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Young at heart and I keep forgetting my age.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Sep 1, 2008 - Ramadhan begins

It is the most awaited month !

I was glued to TV set to wait for the fasting day announcement. Once confirmed, I made a quick call to my neighbour Makcik Janna. She is all set to go to mosque.

Within moments, we met at the agreed junction. Since Makcik Janna is really old, I think she is 70 - we would walk slowly enjoy the breeze. The mosque (surau actually) is not far away.

God is Mercy - half way, we got a car ride from Makcik Fatimah of Wira 2.

The mosque has a good crowd and we soon start Isyak prayer. A few addressing note by the Imam and we continue with Terawikh prayer - 8 rakaat. The Imam was not feeling well but he brave himself with few Ramadhan pointers for us to ponder.

By 10, we did our Witir prayer and off home.
God is All Mighty - Makcik Janna was a bit tired and suddenly another Makcik neighbour offered a car ride home. We are blessed.

If tomorrow the weather is good, we will walk again.
If Makcik Janna is not feeling well, I will drive to mosque.

Merdeka Biscuits

Frankly, it was suppose to be Semprit biscuit, but somehow I felt the dough was tasteless.You are suppose to use Semprit cutter to make it but I thought a different design would make it interesting to eat. So we roll the dough thin and find some biscuit cutter. There were so many designs and we choose a simple one.
My kids love to stamp biscuit cutter on the dough. It is like a race, who can stamp faster! But because the dough is rather wet, they gave up and watch cartoon. I choose a corn-like cutter and quickly finish the dough.

But during trial baking (we tested 2 first), it still taste blunt. My girl had a great idea to sprinkle coloured rice to make it enticing. True enough, it taste nice too.


Since it is the eve of Merdeka and the biscuits are colourful like fireworks, we call it Merdeka biscuits - cool ya !

Cornflakes Biscuits



This is a quick biscuits to make and a quick one to finish !

All you need is cornflakes and some honey. Mix them well and pour into the papercups.






My kids love to help in the kitchen. First they loosen some papercups. Then once the mixture is ready, eagerly they put the cornflakes into the papercups. The papercups are arranged in few rows. Next I noticed they start eating cornflakes that fell out of the papercups.


Soon, some of the arranged papercups are empty. They spoon the cornflakes direct into their mouths ! hahaha




I managed to store some in air-tight container. Tomorrow or day after, Im sure my kids will ask for more cornflakes.






Kids, they are so adorable !

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Leadership Training - inhouse

I had a 2 day Leadership Training, which ended today.

It is an in-house training done at Sri Damasara. The focus is coaching YOU as a leader. Once your master the skill, next will be coaching you to MANAGE OTHERS.

There are 15 of us. We start with UNDERSTANDING LEADERSHIP, qualities a leader must have, what kind of person are you, MBTI test and some ROLE play.

I love ROLE play, it let's you to practise what you learn and experience the stress/fun being a leader.

KUDOS to 2 managers that block their time to coach us on leadership !

Suji Biscuits



Suji biscuits are easy to bake - I only make simple, nice biscuits ! hehe


After mixing the dough, we roll into small snow balls. My son helps to lay the cookies on the tray. We heat the cooker and bake for 10 mins.
They smells nice and taste yummy.






Mazola biscuit

Bad news - I injured my thumb!

Good news - my hubby and kids help to bake the cookies!

First, we choose easy designs for the cookies - simple flower with 4 petals. Then, I mix all the ingredients and fold into few tennis balls. My hubby helped to roll flat the dough, thin enough for the kids to stamp-in the designs.. We place the cut dough on the tray to bake.
While waiting, my hubby helped to cut some clean papers into circle shape. This will be used as paper layers when we pack the cookies.

When cookies are ready, we set to cool down before packing them. They look and taste delicious !

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Cookies again - version 3



One of the school activity that I plan for my kids are baking cookies again. It was raining heavily and since we could not go out, we bake in the morning.

This is my version 3 choc chip cookies. My kid bro was around and he loves the cookies. It took one hour to finish baking. While cleaning the utensils, I had a shocked. My little son sure knows where to keep his CARS.

After baking, the rain stops and it is time to go out for casual driving. We went to Tesco to buy more baking stuffs.


When we reached home, kids had few rounds of bicycle games before shower time. Dinner is almost ready and I was hunger for sweets.


I could not find the cookies I baked earlier, and know what ? My kid bro finished them ALL. Ops... to good to resist I guess...

Le Paris Hotel and Resort



It was a last minute holiday plan and we pick Le Paris Hotel out of convenience !
It is the nearest hotel in Port Dickson, which is a walking distance to town centre. The beach is facing Shell's oil shipping dock. So you can see boats and nice, clean white sandy beach.

All hotel rooms are sea-view. It has nice pool setting. It is good to swim in the morning but too hot in the evening as the hotel is facing the evening sun. Problem is the pool closes at 7 pm!



The room is an apartment setting with big hall, kitchen and 2 rooms (enought for 4 adults). The bathroom is not to my liking as yellowish water comes out from the bathroom water tap.
We had buffet breakfast which was so-so. Apparently they did not refill the coffee nor replenish the foods. So, do not be late for breakfast! I think the hotel is barely surviving - look at the vase - it is broken and sealed with loytape!
Due to so-so environment, we check-out early and drove towards Teluk Kemang to see the public beach. The beach is pack with human under the hot blazing sun. There are many charted buses as people go to beaches during school holidays. We stop by for ABC drink to cool down.

Half an hour later, we make a move home, in our cool car. Kids were fast asleep within minutes!

Verdict: If you want to stay in a hotel, make it a real hotel and not apartment like hotel. Rather dissapointed.





Thursday, August 14, 2008

VW Beatle Ride


My kids bro snaps some nice VW Beatle car. I love VW car !

Choc Chips and Me


I always loved Famous Amos Choc Chips with walnuts!


One night, after dinner, I decided to try a Choc Chip receipe and below are the results.
They are slightly burnt (Im an amatuer !) but taste delicious !

Impressive Renovation Works


Some people are so lucky ! We were invited for a house warming party, twice by our friend. Once was when they moved into their new home, second was recently when they just completed renovating their home.
It is a 3 storey high house, with stair-ways build in the middle. The renovation works was so impressive, it is exactly what you see illustrated in HomeDecor magazine.

Renovations made at dinning area, kitchen area, bathrooms and master bedroom. I was so amazed by the whole thing, I forgot to snap photos at the bathroom and master bedroom.



Believe me, it is 6 star hotel like setting!



Splashing Fun at Sunway Lagoon

We had another family day event - this is at Sunway Lagoon. We had the Waterpark for the wholeday ! It was easy to spot Mimos staffs as all were dressed in LIME-GREEN T-shirts !

Event starts at 8 in the morning, with warm greetings by the receptionist. We were given some toys for the kids and paper fan to cool ourselves. We started queue for breakfast - nasi lemak !

We found a shady bench and start "camping". Kids were so excited, they wanted to play with the beach sands. At 10 am, we queue again for morning break - mini burgers !

Soon, we found ourselves dipping in the water. There were activities like telematch, morning exercise, clowning - but we could not help ourselves drawn towards the water.

Kids loves the beach, they soak themselves till their fingers have wrinkles !













Lunch is served at 1 pm. We grab our lunches and move towards Kids park where more fun is expected ! Soon, the sun was too strong, we made move home by 3 pm, exhausted but exilirated.

Choice of Local Coffee

Remember that I wrote that there are many types of local coffee ? See below:


Thursday, August 7, 2008

Stomach pain again....

I had diarohea twice this week.

One on Sunday.
I had lunch at 3 pm, rice with sambal petai, which I ate alot because it tasted good or was I too hungry ? Anyway, we went to park at 7 pm at I vomitted! So embarrased. Rush home and big drama happens 10 at night. Manage to go office the next day, but had fever and was given MC to rest at home.

One on Thursday.
Big night market is on Wednesday night. We thought it would be nice to eat durian (since it is cheaper now) before fasting month starts. We bought 5 durians and all taste great! I was wary for my son as he might get fever for eating too much durian. My nightmare starts at 6 in the morning. Only managed to drive to clinic at 11 noon. Doc gave me antibiotic and MC to rest for the day.

This is back-to-back diarohea and a drama I do not want to repeat. So uncomfortable...

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Leadership mini session

My boss gets excited eversince he went for a Leadership external seminar.

We can see the change in him and with his high level of enthusiasm, he is organising a mini session of leadership training with us.

There are 6 of us from 3 different units. Each has the opportunity to do a presentation on leadership related materials. So far, one person has started and it went well.

Im the fourth person to present, and yet to decide on any material.

Since it was a good feedback, now HR is organising an internal Leadership training as part of the calendar activity. So we get to attend that as well, sometime this month.

Some good leadership characters : Be Candor, Passion, Assertive, Persistence

5-day stretch annual leave

Interestingly, our company has this policy: 5-day stretch annual leave.

It is compulsory for all staff. Why ?

1. Apparently some staffs are workaholic and has too many brought forward annual leave to clear

2. Educate staff to plan for long leave

3. Staff needs to take a break

4. Company still in operation when staff is not around (win-win situation)

And I have a problem.... what am I suppose to do with a 5-day break ?

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Family Day Fiesta - July 2008

It was the first time my company organise Family Day Fiesta from 3 pm to 10 at night !

We thought it was crazy, but it was a practical way to have both family day and annual dinner at the same time. It was also fun and easy for staff and family to celebrate quality time!

For a start, a great venue at Pudu Park, Shamelin, Cheras (near PGRM). It was a new park with public facilities (surau, toilets, cool-water, shades, jog area, bicycle ride, etc..) and security (high fences). We book the park for ourselves; for easy entry and security, we had a wrist band at all times.

The activities are FUN. There are fruit stalls (durians, mangoesteen, rambutan, duku transported by 6 tonnes of lorry), tea time stalls (fries, curry puffs, cakes), drink stalls (plain and coloured water), registration booth (goody bags), huge canopy (big fans, water sprinkler, water balloon sprinkler), deejay booth (nice music, good jokes), covered main stage (big fans, water balloon sprinkler), inflatable big toys (for kids to jump, climb, slide, crawl), petting zoo (baby kangaroo, rabbits, hamster, albino phytoon, pony ride), snack stalls (caramel popcorns, cotton candy, ice-creams, choc indulgence), creative stalls (colour me miniature, keychain, colouring contest), game stalls (mini bowl, darts, dry and wet games) and clowns!




It was a great afternoon for both family and kids. We were drenched with laughter and sweats. By 5, the sun was easy on us and all sets to cool down by the dinner tables set for the night. It is time for Lucky draw announcements (done in stages till 10 at night).

Buffet dinner starts at 7 pm (nasi beriyani, satay, nasi lemak, roti canai, kuey thiaw, McDonald kids meal), followed by entertainments (jokes, performance by dance group, special artist Dayang Nur Faizah).










It was made Fun and Easy for those who attended. Great job for the organising committee. Hope to have it again next year !