Lights for the house

Since last week Clet has been wanting to bring me to an electrical shop in Inanam where there are some nice ceiling lights for sale on discounts. We went there last night just half and hour before the shop closes.

We spent our half an hour there looking up at the ceiling for those lights and chandeliers. Honestly getting a nice and suitable lights for the house is not easy especially with tight budget to work with.

Personally I pretty much prefer to have a chandelier at the entrance / foyer of our house, it makes the house looks grand some how, but the price is not cheap too. I am thinking of getting something resembling of a chandelier but with much cheaper price (lower grade chandelier so to speak).

I quite like this one

and this one

This lemon light caught the eyes on my girls

this is not bad too but insects tend to land on the centre piece (the middle bowl)

My girls wanted me to take photo of this light because of the hanging stars and the moons

This is also one of our choice. Gold trimming, I need a lot of gold...:D But the price is too high for this type of ceiling light.

It must have been the shape of the butterfly fairy wings that made Pearl took photo of this light.

We did not buy any of the lights yet, still searching for the ones that really to our liking and with most reasonable price.

Cake for Mother's Day

It's the time of the year to celebrate Mother's Day. Mother's day falls on the 1st Sunday of May each year, that is 8th May in 2011, if anyone still wondering when is the exact date!!

Bakeries in town are putting up posters and giving out leaflets to promote their respective Mother's Day Cakes Specials. They are all looks super delicious and mouth watering. But I still prefer home baked cake. On this mothering sunday, I will not able to bake a cake for my mum, as we will be busy moving house, everything are in a mess, I am sure she won't mind without a cake, she is not a cake lover, a dinner treat for her is definitely a must.

Goldfish color biscuits review

My girls grabbed a packet of this Goldfish colors cheddar cheese biscuit from the biscuit section in the supermarket on Easter Sunday. They want this as their biscuit treats, at a glance on the price I was about to say NO. It is pretty expensive to me but It's Easter, we should be celebrating, and I like the packaging, it should taste good too, so I said YES, we can have it.

The packaging is very colourful and nice, any kids will be attracted to it just by looking at the packaging, the taste is secondary. I attracted to it too.

We are very eager to open up the pack to have a taste of this cheddar cheesy biscuit. The biscuits look like this. Colourful fish shape just like what have mentioned on the packaging. After a few bites, 3 of us stop eating. The taste is not to our preference, no taste of cheese and the biscuit is neither sweet nor savoury.

What am I going to do with this packet of biscuits, definitely we wouldn't be able to finish it up and don't want to throw away just like that. I am sure someone would love it. I suggest my girls to bring to their school and share with their friends. Crystal welcome the idea but Pearl said no thanks.

Crystal brought a small container of the biscuit to school. It seems that they did not like the biscuits too because she brought back the remaining. Ended up we still have got 80% of the biscuits. Me, being the "rubbish bin" of the house will have to finish it over time because I do not like the idea of wasting food. Dipping the GoldFish Colorful biscuits in the coffee would be a good idea I suppose!! Just like eating cereals in a bowl of milk. Hope my idea works!

The moral of the story is don't be deceived by the packaging of the product.

No postage service to Israel

Do you know that there is no postage service to Israel by Pos malaysia? Recently I posted a packet via Pos Malaysia registered airmail to a buyer in Israel whom bought an item from my online shop. I have checked and noticed that she has previously did some purchases from other sellers in Malaysia, I thought it should be alright to accept her payments and proceed to send the product to her.

Last week I found a Pos Malaysia's notice in my mail box requesting me to see the officer regarding a post that I sent to Israel 2 weeks ago which I thought it has arrived to the receiver.

I went to see the officer yesterday, I waited about 45 minutes in her office situated in the main post office mails sorting room, I never knew the sorting room is such a big place with many sorting clerks standing there sorting out baskets and baskets of our mails each day. I was thinking of taking photos but dropped the ideas in case of infringement of privacy whatsoever.

The officer was not late, her working hour starts from 9am, I thought all government servants start work at 8am, I was too early. She explained to me that my post has in fact arrived at KLIA and it was returned due to no service to Israel, advise me to claim it back and sent by other service provider which is much more expensive. I told her that why at the first place the pos office clerk accepted my post when I sent it through the counter? Well, human do make mistakes.

I will have to go back there to see the officer again to claim my packet of mail as I did not bring my prove of postage when I see her yesterday, it was left in the office. The postage that I paid for is claimable, I can imagine it's going to be a long process for me claim back postage and I also have to refund my buyer her money :(

Cheap Cheap Home & Living magazines

If you do not mind owning some backdated issues of magazines, go to 2nd hand shops. There you could find cheap cheap magazines priced as low as RM1.00 per copy. These magazines are still in very good conditions.

To get some ideas of home improvement for our new home, Clet bought more than 10 copies of these magazines from one of the 2nd hand shop here. I used to buy home & living magazines many years back, some of them are more than RM10.00 a copy. Though we wouldn't be able to follow any of the designs for our house at the moment but I enjoy reading them and have gather some ideas on how we want our home design to be like in the future renovation, particularly the design and layout of the kitchen!

On Easter Sunday 2011

Besides going to Church in the morning, had breakfast at one of the usual shop and did some food shopping along our way before dropping by at Wong's home for a visit. We stayed at home for the whole afternoon. Crystal and Pearl had part of their task done, that is to segregate and pack their toys ready for moving to our new home. They did that almost the whole afternoon, like any other sisters there are voices of complaints and arguments on whom not helping. I just have to tell them that those toys are belongs to two of them so both of them have to discuss on what to bring and what to give away. Besides some disagreements I noticed that they do enjoyed the whole tasks because they have found some long lost toys and started to play with them again, that's why it took them such a long hours to get the job done.

Probably they find their Barbie dolls a bit messy, it gave them the idea of bathing them. I just allowed them to, it is a part of cleaning up I suppose. After some snacks, they happily bathing their Barbie dolls and washing their hair :d

With Clet being outstation today, We had a simple dinner at home.

HAPPY EASTER 2011

WISHING ALL MY FAMILIES AND FRIENDS A HAPPY & JOYOUS EASTER 2011 !!

Cooking Macaroni, the easiest way

My two little ones are macaroni cheese lovers. They simply love the one at Kenny Roger's, unfortunately me the mummy does not how to cook something near to that. Instead, I have found the easiest, fastest and needless to say, the laziest way of preparing macaroni by using the simplest recipe. Just boil a packet of Campbell's mushroom soup to mix with the cooked macaroni and serve. All done in just 10-15 minutes depending which brand of macaroni I cook.

Too lazy to think of what's for breakfast for my girls yesterday morning, I just prepared this for them so that I could do the house chaos and continue with my part time book keeping job. I know they won't mind having this as an alternative to their favourite KG macaroni cheese.

As for me, I had a half day fast by having bananas and juices as breakfast on this Holy Saturday.

Apple and carrot juices for the little ones

I added some raw papaya to my juice

and also a packet of Super Green Food for extra nutrition, the juice look greener with the Super Green Food powder.

Update on House Repair

After a week or so, with an increase number of 1 worker to 3 last week, they have helped to speed up the work a little. They managed to remove the bath tub from the master bed room and the shower tray from the common bath room, glad that we decided to remove them because there are leakages and water have been retained underneath, the downstairs ceiling are falling off due to the water sipping in over the years. To avoid same problem happen in the future, layers and layers of water proofing have been applied on the bathrooms floor before tiling can be done, normally takes up several day for it to dry up totally, some delay now to avoid future headache.

Floor tiles have been laid for the room downstairs, the tiles appeared to be a bit beige instead of cream, but it's ok. The dinner and living room fallen ceiling have been touched up, under coating has also been applied to the walls, just need to be repainted.

Our nephew introduced a good carpenter who will be helping to repair the built in wardrobe and kitchen cabinets which initially we thought of getting rid of them, actually the wood are in good condition, just need a good carpenter to reform them.

Inspected the house today, there are still a long way to fully get the whole house repaired. We will have to leave the kitchen, front and back yard for later. These areas can be done even when we have moved in.

Helping out with house work

My girls are willing to help out with the laundry whenever I ask them to, though with lots of "intervals" before finishing their tasks, they always fold the laundry and put them away nicely in the respectively drawers.

I have to come around to check on the progress every now and then, I always find them reading books, checking on their computer game or playing with their toys, that's what I call the "intervals", I will have to get them back to finish up with their job again.

With additional part time assignment on hand, I really need their helps on some of the house chaos, as they are still small there are nothing much I can assign to them apart from training them to tidy up the house, keeping their closet neat, sweeping the floor occasionally and some other light tasks. We do anticipate more house chaos after we move into our double storey home next month. Their little helping hands would definitely help me a lot.

Dad's 74th Birthday

It's a sleepy Monday for me, can't wait to head home for a nice nap but again that's quite impossible when I am working for a boss.

Our weekends have been busy and have not been able to have some rest.

We celebrated my father's 74th birthday on Saturday. I felt pretty exhausted that I didn't feel like baking a cake so I called up my colleague to order a cake thought I could get a good discount from them as a staff of the holding company, but the price quoted to me is too expensive even after discount. Finally I decided to bake a simple butter cake for my father, luckily I have all the ingredients that I need except 2 bars of butter which is easily obtainable with just a phone call away (Clet was just at the nearby shop). I managed to get the cake baked just slightly over midnight on Friday.

Ensond & Anneliese rushing to blow the candles

After more than a year break from taking any competitions outside the school since she started primary education, Crystal went for a fun and easy "Spot The Difference" contest on Sunday, that's yesterday. I do not mind letting her join in the competition as there is no preparation needed prior to the contest. She was ever so relax that she did not even bring any stationery (not even a pencil). The contest was held at Central Shopping Plaza. At the site, the parents were the ones busier than the kids, carrying their kids' tables, chairs, bags and kept reminding their kids what to do and what not before the contest. Needless to say much, I am also one of this kind of parent, rushing to find a pencil and eraser for Crystal in the shopping complex.

Contest in progress

The contest suppose to take 1 hour to finish but Crystal only took like 15 minutes to spot all the differences. She came all the way from the 3rd floor to Ground Floor supermarket to look for me where I suppose to spend the 1 hour to do some shopping. Giving me a shock!

The winners

She won herself a trophy from this contest, requested me to drive her home at a lightning speed to show her daddy and Pearl.

Part time work from home job

Just to extend what I am already doing in my current job, I am taking up part time book-keeping and accounting job to do at home. This part time tasks was passed over to me from my auditor friend when I indicated to her that I too would like to do some freelance accounting jobs.

Last week I went to my client's office and loaded up my car boot with over 10 files. I have got a dateline to meet, that is to complete and finalise the accounts by the middle of May in order for them to submit the taxes by June 2011. Very tight schedule for me to complete the whole year's accounts in just a month time, at the same time I will have to start packing get ready to move to our new home. I can feel the pressure now! Since I have agreed to take up the tasks, I can not let my client down!! Notice has also been given to our landlord that we are moving out by the middle of May, so there are going to be a major packing works to be done, all at the same time!!

Here comes the extra work, extra income and inevitable extra pressure and lesser free time, all in a package!

Purple Chilli

While busy washing the dirty dishes in the kitchen, Clet told me that he brought back a pot of purple colour chili plant from her sister, Monica. What Purple Chili? With curiosity I checked it out the next day morning. I found a tiny chili plant with purple and red chillies, this is the first time I saw purple chillies as far as my memories can bring me.

I took some photos and showed them to my colleague who likes to plant chili, I know she will love to have some purple chili seeds to add on to her home farming at her backyard. She is using fertiliser from worms' compose. I would like to see how this chili will turn out to be with her worm's compose.

If you don't like to eat chili, this chili plant can also be a good house plant, it is very unique to me.

Update on House Repair

Here are some updates on our house repair. Though we are trying to minimize the repair work, it seems that changing of roofing, piping, wiring and tilings are inevitable at some parts of this a couple of decades old house.

repairing work in progress at the living and dining areas.

parts of the roofing in the master bedroom has been taken off, notice that a water tank is sitting on that 3 pieces of wood, it looks scary to me (whose knows it will fall down one day :(, so we are removing the water tank away from the ceiling and will be replacing one at the back of the house.

chunk and pieces of broken wood taken off from the ceiling and kitchen cabinets

We have set a time line to get the works done by the 1st week of May in order for us to start moving in.

House repair

The tenant of our house that we bought last October has surrendered the keys back to us on the last day of March 2011. When we bought the house, there was a ready tenant, we let them continue to stay there until a couple of months back he was unable to pay for his rental on time so he decided to move out for good.

Last Saturday, I brought my girls to view the inside of the house for the first time (I have never been inside the house when we bought it) when Clet was clearing and cleaning up the mess there. A lot of cleaning up and touching up for this 20 over years old house. We decided to touch it up a little in an inexpensive way just to allow us to move in as soon as possible before another month is up to pay for our rented house.

We do not intend to do any renovation work at the moment, there is no budget for it. Clet will do the touching up of the house with the help of one or two workers . the work started yesterday. According to him, a lot has been done to remove the broken cement ceilings yesterday and today another worker came in to cut the long wild grass at both the front and back yards.

Clet is working his mind out to get the house in shape for us to move in. Will update on the progress again in my coming posts and I have a lot of catching up to do with my blogger friends as I have not been blogging and visiting their blogs for a while now.