Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining

The other day while driving I saw this, and I just had to stop my car and snap a photo of it...

...sunbeams shining through dark clouds.








This is one of my all-time favourite scenes as it reminds me that something good can come out of a difficult situation.

As a little girl I have always been strangely fascinated by thunderstorms...I loved to watch lightning streak across the sky and would close my ears in anticipation of the loud thunder that would follow. I would stand at the window and watch the swaying trees in the pouring rain knowing that the storm would only last for a period of time, after which the raindrops would gradually stop pelting down and everything would be calm once more...and I was glad that all the trees and grass would have enough water to sustain them till the next downpour.

Now when it rains I just feel like curling up in bed under the blankets and taking a snooze...!

As I celebrated Easter last Sunday, I am reminded of what God has done out of love, and I am reassured that I never need to weather the storms of life alone because He keeps me safe.

A Belated Birthday Treat

Hubby usually takes me out on my birthday for breakfast or lunch (without the kids, of course!) but this year he had auditors coming to his office on the day of my birthday so we postponed our 'pak tor' session to the following week instead.

A friend had told me about this pastry place called Levain at Jalan Delima in KL, somewhere behind the Indonesian Embassy so we decided to go there for brunch. This time we had a little 'spotlight' (in the form of SweetTeen) coming along since she is in the afternoon school session and would be rather disappointed to be left at home alone.

The place has a nice cosy ambience and the breads and pastries looked really appetizing. Each of us selected 2 kinds of pastries that we could share among the 3 of us and sat down with a drink to enjoy our feast. The strawberry tart was really good but SweetTeen had trouble finishing her very rich chocolate eclair and mango cheese tart. The place is famous for their macarons (which they spell as 'macaroons'), a meringue-like pastry filled with cream but I settled for a small packet of the meringue shells without the cream filling since it was rather costly...am planning to bake my own macarons at home :)

We were glad that we arrived at around 10am after battling the morning traffic because a little after that the place started filling up with customers and by the time we left at about 11am there was no more available parking space.

After dropping off SweetTeen at school and fetching CoolTeen home, we headed to 1 Utama shopping mall because I had read about cash-free shopping there using the Maybankard Treats Points (points collected from use of the credit card). I was disappointed that the shops where we had wanted to buy stuff were not participating outlets of this scheme. At least we could exchange our Treats Points for some Jusco vouchers, so those points came in handy after all.

Had a great day thanks to my sweetheart and by nightfall I was really tired out...fell asleep way before anyone else, which is a rare occurrence since I am usually the last person in our household to go to bed every night...


Many Happy Returns

Celebrated my birthday on Monday. Nowadays children are so computer-savvy...this year my kids wished me "Happy Birthday" using Facebook.

I was also pleasantly surprised and touched by all the birthday wishes on my Facebook page from family and friends, both near and far, throughout the day and even into the next day. It's feels good to be remembered :)

Although I felt it was unnecessary, SweetTeen insisted that her daddy drop by the bakery and buy mommy a birthday cake on his way home from work so that we could have the mandatory candle-blowing, cake-cutting session...

Ok, so now the secret is out...that's how old I am, or as my sis-in-law so sweetly put it, how 'young' I am.

Have lived about half my life and feeling very blessed indeed :)



Angry Birds Kuey Teow

I have been a big fan of the game 'Angry Birds' ever since I could download it to my android phone, although I can't quite understand how catapulting fluffy birds at sniggering green pigs could become so immensely popular!

I have completed all the levels in the original Angry Birds game, the Angry Birds Seasons as well as the new Angry Birds Rio...that's how big a fan I am ('fan' is a better word than 'addict', right?)

On Sunday, hubby and I went to ta pau lunch at a nearby coffeeshop when I spotted this signboard at a char kuey teow stall which reminded me of one of the birds in the game...

Maybe lately I've been playing the game too much that I seem to see Angry Birds everywhere, haha.  Next on my list.... get my hands on an Angry Bird t-shirt.