{bubble tea love}

I cannot wait for our holiday in a couple of weeks.  We are escaping for a week to Bali and splurging a little by staying at the  W .  We're really looking forward to the break and especially the Mr who has been working his butt off recently. We haven't been to Seminyak since our honeymoon so I can't wait to show it off to the little lady and try out some of the recommendations from my friend Andrea . Yay for holidays!

Mrs Pho from Burpple My mum is visiting us at the moment so I have been relishing in all the Vietnamese home cooking - she is so sweet and the first thing she did when she arrived was go to the supermarket and buy ingredients for dinner! I love it when she visits as I can really get my Vietnamese food fix.   People often ask me where we go and find good Vietnamese food in Singapore.  I have to admit it isn't great but I can recommend a couple of places that are better than most compared to the other pretty average offerings around town. Mrs Pho Opened up by friends of friends, this tiny little restaurant on Beach Road serves up a decent Pho and the best pork chop rice I have had so far in Singapore (most have been pretty abysmal).  The Pho's broth is full of flavour (so many places here have watery or bland soup for their Pho) and they use fresh noodles not the dry stuff out of the packet.   My only complaint is they don't give you enough fresh basil with ...

images from Design for Mankind I saw this written up on my friend's blog and I couldn't help but share - such a delightful little insight into our lovely city.   Plus I am biased as it mentions a lot of our favourite places too! Read the full "What to Do in Singapore"  here .

I am back to pinning and this is what has been inspiring me lately... Ps I love how pinning photos on Pinterest can make me feel more creative than I really am ;) My perfect morning - croissants and coffee  Everything in this picture!  The chair, those blooms, that white shabby table!  This outfit - I need more white in my wardrobe More of this please... More on my Pinterest (link on the right) 

It is Tuesday night, I am nursing a cold and feeling a little sorry for myself.  So I am flicking through some holiday pics from my amazing girls trip to the Maldives with my big sister and a friend last month.  It was so lovely to have uninterrupted quality sister time. I am looking forward to more when my sister, mum, brother-in-law and little nephew visit next week. Can't wait!

The little lady woke me up at 4.30 yesterday morning and then was awake again last night between midnight and 2.30am! The Mr is away for work so unfortunately I have been on solo night duty... The poor thing has been sick so that doesn't help but it means a very very tired Phuong the last few days... hopefully she will be back on track again tonight! So it has meant a bit more coffee than usual... Unfortunately there is a serious lack of good coffee close to my office so I had to make do with the office coffee machine. It did get me thinking though that I should update my list of favourite  coffee places in Singapore . Over the past few years there has been a surge of 'third wave coffee ' places opening - it seems there is a new cafe opening every couple of months.  All the better for us coffee snobs! I am pleased to report that since my last post in 2011 , all the cafes I listed are still open and still good. To add to the list: Common Man Coffee Roasters : Fr...

I recently read the below  and I think it is a really refreshing way to look at things.  Some food for thought for the week ahead... I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that—I don't mind people being happy—but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness.    It's a really odd thing that we're now seeing people saying "write down three things that made you happy today before you go to sleep" and "cheer up" and "happiness is our birthright" and so on. We're kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position. It's rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us...

One of the best moments of my day is when we read books with the little Miss before bed time.  She seems to have taken after us and loves them.  Most nights we end up reading 5 books before bed (there would be many more if she had her way!). She is at a really cute age as she can now toddle over to her bookshelf, grab the book she wants to read and proceeds to plonk herself down on our laps to enjoy her stories.  She also knows her favourites and every night asks for "Spot" (for her Spot books) or "Scar" (for Hairy McLary from Donaldson's Dairy - she loves the cat in it named Scarface Claw). I have to admit though I am getting a bit tired of reading the same books over and over (I personally have my favourites too) so I am on the lookout for some new ones! The founder of The Grace Tales   recently posted about 20 of her favourite charming children's books .   We only have 4 on the list so I am keen to check out a few of the others. ...

It is funny the things you miss from 'home' when living away. Since I have been living in HK and Singapore, one of the things I really miss is just having a big box mid/low range department store like Target , Big W or Kmart available.  One place where I can easily find stuff whatever it may be (instead of running around town trying to find and pick up various things).  Maybe it is because apartments in Singapore and HK don't have much space so you don't really need to buy a lot of 'stuff' so the big department stores don't think the business model would work here.  Who knows, I reckon it could still be a winner. In any case, I was chatting to my friend Andrea on the weekend about it and we got onto the subject of Target.  She visits the US a lot for work and we were chatting about how the Target in Australia and the Target in the US are quite different. One point of difference are all the cool collaborations the US Target has with various designers...

The annual CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) Awards were held today and it usually makes for some pretty good outfit spying from the fashion industry set.  Similar to the Met Ball, muses/guests of designers are usually photographed on the red carpet with the designers themselves which I think is really nice as it gives the designers some of the spotlight and recognition. Some of the highlights from this year: Tom Ford (in Tom Ford of course) really knows how to design and wear a suit.   I have always loved Keri Russell (ever since her Felicity days).  Oliver Theyksans  Blake Lively and Michael Kors  All photo credits from Style.com

I recently made a very difficult career decision and it made me think about how we define success.  I was faced with two very different and compelling opportunities - a senior demanding role with significant money attached to it compared to a senior role in a totally different environment that could offer me greater flexibility. A lot of things swirled around my head during the decision making process, including: how could each role offer me career progression and interesting work.  I was very conscious of not taking any backward steps.   what impact would each role have on me at home in terms of being available, the Mr's work and conflicts with his travel etc the differences in pay and benefits (monetary and otherwise) what potential impact would each role have on me personally - stress levels and my health etc what opportunities could come with each role I ended up choosing the role that meant less money but greater flexibility, primarily for family r...