November 2019 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

She Still Cares :)

My baby girl still helps me to deshell crabs and feeds me the crab meat with her hand so that I don’t have to dirty my hands. She started doing this for me since 3 or 4 years ago when we were in Penang and had a feast of seafood. She was about 7 or 8 years old. I told her that I hated the fishy odor on my hands and she’s since taken on the job of deshelling the crabs and feeding me my favorite part of the crab – the claw 😁

I know Cass is going to cringe when she reads this post. She does not like me to call her baby girl nor display any form of public affection to her anymore😭

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Where To Buy Cheap Bridesmaids Dresses

Shopping for gowns and bridesmaid dresses was hardly my interest (though I’m a self professed shopping queen) until last year when I had 4 weddings to attend. And we have another wedding coming up on the first day of 2020. I started to hunt for cheap gowns last year and it dawned on me that it’s not easy to find these dresses at shopping malls. For the few boutiques that I stumbled upon, these dresses don’t come with pocket-friendly price tags.

Several of my friends bought their wedding gowns, bridesmaid dresses and wedding paraphernalia from China, via online shopping as these are so much cheaper in China. Just google bridesmaid dresses cheap or cheap wedding dresses and you’ll find thousands of online stores that sell almost similar items at really affordable prices.

When it comes to shopping for wedding dresses or bridesmaid dresses, it’s best to choose an online store like BMBridal.com that not only has a neat range of dresses for you to choose from, but can customize your dress according to the size provided by each bride and bridesmaid so that it fits you like a glove. BMBridal.com carries hundreds of styles, 50 different popular colors for you to consider and various sewing techniques that will help you bring your wedding vision to life.

Now you don’t have to go scrambling across the internet searching for that perfect bridesmaid dress, I’ve found you BMBridal.com and I hope you’ll find what you’re looking for here 🙂

No. of times viewed = 13

She’s Wearing A Dress :)

When Alycia was about 10 years old, she told me that she doesn’t like dresses and will never wear a dress or skirt anymore. I really don’t know why both she and Cass suddenly hated to don on anything feminine when they reached their double digit birthdays. But both the girls started to wear dresses again last year, albeit reluctantly, when we had to attend a friend’s wedding dinner. Alycia was again compelled to wear a dress when she attended her school’s orchestra concert recently and all her friends wore formal dresses! Her friends dragged her to the mall to shop for a dress 😁

For the 1.1.2020 wedding that we will be attending, both Alycia and Cass again felt that it’s a torture to have to shop for fancy dresses and shoes. I reasoned to them that they shouldn’t feel awkward wearing a gown or dress when everyone else is dressed up to the nines. They should instead feel awkward when they’re the only ones not dressed up. They finally see my point and agreed to go shopping with me to get their dresses on condition that they’ll only wear the dresses once 🙄

Yesterday Alycia went shopping for dresses with her grand aunt and Sherilyn at the mall. When Sherilyn video called me from the mall and showed me Alycia’s dress, I was floored! She looked fabulous and genteel. She’s never wore anything like this before, except the time when she was a toddler, when I dressed her up in cute tulle dresses.

Grand aunt reviewing and approving the dress. It’s an off-shouldered dress and Sherilyn kept pulling the sleeves off her sister’s shoulders to teach her the correct way of wearing it 😆

No. of times viewed = 29

The Shopping Continues

The search for a dinner and church wedding dress for the girls continued yesterday. That’s Part 3 and it’s more or less settled for Alycia, though I’m still not 100% satisfied with the black cold shoulder dress that I got for her last week. Yesterday Alycia went out shopping for gowns with her grand aunt and sister and she finally found a beautiful off-shouldered midi gown in baby blue for the church wedding.

I still think that the cold-shoulder short dress for Alycia is not grand enough for a hotel wedding dinner. I find it a tad casual and the dress is in black, a color that’s scorned upon by old folks and tabooed at happy occasions like weddings. I would prefer for her to don on a dress in pastel color or some dusty rose bridesmaid dresses, like the one below.

Simple and elegant – I think Alycia will look sweet in this chic Dusty Pink round neck ruffled short bridesmaid dress.

After 3 shopping trips that began since last week, I’ve still not ticked off all the items on my shopping list. I still need to get dresses and shoes for Cass for the church wedding, hotel dinner and tea ceremony. And I’m starting to get tired of hunting for dresses for the fourth time. It’s really time consuming having to scan through every boutique at the mall for suitable dresses for my persnickety pre-teen daughter. I might just shop for her dresses online from BMBridal.com, a one-stop online shop for wedding, bridesmaid and flower girl gowns, jewelry and wedding accessories.

BMBridal carries plenty of elegant dresses for brides and bridesmaids. For those like me who are shopping for dinner dresses or even prom dresses for their daughters will be spoilt for choice with the stunning dress designs. The dresses can be custom made by the tailor to fit you perfectly and you can pick from a palette of 50 colors for your dress. Honestly, I am really tempted to order a gown for myself too but I’ve already bought three dresses for myself for this function and broken my bank!

For those of you who are looking for elegant dresses for wedding dinners and special functions, BMBridal.com is the perfect place to do your shopping.

No. of times viewed = 17

Home-cooked Meals By Sherilyn

I was feeling a little under the weather yesterday; was feeling that a cold and sore throat were about to attack me but I think my defense system is fighting those bugs very well. I’m feeling better now. I had the usual headache, bodyache and slight chills throughout the day. The mil had gone to Ipoh so I delegated the masak-mask task to Sherilyn, who’s still enjoying the last day of SPM-so-no-school holiday.

I told Sherilyn that I wanted to eat ‘clean’ and healthy food as my throat hurts. For lunch, she whipped up something new – Gyeran Mari (Korean egg roll) with chopped carrots, purple onions, scallions and shredded leftover KFC breast meat.

She was supposed to roll up the Korean egg roll with seaweed and rice, to create something like sushi but the rolling part didn’t turn out that well, so the girls had just the egg roll with rice.

The egg roll was so yums that I had quite a big serving. I only had sugar-free skinny yoghurt with Tualang honey and pistachios for breakfast along with some fruits and was feeling famished by lunch time.

Sherilyn used 9 eggs for the egg roll.

The egg roll turned out beautifully and it’s keto-friendly, delish plus wholesome. Preparation can be pretty time-consuming though, as a lot of chopping is involved.

The ingredients of this Korean egg roll are similar to that of Foo Yong omelette but when it’s rolled up and sliced up, it has a restauranty edge.

For dinner, she Googled for an easy-to-cook chicken recipe and cooked pan-fried chicken drumsticks with soy sauce, Teriyaki sauce, ginger, sesame seed oil and mirin (substituted with rice wine). Another lip-smacking dish and everything was polished off by her sisters and one for Maria, our part-time helper of 7 years.

I felt absolutely blessed that despite feeling shitty the whole day, I have a daughter who was more than willing to help cook two meals yesterday. What a load off my achy body! Today is the last day of school and for the next 5 weeks, I am certain there’s going to be lots of activities in the kitchen again! 🥰

By the way, my weight dropped further to 43.6 kg today after just 2 days of not eating well. This is my pre-babies / teenager weight and for once after 16 years, I’ve finally achieved this weight through Intermittent Fasting based on circadian rhythm / Time Restricted Eating and intensified exercise. The best way for me to lose weight rapidly is when I’m sick but with the long holidays and festive season coming too soon, I’m sure the numbers on the scale will climb up rapidly again. Never mind, I’ll exercise more intensely in 2020 😊

No. of times viewed = 43

Hump Day Shopping Frenzy, 20 Nov 2019

The search for a dinner dress and church wedding dress for the girls for the wedding of hubby’s cousin on 1.1.2020 continues today. We spent a total of 4 hours walking non-stop, hunting for dinner dresses and shoes. I walked over 7k steps just at the mall. And another 7k during my morning exercise. Feeling very satisfied with my achievement today in the fitness department 😊

I bought the black dress for Sherilyn (first picture above). When we got home, a ‘senior relative’ commented that the younger Yaps should not be wearing black at the wedding dinner. She commented that I should bring the dress back to the boutique to have it exchanged with the blue one. So yeah, we will have to make another trip to the mall this Friday for this purpose and also to shop for another dress for the church wedding for Sherilyn. When the school holidays start next week, we will have to make another trip to the mall again to shop for dresses and shoes for Cass. This gives me excuses to go shopping again and again. An ardent shopping queen never gets tired of shopping 🤗 And the icing on the cake is more calories are burnt and I chalk up more steps for the day doing what I love best. 🤩

We found all our dinner dresses at Marry Merry @ Mid Valley Megamall. This boutique carries beautiful and elegant evening dresses and gowns at reasonable prices. And the dresses that I bought today are on a 50% discount! We should have checked out this boutique first before we went to Eclipse and H&M last week and wasted so much time trying 101 dresses futilely.

I got this lilac dress for myself, for the church wedding.

Check out the big girl’s face. She’s pissed off that paparazzi mom stole pix of her wearing heels. This is her very first pair of heels. Other than to wedding dinners and her school’s concert / orchestra, this girl cringes whenever she’s asked to wear dresses and feminine shoes. 😆

Today’s damage is huge and more damage is in the offing 😧

No. of times viewed = 33

Dancing Queen

So my dancing queen resumed her contemporary dance classes on Tuesday at another dance studio on Tuesday. This studio is not new to her but the dance instructor is. Sherilyn used to attend ballet classes at this dance studio when she was 4 – 7 years old.

On the same night of her first dancing class, she received an email from Asia Junior Got Talent, informing her that her dance audition video submission has been approved by the judges! And the finalists will be competing on 1 December 2019!

Two weeks ago, just before I sent her to school, Sherilyn got me to shoot a bunch of videos of her dancing. The videos are for online audition entries for a couple of dance competitions. We spent over an hour at the function room of our condo shooting over 10 times until I felt dizzy! Dizzy cos this girl is such a perfectionist and she was instructing me how to aim the phone and I was running around in the room, trying to catch her at the best angle. As she was flipping and twirling around really quickly, I had to keep up on my pace. One moment she was complaining that my sandals were making annoying sounds (can be heard in the videos) and the next moment she was saying that I didn’t know how to shoot at the optimal angle, thus wanted another take. I got so frustrated that I wanted to walk out of the room.🙄

So for the next 2 weeks, my dancing queen will be busy again, choreographing and rehearsing for the Asia Junior Got Talent finals. Guess this will be her last competition for this year and next year. Her competitions will resume after her PT3 exam next September.

No. of times viewed = 35

Choose One

Hubs gave Sherilyn a choice – choose either dancing or martial arts. Currently, she’s spending quite a bit of time doing both. And she’s not content with just attending classes. She’s got an unquencable thirst for competitions, especially dancing. Her martial arts master is also persuading her to compete in sparring and Pompsae. For martial arts, she’s doing Taekwondo, Kickboxing and Muay Thai. As for dancing, she keeps partaking in competitions and auditioning for new competitions. With tuition four times a week and actively participating in school activities, she hardly has the time to do daily revisions at home and both hubs and I are not pleased with it. Sherilyn’s sitting for her PT3 exam next year.

Hubs and I had a discussion over this issue last week and hubs gave Sherilyn an option – dancing or martial arts. Today she told me that she’s choosing dancing. And she asked me if she could join a new contemporary dance class. Sherilyn stopped attending dance class early this year as we find that the teacher lacks competitiveness. But she doesn’t want to give up Taekwondo just yet. She wants to complete her Black Belt first before giving up. But this will take another 1.5 years. Her new dance class costs quite a bit and if she continues martial arts (which is also costly), that would throw off our budget. But money is secondary. We’re just very concerned that she’s not putting enough of hours into her studies. I’ve been reminding her that studies comes above dancing, martial arts and baking. And if dancing is her soul and runs in her veins, she can at the very least pursue a Degree in Performing Arts, though this is not my choice for her. Getting a degree is not a choice, but a necessity, I’ve always been telling my girls.

Honestly, I want Sherilyn to complete her Taekwondo Black Belt. She’s progressing very well in martial arts. But I don’t think I want her to take part in anymore competitions next year, which is very time consuming. Hubs is not going to be too happy to hear of my decision of allowing the girl to continue both dancing and martial arts. But again, when it comes to the children’s academic and co-curricular matters, the ball is often at my court. Though he will disagree and nag but if I stand by my decision, hubs will eventually agree.

Sherilyn’s latest haul – passing of Taekwondo 5th level promotion test (Purple Belt) with a score of 95%.

Taken 2 weeks ago at our condo function room – a photo, taken from a video that I took of Sherilyn in one of her dance moves, submitted online for a competition audition.

No. of times viewed = 34

Green View Restaurant and Durian Man @ SS2, Petaling Jaya

Youngest SIL treated everyone (immediate family members, aunts, uncles and cousins from the Yaps) to a lavish dinner of sang har (fresh huge prawns) and crabs at Green View Restaurant @ SS2 Petaling Jaya last Saturday (2 November 2019) before her return to Hawaii on Tuesday after a 2-week holiday here. The last time she came back to Malaysia was 6 years ago and most of the relatives haven’t seen her since. And the last time the girls and I saw her was in Hong Kong 3 years ago. We’re not sure when we’ll see her again and in which country.

I’ll let the pix do the talking. To lovers of crabs and prawns, sorry if I made you drool and sent you on a seafood frenzy 😜

We ordered 6 huge prawns and specifically told the captain to divide the dish into two plates with more noodles on each plate. But when the bill came, it showed double entry of this dish. The silai-ness in me (I was the one who checked the bill), prompted me to query the captain; he double checked and realized that they billed us double! RM512 extra charged to us!

One of the best sang har meen in KL – big fresh prawns in crispy fried noodles drenched in insanely moreish egg sauce.

Suckling pig and deep fried pumpkin with curry leaves. The fried pumpkin is addictive. ‘Healthier’ than fries and tastes so good!

Yin Yang Soon Hock fish ~ half steamed and half fried. One is definitely not enough for the 13 of us.

Kam Heong Lala.

Another show-stopper ~ crabs. We ordered crabs cooked in 2 different styles: Lai Yau (milk and butter) and sweet and sour.

The waiting staff at our table helped us to break the crab shells. He wrapped each claw and leg with clean disposable plastic bag and patiently stood at the side table for over 20 minutes hammering the shells for us.

Deep fried buns to be dunked into the zangy tangy sweet and sour sauce. One plate was definitely not enough and hubs eventually ordered another plate and another!

Salted fish fried rice.

This silai’s eyes popped out when she saw RM1,024.14 for the Sang Har Meen. I was certain there was a double entry but hubs said “it’s this price la. It’s that expensive as the prawns are so huge” but the silai insisted that the Captain double checks the bill. And the Captain came back apologizing profusely for double charging us RM500+!

Wrongly printed bill:

Correct bill:

Green View Restaurant
8, Jalan 19/3,
Petaling Jaya, Selangor
Tel: +60 3-7954 9263

After a hearty dinner with lots of photography (as usual), SIL said that she wanted to eat durians ~ one last round before she flies back to Hawaii. So off we went to the durian street on Jalan SS2, to Durian Man restaurant for her to get durian takeaway for her breakfast, lunch and dinner tomorrow ☺️

Durian Man is the biggest durian restaurant in Malaysia, opened in August 2019. Durian lovers get to savour almost all the durian species here, which includes Musang King, Black Thorn, Raja Kunyit, Red Prawn, D24 and more in a modern and comfortable setting. For those who intend to bring durian back to their country, Durian Man provides service to vacuum pack and seal the fruit neatly without emitting an iota of smell.

Durian Man
Lot 7680, Jalan SS2/24
Petaling Jaya, Malaysia
Call 012-234 5619

No. of times viewed = 365

Lost And Found And What A Joke!

This is the new AIRism shirt that hubs bought from Uniqlo on Sunday. Being the OCD that I am, the moment we got home from the mall, I immediately washed all the new clothes that I’d bought, including his. And I remembered that after the shirt was dried the same night (AIRism dries within an hour or two after machine wash), I hung it in hubs’ closet.

Fast forward two days later. Hubs asked me what happened to this shirt. He was looking for it high and low but couldn’t find it. He checked his closet, mine, his mom’s and the kids’ closets umpteen times but couldn’t find it. I checked everyone’s closets more than 101 times but couldn’t find it too. After the both of us hunted for this shirt for 3 days, we got frustrated. And I was beginning to feel suspicious of our part-time helper. Why are things disappearing mysteriously from our house? Cass’ mobile phone is still not found after 2 months, as well as other stuff. And now this shirt.

I felt really bad that I could even have suspicion of our part-time helper. What if we’re wrong? That’s accusation on her. She’s been working for us for more than 7 years and I trust her 100%, leaving her at home alone sometimes while we go out. I treat her like a family member. Then Sherilyn asked me what I’d do if I found out that it’s indeed our helper who’s the culprit. I told her that I’ll forgive her and will still be hiring her.

Not 101% satisfied with our search and trusting that our helper is innocent, I went through hubs’ closet the 900th time just now and guess what, I found the new shirt! It was hanging nicely inside. But our eyes have been playing tricks on us 😵When we went through the clothes, we were only looking at all the reds. As the shirt is new, we could not remember clearly that only the bottom part of the shirt is red and the top part is maroon, thus we missed checking the maroon clothes! Hubs has an OCD of hanging his clothes by grouping all the same colours together. Even the hangers must be the same kind.😂

My next mission now is to continue my search for Cass’ Huawei phone. I find it really mysterious that even after turning all the common hiding spots upside down, the phone still can’t be found — just like the mysterious disappearance of flight 370 in 2014 😆

On another matter, yesterday I found out that my car tire had another nail embedded – on the same tire, twice within a span of 3 months! The observant guard at our condo once again discovered the leaking tire and informed me yesterday morning when I was jogging. Hubs who was with me at the workshop also got his car tire checked and what do you know? One of the tires had 2 nails on it!! Some irresponsible people must have been dumping nails on the road at our neighborhood! Bugger!

See the nail?

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Emotional Day

The past 3 days have been nothing short of highly emotional for me. My blood was up and my emotions were running high. I was really upset and incensed with someone the past 2 days. And the situation is inexorable. A catch-22 situation. No way out kind of situation. Thankfully I had someone whom I can pour out my feelings to.

I was still in a crappy mood today until Cass came back from school and told me the best news ever. I was so overwhelmed with emotions from the news that I teared up a little. And that’s the best news ever that I’ve received this year. I am so thankful to my heavenly Father for hearing me out. I had expected and fully accepted the worst but today, in a twist of event, a miracle happened. I now need another miracle to happen to Cass, a big miracle with divine intervention. Through Him, nothing is impossible. Something that was impossible just had an about-turn and I still cannot believe it. Thank you my heavenly Father.🙏❣️

Cass and her dad bought this cicak from a toy shop in Chinatown to scare me. Like father like daughter. Cass is a mischievous rat and slap-happy just like her dad. First she stuck the cicak to my hair whilst we were in the car, on our way home from Chinatown. Then she stuck this sticky cicak on the wall, next to the lights switch of my bedroom, thinking that she could scare me. 🤣

A rare pic (these days) with my pre-teen girl. She now dodges the camera like a plague. She gives me the most disgusted look each time I call her baby girl or BABY now. What happened to my clingy koala bear? 😥

No. of times viewed = 16

Parents’ 49th Wedding Anniversary Celebration (28 October 2019)

Exactly 49 years ago on 28 October 1970, my parents got hitched to each other. It was Deepavali on that day. This year’s Deepavali is held on 27 October 2019 and 28 October is a school holiday for the girls. My parents came to KL to celebrate their big day. While a 49th wedding anniversary does not technically mark a milestone anniversary, it is still a huge marital achievement that warrants celebration. Two days after their anniversary celebration, my parents and youngest brother flew to Vietnam for a vacation.

The anniversary dinner this year was held at Ming Room @ Bangsar Shopping Centre. Enjoy the photos of our sumptuous droolicious dinner 😍

Clockwise: Steamed Soon Hock fish, glutinous rice with roast duck, sharks fins soup, drunken prawns.

Deep fried soft shell crab with mantou.

Braised abalone and clams with lai park veggie.

Deep fried pigeon.

Longevity pau.

And the star menu of the night…

Sherilyn’s homemade Chocolate fudge cake with Lindt 70% dark chocolate ganache, mirror glaze and decor using tempered Whittaker’s Chocolate. It’s made with at least 70% organic ingredients (organic flour, organic maple syrup, organic eggs, organic vanilla extract, organic coconut sugar, organic baking soda)

I pray that we can repeat this anniversary celebration for many more years to come.

Papa is 76 and mum is 73 this year.

Work in progress by our talented baking queen:

Spun sugar, tempered chocolate decor with Whittaker’s chocolate, organic cocoa powder and matcha powder. The number 49 is made with caramelized brown sugar.

Sherilyn spent 2 days decorating the cake. It took this long as we were out most of the time during the long Deepavali break with Sarah, my SIL from Hawaii. The cake was baked by Sarah and decor all executed by Sherilyn. The decor pieces involved such a long and tedious process; and one needs tons of patience and passion to be able to undertake such a gargantuan task.

Back from the movies at 9+ pm and she immediately rolled up her sleeves while still in her thick jumper (OMG!) and did the decoration until way past midnight while I zzzzzz in bed. She was worried that she couldn’t complete the decor on time as her koong koong and granny would arrive the next day!

Credit goes to You Tube as well as my talented baker referred to this video site for most of the tutorials.

After the cake was glazed, we had a tricky situation. The cake was too tall and we could not find any container or box this high to put in the cake! So I told Sherilyn to put all the tempered chocolate and decor pieces into a container and only decorate the cake when we reach the restaurant.

And so here she is decorating the cake at the restaurant, just like a pro baker. My parents and the Captain who attended to us were really impressed with her.

This is how the cake looks inside – super moist and lightly sweetened with organic maple syrup and organic coconut sugar.

Cass made the cake topper herself but we forgot to bring it to the restaurant that evening, bummer! So mum insisted in taking a photo of the topper on the cake the next day 🤣

After a dinner filled with merriment, laughter, toasting and camwhoring, we had another round of dessert comprising Laduree macarons and Godiva soft serve ice-cream. We looked at Halloween decor and props and hubs bought some props for his catering function.

No. of times viewed = 48