My lonely Friday night.

wonderful smell of soil in the spring

A special smell got me woke up early this morning. I couldn't tell what kind of smell's that. Till I walked out from the door to the gym, I finally recognized it's the wonderful smell of fresh soil in the spring. Every once in a while, I enjoy stop and look around to see what's going on in the natural world around me, rather they are smells or sights. Well, I might be weird or strange in that I notice smells, sights those little things in the world around me that many people I think forget to acknowledge in the everyday busy rush of their lives. But I think it's definitely worth taking a try, you will be surprised how wonderful feeling it is to identify smells, sights of the nature, especially here the spring time :)

Yesterday, I suggested going to Ikea for lunch since I missed the old day taking my mama to Ikea shopping and dinner every weekend in Hong Kong. So me and Jing went straight to lunch after the classes over, we were surprised Ikea's actually very close, it only took less than 7 minute drive from our campus. We LOVES the design and decoration of the Ikea restaurant, place's very cozy as well. I ordered Atlantic Saithe crusted fish with broccoli mashed potatoes cake + drink + dessert samplers, it only cost me less than 10 dollars. Food is really delicious!! Me and Jing fell in love with those cake samplers, They are light and not too sweet like typical American desserts. After a great lunch, we shopped around in Ikea then come home. I am glad I took Jing to the place and she likes it :)

Strawberry sponge cake

One day, I came across to Christine's recipes site, saw this nice picture under the recipe, it's a strawberry sponge cake with really delicate decorates. I had this thinking maybe I should try this adventurous baking for myself. So I had my second baking day during my spring break last week- my attempt to make a strawberry sponge cake. Even though this was my first time baking a sponge cake after 10 year, I challenged myself and didn't try to minimize the damage; I stuck with double-layers cake. I think the most challenge part of baking a sponge cake is the timing. On the recipes, it said your cake should be form in 20 to 30 minute. So I checked mine after 20 minute, it's still soggy. I started worried my cake might not turn out alright. And after 5,10 minute, my cake finally form!! I let my cake sit for 50 minute before I started doing all the decorate. I put whipped cream and strawberry slices between the layers, then I decorate the top with a little rainbow icing and strawberries after fix the two layers together. Well, anyhow here's the finished products:

I was really proud of myself somhow I managed to produce a fairly delicious cake that was sofe and fairly gooey, with some nice icing to go with it.

I also made miso grilled salmon and beef eggplant lasagna while I was waiting for the cake. They all turned out fairly delicious :) Shared my cake and lasagna with friends and co-workers. They all enjoyed it throughly. :) I was happy!

haircut at walmart

It's my second time had my hair done at walmart. I remember I was pretty concerned the very first time I walked into walmart to get haircut. Since it's my first time to get haircut in America I don't know any good salon in the area, and I all I know about place to do haircut is walmart. I think walmart is not a bad place to get haircut. It's actually pretty good. Price is cheap, 15 to 35 bucks, depends on the hair style you pick. Though I know stylists at walmart mostly have less experience than stylists from other salon, but I think if customers could provide the picture of the hair they want, they usually can easily do well with your hair. I have been walmart salon twice, so far I have had good luck with them doing my haircuts. They always turned out nice for me. :)

sleepless nights

So I've been suffering from insomnia for few weeks, it's a painful experience and I don't know how long it's going to end. This might sound like I am so weak to you all, but I've been feeling lonely lately, I feel like something's missing in my life and sometimes I feel like I am in need to be someone's own skin. (OMG!) I hate to tell people this feeling because I don't like the feeling of being desperated. :( At the beginning I thought I have ability to overcome my loneliness and insomnia. I mean I am not anti-social, I went out do stuff with friends very often. But it just when it comes to the night-night time, I turned off the light, I just couldn't sleep, tossing and turning for almost 2 or sometimes 3 hours and still couldn't fall asleep. Everything was normal at the beginning; I don't know why all of a sudden I started feeling lonely, as I said I really hate this feeling. I hope my loneliness and insomnia struggle will be fought soon.

Never know that being able to have a goodnight's sleep is such a luxury to me.

All about Puppies

My badminton buddy YuWei kept telling me and my girl friend that there's nice place called "All about Puppies" in Tampa where is open to play with different puppies all day you want. First we thought it must be a pet store, after you play with puppies those sales will end up convincing you hard to purchase one. One Sunday afternoon, YuWei insisted to take us there. We got there we saw the place is quite clean and all dogs looked well. Sales were helpful and surprisely they're not hard sell at all. We saw a little black baby poodle's really cute so we took it into a small play area and put it down to play. They offer dog toy you can play with puppies as well. Though I am a cat person more than a dog lover but I had a really good time playing with puppies. I think "All about puppies" is really a place that you don't need to own one at home and you can play all day you want with all different types of puppies. And if you don't want to play with them, you can also hold and pet them over their open top cages.

Spoke to my mum about this place I visited, she's mocking and said I am making her very jealous. Well my mum is a 100% dog lover and we used to have poodle dogs twice but the first one was lost, when my mum was ordering take out from a restaurant and forgot to take the dog back. And the second one was given away because my mum had a hard time and started getting sick while taking care of the ill poodle puppy. So yeh, My mum is a bit of old to keeping a puppy so now she wish that there's a place like "All about puppies" where she doesn't need to own one and she can play with puppies all day. I too wish there would be a place like that soon, so she can spend time with lovely puppies during the weekend and not to complain about being bored.

banana cake I made

Two months ago, I made my New Year resolution that I have to make a cake this year. (the last time I bake was 10 years ago, I baked a set of different cakes for preparing my home economics exam.) So I finally did it this morning, a banana cake from a easy recipe. Well here's the finished product looks like:

The recipe wasn't difficult at all. I mixed sugar, egg, butter, baking soda and everything the instruction said. then, I added a mixture of all purpose flours stirring all of them til smooth. It might sounds a little dirty; I ended up stir them with my hand since using plastic scrapers to stir was taking like forever. Lastly, I coated a little butter on the inner surface of a baking tray, then put the portion onto that baking tray, cooking immediately.

The end results were not good as I expected. There's a little burnt on a little part of the banana cake. But the finish time seems shorter than the recipe said. The recipe said 1 hour, but it actually fully cooked in 45 minutes. I cut out the little burnt part, and the taste was good! Just like regular banana cake but mine is not so sweet, and that's the way I like it. I don't know what I did wrong that my cake comes out has a little burnt part. I think I will try to email the author who wrote the recipe, hopefully I can find out the solution.