Archive for March, 2009

We communicate via email sometimes. It may sound ridiculous but sometimes we email each other every day to “talk”. For us, email is a very effective and useful form of communication.

With young kids around and very little hours in a day where we get to see each other, we hardly have time to talk each day. And even if we do have time to talk, we’re always being interrupted during our conversation, either by kids or by the thousands of things that we need to do in our todo list.

During the weekdays, hubby leaves the house before we’re awake. He says goodbye to us individually and we all murmur back at him sleepily. Haha. When he gets home, its his turn to murmur back at us because he is usually either too tired or has more work to do. That was how it was before the girl went to Primary School. Now, its just a sleepy rush for everyone in the morning accept the little one who gets to sleep in a little longer each morning. With the kids around, that leaves zero communication hours each work week day. That leaves only the weekend and we’re always busy during the weekends as well, rushing around to do this errand and that.

So we find the email very useful. We email the things we want to say to each other before we forget to say them. Little mundane things or things that we want to update each other about. Sometimes hubby writes down those things in a little notebook to be talked about later but email is faster. We just write down whatever we want to say and the other spouse replies quickly in email then we discuss them in more detail when we do find the time to talk or we might reply in person instead of via email. Crazy? But it works for us and I’m happy to email the man about my day for him to read about in the evenings or early mornings otherwise I would probably forget to tell him all the little details by the time we manage to find the time to talk. ;)

I am the long hair type. It must be because from the age of 7 to 12 I was forced to have short hair, very short hair because of the school I attended. I was in Methodist Girl’s School. They were very strict about hair. Must be above the colar and ears, fringe above the eyebrows etc. So after age 12, I rebelled and I have been rebelling ever since. Hahaha. I’ve only cut my hair fairly short once since then and I hated the look. Besides long hair is so much easier to look after, its low maintenance, like me. Hehehe.

Here’s an excerpt of an article I read on the web about women with long hair pinpointing women over 40 to be exact (that would be me if you didn’t already know). Haha.

“What Long Hair Reveals About Personality

Women who are over 40 years old and wear their hair long may not resist growing up. Dimitrius writes, “Sometimes women with this trait are caught in a time warp and still think of themselves as teenagers or college students rather than as grown-ups. Such women may be fairly unrealistic in their outlook on life as well as in their perception of themselves.”

Women who have long hair may believe it makes them more sexually appealing. Long hair could also reveal a bohemian spirit or freedom from conventional expectations.

Read more: “What Your Hair Says About You: Discovering Personality Traits Through Women’s Hairstyles” - http://psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/what_your_hair_says_about_you#ixzz0Av8SjgMq

OMG! Hahaha. Perhaps its true. I always feel younger than my age. I’m like stuck forever young in my mind altho the body begs to differ. lol. Older also means slower metabolism. I was supposed to lose 5 pounds but I gained 5 pounds instead. Grrrrrrr! (But then thats another story for another day). The second part about freedom from conventional expectations is not true for me though. I’m very conventional to the point of being exceptionally boooorrrrriingg. Yaawwwwn.

What about you? Which hair type are you?

The children love gardening. They love to watch things grow. We allow them to choose their own seedlings from the store and plant them. My boy chose tomatoes. My girl chose flowers. The flowers didn’t turn out. They didn’t make it through the sprouting stage. They didn’t grow well.

The tomatoes were okay. However, we had some problems with it. We didn’t have proper support for it, so the vines grew all twisted around some of our other plants. It didn’t stand up well but it grew all the same. When it began to flower, the kids were really excited. They could hardly keep themselves from plucking the flowers. There were many lovely tiny yellow flowers. However, only one of it made it into a tomato. lol.

We watched it grow, then turn yellow and then a bright orange. Yesterday, the kids were so excited, they plucked our single tomato and ate it. It was tiny but it didn’t taste sour. It was quite nice. I guess it tasted nicer because we planted it ourselves. The kids wouldn’t touch the tomato otherwise.

Now, if only I had the organic tomato growing kit shown in the image above. We would have lots more tomatoes to eat! Some of our tomato plants died because it was attacked by white ants. The kit includes a bottle of bottle of Safer® Brand Tomato & Vegetable Insect Killer. That would have helped. We didn’t spray anything on our tomato plants because we wanted to keep the tomato free from harmful insecticide. As a result, some of them did not survive. We also didn’t have the expandable plant stakes which would have given our plant better support. The stakes look really interesting.

Next time, we want to try planting tomatoes again, I know what to do.

I just can’t seem to stop buying books for the kids as well as for myself occassionally but more for the kids. Everytime I see a book, I think about how they would enjoy the stories inside or if its an activity book, the hours of fun they would have or if its a lesson book, how much they would learn and how I’d spend time teaching them from the book etc. Yup. I’m a self-confessed book buyaholic.

On Sunday, we went to Ikea because we wanted to get the kids their “road carpet” because their old one had worn out. We reached there at about 1pm. The car park was full and so we were directed to park at the side of the road. Oh my! It was a mad crowd. Looking at the crowd, you can’t help but think….”Errr….. but I thought we’re having a slowdown?” as you jostle among the crowd who sat on beds, tried chairs and stacked their trolley up with goodies. We couldn’t find the carpet and the crowd at the cafeteria was crazy so we ended up at Ikano Power Center and found the Popular Bookstore Book Fair.

Oh my! I ended home with a stack of books instead. lol. I was so pleased to find a stack of 5 lesson books for Primary 1 for only RM3. In it was English, Math, Chinese and Malay practise books. Miss Book Buyaholic decided to buy the Primary 2 one as well. It has 2 English Books, 2 Maths books and even a medium sized black and white Chinese picture dictionary in it. All for another RM3. Wow! 10 books for only RM6. Each book is between 50-80 pages so its not exactly thin thin cheapo type of books either. I guess each book would be worth about RM3. What a value buy! (Pictured above is my treasure trove of the 10 books). The info within those 10 books is definitely worth much more than RM6. Miss Book Buyaholic was estatic! Hahaha.

Help! My bookshelves are exploding! says Miss Book Buyaholic.

Yawwwwn! Aaaachooo! Yaawwwwnn……..

Getting up at 6am and getting the girl ready for school is hard work. Making sure I get some exercise after she goes off to sleep instead of going back to sleep is hard work. Then getting the boy up and ready for school is another round of hard work.

Yup! My holiday is definitely over. Its back to school and back to work for all the mummies and daddies out there. Back to waking up early and worrying about how our little ones are coping in school especially if they claim they don’t like school or they start wetting their trousers in school when they have never had this problem at home before. Something is not quite right so mummy has to do some investigative work.

On the last two days of school before the school holidays the little one told me that he wanted to bring extra trousers to school because he was afraid that he would wet his trousers. I was surprised because he never had this problem at home before. On the last day of school, he came home without his socks, underwear and in someone else’s trousers because he had wet his. Definitely something is amiss. I couldn’t get it out of him exactly. He said he’s not afraid to ask teacher. He said the toilet is dirty, far away, teacher didn’t hear him, teacher asked him to ask someone else and then it was too late etc. So, which is it? So today, I’ve got to go and see the teacher to investigate. As for the girl, last night she said “Mummy, I really don’t like to go to this school.”  and then she started worrying about school. Yup! The holiday is definitely over for me.

I wish for another week of holiday.

I had some leftover bananas…. and so I baked the only cake I knew how to bake….. Steamed Banana Cake. We doubled the recipe since the original recipe turns out a cake too small for us.

My boy helped me. He was delighted to squash the bananas and mix in the egg and flour…. but we ran out of sugar…. and so we improvised. We put in a packet of 3-in-1 milo powder in place of sugar for one half of the cake. Fortunately the cake turned out. Phew!

However, the banana side tasted better of course since it was meant to be a banana cake after all. The Milo side looked good but did not meet up to its looks. Haha. Next time better check to make sure we have ALL the ingredients before we say GO! Still, it was nice experimenting.

One more day and then schools out for the kids for the first term holidays. I will be extra busy then spending time with them. Perhaps I won’t be able to blog till AFTER the school holidays. In any case, Happy Weekend everyone.

No matter how good you are in your writing, there is nothing like a picture to complete your story. So, for the sake of blogging, I sacrificed my diet, to have a packet of that Maggie Tasty Lite Instant Noodles just so I could post the picture of it in my earlier post. I even climbed onto a chair to reach into the deep recess of my cupboard to get out my chinese tea cup which I had received in some hamper, just so I could put the teacup to complete my picture.

I wanted to make myself a cup of Jasmine tea to wash down the MSG that I had consummed for the sake of blogging but I was too lazy, so the photo was taken without any Jasmine Tea in it. Its empty, only for the sake of a picture for the sake of my blogging. Hahaha.

Some would call this “Chiak Pah Seow Eng”. If you don’t already know this, that means “Eat Full Too Free” literally translated, or simply “Wasting one’s time on frivolous things”. lol. Ah.. but for bloggers, its not true. I am not too free. I have a dozen things to do in my day but I must have that picture taken to complete my post for the sake of blogging.

So tell me, what have you done for the sake of blogging? Taken photos of every morsel of food you are about to consume (if you are a food blogger) or take a photo of your kid in the midst of a tantrum (if you are a parent blogger) “No honey, kick your legs a bit more to the center please, mummy wants to take a photo” or travel, take pictures and write (wouldn’t that be just wonderful, if only I had the time!), or stayed up till 4am to write review after review after review etc etc?

Oh do share with me what you have done for the sake of blogging. I am not “chiak pah seow eng” so I’ve got to go now to put some plaster into the holes on my ceiling but I hope to read what you have to say when I get back. Thanks for sharing.

The other day, hubby bought a packet (of 5) healthier type of Maggie Mee (Curry Flavour) to try. It costs RM1 more. It is supposed to be “healthier” because the noodles are air dried and not fried so it is supposed to be less oily. (I think the term used was air dried if I am not mistaken. Sorry hor, the maggie mee all in my stomach adi and the wrapper in the dustbin a few days ago liao so I can’t remember. Oh, I make such a lousy food blogger. No photos because lazy and food enter mouth and stomach faster than camera can flash. And my memory is bad, I can’t remember and get the facts right. Hehe.)

Well, anyway, the maggie mee is supposed to have “No MSG added”. I studied the ingredients and I think there is still some flavour enhancers in there so probably thats why they used the term “No MSG added” and not “MSG free”. Hmm……

So, whats the verdict? Well, the noodles are less oily and drier but the gravy is still salty and tasty and spicy. Whoooaaa! Like eating pepper like that. Makes my mouth and tongue feel so hot. I had to wash it down with some chocolate sweets after that. Very healthy indeed. Hahaha.

Aiyoh. Talk about maggie mee, feel like eating adi. It really is very addictive, this maggie mee.

Are you a fan of instant noodles? Can you share some nice brands you have tried? I am old school, so don’t ask me as my tried and tested brands are limited to maggie mee (curry and laksa) and indomie for mee goreng only.