My Xmas Wishlist

• Cute Cookie Cutter, -   ginger bread man  -
Ginger bread man recipes from 101cookbooks

• Card reader

• handmade bag

• Flickr membership

• a day off without kids and work

Homeschooling

This is Xuan who is turning 3 next year on 15th Jan. He is not a classroom type of boy. He enjoys working out and is efficient with his big motor skills. He can take out his own clothes and pants b4 turning 3. I ve been thinking to homeschool him. Can save money and I will have new materials to blog about.

Xuan has been learning abc, and phonics online with his elder brother. Recently he has learnt how to navigate the page by himself using my track pad. He pays attention to the phonics sound.

I have been doing research on useful materials online. Some fruitful results today.

Mental Arithmetics & Abacus - I thought myself abacus here today.

How to fold paper star - Youtube demo

How to fold paper plane - you tube demo

Moore homeschool Formula  - 

1) Study from a few minutes to several hours a day, depending on the child's maturity. 
2) Manual work at least as much as study. 
3) Home and/or community service an hour or so a day.

In fact I tried homeschool my eldest son - Shanyang a little. He was a fast learner. He sorted out all his abc and counting b4 turning 4. Now that he is Da Ai Educare, he spends the whole year learning these 2 modules.

things i made recently

Atta raisin scones with red dates tea.
Atta mixed fruit and nut steam bun.

Yoga Bread

I love baking bread. I love kneading them more. Sometimes I practise taichi bread, sometimes shaolin kongfu bread. Today, i did a yoga bread.

It was meditative. I watched every stroke and breath mindfully.

The result was pleasant. It was a great work out, all sweat out. I felt blissful.

Oven Thermometer & Canon 300D = Orange Cake

The above 2 things make so much difference in the results. Right tools help.

This recipe is from "PERFECT PICNICS" Published by Hermes House. I got it from Big book Shop in Atria for RM1.

Moist Orange & Almond Cake.

1 large orange

3 eggs

225g/ 1 cup caster sugar

5ml/1tsp baking powder

225g/2cups ground almonds

25g/ 1/4 cup plain flour

icing sugar for dusting

1.

pierce orange with a skewer. put it in a saucepan and pour over water to cover completely. Bring to the boil, lower the hear, covr and simmer for 1 hr or till the skin is very soft. drain then cool.

2.

preheat oven to 180 c. Grease a 20 cm/ 8 in, round cake tin and line it with non- stick baking parchment. blend the orange and mix all ingredients together. Bake for 1 hour.

note: the sides and the top burn fast. but it doesn't affect the texture inside. a bit like baking bread. you can trim the burnt bit off.

Brewing Garbage

2nd Brew: Mixed Citrus Fruit Flavour 

After doing so much of baking and cooking... Now i can even make something to use! I feel really excited about it. Garbage enzyme is such an in thing in every household now. Most housewife u ask, chances are they too have a tub or 2 of this backyard science in their kitchen.

Started making my first bottle with left over pineapple skins after making some pineapple jam. It leaves me absolutely Zero garbage. 2 pineapples skins and cuts gives me about 1kg garbage to work with. add about 300g of dark sugar and 3000g of water. mix them all up. Done.

Fits nicely in a big cny plastic cookie jar.

Today, i made one more round of citrus based mixed fruit flavour consist of pamelo, orange, lemon, apple, pear, dragon fruits skins. Fruits we consumed over the week, stored in the fridge b4 i have enough to start doing. Can't wait to collect my harvest in 3 months time!

Great thing to do after your juicing, jamming, baking session where u have used big amount of fruits n vege. Or simply buy over the garbage from a cut fruit n juice stall.

And what can u do with the enzyme? I read it can be used for cleaning, removing odor of cigarette, kitchen, bathroom, window pane, washing your car outside and flows to the garden as fertilizer. Antiseptic floor mopping,  air con cleaning, drives away flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches, rats... Basically cleans your whole house, cars, utensils, you and your pets. Fertilizes. Total magical solutions! From something we would usually throw away! Save so much money from buying different chemicals to serve those purposes.

I really can't wait for the harvest. 

my Humble First Brew : Pineapple Flavor after a week. Smelling good.

I love Bread.

Bread can look so good. And you don't need to do much. shape it any way u like, stick anything on the surface, emboss it, deboss it. score it. spot varnish. (all these printing terms i am borrowing... such effects can be achieved effortlessly.) These are the loaves from my little oven. These days, I experiment on garbage enzyme, growing alfafa... making bread... trading cloth diapers... I am mutating into a real incredible greenHoihoi.

Multi Grain Rye Bread (Deco Inspired by HIESTAND french village bread)

Latest experiment WO recipe : Honey Banana Walnut Pandan Rye Bread (Improvised from the previous rye bread recipe)

Image maker device 2

Here are the images take by my new hp s302. pretty good image quality given adequate lighting!

- Quick Banana bread I baked yesterday. yummy simple recipe from elise. Try it out!

- Yummy wonton char siew mee breakfast from Sunway Mas today. check out the wonton mee, it's in an unusual flat shape they made themselves.

- a warm festive greetings i got from a fairy god mother.

Life is good...

image maker device 1

I usually cannot find my camera when i need it. mostly the most reliable image maker i have is the isight. coz it is always there with the laptop. here are some isight shots with my lovely birthday presents from janice!

homemade orgnaic gourmet wholemeal bread

Shanyang and hubby are my fans. Such hard densed bread shanyang can eat 2 big pieces with home made cinnamom butter and pineapple jam. 

He asked, " did you made this? I want to eat!  2 pieces pls." 

It's filling and tasty, though very dense n hard. not to everyone's taste bud for sure! wahahhaha.

i see lights finally!

As a photographer at heart, i love lights.
look at this piece, so grunge. by my ktj school mate - farah azizan.

this is the complete exhibit by farah.
 we bought the lights on the right - tin kosong by carolyn lau.


wai leong also bought this one.

Beautiful creation. worth checking it out.  16 April to 3 May at The Annexe Gallery 

basics

I have been very sick. Fever twice, practically disable me and force me to rest. Then now teeth, gums ache. half of my face is swollen. I look just like my son who keeps storing food in his mouth during feeding. I can't eat. the pain follows every moment. it's a bit like early labour pain. little bit here n there, the more you think about it, the more it is there. scream if you want to, but that is just gonna make it worse. Gosh! world's greatest physical sufferings is not over for me yet. pain pain pain... till you want to curl your feet.

I know I have been sad and not having much positive thoughts. thus i fell sick. suddenly, not knowingly.  Sickness taught and reminded me. when you are sick. you are torn down to the very basic. all you want to beg for is perhaps very simple thing... to breath ... and to be able to eat. so in fact... life is simple. those are the few things to stay alive. why do I go all complicated and confuse myself. laugh more, cheer more and do less that is really something i always forget.

or perhaps when I have more time, take a moment to cherish a healthy body. Be grateful for one. how long i haven't thank my body for being health. So I will take care of it. don't simply over eat, over THINK, over do to hurt it. 

some times i can't help thinking... what did i do to deserve this? ( this is a terrible question, that will bring u no where) It's so painful why don't I just pop in some pain killers and antibiotics? Coz i am a fan of slow medicine, slow food, self healing. I believe my body can heal by it self. What is the lesson lie inside for me this time? what it is trying to tell me?

I am getting there... today the pain n swell has gone down abit. I am able to smile. I hope when i wake up again tomorrow i will be well. and be able to serve and perform my duty.

May everyone be well and happy. May I be well and happy.

I will be very grateful if i recover. I will be happy. I will not take my body for granted.

the "two" curse

I have been having difficulties falling asleep, though I am much lacking of it due to midnight baby care. Too much thoughts... on wanting to become a super domestic goddess with 2 todds and a 0 month.

so being able to fall asleep to me now is like a dream come true, striking lottery. 

Tonight managed to sooth xYuan to sleep. then i fell asleep nicely out of fatigue. Then i was woke up by my "incredible 2 year old" Xuan ( crying frantically, throwing tandrum on me ) . my 2nd son, Xuan has been cranky and sick since the birth of his sister. I was annoyed n find it unacceptable that it was Xuan who woke me instead of the baby. I hit him.

I am slowly losing my patience on him. Constantly demanding attention and love from me. We are aware of the vulnerable 2nd child syndrome. sometimes parents can be just draining out.

Sorry, Xuan.

mei mei 2009

welcome to the family - mei mei - Yau Xin Yuan. 姚馨元