Day Out At Mid Valley / Gardens Mall - 27 November 2018

The main purpose of our shopping outing today was to get a dinner dress, both the mil and myself for a wedding dinner of our close family friend's daughter this Saturday at a hotel.  Five star hotel to be exact.  And we do not have any swank formal dress in our wardrobe to swagger for the pompous function.

After 5.5 hours, I managed to hunt down my chi chi elegant dress that all three of my critical daughters had only praises for. For the first time ever! My daughters are my most critical fashion critics. They are so ever generous with their critics on my sense of fashion with hardly any approval on what I wear, though I find them lacking in good sense of aesthetics sometimes. Well, I can't expect much approval from 3 girls who are anti-dresses and skirts, can I?

🤔

Just to side-track a bit.  The girls and I had a real good laugh two weeks ago when Alycia and Drama Queen had no choice but to go through my wardrobe to pick out a dress to wear to another wedding reception.  They can now wear my clothes and shoes. It's hilarious to see them slipping into my size XS and S dresses

😆

Anyway, back to my shopping outing.

We had lunch at Zok Noodle House at Mid Valley Megamall, a noodles eatery with a perpetual crowd each time we pass by it. This eatery is located on the third floor beneath the GSC Cinema. At Zok, you will find an authentic Hong Kong and Macau gourmet experience.  One can choose from a variety of Cantonese dishes, from congee to roast meats and springy noodles in superior soup. Each dish has been carefully prepared with the freshest ingredients.  Everyone of us enjoyed our noodles and plan to go back again to try other dishes on their menu.






Bitter gourd min xian noodles and pork belly in wine soup min xian  noodles. Both were superb with luscious great tasting soup.



Wanton noodles and pork chop noodles.





After lunch, Alycia and Drama Queen followed their grandma shopping. They always succeed in getting what they want from their grandma, thus they love following her vs. me when we go shopping.

Cass followed me and we did a little camwhoring at the Concourse area while browsing for Christmas gifts.








4.5 hours later, we had a late lunch at 3:30 p.m. at Nando's.




After we reached home at 5 p.m., the mil asked me to bring her to the nearby supermarket and we continued shopping for almost an hour for groceries!

With a total of 5.5 hours of shopping today, I gladly announce that I clocked up 9,806 steps equivalent to 7 km and burned 210 calories just from the shopping malls, woohoo!  No wonder I've been feeling terribly hungry the entire day. Shopping is indeed my favorite exercise 😁

Our Sunday, 25 November 2018

Today I woke up without feeling the nagging pressure on my lower abdomen and the urge to pee every 10-15 minutes. Today is the 4th day since I had a UTI attack, which is my first in over 25 years.  I am SO thankful and glad that I trusted my guts feelings NOT to go to the hospital to get antibiotics for a fast relief (but with a nasty aftermath) for the horrible and painful UTI attack.

Today I feel 99.9% as right as rain. Praise the Lord!
🙏

Since I was feeling good, I brought Cass to church for Sunday School.  The two older girls have no more Youth Sunday School for the rest of this year.  After church, we went to Mid Valley Megamall for lunch.

Almost every restaurant was packed to the brim with long waiting queues. We waited for over 15 minutes for a table at Din Tai Fung, which wasn't as bad as I thought would be. I was famished by the time the food came. I lost my appetite on the day I had UTI and today I finally got back my appetite. So happy!



Every dish tasted superb to me today. I was hungry the entire day. I have not had a proper meal for 3 days and was only surviving on vegetables, sweet potatoes, pomeloes, apples, avocados, bananas and very little meat. My tummy was bloated with liquid ~ Izumio, barley water, coconut water, Ural and D-Mannose + water. The only way to remove the bad bacteria from my body is through pee. Thus, I had to drink like a fish and camp on the toilet seat the whole day.



Dessert after lunch was X'mas candy cane for the girls. Cass got them from her Sunday School teacher. I don't always allow the girls to eat candies. But since candy canes are only available once a year, I gave them a rare treat ~ a few licks only of the candy cane. They hardly have the chance to finish an entire candy. Candies are still junk food. Empty calories with sugar and food additives.  Fans of candies, my sincere apologies if I rained on your parade.  I am not going to list down the ingredients of candies ok.
 😬 

I remember Alycia pestered me for days to get her some candy canes when we were in New Zealand exactly 4 years ago. I stuck to my guns and didn't get her any. Her doting aunt got her some 😁

After lunch, the mil went shopping with Alycia and Sherilyn. They only got home at 7pm.  The hubs, Cass and I didn't want to shop. So what's there to do with the foodie hubs?  What else?



Dessert of cakes at Alexis. The hubs ordered a Banoffee pie and a Tiramisu.  Alexis sells the best Tiramisu in the world.  I would have chomped down the entire Tiramisu myself if not for the UTI. I am on a low-sugar and low-acidic foods diet to starve the bacteria. Sugar and meat are both on the stay-off list as these are acidifying foods which E.Coli thrive on. The key is to create an alkaline environment in my body and the bad bacteria won't survive.

The Christmas deco at the Gardens Mall this year is beautiful; too beautiful not to capture some photos to store in my Google Photos album.  I love browsing at old photos during my free time. But Cass has been extremely resistant of me taking her pix lately. She's just extremely difficult to deal with the past one year. She's got mood swings. Dang the pre-teen hormones. It was only through a 'deal' with her that she agreed to these photos being taken. Can you beat it? Can you?

🙄 








Check out that sour face!!

CUT.......!  Daddy was not pleased with that face and we made her smile and take many, many more pix!

🙄

I had to force her to smile for the camera, SEE!
 


Just can't stand this girl of mine. What happened to my cutest, most smiley and most cooperative baby girl who used to model for my online store? I feel like I've lost my chummiest closest sidekick 😭

Cass At 10.5 Years Old

My schedule the past two weeks has been stuffed to the gills. Though it's just days away from the 5-week school holidays, the girls are still busy as ever. Well, except for Alycia who has already started her school holidays since a week ago. She works at her dad's office and kitchen on some days to earn some pocket money but on most days, she's as free as a bird, slothing around and without doing a stroke of work!  I've also been busy with my online work, with the girls' activities and welfare and not to mention, chauffeuring.


Alycia and Drama Queen were both down with fever last weekend.  I spent half a day at Pantai Medical Centre with Drama Queen last Thursday (to get an X-ray done for a swelling on her back caused by a fall during dance practice) and today, it's with Cass at the same hospital, for a frigging 6 hours for her yearly ultrasound scan of the urinary tract! I may have to be at the hospital again some time this week with Drama Queen again and get stuck at the Imaging department again! I. Hate. Hospital. Visits! I. Hate. Waiting!

At 10.5 years old, my baby girl has grown so much the past one year. She's now much taller (standing at 141cm tall as of today) and her feet are as big as mine! She's another big foot in the family.  Hopefully she'll be the tallest of the three sisters.  It looks like none of my girls will be as tall as me, though I am considered a shorty at 158cm. But hey, at least I passed the minimum height requirement at MAS and breezed through the interview to be a flight stewardess with the Airlines some 20 years ago. Till today, I still have regrets of giving up my dreams to be a  flight stewardess with free travels around the world.

But I am sure I'll have the opportunity to  travel the world when our girls have all graduated and it's my turn to be as free as a bird!

This is Cass' latest picture taken at  our close friend's son's wedding at St Regis Hotel yesterday. It's really rare that she's willing to pose for the camera without bribery.   And she has now outgrown all her cartoon dresses and tees, as well as princessy gowns 😥  She wants to have nothing to do with princess, pink and lilac colors, frilly ribbon dresses, gowns, tutus, headbands and cutesy hair clips anymore 😭



Cass' ambition has got something to do with an aircraft too. Nope, not a flight stewardess but a pilot!  A female pilot!  Sounds like a half-baked idea? I shall see...

And Cass' latest rage and craze is Harry Potter. She has almost the entire series of Harry Potter novels and is now waiting to claim her final exam reward for another Harry Potter book.

In this picture, she's browsing Lazada for some Harry Potter magic wand but I told her no way, Jose! Such a waste of money.

🙄 

Homemade Burrito

For days, Drama Queen has been telling me that she'd like to make Burrito for everyone for dinner. That's fine by me as long as she cleans up the aftermath in the kitchen. She finally made a big batch of Burrito yesterday since it was her day off in school due to fifth formers sitting for their SPM exam. And her Burritos are made from scratch. No Mission wraps are used as I don't buy them. Try reading the ingredients label of Mission wraps if you've got the chance and you'll be shocked to see the list of long names of chemicals and food additives used! Simple rule is if a packet of wraps can stay on the shelves of supermarkets for over a year, imagine the chemicals added into the wraps to preserve them 😲🙈

While Drama Queen prepped the salsa, guacamole and kneaded the dough for the tortilla, I grilled the chicken drumsticks and boneless thighs that I'd marinated a day earlier.


The flour tortillas are pan-fried sans any oil.  They taste like naan.  Though plain, they are nonetheless pretty addictive to chew on.  Cass had half a toasted tortilla for breakfast this morning, eaten plain and she loved it.

Recipe was taken from Chris Scheuer's cooking blog, https://thecafesucrefarine.com/best-ever-homemade-flour-tortillas/


Then Sher dished up a very delish mixed vegetables dish for the wraps composed of organic broccoli, carrot strips, fried potato cubes and lots of garlic and onions. She seasoned this dish with turmeric powder, cumin and smoked paprika.




After working on her babies for close to two hours in the kitchen, we (with rumbling tummies!) finally got to taste her super yummeh Burrito.





Even my very persnickety mil loved the Burrito.

All these from a 13-year old! Well done my Sherilyn! Your next project shall be an old fashioned flour-less orange almond meal cake for your crazy mum and perhaps another meat pie 😚

Cherry Apples

Have you ever seen a cherry apple?



I saw cherry apples at De Market and the size is slightly bigger than a cherry, with a long stem, making them look almost like a cherry. At RM25.99 a punnet, these cherry apples look stunning and exotic but I am not ambitious when it comes to buying exotic foods. Exotic does not mean delicious.  I tried Googling for cherry apples but  can't gather much information on it, except that cherry apples are also called crab apples and  they are usually used for preserving.




Has anyone tried cherry apples before? I am curious to know what it tastes like.

Cass Irons Her Clothes

Annie, our new part-time maid does not iron clothes. She does not have enough time to do this job. She leaves at 8:30 p.m. on the dot after 3 hours and if I want her to do more, I have to pay her OT, unlike Maria my part-time maid of 6 years who is ever willing to put in more hours at no extra charge.  But it's ok. I'm happy that there's someone to come in the evenings to help wash the dishes and clean up after cooking.

Without kakak Maria, the girls would  have to iron their clothes themselves. Most times they are lazy and wear crinkled shirts to school. Cass says she has a pinafore over her shirt, so who cares about her crumpled shirt?  Sometimes she only irons the sleeves.

 😆

But for her outing clothes, I have to remind her to iron them. She does them hurriedly though, as if it's a waste of her time. This is the first time in my brat's life that she's ironing her own clothes!  Good training for her.

🙄 



As for me, I hate ironing!  I hardly iron clothes as I buy only clothes made from wrinkle-free fabric.  The hubs irons his clothes and sometimes the mil irons for him.

How to Commemorate a Girl’s Birthday Ever Year

When you know that there is going to be a little girl born into the world, you want to think about how to commemorate not only her birth but every birthday thereafter. Disney birthday figurines can be used in fun ways to accomplish this.



Choose a Theme
You can choose a theme for the gift that you’re going to give her. For example, with Disney birthday figurines, you can give her a different princess every year. The year that she’s turning can even be included on the figurine. This way, she’ll get one each year that has the year so she knows when she got each one. By the time she reaches 10 or 12, she can have a full collection.



Give a New Figure Every Year
When you have a theme, it will be exciting to add a new figurine every year. Once she identifies what the theme is, such as Disney princesses, she’ll be wondering what the next one will be. Plus, you can make sure that you always know what to get her because you will want to maintain tradition with new figurines.



Make the Presentation Special
The presentation should be extra special. Be sure that you have her display what you have given her. It may be a good idea to get a shelf specifically for the figurines. Then, make a big deal by giving her the figurine and letting her add it to where all of the others are from years past.

By keeping the theme year after year, the special girl in your life will look forward to every birthday to see what you’re going to give her next. It will be something that she can enjoy for years and, potentially, pass down to future generations.

Part-Time Maid Update

This week will be the second week that our 5th and hopefully final temporary part-time maid, Annie has been working for us. So far I am pretty pleased with her work. But still I have not found another maid as good as my most trusted part-time maid, Maria who has gone back to Indonesia to get married. She's my trophy helper who has been working for us for 6 years and I hope that she will come back to work for us as promised.

Annie has a very amiable personality and is efficient. The only downside is she can only work for 3 hours in the evening, which is not sufficient for her to complete other chores like ironing and other cleaning. But I am contented. As long as there is someone at my house from 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. from Monday through Fridays to help wash the dishes and clean up after dinner, I am one happy camper.  I am usually out on my 'Ahmad' duty at night, thus do not have the time to do the dishes and clean the kitchen after dinner.

Annie has work experience as a house maid in Russia (3 years) and Singapore (2 years). She can speak English and even Russian language! Pretty impressive work experience for an Indonesian lady who is now engaged full-time as a cleaner at our condo.

In exactly two more weeks, my beloved Maria will be back working for us. The girls and I miss her so much. I'm counting down the days every day! 😁

Dinner on our Sunday yesterday was at Koyaku Japanese Dining And Grill @ Faber Towers with only the hubs and Cass. The two older girls  preferred to stay home to enjoy their takeout pizza from Ben's Independent Grocer.  One is hooked to her Korean dramas and the other, her English dramas from Netflix.  😕


And the littlest brat is hooked to her novels.





I was still feeling very cloy after a heavy lunch of pasta, burger, mushroom soup and cakes from Huckleberry Food And Fare, thus only ordered Chawan Mushi.  The Chawan Mushi from Koyaku is supersized (I love!) and costs RM12 a bowl.

Grocery Bill

Several years ago, I only needed to spend RM50 each time I did my daily grocery shopping.  Then came the implementation of GST and that RM50 was not enough anymore. From RM50, the shopping bill went up to RM80, then RM100 and over the years, it went up to at least RM120 per grocery shopping. Our household grocery bill can run up to RM5k a month! That's the reason why I still need to work😏


This is my grocery loot on Monday this week:


Most vegetables and fruits are organic.  And the bulk of the bill comes from the fresh organic produce. What made my budget exceed was the S&B Japanese Golden Curry which I badly wanted to try as the kids love Japanese curry.

How much do you spend on groceries each time you go shopping? What's your monthly grocery bill like?  Please share 😊