, ceramics, mix-media art
• Food – I love good food and great restaurants

Eight things I want to do before I die

• Get a tatoo on private place, before cellulite get its hold on me!
• Grow something in our garden, flowers, vegetables, or even cactus .. anything
• Get my parents cruise trip to Alaska
• Learn to cook and bake properly
• Start an organisation that provides free books and computers to third world children
• Travel the world, go to Italy and have spaghetti, go to New York for pizza – the whole culinary tour
• Write children books
• Learn to speak and write Mandarin!

Eight things I say often

• I am so so sorry I forgot
• Hunggryyy …
• Hey poop tongue
• Clean the crumbs!
• Can I call you later?
• Let’s go out for lunch!
• !@#$%*&!! <– swearing in Hokkien (chinese dialect)
• #+%*!@$?!! <– swearing in Indonesian

Eight books I read recently

• To kill a mocking bird – Harper Lee
• The Broker – John Grisham
• Treasure Island – Robert Stevenson
• Archie Comics
• The Angel and Demon – Dan Brown
• Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
• Total Feng Shui – Lilian Too
  

 

Eight songs I could listen to over and over

• Norah Jones – Come away with me
• Sheryl Crow – Good is good
• Willie Nelson – Don’t give up
• Macy Gray – I try
• Alanis Morisette – Now is the time
• Pearl Jam – Last kiss
• Sarah McLachlan – I will remember you
• Sade – I’ll be there

Eight things that attract me to my best friends

• Trustworthy – I have lots of deep dark secrets ..
• Reliable
• Fun
• Outgoing
• Great listener – I could talk for hours and hours ..
• Kind
• Like me for who I am
• Helpful

Eight people who should do this meme

hmmm ….. ????

andie’s weekly winners

I am joining this week’s weekly winners by Sarcastic Mom.

These are my shots, they are a bit out of this world, I know. But it’s everyday life in this part of the world.

Old Batak men waiting for meal – Tarutung (about 6 hour drive from Medan)

Typical village view in Sumatra, with terrace-rice paddy fields (Tarutung)

View of Lake Toba, North Sumatra – otw to Tarutung

Friends and family waiting for the wedding ceremony ala Batak (Tarutung)

Auntie Cindy shopping for fruit at traditional street-side market (Kabanjahe)

Typical breakfast scene at home

Our fish pond