Moms Do Not Mince Words

8 May

Just when you think life is good with all these gastronomic adventures, long weekends for painting and living a sedentary lifestyle due to a sports injury, reality kicks in.

A few days ago, Mom commented casually that my behind is looking, err… wider than usual. While she did not specifically said that I was fat, she merely said that part of the anatomy was looking wider than normal, it was enough. Ouch and cringe.

Normally when such a comment is made by hubby, wrath will incur followed by a lengthy silent treatment. But one just cannot do the same with mothers who do not mince words. Reality kicks in.

Guess I better do something about this ‘wider than usual’ situation if I cannot play golf yet to burn all those calories gained.

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Memory Fail

5 May

I have been sharing my painting efforts on Facebook and some of my friends on that platform have been following the progress. Out of the blue, my American housemate from my college days mentioned that she still has a piece of my work hanging on her wall!

Initially she shared the picture on my wall and I complimented her that the picture was pretty and asked was it her effort? To my surprise, she wrote that I painted it for her in college. Oh my goodness.

Memory fail here because I don’t recall. This must be the pre-Monet days where I still used the brush because the strokes on the painting didn’t look like a palette knife effort.

And what’s even more amazing was that apparently I did another piece of a cabin subject and sold it to the owner of the cabin! Super memory fail here again.

How can I have forgotten such significant moments?

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New Colors, New Paintings

4 May

For two weeks in a row, we had two three-day weekends. From the work perspective, it’s not good because the work week has been shortened to four days but from the personal perspective, it’s really nice.

The weekend before, we drove up to Taiping and had a really waist-expanding gastronomic trip. But this week, we stayed put which turned out to be a really good thing too.

I bought new colors, 10 tubes to be exact, got an easel as a birthday gift (from hubby, no golf-related stuff this year) and more canvases.

The will to paint was strong and I whipped up three pieces on Sunday, doing another two pieces of the Penang Bridge in two different sizes and started a new subject matter: Uluwatu sunset. And on Monday, we were just chilling at home, I painted another Uluwatu sunset, this time fine-tuned the blending and another experimental color blend piece.

Such bliss.

   
   

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This is Pablo!

2 May

It wasn’t planned but we were at the pet shop after dinner last night and every creature at the store were oh-so-cute! M2 was ooh-ing and aah-ing at the baby rabbits, colored prawns, crabs, toads and stingrays while I was equally mesmerized by the hamsters and chinchilla.

I saw the two aquariums filled with crayfishes and debated why not again. Having pet water sure isn’t that engaging. Although I contemplated the African Patriot crabs (their expressions were hilarious and appealing), we had to be practical. Our little aquarium is not big enough to have the water and ‘land’ separation for the crab. So a crayfish it shall be.

Meet Pablo Sanchez Rodriguez, a rather intriguing name for our new red crayfish. Maybe with a macho and longer name, Pablo will have a better and longer life that our previous crayfishes.

  

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Shoe Queen in the Making

1 May

Sometimes when you think the child is different or even difficult, they are actually a reflection of one’s self.

I’ve come to realize that M2 is a reflection of me. A mini me. A little shoe queen in the making, she has just as many shoes to rival my tally. That’s scary when you think that she is only 16.

Recently, she convinced us to order online a pair of shoes for her! So the mini is better than me, buying shoes online that is. But we did go to the physical store to try the shoes for size before we agreed as the savings was quite substantial with the online purchase.

The shoes arrived last Friday and she was in shoe heaven. Pretty cute pair of sneakers I must say.

So shiny!

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From Near and Far

28 Apr

It’s always nice to have a warm fuzzy feeling when receiving birthday greetings from family and friends, even strangers from near and far.

The first few birthday wishes came from the games I play (no, it’s not from the Candy Crush team but rather Monster Busters), strangers in other words. But I thought it was sweet and thoughtful. Gifted with a week’s worth of free play and 10,000 play coins, I think these game developers are very connected to their loyal gamers. Thank you.

And of course on the actual day, phone calls, emails, wishes on Facebook, WhatsApp and SMS/Messenger came from friends, family members as well as my bank, my credit cards, my loyalty program cards and even the local area politician, strangers in other words!

The world has become smaller—from the US, Bermuda and London to Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur—with the use of social media and technology to connect us on a daily basis and on special occasions. 

I’d like to thank everyone for your thoughtfulness and well wishes. Made the day more meaningful. To a better year ahead!

  

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Of SuperPig and SuperOwl

27 Apr

Lately I have this urge to create – draw, paint, carve or anything, just something to do to keep busy. There’s so much creative energy in me waiting to be unleashed. Must be the result of too much rest due to the tennis elbow.

Last week my golf buddies treated me to an early birthday lunch at Naughty Nuri’s and the restaurant gifted me with a souvenir, a wood carving of a piggy superhero. In fact, we were such good guests, the staff gave every one of us a figurine each! How nice.

This morning I looked at SuperPig with fond memories of last week’s good time with the ladies and made me wonder if I can carve the same. Hmm…

My last foray into carving owls stalled because the activity made the dining area messy. But with all this energy, maybe I should give this carving business another go. Perhaps a replica of the Naughty Nuri mascot or an owl with a cape? SuperOwl? Who knows?

There should be some spare balsa wood lying around and since I have to rest from golf, I will attempt this on top of the paintings, which are still ongoing with two canvases in queue.

  

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Destination: Taiping, Part 2

25 Apr

Sleep wasn’t the most comfortable but I guess it wasn’t critical when thoughts of what we can eat made up for it. Honestly, it was the pillow and somehow, my little travel pillow didn’t help this time. Sigh…

The day started off early with a trip to the Casual Market for breakfast. Located in the middle of the town, this food court had plenty to offer. A friend highly recommended Stall 64 for the Curry Laksa but it was closed! Oh… disappointment kicked in.

But fret not, there were plenty of other choices and we had our fill. And the day was still young, so we headed back to Taiping Lake Gardens as the skies were clear and perfect to admire the trees.

It was indeed very pretty, all the trees leaning towards the water. The reflection and the surrounding was so peaceful and calming. We sat by the lake just to breathe in the fresh air and absorbed some Vitamin D (the sun).

Then we headed to Kuala Sepetang to visit the Charcoal Factory. It was very enlightening to learn how charcoal are made. After that visit, we went across the road and explored the mangrove forest to pass time so that we can have lunch at Lemon Tree Restaurant nearby (in Matang) for the recommended seafood porridge. Like last night’s dinner, the porridge was very good, and cheap!

Sated to the brim (burp), it was time to leave Matang and Taiping now filled with memories of cheap eats and wonderful discoveries. The drive back was pleasant enough and we decided to detour to Ipoh for coffee! After all, this was a gastronomic journey, why not cap it with some good coffee.

Now you see why the need for stretchy pants?

Closed! Not our luck this time.


But we had all these other options!

  

Feels like entering a long tunnel. Branches are so unique!




  
  

Mr Chuah has quite an impressive charcoal factory!


Mangrove wood are stripped of the bark, sun-dried first and then into the kiln they go


The backyard for all the wood supplies to reach the clusters of factories at this place

  

This kiln has been sealed to further smoke the 1,500 pieces of mangrove wood inside. 


This fella was getting some hot charcoal to actually bake some potatoes!

  

This kiln has yet to be sealed. Smoke coming out is actually the moisture from the wood. Foreground rubber wood are used for burning to smoke the mangrove wood


  

Laden with crab, prawns, fish, scallops and fishballs, best seafood porridge we had!


Iced coffee, iced milk coffee and toast before we head home!

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Destination: Taiping

24 Apr

You know you’re courting fatness when you go on a foodie road trip and stretchy pants are intentionally packed along. All those food that will be eaten will surely go to the waist and the stretchy pants will accommodate this indulgence!

Well, with the tennis elbow limiting my exercise, an outstation trip this time is not a golf outing so a food outing is the next best thing. It’s an unexpected public holiday today and we made the most of long three-day weekend with Mom and M2 for the short getaway.

The destination: Taiping this time instead of Penang or Ipoh, our usual go-to places. The little town has a lot of cheap and delicious eats worthy to rival the two other famed destinations.

The drive on Saturday morning wasn’t too bad without the holiday-makers although there were some stretches that were slow and congested. When we finally arrived at Taiping, we looked for a place to eat for it was way past the usual lunchtime.

The Char Kueh Teow we had was good, at a ridiculously cheap price that you simply cannot find in KL – Four Ringgit. Even the Chicken Rice was Four Ringgit, and both had sizeable portions, not less at this price. Food prices in KL has soared so much recently and to find something good at this price was just amazing.

The rain was a spoiler especially when we wanted to see the famed trees at Taiping Lake Gardens. And came down even harder when we made our way to Matang for dinner but we took things in stride. No rush, no hurry, no stress, just go with the flow of the situation.

Our dinner was so so cheap. I seriously think if we ate the same things back in KL, it would cost twice the amount! The portions were big and the taste… Oh so good.

Towards the end of the evening, the sporadic rainfall prevented us from coming out of the car. So we just drove around the town, which had a similar feel to Ipoh. Hubby and I agreed that the town is worthy of a revisit plus a golf game thrown in at Taiping Golf Resort.

We called it an early night as the next day, we had a more comprehensive food trail to do and sights to take in.

   
 
  
   

A fallen raintree that was equally appealing

  

Dinner was so good

 

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Expectation vs Reality

21 Apr

I recently saw this idea of a bird shower on boredpanda.com and it seemed like a brilliant one. So naturally, I cannot resist anything that looks brilliant so I replicated it! I made a bird shower from a plastic bottle and hung it in the garden. But something doesn’t seem to gel. Expectation versus reality kicked in.

How do I control the water to have a constant flow like in the video? I can’t be standing in the garden and holding a hose to supply the water, can I now? Even if I was discreet, the birds that have been coming to eat all those bird seeds we put out don’t seem interested to have a bath. Can’t be putting a sign to direct them either, birds don’t read…

Or is this bird shower attraction only for a pet bird? Hmm… I will leave the home-made effort out for a bit longer and monitor. Only time can tell…

  

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