1st day of school holiday

I am taking leave from work on the 1st to 3rd day of school holiday so I do not have to send them to holiday school, knowing that it would be a big challenge sending Pearl to holiday school without Crystal being there. I prefer to just being at home, it doesn't matter letting them driving me nuts than dragging myself to work.

Besides busy with the house chaos, I managed to get down to experience some baking over the weekend. Inspired by Shireen's blog on making home baked bread, I tried my hands on making my own bread and buns, it was pretty successful. I put red bean paste as filling for my buns which I bought meant for making moon cake but then moon cake project was a disaster..hahaha..

I also baked some durian butter cake as requested by my mum. It came out smelling and taste really nice, I feel like having the whole loaf of it but then it is too fattening to indulge myself, so i better give some away to my brothers, they do not mind tasting whatever I try to bake. They always give me honest comments.

The Camera is with Clet at Kuching that I used my handphone to snaps some photos of the buns I baked, unfortunately, my handphone went spoilt while I was trying to download a software onto my computer so that I can upload the photos. Now my handphone is totally not functioning probably due to virus attack buy the software I uploaded.

Local Female Magazines

I love reading magazines. One of my favourite is Her World Magazine. I bought the November 2009 issue featuring Datuk Yasmin Yussuf on the front cover. It comes with free sample of Shiseido Zen Eau de Parfum 1ml and a packet of May White Radiance Shower Cream. The Shiseido perfum is pretty nice, I have got 2 pieces of the same, one of it came free from a copy of the Female magazine that I bought at the same time.

The copy of the 480 pages thick Female magazine was a big disappointment, most of the pages are advertisements nothing much of interesting write up. It is very much different from what it used to be.

What is your favourite magazines?

Stay at home Saturday

Many of you might have taken the opportunities to go holiday, a long distance drive to outstation or even hang out at the shopping malls with the children to mark the beginning of the long year end school holidays starting today till next year, 4th January.

But for me, I am longing to stay in the coziness of our little messy home with my 2 little princesses while Clet is outstation in Sarawak for the launching of eXfuze. Though our girls love going out so much they do like being at home at times. First thing in the morning, Pearl told me that she doesn't want to go to school just like to stay at home. Crystal has no objection.

Like usual they will find ideas in keeping themselves occupy, one of which was to find ice from the fridge to rub on the barbie mermaid's hair and body to discover the change of colours on them, so much of watching mermaid on Youtube that they wanted to bathe the barbie mermaid in water, I gave them a small basin and later Crystal complained it's too small for their barbie mermaids to swim, they have got 3 mermaids altogether, she needed the baby bath tub . They got themselves all wet, and finished the game off with bathe and shower with the barbie dolls .

Unable to post any photos here because I am having difficulties in getting my photos uploaded from my handphone. Clet has brought the camera along with him to outstation all the time that I find myself lacking in blogging without photos.

Products of Philippines

Chicharron (dried pork skin), popcorns, dried mangoes (I can finished the whole pack of dried mangoes, been eating too much that I felt a bit dizzy the next day, probably too high sugar content, :D)

Chocolate brownies

Butter macaroons, simply cococnut

From a business trip to Clark, Philippines, Clet brought back some local produce and also some clothing for us, I particularly like the children dresses from the Philippines, the prices are reasonable and I have no complain on the qualities and designs. Will ask him to buy some shoes during his next trip there.

At cousin's son wedding dinner

8 course meal is the basic for a wedding dinner. The price of each table is very much depends on the type of food that are included in the dishes. Dishes with shark fins, abalone, prawn will definitely more expensive.

At my cousin's son wedding, it is the first time that I have and tasted abalone in fried rice. My cousin, Mr & Mrs Yong Chee Loong's youngest son wedding was on 12 November 2009. Here's the snapshots of us at the wedding dinner and the delicious 8 course meal.

Mum and aunties meet. chit chatting before the dinner.

Sister and son, Jasper

Me and my only sister

Crystal, Pearl and Daddy

Happy with the balloon in hand

PayPal withdrawal available for Malaysians

I am not just off from blogging for many weeks due to heavy workloads, both at work and at home , I am also haven't got the chance to check on my PayPal account for a while. Today, I logged on to my PayPal account with the intention to find out how to withdraw some funds to my credit card which I have accumulated since I started blogging.

I am pleased to find out the we, in Malaysia are allowed to withdraw funds to the local Malaysian banks now, this is what many of us have been waiting for.

There will be no charges if withdrawal is more than RM400.00, otherwise, we will be charged RM3.00 for the transaction. It will only take 2-3 working days to receive the funds into our bank account. Withdrawal to a credit card will take 5-7 days, with a charge of RM20.00.

Amazing truth of Fruits and vegetable

I am a vegetable lover but not a vegan. Times and times again, I read about the health benefits of certain fruits and vegetable but never noticed some of the vegetable I usually eat actually resemble our body organs and have direct benefits to that organ too. Do you know that?

It was brought to my attention when I received an email enclosing a slide entitled "God's Pharmacy" from my colleague today. It is amazingly true, that,

1. Carrots, when it is cut into halve, the round middle part resembles the eye, thus eating carrot enhances blood flow to and functions of our eyes.

2. Tomato, has four chambers is very similar to the heart which has four chambers too. Tomatoes loaded with lycopine, a form of carotene, good for the heart and blood.

3. Grapes, a cluster of grapes hanging on the tree resemble the human heart thus also profound heart and blood vitalising food.

4. Walnut, look like the brain. Consuming walnuts help develop more than 3 dozens neuron, the transmitter for brain functions.

5. Kidney bean, look exactly like kidney, it actually heals and helps maintain the kidney functions.

6. Celery, its stems look like bones. it contains sodium which is what our bones need. Eat celery to replenish our bones strength and skeletal needs.

7. Avocados, eggplants, pears, provides the health and functions of the womb, cervix of female. It says that by taking one avocado a day helps balances the hormone, prevents cervical cancer. Do you know that it takes 9 months to grow an avocado?

8. Fig, the fruit is full of seeds, hang in 2 on the tree. It has the function of increase the mobility of male sperms and increase the sperms numbers.

9. Sweet potatoes, looks like pancreas, thus has the function of balancing the glycemic index of diabetes.

10. Olives, assist the health and function of ovaries.

11. Oranges, grape fruits like the mammary glands of female, assist the health of the breast and the movement of lymph in and out of the breast.

Intergretion of Google Adsense into Triond

I have been submitting some writings to Triond.com for quite a while now, the earnings from Triond is very minimal I must say. Recently, they have intergreted Google adsense with Triond. By doing so, adsense advertisment will now be shown in the articles that are published by Triond, which allows us to earn extra adsense income, the sharing is 50/50 with Triond, unlike our own blogs, we earn 100% of the income from adsense.

Articles submitted to Triond have to be approved by them before it is published. If you are interested to publish in Triond, bear in mind that they do not allow duplication, meaning to say if an article has been published in our blog, submission to Triond will be rejected.

Though the income is minimal, it does provides us an additional source of on line income.

Chocolate cake and Carrot cake

There were a few varieties of cakes displayed in the chiller at the Yen Ai eatery shop last night. We chose to try the chocolate cake and the carrot cake because we were told that these are the ones just arrived today. Each piece of the cake cost RM6.00, very expensive, more expensive than a chicken rice or a plate of fried mee.

Chocolate cake, rich and the sponge cake layer is moist, yummy, no complaint

a very disappointing piece of carrot cake, dry and hard, not up to our expectation.

Looking forward to Christmas

I am already looking forward to Christmas though there are still over two months to Christmas Day. Leading to celebration I bought two of the same door carpets featuring Christmas wreaths to replace the front door carpet and the other one for my father.

This Christmas I was thinking of baking the easiest fruit cake that I learned last year from my cousin. It is called the Boiled Fruit Cake. You could try this recipe too I am sure you will love it.

Early rising

I woke up earlier than usual this morning, that's at 5.30 am, to do some house chaos. I have been so much slacking on the house work ever since I started baking. There are piles of unfolded laundry and floor needed to be swept and mopped among other things.

This morning, I only managed to sweep and mop the floor, do some ironing and laundry, fold and put away the laundry.

The sunrise very fast. It's time to wake the girls up for school. I kept yawning in the office for not used to wake up so early. Should I continue rising at 5am again tomorrow?

A birthday cake

Today is my younger brother, Alfred's birthday. I baked a cake for him this morning. With the encouragement from Clet and the recipe from SIL, I finally managed to bake a cake for my family single handedly. For sure there will be more cakes to come in the coming days.

A simple cake to wish Alfred a very happy birthday.

Enjoy the Durians

Do you know what is the best way to enjoy eating durians? The kampung/village style, everyone gather around on the floor and open the durians one by one, it's fun to experience the different texture form each of the durians, I like the thick creamy with slight bitterly taste durian, and the smallest seed possible.

From an outstation trip to Sipitang yesterday, my brother bought several bundles of durians on his way home, each bundle consist of 3 - 4 durians, besides 2 of them have been conquered by the insects, we still have got more than enough to share. We ate until we could not take in any more durians into our stomach. My sister took some home and I frozen some for making cakes. So far I have got 3 containers of durian in my fridge. Hopefully I can make some durian cake tomorrow since it is weekend.

Cleaning up time

Are you happy with your job?

Are you happy with your job? Glad that you do but I am not. The company that I work for has taken over 4 other food and bakery outlets in just 3 months, hoping that the outlets will turn around and make money with the change of management with the same owners.

Our workloads have since doubled. They have taken things for granted that it is perfectly ok with the additional workloads assigned to us without properly planning on the human resourcing and financing, with only 1 clerical added to the workforce , with a ratio of 1:1. We realise that they did not even put any consideration now that with all these added responsibilities, they still push us for deadlines and expect us to perform like before, don't they realise that the quality of work will drop when one is overloaded with work?

The worst thing is the boss could just call in speak very harshly if she did not get what she wanted, the working environment has becoming so tense and with very low morale. Like a number of times which I came home with very disturbing and disappointing evening after harsh words that I received from the other side of the phone, I can not stand anymore but ease out my frustrations in words.

They should be gladful that they are able to push over the workloads of 4 food and bakery outlets to us with no additional allowances given. I pray things will change to the better soon.

Typhoon Parma

We experienced a very strong wind yesterday evening in Kota Kinabalu, with a lesser strength as compared to the recent tropical storm Ketsana that hit the Philippines last weekend.

The warning of the Typhoon Parma only reached us this afternoon via sms. Without any knowledge of the Typhoon Parma has already over, I reminded Clet to come home early just before he went off for his appointment. He came back at 9pm and told me that the visit of Typhoon Parma was yesterday, after checking on the internet, sure enough it's over and gone. Thank GOD, it did not do much harm to the people of Philippines and the countries nearby. Let's pray for better weather ahead.