Mothers do what they need to do...

My MIL is away in East Malaysia for a week now. I am now cooking in the evenings to feed hubby & the kids and also sometimes for my FIL and SIL who are at their home nearby. MIL will be back next week. So today I went to Tesco during lunch break to get some vegetables for tonight's dinner. Actually, I find it still quite manageable. I leave immediately after work, fetch all kids who will be at my daughter's kindy and get home around 6 pm. Starts cooking and dinner will be cooked by 7 pm. Not bad at all. But of course, it does need a little bit of pre-planning, like defrosting meat/fish before hand. I don't mind this at all but I believe my MIL still wants to cook dinner for us, so I'll still leave it to her when she comes back.Unless of course she changes her mind.

Christmas was yesterday, went to church on Christmas eve and Christmas morning. In the afternoon, we went to have a small family get-together at sis' house. I ended up cooking, with the maid's help, while my sister and my mum had to do some last minute shopping for kids' presents. I did mine earlier. So the kids were all happy with a couple of presents each. Anyways, the kids had fun and it was wonderful to spend time with my siblings and their families.

The new year is coming soon, the kids will start school on 2nd January. I have yet to see how we can manage because one of the boys will be schooling in the morning while the other will be in the afternoon. The two boys, although cannot stop quarreling sometimes, are like always together. So now, this year, they will see each other less. When one is in school, the other will be in daycare and vice versa. I hope their bickering will be lesser. Anyways, they like to gang up against their sister and make her scream, still don't know how to stop that, both they making her scream and she screaming...

I was talking with my mum and siblings and the subject about how to teach children came up. So my mum said we should not shout/scold or hit our children but reason with them. Hmmmm... Ironically, I don't remember having a lot of chit-chat with my parents while growing up... In principal, yes, we should not scream and scold at them. But in practice, it's not easy. I blow my top sometimes, even hubby does that. When either of us do that, we get annoyed at each other. I believe my parents felt the same too, more my mum because dad was not at home as much as mum.

Sometimes, we just need to sit back and look at things in the kids' perspective. They have siblings to contest with for attention, they get bored easily and they are just mischievous little creatures by nature. When they can get their siblings miserable, they are happy! My sons would do anything to be able to play computer games! I definitely control that, I don't like them getting so hooked up at the PC or iPad/iPhone playing games. Fortunately (or unfortunately) my Streamyx at home sucks, so loading online games takes forever, that kind of hinders their online gaming activities (and also my Maaduu sessions as well :( ).

I think, we just need to help them spend time doing something more interesting and beneficial, together, or even apart sometimes. Last week, we spent sometime doing some paintings. We also should have some outdoor fun and exercise too. I think I am going to draw up a schedule to include some of these activities into their lives instead of shopping every weekend. Let's see how that turns out.

I got this book for Christmas, Thanks MT. One of the quotes inside goes like this:

The more people have studied different methods of bringing up children the more they have come to the conclusion that what good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is the best after all.

                                                      - Benjamin Spock

2013 Round the Corner

The end of the year is less than 2 weeks away and Christmas is in a week! Oh, not forgetting, end of the world is in 3 days. So what have you guys done in preparation for D Day? I have not done anything for end of the world, just thought I should packed up some drinking water and non perishable food. What the heck, we will consume those stuff eventually anyway so why not...

This year was hard for us. We went through a whole lot of emotional upheaval, stress and difficulties. When things were hard, we have family and friends that cared which made things a lot easier. Thank GOD that we came out of these difficult times stronger and more faithful. Most of all, Thank GOD for giving us the beautiful gift which will remain in our hearts until the day we leave this world (and beyond).

Coming back to the year end celebrations. Christmas is so close, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. So what have you done in preparation for that? Hmmm, for us, we had caroling a few days ago. Singing house to house for our church members staying here. The house is decorated, most of the presents are prepared. I think we spent quite a lot of money already shopping :(. Spiritually, what have we done? We have gone for confession and are paying more attention during mass. Frankly, I think we need to do more, for the church and for charity. Lord, please steer us to the right direction, to do more of Your works. I am ready, to serve more. It doesn't mean only for Christmas but all year long. Lord, guide me.

So for all those reading this, have a Blessed Christmas and a very Happy New Year. God bless you.

Oat and Durian?

Hey, I checked my blog today and my last article was read 15 times! I usually get like 4 hits, and that could be myself reading my own blog. So 15 is good, since I posted it only 2 days ago. Hmmmm, wonder who have been reading my blog :P.  Anyways, hope you come back often and bring more friends so that I may soon have enough traffic to become a fulltime professional blogger! (Yeah, right...)

Back to reality. I got great news last night from a dear dear friend. She is getting married in 2 months. I am super happy for her. CONGRATULATIONS, PY!!!!

So I don't know why I am super excited about her up coming wedding, probably because she totally deserve every happiness in the world because she is such a dear. So you know what came to my mind after she told me, I need a diet and I have 2 months for that! I plan to dress to the nines for her wedding dinner and I definitely can't do that with my spare tyre around my waist. SOOOOO, my target is to lose 15 kgs in 2 months! Ambitious or not?? Hehehhee....

Actually, I don't eat a lot. But problem is I don't move a lot either.... so where to start?

I am sacrificing lunch for at least 2 months. When I am hungry in the afternoon, I will drink some oat beverage. Lets see what we can achieve with this diet in a week! I will start tomorrow because I am going for durian lunch in Broga today :P. So I am bracing for tomorrow, ok?

Appetising?

APPETISING!!!!!!!!!

My Week Off

Was off work for the whole last week. We went to Legoland in JB on Monday and then sent the boys to BP to stay with my mum for 2 weeks. They are still there. Legoland was ok, it's more for kids between 6 to 12. Except for 2 roller coaster rides that adults may fancy, the rest are too kiddy for adults. If you ask me, I would say, go once. It's nice to visit at least once but I wouldn't go again personally. Not sure if you get the same answer from the kids though. Plus the wait for each ride was excruciating! We had to pick the ones we really like cause there wasn't enough time for all.

Legoland, good for kids only.

 Back from Bangkok after a 4 day trip. Had a pretty good time with my daughter while my husband went to work there. She is a brave 4 year old! We went on planes, vans, limo, taxi, motorbike taxis, motorised (James Bond) long boat, boat on oars and even went on elephant! All that and she didn't even wince a bit! I was surprised, I actually thought she will be afraid, especially on the elephant but she was like, "Yes, I want to ride the elephant!" Even after me reconfirming with her a few times! There went 900 baht for our elephant ride...

My 2nd son talked to his sister on the phone from my mother's house in BP and the 1st thing he asked her was, "Was it fun?". His sister of course said, "Yes!" and the poor boy was so jealous... But I have promised to take the 2 boys on a trip on a plane somewhere next year, so wait your turn :).

People in Thailand look very much like Malaysians, most of them speak to us in Thai, thinking we are locals. This was the same when I went to Chiang Mai. Bangkok looks a lot like KL too, but I think it's about twice bigger. The jam is worse than KL and another scary sight was the electrical and phone wirings running like some tangled mess along the road on posts. We don't see that in KL, thank God. I heard there are about 10 million living in the city, no wonder the jam is so bad. Otherwise, the city is nice for shopping and food, relatively cheap. Still, I prefer Malaysian food.

Authentic Tomyam Koong POWER!

The best place we visited has to be the Floating Market in Damnoen Saduak, which is about 1.5 hours from Bangkok. Things there are very expensive but the experience to ride on the boats which bumps and slides into each other was pretty cool. It's like traffic jam in the canal where boats slide along each others' side and the boatmen and women maneuvering expertly through. We were reminded to keep our hands and fingers inside the boat, if you don't want to lose them...

We also went to the Grand Palace but I think that isn't that nice. I wouldn't recommend that. When I came to Bangkok some 15 years ago, we didn't come here but to another temple, I think it was the sleeping Buddha temple and that was more beautiful. The Grand Palace is less interesting compared to that.

My girl and me at the Grand Palace.

The hotel area where we stayed was largely a Japanese expat area, so there were lots of Japanese restaurants apart from massage parlours. There were no tourist pasar malam, so I didn't get to shop alot. We did go to Tesco Lotus and BigC (equivalent to Carrefour here) and bought some clothes. I brought some 20,000 baht but couldn't finish it :(, I wished I had more time and more places to shop.

This Friday, we are off again to Johor to bring the boys home. We need to be home on Friday evening because my eldest has Confession and Confirmation (correction: it's Communion not Confirmation) on Saturday and Sunday.

Alexander Tan Shi Rong!

And I am officially a godma! My new godson, Alexander Tan was baptised last Saturday. Isn't he a cutie!

Election 2012

We have planned out what we are going to do and go for the whole of next week. Starting from Saturday evening we will travel south to BP, on Monday we will proceed further south to the tip of the peninsular for LEGOLAND! And we will be back in time for our flight to Bangkok on Tuesday. Then Friday late night we will back back home in time for next Saturday, the baptism of my godson, Alexander. I will remember to take photo of Alexander and post it up :). Will be a busy busy week, but something different from our routine. Kind of a busy break.

In the meantime, today we see the USA having her election. Me, having some weird kind of fixation with US of A (A lot of us are, come on, admit it!), am also following the results live on the CNN website. Looks like Romney is winning for now. I am glad, because Romney is pro-life although I don't dislike Obama. But what the heck, like it matters who I support. Now I am itching to vote for my beloved Malaysia, when will the PM call for election?! Well, he only has until March 2013, so our long necks will be able to rest soon.

Well maybe you will find this interesting like me, the amount of money (2.5 Billion USD) spent on the 2012 US election campaigns and where the money is coming from. Watch this link. Wow, that's a lot of money! Imagine that being used for other more worthy cause!

Back...

Okay. I am feeling loads better, so I am back to post here. Been a good week for me, much better then what I had been going through recently. We have been having busy weeks with Rosary prayers at BEC members' houses almost every week night as it is October Rosary month. As the lovely Auntie A said, the BEC members have been very supportive of late of all the BEC activities and this Rosary month has been the most participated in our BEC history. I agree. It is lovely to have prayers in homes, as one or two gathers in HIS name, HE will be amongst us! Having Jesus in your homes, isn't that lovely!

Amongst other things, I am going to be godma to a lovely baby boy, almost 3 months old. Cannot wait to manja this baby with lovely gifts. We are also going to Legoland in November, tickets already purchased! The boys will be at their grandma's place for a week after that and the girl and I will be going to Bangkok with their dad, if all goes well. He is there to work, so me and the girl will just tag along for a few days. The boys, especially the 2nd one, weren't that happy to be left behind but being able to spend a week at grandma's helped convinced him abit. Also, we promised him to bring him somewhere on a plane next year. The boys do not have passports yet and I am waiting for next year to make them theirs since the government will give half price for kids passport. Next year is just a few months away mah. I feel a little guilty leaving them behind but dragging all the kids along will be hard since hubby will be working during the day.

Nothing cooking tonight, having pizzas!

Sad Loss

It's been such a long while since I last updated my blog here. People who know me, know that I had recently been through a very tragic family loss. I have blog about it in my other blog so I will not repeat them here.

Things are getting a little better for me as time passes but life will never be the same. I won't let it be. That's all I can muster today here. Maybe, later on, when my mood is better, I will upload more notes here.

Harvest Time! Yam Seng...

I am back in the office today, after a long long weekend with a trip back to BP. The whole Brady Bunch was carted off in our Exora to BP. This is the first time that baby Emily has gone back to my hometown and her first time meeting her grandpa. Everything went well, too bad most of the eating shops were either closed for Raya or were too busy that we didn't get to taste much of the nice food in BP. But nevertheless, we are thankful for a safe and fruitful trip.

My sister just delivered a baby boy on Saturday while we were in BP. I was about to harvest the rice wine I was brewing for her anyway, so when we reached home on Monday, we started the harvesting. The wine tastes and smells really sweet and good. But we learn that the brewing time should be shorten next time to 20 - 25 days instead of about 35 days like what we did this round. This is because, we could see mold starting to form on the side of the ceramic pot and on top of the rice. We managed to rescue this by wiping and scoping the mold off before we start harvesting. We also learn that proper sterilization will work wonders in keeping other organisms from growing. We only want the wine yeast to work its magic, not the other microbes.

Another thing we learn is the importance of filtering. The wine produced is clear liquid with slightly golden reddish tinge. But there is lots of residual in the pot too. We tried scoping very careful, it works in the beginning but towards the end, it's hard since the residuals started to surface and get mixed up with the liquid. So we had to resort to cloth filter (those used by the kopitiam uncles). Next time, we will try to find even more fine cloth filter for better results. After harvesting, bring the wine to a quick boil and then put off the fire and let it coll before bottling. Make sure bottles are clean and dry, possibly sterilized with alcohol. Overall, I am pretty pleased with the result, we had our first dish with it yesterday, ginger fried egg in rice wine. So sweet and tangy, yummy.

My rice wine success!

Repeal 114A

Olympic Wild Week

Had a long weekend but there was no rest. It was a public holiday on Monday and I took Tuesday off for my baby's medical follow up. It's the puasa moon and the boys finishes school at 5.30 pm instead of the usual 6.30pm. This makes for a mad dash every evening to fetch my daughter from daycare and my sons from school. Those boys cannot be trusted to behave if left in the school compound for too long. By the time I get to their school, it would be 6 pm. I really want this month to be over soon so that hubby can fetch them after work instead of me doing it. Hubby cannot reach by 6 pm.

Maid still not here yet, my mornings are still crazy. Sometimes, I am at awe of myself for getting through this crazy routine daily. Probably, other working mothers do the same too... You kids and hubbies out there need to realise how great your mommies are!

The London 2012 Olympics is still underway, it's closing this Sunday. Just managed to follow a few random sports on local TV since it's all in the middle of the night. I am usually out by 11pm. I did catch LCW's final match against LD. It was a very close match that made me respect LCW more. I used to follow badminton games a lot, my favourite player was the cool Cheah Soon Kiat. I thought he was cute :P. But ever since the Malaysian team's performance took a dip and after so many disappointing games from them, I gave up following. But seeing LCW play this time brought back my confidence in our badminton talents. Even though he lost and only got silver, there was no need tobe disappointed as he had performed marvelously. The game could have gone either way. So syabas to him. And last night this young Sarawakian diver got a bronze which surprised a lot of us. Great wo

I am a brewer!

My wine making had started about a week plus ago. I was supposed to check it on the 3rd day but because I was too busy so I only managed to check on it on the 5th day. I was so happy that it appeared to be forming well, the rice is fermenting and producing liquid as it should. Even tasted it and it was so sweet. Mixed about half a bottle of rice wine (samsu) (bought from the chinese medicine store) into the pot and turned the fermenting rice upside down. Now just have to wait another 20 days or so before it is ready for bottling. Yippie, my first try at making rice wine and it looks like it's a success (so far).

Cooked glutinous rice, wine yeast (crushed to powder) and red stuff for colouring.

Alternate yeast powder and rice in layers and end with more yeast on top.

Sprinkle generous amount of water and close with thick plastic sheet. Make some holes on the sheet.

Cover with 2 layers of newspaper and make your daughter stand beside it for a picture.

Let it sit in cool dry place, i.e. under my kitchen counter. Wait about 25 days. Open to check on day 3 and add half a bottle of bought rice wine.

Busy me...

Phew! Finally it's the weekend. It's been one crazy, hectic week. Managing the kids in the morning, alone, is really hard, even for me! I tend to miss something or forget stuff in the rush and that makes me late. Luckily, only slightly late. I am like 5 or 10 mins late for work only. That's better than some others in my office! But still I dislike being late. Next week my mum will be here so I can breathe easier and get things done quickly with her help.

I bought the iBaby IP cam online through Superbuy, it was delivered a few days ago. It was a breeze setting it up for LAN and wifi. Nothing to it. And it worked automatically on my iPhone and iPad using the app. But getting it to work on my browser in the office proves to be much harder. Could be the firewall or network restrictions there but I will get it sorted soon. Using the browser at home through the external IP/DDNS only needed a port routing set on my router. Next week, will try fixing it from my office pc.The price is a bit high and the manuals/FAQ sare not so satisfactory but the night vision is great and you can easily rotate the cam with a swipe of your finger. The ability to hear and talk through it (require external speakers) is a great bonus. I could talk to people at home using the cam. Overall, it is a good product.

Hubby and I are off on Monday to bring baby for checkup. Also, we have many things planned for the weekend, cleaning the store, repairing the baby cot, clearing up the clothes in the spare room. I also plan to make rice wine and make some Bak Chang! Too ambitious maybe. We'll see what we can achieve. Besides, I am getting a bit of a flu too. I am not made of steel after all :P.

This is life

The Bak Chang making was sort of a success with some small mishaps of a few loosen Changs in the pot. I have some ingredients left over, so I would be making some again within these few weeks. Next, I will be trying my hands on rice wine making for my sister who will be delivering a baby in August or September. More on that soon.

We are renovating the office at work so we have temporarily moved to the computer room next to our office. It will be another 4 to 6 weeks before the office is ready. Meanwhile, we are all seated in the open space, feels like we are in a Japanese manufacturing company:).

I am still waiting for the maid's arrival, so now it is a bit of a rush for me in the morning to get the 4 kids ready for their day. My sons have to go to day care in the morning and the center will send them to school in the afternoon. My daughter goes to kindy and stays back after that until the evening when I pick her up. My baby goes to her grandma for now. When my mum stays with us, it's much better, since I do not have to bring the baby to a different place plus she will prepare breakfast for the kids.

I have been reading recently about babies dying because of negligent childcare centers and it is really scary to hear. I can really feel for working mothers whom have to send their babies to centers or babysitters, we are left with very little choice. Even when we have maids, we would still be worried if our kids, especially babies, are well take care of in our absence. I am planning to put a IP webcam in my living room so that I can see the house from work and keep an eye on my baby while she is with the maid. We are still looking for the most suitable model, one of them is iBaby which works with iPhone and supports 2 way communication. We are expecting the maid in end of August so we are still have a bit of time to do so.

iBaby which works with iPhone.

Heating up my Kitchen

Bak Chang (Meat Dumplings) season is back. Can't believe a year has flown by so quickly. I remember writing here about my bak chang making last year. This year, I am going to take the lead instead of my MIL. I have most of the ingredients and other stuff ready for this Saturday. I have the bamboo leaves left over from last year. I bought fatty 3 layer pork belly & lap cheong (chinese sausages) yesterday. Chestnuts, pulut rice and other dried stuffs I bought them last night at the supermarket. I will start tonight, marinating and soaking some ingredients in time to start the cooking, wrapping and boiling process on Saturday.

Pic form last year's Chang making.

I am really happy that I can start cooking and making stuff at home again since things are getting more settled at home with my new baby. I like cooking, especially traditional types of food. Always feel that we need to keep the tradition going. Bak Chang is not that hard to make, only require lots of work. Ingredients have to be prepared earlier then precooked separately. Then need to wrap them in pre-soaked and washed bamboo leaves and tied up nicely before boiling them for 3 hours. I don't know how many dumplings I will be able to make from 2 kg of pulut rice. I already got in mind some people I want to give the dumplings to.

This Sunday evening, we gonna have a small pot luck with my family members, mum, sis and bro and their families will be here. I will prepare maybe fried bee hoon and curry chicken while my mum will buy otak-otak and sis will cook mee rebus. My house will be really crowded and noisy on Sunday with happy big and small people...

Reading Habit

It's funny how I used to read a lot of books, mostly romantic novels but still, I read. I could finish a novel in 2 days! Over the recent 10 years, I have not really read a book, any book, except for books/training manuals for those dreaded tests after some external professional training courses. Recently I started on a book and I haven't finished it, yet. It's been siting idle for a few weeks now in the book rack. I have to finish it quickly since I borrowed it from someone. Plus, it's a very very good book that increases my religious knowledge. I have this guilty feeling inside of me for holding on to the book that doesn't belong to me. I think I need to set a target and finish it up, it's only about a quarter of the pages left. 

This is what happens when you have a working life and 4 kids to top it. The precious time you have left at home is spent entertaining the kids' needs and resting. It's not that I totally do not have time to spare for some reading but just my other priorities and preferences comes into the picture. For example, I can still find time to finish up 16 episodes of a Korean drama in 4 days or I can surf online for hours.

Evan spending time in the National Library

But still reading is a habit that should be maintained and to be instilled in the kids. A few weeks ago, we brought the kids to the National Library's kids' library. I was not so pleased that they got bored after less than a hour. Maybe, there were just too many books and they could not hold on to one to finish it. Instead, they would take many and browse through them rapidly and then go take more! I guess it's not a good idea to have too many choices. Maybe when they are a bit older, we could go there again.

My eldest likes to read the National Geographic magazines that we subscribe to. In addition, I will always buy books as presents for them instead toys. But they do not seem to take good care of the books I bought them, which gets my blood boiling sometimes. However, I won't let that stop me. We, as parents, really need to lead by example and set a side some reading time together. I think I had better get the ball rolling again.Time for trips to the bookstore again! Plus we can claim tax exemption for the money spent.

King of Fruits

Durian is back in season, we can see durian stalls everywhere, especially along Jalan Broga. We had durian for tea break this Monday. Best of all, didn't have to pay for them since a colleague decided to treat us. I think the ones we had were of the 101 breed and boy were they tasty! So yellow and creamy. I was not particularly a durian fan but lately, I kind of start liking them a lot, a little too much.

Yellow potent stuff!

I think I will be having another few rounds of durian fests again soon, even buy some home for the family. My kids do not like durian except for the eldest who is crazy about it. Tonight, we will have some durian from my bro-in-law, yeah!

I am back...

It's been awhile since I updated my blog here. I have been really tied up with matters at home. Now that things have settled down and I am back at work, I can start my weekly rants again.

My new freezer looks like this.

This week, I bought a new Mistral upright freezer. The purpose? To store my expressed breast milk (EBM). My existing freezer is filled up already :(. When I moved them from the freezer in my existing fridge to the newly bought freezer, they already occupied tray 2 and tray 3. Darn, should have bought the bigger one. But anyhow, I need to make this new freezer work for me since I already spent RM900 on it :(. I have been storing my EBM in disposable plastic containers but they fill up the freezer very quickly. Today I bought those 'Aiskrim Malaysia' plastic bags and going to use them instead. After all my research online, I think this will be the best and most economical option. Saves space and money. I still have one more month before baby can start feeding on my EBM after her operation, so the stock will be piling up.

Since this was taken, it got even more packed in 

my existing fridge.

At work, I am back to the normal routine. And, as always, the best part of the day is my lunchtime with my colleagues. We spend this time enjoying nice food and joke with one another. We are also planing a durian feast next Monday at Broga. Haven't had any for a long while and since they are back in season, what are we waiting for?!

This weekend, we have loads to do. Need to clear out the small room downstairs to make room for live-in (foreign) domestic helper, expected to arrive in August. I also want to shop for beds for my daughters and decorate their little room upstairs. Plus my mum is coming by bus on Sunday to stay for a week with us to help us care for my little baby. Mum and MIL are (alternately) helping us with the baby until the helper arrives, still a few more months to go, so sorry to trouble them both but have no choice :(.

Lots of things happening and changing for us but we will make everything work.

BERSIH 3.0 in Spirit

I have been absent from this blog for awhile. Meanwhile I have started a new blog for my special baby girl who was born on 23rd March 2012. The new blog will jot down our journey together in this new episode of our lives with our new addition to the family. I will keep that separate from this blog.

Today is Bersih 3.0 and I am sad to note I am not there with my comrades getting wet and gassed. I have been pretty tied up recently with new baby and all. Anyways, reading from the updates, riot police are at it again like the last time, firing tear gas into the crowd unprovoked. Waiting to see more pictures and updates soon to see the size of the turnout! By any standards, it is already a big success for the cause!

Sadly, not everyone shares the same ideals and believe there is real cause to fight for. I guess some people just cannot be bothered anymore with all the nonsense politics going on in this country anyway. But I still believe there is hope, and I am not the only one. Far from it, judging from the people who have turned up today in KL. We have HOPE, like Datuk Ambiga said so in her speech. For us who still love Malaysia, dare to hope and demand for our rights to this beloved country of ours. It needs to start with fair and clean elections!

To my friends who are out there for this cause, my spirit is with you. Come back and tell me your stories of this historic day!

"But take heart! I have overcome the world"

This morning, the title of my blog 'Trying to Live Life' rings so true. I am trying to live life at this trying times.

 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

God, please help me keep my faith intact and help us through this difficult times. Amen.

Countdown - 6 weeks to go?

We are half way through Lent and sad to note that my Lent sacrifice of not getting worked up with the kids (and their dad) isn't working out at all. After a few days, I couldn't help myself.I am back to my old self, doing the discipline the harsh way, the only way I know and only way that works, unfortunately. Feel bad but my soft approach did not work, so mission abandoned.

My MIL came to 'harvest' the rice wine which was brewing in my kitchen. Seems like it turned out good. It has been filtered and boiled. We waited for it to cool down enough to bottle them up in time for my confinement which will be in about a month's time. After waiting overnight, she managed to get about 10 bottles of clear wine and 2 bottles of more with sediments.

Wine produced in the fermentation must be filtered out.

10 bottles of such, which will be made into yummy dishes for my confinement, hooray!

As the delivery date for my baby is drawing near, I am starting to source for some necessities. I have bought some new clothes, baby wipes and diapers and feeding bottles. I am looking to purchase a breast pump now. I have always had latching problems with my babies, so it's quite likely that I will need a breast pump right after birth to maintain the milk production. Hoping to breast feed for at least 6 months to 1 year. To some women, that's a breeze but to me, because of the latching problems, it's a challenge. I really hope it's different this time around.

As I am getting bigger and more swollen, simple things are getting hard to do. Cannot bend, cannot squat and using chopsticks or spoon is not easy anymore. Sleeping time is the worst for me. My hands are always painful especially at night, waking me up middle of the night! I need to hold on for just 6 weeks more, I am sure I can do that. Please pray together with me and my family for my unborn baby (source):

"Father, in Jesus' name, I thank You for my unborn child. I treasure this child as a gift from You. My child was created in Your image, perfectly healthy and complete. You have known my child since conception and know the path he/she will take with her life. I ask Your blessing upon her and stand and believe in her salvation through Jesus Christ.

When You created man and woman, You called them blessed and crowned them with glory and honor. It is in You, Father, that my child will live and move, and have her being. She is Your offspring and will come to worship and praise You.

Heavenly Father, I thank and praise You for the great things You have done and are continuing to do. I am in awe at the miracle of life You have placed inside of me. Thank You! Amen.

HeeJun,the funniest guy on Idol

I am watching American Idol season 11 on 8TV. Of course I already know the results since the show is not live. I am glad that the very cute and funny HeeJun Han is in the top 13. Maybe because he is Korean and I am partial to cute Korean guys, ;P. But at the same time, I am pretty sure he won't win the competition. I am still hoping he gets further into the competition so that I can get to see his cuteness on the show. Don't get me wrong, he sings very well but so do the rest. I am posting some of his funny moments on the show at the end of this entry.

There were a few surprised cuts. Eben, the good looking boy-man is out and a girl with very impressive vocals, Jen Hirsh is out too. Too bad. But there is another contestant in the top 13 that is very impressive, he is Joshua Ledet. Man, this guy can really sing. Philip Philips is also different and good looking. Other than these few, I am not too interested in the rest of the top 13. They are all great singers but they don't really catch my attention.

I probably won't be following this season's idol once these few guys get kicked out. But I already have my favourite idol of all times, ADAM LAMBERT! Let me end this short blog entry with HeeJun's interview videos who oozes with cuteness and genuine, lovable funniness.

Ash Wednesday, the start of Holy Lent

Ash Wednesday is today, marking the start of Lent. Coincidentally, I am in my late pregnancy, so fasting for 40 days during the last 2 months of my pregnancy will not be that good for my baby because this is the time she will be packing on the pounds before her birth. Plus, I am kind of feeling the urge to eat periodically, which I would like to attribute to the signal that my baby is giving her mummy's body that she needs more nutrition! I did abstain from meat today but I am unable to fast :(.

I remembered last year I quit Facebook for Lent. This year, I think I would need to give up something else, something that would have more significance. A few ideas came up, quitting TV, abstain from eating out or fast food, prevent myself from reprimanding the kids (and their dad) harshly but show them love and explaining my point of view calmly, etc.. I think amongst those, the last is the hardest for me and it will also be something most meaningful for me to try. Afterall, they are the most important people in my life and they deserve much more from me. I should at least try... Each time I feel the urge to scold one of them, I will say a prayer and calm myself. Following that I will explain what they have done wrong and why they should not do it again.

You can read the Pope's Lenten Message here. Wishing all God loving and fearing brothers and sisters in Christ, a Holy Lent.

Cooking Good Time

Most of you who read my blogs know that I like to cook for my family. This past weekend, we cooked a few meals which were so satisfying...

For Saturday lunch, we roasted pre marinated boneless chicken legs on top of lots of vegetable, including bell peppers, carrot, potatoes, onions, japanese cucumbers, brinjals and tomatoes which were added with a little butter, olive oil and salt. Roasted for an hour in the oven, the result was a very satisfying meal indeed. The  chicken was tender and flavourful and the vegetables were delicious too. Wanted to cook mushroom soup and have some bread to go with it but looking at the amount of vegetables we had, we rightfully decided against it.

Before going to the oven.

Cooked and served in bite size pieces on my plate, yummy...

For dinner that night, I tried something for the first time, Tung Po Pork! I have seen my mum done this several times and it seems quite easy. Of course we have to have pork belly, the ones with skin, fat and lean meat together. I bought about RM17 worth of pork belly and used half for this dish. It was quite fatty, i even had to cut off some of the fatty part and used that to make fried crispy lard. Didn't know what to do with the fried crispy lard yet but didn't want to waste the fat! For the Tung Po yoke, I researched a bit and did some modification, I based my recipe on the one in this link but added star anise and cinnamon sticks to it. I also omitted to steam it for 30 mins at the end because I was a bit lazy and I checked the meat was already soft and nice. I cooked it in a slow cooker for more then 2 hours. Next time, I will go easier on the star anise because the smell of the spice was a bit overpowering. After I added more brown sugar, it was ok. This is a nice dish to have with muntou. But for dinner that night, we had rice, fried egg, radish and carrot salad and stir-fried siew pak chow. I also sprinkled the fried crispy lard I made early on the vege and everyone enjoyed dinner, even my little picky-eater daughter.

Lined my slow cooker with spring onion, ginger, star anise and cinnamon stick before placing the pork inside.

After 2 hours of braising in the slow cooker. The sauce is thicken with corn starch in a wok before serving.

My dinner (white rice on the bottom).

My daughter's dinner, she insisted I take a picture of her plate too!

Sunday, we ate out for lunch since we had church and the boys also had Sunday classes. But I already planned ahead that I will be making homemade siew yoke for the other half of the pork belly we bought in Saturday. Made shallow cuts in the meaty part and marinated with 5 spice powder, Chinese Red Fermented Beancurd (Nam Yue), sugar, pepper, chinese wine and salt. The skin part was rubbed with salt. I tried to poke holes into the skin, but the skin was really hard, I only managed to make some lines on it (Later I found out that this caused failure to the skin from becoming crispy and popping, they were hard instead :( ). The meat was left in the fridge uncovered to help in the drying process. When we were back home in the afternoon, I started roasting the pork in the oven at 200 degrees. After 20 minutes, I put some vinegar which was supposed to help make the skin crispy and popping. Continued roasting for another 40 minutes. The result was a bit disappointing, the skin was a failure :( but the meat and the flavour was there. Really fragrant and tasty. I highly suspect that my failure to make deeper holes in the skin caused the failure. Nevermind, I will retry again.

Apart form the hard skin, the meat tasted great! Next try will be better...

But overall, I was still happy with what we made. We had it for dinner, with radish and groundnut soup, stir-fried beans and my hubby's favourite: crispy fried tempe and ikan bilis, stir-fried with onions, dried chillies and caramel. Yummy dinner!

Our dinner on Sunday.

Growing Appetite and Achy Hands

I am in my 30th week, 3rd trimester, now. Went to the doctor and he told me, that I cannot have anymore chinese herbs in my third trimester! I wanted to say, I haven't really started yet... But of course I smiled and kept quiet. I have a few more bottles of bird's nest that I will finish up within these 2 weeks before I really follow his advise. 

Baby is about 1kg now and I am very glad to find that her head has gone down and she is no longer in the breach position like last month. That means she is engaged in the position ready for her birth. Although it's still 2 months away from her due, it lifted up some worry in me. All my other babies got engaged in the head down position quite early.

Lately, my appetite is really growing. I feel hungry and am not satisfied with my regular meals. So I have to buy snacks and eat supper at night. Sometimes, after eating, I am so full that my tummy feels like it's going to burst! Partly because the baby is also getting bigger and sometimes, her position in my womb stretches my tummy a lot. Just for last night, I had lok-lok (truck parked at Prima Kajang) and soup kambing (at Sup Power Ali, Kajang) for supper after the regular dinner! This sup kambing soup along Jalan Semenyih had caught my attention for a long while. Finally last nite we went to try it out. To me the soup is too spicy/hot and that covers the other spices. But the price of the sup kambing was RM3.50 only, pretty cheap and a plate of bread was RM1. Then when we reached home, we still had taufu fah and soya milk.

In office, I will be snacking a lot too. One day I had instant bihun at about 5 pm before going home for dinner. I do feel pretty guilty but I promise to go on a diet right after the baby is born! Or maybe after confinement la, I promise!

Apart from the increased appetite, late pregnancy also cause water retention and achy hands (or carpal tunnel syndrome). My legs now look like they belong to an elephant. Especially at night when I sleep, I would wake up in the middle of the night because of extreme pain in the arms/hands. Carpal tunnel syndrome is when water retained in the body get redistributed in your hand (when you are lying down) and that put pressure on the nerves of the hand, causing pain and numbness. I have this in my previous pregnancies as well, but it was more pain in the wrist. This time is pain on the whole hand. Even regular use of the hands is sometimes hard, like using the chopsticks or typing is difficult sometimes. *Sigh*, lots of changes happen to your body during pregnancies, you men out there should be so glad you cannot get pregnant and appreciate your wives for carrying your children!

Ok, forgive my complaining, every baby is precious and every baby of mine is worth more than diamonds. They are blessings from God.

Rice Wine Making - Lee family tradition

We just had a long weekend holidays, on Tuesday, MIL made rice wine at my house in order to show me how it is done. Her MIL taught her how it was done and now it's my turn. This is what is called passing down the family kong fu...


The process looks pretty simple. Glutinous rice (pulut) must be precooked and cooled. Then rice wine yeast pieces and some red stuff (all bought from the chinese herbal shop, quantity also determined by the shop keeper) were crushed into fine powder form. Get a clean and dry container (we use clay or glass) and sprinkle with generous layer of yeast powder then fill it with a layer of fistful lumps of the cooked rice. This is followed by another generous spread of the yeast powder. Continue to do so in layers until the container is 80/90% full. End with more yeast powder on top and make a hole in the middle and put in more yeast powder.

Sprinkle with water, cover the container with plastic sheet and make a few holes on the sheet.

Cover with 2 layers of newspaper and leave in a cool, dry place. After 3 days, open to check that the fermentation process has begun and add generous amount of chinese white rice wine (whole bottle). Close the container back and wait for 20 to 25 days.

For 6 catties of rice, we should get about 6 bottles of clear rice wine free from debris. The wine that my MIL produced when she tried making it a few months back was really sweet and fragrant. I cooked kampung chicken with ginger and the wine a few times and my hubby and I both loved it so much. We will see how this batch, that is still fermenting in my kitchen, turns out in 20 days or so.  We will be saving this for my confinement in April.

Celebration is (almost) over...

So the water dragon is officially marching into the year. Had a fantastic week for my chinese new year break. Went hometown for a few days and had rounds and rounds of Texas Poker, Black Jack and In-Between with brothers and parents. I think in the end, I made some money, very little though :). Kids had a great time playing fireworks and messing around at home with the cousins (all boys!). My sister did not go back this year, so there was only one girl, my 4 year old, there. She was always getting bullied because she was the only girl, she was crying and complaining every other hour. Poor thing, hopefully next time my nieces will come along so the girls can have a gang of their own.

I also had the chance to meet up some long lost classmates from secondary and primary school, thanks to Facebook. We had 2 tea/coffee sessions. Most of them are in S'pore, KL or still in BP. Glad to hear most of them are doing mighty fine. Hope to see you girls again, maybe next CNY?

Delicious Soup. As usual, forgot to take pix, this one from link.

We ate at home most of the time. My kids and us are very big fans of soups and so for one dinner, I cooked fish maw/bladder, mushrooms and scallops (ingredients were from a gift pack from brother to mum) soup, slow-cooked with pork ribs (recipe here). It was delicious, even the kids loved it, surprisingly (because I thought the taste would be a bit strong for them). I never knew how to cook fish maw and only got acquainted with it through my MIL in recent years. I will be trying that again soon, when I get to buy some fish maw and scallops. But, actually, the things we snacked on most during the week were bak kua and 100 plus. Not too healthy...

Yee Sang in Fortuna Palace, Prima Kajang

We came back on 4th day of CNY and proceeded straight to dinner with hubby's family. 2 tables at Fortuna Palace with my in-laws and sister-in-laws and their families. My eldest sister-in-law's hubby's treat! I heard it was RM1200 for both table! Pretty hefty but maybe because it was CNY period lor.

It was a great week spent with family and friends for me.

I have started work since Monday. So back to the usual routine. But CNY goes on for a few more days and ends on Chap Goh Mei. Next Monday and Tuesday are public holidays and that coincides with Chap Goh Mei, so it would be more celebrations with family. A small fortune was spent on angows for the nieces and nephews and a larger fortune for my parents and in-laws. But what the heck, it's once a year only. Anyways, my bank account is a bit deflated and to make matter worse, all the children fees, i.e. kindy & piano, have been increased! Plus there are assessments and taxes to be paid for the properties every beginning of the year. Sigh, more money going out... sian ah...

Part of the relatives, my kids are in the pix too. Me? I am taking the pix.

Since we are back to reality, we have been thinking of how to make arrangements to take care of the additional bundle of joy which is coming in 2 months plus time. My hubby is really reluctant to get live-in help, which I kind of agree. We will leave this as the last resort only. My hubby tried to ask for aunties living nearby but so far no avail. We asked one of our church lady and she seems willing but she has not given us an answer yet. We still have a few more months before we really need the extra help at home to assist my MIL. And yesterday, we heard some good news that my workplace is setting up a nursery/kindy. Construction is currently underway and I hope it will be ready in a few more months so that can be one option for us. It's within the campus compound and it will be easy for me to check on the baby (or even my 4 year old daughter if I send both of them there). So I really hope the centre will be operational soon enough. This is a really positive step that the company is doing as staff benefits. I just hope it will be affordable or subsidised!

Lastly, my daughter's 4th Birthday is in a few weeks. Too tired to do anything big (sorry girlie girl), so most probably just cake and pizzas with family and in-laws. And I will bring her out to pick up a big present on the day!

Gong Hei! Gong Hei!

CNY is just a few days away. I have done most of my shopping for new kids clothes and they have been pre-washed and are drying now. I couldn't find any nice cookies on sale this year, no colleagues were selling. So I finally decided to make some. For the last 2 nights, I have been slogging to bake my peanut cookies and green pea cookies. I will continue for one more night to make the ever so easy, cornflake + honey cookies and then I am done for this year. At least my MIL and my mother will have a few types of cookies from me. I still have some more shopping to do, buy mandarin oranges, buy bak kua (dried BBQ meat) and prawn crackers, part of the gifts to my MIL and mother. I do this every year... Angpow money is not prepared yet, I have yet to go to the bank to withdraw enough cash for all the angpows.

I will be going back to hometown again for CNY and probably stay 4 days while my hubby will come back earlier since he has to start work on the 3rd day of CNY, pathetic :(. Anyways, the boys are always super excited to go to their grandma's and are planning on getting more guppies home. Half the ones we brought home the last time have gone to heaven. And they want more....poor guppies.

Would most probably be too busy these few days for any blogging, so I take this opportunity to wish all of you out there a Happy and Prosperous New Year of the Dragon, "Long Ma Cheng San" and "Gong Hei! Gong Hei!"