He's Now 21

Twenty one years ago on March 23rd,
I became a mother.
I held a little baby in my arms,
My life was changed forever.

How could a baby so tiny,
Fill us with such joy and wonder
Every milestone big or small,
Is recorded with the camera.

Tears and tantrums,
Laughter and tickles,
Chicken drumsticks and chocolate,
Barney and 'The Wiggles'.

Badminton and cycling,
Piano lessons and swimming,
Piles of daily homework,
You did at the speed of lightning.




Then you became a teenager,
And you saw the world differently.
You were growing up
And we missed that dimply smile dearly.

But the years flew by quickly
And the gloomy clouds lifted away.
The boy has grown up,
But still loving Milo every day.

Now my son, you are twenty one
With a future bright and clear.
Spread your wings and fly,
But remember this, my dear....

Firstly, 
God always has the best plan for your life.

Secondly, 
Your dad and I will be moving in with you 
As soon as you can afford to buy a house of your own!

Happy 21st Birthday, 
my son.

Creative Meals

Hubby packs lunch to work, usually something simple like sandwiches or pies and the occasional fried rice. At one time I had been making cute bento lunches for hubby to bring to work but lately I had run out of ideas...until I found a very interesting blog on the internet, Little Miss Bento where food is made with such creativity that it gave me ideas once again on how to make our meals more enjoyable.

My daughter, SweetTeen also has her share of cute lunches after she comes home from school. These are some of the simple meals I came up with in the last 2 weeks:

SweetTeen loves sushi and scrambled eggs,
so I made happy sausage sushi for lunch

Some music notes made of cheese added
to a hotdog

 Rice in the shape of sheep, since it's
the Year of The Sheep 

On Valentine's Day this year I decided on a home-cooked meal instead of spending money on food with ridiculously hiked-up prices....

A smiley doggy for dinner - made 4 of this.
 It was good to spend Valentine's Day
 together as a family

One of my latest, and favourite -
snowman taking a dip in chicken stew.
SweetTeen said it was too cute to eat

Things That Bring Some Cheer

Lately the weather has been wet and gloomy on most days, perfect for curling up on the sofa with a nice hot drink and something to munch. Since I can't do that very often, I've found some things to bring some cheer when the day is long and tiring...

McDonald's was selling these cute little plush toys. The kids today may not appreciate them but the Mr Men and Little Miss books were one of my favourites in my childhood. So I just had to get them. Too bad I didn't manage to collect the whole set. They just bring a smile whenever I look at them.

I had a collection of almost all the books in the series. When I went back to my mum's house to look for them so that I could pass them on to my kids, my mum told me she had given them all away! :(

I was at the pasar malam one evening and look what I found...an assemble-it-yourself little piano! The retail price at the malls is RM35.90 but I got it for RM14, not the original version but not any less adorable. It's now on display on top of my upright piano. Maybe I'll be able to buy a grand piano some day. Love it to bits!

A piping hot bowl of curry laksa on a cold and wet morning. Some friends brought us to this coffee shop called Red Leaf at Sungai Besi, Kuala Lumpur. Best laksa I've tasted so far. Thumbs up!

And of course, some colourful chewy candy that I picked up from the Aeon supermarket. A bit of sugar rush when I'm a little low on energy. We all need a little pick-me-up now and then :) 

Getting Our Wires Crossed

Hubby had some free time on one of the weekends, and he decided to do some re-wiring behind our TV set for all our various gadgets...the DVD player, home theater system, XBox console, etc.

I was busy in the kitchen and when I walked past the dining table where he was seated, this is what I saw:

The precision of an engineer in
mapping out his course of action-
the red lines are wires connecting
the individual gadgets

 This is how I would probably do my wiring, much to the horror of my hubby (which is why I never get the opportunity to handle wires in our home, haha!)

The precision of a creative individual...

4 Senses and 1 Non-sense

For as long as I can remember, I have  banished the words "I can't" from my vocabulary. My motto in life has always been "I can and I will". Growing up with 2 brothers  has made me resolve never to be pushed aside and be told that I couldn't do what boys could do, just because I was a girl.

However, as age catches up with me, I find that there are some things that I find harder to do. Objects I could lift without any problems a few years back now feels rather heavy and my back would complain.

A few weeks back I caught what I thought was just a common stomach virus, but it turned out much worse than that. It started with bouts of diarrhea and throwing up, but when I couldn't get out of bed because the room would spin and there was constant ringing in my ears causing my hearing to diminish that I began to worry a little. Thankfully, the doctor at a clinic nearby had the good sense to refer me to the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist right away. 

At the ENT doctor's clinic, I was told to get a hearing test done. My usually optimistic ENT doctor who would usually say, "Don't worry, lah. I'll prescribe some medicine and you'll be fine in no time." took one look at the results of my hearing test and looked a bit worried after I described all my symptoms. A virus had attacked the nerves in my ears and affected my sense of balance as well as my ability to hear certain frequencies of sound. On top of that, I had totally lost my sense of smell. So he gave me a high dose of steroids to try and help me regain my hearing and sense of smell.

To cut a long story short, after 2 weeks of constant medication I have regained about 95% of my hearing although I have a constant high pitch buzzing in my ears that I have since learnt to ignore. I can drive around again as things don't seem to spin in circles around my head anymore. In short, life has gone back to as normal as it can be after some damaged nerves in my ears. 

However, the nerves in my nose are still not functioning. Of course I can't do a lot of things in life but this is a major "I CAN'T" for me..."I can't smell" :(

To some people it doesn't seem like a bad thing to have 4 senses out of 5. I am grateful that I can still taste, though. But I derive a lot of pleasure out of baking, and for someone who can tell how many more minutes before my cupcakes are done in the oven just based on smell alone, it is quite distressing not to be able to smell. Looking at the bright side, at least bad odours don't bother me anymore.

My doctor tells me that he can't do much about that. It might come back or it might not. But I'm really glad I still have my hearing and being a person very much involved in music, I would choose my hearing over my sense of smell. 

Being thankful for little things helps. Life goes on.

Mr. Postman, Where's My Letter?

Our front gate has served us well for the last 19 years and has begun to rust and lean off its hinge on one side. So we're in the midst of getting a new gate and doing some minor renovations to our porch. The workers took off our old gate and left it along the side wall as well as demolished our pillars to build new ones that are further apart since we're buying a bigger gate. 

Two days ago, Miss SweetTeen saw the postman ride his motorbike into our porch and then ride out again, which meant that he had mail for us. We now have no more letter-box because our pillar has been demolished, so when she went out of the house to collect the letters, she didn't find any. Puzzled, she mentioned it to me when I came home and I went out to have a look. 

Old habits die hard, so guess where the postman placed the letter?

View of my porch from inside the house. Pillars are gone,
so no doorbell and no letter-box.

Old gate taken off its hinges and leaning against
the side wall.

There it is!

A closer look.
I suppose letters should be placed either
in the letter-box or on the gate, and no where else?
Haha

Blog Revived!

Are we in the 2nd quarter of 2014 already? My, my, how time flies! 

It has indeed been a busy few months, and I hardly even have time to sit down and have a tea break on most days. Just a quick recap of what has happened so far...

Chinese New Year celebrations was rather quiet this year. Met up with my ex-colleagues for our annual CNY gathering and marvelled at how our kids have grown while we exchange stories about all the goings-on in our lives.

SweetTeen celebrated her Sweet 16th birthday in February followed by CoolTeen's in March. Now that he has turned 20, I have to come up with a new nickname for him. 

Teddy Bear cupcakes for SweetTeen

Went to OneCity Mall in Subang Jaya to celebrate CoolTeen's birthday.
This is the view of the mall through a glass floor 10 storeys up! 

It has also been an emotional roller-coaster ride with unusual ups and downs this year. Probably the biggest reason why I decided to take a break from blogging. Perhaps I'll comment on it when the ride is over.

Oh, and there was some hoo-ha when a baby snake slithered into my kitchen one night. My no-longer-small kids are terrified of creepy crawlies so guess who had to corner it and trap it in a plastic cookie container?

It looks large in this shot but it's only about 30cm long

So, having said all that....it's good to be back! *smiles*

Taking A Break

No, I have not abandoned my blog.

I've been meaning to put up new posts on my blog but the days have just flown by and it's already past mid-January. 

Now that the new school term has begun, my daughter, SweetTeen's school and tuition schedule is totally different from last year's, so I need to adjust my time as I chauffeur her here and there. Thankfully, my son CoolTeen is able to drive himself to and from college.

In the meantime, I will be taking a break from blogging until I settle down to my new routine for the year.

Laundromat Experience

Our trusty top-loading washing machine broke down after serving us for 18 long years. It had managed to survive through a few repairs but this time the repairman just shook his head and said, "It's time to buy a new machine."

Hubby and I had been eyeing a front-loader for quite a while as we anticipated that our washing machine would one day just suddenly conk out due to wear and tear. The price was a little steep though, with most of them above RM2000.

We finally found an Electrolux one at SenHeng that had both washing and drying function. The good news was that with a membership we could get a discount of RM800 off the retail price. That sounded like a pretty good deal, so we made an order and paid for it. 

The bad news was that we had to wait a whole week before they could deliver the machine because they didn't have ready stock.

Handwashing was out of the question as I had 2 laundry baskets FULL of dirty clothes that needed washing when my washing machine broke down. Then my daughter, SweetTeen had an idea. She mentioned that there is a coin-operated laundromat that had recently opened nearby where we stay.

So off we go lugging plastic-bags of dirty laundry for our first experience at a Malaysian laundromat. We had used the laundromat when we travelled overseas so it shouldn't be too different.

We discovered that it's quite a popular place, I'm not sure why, perhaps it's cheaper than buying a washing machine? Most of the people seem to be regulars as they knew exactly what to do and some even bring their own laundry detergent. Very clear instructions are displayed on the walls and above the washers and dryers together with the price list and duration of wash/drying. 

Different kinds of washers for different
amount of laundry.

Drink dispenser on the left and
coin machine on the right which
changes Ringgit notes to 50sen coins.
Wash-RM5, Dry-Rm4.50
We can also buy detergent and softener 
for RM1 each.

The powerful dryers that could dry all
our laundry in 15 minutes

There was also free Wifi and piped-in music, so we could surf the net and keep ourselves entertained while we wait. Within 1 hour all my laundry was washed and dried, and I returned home a happy woman.

I was even happier when this baby finally arrived!
Price: RM2800
Hopefully it will last us another 20 years!

October Activities

October has been a busy month for me and you would probably have noticed the lack of posts on my blog for the past weeks.

Just a quick update on what I have been up to...

A friend who has just started a food business asked hubby to take photos for her menu. So the things we learnt in the photography workshop a few months back are coming in handy now. 

This is before we began the photography session.
Everything came packed in styrofoam boxes
and we had to assemble them according to
specific instructions and sample pictures.

A few assembled items. Had to make
each item of food look as tasty as possible.

At the end of 5 hours of photo shoot.
Tiring but fun :)

Our church celebrated her 25th anniversary, so I was busy preparing a short comical play entitled "The Modern Good Samaritan" involving the youths. Put in a few weeks of practice. Also did a short video about all the church activities in the past year. That took up some time too, choosing photos for a 4 minute video.

Meanwhile I am still on the lookout for amusing signs, which has become some sort of a hobby for me. I mean, we all need to laugh now and then, right? Here's one that I saw at a laundromat nearby my house.

Naughty basket...going around stealing!

Oh, and a friend visited Bali and brought back some of these:

Disco prawns snacks...
I wonder if I will dance
better after eating them?

Creature Of Habit

Creature of habit = someone who always does the same thing in the same way (Cambridge Dictionary)

We have a pair of red, square padded stools that we bought from Ikea some years ago. They are placed beside our sofa as additional seating when we have visitors. I thought that red would be a nice contrast to our earth-tone furniture.

Usually, they are just a convenient surface for my kids (and sometimes, hubby) to place their bags and stuff when they arrive home...and I would be nagging them to remove their belongings and put them in their proper place.

One day, one of the stools gave way when a visitor sat on it...oops! I had to remove the top piece as well as the red fabric before getting it repaired.

And so there was left only one red stool....

This is what I saw the next day...hubby's iPad bag and water bottle placed at their usual place.... 

even though the other red stool is no longer there!

Some Midlife Changes

I just celebrated my 45th birthday and decided that I needed a makeover of some sort as I looked in the mirror and realised that wrinkles, unwanted fat and sagging body parts are going to be a permanent fixture in my life. That, and coupled with the fact that someone at the market about 10 years older than me called me 'aunty' the other day....!

I'm really blessed to have a wonderful hubby who thinks that I look good no matter what and but I guess it's natural for every woman to want to look younger and not older than her actual age.

I already changed my hairstyle about a year ago...from long curls to a short manageable bob. My dad keeps mentioning that I look like a schoolgirl. Maybe he thinks that a mom of teenage kids should look her age? Hmm...

Hubby and I went to Secret Recipe early in the morning to celebrate my birthday with some cake...ok, this has nothing to do with a makeover, but the slices of cake looked so good that I just had to post it up!

My motto has always been "Eat today, diet tomorrow'!

My daughter, SweetTeen, bought me some bright coloured nail polish for my birthday with her own pocket money. This is what I've been doing lately...

Saw some pretty cool nail art on the internet.
Since I can never get my right hand fingernails to be
as nice as my left hand fingernails (because I'm right-handed),
I thought I'll decorate my toenails instead :)

I've been wearing frameless glasses for the last 20 years, so this time I got myself a pair of framed ones.

I badly need exercise as I have not been exercising regularly after my line dance class got disbanded sometime last year. The weather has been either too hot or too wet for outdoor activities, so I asked hubby to get me this so that I could do exercise indoors...

!

Meet my new buddy...the Xbox 360 Kinect, 
a gaming console with motion detector!!
No I didn't get it just to play TV games...serious!

Now if I could just find the time to do some daily exercises using the Xbox I will soon be able to fit into some of my old smaller sized clothes...or maybe give me an excuse to buy new clothes, hehe!

A friend posted this video on Facebook and I think every woman should watch it. It's so common for us to only see our own flaws and this video helps us to see that there is beauty in each one of us...