I am a really lazy blogger xD

Hello my pretties, I trust you've all had a very merry Christmas and are enjoying the holidays before work and school starts again in the New Year.

Between all the insane Christmas and Boxing Day shopping and the mountains of yummy food, I managed to get in some quality time with la familia and catch up with some of shows I'd been wanting to watch. I am now completely hooked to the Korean drama You're Beautiful. I am a Shin Woo girl all the way!!!!But I also adore Jeremy!!And Tae Kyung has the most heart melting smile when he smiles, although I don't really like Jang Geun Suk in this series because he just looks too girly with all the mascara and lipstick. When he first appears with his hair covering one side of his face, I thought he looked like Nana >.<".

In other news, the doctor has diagnosed the bf with stomach ulcers :( he'd been complaining of stomach cramps and pain below his left rib for quite a while and finally went to the doctor last week. He's been put on medication for a month and has to watch his diet, nothing spicy, or too rich and he can't eat too much. This means that there won't be too many Nunu's Kitchen posts for a while. On top of this, his tennis elbow (he works in IT) has gotten much worse lately, to the point where the pain keeps him awake at night. Argh, I just wanna put that boy into a bubble!

Yes, I know you're all just here to see what I've hauled, so without further ado, here are the photos.

Some clothes for work xD

Boxing Day haul, mostly electronics and other bits n bobs for the house.

Some random pressies from colleagues etc.

My new bag courtesy of the Pookie and Frida Giannini xD

On the subject of Gucci bags, how's this for originality? Exhibit one below is Aldo's Bocchigliero (good luck pronouncing that!) it's on sale right now for $20.99 from $48.00

And in this corner, we have the Gucci Pelham studded hobo in Anthracite leather going for a cool $1700, if I recall correctly, it was a 2007 offering.

No, you're not seeing double, these two bags are almost IDENTICAL!The only difference is the colour of the hardware and of course the material.

Friends' kitties amongst all the Secret Santa pressies xD

I didn't realise my eyeshadow matched the kitty until the girls on NB pointed it out heheh. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone, EOTD and a kitteh!

They were so fluffy!!like a stuffed animal!I wanted to steal it xD

My gift from Alienman's Secret Santa! After some mishap with the post office (I live in a newly developed area that isn't on the Post Office's GPS, only bills make their way to our house =.="), it arrived safely yesterday and I totally ripped it apart the moment I got home. This girl got me far far FAR too much!!! I am SO getting her back!!! She got me EVERYTHING I wished for and then some more!!! She got me the UD Half Baked palette!!!!! She even wrote me love notes xD. Thank you very much SH, I loved it all very very much!! Watch out for the package coming your way!

There be no chestnuts roasting over the fire at the Nunu's house, but there be some makeup brushes! Lol, I haven't washed these in...ages...ew...I know, instead of washing them, I just buy more brushes ^.^;

I thought I'd post a photo of my makeup collection as of end 2009. It's tiny, tiny, compared to everyone else's, but I only started collecting in earnest from around mid-year and since then it's been increasing at a slow but steady pace xD. Let's see what it looks like by the end of next year eh?

Whew! what a long post! The New Year is upon us, this year seemed to have flown by so fast! So many things have happened and so many more things are on the cusp of happening. The lovely Miss Yumeko is moving to my hometown (Hong Kong) for the next two years and I would like to wish her and her hubby all the best! I look forward to your posts in the new country! To my beloved Alienman and Dao, both who recently graduated from University, congratulations! I'm so proud of you both! I wish I could've given more than mere mental support through the computer during your hard times, but I'm really so glad that you both made it! and Alienman, you're now officially 2 hours drive closer to being groped by me xD. I look forward to your Only In Portland posts :). Good luck to the Russianfortunecookie with her graduate application, I'm gonna be rooting for you! I know you can do it you smart cookie you! Sooji, you have a special place in my heart, not a day goes by without me bursting out in laughter from reading your posts no matter how bad my day has been. I wish you and David all the best for the future (p.s. I had a dream last night where you posed for your wedding photo with your 4 pack of Tide bahahahahaaaa!). This is by no means a comprehensive list of the people I'd like to thank, and I apologise profusely for anyone I've omitted, regardless here's my Oscar speech: I would like to take this opportunity (omg so cliched I know) to thank the girls on NB for being there always, in my times of happiness and sadness, to my family whom I love despite all its craziness and imperfections, to my colleagues for being the best people to work with anyone could ask for, to my readers for putting up with all my madness and last but not least to my bf, the love of my life, for his understanding, unwavering support and overwhelming love, J I love you.

May you all have a very enjoyable New Year's Eve, stay safe and may all your dreams come true in the New Year.

See you all in the New Year.

xx

It wasn't mono and haul (plus a minor Sephora rant)

I didn't have mono after all.
Instead, I had a mofo case of strep. Antibiotics were taken and I have made pretty much a full recovery. Thank you all for your concerns.
Things have been really crazy at work since my return to the office, the only thing keeping us going is the continuous stream of chocolate which have been arriving at our office. Nonetheless, I managed to sneak in a quick visit to the downtown Sephora, they had been sending me almost daily reminders of how it's the last day to spend my $15 Beauty Insider coupon, and my Asian genes were screaming at me to not let go of a good deal.
Oh. My. God. it was utter chaos inside.
Things were flying off shelves, I saw a man indiscriminately throwing things into his his basket, and women fighting over the last remaining Urban Decay palettes. I grabbed the 2nd last NARS Orgasm blush and the 3rd last Dior Petal Shine quint and ran to the cashiers.
Here comes my rant.
The below conversation took place between me and the cashier:
Me: "Do you still have the clutch with the 8 samples?"
Sephora: "No, besides those don't apply in conjunction with promos."
M: "Apparently I can get a Kat Von D tote with this coupon..."
S: "I've never heard about it."
M: "Do you know what's the Sephora sweet steal for this week?"
S: "What is that?"
M: "It's when you have a special product that's usually discounted to like $10, but only for a limited time."
S: "We don't have that for the holiday season."
M: "..."
When I got back to the office , I checked the Sephora website and saw that the sweet steal of the day was a Philosophy shower kit for $5!!!!She lied!!!I'm kinda angry because I really want that kit!!!Grrr!
Anyways, for all you who are interested, here is a photo of my recent hauls.

I made a big Bookcloseouts order when they were having their Black Friday sale. All those books only cost me $37!!! If I'd purchased them individually at somewhere like Chapters, that would've gotten me about 2 or 3 books if I'm lucky! Raw deal!!! As you can see, I'm quite a fan of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (still debating whether or not to buy the final book, it's just not quite the same if it's written by someone else), I am also finally reading the Bridget Jones Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada.
While I was in line waiting to pay at La Senza, I saw these cute colourful tubes of eyeshadow, (actually I didn't know what they were, the Pookie told me xD), it's like a loose shadow with a built in sponge bullet applicator. They remind me of those old YSL Eclat de Givre eyeshadows. They're part of Victoria's Secrets' Beauty Rush line and were on promotion at 5 for $10, so out of curiosity I decided to swatch them on my arm:

Needless to say, these 5 promptly came home with me. I believe the colours I got were Bluetopia (light blue-green), After Midnight (dark navy) , Plum Passion (who named you?!), Brown to Earth (brown with gold shimmer) and Gold School (true gold). They're all shimmery (or "Luminous" according to their label) and they're definitely pigmented. I used After Midnight the other day as a liner on my upper lash line, I did have to reapply once throughout the day, but then I do have super oily lids >.< and I never really remember to use eyeshadow primer...
Another haul I made today:

My Beauty Diary Black Pearl and Pearl Powder masks. They were on special again at my local Asian supermarket for $10.99 a box of 10 so I hauled hard. These are going off to my girls xD.
It's exactly 7 days until Christmas!! Have you all done your present shopping? I'm not really a Christmas person, I'm more of a scrooge xD, but I will be attending an xmas dinner with le pookie and some friends this weekend, there is going to be a $20 secret Santa hahah.
Until next time my lovelies.
xx

Nunu's Kitchen - Black Bean Clams

Food I make


Manilla clams were on sale. Remember to scrub the shells clean!!!Use a toothbrush that you won't be using or one of those Scotch Brite scrubbers. It's very important to keep your clams alive by keeping them in water.

Black Bean Clams

You will need:

• Approx 1kg clams, scrubbed clean
• 2 slices ginger, minced
• 1 large clove garlic, minced
• Approx 8-10 pieces of small fermented black bean, minced
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• Dash of Chinese cooking wine
• Chilli peppers or black pepper, optional to taste

La Methode

• On a chopping board, mince together the fermented black bean, ginger and garlic. Mix together with  the vegetable oil to form a sort of paste. Set aside.

• Put heat on high, when your wok is hot, put your clams in. Cover with lid.

• When the clams open (if the clams released A LOT of water when they opened, you might want to throw some out, or you could keep it and use it to make noodles the next day hahahaha), throw in your ginger, garlic and black bean paste. Mix to coat clams with paste

• Throw in optional chilli peppers or black pepper
• Throw in the wine.
• Eat.

• The Pookster made rosemary lamb chops and grilled veggies!