1st day of school holiday

On the first day of school holiday I have to bring Pearl along to my office. Crystal has gone for tuition and Clet was busy finalizing his work to meet the date line by noon.

She only ate the sausages leaving the mee right to the bin

I brought her colour pencils and work books for her to do in my office. She had her breakfast on my desk and after that I get her to do her work books, not long after that she started to nag me to bring her out from the office, wanna go home. I have to find other stuff to keep her occupied for the rest of the morning, my colleague gave her little bouncing balls to play with, getting her to pass documents to my other colleagues, I let he play with my coins which she made so much noise playing with them. Finally I have to take the afternoon off as Clet still has got many other things to settle in order for him to be able to babysit our girls for the rest of the week.

It was an experience having Pearl around in my office but she kept me busy with her that I got little done for the morning. Need to take another day leave so that Clet can have time to do his work. That's our school holiday, taking turns to spend time with our girls :D

wholemeal bread by bread maker

It is not that I like to eat wholemeal bread, but due to the fact that it is healthier than white bread, obviously it is a better choice when comes to eating bread *.*

I made a small loaf of wholemeal bread with my brand new bread maker yesterday just nice for Clet to have it as his dinner cum supper when he came home late from work last night. Our girls still do not like to eat wholemeal bread, they prefer the soft white bread, we like it too...but I am yet to find a nice white bread recipe...

The recipe for this wholemeal bread was taken from the internet and I used half of the actual ingredients to make a smaller loaf. The yeast is a bit strong, 2 teaspoons of instant yeast for 250gm of wholemeal bread flour, seriously I do not like the smell of the yeast when I eat the bread. Do you have any good bread recipe to share with me?

a loaf of wholemeal bread just out from the bread maker

the texture is heavier than the one from the bakery

A New Bread Maker

I have been telling Clet that I am buying a new bread maker after I have finished paying the Juicer which I bought 7 months ago. He looked at me kind of asking me do you really need it? Hmmm..yes..since there is an easy payment scheme available. Another kitchen helper why not??

I took back this new bread maker last week (no payment made but deduct gaji for the next 3 months *~*). I have tried to bake a whole meal bread which was easy just follow the recipe. Last Saturday, I attempted to make a cake (followed the recipe that came with the bread maker), the end product was a disaster, Clet said dropping into the dustbin with a strange sound too...that's how bad it was...Pearl trying to help (playing more like it) me to sieve the flour for the cake.

Off they go to eat their Maggi mee...leaving flour every way, got to clean up a bit before continuing with the cake making, hmm...

This Bread Maker has a feature which allows us to put all the ingredient in and set the timer to when we need to start baking the bread. It would be a good idea to have a freshly bake bread awaits us early in the morning or whenever we want it to be. (But I have yet to find out the function, will do that this weekend :D busy bah!!).

Tuesday Toot on Chinese New Year Cake

It's been quite a while since the last post that I wrote on Tuesday Toot.

Though Chinese New Year is over but I just wanna post a Toot for myself for a Chinese New Year cake that I made on the 13th day of Chinese New Year.


I made this cake especially for a pot luck gathering with my ex-colleagues (Innosabah). I did not make any fortune by trying my luck in the stock market then (in fact I lose money) but I have gained friendships from the company that I spent almost 10 of my youthful years. Most of us no longer working there, we have parted to our own avenues separately, only got to contact each other through face book and msn, I am glad Vivien made an afford to invite us to her house for this pot luck gathering where we got to catch up with each other, eat and drink no stop for the whole afternoon, of course with some gossips..:D;

One of our friend, Jenny, couldn't join us instead she made a long distance call (using skype) from England just to "join in" the fun...*v*

Hope I could house the gathering at my house next time..:D

Direct TV offers!

My youngest daughter will turn on the television first thing in the morning whenever she can. She will pick through her VCDs folders to look for her favorite VCDs that she wants to watch for the day. She watches her favorite VCDs again and again, and worst still she refuses to let us change her program and telling us that there isn't any nice programmes to choose from the television channesl, can't blame her, she is right.

For that reason, I search through the web for a suitable and affordable TV programme provider and surprise to find DIRECT TV. DIRECTTV is very new to me. It offer 50% off for one year subscription and there are over 285 + channels to choose from, free professional installation, no need to buy any equipment and local channels are included, as well signal reception is very reliable. There are also choices to upgrade to high definition features too.

Honestly, there is no other television programme packages that I know of offers such a comprehensive packages that cater for all in the family. Just check on DIRECTV for more information!

Time to resign?

It is always the time of the year where staff are having the resigning spree after the Chinese New Year shopping spree :D.

The turnover of staff seems to be high after the Chinese New Year season because most of them are waiting for their bonus payout before resigning from their jobs. Most of us were very hopeful that the companies that we work for will distribute bonuses, one of them is me. However with much disappointment that I did not get any bonus but instead receiving a small sum of Angpow as appreciation. Well, it's still better than none, right?

Due to heavy workloads and others reasons, 2 of my colleagues resigned at the same time on the 1st of March, leaving me alone in the department soon. 1 of them has found another job while the other couldn't stand the work pressure anymore, hence decided to resign.

Hopefully our new colleagues will be able to start work as soon as possible to take over the workloads. If not me too will hand in the brown envelope to my boss as well!

Crystal's & Zachary's Birthday

Crystal and Zachary celebrate their birthday together on the 15th of February every year. We have been celebrating their birthdays at the pool side of Zach's condo for the past 2 years. This year, we changed the venue to our home to celebrate Chinese New Year and birthdays together, double merrier. It was a delightful occasion with home cooked food, my side of the families were able to join in the celebration. My mum and my sister helped us out in most of the cooking, thanks for their helps.

I baked a cake for Crystal. She loved the cake same goes to Pearl. The only request she asked for her birthday cake is it has to be pink with strawberry flavour one. Besides making the sponge cake pink, layered with strawberry jam, dressed with pink fresh cream, Clet thought would be a good idea to put some cut strawberries on top of the cake too.

a photo with their favourite uncle Sonny, or Grandpa to Zach

On the eve of Chinese New Year 2010

I woke up before 5am on the very day of the Chinese New Year's eve; went over to my brother's house to wake my mum up. She was shocked and asked me what's going on. :D I smiled and asked her whether she wants to experience early hour shopping at Lido market with me. She said yes without second thoughts. It was her first time been to Lido market early in the morning, and she was very excited to see so many people there.

We bought all the food stuff that we need for the eve's dinner. My mum did all the cooking for us. There were only my brother's family and my family joined my parents for the dinner while the rest of my siblings have gone back to their in laws.

getting ready for dinner

Mum & dad

Water needed in 2010 tiger year

After reading some feng shui articles, Clet told me that Water is very much lacking in year 2010. To balance the lack of water, Clet took the advise from the feng shui gurus by installing an aquarium in our living room just before Chinese New Year.

Filling up the water into the aquarium

There are four fishes in there. Crystal gave name to each of them. I can only remember one of the name, i.e. Splashy, ..

Pearl is the one who always feed the fishes every day.

Baby Dylan's full Moon Celebration

Baby Dylan's full moon is actually on the 4th of February but Bro Alfred and family decided to celebrate the occasion earlier on 30th January, a Saturday, made easier for everyone.

Besides having food catered from outside, mum cooked her confinement specialities dishes, that is rice wine chicken and sweet & sour pork legs with Chinese vinegar and hard boiled eggs. I was too busy eating that I forgot to take the photos of them.

I was not feeling too good that day but I have promised myself to bake some cakes for the occasion which I finally did..but the result were not as good.

Baby Dylan is soundly asleep at the beginning of his celebration

Proud mummy & Baby Dylan

Jasper, our eldest nephew and the youngest Baby Dylan

Mum & Dad with my uncle (in yellow, he is as young as me, same age I mean) and friends

my sister & brother entertaining our uncle and aunties

These are the cakes I made for the night, with the help from Pearl to sprinkle the chocolate chips on the cup cakes.

I am sick

I tend to get sick around this time of the year. Probably due to the "small fire" in my Ba Chi chart, the "small fire" prone to be weaken by the cold winter weather, that's what I read from the fung shui books, believe it or not...I am not so sure about this theory.

Lack of sleep is definitely one of the contributory factors in lowering my immune system thus cause my sensitive respiratory system being attacked. I was and still coughing non stop for the last two days; finally I sought doctor's help yesterday and got myself a day sock leave to have a rest at home.

I felt slightly better after the medication but still a long way to total recovery. Hope to get well before Chinese New year.

Healthy drinks from Green Max

In the office, we are so use to having our breakfast, tea breaks and lunch on our office desks, we always get ready some beverage mix sachets in the office. This is the one recommended by one of colleague recently, healthy drink from Green Max, product from Taiwan. There are many varieties you can choose from the supermarkets and you could also find them in the Chinese medical hall.

I bought 2 different flavours, Purple & Yam black Soybean Powder and the Oat and Job's tear cereal, from Lintas Supermarket at RM18.90 each, there are 15 individual packets in each. I have tried both drinks, I must say health drinks are normally not as delicious. I am yet to try the savoury ones.

Bigen hair colour conditioner for grey hair

Chinese New Year is fast approaching; and my hair is greying. I believe it is genetically inherited from my mum and my grandma. I still can remember the look of my grandma was like an orang putih, because her hair was all grey, never thought that I have inherited the grey hair gene from her.

To reverse the appearance of my greying hair, I try Bigen brand hair colour conditioner, instead of black, I chose the natural brown colour to have a more natural look. I can not stand the long hours in the saloon (I haven't got the time anyway) so I DIY at the comfort of my home with the help of my hubby. Thank you dear.

After 1 hour all my grey hair is gone, I mean is all covered by the hair dye. It is very easy to handle, just squeeze the gel on the brush and start brushing to cover the grey hair area, wait for 10-15 minutes and wash. No mixture kind of messy stuff to do.

Mary Kay Lipstick

The last time I bought a lipstick was more than 3 years ago. Unbelievable. But it's true.

Ever since I resigned from my previous job 3 years ago, I hardly used any lipstick, one can only find me with lipstick when I attend weddings and official functions.

After I started working 1.5 years ago, times and times again I reminded myself to get a new lipstick but there is no urgency for me to buy any mainly because at my current work place, almost all of us in the office wearing nothing on the face to work, that is no make up at all. I conveniently follow suite.

Only recently I bought myself a new lipstick from Mary Kay with a 30% discount. Knowing that the ones that I had already expired, it's high time for me to get myself a new lipstick. The 30% discount can only be obtained from online ordering for more than certain points in a single order. So few of us in the office combined our orders in order to meet the 30% discount requirement. This lipstick cost less than RM40.00 as a result.

This is my new Mary Kay's Melon Rose lipstick. I am also looking at a AnneMarie Borlind lipstick to be added to my make up essentials soon.

Live Internet Marketing Preview

I purposely took a half day leave just to attend a so called "Live Internet Marketing Preview" conducted by a local so called Internet Marketing guru from Peninsular Malaysia for Free from 2 - 5 pm this afternoon at an average hotel in the city.

I thought I could learn something out of it after the presentation but much to my dismay, I didn't. The whole 3 hours presentation was like bringing us around the bushes (that's how I felt), the Live presentation was merely showing us the use of Google Key Word Tool for less than 3 minutes. There was no other information given to us on how to go about starting an Internet Marketing Business.

After 3 hours of going round the bushes, he finally revealed what he has to offer, that is a 3 days course of RM4000.00++. He repeatedly mentioned that he doesn't give a damn whether anyone would sign up for the programme or not during the presentation. Do you believe this kind of statement??

He made a discount offer for early birds, that also amount to about RM3000.00. The tactics that he used was kind of pushy, expecting the attendees to sign up immediately by asking us to go in front to make the commitment right away, I just have to tell straight to him that I do not have that kind of money to pay for it, I can tell right away that he changed his interest on the attendees who are not ready to sign up.

Surprisingly quite a number of attendees grabbed the offer and signed up right away. It could be useful by attending the 3 days course, however, so much so that I want to earn on line but I do not think I am ready to spare that amount of money at this moment in time. Time is bad.

Here I would like to call on any kind hearted bloggers out there, if you happen to visit my blog please share some guides on Internet Marketing with me, I really appreciate it.