Moments in My Life

This post is specially dedicated to my Aunty in TTDI.  She loves my Satsuma plant very much.  Earlier this year it bloomed with many bubs and now they are beautiful satsuma.  I didn’t have time to take care of this plant but yet it blossomed so nicely.

The tree itself is not big as you can see here. I only tied up most the branches not long ago because it was touching the ground due to the heavy fruits. Before the tying up, the tree looked out of shape. Now it looks better.

I was lazy to pick them, but today my FIL came by and he mentioned something and immediately I went outside to pick almost all but left a few not so orange ones on the tree. I think I’ve collected close to a 100 pieces of satsuma, small and big. These are not huge fruits, the biggest probably around 2.5″ wide. They taste a mixture of sweet and soury but with lots of juice.

Are you interested to know what my FIL said?

He came over this afternoon with MIL to play with Brandon. I know MIL curious why I hadn’t pick those satsuma so I told her that I would be picking them this weekend and if she wanted, she can pick a few for herself from the tree.

Then out of no where, FIL said in Cantonese, “Wah, why our neighborhood squirrels don’t eat your plentiful satsuma?”

And our family know that when FIL said something like that, it may become a reality.

I for one always search for promo codes before purchasing anything online. Since I am not the breadwinner of the family, I tend to spend less or at least try to save some money while buying anything. I hope my Hubby appreciate my effort in doing this. 

This year’s Christmas, I am going to be very kind to myself.  I am going to pamper myself with luxury gifts. Nevertheless, I am not going to pay full price in buying these items. First item that I on my list is a new Dell laptop so I can retire my old one for Brandon. He is just so lucky. There many new, colorful and stylish dell laptop out in the market. Hope I will be able to find some good dell promotions before Christmas, and a laptop will be underneath our small little tree.

Next on my list is the last year’s LOST series on DVD. This one I probably will get with Amazon coupon codes because I will get free shipping as well as no sales tax. I missed so many episodes of LOST last year because I was busy playing with my little one rather than concentrating on the show.  With Lost, you have to pay attention to every single detail in it to understand the season fully.

Others items that are also on my Christmas list: a spa facial treatment, a nice back massage and a vacation to Hawaii.

Potty training is not easy as many of you mothers already know.  I for once very ‘kiasu‘ and wanted to save money on disposable diapers so I started training him since he was 1 year old.  It is frustrating sitting with him in front of the potty for many many minutes with no result.  But let me share with you some funny moments during our training session.

Recently, he is able to say ‘moh‘ (no), here is a few of our most recent conversations:

Mommy: Lay ooi ’ssh ssh’ moh?  Come on let’s go potty.

Brandon: Moh moh moh *shaking his head vigorously*.

Less than half a minute later … he wet his diaper. *slap head*

Mommy: Lay ooi ‘ngm ngm’ moh?  Come on let’s go ‘ngm ngm’.

Brandon: Moh moh moh *shaking his head*

A minute or two later … he stood in silent and you know what happened next lar, no need me to say.

During Black Friday sales, we were looking for deals on Artificial Christmas Trees. We didn’t buy any although there were several good deals. Hubby prefers a 4 - 5 feet ‘real’ looking ones with nice life-looking needles. He is pretty picky about this. And those that fit into his likeness are huge and very expensive, definitely not fitting in our budget for a Christmas tree.

Over the weekend, he decided to check with Sister-in-law to see if she has any extra tree which we can borrow and she did.  We borrowed a 3′ tree from her and Hubby put on all the Christmas decorations including the lights and ornaments.  Brandon tried to help but he was throwing the ornaments everywhere instead of putting them up on the tree. 

Here is a picture of our Christmas tree and decoration next to the fire place in our living room. Now who else has a Christmas tree picture to share with us?

Once in a while I crave for Malaysian’s style hawker food. And once in a while I will whip up my own style of ‘char koay teow‘ (stir fried flat rice noodle).

Here is a pack of ‘koay teow‘ (flat rice noodle) I bought from 99 Ranch Market. I think the price was $1.59 for 1 lb bag.

The noodles are all stuck together so I used boiled water to separate them. Would be too difficult and messy if I used my fingers. Just let the boiled water do the work.

Ingredients: ‘koay teow‘, ‘lap cheung‘ (chinese sausage), ‘taugeh‘ (bean sprouts), ‘gau choy‘ (chives), garlic, eggs.

For sauce: light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, salt

Steps:

1. Heat oil.
2. Add garlic and stir until fragrant.
3. Add ‘lap cheung‘ and stir a little while.
4. Add the flat rice noodle, pour a few spoonful of sauce then stir fry the noodles.
5. Make sure the color are even. Taste and see if is good, or else add more sauce.
6. Push the noodle to one side, add a little oil to the small empty area on the pan/wok, beat in the eggs.
7. Add a little worchester sauce on the eggs if you prefer, then cover the half cook egg with the rice noodles.
8. Last add in the bean sprout and chives as these don’t take long to cook.
9. Flip the bean sprout, chives and noodles around to get them evenly distributed (I don’t know what other word to use).
10. My ‘char koay teow‘ is ready for serving.
    

I didn’t have a wok so I used a 12″ non-stick pan. The end result was not as good as those wok fried CKT - no enough the ‘wok hey‘. Here’s a close up of my CKT on a plate. Hubby likes adding some hot chili paste to it. I shared mine with Brandon so no hot chili on our plate.