rediscover mindful activity

Last month we had a long weekend holiday, while others are doing local or overseas travel, we were travelling within our home back to our heart and mind. We started with a jigsaw which i brought online ..

We started our journey on Saturday, 1st day of the holiday

On the 2nd day of holiday, we almost reach our destination

Finally, on day 3 we reached our destination and decided to frame up this memory :)

why i like pandan leaves?

Pandan leaves is one of my favourite plant .. not only it gives a fresh green visual and aroma, it adds omph to our favourite foods...

                                        

Versatile & all-rounder pandan

Pandan rose.. the best air freshener for home

Pandan leaves can be kuih tako containers too =)

and last but not least, it just make kuih tako tastier

cool fun stuffs created

My youngest may not be good in her studies, however she has her way of creating new fun stuffs such as this writing / drawing board. Pardon her wrong spelling but I think this is cool 

 

Chawan mushi in a cawan

To make life more fun and interesting, I make it a point to try out new breakfast recipe for every week. So in a year time, i would have at least try out preparing plus minus 40 different varieties of breakfast.

This one is one of my favourite and nutritious .... I call it chawan mushi in a cawan 

Because I can't fit 4 bowls into the steamer tray, i decided to use cup (cawan) instead. And because I don't have spring onion at that point of time, I just added some moringa leaves pluck from my kitchen window. What makes me happy was my children like this localised & improvised 'cawan mushi' ... and it's all that matter.

Mushi mushi ... cawan mushi 

 

Finish reading a book for 2022

Today I finish reading a book which I didn't managed to finish reading it last year. Last year for goodreads.com reading challenge, I set myself a target to read 25 books and failed miserably at 5/25 books. So this year I lower my expectation and just set up a challenge of 12 books. January had passed and I just finished 1 book (in the mid of February!)

Hopefully I can rekindle my love for reading and spend more time reading (rather than sleeping and exploring ways to make more money..haha)

Reading calms me down but I could hardly find time to read nowadays ..admists the buzz of life. Still I'm trying to squeeze some time (ie. toilet time) to read. (Please don't look at me like that..haha.. I'm just optimising my time spent in the bathroom) 

Trying new recipe for someone with nil cooking skill

I feel I'm more open to try new things nowadays especially when it comes to food. Every weekend, I'm thinking of introducing new foods or drinks to my family (whether they like it will be a topic for another day but so far so ok la...lucky they have taste bud similar to mine..lol)

1. Tried lemon mint lemongrass sour plum (shuen mui) soda ... failed in look as the drink turned out white instead of transparent but luckily the taste was refreshing.

2. Tried garlic herbed potato wedges (oven baked) again doesn't really look inviting, luckily the taste was acceptable and children love it. (ps. who doesn't love potato wedges when you can't have french fries ;p) 

3. I know i know this doesn't look good but this is the one i like best. Dip oyster mushroom into flour+corn flour+salt+pepper batter and fried them. The feedback I got was my fire was not big enough and the oil not hot enough thus it's not crispy. Will try again next round 

4. Tried basil tomato omelette ... like the combination and makes a healthy breakfast. 

I'm feeling hungry as I'm writing this ... some of my food wishlist 

chawan mushi

indian coconut candy

otak otak 

mieng kam

egg kurma

bibimbap (which I tried and failed earlier) 

tan cha tong shui (which last time the ah pak tong sui sell in yulek last time ... i really miss this one)

Would like to say thank you to youtube and to those who willingly share their recipes and cooking videos online ... mean a lot to someone with nil cooking skill :)

Moringa seaweed soup

I'm thankful I managed to grow moringa tree at my backyard (near my kitchen window) and didn't want to waste the nutritious moringa leaves which greet us every morning.

Cut some of the leaves and mix it into our breakfast seaweed soup. I'm happy children like the new ingredient addition. 

Benefits of moringa leaves (source : https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/6-benefits-of-moringa-oleifera)

Moringa leaves are an excellent source of many vitamins and minerals such as protein, vitamin B6, vitamin C, Iron, Riboflavin (B2), vitamin A, Magnesium. It is rich in antioxidant, can lower blood sugar level, reduce inflammation, lower cholesterol and protect against arsenic toxicity

5D art is calming and relaxing

 

Something which I'm into lately and helps to calm my mind .. 5D art. How it works? the self adhesive sheet is covered with many numbers and symbols and we are supposed to stick the beads following the numbers and symbols.

When more and more beads are sticked to the sheet, the beautiful picture will appear :) above is the koi fishes painting which we made for my father for chinese new year :) 

creating something meaningful

Last weekend, I threw an idea out to my eldest ... what if we create a video to teach young children (and ourselves) about collective nouns? In case some of us forget about what's collective nouns ... it's like English penjodoh bilangan (ie. a school of dolphins)

And I started asking questions like :

• What program can we use to create video?
• How should our story board be?
• Who's going to read and how can we record our sound?
• What can we do to get started?
• Where can we upload our video so children can learn? 

So my eldest started exploring and I shared with him one of my goals of having an educational channel where children can learn the simple and relaxing way.

And I got him onboard and even suggested perhaps we can upload a video a week / a fortnight for a start. We spend Saturday afternoon and night completing the 1 minute+ video with him doing most of the job while I cheer him on. He created a new user account and just like that we uploaded our 1st video on collective nouns for animals. 

And we brainstorm with more ideas on the following video contents ranging from collective nouns for fruits and things, animal gender names, idioms, proverb, synonyms, antonyms,vocabulary etc. Please do let us know if there are any topics you would like us to explore.

Nothing great nothing fancy about the video. It was simple & minimal but I'm feeling happy we got started and I'm thankful my children buy into the idea of sharing what we know and learn together. And putting what we know to good use and at the same time pick up a skill or two in the process. 

If you would like to have a look at what came out from that eventful 15 Jan 2022, Saturday effort, please click here : https://youtu.be/k2mF6kTSGxY

last 2 days of year 2021

My child would like to try knitting and crocheting. I'm more than happy to encourage and fuel her passion. Hobbies like this calm and relax the mind, train patience and reduce 3C usage. What do I do? Immediate hit the steel while it's still hot... got online and brought some yarn and knitting & crochet needles (and conveniently made it her Christmas present). Thankfully we have youtube nowadays, everything can be learnt via video cause I'm half past six when it comes to knitting and nil when it comes to crocheting. I'm thankful she's learning and experimenting. These skills are priceless (to me at least)

As usual, December is filled with holidays and family time. One of the important festival in December beside Christmas is Winter Solstice. It represent the reunion of the family. So we made some riceball with gula melaka fillings (pardon the uneven sizes) and pandan ginger soup. Colours come from nature ... butterfly pea flower for blue, pandan for green & beet root for red. 

 

As I was on leave, decided to bring children around neighbourhood to discover the gems in our neighbourhood. Our taman got a lot of creative nature lovers who never fail to amaze us and MCO has brought out all these good qualities in people. We have so many people planting plants and taking up planting as hobby. Not only that, it comes with recycling effort as well where plastic containers are made into beautiful containers to hold plants or decorate gardens. I'm thankful that everyone is putting in effort to make this earth a better place.

Koreans make seaweed soup for birthdays. I bought some seaweeds on impulse last week (because I crave seaweed soup) but I forgot to buy tauhu (which usually goes together in seaweed soup). So, I you-tubed and found some new variations ... seaweed tomato fishball soup so I gave it a try and voila, my children love it with lots of coriander toppings and we finished the whole pot for breakfast. Simple and nutritious... something to add on breakfast and soup list. 

There's a place in my home kitchen where new lives begin... my precious sprouting station. This is the place where seeds or plants are sprouted and grow. For this batch, we have lemongrass, nangka seed, coriander & ciku seeds.

Eggshells are good for plants as it contain calcium and other minerals to replenish the minerals in the soil. They help to naturally deter snails from eating the plant leaves. Dear made the stairs for easy access to our backyard and got his palm hurt. Thank you dear for supporting me doing what I love to do. 

 

2021 last quarter is just 1 day away, what do you plan to do?

One more day and we are entering the last quarter of year 2021. 

For the last quarter, I would want to germinate and grow my money like my plants. Wish me luck as I would like have a breakthrough this year and continue next year.

Germinating lucky bamboo plant

Growing coconut tree

Germinating moringa tree

Germinating mulberry

Germinating air plants

every inch count ... little planter box got extended

Ask any avid planters, i think they will tell you when it comes to planting...every inch count..haha. Maybe I'm greedy but it seem like there's so many plants I want to grow but I don't have enough space to plant them. That's when I start cramming them into whatever space I have and sometimes invade common public area. 

Last week I extended the planter box behind my house. From 2 window panel wide to double of the length. Now I got more greens giving fresh air and as barriers to passing vehicles from coming too near our kitchen windows. 

Next project is to deepen the soil as currently the soil is only 1 brick-high.

Initial planter box

Extended planter box

Extended planter box

Happy Malaysia Day, Malaysia :)

Rasam

 

Bubur chacha

snow fungus lily bulb lotus seed tong sui

pandan lemongrass jelly

I don't know how to cook and honestly I learn cooking via youtube. But since mco started last year, my interest to cook grew. I still can't cook but because of my craving for some comfort food (and because they are not readily available), it forced me to learn how to make those foods. 

In a way, I'm thankful this pandemic has made me have more interest in cooking. Due to more time spent at home, I'm thankful to my neighbour who shared with me good food and I'm inspired by her authentic indian dishes. I suddenly realised we are so lucky to be living in Malaysia cause we get variety of different races foods. What happened was my neighbour shared her indian style dishes & recipe while I share my chinese nourishing soup & tong sui (dare not share my chinese  cooking cause belum boleh pakai). It's great because we get the best of both world...ie. the ayurvedic and TCM benefits.

In conjunction with Malaysia day, I would like to gently remind myself that although our country is not perfect but still it's our home and kita anak-anak Malaysia are awesome. 

Unity in diversity through adversity ... Happy Malaysia Day, Malaysia :)

something to get me off the chair

 At times, my perseverance can be less than desired especially when it comes to keeping myself active. I'm not sure how or where I discovered this app but it's a good one (for me at least), it offers us reward ie. discount vouchers which can be claimed when we reach a certain level (based on average steps per month). Discount vouchers covers quite a variety of service providers ie. grocery stores, pharmacy and organic chain, health spa, health products..etc

Needless to say, the more average steps you have for the month, the better and more worthwhile the rewards.

And to motivate us, there are various challenges (both FOC and some with minimal charges) where you can walk/run at your own pace and yet still take part for greater cause or donation contribution. They also offer e-medal and e-cert and those paid challenges comes with goodies bag and T-shirt as well.

This app allow me to kill many birds with 1 stone ... a good concept. Most importantly it managed to get my butt off the chair. So far I've consistently clocking in steps daily for 2 months. 

The best part, this app managed to keep me moving and keep pushing me to wake up early to go collect steps. 

Let's hope it's not hangat hangat tahi ayam ... at least not for this time. 

Walk, keep walking because we never know where we'll reach one day

grow grow growing - even the beds have to grow together

When children grow, our beds have to grow together

From sleeping in the same room to sleeping in separate room.

From 3 tilam to 4 tilam

It means they are growing and I'm truly thankful 

Thank you happy dragon

I'm thankful to this happy dragon for igniting my youngest daughter curiosity and love for reading (or maybe browsing) the books. At least it got her started ..that's all that matter. I hope little happy dragon will continue to make reading a happy moment for my children and they continue to love reading. At least it's comforting to know that they are worth the money spent 

focus on the little wins everyday

 

I'm feeling very tired lately (tired as in physically tired and mentally tired). I'm learning to stay in the present focus on NOW. Focusing on whatever little wins I could gather each day. 

Keep feeling that time is running out and I have not done enough...but on another hand, I feel so tired and thinking when can I slow down (if not stop) and rest?

It is contradicting I know but that's exactly what I feel and probably this is the 'thing' that zap away all my energy.

For the past weeks, many things happen at home, to myself, to dear, to children and the challenges doesn't seem to end. I'm trying to take it down one at a time...still I'm working on it.

Sometimes I really wonder how others do it and do it so successfully (when I'm struggling). Is it really that different people really have different destiny...some have it easier and some have it harder? See, I start comparing again...this is another thing tiring me. 

Tomorrow is a new day..a new beginning bringing new hope. Tomorrow will be better and all I have to do ... is just to wake up alive and breathing... and the rest is really bonus already.

sleeping early and sleeping enough

I know it's important and essential to sleep early to preserve health both physically & mentally. Yet how come I find it difficult to execute and implement? 

Sleeping early is making me feel I've not done enough. Making me feel that I have not enough time to pursue my passion or to do things I want to do for myself.

And I'm being a fool by sleeping late but waking early (because I want to exercise). How do I change my perception of sleep? How do I get my brain to believe that sleep is of utmost importance. Without sufficient and proper sleep, everything may not work as it should be. 

I do not want to regret about not sleeping enough only when something happen to my body. Now, please get off the computer and go to sleep!

Give .. and we can make a difference

In this difficult time, I decided to help wherever I can. And I want to guide my children to chip in doing it. So this birthday, beside planting a tree each month and making seed bombs, I have decided to donate to orphanage cash and books. Hopefully these little angels have better days ahead and pay it forward when they grow up. 

So, this birthday I'm planting trees and seeds of education for our children of tomorrow. Let's do it together one tree at a time, 1 seed at a time for 1 child at a time. 

getting started with jigsaw puzzle

 

It all started when I was decluttering and found some treasures ... puzzles. I love to do them when I was young and single and carefree and with time to spare. Nowadays it's luxury if I can find time to sleep. The boxes of puzzles are still with plastic cling wrap so I will never throw them. I was busy taking pictures and started asking around almost every group in my messaging list to see if anyone interested and passionate about jigsaw puzzle. Managed to give some of the big pieces floor puzzle to neighbour's niece. Other than that, no one seem to be into jigsaw nowadays. 

Lucky enough, a close friend in one of my usual 'talk everything' group suggested that I keep them for my children ... which turn out to be the best idea. Jigsaw puzzle develop our brain, our focus, our perseverance, our patience. All in all, it's a great tool for children development. So, over the weekend I try to get children to get started, hoping that once started then it's no going back, they will be like their mother.

Lucky luck was on my side, we started with some 'quick win' to gain interest. Something small and achievable ie. 120 pieces with colourful pictures to build up interest and confidence. Hopefully the rest will fall in place and like they say, the rest is history. 

In retrospect, this mco seem to be a blessing in disguise. It makes me stop, take a breather and do things I won't usually do (or rather things I won't usually have time to do). If no mco, I wouldn't be so diligently cleaning and clearing my home, and if I don't clear I won't find the jigsaw puzzles, and if I find with the busy schedule, we may not have time to explore...

This is just the beginning, I know it's still a long way to go...but never try never know