Devilishly Red

Oh my, time really does fly. I remember writing about not having the time to work out the itinerary for my Taiwan trip a few months ago. The next thing I know I’ll be leaving for Taiwan with the girls in two days’ time. I’ve come to realise that planning a travel itinerary isn’t a walk in the park at all. You need to find out all the nitty gritty details that you didn’t even know exist in the first place. Even after doing so much research, I still can’t say I know the directions to some of the destinations in our itinerary. That’s where the tour guides come in, I suppose. Thank goodness for them.

More research on Taiwan.

I think I’ve mentioned this many times before – I’m not a planner by nature. I enjoy doing it only if whatever that I’m planning is meant for myself. In that way I only need to be accountable for myself if things screw up. Makes sense? I guess that’s why I know I can’t survive in a project management role and that explains why I rejected a recent job offer.

Back to the trip, this will be my second visit to Taiwan and I’m looking forward to it. I enjoyed myself immensely when I was there about three years ago and this time we’ll also be travelling to Nantou for our homestay experience on top of our stay in Taipei. I’ll be back in Singapore on the 26th and hopefully I’ll have plenty of interesting stories and experiences to share.

It’s been so many years since I last travelled with the girls and we’ve talked about going on a trip together for the longest time. It’s really good to be able to do it with them again. So here we go, time to let our hair down and have a fantastic trip!

I’ve always wanted to make a customised background for my Twitter profile but never got down to it. I’m a procrastinator, remember? The idea came up again the other night and I decided to get it done once and for all. Surprisingly, the process was quite straightforward and it didn’t take me too long to get the background done. Somehow I had the misconception that designing a Twitter background is a complex task. Well, it isn’t. Granted, I didn’t try this layout on all possible screen resolutions but it should look fine on the popular ones.

My new look on Twitter.

That means I’ve completed another task for my Day Zero Project. I realised it really isn’t that easy to accomplish all the tasks. As I review my list, I already see a few that are quite impossible to achieve within the next few years. Mainly because those tasks need a certain amount of money and/or level of commitment to achieve. Nevertheless, I’ll try to complete as many tasks as I possibly can.

Ultimately that’s what the project is all about, isn’t it? To make people stick to their plans and see them come to fruition. It would be perfect if I can do that.

After struggling for a few months, I’m finally done with my new layout. I don’t think I’d have the time to work on my website if I had a job. I guess that’s how I spend my time in my current jobless state – I do the things that I enjoy doing but don’t have time for if I’m working. Whenever people ask me if I’m ever bored at home, my answer would be no. At the same time I really don’t know what I’m busy with. I read, I search for jobs online, I watch TV, I dabble with my website and I do some household chores. That’s about all.

It’s amazing how time flies even when one is busy doing nothing.

Sometimes I’d get the urge to try some baking. Yesterday was one of those days. I’ve always wanted to try making a bread and use the box of dry yeast I bought ages ago. It was originally meant for my mum but I found out she’s also a procrastinator herself. So anyway, my initial plan was to make doughnut balls but I decided to bake a bread as well since I already had the ingredients. Not to mention baking a bread is also one of the tasks in my Day Zero Project to-do-list.

I was too lazy to search for a proper recipe so I followed the one printed on the box of the dry yeast, which happened to be for brioche bread. Here are some pictures of my first bread-making experiment.

The dough was punched out (with gusto) and put aside to rest and rise.



Poof! The brioche dough doubled in size fifteen minutes later.



Hot from the oven.



Sliced and ready to be eaten.

The brioche turned out pretty good (surprisingly) and I’m happy to announce that I’ve completed one task in my list. One down, a hundred more to go. Some of the tasks are currently in progress and hopefully I’ll be able to accomplish them eventually.

In case you’re wondering what happened to my doughnut balls, they failed spectacularly.