New Kitchen Gadget

I have been cooking dinner after work since few months back. And I need to work very fast in order to clean up everything by 8pm so that I won't be too tired. I have been telling EG about getting a steamer so that I can steam and cook at the same time.

Though we have a normal pot that can do steaming, but somehow, the water always get collected on the dish and it became not so nice. If I use my wok to do the steaming, it'll be nicer but that means I need to wait for the steaming to be done before I can cook other stuff.

I wanted to get an electric steamer, but my husband is really an old fashion guy though he might not look like one. He prefers the conventional steamer. So, on Friday, we went to this shop that sells kitchen stuff at Bayan Lepas, and got our steamer.

My new steamer - It can go up to 3 tiers. :)

I tried using it today to do the steam pumpkin muffins. The steamer works fine and I really like it (so as EG though he's not the one using it... :P). And look at my muffins. :). They don't look as nice as the recipe links and they tasted a bit hard. However, my cutie pie Eunice loves it very much. She ate 2 straight after the muffins are cooled down.

Steam pumpkin muffins

I purposely did these muffins for Eunice's snack over the weekend. So, it's done by using some organic unbleached flour, organic molasses & organic pumpkin. No I didn't do it purposely, just so happen that I bought them few months back so I need to use them before they are expired. Not sure if it's because of the flour that the muffins didn't crack as nice as it's shown in the recipe. :P

Anyway, I'm still not good in baking. My muffins always turn out hard, or the cake turn out a bit wet. Though it's still edible, and sometimes EG said it's nice and I can see Eunice enjoy eating it a lot, but I still think there's a lot of rooms for improvement - though I seriously think I have no talent in baking. :P

New T-Shirt

Aiyo, I just noticed I haven't been blogging for a month... Geezzz....!

Anyway, EG bought me a t-shirt today from Parkson, 1st Avenue. Nice? He wanted to buy this for me when he brought his parents there few months ago and when they were buying some dresses for Eunice.

He told me the Ben 10 t-shirt was very cute. And he insisted to buy for me.

OK loh. So, nice or not?



See the tag - it's for kids @ 10 yrs old.



OK he's happier than me, and he couldn't wait to wash it so that I can wear it soon. I thought it looks like a boy shirt, but he said it's unisex. OK loh....


Later he added:"But if you wear this to church and 'zhong sam' with Chris on Sunday then I dunno har... I saw him wearing Ben 10 t-shirt before...."

Note: Chris is our worship pastor's son, 7 yrs old or 8 yrs old maybe? @.@

Drawing

Being parents is always challenging. You'll need to know how to sing, how to play hide & seek, how to entertain a small kid, and now, we have to know how to draw too!

I never like drawing... I don't think EG is the artistic kind of person too (except he's more into music, not art :P). But for our little one, we HAVE TO draw.

My 2-legged elephant

EG's evil rabbit

Ahhh... Failure! :D

Easiyo Yogurt Maker

I'm not exactly a yogurt lover, but while reading up on what food to give to a baby / toddler, yogurt always is mentioned as one of the good snack for small children.

I tried buying the yogurt from the supermarket and gave to Eunice. She eats them. But I don't really fancy them - 1) it's sweet for me 2) they are all low fat! They said babies need all the fats to grow. I never notice that most yogurt from supermarket on the shelves are either low fat or zero fat, until now. :P

I saw this Easiyo yogurt maker in an organic shop. I read up about it, asked around friends who used it, and all of them are giving very positive feedback on the yogurt maker. So I finally decided to get it. :)

Easiyo also has their own yogurt powder, which came with different delicious flavor. I just need to mix the powder with room temperature water in the Easiyo container, pour the hot boiling water into the maker and put the Easiyo container in, close the lid of the maker and leave it for 8-12 hours (I normally do it before bed time, and leave it overnight.). The next morning, I'll take it out and put it into the fridge. When I'm back from work, I have 1KG of fresh yogurt waiting for me! So easy!! :)

So far I have tried Apricot and Forest Fruits flavor, and they are just very nice! Eunice loves it very much. I have been giving it to her as snack after she's back from babysitter, or during weekend for breakfast. It's very filling and she can finish a bowl of it all by herself.

Both EG and I bought this for our mothers as Mother's Day present. My mum has used it to make 3 times already since there're more people in my house in hometown and they can finish it faster. And they love it so much. :)

This is definitely a highly recommended products for a family. :)

The yogurt powder mix

The yogurt mixture

Closed up - Benefits of Easiyo yogurt

The maker sitting on my kitchen counter overnight

The end product out from fridge (pic taken late, already eaten few times by Eunice :D)

The fresh home made yogurt! Yums!!

Satisfaction

Satisfaction.....

Mopping the whole house in an hour+!

Result....

Clean & fresh house, and a happy hubby!

Reward......

Free Seafood dinner

Kukukuku! :P

Advert

Saw this advertisement board last week, it says "1 mangkuk Nestle Koko Krunch dengan Susu = Protein sebiji Telur."

I thought something is not right. And true enough, EG's first reaction was: "Like that I eat egg mar better, cheaper some more!"

:P

New Toy

Gee... work has been SO BUSY that I couldn't even find some time to blog in my personal blog, though I have so many things to blog about! Being a mummy now makes life even busier!

EG and I have been thinking about upgrading our old panasonic lumix camera since last year. But we couldn't find any camera that we like. Either we don't want to pay so much for a compact camera, or we just couldn't afford a good DSLR, or couldn't find a justification on why we should spend so much on a DSLR that we might not use in the end.

And here comes Canon 550D. My friend used it to shoot Eunice first birthday party video and we thought 1) it's not THAT heavy 2) it's not THAT expensive too. But we still waited for a while, till Canon lauched 600D, and 550D price dropped RM500! And we went and get it! :P

For me, I just snap with the default setting. But EG will play with the settings (so much so for an engineer :P). And he has been busy experimenting with different settings on the cameras which doesn't really interest me. :P... That just shows that I'm definitely not a camera person. But I love this new toy, I could take really nice pictures on my active girl now. :). And the best thing is, I can use it to take videos too! :D

Some of my first experience with my first DSLR with my pretty girl at home:

Magnolia

My husband has a very special taste in movies. He collects DVDs, and most of his DVDs are the movies which are not shown in the cinema. It's one of his hobbies to collect good movies, according to him. However, I'm not interested in most of his movies because they are mostly mafia shows, some war shows, or some i-dont-know what show also. It's always violent, and saddening, though he said some of them are real life stories. But one thing I'm sure that these shows will never go up to the cinema because if it ever does, I think half of the movie will be muted, as most of the movies are full of foul languages. :P.

Few nights ago, after my Eunice fell asleep, as I came downstair, I saw EG watching one of his weirdo shows. Since I didn't feel like sleeping yet, I sat down and watched together. And I got hooked! The show talks about coincidence. There're many things going on with different people in the show in 24 hours, and in the end it shows how all these people are related to each other.

We used 2 nights to finish the show (it's 2 hours+ long), and after I finished the show, EG was laughing at me (as this is one of the rare times when I sat down and watched his show), and asked if the show is nice. My answer to him is: If anyone asked me what is this show about, I wouldn't know how to answer! There's no story line or drama going on. It's just some life stories of a few people in a city. Or like wikipedia says: Magnolia is an epic mosaic of several interrelated characters in search of happiness, forgiveness and meaning in the San Fernando Valley.

No doubt, it's very mind throbbing. It makes me think a lot. Even until now I still don't understand some parts of the movie (though I have been reading the synopsis in wiki over and over again). But one thing I learnt in the movie is, there's something called Raining Animals. And in this show, it was raining frogs! Ewwwww.... it was really really gross.....!

I have to agree with EG that it's not a bad movie really. A very different show with bizzare storyline. Just too many foul languages. That's why we can only watch when Eunice is asleep. :)

Alice in Wonderland

I have never gone into the cinema ever since I became a mother. During weekend, I'll be so busy taking care of a child and sitting down quietly to watch a movie is a luxury. I have not been watching a show quietly from start till end for a long time until recently.

Ever since Eunice turns 1, I have been trying to sleep train her - sleeping by herself and sleeping through the night. After some time, she's now able to do it. It makes our lives so much easier nowadays. And she sleeps almost the same time everyday - about 9.30pm. After she sleeps, she'll sleep well (unlike when she was younger - when she'll suddenly wake up to cry) until the next morning. :)

It's now that both me and EG can sit down quietly to watch a show. I watched Alice in Wonderland when EG on it last few days. And he's been very kind by bringing Eunice up to our room and help sleeping her so that I can continue watching the show downstair.

I like the show. Maybe it's a girl show but I really like it. I couldn't take my eyes away from the TV screen. I told EG I'll watch it again on one of the tiring weekends with Eunice. I really like this show. :). I think it'd be even nicer if we can watch it in cinema but it's OK. The DVD that EG got is of good quality and it's nice showing on our 50" plasma. I will watch it again this weekend. :)

Bear & Cat Talk

Bear: Eh Cat, when is the last day for us to submit our tax filing thingy?
Cat: I think it's 31st of April.
Bear: .... ?! Cat, I give you another chance to tell your answer again. When is the last day?
Cat: I don't know, I think it's 31st of April. No meh?

Bear: ...........................

Cat: Oh, 30th of April. There's no 31st in April hor?

Bear: ...............................

*It has been a while since we do our stupid talk. I hope I'll have more to write about. :)

人生就是一个。。过程。。。

最近的我，对人生有很多的感叹。。往往发现，生命中有很多事情不是自己能控制或安排得到的。。
朋友在面子书上share了这个短片。。觉得很有意思。。

Life, is just a process.

My meals

My meals yesterday:

Breakfast @ 7.45am
1) Kuey Teow Soup with minced pork & egg @ Sg Nibong Kopitiam

Late Lunch @ 1pm (hence was extremely hungry)
1) Mc Chicken set (Burger + coke + french fries)
2) Donuts x 2
3) Cheese bun

Dinner @ 6.45pm
1) Mee Suah Tow @ Red Chopsticks

Supper @ 10.30pm
1) A piece of butter cake
2) Homemade Ribena Cheesecake (about size of 15cm x 10cm)
3) 2 hard boiled eggs

The best thing is the comment from my colleague this morning
"Hey, did you lose weight again? Your face looks sharp & thin. Did you weigh yourself recently?"

Ya. It's crazy. I know. :P

Hi 2011

A friend of mine delivered a baby after Christmas, and on the first day on 2011, the baby passed away due to heart failure. When I received the sms, I didn't know what to say or how I should feel.

I'm a mother now. I can feel the pain for my friend. I couldn't imagine how she'd feel. I couldn't imagine how she felt when she held her baby for the last few moments. It's just so disheartening. Everytime when I tell him EG the bit and pieces of what my friend has gone through, my tears roll down uncontrollably.

This is how I started my 2011 new year. There isn't much excitement, only sadness.

When we went for the prayer meet on Sunday, Pastor mentioned that if we have doubt or fear in entering the new year, let's all submit to God. Even if we have uncertainties in front of us, let's just trust in God. Things are not in our control, let's just depend on our Mighty God.

I have learnt that life is fragile, life is short and life is full of uncertainties, so love yourself, and people around you. Treat them good, treat them well, and treasure the relationship. As we grow older, we see many unfortunate things around us. We'll still grow, life goes on. And we'll support and help each other - regardless of our differences.

But for those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not go weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:31

So, Hi 2011. Bring it ON!

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! :)