Quick fix dinner.

A few days ago, when I came home from work and looked under the "tudung saji", I saw this spread...

Let's see, there's Sardine fried with chili (sardin masak chili lah tu), Cockels/sea snails gravy (Siput sedut masak lemak) leftover from the day before (still supper yumm though), Vegetables in coconut milk (Sayur Masak Lemak), Fried Cabbage, Carrots and Celery and Salted Fish, Cucumber with crushed anchovies and chillies (timun cicah sambal kering ikan bilis).   Pretty much simple dishes, a normal spread for dinner at my mother's. Simple as it may be, if you have 'em with white rice, one plate of rice will not be sufficient. Especially with the two killer dishes that are my favourite - the Sardines and the Siput Sedut! Sigh! In order to stick to my no rice diet I had to act fast and cook something else.

I remembered that I had this made during the weekend but never got around to preparing anything with it. It's red capsicums (red peppers) baked in the oven, and with the skin already peeled ready and waiting in the fridge. I know there's some button mushrooms in the fridge, so I thought I'd make some quick easy spaghetti. 

After boiling the spaghetti, I sauteed some white onions in Olive Oil, throw in the mushrooms, add some fresh cut chillies, the baked red peppers, pinch of salt and loads of coarsely grounded black peppers (my fav!), and finally mix together with the al-dante spaghetti... wa lah...

 Eti's Quick Fix Spaghetti Dinner!

My plate... of course eventually I had to add some sardines and I also had some siput sedut on the side... slurp! slurp! At least no wretched white rice was consumed that night! Phew! Close call! 

Zaim my little "everything"!

My little - Ustaz.

Ustaz is normally what Islamic/Religious Teachers are called. Sometimes it is also a name often called to one who potrays himself as being a pious person or often seen performing pious activities. So take a look at this pictures of Zaim ... is there any doubt why he should not be called my little Ustaz???

My little - Handy Manny.

Our bathroom's bidet broke a month back or so, my husband bought a new one to replace. When he took out his toolbox, to fix it, my little handy manny was super excited to help.

Ready with tools in his hand.

Bang! Bang! Hey, I can recycle this Ma!!!

My little - Green Finger.

My father always works in his garden on weekends, and Zaim always watch his grandfather at work. Nowadays, he too wants to join his grandfather while he tends to his garden. If the weather permits ehem and when Zaim's mother permits, Zaim is allowed to get dirty and play with the sand and shovel. On one particular weekend  when I was feeling rather indulgent and was really clueless as to how to amuse Zaim one long boring afternoon, I allowed him out in the garden even when his grandfather wasn't gardening. I even created a mini sand pit for him to play with. Boy was he happy!

Picking out his tools.

Hmmm slowly touching his grandfather's tools and looking at me, sorta asking for permission.

Oh mom! I am ready to get to work, why do I have to smile at the camera???

Busy! busy! busy!

Must keep my hands clean...!

My little - Cat Lover.

Zaim loves cats. Cannot get enough of 'em. If only he knew that these furry beasts could be kept at home, he would surely be asking me to get him one. For now he settles for any cats that crosses his path, like at this favourite Nasi Ayam Shop near our place. While waiting for our take-away orders, Zaim occupies himself chasing after the cat and pulling it's tail.

One smile with his favourite animal.

But of course he is none other than my little - cutey pie, busyuk-busyuk good boy mama!
I love seeing toddlers in their sleepsuits, they look so adorable, huggable and you just feel like crushing them for being so cute. Here's a series of pictures before he wakes up in the morning ...

Loves his chubby fingers... looks so yummy!

In the morning if I'm lucky he will wake up after I have taken my bath and performed my prayers, otherwise... havoc!!!

The cushion is his favourite thing on earth! He calls it Po! The big sis had "hankies" (handkerchiefs), his brother had napkins, he has his po. (don't worry, the covers can be changed, he is not particular about the designs either, thank goodness!).

My littlest everything... sigh!!! Dear Dik-Dik, Mama, Papa, Kakak and Abang love you very much!!! Mmmmuaaa!!!

Lunchtime today

I didn't go out for lunch today. So I thought I'd get two pending things out of my system:

1) My Performance Review - for 2009 yup... compensation is on the way!!! giddyup! time to butter up the lady boss!!!  (not that it'll work, ha!ha!ha! hope you are not reading this mam)

2) Ethics Awareness Training - an online thingy that has to be completed annually. OMG!

The second one is done. I am say 70% finished with the item one.

Now I am checking whether my posting via BB works. He!he! Multi-tasking y'all!!

p/s 1


Ok, so the update via BB email was successful. Though I am not quite happy as to how the two pictures above came out. So the above update has been edited via pc. Looks like, I still have to set it as Save as Draft only instead of immediate posting. Am I right to assume that posting via iPhone is easier??? hmmm no fair, how about us who are not "touch screen user"?, come on blogger.com do something... puhleesss!!!!!!

p/s 2

in one of the scenarios during my online ethics awareness programme, I was asked this question:

A couple of times a day, not more than a few minutes at a time, you log on to Facebook on your office computer, and occasionally visit other Web sites to check local weather, the stock market, news and other information. Is this in violation of XXXXXXXX’s computer resources policies?

Yes


No

What do you think I chose? and what do you think the correct answer was?
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.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Yeay!!! I chose YES! and that was CORRECT! Thank God!!! He!he!he! Pathetic isn't it? By the way, I have nevvver checked the local weather and the stock markets ok? He!he!he!

Are you sure there's only 24 hours in a day?

This is already the 7th day of the New Year. One week has gone by, 3 days of work week. Things accomplished at work? Let's see perhaps 2/10 or am I being semi-honest and have not been listing everything in my daily to-do list this week. Perhaps it's actually 2/15? Sigh!!! So many things to do and yet so little time. I haven't even manage to go to the gym at all this week. OMG!!! This is so not a good way to start what was supposed to be a productive, prosperous and fulfilling year (or rather what I hope it would be)!!!

Where did all the hours go? 8 - 5 p.m at work seems to be a breeze now??? How come? When I was heavily pregnant, 8 - 5p.m seems to take FOREVER!!! I just need more time!!

Or perhaps I need more hands?

(ok, get real people! focus on the hands in the picture ok, that's not how I dress for work.

That's not how I dress full stop.)

Help!

No more 4 days weekend for me!

Hurro there!!! It is my 1st day at work this year!So mummies and daddies out there??? Everything went well yesterday?? I saw some lists of to do(s) on FB before the big day yesterday. Did everything go well then? Heard some horror stories on the big day itself too? Hope by today it will be better for all. I haven't heard from home yet, so my kindy going son should be ok today, inspite being the 3rd year in kindy already.  

So what happened with me yesterday? Took the day off to see the kids at school on the first day. There was no problem with Nayli my first one, since she is already in Year 3. We just dropped her off at the school gate, I'm sure with regards to fees and such, the teacher would be able to communicate with her and she can relay everything back to us no problem.

Came back home from sending Nayli with hubby, after having breakfast at this Nasi Lemak stall that we have never been to before! All because there was a minor traffic at the junction to go into our housing area, and we thought of taking another route when we passed this Nasi Lemak Kukus stall, it was then that the shoplady chose to lift the top of the steamer cover that had the sinful nasi lemak. We saw this smoke wafting up, I swear that did it for us, we made a quick decision to say yes go, a quick u-turn saw us at the stall choosing our sambal to accompany our plate of piping hot steaming nasi lemak kukus! Yes, I blame the traffic for breaking my New Year Resolution, i.e to not have local dishes for breakfast. Sigh!

So, after the breakfast getaway with hubby, we reached home to find that Zarif our Ben10 was in this screaming fits confronted by an overwhelmed maid and a really upset grandmother!! Issue : his colour pencils were all messed up, because it wasn't packed the day before! (ok, my bad there, but I didn't think he'd be needing any colour pencils on the 1st day of school, plus we paid for colour pencils to be provided for in class!) Anyhow, lesson learnt for me to make sure he is prepared the day before or else...

His class was suppose to start at 8:30 a.m. Managed to pacify him, shall spare you the dialogue here. No problem in the car and at school. Found the class and met his new class teacher. Left him in class, looking like this... (see picture below). I'm like, oh! oh! hope he'll see one or two familiar faces in this class cause I couldn't recognize any of the kids' faces nor their names on the list from his class last year.

When I fetched him 2 hours later, he stepped into the car with a big smile, saying, "Mama, I like my new class because I have 2 new friends! One from Orchid class last year, and another new friend whom I have not learnt his name yet!" I'm like, "Good!" (in my heart, THANK YOU GOD!!!)

But, 10 minutes later... Zzzzzzzzzz!!! Was that past 2 hours really that stressful??? I didn't want to go home only to come out again to fetch the sis, so we had a little mini picnic in the car while waiting for the sister to finish school.

Now he's awake, but still at reclined position! ha!ha!

In the afternoon, I had to go to Nayli's Sekolah Agama to handle her registration and all. Quite a full day for me. When I was not in their school, I am at home, handling the little pocoyo, because he is a bit under the weather. So he's like a little koala, hanging on to me everytime he sees me, just wouldn't let go. Even up till last night he was still up at odd hours screaming to be held and comforted. Don't think being a stay at home mom would be any easier eh! Hats of to full time mummies!!!

Maal Hijrah...yesterday.

Happy Maal Hijrah dear friends, family and readers (I hope I have em'). Any new year resolutions. I have a couple, hope to fulfill them this year, God wiling.

How was your day yesterday? It was pretty much a lazy day for me. No matter how lazy it was, my day always starts early. Even though I sometimes try to lie in, with a little toddler who wakes up really early you really cannot help it. Yesterday morning somehow Zaim didn't wake up that early so I  quickly had a quick shower, so that at least once he is awake I can tend to him straightaway and start preparing breakfast since Jack said no to my suggestion to go to Raju's :-P.

However, when we went to the kitchen I found that my mom is already 90% into preparing Nasi Lemak. Wohoo!!! My mom's nasi lemak is out of this world. So, great! No need to prepare breakfast. I was not really looking forward to having a western  breakfast this morning because I had a Western Breakie binge yesterday at SF with Fida. When I say binge, I do mean binge ok, BIG TIME!!!

#### there shud be a picture or two here but it's just not uploading at the time of update###

Anyhow, after breakfast I spent a bit of time online tending to my ehem lil' pet project. Last night the house modem was ok, the kids managed to play games online. However, this morning... kaput, the line was down again. Luckily, I got to use my brother's notebook and his trusty broadband.

Fixed a quick pasta lunch, made tuna with pasta shells. Turned out ok, but a wee bit hot even for me as I used the tuna chilli. At about 3 something, Zaim with no sign that he was going to nap, and the day that continued to be so dull and wet, I decided to do something before I end up taking a nap. So, I decided to go for a hair cut and wash. Ahhh lovely!!! Oh before I went to the hairdresser I had to detour cause I needed to get some cash from ye ol' Mr. Tiger. Anyhow, I purposely went to the area that conveniently had an appliance shop to check on my Waffle Maker, ha!ha! yes, what else. I was hoping I'd get something cheaper than what I have seen at KLCC, however the one nearby my house was infact RM50 more!!! SHOCKING!!!! Now I know! I shall just need to continue my search then...

In the evening I had dinner with my oldest friend in the whole wide world. No she is not 120, she has been my friend since we were 10 years old!!! Imagine that! Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture. Well, Azlyn dearie 12 years down the road even though there is no picture, at least I have blogged about our dinner last night at Siti et Sara, we both had Tomyam Noodles and Plain Water. Plus I would always remember about your compliments about my blogging... (he!he! do leave comments though, a blogger without comments is like a lost traveller in the dessert without water, sigh!) There, hope I won't forget last night like I forgot celebrating your birthday with you at TGIF 12 years ago!! (Come on, I had another child - one more than you after the age of 30, surely that counts for my memory loss.) :-(

So there, for a lazy dull day, I sure have a lot to write huh! Pfft!

Long weekend ahead.

Tomorrow is the start of a long weekend for me. No plans though, that's what's making me uneasy. I have to have a plan! What to do with the kids, since there'll be no more trips planned.

The itinerary for the next 4 days so far:

Friday : Nothing
Saturday : Swimming lessons in the morning and that's it.
Sunday : Nothing
Monday : Picnic and playground with my buddies and their kids in the morning.

I do have a list of things that needs to be done before the end of the school holidays, perhaps I should slot and cover some items during these four days eh?

Things to do:

1) School Uniforms - Nayli
Gotta do a bit of hunting, don't feel like buying at the normal outlet. I also need to look for a blue vest, (prefect's uniform) can you get this like anywhere???

2) School Uniforms - Zarif

I need to go to his kindy for the uniforms. Got to find time. Definitely not gonna happen this weekend since the school might still be closed, I will try after Christmas.

3) School shoes - both kids
BATA I guess, where else, plus I need to look for black canvas shoes and socks for Nayli!!!

4) Badges - to be sewn on Nayli's uniforms once item 1 is complete. I think I am gonna out source this bit! This is a lot of work okay, there are school badges, and sekolah agama badges, name tags that needs to be sewn on vests, shirts, scarves, baju kurungs aaaaaaa!!!!!!!! 

5) School books and stationeries - gotta pass by her school and see when the bookshop will be opened. 

6) Things outstanding for me, myself and I:

facial, mani & pedi (so very long overdue, poor me!), hair cut for the new year, go to PPZ to settle additional zakat... OMG!!!

7) Zaim needs new sets of feeding bottles.

8) Mama needs new handbag for the new year!

9) Not to forget I have to continue my search for my waffle maker.

I think I should stop now... for now. Sigh!

Best part of the day when you have a lil' baby?

I totally love kids 1st thing in the morning. In their Jammies, before their bath. They just smell so adorable, so heavenly. Love it. Masam (Stinky, sweaty b.o) ?? Yeah, but I like it. I would sniff the back of their neck, their sticky backs, everywhere. Something that cannot be described in plain ol' English. Busyuk & Masyam. He!he! Nice. Treasuring every moment of it now, before they grow up. If only I can bottle up the scent and blog it here, and release the scent 5/10 years down the road when my little Zaim no longer fits his cot.