The wheel of life is....

Things that I've been up to

2011-12-12T01:19:00.000+01:00

Our 1st X'mas market table on Friday evening: right side

As some of you would have know, I've been rather busy these few weeks, wait make that this 2 months, preparing for Blonay Christmas market, which was yesterday. Since that this is my first time ever doing a Christmas market, I would have to be on top things since it will be one of those event that will open doors for my small side business. :)

Our 1st X'mas market table on Friday evening: left side

Now that it's over and done, I'm just reflecting on how I managed to just do my thing with the two boys frequently hanging on my legs these couple of months since mummy didn't really have time.... Believe me, there are days when I really feel that I should spent my time with my boys and just put my thing a side. And there are days when I really want to just sit down and do my thing but I don't have the motivation to do it. Days of when motivation came but the boys won't leave me in peace especially when its bed time! Oh well! I guess that I would have to just go with the flow.

The lovely Carmen on Saturday afternoon.
We had to fill in the "gaps" with some my other items.
Notice the mini pink tree is gone?

Speaking about going with the flow, I received a custom order for some party favours from a colleague of hubs. They wanted princess crowns for the birthday of their 5 year old after I showed them what I've made for Halloween (Wonder Women tiara & cuffs) when they were at our place for Chinese hot pot lunch party. So I said OK why not and also suggested that my partner make some knight items since they will also be celebrating their youngest boy's birthday on the same day - double celebration thing. I was really over the moon with this order! :D

Custom order for a little princess! ;)
Makes me want to have a girl but I know THAT would be
impossible given our "track record" of boys on hubs side of the family....

Being over the moon is one thing but also I was stressed out as I don't know what she might expect me to come up with. So I made some enquiries about what's her budget, colour and material and came up with some ideas. I was glad that she liked it and I immediately made at least 6 of it as she confirmed the amount right after the green light about the design etc. I really wanted to get that done and at the same time make more X'masy stuff for the market.

Cute trees! Which I didn't have any intention of selling at 1st.
Sold off the pink and green one by the end of the market day....

A day before the party she wanted an extra crown, which I was happy to do it for her, just that I would have to do a late night job. The day before the party was the evening when I have to set up our table at the X'mas market, be there til closing time (10pm), take the train down to pick up my sleepy boys who was at my partners place, go home, tuck them into bed and then sit down do that damn crown..... I was so so tired after that that I fell asleep within seconds!

The strangest thing is that even though I did not get my sleep quota filled on Friday night, the next day I felt fine. I think it must be the stress of thinking the worst of the worst that could happen on my 1st X'mas market: that my items aren't up to standard and won't sell. But at the end of the day, I was just silly to think like that after a good sale day. :)

Was really feeling the after effects of stress and lack of sleep after reaching home. Thank goodness I've warned hubs that I won't be cooking dinner and we had a pizza take out, much to the delight of the boys!! Yes, little Kevin at 17 months eat pizza as well to but I gave him only the vegetarian ones... hehehehe... He knows that we don't do take out of any types of food (Italian, Chinese, etc) often, make that only on rare occasions. He was wolfing down the pizza like there's no tomorrow! LOL!

Sunday is the lazy day for me in weeks! I just made fried chicken (was thinking and craving for KFC!), salad, and some pasta for lunch. Which BTW, we can not finish and ended up being dinner for me and the two little boys. Hubs just wants oats with milk, honey and banana for dinner...

Mental note to self; after this pizza & fried chicken treat, I would have to make detox meal aka more veg, non-processed meat and fruits for the whole family.....

Mug Rugs!!

2011-10-31T00:58:00.000+01:00

I meant to post this some time back. Thought that with the 2 weeks school break I would have some time. But how wrong I was!!! LOL! It just seems to zip by so fast these days... *sigh OH WELL!

I recently (more than 6 months ago) join the lovely people from NNC in a mug rug exchange with the recent mug rug fever there.... :D We have the option of either joining for only the mug rug exchange or Chinese mug rug exchange OR even both. I joined both. As this is a secret exchange, meaning the receiver doesn't know beforehand who will send their mug rugs makes it all the good surprise!

Maple themed mug rug! Thank you so much Sabariah...

I received my mug rug two weeks ago from Sabariah. She made me a Maple themed rug! It was really pretty and had an autumn feel to it. She also gave me some maple leaf tea! I didn't know it even existed! I immediately brewed some that morning when I got them. It was has a refreshing maple smell and taste to it. I've even added some maple syrup and you know what? It tastes even better... :D

My Chinese fan mug rug to Mel

My partner was Mel from Kuala Lumpur for the Chinese mug rug and Janet from Ipoh for the mug rug. For the Chinese mug rug, I did a combo of cross stitching and patch work to show off the classic fan look. I inspired by (and immediately fall in love!!) this mug rug at Crafters by this wonderful creative lady. Though I had a go at making my own template after finding out how much it costs to get a Dresden plate template. I know I'm cheap like that! hahahaha... Any ways I don't think I would be making a lot of that type of pattern to make it worth my CHF. The XS pattern was from a book by Shopie Hélène entitled Chine (China in French). The fabric I used was bought while I was home. I got at least 1 meter of it I really like the print.

For Janet, I was really cracking my head for ideas until the very last minute! LOL! You know what they say about creative juices overflowing when "pressed"... :p Got the coffee themed fabric early this year for "just because" reasons and it was rare to find these type of print in my LNS!

BTW, I used to have 2 LNS but the other 1 closed down due to retirement reasons. :(( The only one that is still running now will be going into retirement (the owner) soon...... *sigh.....

My heart side of the mug rug to Janet

I saw this Seminole piecing technique while I was browsing for ideas. Had a "nice" time figuring out the dimensions and how to piece the whole thing together. All trial and error method with me! :p But at least I learned something new in the process right?

The appliqué mug and cookies side.

So I made a reversible mug rug for Janet; hearts one side and appliqué mug and cookies the other. I had to frog the binding the 1st time as I didn't like the way it turned out. Who ever say round corners are easy are wrong. I was having problems turning the piece! Any ways, I also tried my hand at FMQ for this piece. Also did it twice! LOL! I must say that I have to practice and practice more often to get the stitch length right. Perhaps I will find the time to do so next year??... hehehehehe...

Stuff I've been up to

2011-10-30T22:37:00.001+01:00

It has been a long while since I've posted any thing here. My bad.... :p Been busy preparing some new seasonal items for my shop as my partner and I will be selling our wares at Christmas market next town. No it won't be the one in Montreux. It'll be in Blonay about 20 minutes drive from our place. :)

There's just so much to do and so little time to prepare! For the time being I've made some felt flowers, just not as fast as I thought that I would go...

First off is that I need to make more items to add in and I find that at the moment I do have limited dough to spread as I do not have a fix income working in a non-profit environment AKA stay at home mum. :( That's why I'll have to just make do with what I have on hand and perhaps look for cheaper alternatives. :p

Secondly, I really need to rethink my packaging and labeling for my items. Mind you people are looking for well presented handmade items and I clearly do not think my current zip lock method will cut it at the Christmas market. Even though it'll be a smallish (will be held in a school gym) thing but still... I'm now thinking of getting organza fabric by the meter and sew some gift pouches. Organza is not that expensive fabric but still I do not want to get it locally as I'll be paying at least CHF3 to CHF5 extra per meter! I know, Switzerland prices are bloody crazy...

As for labeling, I'm making my own tags using my Big Shot machine. :) I knew I didn't make the wrong decision in spending CHF130.- for that! :))))

One of my flowers, all hand sewn... :) And I didn't use my Big Shot for this!!

So now I leave you to admire one of my felt flowers. Am not sure how to finish it off at the moment. Perhaps I'll double it as a clip/brooch/gift topper ensemble. Any suggestions welcomed!!!! :)

Copyrighted! RESTRICTED!!

2011-10-05T11:01:00.000+02:00

As some of you would have known by now, I've started a small little shop selling handmade hair items with girlfriend of mine. She makes bags and little head scarves, scrunchies, neck warmers etc. We're doing a really small scale "production", if you can even call it THAT! LOL! Like for me, even to come up with 2 designs a week would be a miracle what with being a full time stay at home mum... But still it's been fun making some of it though I can not say much about looking for online inspiration.

As to NOT piss off the online crafting community, I'd like to play it safe by not infringing the copyright of the said artists work. They share their free patterns online because that's what the crafting community is about; sharing what you know and do. Yes, we are generous that way.

But what really annoys me is that there are times when my stuff tend to look like the creator's item, but without intention. I don't spend ALL OF MY TIME online stealing ideas you know! I've got better things to do like looking at flowers/trees/butterflies etc outdoors with my little boys, making/sewing up some stuff than to do THAT!

Then what? Can I still sell them? Did I just stepped into the illegal territory? Should I just e-mail them to ask permission even though I've made it without realising that its one of their patterns? I really have no idea.

Oh ya! By the way, do visit us at Asiafrique Mummies! We are in the process of whipping it up in shape - making more items and redefine some details. At the meanwhile do have a look at some of our photos there! :)

Looky what I got!!

2011-10-03T01:46:00.000+02:00

This is a backdated post. Life is just full of surprises these days...
My Chinese Mug Rug from Margaret, Kuala Lumpur of NNC! I received them one morning last week as I was rushing out the door with little Kevin in tow. :) Since that day I didn't get a chance to post anything about it!! :(((

My Chinese Mug Rug with a dainty goldfish tea cup and some packets of Chinese tea. TQ MW!!

THANK YOU so much for such a beautiful mug rug MW! For a novice, you're pretty good at it! So next project would be a single quilt? hehehehehe... By the way, I really Like the cherry blossom fabric in the middle and also the blue crackle fabric goes very well with the whole ensemble.

Did I tell anyone how this humble crackle fabric from MODA made nearly EVERYONE at NNC gaga over? But of course it was sold at such a ridiculous price per meter at the local fabric shop that everyone wants to get even a few cms of it.... I was kicking myself for NOT being home when the frenzy of this fabric was on. OH WELL!

So for my part of the exchange, it's done only that I need to get some tea/coffee from the local shops here before posting it off. It was quite brain cracking as I was looking for ideas and to figure out how to put it all together was nail biting and or hair pulling process! LOL! But its all done and I'm glad as I did learn a thing or two while put it all together.

As you can see from my lists of projects, I FINALLY finish the Winnie the Pooh wall clock kit meant for the boy's room. Only thing now is to frame it up. My next thing right now is to try to stitch a birth sampler for a new arrival on hub's side, to make some more stuff for my web shop, whip something up for the NNC Anniversary gift exchange, some X'mas ornament for a very nice neighbour of mine, then perhaps some Xs on my UFOs. I am not sure IF I'll ever make it to the last thing on this "to-do" list though. As usual having the extra time and my little ones behaving like angels would be a perfect. AS IF!

Vietnam trip, Part 1

2011-08-08T03:09:00.000+02:00

It has been a long time since hubs and I took a trip alone, just two of us, any where since the kids arrived. C'est la vie! That's why while planning our Malaysia trip, I took the liberty to book us a little trip to Saigon AKA Ho Chi Minh city.

REALLY tiny in with! It looks like being SQUEZZZEEEEEEDDDDD!

I thought that since hubs was born there, I thought that it'll be nice to go for a visit. It'll be his 1st trip back to his home country ever since his family got out of there late 70s. And besides, it'll probably be one of those trips to one of these countries that we'd rather take alone, minus the whatever hazards the little ones will bring. :p

HCMC was surprisingly refreshing despite the fact that it has about 8 million people just in that city alone. Weather isn't that hot and humidity is not as high as in Kuala Lumpur. I think it's just a fact that its facing an open sea that helps to "chase" out all the hot air?

My 1st impression of this vibrant city is that, there's sooooo..... MANY motorcycles! The streets are full of them. Cars, lorries, buses and vans we could only count a few. But I can see there's a lot of growing population of the wealthy as there's no less amount of luxury cars cruising about the busy, busy streets of Saigon on our way towards our hotel.

It took us about 1 hours to reach our hotel in district 1 in the not so heavy traffic jam. When we arrived, they had a small problem with the room so they had to check us into another hotel, a sister hotel of theirs and we got an upgrade. Nice! This room at this other hotel was an equivalent of a suite for a 3 star hotel, my guess is. They paid for our return transfer to that other place.

I don't really care for a bigger room when I travel, since I'm only there at night to sleep in. What is most important for me is that the room is clean with reasonable sized bed (I've slept in really, really SMALL single bed made for kids in Verona, but that's another story), has a clean toilet and shower, and with no flying/crawling around insects of any kind (had a BAD experience here, unless of course if its sleeping under the stars in the jungle).

What is so nice about this city is that, even if its a 3 star hotel, we get Internet WIFI access for FREE!!And one could even get Internet WIFI access for free as well in most restaurants. And its just not slow a** connection but pretty fast ones. Malaysian hotels should learn a thing or two here.

The green, green fields of paddies.

At the pier for our Mekong river tour.

Anyways, since we were there for only 4 days, we didn't get to visit a lot of places. Did a day trip to visit the Vietnam part of the Mekong river and its 4 islands and another day trip for its city. We were joined by a couple of lovely New Zelanders for our river trip.

Already for the trip! :)

The river itself flows from the borders of China off the Tibetan plateau. So one can just imagine how many thousand miles it has travelled to get to the South China Sea. As we travel by boat, there were catfish farms (which I refrain from eating), boats pushing/pulling sand from Cambodia to Vietnam, along this wide and long river.

The 1st stop was at Turtle island, where we got to visit a honey bee farm; got a taste of their honey tea - which is not bad. And then they even have a snake farm.. The snakes were breed to make snake wines. Don't ask me how it tastes like, I'm not very much into snake wines. :p And then it was a visit to their coconut candy "production line". There's this little girl helping her mum warp the candies. And she's just 5 years old! I wish Owen would help me pick up his toys... :p

Next stop is at this fruit farm where we were entertained by local Vietnamese folk singers backed up by a 3 man band, playing traditional Vietnamese instruments. I know, it's kinda cheesy. But hey, it gets touristy here! Plus I've never seen so many longans along the pathway to the horse drawn carriage we take next. The carriage ride through their small village and we next hopped into a sampan (long boat) at the end of the ride. The canal runs through this island and there its really small and tight with traffic. Hubs helped the lady row the boat up front while she navigates through tight spots... We then hopped back to our river cruise boat towards the Phoenix Island.

It rained by the time we went for lunch at Con Phung Island (Phoenix). We were the lucky ones to reach the restaurant before it was pouring! LOL! The restaurant was quite interesting, it was built on a marsh full of water lilies! The sight itself was so pretty. And what with the pouring rain, I got to play around with the camera while waiting. :)

Our ride after lunch to the other side of the island where we'll take a boat ride along the tiny river.

The rain didn't really stop by the time we finish our day trip. It was still drizzling. But the skies cleared when we got to our hotel to reveal a calm and cooling night out with hub's uncle who lives in Hamburg. This uncle happens to be on his vacation trip with wife and 2nd son. And guess what? They all were down with diarrhea and vomiting on the 2nd day they arrived. What a way to began a trip. :( Good thing they've recovered a little by the time we meet up with them for drinks.

Drinks at this bonsai garden with hub's uncle & family

Don't worry, he's just interested in the desert rose bonsai plant. Don't mind the doggie! ;)

After that we decided to go towards the wholesale market area for a meal nearby. It was within 20 minutes of walking and dodging traffic to get there. LOL! The market is close of course but there was their night market that is open. Had dinner of grilled pork with rice, Vietnamese Phô (noodles with vegs in meat broth), crab & prawn meat on sugar cane, Viet style spring rolls, deep fried squid with pork, and to finish off, a refreshing young coconut drink. It was ALL YUMMMY food.... :p I just wish I still had some place left for dessert. Well, make that courage to try out street vendor desert! LOL!

Viet trip, part 2

2011-08-08T02:48:00.001+02:00

Impressive stone carvings at the temple court yard.

The next day, right after breakfast, we went on a HCMC tour whereby we went to Tien Hau tample in Cholon, built and rebuilt since 940 A.D. Its surprising to see that its still standing to this despite the war here. The wood carvings on its entrance and courtyard is really impressive! We managed to do some prayers while we're there. :)

There's more stalls and tiny aisle once you go in...

Look at the "mountains" of dried prawns!!! But why are they so PINK?

A short visit to the Ben Thant market was next. Why short? Coz there wasn't enough time for me to go fabric shopping! LOL! The stalls were so tightly packet that its virtually IMPOSSIBLE to pass if we were to walk side by side! Fabrics and other items that were sold were PACKED vertically and did I mentioned that most of them looks like its going to topple over if one were to touch them? Was a hot and stuffy as it is, but there were so many people around. The place one could get a breather was either at the ground floor where food and jewellery were sold OR at the locally produced souvenir section.

"Implating" them egg shells is hard work.

Worker sawing thru the mother of pearl

Just some of their products. There are more cramp into the next room!!

Then its off to the lacquer factory and shop. Honestly I've never got to know how lacquer good were made. So this was a chance to find out. It takes so many work and days for the primary lacquer to set. And not to mention the second procedure where one paints on it or set it with egg shells for a particular design. And then its another process of making the item shine. Those craftsman are really talented. And hubs being so impressed, bought 3 miniature paintings.

Me, happy to arrive here nevertheless

The visit at the War Museum saw a sad one for me. After seeing photos of dead children, I had to stop and get out of the room. Its just so sad and even now hearing about war and recent horrific crime, I'm thinking how can one human do that to another human being? Its just pure EVIL!! But still managed to take some photos of tanks outside the museum.

Hubs thinking of what to order! ;)

Replica tanks on the grounds

View of the main street from the Palace top floor.

Needless to say, my appetite for Huê province food ( a region in central Vietnam) at this restaurant. I did however managed to taste some delicacies wrapped in banana leaves. It was delicious although I've completely forgotten the name! LOL!

Part of the basement; look at the type writers!

We when make our move towards the Reunification palace. Looks as if it was frozen in time. There's 2 replica war tanks just on the gates of the palace. The tanks crash onto the place on 30th April 1975 and it ended the war. The recreation room was really late 1960s looking. And the basement. OMG! It looks eerie with the telephones, telegrams and other machines still looking in perfect working condition!

After having some photos taken on the grounds of the palace, it was the national post office building stop. This building was opposite the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which incidentally looks like the one in Paris! Only smaller... hehehehehe...

Hubs: we'll be back next time for sure!! :)

Soon after the tour and being dropped off at our hotel, we decided to go out on our own since it was rather early to meet up with hub's uncle for dinner. We went for a coffee at this Trung Nguyen coffee chain about 15 minutes walk from the hotel. As I don't really drink coffee, theirs are like a kick to my system! LOL! I couldn't sleep still late that night! And all I had was coffee with milk.... :p

As our plane are only leaving at 4pm, we decide to walk towards the HCMC Fine Art Museum. They were showing paintings and drawings of kids at the ground floor, contemporary art from local and international artist on 2nd floor and 3rd floor holds the museum's permanent collection. BUT at the basement, there's local artists galleries. Hubs ALMOST wanted to purchase one but I told him, how are we going to transport it back even in an art tube? That brought him back to earth. We only have hand carry with us this time. Perhaps next time when we have checked luggage as I think we'll go back there for sure the next time we return home.

Hamburg trip

2011-08-08T01:56:00.000+02:00

The Rathaus: Mayor and city council building

I know this is a LOOONNNNGGGG ago post. Well what can I say? Better late than never, right? :)

Was there for hub's cousin's wedding which was on 9th of July. So it was sort like a long weekend with his side of the family only difference is that this time around its with his aunts and uncle.

View from a veiwing deck near Unilever HQ.

We flew with Lufthansa airlines this time since there was on sale when I booked this trip a few months back. The flight there was good my only complaint was that of the really small plane from Geneva to Dusseldorf airport; lots of turbulence, and that the next flight from Dusseldorf to Hamburg was delayed for 2 hours! Nice. :p But then again this is still better than having to missed a flight and awaiting for the next one for 6 hours at the Orly airport, just because they have a strike. Got to know about it when we met by chance one of his cousins that just arrived an hour after us.

The many overpriced apartments along the river...

We didn't managed to get to see much of the city on our 1st 2 days when we were there. That's because the very next day was the wedding and by the time we check into out hotel it was really late. Thank goodness I've booked us a triple as we managed to get a glimpse of the several rooms that were being made up, it was TINY! Breakfast was the typical German continental style; choice of cheese, choice of hams, hard boiled eggs, fruits, cereals, milk and yogurt. Love their hams, cheese and the breads were different as well. Like the fact that its full cereal type and using unbleached flour in their breads. :)

Really like the shape of the windows here.

As with any typical Chinese (they are Vietnamese Chinese) wedding, there's the tea ceremony at home in the morning and then followed by the couples church ceremony in afternoon. It was a really nice weather for a wedding that Saturday. And since I didn't really understand the whole wedding, they were always spoken in either Vietnamese or German, I had a ball with the kids! ;p

Some apartements along the river view from the boat ride.

Since the youngest did not rest well, he was pretty edgy the whole time. And the older one decide its funny to irritate the hell out of mummy by running around, causing trouble and of course making noises during the church thing. I was pretty much worn thin by the time we reach the hotel at 1am! Until now I did not know that my 1 year old can scream and scream for 1 hour non-stop in a moving car on our way back. :( No mater what I did, it just made him scream louder still! Sigh.... The best part was how Owen managed to sleep through the ENTIRE screaming!!!! LOL! It just amazes me.

The pier.

Sunday was a LAZY day for us. I some how manage to wake up at 8:30am despite the fact I slept at 3am! So decide to let the boys sleep in while I ate breakfast and surf the net at the breakfast area. We then met up with another aunt who came to "pick us up" to head towards another aunt's restaurant for a late lunch.

Rickmer Rickmers; built in 1896 and now a permanently moored as a museum ship.

The S bahns were really well maintained and clean. Its even better than the metro in Paris! We went to window shop in the city after lunch and we've notice that the prices displayed on their windows is cheaper compared to Paris. Even eating their traditional hot dog (wrust with a slice of bread), french fries and drinks costs us less than having a sandwich in any Parisian side walk vendor. The city itself is very clean. Must be the clean and tidy German mentality? Any mind you, Hamburg city has a 1.8 mil population, coming 7th place while Paris ranked 5th with 2.2 mil. Paris is really filthy, with dog poo, so called gang tagging, over flowing rubbish bins, smell of pee in and around the metro stations.... Must be their French, laissez faire attitude? Anyways, don't let my statements put you off visiting Paris. Its really a beautiful city if you close one eye.

One of the many WWII relics

The following day, we went to tour the city again this time going a little bit further the city limits towards the Elbe river. We went for ice-cream at the Walls store right in the Unilever Haus. I made an order for a really delicious cherry jam, cherries, berries mix fruit, with chocolate chips, crushed nuts and natural yogurt mix! It was YUM!!!

One thing that strikes me is that the new area where the Unilever building was built on, there's a lot of creative architectural office and apartment buildings all round. There's also a lot of really wide pedestrian walk paths along the river as well. Which was a nice change. And topped off the day, we took a boat ride along the Elbe river. The boat is like a bus as is stops at its "stations" to drop and pick up passengers along the river.

Lunch at the street walk with hub's aunts.

As our flight is only late in the evening, we met up with another aunt of his for lunch and some last minute shopping before our taxi arrives. Did some walking about at the nearby park before we realised that we're going to be late to meet up with the taxi driver! LOL! How time flies when you're having a good time eh?

There's still a lot of places we didn't go to due to lack of time and having small kids is not really ideal to travel with when one wants to do the walking tour. May be next time we'll return there for a longer and well planned trip.

My 1st sale!

2011-08-07T23:28:00.000+02:00

My little girl and big girls clips and bands. :)

After "slaving" for few weeks, I've finally made my 1st sale of hair clips yesterday at the open market at Vevey. This market is actually like a yard sale market but one could still sell handmade wares.

I joint a South African friend,Carmen, who makes little bags and scrunchies for little girls and some beaded jewellery. She makes South African sweeties as well. But unfortunately in this market we aren't allowed to sell food and drinks as its strictly non-food items.

Some of our wares. And that big "pot" behind is a pincushion I made in case you're wondering.

We had to set up shop by 8 am therefore in order to get a nice spot we were there by 7:15am. I've not woken up at 5am plus in the morning for "work" since the last time I quit my job in the F&B line. Only for my babies. :)

As this was a free and easy market, the rest of the stalls were very quickly set up by 7:45am. Just opposite us a little girl who just set up her stall on the floor displaying all her toys to be sold. The fact that no fee was charged for sellers makes it easier. One can display their items on top of overturned cardboard boxes covered with a blanket or on top of a picnic blanket on the floor. The only rules are to registered a week before, to show up before 8am and stalls have to be within the marked area or their "boxes". But after that one can leave in the afternoon or even stay the whole day.

Carmen: Hello everyone!! :D

This time around since its August, there's not much crowd. People normally take August Summer holidays its the warmest month of the year. And plus the weather was playing passing rain clouds and hand and seek sunshine with us! :p Rain came and went, but was a good thing it wasn't heavy. Just light showers. Then the sun came up finally nearly lunch time and by 1pm, it was HOT!!

I actually sold my 1st pair while setting up shop, then the second when the sun came and the 3rd a few minutes before we decided to close shop. My friend, Carmen actually didn't managed to sell anything until we were starting to pack up. A lady came by and was asking if her bracelets were taken seeing that there's none of her stuff on the table. She finally took 3 and promised to take some more of Carmen's stuff the next time if she makes necklaces. :)

The next date for us would be 10th of September. We'll be making a few changes here and there to improve our stall image for the next time. Well, we have to since it'll attract more customers. We'll have to make more clips, hair bands, bags, scrunchies and jewellery for this day as well since there'll be a neighbourhood party at the same venue. :) I'm all excited just thinking about it!!! :D

The trip home

2011-06-16T22:59:00.000+02:00

I can't believe that it was just last month that I was home for the total of 4 weeks! And it was just Sunday that we touched down at Geneva... I'm missing home already! :)

Droollllllll.....

This time around home was super HOT! Thank goodness it rained a few days after the boys and I arrived. They (the boys) seems to take in the heat well. I was really worried that with so much difference in temperature (it was about 20°C when we left), they'll end up with a fever or something. We had to shave their heads due to the hot weather here. BUT they look oh so cute! Like little monks! LOL!

The flight over to KL was OK. They did not give me back my stroller when we arrived at Heathrow, which was BAD. I had to carry Kevin (who is nearly 8kgs) throughout the vast airport! We did not have enough time, contrary to popular beliefs AKA hubs's thinking. The 2 hours of transit time just flew us by! On flight, we managed to change to a row of 4 empty seats (YAY!!). So Owen, Kevin (the ONLY lucky devil who gets the bassinet for the entire return flight!) and I get some much needed rest. Despite getting some shut eye on flight, we still feel like SHIT once arrived at my parents place.

Fry squid...

Marmite crab. One of the must have food on the list I made myself for this trip! LOL!

So I really thank my lucky stars that I made plans to meet up with friends after several days of lazing around at home. This trip I can say that I managed to meet up with most of my friends from collage, secondary school, my crafty group (TWICE!) and some of my family members.

Melaka trip. Mini Malaysia. Owen didn't seem too happy here... :p

After about 10 minutes, he's still deciding which one of the crêpe cake to attack 1st.... :p

I'm happy to say that I've spent some quality time really talking with lots of friends during these meet ups. This is a huge bonus for me as I don't get to see them very often and I want to know what's up in their lives.

And I've also learned to make a bag for my mum from Josephine Yap of NNC. It was really nice of her to take time to teach me and let me use her sewing machine. I really enjoy our sewing session and I wonder if I can have sewing sessions next time when I come back? Perhaps to make a dress? OR another bag? LOL! I know, I'm pushing my luck here!

It was one of my 1st bags that I actually make WITHOUT a print out instructions or a pattern to follow. So I'm kinda proud that its a finish product! I hope mum will use it often. I told her that if its worn out or nearly worn out, I'll make another improved version as a replacement. Here is a photo of it and here as well. The zippers seems complicated at first but after having done it 3 times - the bag has 3 zippers, I'm more confident now to face this "situation" in the future. :)

As for shopping, I did mainly on books, fabrics and other crafty items. Not so munch of clothing this time; a dress, 4 tops and a pair of dressy shoes which I'll have to improve on the looks later. And not so much on food either! I didn't get my dose of ikan bilis (dried anchovies) and some prepared mixes. Which I'm regretting it now: how to face another 24 months or so minus my comfort food?!?!? I think when I'm desperate, I'll have someone mail them over! Muahahahhaha.....

So that's the report for the moment. More on our little trip to Vietnam on my next post.

Just lemony!

2011-06-16T22:04:00.002+02:00

Lemon buttermilk cake

This is a back post. Was supposed to publish this BEFORE our trip home... Oh well!

What do you normally do with buttermilk? This 500ml of buttermilk that I decide to get has been sitting in my fridge for the past week! So since this week I'm on OFCO (Operation Fridge Clean Out), I have to use up at least half of the buttermilk by today.

So made some searches and came up with Lemon Buttermilk Cake from BestRecipes.com.au. I happen to have some lemons sitting around on my fruit basket, so this is a good way to use them up. We love bio lemons here and I tend to get them by bags of 4s. Ever tried drinking lemon juice in the morning? It'll sure wake you up! LOL!

Owen hard at work! :)

The ingredients are pretty easy to find and its rather a straightforward recipe to follow as well. If there are certain key items that isn't available, its easy to make your own as well.

Proud little pastry chef with his cake! :D

1 tbsp of white vinegar or lemon juice + under 1 cup or 240ml (or around abouts to bring it under 250ml) = 1 cup or 250ml buttermilk. Just make sure to let it stand for 5 minutes before using.

There's no such thing as self-rising flour here in Switzerland. So I made my own by mixing flour, baking powder and salt together.

This cake is just so moist! To delicious for words...

Here's the cake recipe to try out. It came out PERFECT for me.

250 g butter
1 tbsp grated lemon rind
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs, separated
250 g self-rising flour *250 g plain flour + 3 tbsp baking powder + 1 tbsp salt
1 cup buttermilk

Lemon syrup
1/3 cup lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water

Method

Grease and lightly flour a 20 cm ring tin.
Cream butter, lemon rind and sugar
Beat in egg yolks one at a time until combined.
Shift in half the sifted flour and half the buttermilk.
Add remaining flour and buttermilk.
Beat egg whites until soft peaks form, then fold lightly into the cake mixture.
Pour mixture into pan and bake at 180°C for and hour.
Pour HOT lemon syrup over the HOT cake.

So that's half of it gone, the other half to go. So what shall I make? Red velvet cake? Buttermilk pancakes? Hmm....

Seems like

2011-05-04T00:36:00.000+02:00

life just whizzes by and I for the moment just have some time to sit down and "reflect", or rather blog about it! LOL! So let's see what we've been up to in April....

My Big Shot and friends...

Got to play with my Big Shot machine, bought in January!! Yes it takes me that long (not to mention some motivation) to actually have time to sit and play with it. Found out that Sizzix dies are bloody expensive! :p Will have to look for alternative. The machine came with 1 flower die, 1 heart shape die and 2 envelope style flowers and wines embossing dies. However, it did not cut my felt like it suppose to. Its either did I not pass it through enough OR the felt was to a little bit thick?

Lovely stuff from Anna of NNC! Thanks girl!! hugzz

Received my really lovely bookmarks from Anna of my Needles n' Craft group. It was supposed to be a surprise exchange partners. Anna made me a beautiful crocheted flower bookmark and the other was an embellished felt - also really pretty! One who reads can NEVER have enough bookmarks.

Made little colouring book as loot bag filler for Owen's birthday. Found a tutorial here but had to tweak it a little bit since I don't have fabric sticky tape. Made paper loot bags as well. Just can't stand plastic.They look cheap most of the time. Photos soon.

Got gastroenteritis from Owen, who caught it from play-school a week before. Can say that the whole family caught it within a few days. Thank goodness what Kevin got was not as bad as I thought it would be. Poor baby lost weight also but good thing he got over it in 2 days. Lost 3kgs due to a forced diet of weak slightly sweet tea, water, plain rice porridge and bananas! LOL... It is NOT a healthy way to loose those left over baby bumps. Although I'd try to keep my current weight now.

From my kitchen: a blueberry blue velvet cake. I actually tried making blue velvet cake in March but it turned out GREEN!! LOL!! This time I made sure that I have gel/paste food colouring before I venture into making coloured edible goodies. BTW, the cake was so GOOD! :D I actually got this recipe from here but inspiration was from here. Would you believe it when I totally FORGot about mixing in the blueberries into the cake batter? Lesson learnt: never bake/cook when distracted with cries of the little monsters. I just loovvveeeee foodie eye candy. Some people can very creative with camera and food unlike me! I got frosting almost all over the cake caddy, thus the close up. LOL!

Fresh blueberries and it was on SALE! :)

That's about it for the month of April. At the moment I'm trying to think of how I'm going to make a mug rug for a friend. Photos soon since it'll be a surprise gift. I've also made a pinata for the party. A Piston Cup pinata. Albeit a "wonky"/wacky one but Owen seems to like it very much. It took me a week to finish it and in four parts. Now all we have to do is to fill it with goodies when we get back from our trip! :D

I still can not believe that its only a week and 4 more days to go before the boys and I take our month long trip home! Just feels like it has been ages since I last saw my family and friends back home.

Will be busy preparing the trip back though. Got some Swiss dark chocolates for family (spent about CHF80.- only on chocolates!), new sandals and swim pants for Owen, a pair of new bermudas and sandals for me (grew a size after Kevin. ARRGGHHHH!!) and a pair of sleeveless bodysuits. I just LOVE how babies look in their summer bodysuits. I'm still not sure if hubby will want to get a new suitcase though. The one that he'll be carrying are rather heavy even when its empty. I think it'll be a good idea to invest in a good quality light weighted ones.

Free threads anyone?

2011-03-09T13:23:00.000+01:00

Image from threadrosace.com

There's a giveaway from this site . Its Rosace embroidery threads made from 100% pure Egyptian cotton. Priced at 0.30 Euro per skeins and you could order direct from them. I certainly DMC provide such direct order as well. It cuts off the need for middle man which most of the time make more profit than the manufacture.

Crème à la mandarine et croquant aux amandes

2011-02-16T10:53:00.000+01:00

Literally meant: Mandarin cream with crispy almond. Dish names in French almost always sounds better in French then English doesn't it? Have you tried naming Fois Gras in English? It'll be called duck or goose Liver Fat in direct translation!! Who wants to eat that??!? BTW, ever wondered how its made? Here's the link and frankly I find it barbaric. So does finning shark's fin. We are defined who we are by how we treat others, and that includes treating the animals that feeds us.

So personal ethics aside, got this recipes from my weekly supermarket newsletter, Coop. Tried it over the weekend and its super delicious!

Ingredients for 4 persons

Prep time: 20 mins

Cooling time: about 1 hour

Cream

6 or 8 Mandarin oranges OR clementine oranges, only for their juice; around 300ml

2 tbsp of lemon juice

80g of clear marzipan/almond paste, shredded

1 piece of vanilla pod, scrape of its grains

1 tbsp of corn starch
2 eggs
50g sugar

100ml of cream (double cream preferred)

Crispy Almonds
20g of almonds, chop into "matchsticks"

50g sugar

1/2 tsp of water

For the cream
Mix together all ingredients, including the sugar and simmer it on top of low heat while constantly stirring.

When the cream seems to have thicken in consistency, remove from heat source and continue to stir for about 2 minutes. You then strain the cream mixture, cover it and leave it aside until coll enough to pop it in the fridge for about 1 hour.

Crispy almond
Toast your almond sticks on medium heat and pour them onto baking paper. Then boil sugar and water together while stirring continuously on medium heat. Lower the heat when sugar has melted and let it simmer while "shaking" the saucepan occasionally until you get a caramel texture. Pour it over the almonds and let it cool for 15 minutes.Crack them and to decorate your cream.

The main point here is to strain of the lumps.

Lovely lemony coloured!

Whip it!

An aunt gave a big bags of sliced almonds. Got to use it finally...

Its not so sweet but still a great quick desert.

BEFORE serving, whip your cream and gentilly fold them into your mandarin orange cream mixture. Then ENJOY!

La Redoute - La Rubbish!!

2011-02-03T13:35:00.000+01:00

A little history about La Redoute. Its a French based home shopping website, which started out as a catalogue shop. Now as most of us know catalogue shops never really went into main stream, but still they manage to stick around for years. That is until Amazon made it BIG in the 1995, BEFORE eBay on 1996. Click here for a little of online shopping history.

So this La Redoute started to mail us a catalog sample sometime back in 2006. There's always lots of interesting stuff in their catalogue but I never really wanted to buy from them as I've heard horror stories of bad home shopping experiences.

So one day, against my better judgement and also what hubs told me, I went ahead to buy from them for the very 1st time. It all went well. So did the 2nd order. BUT just fairly recently (November 2010 order - it was on sale), problems started to come up. The main problems with catalogue shopping are ; returns, exchanges, no customer service, package mysteriously got lost and of course my personal favourite, refunds.

With my Nov 2010 sale order, it came on time and all clothing items are intact. But I had to return a really bad quality turtle neck T-shirt and exchange a to big a size blouse. So went ahead to return the items and exchange the blouse. The blouse exchange came back 2 weeks later, which is expected. BUT they charge me extra! I was fuming MAD!

Who ever charge customer the original price for an exchange for something that was on SALE in the first place???? And by the way, there wasn't any notice saying that items on sale can not be exchanged or returned. I wrote them an e-mail before I even made the return and exchange transaction just to be on the safe side. And customer service assured me that the price for the exchanged item will remain on sale.

WTH!!! So wrote them another e-mail to say that its unfair to charge me the original price when you've promised me that it will remain on the sale price. That was 2 weeks ago. Up till now I've not paid the extra charges (which was due on the 31/01/2011 at the amount of CHF17.40). Its NOT because of the menial amount that I refuse to pay BUT for the principal of doing honest business.

Seriously just STAY AWAY from La Redoute!!!! What a way to began the new year.

New 2011

2011-01-12T16:35:00.000+01:00

I'm the king for the day! After finding the hidden "treasure" in the cake celebrating the 3 kings.

Happy New 2011! It has been along while since I blog any thing at all these few months. Having to juggle time between my 3 boys, my crafting, my reading, my trial & error cooking/baking and seeing friends for coffee/tea mornings is not really that easy.

Owen borrows the "crown" to little Kevin.

2010 seems to just fly by with 2 kids now. Kevin is now 6 months old and he's already trying to stand by holding onto something! He gives me the loveliest proud smile whenever he does! Big brother Owen plays it cool now with his brother. There are a few times I caught him hitting/pulling little brother. I do hope this phase will pass soon when Kevin gets a little bit older.

Since Owen will be starting school end of August, I'm looking forward to that (for the 5 days week 3 hrs crafting time OR play time with Kevin). And I think he's looking forward to being 4 as well in June. As you know how kids can be; always counting down when they'll be older next! I'm certainly NOT looking forward to being older but still that's life.

So things to look forward for us would be:

Going home for a holiday
Owen starting school in August
Will sign Owen up for his 1st swimming lessons
Attending hubs' cousins' wedding in Germany
more things to look forward to but aren't just what is in store yet! :) Hope its a good surprise...

May 2011 will bring more luck, better health and more prosperity for everyone!

Macadamia and mango cheese cake

2010-12-05T23:45:00.000+01:00

Cheese cake and snowy out doors; nice combi!

This is my 1st time making cheese cake. I've always want to make but decide against it since there's just 2 of us at home. One of my close friend, Regina came to our place last week for a visit. She's a dear Filipino friend who just finish her internship at Euro Disney. And she brought with her, Eric, the boy friend, and Yanina, the younger sister.

The crack... :(

So made the cake a day earlier since it needs it "resting time" in the fridge to taste better. I 1st made the crust but some how it seems that I did not push it enough into the pan that it came out at the sides. the cheese filling was easy enough to make.

The "cover up"

Now here comes the delicate part; the baking. Apparently I baked it for too long -15 more minutes instead of just 30. So it decided to "punish" me by cracking in the middle while I left it to cool off in the oven!! LOL! And I did put a bowl of water underneath in case you're wondering. Apparently to prevent cracks. But it didn't prevent this crack on mine.... Its HUGE if you wanna know. So what did I do?

The next day, I "cover it up" by topping it off with jelly pureed mango and some chopped macadamia nuts! LOL! It made up with me the taste if not in looks in the end.

So lessons learnt: do try to stick to regulated times and to REALLY tighten up on the crust in the pan. Will be making a more improved cheese cake next time. And this time I'd wanna make a smaller one, just so...

My little sous chef

2010-11-08T23:39:00.000+01:00

Our blueberry cake with blueberry frosting....

It was a pretty depressing Sunday - it RAINED ALL DAY!!... :( So to cheer almost everyone up (the almost is my side ways expanding waist line), I decided to bake a cake with Owen. YUP! He's my little sous chef at the pastries department. The hot kitchen could get a little bit more complicated for the time being. Perhaps when he's a little older and ONLY if he's interested.

Looks yummy no?

More milk mama?

The last time he helped, he was soo... PROUD of it that he kept on mentioning to his dad that he made the cake with mama! LOL! This time round, he tells me that we should make another cake soon....

Pour SLOWLY!

Hmm..... not a very good idea for our ever expanding waist line but then again, I think its a good idea for him to get involved in the cooking process. That way he'll learn that things has to be done step by step and all the way to the finish. I feel that its important for kids to learn what goes into their food. Proud to say he knows now that eggs is not just eaten as hard boil but in cakes as well as making noodles. :)

Our chef having a slice of his own cake... :)

So this Friday we're going to bake a chocolate orange cake with orange cream cheese frosting! :D

Another pair of hair clips

2010-11-02T00:54:00.004+01:00

Hubs decided to go visit a close friend, whose actually an ex-colleague of his. They live about 45 mins drive away from our place and have a really pretty little girl named Emily.

Now Emily was born a year ago, exactly a day after we went over to their place for summer barbecue! And she wasn't due till a week or two later. I guess she knows that we're having a good time eating, laughing and enjoying ourselves that she wants to come meet us! LOL!

Anyways, I made another two pairs of clips just for her. I just hope that she likes it...

Shelagh Duffett's Blueberry Orange Cake

2010-10-27T11:28:00.003+02:00

Me and my pink glaze...

Got this recipe from HERE. She takes really NICE food photos, something I'd want to do as well as. But then again, she probably invested in a pretty hi-tech type of camera. Which for the moment I could not afford to get, seeing that there are tons of other stuff I'll be spending on:, like stitchable stash and other equipemet!! :D LOL!

Tried it out and I really do like it. Its jus so moist. I opted for a pink coloured glaze instead of orange, as I don't have frozen orange concerntrate (used orange juice, its zest instead and some food colouring). I will make this cake again but may be instead of blueberry, I'll be using frozen mix berry just to see.

Cute little flowers 1st & 2nd attempt

2010-10-27T10:47:00.003+02:00

I saw some pretty little felt flower clips awhile back, thanks to looking up for ideas for NeedleN'Crafts anniversary gift exchange. Each participant has to construct a felt flower for their partner.

So while browsing, I thought to myself that "hey! I could make that!". So now is the time to make it. The idea comes THIS online tutorial (THANK YOU FOR PUTTING IT UP!!). It really is amazing the amount of tutorial this crafter and the rest has put up! Imagine the time, money and patience (some of us do have tots that drive us crazy while we're blogging, you know) for each tutorial spend.... So I've always think that its nice to link it back to the owner of the tutorial, to show appreciation you know....

Just too bad that we don't have little girls of our own, so these will go to a very cute little girl whom I'll be meeting later in the afternoon. Who knows, I'll be trying out a hair band next for myself? *wink*wink

Pâtes au poulets et au fromage frais

2010-10-11T22:53:00.006+02:00

Literally means: Chicken with pasta and fresh cheese sauce. Took this out from my weekly COOP newsletter (its a chain of supermarkets like Tesco). I really like this recipe and its really quick and easy peasy to prepare. So here goes...

Main meal for 4 person.

Ingredients

Enough olive oil for cooking

3 spring of thyme

400 g chicken breasts sliced into bite size

1/2 tsp salt

a pinch of pepper

1/2 tsp olive oil

450 g zucchini cut in half and sliced into 3mm thick slices

150 g frozen peas

100 ml chicken stock

1 tbsp mild mustard

125 g fresh herb cheese AKA cream cheese, such as Cantadou or Boursin, cubed

1/4 tsp nutmeg powder

300 g pasta

Enough salted water for pasta cooking.

Method

You first heat up some olive oil in the pan, then add thyme and chicken breasts. Cook till meat are slightly golden. Remove thyme, season and set a side the chicken for later use.

Pour in the rest of the olive oil into the pan, lower the heat and stir fry the zucchini for about 2 minutes. Then peas, for another minute, followed be the chicken stock and simmer for about 2 minutes. Stir in your cream/fresh cheese, mustard and nutmeg and bring to a boil. Stir in pre-prepared chicken, cook briefly and remove from heat.

You then prepare your pasta according to manufacturer's instructions or till al dente/just cook. Drain and then mix the sauce with your pasta and voila!

Note: I made mine slightly different: didn't have zucchini so in comes canned mushrooms and some left over bacon... :p

The weekend was spent...

2010-10-11T21:55:00.008+02:00

Ready to cut...

testing out a sandwich mould (well, a couple of them) received last week on Monday. Don't you just love getting gifts or parcels on a Monday morning? I know I do, beat off the Monday blues.

into a whale, dog, elephant and a car!

I seriously thing only the Japs could come up with these "inventions". Remember the square shaped watermelon thingy and there was the heart shaped cucumber? I think it has to do with their bento (packed lunch) and visual "eating".

Minnie and Micky

Anyways its pretty easy to use. Just slap on the filling of your choice (just not salad leaves or anything that is difficult to cut without a knife) and press the mould down. Voila, you'll get a little car, a whale, an elephant and a terrier dog sans bread crusts! :D Owen was pretty happy to eat it all up, just not the greens. :(

Mental note: white bread would look better!

Next is the Minnie and Micky Mouse bread stamp. I know, sounds funny right? Who would wanna stamp on bread?? Apparently some people do. So you take the stamp and stamp it on the bread (white breads are preferred), then you can either toast it in the toaster (which by the way brings out the optimum result) OR you could just slap on your favourite filling, with of course the stamped side out. You then cut the bread crust using the accompanied crust cutter, making sure that Minnie's or Micky's face is centered. I did not cut the crusts out as I find that its wasteful to throw away food. OMG! Why do I sound like my mum now? Or do all mothers feel the same ways?

Mushroom & bacon "sandwich"

Any how, besides trying out the new toy, I made pork curry for brunch on Sunday. LOVE GRAVY! I could eat it just with plain bread.... Heavenly! And then tried out supermarket finger food: pan fried mushroom with bacon. LOVE BACON!!!

Hers and his

And after all that, went out for a walk along the lake with the boys. The weather wasn't really nice, all grey and cloudy. But still at least it didn't rain, and it wasn't really windy. It just look depressing that all. So to perk things up, a nice thick hot chocolate is in order. Minus the marshmallow and whipping cream.

NKOTB

2010-10-08T01:17:00.001+02:00

or rather on 2008... YES, I'm still a fan! Bite me!

NKOTB with Ne-Yo: Single

NKOTB

2010-10-08T01:06:00.004+02:00

I was just listening to my New Kids on The Block on my Ipod. Brings back sooooo.... MANY memories. A really close friend I think (might be mistaken) had this song as her wedding march! Crazy girl! LOL! Both of us went gaga over NKOTB. We had all their songs and posters etc!

Here's the video of The Right Stuff: one the many fav of mine...

Winnie and friends

2010-10-08T00:10:00.006+02:00

Winnie and friends wall clock that seems to be FOREVER!

I've been on this for weeks now... Its a pretty simply and straight forward piece but some how I seem to be stitching it like forever!

I think part of the reason is that by the time I'd like to sit down and do it, I'm just so tired that ended up making mistakes. So that means I'm frogging more than stitching! ARRGGHHHH.... I'd love to start another piece but then again, its just not me to start something and abandon it half was like what I did to my 9 gold fish piece. Its now officially an Unfinished Object laying around and I do feel guilty just looking at it. So what I do? I kept it "hidden" in my "Work In Progress" box. Well, its at the very bottom... :p So far that is the only one there.

My little model...

It has been 3 days that Owen has not taken his afternoon nap. Somehow he doesn't need that much of sleep ever since he was a baby (and he's still a baby to me!). Which makes me wonder where does all his energy comes from? I would LOVE to have this type of stamina but alas, as we grow older its the opposite.

Next model in the making? ^_^

Speaking of sleep, Kevin seems to be sleeping more than his older brother. Which is GOOD for me. As I was determine NOT to repeat our mistake with Owen, by letting him sleep later. So Kevin now sleeps at around 7:30pm or 8pm and wakes at around 2:30am or 3am for milk and sleeps back till around 9am. There are a few times when he slept right through the night till 5am! Pretty amazing for a breastfed 3 month old, I think. I wonder he'll continue with this trend of his?

Date Night

2010-09-26T15:59:00.004+02:00

No, we're NOT having date nights and I don't forsee dates nights for the next 3 years and counting. LOL!

But it is a movie entitled Date Night starring Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Mark Wahlberg (OMG! He IS THE MAN HERE!!) etc. I absolutely enjoyed it. Not just because there's Mark Wahlberg (well, he may and may not be part of the reason). But because of the title itself.

Now tell me how many average middle class new parents with babies ages ranging from 0 months to 6 ave date nights? When I mean middle class (with a single income earner) parents, I mean those WITHOUT domestic helper or in-laws at the standby mode to baby sit. I wish we could afford having a baby sitter on regular basis. BTW, they are super expensive now, so families with girls; please train them to baby sit to earn extra pocket money!!

Anyways back to the movie. Its a a story about the average working couple with 2 boys that makes the effort to go out on their weekly date nights out. Even though they have demanding jobs that drains energy off them by the end of the day, they still go out. But then again some how they realised that the way that they are doing it and the way their relationship is going, seems more like a job to do rather than a pleasure. So one date night, hubby decides to make a change. It is hilarious how this date night is so different that the rest of their dates! I'd bet the next date would be even better!

I still wish we'd get a chance for date nights though. Even movie nights are far fetched these days.... Sigh...

A week that was

2010-09-26T15:15:00.004+02:00

Has been a week and one day since mum left for home. I could still manage the house, the kids and the husband.... sans bloodshed for the moment! HAHAHAHAHA.....

There are however, times when I truly and honestly wanted to strangle that husband of mine for: letting the older one act as if his mischiefs are nonpunishable, for letting the little one cry non-stop while I cook (I can and will forget to add or add too much salt/sugar whatever if this happens) and for act thing as if he's SOOOO.... TIRED from his job as an IT support. Which by the way typically is a sit down job with only either one index finger for clicking, perhaps the full 10 fingers for replying e-mails, the ear & mouth for listening/answering phone calls, the eyes for looking at the screen and the brain to process information.

Being a full time homemaker for the moment is NOT recognisable as a job as being say a lawyer, nurse, doctors, cooks, food & drinks server or even the garbage man. What is making me even angrier is that the person who brings in the bacon/dough/money thinks that he/she can get away with throwing temper tantrums by saying "well, I'm bringing in the income there for what I says goes!" GRRR.....

Well HELLO THERE, we slave around at home without any pay and most of the time we don't even get the right complaint about our job! And there ladies and gentlemen is modern day slavery....

I'd have to admit it, it has been tough running the house on daily basis like running the Star Ship Enterprise. Albeit the budget cuts for my personal hobbies, I truly hope I could still see some light at the end of the tunnel for me time! That's is why I stand on firm believe that babies and kids should be in bed by 9pm no matter what husband and the in-laws have to say. Just because its school holiday doesn't mean that MY job is done or on a holiday well as does it? My job is only done when they are sleeping.

OH WELL! All this typing makes me hungry. Now how about a nice cup (make that 2 cups) of hot chocolate. Mind you not one of those ready to mix chocolate powder with hot milk. Its the ones where you-melt-your-dark-chocolates-by-cooking-them-in-milk types. YUM!

The week that was

2010-08-28T08:57:00.010+02:00

The Lavaux vineyards with its mountain the lake.

When the in-laws came to visit us last week and left only on Wednesday. They rented a mountain chalet for a week up at Glion. Its a pretty place but with limited compound. And even with that small amount of space, the care taker managed to grow tomatoes, zucchini, cherry trees and some herbs like basil and rosemary. The zucchinis was excellent! We made omelets with it and the zucchini flowers. Zucchini flowers are sold mostly at farmers market AND its pretty expensive.

Owen eyeing the cake with his hungry eyes...

Eating with his cousins

Owen had a blast with his cousins. He slept at midnight almost every night! And during that week, he hardly take his nap. And guess what? At night he'll be talking/have nightmares and during the day time he was so tired that he's so agitate that it irritates me. GRRRR.... Its like he's uncontrollable! And his misbehaves so badly that I had no choice but to punish him all the time! And I don't like punishing him. It gives me mental drain.

Hubs with Esma & Fabrice

Mum with Uncle Tony

Any ways when they arrived on last Monday, the weather was not o-operating at all. Its all doom and gloom till Wednesday. But then again it was OK as grand aunt couldn't walk that much due to her illness. So they went visiting around Montreux and Vevey. We even went around Lavaux vineyards terrace, stoped a few times to take some photos at Lutry and later on went for wine tasting at one of the local cellar. Bought half a dozen bottles as gifts for friends and family in France and for my dad.

What's a bbq party without kids?

The little star in the arms of 1st aunt

The family didn't really go visiting around Switzerland as planned but at least we get to be together for catch ups and a barbecue! So it was all good.

What a trip!

2010-08-02T00:02:00.006+02:00

The proud big brother. More pictures here!

As many of you know, our family just had an addition. Little Kevin was born on 5th July 2010. It all happened in the early hours of the morning. I thought I'm just having episodes of tummy ache until there's some bleeding and labour pains started.

It wasn't painful but still... Good thing my bag was packed a few weeks ahead. Hubs jump out of bed and did a "rush job" on his morning routine.. hehehehe... Managed call the hospital mid-wife and to kiss Owen goodbye before heading out the door. Poor kid was still sleeping then, I didn't have the heart to leave him without telling him where we're off to. But then again, this time is different!

At the hospital, the only place with air-conditioning was in the labour room! We were pretty lucky to be assigned to a room with an extra lie-in sofa/bed for hubs! Having drifting on and off epidural, we managed to take an hour nap BEFORE the actual dilatation began. I had the "mild" pain relieve level as I could still feel the pain (on the level of 10, it was a 5 for me). They had to break the water bag in between labour. After nearly 8 hours, Kevin finally came to the world at 4:30pm with the help of the vacuum extractor. YUP! His head look a little awkward for a few days. In fact it looked alien like! LOL!

We stayed over at the hospital for about 6 days. Owen came to see us on the same evening Kevin was born. He was wearing this "Ok, here's the baby. So what can he do? Why are you guys so excited about? " look when he was here. I could tell he miss having me around at home whenever he came to visit us. But then again without mummy at home, he was the little terror according to grandma! He locks grandma out at the balcony, creates havoc for grandma to clean up afterwards, refuses to go to bed at the time mummy has established etc etc.... AIYAH!!! Mum says that only I could control Owen as he was bullying her! LOL!!!

As we were having a pretty hot summer (average about 32°c), the 5 night hospital stay was like sleeping in the sauna! We do not have even a small table fan... :( Gosh! It was so hot that all the babies were crying from 10pm till the wee hours. I had make a fan out of a piece of brochure, thank goodness it was made out of thick paper. I so wanted to get out ASAP but Kevin's jaundice level was rising but not enough to be put under the UV light (phototherapy). So in the end I'd rather stay on to make sure that he has clean bill of health BEFORE both of us checks out.

It was so nice to be back at home and sleeping in my own bed with some form of heat reducing instrument A.K.A. the fan. Owen is adjusting and is still adapting towards having to share mummy with his baby brother. Kevin was feeding every 2 hours for the 2- 3 weeks we're home but now he could hold up till 4 hours max at night. Which is a BLISS for me! I remember when Owen was hungry every 2 hours till the 2 month! ARRGGGHHHH..... I can't wait when he could at least hold up till 5 hours! But then again, I'd bet it won't happen with breast fed babies.

New addition to kitchen appliances

2010-06-14T11:03:00.004+02:00

Our not so new but new to us Chinese Red Docle Gusto Machine! ;D

We have inherited a coffee machine from the Bernardo who works for Nestle on Sunday. They actually offered the machine to us before Christmas last year but there wasn't any place at that time to put it.

Now its sitting near our dinning table above my sewing drawers. Its a Dolce Gusto machine and not the Nespresso. Good thing as well, as we could make other drinks besides coffee. But then again, I don't think I'll be using it THAT often unless we have people over. Reason being the capsules are rather expensive to purchase on daily basis. A box of 16 capsules of decaffe Caffè Lungo would costs me CHF6.40. The same price for cappuccino light (8 cofffe & 8 milk capsules each). So for the moment, I'll stick to my Italiano stove top cafetiere and my battery operated milk frother for every day use....

Perhaps when mum comes over this Saturday, I'll give her a treat. She's such a coffee drinker! hahahahahaa....

Being 3.....

2010-06-14T10:02:00.007+02:00

I'm now 3!

Owen had his 3rd birthday party on Saturday. His actual birth date is on 11th June, and he shares the same birth date as June of NNC! ;) Now more the reason NOT to forget June's special day eh? *wink*wink

We just had a small gathering with some close friends as our families aren't technically able to be here. We have limited entertaining space at home and we don't really entertain that often. So whenever we have friends over he'll get so excited that he'll forgo his afternoon nap!

Spidey cake!

There's Carmen & her boy, Jules; the Bernardos: Cheche, Tony & Regina, the Kuntz: Nina, Andreas and their little princess, Emily and a long time uni friend, Azni. The weather was cloudy but still really warm and thank goodness it didn't rain! We had a little barbecue, with our electric grill of course, on our balcony. As usual hubs man the grill.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OUR SWEET BOY!

Look! Even Grandpa Tony is helping.... ;)

BTW, what's with men and grill? Perhaps its the ONLY time to show off their "cooking" abilities? I've notice how men tend to LOVE grilling meat over fire (even on electric grill!!). I think its genetics or due to our ancestral heritage OR they could be reminiscing about their camping days?

Any ways, we got him a Spiderman cake. I seriously do not have the patience to decorate cakes, although I'd like to learn the basics next time. So this time round, I ordered it from a Filipino friend who makes really gorgeous birthday cakes at home. LOVE the marshmallow icing and cake as it wasn't too heavy nor too sweet. But we did ended up with blueish/pinkish teeth/mouth! LOL!

It really felt like it was yesterday when he was born. How time flies! And now with him being fully toilet trained (day time and no need reminding. YAY!) before his 3rd birthday, I really hope that he keeps up his good work and then we could be able to rid off his night time diapers as well. He'll be going to school/kindergarten next year at 4, which is hard to believe for myself. I guess we'll better take advantage of having short breaks/holidays out of school holidays BEFORE September 2011.

My cuppa

2010-06-01T10:47:00.003+02:00

Toasted English muffins with cappuccino.... heaven!

Cappuccino (decaf of course!) happens to be just the thing for a sunny morning like today. I do not have a machine, we don't drink enough coffee to buy one and plus there's just no place in the kitchen for another hardly use bulky thing. So what I bought a year ago was a 1 cup coffee percolator also known as Moka Pot. Why 1 cup? Hubs is not really a coffee drinker, will only drink coffee while driving long distance.... LOL!

My cute moka pot with its tall frother

So I got that and also a battery operated milk frother. Having worked at coffee shops (no, not like the ones in Netherlands!) during internships and part-time jobs, basically learned a little about making milk foams that could make a toothpick stand manually. Which is taking cold milk, pour it into a steel jug, turn on the "arm" of the coffee machine full and then steam the milk in the jug by just making sure the tip is just below the surface. Full cream milk creates the best froth. And if you're using a battery operated one like mine, make sure the milk is warm enough and just put the tip of the frother into the milk and froth away! :D Btw, you'll need a container that is tall enough as frothing milk could rise up....

Big, plum and juicy strawberries

Since we're having spring at the moment, strawberries are abundant now and we're eating them almost every week. I think I'll buy some more today to make strawberry compote (sauce) for that bucket of vanilla ice-cream in the freezer..... Can't wait till end of June though. That's when we're having cherries!

Home of a Needle Worker (too!) - FINISHED!

2010-06-01T10:06:00.004+02:00

Mental note: need to polish up photo taking skills....

Hurray! I actually finished it a few days ago but didn't really had the time to blog about it. I could say this piece is actually a very relaxing piece to do. Made some changes to the house and also the spool of thread. At 1st I wanted to change the white heart into red but decide against it. Colour too clashing and so I left it as it is.

Recently hubs was asking me what am I going to do for work in the future and he suggested that I sell some of my work online. I was like; how much am I going to sell them? Do I have the time to do them with the kids? My workmanship to me is not that good to actually sell yet, and finally; I don't have a proper place where I could actually put all my stash and my finished work, AWAY from the kids.

Honestly, I really feel my stitching and sewing is not as good some friends I know from NNC. So doubt that anyone would buy beginners work as well... And then hubs mentioned something about buying our own place in the future and then I could have a work room to myself! That would be a dream come true if we EVER decide to buy....

I could get use to this....

2010-05-21T16:12:00.003+02:00

Hello Kitty is peeking.....

diet! Hahahahahaha..... That is one good thing about being preggers, one does not need to follow a strict slim down diet! LOL! That is provided that one was in shape BEFORE being preggers.... Otherwise, its the doctors' advice to follow.

I was really craving for a rich, flavourful (is there such a word?) butter cake. And this morning off I went to the shops to get a bar of butter (250 grams) and used the whole bar for the cake after lunch. Lunch today was just home made salad with last night's left over baked chicken & potatoes, all mixed up with some tomatoes, corns and mustard vinaigrette dressing.

I kinda drop in some chocolate chips.... ;)

I decided to use my rose silicone mould since that its been a while I've used it. I didn't realised butter cake was sooo... EASY to make! Its just butter, sugar, eggs, self rising flour (I had to make my own as they don't have this type of flour here), vanilla essence and some milk. Here is the result; rich, moist, super FATTENING (!!!!!) butter cake! Muahahahahhahaha......

Aaaaaaa......tchoum...

2010-05-20T09:54:00.005+02:00

Seriously, I need to get myself in better shape after this. Am having sinus headaches for about 3 weeks now!! ARRGGGHHHHHH.... And of course being preggers, I'm not allowed to take meds to help with recovery. *sigh....

And to make matters worst, Owen and hubs got sick as well! Hubs, thank goodness, recovered in just a week but Owen, he's got ear infection, eye infection, stuffed nose, coughs and fever as well. Took his almost 2 weeks to recover from it. And while the little one is sick, he's just so clingy to mummy.... Not something I want when I too am not feeling any better.

I think Kleenex would be very happy to know that their products did sell out very well as almost every one was sick these past few weeks.

I hope things will get better as the weather is FINALLY warming up a little starting today. Although a little bit windy but still at least the sun is here to stay! :D And I really need the sun to cheer me up now. At 34 weeks of current pregnancy, I've never encountered so much health related problems as with when it was with Owen. I have a feeling that this kid is going to weight a little less; Owen was 3.99kg when he was born. But still, I hope he'll be on time (unlike his big brother) and be born healthy.

For the moment I'll just have to sit back and enjoy the ride (frequent kicks and restless sleep). Until he gets here, I'll have to start stitching up his birth sampler in weeks time and also finish my Little House Needleworks: Home of a Needleworker (too!). At the moment its half done, so I'm just proud that I'm keeping to my stitching schedule FOR ONCE! LOL! Pictures will come soon enough, in say 2 weeks or less.... See how ambitious I am? LOL!

In the eye of the Tiger year

2010-02-19T10:25:00.008+01:00

It was Chinese New year on Valentine's Day. Actually It still is CNY, until 28th of February as for us it runs for 15 days. We went back to hubs side of the family last Thursday.

Owen looking handsome in Chinese style clothing

Click here for more photos....

Paris was freezing cold!! And it was so WINDY! I think that its because 3rd SIL's place is right next to the Seine river, that makes the wind worst. What's worst than the cold outdoors? Cold indoors! LOL! Heating costs are rising so they try to limit their electric heating at home. But then again, their heater isn't as efficient as ours at home as its one of those typical one unit wall hanging type and not the floor heating. We were always in thick polar sweaters, pants and socks... :p But thank goodness it was for only 2 nights before we go to Rochefort, 1st SIL's place. Now there is what I call OVER HEATING! LOL! We actually sweat while we slept at night in winter.... And I end up having flu with soar throat the next day. :(

Oh well! Besides that it was fun to see them again and having the 4 little boys playing. OK, "fun" might not be the word to describe the chaos, noise and at times crying of what happens indoors.... The little ones slept each night at nearly midnight! Owen developed dark under eye rings by the time we come home, as he was sleeping so late and waking up so early in the the morning to continue playing!!!

Funny quilts wall hanging
Click here for more photos....

OH! Did I mentioned that I managed to persuade hubs to let me go to this craft show in Paris? hehehehehe.... Yes he did! *HUGS!!! This time I went WITHOUT THE BOYS, knowing how bored both of them will get with me going oohhhhsss and aaaahhhssss over fabrics, buttons, craft books, etc etc. LOL!

There were a lot of people there, mainly women of course! And the stands were quite interesting all in all. There were some displays of hand made quilts, contemporary hand made art, granny squares etc etc. As this silly women forgot to take her camera with her, photos shown here were taken by mobile digital camera.

And did I get anything for myself? OF COURSE! :D Needless to say, I was a very happy women that whole week, even with the chaos operated my the little ones!

An old ladys' curse

2009-10-21T13:49:00.005+02:00

Drag Me to Hell. Thank goodness I didn't waste $$$ in the cinema verison!

Was quite disturbed after watching "Drag me to Hell". No, I wasn't even spooked with the movie! As some people know I just don't like watching horror movie coz of the spook factor that lingers on. I stayed away from movies like Saw and Hostel. Am still spooked with Nightmare on Elm Street series!!!

Now why am I disturbed with this particular movie? You'll have to watch it to find out what I mean. The following comments are ONLY MY PERSONAL VIEW. IT IS IN NO WAY TRYING TO BE FUNNY WITH ANY OLD LADY AND THIER "BLACK MAGIC".

First of all, Christine Brown as the character. Ok, she's a bank loan officer at a bank in LA. I for on will not EVER employ this person as the loan officer. Why? Cause she is NOT a person with eye for details. When one works with numbers, one has to be detailed, be it as in checking certain things twice, making sure that certain statements/paper works are in order. I may not work with numbers, but having influenced by parents' need for detail, and their most preferred line "a black & white" due to their line of profession (a mechanical design engineer & an accounted clerk, I say this is a no-no in banking.

Then there's the CG of the movie. It sucks. Notice how fake the eye balls and the hand of the old lady. One wonders if the old lady is a robot! Freddie Kruger has more realistic scars and what nots that. The story line is not really realistic in a way. Something is just missing. For example she's a vegan, OK. But is being a volunteer at a puppy shelter got anything to do with being a vegan? DUH!?! Don't get me wrong, but it just sends out the wrong signals. I love animals, even own dogs for that matter but I eat meat.....

So apart from being shocked & surprised, being scared on a scale of 1 to 10.... Well, for me it'll be a 3.

So I'll have to stop being a critique for this movie here, as to not to offend any Gypsy old lady who would give me the Lamia curse!! *shivers

As far as curses are concern, I come from a country where black magic/dark arts are practiced. That doesn’t mean that I totally believe in them and it also doesn't mean that I don't believe it exits. It does but then again, if one leads a correct path of life to the Almighty and do not offend any persons (by being arrogant, cheat, lie etc), I don't believe that curses will work on these people. But I do believe that the person who puts a curse on others will get what is waiting for them later.... What goes around comes around. By the way, people who dabble with curses/black magic etc are playing with fire while adding more oil onto the fire.

Neighbourhood Patchwork Expo

2009-10-18T22:28:00.004+02:00

Happy dance...

I was quite surprised to received a flier saying that it'll be in a school cafeteria, running for a week starting from the 16th till 24th October . Since the school (middle school) is just basically across the street, I decided to go have a look.

And turn....

And SMILE!!

Its free entrance (YAY!) and all the lovely work done are made by a regional patchwork club. the lady at the entrance I think was quite taken by me as I was the only Asian there and she kept on asking me if I'm into quilting etc etc... I told her that I'm just a beginner trying to learn the ropes from books and "sifus" at NNC! LOL! Told her as well, it was an enriching experience having to frog and redo some (well a lot) of blocks on Owens' quilt. Took me ages but I did finish it in time for winter.... LOL!

The patchwork/quilts were sooooo...... LOVELY! There aren't words to describe them. The use of other materials like beads, feathers, organza, wool and ribbons were really what made some pieces stand out in terms of theme. There's two with Japanese theme, teapots, scissors, African, flowers, reflections..... I would say about 80% of them were hand quilted! I mean WOW! I don't think I can spend all my attention hand quilting a piece. I don't have that kind of "stamina", if you know what I mean....

Then there's this particular piece with miniature flowers that were actually hand sewed! Man, I am just lost for words with the attention to details that lady has. There's one thing though, I didn't know that one could piece together using metallic threads... And also by using variate colour threads... Hmmm, I learnt something today! ;)

As with most art expos, there are bound to be some pieces being put on sale. But the question is how do you put a price in a piece that take long hours of pin pricks and painstakingly put together? There's one GIANT quilt (about 173x220cm) is selling for CHF3500.-!!!

And BTW, I didn't go with Owen. God knows he'll be running around, touching those lovely pieces and as if we weren't poor enough, mummy has to fork out a fortune to buy a piece that he solid with his grubby hands! *shivers

So instead after my walk around quilts, I brought him out to walk amongst the falling autumn leaves and to the park. He had fun making noises while walking (or rather stomping) on them. Then he picked up some leaves and start dancing around with them! LOL! It was fun watching him having fun....

PS: FOR FULL PHOTO REPORT PLEASE CLICK HERE!

The end of De Fil en Aiguille?

2009-10-08T10:18:00.005+02:00

Just got news that my favourite mag is closing shop (thanks Rose of NNC!). Its so SAD!! So I went to look up on other French bloggers to see if its true. Here's a letter from the editor herself to a French blogger :

http://clarelis.canalblog.com/archives/2009/10/07/15337128.html

This is a copy/paste thing, please use the Google translator...

A nos chères lectrices,

Toute la rédaction a appris la semaine dernière (à notre grande surprise) que nous étions en cessation de paiement.

Nous avons, pendant 12 ans, essayé de donner le meilleur de nous même à nos lectrices, et avons toujours fait ce métier avec passion.

Nous savons peu de choses sur notre avenir : la direction nous a informé qu'un liquidateur judiciaire allait reprendre les comptes de la société et c'est lui qui prendra désormais toutes les décisions.

Croyez bien que nous sommes toutes désespérées de cette situation pour nos lectrices, et pour toute la grande famille de passionnées du fils que nous étions.

Depuis que la nouvelle s'est propagée, nous avons reçu un certain nombre de témoignages de soutien, de compréhension, très chaleureux, de la part de nos lectrices. Nous en sommes très touchées et chacun d'eux nous va droit au coeur

Merci encore pour votre fidélité et encore une fois, croyez bien que nous sommes navrées d'avoir ce sentiment "d'abandonner brutalement" nos lectrices contre notre volonté.

Sophie BESTER (rédactrice en chef) et Judith DESSONS (rédactrice en chef adjointe)

Looks like I'm gonna have to look for another cross stitching mag to buy from now on. So sad that its such a sudden end to a 12 years running magazine. Its even worst I think for the employees and designers attached to the mag, that the directors of the company decide just to drop the bomb. I hope subcribers could get their refund....

Here's one kept mag that I find quite good. Main & Merveilles by Les Editions de Saxe, its a little bit more expensive than DFA. Why I like it? Partly its because there's Isabelle Haccourt-Vautier (French XS designer). I love her charts... ;) BTW, to those following Isabelle's mystery sampler chart, there's part 5 and 6 out now for down load. Any one wants to do a RR on that?

Finished! AT LAST!!

2009-09-17T16:49:00.008+02:00

Close up of the case...

This pic is SUPPOSED TO TURN!!! @%&? blogger!!!!

Here's my latest finish! Its mum's birthday gift; a glasses case. Paul gave me an idea of what to make for my mum. And its FINALLY finished! Yes, I know, I know! I'm such a slow stitcher that I've got to make this first in time to make it for her birthday in November! LOL! Imagine if I were to make Christmas tree ornaments! I'll have to start in summer or even spring just so that it'll be ready for Christmas! LOL!

So why is it that I'm such a slow stitcher? Well for one, I'm a L-A-Z-Y ass! LOL! Then, there are times I do wander off doing something else that some how manage to catch my interest; like reading OR worst still starting on yet another project. May be while stitching a piece, I got bored half way. Especially if its a big piece and have repeated patterns. I think I should stitch smalls or even medium sized pieces so that it'll at least make me concentrate on finishing it!

The case with satin cords.

Oh BTW, its my first time stitching on black linen. I would not say that I "love" it, in fact thank GOD I have pretty good eye sight now (with glasses of course!), its was pretty challenging to "stab" the needle on the fabric the correctly! And I did this with the help of my clear dinning table. Had to hold the fabric slightly up so that light go through and that I could see the grains....

Mum was complaining about how she can never find her glasses where it should be. Trust me, even if its right in front of her or on her head, she just can find it! So I made an attached cord with it, so that she'll be able to wear it around the neck at all times! Made it black coz I think clear colours are pretty easy to get dirty or stained.

So now, next on my plate is to finish up my other half done pieces! Otherwise hubs would not let me get new stash - one of the worst case scenarios he could think of now..... :( And here I'm saving up for Feb 2010 craft show in Paris....

Rude people

2009-09-10T23:40:00.004+02:00

I really like this video by YouTuber, Englishteaboy. Watch the whole vid to get what I mean, by clicking on the title. What he said is quite true, people are just rude these days. Especially in the city.

I mean, won't it be nice to live in a place where people are just nice to each other? Won't it be nice if that sales person at least smile or say hello to their customers; not just coz they are getting a commission out of your purchases OR you're just good lookin (!!). Even if they don't do it, why don't we take the first step by being nice instead? I'd bet it'll make their day.

In his video, he mentioned that no one says G'Day (he's an Aussie) any more. Well ... its not quite that do-able when you live in a city. Even if one does it, it'll make him/her wanna past out due to the fact that they'll be greeting everyone while on their way to work/school etc.

However, not that I think people are just rude by not saying thank you, please, hello, cutting the queueing, but they also lack common manners. Common manners like closing one's mouth while yawning, sneezing outwards to other people (not only its rude but its one sure way to contaminate others with your germs!), speaking with a full mouth, by holding doors open for the person behind, ignoring seating priorities for pregnant women/old persons etc etc. I mean won't it be nice to not to have experienced these small or menial things that will ruin our entire day? I know I will have a great day just because someone in front hold the door open for me and not slam them in my face!

But then again I do wonder at times, are be being rude by saying you're welcome to someone who had not said thank you in the first place? There are times like these that a simple you're welcome could give one a blank look, a fuck off or whatever look from the receiver....

Let me be clear here, I'm not trying to be the patron of saint of social manners but I do try to make it a point everyday to be nice to other people first. The saying "do onto others what you want other to do onto you" rings clear. And I know we would all LOVE to live in a better and nicer place!

Random thoughts

2009-09-09T14:50:00.002+02:00

Random thoughts

Some of the things that I do wonder and think about ALL day and it sometimes tend to keep me up at night...

1) Firing a gun. Wonder what's that like? I 'd love to try that out some time in the future. Well, I almost did it when a friend who owns several hand guns and a couple of shotgun offered to bring me to the shotting range. Wonder if the offer still stands?

Don't get me wrong, I'm normally not a viloent person, just the idea of handling a gun makes me curious.

2) Does thinking about someone else; ex-crush or lover, qualify as cheating on your spouse? What I meant to say is that, having the what ifs on our past relationships and also perhaps having day dreams about some one else other than the person you're with means that we going to cheat on them? Or does it means something else deeper? Deeper like, it's time to spice up our life as a couple? Deeper like, we are or will be having problems in our current relationships? Or I'm just being delusional? I just don't know what it all means now. Think it time to chat with the shrink?

3) Been having some really unhealty thoughts this past week. Unhealtly such as wanting to take off alone some where until futher notice. To party like mad like I used to. Well, not really MAD as per say. But just chill, you know with friends. To hit the trails if I can. The more I try not to think about it the more I'd like to do it. After having Owen, I feel like I'm just stuck here. Like I'm not really moving forward. I enjoy being a mum and all. But there's still something missing. It feels like I've not fulfil it just yet.

May be it's time I take a solo trip to recharge. To think about things I wanna do and to rethink my goals.

4) On the subject of infidelity. What would you do if that person does not even admit what they did was down right horrible and hurtful. But instead blame us for their behaviour? I'll be just totally lost for words and I won't waste my time trying to reason with them. I mean what's the point?!?

If this would to happen to our relationship; one of us falls out of love, we would just find a way to work things out for both of us. I mean there's just simply no point being unfaithful behind each others backs right? Truth, my friends is the way to live a sane life...

So you now know some of my strange thoughts. What about you? I'd bet you have some like all "normal" people do.

Sent from my iPod

Visiting the house of Cailler

2009-09-07T23:24:00.004+02:00

Maison Cailler, Broc

Was a pretty nice Sunday. So with nothing much to do, we decided to go up to Broc for a visit to the Cailler (Nestle) chocolate factory.

Welcome to chocolate alley.... Owen and hubs

Caillers was one of the oldest chocolate making factory in Switzerland - since 1819. The location Broc, is very idyllic. With the green mountains (snow capped in winter) and hectares of farm land (mainly for milk production), the whole area screams "TYPICALLY SWITZERLAND"!!! LOL!

The chocolate alley....

OH! BTW, did I mentioned that the factory visit was a free visit? Even better was they give out free samples of chocolates! YUMMMMMYYYYY!!! Owen was so happy with this of course! LOL!

Some of the old chocolate making moulds.

So back to the main topic here... :p They show you some of their methods of chocolate production. Don't think they'll show people their WHOLE methods though. We saw how cocoa was roasted, processed into delicious chocolate before mixing other ingredients like milk, nuts, caramel, honey etc etc.... At the end of the visit, there's this small corner where they show case some of their history. From the 1st chocolate wrapping paper, the founder to the machines that was previously used in their factory.

1930's Nestle's "stamps"; small gifts hidden in chocolate bars then.

As such no visit would be complete without making a stop at their shop for a couple bars of chocolate right? BTW, this visit is not recommend if one is on diet! As it is, we smell like chocolate even after we reach home... hehehehehee...

PS: pictures were NOT good as was taken with my lousy phone camera... Time to change the phone! hehehehehe...

The end of barbecue summer...

2009-09-07T00:59:00.007+02:00

Keeping the rolls warm in the oven...

It has been rainning for most of last week and for this coming week, although it looks good but its still windy during the day and cold in the evenings. Yup, summer is going away pretty soon.

Like every year, our building had a pot luck barbecue on Sunday. It was not bad meeting up with some of our neighbours although almost half did not turn up. Think its because this event tends to run till late and most of those who did turn up are middle aged rather than seniors... I think they might be afraid that they'll fall asleep half way while roasting this meat! muahahahahaha.....

Which reminds me, I did experienced some senior clients that fall asleep in the restaurant while I was working some time back. Had to wake them up when food was served, then they'll fall asleep again after eating and wake them up again when its nearly closing time!! We were pretty much being nice to them... :p

Not bad-lah... hehehehe...

For this barbecue, I made fried spring rolls, some fish & prawn crackers and for, dessert cassava cake - AKA bingka ubi kayu/manioc cake. Was my first try and it wasn't bad. It has been a long while since I ate this, once only fairly recently at a family friends bbq party when we were at La Rochelle, France.

Another yummy close up....

I've no idea it was so easy to make! If I've known earlier, would have made them more often. Just need grated cassava, coconut milk, a couple of eggs, some sugar, some salt and some grated coconut (optional). Mix them together and bake for about 1 hour or until cooked.

We're having bbq party again this coming Sunday with some friends, by the lakeside this time - if weather permits! I think I'll make them again for dessert.

Paris - Rochefort trip

2009-08-30T11:21:00.013+02:00

One of the tower by the sea, La Rochelle town.

Was a late summer trip this time to the in-laws. As usual there was lots of eating involved! LOL! So this time I did not forget to take some meds for indigestion, you know for just in case for all those GOOD FOOD.... I love eating for pleasure but then again having too much pleasure will upset the usual running of the system... :p

The boys: Hugo, hubs, Jean-Marc (BIL) and Owen.

August is the height of summer here, where by temperatures could reach 38°C or 40°C in some parts of Europe. Yes, global baking is in for this century.... Had to slap on SPF 50 sun block almost everyday Owen and I was out this time around.

We drove from here to Paris - 5/6 hours drive, stayed over at 3rd SIL place. Then drove for another 5 hours to Rochefort, this time with BIL and friend - Hugo. THANK GOD BIL brought Hugo along for this trip! hehehehehe... Reason? He's very (VERY) good and patient with kids! I mean the guy could and can play for hours with Owen! Its just AMAZING!!! I mean I couldn't get through the day without having either a headache, brain drain and being tired at the end of the day being with the little guy.... :p

Owen checking out older cousins' Nintendo DS...

Any ways, this time around we Rochefort & La Rochelle is basically crawling with tourists - as per usual but there's more French tourists than English speaking tourists. Guess with the bad economy, people tend to not leave the country for summer holiday. Which is good, coz the money stay within the country thus stimulating income for the locals.

Don't think he'll let Owen have his turn though....

FINE! I'll just play with your toys. :p

We went to the beach, of course. But I really do not like the beach we went to this time. There's more pebbles, washed up corals/some small trash, and the water is not clear as it was cornered off by the municipal to make a pool like thingy instead of open sea. So THAT makes the water stagnant, cloudy and most of the time smelled like algae... YUCK!!! Its nice to swim as there's basically NO waves coming into the man made bay/lagoon. BUT I'd rather swim in the open sea!

We tried to go to Ile de Rè this time but it'll take us 3 hours of traffic jam to get there.... So the beach sucks this time. At the very least we did a nice beach in Malaysia! hehehehe.... With warm, crystal clear water that is!!!

BTW, this just come to my mind. If peeing in the swimming pool is forbidden, what do you think about peeing in the sea? I think its yucky to pee in the sea, but many people just do it! SO DO NOT ACCIDENTALLY GULP SEA WATER AS THERE MIGHT BE PEE YOU'RE DRINKING!! HAHAHAHAHAHA.... OK, enough of this.

The little ones "recharging their batteries with some chips!

Owen had a GREAT time playing with all his cousins (they are all BOYS) while we're in Rochefort. The little ones slept at around 11pm every night while we're there. We've been having problems with going back to the old routine with his sleeping time ever since we got back. ARRGGHHH.....

Back after 4 years.... This time with a little one!

Besides that, we were invited by the Boisselier (I hope I got the name right!) - a very close family friend, for a paella dinner. It was huge!! And it was really good with all those fresh seafood. They have a beautiful home. Their home is where hubs came to pick me up when we got married in 2005. We had our evening wedding reception on a boat. I was a good experience....

The GIANT yummy paella... :D

Its so nice to see them again as they do travel a lot ever since their retirement. I love their court yard. They planted an olive tree in the middle, some roses on the sides and apparently an orange and a prune (or was it a peach?) tree in big pots. I would love to have a court yard/winter garden if we ever could afford to buy a house here.

Would love to go back the next time. And this time I'll make sure we'll go to Ile de Ré...

Medieval Festival 2009 Aigle

2009-08-11T01:08:00.003+02:00

This is a back dated post.

Meaning to blog about this last 2 weeks ago but as usual things come up. So here goes....

1st of August was Swissyland's national day. Since the whole country was on a standstill, with some exceptions of course, we decided to head off to Aigle (means eagle in French) for their Medieval festival . It was a really nice and hot day; cloudless skies!!

Aigle is a vineyard district not far from our place, about 35 mins drive. When we arrived in town, it was pretty strange as virtually EVERYTHING is shut and there was NO ONE on the streets to say that there's some kind of festival going on! Hubs kept on asking me "Are you sure there's something going on?!?"... That was not untill we decided to park the car and walk towards the chateaux where it should be held. Now chateaux Aigle is a small castle - ok, make that minuscule... In fact, I won't even think it should be called a chateaux!

Any ways, we had to pay for entrance (CHF15.- per adult) for us and Owen gets to go in for free since he's below 6 yrs old. Walked thru a couple of guards (teenager with spears!) and then a long cobbled/pebbeled path to be welcomed by actors dressed up in middle ages costums. From the hair styles down to wooden clogs! Well, we don't call them actors if they don't act real right? hehehehe...

There were huts/stalls selling their wares, from candles to fur, knives, swords (I swear!), tapestry, clay ware, baskets, clothing etc etc. They even show how the items that they sell were made during the middle ages. We went around and the interiors of the chateaux. It was quite interesting to see how, when and where the grapes were planted, trimmed, plucked, distilled and the final product; wine. The tools used were show cased as well as the hundreds of old wine labels from almost all over the world.

Food was interesting as well. They have a huge barbecue pit at the entrance of the chateaux with chickens. The BBQ chicken were really good by the way. Food were served in plates and bowls made out of coconut fibers and the spoons were of thin wood if I'm not mistaken. I doubt that we would pay for the same price if plates/bowls were made out of wood! They made really delicious apple juice as well there. It was served in jug form with tumblers, hand made pottery I should think. It was about 35°C or 34°C but the juice stayed cool, which was an excellent thirst quencher.

We had fun discovering the chateaux and the festival. Here I leave you with some photos from our outing at my WEBSHOTS album.

THE WRITING WAS ALREADY ON THE WALL SO LONG AGO

2009-07-23T10:18:00.002+02:00

For your reading enjoyment.

This has been going on for far too long. The MACC acts like God. They kidnap families and torture those they arrest. They threaten those they interrogate with death if they refuse to talk.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

The writing was already on the wall very much earlier. Alarm bells were wailing like banshees. But this was largely ignored. It was ignored because it was Malaysia Today that had triggered the alarm bells. Malaysia Today is not the most reliable source. It does not offer the best of information. What Malaysia Today dabbles in are rumours and innuendoes.

When the Anti-Corruption Agency, now called the MACC, kidnapped the family of a police inspector, Malaysia Today raised the alarm. They had kidnapped the wife and child of a police inspector who had investigated a Chinese underworld boss on the instructions of a higher-up with the rank of ASP.

The inspector was just doing what his boss had ordered him to do, and that was to open a file and launch an investigation into the activities of the Chinese prostitution, loan shark, drugs and gambling syndicate. And this resulted in the detention of three syndicate bosses.

What the MACC wanted the police inspector to do was quite simple. They wanted him to change his report so that the three underworld bosses can be freed from detention. And he would have to do that if he wants to secure the release of his family.

The police inspector refused to do that. Instead, he made a police report. And so did his wife. But nothing was done about the matter. The MACC officers were not arrested and dragged to court on kidnapping charges.

The MACC then leaked information to the media that they are investigating a very senior police officer, the Director of the CCD, for the crime of not declaring RM27 million worth of assets. The fact that MACC investigations come under the Official Secrets Act was not a hindrance. After all, the OSA is only used against opposition supporters and not against those who serve those who walk in the corridors of power.

Nevertheless, the Director of the CCD was finally not charged for not declaring RM27 million in assets. He was charged for using police property for his personal reasons, something that all government officers, ministers and politicians do blatantly every day of the week. But his real crime is that he detained several Chinese underworld bosses who control the prostitution, loan shark, drugs and gambling business all over Malaysia.

Then they arrested the lawyer who acted for the CCD Director. The MACC officers came to his office on the eve of Hari Raya and handcuffed him after roughing him up like one would do to an armed bank robber. To ensure that the lawyer suffered the greatest embarrassment this Hollywood-style arrest was done in full view of the entire office.

Malaysia Today wrote about all this. Malaysia Today not only wrote about all this but Malaysia Today repeated the stories again and again to make sure no one would say they somehow missed the story. But still nothing was done. No one denied the story. More importantly, no one did anything about what Malaysia Today revealed.

The MACC has been a tool of those who walk in the corridors of power for a long, long time. Officially, Barisan Nasional has 14 component members with Umno as the lead partner. Unofficially, Barisan Nasional has seventeen component members. The Election Commission is the fifteenth component member of Barisan Nasional, the Malaysian police the sixteenth, and the MACC the seventeenth. They all serve the interests of Umno and the Prime Minister.

“Where is the smoking gun?” they ask. “Show me the body!” they demand. No gun, no body, then no crime has been committed.

Well, today, there is a body. It is the body of a most unfortunate Chinese opposition member who was arrested and tortured by the MACC officers. Yes, he was tortured. And he was tortured because the MACC wanted him to talk.

But he could not talk. He could not talk because there was nothing to talk about. The MACC wanted him to finger his comrades in the opposition. They wanted him to implicate his friends in the opposition for various crimes that the MACC alleges had been committed by those in the opposition.

He tried to explain that he is not being stubborn. He tried to explain that no crime had been committed. He tried to explain that he could not possibly implicate his comrades in the opposition for various crimes if these crimes are merely a figment of the MACC’s imagination.

So they continued to torture him. And he could no longer stand the torture. After all, he is not the macho type of man. He is but a gentle man who only wanted to get married this weekend. That was all that he wanted.

They threatened to kill him if he refuses to talk. With tears running down his cheeks he begged for mercy and pleaded with them not to harm him. They threatened to throw him off the top floor if he refuses to talk. Sobbing like a baby he went down on his knees and begged for his life.

They dragged him across the room and opened the window. Then something went terribly wrong. It was supposed to be just a threat. They just wanted to put fear in him. They did not really want to throw him off the top floor.

They just wanted him to see what the ground floor looks like from the top floor.The unfortunate young man panicked. He went ballistic when he saw the distance he would have to travel before hitting the ground floor. He struggled. They could not hold onto him. Gravity took over and the life of this young man was prematurely snuffed out.

The MACC then announced that they had released him the night before. They failed to announce that they had not released him from custody but released him from this world. Then they suddenly found his body the day after. He jumped. He committed suicide. He took his own life. He was never tortured. He was not dragged to the window with the threat that they would teach him how to fly.

This has been going on for far too long. The MACC acts like God. They kidnap families and torture those they arrest. They threaten those they interrogate with death if they refuse to talk.

And now one young man has really died. But no one will be punished. No one will be punished because they will say the young man took his own life. Why he took his own life no one knows. He was never tortured. He was never threatened with death. He was not made to look how far down the ground floor is. He was not accidentally dropped when he panicked and struggled and they could not get a good grip on him.That is what they will be telling you and me later today.

One down, the rest of rakyat to go!

2009-07-21T15:24:00.004+02:00

Its truly a sad, sad week for Malaysians. Another true blue Malaysian has fallen while in custody of so-called Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission on July 16th. The man, Teoh Beng Hock, was a political secretary for a village assemblyman, was being called in by the commission to investigate the misused of public funding (about RM2400.- OR USD 700.-). WTF???? How about the millions missing from abandon projects and submarine purchases?

Mr Teoh has join the list of names that has fallen : A. Kugan, Samiyati Indrayani Zurkarnain, Francis Udayappan, etc etc etc. The question now for me is who will be the next victim? Could we just let the police force and whatever so-called law enforcement to continue to harass, torture and finally murder another law biding, tax paying rakyat without prove and without any possibility of seeking legal aide?

Some time ago, an online acquaintance asked me if I do follow news from Malaysia. Well to answer your question; yes I do follow them most of the time online. My sources mainly comes from Malaysia Kini and Malaysia Today. OH! Not forgetting that thanks to YouTube, I could even watch Media Rakyat! The main reason why I don't blog about them often is that I don't have facts at hand and I can't totally be dependent on online sources (for you'll never know which is which).

Plus, ever since I'm residing overseas, my vote does not count!?!? WTF?!?!? What are they afraid of? That overseas vote can and will give the opposition the winning vote? If the present ruling party has done nothing wrong, then why be afraid of it? Unless of course they know that some persons in the ruling party messed up and tried to over up issues such as the growing lists of mysterious death while in detention.

It is not to say that I can't do anything, I can. And so can you Lim! Stop saying; what to do? its the government. the government should do this and that blah blah blah blah... Why are we so content of the few brave ones doing things for us while we as the people should be the one who must demand what is rightfully ours! In every struggle, there will be sacrifices to be made. Are we just to afraid to take risks for the benefit of our children? Or are we just plain afraid of what might come after us and bring us even more problems? Oh, right the ISA, the police force, the MACC and the whole lot of our corrupted government.

Let me remind you, Dr. Martin Luther King died for the rights of African-Americans, Nelson Mandela had to do time in prison, our own Tun Razak had to deal with the Brits and then the communist for our independence. Let me also remind you that, not all overseas government and police force are better one time ago. Even some the Brits’ government officials are accused miss using public funds for personal gain. And who exposed them? The tabloids of course!

Malaysia is still a growing nation. Our future direction or path can not be the one Myanmar/Burma has taken, nor how the Chinese has always governed the country. It is up to us, the average people to improve it, to make it better for our children to live in. The real question is; are we willing to take risks to improve things? Only you know the answer.

*Rakyat - the people in Malay language

Whose the gold digger now huh?

2009-07-21T01:10:00.006+02:00

Just got to read this on Weird News off MSN - "San Francisco's gay penguin has a change of heart". Now what would you think when you read the headlines? Strange right?

It says that for penguins real estate means a lot, which is true in a way - which reminds of a book called The Genetical Theory of Natural Selections..... I have not read the book but I heard that its not bad if you're into social studies etc.

Any ways, if penguin could be gay and decides to be straight (does that make the said penguin a bisexual?) just coz he could get the bigger piece of the "pie", in terms of survival, I seriously don't think its all wrong. Even we humans do it all the time. I seriously think at least about 30% of all divorces is due to money issue. And its not unheard of some women/men decides to marry that significant other for money/title/status. Not to mention that it creates delicious scandals and many will predict how long the marriage will last. That's what sells papers, tabloids and boost ratings for stations and or bogs! The $ sign once again.

So lets say that "happy" couple wants to divorce based on irreversible differences which could also mean $$$$, especially when the other half is a billionaire/celebrity. Look at Britney and Kevin (how much did they settled for again? 1Mil? Not bad. Even better was Trumps' divorce with 25mil...... So much money, more that all of us make in this lifetime!

Then there was a time when Mrs. Simpson was labeled as a gold digger. But then again Edward VIII gave up the crown. That’s just too bad…. OH! And there's Heather Mills!! She got about £24.5 or some where around there from Paul. I rather pity the women; she was the black sheep amongst women for a time.

Time and time again, these things happen in our humans' "natural selections" (women will always go for men who could provide; good genes etc). I don't really see the point of actually writing about of a penguin going bi just coz he could get a few meters of space and probably good genes too!!! Probably there's nothing to write about and they are desperate to get ratings/sell papers...

A month ago...

2009-07-10T01:35:00.005+02:00

I was home in KL and man! Its a total change from the last time I was back; Feb 2007. Partly because this time around, we went back to OUR own house in which we bought some time back. Its kinda strange to own a house but it FEELS GREAT! I've never own anything expensive and that will see that thing having more value than it is right now.

Any ways, it was really great to be back home. Got to meet up with NNC members for Stitching Bee (which reminds me: got to re-learn how to crochet!), to practically STUFF myself silly with local food (which BTW will burn off due to the heat here! LOL!), to meet up with old school friends (you know who you are! IT WAS A BLAST GUYS!) for lunch & dinner, spent some family time at Redang island, fabric/dress/book shopping (good thing I didn't actually max out this time!) was good, got myself a new pair of glasses (its RED this time round) and finally managed to catch Transformers at the cinemas with hubs, sis and her husband.....

And guess what?! I manage to FREAKING FORGET MY CAMERA ON THE AIRPLANE WHEN WE LANDED IN ZURICH! ARRRRGGHHHH.... Why, oh why does it have to be me?!? It has been 2 weeks now, and there's no news from it. sigh... Oh well, no use crying over spilled milk eh?

So if you guys are wondering where are the pictures from our trip, just don't bother. It'll take my sister and dad AGES to get her to mail me pictures anyhow. :p IF I'm LUCKY, it'll be here on 31/12/2009!!!!

Any how, there's loads to blog about the trip but I'm just not in the mood to do it now with the camera gone and all. Perhaps later in the week....

Disneyland Trip

2009-05-24T23:28:00.005+02:00

Look! Its Clint Eastwood!

At the Disneyland Park entrance.

Was meaning to blog about this earlier but as usual the thing got to me! :D

I like the Mikey clock tower...

I finally got to visit Disneyland for the first time. Oh! I mean the one in Paris not Florida.... Would love to have gone to the one in Florida but then again this also mean that either one of us would have to win the lottery jackpot! LOL!!!

At their Mainstreet USA

Was just over the Labor day weekend that we took off to Paris. Stayed at the in-laws place for a night and was off the following day early. It was rather cloudy then but thank goodness it didn't rained! We went with my 2nd SIL, which was great since their 8 year old could entertain Owen and vice verse.

A show was going on...

Was nearly noon by the time we arrived at the Santa Fee hotel (located within the parks' ground). Took their shuttle to the park right after checking in and boy, we were really excited! Well, its more Owen and I were really looking forward than hubs. Disneyland or any other park similar to this is just not his thing... :p As far as crowd goes, its really not that crowed as it supposed to be being the labor day weekend and what nots. There were more foreigners than French but then again, I guess the French would prefer Astrix Park to Disneyland...

The Phantom Manor

Which is scarier? This?

Or this?

We managed to go on rides that weren't that violent A.K.A.: the slow rides with no screaming involved, after having to wait in lines in an average about 40 mins. Which is still not bad since it could be worst - 1 to 2 hours!! We did the Phantom Manor (the decor is not bad & Owen wasn't scared!), visited Sleeping Beauty's castle, the Studio Tram tour, Mad Hatters' Tea cups and Its a Small world water ride, the Cars Race Rally and the Disneyland Railroad ride. Saw their Main Street parade and the Stunt Show Spectacular as well! I manged to go on the Twilight Tower of Terror ride with SIL.... Let me tell you that my heart went straight to my stomach with that ride! LOL! At least I kept my breakfast & lunch inside of me! hahahahaha..... The "cast members at the Tower were really convincing as well as funny.

Owen enjoying the view with papa from atop of Sleeping Beauty's Castle & eating popcorn! :D

In between, I managed to sneaked in a few visits to their boutiques. And there's soo.... MANY boutiques there! Despite the fact that its pretty expensive, we still got some souvenirs like t-shirts for the kids, pins, mugs, key chain and not forgetting photo album. I guess Disneyland is a mega money making "magic" machine, not so much of the original magic now is it?

Piglet ears Owen....

And silly mama trying to act like Piglet! LOL!

Owen was so excited and hyper the entire trip! Although he did nap a little admits all that's going on and noises around us.... He had nightmares and woke up crying several times during the first night which makes both of us looking like zombies the next day. Think they would hire us as cast members with us looking like that? hehehee.....

It was a fun trip although we didn't manage to visit all that we wanted to. Perhaps next time when Owen is a little older and could actually appreciate the visit more than this time around. By then I think we would probably go to the one in Florida, if budget permits.. TIME TO BUY LOTTERY TICKETS! LOL!!!

Storing and organizing... What joy! :p

2009-04-29T14:08:00.007+02:00

My hap hazard flosses for now...

Looking at my ever growing floss, sewing threads, ribbons, buttons, fabrics collection; its really high time I buckle up! My ribbons and buttons collection so far has not reach its "critical" limit as yet, its all wound up and placed in zip lock bags in my sewing/stash cabinet. As for fabrics, it really has come to a stage where the initial cotton covered carton box is over flowing. Time to get a new box? hehehehe.... And oh! Most of newly acquired fabrics will be wash as soon as it crosses the door. That way I don't worry about if I've wash them or not. For the moment, they reside in zip lock bags. Depending on cut size, they'll either be in the lowest drawer of the cabinet OR the box.

The big ones in the box. About the yarn, I tried to crochet!

My sewing/stash cabinet from Ikea.

The small pieces of fabrics, mainly FQs together with my felts and XS fabrics.

For flosses I initially organize them by colours but now I totally give up on this idea as I don't find that its working for me... :( So yesterday I spent half a day labelling and reorganizing my flosses into zip lock bags by number. Mind you, I don't like to do it all over again, so I'm thinking its best to do it now and add additional bags as I go. There's still 200 over colours not in there! What joy in future "stashing expedition"!

I think its easier to find the colour I want by number. I think later I'd have to go look for a big piece of cardboard. I want to make dividers that will fit my current plastic drawers on wheels. I think it shouldn't be hard to make. Here's the link if anyone is interested. Now the only problem would be; to keep Owen AWAY from my floss on wheels!

P/S: Here's another link to storage system ideas for your crafts & studio!

There are no words

2009-04-13T01:04:00.004+02:00

to describe what I'm feeling now, AFTER watching a horrific video on Stomp. In this video, it shows a domestic maid abusing a child, probably about 3 or 4 years of age at that time, by stepping on to of and kicking her!?!?

I'm just lost for words when I saw it. As a human being, I can't understand what has gone into the head of that woman. I mean; how could a fully grown adult step on and kick a poor defenceless little girl? OK fine, she might have gotten angry that the little girl didn't listen to what she said but then again, kicking and stepping on her? COME ON!

These abusive actions brings me ask these questions:

Are we Asians so dependent on maids on our daily lives that we forsake the safety of our children in quest of fortune and fame for ourselves? *this video was shot in Singapore.

Why are we employing unqualified domestic helpers? Unqualified as in having no basic knowledge in cooking, cleaning and or taking care of young children. Is it because we're afraid that it'll costs us more these helpers with basic knowledge? But then again, I think it'll costs us even dearly when we got to find out what the final results might be.

I think being as domestic helper is a hard job as it is stressful. Its even more difficult when its a live in helper who is a foreigner that does not know how his/her employer will treat them.

To me each occupation has its hazards, no matter how menial it may seem. You may think that a domestic helpers' job is easy but have you ever thought off the stress a person is going through when he/she doesn't know what they are doing and is trying to actually please their pay master with their limited knowledge?

I'm not trying to defend the maid caught abusing the little girl in the video. By all means, what she does is wrong and has to be punished, as we all reap what we sow! We all heard stories about how employers abuses live in domestic helper and horror stories about how domestic helpers lie, cheat, steal from us and abuse our loved ones under their care. But still we have to step back and think on a better solution so that these incidents will stop.

I may not know what IS the best way but at the very least, equipping them with basic knowledge of cooking, cleaning, taking care of children and dealing with difficult situations; either from employers and or children, can be one way. Another way would be dialogue through an intermediary between employee and employer. I believe that there's no bad solution, there's always a better one.

Earth Hour 2009

2009-03-30T00:28:00.003+02:00

It was a pretty dark and yet eventful night. At least Owen wasn't afraid of the dark when we flick the lights off at 20:30 on 28th March 2009. I lighted up 3 candles, hubs was watching TV (there was France vs Lituania game): I'd love that he not watch it, and Owen was trying to blow then candles!!

It was pretty funny as, he thought that we're going to have cake after blowing the candles! Its our fault actually - we taught him to blow candles during his and hubs birthday.... :p And then after realizing that there was not cake, he decide to bring out the picture books so we can play "point and say" - well, I say and he point! LOL!

While we were doing that, it reminds me of the frequent electricity cuts back home. We had fun then - no need to finish our homework if it lasts throughout the night! LOL!!! But then again, we had some hot, sticky and uncomfortable night without the ceiling fan on.... It also reminds me of some nights we spent at our grandparents place in Kuala Pilah as kids. Back then there were no street lights and to go back to grandpa's house after visiting the bicycle shop (15 mins walk) when it was dark, we had to either carry a heavy torch light (you know the BIG sliver ones that will knock you out if get hit on the head?) OR the kerosene lamp. I like the kerosene lamp and my parents still have them at home!

I think Earth Hour brings me back to my childhood days when things were pretty much simpler and life was on a slower pace. I think Earth Hour also brings us (family and friends) closer as in; we'll actually talk to each other with candle lights WITHOUT the noise or distraction from TV/radio/computer etc. I don't want to have to think that some family living under one roof, text/IM each other while at home!! THAT would be strange and SAD.....

Well, I think Earth Hour should not be just an "event". It should should be practiced every day in our daily lives as often as possible. Now I'm not talking about lighting up the candles everyday... Candles can be VERY DANGEROUS when they are light up without supervision!!! I'm saying that we should turn off the lights when not in the room, simply just turn off the standby mode on electrical appliances when you're done with them, turn off running water while brushing your teeth, recycle etc etc. All gestures no matter how small or menial they may seem, if everyone does it; it DOES make a lot of difference not only on your wallet but to our home on this planet.

I've never

2009-03-24T02:15:00.003+01:00

eaten artichoke before. Nor have I ever cook one, ever! So I dare myself to buy 2 on Friday and try it out on Sunday.... Since I have no idea how to cook them (or eat them), I looked up for some recipes over the Internet (GOD BLESS THE PERSON WHO MADE WWW HAPPENED!!) and prepare it accordingly.

1st off I have rinse it, cut away the stem, remove some bottom leaves and then give it a "haircut" - there are some really unpleasant small "thorns" on the leaves, which makes it HELL to eat afterwards! LOL! And then I steamed them in my rice cooker (got to thank the Japs for rice cooker!) for about 45 mins.

Pretty when opened up aren't they?

I wanted to bake them at first but decided to go ahead with steaming them 1st before popping it into the oven stuffed with Parmesan+breadcrumb+olive oil+fresh herb mixture. To stuff, 1st I have to "open" up the leaves like a flower but gently as to leave the leaves in fact, then removed some leaves and the fuzzy part in the middle. I baked them for about 15 mins over 190°C pre-heated oven. Sorry, there's no picture of the finish product as I was in a hurry to dig in! LOL!

I like this coz its really full of veg and white meat! YUMMY!

I like broccoli!

But I did took some pictures of my Baked Chicken and Quick Fruit Tartlets, made from this Irish cook mag I mentioned on my last post here. Its called "Easy Food - taking the "but" out of cooking" mag. I twigged the the Baked Chicken recipe - sub the chicken with turkey as that's what I got on hand -, and I would really reduce the amount of mayo and mushroom soup used in this recipe. Plus would rather not add in curry powder as I think it tastes funny.

My "quicky" fruit tratlets.... :p

As for the tartlets, that turned out alright. I won't be using raspberries the next time as they turn out S-O-U-R!!!! Same with Kiwi. The base I use puff pastry - store bought!! Making puff pastry from scratch is really scary!!! Made them when I was attached with the pastry department during my kitchen internship some years back..... I actually don't mind making them IF (and only IF) I have a proper working surface - AKA bigger kitchen! LOL!

Sunday brunch/late lunches

2009-03-15T23:23:00.005+01:00

I always like Sundays.... No wait, like is really an understatement. LOVE is more like it! LOL! I mean who doesn't? Unless of course if and when you have to get up early to get to work on a Sunday. Can't blame you, I've been there and I utterly HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS!! Its not that I don't like working on Sundays, as there's plenty to do when you work in the hotel industry, as the hours just breezes by! Its just that getting up in the ungodly hour of the day just to get ready for work that I utterly detest.

Sunday brunch/late lunches is what I look forward to on every weekend. Mum used to make awesome late lunches when we were kids. We usually have heavy breakfast at the wet market, and then we'll prepare lunch once all the purchases were put away. She use to make slow food - dishes that take hours to cook but is gone in the matter of minutes! LOL! I always love it when she'd make pork stew with some kind of pickled veg (I don't know what its called in English BTW).

Creamy peach melba breakfast bread - I love the sweet burnt creamy yogurt "droplets":p

Ever since I have time on Sundays, I try to make something special or experiment a little. Some times it works, some times it doesn't. If it doesn't, I'd throw out the recipe! LOL! Made Creamy Peach Melba Breakfast bread (Light & Natural cookbook - Brand Name) today. Its really not bad except that I made too much! hehehehehe.... We don't have peach yet, so I substitute with strawberries instead - its strawberry season in Spain. Swiss berries will come soon end of April. i think the next time I make this again, I'll have to cut out the cream as I find that there's just to much protein/diary in this recipe.

OH! I bought an Irish cooking mag yesterday and I can't wait to try out some recipes in them. They look so darn good in pictures that is.... Wonder how it'll turn out? Will blog about it next week! ;)

The sinking feeling...

2009-03-13T14:59:00.008+01:00

Its just one of those days when I made my first cake that sank!! LOL! Ever since I learned how to bake eons ago, I've never made a cake that sank.... A hard one yes but never, ever with that sinking effect....

Hubs' cake that sank....

But still it looks alright once its upside down! LOL!

In fact, the cake was meant to go to my Filipino girlfriend who's going back to the Philippines for a month and then GOD knows when I'll see her again after that.... I guess I know what went wrong, the over beating of the batter. Owen was with me in the kitchen when I was busy, and as always he'll be "busy" as well. Guess you can say I was busy bakin', busy saying "Owen! NO!", busy keeping his grubby paws off the kitchen counter, etc etc.....

The other cake with banana & chocolate chip filling

So in order to "save" the cake, I made the hole extra wide, mix the cake up with some mashed bananas and chocolate chips and popped it back in the oven for about 10 mins. BTW, that same day it was hubs' birthday as well! ARRGGHHH!!!!..... Oh well! Better luck next time! Owen did had a great time helping papa blowing out the candles though. Here's a small clip of them... :D

Owen & papa

So what's on my mind?

2009-02-27T14:47:00.003+01:00

There's just so much stuff on my mind these days. Wanted to blog about it but its just plain laziness that got in the way! LOL!

First off, one of my girlfriend in London had a revelation when she turn 30; to stay single for a little while longer. Well I truly support her decision on that coz I too feel that being single is not a bad thing as a lot of people might think. I've enjoyed my time being single and most of the time alone as well. Its not that I don't have many friends, just that I like the quiet, the ability to think things through myself and most of all the freedom to be selfish!

Some people think that (especially hubs) going to the movies, shop and dine alone is horrible and sad. But contrary to popular believes, its not. When you think about it, its really quite liberating in the sense that you don't need to please the others by compromising what you want to do, see and or eat. Being alone besides being liberating, its gives me time to feel my own self worth, to recollect self esteem and basically have a little breather from having people around me all the time.

Second, due to recent events that spur the rage, the sadness and most of all the need to urge to protect the someone close to my heart that got me thinking: what is LOVE in the first place? Does LOVE really lasts a life time? If it does, what happens after that? See, Ive seen people going lovey dovey when they first met and after a couple of months (or years) down the road, they split up! I know, it happens but why do people say it when they don't mean it? Did the person say it in the spur of the moment?

Love makes all of us makes mistakes as when it happens, all logic and reason will be thrown out of the window. That is why I think some people will take the vicious cycle of loving the wrong person and making the same mistake all over again and again and again. I'm not saying that I didn't make this mistake once a upon a time, I did in fact but I learnt not to do it twice.

To the persons I hold dear to my heart: I do hope that you'll take time off to reflect on your past mistakes as you've paid dearly for the lessons. Take time off to be single, time to be alone to think about what will be your next step, time to love yourself, to re-evaluate your self esteem, and self worth - as no one will give you those unless you give it to yourself.

To end this, I give you the song Love Hurts written by Bryant and Boudleaux, as I feel that there are some truth if not all in it. However, I'm not saying here that we shouldn't love but we must learn from what we get or give from it, for them we'll be strong enough.

Love hurts, love scars

Love wounds, and marks

Any heart, not tough

Or strong enough

To take a lot of pain

Take a lot of pain

Love is like a cloud

Holds a lot of rain

Love hurts

I'm young, I know

But even so

I know a thing or two

I learned, from you

I really learned a lot

Really learned a lot

Love is like a flame

It burns you when it's hot

Love hurts

Some fools think of happiness

Blissfulness, togetherness

Some fools fool themselves I guess

They're not foolin' me

I know it isn't true

Love is just a lie

Made to make you blue

Love hurts

I know it isn't true

Love is just a lie

Made to make you blue

Love hurts

Curtains

2009-02-27T13:46:00.004+01:00

this is a back dated post

I've finally finished my kitchen curtains! This has been an on going thing from WAAAAYYYYYY back - last year! LOL! The cross stitching section has taken me some months to do instead of a few weeks. Yes, yes, its partly due to things that seems to pop up but mostly due to plain laziness...

Its my wonky kitchen curtain! lol!

Took me about the whole night just to tack, sew, frog and re-sew the voile. I didn't know voile is such a difficult material to handle for my 1st time. Luckily, I've adjusted the thread tension and changed the needle (for light material) before I start. Otherwise it would have snag and ruined the fabric...

The XSed motif taken from Fil en Aiguille mag - forgot which issue!

But then again, I don't mind if the fabric is ruined.. hehehehe.... See since I'm into recycling, I don't see why I have to buy new fabric when I could just reuse my old curtain (it was pre-made from our last apartment) that is sitting in my fabric box. Besides, I felt that its great that we get to re-use stuff that is still in good shape instead of buying new ones. At times like these it feels good to be stingy! LOL!

Giant snake fossils found!!

2009-02-05T00:54:00.004+01:00

This is just beyond any words. That goes to show global warming has its trends. And yes I do believe that there are big or even gigantic creatures out there in the deep. We may not believe that they exists as we've not seen them... yet!

Scientists find world's biggest snake
'Titanic' boa fossils provide clues to past tropical climate.
Roberta Kwok - Nature News (www.nature.com)

An artist's reconsturction of Titianoboa cerrejonensis - Jason Bourque

Researchers have found fossils of the biggest known snake in the world, a discovery that could shed light on the climate of the tropics in the past.

The scientists estimate the snake lived 58 to 60 million years ago and was around 13 metres long. The giant, found in northeastern Colombia, dwarfs modern pythons and anacondas which usually don't exceed 6-6.5 metres and are thought to be the largest living snakes.

Since snakes are poikilotherms that, unlike humans, need heat from their environment to power their metabolism, the researchers suggest that at the time the region would have had to be 30 to 34 degrees Celsius for the snake to have survived. Most large snakes alive today live in the South American and southeast Asian tropics, where the high temperatures allow them to grow to impressive sizes.

A vertebra of a modern Anaconda (left) and (right) a vertebra from the Titanoboa.Ray Carson - UF Photography

"We've taken the snake and turned it into a giant thermometer," says lead author and vertebrate palaeontologist Jason Head of the University of Toronto in Canada, who says he "just about screamed" when he first saw the size of the fossils.
“We've taken the snake and turned it into a giant thermometer.”
Jason Head University of Toronto in Canada, who says he "just about screamed" when he first saw the size of the fossils.

Head's colleagues discovered fossilized vertebrae and ribs from 28 individual snakes in an open-pit coal mine at Cerrejón. The vertebrae's structure suggests the snake is closely related to the boa constrictor, leading the team to name the species Titanoboa cerrejonensis, or 'titanic boa from Cerrejon'. By comparing the shapes and sizes of the two best-preserved vertebrae to those of living snakes, the researchers calculated that the snake was 12.8 metres long and weighed 1,135 kilograms.

King of snakes
"It is hands-down the largest snake ever confirmed," says Harry Greene, an evolutionary biologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who was not involved in the work. "I think it's really spectacular."

Using models1 based on the largest modern-day snakes and their estimate of the Titanoboa's size, the team calculated how hot the tropics must have been 58 to 60 million years ago, a period known as the Palaeocene. The mean annual temperature would need to be at least 30-34 degrees Celsius to support the snake's metabolism, the researchers report in Nature2. This range matches previous estimates from Palaeocene climate models that assume high atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations3.

The results support the idea that the temperature difference between the Palaeocene tropics and higher-latitude regions was as large as it is today, even though the higher latitudes were much warmer during that time. This counters the so-called 'thermostat' hypothesis, which predicts that tropical temperatures would stay fairly stable even as other parts of the world heated up.

The study offers a "really big piece of evidence" to researchers trying to estimate Palaeocene climates, says Lisa Sloan, a climate scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. But Greene cautions that the team based their temperature calculations partially on the largest known size of an anaconda today, which the study pegs at 7 metres. This number is "very conservative" and could be as high as 11 metres, Greene says, which would lower the corresponding temperature estimate for the Palaeocene tropics.

References

Makarieva, A. M. , Gorshkov, V. G. , & Li, B.-L. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 272, 2325-2328 (2005).
Head, J. J. et al. Nature 457, 715-717 (2009).
Shellito, C. J. , Sloan, L. C. & Huber, M. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 193, 113-123 (2003).

The urge is back....

2009-01-20T22:27:00.009+01:00

Its been months since my last insomniac "attack". Woke up this morning bright and feels fully "charged" even though I slept at about, what I should think 3 or 4 am. Strange..... But then again there are stranger things happening around in the world, so I should not say that the "fully charged" feeling is strange.

During this time, what kept me up was the sudden urge for a ciggie!! It has been more than 7 years (has it?) since the last time I light up any form of tobacco: cigars, ciggies and shisha; which is BTW, I'm pretty proud of. I find myself some how changed now with regards to ciggies and people who do smoke them.

Yeah, yeah, I know that I might stun some people reading here since not many of you do know this side of me. And how many of you people that read this blog knows that I've got a tattoo as well? Well I do, and I'm not telling you where its located but still its not a big deal, as they say "the difference between people with tattoo is that they don't care if you've got one as well!" And oh! Mum found out in the end (the tattoo, NOT the ciggies) and all she had to say was; didn't it hurt? Which pretty much surprised me to finally find that mum was a cool person as well despite being in her 50s! LOL!

On her finding out about ciggies and me. Well let's just put it, its better that she doesn't know but then again she might know, just that she has not caught me red handed... LOL! Not that I wanted to be caught! When I started, it wasn't peer pressure as all (well 90%) of people I know aren't smokers. As all teenagers, I got curious and decided then I like it then. Thinking back, I surprised myself at how many sticks a day I had during my uni years; no thanks to friends who'll ask if I'm going for ciggies every time we see each other for breaks or after meal times! That was good times then spent with uni friends. Its still good times spent with them, just that ever since we finish uni, most of us stop smoking... I know, strange.... But the reasons for quiting for me was financial (ciggies are bloody $$$$!), health (fingers smell, out of breath etc etc) and work issues (non-smoking areas pop out every where now) . Did you know smoking cause stress to be even worst? Something to think about huh?

Now I try to stay clear of smoky places. Even more after we have Owen. We still have a box of high quality Cuban cigars, a gift from a friend. Think we'll save it for a very special occasion eh? hehehe... Till then, I'll try my best to resist.

Christmas 2008

2009-01-06T13:48:00.006+01:00

Owen looking "serious"

This is an overdue post.

I do hope everyone had a wonderful festivities with the family with lots of eating and jolly making. We certainly had.

We were up in the mountains with 1st SIL (and family) for 4 days at ski station called Super-Besse, central of France. This winter we're having (and are still having with minus temperature now) plenty of snow fall. Basically ski stations were open weeks before the full swing of Christmas holidays. As we drove there from our place, it took us about 5 and half hours drive - which is about the same time as to Paris. We initially thought that it'll take us longer with the snow and all but thank goodness the roads were cleared and it was a pretty good day for driving.

SIL's family rented an apartment for a week (Sunday to Sunday) and we arrived on Christmas eve. The place was basic but clean and we even have small (small as in only 1 person could stand there) kitchen smack in the middle of the already cramped apartment with 4 adults and 3 boisterous boys aged 6, 2 and 1 and half!! I still shuddered when I think about it and plus this is not having another nephew aged 8 (another hyperactive boy) that could have joined us!!!

The kids were having loads of fun from the time they wake up in the morning till late at night, when they drop like flies! LOL! We brought all of them up for sledding and the eldest of them for ice skating once and skiing. This time, its my 3rd try at skiing my entire life. It wasn't as bad as the 1st time. Not much "casualties" to report except the tumble and rolling on the a slope at 1800 meters!!

Hubs actually brought me up to that level (a blue or intermediate slope) where else I'm suppose to be on the green or beginner slope with the 4 or 5 year olds!! Ya, trust the men to protect me.... NOT! Whenever I fell (visibility was low in the early morning with fog, wind and snow!) , he got angry and finally left me half way down. Well I got so angry as well at him the entire time I was up there!! AAARRGGHHHHH..... But still I made it down in once piece and alive! THANK GOODNESS!

I actually quite enjoy skiing later on as I was on the green slope with the kids. I think I'll do it again this winter or the next but I'm going to buy my own boots. Rentals have weird fitting. And guess what I found out later in the day as I came back to the apartment after the whole day (well 9am till 4pm skiing time)? Hubs actually fell on the last lap, hurting his left wrist - which BTW swelled up within the hour as he's going down too fast!?!? I mean the whole hand and wrist looks like a ballooned prune like colour.... Serve him right to bring me up on the blue slope, expecting me to learn ASAP and then leave me when I slowed him down! HA!

Besides the skiing on Christmas day, Christmas eve dinner was Chinese fondue (YUM!) with the family. Then it was bed time for kids as they were really anticipating Santa early on the very next day. It was "VERY IMPORTANT FOR THEM TO SLEEP", as we adults told told them... hehehehehe.... This is ONE way that we could finally sit down in peace and have some wine together! The very next day, they were up and thank goodness we're on the 1st floor! The noise they created was enough to wake the entire building!!! LOL! Owen got a musical book, really colourful toy cars and a wooden rail toy. Nephews got Transformers, Hot Wheels and some Batman gear.

The entire trip was fun but on the day that we're all pack up, it was still kinda sad to leave. The entire mountain and its valley below was really beautiful and picturesque. It still takes my breath way every time I look at the pictures we took up on the slopes. We hope to go up the mountains once again soon.

Pictures are here for your enjoyment!

Pain in the A**!

2009-01-06T13:29:00.003+01:00

Well its 2009 and this the tile of my 1st post of the year! LOL! Honestly I think I'm getting so glad that the new year is here but actually really happy about it?..... Ok, the year is still fresh but to me it may and may not really mean happy occasion.

Why? I'm really a pessimist deep down despite the positive outlook I tend to have on the surface. For one, you'll never know what's gonna happen this year and I just wanna prepare myself to brace for the worst case scenario - which works for me up till now that is.

Now what I didn't aspect was that at 30 years old, I'm still having my wisdom tooth growing!?!? AND WHY IS DOES IT HAVE TO "GROW" ON NEW YEARS TILL NOW?!?! I've been having this ache every month for a week since it started growing 6 or 7 years ago.... My whole left jaw up to my temples are throbbing right now and I'm certainly NOT in the best mood except to snap at something or someone!

Have been to the dentist and he said; well unless it has a cavity or you're having problem eating, there's not much I can do. I could pull it out if you like but you might end up having more problems later. Like what kind of problems? It seems that there could be nerve problems which seems to connects itself to the brain. Why?!? I don't know and not sure why. I've had several friends who ended up in the hospital few weeks after having their wisdom tooth pulled out. They were having massive headaches, vomiting, massive pain on the neck and shoulders etc. Now that is what I'm not looking forward to. Lets just hope that this tooth will FINALLY grow out! Mean while, let me just sit quietly in a corner and endure it while I stitch or try being creative in some way...

The twilight saga

2008-12-21T15:11:00.004+01:00

Picture from Amazon.com

Oh ya! I've been reading alright! Its been months since I touched any books. So I thought why not go crazy and get 4 books and read them back to back?

I didn't think much about Stephanie Mayer's book Twilight series when I was in the book store. I was just thinking; Hmm... seems like a good read. And I think its a bit like Anne Rice as well.... See, I really enjoy reading Anne Rice's vampire books. Don't know why but I enjoy reading them. BTW, I don't know if vampire exists but then again may be they could have since there seem to have legends or folk tales about them. Any ways, I actually forgot entirely about the book after getting them home for about a week. That is I still have to get my quilt finish before I actually sit down to do some reading.

And boy was I hooked! It seems that I couldn't read fast enough to get to the next page, and the next and the next.... I still can't believe that I actually finish reading all of them in a week! The story is kinda like Romeo and Juliet only that Juliet/Bella gets what she wish for and even more. But its her journey getting there that is pretty interesting (I must say - seems like the author enjoy reading classics), full of "mishaps" and misunderstandings with her best mate, Jacob and the love of her life, Edward. So not to spoilt the book for those who haven't read it yet, I'll leave you to your quiet moment with the book.

PS: I really enjoy book 4: Breaking Dawn. Wonder if Midnight Sun will ever be polished?

They got to him!

2008-12-21T13:55:00.008+01:00

Owen enjoying the sledge

YUP! Its officially winter today but we've got snow for the last 2 weeks. It snowed in the night for 3 or 4 days then it rained down here (but blizzard like conditions up there) and washes part of it away.

I for one do enjoy the snow for the past few years, before Owen arrives that is. Now I really don't like them as much. Probably due to the fact that I had to push his stroller last winter (had to at 6 - 9 months) and now I had to carry him in the back pack for 1+ year old. And mind you he LOVES being on my back when it snows but not me. Ya, I've carried about 15kg of stuff some time ago (make that a long time ago) but carrying him is way different this time. I was afraid if I'll slip and fall with him, even when I'm wearing my snow boots!

Any ways, we went sledging with a friend and his kids at Les Paccots station, Chatel Saint Denis. Took us about 25 mins drive from our place to arrive and its for free! I've not come across any free ski station before and most of the time they aren't cheap, especially in Switzerland - land of the moos, and not that I know anything about skiing either.

Owen did enjoy himself in the snow with Rodrigo and Rosalia. We were pretty worried that he'll cry or something he if goes too fast which he did. I mean I went pretty fast as well on the sledge. I think he likes speed like his dad and I think I'm beginning to like speed as well... hehehehehe... Will probably learn to ski or God forbid, snowboard in the future? Hm....

And OH! After the afternoon fun in the snow, we ate in this restaurant (Chatel Restaurant Le Tsale) which I think is typically Fribourgeois (Chatel Saint Denis is in Fribourg region) Swiss chalet. I had their soup (made with Gruyere, some macaroni, pumpkins, potatoes, cream and some other ingredients) which was served in a wooden bowl with a wooden soup spoon! Pictures are here to explain it better. JP had their cheese croute (melted cheese with a piece of bread some pickled onions & miniature cucumber - do we even call it cucumber?). Not my kind of meal but JP liked it. I prefer my soup any time.

We'll be going off to see the in-laws (his side) at Super Besse, central region of France for Christmas this Wednesday. Not that we celebrate Christmas but to just get away to see some family and enjoy the holiday season in the snow. Hmm... Which brings me back to this question; will I enjoy being in the snow, all cold and wet? I don't know but I'm gonna find out. I might bring a book as well for just in case. Me and the in-laws don't really have much in common to chat about any ways, unless of course if they're into crafting/movies/books/music as I'm getting pretty tired about kiddy talk ALL. THE. TIME.

Something warm and fuzzy

2008-12-17T13:37:00.005+01:00

Owen enjoying his quilt... :D

PHEW!!! I've finally finish what I wanted to start since this summer. The whole process took me awhile. From choosing the material to actually ordering them online OR get them locally, cutting them up and putting the pieces together. I've never tried quilting before. Thought that this could be a chance for me to learn something more and give Owen something warm and fuzzy at the same time.

Mum told me that it'll take time and effort and man she is right! I could actually hear her right now with the I-told-you-so! Quilting is a pretty long process when you're a beginner at sewing - -like me. I had to learn it from trial and error along the way. I envy those who actually take up quilting classes. Thank goodness I bought a few extra (OK, half a yard/meter extra) of fabric. And no I didn't spend a fortune on fabrics (they were on sale) but I did invest on the hardware: a Janome sewing machine, rotary cutter, mat and ruler, since I think I'll be using them often from now.

The design is a free design from Victoriana Quilt Designs, called easy baby rail fence. I got my tips and heads up from friends at NNC (Thanks: Diane, Janet, Nik and Zarina!), from Quilting for Dummies (yeah, I am at THAT level! LOL!) and the Excyclopedia of Quilting & Patchwork Techniques. At first I was really confused with all the words quilters were referring to but after a while I got the hang of it with explanation of course. It was to me like talking in computer language, like the time JP taught me to built my own website (now abandoned project) awhile back. At least quilting "language" now are more familiar than computer ones!! LOL...

Pictures are here for you to enjoy the whole process of my quilting experience. OH! BTW, I've also made my 1st Needle pouch from a kit June of NNC gave me. I'm now going to put it into good use. Thanks June! AND... I might wanna make another quilt next year. But that's another story for another time. *wink*wink

Feels like a drag

2008-12-16T01:13:00.003+01:00

I honestly don't know what the hell has got into me.... Last week seems like its going on and on forever! I've been feeling slightly depressed the entire time. Seems like I can't really finish stuff that I've just started. Perhaps its just the weather here recently and may be I've been staying indoors since its snowing pretty bad outside.

I remembered in the past, I felt this way as well. Was back in my final terms for 3rd year then. Back then what triggered it was the fact that my roommate actually talking behind my back about something - which I refuse to know what it was since I don't think I've offended her or any of her friends. "Friends" that actually believed her, start to avoid me at one point. But still I'm glad and thankful that there are still a handful of people that stood by me telling me to snap out it. Thanks guys!

BTW, to make matters worse; Owen is teething AGAIN!!! ARRGGHHHHH!!!!... I mean why can't babies grow all their teeth within 2 months or so and let us parents get some good night sleep?!?!? Since now that I'm a stay at home mum, it ME that has to drag my feet over to him while daddy continue his sleep in the other room. It's very nice "arrangement", no? Seriously, I'm rethinking our having-2nd-child option.

Rose, rose my love...

2008-11-21T22:52:00.004+01:00

The rose

This was supposed to be posted on Sunday. I got caught up with quilting but that's another story.... As you know from my previous post, I've got us a rose baking mould from the Paris craft show.

That's green tea icing with some powdred icing sugar

The verdict: I love silicone moulds!!! No messy greasing and lining baking pans! Plus it comes in so many interesting choices in terms of shapes and size. For this try, I've made green tea cake and its green tea icing. Turns out not bad. The only down side for this particular motif mould is that I can't bake it as per normal temperature due to the "petals" - the petals part will be hard as it cooks faster than the rest of the cake. Instead of 175°C, I had to turn in down to 160°C. Thus cake bakes longer. But then again I just LOVE how it turns out! Next time I'm going to bake a chocolate cake - you know black rose? hehehehehe....

Paris craft show

2008-11-16T02:36:00.013+01:00

Ladies, ladies every where!!

OK, its true that I'm not suppose to spend on crafting items until at least after Feb. 2009. Well that's according to my financial advisor (my inner voice on the financial department - call me CRAZY but I'm sure EVERYONE has one!) . And once again I've failed to adhere to the advise and scummed! hehehehee....

My newly acquired stash....

Above embroidered lamps. Below: Granny Square show!

Here are the items I've got. Well its not a lot since I went to the Paris craft show (http://www.creations-savoir-faire.com/) with the men in my life, whom one of them will glare (yes GLARE!!) at me if I decide to walk away from the show with more than 15 items. I think the guy practically keeps track of my numerous stash at home now.... Which reminds me; did he acquire another plant recently? Hmmm....

Fully hand stitched quilt. Amazing isn't it?

So back to the show. JP would say "average age was 50 and majority would be women". Yes its true but still 50 isn't OLD!!! The show was pretty interesting, with sections; needlework, jewellery making, art & deco, paper & scrap booking and cooking/baking. I think there were more quilting stalls than those selling cross stitch items and accessories at the needlework section. Saw a pretty amazing quilt by a member of the French Quilting Association. Took her 2 years to finish it and the result as stunning! I was so temped to buy fabric packs there as it was quite a good bargain but then again I prefer to buy when I plan for my next project. Besides I'm just giving quilting ago for the moment. Sad to say I walk away with only 3 charts as I can't really take my time to browse through and there were sooooo.... many ladies there looking at the same thing as I was!! So there's 2 Drawn Thread (I LOVE them!) and another by Dessin DHC (French company).

Silk paper wedding dresses looks dreamy & pretty....

She's making sure that its paper...

Cardboard items

A good thing here though, is there was an aisle specially done up to show off different crafts which could give my some fresh ideas. There's the crocheted themed (granny squares every where!), embroidery (lamp shades with really interesting motifs), paper themed (beautifully shaped out lamp shades & cardboard furnishings) and there's even several silk paper wedding dresses on display!! And not forgetting some 3D framed paper pictures, which took to a Christmasy themed.

Framed 3D pictures

Don't they look nice? Its made with paper using Fiskars

And then at the end of the aisle, both of us got distracted by a flowing chocolate fondue fountain..... :) Needless to say after tasting some "artisans" chocolate, we bought 2 boxes. heheheehe.... And then I saw some silicone baking mould. Ever since I bought my Winne the Pooh silicone mould, I really enjoy using these fuss free moulds - no need to oil/line the pan AND easy to clean/pop cake out. Besides its not only for baking, its also for my jelly making. So I finally bought a small piggy mould and big rose mould.

THE CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN!!! How can you NOT get get distracted by it?!?!

We were pretty tired after spending half a day there. OH! There's another show in Feb. 2009 but this is only dedicated to needlework. I'd love to go and the entry fare is only 10 Euro (Creations et Savoir Faire is 12 Euro!) but I think there'll be a very slim chance that we'll go to Paris in Feb. But there's ALWAYS 2010 right? hehehehehe...

It has been AGES...

2008-11-14T01:53:00.009+01:00

Since my last post. OK, OK I'll admit it. I might be a little bit slack on updating my blog but at least I did! :)

So to wrap it up, what I did for the whole of October was making blueberry muffin (it was really purple!!), made my 1st pizza, my 1st successful waffle (can never get the batter right!) and we went to Geneva for a visit.

My purple muffin batter.... :p

I'd always wonder why is blueberry call blueberry when they tend to squish out purple juice? May be it looks blue outside and from afar? HHmmmm.... Anyways, JP didn't like the muffin as it was bland. Well I didn't intend to make these for dessert actually. Muffins was actually registered in English as "moofin"in 1703!!!! So you see muffins have a pretty early history as Wikepedia here says. And why it turn purple? I think must be the fact that I add them in too early and also that its frozen blueberries - have you seen the price tag for the fresh ones? OMG!!! CHF4.90 for only 100 grams..... :p

Pizza pan and silicone mat at the background.

And oh! I think I'll make pizza every forth night on weekend from now since I've got the dough just right and I have my pizza pan to thank for! hehehehehehe...... BTW, you've got to try out silicone mat, no more fussing about dirty worktop as you just lift the mat up or wipe away! Plus stamp out cookies lift up so much easier here! I remember when mum used to make pizzas for us when we were kids. She didn't have a pizza pan but used the stainless steel plates so each of us have our own pizza! I even remembered we made our own tomato puree sauce from scratch. Back then it was kinda difficult and expensive to get dried oregano/basil, Mozzarella cheese and Parmesan, but still she made our Sunday late lunches at home fun!

Any ways, my pizza came out not as round as the ones bought but its still has a crispy crust. And no, I did not twirl it in the air like one of those Italian pizza man. If I did, I'll have to waste more dough to just throw it around!

Look my waffle is smilling! :D

See the picture above? I actually got this waffle cum sandwich maker for free (credit card points) sometime back. Made loads of sandwich but could never make "great" waffles - its either uncooked in the middle or its too tender. I now have it just right - batter the constancy of heavy cream and cook it double time on my maker.

Looks like a pianting right?

Don't you just love the colours of autumn like the picture above? It was taken while we were walking about at Geneva. We don't go there often coz it takes 1 hour drive from our place. In fact I think the ONLY time we go to Geneva was to the airport! :) We managed to visit Azni, my Terengganu girlfriend from school, who was at work in this luxury SPA in the heart of the city. It has been AGES since we last meet up, but I'm glad to just see and catch up with her even for 15 mins. I hope to see her and her other half before the year ends.

BTW, I've been finishing up a gift for NNC's 2nd Anniversary Gift Exchange and it's already to be wrapped and mailed next weekend. Can't say much on the item I've made, only that it has flowers and its in the green toned coloured family with ribbons as trimmings. I just hope that the lucky person likes it and will put it to good use. Next up, baby quilt for Owen and at the same time my kitchen curtains. I know, I know, I'm really behind on the later project but I'm going to buck up and hopefully will see it finish BEFORE new year eh?

Give thanks from Lody's blog

2008-10-06T14:07:00.002+02:00

Copy and pasted this from Lody's blog. A fellow stitcher who made this into a contest and seeing that I have to re-post this as the R&R (rules & regulations), so why not? Tell me more about you and me fellow bloggers!

WHO ARE YOU AND HOW DID YOU FIND ME?
1. As a comment on this post, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn’t matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember! And if we’ve never met in real life, leave me a comment of your favorite post I wrote and why it was your favorite.

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It’s actually really funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I’ll assume you’re playing the game and I’ll come to your blog and leave one about you.

3. Do you read my posts from a reader, blogroll or is this your first visit?

Weekend pumpkin cookin

2008-09-14T18:23:00.008+02:00

Its pumpkin season once again. Its funny how I've only ate pumpkin once in my 23 years of life while I was home. May be mum didn't really know how to cook it or what to cook with it?

Any ways, I rediscover the taste of pumpkin just these few years from friends and cooking mags. I even ate weird looking pumpkin custard - which is a Thai dessert and its delicious. Made pumpkin soup and pumpkin curry several times - my "guinea pig" (that's JP) seems to like it.

So now I'm a bit more "daring" (che-wah!! kekakeka....). I used pumpkin for our weekend! Made pumpkin and chicken pie for Saturday dinner and pumpkin and fish lasagna for Sunday. For the 1st dish - nothing weird about it as its a pie - normal-lar! 2nd dish is lasagna!! The favourite dish of Garfield!! And its made with FISH.... I know some people may think; YUCKY! but to tell you the truth its not bad if you season the fish fillets properly.

Not meaning to be selfish, here's the recipe to those wanting to try it. Its from Betty Bossi, a Swiss cooking mag.

Pumpkin & fish lasagna with tomato salad with balsamic & basil dressing

This is Owen's portion.

Mise-en-place & prep time: about 20 mins.
Cooking time: 30 mins
For a 3 liter lasagna or a square oven prof dish.

Light Béchamel sauce
600 ml cold milk
3 tbsp flour
3/4 tsp salt
pepper and nutmeg powder to taste

Sauce
700 g pumpkin, grated
400g fish fillets, sliced into 1cm thick
1/2 bouquet of marjoram
1 tbsp salt
pepper to taste

12 pcs of lasagna sheets
70g Parmesan cheese

Pre-heat oven at 200°C. Well grease the lasagna dish. Pour milk into a saucepan, stir in the flour, salt and nutmeg powder. Keep stirring until mixture to just a boil, then remove from heat.
Mix very carefully all the ingredients for the sauce, making sure that the fish fillets are not broken.

"Pile" up lasagna by alternating 5 to 6 tbsp of Béchamel sauce, 3 pcs of lasagna sheets, follow by the sauce/fish & pumpkin mixture. Repeat the process till the last of mixture and lasagna sheets are used up. Sprinkle Parmesan and pop it into the oven for 30 mins. When cooking time is up, remove from the oven and let it "rest" for 5 mins.

I actually like this recipe but JP finds that the fish smells. So perhaps next time I'll use minced pork instead and I'll even add in onions, some chopped potatoes, some chili powder and bay leaf to "spice" it up. I really like this version of Béchamel sauce. But still I enjoy using sour cream instead. As for lasagna sheets, I've always use the quick non-pre-cook type like the ones from Barilla. Fresh is great but then again, unless I live in Italy where there's an all traditional Italian pasta shop in every street corner OR have time to make my own, I'll continue to use the cheats way!

Weekend neighbourhood BBQ

2008-09-07T14:30:00.009+02:00

Yesterday we had a neighbourhood BBQ just down stairs for our apartment block. We had our 1st BBQ last year when we moved in here. It was a great get together party.

As its a pot luck party, minus the BBQ meats/seafood/veggies (you bring your own for the grill); I brought orange fried rice as a side dish and green tea cake for dessert. Found green tea cake recipe here. Orange fried rice recipe here. A tip: after pouring the orange juice into the rice, mix really, really well. Then dish out but stand in serving dish for about 10 mins so that the rice soak in the juice. OR you can do what I normally do; pop the dish in warm oven for 15 min. For the cake: you've got to try their cheese frosting! I think the cake without the frosting taste ok but with is BEST!! Its not too sweet as frosting but of course depending on how a sweet tooth a person can be!

The martian like coloured cake mixture....

The cakes, decorated "sloppy" style!

For this BBQ get together, the concierge of our building told everyone that the main entrance, the garage door and the side entrance has to remained shut and locked at all times. I think its due to the recent break into the cellar between Tuesday evening and Wednesday. I heard from neighbours that the cellar (each family has their own "box") was broken into sometime back. And what thy took? Bottles/crates of expensive and rare wines!! I was like WTF?!?! Alcohol? As we don't drink wine that much (may be 3 or 4 times a year), our "box I guess will be safe from wine robbers!! hehehehehe... But still I do feel bad for the owner of the box that was broken into. I can still remember when my aunt (who lives in Germany) told me normally break-ins, and petty thefts are on their "high season" as the months draw closer to Christmas and New Year. Better to safe than sorry right?

So back to the BBQ! Last year, Owen was still so little to join in the fun - this year he ran with older kids! We get to stay on a little bit longer as well this time - at least till dessert! The last time was a "touch and go" thingy - we spoke, we ate and we left. All done within means of 2 hours!! The ang mohs seem to like my fried rice and cake. Well, we're the ONLY Asian family here, so have to make something different mar... heheheehee.... Too bad that that I don't know how to make mooncakes for this coming Mid-Autumn festival! But then again moon cakes are so mar fun/troublesome to make ALONE!

Want some kaya?

2008-08-17T02:23:00.007+02:00

I know it look unappetising, but you don't know what you're missing here!

I was getting pretty upset lately of missing home food. I think must be from the fact that most of a pretty good friends are far away; back in their home country or working in others. Plus its been a year and a half since I was last at home. *sigh....

Oh well! If only I've won that Euro Million thingy - CHF 88,000,000.00 JACKPOT WOR!! *sigh... Never mind lor! Will try again next time. Next jackpot is CHF 112,000,000.00!! Who knows huh? hehehehe....

So as I was missing home so much, I decide to make something that reminds me of my childhood. Kaya. I remembered when mum used to make kaya, she lets us lick clean (I literally mean CLEAN!) the pandan leaves after she takes it out of the pot, of course! As kids we just LOVE it. And I still do it even now, all grown up and a mother myself!!

As I was stirring the mixture, another memory floods back to my mind. Grandma (mum's side) will let us buy bread from the next door baker - who only makes those big size kopitiam bread, and then keep the rest of the change!! Back then a mare 20 cents were like a million bucks for us. 20 cents can get us a pack of sweets (5 pieces), 1 stick of ice pops, a pack of crakers and 3 pieces of pound peanut cookie (my fav). She then slice up the bread, toasts it, slap on some butter on one piece and kaya on the other piece. She even let us have kopi-o with our roti bakar!! BTW we were about 5 or 6 then!! LOL! Imagine what my mum would have said if she found out about the kopi-o!! Too bad grandma died of diabetes as she loves her kopi-o very, VERY sweet...

Every time I make kaya now, it brings back fond memories of childhood. The carefree days of running, playing around with my cousins and or neightbourhood kids. Oh! How I wish I could go back to live it once again.... *sigh.... But Owen is pulling by my leg. He wants kaya too! OR wants to be kaya (rich in Malay)?

T'was my birthday

2008-08-12T15:44:00.009+02:00

Was my birthday on Sunday. Yup! A year older and hopefully a little more wiser. So what did the men in my life did for me?

He sat around waiting for his lunch and then watch TV - its the Games remember? While the other little one is also waiting for his food, play around with my plastic containers and then nap time. Owen was being very well behaved on that day - THANK GOD! In fact I wish for nothing more on my special day that he being well behave and not make mummy really MAD. And for once he did as I wished. :-)

After all the baking, eating and cleaning up, I finally have the time to actually laze around and read a book. That is until Owen wakes up 2 hours later. Then its another round of "built & destroy", "flip & tear", hide & seek (not him - the cordless phone!) and, of course more cuddles & kisses.

Then we went out for dinner at the nearby Chinese restaurant. We can really seldom eat out now ever since Owen started walking. No. Make that ever since he was born!! The reason being; restaurants aren't made for babies and little kids. As soon as he gets bored or the hunger needs has been fulfilled, he'll be wanting to be let out from either the high chair or the stroller! If not he'll make loads of noise by crying or screaming!!

Gifts from June! YAY!

Close up of the needle pouch

So that was for Sunday, but TODAY I received some thing extra. Our door bell rang early this morning. It as the postman and with him its a parcel from home. I didn't wear my glasses - blind as a bat without them, so I didn't see who was it from, until I saw the name. It was from June of NNC!! She was my secret Birthday Exchange partner (organised by BJ).

The lovely work done by June...

The underside (do we call it underside?) of the Love Cube

So what's in the goodies bag? There's a red bag with a Love Cube lovingly stitched by June, a Cottage Patch needle pouch kit, a really cool Chinese paper craft book, some cute baby themed buttons (mental note: must think of where to sew it onto!! Its just too cute to be sitting around) and last but not least, a really COOL cardboard book for Owen. Its so cool that it caught his attention IMMEDIATELY!! WOW! Even the cardboard book we bought him were put aside...

My 1st try. Will get it to go ROUND the next time! ;-)

OH!! There's also a sushi making mold: we place the rice and other filling into it, then pop it out onto the nori! I've made a sample sushi using this and it came out just right: round and all ready to be warped in nori! Too bad hubs aren't into Japanese food, otherwise I'll have a sushi eating partner. Hmm... Which reminds me; perhaps a sushi party with my girlfriends? Since I don't work, can not do bento party right? hehehehehe....

Its POTTY TIME!

2008-08-11T18:07:00.004+02:00

Hahahahahaha..... I guess you might be wondering if I spelt it wrongly.... But the truth is, I did not. I'm trying to potty train the little man in the house. Well, trying really hard.

I know, I know it takes lots of patience, silent cleaning up, creative ways to make it happen etc etc. Hubs isn't any help either. He'll go like; Errmmmm... I think he just poop! ARRGGHHHH!! Why can't men take proactive approach like keeping his mouth shut and change the poopy diapers for once when we're busy doing other chores?!? I seriously don't think poopy diapers are out there to get fathers who changes them.

I asked my 1st SIL about potty training her boys. She was like; But its too early to be training him now. Hm.... And so does the other advices online say; Its too early to potty train under 20 month old baby unless they show signs of readiness. So should I follow what they say? Or should I go ahead to get him to make "acquaintances" with Mr Potty while slowly getting him to make ngee ngee and shee shee in it? For the moment it seems like he's toying with the sitting on Mr Potty with his diapers on and knows where shee shee comes from (trust me, boys have a weird way of knowing!). So is this the sign that I should be looking for? Man! Am I confused!

WOW! Its been that LONG??

2008-08-10T01:32:00.009+02:00

Since my last post! So what have we been up to.... Well I can say that there's nothing much but enjoying the summer and JP got his job back. Long story short; he was let go due to economic reasons of the company - AKA company in the process of a buy over. Then suddenly his old company find out that they could rehire him and so they did.

Eh! Where did the birdies went?

Which was great, as it meant that I won't be as worried and stressed out about him being unemployed with a family to feed. Which also means that he can get out of my hair while I do my stitching!! :-) I'm really WAY behind my stitching schedule at the moment.... He will sometimes complained that I'm neglecting certain things when I stitch. Well HELLO? What is that? The only time I stitch now is when the dishes are done, Owen's asleep and toys being put away. So I don't think its fair that I can't do my hobbies while he lingers almost every hour of the day with his precious bonsais!!

There they are!

It was pretty sunny on only a few days with lots of rainy spells for the month of July. So we had to stay indoors, which was a drag since summer is the only time of the year where we get to enjoy being out doors.

Ooooo...

But still we managed to bring Owen to a zoo and the next door tropicarium (well both small ones and fairly recent establishments) nearby one partly cloudy Saturday, and he seems to like it. I think its the space that he likes; all the space to run and wander about as he wants to! What impress him most were the birds what run freely in the bird park: he tried to run after them! The fast swimming African penguins, some swimming tortoise & goldfish (don't ask me why there's goldfish there), the very BIG bear and cub and last but not least the domestic goat! Must be from the pictures of his bedtime story book.

Wah! Look at hos fast they can go mama!

YEAH! Papa look! Got teddy bear!

He happily clapped when he saw the bear, which was funny because all the other kids were like "Wow! A big mean bear!".... The big cats (tigers, lions and lynx) did nothing to him. Or it may be that they were cat napping? But we did hear the tiger roar! And still he didn't pay attention to it unlike towards the bear.

The not so "dangerous" teddy?

At the end of the zoo/tropicarium visit, he just fell asleep within 5 minutes when we hit the road back home. Guess its all the bear excitement and running about that does it. Thank goodness all animals were well fenced in, otherwise he'll be seen as live easy bait to the cats, wolves and bears!

Despite the not so wonderful weather on the month of July, we got to enjoy the seasons cherries. All big, red, round, firm and juicy. Hmm... Now I sound perverted!! Well a picture says a thousand words!

Next we get to finally enjoy bicycle rides we JP got Owen his seat (fixed on my bike - for obvious reasons) and his very own cycle helmet! We took him for a spin to the local swimming pool. And boy did he enjoyed the ride - with the wind blowing on his face and the great scenery to match. He almost fell asleep on our way back. I didn't realised how heavy he was and unstable I handle my bike till I ride and paddle with him on the seat!!

Handsome or not? hehehhehe...

OH! Did I mentioned that he really likes to wear the cycle helmet? He refused that the helmet be taken off even after having reach home an hour! Once its on him, its on him. So now I don't have to worry about him taking the helmet off while I'm cycling OR even refusing to put them on, eh? hehehehe...

Nice 2008

2008-07-09T00:53:00.008+02:00

Strange "men" on lamp posts...

Can you see the sea beyond?

I feel that we've been "moving" around a lot lately. As soon as we got back from Paris on Tuesday, we're off again on early Saturday morning and this time to Nice, South of France. We've been to Nice before but without Owen. He wasn't even born then.... It was great while it lasted; I mean taking couples without kids holidays.

For this trip its just for a short weekend; hub's uni friend wedding. I've always thought that from our place to Nice will take at least 8 hours drive but it took us 6 instead. We went to go through part of the Valais (a Swiss canton) Alps (the view was amazing!) and then through Italy; which seems fast since Italians drivers are like F1 drivers any ways!! The roads on the Alps are really long and winding with really long (LONG) tunnels. In Italy, it was really (REALLY) straight then when we reach the coastline, more tunnels but this time its one after the other short ones. :p

Its a good thing hubs decide to get a GPS in January, that way I won't be held responsible if I point out the wrong way! hehehehehe.... But then again even with the GPS system, hubs still take the wrong turn while in Nice town centre!! LOL! And there I though we purposely put on a woman's voice so he'd pay attention! I think its time to switch it to a man's voice.. Hmmmmm...

We arrived at the hotel at about 4pm or so. And since there's still sunlight and its still warm out, we decide to go to the beach. Their beach here is not the sandy type but the pebble type! Which means if one falls flat on it, one will either end up having blue & black all over, brake their nose or have some kind of head injury. Since it was Owen's 1st seaside visit, we decide to not let him run around. Well he didn't run around this time (uneven ground) and he's afraid of the waves! hehehehe... Reminds me when I was little for my very 1st beach outing in Melaka! :) He held on to me like it was for dear life! hehehehe...

Don't let me go!!

Here you go mummy....

The water wasn't that clear since it was near the town centre, but still it was quite warm. Hubs went for a dip in the sea while I stay on the beach with Owen playing throw the pebbles. By the time its time to go back to the hotel, he was sleeping in the stroller. Playing with pebbles seems to tire him!

Peaceful sleep...

We went to the old town for dinner after having fed him in the room. Had to, since there's no under 2 years old kids menu in restaurants. Went to the old town walking. Since there's so many places to eat, it took us 30 mins to decide which restaurant to seat in or out in many terraces! Finally decided to eat inside since there's just no place to put the stroller next to me. Its typical here in France (not so sure about any where else), they place tables & chairs so close to each other that if seated, I could hear the couple whisper at the next table! Not that I want to!!

All happy and ready to paint the town "RED"!

Since its the wedding dinner on Sunday (why Sunday? Don't know!), we went out for a walk in the late morning to the other parts of Nice all the way to the seaside. I think the sea breeze did a lot of good since made Owen fell asleep without a fuss! Besides it was really hot by the time we got to the seaside. Had KFC for lunch in town; (YES!!! Its been ages since I last had KFC!) which is about a block away from the hotel. The afternoon was just to hot for walks with Owen, so its stay in and enjoy the air-conditioning for us. Owen and I had our afternoon nap, while hubs was watching his Wimbledon finals (Federer Vs Nadal; Nadal won).

Just in case he forgot the words....

We drove to the other side of Nice called Beaulieu. The view of the sunset on the way to the Grand Casino was spectacular as the roads were built on a rather rocky and winding sides of the coastline slopes. Good thing we weren't late for the cocktail reception, as we get to listen to Yohann (the groom) sing to Delphine! Not this is a guy who doesn't speak a word of English and here he's singing an Eric Clapton song with the wedding band! LOL! Both of us think that he's been practicing for months for this surprise.... He sang it very well in fact.

The table of sweets! YUMMY!

The actual dinner takes place at the next hall where tables were decorated according to theme. The decorations were DIY by both of them as it was really creative and special. Our table was the Carambar candy car way. The few tables next to us was the Marshmallow men, the cotton candy (called Barbapapa here), the Snow White castle, the 7 Dwarf mountain etc etc. They hired a local blues band for the entire dinner reception where everyone got up to dance whenever they played.

Our 1st dance as mother and son

The very smart men in my life

The best part of this wedding is that they hired a baby sitter to attend to 3 babies (including our boy). So that way we got to enjoy ourselves amongst friends even more knowing that he is being looked after. By the time we leave it was 1am and people are still dancing away! Owen was soundly asleep even after when we moved him from the travel cot to the kiddie seat in the car, drove all the way back to hotel and back in the room.

Ginger bread Minnie & Mikey!

As all holidays/get aways/vacation has end, this one as well. I don't know when we'll come back to the south again, perhaps next summer when Owen isn't too afraid of the waves. ;)

Summer in Paris

2008-07-02T23:07:00.017+02:00

Am just back from Paris yesterday. What can I say about this trip?.... Its to meet up with the in-laws. Was supposed to go to Mallorca Island, Spain; due to some kind of "disruptions" the trip was cancelled and all of them decided to spend a few days in Paris instead.

A cooling place to be in hot and dusty Paris....

Paris this time of the year is very (VERY) hot and dusty and the sun was burning!! It was at least about 33°C for the whole 4 days when we were there. I enjoy only the mornings and evenings there but the afternoons are horrid... :p Why? Because of the above and also the horrible traffic; there was a demonstration held by lorry drivers because of petrol price hike. Thank goodness we had enough sense in us NOT to drive around but took buses and walk around.

Bonsais, one of the many show cases in the park

This time since Owen is already walking, he gets to go around and play with his cousins. It seems like they like to play with him, although he doesn't speak - in words that is.... ;) We went to a park in Vincenne, Paris, where the summer open air live Jazz music on weekends being played. Loads of picnickers and jazz lovers, which makes the ambiance at the park really relaxed and enjoyable. One good thing about this park is that dogs aren't allowed in; therefore making the grass "clean" of any dog pee/poop! I think that's the only place I'd let Owen walk bare foot...

Very orange lilies....

As for the family gathering, we all got together in this restaurant at Bercy Village, just a few minutes walk from 3rd SIL's place - which reminds me; I did miss going to Loisir & Creative shop. A LNS which sells pleanty of stash for card making, beading/jewellery making, DIY home decorations and needle works. Bercy Village is where one could find restaurants with great people watching terraces, a cinema - been told that its the greatest in Paris (which BTW we haven't been into... YET) and a really (REALLY) good biscuits and candy store call La Cure Gourmand.

Chai 33: deco wise good, food wise: so-so

Anyways back to the restaurant called Chai 33, the place isn't bad - great for people watching like any good places to do that in Paris. They have a bar at the top floor and a very relaxed atmosphere down at the restaurant. But alas the food did not met my expectation of a fusion kind of way. May be what 1st SIL had done was go and ordered a menu for all of us..... :( I do NOT like having someone else make decision of what I'm eating especially coming from a member of an extended family AKA the in-laws!!

Anyways, what is done is done. Thank goodness we didn't give in to her "demands" for our son's name to be in FRENCH!! I mean, yes she might be the oldest and having to somewhat care for her brothers and sisters when their parents are gone (bless them), but doesn't she give it a rest already?!? I don't go around giving people "advices" about their kids when I'm not even asked to do so. GOSH!! Yes, she survived cancer and all (hubs say I should give her a break; why don't she give us a break?) but come on! We live and we die, (death and taxes people!) doesn't matter young or old nor the way we die. When its faithed, its faithed! GOSH! ITS FEELS SO GOOD TO GET IT OUT OF MY CHEST!!

OH! There's this little "incident" that I thought would be "great" to share. At the restaurant, 3rd SIL & family was late (was suppose to EAT at 8PM!). I was so hungry that I ate the so called fusion food that was placed in front of me almost immediately. Owen was getting grumpy as it was close to 9:30pm by the time we ate main course. And that the same thing happened to his cousin (whose a year older). 9pm is normally bedtime for both of them. So he was crying, his cousin was agitated, the mother was like" I'm chatting here and why are you crying?" Then hubs was like "its my job to keep Owen quite while we chat". HELLO!! As far as I'm concern, restaurants aren't made for small children. Even if they are, what the hell are they still doing out of bed at 9pm plus?!? I felt I was getting evil stare jabs from other diners. I don't know what in her right mind would she go ahead to book dinner for all of us at 8pm!?!? Which mother in their right mind would do that? Unless of course one has a sitter they would. Plus her kids has been out with them, walking Parisian streets from 11am!!! Aren't they tired at all? Or did she just gave them some "steroids" to keep them going and going and going and going.....? I was so angry at hubs by then end of the evening. I had to some what cut the evening short by making him go back with me. And besides he's the one whose been complaining to me; "oh, I think I might be sick" earlier. So its for he's own good to rest!

Just HAD to come out with SOMETHING, right? hehehehe

Friends at NNC asked me if I've been satshing. Its safe say that I didn't go crazy this time! We walked from 3rd SIL's place (district 13) to Bonheur des Dames at Viaduc des Arts (took us about 40 mins!) . Why we didn't drive there? Its because every single time hubs drives me there, there's either no parking or there's no place to stop to drop me off. So this time we decide to walk there. Even though its the SALE season here in West Europe, I can't really find what I like there due to time (its hubs fault) and attention (Owen was grumpy) constrain. But still I can't seems to walk out of the place empty handed can I? So I just grab 2 pcs of pre-cut linen, 2 hangers (metal and wooden) and a chart (DMC roses sampler). Only wish if I'm alone or with a fellow "stasher", and having a "fuller" pocket that I'll try to stash again at that place. They have vast varieties of samplers, flowery, yummy etc etc there. All in kit though as they seem to not really keen on selling only charts there.

A cute teddy for Elena

Another thing to dance about is that little Elena; 3rd SIL daughter - AKA 1st little girl on hubs side, got her little gift from us. A cute ballerina bear by Margaret Sherry. I finished it in 2 weeks, a record time for those who know me! ;) So for the next project.. Well there's no next project for the moment. Only return to my kitchen curtain, which had been put aside for sometime. Then some plan for NNC Anniversary exchange gift for end of Oct early Nov. Knowing how slow it'll take me to finish a piece, I'd better start by end of this month itself!

P/S: I don't justify my actions or reactions with my in-laws, nor I regret what I've done to "show" my temper. When one is so stepping on my head, I'll have to "pull" their legs down to earth don't I?