The battle has begun

The horrid little red ants are on the move again.

My long standing battle with those spiteful ants have begun again. This time, my weapon of choice is tea tree oil. Aha, they are running, running, scrambling, scrambling, running for their life. I can feel their panic. Wahahhahahahahah! Die! Die! Die!

My home and balcony garden is home to an unwelcome colony of spiteful red ants. I have tried baygon, ant bait, pepper, plant pesticides (both systemic and contact), neem oil and now the miraculous tea tree oil. Boy, do they dislike the oil, bet it hurts. Ouch. I don't think I can live with ants that keep biting me all the time. Their bites packed a punch.

The ants are avoiding all the spots with the oil smears. I have dotted the known ant nests and ant trails with the oil. I have also drenched the soil with diluted tea tree oil and water and rimmed the flowering pots with the oil. The ants are running, they have lost their organisation.

Insert really really evil laughter...

What to do when it is public holiday and you are at a supermarket?

Day 1
We ended up in the supermarket after the rain dashed our afternoon at the botanic gardens. Since it was so cold and gloomy,  we had sukiyaki hotpot at home. I love hotpots on cool nights. The sukiyaki sauce was from a bottle. Added more water even though the instruction said otherwise. It was extremely salty without added water. Vegetables? Tung-o, golden mushrooms, king oyster mushrooms, pumpkin, beansprouts, leeks and bamboo shoots. Meat? Pork and scallops. R insisted on buying the scallops. A hearty meal.

We had sukiyaki at home in front of the TV.

The food

Gorgeous vegetables. More in the fridge.

Day 2
Leftover steamboat for dinner. Stewed the rest of the bamboo shoots, added white radish, leeks, pumpkin and carrots.

 

The leftovers steamboat and more side dishes.

My fav stir-fried bean sprouts. This is with tomatoes, king
oyster mushrooms and bamboo shoots.

Closed up of the stew.

The doesn't look great seaweed, carrot and soya bean dish.
Seaweed is very good for detoxifying the body
and a good source of iodine.

To eat or not to eat?

Steamed I think it's coral grouper
cantonese style. Very yummy.

An omnivore's dilemma. To eat meat or not to eat. I ate. R doesn't have any problems eating meat. I do. I prefer to eat vegetables but eat meat once or twice a week. I find eating meat more of a social habit than a dietery necessity. If it is served, I will eat it. It is about being grateful for the food especially if an animal has unwillingly died to be on my dining plate. Being wasteful is really a big no-no for me. I usually do not go all the way out to eat meat unless it's my once a month Ayam Penyet at the hawker centre. It's that beautiful combination of moist fried chicken and that sinful sambal. Shilin fried chicken and Arnold's fried chicken too! My, my blood thirsty cravings.

Why do I choose to eat less meat? Firstly, it's healthier diet. Nuff said. And of course, less guilt. Do I feel weaker from eating less of meat? No, in fact, I believe I am stronger with this diet preference. Whole vegetables, nuts, fruits and once-a-week meat works for me, I am more alert and have less allergies.

What about fish? I don't about you, have you dived before? Fish like groupers do not come in big schools. They come in two or threes, or are loners. First, you have to understand how fishes are caught. Either they are trawled from the seabed or are caught from a long drift net. Of course, you will not get only edible fish per catch. You get a lot of bycatch. I mean a lot, a lot of inedible bycatch. If I didn't remember wrongly, it's almost 70% of the total catch as written in a National Geographic magazine a few years back. Consumers will never see the wasted bycatch as they are thrown away by the fisherman. You must see the pictures to believe the amount that is wasted. Then, I didn't give a thought about what I was eating, never questioned what was served, it was just food to me. We humans are very good at emptying our once bountiful oceans...

This fish was given by in-laws. Looks like a coral grouper to me. It was very delicious and fresh. I steamed it with ginger and after the fish was cooked, I drizzled it with hot oil and the soya sauce/ mushroom sauce/sugar gravy. Super yummy.

Steamed fish, fish soup, chicken rice, fried chicken, satay, why do you make it so hard to eat less of you? I am so thankful I like vegetables. Can't imagine if I don't, mealtimes would have been a chore.

Yoga in the morn followed by a yummy green smoothie

Hello, sun. Love yoga in the morning. Invigorating and enriching : )

Then, I had a very creamy green smoothie for my morning fix. Bliss, while R and I wait for the nephew to arrive for two days of babysitting while his grandma is away for holiday.

Passionfruit, fuji apple, pear and
a big handful of basil and mint.

Cut into pieces, softer fruits at the
bottom and a glass of water.

Makes 2 glasses and my retro blender in the background.

Basil & Mint Harvest from the
balcony garden. Botak plant now.

Food and more food

Dinner: Spinach with Dried Scallops and Wolfberries,
Braised Beancurd with mushrooms and Herbal Chicken Soup

Spinach with Scallops and Wolfberries

Braised Beancurd with Mushrooms

Herbal Chicken Soup

I do eat instant noodles. This is my fav. The noodles comes prepacked
with wolfberries. I added spinach and more wolfberries.

Chinese herbal flavor vegetarian noodles. This is very gd.
I always ask my in-laws to buy this from an organic shop.

All the vegetables in the fridge in a salad for lunch.

Claypot rice with chinese sausages,
stewed mushrooms with shallots and spinach.

Some of the food I ate this month at home.

Report card on my plants

Murrayas
They bloomed together again. More sweeping for me. I think they bloom every 1 month.

Lipstick plants
I think, I am maybe 2 months away to be called a plant murderer. I must remember to take a before and after pix to show my point. The sunbirds still turn up every morning but they just stare at the plants. 

Aloe Vera
Really growing sideways. Repotting soon.

Lantanas
They bloomed. Nice orange.

Thinking and reading too much into things

Humans like to complicate simple matters. One of the points I observed during a yoga workshop I attended this past weekend at the Sun Festival.

When one of the teachers asked the class how to unblock our chakras (something like energy channel within one's body) and have a ache-free body and led a worry-free lifestyle. Answers given from the students ranged from pranayana (breathing exercises), meditation to practising the asanas. Boy, people do like to complicate matters and sound so sage-like. My answer was totally unrelated to yoga. It was just being happy and laughter. To me, there is something more to yoga than the external motion of perfecting the asanas. There is this inner detox of the mind. The stillness of the mind, and not being too caught up by the daily stresses of life.

Next, standing backbends! They absolutely terrify me. There is something unnerving about bending backwards while standing upright to landing on my palms on the floor behind me.

Fear grips me. My heart races, muscles tense and I always hope that I will miraculously land safely without hurting myself. It is really a long, long drop back and I don't like going to see my chiropracter for a sprained back. Don't tell me about the theories of backbends and the ease of executing the pose. At that tensed moment, my mind is blank and all I can think of is, 'I am so afraid of falling.' Teachers have said that I should be able to do it as my lumbar area is flexible but I have to overcome this hurdle myself. I used to end up grabbing the poor teacher half way through the pose risking injury to myself and the teacher (Sorry, Kym and Asokan). Trust me, I am not exactly that light.

Fear is irrational. Even with controlled bending, bending backwards into the unknown without seeing where I am heading to cripples me. I can go on and on about this fear but during the workshop, I did it. I have not done standing backbends for a very long time. Something in me changed in this one year since I stopped work. There were several milestones reached in my yoga practice. I had a bad fall a few years back while doing the handstand which built this irrational fear of all inversions and backbends. I avoided practising difficult inversions and backbends since that fall especially if it is a combination of both. I always believe the practice of yoga somehow relates and affects how one lives her life. While resting at home, I did a mind detox and figured out what I am afraid of? For both yoga and life, three points came to mind. Falling, failure, the unknown. By changing my mindset, I have progressed and changed, my priorities definitely have shifted. The only hurdle is my mind.