MCO Day 47 ~ 3 May 2020 (Sunday)

Hubs made an eleventh hour decision to go to Mid Valley Megamall in the evening to help me get some stuff from Daiso, thinking that Daiso would be re-opened, just like how Mr DIY and other shops have re-opened recently. He asked me to Whatsapp the photos of the floor replacement sheets (dry and wet) that I needed to him. These sheets are my life savior as I use them to clean the floor with my Kao magic wiper everyday and my stockpile at home is running really low.  I don't use a mop at home as I hate washing mops.  These replacements sheets clean the floor pretty effectively and they aren't very expensive.  I was really disappointed when he Whatsapped a photo of a shuttered Daiso to me. 😭  I was shattered. I have tons of household stuff to get from Daiso and I have no idea when my favorite store will be re-opened.

Since hubs didn't accomplish his mission, he went to Ippudo to get takeout ramen for us instead. And added a bonus for us girls too -




Crème Brûlée Brown Sugar Milk Tea from Fire Tiger by Seoulcial Club, Bangkok's no. 1 bubble tea.  The first outlet in Malaysia is now at Mid Valley Megamall.  I guess its opening at Mid Valley Megamall was at an unfavorable time as a few months after the opening, our country is now crippled by the Coronavirus and plunged into a partial lockdown.

And our verdict -- we all loved it!  Don't mind having it again in future. But I think we have to cut out on these non-essential luxuries from our lives now until the 'war' is over and our lives are back to normalcy.



Lip-smacking home-baked banana loaf from hubby's ertswhile office assistant.  She bakes really delish cakes and cookies.

MCO Day 44 ~ 30 April 2020 (Thursday)

Today my 6-year old pink Hyundai gave me a heart attack. I was at our condo's car park to get ready to drive to hubby's shop to collect his Nasi Briyani when my pinkie's steering wheel went into a paralyzed mode. It wasn't locked but was just extremely tight, so tight that I could barely turn it.  I knew something wasn't right. After turning off the engine and turning it on again and fidgeted with the steering wheel, it was 'loose' again. I knew something wasn't right with my baby. I drove slowly to hubby's shop. Once I was at his shop, the steering wheel went into paralyzed mode again.  After collecting the Nasi Briyani, I had to give grocery shopping a miss and drove home slowly.  The steering wheel was so tight that parking my car made me perspire.  Hubby later came back and drove my car to the car repair shop and took Grab back.  According to the mechanic, my car's electrical system has malfunctioned, thus the faulty steering wheel. This is going to be a very costly repair, including change of the car's battery 😭

Hubby's chef's Nasi Briyani is da bomb! The set @ RM19.50 consists of Ayam Masak Merah drumstick, mutton rendang, dalcar, acar and good quality long grain Basmati rice cooked with herbs.  The portion is so huge that two boxes were enough to fill up 5 tummies at home - 3 girls with ravenous appetite and mil and I who don't eat much rice.













For dinner we had pan-fried sweet corn fritters, black vinegar pork trotters with eggs (given by hubby's customer when she came to collect the Nasi Briyani), stir-fried sweet potato leaves with fermented bean curd, sauteed pork belly with onions and stir-fried choy sum.




The next date for Nasi Briyani delivery is on Wednesday, 6 May 2020.  For pre-order, kindly Whatsapp Alan at 019-266 4297. Thanks in advance for your support 😊

MCO Day 41 ~ 27 April 2020 (Monday)

I skipped my MCO-style morning workout today to complete the remaining articles for my 'boss'.  I thought that I'd have the time to do a short 20-minute workout on my yoga mat in the evening but instead, I spent that 20 minutes cleaning after Cass' mess!  The rascal dropped a bowl from the dish basket when she was carrying it into the dining area and broke it into a million  pieces. The sharp glasses scattered everywhere in the dining area, living room and under her piano!  I guess cleaning up is just as good a workout since I had to do multiple squats and hundreds of movements with my hands and legs as I mop our floor using cloth and not with a mop -- reason being I hate washing bulky mops. Cleaning cloths can be easily washed in the washer, after a good hand wash. I am OCD when it comes to mops.

Lunch of fried vermicelli with big onions, coriander, carrots and fish cakes.



Our baking queen baked a small batch of healthy sugar-reduced cookies with her own concocted recipe, using such ingredients as organic oats, chopped almonds and pistachios, Lakanto sugar, butter,  eggs, chocolate chips and flour.






Dinner: ABC soup, fried pomfret fish with tomato onion sauce, stir-fried siew yoke, steamed egg with minced pork and stir-fried choy sum.


Hubs had a friend who was going to Mid Valley Megamall to get food and he got these for us from Nyonya Colors:



By the time hubs got home from his shop, it was already late in the evening, so the kuihs will be kept for breakfast tomorrow!




Dishes waiting for Cass to dry and keep.



We have rotation of jobs in our house.  This week is Alycia's duty to wash the dishes while Sherilyn's duty is to bring the garbage to the refuse chamber and wipe the dining table.  And I noticed something.  Alycia would sing happily each time she's at the wet kitchen washing dishes, which  reminds me of Cinderella who would sing each time she's forced to do house work by her evil stepmother. 😆  I have a feeling that Alycia actually likes washing the dishes just as how some of my friends who find it therapeutic washing dirty dishes!!  Errrr, washing dishes will never be therapeutic for me! How can such a chore that chaps your hands be even near therapeutic?!

I had to help Alycia snap these pictures of her working out, which is supposed to be her PE lesson. It's a requirement by her school, with compulsory photos taken and submitted online.


Cloudy skies at 7 a.m. today:



Stunning snapshot of a distant thunderstorm, taken at 7-ish p.m. today:

MCO Day 39 ~ Saturday, 25 April 2020

Hubs has packed food for delivery again today. This means packed food for the family too. And the stalking horse has a good reason to get out of the house too, to his shop and to the nearby supermarket 😁

I almost got a heart attack when my car almost couldn't start... again!  I think the car has to be driven regularly, else the idling battery will act up. I just hope that my car would not be stalled somewhere when I am out to buy essential items!

First stop at hubby's kitchen, then segued a few shop lots away to the supermarket to get essential stuff.



Hubby's good friend who was at the shop to collect his Nasi Lemak bought 3 cups of Tealive for us girls! Swooooooon 💓  It's been months since our last sip of Tealive,



Dinner tonight: beef noodles from the famous Lai Foong coffee shop @ Petaling Street (from the same friend who got us girls the Tealive), oven-grilled Saba fish (marinated with turmeric powder and salt), leftover Ayam Goreng Berempah from hubby's chef and stir-fried 'gai choy' (Chinese mustard) with dried shrimps


How has everyone been sheltering at home? I've been busy writing paid articles till I feel like puking! But no complaints. Money comes by hard these days. So hubs and I have to work like buffaloes everyday.  Who says lives can be easy during a war?  Right? 😂

MCO Day 35 ~ 21 April 2020 (Tuesday)

Today I went to our neighborhood supermarket to get groceries.  The last time I got out of my condo was a week ago when I took Alycia to the dentist. Hubs is normally the one who shops for stuff but he's been busy at his office and kitchen. He's going to roll out food boxes for delivery. It's going to be the first time in his 20+ years in the catering business that he's doing food box delivery. Thank you La Corona! Because of you, my hubs now has an alternative income even when the MCO is lifted and  he can resume his catering business again.  😇💪

Somehow, going to the supermarket doesn't feel normal anymore. I feel more stressed out than happy to be out of the house because buying things and bringing them into the house involves a lot of work from disinfecting them, to cleaning the floor, table, kitchen, showering from head to toe and putting my clothes into the washer!



And because of La Corona, we now have wholesome home-cooked meals 2-3 times a day, almost daily.  MIL cooked fried 'hor fun' again today.



And she always pairs fried noodles with a sweet soup dessert ('tong sui'). Today we had orange and purple sweet potatoes 'tong sui' boiled in ginger and pandan water.




Dinner:  salmon + lady's fingers cooked in Assam paste with kafir lime leaves.



Shallow fried thinly sliced pork belly with curry leaves and shallots, blanched broccoli, old cucumber soup and stir-fried organic baby French beans with dried shrimps.


Today hubby's good friend gifted us something that I've been dying to have - delicious Nyonya kuih and Assam laksa from Nyonya Colors @ Mid Valley Megamall.  He also got the girls Yomie's Purple Rice Yogurt - 3 cups, each in a different flavor.  Bless his heart for the generosity.








My SIL once asked me why I needed a make-up mirror at my work desk. Nope, not for vanity sake.  But this is how I watch what the littlest brat is doing behind my back! I have a mirror on my printer, in front of me to spy on her whenever she's on the laptop or phone, supposedly doing her homework or attending online classes 😂

MCO Day 33 ~ 19 April 2020 (Sunday)

These days hubs doesn't prep breakfast for us anymore as he prefers to exercise in the morning. His pot belly has grown even bigger after a month of MCO with no chance of playing basketball (he's a basketball nut), workout at the gym or attend boot camp classes during the MCO and now it's time to deflate the belly to at least half the size. 😆  We walk the stairs in the morning (not together though) followed with jogging at the corridor outside our unit and sweat buckets.

Today our baking queen's baking mode is switched on!  She prepped breakfast of  spam + cheese French toast for everyone.



Also fried wallet eggs.


Later she handmade an assortment of pastas.




Baking to this girl is akin to playing 'masak-masak' and playing with play dough.  She spent the entire afternoon in the hot sauna-like kitchen blithely experimenting with shaping the different types of pasta.



Her maiden batch of handmade pasta. She's a very happy camper!



This is supposedly spaghetti but it tasted more like 'pan mee' 😁



It's alright. We still ate it with beef bolognese (not me as I'm not a fan of starchy noodles), which I cooked a big pot, to be used for spaghetti, lasagna, tortilla and anything that goes with it.












MIL boiled lotus root soup as hubs is a soup guzzler.



After craving for kuih for almost a month, hubs finally ordered a kuih platter online from Baba Beng to satisfy my craving.  I am over the moon!  What you see here is just half the platter. Hubs gave the other half portion to his chef.


And threw in a big bonus for me - my favorite 'rough' type kaya, which I heart 💓



Hubs finally satiated his own craving of KFC as well! We've not eaten KFC for aeons. I only ate half a piece. Call me sensitive or a hypochondriac, but each time I indulge in KFC, I'll succumb to sore throat.  I discovered that if I eat KFC sans the oily fatty skin, I'll be A-OK. And so all the greasy skin went to hubs 😂


That's our Sunday cheat day, cheating on all things unhealthy before resuming another week of eating home-cooked wholesome food for the next 5-6 days 😄

MCO Day 31 ~ 17 April 2020 (Friday)

My MCO workout achievement today from stairs climbing (5th floor to 18th floor to ground floor back to 5th floor), star jumps, strength training and jogging outside our unit corridor, tracked by my trusted old FitBit:

Duration: 30 minutes
Number of steps: 5,035
Number of stairs: 28
Calories burnt: 969
Distance: 3.61km

Pathetic but better than just sitting at home and having my butt glued to my massage chair all day long. This is half of what I normally achieve on pre-MCO days.



My almost daily MCO Whatsapp conversations with the hubs be like this:










When hubs was out groceries shopping today, he got so excited when he saw a large consignment of toilet papers that had just arrived at our neighborhood sundry shop; he quickly snapped a photo and Whatsapped the photo to me 😆  And yes, he bought a bundle of 3 rolls 😁


The lady boss of our favorite tai chow restaurant saw hubs at the sundry shop, signaled for him to walk over to her restaurant and gifted him half a roast chicken, citing that she's about to close shop for the day and that's her leftover chicken. That just warmed the cockles of my heart 💓

That's the reason why I miss all these vendors and restaurant owners, who have become our good friends over the years. The char koay teow lady boss and us have been friends for over 20 years at this neighborhood, as with the kuih seller, whom we have not seen for over a month. I always wonder how they are coping with no income 😰  When the MCO is lifted, we're not going to cook lunch anymore!  We're going to eat at all our friends' stalls for brunch everyday to help them restart their businesses.




Dinner of stir-fried assorted vegetables with fish cakes, blanched lady's fingers, sweet corn soup, steamed egg with minced pork, stir-fried baby spinach and takeout chicken curry to help our neighborhood restaurant who's just re-opened her restaurant for takeaways.


Post dinner and cooking aftermath scene at our wet kitchen:
This is just 1/3 of what has to be washed (bigger cooking utensils, pots and pans are not in the photo), every single day.  Three times a day.  I am so so so sick of washing and cleaning.



Fortunately I have this girl to help me with the dishes. Most nights hubs will help to wash the bigger and messier utensils and equipment, leaving the easier ones for Sherilyn or Alycia to wash. I'll have to clean up the greasy stove, walls, floor and sinks and just about everything else in the house.



Hubs now has a MCO haircut combo of #2 and #5. The bald patch is behind, which I think he inadvertently chopped off a gob of hair and the front bangs are almost similar to style #5 😆  No way am I going to cut his hair, lest I bugger up his head and get blamed for a hilarious haircut, knowing how persnickety he is.



Which MCO hair styles do the men and boys in your house have?