July 2014 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

A Day At The Popular Book Fest 2014 – 29 July 2014

As planned, we left the house at 9ish am today to escape the crawl into KLCC. Traffic was pretty good and we breezed into the KLCC car park.

This is the KL skyline at 10am, which was very hazy and not a single cloud was seen in the sky.

We charged the English books level first and the girls scooped over 20 books from this section!

Roald Dahl, Wimpy Kids, 39 Clues, Geronimo Stilton and most of the popular kids story books are on a 25% discount! Alycia and Sherilyn were on cloud 9 at the book fest! It was like a dream come true for them when their daddy gave them the green light to fill up the trolley luggage bag that we brought along with books!

Enid Blyton hard cover books going for RM8 each for purchase of 2 and above!

Some of the activities lined up at the book fest — experiments for kids and cook shows.

All the halls were sardine-packed with book lovers. I could hardly stretch out my arms at the halls. Every available space was filled up by people. I hate being in such a horribly crowded place but the strong air-conditioning and good ventilation made our 2-hour shopping spree bearable.

Part of our loot, from the English books section only. Next, we charged the Chinese books section, the school workbooks section and lastly, the stationery section. Hubs had never been that patient doing shopping (for 2 long freaking hours!), all for his 3 princesses.

Alycia and Sherilyn the moment we reached home…

Part of the girls’ loot…

Flavours magazines for the foodie hubs.

Tumblers of various brands are going at half price. I got this Gemeilia tumbler for Cass at only RM8 (half the price of RM15.90). I wanted to grab a Paul Frank tumbler for myself and get more BROS tumblers but I was worried that hubs would flip when he pays for them. So I placed all the tumblers back with a heavy heart. He had earlier paid RM400+ for a bag full of books *GULPS*!

I also bought workbooks for the 3 girls to be used for next year. All workbooks are discounted and some with a 50% discount.

The total damage at the Popular Book Fest was about RM500 and the amount that we saved is substantial.

After spending 2 hours at the book fest, we went to Isetan to have lunch at the Japanese eatery, did some grocery shopping and then had tea and cakes at Harrods Cafe.

When we left KLCC 5 hours later, our car park bill was a choking RM16!!

Would we come back again next year? Tempted too but I really hated the crowd at KLCC. It is bad this time as it is the long Hari Raya holiday. It was a sea of people at the entire KLCC and the Convention Centre. The majority of the people at KLCC were foreign laborers. We had to inch our way up the escalators, queue up to use toilets and I had a phobia of losing sight of my girls. When the queue at one of the toilets was too long, I went to the pay toilets and was told to pay RM8 for my girls and I to use the toilets! I rolled my eyes and walked up the escalator to find another toilet. I spent over half an hour just to bring my girls to pee, shoots!

I hope you’ve had an enjoyable and relaxing Raya holiday. Tomorrow Cass has to attend kindy while her 2 che ches are off school until Sunday.

The Popular Book Fest held at the KL Convention Centre is ongoing until Sunday, 3 August 2014. If you want to breeze your way into the KLCC, plan and start your journey early. Be sure to reach the place before 10am. Have a good breakfast at home first to get the energy that you need to walk, scramble your way and wade through the flood of people and to shop for at least 2 hours 😉

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Day 1 Of Our Raya Holiday, 28 July 2014

We left the house at 11ish am for KLCC today. Alycia has been bugging us for weeks to go to the 2014 Popular Book Fest. When we were about to reach KLCC, the roads leading into KLCC were all jammed up. Hubs said that it would be crazy to join in the craze and be part of the crowd. First our car would have to crawl into KLCC or KL Convention Centre at snail’s pace. Then we would have to brave our way into the Convention Centre. Outside KLCC was a sea of people, made up mostly of foreign workers. It was scary to see KLCC flooded with so many people! He suggested that we go for lunch instead and to leave the house at 9am tomorrow for the book fest.

So we detoured from KLCC and went to ACME Bar & Coffee for a sumptuous lunch. After lunch, we went to China Town as MIL wanted to get some flowers.

For dinner today, we had a simple one at our favorite neighborhood coffee shop.

The blackish dish in the foreground is stuffed whole brinjal with fish paste and is so delish!

The bookworm of the house, burying her face in her storybook even when she eats!

At home, the girls kept themselves really busy making Rainbow Loom bracelets, with tutorials from You Tube. They were fighting for the Rainbow Loom kit as I only bought one. For challenging designs, the kit must be used. So tomorrow I’ll get them another kit. There goes my RM40, to buy peace at home. Would you do that too?

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PULP By Papa Palheta @ Bangsar

The foodie hubs brought us to this new cafe that boasts to serve one of the best gourmet coffee in town. We went to PULP last Tuesday morning, which was a public holiday.

When we were outside the cafe, for a moment, I had second thoughts about the cafe, given that this cafe is located at a very unlikely place – at a printing factory vicinity! From the facade, it does not look impressive to me.

But I should not have judged the book by its cover just yet, not until I stepped inside.

According to hubs, this cafe opened with a big buzz with famous people attending the opening.

Pulp is located behind the NSTP (New Straits Times Press) building in Bangsar, a standalone building which is previously a storage facility that belongs to the printing press factory next door.

This independent coffee boutique is operated by the respected Singaporean boutique Papa Palheta, the people behind Chye Seng Huat Hardware and Loysel’s Toy cafes, specializing in roasting and purveying specialty coffee.

I would never have guessed that this is a cafe from the outside! It looks like a factory canteen to me honestly!

But this is how is looks like inside. Pretty impressive!

Specially brewed, thick and aromatic coffee that we ordered. Our girls hijacked our coffee as usual!

Actually we did not plan to have breakfast at PULP. We wanted to have steamboat for brunch at a Japanese restaurant but it was not opened yet. To kill time, hubs brought us to PULP to sip some coffee and indulge in some cakes. This is his interpretation of a public holiday – eat, drink coffee and relax! This man of mine lives to eat, unlike his wifey. He ordered cakes but these days, I am not in the mood to eat creamy carbs. But what the heck, life is short and unpredictable. So what if I gain a pound in a day? So just whack la! lol!

Scones…

And quiche…

Will we go there again? Yes likely, given that hubs, mil and I are all coffee lovers (not to mention the girls), the persnickety hubs and mil love their gourmet coffee and this cafe is not too far from where we stay. So yea, we will probably pop by at Pulp again soon!

Pulp By Papa Palheta
29-01, Jalan Riong, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-2201-3650

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Hectic Day

The past few days have been hectic for me. I have been in a checking + packing frenzy, to rush out my customers’ orders. Total is the last day for courier pick up before the Hari Raya holiday. Since last week, I have been receiving stock from my supplier almost everyday. The house is in a mess. Clothes and parcels are everywhere. On the dining table – the girls’ school books and workbooks are piled high up. It’s the exam week for Alycia and Sherilyn. Everyone in the house has been busy busy busy! I am a ONE LEG KICK ~~entrepreneur~~ work-from-home-mum with no help.

This is part of my customers’ parcels for Pos Laju collection today…

The past few days, I have been churning out smoothies for the girls. This is just what they need now – an extra boost of vitamins and antioxidants to fight the exam stress and haze.

Today I made ice-blended orange + pineapple + chia seeds + fresh coconut water and coconut flesh smoothie with our Blendtec blender. Love this blender as it can churn out 3-4 glasses of smoothie at the touch of a button. Boost Juice uses Blendtec too. And it is super easy to clean!

This glass of immune system booster, blended with all natural goodness is so refreshing and good to the last drop.

And this is kept in a glass bottle in the fridge, for Sherilyn when she comes home in the evening…

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Eve Of The Girls’ Exam

It’s the exam season once again. My desktop PC was dominated by Alycia and Sherilyn for the past 2 days. I prefer to use online Tatabahasa notes (mostly prepared by teachers) to guide the girls as there are more visuals to accompany the notes and they remember better when shown information in colorful slides. Sample UPSR test papers can also be found and printed online.

It is only now that I get to warm my seat and have control over my PC and it is slightly over 11pm now. I have only 15 minutes to do a short post before I hit the sack. My day begins at 4:45am once again tomorrow.

It’s the eve of Alycia and Sherilyn’s exam today and as usual, they only started to feel a slight pressure to do some serious revision at the eleventh hour. Someone still daydreams and needs me to gawk at her like a hawk. Each time I leave the table, her mind and eyes will stray off! She is like an airplane that needs close monitoring on the radar. I felt like strangling her!! It is me who always likes early preparation but not my girls. Nothing that I say would make them panic and start preparing earlier. I always tell them the rules of reaping what you sow but they are still as cool as cucumbers! *roll eyeballs*! I hope Cass will be easier to manage next year.

Despite being the eve of their exam, we had a nice dim sum lunch at a Chinese restaurant today and then went groceries shopping at Bangsar Village.

Dinner was strictly no cooking as I did not want to do much washing. I wanted to use my golden hours to do as much revision as I can with Alycia and Sherilyn. There are so many topics to cover and I think I missed out some.

So for dinner, I ordered Papa John’s pizza to be delivered to us.

Good luck girls and I really hope you will remember all your last minute stuffing and overloading of information tomorrow!

And to those with kiddos sitting for their exams tomorrow, all the best to your kids too! 🙂

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Mommy’s Simply Whack Pizza

This is my simply whack homemade pizza for lunch today…

I used Mission wholegrain wraps as the crust and it turned out to be very crrrrrrispy!

Sauce base is tomato paste for Alycia and homemade pesto sauce for Cass.

Toppings are fresh button mushrooms, sweet corn kernels, juicy sweet cherry tomatoes and Emborg Natural Cheddar Cheese Slices.

Preparation time = 15 minutes

Baking time in oven at 160 degrees Celsius = 15 minutes

Alycia and Cass loved this simply whack, cincai pizza. I think this is anytime better than store-bought pizzas! 😛

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Ecover Cleaning Products Give-Away – Reminder For Closing Date!

Ding dong ding dong, ding ding dooooooong!!

Announcement: 7 more days to the closing date for submission of the Ecover cleaning products give-away!

If you are do not already know, Ecover is now having a give-away in my blog for 3 lucky winners.

1st lucky winner gets to receive one bottle of lemon & aloe vera washing up liquid (dishwashing liquid) worth RM18.90
2nd lucky winner gets to receive one bottle of camomile and marigold washing upliquid (dishwashing liquid) worth RM18.90 and
3rd lucky winner gets to receive one bottle of cream cleaner worth RM12.80

Since 1980, Ecover is the world’s best known brand of environmentally friendly household cleaning products. Ecover products are made in Belgium and the bottles are made from sugar cane-based polyethylene and are 100% recyclable!

How Do You Stand A Chance To Win?

All you have to do is to comment in this post with a slogan (not more than 100 words) as to why you deserve a bottle of Ecover dishwashing liquid or cream creamer.

Closing date for submission of slogan is 23 July 2014 and I shall announce the winners in a separate blog post.

Hurry submit your slogans now. Just click on ‘Leave A Comment’ to type out your e-slogan. Each reader is allowed to submit only one slogan ya.

You can read more on Ecover’s give-away and leave your comment / slogan here

Good luck! 🙂

No. of times viewed = 366

Looming Danger In Rainbow Loom?

My girls have finally been bitten by the Rainbow Loom bug! When Rainbow Loom first landed in Malaysia some time last year and became popular amongst kids and adults, I did not buy my girls a set. Reason being this el cheapo mummy said it was just too expensive. I ain’t going to splurge over RM100 on colorful rubber bands!

Now that the Rainbow Loom bubble is almost bursting and is sold very cheaply almost everywhere, I bought them 2 packs, which cost less than RM10 a pack for a few hundred bands. I got the Rainbow Loom bands from Art Friend @ Gardens Mid Valley.

Cass was immediately addicted to it. The moment we brought the Rainbow Loom bands home, she quickly hopped over to You Tube to search for online tutorials on how to tie them into bracelets. Within an hour, she made 2 bracelets! This girl sure has nimble fingers and good dexterity.

She made over 10 bracelets and gave them to her 2 che ches, teachers and friends.

Cass bugged me to buy her more Rainbow Loom bands in other colors but wait, there is looming danger in these bands!

Just a few days after Cass got hooked on these colorful bands, news on a boy who got blinded in one eye by the Rainbow Loom and another boy’s finger turned black after a Loom band was tied to his finger flooded Facebook and the media. I showed the pictures of the 2 boys who got injured to Cass. My mil also read the news in the Chinese newspapers.

Do you allow your kids to play with Rainbow Loom? This hobby is way healthier than being hooked on the idiot box and other electrical gadgets. But there is a looming danger too in these pretty Rainbow Loom bands. Sigh! Cass told me that she would wear goggles should she want to tie the Rainbow Loom bands.

So how now brown cow? Loom or no loom now? What say you?

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Black Monday

Black Monday and Monday Blues, that’s how my Monday is today.

Damn that alarm clock of mine, that died down on me, it failed to wake me up again! I always have my mobile phone alarm as back-up to wake me up but dang it, I had left it at my work desk last night!

So instead of waking up at 4:45am, I was jolted up from bed at 6:15am when I took a closer look at the damn alarm clock in the still of the darkness. With just 15 minutes before the transporter arrived, I quickly woke Alycia and Sherilyn up. Told them to settle their drinks themselves. No time for breakfast. No time to dilly dally. No time to even poo. They just had to get dressed up first and do the rest later, if they have the time. Poor girls didn’t even get to eat breakfast.

I felt as if I was rushing to catch a train or plane that was about to leave. But we managed to reach the lobby just in the nick of time, phew! I. Hate. Waking Up Late!

Today’s mission is to buy another alarm clock. Perhaps I should even buy two alarm clocks as back-up!

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Best Mother In The Whole Wide World

I am supposed to be doing something more important now but I have to journal this down in my blog so that when Cass grows up and reads this, this post will serve as a reminder to her of what she had said to me when she was 6 years old.

And Cassandra, you better keep your words. If you ever forget, this is what you said to mummy on this Sunday night, 13 July 2014:

You kept telling me this and even made out a song and sang it out earnestly to me:

“Mummy, you are the best mother I could ever ask for (you kept repeating this line non-stop like a parrot, lol!). You are the best mother in the whole wide world and best mother on this planet. You have done everything to save my life and to save me from trouble and pain. I would never want to see you get hurt, harm or die. I never want to leave you. When I grow up, I want to write a book on you – the best mother I could ever ask for!”

Your last sentence on you writing a book about me made my eyes wet a little and I smiled a little. And we prayed together a little before I tucked you to bed.

And you have also said this to me umpteen times: “mummy, when I grow up, I want to buy a big bungalow and I want you to stay with me and cook for me. I love your cooking”

This is you, my adorable baby girl, when you were about 3 months old, to one of your never-ending hospital visits. Though we had to go through countless number of painful days and moments together, I still loved being with you every moment of your life.

May you be blessed by the good Lord with many, many more years of healthy and happy life 🙂

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Baked Mission Wraps With Beef Bolognese and Tuna Mayo

Alycia and Cass liked the beef bolognese wraps that I made two days ago so much that they have been pestering me to make them again.

Since the MIL has a date with her friends tonight and did not cook, I made this sweat-free delish baked wraps again. Sherilyn the social butterfly has gone on a date with her bff, B… again! Hubs has gone on a date with his bunch of basketball mates. And I had a dinner date with just my 2 sweetie-pies tonight 🙂

I used Mission wholegrain wraps.

Three pieces were wrapped with leftover beef bolognese and the other three pieces were wrapped with tuna mayo. They were baked in the oven at 160 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes.

The wraps were very crispy and the tuna mayo ones tasted like crispy spring rolls. The ones with beef bolognese and cheese fillings tasted like lasagne. The 2 fussy pots enjoyed their simple and delish dinner very much!

Now that the 2 girls are well fed and happy, I have to continue stock-checking and packing my customers’ parcels. Tomorrow will be revision day with Alycia and Sherilyn as their 3rd term exam is in a week’s time.

Happy weekend peeps! 🙂

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My Little Model

It’s been a while since Cass last modeled for my online store. Since she was 2.5 years old, she has been modeling for me and she actually enjoys her freelance job with a little rewards from me hehe. She would blow my top at times when she refused to cooperate.

In the first 4 pictures below, Cass was about 2.5 years old – 3 years old. All these pix appeared in my online store site.

The seductive Marilyn Monroe pose @ 3 years old, lol!

Cass, 4 years on, modeling on some newly arrived kids apparel…

My baby girl looks SO matured and grown up here… no longer with a baby face but still, I will always treat her like a baby ♥♥

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My Bad Tuesday, Not That Bad After All

Today has been a bad day for me. I wasted over 10 hours of my precious time salvaging and restoring my precious photos that had been posted in my recent and previous blog posts for all my 3 blogs. All these photos were uploaded at Photobucket.

And I feel SO SO tricked. Photobucket is a scam! It lures you with free upload of photos up to a certain bandwidth, after which, when you exceed the bandwidth, the links of all the photos in your blog linked to Photobucket will be disconnected until you buy their service, in USD! In other words, Photobucket is trying to corner you. If you have a blog and your photos are uploaded using Photobucket, you will have very little choice but to buy their service just so your photos remain in your blog. This is not the case with the old Picasa. I used to upload my photos using the old Picasa. Though I had exceeded my bandwidth with the old Picasa, all my earlier photos were still intact in my blogs. The only thing is I could no longer upload new photos.

With Photobucket, I feel so tricked. And I am so not going to buy their monthly or yearly subscription, NEVER, period!

While googling how best to store and upload my photos, I discovered the new Picasa via plus.google. If I did not read or misinterpret it wrongly, there is unlimited storage space, thanks to Google! 🙂

So while I was sorting out my photos, I found these old photos of my 3 darlings when they were toddlers.

Looking at these photos make me miss their baby and toddler days so much!!

Alycia was such a gorgeous baby!!

And so is Sherilyn! And my baby Cass!

My head feels so heavy now, after spending the whole freaking day trying to do ‘reimplantation’ to my photos, by trying to out-trick Photobucket, using some of the skills that I discovered via trial and error in my 7 years of blogging. For photos that I cannot ‘reimplant’, I had to re-upload them all over again. The more I think of it, the more irate I get! In fact, some of my old blogs posts are without photos, no thanks to Photobucket and I will just leave them as they are as I just don’t have the time to upload them again, one by one. But it is always through failure that one finds a better way of doing things and I am so glad that I discovered another better way of uploading my photos. Hopefully, the new Picasa and plus.google will not disappoint me in time to come.

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Blueberry Overnight Oats For Breakfast On A Hazy Morning

Everyone at home is under the weather, with cough, phlegm and runny nose. The weather is partly to be blamed, plus I must admit that we all over-indulged in musang-king and red prawn DURIANS 😀

Today is pretty hazy and I think the haze is back again after giving us a respite for a week.

I did not feel like eating anymore durians this morning, though there are still some more left in the fridge. Much as I love gorging myself sinfully with durians, my body is unable to take the heatiness, sadly 🙁 So I had my cold and creamy overnight oats, soaked with macadamia nuts, pistachios, bananas and topped with fresh blueberries for my mid-morning breakkie today.

photo 8650e6cc-4e86-41e3-934f-1b1fd8081d8c_zpsb6410ca3.jpg
And this was our brunch (only part of the food is shown in the below picture) at Sushi Zanmai @ Gardens yesterday. We were in so much luck yesterday as there was no queue yet outside Sushi Zanmai when we reached there at 10:45am, though it was already 90% occupied inside the restaurant. If you do not want the wait, I would advise you to reach there before 11am.

The lobster was so so succulent and yummeh! I really don’t mind eating this 3x a day for a week! Looking at the food is already making my tummy growl now! But I need my beauty sleep more before I turn into a walking zombie tomorrow. Nite nite everyone!

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Splashing Good Time

Here is Cass having a splashing good time with B, her friend living in the same block as ours yesterday…

photo Cassswimswithbelle_zps0bf3af67.jpg

B is a few months older than Cass and a better swimmer than Cass.

Cass seems to get her breathing technique wrong and she would struggle to breathe in air at the 2nd or 3rd head turning whenever she swims free-style.

And I just discovered a way for her to overcome her phobia — by letting her swim and play with B.

B likes to jump into the water. Cass likes to follow suit and would jump after B jumps in. This way, I could see that Cass is overcoming her phobia in a relaxed and fun environment when her swimming instructor is not there. Also, with peer pressure, we all tend to perform better under ‘good stress’ 🙂

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Eventful & Frightful Day For Alycia

Today Alycia’s transporter arrived at our condo about half an hour late after school. When I picked her up at the lobby, Alycia who looked dazed said this to me the moment she saw me “mummy, something REALLY BAD happened right in front of my face!”

I thought it was those pesky giant ghost moths again as those moths have been swarming and invading our condo lately and scaring us out of our pants when they fly out from no where like a ghost and flutter their black wings right in front of us.

But no. It was much worse.

Me – did the big ghost moth flutter its wings at your face??

Alycia – NO NO!! My friend N vomited blood and she choked. Then aunty J stopped the van at the roadside and asked for help. She was jumping, crying, praying and everyone in the van cried!! She kept screaming for help at the road side!

Me – (SHOCKED!!) What happened? How is N now? Why did she vomit blood? Did you & Sherilyn cry too?

Alycia – no we didn’t cry but I am….errr…. gosh! (very very traumatized!) You know, there was SO. MUCH. BLOOD!! N vomitted SO MUCH BLOOD!! I thought she was going to die!!

According to Aunty J (whom I called later to get the details) and Alycia, N started to vomit in the van and then all of a sudden, she choked. This happened near the school. Aunty J stopped her van and sought help from passers-by and stall owners. N kept complaining that she could not breathe and kept saying “I choked”. Aunty J then asked N to put her finger into her throat to try to gag herself to induce vomiting. And guess what N did? She put her entire hand in and then vomited lots of blood! Some passers-by gave her plain rice to swallow, which she did. She vomited food and lots of slimy blood according to Aunty J.

A good samaritan who happened to be a parent from the school helped to bring N to the nearest hospital while Aunty J followed his car from behind. Aunty J told me that she was delirious and absolutely shaken. She said that she should not have cried, which made most of the kids in the van cry too. Outside the hospital, she left the van engine turned on and locked the door with all the kids in the van. She then followed the samaritan with N to the hospital’s A&E.

N is now at the hospital and according to Aunty J who visited her in the hospital, she is still waiting for the doctor to do a thorough check-up on her.

Gawd, that was really a very, very terrifying experience for everyone in the van today. I pray that all is well with N and that nothing serious has happened internally. And I pray that this will never happen to my girls too. I think I will probably faint if I get a call on my phone conveying this sort of news to me.

No. of times viewed = 1859