I Saved A Life Today

Found a little baby catterpillar on my greens today.

What should I do with it?

Should i kill it?
Should i drown it?
Should i keep it in a jar for Renee?

Hmmm...just drown it, I thought.

I started running the water n while waiting for the container to fill up, I watched the little caterpillar.

It crawled up and down the leaf, trying to find a way out. And then i thought, what am I doing? It's just a baby. If I gave it a chance to live, one day, it will turn into a beautiful butterfly.

Afterall, God gave it life. Who was I to take that away?

And so, i turned off the tap, took the leaf with the caterpillar on it and brought it out to my garden.

Here you go, I told the little baby caterpillar as I watched it crawl from the leaf onto the leaf of my bamboo plant. Go live, survive and come back and visit me one day when you've all grown up.

Island Getaway

We're leaving for a short island holiday tomorrow night. Our destination - Perhentian!

Both SK and I have never been there before so we're kindda excited. Apparently, almost all the people I've spoken to claimed that it's far better than Redang and Lang Tengah, and I do so love both those islands.

I've been to Redang twice. First time was back in 2003/4 (can't remember), to Berjaya Redang with the ex-boyfriend. My second time was with SK where we stayed in Laguna.

I've also been to Lang Tengah twice, both times with SK. The first time was before we were officially dating so it was like a 'scandalous' getaway *naughty grin*. The second time was last year May, just after my stupid maid pulled her 'runaway' stunt.

Both islands were...ARE gorgeous, so for friends to tell me that Perhentian is way better, I really cannot wait to find out!

We've decided to take a drive there instead of flying, which is really fine by me cos I love long car trips. I even drove to Koh Samui once back in 2004. 15 hours drive non-stop except for meals and loved every single minute of it!

But this time, because of me being pregnant and having Renee with us, we'll be making a stop overnight at Kuala Terengganu before starting off for Kuala Besut jetty early next morning.

Bags are all packed and Renee is as excited as me, so we're just waiting to push off our journey!

Can't wait to have my tan back! Before motherhood, I used to be known as 'the girl with the permanent tan' cos Sk and I would go to the beach like every other weekend.

Hopefully, i get that 'title' back again!

A Lazy Sunday

After an eventful Saturday yesterday - eventful meaning me busy checking my Twitter and Facebook updates on the Bersih rally going on in town and surfing news channel to see if there were any coverage on electronic media as well, followed by a rushed Pasar Malam visit to tapow my favorite snacks and food and then another rushed dinner where Renee fell asleep halfway through with a mouthful of noodles, and then followed by a rushed grocery trip to Tesco *phew*, we decided to take it easy today and not do anything.

Well, not literally do nothing.

The hubby and daughter are outside right now, washing the cars while I'm inside attempting to copy the Rio movie and a few other videos onto my MacBook so that I can later sync it to my iPad. This is, of course, all for hoping that these movies and videos can keep Renee occupied during our long drive to the East Coast next week. 

I'm hoping I don't screw anything up on my laptop and ipad as well as the DVDs while attempting to do this 'copying'. It's my first time and I'm an IT idiot.

Anyways, while waiting for the files to copy, I've posted some pictures of dishes that I cooked over the pass month. 

We actually tried catered food for about a month, paying RM200 per month for 2 meat dishes, 1 vege dish a soup but after 2 weeks of eating it, we got bored. Same taste, same style of cooking....eeks. So we cancelled it and I had no choice but to start cooking at least twice a week because eating out is oh-so-expensive!

 'Black rice' - a mixture of vege, meat, rice and black sauce all cooked together

 Sour & spicy chicken gizzard with cucumber

 Baked marmite pork ribs

Home-made wantan noodles with stewed chicken feet and vege

Nothing spectacular la, I know, but coming from someone who couldn't even boil rice not too long ago, I take this as a vast improvement in my culinary skills.

I've even made chicken rice a few times and will be attempting to make my own Nasi Lemak this coming week. Hope it turns out yummy.

I never really know if the food I cook is yummy or not because hubby says everything is delicious. He has to. He don't have a choice. Else I mengamuk and stop cooking and we have to eat out every night....which is really fine by me. But not to him. So he'll have to continue loving the food I cook and I'll never find out if its really that yummy unless I have a party come over.

Maybe soon?

June '11

With this blog post, I hope that I can actively start blogging again - at least one post a week, if not one in two weeks?

Life has certainly been very busy for me, even with Renee spending most of the hours a day in daycare, I would have thought I would be able to have much more free time, but I guess I was wrong.

The more time you have on your hands, the more things you'll find that you have to do. Apart from trying to maintain a company, handle freelance writing jobs, keep the house clean and finding time for my own social life, I now also have to deal with the occasional morning sickness, nausea, body aches, hunger pangs - the oh so normal symptoms of a pregnant woman.

Yes, as of this week in July, I am already 19 weeks pregnant. But we're talking about the month of June here so let's move on.

Was almost 4 months pregnant in this pic

First week of June, I turned 31.

Godma threw a BBQ dinner for me and my cousin Chris (who's birthday was a day before mine) at her place and all I had to do was show up. Birthdays these days are not like how I used to have it anymore....unless I am willing to leave Renee with someone and go out and party. But I'm not. I'd rather stay home and have a boring birthday.

Towards the end of June, the three of us, hubby, Renee and I, decided to take a day trip down to Melaka because I was craving for their Sate Celup.

But instead of a 'day trip', we ended up arriving in Melaka only at 5pm!

Ya, blame it on the pregnant woman who didn't want to wake up earlier.

First pit stop was at the Melaka Zoo for Renee!

Seen here taken with the Mandrills

Renee had a blast!

She kept going on and on about wanting to see the monkeys, and the elephants, and the giraffes. Well, life was easy for her since she was carried most of the time where else I ALMOST FAINTED from the heat, the uphill-downhill walk and having to keep up an active conversation with her at the same time!

BUT I MADE IT!!!!!

And so, to reward myself....I had an eating spree!

First meal for the night was this!

Jonker Walk

Nasi Lemak. Assam Laksa. Nyonya Laksa. And Mango Cendol!

The Nasi Lemak was SK's. The rest was MINE!!! Hahahahaha!

So yummy!

After putting some food in my tummy, I wasn't so cranky anymore so we took a walk around Jonker Walk, bought snacks here and there to munch on, bought more knick-knacks for Renee to play with, bought some Angry Bird t-shirts for Renee and Zach and my Godson, Roy. Unfortunately, the shirt I bought for Zach was too small and the one I got for Roy was too big. But oh well, he can grow into it. And it was also because of this shirt that Roy called me 'Godma' for the first time!!!!

Not once but many many many times!!!

After Jonker Walk, we took a drive down to the Portugese Settlement for the St. Pedro Festival.

They had live performances going on on stage and the dancers were cheering on for people to join them and the music was soooooo loud the base was practically shaking my body up and down and I think the baby inside my tummy was dancing to it as well.

We stopped for our second meal of Portuguese Grilled Fish.

Actually, SK was't hungry but I really wanted to eat so he had no choice but to eat it with me, else I would not have been able to finish such a huge piece of fish. But then again, even with both of us eating, we still had to tapow half the fish home...so I had it for dinner the next day. Hahaha!

Right after that, we went for our Sate Celup.

The restaurant that we wanted to go to had a queue so freaking long that if we waited, we wouldn't be able to eat till the next morning, so we opted for the next best one...

Didn't satisfy my sate celup cravings though....but better than nothing. Gonna take another drive down one of these days to have the sate celup that I want.

OMG

I just realized that my last blog post was in November last year.
Which means that I totally skipped Christmas and New Year here.
And also I'm actually blogging for the very FIRST time from my MAC Book Pro.
Although I bought it like in October last year.

So yes, my new year resolutions....

To blog more
To make more money
To have baby number 2

Ok. Wish me luck.

Or at least pray for me yah.

Thank you very much.

Bai.

Good Ol' Happy Days

A few weekends ago, we decided to go try something new for dinner.

We ended up in The Good Ol' Happy Days Bistro & Cafe in Taipan, Subang.

From outside it looks really nice....like it came right out of 1970s movie.

Well, it's suppose to look like it came right out of a 1970s TV sitcom anyways....called "Happy Days"!

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They had the whole look....

Black and white checkered floor tiles, vinyl red plastic seats, a jukebox belting out old songs, pictures and memorabilia from that era decorating the walls and even their menu carried names of old-time singers eg. Jambalaya Hank William's Mushroom Soup, Nat King Cole Double Barrel Lamb Rack, James Brown Texan Ribeye....you get the gist.

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They definitely got the whole American diner atmosphere going on and I felt myself singing One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock ROCK!...

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The only thing missing were waitress on rollerskates!

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There was a HUGE mannequin of Fonzy, the main character of Happy Days, near where they sat us and when my little 2 year old coward saw it, she started crying and clinging on to me for dear life. So we had to shift tables.

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Honestly, it was quite scary looking la and if I were a kid, I'd cry too.

But I took a picture of Fonzy and whenever Renee gets naughty at home, I will show her the picture and say "Behave yourself or Big Man will come catch you!".

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So far, it works like a charm.

I just hope Renee doesn't get too smart too soon to realize that there is no such thing as Big Man.

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Anyways, I don't know if it's because we went at the wrong time or it was just our luck but most of the food that we wanted to order was either "Finished" or "Out of Stock".

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So we ended up with not much of a choice and had to order whatever that was available. Maybe that kind of ruined our whole mood and we weren't feeling quite so 'happy' anymore.

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I can't even remember what I ordered.

SK had the lamb rack which wasn't really good (cos according to the waitress, it was the last one), I had some steak burger or something and Renee had Fish N Chips.

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Nothing worth shouting about.

And let's just put it this way. It cost about Fridays/Chilis price but the portion that comes is like a kid's meal size. Yah. Imagine how tiny Renee's kid's meal was when our adult's portion was so small already.

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In my opinion, the food is not worth the money.

But if you want to go for beers with friends and sit around listening to music from an era long ago but not forgotten, then it is a nice place to go to.

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Well, I would go back for drinks anyways....not for the food.

The place makes me feel that much closer to Elvis.

<3

Today

After almost 2 months of being dropped off, kicking and screaming, at the daycare, today, she jumped out of the car, ran into the house, turned around to wave at me, and disappeared behind the door.

Not a single kick.
Not a single scream.
Not a single tear.

Today.
I cried inside.
My baby doesn't need me anymore.

WAIL!!!!!