Struggles With Tweens

Yesterday the big girl casually asked me to do something. She made it sound like I was obligated to do it for her. She turned into a bear with a sore head when I kept refusing to help, which made me blow a fuse at her just before bedtime.

Her classmate wanted to buy a few Rubic's Cubes from an online shop but didn't want to purchase it herself.  The friend would pay Alycia and Alycia would in turn pay me to do it.

Sounds really shady, right?

Reasons for enlisting my help?

I. DON'T KNOW.  It all doesn't seem to make sense and sounds like a jive the more I probed.

The reasons were so many. After I queried and probed, the answers and reasons kept changing, DUH!  Kids, they really think that their mothers think like them, with a simple mind.

First, the friend said that her mother won't allow her to buy things online, thus she needed my help.

Then she said that her mother allows her to buy the cubes but she feels bad using her mother's money. Like I believe!

The girl then cooked up another story...

After probing further, she said that  the mum allows her to buy just one cube but she wants to buy a few, which her mum wouldn't allow.  Who am I to help some other people's  daughter to do something which they do not approve of?

Next she said that her mum does not want the courier guy to send the parcel to her house.  But why send to our house??  I kept grilling the big girl on this but she could not give me a satisfactory answer. The answers she gave were  clearly revealing the untruth!!  I could smell the shenanigans.

The reasons kept changing each time she communicated with her friend on the iPod via Messenger.

It was so clear that the girl's mother disapproved of the purchase. More reason why I should not give in.   The more I grilled the big girl, the more pushy she got and the more fibs were told.

I told the big girl that if her friend's mother doesn't allow her friend to buy the Rubic's Cubes, I have no dang right to help her friend to do it surreptitiously. I would be encouraging the big girl and her friend to go against their parents. Karma will bite back at me like a bitch.  One day Alycia would do the same too and buy things that I oppose to, covertly. I would be fuming if I ever find out.  This makes me wonder too - where did the girl get the money from??

I am sure Alycia's friend's mother would react the same too if she found out that her daughter has been buying things without her approval behind her and enlisting her friend's mother's help. I would be seen as a conspirator. A mama thug!!  I imagine the story of our shameful act shared a million times on social media with my face, my Facebook name and blogs exposed - the Health Freak Mommy Who Is A Thug!!

My final reply to the big girl - "NO MEANS NO and don't ask me again. Ask your friend to get some other mother's help.  I want to sleep now!!"

As a mother, we have to be firm in matters that we feel strongly about, even if it means upsetting our child.  Geez, the big girl on the brink of teenagehood, few months shy of turning 13 and already getting into a regular verbal tussle with me!!

Lohas Natural Pumpkin And Sweet Potato Yee Mee

It looks like the 2 sisters here are snacking on Mamee.

Nah, I never buy Mamee. The girls often receive them from class parties.




This pumpkin yee mee from Lohas tastes very much like Mamee. In fact, it tastes even better than Mamee, minus the MSG, preservatives, flavoring and food additives.  I bought it from an organic shop. It's SO crispy and fresh!!  A packet costs RM6.90.






Lohas is a local company that distributes organic and natural food stuff.  I love their range of healthy products.

Besides eating the pumpkin yee mee as it is, straight from the packet, I also whipped it into a meal for dinner. Our 3 girls are big fans of yee mee but I always have qualms buying the ones sold outside, especially on the oil used to deep fry the yee mee.  Imagine what ingredients go into a packet of  6 pieces of yee mee that only costs RM3.50 a packet.




Tastes just like the ones sold outside, my fish ball and fried minced pork yee mee is way healthier.  I used organic veggie, Aussie carrots, organic tomatoes, organic scallions and Ikan Parang fishballs from Pulau Ketam. Soup base is anchovies with garlic and onions.





The girls loved my yee mee!

I cooked extra fried minced pork, enough for whipping up another fresh dish for lunch the next day.




Lunch the next day was blanched vermicell with lots of chopped scallions and leftover minced pork. Vermicelli was lightly darkened with organic shoyu and seasoned with sesame seed oil and pepper. You can also use organic thick black bean sauce and organic blackstrap molasses to replace regular dark soy sauce, which has chemicals that are carcinogenic.








I bought another packet of yee mee from the organic shop the following week and this time, I chose sweet potato yee mee.

Below - yee mee straight from the packet with  leftover braised pork ribs with sweet potato that I cooked for dinner the previous evening.  I popped the braised pork ribs into the microwave oven and minutes later, the 3 of us had a yummy and healthy lunch on a busy school-going weekday!

The Naturally Plus Business

I admit that on some mornings I wake up feeling vapid like a stick in the mud, with a feeling of not wanting to do anything.  Not even to exercise. Not even to wake my girls up for school. And especially not wanting to work. On these mornings, all I want to do is to sleep in, then wake up and do what I love best - retail therapy and enjoy a nice brunch in a nice cafe! But without the wherewithal, nothing can be done.  You may disagree with me but till today I still think that money can and does buy happiness. Money can be the root of all evil but without money, all evil exists too.

So what motivates me to work though all I want to do is to sleep in everyday? Moolah of course! I want to be able to continue buying good quality food and organic produce for my family, splurge on our weekly indulgence in our favorite food, buy new clothes, new bags, pay for music classes for my girls, go for holidays and save for  my girls' tertiary education fund. I want to have a very laid-back, relaxed and enjoyable retirement in my golden years, traveling the world like what my parents are doing now. If I don't work, these can only be wishful thinking.  Things are getting more and more expensive in KL these days. Just yesterday, the gourmand hubs spent over RM100 just on 2 frigging Musang King durians... which Drama Queen, Cass and I walloped all in just a few hours! And the killer Tiramisu from Alexis, which is my Kryptonite. That costs a frigging RM16 a slice!

And this is also what motivates me to work hard - passive income from Naturally Plus.  Check out the middle column on Bonus Total and the first column on Close Date. This is the bonus that my team leader / mentor receives. Every week! As of now, she is already receiving bonuses totalling a 5-figure amount every month.  I am earning no where near her but she promises me that if I work as hard as she does, I will be earning this much too.

 


 I have known my team leader since the year 2005 or maybe 2004.  Back then we were newly turned SAHMs and members of a mummy forum. We then became good virtual friends. We were both bloggers and still are blogging actively now. The both of us.  We've met each other at many kids parties and gatherings.  It was she who introduced me to the wonderful products by Naturally Plus, which I have no regrets taking them till today. They are life-saving products. They have saved me, my girls, my mum, hubs and mil from making trips to the doctor's office, not once but many times.

Recently, a friend's ex-hubby's days were numbered by his oncologist. It was just in a matter of days.  His son was very very upset and cried everyday.  He posted on Facebook for his mummy's friends to pray for his dad. He wanted very badly for his dad to celebrate his birthday with him.  Some of our team members made a trip to Singapore to the hospital where he sought treatment to deliver Izumio and Super Lutein to him.   He  religiously consumed the products and became better.  And he lived to celebrate his son's birthday!  I have yet to check on his status but I think he is still alive as I have not seen my friend post anything on him and I have not heard our circle of friends talking about his passing.


If you haven't tried the products from Naturally Plus or want to earn some pocket money, please get in touch with me.  Even if you have no health issues or can't afford it, you may know of someone who might need the products.  Please refer them to me.  To date, I have several friends, strangers and relatives who purchased the products from me only months later after I had casually shared with them on the goodness of the products.  I have never coerced anyone to buy. It is not my style to harass people to buy. I only share with them on what the products can do.  The products sell by itself. Just 2 weeks ago, a friend who got a box of Izumio from me to try  eventually signed up for a full package.

You do not have to make any cold hard calls to sell, though I have friends who do that and surprisingly people replied her and tried the products. My only sharing is via my blogs, Facebook and by word of mouth. Giving samples to those in need do wonders too coz these people eventually purchased the product when they felt the difference in their health.

Come and join us! We are looking for new business partners to join our growing team. We have packages for those with low or zero capital. As long as you are willing to share about the goodness of the products we want you on our team.

I can be reached at shireenyong@gmail.com or 019 266 4290.  Again, there is no obligation to buy anything.

Compilation of Home-Cooked Dishes - 31 Aug 2016

Here are some of the dishes that I wok-ed up recently:


Stir-fried red snapper fillet with ginger and scallions. This is the big girl's favorite dish.  I'm thankful to my regular meat seller who's ever willing to accommodate to my requests to debone my chicken and fish and cut them into the sizes  that I fancy so that cooking them will be a breeze.





For this dinner, I also prepared rice cooker chicken rice, minced pork and blanched mustard greens.








Next dinner...

Silky smooth steamed egg and sauteed organic cabbage with carrot strips and homemade fish paste.





I have now mastered the skill of producing silky smooth steamed egg ;)




Next dinner...

Sweet and sour minced pork pattie.
Our girls love the ubiquitous Gu Lo Yuk (sweet and sour pork) dish.  This 'tai chow' dish is very pleasing to the palate because of the flavorsome sweet and sour sauce, paired with an assortment of colorful vegetables, all in one plate.

I have always wanted to cook this dish but the thought of how tedious and messy deep frying the pork is always turns me off.  So I replaced deep fried pork with shallow fried minced pork and the outcome was just as good.  Mine is a healthier version minus the many different types of bottled sauces (plum sauce, Lea & Perrin, rice vinegar and oyster sauce).

On a side note, have you ever read the list of ingredients on the bottle of your oyster sauce? It contains MSG and a host of other food additives and preservatives.  That's a big NO NO for me.





I used lots of minced garlic and big onions...




And lots of ripened tomatoes too to impart the sweet and sour flavors, with red and green capsicums and cucumbers.  For the seasoning, I used a dash of tomato ketchup, organic shoyu and organic brown sugar.




That was my first try in cooking this dish and there will definitely be a another round soon as the girls loved it.  The next  time, I'll toss in some fresh pineapples and a dash of Worcester sauce for a tangier taste.

My Monday & Tuesday (29 & 30 August 2016)

On a manic Monday morning yesterday, this little butterfly perched on the outside of our bedroom mozzie net lightened up my morning.  For the first time, I had the chance to take an up close and personal inspection of a butterfly's body. Pretty fascinating wings it has, though the body has resemblance of my enemy - the roach!  I snapped a picture of it to show my girls when they returned from school.





Yesterday's haze situation deteriorated overnight.  There was acrid smell of haze in the air from dawn till dusk. Visibility was bad.




This morning was bad too but it rained cats and dogs all of a sudden at around 8am for 3 hours, with strong winds. Several places in KL were flooded.  However, the haze doesn't seem to abate much.




Din din last night was something light and easy to dish up - steamed chicken drumsticks with dong guai, red dates and goji berries, blanched cauliflower and sweet corn + tomato + onion + scallion omelette, which Drama Queen cooked... on her own :)





Breakie today is organic multi puffs with skinny yoghurt, Pic's sugar-free peanut butter, dried cranberries, organic pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds and a drizzle of palm sugar syrup.




Yesterday I bought a packet of Good Morning organic multi puffs.  Good Morning is an Australian brand.  Multi Puffs is a mix of Brown Rice Puffs, Buckwheat Puffs and Sorghum Puffs. The variety of grains gives a different texture and taste.  It is low in carb, low in salt, low in fat, has no preservatives, no coloring and no artificial flavors.  It tastes very much like pop corn  minus the sugar, butter, caramel and salt.   Very mild in taste but I like it au naturel.  Multi Puffs is good for toddlers too as it has no food additives.













My shopping cart yesterday...

Baked Chicken Fingers

It's been more than half a year since I last baked chicken fingers.   Since I wanted to dish up something that's fast (I've been really busy with work lately), yummy and resembles chicken nuggets (the girls' favorite!), baked chicken fingers is the perfect healthy alternative.





I pulsed 3 slices of wholewheat bread on my Shimono blender to get the bread crumbs.




Drama Queen helped to beat the eggs...





She also helped to coat the boneless chicken breast meat  with the egg mixture and bread crumbs...





I baked at 150C for 15 minutes on each side. The outcome was great. The chicken fingers were crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside.

I had earlier marinated the chicken breast meat with soy sauce, pepper and coriander powder.





I also made a quick soup using chicken bones, carrots, tomatoes, sweet corns and added Ikan Tenggiri fish paste and organic Chinese cabbage.








Cheat chicken nuggets with sweet corn and carrots from the soup as healthy sides.
Did you know that sweet corns contain zeaxanthin and lutein which are your eyes' best friends? Yep, along with carrots, sweet corns are great for your eyes too.




I wanted to see if the chicken fingers would taste better with bread crumbs or without, thus I baked two varieties.

Verdict - the ones coated with bread crumbs were way better (not as dry) and crispy.

Izumio for Sports

Recently I started adding crunches back into my daily exercise regimen. Age is catching up on me. As we age, our basal metabolic rate drops too. Before I develop a sagging jiggly pouch in front of me with sagging grandma arms too, I better do something to tone up my muscles!

According to the American Council on Exercise, your basal metabolic rate drops roughly one to two percent per decade. By the late twenties, many women notice that they can’t eat the same things they used to without gaining weight and that the weight doesn’t fall off as easily as it once did.  Since this drop starts right about the time people settle into the (largely sedentary) workforce—and start losing muscle—your office job might actually be to blame too.

To add insult to injury, during your thirties, you aren’t producing as much human growth hormone as before (no more growth spurts for you!), which also leads to a dip in your metabolic rate.  However, strength training can help you build muscle and produce more human growth hormone, both of which keep your metabolism running as fast as (or faster than) it did when you were 20.

Thus, no matter how tired or busy I may be, I make it a point to exercise first thing in the morning, after sending the girls off to their transporters. Pre-dawn exercising gives me back my sanity and I just love the serenity, quietness and peace of the outdoors during that time of the day. I have been doing this for the past 16 years and I will never stop performing my daily pre-dawn exercise. It is a must in my life.

Back home after a 30-minute swim in the pool (26 - 28 laps) or 40-minute brisk walk outdoors, I continue with crunches on my fitball.  On busy days, I skip the Swiss ball crunches but compensate with bicycle crunches on the bed - about 60 of them. You will feel the aches and pains on your body for a start, especially on your belly but as time goes, you will be able to increase the number of crunches with no more aches. And you'll begin to see the toned muscles on your abdomen.

On top of exercising, I cook 5x a week, sometimes twice a day. I chauffeur the kids around. I do the groceries. I have some businesses that I do online. I manage 3 blogs.  And I only get 5 hours of sleep each day. How do I find the energy to fuel me for all these?

The answer lies in hydrogen water and antioxidants, which I religiously consume everyday.









Why are more and more sportsmen turning to Izumio as their power booster? Because it has the highest quantities of safe hydrogen in the world and it works! How? Google up and do your own research. When our muscles are fatigued, lactic acid is released and our body produces hydrogen to compensate. What happens when you introduce even more hydrogen into the body? Try it!!!



To read more about Izumio, you can click on Izumio And Super Lutein on the 'Labels' section of the right side bar of this blog.  Or simply click  here.

If you are active in sports or are on the go a lot everyday, do away with whatever you're drinking now and try Izumio. Call 012-266 4290 or email me at shireenyong@gmail.com for more information.



'

Pork Bolognese From Scratch

This is the healthiest and yummiest bolognese sauce that you can whip up for your entire family. I wouldn't say it is easy to whip up though, as it is very time consuming. It involves a lot of chopping, blending and cooking. But you can cook a big batch of sauce and freeze for use later, which ultimately saves time.






For the sauce, I used:
4 large plump tomatoes (organic)
1 carrot
Half head of cauliflower
Water
Blend all the above ingredients together.




I think this gave me about 1 liter of pure vegetable puree for the bolognese sauce.





I used 3 large big onions and 1 bulb of garlic. I have to thank my dear part-time helper, Maria for helping to chop these up.




After browning the garlic and onions, put in the minced meat.  Stir-fry the meat until it turns dry and brown. Add in the blended vegetable puree and a handful of bay leave, some dried Italian herbs and cracked black pepper and let simmer for about 20 minutes.

Add salt and sugar to taste.

I used antibiotic and growth hormone free pork purchased from De Market supermarket. I bought pork belly and got the pork section guys to mince the meat for me.





The portion in the glassware is for deep-freezing.




For dinner, next day breakfast at home, recess in school and lunch at home the next day.




I asked Cass and Drama Queen if they were sure about eating pork bolognese pasta for 4 meals in a row and they gave me a resounding YES!

Honestly, I can't eat the same food for 4 meals straight. Can you?

This pork bolognese is 100% wholesome, yummy and satisfying. It is 100% free from preservatives and unhealthy food additives.  With this recipe, you can say goodbye to bottled pasta sauces.  Do give this a try!

My Saturday - 20 August 2016

Sorry for the long silence here!

I spent the last 3 days fixing my blogs as the photos in my blogs since November 2015 through May 2016 failed to load in all my blogs.  I am pretty sure it's caused by Facebook changing their setting some time in November 2015.  Consequently, the photos were not compatible with my blogs, thus they couldn't load. I upload my photos in an anonymous account on Facebook and then import the photos to my blogs.  Since Friday, I have been putting the photos back into each post, one by one.  So much precious time had been wasted doing this!

Last night, my right hand had a nagging pain in the muscles and I could not pinpoint the cause. I just realized that the pain was caused by over-usage of my right hand on the mouse. Not surprising as I had  a bad bout of  Carpal Tunnel Syndrome a few months after Alycia's birth.  I  had spent 3 full days sitting at the computer fixing my blogs and I still have 1 more blog to fix,  BLEH!

Cass enjoying her bowl of bitter gourd vermicelli for breakfast and totally soaked up in her Enid Blyton stories.




In the evening, we had a quick dinner at Red Kettle, our favorite cafe to tuck into our favorite food.

Lip-smacking roasted pork ribs with roasted whole garlic for the hubs and I...




Kettle salad and mushroom soup. The picture of the mushroom soup here does not do its justice. The soup tastes really rich and every spoonful is filled with texture of blended shiitake mushrooms.




House-made apple cinnamon loaf to go with the mushroom soup.  We ordered coconut bread the previous Saturday.  The mushroom soup was sold out last Saturday and Cass was really disappointed. It was her suggestion to have dinner at Red Kettle again so that she could satiate her craving for a luscious hot bowl of mushroom soup.




Kettl's Old School chicken chop. Cass loved it.





Aglio Olio for Drama Queen.  Pan-fried seabass for the big princess.




Kettle's house-made sausages are my absolute favorite. I don't eat commercially sold sausages and deli meat for all the bad rap they have on our health. When I dine at Red Kettle and Nutmeg, their textured house-made sausages are a must-have item for me.





Kettle's Lemon Polenta cake is TO DIE FOR!  It is made from almond meal and corn meal and free from wheat flour and low in sugar. Perfect for low-carbers and health freak. It is another must-order item for me each time we dine at Red Kettle.








After dinner, we hurried back home to watched Lee Chong Wei battle against Chen Long of China. It was such an intense, nerve wracking and heart thumping 1 hour watching two very powerful shuttlers clash. Alas our beloved DLCW had to settle for the silver.  Nonetheless, he's still our country's HERO and we all think he played very, very well. It's disappointing to know that DLCW has decided to hang up his racquet after next year's World Badminton Championship in Glasgow. I still wish that he will give it another try at clinching Malaysia's first gold in the 2020 Olympic. Would he??




Check out Cass holding our Jalur Gemilang lol!  She was cheering on for DLCW.