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Blink Blink..it’s Chinese New Year!! January 22, 2012

But the result was definitely worth the wait.  We now have a wider and longer hallway, somehow making our home seem more private .  The stainless steel gate would

also prevent any rust in the future.  And it certainly made our home looked brand new

The year 2012 is certainly off to a fast pace right from the onstart, for me at least.  I hardly found the time to dismantle the Christmas tree (oh yeah, we only took it down last night!), and in the blink of an eye, it’s already the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year.

Seriously, where HAS all the time gone?

January has indeed been a really busy month, what with the kids starting off a new and exciting year in school, complete with orientations programs and whatnot.  I’m sure it shows from the frequency of my blog updates.  We’re also planning Ethan’s birthday do at the end of the month, which ALWAYS coincides with the Chinese Lunar New Year.  Of course, the customary spring cleaning at home is a given, plus some personal endeavors left me with absolutely no breathing room.

This year after some due consideration (and quotations and chasing contractors around), we decided, together with our next door neighbor, to transform our old steel grille door to a stainless steel one, which included extending the gated area all the way to the edge of the corridor.  Our old gate was built at the halfway point in our hallway due to developer’s requirements at the time of purchase, but once the strata title was obtained a couple of years back, we are able to extend the gated hallway area to the corridor.  We just didn’t have the time to do it since then.

Our old white grille gate, which had been with us since inception, which was almost 8 years, was also showing signs of rust and wear and tear.  Not very sightly at all.

The entire process of removing the old and installing the new gate took a good 8 hours.  This was the stage when the old door was completely removed and we were waiting for the new one to be installed.

It was a long day of drilling, and hacking but the result was definitely worth the wait.  We now have a wider and longer hallway, somehow making our home seem more private .  The stainless steel gate would also prevent any rust in the future.  And it certainly made our home looked brand new

In addition to the new gate, I ventured into some homemade cookie-baking this year too, against the advice of my hubby (sorry, love).  My kids were more than willing to help too, and in fact, the ones on the left were actually Ethan’s idea.  He calls them “Mickey Mouse cookies”, and Ethan and Hannah helped to place the chocolate, vanilla and strawberry flavored chips on the cookies before I baked them.

For their school’s Chinese New Year party last Fridayt, Ethan brought the Mickey Mouse cookies to share, while Hannah brought the cornflake cookies I made (the ones in the brown and white polka dot liners).

And finally…a work in progress..

It’s now late at night and I have not had time to paint my nails yet…so please excuse me while I try to get this done before the New Year begins.  Happy Chinese Lunar New year everyone!  GONG XI FA CAI!

Can You Say “Hot Pink”? January 2, 2012

Yep.

A few days before the New Year, I decided to take some time off and make use of the Groupon I had purchased a while back for a manicure and pedicure.  Hubby would be in charge of the kids while I escaped for a 2-hour pampering session (including commute time).

I paid RM38 for the voucher and was excited to use it because it had been a long long time since I had a manicure (I think it was the French manicure I had on the eve of my wedding day). I’ve never had a pedicure before, so it would be my first.

Well, I didn’t have a good impression when I called to make an appointment, because the girl who took the phone could hardly speak English to begin with, and on top of that, she hung up before she even took down my name and number!  I had to call back to give the deets to her!

However, I had to go through with it anyway, because the Groupon had already been bought and the deadline was Jan 5th 2012.

Anyway, on the day of the appointment, someone from the salon called to remind me to, “Don’t be late ahhh..” SIGH.

Long story short, I arrived and had the *treatment* done.  I wanted to choose a baby pink color for the nails, but ended up choosing a slightly darker (and hotter) pink shade, in view of the faster drying time, according to the manicurist.  My toenails were a deep shade of maroon, with a slight shimmer to it.

I can’t say that I wasn’t happy with the colors, but I was a little uncomfortable because the manicurist and pedicurist (yes 2 of them!) were chatting with each other, seemingly oblivious that I was sitting there.  Is that how it is normally done, pray tell?

Anyhow, I did enjoy the paraffin wax treatment on the hands and the foot scrub, wish it could have been longer though; but what happened next made me almost totally forget all about the manipedi I just had.

Read on for more…

Singapore Snippets December 19, 2011

Hello everyone!  It’s been a long while since I last posted here, and no, I have not abandoned blogging forever…it has just been a really eventful month for my family and I, it being the school holidays and all.  We just returned from our family vacation in Singapore, tickets courtesy of Krisflyer Miles and airport taxes courtesy of our pockets.  I’ll be blogging in greater detail about our vacation in my other blog, i.e. Our Little Miracles, but here are a few “here and there”s which were captured during our short and enjoyable stay there.

Lunch at Terminal 2 Changi Airport upon touchdown: We revisited Soup Restaurant, and were pleasantly rewarded with the similar cozy ambience we knew several years ago; same decor, same location…and same excellent yummy delectable food.  Everyone loved the samsui chicken, a restaurant specialty.

We stayed with our friends Bernard and Pei Ling that first night, and took a walk on the Marina that evening, and although we were caught in a slight drizzle, our spirits were definitely not dampened when we took in the breathtaking view of the Marina Bay Sands in all its glory.

All photos taken while trying desperately to keep the camera lens out of the rain as much as possible

Read on for more…

The Chocolate Banana Cupcakes I Made November 24, 2011

If there are any two food items that go together so well like an old married couple, it would have to be chocolate AND banana.  Incidentally, most kids I know name these two items as tops on their favorites list.

So since my son had an end-of-year party with his classmates in school, and he made a special request that I bake something for him to bring, I figured why not…well, actually he asked for chocolate banana muffins, but I managed to persuade him to change his request to chocolate banana cupcakes instead.

It was because I was tempted to try the chocolate banana cupcake recipe from Love and Olive Oil.  They look good, don’t they?

I decided to make mini cupcakes because the kids would have other kinds of food to sample as well.  Mini cupcakes would be rather mess-free too, as you can just pop them into the mouth.

This recipe yields 60 mini cupcakes, but I only had 2 of them, if I remember correctly.  My son took 24 to school (the tray came back wiped clean, to my joy!) and I think between my son, my daughter (who preferred the frosting), my Mom and MIL, the rest of the cupcakes were gone by the next day.

The frosting is actually a chocolate AND banana frosting too (yes, it contains mashed bananas in it), and I decided to place the sliced bananas only on the morning itself, before my son brought them to school.  Good thing I did that too, because some of those slices began to droop!

“Maybe next time you should just lay them flat on the frosting, Mommy,” my son said.

Anyway, here’s the recipe in case you’re interested.  It’s egg-free, so the batter is totally “lickable” … perfect for little ones too!

Chocolate Banana Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes or 60 mini cupcakes.

INGREDIENTS:

½ cup coconut milk

½ cup ripe banana (about 1 banana)

1/3 cup canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ cup sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

¾ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

For Frosting:

½ cup butter or margarine, room temperature

¼ cup ripe banana (about 1/2 banana)

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 ½-3 cups confectioners’ sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 175ºC (about 350ºF). Line muffin pan with paper liners.
2. In a small bowl, mash the banana with a fork. Whisk in the coconut milk, sugar, oil, and vanilla extract until incorporated. Mixture will still be a little lumpy because of the nature of the banana, but whisk out as many large lumps as you can.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
4. Make a well in the center of dry ingredients and pour in banana mixture. Stir until just smooth (do not overmix).
5. Pour into liners, filling each with 3 tablespoons of batter (cups should be no more than 2/3 full).
6. Bake 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

For frosting, cream butter until smooth and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add banana and mix on high speed until few lumps remain. Add cocoa powder and 1 cup powdered sugar and beat until combined. Continue adding sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition (depending on the temperature of your butter, you may need more or less sugar/cream to achieve the proper consistency). Mix in vanilla. Continue beating until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes, adding more sugar if necessary. Spread or pipe onto cooled cupcakes. Garnish with leftover banana slices if desired.

Food Waste Friday: Granny Smith Will Not Be Pleased November 18, 2011

Today (and hopefully every Friday), I’m joining The Frugal Girl and other bloggers out there in posting my food waste photos within the past week, calling it Food Waste Friday. It is hoped that by sharing pictures of the food I have wasted, it would motivate me to reduce wastage as much as possible. I will try my very best to participate each week, and hopefully there will be weeks where I will be able to happily report that there was 0% wastage!

To be frank, I have NEVER seen Granny Smith apples this way before.  I’ve always managed to salvage them by making apple tarts or salads, so I was quite disturbed to find these two wrinkly things at the back of my fridge this week.

Hope it will be a better week this week…

Aargh!! I Can’t Believe I Still Have Zits!! November 17, 2011

How could it have happened?  I thought zits were only for adolescents and teenagers going through puberty.  That being said, I was blessed not to have suffered from zits when I was a teenager, save for that occasional one or two.

But at my (slightly matured) age now, I’m horrified to discover that zit after zit has erupted on my chin and lower jaw area.  It didn’t help that I had noticed some clogged pores and blackheads setting up camp there too.  Several years ago, I had suffered from severe clogged pores on my lower jaw area, something which I had root-caused that it was a result of cradling the phone receiver too much during those days when I had conference calls for hours.  I blame it on my then-employer for being too stingy to provide a headset for my use.

Those clogged pores vanished as soon as I started a regular facial regime and also my then-new-employer provided me with a headset.  Problem solved.

But now that I am a SAHM, with no conference calls to attend and no cradling of phone receivers to blame, I am absolutely dumbfounded to discover that my lower jaw and lower cheeks have been attacked by zits and clogged pores.  To make matters worse, my itchy fingers, who could not tolerate the clogged pores, decided to take matters into their own hands…quite literally.

I ended up with angry red spots all over my lower half of my face, and only myself to blame.

It could be hormonal, stress…whatever…but I knew I had to get rid of those unsightly spots.

I tried using Kiehl’s Midnight Recovery Concentrate and Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair, but the red spots remained (although the rest of my skin was a smooth as ever).  Tea tree oil had never worked for me, so I did not venture there.

But then I remembered I had a little bottle of Forsythia Detox sitting on my dresser.  It was part of a free gift pack when I purchased some aromatherapy from Bel ‘Air some years ago.  Forsythia Detox is a Chinese herbal essential oil, which is used specifically to treat acne, pimples and clogged pores, because it works to reduce inflammation, combats bacteria and detoxifies.  I used it like a serum at night before bed, dotting the oil directly on my problem spots.

The next morning, I was surprised to see that the red marks had become light brown spots, which meant they had more or less dried up!  Amazing!

But my happiness is now shortlived because my little miracle potion bottle is finishing.  I’m down to my last few drops and the problem is I don’t know how to repurchase.  The Bel’ Air outlet that I know of has closed down and Forsythia Detox is not a commonplace essential oil you can find in the stores.  How now?

Sigh…

Do you have the occasional zit and how do you combat it, apart from drinking gallons of water and getting enough sleep?

The BIG 7 Billion Number November 14, 2011

My husband downloaded the National Geographic magazine’s 2011 year-long series on world population app on the iPad last week, and my son has since been immensely intrigued by it.  He has been showing everyone the app, which has a very interesting video clip, so much so that even his sister is showing keen interest in it too.

Just in case you’re interested, here’s the same video clip I’m talkin’ about, which I got off YouTube:

The National Geographic series on world population was created in conjunction with the fact that our world population hit the 7-billion mark on October 31st 2011, and the video clip touches on real facts (some shocking but true) about our world situation as it is now, and potentially in years to come.

I hesitate to say that the 7-billion world population figure is one worth celebrating because out of that figure, almost 1 billion people suffer from hunger.  That is a HUGE figure and one which is quite a disturbing fact.

Even more disturbing is the revelation that this year, 6 million children will die from hunger-related causes, if nothing is done.

Just imagine…there are people out there who do not have the means to a decent meal every day, and yet, when you think about it, there is always SOMETHING we can do.

Recently, a group of blogging moms has initiated a fund-raising effort to address this issue and they have targeted Children’s Hunger Fund, a non-profit organization aimed at helping hungry children all around the world.  Today, I called both my kids together for a brief sharing session.  They were all excited when I whipped out the iPad and told them Mommy was going to show them something interesting on the iPad which was NOT a game.

I started by recollecting the video clip they saw from National Geographic, and then I added more details to the statistics.  I then showed them the Children’s Hunger Fund website, and explained how we could help by providing these children with food, toys and even Bibles!  Ethan was surprised that we could feed a child for a mere 5 cents a meal!  As an example of how we could help those suffering from hunger, I told Ethan and Hannah that they could take a look at their piggy bank and let me know if they would be interested to donate some of their *earnings* to help these hungry kids.

After asking me some questions, Ethan said that he would like to donate some money to buy the kids some nice pasta (oh yes, they have that too), and Hannah sort of mentioned she wanted to donate some money to buy some toys for the kids.

Later, Ethan came up and told me, “Mommy, I talked to God just now and I prayed for the hungry kids.”

I was so touched.

So there you go.  There’s one way you can help make a difference in a hungry child’s life.

You could also forgo that designer dress you were thinking of and use that money to get something for the kids that they need.

You could also purchase stuff for kids in need from the Children’s Hunger Fund menu and present that as a Christmas gift for someone, and give a note to that someone stating “Dear xxx, I gave a gift of 100 meals to a child in need in your name.  You helped to make a difference in a child’s life.”

…or even a fund-raising campaign!

I’m extracting this text from the Children’s Hunger Fund site, because I was moved by what was written.  Just goes to show how we should always be thankful for the meals put on the table for us each day, and that we can help a child in need, if we only start somewhere.

I’m a child in need. This Christmas I won’t get any gifts. In fact, I’ll be lucky if I have a meal to eat on Christmas day.

But hope is not lost. Some generous people at Children’s Hunger Fund know about my need and the needs of others like me. And they do whatever they can to help.

Each year Children’s Hunger Fund mails this catalog, a menu of ways you can serve a child.

Notice, the word menu can also be read “me ‘n’ you.” When you go out to a restaurant you look through the menu, make your choice, and a waiter gives you your meal.

I often get on my knees and ask God to provide for ME, and God can use YOU as the answer to my prayers—MEnU. This MEnU, gives you a way to provide food and other essentials to a child like me this holiday season. Whatever gift you choose to give, thank you for generously loving me, and others in need.

Sincerely,
A needy child you can help

If you’d like to participate in a fund-raising project of any kind, do drop me a line and I will direct you to the person-in-charge.

I’ll leave you with these 2 videos, which speak volumes, way more than my words ever will:

My Red Velvet Cupcakes: I thought they were going to be a failure but… November 4, 2011

…look how lovely they turned out!

I am pleased as punch!

And to add the icing to the cake (literally), both my kids gave their thumbs up

I decided to make some red velvet cupcakes today for the first time (recipe taken from Joy of Baking), and everything went rather smoothly at first.  Well, I did run out of red food coloring, but I figured that would just make the cupcakes not as RED as they were supposed to be.  I was short of about a quarter of a tablespoon of coloring by the way.

And when I put those cupcakes to bake in the oven, they did look delicious!  All fluffy and in all their red glory.

But when I made the cream cheese frosting, something didn’t look quite right.  The cream cheese frosting became runnier the more I beat it.  Adding more icing sugar did not help one bit, apart from making the frosting sweeter and sweeter, so in desperation, I chilled the frosting in the fridge, hoping that it would stiffen.  I googled a bit and in my haste, I decided to add corn flour to the icing to make it thicker.

HUGE MISTAKE.

The advice on the net said to add CORN STARCH and not CORN FLOUR.  So I was left with some runny frosting which was powdery in consistency, but on the contrary, tasted rather good.  Still, it was way too runny to be piped on the cupcakes.

But then I remembered I still had about half a bar of cream cheese left, so I decided to redo the frosting, this time adding the whipping cream a little at a time.

Voila!  I managed to get the cream cheese frosting to the right consistency

…and you know what?  To be perfectly honest, these taste way better than the ones I bought from a cake store in KL last time…

A Sunday Afternoon Lunch at Blue Reef Fish & Chips November 4, 2011

I just wanna say that at this very moment I am SO craving a serving of fish and chips.  Much more so because last week, we discovered, quite frankly, the BEST fish and chips I had ever tasted in a long while.

It was a spur of the moment decision that made us end up at Blue Reef Fish & Chips at Straits Quay for lunch.  We were starving and when we saw that the menu had a kids’ meals which had spaghetti, we pounced at it.

The rest, I’d like to think, is a love affair with fish & chips which has been reignited and reaffirmed.

Our order of seafood chowder arrived fairly quickly, and I absolutely loved the creaminess of the soup, together with the freshness of the mussels and scallops in it.

Well maybe I have always had a soft spot for chowder.

Read on for more…

A Deck of Slides in Review November 1, 2011

Have you ever encountered a situation where you discover that you have too many photos to use on your blog posts or website?  And to add to your dilemma, all of the photos are good ones.  That’s a good thing to a certain extent, but if you were to inundate your site or blog post with too many photos, it might take too slow to load and it will most certainly drive readers away.

I, for one, do have a tendency of ending up with too many photos, and I’m happy to say that I have finally found a great solution to displaying all of those photos in a neat and professional manner.

It’s called SlideDeck and I’m glad to have stumbled upon it, and here, I’m gonna let you know how I think SlideDeck is a excellent companion to have on any blog.

I downloaded the Lite version a few days ago (which is free) and have been playing around with it.  Slide Deck works as a Wordpress plugin so installing it was a breeze, straight from the Plugins menu on the Wordpress sidebar.  It is a jquery slider plugin, which enables between 3 to 10 embedded slides to be displayed in a “sliding” manner, for want of putting it in layman’s terms.  The slides can consist of anything at all: images, text, PDF files; think of it as having your very own slideshow on your website.

Here’s what you can do with this plugin:

• Create a Recent Posts slidedeck to display posts that were recently published.
• Create a Featured Posts slidedeck to display featured posts.  Once the plugin is installed, there is a little box beside each post which allows you to mark the post as a Featured one, should you choose to do so.

Both Recent Posts and Featured Posts slidedecks can be created using the Smart SlideDeck option.  Here’s a slidedeck I created for some Featured Posts from my blog:

Not too bad, eh?

Other things which I think SlideDeck would prove useful for:

• Headers in Websites or Blogs
• Photo Montages
• Pictorial step-by-step for recipes or tutorials
• Cartoons
• Online Presentations

The created slidedeck can be placed anywhere on the blog/site, or even inserted directly into the template files.  It is definitely a unique and professional way of sprucing up your website.

I wished the fonts and font sizes on the slidedecks were customizable though, because I find that sometimes they seem too big.  Well, perhaps they are…in SlideDeck Pro. Heh…

Have you heard of SlideDeck or are you currently using it?

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