Yummy Home-cooked Dishes

For those of you who are deprived of home-cooked dishes, sorry if I made you drool and your tummy rumble with these dishes that my mil and hubs’ aunt cooked:

‘Jai’ (vegetarian dish).  I can survive on nothing but this dish for a day or two.  Just love all the ingredients used to cook this dish – dried mushrooms, golden needle mushrooms, dried bamboo shoots, Chinese cabbage, wood ear fungus, glass noodles…

Braised Hakka pork with wood ear cloud (wan yue) and dried oysters. This is one of my mil’s signature Hakka dishes…

Chicken cooked with Chinese rice wine, ginger and mushrooms.  This dish is simply mouth watering and a mood-lifter for me. I never got fed up of chicken cooked with wine during my 3 confinements.

Delish leh? They are all my favorite dishes and I better savor them while I can as my mil will be again away overseas for several months very soon.  Till then, I better enjoy my over-sized dinner that my mil so lovingly dishes up for us everyday.



No. of times viewed = 412

Determination And Hard Work To Stay Slim Again

As I was ransacking the storeroom to look for a Malay-English dictionary for Alycia last week, I stumbled upon some of the books that I had bought aeons ago on low-carb diet, including one on Atkins Diet. My attention diverted from the dictionary to the diet books immediately. I brought out the book on Atkins Diet from the storeroom and began to read. Reading the Atkin Diet book brought me back to the year 2001 when I was diagnosed with PCOS and had to battle weight gain and infertility.

Through my own research and reading, I managed to shed the 6kg that I had gained in 2 months as a result of PCOS. I also joined a low carb forum and several other PCOS forums to read experiences and stories of other sufferers. But I did not loose the 6kg in a month or two. It was through lots and lots of hard work, sacrifices, determination and about a year later that I managed to shed off the pounds I had gained. I had to give up many of my favorite food, comprising mainly of carbs like cakes, pastries, noodles and white flour products. Sacrificing my favorite food was secondary. It was the sheer determination of finding the time to exercise that was hard-hitting. I wonder if anyone could do what I did – I exercised twice a day though I held a job which required me to work long hours. I ran round the neighborhood at 6am every morning and even when it rained, with an umbrella in hand!


No. of times viewed = 300

Sherilyn And Her Math

I normally go through the use of threats to get Sherilyn to do her homework or work that I’ve given her. With all the dilly-dallying and a bucket full of excuses from her, she sometimes takes days to complete 2 pages of Math questions from the Kumon workbooks that I bought for her. But sometimes, this fella would seem to be very motivated and can complete her work in a jiffy in under half an hour.

On 8 February, this was what I asked her to do. I told her that when I got out from the bathroom, she had better finish the 2 pages of Kumon Math equations, else there will be no dinner for her… and yes she did, she kwai kwai sat on the chair and without a word or sound from her, she told me that she had finished everything, in under half an hour!  I know it’s still considered slow for a  ‘Kumoner’ but looking at her past record, it’s considered good.  She got all the answers correct with only one careless mistake.  Not bad for a 6yo doing a Grade 2 Kumon Math workbook eh?  I told her with delight, praised her sky high that she’s POWERFUL and boy was she proud LOL!!



No. of times viewed = 622

My Cili Padi

The idiot box is not completely an idiotic box as my girls are learning many new words from watching TV programs. But if I am not careful with their selection of TV programs, it’s akin to allowing them to play with fire. One vulgar sentence that they have picked up from the tellie is “what the hell!“. Alycia and Sherilyn often used it to exclaim surprise. Each time they utter out “WTH”, I will chide them off. Now, they have removed the word hell and exclaim “what the….!” to exclaim surprise! Haiz……. Each time Baby hears her sisters uttering “what the…“, she will be my assistant and reprimand here sisters with this “hey, cannot say what the hell. If you say what the hell, the monster will come and catch you… and put you in the cage” LOL!! Baby is also my whistler blower. If she sees her sisters doing anything that they aren’t supposed to do, she will go “mummy, look at Alycia” or “mummy, look at Kay Yi” She’s indeed a cili padi, a little missy who toes the line 😀  She has the charm to make everyone in the house listen to her!  I guess this happens to most kids who are the youngest in the family.

Here’s my sweetie-pie modeling some of the Magic Cube Suri Cruise dresses from my online store.  Pix are quite blur as I copied and pasted the image from my Facebook page to my blog.  No time to upload again.   I am a super busy mummy who does not even have the time to watch TV or to paint my finger and toe nails. To see more pix, do check out my online store’s Facebook page.

No. of times viewed = 351

Therapeutic Horseback Riding And Pony Insurance

My girls love their trips back at my parents’ in Ipoh. One of the activities that they really look forward to is the daily morning walk to the nearby hill side to look at the horses and ponies. Every morning at around 7am, a school of horses and ponies will be let out from the stable for the horses to graze on the grass. That’s when my girls, still in their jammies will hop onto koong koong’s car or have a brisk walk to the hill side to watch the horses and take pictures.

Horses can be therapeutic to certain groups of people. Individuals of all ages with a wide range of physical, cognitive and emotional disabilities benefit from therapeutic horseback riding and other equine activities. Some of the disabilities and conditions are autism, brain injuries, cerebral palsy, down syndrome, amputee, mental retardation, learning disabilities, among others. Having a horse or pony as a pet requires a huge financial investment. That is why many owners now buy equine horse insurance and pony insurance to lessen their burden on the high veterinary bills. If you are a new owner of a horse or pony and have not yet gotten any equine horse insurance yet, be sure to get a policy now.

No. of times viewed = 188

Teaching Baby To Read

Both my older girls attended 4 years of pre-school. Alycia started pre-school just after her 3rd birthday and Sherilyn at 3.5 years old. Sherilyn is in her last year of pre-school this year. For Baby, I’ve decided to delay sending her to pre-school until she turns 4yo next year. If you are a die-hard reader of my blogs, you will know that Baby still has a minor urinary problem despite having gone through 2 traumatic major surgeries in 2009. Only time will heal the entire urinary tract and I hope that by the time she turns 4yo, the problem will resolve by itself.

I’ve made up my mind that I will teach Baby her ABCs and how to read at home. Since I don’t have the time to prepare materials, the easiest means is the internet. I now teach her ABCs and reading from www.starfall.com. Starfall is by far the best website to teach your child to read…. and that’s based on HFM’s review ok 😛
Sherilyn can spend the whole afternoon reading from Starfall on the new laptop I got the girls and she never seems to get bored.

See how deeply engrossed she is here…

While Baby loves learning her ABCs from the computer, I have to nudge myself to spare my time to teach her at least every other day. Once we are in it, she needs at least half an hour to an hour before she’s satisfied. Sometimes I just can’t afford to allocate my time to her. Yeah I know I know, I must prioritize my list of to-dos. Nothing is more important than my Baby recognizing her ABCs and learning to read.

No. of times viewed = 473

Cakes and coffee at Alexis on Valentine’s Day

On Valentine’s Day, we had dinner with our old friends at The Han Room @ Gardens. Damage done was RM700++ per table (total 2 tables).  After dinner, we headed to Alexis Bistro for cakes, coffee and to chit chat. We left after midnight.

Looking seductive as they are, these cakes taste heavenly too. Too bad hubs and I could not have our Tiramisu that night as they were already sold out by the time we went there at 10pm.  One forkful of these delectable morsels will send you to cake heaven right away ^ L,^

I thank my own strict regimen of forbidding food after 9pm.  I only ate 2 or 3 forkfuls of each slice of cake. But, if you add them all up, I think it will make up a whole slice of cake ^O^  While almost everyone else ordered rich latte, I ordered a glass of unsweetened lime juice to wash away the artery clogging cream and   sticky chocolate.

Sherilyn and Cassandra climbing over khai yeh (the girls’ god father) to play with his iPhone.

I liked all the cakes at Alexis Bistro. Everyone in our family are cake lovers. If I were to eat without having to worry about not being able to squeeze into my pants or skirt, I can really balloon up and bounce out of the restaurant after each meal 😀



No. of times viewed = 456

Sherilyn’s 6th birthday

On the eve of Sherilyn’s 6th birthday, we brought her to Mid Valley Megamall / Gardens to celebrate.

On her actual birthday, daddy bought her a simple cake from RT Pastry House for the cake cutting and photography session at home.  Daddy has ordered another princess jelly cake for her, for her 3rd celebration this Saturday… a joint birthday with her little aunt who will turn 8 years old.

Check out Sherilyn’s front tooth (on her left). It has been shaky for the past 1 year and now, the tooth is almost dropping and protruding… which makes her look like a ‘sau ngar por’. She is now very conscious of how she smiles and has to adjust her smile, lest the front tooth juts out like Bugs Bunny LOL!! It got loose prematurely as she banged it twice – once on her friend’s knee and another time she banged her face on the glass door at Purple Cane restaurant (she could not see the door and tried to walk through it, thank God she wasn’t seriously injured on the face) and knocked on the same tooth again, haih!!

Birthday gift from daddy for his princess wannabe – a Princess musical box with lots of rings and bracelets bought from Miss T @ Gardens.

Leng luis in flower headbands…

birthday photography backdrop




Pictures of the princess jelly cake are here.

No. of times viewed = 419

My Princess Wannabe Is 6 Years Old!

This is the picture of Sherilyn when she was almost 1 month old. Looking at this picture which I took 6 years ago, I can’t believe how fast time is zooming past me. Sherilyn was born on the 8th day of the Lunar New Year in 2005. I remember very clearly that on the night after she was born, I could not even have an hour of forty winks as the blasting sounds of firecrackers were heard throughout the night.   I was in pain too at the C-section wound. That night was the eve of the Jade Emperor’s birthday. I also remember very vividly that I tried to let her suckle my boops and this cili padi bit off a tiny part of my nipple. I was shocked when I saw blood in her tiny mouth and when I opened her mouth with my fingers, I dug out some of my nipple flesh from her mouth, muahahahahah! Funny eh? Yea, funny now but at that moment, I was almost in tears from the excruciating pain. Gosh, I was in real horrid pain but yet I was determined to let her suckle until the milk flow came. This rascal sure knew how to torture me even as a newborn who was barely 1 day old. Despite all her mischief and heart-stopping moments she had given me, she has brought my hubs and I lots of happiness. I would always remind myself to be thankful to God for my 3 girls. 8 years ago, I really thought I would never have the chance to hold my own baby in my arms. I told God I was willing to give up anything if He could give me a baby. So no matter how much heartaches and anger my rascals have caused me, I should never complain. Thank you God for Sherilyn, Alycia and Cassandra. Happy 6th birthday Sherilyn. Mummy loves you very much!

No. of times viewed = 252

Born On The Same Date And Same Year

Jasmine and I had been trying to fix a date for the kids to meet. Shan Rae and Cassandra were born on the same date and same year, thus we were really eager for the two to meet. But each time we fixed a date, something cropped up and the appointment had to be canceled. Today, the 2 were destined to meet each other.

From a distance while walking from Mid Valley Megamall to Gardens, I spotted Jasmine, Shan Rae and Shan Leo. I called out her name and we were really joyful to have chanced into each other. I immediately called out to Cassandra who was with daddy and already ahead of us. I just had to let her meet him. After all, how often can you find a friend who shares the same birth date as you right? I quickly fished out my camera and asked the 2 cuties to pose. But she wasn’t in a cheery mood. She was reluctant to hold his hand when I asked her too.


Hey, who are you? Why are you holding my hand ah? I am not going to smile for mummy to take picture!

As fate had it, about 2 hours later while we were in the loo, I bumped into Shan Rae and her mummy again! What a fluke for the 2 cuties to have crossed each other’s path twice on the same day.


No. of times viewed = 312

Happy Valentine’s Day!

There will be no candle light dinner for us, no flowers from him, no present from him and we even forgot that it’s V Day today until I read the newspapers while working out on the Air Walker at the gym this morning. Unlike 10 years ago where he will surely book a candle light dinner or a sumptuous dinner at a posh restaurant / hotel and present me with a gift too. We are now old farts, ‘lou foo lou chai’ already lor, so no need all the elaborate and expensive splurge on such a celebration when we can celebrate and confess our love for one another on any other day. Nevertheless, we will still be having a nice dinner at a classy Chinese restaurant tonight… but ain’t letting you know where, lest we get stalked haha! But the dinner will be with our group of friends and we are bringing the whole jing gang along – our 3 little farts and mil too hehe… and yes, I still got my morning peck on lips from my old fart this morning but we didn’t wish each other Happy V Day for we had both forgotten about this day.

So how are you going to celebrate V Day? Happy Valentine’s Day to all my readers. And to you too dearest mummy and papa.

No. of times viewed = 140

Delicious Sinful Supper At Delicious

Last night we had a Chinese New Year reunion dinner with my hubs’ relatives at Extra Super Tanker Chinese Restaurant at Damansara. Throughout dinner last night, hubs wasn’t in a mood to eat his dinner.  Instead, he was in a mood to eat cakes!. He was craving to eat the rich, moist chocolate cake and Vanilla Mille Crepe Cake from Food Foundry. Talk about cravings. It does not only happen to pregnant women but also to men!!   He even made 2 calls to Food Foundry throughout dinner to ask what time the shop was closing but too bad, it was already closed by the time we left the restaurant at 10:30pm. But he was still determined to satiate his craving for cakes. So after dinner, he packed all of us into the car and drove us to Delicious at Bangsar Village for cakes!! By the time we reached Delicious, it was already closed to 11pm but Delicious was a hive of activity with patrons dining and enjoying their meals.

Here’s what we had:

2 slices of warm, rich and decadent chocolate cakes topped with vanilla ice cream.  I ordered a flour-free almond orange cake, which is my favorite cake from Delicious! I had to order a glass of sugar-free lime juice to melt away those artery-clogging chocolate cream and ice-cream.   But all I dared to eat was just a few forkfuls of chocolate cake and a quarter slice of the flour-free orange cake.

Alycia biting onto the warm, decadent rich chocolate cakes with vanilla ice cream…

While hubs’ craving was satisfied, the girls, especially Baby and Sherilyn were in no mood for cakes or fun anymore. They were sleepy and cranky. We also had to climb up and down the escalators as they were already turned off. The girls were all complaining and I told the girls to thank daddy for his bright idea to bring us there for supper at such an ungodly hour. By the time we reached home, it was already closed to midnight!

No. of times viewed = 292

Pet Insurance Is A Necessity

Today a good friend of mine showed me some pictures of her sister’s month-old puppies. Her sister has a pair of Golden Retrievers (a female and male) and mummy Golden Retriever recently gave birth to a litter of 6 pups. Sadly 1 died shortly after birth. The pups are oh so adorable. My 3 girls who love dogs wanted to keep a puppy so much but living in a condo, we are prohibited from keeping pets, especially dogs and cats and pets that are noisy. The dog-loving nature in me was immediately roused up when I saw the pictures of the litter of 5 super cute, golden, fluffy pups playing with the mummy dog.

It will be years down the road before we can have a pet dog again. We certainly do not want our new pet dog to suffer the same fate as Happy our Beagle. If you have been following my blog, you will know what happened to our pet dog, Happy 5 years ago. If we ever have a pet dog again, this time I have to remind my hubs to get some cheap pet insurance coverage for our dog. My hubs had to dig deep into his pocket to pay for Happy’s medical bills and veterinary bills 5 years ago as we did not get him any pet insurance. If you are intending to have a pet dog, my advice to you is to get your pet dog pet insurance coverage. Just google the word pet insurance dogs, and you will have thousands of search results.

No. of times viewed = 183

Sherilyn A Right Brain Child?

I am very convinced that Sherilyn, who will turn 6yo next week is a right brain child. Right brain children are very creative and very imaginative and Sher fits into this category perfectly. All the free time that she has, she will hide in her room creating art and making crafts.  Ask her to do her homework, she will balk, sulk and is very creative in giving excuses to evade doing it. Ask her to do Math and reading on the laptop, she will zoom right away to carry my laptop bag out. She even knows how to set up the laptop, turn it on, click on Google Chrome and choose the website that she wants to go to. She is the polar opposite from Alycia whom I think is a left brain child.

My little rascal can spend 1-2 hours on the lappie reading, playing educational games and solving Math.  Give her a black and white Math book, her brain will be switched into dense mode by default.

Sherilyn solving a hidden number Math equation…

The right brain learns things in wholes rather than parts, so that child will get math concepts well, but may struggle with the details like the math facts, or checking work. In thinking styles, the right-brainer often goes by “gut feel” whereas the left-brainer prefers multiple facts before coming to a conclusion. In test taking, the left-brainer prefers the black-and-white choices presented in multiple-choice questions, while the right-brainer may prefer essay questions, where the whole picture can be given.

Eighty percent of the struggling learners are right brain dominant. Does that mean that being right brain dominant is a weakness? Not at all! As you know, Einstein was a flaming right-brainer. Then why the discrepancy? It is that most curriculum is designed to teach in a more left brain style. Workbooks, worksheets, rote memorization (math facts), timed tests, lectures, learning facts from a test, learning vocabulary by looking up the meanings of the words in a dictionary and writing it out, are all left brain activities.

If you have a child at home who is balking at doing the schoolwork that fits the description above, you probably are working with a right brain dominant child. To help this child become successful doesn’t require an entire change in curriculum but rather a change in your teaching strategies for this child. It isn’t as hard as it sounds. In fact, it’s easy, fun, and inexpensive.




No. of times viewed = 233

I Thought I Lost Her

Yesterday afternoon I had a major scare that shocked the shit out of me. My maid had gone to the lobby to wait for the transporter to drop Alycia off. Then I received a call on my cell phone from the van driver. In a panicky tone, she told me that she’s already at the lobby of our condo but Alycia wasn’t in the van!!! She told me that she had called out all the names of the kids in the van and the kids said Alycia was in the van but she WAS NOT IN!! I asked the driver to quickly go back to school to look for Alycia. How can this happen??? How can the driver be so negligent? I have left my precious daughter in her hands and pay her RM180 a month. How how could she have left my precious daughter behind? What if something bad happens to my daughter? Can she return my baby to me? Though she’s in Primary 2, she’s only 7yo being a December child, still almost a toddler. My mind as usual fast forwarded to the worst case scenario – would she be kidnapped or was she kidnapped? Would she walk out of school to look for the driver? OMG, I was panick-stricken. My mil too. Quickly called my hubs who was busy at work. Our close friend who was in our house at the time offered to bring my mil to school right away to look for Alycia. The next 20 minutes felt like a standstill. Why didn’t the driver call me back? She told me that she had asked a school teacher to look for Alycia but why hadn’t she call back? I called the driver umpteen times to check on the status. Finally, my hubs called me. He had found Alycia. The driver also called me. The teacher had found Alycia. All 3 cars sped off to school in search of Alycia. There was a near-miss kidnap case of a primary school girl in that school last year.

About 40 minutes later after the first call that every mother would dread receiving, Alycia was finally home. According to her, the class teacher had asked some of the students to stay behind to complete some work, thus Alycia came out late. But Alycia appeared unfazed and told me she wasn’t scared a wee bit when she could not see Aunty J, the van driver. I’m not sure if she was telling the truth. She was a tad teary eyed when I asked her why the teacher asked her to stay behind to complete her work. It could be she made a mistake and had to do correction or did not complete some work that the teacher had asked her to do.

I gave the driver a piece of my mind. Told her the things she should have done to ensure that all the kids are in the van and not just call out names and assume that the kid is in. What if the other kids tried to pull the van driver’s leg and answered YES on behalf of Alycia? The driver apologized profusely.

After the incident, I have been drumming non-stop into Alycia’s head the list of things that she should do if this happens again. Now, maybe I should also speak to the teacher and tell her not to make the kids stay behind to complete work, especially if the kid has a transporter waiting for him/her.

No. of times viewed = 294

Sherilyn And Her Best Buddy

Yesterday rascal #2 secretly took my handphone into one of the bedrooms and called her best friend, Berlyn’s mummy. She sure knew how to take advantage of the situation. When the cat is busy, the rat will surely be up to mischief!! I wasn’t even aware that my handphone was being used by that rascal until Berlyn’s mum called me. She asked me what time I was free and whether I wanted to drive Sherilyn over to Berlyn’s house or vice versa. I was like “huh? What’s happening? Oh gosh, that rascal must have hijacked my handphone and called Berlyn’s mummy!!” I then told Berlyn’s mum that Sherilyn had secretly used my handphone to call her and apologized for the trouble. But Berlyn’s mum is a cool mum (oh, she’s pretty, young, hip and hot too!). She said no problem, she will drive Berlyn to our place right away! And so the date was set. I quickly went down to the lobby to wait for Berlyn. She said good bye to her mum. That was about 3pm and the play date ended at 9ish pm with us coercing Berlyn to go home to sleep. She refused to go home and wanted to sleep over at our place LOL!!

The 3 vain pots who almost brought the house down.  I can see so much similarities between Sherilyn and Berlyn.    Check out Berlyn’s toe nails and finger nails – all painted in glittering red nail  polish.  Her hair is almost touching the waist and it’s curly.

In the evening, the girls played scooter and tricycle at the lobby. Then we had a stroll at the condo compound. Later, I bought them ice creams.

Having dinner together…

Then the rat struck yet another time just when the cat was busy again. Rascal #2 hijacked my handphone and called Berlyn’s mum on the handphone and spoke to Berlyn’s daddy. She pleaded with Berlyn’s daddy and mummy to allow Berlyn to sleep over. She even told him to bring Berlyn’s school bag to school tomorrow (Berlyn and Sherilyn are classmates). The rest, she said she will provide! But all good times have to come to an end. We promised the 2 good buddies that there will be another play date very soon. Their next play date will be next week, at Sherilyn’s 6th birthday party!

No. of times viewed = 153

HEALTH FREAK MOMMY