Month: April 2018

DIY Essential Oil Deodorant Spray

We all know that store bought deodorants contain harsh chemicals that may disrupt hormones, mess with your microbiome and may even cause cancer. Paraben, aluminium, triclosan, phthalates, synthetic fragrance, among other chemicals, are the main suspects.

Some of the ingredients in commercial deodorants are just a term that actually comprise other numerous ingredients – take fragrance for example, it goes by other names such as perfume and parfum. It’s a term that represents a long list of undisclosed synthetic chemicals such as phthalates, aldehydes, benzenes and other toxic substances that have been linked to allergies, dermatitis, reproductive problems and more.

If these compounds are of concern to you, ditching all underarm deodorant products is the only way to ensure you’re not exposing yourself to potentially toxic chemicals.  If you sweat and smell a lot and really need to use a deodorant, at least try to shop for fragrance-free and natural deodorant.  Read the labels and choose products labeled paraben, triclosan and fragrance-free.  The more people spend their money on products that don’t contain these chemicals, the more manufacturers will move away from using them.

Better yet, you can make your own deodorant using only natural ingredients! I’ve made my own deodorant spray and it is SO EASY and FAST to make it!  Just a few minutes  and voila, you have your own chemical-free spray deodorant that smells heavenly.

This essential oils deodorant spray recipe contains  just two ingredients yet it still works well. Beat that!

DIY Essential Oil Deodorant Spray Recipe
This essential oil deodorant spray recipe is made up of  2 ingredients such as:

  • witch hazel: a natural astringent that shrinks the pores on the armpits hence controlling over-sweating. It also acts as an emulsifier to combine the essential oils
  • essential oils: have great scents that keep skin smelling clean fresh and scented, are powerful antioxidants that protect the sensitive skin, are strong antimicrobial and antiseptic agents that fight off bacteria responsible for bad body odor

What You Need:
Witch Hazel (you can get it from iHerb or Lazada. I got mine from Lazada.)
50 ml spray bottle (where to get it)
Essential oil funnel (where to get it)

Essential Oil Blends For Deodorant (where to get them):
10-20 drops lavender
10-20 drops lemon
10-20 drops peppermint
5-10 drops Frankincense
5-10 drops lemon grass

Method
Pour witch hazel into a  spray bottle using a funnel. Fill up to 3/4 of the bottle.
Drop essential oils into spray bottle.
Shake well before using.
That’s it! Spritz once or twice on each armpit then let it dry.
Store your essential oil deodorant spray in a cool dry place, away from direct sunlight.
One spritz can last for about 6 – 8 hours, depending on the amount of physical activity you do that day.

This recipe works LIKE A CHARM on me! I sweat buckets and smell but not anymore now.  My two teenage girls also use it.

You can play around with a wide range of essential oils for your DIY deodorant spray.  Eucalyptus, ylang ylang, grapefruit, orange, geranium, etc.  Once you’ve tried your own DIY spray deodorant, you wouldn’t want to use chemical-laden store-bought ones.

A note of caution: be sure to get your essential oils that are pure and are of therapeutic grade from reputable sources.   Cheap essential oils are adulterated and contain pesticides that may cause harm to your body.

Let me know if you need help to get the essential oils. I can get them for you at wholesale price. Just drop me an email at shireenyong@gmail.com.

You can also click here  to sign up as member (signing up online is so easy and fast!) to enjoy purchases at discounted prices with freebies or Whatsapp / call me at 019 266 4290.

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Colorful Meals

Eating colours is always a very good idea and I take great pains to ensure that my girls and I do.  Even on super busy days, I include an organic raw tomato into their fruit box.  I prep a fruit box or a smoothie  for the girls every day. In fact raw tomatoes are a staple in our fridge and the girls and I eat them every other day.

Yesterday was a very colorful day for us.  Each and every meal that we had was colorful 🌈

As it is often said, eat the rainbow to ensure that you are feeding your body super nutrients that equip your cells like defense weapons against every day stressors and aging. Eating a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables will maximize the body’s ability to heal daily and prevent against all forms of diseases and cancers.

The first meal of the day at 5:15 a.m. for Cass was a  slice of wholemeal bread with butter and avocado. Half a banana. Bananas are good and inexpensive prebiotics to include in our diet.  Prebiotics are food for probiotics, the good bacteria in our guts.  Lunch box for recess for Cass was organic buckwheat noodles seasoned with sesame seed oil, sesame seeds, organic soy sauce and Korean seaweed.

Alycia had a wholewheat English muffin with butter and avocado for breakfast.

Fruit of the day was smoothie ~ a blend of apples, oranges, organic New Zealand spinach, juice from one lemon, Manuka honey and a powerful shot of Ningxia Red from Young Living.  NingXia Red is a powerful juice drink that contains whole Ningxia wolfberry puree — a super blend of blueberry, aronia, cherry, pomegranate, and plum juices, natural stevia extract, grape seed extract, pure vanilla extract, and orange, yuzu, lemon, and tangerine essential oils.

Let me know if you want me to help you buy Ningxia Red at wholesale price (email shireenyong@gmail.com).

Tea time for me was boiled purple sweet potato and a bowl of red soup of beet root and carrots.

Dinner was yet another traffic light colors meal consisting of sauteed organic NZ spinach, onion egg omelette and Tomyam fish with colorful vegetables (brinjal, tomatoes, ladies fingers).

I love everything colorful, including my meals. Just looking at these bright colors set me in a good mood.

Eat the rainbow 🌈:
It’s no secret that eating the rainbow can help you succeed with your weight loss goals, not to mention the array of nutrients you feed your body. And coat your body with the nutrients it needs. These colorful benefits can strengthen your immune system, promote a healthy heart, create radiant skin, and even help you live longer.

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Tuesday, 24 April 2018

It’s day two of Cass’ first term exam and she sat for her Chinese Understanding, Chinese Writing and Moral papers today. Chinese has always been the toughest subject for Cass, so is BM. She hardly reads Chinese and BM novels. She barely ever talks in BM,  does not attend BM tuition and the only practice that she gets apart from the exercises from school is from the exercises that I give her from the BM workbooks that I bought from Popular Book Store. Before exam, I do some intensive exercises and revision with her for her BM subject and these sessions always jack up my blood pressure reading many notches up.

Breakfast for Cass was a slice of wholemeal bread spread with butter, avocado and hazelnut chocolate bread spread. And Izumio.  Lunch box for school recess is hot cross bun with herb cream cheese spread and avocado.

My brunch with the hubs at Good Taste:


While enjoying my bowl of sui kow, at the corner of my eye I spotted something black flapping its wings behind a packet of bread. I turned to my side and oh. my. gawd. I saw my no. 1 enemy on the wall and it was huge! It was flying towards my side. I told the hubs and he told the waitress who then nonchalantly put on a disposable plastic glove on one hand,  chased after the huge roach, caught the fler, squashed it maybe (I don’t know) and then dumped it into the big bin at the side of the restaurant. By then, I had already lost all my appetite and the hubs walloped the rest of the sui kow. What a terrible brunch I’ve had!

Thankfully the mil dished up a big pot of aromatic and colorful fried Basmati rice with curry leaves, French beans, traffic light colors bell peppers and diced pork and I had that for lunch.

Cass tends to be overly confident with her English papers and I usually do minimal revision with her. An hour max of going through English Grammar with her and giving her  some handy last minute reminders and pointers.  Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be English Paper 1 & Paper 2 and RBT.

I’ve done my utmost best and now it is all on this girl’s effort in self-revising and her memory retention power. I’ll see…

No. of times viewed = 12

DIY Natural Face Toner With Pure Essential Oils

I love using essential oils as part of my natural skincare routine. I have been using essential oils for over 2 years but I only started using it on a daily basis about a year ago. I have a bowl of essential oil blend in the bathroom that I would apply on my face and body after each shower. I apply it on Cass’ hair too to help detangle her hair.  It’s composed of extra virgin coconut oil and a mix of several essential oils. I change the scent every week.  I love simple and chemical free skincare and make-up.

Skin care is an important part of me. What you eat and put on your skin equal to how good your complexion and skin are. Plus your hormones. If your hormones do not wreck havoc, you will most likely have blemish-free skin if you follow a healthy diet and right skincare regimen.  Getting sufficient beauty sleep is very important as well for beautiful skin and complexion.

As part of my chemical-free journey, I made my own face toner for the first time.  And it’s SO EASY!  All it takes is a few minutes to concoct the face toner.  But getting started for the very first time takes some time. It took me a week to source for witch hazel and bottles at the most affordable prices.  Thankfully I have a good mentor who is guiding me and offering me advise.

It only took me a few minutes to prep my DIY face toner with 4 ingredients for a 50ml bottle. I made this face toner with Alycia in mind as she’s a sucker for skincare products.  She secretly uses my essential oils as perfume though I’ve told her umpteen times that my essential oils are expensive and not meant to be put on clothes as perfume. Oh lordy! No wonder my essential oils are finished SO fast!

What’s in this homemade facial toner?

Witch hazel – Witch hazel is a natural astringent that minimizes the appearance of pores, reduces inflammation and skin irritations, decreases oil and redness, and leaves skin feeling clean and refreshed.

Essential oils

Lavender essential oil ~ this is an all-around super powerhouse for skin care.  It’s gentle and great for all skin types.  It soothes and calms irritated skin.  It also has powerful antioxidants that slow aging.  And lavender improves the appearance of complexion, reduces redness, and fights acne.

Lemon essential oil ~ lemons are natural astringents. This makes them good for toning your skin, reducing oily skin, tightening large pores and firming the face. Lemon essential oil is one of the most powerful anti-acne essential oils. It contains powerful ingredients like antioxidants, vitamin C and citric acid which fight off acne causing germs and boost collagen production, thereby reducing scarring.

Note: Lemon essential oil is photosensitive. So do not apply it on your skin then expose that area to sunlight. Use it indoors or at night time for your skin/hair. If you’re planning on heading out, wash the area you’ve applied the lemon oil to very thoroughly.  We only use this toner at night.

Frankincense essential oil ~ this oil has the ability to strengthen skin and improve its tone, elasticity, defense mechanisms against bacteria or blemishes, and appearance as someone ages. It helps tone and lift skin, reduces appearance of scars and acne, and heals wounds. It can also be beneficial for fading of stretch marks, surgery scars or marks associated with pregnancy, and for healing dry or cracked skin.

Frankincense oil has been shown to help fight cells of specific types of cancer.  A 2012 study even found that a chemical compound found in frankincense called AKBA is successful at killing cancer cells that have become resistant to chemotherapy, which may make it a potential natural cancer treatment.

Here’s the DIY Face Toner Recipe:

  1. Fill a 50 ml bottle almost full with witch hazel. I use Thayers bought from Lazada. My friends get their Thayers witch hazel from iHerb. I did a comparison and found out that the price is the same and I got mine within 2 working days after payment to Lazada.
  2. add 10-15 drops each of Frankincense and lavender essential oils and 5 drops of lemon oil. (You can add 10 drops of tea tree / melaleuca oil if you have oily, acne / breakout prone skin)
  3. shake to mix.  And shake the bottle before each use.

To use, you can spray on a cotton swap and apply all over your face and neck after washing your face or simply spray some on your palm and apply the toner on your face and neck. Then follow with your normal facial moisturizer and the rest of the skin care routine.

Some recipes use apple cider vinegar in their DIY face toner. But I find the smell of ACV  a tad offensive to be left on my skin 🤧 Plus I know the girls will be turned off by the smell of ACV in the toner.

My next few projects will be to make a day time face toner which excludes photosensitive essential oils, a beauty serum and mouth rinse.

This DIY face toner with essential oils helps to restore your skin’s pH balance, shrinks pores, moisturizes and refreshes skin! It’s a vital part of a good skincare routine.

Next up in this blog is my DIY spray-on deodorant with essential oils.

If you are interested to get the essential oils from Young Living at wholesale price, I can help you.  Do drop me an email at shireenyong@gmail.com.  You can also click here  to sign up as member (signing up online is so easy and fast!) to enjoy purchases at discounted prices with freebies or Whatsapp / call me at 019 266 4290.

 

No. of times viewed = 49

Vitacare’s ‘Food For The Soul’ Event @ The Gardens Mall, 20 April 2018

I love attending Vitacare Pharmacy’s events and always look forward to receiving invites for its events which focus on healthy eating and living. I never fail to learn something new at each of its event.

The latest Vitacare event that I attended was held on 20 April 2018 at The Gardens Mall. Titled ‘Food For The Soul’, we were given tips on the preparation of easy yet wholesome meals using only natural and healthy ingredients. We  were also introduced to several healthy beverages made from superfoods carefully designed for the health of our guts and overall health of our body.

Good Morning brand range of nutritious beverages from V Grains 18 Grains purple beverage, V Halia 18 Grains ginger beverage, V Quinoa healthy snack and Amazin’ Graze granola (my absolute favorite brand of granola!) :

There was a demo  on how to use  V Grains purple powder to blitz up a delish snack / dessert, which provides so much sustenance that it can be eaten per se as a meal replacement for those on a diet.

Everyone was given a cup of  V Grains power-packed snack concocted by the team from Good Morning to bring home, together with a recipe book and CD. I was amazed to see how V Grains 18 grains powder can be used in so many creative ways to whip up an endless list of mouth-watering desserts and dishes.

VGrains 18 Grains is made up of 18 types of premium whole grains with 5 colours of phytonutrients. It is also added with 7 unique ingredients including purple sweet potato, blueberry, lutein, calcium, soya lecithin, prebiotic inulin and water soluble fibre.

A speaker explaining the importance of incorporating plant protein into our diet:

Beans, peas, nuts, seeds, soy and lentils are some of nature’s treasures. They are a powerhouse of good nutrition, a good source of plant protein, loaded with disease fighting phytonutrients, cholesterol-lowering fiber and naturally low in cholesterol and sodium.  A diet focusing on plant-based protein sources can be beneficial for helping to prevent diabetes, cardiovascular disease and mortality.

This nutritionist concocted a delish smoothie composed of plant protein powder + organic rolled oats + green leafy vegetables + a pinch of salt (blitzed together), flavored with raw cacao powder and raw nuts.

I was given the privilege to try the smoothie, right out of the blender. Though it’s thick and some thought it would taste yucky but surprise surprise, it was pretty good!  Nutty, oaty, chocolaty, milky and refreshing from the raw vegetables. This is a balanced cup of meal complete with carbs, protein and fiber, all in one.  And it’s super low in calories and fat too.  I had a cup of this and it  filled me up pretty well, so much that I wasn’t even hungry when it was time for lunch.

This V Quinoa 18 grains crunchy bars healthy snack from Good Morning got everyone raving about how delish it is. We were passing the bag of snack around and everyone just couldn’t get enough of it.  This product will only be officially available at selected supermarkets and pharmacies in June 2018.  It’s made from healthy legumes and grains and tastes like pop corn.  Our girls were fighting for the snack and it sure isn’t enough for the 3 piranhas haha!

Fibre Cleanse and Actizyme from New Morning ~ something for the health of your guts.

“You are what you eat”  Agree with me on this popular adage?

Yes and no.

It’s actually “you are what you digest and absorb”.  And this means you need to have healthy guts for good digestion, absorption and elimination. This is something that I learnt at the event from the nutritionist.

ActiZyme from New Morning is a premium, all-encompassing blend of digestive enzymes formulated to optimize the digestion of carbohydrates, proteins, fat, dairy, legumes, cruciferous vegetables, cereal grains and other foods.  ActiZyme is an advanced digestion supplement that combines DigeSEB with a proprietary blend of 22 natural and bioactive fruits and vegetables and concentrates.  This product is recommended for those who suffer from weakened or inflamed stomachs, pancreas or GI tract, the elderly who face declined digestive and absorption functions and for those who need the extra help to promote digestive and gut health and overall wellbeing.  If you’ve had a very heavy meal and need aid in digesting your food, ActiZyme might just be the solution 😉

For those of you who need a little nudge in your bowel movements, New Morning FibreCleanse Forte might just be the answer.  It helps to promote bowel regularity, promote healthy gut microbiata balance, healthy GI tract, better gut health and is 100% laxative with no laxative.  Made from 11 fruits, 11 vegetables and Moringa Oleifera extract, FibreCleanse Forte also helps to promote internal cleansing and detoxification.

Celebs and bloggers taking part in an experiment with ActiZyme:

It’s amazing to see that with ActiZyme added into a thick oat paste, the paste gradually melted and liquefied. That’s how the enzyme in ActiZyme digests food in our guts.

A group picture to conclude the Vitacare event. Can you spot me? 😆

VIPs at the event include Sarah Lian, a local and international actress and other celebs.

As with previous events, Vitacare is extremely generous with their goodie bags.  I always look forward to receiving it.  All the products promoted at the event were included in the goodie bag, yippee!   And an awesome bottle of high grade MGO 250+ Manuka honey from New Zealand too, which costs over RM100 a bottle!

 

 

Thank you very much once again Vitacare for having me at the event. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it and can’t wait to attend the next event 🤗

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Hump Day, 18 April 2018

Someone made my blood boil today, till I felt steam spewing out from my nostrils!  This girl is driving me insane with her daily dawdling and lackadaisical attitude towards punctuality, among other things.  Having the ‘privilege’ to attend school in the afternoon session has definitely made her a lounger. And going to a school that’s within the neighborhood makes it worse.  I’ve been reminding her that her 2 years of honeymoon period will end too soon (doesn’t time fly?) and she’s going to have a hard time readjusting her internal body clock and mentality when schooling time is back to morning session when she goes to Secondary 3.

After the entire morning dragging her feet and telling me three different time she needed to be in school for a dance competition practice with her friends (from 10 am to 11 am to 12 noon!), I was enraged. I waited for her the entire morning, only to be told  that she actually needn’t have to be in school in the morning. I could have gone out to run a few errands but I waited at home for her. I wasted my entire morning and the worst had yet to come.

She pestered me to get ready, which I already did like an hour ago but when we were at the front door of the house, she darted back into the house and guess what she did? She had forgotten to pack her bag!  She pulled out her time-table and had the cheek to pack her bag with me waiting furiously at the door!

Oh. My. Girl!!

When will she ever learn? I was so incensed that I barked at her non-stop from the house to school ~ a whole 10 minutes, lashing out on my stroppy and impassive teenager.

After dropping her off in school, the rage had already wiped out my appetite and mood completely. I could feel a slight throb in my head, caused by stress.  I went to the tai chau restaurant to meet the hubs for lunch anyway and swallowed down my food just to fill my tummy.

When I got back, I was still in a foul mood. The wind-down phase this time took quite a while. I needed to de-stress to get rid of the anger headache. I put a few drops of Young Living Stress Away and Peppermint essential oil into the diffuser, and took a short power nap on my Osim massage chair. I woke up feeling as right as rain 😊

 

Stress Away Essential Oil

 

Stress Away™ is the first product to contain the unique relaxing combination of  Lime and Vanilla pure essential oil. Other essential oils in Stress Away include Copaiba, Lime, Cedarwood, Vanilla, Ocotea and Lavender.  I love the scent of vanilla. It reminds me of mum’s homemade vanilla cake. Mum baked a lot of yummy cakes to fill our perpetually hungry tummies when we were growing up. She still bakes fantastic cakes now. Stress Away evokes a sense of relaxing, happy and feel-good hormones in me. Love it so much!

Just an update on my application for Drama Queen to be moved to the Dual Language Program (DLP) class in her school. She was finally ‘promoted’ to the DLP class last week, on Cass’ birthday! Am so happy for her. I hope she can continue to maintain  the required grades for all her subjects, failing which she will be kicked out of the DLP class to make way for better deserving students  😰

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Fast Food Scented Perfume

Pizza Hut scent perfume, Burger King Whopper scented perfume or Auntie Annie’s pretzel essential oil, anyone?  For fans of these popular fast food who are on a diet, you may be interested to get these perfume to help satiate your cravings. Just dab your favorite fast food scent on your wrist and smell the ravishing scent away any time of the day to tame your urge to bite into the real thing.

This intoxicating fragrance will leave you smelling like a greasy, artery-clogging, freshly sliced piece of pizza that just came out of the oven. Garlic stick cologne is available too! Ewwwww!

eau de pizza hut

Burger King releases Whopper-scented perfume

I think my hardcore pizza lover daughter would love to receive a bottle of pizza scent perfume on her next birthday! She thinks of pizza all the time. I saw her studying a Domino’s flyer while she was eating fruits last week. I think she was probably planning on what to order on our next home delivery pizza order. I bribed her with a promise that she could choose a pizza of her choice if she let me take a picture of her. She accepted the bribe and we had Domino’s pizza for dinner on Sunday 🙄

No. of times viewed = 32

Colorful Meals

I love colorful meals cooked using only naturally colored ingredients. I love colorful clothes too.  I just love anything that’s colorful as it makes my life more colorful! Bright colors make me happy.  Happy colors seem to do the magic in lifting me up from my doldrums. I have a ‘lucky dress’ which I will only wear when I desperately need luck.  It’s a colorful floral short dress. I treasure it and it’s an under RM50 dress from my online store.   Each time I wear it, I am lucky. I better not talk too much about it, lest I jinx it!

My two older daughters cringed when they saw the new car that their dad had bought for  me 4 years ago ~ in bright pink!   They are not so colorful inclined. They love black  and other earthy colors. That’s just so opposite me. But when it comes to food, everyone loves colorful meals. And it makes it easier for me to cook. I like adding tomatoes, carrots, traffic light colors bell peppers, beet root, etc to my dishes and I don’t get complaints from the 3 fussy pots.

On one of the days last week, I cooked macaroni beef bolognese for lunch. The girls’ grand aunt had given us a big pot of beef bolognese sauce. All I had to do the next day was to cook some macaroni al dente and mix it with the heated up beef bolognese sauce. The girls loved their lunch to bits.

As there was still a lot of macaroni left, I stir fried it with some colorful vegetables for dinner the next day.  I added some curry powder to give it that more-ishness since the girls love curry.

While the girls had macaroni beef bolognese for lunch, I had salad with beef bolognese sauce. My salad composed of organic alfalfa + onion sprouts, baby beet root, organic yacon, Korean kimchi, toasted almond strips and a little preserved Japanese anchovies.

I also made organic mulberry smoothie with mango, apples and orange, with a tinge of raw honey and Korean fruit vinegar. So refreshing and so colorful, iLike!

 

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Friday The 13th, 2018

Miss Eleventh Hour was almost late for her school’s Sports Day today. Last night I told her that I won’t be waking her up in the morning. She would have to learn to sleep early and rely on her alarm clock to wake up.  I told her that I can’t be following her to university next time just to ensure that she wakes up on time to attend classes! She’s got an issue with waking up early and I am still working on this area… after 10 freaking years! She had to be in school by 7:15 a.m. today and by the time I got back from my morning exercise at 7 a.m, she was still in bed! Just as I have guessed!  I hollered at her ears and she jumped out of bed, blamed me for not waking her up (hello, did I say I was going to wake you up?!) and for the first time, prepped herself in fast forward motion and we got out of the house at about 7:10 a.m.  Good thing she listened to her mom and is now studying at a school in the neighborhood.  It takes only under 5 minutes to reach school IF traffic is clear.

I tried to snap a pic of her furtively during the 10 seconds ride on the elevator from  the 5th floor to the basement but she some how felt it and dodged, dang it!   As she was super late, all she could afford to eat was a banana, instead of a proper breakfast. And she’s taking part in a few running events. Padan muka or not? Next time my dear girl, sleep early and you won’t even need an alarm clock. Your internal alarm clock will never fail you IF you have sufficient shut eye.  Trust me.

I had brunch with the hubs at a newly opened Yong Tau Fu shop at our neighborhood. I love it but the persnickety and critical foodie hubs commented that it’s only so-so.  He and his royal taste bud, really hard to satisfy him!

Despite having only a banana in her stomach, this girl managed to clinch a silver medal in the 4 x 100m event. Bravo my Sherilyn, you’ve definitely inherited mummy’s prowess in the track and field events!

After Drama Queen got back from school, I delegated some kitchen chores to her. She helped to blanch the macaroni and chopped the onion, garlic and carrots for fried macaroni. The mil had gone back to Ipoh, thus the reason why I had to cook dinner.

I quickly whipped up a quick fried macaroni with minced pork, garlic, onion, carrot, cucumber, yellow bell pepper, thyme and curry powder.

After cooking dinner, I chauffeured Alycia to the tuition center, then went to the pasar malam to get some fruits.

Later after picking up Alycia from the tuition center, she pestered me to bring her to the pasar malam to tuck into some of her favorite junk food. So off I went to the pasar malam again! We bought steamed fish balls and Japanese baby squids.

Life as a WFHM is an extremely mentally and physically exhausting job.  I go the whole hog from being the maid of the house to the nanny, the tutor, the driver, the cook, the PA (to the hubs and mil), confidante, to being the tushie washer. And by the time I’ve finished all these, I realized that I have neglected my own work, business and personal stuff.  And my sleep. I need my 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep. It looks like I can only get it after my youngest leaves the nest and that will be in another 10 years!

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Grocery Bill 2

Shopping for groceries is my almost daily affair. I get my dose of retail therapy even if it means shopping for groceries, in a chic and clean air conditioned supermarket that is, where I can get everything that I want and not in a stinky and hot wet market  😏 I know I am spoilt like that. But I do get sick of grocery shopping at times, especially when I know that the bill is going to break the bank, like when I need to get a bottle of extra virgin olive oil on top of a bottle of organic raw honey, a pack of organic blue pea + lemon grass tea, organic pork, fruits, et al. Imagine getting all these in a day and you haven’t even bought lunch, petrol and grab some stuff from the pharmacy. And the tuition and piano fees and it’s just the first week of the month. Wait, the van transporters’ fare too! Horror!

This is my grocery bill on 9 April 2018:

Only 10 items and the damage is RM100.19.  Remember the cheese that I bought on 5 April 2018? The moment I brought the groceries home, someone who was about to pack lunch to school quietly ripped off the packet of cheese and put 2 slices of cheese on only ONE slice of bread.  She got a tongue lashing from me and what do I know? Within 3 days, the packet of cheese was finished and none left for me. None!! Thank God I don’t really fancy cheese. It’s confirmed. I am living with a bunch of piranhas!  So honey, you see again? Your money has gone to these carnivorous piranhas on a feeding frenzy!

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Random Matters

Today is my baby girl’s first double digit birthday! Her 10th birthday! We’ve already had a first round of celebration with her on Saturday night and tonight will be another round of celebration. As tomorrow is a school-going day, we’re going to have dinner at our neighborhood Chinese restaurant. Someone is a tad reluctant to attend the dinner as she’s sitting for 3 test papers tomorrow. I told her to sacrifice her daily one hour regimen in the gym and another half an hour time spent on the phone and she will have time to study and attend her sister’s birthday dinner. There’s absolutely no excuse not to attend a family member’s birthday dinner. Priorities girl, priorities!

My slap-happy 10-year old girl left me speechless just a moment ago during Mandarin tuition at home. She only got a score of 43/100 for a past-year Chinese Paper 1. OH. MY. GIRL!! Her exam is in 2 weeks and this is the score that she got. And she’s so blasé about the borderline pass score by just laughing it off! This girl’s got her dad’s slap-happy DNA. This is her very first exam for this year and she’s only putting in 50% effort. The other 50% effort comes from me, the super kiasu and anxious mum. My mum has always been telling me to chillax and let my daughters be responsible over their own exam scores. I shouldn’t be stressing out myself. My doctor has told me not to stress myself out. I know I know. But I just can’t let go. How many more years do I have to stress myself out over them? I’ve seen SPM 3rd graders who went to university, graduated and got themselves jobs with high salaries. So, what am I still stressing out and can’t let go? Kiasu-nism I guess.

Maybe this is the year that I should let go and throw this kiasu-nism out of the window. Who knows, when Cass is not in the best class next year, I will be much more relaxed. God, I need you to help me let go!  😅

Lunch with hubs and Cass on our Sunday yesterday, just the 3 of us at Kokoro, a newly opened Japanese eatery at our neighborhood. Alycia and Drama Queen were at a bible study class in church and the mil stayed home to bake bread.

Dinner was fresh wholemeal bread with black pepper chicken chop (from the hubby’s kitchen), avocado, cheese and an assortment of raw salad. The girls prepped their own sandwiches.  Sunday is my rest day and they have to prep their own meals ☺

Everything organic ~ capsicum, kyuri, yacon and tomatoes. Even the bread is 95% organic. Chicken chop is non-organic.

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Grocery Bill

It’s been a while since I last posted about what’s in my daily groceries shopping cart!

Being a health freak mom who believes in eating natural and organic food with minimal to zero processed food, our monthly grocery bills exceed RM2,000 per month.  If we can afford going fully organic, our grocery bill will be double or even three times this amount!  And this is not inclusive of our supplements and other household items.

Hopefully our clean eating is our insurance to having good health with zero major ailments.

My shopping cart yesterday was pretty empty. It’s usually half full or full, filled with organic pork, chicken, milk, yoghurt, vegetables, nuts, seeds and the whole enchilada for our 3 growing piranhas.  Though I only bought 10 items (free range chicken eggs and almond strips not in the cart yet), the bill amounted to RM100.13!

Honey, you always wonder why you have to give me money everyday, nah the proof. No Hermes, no Versace and no luxury items. Just healthy stuff for your darlings.  Worth it, ain’t it? 😉

 

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Medical Check Up For 2018

I had my cholesterol and sugar blood work done two weeks ago.   Results are not too bad. Sugar reading is perfect at 4.9. Cholesterol reading is not too bad  at 6, despite me  being a carnivore the past one year, eating red meat like a tiger in a desperate attempt to increase my total blood count to evade a blood transfusion before my surgery on 31 May 2017.

I can’t believe that it’s almost going to be one year after the surgery. Where did time go?! At this time last year, I was a worrywart and nervous wreck, worried sick of an impending surgery.

After the laproscopy myomectomy, I continued feasting on red meat, eggs, red dates, red bean and everything red. Now that I am no longer anemic, I have to eat red meat sparingly and become a flexitarian again.

Today was my appointment with Dr Tan, the doctor who performed the surgery on me last year. I opted for the RM350 package which comprises of pap smear and ultrasound scan of the pelvic and breasts.

My blood pressure is normal and no longer low as I am no longer severely anemic. Praise God!

Uterus looks clear too with no growth or anything suspicious.  Fallopian tubes look good as well after an ultra strong dosage of oral antibiotics that I took for 2 weeks in October last year to clear off an infection/blockage on one side of the tube. The antibiotics almost ‘killed’ me. If you’ve been following my blog, you’d have read the pain I had suffered during the period I was on antibiotics.  Praise God again for healthy reproductive organs, though I have no intention of getting preggers again.

Now on the upper front part.  My Aunt Flow is due in two weeks and normally at this time of the cycle, my twins are lumpy and painful.   I had expected the scan to pick up some cysts. True enough, some fluid filled small cysts no bigger than 1cm each were seen. Most of the time, my twins will get back into shape with no more lumps and pain after the Aunt Flow has gone off. I am pretty in tune with my body and  every woman should too. The doctor isn’t worried about the cysts but she told me that the cysts (and uterine fibroid that I once had) are caused by stress.  She said that stress is the ultimate cause of all these female disorders, especially breast cancer.  Looking at all her breast cancer patients, she told me that most of them are very stressed. The type of profession that a woman holds is accountable for causes of cancer too.

Having breast cysts do not increase your risk of breast cancer.  But stress can!

Dr Tan advised the following measures to prevent breast cysts:
Exercise in particular yoga
Breast massage
Stress therapy
And the usual healthy diet and getting enough sleep

She could not stress enough how important it is to banish stress from our lives.  I told her that I am especially short fused when dealing with my kids and she told me that she was once like that too but after attending a few sessions of stress therapy, she no longer screams at her children and in turn, her tween and teenage children are so much more manageable and self-driven now. Well, this is easier said than done. Perhaps I should consider attending stress therapy (which costs RM600 for 4 sessions), which is actually consulting a psychologist!

 

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Saturday, 31 March 2018

My Saturday breakfast was with the hubs only. The mil had gone back to Ipoh and the girls had different agenda. Alycia was supposed to have tennis lesson but it rained, so from the tennis court she detoured to the gym. This gym buff can spend up to two hours in the gym almost every day cycling or running on the treadmill but not without a mobile phone in front of her 🙄.  Drama Queen followed a friend to their old school for sport days training and the littlest brat was grounded. She didn’t finish the test paper that I had asked her to do and exam’s coming and I really meant what I said. I didn’t even pack any food back for her as punishment.


Hubs and I shared this plateful of sinful char koay teow with lap cheong (Chinese sausage).

Today, Cass and I got a full dose of pet therapy. There are two new Samoyed pups at the pet shop who are OMG so so so fluffy and adorable!!  Just cannot ‘tahan’ looking at the Samoyed pups. I think it won’t be long before I succumb to the poison and bring one home! It’s true to the saying that as your kids turn into teenagers, it might be a good idea to get yourself a pet who will be happy to see you vs. your teenage kids.  Agree?

Sweet sweet poison!   Just you wait little fluff ball. One day I will bring you home…

… but only when I have a windfall larger than RM8k.  These pups imported from China have a RM8k price tag and the friendly pet shop owner was tempting me with a small discount!!

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HEALTH FREAK MOMMY