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.