Kunyit Durians For Breakfast

The hubs called last night saying that he will be late. He had to wait for his basketball ‘kaki’ friend to bring some superior durians.  Oooh, that was music to my ears!  He knows I love durians.  Durians is indeed the king of all fruits and food.  The other day, my girls asked me what was my favorite food. I thought about it long and then I remembered durians and told them that if they ever want to give me something that I really like, it has got to be durians 😀

This morning, I starved myself before I went to the gym. Then after gym, starved myself and took a shower.  After hubs fetched Cass to school, I quickly put the coconut milk, eggs and sugar into the slow cooker to make kaya.  Then I took my stash of Kunyit durian out from the fridge and whacked 5 segments.  Wanted to whack 1 more but, I did not want to torture myself till I  burp out half regurgitated durians the whole day *gross*!  The flesh of Kunyit is SO thick, creamy and sweet.  Nothing like kampung ones.   These days, superior varieties like Kunyit, Musang King, Red Prawn and XO can cost you a bomb, like around RM30 to RM40+ or even more for a whole durian.  If there are 10 segments in the durian, it means each segment costs RM3 to over RM4!  It is just as expensive to indulge in durians as it is on sharks fins soup or birds’ nest soup!

So this was my breakfast this morning and I ate nothing else but 5 large and thick segments of the rich Kunyit durian, which filled me up up until now and it is lunch time now.  Do check out the bright yellow color of the Kunyit durian, as yellow as turmeric, hence the moniker.

I think I will just settle with just 2 slices of wholewheat crackers to go with my hot from the pot homemade kaya for lunch today.  The girls will eat lasagne that their grand uncle baked.

Do you splurge on durians from the ‘superior’ breed too? Or regular ‘kampung’ ones can satiate your crave?

No. of times viewed = 351

Our Wednesday – 28 August 2013

Yesterday was the MIL’s last day with us before her departure to Hong Kong today.  She will be in Hong Kong and New Zealand for several months.  Our kitchen was closed the whole of yesterday and we had dinner at a nearby restaurant as she wanted to spend time doing last minute packing.

While we were waiting for our food to arrive at the restaurant, Alycia did her homework, with full concentration  and not the least distracted when her 2 younger sisters were noisily watching a funny movie on daddy’s phone.  Yesterday was extra curricular day in Alycia’s school  and she only came home at 4:30pm. After a nap (this girl can only function if she takes a nap in the afternoon. Devoid of a nap, she can be the nastiest, grumpiest and most cantankerous girl ever) , she tried to quickly finish off a part of her homework and had to bring some along with her to the restaurant.  Back home, she hurriedly took a shower and then continued with her homework.

This is a typical lifestyle of a Year 4 student in a Chinese school. Homework load is always heavy and even heavier if you are from the top 2 elite classes.   I think Alycia has no problem with this level of academic stress but the same cannot be said for Sherilyn.  They both have characters and personalities that are a polar opposite.

Effective tomorrow, the role of chef will be relegated back to me, for the next few months. A few months ahead of her departure, I had already typed out on my computer a long list of easy-to-cook dishes (with links to the websites to get the recipe) and this Menu List is still being updated with new dishes added every week. After being pampered with a good chef and baker for half a year, I need time to warm up now to get myself back in action again in the kitchen. Wish me luck!

No. of times viewed = 416

Berry Chocolately Bread

This is my breakfast today:

Milo sprinkled on homemade wholewheat bread with sliced jumbo sized strawberries.

This is anytime healthier than char koay teow, chee cheong fun, curry laksa or nasi lemak eh? I realize that if I cut down on deep fried, oily and spicy food, the monthly zits will stop bothering my face. And my complexion glows too! So try out health freak mommy’s complexion glowing recipe of daily exercise, drinking lots of plain water, green tea, coconut water, eating a few servings of fruits everyday and ditch your junk food.  Feeding your skin with a good skin care product is vital too. One thing that I must strive to improve on is to get at least 6 hours of sleep. Still trying very hard in this area!

No. of times viewed = 480

Our Sunday – 25 August 2013 and Making Pesto Sauce

Today is the last weekend that the MIL would be here before she flies off to Hong Kong and New Zealand next week. She will be away for a few months. The girls and I have already listed down the food that we want her to bake / cook for us before she leaves. One of the items is pesto sauce. The basil leaves that I bought last Sunday were all binned as they withered after 3 days. So we set off very early today (to avoid the horrendous Sunday traffic jam) to Cold Storage @ Mid Valley to get basil leaves.

We first had brunch at Hokkaido Ichiban @ Gardens…

And as usual, the foodie hubs ordered so much food that we had to take-away for dinner!

Today Cass and I wore matching outfit and I just had to snap a picture of us together.

In the afternoon, the girls had a great time helping  grandma to make pesto sauce.  In the picture below, Alycia was shaving a block of cheese.  Cass and Sherilyn were draining out water from the basil leaves using a spinner.

The girls also helped to peel garlic skin and Cass later helped grandma to peel stinky beans (petai) skin.

The girls took turns to try out cheese shaving and spinning basil leaves. When Sherilyn tried shaving the cheese block, she shaved off some skin from her finger AGAIN!! Last week she scraped off the skin from her finger whilst peeling cucumber skin. Today, she scraped off her skin AGAIN! She is nicknamed Clumsy Pot and Butter Fingers at home as she drops things and spills drinks most of the time. But I am not stopping her from helping out as I want her to learn to be more careful and to step out from the Clumsy Pot shoes. And the good thing is that though she knows she is clumsy, she still wants to help.

Our 2 jars of precious Pesto sauce, which I think can last us until the mil returns home early of next year. One jar is for immediate consumption and another bottle for deep freezing.

No. of times viewed = 316

Helping Alycia To Improve Her Karangan

Alycia has fared pretty well in her third term exam recently. Her class position is number 2 again and standard position is within the top 30 among close to 300 Year 4 pupils.  She scored As for all her subjects except for a B in her BM Penulisan paper.  She did not score well in her Karangan. In fact, I almost fell off my chair when I saw the marks on her Karangan paper.  It was a 14/30 which is a fail!  Surprisingly, she scored the highest mark (93/100) again in her BM Pemahaman paper.

Karangan has always been her weakest of all the subjects and sections, mainly because she dislikes reading story books and newspapers in Malay, with the exception of Malay comics.  It is important that she reads books on ‘Contoh Karangan’ (which I have several) but getting her to do it is a story of its own. This girl can be as stubborn as a mule sometimes and drives me ballistic.  Everyday, I feel like I am being a pain in her neck, nagging her to read her Contoh Karangan books. On days when she has the time, she will reluctantly read a topic which I pick for her. But on most days, she will be bogged down with homework from school. If the hubs and I have the moolah, sending my 3 girls to a private school or an international school does not even require a second thought from me.

Yesterday, I tried to tweak my approach in getting Alycia to write a Karangan.  Last night, I saw her writing her diary in Chinese.  Her class teacher (who is a very dedicated and caring teacher, which is a rare breed in Government schools these days) has been advising her class to write a daily journal in Chinese to help them improve their Chinese Composition proficiency.  When I saw her penning her diary in Chinese, I advised her to do the same in BM.    She was a tad reluctant again. I told her that it can be a 3 to 4- sentence entry and not a lengthy one as the crux is to train and wire her brain to write proper sentences in the Malay language so that in time to come, Malay words can pour out from her brain in a smooth flow.  Today, I managed to cajole her into writing her first diary entry in Malay *satisfied grin*     It was an entry on how she felt after reading about the news on the fatal bus accident that happened in Genting Highlands yesterday.  After the first diary entry in Malay, she felt proud of her little achievement and she has already told me what she wants to write next tomorrow 🙂

No. of times viewed = 618

Lunch In A Thermos Pot

My multi-colored fried rice is ready and it is 11:30am now.

After frying the rice, I transferred it into my Shuttle Chef Thermos pot before placing the pot into the insulated outer pot to keep the rice warm. My 3 rascals come home from school at different times of the day from 12:30pm, 2pm to 4:30pm, thus, they will have nice and warm food for their tummies, leaving this super busy lazy mummy free from reheating the food 3 times.

The Thermos Shuttle Chef is perfect for busy mothers who only have very little time to cook in the morning. With a Thermos Shuttle Chef, you can prepare your food ahead of time and you can shorten the cooking time. You prepare the food as per normal in the inner pot and bring it up to a boil on a stove top, then simmer for a few minutes to ensure that all the ingredients are at the same boiling temperature. Then you place the inner pot into the outer pot and put the lid on. The outer pot has vacuum-insulated double walls so the food keeps cooking slowly in its own retained heat. Let’s say you start to cook at 6am, by the time you have your dinner at 6pm, the food would have been slowly ‘cooking’ for 12 hours in the Thermos pot. In the morning, you can even prepare your lunch or evening meal to be eaten in the office before you head off, place the pot in the outer container and then store it in an upright position while travelling with complete safety.

It also works equally well to keep food cold and will keep chilled foods under the 5 degrees Celsius, necessary to prevent food poisoning and bacteria from growing. I have yet to try putting cold food in this Thermos pot. We mainly use it to keep our meals, soups and ‘tong sui’ warm.

No. of times viewed = 8050

My Daily Fitness Regimen

I hardly bring along my mobile phone with me when I exercise in the morning as it is too cumbersome to pocket a phone bigger than my palm in my shorts or waist pouch when I run. Today, I started a tad late to exercise as it was drizzling and the gym is the only place I could go to… but we can only gain entry into the gym at 7am. So I brought along my mobile phone to snap a picture of this….

The above air walker is literally reserved for ME from day one as no one but ME would be in the gym yet the moment we can gain entry into the gym with our access cards at 7am sharp.

At 7am, the gym is normally devoid of fitness junkies except for me or my hubs if he does not have to leave the house early to work.  So I will normally have the gym all to myself, while I read my newspapers and exercise on this air walker. I can even let out whatever vile sounding gases from my upper and lower tract without fear of embarrassing myself muahahahahahaaaa!!

If you have yet to resolve to start on an exercise regimen to keep yourself trim, fit and healthy, do start today. You do not have to sign up with a well-known gym for thousands of bucks. I do not believe in splurging a lot of money to lose weight.  A simple walk or run round your neighborhood at least 4-5 times in a week costs you nothing but you have everything to gain from this healthy regimen 😉  And oh yes, always remember to cut down on your food portion and stay away from unhealthy food.  Where there’s a will, there’s always a way, trust me.

No. of times viewed = 3687

Breakfast At TedBoy Bakery @ Bangsar

We had a very early breakfast today as the hubs had to be present at the client’s site  in the morning to set up for a mega Hari Raya Open House function for one of his corporate client’s on Tuesday.

So off we left the house at 9:15am for Ted Boy Bakery at Bangsar. Parking was easily accessible for us early birds.

TedBoy Bakery is owned by Edward and Patrina, who name their establishment after their baby boy – Ted Boy. Edward used to run a business overseas while Patrina has pharmaceutical background. The husband and wife team decided on a switch in career in order to spend more time with their Ted Boy. The cafe only serves wholesome and healthy food that Ted can munch on. Their breads and pastries are made with no preservatives and left over breads are donated to charity at the end of everyday.

Photos of Tedboy Bakery, Kuala Lumpur

This photo of Tedboy Bakery is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Photos of Tedboy Bakery, Kuala Lumpur
This photo of Tedboy Bakery is courtesy of TripAdvisor

TedBoy Bakery in the media…

The couple who own TedBoy with their baby Ted. Lucky boy he is to have an awesome bakery named after him eh?

After spending about 15 minutes gazing at the trays of mouth-watering pastries, cakes and artisan breads, the girls picked a banana muffin (of all things, sigh!), a cheese stick and a creamy chicken quiche.   The 3 items that the girls chose passed my strict standard in terms of taste and quality 😉

The girls were surprised to see Minion cuppies but they know they cannot get mummy to buy them food with artificial coloring as they know they ain’t good for health…

Scrambled eggs with toast on the left and egg and ham focaccia on the foreground. The healthy fresh Mint Smoothie, which composed of kiwi, pineapple, mango and mint leaves was mine.  The egg and ham focaccia that I chose was a tad disappointing as the focaccia bread was not what I had expected.  I polished off the ham and egg though and left 3/4 of the focaccia bread untouched.

American breakfast below.  Using the ever popular Antipodean Cafe’s similar breakfast set as yardstick, this is given a 6/5 rating vs. 9/10 for Antipodean based on HFM’s food scale rating.

Mushroom soup and toasted bread got a 6/10 rating as well.  Mushroom soup was pretty run-of-the-mill and tasted like canned ones.   The girls like it very much anyway and they requested daddy to order another set later.

The Spaghetti Pesto  got a 9/10 rating from us.  The pesto sauce was fresh and the chef was pretty generous with the Pesto sauce. This dish inspired the girls and I to hop over to Village Grocer @ Bangsar Village after breakfast to get some fresh basil leaves and pine nuts to make our own pesto sauce!

The foodie hubs picked a slice of strawberry shortcake and  a slice of Awfully Chocolate cake for dessert.  We were all so stuffed with our breakfast that we did not really enjoy the cakes.  The cakes are given a 7/10 rating on HFM’s food rating scale.

Menu on iPads seem to be faddish these days in many upscale restaurants and Ted Boy Bakery has joined the ranks too.  They have iPads mounted on the wall for patrons to browse the menu and for kids to play games while they leave their parents to eat in peace. That was exactly what I saw — a couple who left their son of about 3YO to eat alone whilst he played with the iPad and they ate separately on another table!

Finally came the bill.  For the quantity of the food that we ordered which left us stuffed until dinner (we skipped lunch!) and the location of the restaurant (in upscale Bangsar), I’d say that it is pretty reasonable and comparable with other cafes of this stature.  Plus, with their loyalty stamp card, we are now entitled to a free cake and sandwich the next time we dine at the bakery!  It is little freebies like this which pull the crowd back again.

As we drove past Antipodean after shopping at Bangsar Village, we saw several looooong bee lines outside Antipodean Cafe, located a few doors away from TedBoy! The crowd was unbelievably huge, though expected.  In terms of taste and quality, we still prefer Antipodean but as fans of brunch, we want variety and are always hunting for new cafes to try out different menus.

I would foresee us going there again to claim our free items plus to try out other items on their menu 🙂  I am always game when it comes to healthy food.

Tedboy Bakery,
10, Jalan Telawi 4, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03-2202-1312
Open 8am through at least 9pm daily

No. of times viewed = 1588

Little Devil

This little devil gave me yet another heart-stopping moment  today, plus two yesterday!

Yesterday, she ran out from the kitchen, slipped on the slightly wet floor and almost hit her chin hard on the marble table. She scared the sh*t out of the mil and me!  Minutes later, she rolled off the chair and fell onto the floor.   Just a moment ago, she ran towards the trampoline but tripped and hit her eye brow hard on the hard metal rim of the trampoline.  The skin just above her eyelid turned blue black instantly.  Thank God she did not land on her eye ball, else…. *sweats*!!   This devil has bruises, bumps and grazes from head to toe, I kid you not. And in most of the accidents, she did not even cry, and even if she did, she would stifle her sobs to herself, without letting me know, lest she got chided by me with all the “I told you NOT to do this and this and this. See what happens now?!”

This is the reason why I can never travel anywhere leaving her behind. She needs someone to watch over her all the time.  On top of her daredevil stunts, she also has an issue with her bladder.  Being her mother, I know that no one else can do what I am doing for her now. I am contemplating to join my parents and younger brother on a trip to Japan next May and the only person holding me back is this little DEVIL.  The hubs asked me to bring Cass along. Oh, should I? Will I enjoy my trip? That will cost double, around RM10k just for the two of us.

Baby girl Cassandra, I pray that you will grow up healthily and overcome your bladder issue as soon as possible.  I pray that you will be a good girl and grow up quickly, accident-free.  I can’t wait to traverse the world again.

No. of times viewed = 1463

Dad’s 70th Birthday Celebration

The girls had a great time bonding with their youngest cousin, Raelyne when we were in Ipoh last weekend to celebrate my dad’s 70th birthday. Raelyne is my eldest brother’s only daughter. They live in Singapore.

Cass used to be the youngest and most pampered member in the family but this ‘baby position’ has since been filled by Raelyne.  Everyone is now focusing their attention on Raelyne but Cass is not the wee bit jealous. In fact, Cass is smitten with Raelyne!

During a girls’ play that turned a tad rowdy last week, the baby safety gate at the stairs gave way and it collapsed!  It landed on Sherilyn and Raelyne and all hell broke lose.  Baby Raelyne was wailing on top of her lungs, both from pain and shock.  There was a bump on her forehead. I quickly wrapped some ice cubes in a hanky and asked my brother to rub it on Raelyne’s bump but she was wailing, struggling and pushing the ice wrap away from her daddy.  Having had handled 3 very difficult blubbers myself, I took the ice-wrapped hanky away from my brother and asked Cass to rub it on Raelyn’s forehead and voila, she immediately stopped wailing and calmed down!  I then brought the 2 girls to the sofa and asked Raelyn to lie down on Cass’ lap so that Cass could massage her forehead with the ice-wrapped hanky.  Raelyne obediently listened to me and even posed for me to take a pot shot of them haha! Thankfully, the swell on the forehead soon eased off 🙂

On the day of my dad’s birthday dinner, we made an impromptu decision to have a family portrait taken at a nearby studio. After the shot, the photographer managed to sweet talk us into taking individual family portraits and then sweet talked us into taking a picture of just the 4 girls! He was such a smooth talker and all of us ‘succumbed’ to this dude with a smooth tongue.

This is one of the studio photos of the 4 princesses, copied from my  mum’s Facebook album. It is a tad blur here as she scanned the original picture on her printer before reposting it to her Facebook page. My mum is getting more and more IT savvy these days.  She even has a Blackberry mobile phone now to Whatsapp us as well as to take pictures and posting them to Facebook!

Dad’s dinner was held at one of the oldest and most popular restaurants in Ipoh – Mun Choong.   If you are in Ipoh and want to dine at Mun Choong on a walk-in basis, you will be rest assured to be either in a long waiting list or be turned down of a table. Even if you do get a table, be prepared to wait till you snooze off before the food arrives!

Here’s what we had….

The first dish was everyone’s favorite – a Four Seasons Platter that cost  RM350 and this platter of starters was enough to fill my small tummy 50%!

Suckling baby oink oink, which pleased all corners except moi.  For the umpteenth time, I had refrained from eating those poor fellas.

A combo of stir-fried and deep fried kailan with brocolli and mushrooms.

My dad had intended to order the restaurant’s signature pan-fried prawns with soy sauce (which is the best dish at the restaurant, bar none) but all the prawns had been fully booked even weeks before the other customers’ dinner at the restaurant!  So we had to settle for a lobster dish, which was just as lip-smacking. It was so delish that even every single strand of Chinese cabbage on the plate was polished off.  We will definitely order this dish again and the next time we dine there, we have to get the perennial prawn dish!

Steamed Soon Hock fish. The texture of the meat was absolutely perfect and tender and not overly steamed, like some restaurants would normally flaw at. An overly steamed Soon Hock would result in the flesh being too tough and rubbery.

Longevity Noodles..

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There were also a peach ‘pau’ birthday auspicious platter (with baby ‘paus’ inside the big ‘pau) that arrived first and a ‘tong yuen’ ginger sweet soup  but they were not photographed.

My dad’s fresh and delish cempedak birthday cake from the famous JJ Cakes & Swissrolls.  Though everyone was already burping and probably letting out gas from the other tract from over eating the sumptuous food, we were still seduced by our all-time favorite cempedak sponge cake with thick layers of fresh cempedak pulp between the sponge cakes. For me, I have always had a very delightful affair with JJ’s cempedak swiss rolls. I can always indulge in JJ’s fruity swiss rolls and sponge cakes with less guilt as compared to other calorie laden butter cakes and chocolate cakes.

Though the bill was slightly over a thousand bucks, it was a bang for our bucks as we all enjoyed the food very much. With good food and good company, it was the reunion of the year.  Everyone was happy.

I would like to wish my dad a very, very happy and blessed 70th birthday and may God bless this very kind and generous man with many, many more happy birthdays. His actual birthday falls on the 19th of August.

No. of times viewed = 541

Basic Life Support Courses

We often read of devastating stories from the newspapers on how babies choke to death while being bottle fed with milk. In most of the cases, the babies were being cared for by unregistered babysitters who operate from home. It really breaks my heart to read of such stories and I cannot fathom how the parents accepted the death of their babies. The question is who is to be blamed for cases like this and what sort of preventive measures can be taken? It could be a case of negligence where the babysitter left the baby to sleep with a bottle of milk while she attended to other kids under her care. It could also be that the babysitter lacked proper knowledge on CPR. Or perhaps the babysitter carefully bottle-fed the baby but did not properly burp the baby before putting the baby to sleep. Babies who are not properly burped after feeding will burp and sometimes regurgitate in their sleep. I had seen this in the case of my own babies where I was unsuccessful in burping my baby and she regurgitated in her sleep much later. But for some babies, they could swallow the regurgitated milk and choke to death while sleeping.

Caring for an infant is a huge responsibility and requires enormous care and attention from the mother or the person caring for the baby. For new parents who have attended courses on baby caring before the birth of their baby, they would be taught CPR, amongst other important things. I never attended any course before the birth of my first child as I had to be on partial bed-rest due to pre-term labor scare which started when I was in the 5th month of my pregnancy. But I surfed the internet a great deal to read up on caring for a newborn baby.

I remember vividly that when Cass was about a year old, she almost choked on an ice cube. I was seated next to her when she was sucking on the ice cube. When I saw her gagging half way through sucking on the piece of ice cube, I slapped her back hard which resulted in the ice cube ‘flying’ out from her throat. Thank God for my fast thinking action and that incident really scared the sh*t out of me!

If you would like to attend an online course on CPR, you can hop over to www.healthedsolutions.com/courses/pals-recertification to find out more.

No. of times viewed = 355

For those of you living in places clouded by hazy skies for the past few months, the sight of a tinge of some colors on the sky would cheer you up and make you appreciate a colorful sky!

When I saw this ‘rare’ sight on the skyline, I just had to snap a picture.

I would like to wish all my Muslim friends and readers Selamat Hari Raya and to all my non-Muslim friends and readers, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!  This post is my last ‘assignment’ before I shut down the desktop PC. We are leaving for Ipoh now 😀

No. of times viewed = 247

Scary Encounter With A Mentally Challenged Boy – Part 2

Further to my earlier post on my scary encounter with my neighbor’s mentally challenged 10-year old son, I bumped into my neighbor and her son again this morning.  The moment I stepped out of the house, I heard his voice.  I was hoping that the lift door would open quickly and I could go inside first with Cass but the lift arrived late.  We crossed path again, with my heart pounding.  She looked very uneasy bumping into me and she kept looking  at her son and then at me, fearing that her son will  behave rudely and indecently again.   Inside the lift, I stood at the very end with Cass.  B, the boy did not want to stand next to his mum and stood next to me, very closely!  His mother looked very worried and tried hard to strike a conversation with me.  I was very uneasy and worried that B would try to attempt to touch me again, like he tried to the other day.  B’s mother said “Boy, come here” and motioned him to her side. But B would not budge a wee bit.  Suddenly he said “HELLO aunty” to me and gave me a perversive stare.   His mother looked even more worried and her eyes switched from her son to me endless times. Thank God the lift door opened and I quickly bade good bye to B and my neighbor.  Thank God that B did not try to act funny again.   Once we were out from the lift, Cass looked at me and gave me a relief look and smile.  I praised her for not screaming and for acting so calmly.  My girls know that B is mentally challenged and initially Sherilyn and Cass would run away from him as he is very fond of barging into our house whenever he sees the girls.   May God bless that boy and hopefully he will grow up normally without harming anyone.

No. of times viewed = 265

Projects Weekend

I thought I could have a relaxing weekend but it turned out to be a busy one for me.  I spent my Friday night, Saturday and Sunday helping Alycia and Sherilyn  with their school project. Alycia’s Kajian Tempatan project was on the different types of houses found in Malaysia and Sherilyn’s Science project was on objects that emit light.

As it was the girls’ first project, I had to teach them from scratch on how to google for the pictures and information. Alycia needed about 10 pictures and Sherilyn needed about 20 pictures of those objects.  After googling for the pictures, Alycia and I spent almost an hour on Friday night, trying to figure out how to switch the keyboard on the laptop from English language to Chinese.  Again, I googled for instructions but that did not help.  I also sought help from a good blogger friend. She too gave similar instructions and we had no success either. Finally, Alycia found a  really tiny icon at the bottom centre of the task bar and voila, SUCCESS and VICTORY! She was jumping in joy when she finally discovered how to do it.  It is always hard to find that little small button, you get what I mean? But when you find it, voila, happiness muahahahah! 😉   And I wonder why no one ever posted in the internet that all it takes is only a click on the tiny little button on the task bar to switch languages on the keyboard?!

After the girls were done with saving their project files in a thumb drive from the laptop, I tried to open the files on my desktop so that I could print them out from the printer attached to my desktop but shoots, all that appeared on my desktop were funny symbols, a sign that the laptop and the desktop had programs that were incompatible!!  The words appeared nicely but the pictures were a messy cluster of weird symbols.  Long story cut short, we skipped church and I spent the entire morning re-doing the girls’ projects for them on the desktop, at lightning speed.

Check out how horribly messy the dining table was yesterday, covered with tuition books, school books, project papers, food, tea cups, laptop, gawd, such an eye-sore sight.  Thankfully Alycia is a neat and clean freak and she is always the one who would tidy up the table before dinner.  The other 2 rascals can even eat at the table with plates and bowls placed on top of the books, which often makes me holler at them!

Both Alycia and Sherilyn managed to complete their projects on time, for submission today, albeit we had to stop to entertain some guests who dropped by for dinner yesterday, phew!  And Sherilyn left the dining table  filled with sticky specks of colorful glittery pen dust. She did clean up the table but as always, I had to clean up again after her cleaning up!

After going through 3 days with my girls on their school projects, both the hubs and I agree that our next project is to buy another desktop and printer to prevent another tug of war, which sounded like a real domestic war when Alycia and Sherilyn argued  and fought with each other over my desktop and printer!

No. of times viewed = 583

Flashback of Happy Memories

This Thermos flask is the first ever thermos food jar that I bought for Alycia. I bought it when she first started to eat solids at 7 months old.  That was over 9 years ago, around July 2004.  It is my most trusted thermos flask as it could keep her food warm for 5-6 hours. It is also one of my best investments for my girls.  Though quite costly, it is nonetheless worth every sen spent as it has faithfully kept the food for my 3 babies warm for so many years.

I had given away most of the baby toys, car seats, strollers, clothes, baby cots, play pen, etc. that once belonged to my 3 girls but I still find it too sentimental to part with this Thermos flask. It still looks new and can still function very well in keeping food warm.

The other day, I heated up some homemade fried noodles for Sherilyn to bring to school and that was when I fished out this Thermos flask. I have not used it for years, ever since I stopped bringing homemade baby food for Cass for meals out of the house.  The sight of this flask, which looks like Pooh Bear’s honey jar always brings me a flood of happy memories I have had with Alycia, Sherilyn and Cass when they were babies and toddlers.

I think I am going to keep this for my future grandchild, if my daughters would approve of it in future haha!

For those of you with school-going kids, today is the last day of school for the third school term.  For us, the holiday would begin next Wednesday, yipeeeeeee!!

Happy weekend everyone!

No. of times viewed = 516

Ridiculously Expensive Hawker’s Food

This morning after sending Cass to school, I had breakfast with the hubs at a nearby food court.  I have not gone to this food court for many years, albeit we do drive past it everyday.   After walking around the food court for 15 minutes, having a very hard time to decide what to eat, I finally ordered a bowl of pork vermicelli with so-called herbal soup and hubs ordered char koay teow.  The char koay teow stall was manned 100% by an Indon helper. She even fried the char koay teow.

When the bowl of pork noodles came, my jaw almost dropped when the Indon helper told me that it cost RM7 a bowl! For such  run-of-the-mill pork noodles with only an egg added, it cost a freaking RM7!!  Oh yes, I chose herbal soup and the soup was super salty and oily and tasted nothing near to herbal soup.   When the char koay teow arrived, we had another shock when we were told to pay RM6 for a regular  plate of char koay teow. Hubs requested for extra bean sprouts but we did not see any extra bean sprouts on the plate of noodles.  Next unbelievable moment was the glass of barley which cost RM1.40 and it was super sweet.

Does this bowl of noodles look like it cost RM7? Yes if I ate it in an air-conditioned restaurant or shopping mall.

RM6 for a regular size plate of char koay teow at a non air-conditioned  food court – would I be going there again?  I’d rather pay a few more Ringgit more to enjoy my favorite  char koay teow from The Little Penang Cafe @ Mid Valley Megamall!

I think that is the last time the hubs and I step foot into this food court.

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HEALTH FREAK MOMMY