Sketches of Life|Life Lived in Simplicity

Last Friday I got my MIL to help me cook Chicken Pong Teh again. Chicken Pong Teh goes well with Sambal Belacan. So I made some during lunch time. In the evening when I came back from work, hubby told me that MIL loves it! I am so happy.

Here’s my Sambal Belacan recipe. You might be able to win your MIL’s heart with it.

Ingredients
4-5 Fresh Red Chili
4 Bird Eye Chili (to make you explode. hehe)
2 Shallots
2 Inch Belacan (Shrimp Paste)
Salt

Method
1. Fry the Belacan till dry (no oil needed, ok)
2. Cut the chili to 3-4 parts to make it easier to pound.
3. Place all the ingredients into a pounder (lesung) and pound till it all mashed up.

How to eat it
Take a small pinch of the Sambal Belacan with every spoon of rice that has been mixed with the Pong Teh gravy or take a small spoon of the Sambal Belacan and mix well with your rice. Mmmm…delicious. (writing this makes me salivate!)

About a month ago, my tenant gave me a call. He told me that some of the Taps in the apartment needs to be repaired. Told hubby about it and ask him to go and have a look at the problem. Hubby went over to the apartment to have a look. It seems that two of the taps located in the bathrooms are leaking. Besides the tap not working properly, the toilet flush also is not working. Hubby had to buy two new sets of taps to replace the existing ones. I asked him what types of tap that he bought for the apartment. He said that at first he wants to buy the cheap quality taps but upon careful consideration he bought a better quality taps. Since it will last longer it will save him from having to go over frequently to the apartment.

The same goes for our house taps. After having to change the bathroom tap frequently because it leaks, hubby decided to buy a good quality tap with nice design. Now the tap is working well for quite some time. Well, if you need to find good quality taps, check out Taps4Less.com. Not only do they sell taps but also a variety of other products for your bathroom and kitchen equipments.

I got so mad with my eldest yesterday that I told her if she asked for more toys, I am just going to take the cane and beat her! I am not going to say, “No”. Just take the hanger and cane. I uses hanger as a cane, you see. The red mark goes off faster than the rattan cane.

Well, this is what happened. I have been very patient with her all this while. She hardly keeps her toys. She will promise me that she will but she did not do as promised. So I told her that if she does not want to keep her toys, I am going to throw them into the rubbish been. She said, “Yes”!!! That caused my blood to boil.

It took her quite sometime to digest my warning. “You don’t ever ask Mommy to buy toys again. Mommy will just take the hanger and cane you!” Then she told me in a very gentle voice, “Mommy, I want to pick up and keep all my toys.”

That really cools me down. Now I am thinking of what to buy for her. Maybe I try to shop online this time. I am browsing at CouponChief.com for coupon codes and good deals available. Children toys are quite cheap but sometimes shipping cost is more than the toys’ cost. I noticed that with KBToys coupon code, I can get free shipping up to 800 items. Going to check out what are the items. Toodle!

When I first met hubby, he was the bartender in the restaurant that we worked. The best thing of having a bartender boyfriend is you can enjoy cocktails almost everyday (psst…boss don’t know. Hehe). He loves making the Mixed Drinks Cocktails. The one I like the most is A Few Of My Favorite Things, a mixture of Amaretto Almond Liqueur, Bailey’s® Irish Cream, Kahlua® Coffee Liqueur, Vanilla Liqueur, Butterscotch Schnapps, Vodka & Milk.

Sometimes when we do not have customer at night and the boss is way, you know, when the cat leaves, the rats come out, we have the time of our life playing Drinking Games like the coin drinking game called the Spinner. Thank God none of us become alcohol addicts! Well, if you like to try making your own cocktail, there are hundreds of Mixed Drink Recipes from SuperCocktails.com.

Since my son doesn’t want his mommy’s milk anymore, my body is slowly but surely expanding! I think due to the hormonal change, I have better appetite and I ate as much as I want. Least that I know that I don’t get help from my son anymore to “suck” out those extra calories that I take.

Thank God I found MyFitnessPal. With their calorie counter I am able to track how many calories in the food that I eat and how much can I loose them thru certain kind of exercise. I can also find out how many calories burned from a list of exercises that is available in the site. Hmm…I must start adding my favorite food in the food diary. All this are for free, you know.

What will be the perfect gifts for my colleague if I ever or finally resign from my job? Since most of them love eating, I think gift baskets would be perfect for them. For Mei Ling I would get her the chocolate gift basket. She loves chocolate. For Mona, I am not so sure of her liking as she is still new here. Maybe sweets gift basket will be nice as she has small children at home. I noticed that Shyang has been snaking quite often lately so a snack gift basket is perfect for him. Even though the boss is stingy towards us, I will not do the same to him. I will get him two golf gift baskets. One for him and one for lady boss.

A lawyer friend of ours desperately looking for a LA (legal assistant or lawyer) and he is asking hubby to consider the offer. Well, even though business is not doing so well, hubby is enjoying his life doing things that he like. He plays more than he works!

To him, studying has always been a nightmare to him. He hates studying. I think studying law really scares him to death! Hahaha. If he goes back to practicing law, he has to learn back everything that he left more than 7 years ago. No one wants their nightmare to become reality right.

I was thinking, if he really decided to go back to practicing law, imagine the numbers of hours of playing Mo Siang online game that he has to sacrifice. Hehe. But then, I won’t have to chase after Cari Makan opp anymore but I would have to start ironing again. You can’t wear t-shirt, jeans or slack to court! I hate don’t really enjoy ironing. Please stay put dear.

Whatever decision that he is going to make, I am with him.

Few days back, we (my children and I) had a swim in the baby pool. Since it was a very hot day, we ate ice cream in the pool! After we are done, I left the container on the floor and forgot to bring it to wash. The next thing I know, my girls are screaming, “Mommy!!! So many ants.” Hundreds of fire ants came out from no where to enjoy the left over ice cream. A neighbour dropped by, saw the fire ants and told me me that if your area has fire ant colonies there are bound to be termites too. Yikes! The only way that I know how to get rid of them is by scalding them with boiling water. It works, but it’s not 100% effective and often just causes the fire ants to move to a different part of the yard. Better than they coming to bite my children.

I got below forwarded email yesterday. I am not into Politic and never will. As long as I got food on my table, I am free to go anywhere and peace is maintained in this country, I praise God.

Anyway, it is interesting to see the vast difference in their educations. No wonder…I reserved my comments.

PM Lee Hsien Loong
Cambridge University – First Class Honours (1974)
Harvard University – Masters (1980)

PM Abdullah bin Haji Ahmad Badawi
University of Malaya – Bachelor of Arts Honours (1964)

SM Goh Chok Tong
University of Singapore – First Class Honours (1964)
Williams College , USA – Masters (1967)

Deputy PM Dato’ Sri Najib Razak
University of Nottingham – Bachelor of Arts Honours (1974)

MM Lee Kuan Yew
Cambridge University – First Class Honours (1949)

Minister of Foregn Affairs Syed Hamid Albar
(can someone tell me his univeristy? )- Bachelor of Arts [ UITM ]

Minister for Law Prof. S Jayakumar
University of Singapore – Bachelor of Law Honours (1963)
Yale Univerity – Masters (1966)

Ministry of Works- Dato’ Seri Samy Vellu
(Education Unknown) [ Form 6, Anderson School ]

Minister for Home Affairs Wong Kan Seng
University of Singapore – Bachelor of Arts & Business Admin (1977)
London Business School – Masters (1979)

Ministry of International Trade & Industry Rafidah binti Aziz
Universiti Malaya – Bachelor of Arts Honours

Minister for Foreign Affairs BG George Yeo
Cambridge University – Double First Class Honours (1976)
Harvard Business School – MBA w/ Distinction (1985)

Minister of Agriculture Muhyiddin Yassin
(Education Unknown) [ Polytechnic Ungku Omar ]

Minister for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang
Cambridge University – First Class Honours w/ Distinction (1976)
Harvard University – Masters (1986)

Ministry of Domestic Trade Shafie Apdal
(Education Unknown) [ Form 5, Failed English ]

Minister for Defence Teo Chee Hean
University of Manchester – First Class Honours (1976)
Imperial College, London – Masters w Distinction (1977)

Minister of Education Hishammuddin Hussein
(Education Unknown) [Bachelor of Arts, Social Science]

Minister for Education Tharman Shanmugaratnam
London School of Economics – Bachelor of Arts
Cambridge University – Masters
Harvard University – Masters

Minister of Home Affairs Radzi bin Sheikh Ahmad
(Education Unknown) [ Kolej Islam Malaysia, Diploma ]

One advantage of venturing in vending machine business is you can work from home. You just need some cash as a capital to buy a few vending machine, place them at strategic location, go back home, sleep, cook, blog or look for other business opportunity and later in the night go to collect your cash from the machine. It is a 100% cash business and you can earn to 80% profit margin.

Recently, multivend the manufacturer of Venstar vending machine has added new product offerings to enhance the Vendstar 3000 machine. Counting your income made easier with Vendstar EZ-Count® Meter which allows the vendor to derive exact collection amounts from each machine by digitally updating the total quarters accepted.