Bad Day Today! Hoping For A Better Tomorrow

Today is not a good day for me.  Problems seem to be sprouting from every aspect of my life -- with customers, with suppliers, with advertisers and some ads with tough requirements (but pays pretty well), with the kids as usual (never easy to be a WFHM), with personal issues and I have some very hard to make major decisions to make that will affect my life and that of my kids and hubs.   I feel like writing out all my frustrations and sorrows here BUT no no, the world is reading this post right now.  Many of whom know me, including my customers and the advertisers.  So shall keep all my troubles to myself.  Only I can make the decisions myself.  Hubs said "all up to you"... He gave suggestions but sigh, his suggestions are not practical sometimes.   So here I am, feeling stressed up to the max.  I can feel that my head is about to explode and about to have a blood vessel or two that will rupture too.  Because of all these pent up stress and troubles to tackle, I am very tacky and blow my top very easily. I sound like a delirious mother yelling her lungs out, sometimes with very hurtful words and words that I should never have said.  I pray that my kids will not pick up this foul temper of mine and the absolute impatience.  I hate these 2 weaknesses in me.

I have to pull the bull by its horns and face the current trouble and impending ones.  I am not one who gives up easily and throw in the towel.  So I am going to be brave, pray to Him above and face my troubles calmly and bravely, like a soldier who walks into a war zone.  I can already see a battle ground ahead of me now but I am not going to chicken out as I am one responsible mother, blogger and online store owner.  I will soldier on!  Dear God, please help me to win the war with your help, Amen.

Roast Chicken With Purple Sweet Potatoes and Pumpkin... With A Drizzle Of Truffle Oil

Roast chicken with purple sweet potatoes and pumpkin -- that's the first dish that I cooked in almost 5 months yesterday!  That's how long the mil has been staying with us and taking charge of all the cooking, leaving me free to do other work.  Now that she's away in Hong Kong again, the kitchen's back in my charge and for a moment, I felt like I have lost touch of my culinary skill!  For a moment, the thought of stir-frying dishes is such a hassle and time consuming.  So I whipped up something that's really tasty and will definitely get the thumbs up from my 3 fussy girls plus I do not have to stand in front of the oil-splattering wok  I love cooking but not  having my body and face coated with oil after each cooking session. Not to mention the kitchen floor, stove and kitchen tops.

With whatever sauces that I can find in my fridge, I marinated the chicken drumsticks and chicken ribs with Terriyaki sauce, soy sauce, Lea & Perrin sauce, some pepper and mixed herbs and set it aside for about 3 hours in the fridge.  Then I drizzled the pan with some white Truffle oil and lay the chicken on it.  While the chicken was cooking in the oven, I cooked the pumpkin and purple sweet potato in the microwave oven for about 5 minutes to soften them, before spreading them onto the pan together with the chicken and roasting them for another 5 minutes.  All in, it took 20 minutes to roast the chicken.  

Apart from this chicken dish, I also made a chives omelette for the added protein and fibre.  My kids enjoyed their dinner very much and it was evidenced from the chicken bones that were gnawed clean without a trace of chicken meat left on it and a squeaky shiny plate with nothing left but bones :D

Restoran Loon Sing @ Nilai

During our recent trip to Port Dickson, one of our friends who is an absolute hard-core crab crazed bloke, craved (no pun intended) for crabs and durians all the time.  He brought us round PD to eat durians by the roadside on sweltering hot afternoons where temperature shot up to 40 degrees Celsius. I enjoyed the durians very much but definitely not the weather as we were roasted under the sun!  He brought us round PD to search for the best crab dishes.  On the last day, he wanted to bring us to Seremban to have a feast on the famous Seremban baked crabs but all the crabs were sold out in both the well-known restaurants.  We left both the restaurants after finding out that there were no more crabs and it was already way past 2pm!  With his unwavering desire to feast on crabs, he tried his luck and brought us to Nilai - to the well-known, multiple award-winning Loon Sing Restaurant. By the time we reached there, it was close to 3pm.  Crab luck was not on his side that day.  Since it was late, we ordered other dishes minus crabs.  That was by far the best meal we had during our 3-day 2-night stay in Port Dickson.  The food at Loon Sing was above par and food presentation was top notch too.

Award-winning Dongpo pork with mantou. Totally whets your appetite and went very well with the plain and slightly sweet mantou.  This dish is however not in favour of those on diet.






This Flouder fish was by far the tastiest fish I had tasted. The flesh was super smooth and easily detached from the bones. There was not a  tinge of fishy odor and the sauce was top notch. The fish was so fresh and addictive that we ordered another one!  Simply bone licking good!



 Stewed Chicken Fuzhou with red wine in claypot. Simply lip-smacking, love the taste to bits!
 


 Signature Salad Prawn Balls.  Kids will surely love this very huge in size prawn ball which has crispy strands of coating.

 


Braised sea cucumber and fish maw in superior sauce with brocolli.

 


Besides the above dishes, we also ordered some dim sum. We were quite disappointed with the dim sum though as they did not taste as good as we expected them to be.

If we ever make a trip down south to Nilai again, we will definitely go to Loon Sing again to sample other award-winning dishes.

Food rating on HFM's food rating scale > 8/10
Restaurant ambience and cleanliness on HFM's restaurant rating scale >  9/10

Address : PT2484, Kawasan Perindustrian Nilai 2, Block D, 71800 Nilai, Negeri Sembilan.
Contact 06 799 7787

Website : www.loonsing.com.my

New Shoes For The Girls

Alycia was grinning from ear to ear when I gave the nod of approval to her daddy to buy this pair of Puma shoes, which is by far the most 'ladylike' sports shoes that we have spotted after checking out several sports shops. Getting this girl a pair of shoes is a chore and it has never been easy finding her a pair of shoes that she really likes. I can skip the ballet flats or Mary Jane shoes. Nothing fanciful or girlish for her. For someone who is very sporty, she obviously only fancies sports shoes or sneakers. But the ones that we had seen earlier were all too bulky and 'masculine' for her. So when I spotted this pair of Puma shoes from a sports shop at Pavillion, I did not have to think about it too much. Though this pair of shoes cost double the price of my Scholl wedge sandals which I bought on the same day, I who hold the position of Home Minister gave the approval to the hubs to buy it for her haha!  After all, this pair of shoes can be handed over to Sherilyn and hopefully to Cassandra too. That's one of the advantageous of having 3 girls. Clothes, shoes and books can be recycled, thus putting all the expensive clothes and shoes into good use LOL!!




The youngest of the lot was not left out too. I got her this pair of Disney Princess sneaker from Parkson @ Pavillion and she loves it to bits and wore it in the house and was reluctant to remove them.

By the way, rascal #2 was not left out. In our previous shopping trip, I had already bought her a pair of pink clogs/sandals from one of those kiosks in Gardens Mid Valley.  So everyone in the family has  new shoes to strut around now :D

Ichiban Boshi at Publika Shopping Mall

2 Sundays ago, we had lunch at Ichiban Boshi at Publika Shopping Mall @ Solaris Dutamas. We had wanted to have lunch at another restaurant but that restaurant was packed to the brim. So we walked up and down Publika Shopping Mall to search for another eatery. Finally after a 20-minute walk with complaints from everyone, we settled for Ichiban Boshi as the restaurant was not packed and the kids were so famished that they just wanted a restaurant that they could grab food from the conveying belt and chomp it down immediately. No regrets doing so. We enjoyed the food there very much.

Here's what our tummies feasted on. Before these food from the ala-carte menu arrived, we had also feasted on about 6 plates of items from the conveying belt to nurse our growling tummies.

Mummy says the camera has to 'eat' first so everyone has to pose with the food before they are allowed to eat and this has been the norm, since 5 years ago haha!

 Udon with half cooked egg and fried chicken - hubs said it's delish but not me, the no-carb freak.
 



 An assortment of sushis
 


Steamboat cooked on a fire-proof cooking paper. This is something that's pretty unique and this seems to be the trend for Japanese steamboats now.
 


Sukiyaki...
 .


 



 Unagi with fried egg rice, specially requested by Alycia.



The soba at Ichiban Boshi are handmade and there's a transparent window for patrons and passers-by to see how the noodels are made and pulled.


Food rating on HFM's food rating scale = 7/10
Restaurant rating on HFM's restaurant rating scale = 7/10
Will I go again? YES!

Publika Shopping Mall,
(Level G3) Lot 25, Publika,
Solaris Dutamas, Jalan Dutamas 1, KL.
Tel: +6 (03) 62032271
Email: solaris_ib@res.com.my

Kids Say The Sweetest Words

Just want to pen this down before I forget.

My 4YO baby girl loves giving me wet kisses and big hugs while telling me "you are my bestest mummy ever! I love you so so much mummy!"

Isn't this the most loving and sweetest thing to hear from your child? And I wonder if she will still say this to me a few years down the road or perhaps when I am old. I wonder...

Interesting Question!

Recently, some refurbishment works were done to the adult as well as kids swimming pool at our condo. The water was all drained out from both the pools to facilitate refurbishment work to be done. After 3 weeks, the pools were ready to be filled up with water after they were cleaned up. My kids and I waited and waited for the water to reach the brim of the pool and finally...after the long wait, the water hoses were removed and the cordon-off strings were removed. We were so happy after staying off-limits from the pool for almost a month. Now the interesting question! Anyone wants to make a wild guess on how many hours or days it took to fill up the adults swimming pool with water?



Tip - it took almost half a day to fill up half the kids pool with water. How many hours or days do you think it took to fill the adults pool up to the brim with water? Water from almost 4 tap sources were used to fill up the adults pool.

 Answer :
1) about 28 hours
2) about 40 hours
3) about 52 hours
4) about 60 hours
5) about 4 days

Back To School

School has reopened finally and I must admit that I am uber glad!  I now have back the 3.5 hours of sheer bliss and peace in the morning when all 3 rascals are in school.  No more rowdy, roister and rollick in my home all day long, what a relief!  And I have the time to update my blogs and to do some online work without much interruption.  Last night, I submitted an advertisement to the US advertiser in the nick of time.  I saw the advertiser's website clock ticking 15 minutes 00 seconds to 11 June 2012 (the expiry date) and that was how much time I had on hand to whip up an ad and submit it across. I managed to submit the ad just when the website clock rolled to 00 minutes and watched the date changed to 11 June 2012 US time HAHAHA!  That sure was an adrenalin pumping assignment and I did that just before bedtime.  I was really sleepy but could not sleep as I had a very, very bad colic tummy the whole night.  Darn the PMS!!

Got to pick up rascal no. 3 back from preschool now!

Our Homemade Ham Yoke Joong / Bak Chang (Dumplings)

My mil makes very tasty ham yoke joong / bak chang aka dumplings. Her dumplings are very big, has lots of 'liu' or ingredients and is so filling that my 3 girls and I can share just 1 joong for our lunch or dinner. Ever since the kids came along, she has not made them. For 9 years, I have been waiting for her to make them. In some years, she was away in Hong Kong or New Zealand. In some years, she had do babysit Alycia and Sherilyn (when I saw still working full-time). And in some years, she just did not have the mood to make them. But this year, the timing was right and she was just gamed to make her tasty ham yoke joong! Preparation was very time consuming and tedious. If you have no patience and time, you can never make a tasty ham yoke joong. She had to fry the glutinous rice grains, soak the mushrooms, de-skinned mung beans, lotus seeds, black eye peas, separate the duck's egg yoke from the white, wash the leaves, fry the dried shrimps before pounding them, fry the Chinese sausages, etc. She did everything on her own. When it was time to wrap the joong, she asked Alycia and Sherilyn to help and the 2 rascals had a lot of fun messing up   lending a helping hand.


2 future Junior Master Chefs at work...




All the 'lius' aka ingredients...


Fried Chinese sausages, black eye peas, dried Chinese chestnuts, soaked and de-skinned mung beans, fried glutinous rice, all waiting to be wrapped in the fragrant leaves...



MIL wrapping the joong. You need to have really good wrapping and tying skill, else all the ingredients will escape from any unwrapped 'holes' into the pot of boiling water.










A joong that I can eat without any qualm or fear that it will cause any detrimental effect to my health and that of my kids. If you had read the newspapers last year, it was reported that most of the ham yoke joong sold in the market had some sort of chemical in them, that may cause kidney failure if ingested in large quantities.  After reading this news, I had avoided joong, though I love them very much.




Gigantic pillow joong bursting with ingredients. And they are low in sodium and free from food additives and preservatives.

Quirky Kids

A 'heong peng' sandwich with chilled cucumber as filling on top of the sweet sticky maltose!  This quirky snack idea is from the most creative and whacky of the three!

Port Dickson Trip @ Thistle Port Dickson (2-4 June 2012)

Just realized that I have neglected this beloved blog of mine for almost a week! Time is always not in my favor during the school holidays as I spend a lot of time with the kids in outings. So very little time is left to do my online work. As I am typing this post, I still have an advertorial that I have promised to submit to the advertiser since early last week but just haven't really gotten the time to work on it. Instead of a long write-up on my trip, I'll just post some pix of our PD trip here and let the colorful pix do the talking hehehe...

Thistle Port Dickson...



Cassandra's good friend at Thistle -- Bobo the clown.  Whenever she sees Bobo around, she will run up to him and request for a sculptured balloon.



Sunset at the beach @ Thistle PD



Beach and pool-side party held on Saturday and Sunday evening.  The kids had a blast...




Scenic view of the beach and hotel compound...




Granny showing her 3 urban kids who have never seen crab holes in the sand...

Watami Japanese Casual Restaurant @ Pavillion KL

On 27 May 2012, which was our 12th wedding anniversary / 13th ROM anniversary, we went to Watami Japanese Casual restaurant to sample some "good and affordable" Japanese food.  This was what some food bloggers had described the food at Watami as in their blogs.

As usual, we started off with a salad.  We ordered the Watami Salad (RM19.90) -- a refreshing salad of fresh raw  greens with red onions, corn, cherry tomatoes, brocolli florets, shredded cucumber, shrimp, teriyaki chicken, nori, flying fish roe and fried wantons tossed with tuna mayo and goma (sesame cream) dressing.







With a tummy rumbling after a long wait for our food, my 4YO baby girl could not wait to lay her hands on the Gyu Eringii Kushi.  The Komochi Shishamo (pregnant fish) is my all-time favorite grilled fish whenever we dine at a Japanese restaurant. I like the idea of a no-waste fish, where I can chomp down the fish from head to tail, even the bones :D




We ordered 2 bowls of Japanese noodles -- Shio Ramen and Shoyu Ramen, specially for our 3 noodles crazed girls...





Can't remember what this is called. It tastes something like fish cake and I find it a tad salty for the kids as well as for myself. 



Japanese style sticky dumpling... not sure what it is called and it tasted mediocre.





Gyuniku Sukiyaki Nabe (Japanese hot pot) @ RM24.90 -- shiitake and enokitake, beef, tofu, chinese cabbage, leek are slowly simmered in a pot of  flavorful soup. Once the soup starts to boil, you break in the egg and mix everything up for a smoother texture and better flavour.



We also ordered a Ishiyaki Bibimbap aka hot stone rice (but had forgotten to snap a pic of it), which was very tasty, a Tempura set and Kyuri maki.

We will definitely dine at Watami again, the next time we shop at Pavillion.

Watami Malaysia: Japanese Casual Restaurant
C4.04.00, Level 4, Pavilion KL Shopping Mall,
168, Jalan Bukit Bintang,
55100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Tel: +603 2141 6671
http://www.watami.com.my/

Dedicated Teacher

Rascal #2 received this pretty butterfly wrist band from her English teacher from school (Chinese school) last week. Before the exam, the teacher had promised all the Primary 1 students in Sherilyn's class that she will give them each a present if they can score a mark of 80% and above for their English test paper in the recent mid-term exam. My rascal came home from school and proudly showed me the wrist band. She had scored a 93% for her English test paper. She lost all her marks to sheer carelessness and not because she did not know how to answer those questions. I think she could have done better had she been more careful. Nevertheless, I am pretty contented with this rascal's marks for all her test papers. And I am very amazed that this English teacher had taken the trouble and money to get gifts for her pupils to motivate them to do well. It does not matter that the gift is cheap (well, the butterfly came off from the strap the same day that she had received it and the quality looked cheesy). What matters is that the teacher was willing to spend some money and time to buy those gifts to encourage her students to study hard in order to achieve good marks. Such dedicated teachers are an almost extinction breed these days. Do you not agree with me?

My 2 Teaching Assistants

Whenever I am busy, I will surely enlist the help of my girls. The youngest can help me with preparation of the Pos Laju bags and tearing of consignment notes. Sometimes she helps with folding the clothes. The 2 older girls can now help me read to their baby sister -- story books and flash cards from her pre-school. And my 4YO baby girls finds it more fun when her che ches read to her, rather than mummy.

Here are my 2 assistants - Alycia would be in charged of reading the Mandarin flash cards and Sherilyn is in charged of the BM and English flash cards. I am blessed with 3 girls, truly I am and I thank my blessings every  night :)

.

Cass At Work

Years ago, it was her che ches who used to help me with the sticking of docket plastic bags onto the Pos Laju parcel bags. Now that her che ches are always busy with school homework and tuition, I have trained her to take over this task, which is no easy job, especially for a 4-year old. One needs to have good hand and eye coordination and hand dexterity to handle this job well.  It's not easy becoz if you do not handle the sticky section (which is super sticky and flimsy too, thus making it difficult to hold the piece of sticker bag) of the docket plastic bag with care, the entire bag will be twisted or damaged.  But my baby girl could  carry out her job very well with almost 0% damages done, thus far! Good job Cassandra!

A Little Singer In The Making

I thought she has a super 'bad memory' as she cannot seem to remember very well educational facts. Things that she had learned in pre-school a year ago were forgotten when I went through with her recently.  She would always give me a 'blur' look whenever I do revision with her, sending me to the loo to vomit blood!  But know what, she did very well in her recent mid-term exam, with marks that I never expected to see. All 90% and above, even for her Chinese paper.

This 7-YO girl of mine has got superb memory when it comes to memorizing lyrics of songs, verses, poems and Chinese poetry.  Recently she volunteered to participate in an English song singing competition.  Then today in school, again she put up both her hands and was earnestly hoping to be chosen to participate in a Chinese song singing competition.  Just now I saw her reading lyrics of Chinese folk songs from her school song book and she was practicing her vocals for almost an hour.  She could sing pretty well and has very good tone too. I am surprised that she is doing all these when I have never seen Alycia doing this sort of singing, though she is already in Standard 3 now.  Alycia then told me that she hates singing!  What a contrast in personality these 2 sisters have.  One is sporty while the other one is like a 'siew jei', who prefers to be dancing in an air-conditioned room.

What I admire most is Sherilyn's confidence and boldness to go up the stage to sing facing hundreds of pupils and teachers.  I asked her if she felt a teeny weeny bit nervous and had stage fright when she sang in front of so many people and she gave me a resounding NO with a "why should I be embarrassed?" look on her face.   She told me just now that when she sang in the recent English song singing competition, a boy gave her his thumbs down!  I felt so hurt for her.  I asked her if she felt embarrassed  with being jeered at but she gave me the same answer and an unfazed look.  I am loving this girl's cheerful and happy-go-lucky attitude in another perspective.  And I hope that she will continue to have such high level of confidence and positive outlook in life, without neglecting her studies.

Cass At Work

My 4-year old baby girl loves lending a helping hand to mah mah each time she sees mah mah plucking veggie leaves from the stems.




And if you are wondering what veggie Cass is helping to pluck off here, this is a kind of vege with tiny elongated leaves and has medicinal values. I buy them from a farmer from Seremban who plants them naturally (without the use of pesticides) in a farm.  She comes to our place twice a week to sell her organic produce.  This species of vege is supposedly good for the relief of hand numbness and diabetes.  For the past one year or longer, I have been suffering from hand numbness every morning. The numbness is more profound if the air-cond room that I am sleeping in is cooler than usual or if I sleep on my side. I suffered from a very bad bout of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome immediately after the birth of Alycia.  Till today, I still get this terrible numbness on my hands, especially on my right hand every morning just before I wake up.

So did this vege help to remove the numbness in my hand? Well, not completely.  I still get the numbness on my hands several times in a week.  I think I'll need to chow down a plate full of this vege everyday to be able to see significant results.  But it's impossible as the vege seller does not come to our place daily. Even if she does, we may not have a helping hand to pluck those leaves everyday as it is a darn time-consuming chore.

Quirky Kids

Caught Alycia holding on to her baby sister's hand whilst the both of them were deeply engrossed watching the TV and she was smelling Cass' hand, as if the hand was her nice-smelling smelly bolster LOL!! 




The funniest part is that Cass was not even aware that her che che was busy smelling and hugging her hand. Both of them would be like in a 'trance' whenever they are deeply engrossed watching the TV, oblivious to the surroundings and even oblivious to me hollering at them!

Homemade Goodies To Nourish The Soul

While I was busy doing revision with Alycia and Sherilyn last weekend, my mil busied herself in the kitchen by baking cookies and cakes for her beloved granddaughters.

Here's a tray of organic oats-pistachios-almonds cookies that she baked.







And here are just part of the dishes that she whipped up for dinner last week...

Stir-fried leek with roast pork, steamed minced pork with Chinese preserved veggie (my favorite!)...



Oven-grilled salmon with crackling skin -- everyone's favorite!


Pan-fried tofu braised with minced pork and egg, stir-fried big head bean sprouts and pan-fried salmon in the background....


Yesterday, she baked some carrot cup cakes with lemon cheese cream and pistachios topping. Now, she is busying herself in the kitchen cooking dinner. My tummy is growling now as the aromatic 'holy smoke' is wafting into my work area from the kitchen!

An Early Morning Near-Miss Heart Attack

Since her babyhood, rascal #2 has been giving me umpteen numbers of heart-beat stopping moments.  From a 8-day constipation episode during her infancy to being hit by a high moving swing, her thumb being squashed by a steel door, a crack on her forehead resulting from a piggy-back ride fall, a walk into a glass door which smashed her front tooth and lips, the list goes.  This morning she gave me another scare. At about 7am, I received a call on my mobile phone. Now any phone call at this hour of the day is NOT good!  My heart skipped a beat when I heard the phone ring. My heart skipped a few more beats when I heard a little girl's voice and it was Sherilyn's!  The incoming call number that appeared on my mobile phone was 012-xxxxxxx.  This is not good I thought.  What was racing on my mind was accident and ransom -- the 2 most dreaded fears by a mother. I know I am a dramatic person but these things can happen to anyone. 


Rascal #2 had left her school's message book behind.  She had called me to check where it was.  She gave it to me last night but in my haste to bring Cass to the ER of the hospital for an ear infection last night, I had forgotten to sign it and did not put it back into her bag.  I thought that my rascal had borrowed her friend's handphone or used the school office phone to call me but she had used the pay phone at the school.  Now I am wondering how on earth does she know how to use the pay phone as I do not remember ever teaching her how to use it.  I will grill her when she is back later!