Archive for September, 2008

My friend has experienced a situation where she was robbed by men with parang in the porch of her house. This was several years ago. It was late at night. She had gotten down to shut the gate but the men were hiding in wait.

My sister in law has been robbed in front of her gate before as well, after walking her daughter from kindy and while she was trying to open her gate.

I installed auto gates at my house not only to protect myself from the rain but as a safety measure as well, so that I don’t have to get down to shut my gate manually. That makes me feel more vulnerable. Staying in the car makes me feel a bit more protected.

However, recent cases where women were robbed in their porch even with auto gates installed has taken away this false sense of security. In both cases, the robbers ran into the porch after the women drove into the porch. It is not safe anymore. Not even in the porch of  your house. Not even with auto gates.

A neighbour informed us to be careful recently after his son in law got down to check his auto gates when returning home in the night. The robbers had tied the gates together so it would not open. This made the victim get down to inspect the gates and thats when they struck.

So, don’t ever be lulled into a false sense of security. Always, always be on the alert for any strangers who may be lurking or hiding in bushes etc. And if your auto gate does not open, be extra alert.

Speaking of auto gates………… this is an unrelated rant, I do wonder why my neighbour who has auto gates installed, has to honk her rather loud horn several times each day to get her maid to open her auto gates for her. Hmmm…..

Hari Raya is just a week away. The kindy will be closed from Wednesday to Friday so it will be a very long weekend for us. Hurrah!

I want to take this opportunity to wish all my readers Selamat Hari Raya and Happy Holidays. I used to have a number of Malay readers but I don’t know where they are now. I noticed in a blog community, birds of a feather tend to flock together. I do not think its because of racial divide. Its just that most people identify better with a blogger when they speak the same lingo.

Well, there is a lot of talk on racial divide going on lately. I am sad to hear it. I personally do not feel it but I hear a lot of talk on it, at least on the blogs and in the papers. Some of the words used on the blogs are very strong too.

I do not feel this “racial divide”. I feel nothing but respect for my friends of other races. I remember when I was in school, I had a lot of friends from other races. During Hari Raya, we would cycle from one friend’s house to another to have our beef rendang, and ketupat and lemang. The same goes for other festivities of the other races. I looked forward to having marukus during Deepavali and I am sure that my friends from other races were happy with the Mandarin oranges and kuaci that we served.

While I was working, I still had many friends of other races too. I used to work as a Conference Organiser and whenever we had a conference or seminar during the fasting month, we would provide dinner vouchers to the muslims who could not join in the other participants for lunch. That is how racially tolerant we are and how respectful we are of each other. We enjoy each other’s foods (accept for those which we can’t partake in for religious purposes) and we often have open houses for friends of every race during festivals.

I remember once, one muslim colleague invited us back to her kampung together. We drove there, spent the night at her house and went visiting with her. I was entralled by the beautfy of one of the kampung houses we visited. We had Muslim, Chinese and Indian friends among us. None of us felt any racial divide. We were just a bunch of young girls laughing and enjoying ourselves.

And now, all of a sudden there is talk of a racial divide. I think its silly isn’t it?

Hopefully, when we have finally settled down politically, all of this talk will blow away and we will be back to being peace loving, racially tolerant, proud Malaysians again.

In the meantime, Selamat Hari Raya and be careful on the roads.

I stare at my open refrigerator door twice a day to crack my head on what to cook for lunch and dinner. “Why don’t you have a  fixed menu. Cook the same thing every Mon, Tue, etc?” suggested hubby.

Yeee. Boring. I like to try new things. But then I find that I end up cooking the same old things. Haha. So today, instead of cracking my head daily, I shall post up the menu for my entire week! Heheh!

Day 1
Lunch – Fish Porridge
Dinner – Steamed Taufoo, Stir Fried Siew Pak Choy, Braised Potato with Minced Meat

Day 2
Lunch – Fish Ball Tong Hor Soup with  Braised Wantan Mee Noodle
Dinner – Sweet & Sour Fillet Fish, Stir Fried Choy Sum, Hot Dog Omellete, Old Cucumber Soup

Day 3
Lunch – Meat Ball Porridge
Dinner – Chicken Kurma, Grey Oyster Mushroom fried in Cucur Udang Flour, Stir Fried Baby French Beans

Day 4
Lunch – Pineapple Fried Rice
Dinner – Kunyit Fried Fish, Homemade Steamed Siew Mai, Stir Fried White Cabbage, Tomato Soup

Day 5
Lunch – Steamed Brocolli & Carrot, Readymade Deep Fried Fish Fingers
Dinner – Pan Fried Egg Taufoo, Stir Fried Mixed Vegetables, Braised Chicken with Ginger

Day 6
Lunch – Eat out (Yahoo!)
Dinner - Steamed Chicken Rice, Eggs Sunny Side Up, Stir Fried Long Beans with dried prawns

Day 7
Lunch – Egg Sandwiches
Dinner- Sweet & Sour Fish, Joo Hu Char (Stir Fried Carrot with Sengkuang, Steamed Egg with minced meat

Now, I just have to reproduce this and paste it on my refrigerator door. Hahaha.

Seriously, planning a menu is no easy affair. You have to think of the likes and dislikes of every person in the house and try to include a dish that everyone likes. If someone is sick, you must make sure your menu has simple foods for that person too. For example, my girl is sick so instead of making fried wantons for the kids, I’ll make steamed siew mai instead using the same ingredients.

You have to think of how to make use of the leftovers too. For example, if I make soup, I will make a lot and use the leftovers as stock for my porridge or soup the next day. I must also make sure that I have the items or ingredients at home so that I don’t have to rush out to buy them last minute as I shop just once a week. I have to think of the kids too. For example, they will gobble up the cauliflower if I make cauliflower fritters and leave it untouched if I stir fry it as a vegetable. So really must crack head.

After meals, our “dessert” usually consist of fruits, either apple, oranges, papayas, watermelon or mangoes etc. 

I am happy that so far, with the maid, my dream of providing healthy wholesome, nutritious, clean food for the family is coming true. The maid does not cook. She just helps me prepare and wash up but that is a tremendous help.

Previously, I could not cook like this due to lack of time and also due to my condition which makes cooking in front of the open fire with no other adult present a bit more challenging. So, lunch and dinner usually consist of porridge, sandwiches, or my one pot foods, ie steamed rice with everything thrown inside the rice cooker pot or microwaved baked beans, and reheated store bought ready made foods or tapau rice and dishes from nearby shops.

This is a very pleasant change. I am happy. Now, you know why I’ve put on 5 pounds?  

Its coming towards the last quarter of the year. A very busy time. The girl has all sorts of activities. She is going to be one of the emcees in her kindy concert and its a tough act. There are 5 pages to memorise and she’s got to speak in English, Malay and Chinese together with the other little emcees. The words they are using are big big bombastic words. Some of them are really hard to pronounce. I think they would sound more natural using plain simple language but no, I suppose the kindy wants to show off what a great vocabulary the kids have trilingually. So its tough.

Then theres the piano concert. I’ve got a solo piece and a duet piece with the girl. More practise. Plus theres her year end assessment at the kindy too but I’ll leave that to the teachers.

Oh and I must not forget about the poor boy. He feels left out in all our practises. The other day when I went to see the paed because we were all sick again, she wanted to refer us to a psychologist (to find out if he is dyslexic) because of his mirror image writing and because he can’t read very well yet. We decided that we should wait for another 6 months to see his progress.

That means I must spend more time with him now. He’s been sorely neglected. Its only 2 months to the year end school holidays. That means I can only have 2 months of one to one time with him in the mornings. I better utilise that time to teach him.

I’ve been meaning to do that for the whole year now but it hasn’t materialised. Bad momma. How quickly the time has passed.

Next year the girl will be entering primary school and the boy entering kindy. Gotta prepare them both for it and myself too. Again the girl has extra practise learning to read Chinese at home with me. I’ve got to spend more time with the boy!

And then I’ve got to work on losing those 5 pounds I gained and more.

What does that mean? Less time for momma of course. Less time blog hopping. So if you don’t see me on your blogs, its because I have to force myself to press “Mark all as read” on my feedreader. Sob. Sob. Thats very hard to do. (for a self confessed blogaholic).

The kids had been waiting for this event all week. We had got their paper lanterns ready, the candles were there, ready to be lit. They even went to nap in the afternoon like good little children because they wanted to wake up fresh to play lanterns.

And then……… it rained. We had wanted to take them to the park like last year but it was wet and still drizzling after dinner. So we went to pump petrol and the petrol station instead.

So, I decided to call second sis to ask if it was drizzling at her place. It was too but she had the space in her house to play lanterns and she had some of her in-laws with little kids there. She said she had wanted to call me too but wasn’t sure whether we could make it last minute. That was great. “I’m on my way” I said.

And thats how I gate crashed a lantern festival party. Eventually my second bro turned up with his kid too. So the kids had a delightful time playing lantern with other kids despite the drizzle. And I ate too much mooncake again. Burp!