Of All The Things To Forget...

Can you believe that in my entire life,  I hardly ever cook rice?  Before the kids came along, I've always had my meals outside after work.  After the kids came along,  I've had a maid who would cook for us for over 10 years and even after she left recently, the MIL would cook rice. Never me to cook rice.  So naturally, cooking rice was never my forte and it was hardly in my to-do list. I would even feel helpless each time I cook rice and would get worried that the rice would either be too soggy or too hard or not thoroughly cooked.

So... today I made a big boo boo.   After the 3 girls had gone for art class, I was enjoying the peace at home and quickly did all the work on my PC that needed thinking -- churning out invoices, writing my ads and replying my customers' messages.  I told myself that I could just reheat one of the dishes that the MIL had cooked and frozen just before she left for Hong Kong.  And I would blanch a veggie when the girls returned from art class.  Watercress soup is already prepared in the afternoon and already sitting nicely and warmly in the magic pot.  When I picked up the girls from art class, Alycia was announcing that she was freaking hungry. I said, no problem, dinner will be served in a bit but....

When we stepped inside our house, Alycia ran into the kitchen to check out what was prepared for her and then she asked me worriedly,  "MUMMY, WHERE IS THE RICE???"  O_o  I said "Shiats, I FORGOT to cook rice!!" and then burst out laughing foolishly at my forgetfulness!  How could I have forgotten to cook rice?  Rice of all things, great!  I told the girls that since they were so hungry, I might as well just cook some spaghetti noodles which would just take me 10 minutes.  But my rice pot Alycia insisted that she only wanted rice and nothing else!   This fan thoong girl of mine  would go to bed feeling really uneasy if she did not get to eat rice for dinner,  sigh!  Then both of us thought of the same thing at the same time.  Haha, great minds think alike, deng deng!!  So off we went downstairs to the Japanese restaurant to take away Japanese rice which cost me a freaking RM6.70 including tax.  What the heck,  a mum has to do what a mum has to do when her 3 babies are famished.  LOL!  And my 3 babies enjoyed their Japanese rice with homecooked food and soup for dinner tonight :D

Lowering My Standards

In the last 10 years that I have had the privilege to hire a live-in maid, I have to say that in terms of cleanliness and paying attention to details, none of my live-in maids met my expectation. From one who is very pernickety with cleanliness, I have to lower my standard. I used to come home after work to check the table tops, windows and floors and would question my maid if I spotted dirt on the places that the maid was rostered to clean for that day. This gave me a lot of stress, as well as to the maid. And over the years, I had learned to close both my eyes to the maid’s slip shod work. I have learned to accept the fact that I can never expect too much from a maid who has to work long hours. As long as she does the laundry, mops the floor, puts meals on the dining table and washes the dishes, I have to be contented. I cannot expect my live-in maid to produce 100% satisfaction guaranteed work, like those cleaners from CommercialCleaningUT.com or other well-trained cleaners from professional cleaning companies.

If I want 100% satisfaction guaranteed work from a maid, whether live-in maids or part-time maids, I might as well do the chores all by myself. That would save me a lot of money, albeit this would put a lot of stress on myself too. Well, I cannot have the best of both worlds.

Epilepsy

When my girls were babies through toddlers, I would have to go through sleepless nights each time they had high fevers. I would sleep on the floor with the child who was having fever, on a mattress. Next to me were an alarm clock, a small bucket to retrieve vomit should my baby threw up, plastic mats to line the bed just in case they puked, a digital ear thermometer, a small tumbler of water, wet towels to sponge my baby’s body and suppositories! I would wake up at every hour to check their temperature, sponge their body and to force feed them with water and at times to insert suppository. Those were the nights I wish I never have to go through again. Having a baby is indeed a joy and a gift from God. But raising children is the toughest job God has ever created too. 

High fevers in young children can cause epilepsy and damage to the brain. I have a friend who almost lost her son when he suffered a bout of high fever. While she did not loose her son completely, she lost half of the son. Most unfortunately, the son suffered a brain damage and is now in a vegetative state. I also have friends whose young children suffered from febrile epilepsy resulting from high fever.

Epilepsy has a lot of causes, ranging from brain tumors to infections. Sometimes, a sudden, high fever can also trigger a seizure. Known as febrile seizures, they usually occur in very small children who have a viral infection. Epilepsy can be a very scary experience for the child as well as for the parents or caregiver. While febrile seizures are rare and usually do not result in another seizure, there is a small chance that these children may develop epilepsy later on in life. Do you have a child who has had an episode of epilepsy recently? If you do, it is advisable to bring your child to an epilepsy specialist for consultation and check up.

Sherilyn The Menace

This rascal not only drives me nuts with her ever mischief and clumsiness. She has driven my parents bonkers too during our week long stay in Ipoh. Yesterday, she made my dad blow his top when she :

1) At Tesco, she placed her tumbler on the moving escalator's hand rail to see if the tumbler would drop. Of course it dropped and it landed on the floor beneath  where the coin-operated kids rides were. Thank GOD no one was downstairs, else the heavy bottle of water could have injured someone's head badly and could possibly kill a toddler if it dropped on the toddler's head! My dad had to run downstairs like a mad man to retrieve the tumbler. He was enraged. He is hardly mad with the kids but this time he was fuming mad.

2) Moments later just as we were about to get into the car, she dropped her tumbler again and the tumbler rolled underneath the car!

3) That evening, while playing cushion-war, she threw a cushion onto a ceramic cup on the table and the cup dropped and broke!


4) In the evening, she pushed the dining table chair and hurt Cass' toes and made Cass wail in pain.

5) That night after her shower, she ran out of the bathroom in her birthday suit to look for her towel. She stepped onto the mattresses on the floor with her wet feet and wet the entire floor and mattresses. I was boiling mad! I had just bought her a pair of expensive and pretty Barbie ballerina flat and gave her a pep talk and thought she would be good but...

Sherilyn oh Sherilyn, why are you such a trouble-maker and making everyone so terrified of you? When will you ever be more considerate and keep your mischief contained?

Jooi Hooi Cafe, Penang Road

After the anxious wait and consultation with Cass' surgeon at GMC Penang, I told hubs that I needed to have some street food therapy to de-stress.  Next to retail therapy, good food can be very therapeutic for me too lol!  My suggestion sounded too good to my foodie hubs and without hesitating a wee bit, he inched his way around Penang town to bring me to Penang Road for the well-known Teochew Chendol.

During our 3-week stay in Penang in May 2009, whilst I waited stressfully in the hospital, the hubs went food hunting round Penang,  Now, he is very familiar with all the well-known makan places in Penang!

The Penang Road famous Teowchew Chendol and Ice Kacang outside Jooi Hooi Cafe.




Whilst I only suggested Chendol, the hubs took a step further. As usual, this ambitious hubs of mine ordered a plate of 'kar liu' char koay teow (with about 4-5 really huge prawns) @ only RM6, a plate of fruit rojak, a bowl of assam laksa and a bowl of ice kacang.  My tummy was already a quarter full after chomping down 3 hot Ah Guan apom (my no. 1 favorite food in Penang!) on our way to GMC.  By the time we finished these yummy hawkers fare, I felt like puking and told the hubs to ditch the plan of eating seafood for dinner that night.



 The Penang Road famous Chendol is stalled just outside Joo Hooi Cafe, at the side. 

Picture taken from http://www.journeymalaysia.com/MI_penangfood.htm

But guess what, after a light dinner at the Executive Lounge of G Hotel, we walked to Gurney Drive and digged into some popular Penang hawkers food and ate under the drizzle !

Princess Wannabe In A Gown

We spent the whole afternoon shopping at Jusco in Ipoh yesterday. Nothing beats stress better for me than retail therapy. Funnily, spending money can be really therapeutic for me but the guilt trap can never escape after the adrenalin rush dissipates very much later LOL! The guilt is even more corrosive when the credit card bill comes the next month!!  That's why I never like to swipe my credit cards. Anyway, I bought nothing for myself yesterday but spent a few hundred bucks on my 3 precious.

When I saw Sherilyn in this ankle-length pink beaded gown yesterday, the first character that came up my mind was Cinderella!  She looked really sweet in this gown and was begging me to have it. BUT I did not give in as the main reason was the beads. Being in the apparel line of business, I have seen too many incidents where the string holding the beads snapped and all the beads dropped right in front of me. That's 100% wipe-off and no customer would want a defective dress and it is also not salvageable at all, so I had to say no to my princess wannabe and got her 2 other dresses instead.   Ever since kakak left, I have been buying only clothes that are washing-machine friendly. Strictly no 'hand-wash only' clothes haha!


Perhaps I should enlarge this pic and frame it up in Sherilyn's room. This will be her motivation to study hard and work hard so that she gets to buy a gown with her own money when she grows up! :D

Updates...

I'm still around, pretty busy as usual and even busier for the past 2 weeks as it's the school holidays plus my youngest SIL from Hawaii with her hubs were here. So there were lots of outings and entertaining.

Today, the girls and I are taking the ETS train to Ipoh. It will be the girls' first ever train ride and my first after over 15 years!  Just a short update for this blog before you, my dear reader thinks that this blog has shut down lol!

My 3 Earnest Helpers

These are not child laborers but very earnest child helpers. The moment they saw the stack of courier consignment notes and bags at the door step, they could not wait to help me 'process' them by first tearing the consignment notes and then sticking the plastic pockets onto the courier bags. With 3 helpers spending over an hour working, I don't need to spend half  my day on them, bliss!!  Best of all, they did not even ask for a reward!

Handmade Cards From Alycia

Alycia made this card, which is a Christmas Wish List card. For whom the card goes to, I dont' know la. She just loves making cards and bookmarks lately.  The love for art is in her blood and she inherited it from daddy who is a very artistic person who can draw very well too.

The picture of the girl in a car was from a plastic stamp set (in black ink) which grandma bought for her from Hong Kong. It comes with a set of colorful cards and ink. She colored the stamped picture and added dots as snow with a while color pencil, drew the X'mas tree, wrote the words Christmas Car and her Christmas List.  She has improved loads in her coloring ever since she attended art class.  I think it's a very beautiful card from a soon-to-be 9 year old girl, don't you agree? :)

Sol-U-Mel From Melaleuca

During the school holidays, I am even busier than school-going days.  When the girls get bored, they turn mischievous and the tricks from under their sleeves would be unveiled, one by one... like rascal #2 would be doing water color painting inside her bedroom on the WHITE table without lining the table with newspapers or cloth,  thus splattering paints everywhere!!  Next up after reprimanding her, she would wash the palette and paint brushes in the bathroom sink which I have just washed and causing more paint splattering everywhere on the sink, bathroom top and floor... then with her dirty hands, she would put the toilet seat down and pee and then more paint marks on the toilet seat, aaaargh!!!  

Here, I don't know which rascal spilled some glue on the white table top. It must be rascal no. 2 coz after reprimanding the girls, she took a magic sponge to try to remove the stain on the table but to no avail... instead caused a big puddle of water on the table. Then I remembered I have just bought Sol-U-Mel from Melaleuca. I dabbed a little of concentrated Sol-U-Mel onto a piece of tissue paper and as I scrubbed the table, I saw the glue vanished!  Indeed a miracle household helper for health and clean freaks like yours truly!

 Before Sol-U-Mel...
 


After Sol-U-Mel... a squeaky clean white table again!



You can use Sol-U-Mel full strength to remove:
Gum in hair
Permanent Marker
Road Tar
Tree Sap
Paint and fingernail polish
Grease
Pet stains
Oil Glues
Ink and crayon

You can also use diluted Sol-U-Mel to eliminate unwanted smells:
Deodorize garbage cans
Eliminate moldy odors
Freshen the bathroom
Remove smoke or pet odor from air and furniture

The secret behind Sol-U-Mel’s power is Melaleuca Oil. In fact, full-strength Sol-U-Mel contains 10% Melaleuca Oil (tea tree oil), more than any other cleaning product.



Many common household cleaners can contain ammonia, chlorine bleach, and other known offenders. Sol-U-Mel contains no ammonia, chlorine bleach, and is made from natural biodegradable ingredients. It is a must-have item in a house with kids!

TMJ Disorder

I learned to never take simple things in life for granted when Cass was lying in the hospital for 3 weeks after 2 major surgeries. I did not know whether she would be healed and whether she was going to make it. Her condition remained bad even after the first surgery. Only God knew how hopeless I felt. Though she had x-rays, a CT scan and a few other invasive scans done, the results were not conclusive to find out why she just could not poo, could not let out gas, she threw up after eating and drinking (even a few drops of water made her threw up green stuff!) and her tummy was growing bigger by the day, like a balloon about to explode. We were all hanging on tenterhooks in the hospital after the first surgery, which led to a complication. I prayed to God to help Cass fart and poo and for the surgeon to be able to find out what was wrong with her. Yes, simple things like farting and pooing mattered SO MUCH to me in May of 2009. Words cannot express how thankful and happy I was when I finally heard my baby girl let out a long fart after the second surgery. And the poop that came after the surgery… which was like gold to me!

Even being able to eat and let out a yawn without feeling pain is taken for granted by most of us. For those suffering from Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ), having a pleasant meal without wincing when they chew is something that they can only dream of.  If you or anyone whom you know of suffers from pain each time they chew or open their mouth wide, they may be suffering from TMJ. Please do visit a dentist like the Abbotsford TMJ dentist for further investigation and treatment.

A Funny Little Story From Cass

My youngest SIL from Hawaii came back 2 days ago.  Today, as she was lying down on the bed with Cass, she asked Cass to tell her a story. So here goes the funny, short story from Cass...

"Once upon a time, there lived an ice-cream.... a talking ice-cream.  Sarah ate the ice-cream and the talking ice-cream ate up her kidneys..."   .... upon hearing this, Alycia, my sil and I broke out in a loud guffaw....

".... and then the ice cream ate up Sarah's bones and the ice-cream said "yummy"  and lived happily ever after"

I was amazed with how Cass can cook up such a witty and funny story without even stopping to think what she was going to say.  I can't wait for Cass to know how to read and write. I'll bet she'll write loads of funny stories and stories related to KIDNEYS!   For those of you who follow my blogs, you will know why Cass and I are so obsessed with kidneys.

Ice-Cream On Toast

I love mornings on school-going days. Why? That's because I have PEACE at home, absolute silence, save for the sound of jazz music playing in the background. And I can munch of junk food as and when I wish without doing it stealthily in the wet kitchen and getting choked at times *COUGHS*!

See, I can even have ice cream on hot toast, how blissful!  Cold food like ice creams are something that I have been keeping away from my kids as they get cough pretty easily.  So it is during the morning when all 3 rascals are in school that I can freely eat and savor every single bite, yumz!

 
 Love this Freezy vanilla flavor ice-cream on my walnut toast.

My Pet Dogs

I had 2 pet dogs when I was a teenage girl. The first one, named Ricky was slightly over 1 year old when it was run over by a school bus when my brother left the gate opened. I was devastated and locked myself in my room to cry my eyes out for 2 days.   I was thirteen.  Ricky was euthanized as the pet told us that its ribs were crushed. I remember that I begged my daddy to bring me to the vet after swimming class to say my last good-bye to Ricky. I was controlling so hard not to weep out loud when I turned my back on Ricky to walk out of the vet’s clinic. Ricky was resting in the cage. He was staring at me with tears in its eyes. I will never forget that moment. 

My second pet dog was named Spotty as it had light brown spots all over its body. My hubby (then only friend – my brother’s classmate actually) gave me Spotty. It was a Spitz mixed with Mongrel.  Spotty was a ball of cutie when it was a puppy.  He was my source of joy and my playmate every evening.  I would walk Spotty round the neighborhood to let him release himself.  Those days, our pet dogs ate what we ate and they ate lots of bones, except for fish bones.  Dog food was not very popular about 20 over years ago.  These days, dog owners would cringe at the thought of their beloved pet dog eating left over food and bones, fearing that their precious dog would choke or would have watery stools.  Pet owners these days even join pet forums to mingle with fellow pet owners to discuss about their pets.  In those days, forums were hardly heard of, much less pet forums.  Though he was never fed with dog food, never really received any jabs for dogs, save for some Vitamins when he was showing signs of aging, Spotty was as healthy and strong as a tiger. He lived till a ripe old age of 12 human years and died of old age in the vet.  When he died, my mum called me on the phone to break me the sad news.  I cried for a day. I was very disappointed that I did not make it back to Ipoh on time to say my last good-bye and give a last hug to my beloved Spotty – the dog that had brought me so much joy throughout my teenage years.

Loving My Melaleuca Products!

I received my second batch of Melaleuca products and am loving them !  Now that I am the maid of the house and am constantly in contact with detergents and cleaners, I do not mind investing in products that do not contain harsh chemicals and are environmentally friendly.  Melaleuca's range of shampoos and body shampoos are free from SLS (sodium laureth sulfate - which can cause cancer) and paraben.





Renew Intensive Skin Therapy is by far the best dry skin relief cream that I have tried.  My cracked heels and extremely dry sole of feet are improving by the day after applying Renew.  I just need to keep my itchy hands off peeling the dry skin though as pricking and peeling will aggravate the problem!

The mouth rinse and tooth polish contain melaleuca oil (tea tree oil) and I bought them with the hubs in mind as he is very prone to getting ulcers in his mouth. Hopefully after using these, those nasty mouth ulcers will be kept at bay.
 

Health Freak Mommy is 5 Years Old!

My life will be totally different if the internet was not a part of my life. Because of the affordable accessibility of broadband internet, I can communicate with the world at my finger tips at a few clicks of the mouse at any time I like. Today, as I was walking to Cassandra’s kindy to pick her up, I was trying to take stock of my life and then went on to have an ‘audit trail’ of what I am today. Six years ago, I was a not-so-contented housewife with only 2 young toddlers. Life then with 2 toddlers who were not even in school yet was pretty monotonous. I had a live-in helper who was by far the best maid I’ve ever had, no blogs to update and no online store business to worry about. Can you imagine what a humdrum life was for me then? I am one who needs a little challenge and ‘good stress’ to add a dash of spice to my life. I spent most of my free time socializing in a reputable mom forum, a forum for Glenn Doman inspired parents and a few other forums for parents. I was an active member of these mom forums and made friends with a bunch of new mommies like me, who remain my good friends up until this day. From these forums, I clicked on links to blogs written by SAHMs. And from some of these blogs, I gathered that I could actually make lots of money from blogging… in US Dollars that is! A light bulb moment struck 5 years ago!  I was very excited. Being the impatient and ambitious me, I spent many late nights on my ‘project’ and the rest is history. Health Freak Mommy was conceived in April 2007 and now has over 37,000 visits a month (with over 15,000 unique visitors a month) (statistics for January 2012).

Today, I am a writer of 3 blogs who also churn money from my blogs and am a small-time entrepreneur. I cannot imagine my life without the internet. I guess I would be a full-time housewife without a live-in helper who spends all my time doing household chores, cooking, fetching the kids everywhere and coaching them in their school work. I wonder if I will like this kind of lifestyle.

Junkie Sunday

Sunday is a day where we eat out the whole day. It is a day of junk for us. After our outing at Pavillion on Sunday last week, we took away some snacks for dinner.

Our dinner on Sunday last week...
Egg bread from Lavender, fish balls from New Shanghai dim sum restaurant, colorful sandwiches, Hokkaido crepe cakes, cream puffs and Japanese buns from The Loaf.



Charcoal bread and beet root bread sandwiches and my favorite Japanese buns from The Loaf.




But my fan thoong (rice bucket) Alycia did not feel satiated after eating all these snacks. She wanted rice with chicken and fish and kept fantasizing about rice for hours after dinner that night! It's always not easy to please 3 girls who have different preferences, SIGH!!

Colorful Blu Tack

Cass has an obsession with Blu Tack and play dough. I guess this is partly because I do not encourage my girls to play with these at home as they are too messy -- mess on the table, on the floor, on the walls and the worse part is these sticky stuff will get stuck underneath their finger nails or get stuck like chewing gum on their hair, blah!  And I have absolutely no time to dig those sticky dough out from under their finger nails before meal times.  So my girls secretly kept the play dough that they got from Sunday School aeons ago and would steal some of my Blu Tack which I bought some time back.  At times, Cass would pinch some dough from mah mah's cake mixing bowl when she prepares dough for bread making and would play with the flour dough for hours till the white doughs turn into greyish black dough, eeeewwwwwww!


When I saw Blu Tack Colour at Ace Hardware shop recently, I bought a pack and am now using this as rewards for Cass.  She can be quite rebellious and disobedient at times.  So this colorful Blu Tack comes in handy.  Cass gets a small piece on days that she earns her 'Blu Tack points' ! 





Blu Tack Color is a much better alternative to  play dough as it is not as sticky and does not disintegrate as easily as play dough does.

 

A Match Made In Heaven

Do you believe in a marriage made in heaven with a life that is as blissful and as perfect as in fairy tales?  I never believed that it can happen in real life until I saw this happening to my close friend. She was 30 and he was only 28 but they were madly in love. The boy’s family did not quite like the girl. What else? The boy's old folks’ old school of thought that a wife cannot be older than her husband. But they got married anyway.  That was 10 years ago and their marriage is still as strong as ever now. The wedding was like a fairy tale. They both had unique wedding rings and she had a big bling bling diamond ring too! She was and is still a very beautiful lady, though she has doubled up in size now.  Never mind, her man still finds her the most beautiful woman ever. They have 2 beautiful kids and have now migrated to a neighboring country to expand their business. Talk about luck, guardian angels and shining stars, they have them all and their business is soaring up until today. A perfect marriage plus a very successful business that is generating big bucks.   What more can they ask for?  This pair must have been made in heaven!

If you are wondering what unique wedding rings or unique wedding bands are,  they are rings designed and hand-braided!  I know handwovenbands.com has a very talented artist named Todd Alan who makes unique wedding bands. Each ring is made one at a time as they are ordered and they are braided - which is something that most other jewelry artists do not do. If you are interested, do hop over to http://handwovenbands.com/. They have a free 30-day risk free return policy, secure online ordering options and all the bands are made from the finest materials.




 

More Home-cooked Dishes Pix

Here are more home-cooked dishes pix to replace 'words posts'.  Brain feeling a tad void (blame it on the darn PMS!) and time is not on my side the past few days, thus only pix... just to let readers know that this blog is still very much alive :D

That's our dinner on 22 Oct 2012...

My favorite jai choi dish (vegetarian dish) cooked with fermented tofu and glass noodles, blanched organic greens...



my favorite turmeric chicken cooked with organic Thai lemon grass and sliced organic Japanese pumpkin cooked with pork slices.  My girls never really liked pumpkin cooked  mashed or mushy but when cooked this style, this dish was all polished off.