Sure, I started the year unsure and almost afraid of what’s to come after a very bad year in 2010. The first few months were a bit of a struggle but as we neared mid-year, things started looking up. For one, I snipped off my pretty long hair and made it a cute bob. I haven’t had short hair in 10 years, so this was a drastic change! And it was a good change, as nervous as I was all throughout the time at the hair dresser’s. And now, 9 months later, I’m still waiting and waiting for my hair to be as long as it was before!

2011 is a year where I put myself first, perhaps as a step to self-recovery from the trauma of previous years. I travelled a lot – all for pleasure and not a single work trip (for once), and perhaps because I get away so often this year, I am truly a happier person. Let’s recall some of my adventures while travelling.

It was a year of picking strawberries fresh off a strawberry garden…

and watching dolphins jump and twirl at sunrise

and meeting people from books:

and island hopping at its best..

and go-karting accidents (in Malacca – some trips I didn’t blog about)

It was also a year of many firsts. I flew all the way to Jakarta to catch a Paramore concert. That was one of the best and worst nights of my year (at the same time), but still an experience I won’t soon forget.

I actually took a budget flight(not complaining, just highlighting a milestone – that goes to you dear hater), which wasn’t that bad after all.

Paramore wasn’t the only musical act I caught live this year. I won tickets to a Lenka showcase early in the year, and in October, I re-lived my fangirl days with BLUE at the ION Orchard fashion show. So awesome, I can DIE.

And speaking of musicals, I caught The Lion King this year (oh so many things unblogged!!!) It was fantastic.

Gadget-wise, who could forget the time I cracked my iphone 4 screen?

or the fact that I replaced both my pink sony vaio and my pink point-and-shoot with sexier replacements?

(oh yeah, this was the final look [sans the lens hood] of Sir Olympus’ makeover. I didn’t blog about him getting a faux leather sticker, but he looks cool doesn’t he?)

I kinda overdid it with spending on gadgets this year (no not really, because I really needed to get them replaced – and them *ahem* enhanced) but it was a good year on the gadget front.

And with a new pancake lens and a spiffy camera, came an influx of nice food photos

On the crafts/hobby front, no sewing was done this year for some reason – but I did attempt to bake. Successfully and not so successfully.

Attempt on red velvet cupcakes: More or less successful (turned out better than expected):

And one out of the box cupcakes (with edible glitter and all) which was a complete disaster! Besides the fact that I was trying to achieve the same effect as a photoshopped cupcake!

And of course our very recent adventure with ice cream making. Yet to make an ice cream at home!

Afterthought

As you can tell, this has been a pretty good year for me. And at some point I guess I started feeling happy about my life – but denied it for the longest time for fear of jinxing it. I’ve come a long way this year. I guess sometimes you just need to take a year just to focus on your own needs and wants, in order to find that spark of happiness again. My life is at such a stable state right now that I could barely even think to imagine in December last year.

This is the year I stopped living vicariously (and secretly envying everybody else’s life) and just focused on myself. It’s hard to just stop something you’ve been doing for a long while, and sometimes there’s minor relapses. But overall I’m okay. There’ll be a time and place for everything and not everybody will experience the same things at the same age.

I’m thankful that I’ve had the chance to travel to new places, meet new people, experience new food, able to afford the best gadgets (at this point). I’m thankful that my relationship with the boyfriend is even more heightened, and we’re closer than ever (how much closer can you get after 8 years? Go figure.) I’m thankful that even though there’s been a lot of changes to home life and family – the ones who matter are still close at heart and vice versa.

Lastly, I’m thankful for my awesome job that enables me to do techy things I enjoy and allow me to finally have a work-life balance. You’ll never know how rare work-life balance is until you’ve found it. And once you find it, you’ll never, ever want to let go

So this is me, signing off for 2011. Excited for 2012, because whatever happens, it’s just gonna be an awesome adventure!

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So let’s start with strawberry picking.

We were on our way to Lovina from Seminyak (practically heading from Southern Bali to Northern Bali) when we stopped for a scenic shoot. That’s when I noticed that we were actually at a strawberry farm!

You may or may not know this about me, but I absolutely love strawberries and being a strawberry farmer is one of my top ten alternative careers. So I kinda lived my dream for about 20 mins, lol.

Some pretty strawberries just before I plucked them:

The ripe strawberries are really red and nice. I was just excited to be plucking my favourite fruit off a real life plant!

Here I am with my some of the strawberries mid-way through harvesting:

So after 20 minutes or so of “farming and harvesting”, we got about slightly more than 500 grams of fresh strawberries – at a very cheap price!

After my lovely berries were weighed, they were then packed into this plastic container:

Let me just tell you that eating freshly plucked strawberries is some sort of an orgasmic treat. The freshness is really crisp and pretty much undescribable. You need to taste it to understand. The ones at supermarkets are no match. I feel cheated after all this while!

More photo fun with the berries (gotta milk the novelty for all it’s worth!)

To end this post, check out the menu of the cafe at the strawberry farm:

Did you spot “nasi goreng strawberry”? We asked what that is exactly. And we were told that the seasoning for the nasi goreng (fried rice) is made out of strawberries. They then fry the rice with sliced strawberries and chicken. Gotta be yummy, yes?

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Number 3 of Training Wheel Projects accomplished. One more to go.

The last one will be chocolate pieces, hehe. And then, I’m off to the real world of felt projects.

This one was pretty easy to make, just that I thought I got stuck. I did a running stitch for the tart base and tried to pull them to make the ridges in the base. But every time I did it, the thread snapped and I was scared half to death that I would cut my finger.

So I stopped for a few days. And today I looked into it again. And realised that for that particular step, I should have used 2 strands of thread instead of just one.

No wonder the thread kept snapping!

Anyways, I really love this piece – the strawberry looks so pretty with the green leaf on top of it, and the wafer is just the right touch this tart needs.

<3!

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And this was his birthday cake:

Would you believe it, if I told you I baked it from scratch (with hardly any help)? FP certainly didn’t believe me. He thought I used one of those ready made cake mixes. But I most certainly didn’t!

I didn’t plan to bake anything at all (especially since I have no experience baking cakes). My first instinct was to get customized Photography themed cupcakes from.. (should I even mention them here?) an online site which featured many interesting and pretty cupcakes. But alas, they didn’t respond to my enquiry and I was quite ticked off by that because I really wanted those Photography themed cupcakes for FP.

My yummy looking cake batter.

First of all, I hate relying on others. Secondly, I will always end up doing things on my own when relying on others doesn’t work out.

So, I decided to go against all sense of logic and bake him a cake. I’ve never baked a cake before, the only time I had experience baking was when I helped out making cookies. Cookies, not cakes. So, I basically jumped off a cliff, not knowing what I’d land on.

Did some research. Found a plain chocolate cake recipe and decided to make it my own. I added strawberries and chocolate chips inside the cake, covered it with chocolate fudge and filled the top surface with soft, yummy marshmallows!

A slice of the cake

Afterthoughts:
Like every other project, there were lessons to be learned. The recipe didn’t have things like fresh strawberries and chocolate chips, so obviously the temperature and time for baking was not suited for my improvised yet fantastically creative version.

I didn’t factor in the possibility that the strawberries will cause moisture within the cake, thereby making it much longer for the cake to “dry up” and become perfectly baked. So there I was panicking, as to why the cake was still moist after the hour was up. And even way beyond that. I was worried that the cake might be burned. Or the cake might sink to the bottom.

Did a little more research and discovered that most recipes with fresh strawberries were baked at a higher temperature. So, I did just that and sure enough – it dried up soon after.

And for a complete newbie to baking cakes, I think i did fairly well! This has given me the motivation to explore baking at a greater extent, hehe. Truth be told, I actually concocted some muffins (using the same base recipe with slight changes) right after I finished making my first masterpiece, but that’s for another post.

I’m just glad everything turned out so perfectly well, yummy and pretty. Most of all, I’m so happy that my darling Frog Prince got his cake and ate it too! Happy birthday again, FP!! Much, much love

p/s: who needs silly cupcakes when we can all have a proper cake?

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