Finally, The Big 40 Rolled In!

My 'big' day came and went like a gust of wind. So....... (loooong sigh), I am officially 40 years old now, boo hoo hooo....
I do miss being in my 20s and 30s and I wonder how the 40s journey is going to turn out. I pray to God that it is going to be a smooth ride with an awesome specatacle and terrain ahead. Most importantly, I pray for good health to be bestowed on my kids, my loved ones and myself.

Hubs has been asking me since yesterday where I'd like to have lunch today but I could not think of a place that I really like.  Being the practical person that I am, I chose Delicious @ Bangsar Village, mainly because I was really craving for the gado-gado (which is a healthy yet delicious dish) from Delicious and later could  could walk across the sky bridge to Cold Storage to get the groceries that I wanted, lol!


While waiting for the food to arrive, the ever I-don't-like-to-do-nothing Cass asked me for Math sums and sukukata. Later, she played one-two-jus with daddy.

 


My favorite gado-gado. Love the sweet and spicy peanut sauce to bits! This is an Indonesian salad dish. The best gado-gado dish has to be from the award-winning Dancing Fish Restaurant @ Bangsar Shopping Centre. I shall blog about our dinner at this restaurant later.



Hubby's sirloin steak...



Mushroom soup and pumpkin soup, which were deliciously thick, rich and lipsmacking!






There was also a green curry set which the mil ordered and 2 kids' meals but darn my mobile phone as I am unable to transfer the pix from my phone to my gmail or Facebook despite umpteen attempts.


My rose shaped green tea pistachio birthday cake from Les Deux Garcons. The 'rose petals' are long wedges of white chocolate wrapped round the cake.




The pet of the family getting a kiss from daddy dearest...




HFM's 3 angels. What could make me happier on my birthday than to celebrate it with my angels and loved ones.

Hawkers' Fare @ Rainbow City Food Lane, Ipoh

During our recent trip back to Ipoh, we brought the girls to savour some street food at 'Tong Sui Kai' (Desserts Street) at Rainbow City Food Lane / Food Court. This is the street that I have been patronizing for the past 25 years whenever we wanted to eat 'tong sui' (desserts) and cheap seafood. It was the girls' first time to this hawkers' street. Well, the food there ain't cheap anymore.

Our first stop was at the first stall that sells seafood and 'tai chau' dishes. We ordered a sweet and sour crab dish, a 'ceong ceng' fish (fish steamed with sweet and sour paste), a pan-fried kampung chicken dish, a stir-fried bean sprouts  and a steamed 3-egg dish. That cost us a whopping RM160+! 




Hubs also ordered piggy spare parts porridge, fish porridge, BBQ sotong (cuttlefish), yau yi ong choy (water spinach with brown cuttlefish in spicy peanut sauce) and rojak from other stalls. The owner of the 'tai chau' stall ain't too happy that we used his bowls and cutlery, HUH!  WTH, we still needed to use his bowl, plates and cutlery when his dishes arrived, right?  This will be our first and probably the last time we patronize this stall as we all think that RM160+ for only 5 dishes is too expensive for Ipoh street food!

The cuttlefish-kangkong and BBQ cuttlefish were very tasty though.

 

For desserts, we walked down to another stall and ordered these:

Ice kacang with atapchi and ice cream, cendol with ice cream, red bean tong sui and a bubur cha cha. As all of us adults are health freaks who have re-trained our palate to eat sugar-reduced food, we all found the desserts too sweet for our liking and only walloped half the bowl for all the desserts.


It was a good experience for the kids to experience Ipoh street food. The next time we go there again, we will sample  food from other stalls. The girls have yet to try Ipoh Hor Hee. I'll bet you have not heard of this too, unless you are from Ipoh :)

Our Sunday - 17 March 2013

On Sunday, I had my first pre-birthday celebration, with a brunch at Han Room @ Gardens Mid Valley.  The reason why we went to Han Room was to utilize the RM50 birthday voucher that the Oriental Group had sent to me.  For your information, membership at the Oriental Group is free and members will get a RM50 birthday voucher which she/he can use in her/his birthday month, on top of getting the usual member's discount of 10%.

We had an assortment of dim sum, baked fried rice in crab shell and this time, we tried a rice dish cooked with tomato sauce, big onions, beef and a fried egg dished out in a claypot. I like this very toothsome dish, which is very suitable for kids. In fact, I like just about any dish cooked with a combination of tomato sauce + big onions + eggs.





After lunch, we did a super quick groceries shopping at Aeon (formerly known as Jaya Jusco) before speeding off to send rascal #2 for ballet class. Sherilyn and her fellow ballerina friends have to attend extra ballet classes (3 times a week) to get themselves really well prepared for their Grade 2 RAD exam next week.

After dropping rascal #2 at the dance centre, the hubs brought us to check out the car that he'd be getting for me.  I told the hubs that  with a 7-year hiatus in driving, I only have the courage to drive a small car with a short butt. I ain't going to drive his 11-seater bulky MPV or the 7-seater MPV that he had originally wanted to get me.  No thanks dear, I do not want to break your heart if I break the car's butt or head. I feel safer driving a small car, which can enable me to weave in and out of the horrendous KL traffic and enables me to park at itty-bitty space at shopping malls. Moreover, I will only be driving the car in our neighborhood to send the kids for classes and to the nearby shops. Anywhere that requires me to brave through traffic jams, I'd still get my Ahmad to drive me around!  Oh, I had mentioned in my earlier posts that the compass in my head is somewhat impaired and my sense of direction sucks BIG TIME!!  Thus, he thinks that the Hyundai i10 would be the ideal vehicle for me, for a silai to drive in the neighborhood.

I was delighted when I saw that the i10 also comes in my favorite color, PINK... in striking PINK somemore, wooohoooo!! I told the hubs that I wanted this color!



But Alycia, my NO-PINK girl gave me a disgusted look when she saw the pink and opted for alpine blue

So which color did you think hubs got for me?

An Extraordinary Man

I never knew what humidors were until I worked for a boss who was a chain cigar smoker. I was marveled when he showed me the humidor with all his collection of luxury cigars. I was even more awestruck when he told me that I had to add water into the humidor to keep the cigars moist. He had opened my eyes to many things and I had learned a lot from this man with an extraordinary mind and intelligence. Unfortunately this great man’s life had to come to an abrupt end when he succumbed to the Big C.

Homecooked Dinner - 18 March 2013

This is our delicious and heartwarming dinner on 14 March 2013...

To all my Muslim blog readers, pardon me ya :P

Pan-fried fish with tomato & onion sauce, braised piggy hands, ladies fingers (blanched with oil), stir-fried young lotus roots and pork slices and multi-grain rice.

 


Closed up pic of the scrumptious braised piggy hands with mushrooms, young ginger and Chinese cooking wine. This is a new dish which the MIL tried and referred from a recipe book.  It tasted very much like pig's trotters in black vinegar.

Cassandra's Second Swimming Lesson

Cass attended her 2nd swimming lesson yesterday.   The first time she attended the lesson was in early February 2013.  Due to the CNY break, rainy season and having to take turns to attend swimming lessons with Sherilyn,  Cass is only attending her 2nd lesson a month later. The teacher can only focus on teaching 2 kids at a time. So Sherilyn and Cass have to take turns attending the once-weekly lesson on an alternate week basis. Alycia who is a much better swimmer and does not need the teacher to focus so much on her can swim on her own and can attend the lesson every week.

She was taught how to breath under the water and the teacher made Cass 'swim' towards him and back to the side of the pool. I think after a few more lessons, my water baby should be able to swim :)

Counting Ang Pow Money

This year, I delegated the task of emptying the ang pow packets collected during CNY and counting the cash to Alycia and Sherilyn. They could not be more excited to be cashiers, handling real cash! Alycia was in charge of emptying the cash from the ang pow packets and counting the cash while Sherilyn was in charge of double checking all the ang pow packets to ensure that no cash was left inside. Both girls did a fairly good job.  Sherilyn found a RM50 note that Alycia had missed out in one of the ang pow packets o_O !!





And half way through the job, it turned rowdy... as usual, sigh....* no eye see to remain sane*  !


In total, the girls received RM2,000 during CNY from friends, relatives and from their daddy and mummy. I topped up the difference and banked in RM1,000 each into their savings account. In 10 years' time, the money in each savings account should be enough for 1 or 2 year's college fees :D

Solid Foundation

Having a good, solid foundation in work management and office management is very important. Once these skills are at your finger tips, you can run a small scale business efficiently. I am thankful that I had very good exposure to these skills in my 8 years of experience working in the HR Department of a large bank. I had superiors who were perfectionist and they were very fastidious in their work. They managed to bring out the best in me. With these very useful skills and experience that I have, I do not even need order management workflow to help me run my home-based online store business.

Sherilyn's Grade 2 Trial Ballet Exam

Sherilyn sat for the second trial ballet exam today, before the actual exam this month end. She and her fellow ballerina classmates have been practising very hard for the past few months as the teacher finds that their movements are not 100% perfect yet. From twice weekly classes, they will have thrice weekly classes starting from next week on top of extended time during normal classes. Learning ballet requires a lot of discipline and hard work. I have seen the ballet teachers at the dance centre screaming at the students. Some teachers even hit the butt of students who never seem to remember their steps. I have time and again asked Sherilyn if she absolutely likes ballet and her answer has always been in the affirmative.

I find it really therapeutic whenever I see my princess wannabe dance.  When she is dancing, she portrays nothing of the mischievous, overly playful, whiny and willful girl who often clashes with me. I am the serious type while she is just the opposite. Whenever I see her dance, she looks really serious yet demure and graceful, which is just something that I wish she could be all the time!



 



Sherilyn dancing with Mel, her childhood friend, who is also the daughter of my childhood friend.
 


Sherilyn doing a solo dance in her character skirt.





I sincerely hope that Sherilyn and all her classmates will pass their RAD Grade 2 exam and can proceed to Grade 3.

Lunch At Blu Med @ Mid Valley

On the eve of Alycia's exam yesterday, I was feeling quite relaxed. I  agreed to the hubs' suggestion to bring us to Mid Valley Megamall for lunch and shopping.  We had lunch at Blu Med restaurant as the foodie hubs wanted to try this new eatery headed by the famed Iron Chef - Chef Sasajima.

Blu Med is a Mediterranean + Italian restaurant under the Texchem Group (Sushi King, Waku Waku, Goku Raku Ramen). This restaurant offers an authentic Mediterranen experience executed by their Italian and international chefs, with unique touches, and all expertly directed by Iron Chef, Chef  Sasajima, a Maestro of a distinctive style of Italian cuisine with a Japanese twist.

Here's  what the foodie hubs picked from the menu:


1) A Cicchetti dish composed of a platter of baby squids cooked with potatoes and fruits (I think), deep fried fish, deep fried squids, two varieties of deep fried meat balls (I sure hope that the balls contained no horse meat!) and open sandwich.




Famished girls waiting impatiently  to dig into the first dish, while mummy was busy snapping pictures of the food. A blogger mummy has to do what a blogger has to do and everyone knows it since 6 years ago. So before anyone lays their hand on a dish, they know that they have to stay their hands off the food and lay frozen for at least 1 minute for mummy to snap the dishes at all angles teeheeeheeee........



2) Calzone - this looked like a humungous curry puff but it is stuffed with minced beef.  We all find the crust too thick (NOT good for weight watchers!). The stuffing was mild in taste.

3) Linguini Carbonara - Hubs and I find the pasta pretty bland in taste but the girls who are pasta queens made no complaints about it and gobbled up every strand of noodles.

4) There was also a Seabass Acqua Pazza dish and that dish won over the rest of the dishes. But for the price of RM45 for a portion that is even smaller than my fist, I think it is overpriced.

5) Pizza - my heart sank when this dish arrived. The color of the crust, which looked as if the pizza was not thoroughly baked had already given me the tell-tale answer on how the pizza would taste. We did not even bother to taste the pizza partly because there was too much food left (portion was pretty big). So we had the entire pizza wrapped up in aluminium foil and took it away for dinner that night. It tasted better when I rebaked it for 20 minutes in the oven.

6) Ravioli - this is what I call Italian 'wanton'.  None of us really liked this dish.




Foreground on your left is the RM45 seabass fish dish and on your right is Ravioli 




Pizza...



For dessert, the hubs picked Tiramisu and the restaurant-made ice-cream consisting of papaya, banana and cempedak ice cream .  When the dessert arrived, Alycia was too quick to put a spoonful of Tiramisu into her mouth without first asking me what it was and she choked till she almost puked as the Tiramisu had a thick coating of chocolate powder on top. I almost suffocated too when I took a spoonful of it!  I personally find that there was way too much powdered chocolate and I felt as if I had inhaled a big sniff of chocolate talcum powder sprayed directly onto my nostrils and throat. The homemade ice cream tasted flat too. It would have tasted better had it been a tad milkier or creamier.   Anyway, my 3 greedy devils walloped them all, irregardless of whether they tasted heavenly or just run-of-the-mill.












 

Facade of Blu Med -- picture taken from eatdrinkkl.blogspot.com



To be honest, the hubs and I find the food not up to par in comparison with the price and all the media hype. He definitely did not get a bang for his buck. When I asked him if he would return, his answer was "only for a drink. No food!" 






Blu Med, The Boulevard,
Mid Valley City, Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03-2201-5081

Our Sunday - 3 March 2013

Tomorrow will be the start of Alycia's week-long 1st term exam. This time round, I have been pretty lax with her.  In the morning, she followed her grandma jogging. Then we had a relaxing and long breakfast of homemade toasted wholemeal bread at home.  Before we could start doing any revision, the hubs asked if we would like to go out for lunch. Since I wanted to get some fruits and groceries, I suggested Mid Valley Megamall.  After our Italian lunch at  Blu Med @ Gardens, we went to Cold Storage for groceries shopping. By the time we reached home coupled with lots of dilly dallying from this Miss Cool As Cucumber, we only started doing revision at around 5pm. Not even half an hour into doing the work that I had set for her, I saw this girl struggling to open her eyes!  She persuaded me to let her take a cat nap. I relented on condition that the nap shall only be for 15-20 minutes. She promised me.  When she was napping, I quickly did the laundry and some work on the computer. I had no time to waste. With only a max of 2 hours to do last minute revision with this dilly dallier, I had to put all my own work and needs on hold and attend to this girl FIRST!   Motherhood is so tough.  It is tougher on me and my kids when there are people who like to compare my kids with their kids in terms of academic achievement, haizzzzz......

Century Old Church

I used to go to an old church with my parents in my hometown when I was young. My parents are still regular church goers at this old church. The church has no air-conditioning but only fitted with wall fans on each pew. I remember sweating profusely while praying fervently on my knees on hot evenings and got bitten by mozzies while listening to the sermon while being seated on the church furniture chairs. Nonetheless, I feel very at peace whenever I go to this church. And I still prefer traditional churches and singing old hymns compared to modern ones with loud bands.

Rushing Mad Life

I chuckled to myself when I read Mumsgather's post on Rushed. today. The more I read the lines of  MG's post, the more I see that both of us are so similar in this area, i.e. being rushed. But I think I am rushed even more -- by the Royal Highness (AARGH!!) and by his 3 princesses, esp. the eldest princess.  Each time we go out, I feel the STRESS and I have told the hubs about this and have demanded that he stops rushing me if he is not helping out!

Ever since our live-in maid went back for good, I feel even more rushed as I now have to do what kakak was doing, on top of my already tight schedule.  I laughed the hardest when MG described that she has to step into her half worn shoes while locking the door before tip toeing to her car with her half worn shoes like a mad lady.  That's because I do similar time-saving things like walking simultaneously while wearing my jogging shoes. Besides my pair of jogging shoes, I only buy slip on shoes and sandals, so that I can slip my feet into the shoes, in just a matter of a second. I have absolutely no time to wear gladiator shoes or shoes that have hard to meddle with buckles, straps, ribbons and what nots, though I itch to wear these kind of  glitzy Lady Gaga shoes sometimes.

Besides having to juggle wearing my shoes while I walk, I also wear my clothes and undies while I am rushing, to save time LOL! But I can only do that provided no one else is in the house, apart from the hubs and the kids. And I tie my hair when I am in the elevator, without a mirror.. What else do I do to save just a few minutes?  Oh yea, I sometimes write my blog posts on my mobile phone while waiting for my girls. And I steal a forty winks while I am in the car, so that I have the battery to last me till midnight to accomplish all that I have to do for the day. 

As I am typing this post, I am also rushed to complete it for I have to clear the messy after-lunch dining table before the Mandarin tutor comes, dump the dirty laundry into the washing machine and rush off several invoices to my customers. What a rushed life I have and I wonder when I can have a more relaxed life.