Solid Foundation

Having a good, solid foundation in work management and office management is very important. Once these skills are at your finger tips, you can run a small scale business efficiently. I am thankful that I had very good exposure to these skills in my 8 years of experience working in the HR Department of a large bank. I had superiors who were perfectionist and they were very fastidious in their work. They managed to bring out the best in me. With these very useful skills and experience that I have, I do not even need order management workflow to help me run my home-based online store business.

Sherilyn's Grade 2 Trial Ballet Exam

Sherilyn sat for the second trial ballet exam today, before the actual exam this month end. She and her fellow ballerina classmates have been practising very hard for the past few months as the teacher finds that their movements are not 100% perfect yet. From twice weekly classes, they will have thrice weekly classes starting from next week on top of extended time during normal classes. Learning ballet requires a lot of discipline and hard work. I have seen the ballet teachers at the dance centre screaming at the students. Some teachers even hit the butt of students who never seem to remember their steps. I have time and again asked Sherilyn if she absolutely likes ballet and her answer has always been in the affirmative.

I find it really therapeutic whenever I see my princess wannabe dance.  When she is dancing, she portrays nothing of the mischievous, overly playful, whiny and willful girl who often clashes with me. I am the serious type while she is just the opposite. Whenever I see her dance, she looks really serious yet demure and graceful, which is just something that I wish she could be all the time!



 



Sherilyn dancing with Mel, her childhood friend, who is also the daughter of my childhood friend.
 


Sherilyn doing a solo dance in her character skirt.





I sincerely hope that Sherilyn and all her classmates will pass their RAD Grade 2 exam and can proceed to Grade 3.

Lunch At Blu Med @ Mid Valley

On the eve of Alycia's exam yesterday, I was feeling quite relaxed. I  agreed to the hubs' suggestion to bring us to Mid Valley Megamall for lunch and shopping.  We had lunch at Blu Med restaurant as the foodie hubs wanted to try this new eatery headed by the famed Iron Chef - Chef Sasajima.

Blu Med is a Mediterranean + Italian restaurant under the Texchem Group (Sushi King, Waku Waku, Goku Raku Ramen). This restaurant offers an authentic Mediterranen experience executed by their Italian and international chefs, with unique touches, and all expertly directed by Iron Chef, Chef  Sasajima, a Maestro of a distinctive style of Italian cuisine with a Japanese twist.

Here's  what the foodie hubs picked from the menu:


1) A Cicchetti dish composed of a platter of baby squids cooked with potatoes and fruits (I think), deep fried fish, deep fried squids, two varieties of deep fried meat balls (I sure hope that the balls contained no horse meat!) and open sandwich.




Famished girls waiting impatiently  to dig into the first dish, while mummy was busy snapping pictures of the food. A blogger mummy has to do what a blogger has to do and everyone knows it since 6 years ago. So before anyone lays their hand on a dish, they know that they have to stay their hands off the food and lay frozen for at least 1 minute for mummy to snap the dishes at all angles teeheeeheeee........



2) Calzone - this looked like a humungous curry puff but it is stuffed with minced beef.  We all find the crust too thick (NOT good for weight watchers!). The stuffing was mild in taste.

3) Linguini Carbonara - Hubs and I find the pasta pretty bland in taste but the girls who are pasta queens made no complaints about it and gobbled up every strand of noodles.

4) There was also a Seabass Acqua Pazza dish and that dish won over the rest of the dishes. But for the price of RM45 for a portion that is even smaller than my fist, I think it is overpriced.

5) Pizza - my heart sank when this dish arrived. The color of the crust, which looked as if the pizza was not thoroughly baked had already given me the tell-tale answer on how the pizza would taste. We did not even bother to taste the pizza partly because there was too much food left (portion was pretty big). So we had the entire pizza wrapped up in aluminium foil and took it away for dinner that night. It tasted better when I rebaked it for 20 minutes in the oven.

6) Ravioli - this is what I call Italian 'wanton'.  None of us really liked this dish.




Foreground on your left is the RM45 seabass fish dish and on your right is Ravioli 




Pizza...



For dessert, the hubs picked Tiramisu and the restaurant-made ice-cream consisting of papaya, banana and cempedak ice cream .  When the dessert arrived, Alycia was too quick to put a spoonful of Tiramisu into her mouth without first asking me what it was and she choked till she almost puked as the Tiramisu had a thick coating of chocolate powder on top. I almost suffocated too when I took a spoonful of it!  I personally find that there was way too much powdered chocolate and I felt as if I had inhaled a big sniff of chocolate talcum powder sprayed directly onto my nostrils and throat. The homemade ice cream tasted flat too. It would have tasted better had it been a tad milkier or creamier.   Anyway, my 3 greedy devils walloped them all, irregardless of whether they tasted heavenly or just run-of-the-mill.












 

Facade of Blu Med -- picture taken from eatdrinkkl.blogspot.com



To be honest, the hubs and I find the food not up to par in comparison with the price and all the media hype. He definitely did not get a bang for his buck. When I asked him if he would return, his answer was "only for a drink. No food!" 






Blu Med, The Boulevard,
Mid Valley City, Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03-2201-5081

Our Sunday - 3 March 2013

Tomorrow will be the start of Alycia's week-long 1st term exam. This time round, I have been pretty lax with her.  In the morning, she followed her grandma jogging. Then we had a relaxing and long breakfast of homemade toasted wholemeal bread at home.  Before we could start doing any revision, the hubs asked if we would like to go out for lunch. Since I wanted to get some fruits and groceries, I suggested Mid Valley Megamall.  After our Italian lunch at  Blu Med @ Gardens, we went to Cold Storage for groceries shopping. By the time we reached home coupled with lots of dilly dallying from this Miss Cool As Cucumber, we only started doing revision at around 5pm. Not even half an hour into doing the work that I had set for her, I saw this girl struggling to open her eyes!  She persuaded me to let her take a cat nap. I relented on condition that the nap shall only be for 15-20 minutes. She promised me.  When she was napping, I quickly did the laundry and some work on the computer. I had no time to waste. With only a max of 2 hours to do last minute revision with this dilly dallier, I had to put all my own work and needs on hold and attend to this girl FIRST!   Motherhood is so tough.  It is tougher on me and my kids when there are people who like to compare my kids with their kids in terms of academic achievement, haizzzzz......

Century Old Church

I used to go to an old church with my parents in my hometown when I was young. My parents are still regular church goers at this old church. The church has no air-conditioning but only fitted with wall fans on each pew. I remember sweating profusely while praying fervently on my knees on hot evenings and got bitten by mozzies while listening to the sermon while being seated on the church furniture chairs. Nonetheless, I feel very at peace whenever I go to this church. And I still prefer traditional churches and singing old hymns compared to modern ones with loud bands.

Rushing Mad Life

I chuckled to myself when I read Mumsgather's post on Rushed. today. The more I read the lines of  MG's post, the more I see that both of us are so similar in this area, i.e. being rushed. But I think I am rushed even more -- by the Royal Highness (AARGH!!) and by his 3 princesses, esp. the eldest princess.  Each time we go out, I feel the STRESS and I have told the hubs about this and have demanded that he stops rushing me if he is not helping out!

Ever since our live-in maid went back for good, I feel even more rushed as I now have to do what kakak was doing, on top of my already tight schedule.  I laughed the hardest when MG described that she has to step into her half worn shoes while locking the door before tip toeing to her car with her half worn shoes like a mad lady.  That's because I do similar time-saving things like walking simultaneously while wearing my jogging shoes. Besides my pair of jogging shoes, I only buy slip on shoes and sandals, so that I can slip my feet into the shoes, in just a matter of a second. I have absolutely no time to wear gladiator shoes or shoes that have hard to meddle with buckles, straps, ribbons and what nots, though I itch to wear these kind of  glitzy Lady Gaga shoes sometimes.

Besides having to juggle wearing my shoes while I walk, I also wear my clothes and undies while I am rushing, to save time LOL! But I can only do that provided no one else is in the house, apart from the hubs and the kids. And I tie my hair when I am in the elevator, without a mirror.. What else do I do to save just a few minutes?  Oh yea, I sometimes write my blog posts on my mobile phone while waiting for my girls. And I steal a forty winks while I am in the car, so that I have the battery to last me till midnight to accomplish all that I have to do for the day. 

As I am typing this post, I am also rushed to complete it for I have to clear the messy after-lunch dining table before the Mandarin tutor comes, dump the dirty laundry into the washing machine and rush off several invoices to my customers. What a rushed life I have and I wonder when I can have a more relaxed life.

Mid Life Crisis

Some of my former classmates born in January and February have already reached one of the most important ‘destinations’ in their life when they hit 40 years of age recently. I will reach this milestone very soon, in exactly a month’s time. Since last year, the thought of reaching 40 makes me feel crummy. The thought of partially losing my youth does give me the blues. I had my first menses at age 11+ and I think that this is considered earlier than the ‘norm’. So I guess I will be reaching menopause early too since I was an early bloomer. If there was really a genie in a bottle that pops out all of a sudden and grants me three wishes, I think I will ask for perpetual youthfulness – inside and outside me! Well, laugh not at me for this wish may be granted to me! I am sure you have read about bizarre but true stories of some women in their fifties and sixties miraculously giving birth to babies! I am definitely not hoping for more diaper-changing days, only a fountain of youthfulness perpetually.

As I was google searching ‘symptoms of menopause and perimenopause’ today, I cannot help imagining myself going through the throes of this dreaded yet inevitable phase of every woman’s life. I wonder how my hubs would feel when I am officially menopaused. How is our bed life going to turn out? Will I have to resort to tubes of icky gel on those nights? Will I turn into a loathsome mother and wife with unsavory words spewing out of my mouth when I experience those bouts of sudden hot flashes and suffer from insomniac nights? I shudder to think of that. And I wonder if my hubs ever worried about the same thing that worries me when he goes through a similar phase in his life when he reaches the ‘male menopause’ where his testosterone level begins to decline. Perhaps the both of us will sail through this rough patch of phase together  with me resorting to HCT and he, taking Testosterone boosters! LOL!  I’ll see…

Foodie Baby

Cass definitely has the foodie genes in her blood. She is such a discerning eater and appreciates food so much. She lives to eat just like her daddy, that's for sure. She is by far the only 4 year old whom I know of who appreciates and knows how to gnaw on fish bones and of course chicken bones and pork bones! And she knows how to carefully remove the bones with her fingers before putting the meat into her mouth.  Hopefully my baby girl will not balloon up into a tai fei por!
 

 

Breast Cancer Awareness

The 20-minute car ride to Ikea yesterday had brought me walking down memory lane. As I was in the car gazing at my adorable Cass who kept giving me her sweet smile, I remembered our many long trips in the car 4 years ago. When Cass was not even a year old, most of our car rides were to the many different hospitals. The hubs and I had brought her from one hospital to another to consult the best nephrologists and pediatric surgeons to save her life. I looked at my now Cass and compared her to the then frail baby Cass and reflected on the manifold bitter events we had gone through together. During the car ride yesterday, I recalled so vividly our many frightful and hellish moments in hospitals together. I had gone through too many tears and fears with this little tough cookie of mine. She is indeed a fighter!

I remember one of our eventful procedures at a private hospital here where I had to bring Cass to the Cancer and Radiation Centre. Cass had to go through an MCUG procedure that involves sedating her. Some radiated dye had to be injected into her body from the veins on her hand and from her down under. While I was hanging on tenterhooks waiting for the result of the scan at the Cancer centre (which broke my heart into a zillion pieces when I read the report), I saw a woman in her mid forties. She was bald and was shopping for prosthetics breasts and some special bras in a shop at the Cancer Centre that sells such specialties. I could only guess that she is a  breast cancer patient and had both her breasts  removed. Her family consisting of her husband and children were waiting for her outside the shop and they all looked gloomy. I really felt for her and her family and I prayed silently for the woman and prayed that this will never befall me or my loved ones.

Breast cancer awareness is of vital importance because it may save your life or the life of someone dear to you. I have a free mammogram voucher that hubs got from a client and I must allocate some time to use this voucher soon.

The Serpents Scared The Sh*t Out Of Me This Morning!

I got a major scare of my life the first thing when I woke up at 5:15am this morning as I was being greeted by 3 slimy ssssssssssssssnakes !

Hubs was the culprit who scared the sh*t out of me. He placed these 3 creepy crawlies on top of the cupboard beneath the light switches and these switches are the first thing that I touch when I wake up at 5:15am every morning. The moment the light was turned on, I almost jumped out of my nightie when I saw these creepy serpents just under my arm as I thought they were real coz they do look real, LOL!!





The snakes were the newest addition to the hubs' collection of decor and he had just used them for a client's CNY open house function last night.

And this cheeky mummy placed the 3 snakes on the dining table just to see how Alycia and Sherilyn would react... and also to wake them up totally but my 2 dare devils had almost zilch reaction when they saw the snakes! I guess I am getting old!

Vitamins And Antioxidant Enriched Toilet Papers For Your Butt!

When I was shopping at Jaya Grocer at Jaya 33 last week, some 5-star quality looking toilet papers caught my eyes.

The Renova toilet papers series come in green -- my favorite green tea color  and another series have different cartoon sketches and algebra motifs printed on every piece of paper. Awesome!




And some of the Renova toilet papers are Vitamin C and E enriched with added antioxidant agents! Oh my, this toilet paper series are out of the world and perhaps fitting for a king and queen!



I was really tempted to get a pack of the Citrus Fresh Vitamins and Antioxidants enriched toilet papers out of curiosity, as the price for a pack is only RM8.90, which is pretty affordable.  But on second thoughts, I abandoned my idea. I was just wondering what I should do with the toilet papers. I don't need vitamins and antioxidant enriched papers to wipe my butt after my business as I rather wash it clean :D

But as I am typing this post, I am stirred by my intense curiosity again. The next time I shop at Jaya Grocer, I will definitely get a pack of the Renova Citrus Fresh toilet papers just for opening our eyes! And I ain't going to wipe my butt and my daughters' butt with it. It will be for the dining table to wipe our mouths lol!

Would you get them?

2013 Valentines Day

This Valentines Day is just another regular day for us. No surprises from the hubs this year but just a lovely blueberry cake from Mori. Well, I don't mind as I think that it ain't worth to spend a hundred ringgit on a small bouquet of flowers or a few hundred bucks on a candle light dinner. He got me a bouquet of expensive flowers last year and actually I wasn't too happy about it as I am not one who appreciates flowers and I think that it is such a waste of money.  Yep, I'm a pretty down to earth and practical person. These things can be given to me on other days :)

In another 1.5 days, there will be another cake, this time to celebrate Sherilyn's 8th birthday. And in another month, another cake to celebrate my big birthday. And the following month, will be Cassandra's birthday, May will be Mother's Day and June will be Father's Day, wooooot, the girls will be beaming as they will have big cakes to eat every month!

How did you celebrate Valentine's Day? Any fancy schmancy celebration and bling bling gifts from your darling? :P

Our 4th Day Of The Year of the Snake

It's been a pretty quiet day for us to rest at home. I gave the kids some work to do from their workbooks. Alycia will be sitting for her first semester test in 2 weeks, while rascal #2 has been doing nothing but having her eyes glued to all the idiot boxes, so I needed to work her brain before it goes into hibernating mode. It ain't easy to jump-start her brain, so it is wiser to keep it working efficiently everyday.

When Alycia and Sherilyn were doing their workbooks, I took a cat nap on my OTO mobile massage chair. Was having such a nice and comfy nap with mouth wide opened when I heard a loud thud. It sounded like someone fell. My reflex action sent me off the chair instantly, with my  heart almost dropping out. Cass had fallen down from dunno where but thank God she wasn't crying. No crying always means nothing serious and nothing broken. I quickly checked on the girl and she had quite a long stretch of her skin lightly grazed off on her hand. She was in pain but managed to suppress her fear and pain. This tough cookie is indeed tough as ever since her traumatic baby days.  I would have screamed out in pain if I fell and have such a long stretch of my skin grazed out from my hand!

Tonight we'll be having a reunion family with the Yap family at a seafood restaurant. It's going to be another round of rich food and yee sang tossing. Shall continue hard with my workout tomorrow morning. I have the luxury to exercise everyday without fail ever since the mil came back from Hong Kong, bliss! :)

Our 2nd Day of The Snake Year, 2013

The hubs had wanted to bring us to Yeast, a new eatery located a few doors away from Antipodean @ Bangsar but it was closed. So we had no choice but to go to Antipodean again. Though we love the food at Antipodean, we were however pretty bored with the food as we have been there too many times and eating the same food. We wanted to try something new.  Nonetheless, we still enjoyed our breakfast at Antipodean today.





For lunch, we finished off the vegetarian dish that the mil cooked yesterday and also ate our favorite roast chicken that we bought from Jason's Grocers at BSC today.We are off to hubs' uncle's house for our dinner tonight. I guess there will be more meat dishes tonight, *HICK*  I MUST continue to work out extra hard tomorrow morning as I have been binging on a lot on CNY snacks and on the highly fattening nin goa (kuih bakul) coated with grated coconut *double fattening* ! I am so sure I am going to gain back the 1kg that I'd lost after these 2 weeks of inevitable feast on meat and carbs.  Never mind, eat first diet later teehehehe...

Cheeky Cassandra

That's how my cheeky girl opens her mouth wide for me to brush her teeth at hard to reach places LOL!  I wonder who taught her this!


 

Awesome Coral-Like Cauliflower-Brocolli!

My mil did our CNY marketing at the S17 wet market yesterday. When she came home with a cart full of fresh produce, the first thing that caught my eyes was this whatcha call cross-farmed brocolli-cauliflower with a coating that looks like sea corals!

Love the unique flouroscent green but this coral-like flower sure is too dodgy looking to swallow down my throat. I wonder if it was genetically modified. It is the first time I have seen such an awesome looking cauliflower-brocolli. For those of you living in the West, this may be quite a common veggie, eh?

Have you seen this before?

 

Sticky Baby

Though Cass now sleeps in a different bedroom with us, she still has a tendency of knocking on our room door at ungodly hours... sobbing and telling me that she's had a bad dream. Whenever this happens, she'll get to be sandwiched between daddy and mummy. Actually I do miss having her sleep next to me. I've had her sleeping under my armpit for 3 years when she was still on breast milk. And Cass misses sleeping with us and snuggling closely to us too, smelling daddy and mummy. But having a 16kg baby sleep next to us can be pretty uncomfortable as she sleeps like the clock's hands. She moves 360 degrees round the bed and at times kicks us on our face and other parts of our bodies. Sometimes she takes half the king-size bed, pushing hubs and me to the edge of the bed, like this...





But I am not really fussing about it for I know that very soon, this sticky baby will no longer want to stick with us anymore *sobs*

My hubby The Handyman

My kids call their daddy Handy Manny, after the cartoon character. That’s because their daddy is indeed one handyman who can fix and install just about anything from changing a car tire to a ranger tire, fixing leakages, repairing the house, installing very complicated furniture with a thousand parts from scratch and the list goes. Not only is he an adept handyman, he has passion fixing things too. I always wonder why he doesn't have the patience to wait for me to shop for just 1 hour but has absolutely no complaints spending half a day to fix and instal a piece of furniture!

Exercising In Pre-Dawn Darkness

My early morning jog is very important to me.  No matter how busy and tired I may be, I try to avail myself to  jog round our condo compound where there is lush greenery, after sending Alycia and Sherilyn off for school. I love the peace, serenity and quietness before dawn, where the skies are still dark, the air still crisp, fresh and cooling. When I jog in darkness, where the street lights are the only light breaking through the pre-dawn darkness, I get absolute peace of mind. That is the time I do all my thinking, soul-searching and problem-solving!  However, when the sun breaks through the darkness and I feel the heat from the sun, I no longer have the mood and inspiration to jog anymore. 

I spoke to one avid morning swimmer yesterday who lives in the same block as us.  She is a busy working mum who only has time to exercise in the wee hours of the morning,. She also loves to work out in the pre-dawn darkness but she swims at the pool of our condo... and she has the same sentiments as I do!  I guess most busy working mothers need some quietness and ME time, away from the kids everyday to release all our stress... through exercising!

HFM's Angels

My 3 angels, cute and playful as they may be... but they can behave so monstrous that I can feel 10 years of my life snatched from  me when they are, well behaving like monsters and not normal kids! I am tired of using the cane and shouting. So I just have to shut off both my ears and eyes to their mischief and nonsense at times when I am too busy. For busy WFHMs with no live-in helper, you will know what I mean.  I just let them be. Afterall they are kids and they are only kids once and before I even realize it, they are already teenagers. And then they will all be somewhere else and the noisy, mad house will then be so quiet that I wish I could turn back the clock. 

Sometimes when they make me feel like walking out of the home, I ask  God why he has given me such misbehaved kids and then suddenly I will come to my senses.  All of a sudden, I remember the year 2002 and 2003, the 2 years where my life was in a roller coaster ride... all because I wanted to have a baby. My hubs would always use that dark time that we went through to remind me to be thankful for them. And then I thank God for these 3 monsters and ask forgiveness from God for all the harsh words and thoughts I had on them.