Alycia's New Hair Cut

Today I brought Alycia for a hair cut. She had been bugging me to bring her to the hair salon since last week but I only did so after she told me that the prefectorial teacher gave the prefects an ultimatum that if anyone with hair touching the collar of the shirt  tomorrow, the hair would be snipped off by the teacher!



After the hair cut, Alycia has been fretting about how awful she looks. While I really think that the hair style suits her type of hair and her face shape, I think she is still not used to her new look. I told her jokingly that if she did not like the new hair, there is really nothing much she can do except to get some natural noriko wigs to don on while waiting for her hair to grow LOL!

Cassandra's Doodle

Cass loves drawing and 'writing'. She definitely has her daddy's artistic DNA running in her blood.

While eating lunch yesterday, she doodled this :


 

I am putting this picture in this blog for online storage before I bin it. She has too many drawings and I am already running out of space to keep them.

 Cass at 5 years 5 months

Cheese-Baked Rice

Last week, I tried a new dish - cheese baked rice.  The girls and I had tried cheese-baked rice at several restaurants when we were back in Ipoh this year and I had told them that some day, I am going to try dishing it out.

It is pretty simple and I did not follow any recipe. I diced some chicken fillet and marinated them with soy sauce, mixed herbs, garlic salt and pepper in the morning. I like to do all the cooking preparation like cutting and marinating in the morning. Once this chore is over and done with, I can sit at my work place without having to worry about it.  In the evening, I stir fried the chicken fillet with big onions and garlic, red and yellow bell pepper, diced pumpkin and fresh sweet corn kernels.





Cooked rice is placed in a corningware. The ingredients are then transferred into the rice-filled corningware.


Then Alycia helped me to mix the ingredients with the rice.







Next Alycia poured in half a packet of parmesan cheese and 4 slices of cheddar cheese on the dish. 
This is how it looks before being baked in the oven for about 15 minutes, uncovered.





That's the final product!   Add some chopped spring onions or you can even throw in more cheese if you like it really cheeeeesy!






My homemade baked-cheese rice was absolutely delightful and my girls totally loved it.  It ain't very hard to whip up and I am definitely going to cook this dish more often! :)



The yellowish outcome of the last two pix was caused by the yellow lighting at my dining table. Actual color of this dish was way more appealing ;)

Multi-tasking Aunty

This is the aunty who wants to accomplish a lot in under an hour in the morning but does not have enough hands to do so like an octopus.

With  no hands to press on the button of the car key, no hands to hold the card to swipe on the door scanner and no hands left to open the house door,  this ah-soe has to clip the car keys, house keys and access card to 3 card holders and hang them on her neck.  Like soh por or not?


This aunty bought breakfast for the kids, bought newspapers and has bags of veggie and meat to whip up a warm and healthy dinner for her family tonight!

That is why this aunty has strong arms and muscles on her hands. No flabby auntie underarms, earned from years of hardcore training holding weights like a kuli to her 3 kiddos!

Food Glorious Food!

After days of eating bread with jam or wholewheat crackers with jam for breakfast, my taste bud yearned for something different this morning. So I asked the hubs to join me for breakfast at a nearby food court after dropping off Cass at school.

This was my bowl of  Ipoh Kai See Hor Fun with shredded chicken meat and wanton, which tasted very good but just not there yet. If you hail from Ipoh and have tasted the best of the best, nothing beats the authentic Ipoh Kai See Hor Fun, especially the distinct taste and sweetness of the broth and the smoothness of the hor fun (flat rice noodles). And the plump, crunchy and sweet beat sprouts too!  Oh, talking about this, I am already missing good old Ipoh food!

This bowl of noodles cost RM8 alright. No more RM3.50 or RM4 like it used to be just  a year ago.  A hike in the cost of petrol causes a chain reaction and the price of everything goes up! 

The next dish on my To Cook List is to learn how to make Ipoh Kai See Hor Fun broth!  Shall google for it when I am absolutely free.




This was Sherilyn's simple dinner bento yesterday.  These days, she comes back from the tuition centre between 6:30pm to 7:30pm.  If we eat first, I will prepare a bento for her.


 

The set consisted of a peeled orange, fried fish, freshly grated organic raw radish with Japanese soy sauce, beet root soup and a bowl of soba with veggie and seaweed. Someone at home was green with envy when she saw the bento set yesterday and today.  So it looks like I will have to prepare a bento set to ease the jealousy from raging!

Simple Lunch For The Girls - 13 September 2013

This is for my anti-rice but noodles-loving Cass...

Vermicelli with minced meat (left-over from the previous night's dinner), steamed chicken drumstick and a free-range chicken egg.



Tiny but she's got a very ravenous appetite. She polished off this big Pyrex bowl of food!




And this is for my rice-craze Alycia...





This is a pretty no-sweat meal which I managed to whip up in under an hour.

Steamed chicken drumsticks with sesame seed oil, pepper, sea salt, red dates and since I had an excess of pandan leaves which were starting to whither in the fridge, I dumped in a few sprigs of pandan leaves to add flavor to the chicken drumsticks.

The girls were very satisfied with their lunch :D

Can You Guess What This Is?

Some of you have probably seen and used this modern gadget but this jakun me saw it for the first time at a 5-star hotel the other day.  My girls and their outmoded mommy had a good laugh when the gadget finally functioned and we were all wowed by it muahahaha!

Would you like to guess what this is?

Dinner In A Jiffy

Here's the dinner that I dished up in under an hour. I love using the oven to cook as there is no oil splatter and I can do other chores when the meat is grilling inside the oven.

Oven-grilled wild salmon with herbs, garlic salt, black pepper and olive oil...



I also made a quick chicken soup using chicken bones, carrots and pumpkin and threw in some green veggie and an egg each for the girls.  Also reheated the frozen braised Hakka pork dish that the MIL cooked for us before she left for HK.

 

Of Maids And Lovers

I am now in a dilemma. And I feel like one of those very lost and confused lovers who cannot make up her mind on which man to choose to marry!  If you have been following my blogs, you would have read my struggles and frustrations with finding a good part-time maid.  Well, in December last year, I found a very, very good part-time maid (Maid M) who worked for me for half a year until she dropped the most dreaded news to me -- that she wanted to quit as she was very worried over the sudden appearance of a huge lump in her neck. She was not lying to me as I saw and felt the big lump on her neck.

When she left, I felt jilted, like a girl who was ditched by her most beloved lover. I was lost without any help. I engaged those part-time maids who were paid hourly and I hated their services. I'd rather do the work myself than have those hourly paid maids in my house. I went searching high and low for another lover part-time maid. At one point of time, I was on the verge of hiring a live-in maid from an unregistered maid agency as the low fees were too good to be true. Yea I said it.  Can maids be good and cheap legally these days? NO!  Crap! Not anymore.  The hubs said NO, don't be stupid and gullible!  We made up part of the statistics of those victims being cheated by  unscrupulous maid agents a few years ago and the maid agent was Alycia's classmate's father! Well, that man went behind bars later.   So I had to bite the bullet and forget about the whole idea of getting a live-in maid and do the work myself. Those days were tough and I felt like crying. My online business went from soaring to a sore as I had very, very little time left to do my online work.

I went to almost all the coffee shops and roadside stalls at my neighborhood to spread news to sellers that I was looking for a part-time maid who could come for 2-3 hours daily, Monday through Saturday.  A month past, still I had no luck.  Then one fine day, when I almost lost hope of ever finding someone like Maid M,  I received a call from Maid Y.  I immediately asked her to come for an interview at 5pm the same day.  When I saw her, my guts feeling told me that she's the one and she started to work for me the next day. That was 2 months ago. She is still working for me and she is almost as good as Maid M but she is just not there yet. Anyway, I am very thankful that she came at a time when I needed some help.

A few days ago, Maid M sent me a text message.  We have been sending each other text messages quite often, with me asking her whether the lump on her neck had subsided and how her check ups at the hospital went.  She always replied me by telling me that the lump was still there and she still had a few more appointments at UMC.  Coming back to Maid M's text message 3 days ago.  She told me that she was well and that the lump on her neck has subsided. She wanted to for me again!  I did not know how to reply her.  I wanted her back badly but if I accept her back, I would be unfair to Maid Y.  What if Maid M leaves me again after I have turned Maid Y away?  It was a very hard decision to make, just like a girl choosing her life partner LOL!  Finally, I retained Maid Y and told Maid M the truth about my predicament.

Maid Y will be going back to Indonesia in December this year.  There is a high percentage that she will NOT return to work for me though she assured me that she will come back. She kept telling me that she likes working for me. Well, I have seen too many cases where maids who had worked for my friends for donkey years never returned and my friends were left waiting at the airport, like a forlorn lover.  So I told Maid M that I may need her again in December when Maid Y goes back to Indon for a holiday.

I hope I have made the right decision. The hubs is unable to make a decision too.


Maid M is friendly, was paid RM700 per month and worked 5 hours each time she came. She is very simple and not calculative. Her work is detailed and her work is very good, albeit quite slow as she pays too much time to details.  She was ever willing to work longer than what she had to.

Maid Y is very reserved, quiet but her work is good. She is currently paid RM900 per month and works only 3 hours each time she comes. She will leave on the dot when it is time to leave.

What would you have done if you were me?  

Simplest Lunch Ever

A few days ago, I was clearing the fridge and found 2 packets of organic Japanese sweet potatoes and 2 packets of sweet corns that the mil had bought before she left for Hong Kong about 3 weeks ago.  The sweet potatoes were starting to sprout shoots and the sweet corns look like they were starting to dry up. So I told Alycia and Cass that we would have to quickly clear those stuff before they go to the bin. They had no objection to my suggestion as they are hardly served such 'simple food'.  Whoopie, that was music to my ears as I needn't have to sweat it out in the kitchen to dish up a proper meal for lunch!

Here's Alycia's very simple and very healthy whole food lunch, consisting of papaya, steamed Japanese sweet potatoes, steamed sweet corn and 2 sunny side up free range chicken eggs. 



 


By the way, this kind of meal is known as The Caveman Diet, which is also called the Paleo / Stone Age / Warrior Diet.  It is a  plan on eating plants and wild animals similar to what cavemen are presumed to have eaten around 10,000 years ago. The diet is based on the foods that could be hunted, fished, planted and gathered during the Paleolithic era -- meat, fish, shellfish, eggs, tree nuts, vegetables, roots, fruits, and berries... all eaten raw or cooked using the cavemen way.  So go figure ;)
 

Random Events

The weather for the past few days has been awesome and just too good, well, at least for me, who is absolutely terrified of being hot and will literally melt under the sun. For the past three nights, I have been sleeping sans air-conditioner and sans fan.  Thankfully the hubs has no complaints as well and he went sans blanket.  Just a month ago, the temperature was hovering at 33 to 35 degrees Celsius and it is now about 22 to 23 degrees Celsius at night and during pre-dawn hours. Jogging at 6:30am is such an exhilarating time for me as the air is crisp and cold and I find so much peace exercising in the stillness of the pre-dawn darkness. Perfect for emptying all negative vibes from my mind and to absorb positive ones.

All in the name of charity, I paid RM10 to have this picture taken with these Star Wars characters at Bangsar Village on 1 September 2013.  The donation went towards the Society For The Severely Mentally Handicapped.  The 'package' also came with a copy of the picture and 3 badges. If I have the financial means, I would love to continue to donate more to the needy, like I used to when I was in the corporate world.

Impulse Buying

I love shopping at this shop in my neighborhood that sells everything at 5 bucks but I try to refrain myself from stepping foot into this shop. Each time I enter this shop, I end up buying stuff which I do not need and overspend. This shop is a bane for those on a tight budget. Although everything is cheap, many people actually indulge in impulse buying and end up wasting money buying things that they do not really need. One time, the hubs bought a couple of stands & mounts , trays and containers and they are still unused and collecting dust in the storeroom! I have a love-hate-relationship with this shop and now only visit the shop if I have something that I absolutely need to buy.

Radish Cabbage Soup For The Soul

This is my lunch and dinner today:
Organic radish + organic cabbage + roast pork bones + pork ribs soup.  No rice. No noodles.  Just an awesome bowl of soup.  I also ate one half-boiled free-range chicken egg for lunch. Cass ate the same thing and had 2 half-boiled eggs and 2 slices of homemade kaya toast.




The girls did not scoff when I told them that they will be having just soup and sunny-side-up eggs to go with rice for dinner.  They managed to polish off half the amount of pork ribs from the soup.  There is still a bowl of soup with ribs and that will be my lunch for tomorrow.  This is good stuff and a complete meal with protein, fibre, calcium, iron and much more, all in a bowl of soup.

And guess what the girls will be having for lunch tomorrow? Steamed purple sweet potatoes!  Just now I found 2 packets of organic sweet potatoes that my MIL had placed in a bag in the kitchen. I told the girls that since the sweet potatoes were starting to sprout shoots, we had better finish them off instead of binning them as they ain't cheap being organically grown.  The girls were A-OK with my suggestion and requested for sunny-side-ups again to go with the sweet potatoes, LOL!  Good girls, mummy is so proud that you all ain't fussy after all. 

Pesto Pasta For Lunch - 4 September 2013

This is Cass' lunch today...

Leftover pesto pasta from last night's dinner. I added 1 teaspoon of pesto sauce, a little hot water and a little olive oil to the pasta before heating it up in the microwave oven. This way, the pasta will not be hard and dry after reheating in the microwave oven.

I also made some hard-boiled free-range chicken eggs, mashed them up and squeezed in some Japanese mayonaise and pepper, coz that's just how this sweetie-pie likes hard-boiled eggs eaten.






I now love Wednesdays as I only have to settle Cass' lunch. She is the least fussy of the 3 rascals and is pretty easy to please too, when it comes to food.  Alycia comes home at 4ish pm and Sherilyn who has started to attend after-school care at a nearby tuition-cum-daycare only comes home at 7pm for dinner.

Our Dinner - 30 August 2013

This was our dinner yesterday. It was the first dinner that I cooked after the MIL's departure to Hong Kong.


From top, clockwise : egg omelette with herbs, baby bok choy, organic 'yeh fah heong' flower veggie and steam minced pork with prawns, sesame seed oil and chopped watercress veggie.




Yesterday, I drew up a 4-day menu. I used to draw up a 7-day and sometimes 14-day menu in the past but since I do not have much time to cover for 7 days, I had to settle with a 3 or 4-day menu now.  I like to have a drawn up menu so that I can stick to it without having to stress myself up everyday on what to cook. It is easier and faster to do grocery shopping too.


For the 2 veggie dishes, I drizzled some Goma sauce on them, tossed in some chopped spring onions (my kids and I love spring onions) and cut up strips of olive-flavored seaweed. I still have 3 packets of  seaweed that my mum bought from Korea recently. Since the seaweeds are near the expiration date, I am now using them in almost all my dishes. The good thing is that my girls and I all love seaweed!

We are having lasagne for lunch today. For dinner, I will be stir-frying organic cabbage with minced meat and reheating the stewed pork dish (frozen now) that the MIL mass-cooked for us just before she left.

We will be having a short getaway at one of the 5-star hotels in KL from tomorrow through Sunday. That is our yearly retreat at this hotel and our stay has always been on this particular date as the hubs would normally only utilize his complimentary hotel room voucher at the eleventh hour before its expiration date *roll eyes*!!

Happy weekend friends! :)

Organic / Naturally Grown Vegetables - How Do You Verify?

I bought this bundle of organic sawi from my regular organic veggie seller this morning. I just love to see the tiny worm holes on the leaves of vegetables. This way, I am almost assured that the veggies were grown without the use of pesticides and bugs repellents.

There is this self-claimed organic veggie stall at the night market that claim that all their vegetables and fruits are naturally grown without the use of pesticides in Cameron Highlands. However, their veggies are free from worm holes, huge and can last pretty long in the fridge too!  I feel really dubious about their claim, yet many people flock to buy their veggies and paying two to three-fold!  Most of all, there is no certification whatsoever to confirm their claim that their produce are organic or grown naturally.



 

Don't you just love to see holes on your vegetables like me? ;)

I only buy organic produce if I see a sticker of certification on the packaging.  Do you buy so-called organic produce that have no sticker of certification on the packaging?

While Waiting...

For the past few days, I had to chauffeur the MIL around to run errands before she flies off tomorrow. She helps me and I help her. There is team work in our house haha!  For the past few days too, the mil has been cooking and baking big portions of dishes and bread for deep freezing. That will be our 'ration' on days when I am too busy or lazy to do anything.

To save time, I cut up some fruits for Cass to eat in the car while we wait for her grandma to do banking yesterday. While Cass ate and read, I was busy Facebooking and replying to emails on my phone.

In the picture below, Cass was munching on some sweet and crunchy Envy apples while 'reading' her Alycia che che's comic book. With food and a good book, this rascal will sit still in the car, else she would be jumping up and down the car restlessly with her itchy hands pressing on every single button that she sees while we wait for grandma while whining and telling me that "I AM SO BORED!".

Employee Wellness Programs

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Oftentimes, third-party vendors provide special guidance to upper-level management and committees for employee wellness programs to help build a strong on-site program. These programs offer support for those businesses hoping to create their own on-site employee wellness programs. These wellness programs are designed to ensure that the physical well-being of the employee is taken care of as well as benefiting the employer at the same time. The benefit to the employer is a reduction in absenteeism for sickness related reasons. The company will also benefit by having reduced medical costs and healthier employees.

If you are interested in implementing a program, learn more about employee wellness programs at IncentaHealth.com.

Edamame Beans For School Recess

The girls love Edamame beans. They are pretty costly if ordered from a Japanese restaurant and I do not like it that salt is often sprinkled on the beans.  The best is of course home-prepared, sans salt and washed before briefly cooking them in the microwave oven. My girls love to bring Edamame beans to school as snacks during recess.

This picture was taken this morning. Last night, Cass asked me if she could bring the green soy beans to school and I told her yes on condition that she does not dilly dally and can get herself ready for school on time. She promised me and kept her promise this morning.  So here she is... getting her favorite snack ready for recess today by removing the beans from the pods.





In Cass' pre-school, Mondays are bright green colored green cakes  for snacks *shudder*  and I usually let her bring something to school instead of letting her eat the 'green monster'.  Thursdays are usually corn flakes  (which Cass always tells me that she hates them as they are dry) or belly button biscuits with neon colored and hardened icing on top (aka biscuits to be offered to children ghosts during the Ghost Festival!). Most pre-schools these days offer junk food as snacks to toddlers and pre-schoolers, all in the name of greed and selfishness so that money is saved from buying better quality snacks.

Shoes That Were Swapped

Further to my earlier post on 'What Would You Do If You Were Me?', I had a 'brainstorming' session with Sherilyn and Alycia over this issue and what I found out was that this problem happens quite frequently after the library period.  Though every student is given a number card to claim their shoes when they leave the library, this system seems to have some flaws as shoes are still swapped and missing. And though the principal has advised the students to write their names on their shoes, many students are still not doing it. For some of the students who obediently write their names, the ink had  faded after several washes, like in the case of Sherilyn.

Sherilyn told me that after she lost her shoes, she reported the matter to her class teacher, who only nodded her head to acknowledge the problem but did not try to help her! I have met her class teacher once during the parents-teachers day in June when I collected her report card. The teacher seems to me like a passive
teacher and she is in her early twenties. She also seems to be the reticent type and did not tell us much about Sherilyn's progress in class. A good teacher (like Alycia's class teacher) would tell us about our child's strengths, weaknesses and what areas she/he has to improve on and how she/he can improve in the weak areas.  This could be because the hubs and I could not speak in Mandarin while the teacher is not good in her English language, thus the lack of communication.

Anyway, I told Sherilyn to speak to the teacher in charged of the library to seek her help but Alycia and Sherilyn told me that it is useless as the library teacher did not manage to help other 'victims' to locate their shoes in the past. I kept urging Sherilyn to bring the wrong shoes back to school since they are not hers and to seek the library teacher's help to find hers but she was dogged reluctant to do so reason being the teacher in charged of the library was not around at that time of the incident and her name written in marker pen, has faded from her shoes.

I guess I have to close the case and write off her shoes.  As a preventive measure, I have asked Sherilyn to place a very noticeable identification on her shoes each time she removes her shoes in school, on top of having her name written on both sides of her shoes.  I suggested to her that she either places her shoes into a plastic bag (this was what tourists were asked to do at one of the museums that we visited recently in Malacca) or places a small name card onto each side of the shoes but she said that this would make her look very stupid *roll eyes*   Instead, she came out with the idea of sticking her cartoon name sticker onto her shoes each time she removes her shoes in school. She will then pull out the two name stickers from the shoes after she wears them back and will stick them back onto the plastic cover of her mini note pad which she puts in her pinafore pocket.  I sure hopes that this method will prevent other pupils from wearing her shoes again.

Working Very Hard

The hubs and his team have been working at full steam for the past one week on several mega functions this week. Many of these corporate functions were Hari Raya Open House events, which involved over a thousand pax for each function. In this week also, one of his staff resigned and one of his chefs took leave. As a responsible and caring employer who did not want to over-work his other staff, he rolled up his sleeves and headed for the kitchen, helping out to cook and even to peel prawn shells! Can you imagine how many thousands of prawns he had to peel to cater for over a thousand pax?  He also carried heavy cartons of China plates, stainless steel cutleries, tables, chairs and everything that was needed to set up the buffet lines. He has over-worked himself this week and I think he must have torn some muscles in his hands. This morning, he could not even bend down to pick up his clothes or to open these to get his things out. By the way, if you are wondering what my hubs does, he runs a catering business. If you need a caterer, just give me a buzz ;)

What Would You Do If You Were Me?

Today, Sherilyn came home from school looking very down. When we were inside the lift, she told me this "mummy, someone wore my shoes after library today. I had no shoes to wear, so I had to wear someone's shoes" and then pointed to the over-sized white canvass shoes that she was wearing.  I told her that she should not have worn shoes that did not belong to her but should have reported the matter to the teacher in-charged in the library, to which she told me that the teacher in charged in the library was not around. So she just picked a pair of shoes to wear as they were about to go home.

Moments later, Sherilyn told me angrily that she hated the pair of over-sized shoes as they were loose on her feet.  I told her that since someone had worn her shoes and she has taken another person's shoes, she will have to wear that pair of shoes now. It will not be practical for me to drive all the way to her school to report to the teacher in charged of the library about this incident.  I had just bought her an extra pair of school shoes on Sunday and I told her that I will not buy her another pair of shoes again.  She then broke down and ran into the house, throwing tantrums and hurling replies to me saying that she will NOT wear that pair of big shoes that are not hers. She wanted me to buy her another pair of spare shoes, again!  She refused to eat her lunch and only ate when I gave her an ultimatum to finish her lunch by 3pm, failing which she will face the music.

As a responsible and sensible mother, what should I do now?

1) Do I go to school and report this incident to the teacher in charged of the library? I will definitely cause a big hoopla when the teacher calls all the students that were in the library today and asks Sherilyn to look for her pair of shoes.  For all I know, the student who accidentally wore Sherilyn's shoes would have left the pair of shoes at home and wore another pair of shoes.

2) Take the easy way out - buy her another pair of shoes and throw away the over-sized shoes that are not hers?  But I will be sending her a wrong signal... that if she loses things, mummy will buy her a new one. No way!

3) Force her to wear the over-sized shoes and get her to ask around and to hunt for her own shoes tomorrow and for the next few days? 

4) Leave her with only 1 pair of shoes and let her take accountability over her own actions. If that sole pair of shoes are not dried on time for school on Monday, she will have to wear semi-wet shoes to school.

What would you do if you were me?

Super Easy To Dish Out Japanese Fried Rice

Yesterday, I whipped up some very yummy Japanese fried rice, on an impromptu basis.  After a super heavy breakfast at TedBoy Bakery @ Bangsar, we skipped lunch.  By 4ish pm, the girls announced that they were quite hungry. Note : quite hungry only hehe... and Alycia volunteered to cook scrambled eggs.  So she took 6 eggs out from the fridge, cracked them in a bowl, whipped them up and heated up the non-stick pan.  After pouring in the 6 eggs mixture (seasoned with mixed herbs and pepper) and frying them for a minute, I suggested that we should put in the Japanese rice that we had the night before and make that our dinner since it was already close to 5pm.  Without a thought, Alycia my rice-pot seconded my suggestion. Then I asked her to chop up a tomato for the fried rice and I added some seaweed that my mum bought from Korea. With a dash of soy sauce and a few stirs, the Japanese style yummy fried rice was ready.

Sherilyn quickly cut up some cucumbers BUT cut her finger AGAIN!  Then she fished out the block of Emmentel cheese from the fridge and scraped some onto the rice.  It was an impromptu decision to cook fried rice and the girls and I had fun in the kitchen.  The cut finger did not dampen Sherilyn's mood and everyone had a very satisfying early dinner at 5pm yesterday, which was the last day of the school holidays.



 
Our Japanese fried rice with 6 eggs, 1 tomato, soy sauce, pepper, mixed herbs, Emmentel cheese and Korean seaweed, yums!

Favorite Body Parts

There is a part in each of my daughter that is my favorite.  For Alycia, they are her trademark deep and seductive dimples, her flawless fair skin and huge eyes with double eyelids.  For Sherilyn, they are her silky smooth skin and dimples and for Cass, I love her baby pearly whites and errr, her forehead :P

I am truly obsessed and proud of Cass' flawless baby teeth and I know that I can only admire them for the next 2 years, after which they will shed and will be replaced with irregular size and shapes of adult teeth. I pray that my girls will not have 'vampire teeth' like the hubs and me. And I pray that they need not have to wear braces. Dear Lord, please bestow my girls with beautiful, white, strong and aligned teeth alwayz, amen!! :)

Cleaning Pillows, Mattresses and Bedding

The other day, one of my blog friends wrote in her blog that she washes her pillows in the washing machine each time she changes the pillowcases. I love the idea of washing my pillows to keep the pillows clean and free from dust mites, head lice and other bugs which are invisible to our naked eyes, which could be nesting and multiplying comfortably deep inside our pillows. I would do the same too if I live in a house with a garden or patio so that I can expose the pillows to the sun.

Living in a condo, we do not have the benefit of exposing our laundry directly to the sun, uncovered. We only get to hang our laundry at the balcony with limited exposure to the sun. Half of our laundry are hung indoors, under the fan.  Living in a condo with such limited space in the kitchen, we cannot even squeeze in a clothes dryer or a dishwasher as our extra space has been taken up by another refrigerator. Yes, we have 2 refrigerators  and built-in cabinets in the kitchen, occupying most of the space..

What I do is that I will sun our pillows and bolsters at least once a week. For bedsheets, pillowcases, bolster cases and blankets, I wash them every week. I also spray our mattresses with Sol-U-Guard disinfectant from Melaleuca to kill any germs and Sol-U-Mel (also from Melaleuca) to kill any dust mites and bed bugs.

That is the best I can do to avoid triggering the allergy button in my kids and I.  We have very sensitive noses and that is the reason why I am such a clean freak.


This is Sol-U-Guard disinfectant from Melaleuca. It kills mozzies, insects and cockroaches very effectively and safely as well.  It's definitely a life-safer for Katsaridaphobians like yours truly :P





Besides killing dust mites, Sol-U-Mel can also remove odors, stains and cleans the air.    Melaleuca products are safe and contain no harsh chemicals and toxic fumes. The main ingredients in their products is tea tree oil aka Melaleuca oil.  Just buzz me if you want to get these products from Melaleuca and I can help you get them at member's price.



How do you clean your pillows?

And how often do you change your bedding sheets?

Do you disinfectant and clean your mattress as well?

Trip Back To The Land Of Smooth Tofu

We left KL to head to Ipoh on Thursday, 8 August 2013. About 20 minutes into our journey, we saw a darn massive traffic jam ahead of us, near the Sg. Buloh overhead bridge. After getting stuck there for about 20 minutes, the hubs and I were on the verge of making a U-turn to return to KL and only leave KL the next day.  It was a double holiday here in Malaysia, where the Hari Raya holiday coincided with the school holiday.  We would normally stay put in KL during such times but we had a mission in Ipoh, which was to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday.

But the kids were disappointed upon hearing that we may only go to Ipoh the next day, so we moved on. The traffic eased up a little, later... and then at certain stretches, traffic was heavy again.  Overall, the traffic was not that horrendous and we took 3 hours to reach Ipoh vs. 2 hours on regular days.




Pictures taken on Thursday, 8 August 2013

To quench thirst, we snacked on some fruits and cucumbers and refrained from drinking water throughout the 3-hour journey.  No one wanted to queue up for half an hour just to inch our way into the rest and relax area and then queue up for another half an hour to pee... and then inch our way out into the highway again!  

 


And the picture below was taken today...

We left Ipoh for KL at 9:30am and reached KL at about 12:30pm.  Traffic was heavy at a few stretches on the highway and overall, it was quite a smooth ride, albeit there were many vehicles.  It also poured quite heavily throughout our journey.



I am still amazed and thankful that my girls can read a book in the car without feeling a wee bit queasy, unlike me, who would definitely have my entire day spoiled from having severe bouts of nauseousness if I were to spend just 15 minutes reading in a moving car, dang it!

Darn Those Eye Lid Twitches!

You had probably read in one of my blog posts where I wrote that whenever my right eye lid twitches, it is a foreboding that someone in the family will fall sick. This eyelid twitch premonition comes true nine out of ten times.  True to the eyelid twitches that I was getting about 2 weeks ago, Sherilyn was down with Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease, next Alycia had a mild bout of cold and now it is my turn to succumb to those darn vengeful viruses lingering in the house.  No wonder for the past few days, I felt so malaise and lacking in energy. I did not have the stamina to run in the morning and only did a light workout on the Air Walker at the gym, which is less strenuous on my legs and stamina.  Yesterday, I started to sneeze non-stop and had a watery nose.  I felt really sick and my eyes were swollen. Some of the symptoms I am getting now are similar to those that Sherilyn got 2 weeks ago when she was down with Hand-Foot-Mouth disease! Oh God, please don't let me get bitten too, I can't afford to fall this sick!   I slept at 10pm last night, which is a record-breaking time. The only time I would leave my work place early for the bed is when I am sick.   I can't describe how hard it was for me to go through the motions of a typical work-from-home-mum's routine yesterday as I was feeling really down and out, with aches from head to toe. 
 
This morning, I woke up with an achy jaw, headache, body aches and felt malaise. I skipped exercising again to return to my bed to have a short nap after getting Alycia and Sherilyn ready for school. When one part of our body is malfunctioned, the other parts of the body have to work doubly hard to support the entire body, thus all the aches and jadedness, I reckon.

Then at 9am, the hubs told me that by hook or crook, I had to bring my new car to the Hyundai Service Centre for servicing, failing which, the free service will be rendered null and void. I had to park the car down the road and walk under the hot morning sun to the Hyundai office, which aggravated all the aches in my body!

I have just had a nice warm shower and I just do not feel like walking  to Cass' school to pick her up in this crazy, hot and hazy weather.  All I want to do now is to rest and relax and nurse myself to recovery so that I am well enough to make our trip to Ipoh on Thursday to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday.

To Cane Or Not To Cane?

The other day while I was walking Cass home from school, she told me that teacher A (her English teacher) told her class that she would cane whoever who did not know how to read a long list of English words in their Spelling book.  The moment we reached home, she quickly fished out the book from her school bag and showed me the list of English words, which consisted of these words : dancing, fine, thank you, knee, neck, very, much, grandfather, grandmother, grandparents, drawing and about 10 more words. She then made me go through the words with her.  See, I can even memorize these words as she made me go through these words with her umpteen times!  She refused to wash up or eat her fruits. She was glued to her books and wanted to complete her homework, as well as to master those words.

What made Cass so obedient and seem like an exemplary student was achieved through the hard and painful way.  The teachers in her pre-school would punish and cane kids who did not complete their homework, kids who could not read and kids who chit chat a lot when lessons are on-going.  Let me tell you that Cass had been punished too many times that I have lost count. Most times, she was called to stand up as a form of punishment for being too talkative and sometimes she would be canned on her hand for not completing her homework.

Some parents would freak out upon learning that their kids (whom they themselves do not cane) are being canned in school. They view such punishment as being too draconian on kids, what more pre-schoolers.

For me, I am not against this form of punishment for Cass.  I admit that she can be very stubborn and disobedient, even at home. My hubs, mil and I are having a hard time disciplining her.  I think she has been spoilt rotten since birth due to her medical condition which has since been rectified after a surgery when she was 13 months old.

However, for kids who are timid and sensitive (like Alycia), canning and punishment would backfire and cause a negative impact on the child's emotions.  Alycia dropped out of the school team in Calligraphy just because the teacher threatened the students that they need not have to attend lessons again if they did not write the Chinese characters nicely.  This happened when she was in Standard 1. She was in tears when I pressed her for the reasons on why she wanted to quit.

Do you agree or disagree to canning being carried out in schools to discipline students?

Wholemeal Pita Bread Sandwich

Feeling lazy to cook lunch today and being time pressed (I had to send out all my customers' orders by this week before the long Raya break starts next week), I fixed toasted wholemeal Pita pocket bread sandwich for Cass. 

Inside the pocket of the Pita bread are herbs and black pepper scrambled eggs, crunchy meat floss from Taiwan and wedges of avocado.

Did Cass enjoy her very simple lunch? But of course and so did I!
To make up for the 'absence of a nutritious meal' for lunch, we had oven-grilled wild salmon fish and Saba fish and stir-fried leek flowers for dinner :)

Bahasa Malaysia Test Papers

Alycia got back her BM test papers for the third term exam yesterday.  When I asked her how she fared, she said "there's good and there's bad.  No matter what marks I get, you MUST sign on my test papers OK?"  I knew the bad must be really bad but oh well, what's done cannot be undone. There is no point crying over spilled milk or as the Malays say "nasi sudah jadi bubur" (rice has turned into porridge).

Well, she got 92/100 for her BM Pemahaman paper and it is the highest score in her class.  As for her BM Penulisan, the marks were  shocking to me as I did not expect her to get such low marks. According to her, the highest score for BM Penulisan in her class (which is the 2nd Elite class) is 65/100.  I was even more shocked to hear that!  Even more shocking was that the highest score in the 1st Elite class was a B (79 and below). For Karangan, many of her classmates got a below-10 mark over a 30-mark score. 

So, does that mean that 1) either the BM teachers have not been doing a good job  or 2) the Pemahaman paper was too hard?  3) Most of the students did not read enough of books in BM nor read sample Karangan topics.  Whatever it is, I have made Alycia promise me that she has to do remedial work now, i.e. by reading a Karangan (composition in BM) topic at least 3 times a week.  The only way she can improve on her Karangan is to READ the Karangan books on sample topics.  She has always hated reading the Karangan books and would throw tantrums each time she is asked to read it.  Now, her only choice to improve on her marks is to read her Karangan books.  And I shall start from today to get her to read a Karangan topic.

As for other test papers, Alycia has done pretty well with an A for all the subjects. This girl can excel in her studies with some pushing  from the Tiger Mum ;)

Finally...

It took the Management of the condo that I am staying in 4.5 years to do what they were supposed to do, finally.  4.5 years ago in November 2008, Cass and I met with a terrible accident that I thought would cause serious injuries to her and to myself.  If you were already a reader of my blog back then, you would have read that Cass and I had an awful stroller accident, just a few days after we had moved into the condo.

On that fateful morning, I had strapped up Cass in our Peg Perego stroller and I was ready to bring her for a walk outside.  As we were approaching a downward slope, I had to half jog down the slope.  There was a drain at the landing of the slope, which was covered by those drain covers with vertical bars.  As there were gaps between the bars, the wheels of the stroller got wedged inside the gap (size of gap same as that of the wheels) and before I could even stop in time, the stroller with baby Cass in it was thrown almost in the air and landed on the road. I tumbled and fell onto the hard and rough tar road too. I was injured on my hands, which had scars up until now. Though I was in numbing pain, all I could think of was to check how serious Cass was injured.  I quickly and shakily unstrapped Cass from the stroller, carried her and tried to soothe a wailing 7-MO baby.  Both of us were very traumatized. Thank God she only had a bloodied graze above her nose and some scratches on her forehead.  I had a deep gash near my elbow, knees and palm.  Up until today, I still have phobia of pushing a child in a stroller.  Since that incident, I stopped using the Peg Perego stroller (which was very costly and under utilized) and eventually gave it away.  Wherever I went, I carried Cass in my arms. This incident would forever be etched in my memory.

Weeks later, I spoke to the Management of the Condo to request that the drains be fully covered with drain covers without any bars and gap but they took my request lightly.  Finally a few days ago, I noticed that all the drains that have residents frequently passing over them covered with stainless steel covers with no bars or gap. I think there must have been similar accidents caused by those drain covers that propelled the Management to take action, finally, after 4.5 years.  That is typical Malaysian mentality. If not for loss of life and serious accidents, people just won't budge and implement preventive measures to prevent similar tragedies from happening again.

Do You Check The Eggs Before Paying Buying Them?

Yesterday morning at the mart, I saw a lady who was doing grocery shopping with her Pinoy maid. This lady was seen telling her maid this "check the eggs, I said check the eggs..." in a demanding tone (well, she was loud in nature from my observation), to which the maid (who seemed to be a new maid) was struggling to understand what her maam meant by checking the eggs.  So the poor maid took a box of eggs and struggled to open the plastic carton box. Moments later, the maam (in her late 60s) said "not like this check haiyoh! Like this check... check one by one!!" ... and then told the maid to take out the eggs one by one from the plastic carton to check if there was any crack or dirt on the eggs, GAWD!  When the old maam walked away to look for other things, the frustrated and super pissed off maid was rolling her eyes and grimacing her face in anger and mumbled to herself softly, as if to curse the fussy maam.  She was also telling other foreign workers at the mart how fussy her maam was.

I may be pretty fussy too but I have never opened up the carton of eggs to check the eggs one by one.  Firstly, I think this would embarrass myself and secondly, I have no time and am always in a rush to complete my shopping.  Unless I am buying eggs from the night market where eggs can be selected, I don't do a check on eggs in carton boxes bought from supermarkets and mini marts.  I know that this is a good practice as sometimes, there would be one or two cracked eggs inside the carton. I had in the past also seen some customers exchanging eggs slightly coated with chicken poop with clean ones.

I check kiwi fruits placed in punnets before buying them though and I exchange squashed or very soft ones with firmer and nicer ones ;)  Oh well, kiwi fruits ain't cheap. It costs between RM1.50 to RM3.50 each.

Do you check each and every egg sold in cartons before buying them?

Unsafe Country To Live In

Our country is slowly and surely earning itself a spot in the list of Most Unsafe Countries To Live In.  Lately, cases of murder, shooting, daylight robbery, kidnap, rape and the list goes have been getting very rampant. About two weeks ago, a well-known female gynecologist had had her thumb chopped off and her hand was almost severed by a mugger. The assailant must have had wanted to snatch her gold bracelet or sterling silver bracelet on her wrist. Her handbag with cash was also snatched away, in daylight robbery which almost turned fatal. Yesterday, a prominent founder of a bank was shot to death at point blank, also in broad daylight. Several months ago, my customer was slashed to death during an attempted robbery. Nothing was taken from her, only her precious life. It is getting very unsafe to walk out of our house these days and that is really sad.

Dinner Tonight (19 July 2013) - Bread Pizza and Grilled Portobello Mushrooms

My MIL has gone up North with my SIL from Hong Kong and will be away for a few days. So cooking has now been passed back to me. As usual, I will only whip up really easy meals that can be whipped up in a jiffy and with very minimal oil splatters and washing up to do.

For dinner tonight, I prepared bread pizza.



Ingredients used:
4 slices of homemade wholemeal bread
Tomato ketchup
Shredded roast chicken (breast meat)
Cherry tomatoes, halved
1 Avocado, cut into bite size wedges
Cheese

Method:
Spread tomato ketchup on the bread. Place the toppings on the bread and cheese on top. Baked in the oven for 15-20 minutes and voila, I have a crispy crust pizza that's really delish!  

I also bought a punnet of giant size BBQ Portobello mushrooms this morning.  After baking the bread pizza, I grilled the mushrooms.


Here's what I used as seasoning on the mushrooms:
Drizzle of olive oil
A tiny pinch of salt
Chopped spring onions
Cream cheese
Black pepper

The 2 mushrooms with cherry tomatoes were for Cass. The cherry tomatoes were used to identify the mushrooms for her as hers were without black pepper.

 

The girls enjoyed tonight's dinner very much.  The mushrooms very really juicy and flavorful and the bread pizza were so yummy that the girls asked for more.  Next time, I would have to make double recipe for both the bread pizza and grilled mushrooms *satisfied grin*

Future Laugh Therapy

Since yesterday, I have been noticing a piece of yellow scrolled up  paper on the floor. I was just walking over it each time I walked pass it and was too lazy and tired to bend down to pick it up.  Just now as I was sweeping the floor, I picked it up. I was on the verge of squashing it but decided to open it  up to see who the culprit was who left the paper lying there.

After reading the Father's Day 'card', I wanted to burst out laughing.  Check out the date at the bottom of the 'card'.  Cass must have asked her Alycia che che to help her write the words on the 'card'. After writing over the words with magic color pens, she wrote the date before scrolling up the card and inserting it into the decorated bottle that she and her sisters made at the Art Class the week before Father's Day last month.

So yup, it's for keep now. I have placed this piece of paper in a clear folder that I keep all the cards and notes that my girls made for me.  I'll bet my hubs and I will have a laugh therapy 15 years down the road flipping through and reading the cards and sorry notes from the girls. And that's when I will  miss their mischief.




And she also inadvertently wrote her name wrongly lol!

Temporary Part-time Maid

I have engaged a Pinoy lady who has agreed to work part-time for me until the end of July this year  She has been offered a job as full-time nanny and housekeeper (with very light house work to do) to one mat salleh and she is to start work in August 2013. She told me that the mat salleh is offering her RM1,800 a month!. You see, these days, Pinoy maids with work permit in our country are really smart.  They work part time at a few houses everyday and earn a few thousand Ringgit a month, which is more than what some fresh graduates are getting! 

This Pinoy maid, Laila started work yesterday. She came by taxi and returned with a taxi too!  The agreed time was from 6pm to 8pm, Monday to Friday with a pay of RM600.  But she was pretty slow (albeit quite detailed in her work) and by 8pm, she had not finished moping the floor, washing the toilets and washing the dishes. So I extended her time to 9pm and paid her RM70 for 3 hours.  There were a lot of dirty dishes, pots and woks to wash yesterday as the MIL cooked a tad more than on other regular days as we had some relatives over for dinner.  As she had no time to wash one of the bathrooms, I had to let her go at 9pm and I  washed the bathroom myself . She had no time to even iron our clothes too.  In short, I paid Laila RM70 to mop the floor, wash 1 bathroom and wash a pile of dirty dishes. 

Today, Laila will be bringing her friend for us to meet. If she likes the work, she will be Laila's replacement for us. Laila did tell me yesterday that she liked working for us and would like to work for us full time from 5-9pm with a pay of RM1k a month but she has to find a replacement for the mat salleh employer whom she has agreed to work for. I am hoping and praying that either Laila or her friend would agree to work for us part-time everyday (with Sundays off) with the agreed salary of RM1k a month. That would save us quite a bit on agency fee.  Wish me luck in my search for a good Pinoy maid :)

Reunion and Bonding

The girls' 2 little uncles (hubby's cousins) from London are here and they are having lots of fun time bonding with each other. The last time they met was 3 years ago. In 2 days, the girls' cousin from Hong Kong will arrive to join in the merriment. The Yaps will be having a mega reunion of sorts in KL, which is quite a rare occasion. Too bad Alycia will be sitting for her exam in a week's time and has to limit her time spent with the 2 boys.


After a day spent with her 2 little uncles, Cass is already starting to speak in British accent when she talks to the 2 boys lol!

My Chilly Morning And Some Great Grabs!

Finally, after a long, long wait, it poured this morning, at around 4ish am.  The winds were strong and it blew off the deck chairs at our condo into the swimming pool! It rained until 9ish am and this morning has been pretty chilly, with a temperature of 23 degrees Celsius. Finally, we can have a respite in the hot and hazy weather and hopefully it will stay this way for months to come :)



As it was raining and I could not run to the nearby mobile market, I drove to the nearby mart after dropping Cass in school to get some veggie. What I discovered was amazing. This mart is now having an 'early bird sale' on all their vegetables where each packet will be sold at only RM1 from 8:15am to 10am. From 10am onwards, it would be priced at RM2.50 a packet. I bought 4 packets today which brought me an amazing savings of RM6! Totally happy with my healthy loot this morning and there will be more of such early morning shopping for me from tomorrow onwards!  Mumsgather -- you can PM me for the name of this mart ;)

Daycare For Sherilyn, Perhaps

Sherilyn has been pestering me to send her to this daycare that her best friend, B attends since B was in Standard 1.  This daycare provides daily tuition as well. Most of the teachers from this daycare are from the school that Sher and B attend. B has been a top student in her class since Standard 1.

Sherilyn scored an A for all her subjects except for her Chinese language papers during the recent Mid Term Exam. She scored B for both the papers. Because of this, it has pulled her position to a really pathetic placement as the majority of her classmates scored an A for their Chinese papers. Every mark counts in the positioning system. A loss of 10 marks will pull your position down by 10 placements.

We have a tutor who comes in to teach the 3 girls Mandarin 3x a week. This teacher would focus on Alycia more as she has more exams to sit for (4 exams a year vs 2 exams for Sherilyn) and much more to study for.

Every lesson without fail, Ms M the tutor will be reprimanding Sherilyn as Sherilyn is the type who simply cannot sit still and does not have as much interest in academics as Alycia.

Sherilyn is one who will jump up from her chair the moment the house phone rings and the door bell rings. She will walk up and down to while away time, just so she does not have to sit at the table. Mandarin bores this girl to the core but her daddy is still adamant that she should be in a Chinese school as he has a very bad impression on SRK government schools.

Chinese schools are well known for their strict discipline and dedicated teachers. The school that Alycia and Sherilyn go to is a semi-government, semi-private school. We parents have to contribute towards the expenses of the school.

Thus, I strongly feel that if Ms M focuses more on Alycia and Cass while Sherilyn goes to the daycare to get tuition daily, it will benefit all my 3 girls, though this will mean that the hubs would have to fork out an additional RM530 per month on Sherilyn.

I am gamed to try out this arrangement for one month. Sherilyn is the type who will flourish when she is with her peers, in a fun environment. She is the sociable type who learns better if she can also talk, laugh and play. She is definitely not the type who will thrive in a strict classroom environment. I will bring Sherilyn to check out this daycare cum tuition centre today. Hopefully this arrangement will benefit and make everyone happier. I know Sherilyn will be happier as she gets to be with her BFF even after school and will have more friends to socialize with while learning.  She was beaming with joy when I told her yesterday that I may consider sending her to B's daycare centre.

Polishing Her Reading Skill

Cass was eating chicken rice for lunch today when she saw a  colorful Tesco flyer on the table. As usual, she opened it up and then read out to me the prices of all the things that interested her.  Seeing this as a good opportunity for me to teach her some new words, I pointed out to the words of the items that she was interested in.  I could go on and on reading to her the names of the products and the price as she is pretty hooked to this sort of flyers. I used to do the same with Alycia and Sherilyn too when they were Cass' age.  It is a good way to teach them new words and to repeat old words to refresh their memory.


I can also foresee that this rascal is going to be another shopping queen, just like her mummy :D

Pure Coincidental?

The other day, during one of the quiet me-time mornings that I have, I suddenly realized that 3 of my  suppliers have the same surname as mine. These 3 suppliers are by far my most trusted and reliable suppliers whom I have worked with for over 3 years.  The Chinese have this superstitious believe that the people who are close to you like your spouse, parents, siblings, business acquaintances, etc. are perhaps related to you in your past life.  Nah, I do not really believe in this sort of supernatural philosophy.  The Chinese old folks also strongly believe in reincarnation and all that jazz.  I used to believe in all these too, as a result of being influenced by my late grandmother and from watching those TVB serial movies that I used to go crazy over before the kids came along. But this school of though is not in the Christian's bible and I am a Christian.

Now, how do you explain such coincidental incidences in my life then, that my closest business acquaintances all share the same surname as me?

RM8,000 Fee To Hire Indonesian Maids!

Finally the official news is out today, albeit this has been the fee charged by maid agencies for the past one year. The RM8k fee is NOT INCLUSIVE of the maid's 6 months' salary in advance! To summarize it all, we employers have to cough out AT LEAST RM12,200 to hire an Indonesian maid and even more to hire a Filipina maid. I remember that I only needed to pay RM3,000 as non-refundable agency fee to the maid agent about 10 years ago to hire our first maid. Those were the good old days which are now a part of the Malaysian history. We can no longer hire maids freely and easily.

Actually I do not mind paying the RM12,200 once-off payment to hire a maid. I know that a live-in maid can bring some relief and help to me and would enable me to spend some quality time with my kids.  But what if the maid runs away after the 3 months guarantee period? Or if I am given a maid sent from h*ll?  There are many unscrupulous maid agencies around who would abet with the maid to run away after the 3-month guarantee period.

Since our money does not come by freely and easily, I'd rather take on the maid role myself and see how the maid situation turns out in the months to come. If you have been following the on-going maid issue, you will realize that the situation is fluid. Policies keep changing. And the agreements between Malaysia and Indonesia   keep ending in a deadlock. My option is still not entirely closed.  I may still consider hiring a maid when the right one comes along at the right time. You know, there are really such right timing gifts in life. I just have to wait for it to come.

Would you spend over RM12,500 to hire a live-in maid? I know some families have no choice but to bite the bullet and employ a maid to help take care of their kids or aged parents while they are at work.

Here is the news article extracted from The Star website today:

ANOTHER amount has been proposed for the contentious hiring fee for Indonesian maids, with the Government putting it at RM8,000. 
Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who chaired the Cabinet Committee on Foreign Workers and Illegal Immigrants, said that the new rate was decided after considering all costs from both Malaysia and Indonesia.

“The RM8,000 was decided after considering the cost of training for at least 200 hours, documentation, food and accommodation before transfer to the new employers, travelling cost, medical check-ups as well as payment to the respective government agencies of both countries,” he said at a meeting at Parliament House yesterday. 

It was reported under the Memo­randum of Understanding (MoU) between the Malaysian and Indone­sian governments in 2011, the cost to recruit Indonesian maids was set at a RM4,511 – where RM2,711 was paid by the employer and RM1,800 was paid by the domestic helper. 

Muhyiddin said the changes of the structural cost would be brought for further discussion by both governments. 

“The details will be explained by the Human Resources Ministry after the approval from both sides,” he said. 

He said the new revised rates was considered reasonable compared to the other countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong who were paying Indonesian domestic helpers at higher rates. 

Muhyiddin added that the salary of Indonesian maids will not be bound by the Minimum Wages Act 2012; and will instead be based on the current market prices and the employer. 

The Government, he said, will also fully suspend the Journey Perform Visa (JP Visa) in October this year. “Previously, the Immigration Dep­artment had allowed the issuance of JP Visa due to problems of supply of Indonesian maid based on a case by case basis, where only 290 were successfully recruited,” he said.

Floor Cleaning Gadgets For A Clean Freak Mommy

Of all the brooms that I have tried, I must say that I LOVE the roller type with sticky papers the BEST (picture below)!  I do not have to use dust pan, I do not need to turn off the fan when I sweep, I do not need to wash the broom and dust pan after the dirty job is done and I do not need to keep chasing flying hair and dust when I am sweeping the floor!  And it is darn therapeutic to see those hair and dust get stuck to the sticker... confessions of a health and clean freak mummy muahahahaha!!  

Most of all, after the dirty job is done, I can just peel off the sticker and dump it. My girls find it therapeutic too, to keep rolling the floor and seeing dirt stuck  to the sticky paper.

I have an array of brooms in my house so that the girls and I can do the moping together.  Aly and Sher will be sweeping and moping the room floor and I will be cleaning the living room. Cass will help to roll the floor with stickers haha!    I like the roller broom with sticker  (the one in front, on the right) and the Kao Magic Mop (in front, on the left) the most. The cheaper version of Magic Mop (the one behind the blue Swash mop) is only RM5 and I bought it from 100 Yen Shop. We do not like it as the stick always dislodges from the mop holder and it is very difficult to fix it back.  The Kao magic mop costs nearly RM40 each.

The MIL bought the roller broom and the refill sticky papers from Hong Kong.  I have seen similar ones selling at 100 Yen Shop and Daiso here but I am not sure on the quality and how effective the cheaper versions are.

The blue mop called 'Swash' is also pretty good. I mop the floor with it after sweeping the floor with the roller sticker broom. The cloth for the 'Swash' broom can then be put into the washing machine to wash after use. The Swash broom is also over RM35 each.

I am not a vacuum cleaner person for I do not like lugging, pulling and pushing it around during use and absolutely hate cleaning the bag and machine after use. So I have resorted to these gadgets with disposable papers and washable cloth so that my dirty job gets done in a faster and breezier way and my sensitive hands are free from wringing and washing ;)




Everyone just loves to stroll and roll with this rolling sweeper! :)

Yoga Mats

The other day, while looking for my new shoes in the store room, I fished out 3 rolls of thick yoga mats that I bought 5 years ago. I bought them for our little Baby C who was just learning to crawl and creep. We used to place the bright pink yoga mats on the floor and she would squeal in delight creeping and crawling on them, to reach out to her toys and her 2 older sisters who would play with her. I miss playing with Cass when she was a baby (she was simply adorable and not yet a rascal lol!) but I do not miss those traumatic and painful days that she had to go through during the first 14 months of her life.

Lunch On A Hazy Wednesday - 26 June 2013

This is what we are having for lunch today on a gloomy and hazy Wednesday, which is making me feel really lazy.

Sweet potato porridge (with leftover pan fried salmon from last night) and 'tau kok lup'.  'Tau Kok Lup' is a stir fried dish composed of long beans, diced carrot, diced preserved veggie (choy po), diced prawns, diced chicken meat or pork and crunchy peanuts. It is normally eaten with plain porridge.

What are you having for lunch to beat the haze blues?

Europe Tour

I always wonder when I can ever leave the kids behind and go on a tour without them. I am still alright with leaving the 2 older girls with the MIL or a relative as they are old enough to care for themselves but am still half-hearted leaving Cass with someone. For those of you have been reading my blog regularly, you will know that she still has a minor unresolved medical issue which requires a lot of care from the one who will be looking after her if I am away. I have thought of bringing Cass along with me to the tour but…. sigh! Too many ‘what ifs’. I have to overcome my list of ‘what ifs’ first. Recently, my brother, SIL and their 1.5YO daughter went on a tour to Europe. It is nice to see pictures of their luxury paris vacation rentals and beautiful sceneries in Europe. I just have a feeling that I can only tour the world upon my retirement :(

Avocado bread spread

The other day, I cut up a half ripe avocado. I wanted to spread it on my bread but it was pretty hard and a tad tart in taste. So I whipped out my Shimono food processor, cut up the avocado, add in 1 tablespoon of milk, 1 tablespoon of maple syrup and pulsed the concoction for a few seconds and voila.... I had a very yummy avocado bread spread to go with my low GI bread!

Worsening Haze -- Schools Ordered Closed

This was how the KL skies looked like yesterday, Saturday, 23 June 2013 at 7ish am, taken from the 5th floor of our condo.  It was by far the worst in the past one week. A jog to the nearby stalls to buy breakfast for my family resulted in itchy nose and a very uncomfortable feeling in my chest.

After breakfast, we headed to The Gardens Mall to seek 'refuge' from the terrible haze.

At 5pm yesterday, my friends were sending me Whatsapp messages, informing me that the Government has directed that all schools in the Klang Valley be closed until further notice.
 



Here is an excerpt of the news taken from The Star website:

PETALING JAYA: The Muar and Ledang districts in Johor are now under a “haze emergency” after the Air Pollutant Index (API) readings surged over 700 in these areas. Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the emergency status would remain until further notice. “However, it must be clarified that this does not involve a curfew and there will not be any change to the existing system of the ruling state and federal governments. 

“All related ministries and agencies at the federal, state and district levels must plan and take action to ensure the safety and health of the public,” the Prime Minister said yesterday. 

He urged the people to abide by the emergency guidelines issued by the National Security Council (NSC). Under the guidelines, aimed at ensuring public safety and health, federal, state and district level natural disaster, management committees must advise the closure of schools and childcare centres, government and private sector offices and other work premises, including factories, plantations, construction sites, quarries and earthwork sites. However, services related to water, electricity, public health, safety, radio and telecommunication, transport and finances are exempt. 


The windows at our house are now 90% shut and I guess that we will have no choice but to turn on the air conditioner in the living room too during the day under such emergency situations. Well, if the hubs has given the green light for the air conditioner to be turned on during the day, I'll gladly abide so that our sweaty, hot and smoggy days will not fare that bad after all :)

Crazy, Hazy, Sizzling Weather!

Today is yet another crazy, hazy and sizzling hot day here in KL. At about 4ish am, I woke up upon smelling smoke in my room. I knew it wasn't a fire in our house but was the hazy air outside.

It has been very hazy for the past few days and many parts of our country have recorded unhealthy air levels.
As of typing this post, I had just finished hanging out a load of laundry and I think I got half grilled by the scorching sun rays. Though I had just taken my shower an hour ago, I had to take another quick shower as it is just impossible to sit comfortably at my work area with a sticky and sweaty body.

Yesterday, I showered 4 times and I think today will be 5 times!



Temperature at 10am was a freaking 35 degrees Celsius!  Note the hazy skies and the blurred vision of the KL Tower.

I am certain the temperature will climb up to 37 degrees in the afternoon. Gawd, I am so tempted to shut all our windows and enjoy the air conditioner in the living room but the thought of seeing a RM500+ figure on our Tenaga bill puts off my desire.  With 2 air conditioners turned on throughout the night plus usage of the usual electrical items, our monthly electricity bill is an average of RM400! Crazy!!

A Wacky Girl's Seaweed Craze

Sherilyn's love for seaweed has now gone a few steps deeper. She now requests for seaweed sandwiches in her school lunch box at least thrice a week.  The other day, she added seaweed into her hard boiled egg, which she had with her sandwich for dinner, as shown in the below picture.

Sher used to love eating hard boiled egg but I guess too much of something ain't too good as she now frets whenever there is hard boiled eggs.  I forced her to eat her 'brain power food' (this is what I tell my girls eggs are) anyway and she  obediently ate it, but with some seaweed and a dash of pepper in her eggs.  And guess what she did to her sandwich?  She concocted a cream crackers cheese sandwich by  adding 2 slices of cream crackers on the bread, then topped it with a slice of President sandwich cheese!  This girl is always up with wacky ideas to satiate her wacky tastebuds!

 

That's what she had for dinner, after a very heavy lunch at a hotel earlier.