Sketches of Life

I am finally settled down and here’s the tag I owed GiddyTigers.

1. Go to PopCulture site.
2. Pick the year you turn 18 years old. You’ll see the years on the left sidebar.
3. Get yourself nostalgic over the songs from that year.
4. Write something about how those songs affected you.
5. Pass it on to five more friends.

The year I turn 18 huh? That will be 1992…so you can guess how “old” I am. I listen to songs but getting nostalgic over them??? Just not me.

Here’s are a few songs that I can still remember…

I Will Always Love You - Whitney Houston from the movie BodyGuard.
Tears In Heaven - Eric Clapton
Beauty and The Beast - Peabo Bryson & Celine Dion, my favourite cartoon movie. I like Belle.

I think that’s all, the rest are just another songs and another music to me…

That year I just accepted Christ. I listen to Christian song mostly.

My tag…only one, can’t think of anybody else that have not done this…
Jesslyn

I noticed that people who loves cooking doesn’t like cleaning up after cooking. My sister and SIL are one of them. The kitchen will be in a mess after they finish cooking. What will they normally do after cooking? Eat then sleep! So, what did I do after eating? Clean up their mess.

My SIL will wash up all the wok, pot and pans but the extra onion, garlic, spices, salt, blended chili, the potato etc will be all over the place. The washing sponge is not at its place. The cloths are not hanging at its place. And the kitchen floor is sticky. Something spill, it is not wipe immediately. Someone step on it and dirty the whole house.

Oh ya, everyone in my house wears slipper in the house except the children. The adults don’t feel the sticky or dusty floor but the children feet get very dirty especially my crawling son.

You want a cook; you get a cook but not a cleaner.

To those who have more than one children or more. Do you notice than you get louder with every child? When I have my 1st only, I almost never raise my voice at her. When I have my 2nd girl, occasionally, I scream and shout. Now with the 3rd one, I scream and shout almost everyday and my 1st girl are picking that up from me and raise her voice at me. I need to learn to have more patience and more self-control.

My lady boss was chatting with me just now. The same scenario at her home too! She told me before she got married, she is very soft spoken but now, she’s the screaming lady and her children too always scream back at them. Can’t blame the children. We, the parents are the guilty one.

Now, I must constantly remind myself to have self-control and speak softly and gently with my children.

I met Mrs Patrick when attended the wake service of a friend’s mother that just passed away due to diabetes and low blood pressure. That’s not what I wanna share here. Mrs Patrick shared with us about her shopping experience in Giant.

She wanted to buy cake mix and there was a sign on the shelf showing a discounted price for it. When she pays, the cashier told her that the discount period for that item is already over. Mrs Patrick was upset with their system. Nag them. The supervisor told her that he will get someone to take it down. When she went there the next week, the sign is still there and the week after also.

I got experienced the same when I first shop at Giant. I wanted to buy yogurt. If I buy 4, I will cheaper price but when paying, no discount for it. At that time, I only noticed once I arrived home. One my next trip, I bought something (can’t remember what was it) that has discount too but when paying, no discount giving. When asked, they told me that the discount period is over. If it is over, take down the sign lar!

On my next trip there, learnt my lesson well. I make sure I read the sign properly. Some of them are with promotion date. During check out, I ask the cashier whether there is any discount for those items. She told me no. So I told her, how much is the price and the date of the sign for the promotion. She called her supervisor. The supervisor asked me whether I am sure! I told her that she can go there herself and I will wait. But she did not. Insert her key to the cash register machine, type something and wa..lah…she said yes, there’s discount for it.

I wonder how many Giant’s customer that has been cheated? Do they purposely leave the promotion sign on the shelf, so that people will buy more? And only giving discount if the customer asks for it? I think no point complaint to the manager. They are part of this conspiracy too. The best is, use the handphone camera, take photo of the discount signs, keep your bills and bring them to the consumer department.

The Mukhsin vcd that hubby bought was taken from the cinema. Normally cinema version, you can see the whole screen but not this one. I can only view the middle part. Imagine, the left and right screen is being cut off. We can hear voices but not the actors face. So, hubby asked me to return it and exchange with other movie.

To cut the long story short, the shop owner refused to change coz she did not receive any complaint from other customer that bought the same vcd and also she said that hubby agreed to buy even after she told him that it is a cinema version. To us, when you told us cinema version, we imagine dark picture, the voice not so sharp and the cinema’s goers head. Not screen being cut to half. I explained to her but she refused to accept my explanation.

She said if I still want to change, I have to buy another vcd then she’ll change for me. I got really angry. You can change but you want my money some more! No, I am not going to give you that. I told her that we are not one time customer; hubby has been buying from her shop very often. I walk out of the shop coz my children was in the car at that time, can’t leave them too long in the car.

I was too angry that I threaten her that I can actually make a report about her shop. You know, it is illegal to sell pirated vcd. Then she quickly walks out and told me that since my hubby always buys from her shop, she will change for me. Why can’t she tell me that before I threaten her? You don’t play play with me! I maybe look nice and quite type of person but when I am angry, I turn into a monster, I think everybody does.

Have you watched the movie? I heard it won a few awards but not from Malaysia. I watch a few minutes of it coz it was pirated and I can’t see the actor face. Returned it back to the vcd shop and exchanged with Night at the Museum. (I will blog about the exchanging drama in my next post.)

Sometimes I felt that Yasmin Ahmad, the director purposely created certain scenes to provoke the Malays. In Mukhsin, Orked mom speaks English with her British slang. Orked goes to Chinese school and able to speak Chinese. Orked mom’s dance in the rain and when her white blouse got wet, it got transparent. Another scene of the maid hanging laundry; of all the clothes that they have, she chose to shoot the maid hanging panties. Orked doesn’t like playing with the typical Malay girls coz they like to gossip.

I can’t wait to see the rest of the movie. Maybe in 2 weeks time when they have the dvd version of it. Then I will write a full review about the movie. Stay tune.

you can watch the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuThuPC9sO8

I am not belittling or condemning fat people. I appreciate having them around. Some of them, not only love eating but love cooking too. My SIL is one of them. For 3 weeks in a row, MIL came back to the house on weekends and SIL too. To cook for her. She is a very good cook. We got restaurant dishes when she cooks. A few of her relative is a cook/chef. All her family members have the XXL size and they love food. I noticed that she didn’t eat much but I think, the hour that she put food in her mouth caused her to be fat. My BIL that is married to her used to be the skinniest among his brother but now, he is the fattest. He still eats the same among of food though.

They eat their breakfast around 10am. Lunch around 2-3pm after that they nap. Normally I see them take their dinner around 10pm, then to bed after that. Sure fat one. If you do not want to be fat, no more eating after 9pm, the best is by 7pm. Let your stomach digest the food at least 2 hours before you sleep. Why? Google for it lar.

For a healthy tummy, drink water, half an hour to one hour after meal. The reason is, in layman term, if you drink right after meal, you will dilute the acid that the tummy produces to process your food. If you drink, it will make your tummy work harder to produce more acid. If this occurs very frequent, the body will automatically produce extra acid every time you eat even when you don’t drink water. Then you will get gastric attack. Or your food is not properly digested and your body won’t get to absorb much nutrition from the food you ate. When your food is not properly broken down, chances are, your colon will be affected too. I wonder whether this is the cause of constipation too.

Disclaimer: Please don’t take what I wrote word by word. I just write according to what I read and what others told me. I shall not be hold responsible if anything happen to you if you practice what I wrote. Please Google about it and get from the professionals.

BTW, I have been practicing the above for a few years already. One thing for sure, my tummy doesn’t bloat after each meal. I got flatter tummy.

My mom told me that a Malay neighbour of ours got a 2^nd wife. That was a surprise to me. If I am not mistaken, he has at least 8 children and 2 grandchildren. The eldest is a year younger than me. He is just a supervisor with TNB.

His wife is a great lady. Full of patience, gentle, soft-spoken, always smiling, never once I see her sad face and pretty too.

His 2^nd wife is a rich widower. His wife didn’t know about his 2^nd marriage. Usually you have to ask consent first right? He just registered their marriage then bring the new wife home to meet the 1^st wife.

I don’t hear any quarrels. Expected that due to the 1^st wife nature. She has no choice but to accept it. She is a SAHM, depending on the husband for everything.

I saw her few days back. No smile on her face this time. First time ever, I see sadness in her face. I felt so sad and shed tears for her. No matter how nice a lady can be, we will never want to share our husband.

I have the above. It used to be at home but now it is at the shop. Since hubby can’t go for his football, that’s the only form of exercise for him.

I went to the shop 2 days back. Let the children play by themselves and I did some crunches using it and now I got chest pain. Not the gastric type, more of muscle pain. Good pain they call it.

Truthfully, if you do it everyday, you tummy will sure be flatten and tighten. That is why I am starting again now. Need to tighten my flabby tummy after 3 rounds of pregnancy.

Don’t have to buy the branded one. I got it from Tesco for below RM150.00 during promotion.

No need to swallow pills to be slim and fit. Have discipline and work-out. (am actually telling myself here…hehe)

Got this from hubby’s blog. Sounds interesting. Here goes…

1. I am not weird
2. Can’t think of anything weird about me.
3. I am a normal & straight person.
4. Dear, anything weird about me?
5. Oh ya! I love exams. Am I a weirdo?
6. My left ear is bigger than my right. Or right bigger than left. Ermmm…neway, one side is bigger lar.

I want to tag people…msau, sweetpea and shannon.

Some bloggers advised me to focus this blog to 3-5 categories only. They meant well. At first I agreed with them but when I thought it thru, it is impossible. I am not blogging for the sake of getting extra income only. How can life be limited to 5 categories only? Unless I have a few blogs and one blog for a few categories and when you combine them together, you get the whole picture of my life. But I do not have time to maintain so many blogs unless I’m a SAHM, which I’m not. 2 is sufficient for me. One for my children and one for myself, here.

Furthermore my blog is titled Sketches of Life. My life and how I live it, in which I would like to share to the rest of the world. It is going to be about…

Health & Fitness
I used to be a health freak. Eating steam and raw veges for breakfast. Doing coffee enema for detox and colon cleansing. Doing my aerobic workout at 12mn 3 times a week. Exercise on my Ab King Pro everyday. Drink ½ an hour after every meal. Swimming 3 times a week. Taking health food and USANA supplements etc. Later, I will share about all this at length and how they benefited me. Now, I hardly have time to do all those. Once my youngest touches 1 year old and more independent, I’m gonna concentrate on my fitness.

Parenting & Education
I don’t think there will be much parenting here coz most of it will be in my children’s blog.

Shopping & Traveling
Tell me, who doesn’t like to shop and travel?

TV & Movies
They are my babysitter!

Sports & Recreation
I love sports especially Softball and I missed it so much. The last time I played, in USM. I would want to write about the how to play softball here. No chance to play any more, at least by writing, it helps me imagine playing it. Other sports that I played are swimming, hockey (goal keeper), volleyball, archery, squash, badminton and track and field. I run (4×100m) and I throw (short putt and javelin). I don’t like girly sport like netball or captain ball. They are too rough for me. I don’t like being push around and grabbing other’s ball. I like a game that everyone is given a chance to play without needing to run/chase for it.

Cooking, Food & Recipe
I wish I can skip the cooking part and straight away go to eating. But I can’t. Unless I have a maid around or I am rich enough to eat out everyday.

Home Improvement
I live in a simple kampong house with a huge compound. There is so much to improve if I have the cash. Firstly I would like to tile the floor so that when the floor is dirty, it will be obvious compared to the dark cemented floor we are having now. Then it will be getting a room for my children and buying new bedroom furniture for them. After that upgrade the kitchen to a closed and clean place. No more chicken flying freely into the kitchen, no more rats running around, no more frogs hopping around and not more seeing their shits everywhere. Last but not least, to have a beautiful garden where my family can hang out and enjoy the evening breeze and the morning dew.

Finance
My life is not complete if I don’t talk about the dollar sign. How I spend/manage my money? Sometimes wisely, sometimes not. Above all I want to share on how God has bless us financially in times of need and how I use the blessing to bless others.

Relationship
There are ups and downs in marriage and in our relationship with others too. I am not gonna hide it. If it is beneficial for others to know and learn from it, I am going to share.

I think I have laid out almost everything that I am going to share in this blog. So, do stick around if you are interested to know about me and share my life experiences.