Stress

Recently, working life is so stressful. Not only I have to deal with work, but also have to deal with difficult people. Standard working life in a MNC I guess.

I have been trying so hard to release stress. Being a very kiam siap person, shopping therapy won't work on me (I tried!). It makes me more stressful because looking at the low liquidity in the bank makes me feel that I need to work more to get more moolah. Doh....

Before I have Eunice, I'll go for facial / my monthly back massage for relaxation. I also used to sleep through the whole weekend or just lie down in front of the TV with my blank mind. To at least "empty" my brain for some moment before stressing myself out with all the work stuff & emails. I even tried to skip meeting for one whole week in my previous company just to "free" myself off all the projects / updates / meetings. All those worked well.

But now, all those are luxuries for me. Even going facial also I need to take time off. During weekend, I'll be busy cooking for Eunice, and feeding her every 3 hourly, not to mention some time spent on expressing breast milk, bathing her, changing her diaper, soothe her when she fuss, sleep her, clean her mess after food, laundry, washing / sterilizing her bottles. Taking a nap is also a luxury now. When she naps, I'll surf my internet, watch some TV, do some housework, cook some dishes.

So, how to I release stress now? I just found a way to release my stress. I EAT! :P.. Since now it doesn't seem that I'm putting on weight even though I'm eating like a cow, I EAT whenever I feel stress. And it also helps to increase my milk supply. One stone two birds.

Today, I had a kuey teow soup for breaskfast, lunch @ Old Town with some BBQ chicken rice + 7 Up float. I came back for a meeting, then got stress out again. And off I went to the cafe and bought a piece of benggali french toast + a piece of butter cake for my tea time. And yong tau fu dinner after 3 hours.

And guess what, I've been doing that for the past few days. When I'm stress out, I find anything that I can eat in my cube, or go cafe and buy all the pastries.

I don't really like to talk about work with EG these days after work as everytime I talk about it, I get really down and by telling him what happened makes me worry sick and get more stress out.

But whenever I pick my cutie pie up from babysitter, her smile will straight away brighten my day. :)

Look at my cutie pie! She just makes me forget every lousy thing that happens in the day, and give me the motivation & courage to face the new challenges each day. :)

To EG: Sorry, you are demoted now. :)

A Good Day Out

Nowadays, it's a challenge to find time to blog, esp. when I'm terribly busy with office work, sometimes I still need to work before sleep... argh!

Anyway, I wanted to post this blog entry for very long already but didn't get to have the time until now. :)...

On Deepavali weekend, my parents in law came to Penang to visit us and their grand daughter. Going back Taiping is always hard for us so they come and visit. :)... And it was also my father in law's birthday so we have decided to go Gurney for a nice meal, and have some shopping.

They reached Penang around 12pm, and it's just nice as Eunice had her nap & porridge lunch. While we're on the way there, she slept in the car some more so I'm kinda relieved as having enough nap will make sure she's not cranky.

We had our lunch at a restaurant called Xiao Nan Guo. I wanted to try The Loft but it's already gone... Anyway, this restaurant's food is good too. ANd while we're waiting for our meal, I fed Eunice with her snack (banana + avocado) so she continues to be a happy gir. :)

Look at the cheeky girl

Parents in law while waiting for food

The recommended meal - Braised Pork Leg (or it is pork hand?)

The curry is good, stir fried brinjals is good too...

See a familiar duck there? That's Eunice's toy to keep her occupied :P

They always say men have a soft spot for their daughters, so as grandpa i think

After the lunch, we continued to shop in Gurney for another 2 hours. Eunice was an angel that day. No cranky, no crying. She just sat in her stroller and quietly observing around, occasionally make some excited noise when she saw us or when we played with her. We could even go to Cold Storage to do some light grocery shopping!

When we came back, the little girl was already exhausted and fussed a bit in the car but later on dozed off again in her car seat. :)... As long as she sleeps, both her mummy & daddy are happy.

In the end, our damages on that day:

Daddy's new toy from Denki Best

Mummy's new magazines from Popular

And we bought this from Cold Storage.

Pricey, but very nice!

It has been such a long time since we could do shopping with the little one. :). She used to fuss and cry and demand to be held when she's smaller. But now we're very happy that she can stay in her stroller while we do our shopping. Both EG and I really enjoyed the short day out. :)

The story of my first laptop

I bought a laptop from Dell when I'm moving from KL to Penang in 2005 to archive my work / mp3s / movies / photos. Dell Inspiron. It was my first laptop. I remember my siblings were "wa-wa-wa" over it. During then it was quite a good spec with a good price.

After I started work in Penang end of 2005, Intel gave me a laptop and I seldom use this laptop. And my brother who's studying in Seremban then asked me to let him use it since I don't use it often. So, I did.

After a year or two, my brother upgraded himself and got himself a desktop. And then, my sister who's studying in KL asked for a laptop. So, my brother passed my laptop to her to ease her in doing her uni assignment / keep in touch with friends.

Before my sister left to UK for her final year, she of course didn't wnat to bring my laptop along (after a few year it is a very heavy laptop comparing with all the new ones in the market). She also upgraded herself with a new laptop from Dell and my youngest brother who was doing A-Level at Taylor's college inherited this laptop.

And after my youngest brother finished his pre-u and entering university, again, he didnt want to bring this "antique" with him. So, he bought himself another laptop using the salary that he earned while becoming a temporary teacher during his long break while waiting for uni course to start. And my laptop was passed to my father (!!) =.=.

When I'm pregnant with Eunice, we decided to have my confinement in Taiping. I know I'll be bored to death when EG is back to Penang to work. So I asked my parents to bring my laptop back to me before I delivered Eunice. That's already 5 years later.

During confinement, it has been my greatest companion. I was using it everyday to search everything about babies in google, babycenter, parenthood forum and etc. When I'm back to Penang, it continued to contribute by allowing me going online to chat on my 2nd month of maternity leave. However, after a few years of passing around, my laptop got slower and it's really heavy. In the end, we have decided to buy a new Toshiba for myself.

Actually now that I think about it, thought I have bought this laptop for 5 years, but the total amount of time that I actually use it maybe is 1 year?! Hmmm....

I'd say my first laptop has been very faithful to not only me but my family (hey, it's being passed through all the siblings in my family! :P), and the durability is not a doubt! :)...

To remember my laptop, I took a few pics while transferring my data to the new laptop in the computer shop. We traded it in @ RM100.

The wallpaper

Transferring MP3s

EG asked if I'll miss my laptop. I'm never a heart person so I said no la... :).. Now, my new laptop with webcam allows me to show my mum in Sarawak on Eunice's development and let Eunice talks to her grandma too.

Oh, and this new laptop is EG's gift for me. So, thank you dear! :)

我不要。。

我不要做工。。。
我不要做工。。。
我不要做工。。。
我不要做工。。。
我不要做工。。。
我不要。。。!!
我不要。。。!!
我不要。。。!!
我不要。。。!!
我不要。。。!!
我不要。。。!!

唉。。。。：~（

Baking & Cooking weekends

After Eunice comes into my life, cooking daily dinner is kinda impossible as it'll be too rush. So, EG and I have decided that we'll eat out on weekdays, and I'll cook on weekend so that he can enjoy some not so nice homecook food. :P


Recently I joined a Chinese parenting forum and there are mothers sharing their recipes. And their recipes are easy and simple. I tried making curry chicken. It looks so nice in the picture right? It tasted OK but can be improved further coz 1) I didn't have curry leaves 2) I didn't use santan, I used full cream milk (which is supposed to be used for muffins baking :P).. I'm definitely going to try this again...

Next, a mum share this recipe called 京都排骨(Kyoto ribs?). Anyway, the recipe is so simple. I just marinade the ribs with oyster sauce + soy sauce + sugar + five spice powder + corn flour before I went church on Sunday morning. And in the evening, I took them out, wrapped with aluminium foil, and bake at 200 degrees for 40 minutes. Actually it already tasted very nice from oven.

Then, just fry some garlic and mix tomato sauce, black vinegar, sugar, water together, add in the baked ribs and done! Again, it wasn't perfect because 1) too much gravy 2) too much sugar so too sweet 3)am going to add some dried chili next time to add some kick.

But all in all, I think it's not bad laa... at least EG finished everything though he also agrees that both the dishes could be better. :)

And I also baked muffins! I got the recipe from JoyOfBaking.com. It's carrot muffins with no milk / butter - the recipe only calls for corn oil (I used my Natural cooking oil). They are not bad, but taste a bit "raw" so EG didn't really like it. And I brought to office for colleagues to get them finish for me. :P

Sometimes, it's the cooking/baking process that I enjoy the most. It helps me to release my stress after taking care of a super active baby. Sometimes I hope I can take a few days off just to cook / bake at home but that will only happen in my dream... bah.....

对---不---起

也许自己的 ego 太高。。以前要说对不起三个字，比登天还难。。
可是，现实人生不是只有对或错。。也不是黑和白而已。。还有灰嘞。。

有时，自己没有错，还是得认错。。。
尤其是 senior/“长辈” 数说你有多不对时，真的懒得为自己辩护。。
反正大家都认为你年轻，一定是你错的啦。。。别人都做了这么多年。。不可能会出错的啦。。人家 吃盐多过你吃饭嘞。。

再辩护下去，大家都觉得你好固执。。怎么现在的年轻人那么难教。。虽然我就只比你们年轻7-8年。。

古人说： 忍一时风平浪静。。退一步海阔天空。。

So,

对不起咯。。是我的错！
虽然我还是觉得我是无辜的。。

Eneloop Rechargeable Batteries

I have not been blogging. Not because I'm lazy but I'm just so tied up at work. Having the long Raya holiday is a relief for me, but also adding stress to me as I have deadlines to meet in office. :(... I foresee I'll need to work from home but well, I'm going to take it easy and still enjoy my long weekend. :)

I think I'm blessed to marry EG. He's a very homey guy and he does a lot of house chores better than me. Besides, he also always makes sure things in the house are working fine - like the lights, gate, switches, remote controls, etc.

One thing that he will always stock up at home is batteries. We need quite a lot of batteries in our daily lives for remote controls, torch lights, etc. And recently we bought toys for Eunice. These days, toys come with music and light - means batteries again. So he suggested that we get rechargable batteries for cost saving as well as to save the environment (btw - Jusco Penang has recycle bin for batteries).


After surfing the net and getting some information, he found this Sanyo Eneloop rechargeable batteries, and he got his friend to bring it back from US (50% cheaper than buying in Malaysia).


He also bought extra batteries so that we will always have enough for different appliances at home. If I remember correctly, EG said the batteries can be re-charged up to 1000 times. So far we're using them for Eunice's toys. They are working just great and at least now we don't need to always buy batteries.

To EG: Good job! :)

Parents in town

My sister had her 2nd convocation in KL last weekend. So, since my parents are attending her convocation in KL, they took the opportunity to come Penang to visit their precious granddaughter. The last time they came was when Eunice was only 7 weeks old. And now, she's 6 months old already! :)

To think about it, my parents + my sister are so bravo in planning their trip (as usual). They left my hometown Miri @ 6am+ and reached KL @ 8am. Went straight from Airport to IMU Sri Petaling to attend my sister's convocation @ 9am+. After that, they went Sunway to meet up with youngest brother, and took 5.30pm Aeroline up to Penang. And such, they saved hotel in KL on Saturday.

They spent a day in Penang on Sunday, and left to KL the next day (Monday) using Aeroline again @10.30am, and left back to Miri on the same day @ 8.30pm flight. Sound tiring isn't it? In less than 24 hours, they travelled 1368.55km (Miri - KL) + 369km (KL - PG) = 1737.55km! Recently they have been traveling quite a lot, so I guess this is not as tiring as when they went for back-packing in Taiwan with my brother early this year. :)

Eunice wasn't feeling very well on Saturday, so when my mum reached my house at 10pm+, and when she woke up from her sleep, my mum tried carrying her. As usual, she examined the "stranger" for very long, but this time, she started crying... So we decided to only re-introduce her to her grandparents the next day. My mum was extra delightful to see Eunice. She couldn't stop playing & carrying her. My sister snapped a few pictures and when I went through the pictures, I noticed my mum has been carrying her almost all the time. :)...

Eunice & Grandma

Eunice & Grandpa

Grandma couldn't put Eunice down and she was so comfortable that she actually fell sleep in her arms....

Another proof that Grandma couldn't put chubby Eunice down

Grandma playing with Eunice on her playmat

with Grandma again

My dad's birthday was coming up so we celebrated his birthday during the weekend since we won't be able to go back Miri in September. His first birthday with his granddaughter. He was pleasantly surprise by the birthday celebration. He first thought we want to celebrate Eunice's birthday when he only saw 1 candle on the cake, and commented that it's still 6 more months to go.... :P

See, Grandma is holding Eunice again! :)

The happy grandparents with their first granddaughter

Dad was shy so he got Eunice to cut the cake together... kekeke :P

Sometimes I feel sad that my parents can't spend much time with their grandchild. And even sadder when the thought that Eunice will know recognize them as her grandparents since she won't see them often. But in Babycenter, it mentioned that we can develop grandparents' pictures and put in the house, and show the baby so that they remember the face.

So, I'm going to do that! Kekeke... Hopefully when Eunice goes back Miri for CNY next year, she'll still recognize her grandparents. :)

Another Experience With Blue Reef

Ever since we visited Blue Reef for our 1st year anniversary, EG doesn't eat anymore fish and chip elsewhere. Many times, we drove all the way from Bayan Lepas to Tanjung Bungah just to eat his favorite fish & chips, and my favorite pan seared salmon. Even Eunice has visited the place 3 times. :)

Last month, we attended a friend's wedding ceremony @ Paradise Sandy Beach hotel. On our way back, we wanted to dine in @ Blue Reef but later thought it might not be a good idea as the dinner might run late and Eunice will be fussing - and both of us might not be able to enjoy our meals. So, we have decided to pack it.

We smsed Blue Reef's owner on our way there (we didn't have the shop phone number then), and ordered two sets of fish & chips. When we reached, EG went down to collect the food while I was in the car entertaining my little cutie pie.

After 15 minutes, EG got back into the car and told me he's really happy with Blue Reef's service. There isn't any extra charge for packing. And to our surprise, Blue Reef's owner (whom we smsed to) wasn't in the shop but she has already called in to place our order! I'm impressed. Besides, EG told me while he's waiting, he thought if anyone will offer him a drink, and true enough, the always friendly waiter gave him a chilled water. He was very impressed.

The food was nicely packed. And of course, we enjoyed our dinner together with our little one at home. We'll still rate Blue Reef as one of our favorite restaurants, and it's definitely worth it for us to travel the distance just to enjoy their food. :)

The nicely packed greens

The greens, my favorite tartar sauce (yuummsss) & vinegerette

Our dinner in the paper bag

Yumssss

8th Year Anniversary

Today is my 8th year anniversary
- not wedding anniversary
- not knowing-EG anniversary
- not first-kiss anniversary or what-so-ever..

Today @ 8 years ago, I started my first job in IBM Plaza, TTDI as a software engineer, and that's when I fell in love with SQL databases. During then, I was still fresh, young, pretty and full of energy. And during then, I enjoyed the attentions from other guys who are trying to know me better (ooppsss... shy :P), enjoyed the challenges / jobs given, and definitely enjoyed the traveling every month.

8 years later, I have moved from KL to Penang, changed to my 4th job, changed my role from a young lady to a wife & mummy. Mindset changed. Paradigm shifted. Many things have changed in these 8 years but I thank God that I'm very much blessed with good jobs, good companies and most importantly - good friends & colleagues throughout my career life.

How time flies. I've been working for 8 years already.

Maybe I should reward myself with something... Hmm... **thinking hard** :D

Our Weekend

EG and I can stay at home for the whole weekend, only go church on Sunday. Even our neighbor came by and commented that we have good "family time"... Hmm... To be honest, sometimes I feel that we're busier on weekend than on weekdays as weekend is the only time when you can do all your housework that you can't do on weekdays, and it's also the only time when we can cook slowly in the kitchen as there's no rush going to fetch Eunice from babysitter, or getting ready to sleep her.

So, if you wonder, what do we eat during weekends?

I made pancakes.

EG thinks the pancakes are much nicer compare to my previous attempt

EG made bolognese spaghetti (he's getting very good in this esp. ever since he got his balsamic vinegar :P). We could eat this for few meals. :P

Our 2 lunches over the weekend :P

Another quick meal by EG. Simple but filling. Best thing is it doesn't dirty the kitchen.

Friday Night Dinner

Clockwise: Adventist 7-Grain bread with olive oil & balsamic vinegar, pan fried HOG sausages, Salad with cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, celery, apples, and home made dressing, scrambled eggs

Attended a friend's wedding ceremony on Saturday evening (didn't stay for dinner as we think Eunice is still too young to go out for too long :P), and tapao Blue Reef on the way back. (Will blog about this separately).

Saturday night dinner - Blue Reef

A typical chinese dish by me - a-supposed-to-be-hong-xiu-pork-rib-but-turned-out-dunno-what-pork-rib, & stir fry vege.

Sunday Night dinner

I made jelly too... :)Konyakku Lychee Jelly

Then, there are so much housework to do. The for-sure things that we do every weekend is our laundry. We need to wash at least 3 batches - Eunice's clothes with her baby detergent, our clothes, and the inner wear. Throwing them into washing machine, hang, took in at the end of the day, fold, sort. I also wash Eunice's cloth diapers since she'll be on full cloth diapers at home during weekends and she'll used easily 5-6 pcs per day.

Our laundry

And EG will be washing car, vacuuming the house, mopping, washing toilets, washing car porch, etc etc.

Not to mention we also need to take out time to feed Eunice, sleep Eunice, play with her, change her diapers, etc etc.

EG sleeping his precious

So, don't you think our weekends are really very busy? :)

HOG in Penang!

Recently, EG is kinda falling in love with cooking. But he only likes to cook Italian food which is his favorite. He has been searching online recipes up and down to make his bolognese spaghetti better. He also tried to make Aglio Olio - which is a quick and easy meal.

He was looking at some sausages @ Jusco the other day and told me seriously that he really needed some sausages from HOG (which i blogged previously) as we know those selling @ departmental stall are processed one, unlike HOG's which uses fresh & non artificial ingredients.

After checking with YY (the HOG's boss :P), finally we had a friend came up Penang from KL and she is kind enough to bring up nearly 5 dozens of sausages for us (not all for EG and me la... ours is only 2 dozens, the rest are friends' orders). And we have been cooking them quite often esp. when I have no time to cook. It's very easy & quick to prepare a meal with HOG's sausages. :D

So, now, pictures of some of our dinners.

Pan Fried HOG sausages with homemade salad & mashed potatoes

Pasta with HOG sausages and fresh herb

Well, HOG's sausages are full of meat! EG and I can take 2 sausages each and it's really very very filling. To be healthier, EG cut up some of the food / fruits that he can find in the fridge and make some salad as our vegetables. I'm amazed that he's seriously very creative. And the salad tasted very good as both of us prefer the cruncy type of salad. :D

Homemade salad with apples & celeries & tomatoes & olive oil & herbs

In our most recent "shipment" to Penang (yeah, 2nd shipment :P), we got some burger patties from HOG. And EG and I decided to make a quick dinner on last Friday before we left to Taiping for the weekend.

When EG is pan frying the burget patties in the kitchen while me settling down Eunice, I can already smell the great aroma from the patties. Yuummsss... And we fried extra eggs to go with our burger - with bread. :P... Oh it's so good as the burger is full of flavor.

Our burger with HOG's burger patty

A closer look - looko at the juicy meeeeaaatttt... yumm...

Now, we're going to wait and see who else is coming to Penang from KL. And HOG will get them to bring more sausages / burger patties up for us...! Yeahh...! I wonder if we could actually transport the roasted pork as well. Hmm... I shall leave it to the guys to think how to do that. :D

Btw, if anyone from Penang is interested with HOG sausages / burger / meatballs, do drop me a note so that i'll let u know when we're collecting orders for the next shipment to Penang. :)

New motivation!

OK.

I admit that my blog is getting more and more boring, and more and more "dead" with nothing much interesting.

Like EG said, I should try to relax more - ooo-sha ooo-sha - and try not to be so stress out with so many things in life - especially with the little one my cutie pie. :P

OK. I shall re-ignite my blogging motivation and blog about something more interesting soon!

Stay tune!!

ooo-sha ooo-sha!!

Milo Agar Agar

Made this last 2 weekends. Not bad but I think I put too much milo powder (I love drinking milo with a lot of the Milo powder), so there's a layer of powder accumulated at the bottom of the jelly, and it caused the jelly to be a little bit bitter - just a little bit.

But it's still quite nice to eat. And very esy to make. Can be done in 20 minutes and I can do while Eunice is napping. :)... Will definitely do it again esp. on hot weather like these days.

A Life Lesson

Someone bang my car.

Yeap. You heard it right.

Someone bang my car.

Of course it's not our fault. It's very obvious that it's not our fault. The lady driver went into our lane and bang right into my car. My poor potato car. Baby Eunice was in the car with us as we're going to bring her for some checkup on her running nose. Thank God EG has already stopped the car, and Eunice's car seat is back facing so there's no impact on her.

EG already saw the blur lady driver. Honked her. Stopped the car. But she still came all the way straight into my car. Signal light broke. Head light broke. Bonnet knocked. Bumper knocked. Driver side door cannot open. Eunice cried after 5 minutes because car didn't move. Took her out from car seat to soothe her. Called babysitter (since near her house) and got her to send Eunice back to her place.

The sotong lady driver lifted her hand to me while I'm holding Eunice in the car - I guess she's trying to apologize. Fine. I wasn't too angry at that time. Most probably she was distracted by her two little daughters in the car. Thank God that the two little girls are not hurt as well.

She told us we'd claim her insurance. OK fine. She told us she can't go and make police report now because she needs to pick up another child. OK fine. She looked rather sincere. Fine. She repeated many many times that we'd claim her insurance. Fine. We went ourselves and did our own report.

During evening, EG called up to check the status. The lady reported police said WE BANG HER CAR! And so now, we can't claim her insurance. EG and I kept calling her. No answer. SMS her. No reply. I was FUMING angry.

I have never felt SO ANGRY for so long!

I was seriously FUMING ANGRY. I hate ppl lying straight into my face. And I hate ppl taking advantage over me esp. when I DID NOTHING WRONG.

I told EG let's go and find the witness and report to police again!
I told EG let's go round the neighborhood to find her and talk to her again!
I told EG what kind of example is she setting to her children?! Lying?! I was just SO ANGRY.

I called my mum. She told me to let go. Told me to thank God that everyone is safe. Told me to pay the repair ourselves since we can afford it. Told me not to curse the lady. Told me God will have His own justice. Told me to submit to God. Told me don't go sleep with anger.

EG talked to one of his friends in church. He was told the same thing. Let go - it's a fallen world. The thing that encourages us the most is what he said - Don't get discouraged of what others have cheated on you, because our God is resourceful. How much can the others take from you?... It's really encouraging.

So we prayed not to let this affect us. We want to apply what Bible teaches us in this situation. Not easy though.

We got someone to assess the damage, and paid 1k+ for the repair.

Well, I thank God:

• Everyone is safe.
• Eunice wasn't shocked. Thank God for car seat! And after she went back to bbsitter, she continue to sleep and drink like usual. And at night, she still slept well.
• For family and friend who advise & encourage us. For friend who recommend a good contact for car repair.
• I really thank God that both EG and I have income. We can afford the repair. Though we're not supposed to pay it anyway.. but it's OK.

So I got my potato car back after a week. We even paid extra to polish it. Now, it looks brand new!

It's a life lesson. We learn through it. Deep inside me, I'm still angry with that liar woman - guess it's not so easy to forgive.

Anyway, for those in Penang, give way when you see Myvi PHY5525 on the road. Blek!

New chef at home!

I've been so busy with Eunice even if it's weekend. In fact, weekends are busier than weekdays since we have a good babysitter to take care of Eunice during weekdays and we can have time to do some things by our own. But during weekends, I need to do from A to Z to make her the happy baby.

Since I'm rather tied up esp. with feeding, EG has volunteered himself to COOK!. WOW!! I thought I heard it wrong when he first told me.... coz he once told me he really can't cook! Well, guess the new life that came our house in fact changes my dear hubby. :)

Since it's the first time he cooks (except maggi mee or fried eggs lar), he started with his favorite food - Spaghetti Bolognese. He surfed net for a GOOD recipe, and went out to buy the ingredients himself. So excited right? :)

The happy chef

After 30 minutes .... Tadaaaa...!

Bolognese sauce for spag

I must say it's not bad for his first cooking. And of course I helped to do some of the cutting while Eunice is having her nap after feed.

And now the new chef is getting all excited with cooking and planning out his next cook during the weekend... :P

New Role in Life

Life has been busy ever since I started working after 2 months of my maternity leave.

The schedule is rather standard, and I have to sleep earlier these days as I need to get up earlier to prepare everything.

Now I wake up at 5.30am to express some breastmilk. Wash all parts & sterilise the breastpump. Pack up my breastpump & stuff for expressing in office. Prepare & pack breakfast for EG and myself to eat in office. I need to finish all these by 6am.

Then, go back upstair. Spend some time looking at my little cutie pie sleeping in her cot, and show some disgusted face looking at the other BIG BABY snoring on the bed =.=. Bathe. Change.

6.30am wake the BIG BABY up by calling his full name. Then slowly pick up my little cutie pie and kiss kiss a bit to wake her up to feed her before sending her to babysitter. Cutie pie will finish sucking by 7am (or else I'll break her) and I'll change her cloth & diaper. Bring her downstair to get ready to go babysitter's place.

Latest by 7.30am we have to leave the house since I can't reach office too late.

Work from 8am to 5pm+. Go home to prepare dinner and go pick up little cutie pie again. After dinner it'll be around 8pm+. And since cutie pie has been @ babysitter's place the whole day, we'll normally spend time talking & playing with her. And feed her of course.

10pm I'll bring cutie pie back upstair. Wipe her, feed her and sleep her. And I normally will fall asleep while sleeping her. So cute right? :P. At night cutie pie will wake up normally once for feed.

And the cycle repeats.

No, I'm not too tired. I actually like this kind of life. Being parent is so nice esp. when you see the little one growing everyday. The feeling can't be described with words.

Maybe the only problem I have is - I have 2 babies to take care of. One big and one small. =.=

But the big one can help to do a lot of things. Only problem is - the big one is not a morning person. :P

New Blog

I have not been updating my blog often. For those who have me in my facebook will know that I'm upgraded to mummy status. Yeah, you heard it right. And yeah, I was so secretive about it. :P

Anyway, life with a baby now is obviously very busy. And the routine for the whole day is all about baby - bathing baby, feeding, burping, changing diaper, sleep baby. With me doing exclusive direct breastfeeding, it makes my life slightly harder because no one can take over the feeding job! And I have to do it myself!

EG has been very supporting and he has been helping to do all the housework when I'm busy feeding / sleeping his precious. Guess now he knows how it feels to prepare dinner every night last time (though he just tapao / heat up / put in plate / feed me sometimes if baby Eunice doesn't give me a break! :P).

If you're interested on how we're doing with parenthood, do check out my new mamabeh blog. :)

My Oven's Story

When EG and I were planning on our house renovation last year, we have certain expectations on how certain things needed to be done at our new place. For me, I requested for a built-in oven in my kitchen so that I can try with some "funny" recipes, and I got it.

We didn't go for the branded ones (obviously for cost reason) and we chose a local brand called Izoton recommended by our kitchen renovator which has good service and perform equally well with other branded ones.

My oven

After moving in for almost 5 months, I couldn't find a reason or motivation to use the oven. :P... So it has been idling for months until one day, someone asked us to make some roasted potatoes for a pot luck party. So, quickly I took out the oven manual and found out that we need to "clean" the oven before using it.

The smell was bad... it smell like some strong metalic smell and I had to on all the fans in my house and open all the windows for better air ventilation, else I think both EG and I might just be suffocated. :P

Oven cleaning

EG always like to do these stuff. So, to be safe, we started off by trying with a few potatoes first. :P... So, I quartered the potatoes, he put some salt, paprika, olive oil onto the potatoes. We roasted for like 30 minutes maybe? And ta-da, it was not bad. We had it as one of the dishes for lunch. :P

Roasted Potatoes Trial Run :P

So since it's successful, I quartered up the rest of the potatoes. This time, we mixed everything in a bowl with all the ingredients so that they are more evenly coated, and we added black pepper. We poured all of them into the pan and roasted it again.

The real one

The final result was not bad. Though we thought it could be more crispy. After the potoatoes are cooled, they became slightly soggy. But we still received good comments saying they tasted good. Maybe saja-lah friends wanna make us feel better. :P

The end result

After that, I have been trying to use this oven to bake my mum's carrot cakes, baked salmon for our new year dinner, MUFFINS!!! And baking is really fun...! I have been surfing the net for many different recipes and I shall try them with my this lovely oven..! Oh I love my oven now. :)

But before that, I need to stock up my baking tools and baking ingredients... Hopefully my motivation will stay since EG doesn't really fancy cakes / bread / pastry, but he's a huge fan for potatoes. Talking about that, I thought I saw a recipe for home made potato chips too... Hmmm... :P