I wish the 10days of staying home, feasting, resting, holidaying, playing, having fun, did not end so quickly

I wish I didn’t have 500 emails to respond to

I wish I didn’t have too many urgent requests which have today as the deadline

I wish I could freely express my emotions, just like Zara

I wish I could show this face to my boss, and throw a tantrum and then just strut back home to continue with more holidays..

I wish Zara could gracefully wave bye-bye to me, when I leave her to go to work, and not kick up a fuss

Yikes! It’s back to work…. *bawl*

I got tagged by King’s Wife, Egghead, The Diva, YL, Greenapple, on the same tag, I’d better do this quick, since this is spreading so fast, most of the bloggers I know would have been ‘infested’ with it very soon!

Here’s the tag/meme:

4 jobs you’ve had in your life:

4 movies you could watch over and over

4 TV shows you love(d) to watch

4 places you’ve lived

4 places you’ve been on vacation to

Thailand – Kok Mak, Kanchanaburi (for our 5th wedding anniversary)
and many more before Zara was born, but I chose these 4 as they gave me the biggest impact.

4 places you would rather be

4 of your favourite foods

4 of your favourite beverages

4 (or more) websites you visit daily

4 tagged

So we’re supposed to buy new clothes for ourselves for Chinese New Year.

Since I eat full nothing to do (Chinese: too much time in my hands) the blog template is the ‘clothing’ to our blog, I thought I’ll spruce it up and give it a new look too.

After all, some of these itchy backsides people, like LB (going for the minimalist look, but in the beginning was giving maximum firewalling to his site anxiety among his readers); Ah Pek (now the romantic poet); Seng Kor (his blog now has his portrait, mask removed); have already upgraded theirs.

I made some changes to this template, and Viola! New Year, new clothes!

PS! Do I still need to give this guy credit since the template no longer looks like the original?

Besides going shopping on Saturday and visiting my eldest sis on Sunday, during the weekend, I spent quite a fair bit of time in the kitchen.

Saturday
After we came back from the wet market, while we were sorting out the shopping, Tuyam commented about Daddy buying apples again as we already had some in the fridge. Daddy mentioned that those in the fridge were not nice, and he would like to chuck them away.

I just read about Greenapple‘s post about double boiling apples to make a drink, so I thought I’d tried it out using these 4 unwanted apples + 5 mud-chou (Chinese: honey dates). After 5hrs in the slow cooker, a wonderful drink was produced. We all loved it, especially after it has been chilled! Thanks Greenapple!

Since Zara loved Ping’s mum’s fish porridge so much, I made Pomphret (couldn’t get Mayao/Kurau from the market, so I just substituted it with Pomphret) porridge using her method for lunch. I didn’t like it at all *blech*, but the little cat took 1 big bowl for lunch, and another big bowl for dinner! So I guess it must be good for her standard.

Sunday
After coming back from my sis’ place, I got Daddy to look after Zara while I tried to bake some chocolate chip cookies for Chinese New Year. I like making this because it’s so simple and the recipe is a hand-me-down from Ping’s Australian FIL.

While trying to get Zara to take her evening nap in the living room, Daddy fell asleep first before Zara (=.=), and Zara walked to the kitchen to kay-poh (Chinese : busy body). She was very good though, I told her I was busy, the oven was hot, and asked her to play at the dry kitchen area while I worked on the cookies. She cooperated, and stayed out of my way and the oven’s!

.

Dough on a baking sheet, nice golden choc chip cookiesI managed to bake 2 bottles (old Hollick bottle), they are very nice, just a bit too sweet (I forgot to adjust the recipe like I used to in previous years).

And for dinner, I thought I’ll make salt baked red mullet, a recipe from Jamie Oliver. The fish was stuffed with ginger, spring onion, coriander leaves (the recipe calls for fresh thyme, rosemary, lemon and bay leaf, and since I didn’t have any of the ingredients I compromised with what I could find in my fridge), laid it on a bed of course salt, covered with another layer of course salt, and then baked in the oven.

Fish before entering the oven, cooked fish with the salt cake scrapped off

I find the fish was too salty, I think probably because I pricked the skin accidentally before I baked it. However, both Zara and Daddy loved it. I chose the bits which were not too salty for Zara, and Daddy just cleaned up the rest of the fish after Tuyam and myself took a little each.

Anybody has any proven cookies recipe to share which is easy to make, and delicious? I would try to make another batch of cookies the coming weekend.

I was tagged by Helen, yet again. Since I’m such a loyal reader of her blog, I have to show some support.

The Rules: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom spot.

1. The Cosmic Abyss
2. Between Lambs & Mutton
3. The Life of An Independent Babe
4. My All
5. All About Zara

Then you select five people to pass the love on to. Here’s my selection :
1. Jasmine – what did you do before Faythe came? cooking?
2. Mom2Ashley – what do you like doing?
3. Allyfeel – life before Drs Seger.. 😛
4. Shopping Mum – shopping? shopping? shopping?
5. Twinsmum – My long lost school mate, I want to know everything about you!
(Seng Kor, see, this time you didn’t get tagged)

1. What were you doing ten years ago?
I was doing my final year in a small town in UK. Studying, working hard. However, living in the same block of flat with some gorgeous Italians, Spanish and Greeks did provide some motivation to stay in and study *drool*.

Daddy (back then just my boy friend) and I continued with our relationship long distant via weekly phone calls and the occasional exchanging of parcels. His contained Milo, Ikan Bilis, Chinese herbs; mine contained Photos (no digital camera back then), gifts, cards (and the relationship barely survived being 1 year apart, but it was still happy ending after that *phew*)

2. What were you doing 1 year ago?
I was home struggling with a new born, without a confinement lady (sent her packing on day 2); mum (who’s passed on) or MIL (didn’t offer) to help. In a way, it was a blessing. I learnt things from scratch, by reading books and from the net, I did things my way, and cared for Zara all by myself for 3 months (alright, with a little of Daddy’s help as well as maid’s but still it was My Way)

3. Five super fatty and high cholesterol snacks you enjoy:
1. Potato Crisps/Chips Lightly Salted (no can do for other flavour)
2. Keropok or Prawn/Fish Crakers
3. Curry Puffs (love them!)
4. Rich butter cookies (made with real butter and not margarine)
5. Cashew Nuts or Almonds

4. Five songs to which you know all the lyrics off your head right now:
1. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
2. You are My Sunshine
3. Sing a song of Six Pence
4. London Bridge Is Falling Down
5. Row Row Row Your Boat
and many more
Gee, soo sad, only can remember nursery rhymes. I have very bad memory, lyrics of songs I’d learnt up I’d forgotten now. These are songs I sing daily, so I have to remember them!

5. Five things you would do if you were a millionaire (actually how far can you stretch a million dollar nowadays?)
1. Get more involve in charity work (the same as Helen)
2. Buy a piece of land and build a small house at the coast of Wales, a Greek Island, New Zealand or Australia.
3. Travel the world, see the places I wanted to see but haven’t (Sahara Dessert, Ayers Rock, Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon, Santorini, Mykonos, Meteora).
4. Take years off from work, go back only when I want to not when I have to.
5. Set up a trust fund for Zara’s (or any additional kids I have) education (by then how much would have left?)

6. Five bad habits:
1. Messy and untidy (you see my desk at work, you know what I mean)
2. Quick to lash out (Daddy got the most lashing, poor thing)
3. Absolutely love anything deep fried (I have to watch my cholesterol)
4. Zara has to be cared for my way, anybody’s way is NO way
5. Day Dreaming – love to just lie on the bed or sofa and just stare into nothingness

7. Five things you like doing:
1. Spending quality time with Zara
2. Eating unhealthily
3. Reading (blogs/books)
4. Shopping (never mind if I’m not buying anything)
5. Traveling (been a while I’d indulged on this)

8.Five things you would never wear, buy, or get new again:
1. Nursing bra (once I’m done with nursing)
2. Breast pads (once I’m done with nursing)
3. Eye shadow (I looked like I’d been punched in the eye every time I apply this)
4. Red lipstick (makes me look whorish)
5. Tight fitting clothes (don’t want to be a dumpling or ham-yuk-zhong, and my body expends and shrinks so frequently I won’t know what size I’ll be next month)
Oops, but 1 and 2 I may still buy and wear and use them if I have another kid right?

9. Five favorite toys:
1. My Olympus E500 DSLR
2. My Pentax Optio 555
3. My Electrolux Oven (could have made use of it more)
4.
5.
As for toys I played when I was younger, none really ‘lived’ that long to still be with me. Also, I am not a gadget person, can’t even come out with the other 2.

There you go Helen.

After reading JoeC’s post where he got spanked by this group of ladies (although they call themselves bitches, I wouldn’t use that to address them) whose blog is about giving blog reviews or bashings, I thought I’d submit mine for spanking too.

I got mine reviewed on 1st January 2006. Wasn’t I lucky? To read the content, go here, but basically, this is what they said.

Recipe for Boredom
4 cups of baby pictures
3 tbsp of “what zara did”
1 default Blog template
a dash of English
6 months of crap
Combine all ingredients in a pot, mix until smooth, splatter across the internet. Serves 23,958,591.
I give it 1 hand up.

Oh well, I knew what I was into when I submitted it for review. Just have to take it lightly. Even if it was a big yawn, I’ll still continue with my blog, I did warn in advance, it’s ALL ABOUT ZARA, and not about anything scandulous.

So if you want, you can submit yours for some bashing or spanking too, but just take it with a pinch of salt and not too personally. Like what JoeC said, “Mereka tak pernah makan nasi lemak.”

Blog on!!

Since we had stremyx, most of my nights during the weekends are spent on blog surfing or blogging (if we didn’t go out).

Tonight, I wanted to post some of Zara’s photo taken yesterday when I took her swimming with King’s Wife’s kids in my sis’ appartment.

After I logged on, Daddy came in, and asked sweetly (rarely does he speak to me in such a manner) if we should watch a movie together (DVD of course). I can’t refuse those small bambi eyes can I?

So I shall try to post the photos tomorrow, and watch a movie with him (maybe Cinderella Man). Just to be a good wife occasionally. If you wonder if anything steamy going to happen after that, well, just remember the photo in this post. Unless we play London Bridge Is Falling Down later.

Oops, this is a blog for my daugther. I shouldn’t get too detail with such things, so I shall stop before I say too much.

(Just to make me feel guilty, he’s blasting All By Myself on his amplifier now. Ok ok, I should go now)

This is just to advertise for one eat full nothing to do blogger who managed to get a few other bloggers to sing and record the song White Christmas (without having to meet them), and then arranged and remixed it to one single track.

I was invited to join in the sing song project, but because I had no headset at home (after I’d moved house, lots of things still in boxes which we haven’t found time to dig out yet), I couldn’t record it (w/out the music).

I think this fella did quite a wonderful job, please go and check the song out yourself.

Btw, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

Our family will still be in KL though, so I’ll still be blogging during this period.

The original tag was in Chinese, I’ll just make it more ‘general’ and translate it to English (anyway, it’s a simple tag, not much text to translate).

To Tag :
– State who tagged you;
– List who you want your Santa Claus to be (the bearer of the gift);
– State the gift you wish to get;
– Then invite a few friends to join the tag, and inform them by dropping a comment in their blog.
Simple?

Santa Claus : Maria a.k.a. Twinsmum (what goes around comes around, this tag came from her. What more, I just found out we were school mates!)

The present I would like my Santa Claus to give :
1) an amethyst and rose quartz necklace, just like the one I got or
2) an amethyst and rose quartz bracelet just like this (one bracelet is never enough)
*ahem, ?, Maria?*

I would like the below friends to join the fun :
– Seng Kor, no tag is complete without you
– King’s Wife, I know you still have lots of ‘bags’ to wish for
– Helen, as I’d said, what goes around comes around
– TwoLittleFellas, you are new in this game, who else can I ‘bully’ 😛
– l b, whoever is your Santa Clause will definitely be broke
– Mother Superior, another holiday?

I love to cook and bake, but am doing less of it since Zara was born.

When I was 8, 9months pregnant with Zara, for my 1 hr lunch break, since I was such a greedy pig I used to bake pies or sausage rolls at home (since I was getting very heavy and lugging the notebook to and fro the office was hurting my back, I was spending most of the later months working from home). I also used to bake new years cookies for both my mil and our home but didn’t do it this year because I was busy with Zara.

After Zara was born, I was spending less time in the kitchen. When I did, it usually was because I wanted to make something for Zara. When she started solids, I prepared her food on weekends like stewed fruits; steamed or, when I was adventurous, Mediterranean style vege; pureed them, and then froze them in ice cube trays and the following day just popped them out and store them in zip locks bags.

It was only when she turned 9mths old that we introduced meat and hence porridge to her (before it was all pureed vege or fruits mixed with organic rice cereal). No more need to do bulk cooking for her on weekends. Her porridge is mainly done by Tuyam, our maid.

When we moved to our new place this March, I wanted a good oven, because our old cheap one was not cooking cakes or cookies evenly. We bought one with full feature (not the Teka or Pacific self-cleaning-catalytic-oh-so-expensive type). The only piece of equipment in the house which I had full say on since this is my forte (the rest of the gadgets I left it to Daddy).

I had probably just baked a cake, roasted some sweet potato and potato and that’s about it for this whole year.

MIL and SIL were coming over for dinner yesterday, and it was also our marketing day. So I thought maybe I can get a fresh chicken and roast it for dinner, and try out the rotisserie.

The chic was a medium sized chic, I seasoned it the minute we got back from the market. I used light soya sauce, a bit of dark soya sauce, brown sugar, ginger juice, minced garlic, a pinch of cinnamon powder and salt.

At 6pm, I got Daddy to bring Zara to the park because I had to cook. I stuffed the chicken with garlic cloves and ginger slices, and skewed it through the rotisserie rod. Once it’s in the oven, I just set the timer, and left the kitchen to do some blog surfing (hubby of course didn’t know it was that easy to roast a chicken).

I went to the kitchen to check a few times, just to make sure things were ok. In the process, I got burnt by being careless while moving the tray and the rotisserie rod about.

The chicken was ready in an hours time and turned out to be quite nice; evenly cooked, juicy in the inside, and best of all, all the fat has dripped to the tray. For the ultimate test, we gave some to Zara. Alas, she being a fish person, preferred the steamed garoupa to the chicken. I kept the left over breast for her though, we’ll use it to make sandwich for her for lunch.

I’ll start to spend more time with the oven now that I know how the rotisserie work, and if Daddy didn’t mind looking after Zara, I can bake cookies again for the coming new year.