Profile Picture

Ok.  I think I did mentioned that I entered a competition from our corporate association.  Now, after that, our house got featured in the magazine.  And now, they want more article from me.  Good advertisement for me.  

But the thing is, I do not have any professionally taken pictures for my projects (call me kedekut, but hey these people - the good ones, are really pricy)!! Good thing is they do provide photographers for free.  They arrange for photo shooting day and 2 houses were shot in a day with 2 teams.  Well, to be honest, I don't quite like the pictures taken (simply because they take care of the ID but not so much of the architectural essence of the house which I am proud of..).  See my point?  I CAN be that fussy.  But since it is for FREE and I got free advertisement, hush, I don't even bother to comment much on the pictures.

The thing is, well, I have to prepare for write ups.  Hack.  Another time consuming matter which crack my head and nerves.  Hello, being solo means I have tonnes to do but well, for free advertising of the company, I just swallowed the pain and force myself to start typing, typing and more typing...See, I am a very sincere designer, I love pictures, I love my designs and the things I do, but having to translate what I do in words are just tooo.....tooo......argh......

Anyways, then they asked me for my picture!! OH. MY. GAWD!  Where to get the picture??  I have not taken any proper pictures for ageees!  Anyways, I hate to delay on the articles and their work and today I dragged myself, pulling out my camera and tripod.  Thank goodness, good weather.  I purposely making sure that I am wearing black.  Put on my earrings and decided to put them off so that I look more natural.  Smiled and posed, nope, smiled and posed again, nope....until I got these 2 which I think can pass just ok...I had to end the session fast before my domestic helper thought that I am a jerk!! ;P

A Good Break

People like us, the designer (kuli) don't have many holidays actually.  Well, this last particular Raya cum Merdeka break was such a blessing to me.  Absolute no calls and no work!  Bliss.

It started off with big cleaning up of my office.  I hate working in disorder.  I remembered during the schooling days, I will take few days just to tidy up my room.  Making sure everything is in order for the new semester.  That includes tearing up unused exercise books and binding them and turning them into my useful sketchbooks.  Now I have to discard all the old drawings, heaps of them.  Preliminaries sketches, obsolete printed drawings etc and turning them into my recycled fax paper or my son's sketch paper...HUGE pile.  

Then, it was fun time (??) at Sunway Lagoon.  Well, fun time for Jien only to be specific.  Jung was like a clinging koala and would not even want to wade in the pool!  Gosh.  Just too young for that maybe.  Will wait for another 10 years before our next visit.  ;P

Then it was all good resting and good family time together at home.  I just love the simple form of it.  Grabbing some books to read, and the fact that I can read the newspaper slowly..is already something I cherish so much!! haha!

The highlight was of course a dinner gathering of my relatives at my place.  I was just toying with the idea just before the holiday and saw my cousin on the FB.  We started chatting and then it was all set and scheduled.  I am so super glad that I did that.  I love watching my aunts chatting together.  Reminds me a lot of my mom.  And the fact is, my paternal aunts and maternal aunts are very close and they are like sisters!! We are just so blessed that we have that strong family bond.  Now I understand why my mom always organized some parties despite all the hard work cooking and preparing the food for like almost 30 pax if not more.  It is a sheer occasion of joy seeing all the relatives come together, seeing some grow up to be teenagers / married / having babies etc.  It is a loud, fun, and love is in the air.

Too bad I did not take any pictures.  Will surely organize another soon.  

And of course, this is their first visit to our new house.  All going oo and ahhh and LOVE the house.  Glad! ;)

Loving Today!!

I love today..

Yessss, for :

1. Hubby is coming home today and I will be seeing him tomorrow morning!!
2. Holidays are approaching.
3. Got the submission done yesterday for a nice couple.
4. Get the drawings printed out and ready for contractor to quote for another job.
5. Finally have time to check for another project's drawings.


Can't wait can't wait to see hubby!! Yippie!

This long wait is only after 2 short (looonnnng!) weeks of hubby's assignment to New Zealand. He was kind of lucky to catch a glimpse of the heavy snow fall in Wellington. Emotionally, I guess he is worse than me. Home sick, missing ME and the boys, missing the house, the bed, well, everything here! Well, just 2 weeks!

See, it is kind of strange that when he is away, I have ALL the energy to get up early, cook my breakfast, prepare Jien's breakfast, read them books, play with them, bring them to the park, to the malls, etc etc...The moment hubby is back home, the adrenalin level will drop to the lowest low. I don't know how you see it. But I see it as I am such a LUCKY mom.

Counting down, counting down!! ;)

In the Park

I was checking some pictures to be placed in the blog the other day only to find out that I have the July month totally void of any pictures.

I was utterly sad as this means I had missed my sons on the entire month!! Oh yes, watching them growing everyday yes but having able to revisit their cute little faces is another.

As I flipped out my camera feeling sad, I checked the pictures in the camera and go 'YEAH!' I did take their pictures!

And they were in one of our favourite parks! I love seeing my sons playing in the nature, get all dirty, wet and soaked up! It really feels good!





Ahhhh......life! ;)

Conversation with Jung

This second son of mine love watching TV and savoring his roti canai.

And so he picked up the word - telescope from the TV numerous shows on the pirates. So all the rolling drawings in the house turned into 'a telescope' and his toy naturally.

x x x x

Yesterday, I baked some yummy tea muffins. It is supposed to go with some beaten cream cheese and honey. So as I dipped the muffin and pass to him, guess what my Jung said ??

'Mummy, is this SPICY??!!' ;P

Colored Version

I have not seen Jien doing any art ever since the introduction to iPhone and iPad. Today there is this coloured back ground thingy in my computer scanned image.

I don't know how this thing end up in my computer. And surely my son's knowledge of computer is advancing by the day....

I just love the colour and of course I know he is drawing my car..the number shows.. haha!

Strawberries Cheesecake with Sweet Almond Crust

Busy busy. Too busy to do anything.

I would still want to keep this blog alive of course.

And I am typing this with lightning speed early in the morning while printing some of my work...

Now, I posted my lovely cheesecake in FB, and some asked what is the recipe...here it is :

Crust
250g low-fat digestive biscuits
100g almonds 125g butter ( I find that the crust is too thick, I would try a 125g low-fat digestive biscuits with 50g almond next time...maybe you try and let me know??)

Filling
15g gelatin powder
100g mineral water
250g cream cheese
150g low-sugar strawberry yohurt
80g strawberry jam (we use mixed fruit as substitute)
50g whipping cream (so little, wonderful ;))

Garnish
strawberries
strawberry chocolate bits
....which we use none to garnish...;P

Crush digestive biscuits and sweet almonds. Heat to melt butter.

Thaw cream cheese, yoghurt and jam at room temperature. Dice cream cheese.

Beat whipping cream until stiff.

Method
1. Mix the crust ingredients well. Press onto bottom of the cake mould. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

2. Slowly stir gelatin powder into mineral water. Stir over a pot of hot water until gelatin melts completely. Set aside.

3. Beat cream cheese, yoghurt and jam well. Fold in the whisked whipping cream in 3 additions. Stir well. Finally add in gelatin solution and stir well.

4. Pour filling into the cake mould. Refrigerate until set. Take out, unmould, garnish if you want and yum yum, enjoy!! ;)

My the other Baby- a peep inside!

Ok, since there are requests to see the inside of my 'the other' baby, here are some of my favourites:

(right, read clockwise)
1. The high ceiling of the living room with some tropical touch. I love the water feature (see the stone studded urn?) and the pond signifying and dramatizing the 'entrance' to the space. I am so happy that the owner finally sold to the idea as during the construction period, they almost scraped and covered up the pond for wanting a bigger living space...See, my boy is enjoying with his friend and all my boys love the water feature! The sound of water is just so calming and pleasing in our hot and humid weather!

2. The bright and airy master bathroom. Need no artificial lighting of any kind during day time! The clients are pleased too!

3. The master bedroom. Read the continuous big sliding door that stream in abundance of light and air?! I just LOVE it!

4. The rustic feel of powder room. Yes, no 'window' but big opening to the blue sky from atop! See the bare cement wall? We love it. :)

5. The low entrance space opens up to a brighter, well-lit stair well.

I can't be showing every bits due to some respect to the owner la...

Like it?

Growing Lettuce

Hmmm..it seems that you girls out there want to try out this greenie lettuce heh??

Step 1 : I got my seed from Ace Hardware shop (or any hardware shop in the mall).. Funny though, for something so soft like this, you find the seeds in a HARDware shop...well, go to the end of the shop, you will find a gardening section. They sell tomato seeds, sun flower seeds, cucumber seeds, choy sum seeds, etc etc in small packet. Cheap. RM2 maybe.

Next -Soil. Good one would be the black organic soil. Next, get some pots suitable for planting vege..it has to be quite deep. I got myself a long small tub-looking plastic thing as I don't have the energy to transport it. I can't recall the exact cost, maybe RM 8. Well, if you have a plot of land to plant, then no need pots ler....

Step 2: Just plonk the seeds into the soil, and water the plants twice a day. They are forever so thirsty!!

Step 3: Sun it. Afternoon sun could be too hot if leave direct.

Step 4: Separate the tiny ones once they started shooting up to about an inch or so. They need space to grow.

Step 5 : Keep watering them twice a day. When you wash your rice, keep the water to water the plant. :P By the way, too much water might rot them, so I prefer them in pots so that I can 'transport' them if need be( if kena too much rain water, they tend to rot)

And by a month plus, you would be able to see the greeny leaves growing nicely and by 2.5 months or so, they should end up on your breakfast table then!

Good luck!

3rd Harvest

Our 3rd harvest is by far the most successful one. I had 2 batches of the seeds planted at 2 weeks intervals and as I had used the previous seeds from my last batch, I have got too much to plant!!

So we ended up eating fresh lettuce (psss..no pesticides!) almost EVERY MORNING!

LOVE IT!

Inspired

Being busy can be so numbing at times at you just can't seems to breath properly sometimes. I feel like I am drowning at times!

Coming across some interesting articles could just lift up the spirit and at least, hit my brain with a big signal to ponder and think of what I can do and what should I DO...next..

Weeks ago as I browsed through (note : browse, hardly have time to really enjoy my Sin Chew Daily now) the papers, I came across a short article (note the word short).

It was about a group of Taiwanese who went to Germany for study and training course. They were always in a rush, so the 'leader' ordered a lot of food just in case the group are hungry. Apparently they had ordered too much food. There were about a third of the food left over. After settling the bill, they hurried and left. An old lady who happened to be in the restaurant rushed out to call this young chap

'Young men, there are still so much food left over! Don't you want to finish your food first?'

Annoyed, the leader was wondering why this old lady is so busy body 'I had paid the bill and we are all full already!'

'But you are WASTING food!'

None of your biz??

Well, the old lady must have created some kind of commotion and later she called the public affairs authority and you know what, the Taiwanese kena SAMAN!

This is what I like the most about what the officer said :
'Yes, you have paid for the food, but you are not only wasting YOUR food, you are WASTING the world's and EVERYBODY's rights to RESOURCES!'

Does this strike you some way? It struck me.


x x x x

I had an old pal in Penang, I called him Lolo - in tagalog, it means 'grandpa'.

He had put in a lot of effort in gathering the public to make organic mud ball. And turning the rivers in Penang clear once again...

Amazing.

x x x x

Yesterday in Star papers,a young architect had designed his house to be a growing green house.

He is doing his part as a designer...........

Now, what can I do to offer ?

Hmmmm....

Schooling Boy-School Environment

Jien's kinder is no ordinary kinder. It is more like a day care center actually; catering for kids as young as 2 year old. Some are still wearing diapers! The center is small, with only 2 classes. What interests me was that they taught kids the basic thing : manners. I remembered when I first visited the school with Jien, all the kids stand up and bowed to us saying ' Ah Yi zao shang hao ' which means good morning auntie. When some kids came down and saw me, they too bowed and said the same. Pretty impressive.

The curriculum was also slightly different. Instead of learning the basic ABC, simple Chinese characters, these kids are taught to memorize and sing Shakespeare's poem, the Chinese literature like 三字經、論語.

I do agree that kids have EXTREMELY good memories. Their reasoning skill is, well, not so. So the best is to drown them with things to memorize.

Frankly, I don't know if my boy really learn anything in the school for the past 2 weeks plus. I just want him to be exposed to a Chinese-speaking environment for the moment. And I doubt that he even knows what books are in his bag except for the light snack we stuff in everyday. Hehe!

But being his mum, I know I can teach better than a teacher at this phase of his life (unless I am prepared to pay for a private tutor who teaches ONE TO ONE and that she/he is at least a degree holder!). I am very happy to say that he is now singing about half volume of the 三字經 with me (of course, with his English accent!) everyday and he enjoys learning it with me. I make sure I am not rushing it and I make sure that he is enjoying it. He also begins to write simple word like 一、 二、三、四.

Chinese (Mandarin) is hard for the recognition of the word unlike the simple ABC which make up words but it is quite easy learning how to speak.

I just hope one day I can go for a calligraphy class again to pick up my love for the art. But this time I want to do it with my boys!

Short Escapade

Last week, hubby was surfing the net for hotel rates. Obviously we needed a break. He was looking at Avilion-PD, & Guoman-PD etc and I told him-- expensive. Then he was looking at Genting Highland-ahhhhh, I don't like it. It is just too overly commercialized, congested, no-where to go to other than the Theme Park which does not sounds attractive AT ALL. I love the cold weather though.

So I suggested Bukit Tinggi.

He checked out the rate. It was quite ok. Colmar-The French Theme, Berjaya resort's one night stay of one room suite costs RM 200 with complimentary breakfast for 2. We jumped into it and had a wonderful, peaceful, pleasant weekend with our 2 sons!!

So off we go last Sunday. The journey only took us about an hour. No hassle. No jam.

As it was an off-peak period, checking in/out was easy.

The room? A bit run down (biasa-lah, Malaysian style). But it is quite a big suite complete with living hall and a pantry. The room is furnished with a four-postal bed. 2 TVs - one in the hall, one in the room. Not bad!

I revisited the Japanese Garden. It is still my favourite spot there.

What amazed me was my Jien who always requested his father to carry him whenever we were at the Zoo, actually walked and ran in the park. He obviously enjoyed himself too.

Oh..the breakfast was quite ok too. Quite a spread of choices for a buffet.

The fresh air, the cool breeze, the smiles of our boys made us decided that we will surely visit it again. :)

I am recharged!

Weekends

I remembered hubby and I got so stressed out on weekends when our maid is off duty. Oh the crying baby, changing diapers, complaining kid, cooking, cleaning, feeding made us so busy and stressed out that we almost almost almost .........quarrel!

Thank goodness that is all history now and it lasted like for 3 weeks or so before we adjusted ourselves, do a bit of planning of schedule, wake up slightly early to get ourselves ready, pre-planned out lunch and dinner to be simple - ALL IN ONE-POT meal.

One of the beautiful Sunday mornings, I woke up early in the morning, blessed with 3 healthy boys sleeping soundly still in the warm bed. I prepared this lovely breakfast for them and I feel so GOOD, myself. :)

Life is just GREAT!

Boutique Lover

Ever since I am a mother, I have been shopping at this little heaven of mine - Lavie, a boutique at Plaza Damas (behind block G) and Grace the owner of the shop has become a friend of mine whom I will see about 4 times a year!! Hahaha!

I simply can't find time to leisurely hunt for nice clothing nowadays. At Lavie, Grace, knowing my taste, likings and SIZE, would continuously flood my changing cubicle with tops or dress for me to keep trying. I save effort and best of all, TIME, shopping there. Of course, she has a good selection of clothings which she sources from Thailand, Korea, etc and she also has some branded stuff which I normally shy away, hahah!! The quality of the material is good I should say. Now, I am her good customer for I always end up buying a few pieces (sometimes 10!!).

The other day, I went there again to grab some new 'simple smart'baju and I bumped into a woman, at the age of 60 and having extremely good figure with size S, goodness!! She is super sanguine (the one wearing white with black prints) and she and Lavie's partner kept us laughing and giggling away the whole afternoon and we all had a wonderful shopping day that day.

And of course, I ended up buying 7 pieces of baju!! Ahhhh! It does feel good to shop! INDEED. :)

Funky

My hair dresser had a fun time cutting my hair real short!! (why shouldn't he, that means I need to patronize him more often ma!!)

I was utterly speechless and was not 100% satisfied with this cut though. It reminds me of my child hood years when my aunt cut my hair. It is always SHORT SHORT SHORT and I thought I look so boyish and I yearned to have long hair!!

Of course, this is the stylish version but I thought he could do a better job as I just think that the style does not suit me well. It somehow looks fine from the side but I look not so 'ngam' from front. I dislike the cut at the side and the back (only realised that when I reached home)...and he said I need to dye my hair to make it looks lighter. Hell, I know but I don't want to dye my hair for now, not for a year from now. No TIME la to up keep and maintain!! Can't you see that I have a BIG balloon waiting to burst?? So I went without the dye and now look lagi-lah AH-SOH-LIKE pulak.

...But being the not so complaint type of person, I swallowed my discontentment.

At least I did not cry like I used to when I was a little. Ha!! Ha!! But every morning I have to splash a bit of water and styling gel to make me look STYLO KUAY LO!! What a jerk I am!!

Mirror mirror on the wall, please make my hair grow longer..and faster!!

Kuay-Lou Lunches

We had been eating 'mat salleh' food for few Saturday's lunches now. Simply because this baby of mine in me does not quite like outside food and I want a quick fix. So it had been home bake pizza (ready pastry of course) and pastas for the past few weeks.

Last week, I ran out of pastry for the pizza and want to try something else. Not so Italian this time (ehem...I don't know how to make lasagna as yet..:P). This time, we tried BURGER- the American food.

Well, not so FAST food as I thought. But it was ok.

I baked the bread on Friday evening.

The rest :
. Minced meat (beef) to be marinated with soy sauce, Maggi soy, bit of pepper and basils.
. Shredded cabbage
. Sliced tomatoes
. Cheddar Cheese
. Splash of mayo
. A bit of ready pickles
. Button Mushroom stir-fried with onions, LP sauce and sprinkled with black pepper
. Fried eggs
. Not forgetting our little harvest from our tiny 'garden' - fresh lettuce!

All stacked up and sandwiched in our home baked bread - wah lah ..........our weekend quick fixed.

Bakery Mart

We have been to the bakery mart quite often lately. To stock up our high protein flour etc. I had even bought some pre-mixed blueberry muffin flour.



We just love the fresh bread and cake SO MUCH!! He he he!! The little one in me is indeed quite lucky to have tasted all these fresh baked goodies!! YUMMY! :P

Shopping Habit

Hypermarket - This has become a selling point for many housing projects now. To be near at least one hypermarket, like GIANT or TESCO. Area like Bukit Tinggi in Klang, they have 2 plus Jusco mall, they have a LOT.

Well, quite some time back, we went there for a quick weekend shopping la. It was at night. Well, it is quite normal to see people pushing the shopping carts in the car park. Presumably pushing them to their cars. But this couple was actually lifting the trolley up the kerb, ah-ah.....they were pushing the fully loaded cart with their kids in it HOME!!

I wonder how many families actually do this?

* * * *

Many a time, I witnessed at the paying counter, people will pass a comment like this one :

' Wah, this plastic bag size very good la, can give me 2 more ah?'

Friend, go buy your proper rubbish disposal plastic bag la! Or recycle whatever you have la!! In the atmosphere to save the environment, lagi-lagi want to ask for extra plastic bags!!

* * * *

Have you seen people actually spent time causing bruises to the fruits / vege? HO Man, these people as if they want the best fruits for their families and their families alone and will cause damage to the entire box of fruits on display!! They press and flip and press and rolled and ...............ahhhh!! I normally will just go to another stall for I know all the fruit by then will be spoilt in no time!!

Colours

As my boy loves to draw, we had bought him both water colour and poster colours for him to start his arty class at home.

For the first attempt, he was pretty excited. I sat down with him and basically just watched him. Well, of course, the mixing water part was the most exciting part for him. He literally drew with water (so diluted!!) and I had to kept telling him that the water was meant to clean the brush and that he had to dip into the colour palette for his colours. Nonetheless, he enjoyed himself so MUCH.

After a few trials, I can sought of leave him alone for his wild imagination. If I am ever around beside him, he would want me to draw instead. Ahhhh, where got time? And as far as for myself, I don't like people watching me doing my work / art. It is a very 'private' time.




And there you go. Not on his nice sheet of white paper but on the newspaper but I think he did a great job!! :)

p/s : he is literally sweating as he is drawing. haha! Let me guess, I think he is drawing a banana tree this time, just that the bananas are too big, hahaha!