Tick Tock Tick Tock...To GST

And so, there are only 2 more days left before the dreaded GST!

Yesterday, the roads leading to Mid Valley Megamall were jam-packed. We avoided the roads at all cost. I think kiasu shoppers like yours truly were charging the stores to sweep the shelves clean on items that are bound to be taxed.

A few days ago, I went to a nearby mini mart to get toilet papers but they were all sold out.  Many items on the shelves were swept clean.  There were long queues at the check-out counters with shoppers pushing trolley-filled household essential items. I was one of those kiasu housewives at the long queues to stock up on taiyima  and pocket tissue papers, muahahaha!

The loot here is just my first round. I swept the shelves of 99 Speedmart clear of my favorite brand of sanitary pads... then went to another outlet to have another sweep.  On Saturday, I went to Tesco for another round of sweeping items that are bound to be GST-axable.



Go ahead and have a good laugh.  My friends are already laughing at me. But who cares. I think I have saved enough to buy a bag of oranges and apples to make smoothie for my family. A little goes a long way ok.







Here is a list of taxable sundry goods from the Star newspapers.




However, do not stock up on everything ok. Some items like soft drinks, clothes, household white goods (TV, refrigerators, air-conditioners, hair dryers, etc), milk powder, toothpaste, soap, toilet papers (the list goes) are expected to be cheaper. These items have 10% sales tax now and are expected to be cheaper with GST (replaced with 6%). I read that even cars will be cheaper (10% SST replaced with 6% GST).

How are you preparing yourself for GST?

Video of Sherilyn Doing A Hip Hop Dance

Here's half a video of Sherilyn performing a dance to Meghan Trainor's Lips Are Moving today, specially dedicated to me on my 42nd birthday. The video was truncated as there were many Whatsapp messages coming into my phone.

Enjoy! :)

Conversation With The Kids and Lunch - 27 March 2015

Just now after picking up Alycia and Cass from the transporter at our condo lobby, Cass was chasing after Alycia. She wanted to hug her che che but Alycia was avoiding Cass by running away. Though it is nice to get hugs, I have to say that being hugged  and kissed incessantly all the time  can be darn annoying. Cass has a habit of hugging Alycia  and the friends whom she is fond of, to the point that it gets irritating, especially when she hugs too roughly and uncontrollably, thereby pushing the person down, inadvertently.

Conversation inside the lift...

Alycia - Cassandra, you have to know and learn what PERSONAL SPACE is!!

Cassandra - *looking stunned at her che che*...

Me - Personal space? Oh look who's talking eh!  Who reads all my Whatsapp messages  even before I read them?  Who secretly reads all my Facebook messages? Who goes through my drawer, takes out the things that I hide and asks me what is this and that?  Who is invading my personal space huh?

Alycia -- *speechless*

Me -  So give me my personal space and privacy and stop using my handphone ok?!

Silence..... and the lift door opens.

* evil grin*


This is our lunch today (leftover from dinner last night)...
Stir-fried organic cabbage with minced pork, braised chicken drumsticks and eggs with soy sauce, garlic, star anise and blackstrap molasses.  Otak-otak from pasar malam.  All these to go with coconut milk rice.

Our Saturday - 21 March 2015

My very own Charlie's Angels @  Fong Lye Taiwanese Fusion Cuisine Restaurant @ The Gardens on Saturday night for grandma's farewell dinner. She flew off to Hong Kong the next day.





Seafood fried rice and seafood fried noodles. These 2 items came first and were polished off in just minutes by the 3 famished angels who ate like feral dogs.




Deep fried pork ribs.




Stir-fried lotus roots with pineapple, brocolli, chicken slices and deep fried garlic.



Basil and chilli lala clamps on the left and claypot aubergine with minced pork on the right.




Stir-fried lotus root with an assortment of veggies and nuts on the left.  Stir-fried french beans with minced pork on the right.




Tomato and preserved veggie omelette.  I was disappointed with this dish as it was too salty. Definitely not suitable for kid and even adults.  The tomato omelette that we normally have at Fong Lye's other outlets are sweet and not salty. We normally order the tomato omelette dish for the kids.  





Traffic light colors dish - stir-fried beef with bell peppers.




All the dishes were wiped clean from the platter (except the egg dish) as we had a late dinner and everyone was famished.  Though the bill did not come up cheap, we nevertheless enjoyed our late night dinner at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants :)

The Girls' Duties At Home

The girls have specific duties at home.  Everyday.

The eldest has to mop her own room on days when our part-time maid does not come. She is also in charged of mopping the floor of the house entrance area. She has to ensure that all the shoes are neatly arranged everyday. The dining area is her responsibility too.

The middle child has only one task and it is the hardest - the  dirty dishes department. That's something which I loathe the most and I thank God that He sent Sherilyn to help me out!  Thank God too that Sherilyn loves cooking and settling the dirty dishes! :D

The littlest one is in charge of drying and keeping the clean dishes - the simplest job but yet require loads of care. This department is definitely not for those with butter fingers.

All hers to settle at the end of the day...

Last Day Of School For First Term - Friday, 13 March 2015

Cass was one of the handful of Primary 1 pupils who volunteered to don on a white dress for the Assistant HM's retirement ceremony today.  Cass is just like her sister, Sherilyn - a vain-pot in the making, daring (but not as fearless as Sherilyn) and a social butterfly.  She makes friends very easily and is pretty vocal and amiable. And I must also say that she falls out with her friends pretty easily too and would come home to tell me who she falls out with and why whenever this happens. Nonetheless, she patches up with her fallen out friends and become besties with them again soon.






While the girls were at school, I made a quick dash with the mil to Mid Valley Megamall to do some retail therapy. I got myself a Bonia purse with a 40% discount off and managed to grab everything that I had wanted to buy.  It is such a breeze and peaceful shopping sans the kids!!  I told hubs that I wanted to buy  a few things before the GST kicks in in just 2 weeks.

After shopping, mil and I bought lunch for the girls.  Here's the girls' treat to celebrate the end of the first school term.




I am glad that Cass made a smooth transition from pre-school to primary school.  Despite a medical issue with her bladder, she managed to deal with her problem pretty independently, albeit teething issues at school initially.

HFM's Awesome Rawsome Lunch - 12 March 2015

My lunch yesterday - 11 March 2015, fit for a health freak...


A head of Oakleaf Green veggie with cherry tomatoes, toasted walnuts, pecans, almonds. macadamia, Korean seaweed, fried shallots, toasted sesame seeds and a drizzle of sesame dressing.  Also whacked 3 pieces of braised pork ribs, which were from dinner the day before.




Love this roasted laver (seaweed) from Korea - it's packed with so much crunchiness, natural flavor and goodness.  I can even eat my salads sans any dressing if I have this seaweed and a handful of flavorful fried shallots on them.




Orange and mango smoothie...






For breakfast, I ate 2 free-range chicken eggs to boost my iron production (I am anemic), a cup of homemade butter pecan cupcake and a piece of toasted wholemeal bread with homemade walnut-pecan-almond-macadamia nut jam.

Eve Of Alycia's Exam - 8 March 2015

Alycia stuck this note on her room door today to tell her 2 sisters NOT TO DISTURB her. She stayed in her room to revise on her own and later, she timed herself when she did a past year UPSR Math test paper that I printed for her. For BM, we went through the Tatabahasa on Slideshare together on the computer.



This year is Alycia's final year in primary school. It's the year that she will be sitting for her UPSR exam in September. Alycia will have to sit for 7 exams  this year (6 school-based exams and 1 government exam) with the first exam being in March and subsequently a test every month until September 2015! I get stressed out each time I think about her monthly exams and that of Sherilyn's and Cass' (they have exams three times a year). I get even more frazzled thinking about chauffeuring Alycia to and from school even on Saturdays for extra lessons, beginning April until the UPSR exam is over!! There goes my beauty sleep for half a year :(

Sometimes I have thoughts of getting hubs to hire a driver to ease our driving woes, I kid you not!

Pizza delivered to our home is something that the girls only get to eat on the eve of exams... my treat for them only during exams :D   I am no fan of pizza but since the girl sitting for her exam craved for pizza today, her wish was my command.




Eleventh hour revision, as usual *roll eyes and shake head*




Playing 'one two jus' to see who gets the last piece of chicken drummet... the cili padi played referee as usual.

Smoothie Of The Day - 4 March 2015

Since December last year, I have been churning out fruit smoothies for everyone in the family everyday. Fruit smoothies are such a convenience for busy and always on-the-go people like my hubs and 2 older girls. Sherilyn tends to be lazy to eat her fruits. By the time she gets home from the enrichment center everyday, it is already close to 7pm and already  dinner time. This gives her little or no time to eat her fruits.  Sometimes I place cut fruits in a lunch box for her to eat in the car - from the enrichment center back home. But on most days, she is just lazy to eat her fruits, especially fruits that require chewing!

It is so much more easier to get the drama queen  to gulp down a variety of fruits from a bottle in a jiffy.  Yesterday I made kiwi + orange smoothie with fresh pomegranate and apple juice.




I normally use fresh coconut juice, Manuka honey or boxed apple juice to make the smoothie more palatable for everyone, especially the kids.   I find that most boxed juices in the supermarket are adulterated with food conditioner, preservative, flavoring, color and sugar.   The other day, I found a new brand of pure fruit juices  that are sans added water, food additives, preservative and sugar.

Athina is imported from Greece and costs between RM12.90 to RM18.90 a box.  Yup, pure fruit juices are that freaking expensive!  Some of you may want to ask me to make my own fruit juices but it is too time consuming and I do not have the time :(

* fruit smoothie and fruit juice are different.  The former is the whole fruit blended. Nothing is thrown away except for the seeds and core. In other words, you drink the whole fruit and has more nutritional value since you are also eating the fiber.  Fruit juice is just the juice pressed from the fruit.  The fiber and everything else are separated and disposed of.

The below box of Athina pomegranate + apple juice that I bought cost RM18.90 a box. It contains only pomegranate and apple juice and nothing else.








While the orange and kiwi smoothie is for the kids, I made dragon fruit smoothie for the adults.  I pulsed half a red dragon fruit with  the orange kiwi smoothie and apple pomegranate juice to churn out 3 glasses of smooth and refreshing dragon fruit smoothie and even have enough to make 3 frozen ice pops for the girls :)

Our Sunday - 1 March 2015

Sunday morning activity - Cass helped grandma to remove garlic skin while our celebrity chef wannabe helped to remove the core from every clove of garlic and then chopped them up. We are having a CNY potluck party at the girls' grand uncle's place tonight and thus need lots of garlic for cooking.





And I made dragon fruit + orange + apple smoothie for everyone today :)




Happy Sunday peeps and I hope the coming week will be good for everyone :)