Mozart The Litter-Bug?

Saw this advertisement in a magazine for a children's music course... poor Mozart...they are calling him a litter-bug! The proper name for the course is actually Music For Little Mozarts which my kids attended when they were about 4 or 5 years old and subsequently moved on to piano lessons.

I Got A Crush On You

Recently the small fish pond in our garden has been rather popular with frogs and toads when all the fish died. Hubby found tadpoles in the water one day and had to clean out the entire pond to get rid of them. He also added some new fish to keep the  frogs from laying eggs in the pond, but one particular frog would still come to visit.

Tonight we understood why, as we caught sight of that one lonely frog (circled in red in the 2nd photo) sitting on one of the stones in the pond...

...looking adoringly at the ceramic fish by the side of the pond???

Now that's infatuation...froggy style!

My 'Prototype' Mooncakes

The Mooncake Festival is around the corner and the price of mooncakes has risen again from last year. It's becoming so expensive that I would be very careful while eating it, knowing that a single crumb that drops on the floor may be worth about one Ringgit...! (ok,ok, I'm exaggerating, but it's kind of hard on the pocket)

So being a DIY kind of mom, I thought I would make my own mooncakes this year...no, not the jelly kind that I often make...but the "baked-in-the-oven lotus paste mooncakes with pumpkin seeds" kind. One of my friends (who bakes mooncakes every year) told me that it really isn't very difficult. So feeling encouraged, I looked up the recipe on the internet and bought all the ingredients.

Ok, first of all I had to melt sugar with some water to make a syrup. Not too difficult, right?

WRONG.

The sugar refused to melt to a golden colour (as stated in the recipe) even after one whole hour of boiling, by which time my feet were aching from standing so long watching the fire so that the sugar won't get burnt...so I dumped the whole pot of syrup and used bought-off-the-shelf golden syrup instead.

I mix the ingredients and make my mooncake skin dough. It turns out really, really sticky and gooey but I need to let it rest at least 3 hours, so hopefully by then it would turn into a pliable consistency.

WRONG...again.

I had to add extra flour to the dough mixture so that I could knead it and divide it into 15 equal portions without the whole piece of dough stuck to my hand like a second skin!

OK, I finally manage to wrap the dough around small round balls of lotus paste mixed with pumpkin seeds and try to stuff the first one into the mould.

Oops...over-estimated the size...the mooncake turns out into an ugly mis-shapen lump...(sounds of hubby and kids laughing in the background, and hubby whips out his camera)

This time I reduce the quantity of the lotus paste and dough, and manage to make the mooncakes look more decent.

Brushed them with some egg wash and popped them into the oven. When they're done they don't look too bad.

The taste? Not too good....the skin was quite hard and the filling was a little too dry.

I got some more tips from my friend and I suppose I will try baking mooncakes again....next year. Right now I am wondering how I am going to finish all these mooncakes since they are not good enough to be given away...

Just Buy A New One

My trusty hairdryer, which I got for free a few years ago when I redeemed some points with Real Rewards, has finally given up on me. I had tried to use it earlier and I saw the wire glowing red  where it joins to the 3-pin plug. Then there was a burning smell, which meant that something was seriously wrong and that I should just switch off the hairdryer rather than risk setting my (precious) hair on fire.

Hubby had a look at it, plugged the hairdryer into the electric socket to test it and there was a loud "POP" which tripped the electrical supply to a section of our house. Then he decided to chop off the offending part...(reminds me of the Red Queen in the recent movie 'Alice In Wonderland', who loved to yell "Off with his head!!"...well, in this case..."Off with the tail"? haha)

...and said that he could probably change the 3-pin plug but wasn't sure if the mini explosion had damaged the whole wire, but he could try to get it repaired. As much as I loved this hairdryer, I thought it would be better to just buy a new one. See, to us ladies the solution to most problems with electrical appliances is simple...just go buy a new one! Men on the other hand...ok, time to zip it and not say anything because hubby reads my blog...

Worn Out

A few days ago CoolTeen started having problems with his handphone keypad. The way the poor keypad is used non-stop during all the hours CoolTeen is awake, I am rather surprised that it lasted as long as it did.

We took it for repairs, and here it is...all shiny and new, and in good working condition again.

And here is the worn out keypad that was replaced. I wonder why number 9 and 0 is seldom used....