12 things: Dresses

January dresses:

It is no secret that I love dresses. But this year, I want to celebrate being a girly girl and being unabashedly feminine by wearing them as much as possible. Therefore, number 1 on my list of 12 things for 2012 is simply to wear more dresses.

I'm so glad it's summer time in Sydney, which makes dress wearing easy peasy. I guess it's pretty obvious I like my dresses light and roomy, which makes for relaxed living (and twirling).The 3 dresses in the middle are my absolute favorites and I wear them on high rotation. It's like my equivalent of the little black dress, except they're not black.

Have you been wearing dresses lately?

Chinese New Year

This year, I decided to partake in the Chinese New Year celebrations. I'm pretty lucky that Sydney has a strong Chinese community, so the festivities are still very much alive. I got to watch the lion dance, toss to good fortune with a beautiful, colourful plate of Yusheng (sashimi salad)... and got to relive the taste of my childhood with a old favourite sweet treat - dragon beard candy. It has been over a decade since I've properly celebrated Chinese New Year, and it had never really bothered me. But this year, it just occurred to me that if I didn't learn to appreciate the festivities, then surely the chances of my unborn children (and husband, Stu) learning about Chinese traditions is practically nil.

Which means they will miss out on the reunion dinners, red packets, traditional Chinese new year dishes, time with family . They won't even begin to understand the significance of "Shou Ye", which is the practice of staying up all night so one's parents will live a long and fruitful life, nor the significance of "Ren Ri", celebrated on the 7th day of the Lunar new year, also known as everyone's birthday; the day when everyone grows one year older.

I have too many wonderful childhood memories of Chinese New Year to let this all go. Perhaps it is recent wedding celebrations, or perhaps it is age (which I prefer to call it maturity) that has resulted in a deeper appreciation for traditions. Whatever it is, I intend to keep celebrating for years to come.

12 things: an update

On the first week of January, I posted about the 12 things I want to do in 2012. Instead of it to being just a fun list that I randomly came up with, I really want to do all 12 things this year and thought the best way to make sure it is done is if I document them here. This means, every time I do any of the 12 things, I will post about it under the tag "12 things".

Ooo, this will be really fun.

One of the first things I attempted was #3: Try a new recipe every week. Sometime last year, I got stuck in a cooking rut, cooking up (and eating) the same old dishes over and over again. And then it occurred to me to stir up my passion for cooking again by trying a new recipe every week and make the mundane interesting again. I didn't want that to stop. So...

I made these new dishes in the first 4 weeks of 2012; lamb with asparagus sauce, mild fish curry, cumin baked chicken with vegetable and a pan fried fish with lime and ginger dressing.

They're not crazy cool groundbreaking dishes - I know, but that wasn't the point of my 12 things. The point is, they are all new recipes, trialled and tested, and they have been integral in making the mundane cooking chores fun again. And that is what's important to me.

Double Happiness

So, Stu and I had double the happiness by having wedding number 2 in Singapore. As much as Stu and I would have liked to jump straight into our honeymoon, we knew it wouldn't be right if we didn't celebrate with my family and friends in Singapore. Being able to serve tea to my mom and dad is a very important Chinese marriage tradition to my family.But first, we had to feed each other dumplings for a sweet life together. The mandarins are for good luck and the cute little tea set is my dowry.Then we're off to wedding number 2!
And we got to do it all over again. I wore my wedding dress for the second time (Bonus!) and Stu met all 120 of my family and friends for the very first time all at once. Kudos to him for not appearing the least bit uneasy even though I knew he was nervous inside.Our wedding dinner was held at my uncle's restaurant and because both Stu and I were adamant not to serve shark's fin, my uncle came up with a special menu that featured lobster and Peking duck instead. A welcome change, I say. And extra delicious too.The absolute best part of the wedding was seeing my friends and family. It hit me really hard when I realized I hadn't seen most of my relatives for well over a decade and so many of them, I wouldn't see for another year at least. A number of my cousins were children when I last saw them and they have since blossomed into bright beautiful young things which brought (happy) tears to my eyes. Family is very important, I always knew, but I never really understood nor felt it as much as I did that night.

The Rose Lady

I never knew I could have so much fun in a rose nursery.Stu and I went to this lovely rose nursery on the weekend to pick out some roses for our garden. I went a little bit nutty sniffing the roses and admiring their beauty, reading their labels and touching their soft petals like some kind of a creepy rose lady.

It wasn't easy, picking just a couple out of the hundreds they have. I had to think quite seriously about what I wanted and how I was going to use my roses. I knew I wanted pinks and mauves, low to medium height, preferably with a strong scent. I like my roses to smell like roses. In the end, we picked out 2 David Austins; the Redoute and the Jubilee Celebration, both wonderfully scented with lots of petals in a full cupped shape. Stu picked out a hybrid tea rose that bears old fashioned mauve flowers that smells so divine.

David Austin's "Redoute"

David Austin's "Jubilee Celebration"

"Charles de Gaulle"

I am so thrilled with my roses. I've always loved flowers, all sorts even wild ones that people call weeds. But recently it seems I have fallen absolutely, madly, deeply in love with roses and it's no wonder why.