CNY 2013

As the years go by, Chinese new year takes on a different meaning for me. When I was a kid in primary school, I don't vaguely remember being excited over the new year. Probably because I was a fat kid, and each time my relatives saw me, they would comment that I'd gotten chubbier. As such, I don't recall looking forward to it. But I didn't really dread it because you know, kids didn't care being called fat. I just continued eating and getting fatter. Gosh so many photos serve as evidence of my fat self. 

And when I got older, in secondary school maybe, I started to appreciate new year more, got more conscious of what my relatives would say. Lost weight and gone were those comments. Then, since my family is not the type to keep in close contact with the relatives, came the awkward silences and polite conversations. 

Then these days, new year to me is first of all, looking forward to a period of rest, then the goodies I get to enjoy, and then the clothes I get to shop for (not that I need a reason to shop these days anyway). Some photos I took during CNY (mostly of food because I'm lonelygirl like that, haha).

Chocolate peanut butter cups my Mum made, and which I also helped to make. She figured the recipe for the peanut butter filling on her own, and it really tasted like the one from Reese's, except that its bigger. Reese's is my favourite chocolate snack after just plain chocolate. Snickers and Mars don't really appeal to me already. I guess after a long time of not having such food, tastes can change as well, which is a good thing for my stomach and health!

Chewy oatmeal raisin cookies which I claimed to be the healthier choice of cookies, because well, it is! Instead of additional unhealthy calories such as chocolate chips, I added muesli and raisins (okay raisins also contain sugar, but healthier, right!) And I was afraid that it wouldn't taste nice, but it tasted really nice! I'd make it again. Promoted it to my aunt and she commented that it was really nice! So I gave her a small box of it and printed out the recipe for her too to try baking it herself at home. I got it from brown eyed baker here. I love her recipes cause they always turn out nice and yummy! Really chewy and even my brother commented that it was good. Shall bake these again to use up the muesli my Mum has!

And these, that once used to be my favourite, but not anymore. Now the cause of my misery. Spent quite a lot of time and energy to make these. I love the texture of these pineapple tart crusts. I'm not going to eat any of these anymore, neither am I going to make any of these. In future, I'm just going to eat those that people tell me are nice. 

Our snack trolley! Quite proud that 80% of all these snacks are home-baked. Not by me of course, I only baked those two I mentioned above. My Mum took a week's leave and baked chocolate chip cookies, our all time favourite, Viennese cookies, almond crescents, Kuih bangkit, peanut cookies, butter cake, carrot cake and baked the raw nuts that we bought from the wholesalers. Didn't eat too much of these snacks these year because of my inherent fear of gaining weight, but I had quite a bit of mandarin oranges though. My favourite goodie has to be the Kuih Bangkit because its so melt in the mouth. I'm aware that its made with coconut which means saturated fat but I tell myself that its just once a year so I get less guilty, haha. 

And the steamboat reunion dinner! You can hardly see anything except for empty plates and newspapers, but I seasoned all the meats! I love steamboat because its rather healthy! Not much oil and lots of vegetables. And because its reunion dinner, we had a lot of good ingredients like scallops my favourite! And the CP wantons as well:D 

And the first yu sheng I had at the clinic and the nicest I ever tasted because the nurses prepared the carrots, cucumbers and all the other ingredients themselves. I have never really liked yu sheng because of all the funny tasting ingredients but this was the first one that I really enjoyed:D

Outfit for day one! Hollyhoque's Pastel Garden dress. My third floral dress I think! I liked the prints on a pair of shorts but it was too short for me so when I saw the preview for this dress I knew I had to buy it! Such shopaholic mentality. Kind of shorter than the dresses I usually wear but its acceptable for me. I realised that for flare dresses 32" feels really short, but for shift dresses like these, 32" works fine for me(:

Outfit for day two! The closet lover crochet in the city top and the tinsel rack's skater skirt(: Not a very festive outfit but I just wanted to wear the crochet top out. Visited my paternal aunt and saw my cousins whom I hadn't seen in years. Had a really good time catching up with them. I hadn't laughed so much with my relatives in a long time. I guess we have Facebook and Whatsapp to thank for our reunion, haha. 

And on day three my paternal relatives came over and we played host. It was quite a fruitful new year for me this year, because I finally met my paternal relatives after so many years. I really hope that we'll be able to continue to meet like this because I like how real they are and how warm they can be. And I guess that's how it is with family (and maybe even close friends as well), even after years of not meeting, people can still carry on from where they left off and remain close.