Archive for February, 2008

I am happy to receive many useful comments from my previous post about getting a maid. I love it that my blog is like my own personal forum. Thank you to all those who gave feedback, their ideas and opinions. They are things that only those who have experienced the process can think of. Hmm… managing a maid really is no simple task is it? You’ve got to have really good people skills as well as good communication skills in planning and laying out the tasks and making sure its done and lots of patience and tolerance too. Its not just a matter of hiring a maid and saying “Nah… you do the work.” Its a lot more than that.

One of the commentors, Adrian reminded me about the issue of how we want our kids to interact with the maid. I think one of the things that the kids must be taught from the start is to treat the maid with respect and not someone to be at their beck and call to do their tasks for them. Kids, are well kids and they have to be told and taught otherwise you will have the scenario of the maids scampering around the kids at their whim and fancy, feeding them, chasing them around, wearing their shoes etc which is something I do not want my kids to learn.

I remember when I was a kid, after my mum passed away, my aunt came to live with us for a year to help us out. After she left, we had a maid to help out. Her name was Ah Yoke. We the kids did not know better then. Imagine this scenario. There were 5 of us and we all had the kick of constantly calling upon Ah Yoke to make us iced coffee. “Ah Yoke, Kopi Ais!” we would call out. We thought it was real cool to have someone make iced coffee for us whenever we felt like it. Poor Ah Yoke. I wonder how she ever got any work done around the house with the 5 of us interrupting her for our Kopi Ais.

Fortunately Ah Yoke was only with us for a short period of time so we did not turn out to be spoilt brats. We all learned independance at an early age because mother was no longer around to pamper us. We learned how to cook at an early age. We would take the soggy catered soya sauce chicken and refry it. Hahaha. We ate catered food for years. How I hate peeking into the tiffin carrier only to see the same unappetising dishes for dinner. We also had a timetable for whose turn it is to throw out the trash, sweep the floor etc. Of course we fought over the timetable too. Lol!

Anyway, this post is not about my childhood but it is a reminder that just as I am going to set the rules for the new maid, I will also set the rules for the kids from the beggining so that they do not rely on the maid too much and they are to treat her with respect like any other member of the family.

I will be getting a maid soon. I don’t like the idea of getting one. To me, it is an intrusion of my privacy and our way of life has to change a little. We are going to welcome a stranger into our home, someone we have not even met before. We have to include her in all our activities and take her everywhere with us at first until we can establish some trust in leaving her alone. It is disconcerting.

I submitted my request for a maid and deposit in December, called the maid agency a couple of times and was met up with several excuses. Its Christmas and year end holidays. Its Chinese New Year. Finally, after Chinese New Year when I called them up again they had some biodatas for me to look at.

The maid selection process is not fantastic. You don’t get to interview the person whom (you hope) will work for you and stay in your home for the next two years. (if she does not run away before then). If she does run away, you stand to lose more $$$ than the agency does. The risk is upon you. And all you get is a photo and a biodata which you don’t even know is accurate or true. Most of them lie about their age, I’m told by the agent. The young say they are older and the older say they are younger than their actual age. It is not an ideal process.

My seizures are under control with my medication but still it would be better to have another adult in the home. Otherwise, I prefer not to have a maid. I had a part time helper for over 2 years. We treated her very well and we told her not to leave us in the lurch because it would take some time for us to get full time help. But apparently our kindness did not count for much. I guess we can’t really blame them since they are here for the money. If someone can pay them better they leave. Why should they care about you? Still I am disappointed.

Hubby tells me that the maid is there to help me and not to take over my tasks. He’s got a point there. With a maid, it will be tempting to let her take over my tasks and free me up but I have got to establish from day one (not only to her but to myself) that she is around to assist me and not to replace me in my household tasks. I will still be in control. She is to assist me. That is all. I have to put myself in this frame of mind because it will be very easy to allow someone who is experience (whether its trained by you or otherwise) in housework to take over the housework and cooking. Previously, with the part-timer who was very experienced, I made the mistake of letting her handle everything. She even decided what to cook most days. This can cause potential problems.

I have selected a single girl aged 22 with secondary education. She is from a large family of 9 brothers and sisters. That is all I know about her. I had preferred someone who is married with kids the same age as mine so that she will be more tolerrant with the kids mischief but there was none which fit that description. I hope that the fact that this girl is from a large family will make up for it. She is 3rd in the hierarchy and hopefully helped to look after the younger ones. She has no experience although I had wanted someone with previous experience. So I will have to teach her myself from scratch. I am told that a young girl will be easier to manage than the more experienced ones.

I do not intent for her to help me with the kids but it would still be good to have someone who is good with kids. She is here to help with the housework not the kids. The fact that she is around to help me with the housework will free me to have more time with the kids, I hope. I also hope to have a cleaner house, cleaner clothes to prevent illnesses like rashes from dust mites and prepare better food for my family. They have been eating my one dish meals and reheated dinners for too long. Lol!

Finally, I have no experience in having a maid. Any feedback from those experienced ones? I don’t want to hear horror stories because I’ve heard enough of those. My sister once found some pictures of her first maid dressed in her lingerie! From that day on she only took maids above a certain weight. *slaps forehead*. Any suggestions on what I should do to prepare myself for a maid would be most appreciated.

What I though was food poisoning turned out to be a stomach flu because the kids got it from us. So the whole family is on a soft foods diet. Porridge, bread, porridge, bread, soup, porridge, bread…..

I’ve been very busy wiping vomit all day and all night. Fortunately, we’re on the tail end of the stomach flu now (I hope). I hope that we will all be as good as new soon. I’m so tired. I can’t wait for things to get back to normal. Just can’t wait………..

Now, I’m off to cook some more porridge. But dunno why, despite my soft foods diet, I still weigh the same. Chey!

This is a rather belated post about my CNY 2008. Since its Chap Goh Meh today, I better post this before Chinese New Year is over.

Before CNY we went shopping and saw lovely decorations at the Malls, not as nice as Christmas but still lovely.

On the first day of CNY the kids wanted to see the Lion Dances but we missed two as we arrived too late at the temple and too early at the house we were visiting. Nevermind, we made up for it on the 2nd day in our hometown. We couldn’t miss that as aunty cooks for the Lion Dance troupe which uncle is part of. 

We were mostly sick during CNY all down with coughs. Hubby slept alot but on the fourth day of CNY when he was better, after lunch he suddenly announced that we were going to take the kids to Kek Lok Si Temple and he wanted them to experience the climb so we were not going to drive up. I looked down at my dainty high heels and knew that I was going to have a tough day…… on my feet. 

It was worth the climb though. I hadn’t been there in a long time and had not seen the recent developments. We took the first inclined elevator up to view the bronze Kuan Yin statue which looked very majestic looming in the sky above the hills. My picture above does not do it justice. Majestic beams surrounding it are still being constructed. We wrote our names on a roof tile that will be part of the new renovated portion. The air was cool and nice.

The boy slept on daddy’s shoulder on the way down. The girl dragged mummy’s hand as mummy was slowed down by her dainty high heels. Men! They never think of such fine details like these do they. He could have at least told me to wear my sneakers.

We finally made it home to KL the next day, a 6-7 hour drive. My cousin who left a day earlier drove for 12 hours!

Well, I’ve had my fill of cookies and oranges etc etc until next year now its time to diet. I think I have a head start with my food poisoning.

I poisoned myself ……….. with decomposing vegetables. Yeap! Thats what I did.

“My wife is trying to poison me.” said Mr MG to the doc as we sat there together to see him. Well, in actual fact, I did poison him and myself too in the process. Fortunately the kids were not affected.

We felt very ill immediately after eating the dinner that I cooked. He felt dizzy, nausea and fever. I felt gastric pains, nausea, fever and chills. The kids were ok. We had eggs and beans, tenggiri fish and onions and mixed vegetables. The kids ate everything we ate accept the vegetables so it must have been the vegetables.

For the mixed vegetables, I used white cabbage, carrots, brocolli and celery. Hmm… so which is it. The white cabbage and carrots looked nice, perhaps too nice but they’re organic so they couldn’t have been loaded with pesticide could they. The brocolli still looked ok. Maybe the celery… it did not look that fantastic but I thought it was just grime and dirt. I did peel off the skin and I soaked the vegetables and changed the water 4-5 times. For the life of me, I just don’t know what it is but I threw them out just in case.

Hubby had it bad. He vomitted and cerit berit a couple of times. I just had severe gastric pains that made me want to bend over. And I felt tired… so very tired and cold. I just wanted to sleep all the time. Gosh. Its horrible, just horrible. Fortunately the kids are ok. Phew! I’m just recovering so I won’t be writing a long post. This is just to remind myself and everyone else to be very, very careful with your food. You could end up feeling very ill. Ewek! Got to go and rest now.

Oh I almost forgot. Happy Chap Goh Meh to anyone who celebrates it.

This was what greeted me when I returned to my blog after being away from it for a while. Yeah. 9305 spam comments and several more not caught by Askimet. So what else is new? Not much.

I stayed away on purpose, sort of like having a blog vacation, the way people take a vacation or break away from work. I stayed away from my emails too because if I didn’t I would see some comments and be tempted to return to my blog sooner. And that made an advertiser cancel some links that they wanted to purchase because there was no response from muah. Sob. Sob. Sob.

Of course there’s lots to write about and pictures to post too but wait, I must get my momentum back first. Yes, you do lose some momentum when you don’t blog daily, its true. The more you blog, the more you have to blog about and if you don’t blog, you will soon have nothing to write about. Thats the way it is for me.

So, I’m just writing this nonsense until I get back my momentum again.

Free Chinese Graphics from CyArena

Its the year of the Rat this coming Chinese New Year. I read in several places that its a bad year for the Horse. (thats me!) Oh dearie me. Oh dearie me.

Anyway, I digress. I like it that I can put a Chinese New Year greeting on my blog to wish anyone who happens to pass by here. Its like sending a greeting to the world! Haha. So I searched for some nice Chinese New Year graphics to put on my blog. I tried out the Chinese New Year cards at 123Greetings but most of them are two large and they run into the sidebar. Uh uh. No good.

Then I came across a blog about Chinese New Year and found this nice Chinese New Year Graphics link on the Chinese New Year blog. So I’m putting it up. I also put one up on my Mothering Times blog. That one is a nice muted grey with cherry blossoms that blink pink and yellow (go take a look and see if you like it. hehe.) not as loud as this one but talking about loud, you just gotta hop over to my Parenting Times blog to hear the classic Chinese New Year song: Gong Xi Gong Xi Gong Xi Ni song on video. Your kids will like it but perhaps you might like to get some earplugs if they can’t stop listening to it like my kids. Haha.

Ok. Enough procrastinating and dilly dallying. I’ve just got to go and clean house now. If I don’t update this blog for a while, you know what I’m doing. If its before Chinese New Year, its spring cleaning, if its during Chinese New Year, its eating.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

I’m cleaning out my bathroom today in preparation for the Chinese New Year festival. In our Chinese culture we must clean out our house from top to bottom sort of like getting rid of whatever illwill or troubles to greet the incoming New Year.

Speaking of “out with the old and in with the new”, I think I need a new double bathroom vanity. When I look at the wet mess my husband left behind on the sink, I don’t know where to start cleaning! Oh, I love the man dearly but he loves to leave a wet mess at the sink. When he washes his face, the vanity mirror, the sink, even the surrounding wall and floor areas get wet. With double bathroom vanities this can be avoided.

I’m ogling at this site of bathroom vanities and dreaming about how my bathroom should look. No, no, single bathroom vanities are not for me. I need a double bathroom vanity like the one in the picture above. Then he can have his side all wet and mine will be spick and span and clean and beautiful. Oh, and I love the drawers and cupboards space which I presently lack. They will be great to store my make-up and stuff and I can display my perfume and little nick nacks on my side and hope that they won’t get wet by his splashing water.

Well, enough daydreaming for now, its time to get down to some real work in the bathroom.

Have you ever thought about how far the Mandarin Orange travels before it reaches your stomach? Just think about it.

Its because of this Chinese Culture we have of exchanging CNY goodies during CNY. For example, its considered rude to arrive at a guest’s house empty handed. Its also rude to allow your guest who arrives with gifts to leave empty handed.

So this is what happens to the Mandarin orange. Just imagine this scenario.

First it arrives from China. Then it gets wrapped up into pretty hampers. You receive a hamper from work, think its very nice and decide to give it to your older relative. Your older relative gives it to another nephew or niece who comes visiting from outstation. The nephew or niece gives it to a friend who visited them with gifts in return for their gifts. The friend gives it to another friend who gives it to another friend and yet another friend (who happens to know you too) who gives it back to you when he comes to visit you at your house.

Don’t shake your head. This scenario is entirely possible.

Speaking of exchanging gifts. I’m not very good at this gift giving and returning. I always feel a bit awkward doing it. It doesn’t come naturally to me. How about you?