CHINESE NEW YEAR FLOWER ARRANGEMENT

Chinese New Year is just around the corner. Most Chinese are busy preparing for the brand new year. It would be a good idea to have a lively piece of flower arrangement to enchance and welcome the good chi into the home for the coming year.

I made this piece of Chinese New Year flower arrangement for my sister in law, Doris, to be placed at her parents' home. She provided me with the flower stand and three branches of the "Taw Hua" from previous year and I added on the rest. The height of the arrangement is about 5 ft tall. Hope her parents would like it.

THINGS I LOVE & HATE

I got tagged by Good things in life:

1) I love to eat: salad with all kinds of vegetables!
2) I hate to eat: oily food.

1) I love to go on: being healthy, happy and rich;)
2) I hate to go on: being sick, sad and not enough money in the pocket all the time:(

1) I love it when: all of us are free from pain and suffering, peace and hormony, without having to worry about money;
2) I hate it when: someone twisted the situation around and never admit their mistakes:Q

1) I love to see: the jackpot number that I bought came out first prize, yahoooo...
2) I hate to see: scary stuff

1) I love to hear: my father is well and able to walk again;
2) I hate to hear: same as aunty J, ie. horrible news especially about missing and abused children. GOD Please do something to stop all these cruelty acts.

ISABELLA'S BIRTHDAY

Another birthday celebration for the month of January. Isabella turned 4 years old on Sunday. Her birthday was celebrated at her apartment's club house where there are swimming pools for the kids as well as the adults. The birthday girl, Ish, Joshua, Kathleen and Edson are enjoying themselves in the pool when we arrived around 5pm. We were a bit late bacause when we were on the way, Pearl vomitted in the car and we have to turned back home to clean the car, Pearl and myself up before the vomit turn unpleasant.

Before arriving we make a deal with Crystal and Pearl that they have to take their food before they are allowed to dip in the swimming pool and they obeyed. We had Sphagetti, barbeque fish, chicken wings, sausages, beef soup, to go with mee and rice for the party.

Before dark all are ready to come out from the pool except Crystal. If not for the cake cutting, she would prefer to dip a little longer.

JOSHUA'S 5TH BIRTHDAY PARTY

Joshua turned 5 years old last weekend and celebrated his birthday at the New Emperor Restaurant. Like usual, his little aunties Crystal and Pearl were very much looking forward to the party. That evening, they were running around at the party hall with Joshua and Isabella all the time, only managed to get them seated for a while to have their dinner and off they go again. The girls enjoyed the party very much and so excited to receive goodies bags filled with titbits and party toys given by Jenny & James.

Joshua with his Ultra Man birthday cake and cousins. Pearl is busy eating jelly from the goodies bag.

COFFEE NEWS

On my way out from McDonald at Kompleks Karamunsing the other day, I picked up a free copy of the COFFEE NEWS. I only got the chance to read it after two days being in my bag. It is a weekly publication with some interesting stories that has been in circulation for 7 months now. There are columns for advertising all sort of businesses. The advertisement fees are about RM260.00 per month with 1000 copies in circulation per week. A copy can be obtained from various outlets where coffee can be found, like Coffee Bean, KFC, Brass Monkey and many more..

Beautiful Purple Roses

I bought some beautiful purple roses the other day to make flower arrangements for my flyer. They are fully bloomed after 3-4 days and smell really really nice...I love the fragrance of the roses that fill the room when I enter, it is so refreshing...

a beautiful purple rose

HOME COOKED FISH BALL, WANTON AND SPINACH SOUP

Mum gave me some fish balls, wantons and a simple instruction for me to cook a soup for my dinner yesterday (Mum knows very well that this daughter of hers is not good at cooking and that her grand daughters are not getting good meals most of the time.... :( ..ps.. Mum, don't worry, I am trying my best. :>). Within 15 minutes, the soup is done, it turned out to be delicious and nutritious too. Crystal ended up ate two bowls of rice with the soup of course. I thought it would be nice for me to share my home cooked soup with my fellow friends here.

Delicious Fish Ball, Wanton & Spinach soup

Ingredients: (serve 4)
a) 2 Tb spoons cooking oil
b) Some garlic & red onions (chopped)
c) 4 cups of water (or as desired)
d) Salt and chicken granule
e) 10 Fish Balls (halves)
f) 16 Wanton wrappers
g) Seasoned minced pork
h) Spinach

To make Wantons: Place 1 tea spoon of (g) onto (f); fold and gently twist the wanton wrapper, it will stick by itself. Repeat process till all wanton wrappers are wrapped up.

To cook the soup : Heat (a); fry (b) till fragrance, pour in (c) and add (d) to taste; Bring to boil and put in the ready made Wantons and (e); bring to boil and add in spinach, off fire when the soup is boiled. Serve with rice, mee or meehoon..

New Year’s Eve and Birthday Party

Every New year’s eve, we gather around Tim & Jul’s house to welcome the New Year and at the same time the kids would collect their Christmas presents from Uncle Tim & Aunty Jul, Jason & Joyce, and Bryan & Iza, and this year we celebrated Farah’s 4th birthday to make the occasion merrier.....

Farah, her birthday cake & her gang, oppss...didn't realise Edson is out of the picture..

A lovely doll that Crystal and Pearl gave to their niece, Farah, as birthday present. ;))

ONLINE AUCTION SITE

Feel like shopping even after the shopping complexes are closed?? Why not?? I do that every now and then at the comfort of my home and I can forget about chasing after the kids in the complexes. I like the idea of "window shopping" at my computer screen for items put up for auction at http://www.ebay.com. I could search through hundreds even thousands of items from around the world, items like handphones, clothings, jewelries, antiques, toys and many more... sometimes I could find stuff at real good bargain too.

I found out this auction site about a year ago and occasionally I bid for stuff that I like and of course at good bargain. To be able to transact at ebay, one must register first and be subjected to the rules and regulations. Through my experience at ebay, before bidding for an item, it is advisable to read through the product's descriptions, seller's payment instruction, and most importantly the cost of postages and the currency conversion (if you are bidding for items listed by seller in other countries) to make sure exactly how much you are going to pay for the item that you are bidding for.

Want to turn unwanted stuff at home into cash? As an registered ebayer you could also list your items for sale on ebay. Look around your house you will definitely find some stuff sitting idle someway in your home. Why not list them in ebay for sale? Who knows you could earn some extra by selling at ebay!!