Hello my dear readers! To begin with, I'm so sorry that my posts have been sparse lately. This applies the same to my blog hopping and commenting and for these I want to say sorry, too. Life has been hectic and it seems like this has somewhat affected my reading momentum in some way. Of course, there're also some personal stuff that was taking away my attention and I just want to say, never underestimate the small mundane things that we're taking for granted. No, there's nothing wrong with my health although I'd be thankful if my usual old problems will just go away, ha. Now that I've got these off my plate, let me share with you what I've been reading lately.

I'd finished reading Ling Jing's (笭菁) first installment of her new series (林投劫) featuring a variety of supernatural characters. I loved her two urban legends series and although I was sad to see they'd come to an end, it was good to see Ling Jing has quickly started on a new series; this time around surrounding a family of supernatural characters (humans included) helping to solve some mysterious cases. Like the urban legends series, the author would base from the origins and have the story twisted accordingly to her imaginations. This first installment revolves around a woman who was murdered but was led to believe as a suicidal hanging case. The fiction then extend its plot by recreating her character as a ghost seeking for truth and revenge. And that's where the family will come in as they'll help to solve the case, but they'd not meddle with fate and any karmic forces which may link to the victim and the perpetrator. I like the idea of this new series and I'm definitely looking forward to reading more. 

I'm currently reading The Push by Ashley Audrain and it's an absorbing read about the exploration of motherhood. While there's psychological and family drama, I'd say this is more of a case of characters study as well as the values, expectations and challenges of women becoming mothers. I can't say more as I'm only into half of the book, but it's definitely a powerful and a thought-provoking book that fits for discussions. 

My library visits have become an irregular routine since the safety regulations often change as and when accordingly to current situation, thus I'm currently turning my attention more to my TBR pile and book acquisitions although I'll still borrow books whenever I can. Here are some of my recent book buys: Hostage by Clare Mackintosh, The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon, Beneath Devil's Bridge by Loreth Anne White and The Boys' Club by Erica Katz. 

Hope you've a great day and happy reading! 

• Beautiful painted walls (situated near the Beimen Crystal Church)
• JingZhaiJiao Tile-Paved Salt Fields
• Sun Moon Lake - this is the only structure which survived the earthquake which had ruined Sun Moon Lake back in 1999
• Beimen Crystal Church
• Wen Wu Temple, that is dedicated to Confucius, Guan Gong and Yue Fei 

• Miaoli's Schokolake, where we made some DIY chocolates
• A vampire-themed restaurant (which I'd failed to note down the name due to my enthusiasm in joining the group to call out a "password" before getting into the restaurant (which is a rule, so the reception staff said)
• Taipei 101 World Building
• Green Green Grasslands, famous for its picturesque natural setting and of course, sheep
• Leofoo Village Theme Park

• Short cruise around Sun Moon Lake
• Inside Green Green Grasslands
• Inside Green Green Grasslands
• Sun Moon Lake
• Inside Miaoli's Schokolake

• Taiwan High Speed Train
• A beach at Cijin Island
• A beach at Cijin Island
• Kaohsiung Rail Station
• Blue sky filled with cotton-candied clouds (couldn't remember where)

• One of our vegetarian meals
• Seaweed wraps
• Vegetarian burgers at Leofoo Village Theme Park
• Cheesy baked rice at Miaoli's Schokolake
• Honey Star honey & butter snacks from Korea. Korean snacks seem to be the "in" snacks in Asia

It's April, and C.B. James' TBR Dare Challenge ended last Friday. When I first participated in this challenge, I was thinking that maybe this would help me to leave a dent of my TBR pile, unfortunately it wasn't the case. For starters, my reading has been going on very slow since the beginning of the year; plus my regular readers will know that my commute time has also been cut short after the relocation of my office and this has somewhat affected my reading since I spent most of the time reading while travelling to and from work. And, lo and behold, another reason being that I've been eyeing at those lovely newly acquisitions and I simply couldn't say no to them after hearing them calling my name, ha (I know, it's entirely my fault and there's no excuse for this). Thus, that leaves me to only finishing two books for this challenge:

• Gone by Mo Hayder
• Spinning Tropics by Aska Mochizuki

Photo Credit

See that picture above? That's how I'm feeling right now - tired. If you are a follower of this blog, you'd be aware that I'm currently packing my stuff for the relocation of our office next week. I have been working in this office tower for (let me think...) about 5 years. Five years isn't a long time, but it isn't a short time either. I have grown to love the place, considering that it takes me about an hour to travel to work, and vice versa. I know I may sound like a broken record, but right now I can't help feeling nostalgic about everything. I think it may take me awhile to adjust to the new environment, just because I'm still feeling sentimental about my current working place.

Onto another note, I'm enjoying reading Kazuo Ishiguro's A Pale View of Hills. This is the first book I read by this author, and I'm glad this book didn't disappoint me. There is an atmospheric feel to the story, though I can't say it is entirely creepy. Mr Ishiguro had it written in a way that makes you feel totally intrigued and captivated by the story. You just couldn't help but to keep turning those pages; yes it is that addictive. I have to make sure to check out the rest of the books by this author in the near future. And speaking of books, here are a few which I bought lately:

• Matched by Ally Condie
• The Castle in the Pyrenees by Jostein Gaarder
• The Human Bobby by Gabe Rotter (Kathy and Sandy highly recommended this so I've gotta listen to them)
• Harbour by John Ajvide Lindqvist

So Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 opens here yesterday. I wanted to watch it badly but my husband said he could only watch it with me the week following next, due to his work commitment. I just wish that day will arrive sooner (My husband don't read the books, but he really enjoys the movies).

Well I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead (it's Thursday night while typing this). I'm hoping to have the review of A Pale View of Hills up next week, considering I'm spending lesser time on blogging nowadays due to my office shifting but we shall see.

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia from The Printed Page where readers get to share the books that came into their house last week; this month the host for Mailbox Monday is Julie of Knitting and Sundries.

Here's what I received last week:

1) Adventures of Rusty & Ginger Fox by Tim Ostermeyer (from the publicist)

2) Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by David Levithan & Rachel Cohn (bought from The Book Depository)

What books came into your house last week?

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Marg and Claire that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Apart from NaNo, today is also my husband's birthday! I gave him a dinner treat last Friday evening and we also had a simple celebration at home over the weekend - a Premium D24 eggless durian cake. Unfortunately I'm not able to post the picture here since we haven't downloaded them but I can show you the picture taken from the bakery. What can I say? It was scrumptious (even our 2-year-old daughter loved it)!

(Photo credit)

On the reading front, I'm still reading Falling Home by Karen White. I'm enjoying reading it and Karen White is one of my favourite authors. I think the reason for my slow progress is that there are too many things happening in my life lately. My eldest daughter will be graduating from her kindergarten class soon and their school will be having a graduation ceremony in another two weeks' time; and she was being informed by her teachers that she would act as an emcee so for the past week my husband and I became her audience as she go through her 'script' again and again, LOL. And then, there is our office relocation end of this month and I have to get all my things organised and packed before the move. Frankly speaking, I am so not ready for the move in spite that my new workplace is nearer to my house and it takes about half the journey time as compared to my current one. The reason? Because I will miss the bookstore (just a 5-minute walk away) and a few of my favourite eating outlets but most importantly, I will miss these staff who have now became my friends! *sniff*

Back to my reading, I will start reading For the Love of Strangers by Jacqueline Horsfall tomorrow. This is for the Green Books Campaign hosted by Eco-Libris and I want to get it done so that my post will be ready on November 10th (considering I'm a slow reader, ha). After this, I will be reading The Art of Disappearing by Ivy Pochoda which I bought last week. This is a story about a woman named Mel Snow and a magician she met and married two days later. Is their love real or just an illusion? I can't wait to find out what happens.

Well, I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead!

I know I hardly post anything on my weekend cooking, but I'm going to make an exception today since I discovered a dish I love last Friday when my husband and I visited a Japanese restaurant - wakame sunomono. This makes a great appetiser and I just love any dishes with cucumbers in it.

Anyway, it took me three attempts to get the dressing right for the taste. My first attempt was that I have added too much soy sauce in it, while my second attempt was having not enough soy sauce! What looks like a simple dish doesn't seem so simple after all, because the portions have to be right and well balanced. Finally, I thought the third attempt came out all right to me and I was glad that the hub and my eldest daughter loved it! She even asked me to prepare this dish again soon! (Wish I had taken a picture of it but anyway I googled the picture and this is how it looks like.)

(Photo credit)

Cut cucumber into thin rounds and set it aside. Mix vinegar, sugar and soy sauce in a bowl. Shred wakame seaweed into smaller pieces. Mix the wakame seaweed and the cucumber in a bowl and pour the dressing. Mix well and serve.

Onto an unrelated note, my husband arranged our study room over the weekend so that our PC desk and study desk are sitting side by side together. The purpose of doing so is to make more room for a new bookcase and the thought of getting a new one excites me! Currently my piles of books are stacked from the floor till almost to the ceiling at a corner of our store room, and I haven't even counted the stacks that are occupying our study room as well! Anyway, I find that the desks arrangement looks so much better than the previous one, and I can't wait to see how it will look like when my new bookcase arrives!

I also added a few books onto my pile lately (it is a habit hard to ditch!). Here they are:

1) Three Seconds by Roslund & Hellström

2) Nevermore by Kelly Creagh

3) Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

What did you do over the weekend? Hope everyone has a great week!

If you’re not enjoying a book, will you stop mid-way? Or do you push through to the end? What makes you decide to stop?

I used to read books till the end before my pre-blogging days (and not to mention before those TBR piles are increasingly growing out of control), and even if I do find some parts intolerable I will skim through them but rarely give them up. However, I can't find myself doing the same now as I used to before because there are too many books for me to read and catch up on, and being a working mother I always have to find time for my reading and those little time here and there are very precious to me, thus I can't force myself to continue reading the book if it doesn't interest me.

That said, I'll still give another chance for the book though and if I still can't get through another two chapters, I'll have to say goodbye to the book and hope that next time around, I might pick up the book to read again but of course that will have to depend on my mood. The few reasons that make me decide to give up on a book are: the writing style; the plot isn't going anywhere and is dragging; no development of the characters etc etc.

What about you?

I had a dream last night that nearly sent me into a panic. Dreams can be funny at times, and sometimes things happen in dreamland where you knew you wouldn't do them in reality and at times they seem so real that you begin to wonder if you've thought of those things without accepting/realising it.

Anyway, I dreamed of selling away my books and among those piles was a series of books that I haven't read but knew I'd love (I couldn't remember the series name or the author). I didn't understand why I did that, but nevertheless I had brought a friend along so she could help me with the sale and everything. There were several customers, and I didn't keep track who was buying what until at the end, I realised the series that I wanted to read were gone. I asked my friend about them and it's funny that she got the number of the customer who had bought them (don't ask me how or why because at this point, everything sounds so illogical to me). I called the number, but no one picked up the call. After several attempts, someone finally answered. The girl who bought my books said she couldn't return me the books and at that point I woke up from the dream. It may sound funny to you, but it's a horror to me, LOL.

Speaking of books, I'm still waiting impatiently for my copy of Mockingjay to arrive! There are times that I regretted pre-ordering online and this is just one of those occasions; the bookstore which I visit regularly already has their stock up on shelves. The reason why I didn't decide to buy Mockingjay from them is because most of the times their new arrivals didn't arrive on time. I suppose this time is different since it is Mockingjay! Oh well...

So, that's my musing for you on this Friday morning. I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead!