This Week In Photos ~ Food, Family & Pet Cat

With 6 papers done and dusted, the SPM girl has 3 more papers to conquer.  Nine more days to go and she'll be free!  

After her SPM exam, Sherilyn will resume dancing, cook for us again and work part-time at Front Room  Cafe again.  She previously worked at the cafe for about half a year before taking half a year's break to focus on her SPM exam.

We will only discuss the course to pursue in college and university after Sherilyn's SPM results are out.  Colleges and universities have been sending letters to offer her courses to pursue.  Last month she received a letter from a college that provides training to students aiming to be cabin crew and pilots, inviting her to attend an interview.

Yesterday Sherilyn received a letter from Unikop, which offered her a list of 'interesting' courses to pursue.  Unikop is a college owned by the Royal Malaysian Police Cooperation. Some of the 'interesting' courses are Diploma in Police and Investigation, Investigation Services, Corporate Investigation, Law Enforcement, Psychology, Pharmacy, Cyber Security, and many more.  

Letter from Unikop

I thought that these courses are not what Sherilyn would like to pursue but to my surprise, she told me that she doesn't mind pursuing courses in forensics, crime investigation and even being a detective or CID in future 😂😆

While I know that this daughter of mine is a dare-devil and tough inside out, I would not want her to be in this field that is more apt for the opposite sex. We had a good laugh over this and were talking about how her life would be if she were a cop or detective and investigating cases like Abby Choi's gruesome murder 😆

I took Sherilyn and Cass out for brunch on Thursday as the SPM girl didn't have any paper to sit for on that day and also the next day.  We went to The Lion of Punjab, a restaurant in our hood that serves delicious North Indian cuisine. Our family loves Indian food.

We ordered the Thali sets, which are value meal sets at only RM10 for a meat-free set lunch and RM15 for a set lunch with chicken.  

Sherilyn and Cass each ordered the set lunch with chicken curry.  It comes with three different types of lip-smacking curry, two pieces of Tandoori Roti, a bowl of rice, and a sweet wheat dessert (Halwa).

This is my vegetarian set.

The food was superb, though they were only budget meals.  The curries were thick, creamy, and full of aromatic herbs, spices, and ingredients.  The Tandoori roti was simple and delish. We were even served long-grain Basmathi rice, which is costlier than regular rice.  All the spicy food was washed down with a hot cup of aromatic Masala Chai tea. We will definitely be back for another round of set lunch before school starts again for Cass in two weeks.

The vegetarian set.

And non-vegetarian set.

I'm going to try their different types of stuffed Naan bread next week and will get the food delivered to our condo as the restaurant is offering free delivery to those staying in the hood.

Our sweet girl Haru's new favorite spot. She loves to sit here so that she can look down to see the world below her. 

Haru knows that grandma is not around (currently in Penang and Ipoh) and has been more daring around the house - she climbs up the kitchen island to inspect the toaster oven, jumps up the kitchen counters to sniff our food, jumps up our beds, and feels so at home when her grandma is not around to scold her when she's naughty 😸

Sherilyn Turns 18 In A Day

Four more weeks to go and SPM will be over!  And I would come to the end of my chauffeuring duties for my middle child.  No more tuition, no more school runs, and no more Grab duty until 10pm.  

Tomorrow (16 February 2023) Sherilyn turns 18! She will reach the age of majority and be a full-fledged adult with rights and responsibilities. She will be able to vote and sign contracts. Tomorrow she will be able to have a bank account opened solely in her name as this is something that she has waited for a long, long time 😁. But this will have to wait until her SPM is over on 13 March 2023. 

I have not decided on which college to register Sherilyn in as this would largely depend on her SPM results. She, too, hasn't decided on the course to pursue.  All the decision-making will depend on her SPM results, which would only be out around June. But she will most likely begin her Pre-U or Foundation course in January 2024.  She will have to work part-time for nine months to save up some money for her college expenses. 

I've bookmarked a list of recipes for Sherilyn to try after her SPM and can't wait to try those new dishes!  This girl has taken a break from cooking and baking for almost half a year to focus on her SPM.  

We had Yee Sang for dinner at home four days after CNY. 
Hubs had several corporate CNY events last week and prepped extra Yee Sang for us. 

The girls were delighted when they got home from school and saw a box of Yee Sang on the dining table.  Cass quickly assembled the Yee Sang on a platter and the two of us tossed it to our heart's content and chanted all our wishes for the year.

Sunday, 7 August 2022

Our middle child is finally back from the 'war'. She's been so busy practicing for inter-school sports meets and school sports day for the past two months that she hardly had the time to take care of her health and well-being.  I've not seen her sleep on her bed for the longest time.  She had been so enervated that she dozed off on the couch or on the room floor on most nights.  

I think she's too ambitious and took on too many responsibilities and activities. Her teachers also enlisted her to be the head in charge of the school sports day, as well as to teach other students to dance and lead the cheerleading team. On top of that, she has to train junior librarians.

When the two months of daily training ended with the culmination of her school sports day on Saturday, it felt like my daughter just returned from war when I saw her that night.  With a skin tone twenty times darker after being grilled in the sun daily for two months (she can pass off as a Chindian), a minor skin problem, and a super huge ravenous appetite, she looked even more like a soldier who's not eaten well and slept well who just returned from war-torn Sarajevo 😂. 

For the past two months, she stayed back in school up to 6pm every day, and during the weekends, went to the basketball court to practise cheerleading.  On some weekends, she went to her dance studio for dance performances.  

I told her that from now onwards, she has to focus on her studies as she has only half a year left before her SPM!!  Speaking of which, she found new tutors to give her one-on-one and intensive tuition for the subjects of Math, Add Math, Physics and Chemistry. And not to mention, this is going to cause a huge dent in my wallet!

Oh well, I hope that this is going to be a good investment.

Today we had lunch at Seoul Korea, our favorite Korean BBQ restaurant, and by far the best one that we've tried.  Our lunch today is complete with all our 3 daughters around, which is quite rare now as our two older girls now regularly have their own activities with their friends.

We love the banchan served at Seoul Korea. 

BBQ beef and pork belly.

Super hot and spicy kimchi noodles with pork and lots of Chinese cabbage and onions.

This made everyone huff and puff and gulp down lots of cold water.

Kimchi pancake.

Bibimbap

Steamed egg in stone bowl, our favorite.

Sunday, 1 March 2020

Can you believe it that the third month of 2020 has already rolled in? Why does time have to zoom past so dang quickly? In 6 months, our littlest brat will be sitting for her UPSR, a government-based exam. So is Sherilyn, who will be sitting for her PT3 exam. And Alycia will be sitting for her SPM this year end! Next year, she will be going to college!  And I have to decide which high school to register Cass in. While she is steadfast that she only wants to go to her Alycia che che's high school (Independent/Private Chinese High School), I have other plans for her (which is the IGCSE path), which she is strongly protesting against. So we'll have to see her UPSR results in order for me to make the final decision.

Do you know what I miss the most throughout the Covid-19 outbreak (with no signs of dying out yet)? I miss going to the shopping malls!!  I've not stepped foot into a mall for a month already.  I think I'm going to the shopping mall tomorrow to get my dose of retail therapy. My gynae has repeatedly told me that I must banish stress from my life for better health. So retail therapy it is, at least twice a month! 😁 Darling you read this?

Going to crowded places these days means equipping my bag well with hand sanitizer, surgical mask and antibacterial wet wipes.  We've now stocked up on hand sanitizer enough to last us for a whole year!  Another defense weapon that I arm myself with before going to public places is I gargle my throat with a concoction of sea salt water + clove essential oil + peppermint essential oil + Melaleuca essential oil and rub my hands with hand sanitizer before leaving the house.

On our first day of March 2020, we had Japanese at Tenmaya @ The Sphere, Bangsar South.

When I first came to KL 29 years ago and first tried Japanese cuisine, I didn't like it at all. I found it strange to be eating rice with seaweed and raw fish dipped in wasabi. I hated the taste of it and wondered why KL-ites love Japanese food.  Over the years, with my Japanese cuisine loving boyfriend treating me to Japanese food regularly, I've acquired the Japanese taste bud and now love Japanese food.  If there's one place in this world that I could choose to migrate to, it would be to the Land of the Rising Sun and I would then be stuffing myself with sushi, sashimi, Chawan Mushi and shabu-shabu everyday 😁










Another medal to add to Sherilyn's collection of medals, hauled at the recent MSSKL (inter-school athletics meet, Zon Bangsar) last week 💪

Updates On The Girls In High School

Alycia, our eldest girl with royal hands hates kitchen work. Cooking, baking and washing dishes are just not her forte. What a polar opposite from Sherilyn who would find every opportunity to cook and bake. I think one takes after me and the other takes after my mom 😁

Alycia was forced to cook something for an Accounting project in school. Her class was assigned by the Accounting teacher to embark on a food sale project. Each team is only allocated RM100 and they have to cook something for sale to about 100 students. Yeah, what the heck can you sell with just RM100 for 100 students?? That's RM1 for 1 student! Ridiculous budget!

After a long deliberation with me and her team members, they have decided to make sweet corn fritters, using the mil's recipe.

Her first attempt was quite a flop, as grandma was not around to guide her.  Her friends and teacher commented that the sweet corn fritters lacked umami.  We followed the mil's instructions and yet the fritters didn't quite appear as how it should have been. We later found out that the mil deep fries the fritters and not pan fry them.  And she forgot to tell us to deep fry the fritters.  No wonder they tasted like pancakes and not crispy as how fritters should be! 😂




The second batch supervised by grandma was a success - crispy and flavorful.




On the day of the project next week, Alycia and her friends are going to fry the fritters at night at a friend's house and toast them back the next morning before bringing to school. Hopefully all goes well with their first food sale project!

On Drama Queen, she and her team mates clinched 3rd placing in a district level inter-school English drama competition held at St John's International School yesterday!  Kudos to the team! First and second placing went to Convent Bukit Nenas and St John's Institution.

Her next competition? An inter-school traditional dance competition, which she claimed her teacher forced her to take part in.  It's no doubt that my fearless girl loves competition since she was in pre-school and all the adrenaline rush that comes with it!   She definitely inherited the Yap genes.  Hubby's youngest sister was a former top Malaysian bowler (Sarah Yap - go Google her) before she migrated to Hawaii 😊

Honeymoon Year

One of the best years of my life were those when I was 13 and 14 years old in 1986 and 1987.  We moved into our new double storey house when I was 13. It was a little girl's dream came true for me to be able to live in a semi-detached house with stairs and attached bathroom. We had rambutan, guava, mango and papaya trees in our garden.  My mum painted my room pink ~ pink walls with pink bed and pink dressing table.   It was also in that year that I finally had a puppy, given to us by our neighbor. But sadly, the following year, my much loved puppy was ran over by my older brother's school bus when he left the gate open and Ricky ran out to follow him.  Till this date, I can still remember Ricky frothing when I carried him into the backyard. With tears streaming down my cheeks, I ran to my papa who was in the bathroom prepping to get ready for work and begged him to bring Ricky to the vet to save him. Sadly, the vet couldn't do much and Ricky had to be  euthanized the next day.  I will never forget that sad fateful day when papa fetched me from the ACS swimming pool after swimming practice and brought me to the public vet for me to say my last goodbye to Ricky 😭

When I was in Form 1, like Drama Queen,  I attended school in  the afternoon session.  Form 1 was my 'honeymoon year'.  There wasn't that much exam or tuition pressure yet and I enjoyed every bit of being in Form 1 with my besties.  I remember we had a chapel / singing class period once a week, where we  had to sing old English folk songs, Christian songs and even nursery rhymes! 😂  Some of the songs did not make much sense but my besties and I enjoyed singing and laughing over the nonsensical nursery rhymes.  Has anyone of you sang "Ten Green Bottles Hanging On The Wall" before?  We had to sing from 10 green bottles, down to no green bottles giggling away like hyenas before our singing teacher, who was also a fierce disciplinary teacher reprimanded us.  It was also in that year that my besties and I caught a flasher flashing his fiddle to us. It was our first encounter and we were totally freaked out and traumatised.  Next to the toilets were a piece of vacant land with banana trees and that no-shame flasher was cat calling us while pointing to his fiddle.  My friends and  I screamed blue murder and ran for our dear lives back to our classroom. Our English teacher summoned other teachers to chase after the flasher.  He escaped. We really thought that we would be caught by the flasher and assaulted hahaha! We were really a bunch of dramatic crazy girls. 

I had the most laughter and giggles with my besties when I was in my early teens. I truly miss those years and wish that I could turn back the clock and relive those days all over again.

Seeing how Drama Queen is enjoying her "honeymoon year" in Form 1 now reminds me of my own, though my enjoyment and happiness back then (32 years ago!) and hers come from rather different sources. Her happiness now is being able to sleep in till 8-9am everyday, the liberty to have her own mobile phone to chat with her friends and having long lunches with me at different shops almost everyday.  I guess my middle child is luckier as she doesn't have to help to do the laundry everyday.  My mum delegated my first house chore to me when I was 13 and it was the laundry department. After breakfast each day, I would have to help hang the laundry.  At night, my brothers and I had to fold the clothes. We even washed bathrooms and mopped the floors but with a small fee from mum 😁

Today's lunch with Drama Queen was at Coffee Box, with the hubs.:


She had beef balls spaghetti and pandan barley and the hubs had char koay teow.  I was still stuffed to my throat from a heavy double breakfast consisting of an egg, dimsum fish ball (from Ipoh), granola and later, freshly opened organic durians delivered to us from our usual organic vegetables supplier, right up to our condo basement. It was super delish and I am now very, very tempted to sneak into the kitchen to have another helping 😋

Our Sunday, 25 March 2018

We had breakkie of sandwiches with a choice of the following fillings on Sunday before church: tuna onion mayo, mashed egg avo and half boiled eggs.

This is my keto breakkie, sans bread and carbs ~ one half boiled egg with tuna onion mayo and cucumber:



This is Cass'  ~ mashed egg + mashed avo with herbs cream cheese and tuna onion mayo on a slice of multigrain bread. She ate TWO of these. TWO!!  On top of half a mango, half a nectarine and a glass of raw honey. She can eat like a piranha!


Check out the perfect avocado ~ it's from Mexico and is slightly cheaper than New Zealand ones  at only RM5 each but they taste just as creamy.  Dole avocados from Phillipines are pretty good too and are selling at RM5 each at our neighborhood supermarket. As I can source for affordable avocados from Mexico and Phillipines, we've been eating a lot of them the past one week. Bliss!

Lunch after church was with the hubs, mil and Cass at Lex Deux Garcons (LDG) @ Faber Towers (the hubs' favorite cafe).  Alycia and Drama Queen were at their weekly bible study class.

Sirloin steak for the hubs:




Classic chicken chop with portobello sauce for Cass and me; pasta for the mil


Super fluffy and pillowy pancakes for everyone and scones for the super hungry man who had skipped his breakfast to work.


Lunch at LDG was superb as always.  Dinner was takeout murtabak and roti pisang for Alycia who had a sudden craving for roti pisang!

Since Saturday, Drama Queen has been working on a paper mache volcano for her school's Library Week project. She's a librarian.  The entire living room has been turned into a makeshift workshop for her. Everyone in the house has to bear with the mess and dirt and forgo TV just because she has monopilized the entire floor in front of the TV and couch! 



The paper volcano is only 70% completed.  This morning she skipped Math tuition to work on the project. We have another day or two to bear with the clutter and dust from the papers and cut styrofoam . I have been sweeping and moping the floor till my back broke this morning, I kid you not!  I could barely bend my back and had to stick Salonpas pain relief patch.

What I dislike most about school projects is the parents have to bear the full cost of all the materials. This project may seem  inexpensive but my total cost amounts to almost RM200 from styrofoam to acrylic paints, papers, duct tape, celo tape, two gigantic bottles of glue, plastic wrappers, dry ice, et al.... including the cost of her skipping one Math class!