Today's post-CNY thoughts

And so.... another event i.e. the Chinese New Year can be ticked off the 2013 calendar as yesterday was Chap Goh Mei, the 15th and last day of the festival. Also, February is a shorter month and in a few days' time, we'll be greeting March. Oh how time just passes us by so quickly, and I feel like I'm getting left behind like a rickety old lady hobbling on a cane trying to catch the last bus!

Wasn't it just yesterday I was talking about making new year resolutions? And how far have I moved on those resolutions? Sigh, I still have them scrawled on a scrap of paper which is lying around somewhere in the kitchen and that's as far as the resolutions have gone, from dining table to kitchen counter! Apart from this, life for me has just been one whole big ordinary routine of household chores, driving around for chores and child minding. My kitchen 'experiments' are ongoing while I also try to catch up on reading more books to keep the grey matter active.

As for E, being the sole breadwinner, life is still centred a lot around work and home, helping me do the dishes, vacuum the house once a week, and cutting the grass in the garden when it has become a total eyesore!

For C, her school experience has changed this year. This year, the school has obtained a licence to run an international syllabus, causing the majority of parents to jump on the overseas education bandwagon. We chose to remain with the local syllabus as the school still has to fulfil its commitment to see those of us in the KBSR syllabus through. School fees will also double if we go the international route and that's something we need time to work on. Well, there are also other options to education besides the mass education system that I keep an open mind to...

With most of her classmates having moved to the international syllabus, C's class now has only eight kids. The advantage of such a small class is that the teachers can give close attention to their learning and distraction from chatty and overactive classmates is minimal. C, however, finds it less fun as her social interaction is now reduced to just a few kids. Even though she gets to see her ex-classmates during recess and lunch time, I guess the friendship dynamics have changed since they no longer learn the same subjects or share the same classroom experience. They have formed different cliques and so has C. Meanwhile, C also has a challenge (which has brought her some tears of anger and frustration) dealing with a particular classmate who sits next to her, whom she says likes to 'bug' her and trail her. I guess that classmate is looking for a new 'best friend' while C doesn't want to reciprocate ....

Today, C and all the upper primary kids in her school are going through what they term as 'standards testing' in preparation for their coming Sports Day. I will know later this afternoon if she had qualified to represent Green House in the 4X100m race. As for soccer, the school has yet to start any practice since they are busy preparing for Sports Day.

C says she wants to continue with soccer too and we support that. Whether she learns anything at practice or not, whether she is good at it or not, I'm not too concerned. I see it as a form of physical exercise for her and there are other learning points outside of soccer per se that could be reaped from this 'soccer experience'. After all, we can't expect a child to excel in every activity they pursue. We also don't want to push her into too many activities like some other parents do. I always hold on to the fact that every child is unique. Some kids are academically inclined, some are not. Some can adapt to a packed schedule of extra-curricular activities, some can't. As long as they are learning at their own pace, we needn't get too caught up with padding their resumes with a long list of achievements starting from age five, or for some parents, even younger....

Gong Xi Fa Cai, Xin Nian Kwai Le

ACE wishes one and all a Happy Chinese New Year!!

School was out for an entire week. ACE stuck to the 'standard practice' which most Chinese families also practice during this festival i.e. return to the husband's side of the family for the new year eve reunion dinner as well as celebrate the first day together. Then on the second day, we would return to the wife's side i.e. my side of the family to celebrate the festival. We returned home to KL on the third day as we had to attend a few other gatherings among friends, colleagues and extended family. C even had a birthday party to attend on Valentine's Day.

Thankfully for us, both sides of the family are within 45 minutes' drive away so we didn't have to suffer too much of the 'balik kampung' exodus traffic snarl on the highways. During such times, a normal two-hour drive could stretch up to four or five hours or more. So for some families with 'kampungs' too far away, they might have different arrangements such as visiting either side of the family on alternate years. Travel plans have to be made way ahead, especially if bus, train or airplane tickets need to be purchased and hotels need to be booked.

Like any other celebration, we ate lots of special festive fare and delicacies, many of which carry symbolic meaning. If you're  watching your weight or diet, it's hard to resist all the goodies. The 'spare tyre' that I have is now over-inflated and my slightly-elevated cholesterol level has probably become 'inceasingly' elevated!

Today we suffered the Monday blues as we're back to work and school. After one week of waking up later than our usual 6.00am, I've been plodding through the day in a rather lost and dazed manner, testimony to the idea that too much of a good thing, in this case the holiday and abundant rich food, is simply not good....

Even writing this post is requiring more effort than usual. It feels like my brains are not 'moving'....I guess this is all for now before this post sounds more monotonous than it already is...

Public holidays and cooking

I'm glad my laptop computer has been revived. Two weeks ago, it 'died' unexpectedly when one morning, I switched it on and nothing happened. We sent it for repair and they said there was a problem with the motherboard. It cost quite a bit for the repair and replacement of a new battery as the old one was also 'dying'. However, it's still cheaper than buying a brand new laptop.

We have a number of public holidays between last week and this. Last Thursday was the Prophet Muhammad's birthday and Sunday was Thaipusam, making Monday a holiday too. So if you had taken Friday off, you'd have a five-day weekend. We didn't take Friday off however since C still had to go to school. But on Sunday, we went over to E's sister's home and together with E's brother's family and parents, the entire 'clan' got together for a one-night sleepover. The kids enjoyed themselves playing toys, games and swimming. This Friday, February 1, is another holiday for those in Kuala Lumpur as it's Federal Territory Day. I think I shall be giving Rusty a long overdue haircut. His fur is so long that I can hardly see his eyes now!

I'm back to my 'experiments' in the kitchen and C did one too recently with her own kid's cookbook. She made some merengues by whisking some egg whites with sugar and baked them in the oven.

My regular visits to recipe sites and re-visits of my various cookbooks got me concocting food using whatever I have in my fridge in order to not let stuff that have been sitting in there go to waste. Most of the time they are stuff like spices and sauces leftover from my other experiments with new recipes.

Last week I made chicken baked with honey and mustard. That was to use up the mustard I got some time back for mustard pork chops. However, it still didn't get used up, so I made hotdogs and that still didn't deplete the mustard supply....

Then one day, I was wondering what to do with leftover bread which weren't as soft as when fresh. I would usually toast them or make French toast with them but I was getting bored with doing that and found a simple recipe for what they call 'egg in a nest'. C liked the novelty of have a fried egg inside a hole of a slice of bread and that got her into the kitchen with me too.

I also have breadcrumbs sitting in the fridge from my experiment with crabmeat patties in the past. These patties contain lemon zest. E liked it but not C.



 

Last night, I used the breadcrumbs for a Western meal of pan fried breaded chicken thighs....and I still didn't use up all the breadcrumbs....I made a cheesy gravy to go with the chicken and potatoes.

 

And now while writing this, I'm trying to think of tonight's dinner menu. Although I enjoy cooking, there are days when I wish I could snap my fingers and delicious food would appear. Sometimes, it gets tiring when you think of all you have to do to get just a meal on the table.

You need to get stuck in a traffic jam to go to the market, decide what to buy from all the varieties of meat, seafood, vegetables etc, consider what your family members like and will or will not eat, consider the price and ease of using that particular food or ingredient. Then when you get home with your purchases, you have to sort, clean and store them. When it comes to cooking, you need to thaw, prepare, chop, marinate or do whatever is needed for the recipe. Then comes the actual cooking and washing up the utensils after cooking. So much time and effort to prepare a meal that's just gobbled up within half an hour....

Chinese New Year thoughts

We're still in the first month of the year and I feel as if so much has happened around us. A number of events recently caught our attention: a YouTube video of a forum held at a public university whereby a panelist displayed her ugly self by intimidating a student, seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong's confession to Oprah, the terrorist hostage incident in an Algerian gas plant, yesterday's Malaysian stock market plunge due to uncertainties created by the impending general election, and a six-year-old boy who has been missing for five days. Meanwhile, the weekend newspapers are plasterd with advertisements of sales of food, clothing, furniture, household items for the coming Chinese New Year of the Snake. Malls and supermarkets are blaring away CNY songs and displaying all the goodies on sale.

As usual, we celebrate festivals in a simple and quiet way. Unlike the more traditional families, we don't make it a point to spring clean, wash the entire house, change curtains and furniture, replace all things old with new ones, cook a ton of festive dishes or bake loads of cookies and cakes. This is all too overwhelming for me. Now that we are living in a larger home, it's even worse. I can't even keep up with the daily tidying let alone spring clean! I think this generation is one that is too caught up with consuming and accumulating material things and therefore, we have things cluttering the home.

It's different from the days of my parents' and grandparents' generation. Families were larger, lived closer to each other, lives were simpler. So when it came to festivities, everyone went all out to make it grand. The community spirit was greater then. They helped each other clean homes, paint walls, bake cookies, sew new clothes and cook. Back then, special dishes and delicacies were only enjoyed during festivals. I remember eating meat floss and dried barbecued meat ('bak kwa') during CNY but now you can get these anytime from a shop. There was no 'yee sang' to 'lou sang'. Roast duck, chicken, expensive fish and prawns were eaten only a few times a year. Now, you can eat them anytime. What was considered 'special' back then is now everyday fare.

But of course, the spirit of any festival should not just lie in the food, decor and having all things new, presents, angpows or whatever. It should be a time of celebration and thanksgiving for all the blessings we have received, our family, love, health, safety etc. That's how most festivals originate anyway and that's why whether it's a religious or cultural festival, people will include the act of worship and prayers as part of the celebration. According to history, the Chinese New Year was celebrated because people marked the spring and new year of planting crops, while legend also speaks of people rejoicing over the defeat of an evil monster that terrorised them after they made loud noises (hence firecrackers) to scare it away. Although Chinese New Year is a cultural festival, many Chinese also include worship and prayers in their activities. The Buddhists and Taoists visit temples and churches also hold special services, for example.

So in my opinion, it's good to know why we are celebrating a festival, and impart it to the next generation so that the knowledge and tradition will not be lost in this seamless, global, high-tech world where everyone seems to be celebrating everything, sometimes without realising its significance...

Still on first gear

I couldn't think of an appropriate title for this post but the above describes my 'speed' at the moment after six days into 2013. Yesterday I finally decided on my new year resolutions! Forming them in my mind and putting them down on paper sounds easy now that that's done. Working on them is another story....So now I'm still on first gear. Realising your resolutions is like driving a manual shift car. You can't just put it into 'D' like an automatic car, step on the pedal, and expect the gears to shift themselves.

This year, one resolution is to eat more fruits and veges and exercise. My recent medical checkup indicates that I need to. I am at my heaviest in my entire life, have access body fat, lack muscles, and have below normal metabolism. Back in the day, when I was a teenager and in my 20s, I was scrawny and underweight. I could wear XS-sized clothes.

I remember when I used to be fit when I was in my early 30s. Spending four days outdoors every two weeks for two years climbing hills, trekking jungles, canoeing in seas and rivers, camping under hole-y tents, waking before dawn to exercise, breathing in relatively fresh air and being amidst greenery helped build some muscles and fitness. I'm glad that my job gave me that opportunity then. Now in this job, I wake just after dawn, prepare breakfast, do laundry, cook, sit in the car and in front of the computer.

Yesterday, my notebook suddenly decided to become Sleeping Beauty. I turned it on but it didn't boot up or show anything on the screen. E checked it and tried the various necessary things to resuscitate it but it was in vain. I take it as a sign that I should cut down my internet and computer time and use it as needed for real work only. Having our desktop on the third floor of our home now helps I guess. When it's not in front of me I'd be less tempted to keep it on all day long and poke my nose into what my Facebook friends are doing, read unnecessary stuff online or surf.

I hope that will make me get on my feet, be active physically and spend more time doing other more beneficial stuff.

And I shall sign out now before I get sucked into the dark hole of the online world!