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.