Oh my nerve!

I have been bedridden for the past three days. Somehow while tidying up my room, I hurt my back and I couldn't sit up after. I even had to struggle with my breakfast the next morning. Luckily my primary school classmate, UL came to know about my plight, volunteered to bring home my girl. I really thank her for it.

So bed rest I did. The back pain is gone but I suspected that my disc could have shifted out further and now resting on my nerve. Nothing much can be done as this was told to me by the professor who first treated me for my slipped disc 4 years ago.

I got admitted to the hospital for a similar pain though that time was much more excruciating than now. His advice back then was either I go under the knife or painkiller.

Having gone through one operation and suffered from the side effect, now I had second thought about that decision I made 4 years ago.

Anyway, I am now on muscle relaxant and hopefully it will ease off the pain. In the meantime, I just had to learn not to rest my full weight on both bum till the pain ease off.

To thank UL, I baked this lovely tea cakes for her.

A very unique cake recipe that uses yeast, resulted in a moist, soft and buttery cakes. Especially when it paired it off with chocolate fudge, awesome!

Personally I like it but not too sure whether same goes with UL.

Source: Lust by Audrey Tan

What you need:

250g butter
200g castor sugar
5 eggs
250ml dairy whipping cream
320g plain flour, sifted
12g instant yeast
200g chocolate chip

Chocolate ganache (optional)

Method

Preheat oven to 165 degree.

Greased muffin tray

Beat butter and sugar till light and fluffy.

Add eggs, one at a time.

Fold in cream, flour and yeast (in that order). 

Fold in chocolate chip.

Fill batter into muffin tray (3/4 full).

Baked for 20 min.  Cool in tray and remove to cool further.

Serve with chocolate ganache.

Happy Mother's Day

Ha I just realised that this post was published till now. 

We spent Mother's Day cum Dad's birthday celebration last week.  Come to think about it, we have been doing this joint celebration for many years.  I guess it is hard to find an appropriate time for my brother in law works on shift work so doing a joint celebration makes it easier and also to beat the crowd.

The night before Mother’s Day, it was sweet thoughts as both my kids decided to bunk in with me.  Son commented that it was his gift (his company for the night) to me as Mother’s Day gift.  I was feeling fussy as it is a rare opportunity these days.

Things got a bad turn this morning. Mainly son was really irresponsible and left his windows open, resulted in a wet wood flooring despite numerous reminders the night before to ensure his windows are shut.

When I reprimanded him on this incident, instead of an apology, he went defensive.  My mood was totally destroyed by him with his nonsensical argument. I seriously am getting so tired with all his groundless argument these days. It is always the ME ME ME attitude.  How I wish he will be enlisted into the army soon, since I failed as a mother.  Perhaps the army will be able to knock some sort of responsibility into his head and stop all those self centred-ness.

With all the well wishes coming in, I just can't help but broke down throughout the day. Why kids these days take everything for granted? We were never like this when young. Why these generation kids are so horrible?  The form of respect taught to us when I was young and pass on to the next generation somehow got lost in him.

Having said this, I had to be fair to my daughter too. She is a total complete opposite of son.   At least half the Mother's Day, I can get credit to.

Thus I wish all Mothers a very Happy Mother's Day. I know our job in this era faced a bigger challenge than our parent` and we totally deserved a pat on the shoulder for choosing this path.

Actually I baked this Kueh Bingka Ubi Kayu just before hubby left. If you like such kueh like my hubby does, attend Valerie Kong's class. It yields a really nice texture and cost a fraction of what you paid outside. (I bought 3 tiny pieces for S$1.80!, notice that I didn't even say small, seriously I think it is really over priced).

My helper pan fried it further to get the crisp.  Love the lovely hue it gives.

Weight loss program

Hello my friends. Finally I am able to sit down and blog! So how have you all been? Pardon me for not visiting or leaving comments on yours as it’s sure been a hectic week plus at this end.

I met up with my girl friends four Fridays ago. A badly needed break away from what I have been busy with the past months. Hubby was sweet enough to baby sit.
When DC saw me, she commented that I lost weight. Geesh... I was so happy when I heard this. Finally I am able to shed those kilos. 4 weeks later, I lost more. Now I am back to my so called "ideal" weight. I shall see whether I can still slip into my pants if not, I will take this opportunity to donate them away.

Kids rooms and common areas are more or less ready. The most agonising is my master room and hubby is bringing back my old beloved cabinet that I left behind in the old place. (yes I changed my mind).  Yea.... storage always seems not enough for me.

My new kitchen is finally settling in. Most of the kitchen stuff already unpacked so I am one happy bird. I will need to spend some time later on to regroup my "toys".

I also was putting up with my helper's nonsensical attitude. A simple question will get a remark as if she is ready for a fight. Seriously I don't need this but yet I am not ready to let her go as now. I have been helping with the 50% of the chores. Waiting for her to finish up one duty is like taking forever.

Initially I didn't know what was happening as I was so busy unpacking. Then few evenings ago, while she was packing up my girl's room, I saw my little one running to her room. Only then I realised that she got my girl to fetch her phone from her room.
So now I have to work side by side with her to prevent such incident. Naturally our dear friend is not too happy but what to do. I need to settle down soonest so that I can let her go. Thus the past few days was a big challenge dealing with her. Thank God, her mood is good today and she was finally working. Yes, at long last she is working now.

The house felt so much cleaner and that makes me happy. I decided to take a break from trying to clean up my room till I get my cabinet in tomorrow.

Son's behaviour is like a roller coaster, some days he is extremely sweet but some days he is just so horrible. His dad was about to whack him up big time the other day because of his bad attitude. We are trying to control our emotion during this tiring period where practising patience is tough.  

Since it is his last exam paper today, it also meant I can finally stop nagging at him to study.

As a celebration, I baked him Ultimate Chocolate Muffins.  No energy to really browse for new recipe so I just took this one that was in my file.

Recipe can be found here
Now let me introduce you to Ms Pink Lady.  My new friend that came visiting for the past few days.  Isn't she pretty?

Okay, I am totally deflated now.  Will have an early night.  Am really looking forward to tomorrow as my girl will be done with her exam.

Nite nite.

A proud moment

This post was long overdue as the event happened last week but I simply had no time to blog about it. Thus today, I managed to put in effort to set aside some time so that I can document this before it slipped my mind.

I didn't realise that I only posted once in the month of Aril till I was uploading the pictures in photobucket. Wow time really flies. This one month really a busy one month for me and with lots of happenings.

Finally our new nest is ready. A date that had been pushing back since last Christmas! Unbelievable but it happened. Anyway, my packing days are over and now it is cleaning. You know how it is like, you need to give time for the dust to settle down. Though I threw away and gave away many stuff, I still have tons of them that I just can't bear to let go. So the unpacking and finding a new place for the items will be a challenge.

After a day of cleaning the new house, my helper tendered her resignation (she still have three more months with us). So you can imagine how frantic I was, checking out agencies and bio data. Thank God, he was really looking out for me and I was able to find one amidst the limited pool available.

Of course, at this point in time, I just can’t afford to let her go as yet. So she will have to stick around for another month. I concluded that no matter how well they are treated, there isn’t such thing as loyalty. On top of this, with my sixth sense, I found out that she has been stealing money from us as well. I am not alerting her. I will just let the matter sit till I am ready to deal with it.

Now back to my priority for today's post. Last Tuesday and Thursday, I just have to drop everything to attend my kids' taekwondo competitions. Though this is not their first competition but this is the first time they represented their schools.

Initially I know my little girl was intimated by her opponents who are both 11 years old and are taller than her. Somehow this little girl over came her fear and make her way to the finals and to a Gold! I am definitely not shy to say that I am a proud mom.

We are so proud of her to see her working hard to get that Gold.

Thanks to her coach ZC for his guidance and giving her the confidence to reach her potential.



Yea! Good job done little one!

A good surprise was that the school also came in 4th in the Overall Championship for Junior Female.



Next was my boy. It was a double happiness for him as he received two medals this month.

We are also proud of him to see that he overcame his fear of seeing black belts (he is a junior black). During the last competition, he didn't reach his full potential because of this reason.



He was indeed in chirpy mood as he went on to get another medal for his soccer.



Okay, now I have to go back to work. It doesn’t help that hubby is leaving town this week and only be back on Monday as we planned to move on Tuesday. So everything fall 100% on me, nice isn’t it?

Thanks for constantly checking in. I am sorry that there isn’t any new recipe that I tried out this one month.

Do come by in May.

Till then, arrivederci