is it too early to say "xi nian kuai le!!"?

what is the official time period when it would be proper to say~ xi nian kuai le or gong xi fa cai?

what ever it is, i don't care whether its early for this or not; as i am already in the mood~ i really can't wait for the seasons. what's more to wear beautiful clothes and visit my friends during the chinese new year.

and last but not least...

may the year of the tiger be the year of...
good fortune,
good health,
good luck,
and prosperity for you!
happy new year 4708!

chinese new year — wikipedia
chinese new year horoscopes — year of the tiger 2010
chinese new year — my blog postings

happy chap goh meh

happy chap goh meh everyone! it's officially the last day of chinese new year, so i guess it's another year to come for celebrating chinese new year. most family will gather for a dinner again and probably tossing the "yee sang" to see who can get it up the highest.

chap goh meh (十五暝) also known as the 15th day of the lunar new year celebrations which means today is the last day of the chinese new year. how time passes. just a blink of an eye and 15 days have passed. where have all that time gone!!

the term chap goh meh is from the hokkien dialect and refers to the fifteenth day of the first month, which is the occasion of the first full moon of the new year.

the occasion is marked by feasting and various festivities, including the consumption of tangyuan. in traditional chinese culture, it is also celebrated as the lantern festival or the shang yuan festival.

however, it coincides with the chinese valentine's day. it is also when young unmarried women gather to toss tangerines into the sea, in a hope that their future spouse will pick it up – a custom that originated in penang. in the past, this was also the only day that unmarried ladies could be seen with their partners.

chinese new year

we (kuE, puteri and megat) would like to wish a happy and prosperous chinese new year to all chinese around the world who celebrate it. may God bless you abundantly with good health and wealth.

p/s- from what i know here in malaysia, customs for chinese new year include paying off debts, buying new clothes, cleaning the house, and enjoying delicious family feasts. children receive red envelopes filled with money. firecrackers are set off to scare aware evil spirits and bring good luck. click here, here, here or here for more info.

p/s/s- graphics from china the beautiful.

新年快乐

for those who are not familiar with chinese astrology, this is the "Year of the Rat", and it begins today.

in western culture (synonymous with the "rat race"), it's surprising indeed that the appearance of this redoubtable rodent is so unwelcome, except perhaps on halloween.

this light-hearted lens is dedicated to all things "rat" -- be it "rat cheese", "ratafia", or "ratatouille"!

the Rat (chinese:鼠) was welcomed in ancient times as a protector and bringer of material prosperity. it is the first of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the chinese zodiac related to the chinese calendar. rat is associated with aggression, wealth, charm, and order, yet also associated with death, war, the occult, pestilence, and atrocities. the Year of the Rat is associated with the earthly branch symbol 子.

in chinese, the word 鼠 may refer to either the rat or the mouse. therefore, in this context, year of the Mouse and year of the Rat are interchangeable terms.

source from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. read more about this topic here.

-----

its an honor to be born a rat!

rats have been given a bad rap in western culture, judging from pejorative terms like "he's a rat fink!", or "i don't give a rat's ass what you think!"

in china, the rat is a respected intuitive creature, synonymous with courage and an enterprising character. rats know how to come up with solutions, take care of themselves and others without problems.

besides being curious and intelligent with a vivid imagination, rats are very lively and need oodles of attention (mental and physical stimulation).

to sum it up, the positive side of the rat personality includes being easy-going, smart, magnetic, quick witted and well-liked! on the flip side, rats have also been known to be a tad cool, calculating, selfish, and protective when they're not in top form.

what motivates Rats? you guessed it -- money and status :o)

"Earth Rats" (those born in 1948 and 2008), are said to be very honorable folk who love to do things around the home and enjoy a stable life. although a titch stingy with their moolah, they are cheerful with friends although are prone to stress.

for more on the little known life of ratties, and what to expect from these ripsnorting rodents in 2008, don't hesitate to check out what makes a rat tick!

__________

note: persons born within the following date ranges can be said to have been born in the "Year of the Rat":

feb. 18, 1912- feb. 5, 1913
feb. 5, 1924 - Jan. 24, 1925
jan. 24, 1936 - feb. 10, 1937
feb. 10, 1948 - jan. 28, 1949
jan. 28, 1960 - feb. 14, 1961
feb. 15, 1972 - feb. 2, 1973 (ehem...)
feb. 2, 1984 - feb. 19, 1985
feb. 19, 1996 - feb. 6, 1997

i would like to wish a
Happy & Most Prosperous Chinese Year
of the Rat (SuZi) to all...

kuE's related links: 2007' and 2006' post on chinese new year.

lantern festival celebration

according to wikipedia: the lantern festival 元宵节 is a chinese festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunar year in the chinese calendar. it is not to be confused with the mid-autumn festival, which is also sometimes known as the "lantern festival" in locations such as singapore, malaysia. during the lantern festival, children go out at night to temples carrying paper lanterns 兔子灯 and solve riddles on the lanterns 猜灯谜. it officially ends the chinese new year. read more here.

kuE' note: this blog post supposed to be posted a week already. but i don't care ler... its better late than nothing or never hor? i updated my twitter anyway :)

ever since i joined my line dance group, my life kinda hectic with other activities too. sometimes i was asked to perform with them in functions or events here. i remembered that my first experience was for a mother & father's day celebration organized by a chinese community. it has been attended by local umno leaders. so i had to do a zapin number and some other line dances to english tunes erm... layan je ler. to tell you the truth, of course i lurve english numbers more especially all those fast tracks.

then there was this function organized by umno people quite some time ago. it was radically damnnnnn delayed i tell you. i stressed out the word damn because it was really late by 2 hours!!! blerk!... pity the kids who followed us. we don't have choice but to stay as we had to do some performances. if you could see my chinese friends, they were all crazy like mad. what to do. anyhow you can view one of my performances that has been recorded by megat here.

so basically my performances last saturday was obviously my third one! it was for a lantern festival celebration held here in kualè. unfortunately i didn't manage to take lotsa pics as usual though as my oly was running out of battery huhuu... now i dunno whether to blame myself for not charging my oly's battery beforehand; or my friend-cum-translator ms tung who didn't explain to me about the function properly. never mind lor... ms tung, no sweat ok?

lesson learned: every night before bedtime, i will ensure that i fully charged my oly's battery before the next day turned up, no matter whether i have anything going on or not! ;)

the function started with everyone singing the national song; as soon as the guest of honour, minister in the prime minister's department datuk seri mohamed nazri abdul aziz arrived.

there were variety of music and drums and of course the chinese lion dances and firecrackers.

children carry their lanterns around the village and families come together to eat sweet rice balls for good fortune and family unity. chinese lanterns were traditionally made of silk, paper and even glass. although the most common is the typical red balloon lantern, nowadays chinese Lanterns come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. there are lanterns in shapes of boxes, lotus flowers, dragons, butterflies and all sorts of animals. they range from the small lanterns carried by hand made of paper by school children to gigantic floats shaped in the chinese zodiac animal for that year made by teams of craftsmen. lion dances came to the main stage then along with these group of people. i knew that they have some kind stories and meaning behind the lion dance performances.

towards the end of the performance, both "the lions" tried to peel out the mandarin oranges skin. they then presented the oranges to datuk nazri, who is also the mp of padang rengas.

i tell you what people. i could say that the function that night was really celebrated with 1malaysia spirit although it was meant for a chinese festivity. there were dance performances of all sorts of cultures like malay, chinese and indian, not forgetting shuffle dance by kualè youth itself.

my performance was the first one. i didn't get to ask anyone to capture a video of it though. none of our kids followed anyway as the function was at night, and we afraid that it would be dragged till late. i should have asked bebudak shuffle tu to record a video of mine kan kan... :)

the function wrapped up with lucky draws. looks like people were already looking forward with it from the beginning, as prizes offered were not bad i.e. hampers, bicycles, electrical items like blender, stand fans, and tvs too! but we didn't wait till the function ended though, as we knew it that there must be jammed if everyone were to go back together. from what i understood, since the function happened to be during syawal, datuk nazri also gave away raya money packets to all children who came that night.

and before i sign off this blog post, i am so glad to present you part of the performances held during that night... enjoy!

lantern festival celebration from kuE on vimeo

so how's the lantern festival at your places celebrated. care to share them with me?

see... when i blog, i really blog away *phew*

• coming up: more delayed blog post and sponsored blog post.


• coming up as well: the most bloggers' events talk of the blogosphere! can you guess of what is it? tungguuuuuuuuu... (wait) *winks*


• besides that, i am also waiting for ms tung to pass me a china press newspaper cut-out about the function. they actually have a pic of me there you know. i wonder whether any of you people realized it ;)

past vs present

chinese new year. it is just like a normal day. doing nothing, only relaxing at home. then off to work for something to be done. besides that i prefer to be on stand-by during this busy hours and days. so i guess today is definitely fine.

not like last week- exactly a week ago.

saturday 21/01/06 - i brought kids and cousin sarah's indonesian maid to watch memoirs of a geisha. its first time for susi. sarah and baby followed her hubby whose working in austria. they cannot bring susi because she's not yet a year here. so they decided to leave susi with us until sarah comes back in end may or early june. she will be working then in one of the hospitals either in putrajaya or ipoh. while the hubby will be there for three years if i'm not mistaken.

hmm... the whole movie is like a fast-forward version of the book & some scene are tweaked and missing. the scene where she has to cut her own leg before seeing dr crab, the cut was supposed to be done by mameha's cook. in the end i was expecting to see new york where sayuri got her own tea-house but it stopped until she and the chairman met. anyways i'm glad they make it into a film. wish they make it into a drama series so every scene from the book can be viewed exactly. a freak accident happen during the film. the climax where sayuri asked pumpkin to bring nobu but instead she brought the chairman while the general feasting on her.

some of you might recall when this movie came out, there was controversy because most of the main actresses were chinese, which degrades the whole “authentic” factor. i had a hard time getting over that fact. for the first part of the film i just couldn’t get over the fact that the star was someone that i know pretty well from other chinese movies. it’s just hard to try and immerse yourself in the japanese culture when you know something is there that isn’t exactly “right”.

the scenery and cinematography wasn't that bad, it's just that i felt like the whole movie was fast-forward and some parts are missing. all actor and actresses rocks. gong li. zhang zi yi, ipoh mali dato' michele yeoh were excellent! chiyo san was so cute. ken watanabe was hot.

this is one of the best movie i've ever watched. the ending, the story line and also the flow of the story were excellent and brilliant. my personal rating for this movie is 9.75/10.

sunday 22/01/06 - everyone went to my god-mom's place in pj except grandma and susi. bad. we were having a farewell lunch with a karaoke session (?) for ayah muda whose family gonna migrate to medan. everyone were in their smart-casual outfit. i was just in my green blouse with a matching skirt from east india, that i bought before last raya. as soon as we reached there, salam-salam with cousins, uncles and aunties. once went into the house, i met one of the most important person in my life, my god-mom. as usual she looked stunning, younger than her age. sorry, so shy to take pics with her hehe... after i salam and kissed her hand, she held my hand. "wow... you look so beautiful and gorgeous today", she said. oh wow... i really didn't believe it. she really said that? i just smiled to her. then she usher me to the buffet table and asked me to eat, while she has to attend to others too. okay that's not a problem at all. everyone really enjoyed themselves. enda puan (my god-mom) has been persuading all the younger generations including me, to sing. none of us were into it lol... thus our uncle ayah chu started to sing an oldies. nice song but can't remember the title though. then followed by my dad and ayah muda. still, no one of the young generations wanna sing. suddenly abang rezza sang, requested by his dad ayah muda. his voice was damn good mann... he sang the malay version of winter sonata. hmm... everyone knew why he's so good in singing. i can't mention it here sorry.

suddenly i saw dad answered a call. he looked worried. he rushed to somewhere outside that he could hear well. i didn't think that there's something bad. so i continued talking with some of my cousins. paused. dad called mom. they were discussing. my heart was beaten fast this time. it was a bad news from grandma. someone went to the house' compound and did some black magic stuff. the lady was so damn shocked when she knew that there were someone at home, when all that while she (the lady) thought there was no one at home. she (the lady) was wrong. well we suspect that someone asked her (the lady) to do that. gosh... why on earth we have this kind of people on earth. they can't see us doing well. dad told about the story to my god-mom and the rest. then we went straight back home.

before that we gave my sister her birthday presents. i bought her new estee lauder pleasures exotic. it was on offer with a small bottle and a nice bracelet watch that i used that very same day ;)

i was so scared. someone has been watching us, our whereabouts. that was why i got the flu. it was really bad. but i still managed to do my usual routine. what when kids need to go to school.

the day when no one is at home

mom followed dad to kl this morning. she will be attending a cousin's engagement ceremony this weekend. at first i thought of going too, but megat has to go to school tomorrow as usual to replace the extra holidays for the upcoming chinese new year. megat goes to a chinese school, remember? ;)

so here's what we normally do on a friday-- puteri's school ends at 12.10pm, while megat's is at 1.05pm. both puteri and i rather spent the extra time together rounding around town instead of going back home and forth. then when its almost 1pm, we would normally be at none other than yut loy!!! hehe... told you people before that the school is very near with yut loy right :D and since no one at home today, we had our lunch at yut loy-- we approached one of the twin bros from the back door and ordered our food. then after we fetch megat, we walked back to yut loy (yes! you read me, that we walked there)... and voila... the food were all ready on one of the tables! simple as that...

i had chicken cutlet with two sets of buttered toast bread (thats four pieces altogether you know... hah!) and two glasses of iced nescafe. i was lapor giler (damn hungry) occay?!! ;)


while puteri and megat had chinese fried rice with egg and iced milo, hmm... yummy!!!...


so... can you all people see the stairs behind megat? fyi that's lead to a secret location that only budak koleq knows *glurp* lol... :)

hong kong hair & beauty saloon

puteri and i just came back from doing our hair at a local saloon called hong kong hair & beauty saloon. puteri had her wash and blow-dry service at RM9.00, while i colour my hair for RM80.00 only. go here to view my current hair length. believe it or not, mind you people... i ain't kidding occay?... thats why some locals who work elsewhere would take the chance to do their hair here when they come back to hometown for holidays or sort.

its one of the oldest shop in kuale, other than... yut loy!!! the shop is managed by three sisters who are still available ehem... but they are old enough to be called auntie ;) they would always do the hair and make-up for the royal family when there are special functions at the palace. the three sisters do not have any helpers. so i am not sure whether they would close the shop when they have to attend to the royals. i guess i should have ask them about this someday right.

their customers are from all over and race i.e. malays, chinese, indians, not forgetting others like thais, myanmars etc. who mainly are workers at some of the local factories here. guess what people... some of the customers do not mind to wait for hours for their turn especially during peak periods. like this mother and daughter (puteri and i [can you spot me? hehe...] ler... lol), they came at 11+ am and left the shop around 3.30pm *glurp*

as you could see from the pic, the shop has been decorated with chinese new year deco. and its a norm also that the three sisters would wear something reddish during the CNY fever. when i realized this at the shop, i was like, "eh... i should have start to get my staff to help me decorate our premise too!". hehe... well for me its not wrong for us to decorate our premise for the CNY season; as we are malaysians, and also, chinese are among part of our customers. besides, we do decorate our premise during other holiday seasons too like hari raya aidil fitri, deepavali, national day and many more. alright... enough said, i won't place any pics of our premise when we have complete decorating it--dangerous woh!... ;)

fuyoo!

as you could see people without you realized it or not, every year malaysians would always talk and comment about petronas' national day's tv ads.

petronas tv commercial ads are among the top award ads in malaysia. this is part of the commitment of petronas play a role to spread out public service messages to the community. you won’t miss to catch out the tv ads during the malaysia main celebration likes hari raya, chinese new year, deepavali, and merdeka day. most of the ads are about integration between different races in malaysia while malaysia is going to celebrate the 51st mederka day on 31st august 2008.



2008' is yet another touching ads. this time its been acted and directed by afdlin shauki. congratulations dude... the message that you tried to convey are so meaningful. way to go afdlin!!!...

what say you people?

wake-up my dear :)

i was so terrible this morning. i really thought that its tuesday huhu...

"cepat adik. today you have an essembly in school, if not you will be late", i told megat hehe... btw chinese school' weekly essembly on a tuesday meh?

we went out of the house before 7.20. as usual i sent puteri first then megat. as usual also megat salam and kiss my hand, then both of us kiss each other. i waited for a while to see megat walked into the school. he was half-way there. suddenly i saw his classmate came with his mom on a motorcycle. i clearly saw that he wore a school t-shirt. then i thought, "oikk... why the boy wore the school t-shirt today?". my mind was boggling. "oh my god... its wednesday lar stupid". megat has p.e. classes on wednesday!!!

well megat already more than half-way there. then i thought to myself again, its not that i cannot take his t-shirt and give it to him because our house is so near. i just wanna megat to be independent. let him do his own decision. i'm sure he will make so much noise when he comes back ;)

kuE's note: the main reason i thought so was that megat just started school yesterday only, after a long chinese new year break. other schools started theirs on last thursday.

heading to a healthy-lifestyle

seeing at the above pic and quote, i'm sure you would wondering of what both of them got to do with each other huh?!! lol...

sungai perak is one of my favourite place to wind down; other than island and beaches. if you have the time, you are truly welcomed to experience it too. the feeling is so good that no one could describe it. come visit me people! 2007 is the visit malaysia year.

we went strolling by the riverside this morning as early as 7am. we should have went there much earlier. but you know lar... it was a bit hard to ask the kids to wake-up that early during weekends lol... anyhow we did have cereal for breakfast before we went out. i could see many people were doing the same, mostly malays and chinese. my oh my... i dun see any indians. why, huh?!! fyi with effective this year, this is what i am intend to do with my kids. i could also say that its one of my new year resolutions—to lead to a healthy-lifestyle. i met some of the people that i know there including Mr T. i find that he likes to exercise during most of his past-time. around 7.30am, there were a group of people already filled the laman budaya. from what i understood, there will be some free aerobic session on every sunday morning. i joined them from far ;) it was rather interesting though. what when they included the pocho-pocho dance at the ending part. well Mr T was surprised to see that i knew how to do the pocho-pocho hehe... see the legs lar lol...

we dropped-by at yut loy on our way back. i knew kids were tired including me. all three of us had iced milo with roti kahwin—toasted bread ying yong using traditional bread (ying yong means served with margarine and kaya). gosh... i should have taken some pics of the roti kahwin ;) nevermind... one fine day ya...

kadang-kadang, orang yang paling kita sayanglah... yang paling susah untuk kita sayangi (sometimes, the people that we loved so much, are the people that's so difficult for us to love).

now about the above quote, it was from the movie cinta (love). at first i didn't realize it when i watched the movie last time. i only did after i bought the audio-cd of the movie last week. fatimah abu bakar was the one who said it. nice. i like. its so meanigful too.

kuE's note: i snapped the above pic this morning, edited using fd's Flickr Toys.

colours of malaysia

i was with kay at memory lane in kinta city yesterday. we were filling up the member's form when i came across one of the questionnaires-- what festivals do you celebrate? answer: hari raya, chinese new year, deepavali, christmas or other (?). i was like... huh?!! wth! we are malaysians and shall celebrate them all. well of course the main one is the one of our religion, but when we are living in this country we are free to celebrate other festivals with our friends too. am i right? i find that malaysia's stands out with its wonderful way, many cultures live together and celebrate together. so guess what? i ticked all the boxes! *glurp*

so what if you were in my shoes?

the coconut seller

when aunt janagi saw me taking pics of her this morning, she quickly asked, "why ler kuE... are you going abroad ar?"

"hehe... no lar aunt. i wanna write about people of kuale, that's why", i told her.

"oh that's good of you to write a book", she said.

owh... i was like *glurp* i just do not wanna tell them that i love to write in my blog.

aunt janagi has been selling coconuts at the local market for more than 30 years. her children used to help her at the stall. but now after they all have grown up and lead their own life, she's keep selling coconuts with the husband and an indonesian helper.

normally there would be a long queue at her stall during festive seasons like chinese new year, hari raya or deepavali etc. especially on the eve of festive holidays. she will then can only go back until late afternoon.

aunt janagi is a very nice lady. she will say hi to me first whenever i bumped in to her :) go here to meet more people of kuale.

the HOT one

i was sms-ing with V whose in ipoh right now. he will be going to alor setar tomorrow for work. we were discussing about something not good that i heard. he was persuading me to tell him the truth. suddenly i was shocked when he called, after i last replied his sms. he was driving and sms-ing! he was looking for a parking at jusco when he called; can't wait to talk to me. this happened about 10mins ago. he has an appointment with a dato' there who supposed to meet him in kl but can only make it in ipoh instead.

so we talked for a while, to discuss more on the hot gossips around. the worst part was about a story saying that he's been sued for RM90 million if i'm not mistaken *phew*

both of us were laughing like hell. so V told me about the real thing happened during the last chinese new year holidays. he was so tickled about those gossips.

"oii... gelak plak dia yea...", i told him.

"ye lar... suka i dengan cerita-cerita macam nie", he answered. he still laughing, while i just smiled. "anyhow, sape yang cite kat you nie. was it staff... *tut* ".

"oikk... why on earth you thought that i know your employee".

"tak de lar, lagipun who else kan. alar cakap lar. bukannya i nak hantam dia. i juz wanna know was it our perak office staff ke or kl staff ke".

"i guess not now lor...".

"hmm... whatever lar. i know you. ok lor... i'm gonna meet this dato'. i'll call you later okay", he continued

the meets @ the royal town

today is already the third day of chinese new year. its also the awal muharram for muslims. i met with someone special yesterday.

it was about noon. i had a call from cikun, a forumer at mckk8286.com to inform that they will drop-by my place that afternoon. he was in town for the long break. i knew about this earlier from rose who told me via sms few days before that. well, the wait the better rite. soon after that cikun called me again saying that he was already here with hasnul and baby hanif. we just said hi and talked a bit. they wanted to buy something in town. that's why they thought of just dropped-by to see me first. we decided to meet again at 5.30 for laksa at 'tepi sungai'. eee... baby hanif was so damn cute ler...

unfortunately they were late. yea... don't worry, i'm an understanding person. i can cope with any kind of situation, remember. cikun called me after 6, saying that they would be here again at 6.30 to fetch me. i brought megat too. since it was already quite late, there's no laksa. also most of other stuff. in the end we only ate some cendol. it was nearly 7. megat was cursing me to bring him to the playground nearby. cikun said ok. so i told megat that we could only go there for a while. all of us walked there. both megat and baby hanif (with help from cikun of course) ride down the slide. i was shocked seeing megat was holding baby hanif. cikun went up there too! hasnul and me was talking like nobody business.

by 7.30, they (cikun and family) already send megat and me home. although its a quick one, but its also a memorable one... until i didn't even think of taking not even one pics! ya lor... dah sedap sangat bersembang, sampai tak ingat dunia rotfl... never mind, there's always a next time kan.

anyway, i'm off for a makan-makan again. an auntie invited us for lontong! auww... its one of my favourite yummy...

i'll be there... insya-Allah!

thank god that i will be going to kl tomorrow for a nephew's engagement on saturday night. we will reach there not too early though as both puteri and megat have to attend schools replacement for chinese new year.

we will take the chance to give some moral supports for my uncle on the last day of his 6th solo exhibition~ rhythm of the 21st century; before going back home the day after. he is exhibiting his latest artworks, featuring his 20 major sculptures, 45 drawings and 15 paintings. the exhibition that has been officiated by our former pm is held in petronas gallery, klcc since 29 october 2009.

so if you people do not have any plans for sunday yet, head on down to klcc occay? make sure to say hi if you see me... ;)

of packing a healthy and cheap lunch

today is only 4th of february.
megat is only in year four this year.
upsr exam is only two years away from now.

no matter what the circumstances are, megat and his batch (year four) have already started to attend extra classes after school hours with effective today, organized by the school' PTA. take note that megat is schooling in a local chinese school. so as for now he will be going home only at 2.55pm from monday to wednesday, while on thursday and friday is at 2.25pm. parents are allowed to deliver their kids lunch during their second break i.e. when the normal school hours end (1.35pm for monday to wednesday and 1.05pm for thursday and friday).

so as for me it's not a problem at all to bring megat's packed lunch to him at those hours. normally it would be like that anyway, where i would fetch puteri right after megat anyway. so it's definitely fine for me. and the best thing is we do not have to be worried for food poisoning, as the food is home-made. home-made food are more healthy i tell you. if not why on earth we could see quite a number of chinese mothers do the same. in fact one of them who always chatted with me when we bumped in to each other in school, told me that even she do not trust canteen food. she prefer to cook her kids' packed meal herself. besides that, we can teach our kids to save their pocket money since they already bring packed meals/lunch from home.

so as you could see from the above pic, that is the school' side entrance gate. that is where i usually waited for megat. and the missing grill are meant for us parents to pass anything to our kids, vise versa. kewl huh?!!...

i tell you what... isn't it good for you people to adapt this packed lunch ideas for work., no matter whether you are single or married. lunch is the meal where most people end up scarfing down whatever fatty, greasy food they can find. but it only takes a little pre-planning to create a healthy, energy-boosting meal, at little cost to you or your long-term health.

step 1
create a healthy shopping list, with easy-to-pack, nutritious foods in mind. opt for low-fat granola, dried fruit, nuts, low-fat meat slices, whole wheat bread, fresh fruit and deli tray-sized bits of fresh carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and sweet baby carrots, eggs (you can hard boil or create egg salad sandwiches with vegan mayonnaise or olive oil mayonnaise), and peanut, soy, or sunflower butter.

step 2
strategize the night before. it's best to pack more than you think you'll eat. that way you won't run out of the food you need to keep your energy up throughout the afternoon. plus, you'll have a little extra for mid-morning and even a quick breakfast on the run or during the commute.

step 3
include three components to make a meal: a main, snack and side. a salad, sandwich or whole grain wrap is a good choice for a main. throw in homemade trail mix (see #4) or granola for your snack. add in a salad with your sandwich, a container full of bite-sized veggies, or cubes of various fruits and honey for your side.

step 4
make your own trail mix. homemade trail mix can be customized to suit your taste, and can be created as a low-fat alternative to the store brands. mix together some sesame sticks, soy nuts, sunflower seeds, a few dark chocolate chips, dried cranberries, cherries, blueberries and almonds. the result is a snack that's tasty, low-fat and packed with protein and antioxidants.

step 5
try new variations on old standbys. there are hundreds of variations just on a whole wheat wrap. try a garlic or basil flavored flatbread or tortilla. brush on vinaigrette dressing instead of plain old mustard. add almonds for a protein boost, or just switch up your standard wheat sandwich bread with a whole grain roll. that way you'll never get bored and be inclined to stray from your healthy DIY route.

step 6
pack your items in reusable containers. bags formerly containing your snack mixes, veggies and sandwiches have only one place to go after you use them: the landfill. do this for the environment, while you revamp your lunch routine for yourself.

step 7
eat with co-workers in moderation. don't completely cut off lunches with colleagues. these are good morale-boosting sessions (or venting sessions, whatever the case may be). be a team player. you may be overdoing it when your lunches out really start to show up on your account balance and your thighs.

-----

on another note, kay came over to my place yesterday evening, for us to visit the late kak fairoz' mother. i think probably that time her (kak fairoz) brother was already on the way back to kuale from klia, to bring back her remains. read more about her in today's news here, here, here and here.

"may she rest in peace"... amin.

BlogDay 2007

do you all people still remember the BlogDay 2007 Event i posted earlier? yup, today is 31st august! the BlogDay! and i'm gonna introduce 5 new blogs that i found interesting to all of you here!

1. walk a mile in my shoes...
   
   
   wna's blog sounds interesting to me. its well written about her life. we started to know each other slowly since few weeks ago, although not much yet.
   
   
   
2. abby and allan in india
   
   
   this is quite a young blog, but really useful and informative for those who want to travel to india. i found this blog while i was blog hopping. basically, a clean design with really good information, even though it is a new blog. a worth visiting blog!
   
   
   
3. Quilts & ATCs
   
   
   i stumbled in to helen's quilts & atc's blog via blog hopping too. she is from UK who belong to many online groups and wanted to detail her progress with her crafts.
   
   looking at this blog really reminds me of one of my passions before, quilting. wahhh!!!... i just do not have the time now huhu...
   
   
   
4. my mayapuri
   
   
   "let mayapuri helps you organize ur event :) "
   
   another local blogger, mayapuri's motto says it all. she's basically helps people to organize events i.e. weddings, birthday, baby shower etc. please have a look at her creations. they were awesome i tell you... i first knew her from my flickr photostream. and to our surprise, her sister married to my SIL shafinaz's cousin ;) what a very small world huh?!! lol...
   
   to mayapuri, i would like wish you all the best in your business :)
   
   
   
5. Remember Laughter; The Bittersweet Life Of Mine
   
   
   eventually i stumbled in to this blog via blog hopping too. this blog author, yani from a neighboring country singapore, is a SAHM whose blessed with a wonderful husband and two cute sons. yani is rather lucky as she could travel frequently because her husband is a pilot cabin crew, just like my cousin, oyeen. don't forget to visit yani's blog and say hi to her. also let her know that kuE send you ya hehe...
   

happy BlogDay 2007!

link: BlogDay 2007 at technorati


kuE's note:
according to a chinese blogger, i yee, nir ofir, the BlogDay initiator (founder), said that he didn't have enough time to seed it this year. i yee also don't think it's smart to blame nir, as he said "i just initiated it... people are free to do what they want. bloggers in peru and cambodia did a meet-up/conference. other did videos... etc". well as for me, i would say that its hard for malaysian bloggers to do a meet-up on this day as it is also our national day.

kuE's related links:
10 more days to go...
.

my nuffnang story

alright, guess let me start by telling all you people of when i first heard the word 'nuffnang'. i am very proud to say i may be one of the first to know about it, thanks to the penang bloggers meet i joined on 25 february 2007. nuffnang's co-founder was one of the attendees. i did hear they talked in chinese and sometimes word 'nuffnang' while congratulating timothy. ok, fine. stupid me, i didn't even ask anyone what was that all about.

not too long after that nuffnang went live on the worldwide web. i was like- occay, this is what nuffnang all about. i can't remember the date but i know i was one of the first to register too.

its good to be a nuffnanger. there are so many activities lined-up for everyone no matter young or old. i had many experiences. not forgetting meeting top bloggers and learned many things from them. from then on i never turn back. let's have a glance seeing my journey with nuffnang (arranged accordingly by category)..........................................

nuffnang wild 'live' blogging

― sometime in june '08, this was the first nuffnang event i attended. invited bloggers were allowed to bring a guest, so i brought along my sister with me. it was a good explosion for her as well. even she expanded her social network friends through this event. she's a photographer, so you see how she could take an advantage from it.

friso brings my family day out

― didn't i say earlier nuffnang is for everyone? its event with friso was a kind of family day. it involved families with young kids. this time i brought megat. for puteri, she was too shy to go with us even though rob asked me to bring her... hah! megat did have so much fun with the other kids- dancing, play-along, contest and many more. i was lucky enough to win RM100 mph voucher by being one of the winners of the 10 best written pre-event blog posts courtesy of friso!

nuffnang music bash 2009

― from the event title it clearly said music totally involved. we had to dress-up as a music icon. my hair was short that time so i thought halle berry(?) the best *glurp* for this one, yes, of course puteri was interested and followed me. she also wore something nice- hip-hop/funky, maybe miley? one thingy is she's a bit shy to snap pics. so here's diese aka saloma with moi...

fundsupermart.com

― since this event was something about financial thingy i asked my blogger friend marcus to join me. we first met at a sharing session by nuffnang of course. i could say we became good friends. anyway you will know what i meant as you read through this post till the end ツ

celebrate amazing skin with vaseline

― diese was my guest for this event. vaseline launched some new line of products. and guess what people after i first tried the many types of lotions given in the goodie bag, believe it or not i keep using vaseline until now. it makes my skin smooth and soft.

nuffnang sharing session at the apartment downtown

― i could say i am proud here again that i am one of the bloggers who attended nuffnang's first sharing session. it was held at the apartment downtown, with guest bloggers, redmummy and sultan muzaffar. they shared some blogging tips and whats not. apart from that we got to get to know each other by introducing ourselves.

berbuka puasa with nuffnang

― i knew a cousin, yaya already moved to the city for good. so invited her to join me for this session. besides i also aware for sure her mom likes it that we were trying to keep the bonding of our family ties. we are definitely not first cousins though. and thanks to my invite yaya joined nuffnang thereafter for the sake of getting some extra incomes.

pic courtesy of sawanila.com

mamma mia premiere screening

― mamma mia was one of the first premiere screening invites i received. its special as nuffnangers could bring not 2 as usual, but 3 guest. it was screened in gurney plaza. so both puteri and megat tagged along. i was worried at first though whether they gonna like that kind of movie- you know, abba music was during my childhood days not theirs. they love it! until they looked for their gong gong's old record and insisted him to play the musics... *phew*

pic courtesy of 5Xmom

madagascar 2 premiere screening

― as soon as i got the invite for madagascar 2 via email i was so happy planning to surprise megat. i was really sure kids like megat loves the movie. as usual it was during not just weekdays but school days. once i fetch him from school i told him to get ready after lunch. he wore the clothes i prepared. see, clever me make him wear like a zoo-keeper... ahaks! he did of where we were going. i told him to just follow. the best thing was the screening was held in tgv in midvalley while we were living in kuala kangsar! to cut the story short he was really surprised when we reached there and thanked me so much for bringing me over. he smiled from ear-to-ear. i made him sleep on our way back home as he still has to go to school the day after.

nuffnang premiere screening, punisher: war zone

― i didn't dare to bring any of my kids for this movie. i just thought it was suitable for adults. more over we were in kuala kangsar. since i knew i got some other errands to do in kl that time i accepted the invite for this movie. what a co-incident my ex-boyfriend happened to have something to do in the city too. so i got him to bring me there. we became good friends, i believe nothing harmful for us to go watching movies together. it was very long time ago since the last we did that anyway. in my mind, i only thought the movie got something to do with his job, so maybe he could learned a bit from it too... :)

nuffnang special screening: prince of persia: the sands of time

― this movie screening was special, mister potato co-sponsored it. we each have been given two canisters each of the mister potato chips. kewl... huh?! i brought along cousin nivin. i was very much aware she's the right person for me to bring.

there were more other nuffnang events i attended. but i didn't blog about it- bloggers' blocked happened eventually especially towards the end of last year. i managed to post some sets of pictures anyway. i tweet a lot too sometimes- its a micro-mini blog right? on the other hand its one of the easiest way to update too, hehee... by the way here's some i could recalled~

nuffnang sharing session at modestos capsquare

gatsby deodorant street fair

and the recent one:

a night of stars with astro b.yond IPTV!

i know i know this blog has been lacked of updates. like i mentioned earlier, bloggers' blocked happened towards last year. plus i got job offer and moved to kl in january. i realized i was a bit lay-zeee then. that must be the big reasons why i never got the chance to have advertorial job. not even selected as a glitterati plus. not even have the chance to go to the first nuffnang asia-pacific blog awards. not just that i know very well i don't have many followers here. this also the results i didn't earn as much as some bloggers until hundreds and thousands of ringgits. but i did promise myself to brighten-up my blog again once things settle-down in kl. i will also try my very best to make it a point to join and be active again in blogger events organized by nuffnang. well to tell you the truth i dunno many local bloggers much myself. i am a lone ranger unless i get to ask someone to tag along. can't blame me for writing this blog in english though. i have been doing it since i first blog more than six years ago. it started as an online journal, nothing more than that. nuffnang is like a place for me to have fun for myself, and sometimes shared whatever i got with my loved ones... ♡

if we looked back, i lived in kuala kangsar, my hometown. if that time i can make the initiative to travel all the way to kl, also to penang to enjoy events by nuffnang, i should be able to do it more now. yes, other bloggers were truly surprised when they heard i came from kualé (kangsor). amazing? not for me, i am used to it already. besides i believe in the quotes: if there's a will, there's always a way...

now let me tell y'all my daughter, puteri is a registered member of nuffnang and churp churp too! she's in the mid of having her spm exams now. it was last month that i made my first trip to nuffnang office. i ordered 2 churpie plushies, one for moi and the other for puteri. i surprised her by sending it via pos ekspres along with a good luck card on thursday, few days before her exam started. according to mom, puteri was really surprised and smiled all day long... and when i came back to kualé last saturday (it was a surprise too), went straight-up to puteri's room to look for her, she was having her nap while hugging churpie. i should have taken a picture! i am so happy to see puteri loves her surprise exam gift~

come 16 December 2011, 500 bloggers from around the asia-pacific region will flock to kuala lumpur, malaysia for the nuffnang asia-pacific blog awards 2011 in putrajaya marriott. the Awards aims to not only honour the region's best bloggers, but also to bring together blogger communities from across asia-pacific. the nuffnang asia-pacific blog awards is brought to you by volkswagen malaysia and putrajaya marriott.