My birthday 2014

Another year older..just a short post to acknowledge my birthday this year 2014 before we welcome the year 2015.

A birthday cake specially made for me by my sister in law, Catherine.  She notified me via facebook message, at a glance, I thought she bought a cake for me from the bakery shop.

After dinner, we went to Bro's house to have the cake cutting ceremony.  Kids are particularly excited with the candles lighted on the cake.

Nona Moist Luxury Double Chocolate Flavoured Cake

Looks like I can resume my baking activities after more than 3 years of putting my cake baking stuff into the store..I have to dig them out to make a bread yesterday (which turned out to be slightly  softer than a rock).

Tonite, to respond to my daughter's  persistent requests, we made chocolate  cakes together.  I bought a box of Nona cake mix for convenient sake.  I let her read the instructions  and get ready the ingredients needed.  I only came in to do the tedious part and the best thing is she promised to do the washing which she did. 

I followed exactly 55 minutes of baking.  The cake was partly  burned on the top and bottom.  After cutting off all the burnt parts, only leaving the middle part of the cake for them to enjoy.  

Home Cooking - Stuffed Taufu Pok

Stuffed Taufu Pok was my weekend dish yesterday afternoon.  Weekends are the only time to relax and let laziness take over..

I don't  usually cook lunch on weekends but when Pearl told me that she was  hungry  at 2.30 pm, I have to dig the fridge. I was glad that I have bought  some seasoned minced pork and taufu poks.  With the help of my 2 girls to do the stuffing, cooking is faster and easier.  And they got the chance to learn how to prepare their favourite dish also.

Stuffed taufu poks and plain rice was our lunch.  A lazy mum idea. :)

GST Seminars

The whole country is preparing for GST which is due to be implemented on 1st April 2015. 
As an accounts staff, it's  inevitable for me to know what's GST is all about.  After attended 2 separate briefings on  GST, I am still on a blur blur state.

The 2 brefings I attended were organised by UBS Sage and  Telekom in collaboration with  Kastam.  I have captured some slides just to recap.

Hello Kitty 40th Anniversary

I like Hello Kitty but not a big fan of this cute mouthless kitty.  Unlike my SIL, she is really a big fan of Hello Kitty.  She whatsapp me a picture full of Hello Kitty products and asked me to help her purchase the one the she has circled in pink from Guardian near my shop.

After reading Shirley Tay's blog then I realised it is the 40th anniversary for Hello Kitty.  I guess these products are produced mainly for this celebration.  Surely become the hot products from Hello Kitty fans.

This body care set consists of body wash, body mist and body lotion, selling at RM25.90 per set.

Iron on patches - Disney's Frozen

I bought a piece of the Iron On Patch of Disney's Princess image from the local shop many weeks ago but the patch did not stick on the T-shirt, I gave up before my T-shirt got burnt under the hot iron.

I have seen so many Iron On Patches on youtube, it should work.  I would like to try it again.  After many weeks of waiting, I received my purchase of Iron On Patches through the post yesterday.  There are 4 Disney's Frozen images.

It did not fail me this time, the image was easily transferred within a couple of minutes under the hot iron.  Here is what I got with a Frozen image on my T-shirt. It is ready to wear. Just hope that the image will not fall off after wash.

 

I used the same T-shirt that I used for my first attempt weeks ago.  You could noticed that there are still some glue stain on the top left from the unsuccessful patch transfer.

 

These are the four Frozen Iron On Patches that I bought.  It costs me about RM4.50 per piece.   

 

Here is the instructions on how to do the transfer.  Very easy.     

At the time of electricity blackout

The electricity supply suddenly went off just after I parked my car in the garage.  I was just in time to close my auto gate. 

I couldn't be bother to look for the candles as I really do not know where it is. 

Not long after that Clet brought back our kids from their tekwondo class.  He found some candles (He remembered where he kept it) and lighted up 2 candles on the dinner table.  I captured the room environment with my phone and later noticed that it is gave a romantic feel right away, hence posted here. 

3 in 1 Green Tea Latte

I spotted this 3 in 1 Green Tea Latte when I tapau my breakfast this morning.  The coffee shop is selling RM2.00 for a packet.  This instant drink is new to me.  Anyone has tried it before?

I am trying to avoid drinking 3 in 1 instant drink but allowing myself to try this new thing. 

Upon opening up the packet, there is an aroma of green tea.  The tea is thick and nice.  Green tea lovers would definitely like it.  

I checked on the ingredients right after coming out from the shop, there is hydrogenated ingredients in it like many other food and drinks.  My lunch for today is Green Tea Latte and a few slices of plain cracker biscuits.  

*Disclaimer : The above is purely my own opinions, no intention to offend any parties.   

Halloween 2014

This is the 1st Halloween party we were invited to attend. Our friend's spouse is a Scottish thus celebrating Halloween is part of their culture. Our girls didn't make themselves up for the party as we have never attended Halloween party, thus, did not know what to expect. Pearl simply put on her mask but Crystal was very reluctant to join in.

Surprisingly, the kids and their parents have made their effort to made their face up and dressed up like "Ghost" on the 31st Oct.  The house has been decorated with many skeletons.  Pretty scary.  We off back home before midnight..hahaaha  

Dad's 77th birthday

Got some ideas of what to cook for dad's birthday from the many cook books as references, my potluck dish is 3 colours capsicum, straw mushrooms with chicken slices, stir fried in Chinese cooking as dad prefers Chinese food over others.

I bought an all time favourite black forest fresh cream cake, the cake is moist and well received by all of us.  

the younger grand children

What to cook for dad's birthday

We are celebrating my dad's birthday tomorrow.  It's a pot luck dinner, means each of us have to bring along one or more dishes depending on individual capacity.  I will buy him a birthday cake of my choice because too many opinions will only make things difficult.   But I still need to bring a dish or two for dinner!  What to cook?  It's time to check on some of my cook books for some ideas..

Interest in Reading

I read quite a bit during my first pregnancy, I have lesser time to do any reading during my 2nd pregnancy because during that time I have to take care of my 1st baby and also housework at the same time.  Probably because of the time that I spent reading during my 1st pregnancy, my eldest turns out to be more a book worm than her younger sister.

Bookstore is the most frequent place that we go to whenever we go to shopping mall.  Last weekend, we ended up a Times book store after our dinner.  I usually spend my time glancing through at the cookery section...my girls would sure pick one or two of the books that they like..my eyes turned big and round when I saw the books that my eldest chose to buy..I asked her whether she is sure that she wants to read these books..She said Yes, saying that she has been reading this collection of books and this is the last one to complete her collection.  I did not know because sometimes the daddy is the one who brings them to the book store while I am at work.

 cook books section

 I bought these 2 cook books hoping that I will have the time to cook or bake

 Just look at the thickness of the books that my eldest bought.  I couldn't even finish reading an English literature book during my secondary school time.

 this is the cover of the thick book

 this is another one..just by looking at the cover will scare me of.  I just could not understand which side of the reading habit that my girl inherit from..could be from me...

my younger daughter chose this comic book with pretty cartoon characters, I used to read cartoon books like this but in Chinese during school days.

I kept hide their new books for 4 days until the exam is over.  They can only get to read their books yesterday. But I am still not happy that they did not choose any Chinese books despite being reminded times and times again.

Bye bye to the hen and chicks

If you have read my last post on My Hen Laid Eggs, here is the follow up story.  After a few day of hatching, 9 eggs turned into 7 chicks, the other 2 eggs were not successfully hatched.  

We can not keep the hen and the chicks as Clet has arranged for the construction workers to come in to do some renovation on our backyard.  Our backyard is all mess up with holes for laying the ground beam foundations.  No place for the chicken anymore.

We are very happy that Clet's brother is willing to adopt our hen and chicks.  They live in the outskirt with his own land, it is more appropriate to rear chicken there.

Fashion Bazaar at Suria Sabah

I spent the whole of my last weekend at a fashion bazaar at Suria Sabah.  I booked a slot 3 weeks ago when the organizer came to promote at my shop.  It was the  venue of the bazaar that caught my attention. I thought by having a stall at a more crowded shopping mall would allow me to fetch more sales. Much to my disappointment that the sales was not encouraging, most of the stall owners were unable to even cover the 2 days rental that we had paid.

The set back is the bazaar was located at the very end of the mall on the 6th floor where usually it is empty with no activities. Promotions from the organiser is also lacking.   Friends that I know of having fashion shops around major shopping centres in the city are experiencing bad sales after the Chinese New Year season.  BR1M has no impact to boost the sales up.

Sunset beach party at Tg.Aru

Though my office is nearby Tanjung Aru Beach, it never comes to my mind to go to the beach to view the sunset.  

My sister in laws initiated a school holiday beach picnic supposedly during the weekend but to coincide with our nephew back for a visit from Singapore, the party is held at 3pm.  Most of my SIL are home makers, they made an afford to bring in cooking stove, gas cylinder, BBQ stove to cook kuih iudang, satays, fried ikan basung and chicken drumsticks by the beach besides bringing many of the ready homemade food.  I was on my 2nd day of detoxification,  so only grabbed few bananas as my meal.

The sunset is beautiful

Sister on law cooking their favourite kuih udang

One of the set back is there is no lamp poles at the beach. Hence we have to take our meal with only candles which was later bought from the nearby town.  Basically dinner in the dark.

Kids playing with the sand just before sunset

我家母鸡生蛋了。 My hen laid eggs.

Clet told us that seems like our hen laid egg yesterday.  But he was unsure how many.  To allow the hen having more comfortable nest to hetch the eggs, Clet brought some dried grass home just now.  Upon checking on the nest there are a total of 9 eggs.  Our hen is very protective of her eggs just like a mother protecting her children.  She is very furious when our dog, Lucky,  barking at her when Clet put the dried grass into its nest.  We have to put Lucky to the front porch to calm her down.

Anyone knows how long does it take for a hen to hetch the eggs in order for the chicks to come out?