Glad to be here

Yes, everyday. *smile* you might ask who is the lucky one.

Well, other than my hubby and my kids, I’m in love for being a woman, simply because I can be what a woman can be. LOL. Yes, for I can dress up, I can have my hair up or down, I can have my makeup on or off (but normally I would have it on *wink*). For I can conceive, have a child in me, bearing it and nurturing it. Yes, to me, all these are my privileges of being a woman and many more privileges that I enjoyed everyday. Though it is not easy to be a woman, we are more vulnerable in many areas, we have more physical changes and we are being put into different stages that some of us might not be happy to face them. Such us our monthly visit from our dear friend (PMS), or another one is the visit from an old friend during old age or there might be an early visit in some cases (Menopause).

I’m not having any problem during the monthly visit, but as for the later one, well, I think it is still too early for me to think about it yet. Since now a days we have so many help from the medical world to prolong our monthly friend and push back the menopause cycle. Though some of us might be facing with menstrual pain every month, but there is another new disorder that affects women more than men, that is fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia patients are often affected by symptoms of pain, fatigue, abnormal sleep, bowel disturbances, anxiety and depressive symptoms (can get more detail information over the net). These all sounds trouble to me. I thank God that I’m healthy, healthy enough to be able to bear children normally, healthy enough that my monthly friend still visiting me.

Above all these that might just happen to me, I’m still thankful to God that I am a woman. Sometimes when my little ones are sleeping beside me after cuddling me and requesting me to sleep beside them, I’m thankful. Thankful that I am a mother to them, thankful that I’m around, beside them, watching them fall asleep.

Yes, I’m in love, in love as being a woman.

Share

No Comments yet »

We have been wanting to re-build our over 30 year-old house in my mom’s place. Let me see, it is exactly 32 years old now. It is a wooden structure with concrete floor, a design done by my late grandpa. Even the land also been chosen by him. It was a forest at that time and really out of nowhere. We don’t have tar road, no water and no electricity, don’t even mention about a telephone. We had to go through the bumpy road to get to the main road everyday. I enjoyed it especially during rainy days because our car might just get stuck in the mud and all of us will go behind the pick-up and start jumping up and down so that the car would get pulled out from the mud, yup, that’s what we did! Fun!

Life wasn’t that tough at that time, at least not in my memory. I remember my dad always told us “Off the light, off the generator, and get to bed!” We’ll then quickly get ready ourselves and be in bed on time at 9pm every night while he went to off the generator.

I remember we were the first one who own a color TV in the kampung (village). Every night we’ll have many villagers in our yard area just to get a glimpse of the TV and enjoyed the show, it was a luxury at that time.

Owning a video cassette player at that time also another luxury to us. At that time, TV series from Hong Kong is really a big hit; I can say that I’ve learned Cantonese from watching all those TV series in tape.

Now a day we can afford to have DVD player, plasma TV and even a home theater system but still we don’t own them all, just not yet. How nice if after rebuilding the house we can have a Bose home theater. I bet my brother would love that, as he is a big fan of enjoying movie at home.

Share

No Comments yet »

My boys always so open to new things, I think they really live in the moment, they open my eyes actually. They see things from different angle and treated everything as new experience. Even so simple a thing to me could be a big adventure for them. Such as the incidents that I’m going to share below.

We went out for a window shopping and just simply a stroll in Garden City one day during our visit to Shenzhen recently. Took the bus there which cost us RMB3, RMB2 for myself and RMB2 for the my boys as they both taken a seat. So by getting there, first thing they noticed was the big blown up play ground that is available just outside of the mall, next thing is they notice there were actually some semi-static ride which go around like little train.

Fortunately they had a go on that instead of the blown up playground, ‘cos that will occupied most of their time, means I can’t go for window shopping after that if time doesn’t permit.

Once in the mall, Cal saw this MacDonald figurine sitting there which he suggested to take picture with him, so he did together with little Mer. Jolly happy about that.

We had a walk, window shopping, letting the boys see new things and I even managed to get myself a blouse! With two boys chasing around in the shop, LOL.

On our way home which we’ve decided to walk, they even discovered more new things. Such comments like “bad driver! seeing us coming and still drive fast!” or “this is not Mickey Mouse, it doesn’t look like him.” over another static mice-toy-ride.  To me it says, “ok, I don’t like this, so I won’t request to sit on it.” Which sounds good to me. *grin*

Come to the part where they discovered lots of dried leaves on the ground, they stop and play. It astonished them as they never see such many dried leaves on the ground before. Of course I snap a few photos and the result is:

Did this layout just last night as usual, after the boys are asleep.

I wanted to try out my newly bought acrylic white paint and Hero art stamps. Therefore to create the feeling of the ground, I’ve dried paint the bottom of the page with white acrylic paint. The stamps of flowers and leaves were then stamp on after everything has been adhered on the layout.

To mimic a tree, I’ve cut out the tree trunk using brown cardstock and leaves from those pattern paper scrap from other projects. Adhere then later stamped with leave pattern.

I wanted to include all those photos for that incident, just being greedy and pity to leave any out. After including all the photos, it left me no space for my journaling. To me, without journaling would forfeit my purpose in doing the page and I would be left in the dark on what, where and when. Therefore I’ve inserted a journaling tag behind the top photo using My Minds Eye tag. Final touch was the title using Basic Grey letter stickers and another one that I forgot to note down (will update once I’ve got the name). I’ve also use the Making Memories tag maker

Just love the look at their face when they are exploring new experience.

Thanks for reading.

Share

No Comments yet »

Cal got this “Buku Komunikasi” (communication booklet) from kindergarten on Tuesday. At first sight, I though it is a report card. After looking at it closely then only realised it is sort of a report card but without marks, which looks good to me as they don’t judge my kid with numbers. Instead, they put there all those things that he is expected to know and to do during school time, such as saying him name and age; recognising some simple words; being happy; knowing that crying won’t solve the problem; know how to brush teeth and such.

Cal actually got very good “ticks” from the form teacher. He got 8 ticks under “excellent” and two under “good”, I’m glad for that. At the same time realising that my boy is growing up fast, soon I’m going to miss him for how is he now.

The teacher’s comment is “continue the hard work”. Now my part is to write something back for the teacher, which I’m not sure how and what to write.. gonna get help from hubby instead. Well.. he has to share some responsibilities, right? ;0)

Share

No Comments yet »

Been visiting the Minsk World in Shenzhen while we were there on 16th March. It actually contain two major parts. They are the Minsk Aircraft Carrier (at sea) and Minsk Square (on land). “The park is built around the base of Minsk, a second-generation Soviet aircraft carrier, one of the most outstanding in the history of routine aircraft carriers” -TravelChinaGuide.com

We went in after getting the tickets in RMB110 for adults, half price Cal and free for Mer. The boys got excited in seeing all the tanker and machines. Then we were greeted by a magnificent Minsk on the dock. We’ve missed part of the martial performances of the honor guard. What impresses the boys was that they get to go on the ship and just going through all the small doors.

It looks way too old for me and there is no shade at all unless we are inside the ship itself. There were one part that they have this mimic warfare which shuttle the place that we stand to watch the display. Mer got so scared that he cling onto me tightly. And I’ve to keep on comforting him.

There isn’t much choices for food in the Minsk itself, we only found drinks and some snacks. Fortunately we’ve bought some biscuits for the boys.

Here are some  photos taken during the trip:

After that was chasing after Pigeon time for the boys.

Share

No Comments yet »

Just wanna share these two before and after pictures of my boys’ sleeping pattern on one of the afternoon.

During the transition, they were still sleep like a log. *grin*

Share

No Comments yet »

Chinese New Year has way past long ago, but this is about the outing during that time, a visit to the local zoo in Lok Kawi. My boys had definitely enjoyed it.  A lot of first time for them, first time to see real tiger right in front of them! First time in seeing zebra, bear, ostrich, elephant, deer, crocodile, snakes and lots of different kind of birds!

We adults also were excited as they were.

Here I’ve done a 2 page layout for that event.
This is the 1st page showing our group photos and the zoo’s brochure.

Photos are being mate on white cardstock and title is just simply secure with brads.

I’ve included the brochure for the zoo which is not being adhere to the page, but instead just being placed there with photo corners, this is to make sure that I still can take it out and read in the future.

Since we don’t have a designated photographer, we would have to take turn and that means there is always one person missing in the photo. Therefore, not to miss anyone in the group, I’ve include another photo hide away under the group photo by using photo turn secured with a mini brad.

Since I wanted to include many photos in this layout, it doesn’t left me much space for jornal, so the back of the group photo is a very good place to hide my journal as well, just not to clutter the page too much.

As for page 2, I crop all my photos for a good placement on the page. Then decorated it with two flowers with brads and ribons.
This is a page with all the favourite animals for the kids.

I’ve used: HOTP PP, Flower, brads and ribons provided in their monthly kit. Love how they have coordinated everything for fast page design.

Sorry for the poor photo taking with reflexion on my LO.
Happy Scrapping! And for those in the western part of the globe, enjoy your early spring!

Share

No Comments yet »

Yesterday I haven’t got much for the boys to do and we just can’t spend the whole day outside. Then Mer came with a Christmas greeting card that we got from Hong Kong Disneyland and told me that he want to colour it. So I found some crayon for him, then Cal requested the same thing too, so I found some past calender papers for them to draw on. They settle down happily and start their master piece at the back of the calender paper and also that greeting card.

Cal is better with his imagination and has better motor skill, Mer is more to scribble and colouring.

Well, just as long as they are not fighting with each other over something, I can concentrate on my own things (online surfing!).

After awhile, Cal came back to me and said:

“Mommy mommy.. look at these.. !”
“What about they?”
“These are the buildings outside, you see?!”

Isn’t nice?

This is for the tag from Aunty J, my precious smiling photo.

My mom after getting her new glasses. I used to call her “white hair lady”, ‘cos her hair is almost all white now. This was taken when she just got her new glasses.

This site is still very new.. so I’m not tagging anyone just yet.

Smile, a smile can brighten up your world..

Share

No Comments yet »

I mean how did I get to this domain? I know some of you wanted to have your own domain too. So read on.

I’ve actually been thinking about in getting my own domain a month ago, so I’ve been searching and really can’t make up my mind on what and which to choose. I’ve been hoping someone or somehow I’ll be pushed into getting one soon.

In this case, it is purely a stumble upon and try situation. Anya in Smorty mentioned about f.erocio.us site which can host site for free, therefore I went to check out their website. I’m not just looking for hosting a site but to own it, therefore I got myself register with f.erocio.us and bought this domain the same day using paypal for USD9.95 a year. The price looks reasonable to me.

Upon registering, I get to manage my account with DreamHostwhich I need to get the site up within 2 weeks time and also to include f.erocio.us advertisement (maybe that’s why t is only USD9.95 a year). I’ve then used their hosting program to install Word-Press with 1-click option. Before that sure there include lots of reading on the how-to part.

After installing Word-Press by choosing their advance installation mode, I get to install it properly into my sub-domain / sub-directory. I’ve tried the simple mode which doesn’t allow me to do that instead created a new domain which I need to register again.

After that, more reading about how to use Word-Press, choosing my presentation format (theme), using the widget to arrange my site, change a few code in the theme editor to get those page links right. Then start writing away.

Simple? Go ahead and try it, have your own domain.

Share

No Comments yet »

I have to cook everyday over here (Shenzhen, China). It is such a challenge for me to think about what to cook for dinner just to make sure that the boys eat what I cook. I’ve to manage my time well too, for I can’t let them play by their own for too long while I prepare for dinner. So, what I normally do is to cook when hubby is back from work.  Since that would be way past my boy’s dinner time (6 p.m.), what I do is to fully utilise the rice-cooker ‘cos I can’t afford to have burnt dinner just in case they fight while I cook.

How to fully utilise the rice-cooker? Easy! Just use it to steam food! I don’t need to worry that it’ll burn my dinner and at the same time making sure that it is well cook. There are 2 easy dishes that I like to prepare, steam pork ribs and mash potato.

For the steam pork ribs, all I need to do is to marinate the ribs way before hand, normally is during the boy’s nap time.
Just use some ginger, garlic, soy source and cooking wine. Leave it for 2 hours. Then put a steel stand in the rice cooker, enough water, put in the marinated ribs, switch to “rapid rice cook” and cook for 1 hour, wualah! yummy steam pork ribs which is tender enough even for the boys.

Another one is the mash potato. This is even easier, just peel the potato, cut into 1cm thick slices. Just pop them in when I’m cooking my rice.
When the rice is done, the potato would be soft enough to be smash with some butter, milk and salt to taste. Or I can use the powder form of ready made “Gravy Rich Chicken”. Easy huh!? Plus the boys love it!

Later on for dessert, what we had is strawberries! Yes, the local strawberries just cost RMB3.50 (around RM1.75) a packet which contain 15 ripped strawberries around 1 inch in size ! Cheap huh?
Just wash and cut them in half, serve with some sugar ‘cos the local one is not that sweet.

Just look at these two..

Share

No Comments yet »