200th Post

Yeayy...It's my 200th post and it dosen't seem like it! I never knew I could post this many entries..

Yeterday, I declared an off day for the staff..But I went in anyway to finish some work with three other staff until about 2 pm. Wifey was supposed to bring the boys to a park to play footie but it rained. Parents-in-law came for a vist with my nieces and I arrived home as they were finishing lunch. Took a nap and my parents arrived. So there went our plan to bring kids to Kinokuniya...

Have you ever been to Queen's Park in Cheras (near Taman Maluri)? It's our fave place mainly for our organic food stuff and the outlet stores there. There's Esprit, FJ Benjamin, Annakku, TeddyTales, FOS, Jerasia (Nike, Naf Naf & Calvin Klein) outlets selling off season stuff.

Initially we thought of driving all the way to Ikano to get Mukti moisturiser (purely organic) for my mum from Justlife and bring the kids for meatballs at Ikea but since mom and dad were around, we left the kids at home and went to Justlife Queen's Park instead, which is a lot nearer.

Went to Guar***n to get some supplies for my Umrah trip and wrapped up the night with the new Pesto sandwich (which a friend recommended) and Nantucket Pineapple, Orange and Passion Fruit juice at *bucks.

Bought vegetables, black bean and oatmilk drink for the kids, organic passion fruit mayonnaise for me and Mukti moisturiser for mom.


I like the simplicity of the display at Justlife.

You can get off season Nike, Naf Naf and Calvin Klein from here.

Had this fantastic new Pesto sandwich from S***bucks

Sunday blabber

Wifey cooked chicken rice for lunch and dinner yesterday. We had dinner around 6 p.m and after performing maghrib prayers I offered the kiddos McD pie. Ever since they launched banana pie, I've been hooked to it! The Ringgit McSavers is a good deal. Burgers and the rest are quasi-banned in my household, though purely for health reasons! They'd probably have them once a month or may be slightly longer (they used to have them every other day)! With this mom&dad-imposed-ban, they are eating more healthily at home!

Drove the three boys for a spin to a McD which is five mins' drive from home and ordered 10 banana pies, 2 apple pies (basically we cleared the whole batch of pies there was), 2 sundaes and one McFlurry! Man.... ! RM30 for dessert - ain't it expensive? It's 3/4 of our weekly budget of fish for the household...! Things ARE expensive these days....It used to be my pocket money for the whole month when I was in a boarding school (OR was it RM50?).

I guess I went overboard when placing the order...there're still 3 pies and a sundae left stored in the fridge (for tomorrow)!



My Poupon is bald! Sis mms me yesterday with this piccie...She got Poupon shaven. They are in Muar for the weekend. He looks cheekier somehow spotting this hairless-do!

Now we are off for an unplanned picnic at a nearby stream!

Oatmilk and Black Bean Drink

Justlife is our family favourite organic shop...We have been slowly changing our foodstuff to organic ones for the past three years...Yes it can be pricey but the benefit far outweigh the cost you incur. Somehow organically grown produce tastes a lot different. For lunch I'd pack sandwiches with organic cherry tomatos, sprouts/cress and lettuce - even my sons can vouch that they taste a lot better than the not-so-labour-intensive-grown veg (in other words with the help of pesticides). Read this blog for more on organic living.

Two of the items which I never fail buying is the black bean milk (tastes better than soy bean milk) and the oatmilk (packed in a glass bottle)! The two Justlife stores which we normally frequent is the ones at Ikano Power Centre and Queen's Park.

D-I-L not well

Got news from M-I-L two nights ago that D-I-L wasn' well and he had high fever due to a bacterial infection around his calf and shin (cellulitis, apparently). He had this a couple of years back after his knee cap replacement surgery and it has recurred. He is hospitalised at University Malaya Medical Centre, where wifey's sis is a specialist there. He's treated with antibiotics intravaneously and my D-I-L claimed that the inflammation had subsided.

He's in an upbeat mood and pretty confident that he will be discharged tomorrow (au contraire according to sis in law!) when we visited him yesterday. Sis-In-Law made a remark, somehow he's a lot happier at UMMC .....than home? (not sure whether she meant this; which I don't quite think so.)

Anyway, praying that he gets better soon....

Well, since he's not well...we have all cancelled our trip back to Alor Star this coming school holidays!

Report Card

Made good progress with my attempt to lose a bit of weight down to my ideal weight. So my report card says:-

Body Fat down from 20.8% to 15.2%
Visceral Fat down from 14% to 8%
Weight down from 72.8 kg to 70.2 kg

Not bad for one month of exercise. The only difference now is that I have specific goals unlike before where I just exercised haphazardly. Needless to say I was at status quo at the end of it! But, still another kg plus to go!

Personal Trainer

I have succumbed to the fitness freak world to the hilt!

Got myself signed up with a personal trainer for 10 sessions, to my disbelief (wifey was knocked for six when i told her). My goal? To lose my flab in the abdominal area and increase strength and stamina generally (it's no joke raising 4 kids; to make it worse out of the 4 are 3 hyperactive boys. Keeping up with them is exhausting!) Ya ya ya...I can see the sniggering I-told-you-so-faces!

Been religiously going to the gym for the past 8 months on my own; lost a few kilos and a couple of inches around the waist and that's about it! The gut is still making its home here!

Attended 3 sessions already and.......? It's a world of pain I'm living in now! (Oh your muscle fibres are stretching and this and that...according to my trainer). It is good to note that the three sessions are showing results as the saying goes "no pain no gain".

Unless you have a gym buddy who is highly as motivated as you and knowledgeable in the fitness world your hours in the gym may prove futile and you will get discouraged and unmotivated eventually. It's all about balancing the exercise (done with the correct tehchnique) and nutrition. I have seen gym goers who maintain status quo despite exercising everyday. Did you know that you will only go into the fat-burning zone after 25 minutes of cardio? I don't blame you, I just found out recently from my trainer!

Quarantined

Brought Umar to the GP last night as wifey thought that he had chicken pox. But he already had it a couple of years back and can't possibly have recurred within such a short period of time! I was sure that it could not possibly be the pox!

To our shock and horror, he was diagnosed as having the hand-foot-mouth disease. This really caught us off-guard as there is no outbreak of HFMD reported in the news unlike last year when Lorna Whiston, the language centre which my kids attended, had to cancel classes because of an HFMD outbreak.

The GP, to my disbelief, only prescribed a container of cream for the rashes, paracetamol for fever (he wasn't having fever) and vitamin (suggesting that he's vitamin-deficient?). Doesn't HFMD requires admission and adiministration of anitibiotics?

Back at home, did some quick research immediately and found out form the Malaysian Ministry of Health website that in almost all cases that medication is not required and it should resolve by itself in 7 to 10 days. This was confirmed by wifey's sister who's a doctor herself! Phew....! Aiyah....I should be trusting the GP, right?

Unless your kids with HFMD show signs of lethargy or shortness of breath or look very ill, it's quite safe to just let them be! We just saw Ib with some rashes on his knee this evening. There were no symptoms at all for Umar except for rashes on his knee and his feet! He is still jumping and clowning about as usual and his appetite does not seem to be negatively affected at all.

Ib and Umar has been home bound since this morning. They are absolutely enjoying their freedom at home!

What to feed the kids?

Weekend mornings will find wifey and I looking bamboozled and always debating on what to feed the kids because (a) weekdays are normally well planned by wifey - freshly squeezed mixed fruit/vegetable juices with sandwiches/fried rice/scrambled eggs/pancakes and the like (b) we have decided that fast/processed food (frankfurters, nuggets, burgers and the like) is off menu!

Just discovered last week that Ib loves my oat bran power breakfast (on some mornings) - mixture of oat bran, soy powder and a dash of molasses. Since we were scurrying to Car*****r and be one of their super-kiasu shoppers - my power breakfast seemed the perfect choice for their breakfast rather than E.K. nasi lemak (from this makeshift stall in Lembah Keramat) we buy them Sunday after Sunday!...And guess what? They walopped two bowls of them bran. Off mummy and daddy went to do grocery shopping feeling relieved and elated since they are eating healthy food!

By the time we finished shopping (and window shopping - this goes without saying, right?) it was almost quarter to twelve. Made a quick stop at the Wangsa Maju DBKL Library at KLSC to inquire about membership (thanks to a blogger [who used to teach computer literacy at my children's kindy and knows one of my kids] who visited my blog and made a mention of this library in one of her postings; otherwise we would have not known!). It's quite impressive for a neighbourhood library and empty! By the time we headed for home it was almost lunch time and again - what to feed the kids? Wifey said why don't we buy Mc Donald's for a take away? We decided...naah...not junk food (we r trying to completely not visit fast food joints and feed them with home cooked meals - it's now down to one visit a month; we used to do weekly trips!). Wifey remembered that we had some leftover bolognaise sauce from Friday lunch and we made a quick dash to Bagus Bakery Supplies store where apart from cake and cookies supplies, they also sell freshly made pizza base, beef pepperoni, pastrami, grated mozzarella and cheddar cheeses - very reasonably priced as they buy in bulk! The cheeses are imported from Australia and you can get them half the price you would have to pay at Cold Storage or Hock Choon.

Made three pizzas (see the mess above!) - bolognaise sauce with chicken pastrami; 1.5 for us and 1.5 sent over to superwomanwannabe's. Two meals settled for the kids for the day.... and one more to go!

Bagus Bakery Supplies (the branches which we know) - one in Taman Melawati Tel 0341060688 (behind Kok Art and Antique) and the other in Taman Permata (the block behind 7 Eleven somewhere in the middle).

Our Sunday Walk

Woke up Sunday morning quite late (to my standard that is), about quarter to seven, and woke wifey up as she wanted to join me for a gym session (well at least this was what she told me the night before). But hey....wifey wanted fresh air, instead, that morning rather than being cooped up in the gym like a guinea pig trotting on the tread mill and asked me to accompany her for a morning walk up this little hill in Taman Melawati (this is the only way she gets to use her new Nike cross trainers which I bought her...LOL). I agreed with much reluctance; as to me morning walks are for wimps!

Decided to drive to Taman Melawati and left our car at the new Food Court near TM Building. Started walking towards the hill and passed the river pictured below and noticed a few flamingos looking for their catch of the day. The river was heavily polluted with soil eroded from the neraby hill cleared for development - thanks to the local council and the state authority for approving hill development for reasons best known to them!

Flamingos in the river

The entrance to the little hill

The no entry without permission notice - did we care?

A hill cleared for development viewed from the little hill

Wifey lagging behind........

A humongous bungalow under construction...it has a lift shaft!

On the way back, we took a detour to get to our car and walked pass this house at Jalan J16, phase 6 Taman Melawati. This is the house which was to be our first marital place of abode (residing completely together) after we got married (I was residing in Johor Bahru whilst wifey in Kuala Lumpur with her parents immediately after we got hitched). We stayed here for about a year before we purchased an apartment also in Taman Melawati. This is the house Khadijah called home after she was brought back from the hospital......

Hey, after that morning walk, I'm fully converted. It's not bad at all...you get nice view, fresh air and most importantly quality time with wifey. I'll definitely do it again. What's wrong with being a wimp once a week! LOL!