Rat in the kitchen

Look at the dark spot. I noticed this rat dropping on Wednesday morning when I walked into the kitchen. A rat in my kitchen hiding somewhere! I washed whatever left on the kitchen table top once more and wiped the table to ensure no trace of rat dirt.

In the afternoon after I fetched my son from school, we stopped at the sundry shop at Taman Pelangi. The lady boss sells all kinds of things. Whatever you want for your house, she has it. This time, I had a clear vision -- a rat trap to catch the rat intruding my kitchen!

The trap was left under the sink with a bait (chicken bone) in it. I was very sure the rat hid at the dark corner but I dare not to disturb the hiding place in fear of the rat running into my house.

The next morning, this was what I saw!

The sundry shop lady boss asked us to drown the rat in the water. Then leave the trap under the sun to remove smell the rat might leaves behind. She said rat leaves behind smell to indicate the place is owned by it. Therefore, we need to remove the smell so that other rat will go into the trap.

Anyway, I didn't drown the rat. I chose to leave the trap with the rat inside in the open. After occasional rain and hot sun, the rat was dead. My son helped me to remove the rat into a plastic bag and threw into the rubbish bin.

Next mission is to catch another bigger rat which I saw last night outside the kitchen. In fact, I think I smelled the rat a few weeks ago. Finally, I saw it yesterday. Tomorrow will be the day to trap this rat.

Proton Presona Car Seat

My Persona was bought 5 years ago.  I didn't realize that the car seat caused me backache, shoulder pain and leg pain. I even went to Hospital Queen Elizabeth in Kota Kinabalu to get physiotherapy treatment. After going for a couple of times, I gave up.

My sister bought a Proton Saga a year after me. The design of Proton Saga and Persona are almost the same. One day, my sister told me that my brother-in-law lower the car seat so that she could drive at a better posture. My sister is about 4 inches shorter than me. She pointed out that the car seat was too high and she felt her right leg hanging while driving. That rang the bell!

From that day onwards, I started using my Nissan Sentra. After a few weeks, the pains on my leg, back and shoulder just gone. I was very thankful for the small talks I had with my sister.

Do not underestimate the importance of how you sit in your car. On average, I would be driving at least 90min everyday. See how this can develop into big problem if I didn't find out the root cause. Even the doctor and physiotherapist can't help you because they are unable to find out all the possible cause.

I dislike my Persona. Why should Malaysians be paying so much for a not-so-good Malaysian made car?

My Next Move

How many jobs have I landed so far after graduation?

1985 to 2003 Programmer, System Analyst, System Engineer, Senior System Engineer, Software Manager - 18 years in software development, one year not working in Y2K to be with my 2 boys.

2004 until now as insurance agent, unit trust agent and financial advisor so that I can be flexible in managing my time and earn some income.

I am now 50. I don't think I want to do cold calling anymore. I am getting reluctant to revisit existing customers.

What do I want to do next?

If I can work until 65 yrs old, there is another 15 years to go. What is my dream? Perhaps opening a coffee house selling coffee and desserts.

What do I need to prepare?

Learn about coffee, source coffee, find out how to run a coffeehouse, learn how to bake cake, work out the capital of opening a coffeehouse

Is that the right change?

Starbucks Frappucinno

Getting a cup of good coffee is hard in Kota Kinabalu.  We have always wondered why people are willing to pay so much for a cup of coffee at Starbucks and Coffee Beans in Kota Kinabalu. Are the coffee at these stores really good and worth the money? My husband and I are reluctant to pay more than RM10 for a cup of coffee when we can buy 1kg of pure coffee powder at around RM38 in the market.

Anyway, AmBank Credit Card has a promotion of redeeming 3800 bonus points for a cup of tall size coffee and a piece of cheese cake at starbucks until 30 Sep. Since we were free last night, and have more than sufficient bonus points to redeem before the points expired next March, we went to Starbucks at Citymall around 9pm.

I chose dark mocha frappucinno and my husband prefered Caramel Macchiato. We both had a slice of Chocolate Tuxedo Cheese cake.

Frappucinno is blended coffee, tastes more like milo than coffee. The froth milk on top of Caramel Macchiato covers the coffee flavour. My husband said tastes more like milk than coffee. T.T

We were both disappointed. I suggested that with the remaining bonus point, we should go to another outlet and try plain brewed coffee, without milk and other flavours that cover the coffee taste. Yes, we would. Perhaps the barista do not know how to make good coffee. Perhaps they are not well trained. We should go to another outlet.

By the way, at that time from 9pm to 10.30pm, we saw only young people occupying a few tables, doing their study, using iPad and notebooks. What an expensive way to study away from home.

Wedding Dinner

I attended a wedding banquet in Tanjung Aru Shangrila Beach Hotel last night. In fact, I only accompanied my husband. Most of the time, I don't like to go out with my husband to social with his friends. This time, he bought an evening dress for me. So, I thought I'd better attend. Anyway, this wedding dinner was invited by a senior Taiwan Alumni member. His daughter got married.

I was quite impressed when I saw a big board displaying the dining tables and all the guests' names were printed so that we could find out where we sat easily. Every guests can pick a tag already prepared with their names and table number written on the tag. We were given our tag, and were greeted by the bride's father. For Chinese, we always bring along an ang pow (red packet with money inside as indication of well wishes) for the newly wed. Because the ang pow is sealed, you would not know how much money is inside. In fact, it is only well wishes. Whoever receives ang pow should not mind the amount of money inside. The bride's father asked all the guests to give the ang pow to the receptionist. The receptionist asked to look at the tag to find out which table the guest sat, and wrote the table number on the ang pow. I was embarrassed and shocked to see this manner of receiving ang pow. This is really a disgrace on Chinese. Furthermore, the bride's father graduated from Taiwan. I believed he should know what "ang pow" meant, and how it should be received.

Perhaps I should pull out the money and hand the empty packet over so that I can be blacklisted, and never be invited to his dinner. T.T.

I sincerely hope that this will not happen again in Kota Kinabalu. What a bad example!

Muesli for breakfast

I found out this great recipe last year. This tastes good for breakfast, filling, nutritious and good to ease constipation. Muesli -my version.

In Western way, muesli is eaten by soaking oats in the milk. My sons do not like to eat it that way. I searched the internet for recipes, and finally do some adjustment to come out with this version. The crunchiness depends on the amount of margarine you add in. My sons just eat it like that without adding in milk. As for me, I eat with milk. Otherwise it would be too dry.

My son has constipation problem since baby. After this recipe of breakfast, it solves his problem. 

What I need to make the museli is simple:
80g margarine
500g big leaf oats
125g sunflower seed
50g sultana
50g walnut or almond, chopped
60g sugar

1. Melt margarine.
2. Add in oats
3. Stir well
4. Add in sugar
5. bake in oven, 170 C  for about 30 min, stir occasionally
6. Add in sunflower seed and walnut, and bake for another 7 min
7. After switching off the oven, keep the content in the oven

iPalm Treo 600

This is my iPalm Treo 600. I have used it for at least 7 years. I paid RM800 for it. In fact, it was 2nd hand. At that time, there was no smartphone, and I found it great to be able to record so many contacts, a contact can have several numbers, address, touch screen feature, calendar as reminder, so convenient for me to reschedule and to edit, and the application to list my shopping items. And, calculator which I can convert from normal calculator to various types of calculators. My sons would also put in reminder in my iPalm to remind me what they wanted me to do for them, and to add in items in my shopping list so that I could see them and bought for them.

The battery did not work well since 2 days ago. The battery was completely drained in a day. In fact, the call and sms functions failed many years ago but i still kept it to use it as my alarm clock in the morning, calendar and shopping list. I set a reminder to wake me up in the morning at 5.50am, and I can add in what I want to do the moment I woke up in the reminder. I have woken up to a music almost every morning. That was genius.

This phone gave me a lot of memory, it has been my good assistant for so many years, though the price was expensive for a second hand, I still found it worthwhile.

旧的不去，新的不来。Time to shop for a smartphone. Should I buy iPhone, Samsung, Nokia or HTC? Other than the features in the iPalm I used often, it will come with viper, whatsapp and web browsing.

雪花冰Snow Ice

My son brought me to eat  雪花冰 at Xi Men Ding last Sunday.  It was special.  The ice has milk flavour,

I 

Accepting My Age Gracefully

No one can run away from signs of age. No matter how pretty you were before, how proud you were with your skin before, no one can escape from wrinkles, old age spots, white hair, flabby muscles, drooping breast, spider veins, hunch back, the list just grows.

I suppose, I just have to accept, this is life. Love myself at every stage, and thank God for what I have.

Simple Lunch

Both sons are out at Suria Sabah. There is a book fare at Suria Sabah. Younger son is performing "Virus" together with his other friends. I suppose elder son followed along. Hubby is in Tawau, be back tomorrow.

When I am alone, I choose to eat simple. Normally just see what is left, cook and eat. There was some pasta left from the night before. I re-boiled the pasta. Fried some cashew nuts, some sliced garlic and some pork. Chopped some spring onion from my backyard. Mixed everything together. Poured over some teriyaki sauce and pepper. Finished with a cup of black coffee. That was my lunch. I lost weight when I am alone in the house. And, it is always like such moments that I have a lot of time to myself. In 2 years time, when both sons are away for further study, I'll have a lot of time to build up my business.

Rearing Backyard Chickens In KK

chicks, 18 of them

Growing fast, the coop did not have enough room for them. So, we kept them at the open.

Meal time

光颈鸡

This was the open air coop, all the grasses except pandan leaves were pulled out by the chickens.

Hubby borrowed the baskets from a friend to bring them for slaughtering.

My younger son slaughtered 3 chickens. He was brave. The cleaning took me a lot of time.

In December last year, hubby came to agree with younger son to raise some chickens. I only knew about that when the chicks were brought back. It was fun to see them rushing for food, for drink and to grow literally so fast. My backyard suddenly came alive.

After 1 and a half months, before we left for Tawau for Chinese New Year, hubby and younger son slaughtered 3 chickens. They had never slaughtered chickens. That must be uneasy for hubby as he had to guide my son to do that.

We were thankful that hubby's friend was kind enough to help us slaughtered all the rest of the chickens. He has a duck farm and what we needed to do was just to bring the chickens to his farm, and he gave us back the cleaned frozen chickens the next day. 

Since we were unable to keep so many chickens in our small freezer, my mother, my sisters, my brothers and hubby's brother bought some chickens from my son. We also brought along two chickens to Tawau for my in-law.

I do not mind keeping the chickens at the backyard if not because of the foul smell. My neighbour did not like it and neither did I. Other than that was the houseflies that came from nowhere.

My son loves the self-raised chickens because the meat is firmer. You really know what the chickens eat, and no chemical washing while slaughtering.

The chickens liked to sleep on the pandan leaves. The bush of pandan became their nest. The chickens sometimes had stress when a 四脚蛇 came out from the drain to chase after them. Otherwise, it was peaceful.