Online Search For Cheap Life Insurances

Hubby and I are really dissatisfied with the service we are getting from our insurance agent. We had purchased medical insurances for ourselves and education insurances for our kids from this agent but she is not giving us the kind of service that we deserve. Most times she does not answer our calls and it takes forever for her to attend to our queries and needs. We are really cheesed off with her lackadaisical attitude.

Now that hubby and I are planning to buy a term life insurance, we will definitely get our term life insurance quote from other companies. It would be good if we can compare the term life insurance policies online from a few companies all from just one screen instantly to enable us to make a quick decision. WholesaleLifeInsurance.net provides such a service and it’s free, plus people get free advice from their customer representatives. If only we have such a service here, we don’t have to spend hours on the phone calling insurance companies for quotes to compare.

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Burst Pipe Again

Damn it, the water pipes at our neighborhood burst again and water supply has been cut out. As hubby has to work today, he can't bring us out for lunch so we all walked under the scorching hot sun to the coffee shop nearby our house for lunch. But the girls love it whenever the water supply is cut out coz they all get to eat out and they can take their baths at our backyard with cold water.

Today, I've also learnt how to avoid murky water from flowing out of our taps after a water supply cut. One of my readers advised me in one of my earlier posts that during a water cut, turn off the main switch to the water supply, i.e. the one at the water meter. I did just that and when the water supply came back, the water was not murky at all. Thanks to this mum and sorry I can't remember who you are.

Delicious Sweet Dim Sum

We were at Din Tai Fung at Gardens, Mid Valley for lunch on Monday as my parents were in KL. They had just returned from their vacation in China. After a very satisfying lunch of Shanghainese food at Din Tai Fung (this is a franchise restaurant with outlets worldwide and serves very good Shanghainese delicacy), hubby went to his favorite Mr Cook's store, which is just across Din Tai Fung to take-away some sweet dim sum for dessert. His favorites are the 'chan pau' (meat filled sweet roasted bun) and egg tarts. As there were free sampling of the Mini Volcano pau, I took a bite and it tasted really good. The bun was filled with salted egg yolk custard and was very tasty.

We took away a pack of chan pau, a pack of Mini Volcano pau, a 'hor yeep fan' ( lotus leave glutinous rice) and a pack of very yummy 'Por lor pau' (pineapple filled buns).

Mini Volcano buns with salted egg yolk custard 'erupting' as you bite into the pau.



Top : Pork meat filled sweet roasted buns
Bottom : Pineapple filled buns



The pineapple custard with chunks of fresh pineapple bits oozing out from the Por lor buns as I sank my teeth into the soft bun. Very yummy! Will definitely buy this again.

Creative Minds

Whenever I bring the gals along to my gynae's office, they would get all excited looking at KLCC and the Twin Towers as my gynae's office is located very near the Twin Towers. When they got home from my gynae's office last week, they started constructing their very own Twin Towers with Lego blocks. Notice the blue block at the very top? It's supposed to be the sky bridge connecting to 2 towers!

Quick Fix Lunch

I had almost forgotten that Alycia has to attend her Mandarin enrichment class today at 12:15pm. This is a replacement class. We were still having breakfast at 10:30am when I went to look at the stick-on notes I'd put on the wall and saw the notice from her pre-school on the Mandarin class. Since we don't have much time to prepare lunch and she has to eat her lunch by 11:30am, I decided to fix her toast with peanut butter and strawberry jam. Though it was a very simple and light lunch, Alycia nevertheless enjoyed her lunch. I better remember that she has another replacement Mandarin class tomorrow at 12:15pm.

Cute Quotes

As I was applying some make-up on my face in preparation to go to church last week :

Sherilyn : Mummy, why you use pencil to draw your eye? (referring to the eye liner that I was using to color my eyebrows)

Me : No, that's not a pencil, it's an eyeliner.

Sherilyn : Oooh.... (in the cutest voice)

I then put on my lipstick....

Sherilyn : Mummy, why you use crayon to draw your lips?

Me : No, that's not a crayon, it's a lipstick.

Sherilyn : Oooh...... (in her cute babyish voice expressing amusement)

Then, as I put on a panty liner on my panty.....

Sherilyn : Mummy also wear diaper......

Me : No, that's not a diaper, it's a panty liner.

Sherilyn : Oooh....... and then giggles.

Funny Quotes

Scene 1

Sherilyn has 2 front teeth that are long and big. Whenever she laughs, I can't help telling her that she's got 2 big front teeth like Bugs Bunny :

Me : Sherilyn, you have such big teeth like Bugs Bunny.

Sherilyn : NO! Mummy has big teeth. Me have lion teeth.... wwoooorrrrr....... (as she imitates a lion growling)

Sherilyn never fails to tell me this whenever I comment that she's got big teeth and she never fails to make me laugh when I hear her say that, especially the growling part.


Scene 2

As I stepped out from the bathroom after my bath one night last week, Alycia stared at my body :

Alycia : giggles.... mummy, your breast is so big

Me : Yup, mummy is pregnant, that's why my breasts are bigger now.

Alycia : giggles.... wah.... so big. Looks like what? Hahaha......

I felt flattered coz for someone who has never had big boops, having larger breasts now are a delight and a compliment!

My Typical Morning

Managed to complete 2 outstanding tasks and grabbed 1 opp this morning. Did everything hurriedly so that I can accomplish as much as possible before Alycia and Sherilyn wake up at 9am. Since it's the school holidays now, the girls wake up an hour later in the morning and I have 1 hour extra to work. I think they are up now as I can hear them knocking on the bedroom door upstairs. That's the start of my day, having to tackle 2 very high needs and demanding whiny toddlers.

A Teaspoon Of Honey A Day Keeps The Doctor Away

Can honey really help keep the doctor away? I hope so and this is what I've been feeding Alycia and Sherilyn everyday. I alternate between Manuka honey with freshly squeezed orange juice and Manuka honey with prune juice everyday. Our paed has actually suggested Manuka honey to strengthen the immune system. I think there is some truth to it coz whenever the gals are showing signs of a cold, the symptoms would seem to dwindle after their double dosage of Manuka honey.

Quail Eggs

When we went grocery shopping a couple of days ago, Alycia saw some quail eggs and asked me to buy them. Today, we all had quail eggs for breakfast. It's a good thing Sherilyn who doesn't eat meat loves eggs, including quail eggs. So she gets all her protein and nutrition from her hard boiled egg every morning. As for Alycia, she only eats the egg white and hates the yolk (when eaten hard boiled), so the yolk normally goes to Sherilyn and mummy! The only way Alycia would eat the yolk is when the egg is beaten up and fried. That's the only way I can make her eat one of the most nutritious food around as the yolk contains the most vitamins, DHA and minerals.

Blind Leading The Blind

This was the homework that Alycia's Mandarin class teacher gave her last week. I could not read most of the words there, especially the instructions. As I could recognize a few words (water and hand), I figured that Alycia was supposed to complete the missing stroke for each word. So I ended up spending 15 minutes going through the previous pages to find the words and fill up the missing strokes. It's really a case of the blind leading the blind. I think I should ask Alycia's teacher to write the instructions in English in future so that I know what she's supposed to do. As for teaching her the words, I think I need to get myself a chinese pictionary with 'han yi pin yi' !

Varicose Veins

The varicose veins on my legs are becoming worse. Whenever I get up from a sitting or lying position, I can feel an immediate heavy pressure and pain on my left leg. It feels as if the veins are about to rupture. It's so bad that I have to either sit down immediately or raise my leg on a chair to remove the pressure on my leg. I know it's only going to get worse as my pregnancy progresses and the baby gets heavier. Sherilyn calls my legs 'mummy's monster legs!'

My Hairdressing Tools

These are my hairdressing tools. I normally trim my kids' fringes myself but when it comes to cutting the rest of the hair, I'll leave the job to the hairdresser which would normally cost RM12.
Do you normally trim your kids' hair yourself?

How Money Motivates

I'm not a techie person and I hate to meddle with gadgets and gizmos but today, I saw a high pay-out opp by this network. It requires a 30-second video. Initially, I had ignored the opp but this opp kept showing up on my screen each time I refreshed the screen. So I decided to give it a shot. First, I rummaged through my drawers to look for my Olympus camera DVD to read the instruction on shooting video as the original set up on my camera was only for a video shoot duration of 15 seconds and I didn't know how to re-set the duration of the video shoot. Next, I began to shoot the video but my 2 rascals kept interrupting me. Sherilyn was screaming and crying away and Alycia was tugging at me. I did the shoot more than 10 times. Hopefully my video and the post gets approved by this network.

Alycia Is Learning Mandarin

Alycia has been attending additional Mandarin classes in her pre-school for almost 3 months now. She still attends these classes during the school holidays. Each time she comes home from school with homework, I have a real tough time coaching her as I'm just as blur and clueless in my Mandarin. My knowledge of the Mandarin language is just very basic and I can only recognize basic simple words. So most times, I have to read up her book to teach her! It's like learning up Mandarin myself! When my mil is around, I can ask her for help but when she's not, sometimes Alycia's homework gets undone coz mummy just doesnt know how to teach her. What a shame. I'm really contemplating sending her to a Chinese school next year.

Double-Boiled Apple Juice

Upon the advice of Aly and Sher's former babysitter, I double-boiled some apples with honey date and snow fungus to 'yun' my body and to nourish my dry and peeling skin. I used 3 medium-sized apples, 1 honey date, 1 handful of snow fungus and added 3 small bowls of water and double-boiled the concoction for almost 3 hours. The juice was really sweet and fragrant and both Sherilyn and I loved it. As for Alycia, she hated it and drank the juice as if she were drinking some bitter medicine and even pinched her nose when she gulped it down. I shall be double-boiling some pears tomorrow and hopefully she will like it this time.

Muruku Craze

When I told my Sikh neighbor that I loved the homemade muruku that she had given me during Deepavali, she gave me another big tub of her homemade muruku the following week. I've been eating them almost everyday till I have zits appearing on my face and I feel really heaty. Her murukus are really tasty - they are super crunchy and are made of coconut milk and dhal. Now, I am having a muruku respite despite being really tempted to much on one everyday. I think I should double boil some pear with honey dates tomorrow to 'yun' and cool my body.

Pregnancy : 18th Week Check-Up

Had a check-up by my gynae today. Both my gynae and I were equally surprised on the 'change' in the baby's gender. Both of us saw the little dicky bird at 14 weeks. As for me, I was more worried than being disappointed that it's not a boy. I was worried that my Amnio result could have been switched!! My gynae did another thorough scan and this time, he was quite certain that he saw a female genital. I'm actually relieved that it's indeed a girl and not a boy. If the little dicky bird can still be seen, the Amnio result could have really been switched and I may have to do another Amnio. My gynae explained that at 14 weeks, it is often still too early to determine the gender as the baby's genital is still forming and changing; mistaken gender like my case is very common.

The right kidney still looked dilated but since the baby's chromosomes are normal, close monitoring is required. I'm scheduled to see the fetal specialist, Dr Patrick again and see what he has to advise. Meanwhile, I can only pray that all goes well with this baby and my pregnancy.

Homemade Chicken Rice

After 2 failed attempts, my maid finally got the chicken rice right yesterday. The first time, she had forgotten my instructions and put too much water to cook the rice, resulting in the rice being too soggy. The second time, I had told her to put only 1 potato but my maid who tried to be adventurous put 3 large potatoes to cook with the chicken. Not only that, she had also forgotten to add in the mushrooms and the sausages. The result was a total disaster. The chicken rice tasted like a potato pie and no one liked it. The third time, I drew up the menu specifically and reminded her time and again to put all the ingredients right - not too much water, only 1 potato, remember the mushrooms, dried shrimps, etc. The chicken rice turned up perfect and the gals loved them and licked their platters clean.

Ingredients:

Chicken (marinate with soya sauce and pepper)
Mushrooms
Dried shrimps
1 large potato or 2 small sized potatoes
Sausages (I used deli chicken sausages which are halal so that my maid can also eat and not as oily as Chinese sausages)
Sesame seed oil to fry the ingredients
Chopped garlic and shallots
A dash of MSG-free oyster sauce and tiny dollop of thick black sauce
A dash of rice wine (optional but not advisable if you're feeding toddlers)
Can also add in some chopped long beans for extra protein for toddlers
Chopped spring onions for garnishing



Method:
After cooking the chicken with the rest of the ingredients, add them into the pot of rice when you see 'holes' appearing in the pot of rice and stir the rice and chicken ingredients well.