grocery shopping - level-up

so today i went to harley street for dental after work, except i was so late that i actually met the dentist walking down the street (away from his practice and off for the day). no dental appt for me then, but i had already paid £1.30 for the tube into town (which was delayed as usual on the way causing me to be late), what do i do?

go shopping on oxford street of course. and not just any kind of shopping - grocery shopping, my favourite kind! 

went to the john lewis food hall (which is actually waitrose, but more atas) and found it to be like Jason's supermarket in Raffles City. i remember not being able to afford anything there, or refusing not to buy anything because it cost a lot more than in a normal supermarket.... i always wondered, 'who are these crazy people - going into town dressed perfectly well and buying overpriced (albeit fresh) veg and raw meat...' 

amazing lay-out and looked very boutique, but actually i just bought my usual groceries at the usual prices (+ a 10% discount, yay! they sent me a discount card for 1 month!) and had to carry my pork ribs + mushrooms + pak choy down the most awfully crowded tourist street in london and through the tube. how silly.

but at least i can now say that i've leveled up that once! :p

God hath not promised

First heard this more than 10 years back, shared by a dear friend when i was going through one of my rough patches as a 13 or 14 year-old. don't even remember what it was now, but it's funny how our problems always seem so big as grow up...

Beautiful poem / hymn which i was reminded of over the last couple of weeks.

(1) God hath not promised skies always blue,

Flower strewn pathways all our lives through;

God hath not promised sun without rain,

Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

But God hath promised strength for the day,

Rest for the labor, light for the way,

Grace for the trials, help from above,

Unfailing sympathy, undying love.

(2) God hath not promised we shall not know

Toil and temptation, trouble and woe;

He hath not told us we shall not bear

Many a burden, many a care.

(3) God hath not promised smooth road and wide,

Swift, easy travel, needing no guide;

Never a mountain rocky and steep,

Never a river turbid and deep.

TLC

after evening service today we dropped by the Baker's to see little baby Caleb. He is soooo tiny but so adorable and attentive! so happy that he is finally home, but this post is not about him. it's about what happened after. 

P drove us to the nearest train station. funny thing was that it wasn't really that near and he had no idea where the station really was. he knew where the train track was though, which was a good start. it was 2 mins to the train. just as we got to the track the barriers came down across the road, signalling that a train is coming through, we figured it was our train and jumped off the car and made a dash for what looked like a underpass to the station. it was, but we were on the wrong side of the platform and had to run across the underpass to the other side, which would have been fine, if i had not been wearing heels. i have become extremely unused to walking in heels, let alone run. it wasn't a high one, and it was about 5 years old. anyhow, just about 5 metres from the train, my left heel decided to give way, but i was running so fast (or so i'd like to think) that i couldn't stop the cycle of my legs. 

everything then started to happen in slow motion, as they normally do when something bad is about to happen. i feel myself leaning more and more forward. in my mind i try desperately to stop, but before i knew it i was hitting the ground, flat on my chest. i think i must have screamed, because everyone looks at me. the train driver pokes his head out of the window and said there was no need to run. i pick myself up quickly, said i was ok and got on the train. then i got a big hug from the husband, who was rather traumatised by it all. i was too, couldn't decide if it was the impact of the fall (which apparently was quite loud) or the sudden realisation of the embarrassment. but i got fussed over (scrapped limbs etc), which never happens! he even called a cab to get us home from liverpool street station.

forget the $10 (or maybe it was $5) mondo heel. it was left on the platform of highams park station, wherever on earth that is! finally a good enough reason to throw these shoes out. 

thank God for the husband.

just thought this was post-worthy.

Invisalign

Growing up, I always knew I had quite horrendous teeth. All the girls around me seemed to have braces on their teeth, but somehow I never really felt the need to ask for the same because I knew how expensive they were. So I convinced myself that I was fine the way I am. I was sensible then.

Fast forward 10 years, work has brought in a rather steady stream of income, even if a small stream. I decided that it was now time to do something about my teeth, so I started saving, and looking at my options. I read about this relatively new invisalign treatment available and consulted with a few dentists. A few of them said that not everyone would be suitable, and most others simply refused to opine, blizzare. One of the places I went to was smile pod, a small dental outfit in canary wharf which claimed to be qualified invisalign practitioners at one of the lowest prices I could find in london. The consult went well and their patient list looked rather long, but the dentist seemed unsure abt the suitability and wanted to consult another invisalign specialist. Alarm bells went off, and they never came back to me until 2 months later anyway.

So I googled again for a good clinic. Harley street has always been a forbidding place, given its reputation. But one of the few orthodontists I found online with almost no negative comment was Dr Raj. Decided to make an initial appt to see what he says and how comfortable I would be with his working style. To cut the long story short, I was sufficiently impressed/swayed and signed up immediately.

A few weeks later, my aligners have arrived! I just started wearing them on Monday night, and I might say it's been tough getting used to it. First of all, it does feel extremely tight on the teeth, and particularly difficult to take off. It's a good thing dr R gave me this fulcrum like tool to help me pry the PET mould away from my teeth when I've had enough. When they're off, the teeth are still tender and sore, making biting quite a struggle. Nonetheless my love for food and eating far is complimented by my rather high threshold for pain. So eat I will. And eat more I must, because I have precious few hours in a day to do so.

I never quite thought it through properly before signing away a year of my life, and a lot of money with it. The last week in the office has been quite a struggle, and I've become super conscious of myself. I now speak with a lisp and I now try to avoid phone calls and chatting. Which is quite uncharacteristic and rather painful for me. I hope I learn to speak properly soon or I might just give up.... I have declared to my team mates my inability to speak, which has made things slightly easier.

On the brighter side, the very laborious process of having to brush and floss every single time u put your aligners back on has kept my teeth very clean. I love feeling how clean my teeth ate whenever I take them aligners off. The other positive is that I've been forced to have a proper breakfast at home before going to work, rather than at work. And I do eat a hearty breakfast knowing I can't eat till lunch. And likewise for lunch knowing I'll starve until dinner otherwise. I think the regularity of meals might do me some good, and the lack of ability to snack might do something for my weight :)

It's only been 4.5 days and already I can't imagine still being almost paralysed in speech and deprived of snacks 1 month on, much less 1 year. But I shall persevere. And I shall have straight teeth. Go, me!

Washing up

It has occurred to me that I cannot agree with the idea of taking a bath, or the British concept of washing dishes in a plugged sink, to get oneself or the dishes (respectively) clean.

For the bath- how is it that soaking
Oneself in one's own dirty water and then pulling oneself out, makes one clean? I can understand that it's quite nice to lie in a bath sometimes and
try to relax with nice aromatheraputic scents, and admittedly most people
are too busy for that and most Singaporeans are busy people. I guess the only way to get clean after talk g a bath is to take a shower, a colossal waste of water.

On the dishes, I have on occasion offered to help wash up after dinner at friends'... But I always say that I need to remove the basin from the sink, soap the dishes and then wash each piece thoroughly with running water. For me, throwing all the dirty dishes into a basin of soapy water, sponging them and then pulling them out would be sufficient. Oftentimes the plates are still soapy! But I guess it saves a lot more water.

I think I'll stick to my ideas of washing up....

End of rant.