The other day we discovered a snake in our toilet bowl. Yes, a snake. Yikes! We were in such a state of shock the only thing we could think of doing right there and then was to flush the toilet bowl at lightning speed. We didn’t stop to take photos or call the firemen, We just followed our reflexes.
I later learned that flushing may not necessarily remove the snake. It’s still lurking somewhere down there in my sewers. What a comforting thought….
Too late now. The snake is gone but the thought of it coming back scares us so much we quickly went and ordered a toilet seat safety lock. This is a safety lock that is meant to baby proof your toilet from curious babies and pets too. At the same time it will hold back any snakes from crawling out of the toilet bowl. Ewe.
Just in case you don’t think it will happen to you, note that I live in a double storey terrace house in the city. There are no forests near me, well, maybe some bushes but that is about it.
So here it is, our toilet seat safety lock. It is very easy to install using strong 3M adhesive. No screws or drilling required. It is very easy to operate too. It locks at the push of a button and unlock with a push of the same button while pulling the lever. That’s it. Hopefully, we can sleep better at night after this.
The toilet seat safety lock in locked positionThis is the unlock position for the toilet seat safety lockPress this button to move back to lock position
Recently I had a chance to test out two instant pasta. They are the Cheese Macaroni Pazzta by Maggi and Instant Pasta Chicken Bolognese variant from Knorr.
Back of the products showing ingredients and cooking instructions
Both the Maggi and Knorr instant pastas are instant pastas. The Maggi one requires cooking for 5 minutes whereas the Knorr one requires steeping* for 5 minutes. (*steeping = soaking food or tea in water or other liquid to extract its flavour or to soften it)
So here goes the Knorr Pasta preparation
Pour the contents of Knorr’s instant pasta into a bowl. Spiral pasta is provided.
Add the packet of ingredients. Then add 110ml of hot boiling water, cover and stand for 5 minutes.
The pasta is ready to be served.
Now, let’s prepare the Maggi Cheese Macaroni Pazzta
Pour the macaroni into a pot followed by the packet of ingredients
Add 250ml of water, turn on the fire and cook/simmer for 5 minutes.
Your cheese macaroni is ready to be served.
Verdict: The Knorr one tasted a bit rubbery, but I think it can be improved if steeped for a little while longer or even cooked for a short time like the Maggi one.
Taste wise, I can’t really compare the two because the variants I had are very different ie Chicken Bolognese vs Cheesy Macaroni. The taste is personal, do you like cheesy or tomato based sauces?
Convenience wise, this is great for students, singles, office workers who wish to have a quick meal or on mom’s lazy days but if mom is not lazy, I think it is better for mom to add another 15 minutes to cooking time to cook pasta from almost scratch using canned pasta sauce. Of course if you really want to make everything from scratch it requires a lot more time!
Convenience wise, Knorr is better because you have a cup variant too and all you need to do is pour boiling water and let it stand just like instant cup noodles whereas the Maggi one needs to be cooked for a short while which may not be convenient for those without cooking facilities.
Price wise, you need to compare satchet vs satchet. Knorr is about RM2.50 for a 40g satchet (if you break it down, usually the satchets are sold in 3s) whereas Maggi is about RM3.30 for a 64g or 70g satchet.
Have you tried the instant pastas? Did you like it?
Knorr Instant Pasta is available in satchets (around RM7.50 for 3x40g) or cup (around RM3.85 for 40g) in the following variants – chicken bolognese, creamy mushroom, cheesy carbonara.
Maggi Pazzta is available in two variants ie Cheese Macaroni and Mushroom Penne at around RM3.30 in satchet form ( (Cheese Macaroni 70g / Mushroom Penne 64g) )
A pair of Chinese New Year Lanterns are the first thing that greets visitors to a home. Some families will hang the lanterns and keep it there for the entire year changing to a new one for the next new year. Some will keep in the store room after the New Year is over to recycle for the following year. However, some families prefer not to recycle because it is believed that when you recycle, you also recycle your bad luck into the New Year. Out with the old and in with the new is considered good luck for many other things too, not only lanterns.
Popular flowers to use for decorating the home during Chinese New Year include the Chinese New Year willows and artificial Chinese New Year plum blossoms flowers or peach blossoms. In the past the Chinese New Year willows used to be in white. Nowadays you can find them in red, pink, purple, blue, green, yellow or just about any colour you fancy to brighten up your room and match your home decor. You can add some CNY Hanging Ornaments to your CNY willows or blossom flowers to give your CNY flower decorations some extra oomph!
CNY hanging ornaments can be used to decorate your Chinese New Year flowers and plants both indoors and outdoors on real plants too. Hanging ornaments are hung up in much the same way as Christmas tree ornaments. Usually they are in red and gold with tassels. Some will come with the word prosperity on it with little gold nuggets, lion dance ornaments or ornaments in the Chinese zodiac animal. These hanging decorations are so easy and versatile to use. You can buy a pack and hand them over to your children and let them surprise you to see where they hang them in the house. We hang them on our doorknobs on cupboard and drawers to put a little bit of red in all the rooms.
Spring Couplets are a pair of auspicious writings to grace the wall of our homes. Spring couplets express our wishes for the new year and may include wishes of prosperity, good health and harmonious family relationships. They are usually written on red paper in gold or black Chinese calligraphy writing. You could write them yourself on Chinese Red Couplets paper or buy these pre-printed CNY Spring Couplets. Just pick the wordings you prefer and tadaa, you’ve got your wishes ready to be hung up on your wall, usually side by side on both sides of your door.
Similar to the Spring Couplet, these CNY Door sticker decoration usually come in pairs with some auspicious words or wishes. However, they are usually in cute cartoon character in the zodiac animal and sometimes come in 3-D shapes too.
In more recent years, you can find cute Chinese zodiac animal plushies or soft toys for sale during Chinese New Year. These are great as gifts for kids. Nowadays they are also used as decorations to grace your table top or top of your shelve. The year 2021 is Year of the Ox, so you will see Year of the Ox plushies in many styles. They also come in different shapes and gender so you can buy just one or a whole family of plushies.
CNY fairy lights come in many shapes and colour. Preferred colour is red, naturally. You can choose from a variety of shapes for your fairy or string lights including CNY knots, mandarin orange, lanterns, wordings. They are battery operated and can be used indoors as well as outdoors.
CNY Wall decals or stickers are a quick and easy way to instantly add a festive feeling to any wall, window or door. You can find them in many designs including lion dance, Families, animal zodiacs, flowers, lanterns. Some are fixed whereas some come in sets and it is up to your creativity to place your stickers in your home
Popular plants to use for CNY decor include the CNY lucky Bamboo (which comes in many interesting shapes), Chrysanthemum plants and CNY lime trees. Plants can be used indoors or outdoors as decoration to brighten up your home for a festive mood.
Those who like to DIY their home decorations will find CNY ribbons and angpow packets useful. Normally we don’t buy angpow packets for decorations. We buy the nice ones to give out and use some recycled ones to cut or fold into shapes for our DIY home decorations. The CNY ribbons usually come in red, gold or pink with or without letterings or wordings.
With these Top 10 CNY Decoration items, your house will be ready to welcome the Chinese New Year with abundant prosperity and joy.
In-laws…. do you buy gifts for your in-laws during Chinese New Year? For CNY it is customary to visit our in-laws and when it comes to visiting, we always bring a gift to our hosts and leave with a little something too. The polite rule is to never to to a house empty handed.
This year, we may not be physically visiting our in-laws due to the MCO/CMCO/RMCO that is in place but it is still nice to send them a little gift. Here are a few CNY gift ideas for in-laws.
This CNY hamper contains 7 items plus angpow as follows. This is for in-laws who like organic products instead of the average hamper that is laden with sweet stuff.
• Biogreen O’Tigres (Low Cane Sugar) Organic Black Bean Powder* • Biogreen 100% Pure Black Sesame Powder* • Biogreen Grapes Enzymes • Biogreen Organic Rosehip & Hibiscus Antioxidant Tea Bag • Etblisse Multigrain Tuber Sandwich Crackers* • Etblisse Organic Quick Cook Jumbo Oats* • Etblisse Spring Green Noodles* • Ang Pao (Etblisse Organic Ginger Soymilk 1’s + Biogreen Perfect Pink Lady 1’s)
This CNY Hamper is for the tea lover. It comes with 1 box Baby Chrysanthemum Herbal Tea Hangzhou (50g) 1 box Rose Herbal Tea Shandong (100g) 1 box Wuyi Shui Xian Oolong Tea Fujian (100g) 1 box Jasmine Green Tea Flower Scented Tea Fujian (75g) 1 pc Perpetual Calendar from Artist Yap Hong Ngee 1 pc Glass Teapot Set – Side Handle (550cc) and Purple Cane Exclusive Red Packets . The Glass teapot set is great for seeping the teas for leisurely afternoons.
This genuine bird’s nest collected from the Niah Caves in Sarawak is perfect for old folks who enjoy bird’s nest in a bottle. In the older days, they used to have to boil the bird’s nest for a long time. Now they come in easy convenient bottles for quick enjoyment by the in-laws. They come in pretty packaging too!
Brand’s Essence of Chicken is just right for seniors who want to be more active. This CNY Octagon Gift Set include 18x 70g bottles of Brand’s Essence of Chicken. As we all know, 18 is an auspicious number especially during Chinese New Year.
Planning to buy one of the above? Click on the images or links above to purchase and use the following discount vouchers to make the most from your CNY shopping.
For New Customers – Use code DDCNYNCP1 to get RM18 off for min spending of RM58
For existing Customers – Use code DDCNYECP1 to get 20% coins cashback for min spending of RM88 capped at 1800 coins.
2021 is Year of the Ox. It is quite trendy these days to wear matching outfits for the whole family from baby, siblings, mum, dad and even gong gong and poh poh. Here are a few cute CNY Family Tshirts for 2021.
CNY Family Tshirt 2021
It has the words 2021 on it and using “cow” or “ox” font or you can select one with just a cute picture of a cow on it in bright Chinese New Year red naturally. This CNY Family Tshirt 2021 is about RM10 – RM15 per piece so a whole set of 4 assuming you have a family of 4, should set you back about RM50
CNY Family Tee Set
This red Chinese New Year Family Tee Set is for those who prefer to have not too much design on it. What you have is a design of a little oxen either wearing mens hats, caps, ribbons or sweet hat to differentiate them as a badge on the chest part. This design is cute but not too loud.
2021 Ox Year T-shirts short-sleeved red Family dress Chinese New Year
Plenty of designs to choose from here. You can either choose the words “niu” which means ox for the Year of the Ox or cute grapics of ox on the tshirts. Sizes start from baby 90cm right up to Dad 5XL! What a wide range! Bundle deals are available too. You get 2% off for purchase of 4 tshirts form this range of 2021 Ox Year T-shirt.
What are the lucky colours for the year of the ox? According to Yearly Horoscope org, your lucky colours depends on your sign as follows:
Rat – red, yellow, silver Ox – pink, emerald Tiger – gray, bronze Rabbit – pink, yellow, green Dragon – red, ruby, gray Snake – light yellow Horse – white and silver Goat – gray, silver Monkey – yellow and bright pink Rooster – pink and blue Dog – yellow, brown, aqua blue Pig – bright red and yellow
2021 The Year Of Ox S-5XL Chinese New Year CNY Family Matching T-shirt
Or if Red is just simply not your style, then you can choose some other colours for your family tee like these 2021 Year of the Ox CNY Family Matching Tees in yellow, blue, or even in white or black though you may have to get ready for some good come back when your elderly relatives see you in those colours!
Happy Shopping! While you are shopping for your tees, don’t forget to check out these Huat Huat Deals happening on 18 Jan from 12am to 2am only. Psst.. remember to add to your cart and set your alarm clock!
