I'm Thankful

Today is the last day of 2007 and tomorrow is the beginning of a new year 2008. Before starting to blog, I’ve always kept my thoughts in my mind now I’m so glad each of my special thoughts can now be penned down for remembrance and hopefully this bog will stay long enough for my daughters and grandchildren to read it…. Well what are my thoughts now? As a Christian, I’m reminded to always give thanks and be thankful for everything whether it’s good or bad and deep down in me I really am thankful, so many things to be thankful and I tried to share some as I could not possibly list all of them.…..

I thank God for giving me another 365 days to live, a life to live for Him
I thank God for my relationship with Him for I can call Him my Father
I thank God for my loving husband, his unconditional and untiring love
I thank God for my parents, their body is getting weaker but reminded me to pray more often for them and also to be concerned on their spiritual condition
I thank God for my loving daughters; through them I learned the lessons of love and most importantly of God’s unconditional love
I thank God for my mother in law; through her I learned sacrificial love
I thank God for the so many sickness I encountered this year (a really bad cough, series of fevers, body pains and flu), for they taught me to take better care of myself
I thank God for my sister, brother and their families; through them I learned the importance of flesh and blood
I thank God for a few families, through their fellowship; I learned God is at work
I thank God for special friendships built along the way and also for old friendships renewed, through them I found the joy of caring and being cared for.
I thank God for my job, through it I learned to give.
I thank God for the obstacles and difficult people along the way, through them I learned to forgive, less critical and judgmental
I thank God for simple things in my life as they mattered most
I thank God for the air that I breathe, the humble home that we live in and many happy moments we shared in it
I thank God for everything because He is the source of everything

Christmas '07

Our family celebrated Christmas in Vistana Hotel this year, it was a combine service with Century Methodist Church, more than 500 turned up for the celebration, Christians and invited friends joined in the celebration, the message we want to spread is, God with us. We are blessed with the message, the choir and the testimonies on how God worked in each of our life. God has been gracious and good to our family and I believed for many families who came to trust and hope in the Lord. The children were jumping with joy and the girls all looked like angels, hope they learned to understand the true meaning of Christmas as they grew in the grace of the Lord. My hope is next year my parents and other family members will get to celebrate with us.

4 close families with our blessed angels (all girls!!) and one potential boy (we will be sure in Jan '08)


Angels from heaven - Michelle, Chloe, Emily, Dorcas & Nicole


Sweet Emily with the Christmas tree


Michelle and Crystal jeh jeh


A family portrait, taken by Dorene.. thanks..

In Loving Memory

My lady boss’s dear mother passed away on Christmas evening, this entry is dedicated to her, Madam Chan Yoke Lin, 84. I do not have the opportunity to know her very well but heard a lot of her through my boss during our leisure conversations. However I had the opportunity to share some light moments with her whenever I dropped by my boss’s house, she could comprehend in many languages and speaks very fluent Cantonese with me, knowing that I’m a Cantonese, always invite me for meals and asked about my children. Her motherly and caring character makes her a comfortable lady to be with.

My boss used to share that she is a very resourceful lady, a marvelous cook and a very generous lady. She is willing to fork out her little savings just to lend a helping hand to the needy, voluntarily took a relative’s son in because the neighbors claimed that he is of no hope and can’t be brought up normally, she took care of him during the most critical period of his life and now a grown up and healthy man in his late 40s who lovingly called her mom. My boss used to share how straight her mom is to her during her childhood days, how she punished her for her misbehavior and how she influenced her to give without expecting anything in return. I can certainly see the influence in her, my boss in return is a very caring person and soft spoken in nature though many sees her as a bossy, dominion and bitchy superior. They said a child could never experience true love without the love of a mother, this I truly understand and agree. Through many years of working together I see her true and soft side; we want to express our deepest condolence to her on the dismissed of her beloved mother. Auntie Yoke Lin, may you rest in peace.

I'm tagged...

5 things in my bag:
- wallet
- house keys
- tissue
- hand phone
- my Nov payslip

5 things in my head:
- mom's health
- the report I need to finalize
- whether hubby remember to pick me up from work today
- exercising with my kids later
- how to spend my bonus

5 words I frequently use:
- don't do that, don't do this
- put the things back in its original place
- no shouting in our house
- girl girl
- mei mei

5 recent text messages received:
- oh, si ah? so little nia ah... (from my colleague asking about her bonus)
- pls help to send my condolence... (from my colleague, my boss's mom passed away y'day)
- ok will do (from my sis)
- not until cny i try to go back.... (from my sis on her travelling plans)
- a christmas wish (from my brother)


5 recent things I just did:
- went for lunch
- replying e-mails
- downloading some photos
- meeting with my colleagues
- meeting with my colleagues

5 things in my wardrobe:
- blouses
- skirts
- pants
- undergarments
- bags

5 things I just ate:
- "yong taufu"
- yam rice
- vege
- wholemeal crackers
- "char siu pau"

5 people I'm tagging:
celine, most of my friends don't have blog one woh...... they just read mine.. you all out there, when are you going to start blogging?

Now I pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Chan

I was cleaning my mom’s room last weekend, the beautiful pictures hung on the wall caught my attention, I asked my daughter to get my digital camera and I took the pictures for my next blog posting.


Aren’t the bride lovely and bridegroom handsome? Yeap, they were my parents’ wedding photo taken 44 years ago, both of them were 29 then and marrying at that age is considered quite late back in those times, over time they produced two daughters and one son and I was the last production. I love them deep down in my hearts.

Below is the recent photo that I took, 44 years later, they still look very lovely and handsome isn’t it? Youthful look has now been replaced by many years of joy, pain, happiness, gains and losses but they are still my dear parents.


Mom has lost a lot of weight due to appetite lost, she was diagnosed with osteophytes (bone spur) recently and frequently in pain, please pray for her and dad is still healthy but considering their age God has been good and merciful.

Macedoin Dining

I received a mail recommending this dining place, so last Wed, went to this place with my friend Esther. Situated in Queensbay mall, 2nd floor (right on top of Old Town cafe)we go for the set lunch, priced at RM10.60+, it came with a drink and a soup. I ordered the fisherman basket, the portion was just nice and taste good, consist of prawn, cuttlefish, soft crab and dori fish fillet deep fried in crunchy crust and special cream on top, I chose saute potatoes to go with the main dish. The presentation was real nice. Esther ordered the grilled chicken with wedges, the wedges tasted a bit weird (a pungent taste, just like "petai") I'm quite happy with the meal but for Esther, I believed is so so only. Managed to talk to the boss, Michael, friendly guy, I like their uniform with their names sew onto it, very personalized. The place was quite crowded, do make reservation during peak hours e.g. on Friday or weekends....... Happy trying...

Fishermen basket set:


Grilled chicken set:

Scrapbooking

Pooi (one of the 4-stars)was really good in scrapbooking, she shared with me her wonderful creations when I was visiting her last 2 weeks. It was also very sweet of her to buy me a set (for starter) since I mentioned to her maybe I'll try it one of these days. So one of these days was yesterday, Michelle kept pestering me to teach her some art work, so I took out the set (has been hiding from them especially Emily because she will surely turned the whole thing upside down), stressed the dos and donts and off we start with the project.

It's quite a user friendly and straight forward set, we followed the instructions and the suggested layouts, the girls helped with the glue and stickers pastings, I did a little bit of journalling, quite fun for the first attempt. Here are some of the results............ Thank you auntie Pooi Pooi for introducing us to scrapbooking, we had fun...

Gifts Gifts and more gifts

The spirit of giving can really be felt when approaching Christmas, why giving out gifts in the first place? Christmas is a day where Jesus Christ is given to us by God as part of His unconditional love to man kind, so exchanging and giving out gifts reminds us of what God has done for us and in response we want to love others by presenting our loved ones with gifts...

Well, today itself I received three Christmas gifts but all directed to my daughters, they loved my daughters more than me or they are too shy to express that they love me, he he he. I want to thank them for their sweet thoughts and I believe my girls will be thrilled to receive gifts from the ko ko and jeh-jehs.

Esther jeh jeh bought 2 similar t-shirts (so clever, safe me a lot of problems as they don't get to compare), I love the wordings "If you think I am pretty, you should see my mummy". Ai Ling jeh jeh also wrapped 2 identical presents (but yet to know the content) and Alex ko ko gave us a RM50 Haagen Danz voucher! Hmm yummy yummy...

Here I wished them Blessed Christmas and may they truly experience the true meaning of this season... Blessed is he who give without expecting any return, it is more joyful to give than to receive...

Mission calling

The other day I was on a ladder removing my kitchen’s curtain for washing, my hubby walked in and jokingly say “Got baby, not suppose to climb so high”, I “shh and “choy choy” him and I think mom in-law got a shock…. I quickly brushed aside his claim and say I’m not pregnant but in actual my menses had indeed late by over a week….

Yesterday, my Singapore boss was up in Penang, he needed me to be in Philippines once a month (each trip, Mon – Fri), for 6 months to 1 year kind of project and “consultancy” job starting from next Feb. I told him no confirmation from me until I discussed it over with my hubby, so yesterday night I shared with my hubby and asked him his opinion and for any good excuses that he could think of to reject the idea. We discussed it over and blah blah blah… then I said hmm….. getting pregnant is sure one good excuse! Then he said “that’s what I think of also”. By then my menses is already late by 10 days, but I did not have any feeling of getting “pregnant”, anyway maybe God decided to interfere again, I think.

This morning, was ready to go to work, and guess what…. ta da… I’m not pregnant, oh oh Plan A failed, now Plan B…. since he needed me badly for the project, then it’s a good time for me to demand…….. so I wrote a mail to my boss expressing my “demand”…..yet to know the outcome….yesterday, I read the paper , their government just killed another main guy from the Abu Sayaff group….. better get ready with Plan C! Anybody can help me?

Magical Night

The "Copperfield" family plus one volunteer!

We had great fun yesterday night. It was my company annual dinner event, all ladies in their best were all geared up to have fun. Bosses were invited and all staff from all levels joined in the celebration. I was elected as a group leader, 6 persons in a group to come up with a presentation item. In one week time we came up with this great “Copperfield” magical show and emerged as the best group performer, we walked away with a big hamper plus RM300 cash….. So we are planning for a feast this Wednesday night. Our show comprised of 6 highly professional acts namely “fantastic hands”, “the mask”, “now you see it, now you don’t”, “magical hats” and “power human lift”. The crowd was simply great and was exhilarated by our “professionalism”, not to mention the judges were all inspired by our performances, ke ke ke…. Have not been performing in years, yet I found that I have not lost any of my artiste talent…….. ka ka ka.

Help! 4 kids

I took another extra day off from work after the reunion trip, so early in the morning, hubby took mom in-law for check-up and I ended up with 4 kids, two of my own and two of my brother in-law’s (they were up Penang visiting since it’s school hols), we dropped both of them to the hospital and off we go, hmm… where to bring this bunch of kids and not losing anyone of them? I drove to Botanical garden but it was drizzling when we reached, so I made a U-turn and off we went to Gurney Plaza, since it’s quite early and it’s a weekday, should be OK quah…

I parked the car and off we go, firstly to the toilets, then to the main court, I’ve to keep on reminding them to stay close to me else they will end up in bad guy’s hands. Hubby called and said they will join us as doctor’s appointment postponed to 2pm, what a relief… we ventured into the “Hot Market” and Popular bookstore, took lunch and both hubby and MIL need to go back to the hospital again. Oh my gosh, left with 4 kids again….. now what? Saw a crowd and an emcee announcing some thing at the center court… ah ha, Looney Tunes to the rescue, they are having a coloring competition, followed by a cartoon show and photo taking session. I dragged all of them to the confined area; they colored, watched the show and went up stage to take photos with the characters. The kids enjoyed it, so do I. I later confined them again at Toys R Us until hubby came to pick us up. I was completely exhausted and knocked down immediately upon reaching home…….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Can’t imagine having 4 kids and handling them alone……. Thank God for just giving me two, God certainly would not put us in situation we could not bear…

Our overly sensitive Emily

Mei mei has been extremely over sensitive lately and I would say displayed real bad manners, she doesn’t like people mentioning about her, laughing at her (even for her cute actions and words), she talks rudely demanding that everyone follows and do as she pleased, shouted at people etc. I and hubby tried to find the root cause, is it that we don’t give her enough attention, that’s why she needed to shout to get her message across and react indifferently for people to notice her? So we tried to be more sensitive towards her and give our full attention, but I realized she still acts the same given the attention which makes me quite annoyed with her behavior.

She will get angry easily, rolled her eyes and show you her angry face, walked to her room and mumbled discontent words, I normally ignored her and when she could not hold any longer due to the cold and isolation treatment, she will cried her heart out….

I will let her cry and cry until she’s ready for some reasoning session, good thing is she willingly apologize for her behavior, said she will not do it again and 100% understood what actually went wrong, but I guess she has very short memory (Daddy’s DNA) and normally the whole episode will start all over again either the day after or hours later……..hai…. I wish she will outgrow this stage…….anyway we love you dear Emily else we won’t name you Emily (Every Moment I Love You)………

My spending limits (in RM)

I set myself certain limits when it comes to spending on items related to myself and the kids, call me a stingy fellow if you wish but thanks to mom who taught me the wisdom to spend wisely, live within your means and control your finances since I’m young. I wanted to train my kids the same way, so when they pestered me on some things that they wanted, when mummy shakes her head upon checking the price tag, the girls will know, “too expensive hor?” and they reluctantly but obediently moved on…..

Dress <150
Blouse < 50
Working slacks < 50
Working shoes < 50
Sport shoes < 200
Cosmetics < 30 per item
A nice hairdo < 200
Hair cut < 15
Kid’s dresses <50
Kid’s t-shirts, skirts, blouses <30
Kid’s shoes < 40
Kid’s toys < 30
Kid’s haircut < 6
Handbag < 100
Hawker’s food < 5 per pax
Restaurant’s food < 20 per pax
Weekly market spending < 80
Monthly groceries < 500
A good book < 100

Finally, we met

4-stars finally met last Saturday, being the organizer I was terribly super late, arriving only at 4.45pm. The girls complained and complained but it's was totally the airline problem, not my fault, the flight was delayed by 1.5 hours, due to a low cost flight, I can't take the express train and ended up in the Skybus which take another 1.5 hours. So we don't have time for spa and facial as scheduled, anyway all four aunties looked radiant and our beauty prevailed after all these years, so we don't actually need the facial this time around, ke ke ke.

So, we chatted, chatted, chatted and shop till we drop. Our topics include our kids, hubby, in-laws, brands, parenting and gossipping about who and who having affairs (my goodness!), we moved from one coffee shop to another mamak store and yet still blah blah blah, we ended sleeping at almost 3.00am!!!

Oh yeah, not just 4 of us, we have one handsome bachelor guy with us on certain occasions, Amos who helped us with the lodging and food arrangement, thanks, we appreciated that. We also ended counselling this guy (our ex-school mate too) on objective setting and plan for his future... aunties!


How has time changed us? We are still a bunch of crazy girls (now aunties), so un-ladylike, still talk so loud and care free. Holding different jobs and earning different incomes we have different spending power, yet we lack of nothing and our friendship is not measured by material possesions (I hope!).

So we all agreed to have this reunion thing annually and next year it will be in Bangkok, this time I will try to reach one day earlier to wait for the rest, as a preventive measure just in case history repeat itself........ else there goes our spa and facial session again (we may need it next year! ka ka ka).

No means No

Michelle walked to my room at 5.00 this morning complaining that she is not well, I jumped out of the bed and my goodness she’s having a fever and quite a high one too, her forehead was feverish, I rushed to the fridge and took out a bottle of paracetemol but I can’t feed her the cool medicine as she was having dry cough for the past 2 days, I searched frantically for some other solution and found a repository capsule, put it in her, mom in-law sponged her and I accompanied her back to sleep in her room. 7.30 am she was awake again and insisted that she wanted to go the school camp, I objected and advised her to stay at home, she objected and cried, demanding that I let her go. I insisted on my stand and started with this whole reasoning episode thing, she cried and cried, finally I made my final point and said “No”.

Nothing she could do but I could feel the disappointment in her, she told me days before that today they are doing something different in the camp, got to do with playing with water gun and some water fun thing. Well this is what parents need to face at times, you know you will hurt them by saying “No” but it’s for their own good and after doing what you need to do, you hate that bad feeling having to disappoint them, so to make up, I dug the “paper craft book” purchased last weekend, ran through the pages to see if I can find something to keep her occupied and divert her attention from the campy thing.

Guess what, I found it, suggested that they made paper plates, taught my mom in-law the procedures and she lovingly helped me with the stuff, making a bowl of glue, took out some colorful papers, plates, paint brushes etc…… Being “ken cheong” girl (like the mum), she wanted to start on it immediately, mei mei was all excited too….. Let’s see the results tonight!

Christmas is around the corner

Yeap, Christmas is around the corner, so last night me and the girls dug out our Christmas tree and decorated it, the girls had so much fun, of course the grand finale of decorating the Christmas tree is to switch of all house lights and then.......you on the mini-neon lights on the tree and da da...wow, what a splendor moment...

Our humble Christmas tree at home....

Sad to say most people treat Christmas as a time for just merry making, buying, wrapping and giving out presents, special sales, Santa Clause, public holidays but not Jesus Christ. Everytime around this period of time, I will e-mail to my colleagues and friends the meaning of Christmas and the Christmas tree, so this year I'm going to post it on my blog here, to remind and share with my readers the true meaning of this season. Below are adopted from a mail I received years ago but still touching my life every time I ponder on it, it's not my work, so credit given to the author, whoever you are......

Christmas tree – the color green represents eternal life in Christ; its fir needles point upward reminding us that our thoughts should turn heavenward as well

Star – the heavenly sign of the fulfillment of God’s promise of a Savior for mankind, on the night that Jesus was born

Red ornaments or ribbons – the intense, vivid color symbolizes the life-giving blood that Christ shed on the cross for us

Christmas bells – the shepherds of old used bells to guide lost sheep to safety and today, the bells symbolize the need to follow the true Shepherd who will lead to safety and peace

Red and white striped candy cane – the white of the cane symbolizes the virgin birth and sinless nature of Jesus; the “J” shape represents the precious name of Jesus and the Good Shepherd’s staff used to reach down into the ditches of the world to lift out “fallen lambs”; the red of the cane represents the shed blood of Jesus

Christmas wreath – traditionally of greenery and a bright red bow, its colors tell of Christ’s sacrifice and the eternal life He offers; the circle without a beginning or an end represents eternity and the unending, eternal nature of Christ’s love, the bow speaks of goodwill toward all

Candles – the soft glow of one candle can brighten a darkened room and represents how man can be grateful to God for the Savior born on Christmas day that leads us out of the darkness of sin into God’s glorious presence and light.

To all my readers, Blessed Christmas, Christmas isn't Christmas till it happens in your heart.

Girls don't wear skirts anymore!

I've female friends and colleagues who detest wearing skirts except their high school uniform (not that they have a choice), given a choice they would not want to wear any skirt, the reasons: "so troublesome", "can't walk fast", "don't have slim legs to show off" etc. 95% of the female staff in my company wear no make-up at all, not even lipsticks. Things are very different back in Singapore, I saw a lot of pretty girls on the street, not that they are really pretty in features but it's the way they present themselves.

So for the upcoming annual dinner event, I issued out a "memo" to them asking all the ladies to come in either dresses or skirts, no "pants" allowed, I suggested some places for shopping and that they can get reasonable and nice dresses/skirts, even organized a trip to one of the shopping complex to get them excited. For those who still show up in pants,jeans,slacks, we will cut them into skirts! "I told them, "we Malaysian girls can't loose out to Singaporean girls, there are so much beauty and potential in us", well let's see.........

I surf over the web on "dresses" and found this, something I would like to have...but hubby sure protest, one more thing you know why ladies like to wear black, one thing it is classy but the main thing is, it makes you look slimmer... ke ke ke

Before

Photobucket Album

It's a boy...

Yesterday, my neighbor, Boon holding his baby and standing by our door step, asking for help! “Help me please”, I quickly opened the metal grille door and asked, how can I help? “Please put my baby in the bag please”, “Ha, how?” I asked, “Place the baby inside this bag in front of me”, oh….. I placed little Herng Herng inside the bag just like his daddy ordered, finally we are face to face, silently in my mind “How come you look exactly like your mother (99.9999%) and you are a boy?” I “goo chiit and goo chak” with him for a while, asked him to smile for auntie here and know what…. he really did… so I rushed to my room, get my camera and took some shots of him……….. (let me asked his daddy first before publishing hah…).

6 Nationalities under one roof

Yeap, there are 6 nationalities working under the same roof in my company. They are Bangledeshis, Indonesians, Vietnamese, Myanmarese, Nepalese and Malaysians. Being a small and medium manufacturing company, over the years we depended heavily on foreign labors, so over time this is the result!

Chaos? Nope, thank God until now quite peaceful, of course there is little hiccups here and there, generally they are quite well behave and under controlled. Just this morning, I saw one of our Myanmar operator who has served the company for more than 5years fetching a Vietnamese operator who has worked maybe for a year or so to work in his bicycle. They were chatting freely and happily. Back in the canteen, a group of them were having breakfast and they were communicating in Bahasa... makes me wonder, they can worked and stayed together, why can't we, Malaysians at times?

Macaroni in spaghetti sauce

It has been quite some time since I last posted recipe in my blog, well last Saturday, prepared something simple for the family, macaroni in spaghetti sauce, for those who like to try, here you go:





a)Macaroni - estimate yourself (below sauce is good for 4, so.. agak-agak lah ya, boiled in water with a tablespoon of cooking oil until it is soft, placed in a bowl.
b)2 medium size potatoes - boiled in water for 5 minutes, remove skin and diced
c)2 medium size tomatoes - diced
d)1 onion - sliced
e)Minced meat - pork/beef/chicken (up to you, I used pork this time), marinate with 1 teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon of soya sauce and some pepper for 15 minutes.

For the sauce:
f) Half a packet of Maggi spagetti sauce
g) 4 tablespoon of Prego
h) 4 tablespoon of tomato sauce
i) 1 tablespoon of sugar
j) soya sauce - to taste
k) 2 cups of water

Place 2 tablespoon of oil in wok, place in the sliced onion, saute until fragrant,put in minced meat, mixed thoroughly. Next put in (f), (b), (c) and (k). Cover the wok and wait to boil, stir occasionally. While waiting to boil, mixed (g),(h),(i),(j) together in a bowl. Poured in the sauce when mixture is boiled, stir for 3-5 minutes and dish out. Poured the desired sauce onto the macaroni and garnish with some dried parsley leaves.




Jeh Jeh simply loved it! See can finished a whole plate by herself!

Mei Mei also loved it! "Ngam... yummy yummy... you must try this!"