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This morning I sent the boys to school alone while hubby decided to stay back at home to do some preparation for an early meeting. Half an hour after that, while I was still in the school compound, I suddenly received a call from my very worry hubby telling that there is a 2-feet-long black snake, in our living hall, hiding below QQ’s school back pack. He said he dare not go anywhere but will be standing there to watch the snake (in case it went away and hide elsewhere) so I have to come home quickly to assist.

I was really worry, but I know wise and calm hubby would surely settle it before I got home. True enough, he chased out the snake (with a broom, *faint*) and was already mopping the floor, checking elsewhere, and lastly wipe clean QQ’s schoolbag.  He ended up very late and he missed his meeting.

And since snakes are often sighted outside our house area (we lives near a jungle, really!), I just had to google for some info on how to handle snakes.

http://www.wikihow.com/Deal-With-a-Snake-in-the-House

1. If you happen to come across a snake in your house, the first thing to do is to resist the urge to attack it with a broom or stick - oh dear, hubby just did this !
   
2. Sometimes the snake will be on a floor surface. If so, the best thing to do is to place an object over it like a heavy blanket. The snake should immediately calm down and will feel secure if it can not see what is going on outside the blanket. Placing heavy objects around the edge will prevent the snake from slipping out from underneath it and going elsewhere. This will buy you some time to get help - err….i guess quickest way is to use a floor mat ?
   
3. The next thing to do is call Animal Control and get them to send an expert to collect the snake. Usually they will catch and release it far from human habitat -in our country, I suppose we should call Bomba
   
4. If the snake is found in a drawer or somewhere difficult to access, leave it alone; move all family members away from the immediate area and, most of all, do not attempt to interact with it at all -again, we should call our Bomba
   
5. If you come across a venomous snake in the garden: get everyone away from it. Do not attempt to kill it. Most illegitimate bites happen when people try to kill a venomous snake. Call a professional rescue organization to relocate the snake away from human habitation. Other tactics include spraying it from a distance with a high-pressure hose or opening sprinklers. This will persuade the snake to leave the area - I guess we would not be able to identify if the snake is venomous so it is safer to leave it to Bomba ya…
   
6. Next, find out why the snake came to your area.

• Do you keep rodents or birds? -No, but my neighbour, who has great love for nature has got three bird nests on her tree!
• Aanimals like chipmunks and squirrels are common -unfortunately we have plenty around
• Mice - thank God we have not spotted any in our neighbour
• 

8. A mouse can easily get through a hole the size of a pencil. Make sure there are no holes in your walls. Fill them     immediately. High-pitched sound devices are now becoming a popular way to discourage vermin from entering homes; evidence shows some positive results. Having such a device installed might be a good idea. Remember, snakes always follow their food source.

 *** Hubby came home very early and seal every single hole near the entrance today.  I was still joking that maybe a snake pays a visit to us, trying to let us know we should try for a snake baby. Well, maybe making one in snake year, but too late to be born as a snake baby, hehe…..

I did not know how to appreciate Jazz music until recently. Came across some very nice soothing jazz music on radio recently and I think I fell in love with it. I was thinking, that by putting on this nice background music in the morning would certainly put us in good mood the first thing in the morning.

It would be great to be able to afford a decent pa system from musicians friend but I guess getting just a blue tooth speaker works equally fine for us for the time being.

Time to download some nice music online. Anyone knows of any Jazz song names to recommend? Or any website where I can find them?

It has been way too long since I wrote so I better write something now.

Just yesterday Alice sent me a message, asking me if there is some changes on FB as she no longer sees my update anymore. And then this morning, CK asked me again why she isn’t seeing anything updates from me on FB.

Well, there has been some minor changes again at home and I guess it somehow affects me indirectly.

Hubby has just recently decided to change his career path for good. He finally walks out from the dark tunnel he has comfortably traveled for the past 10 years and venture into a new great job opportunity that came by just in time. I feel very proud of him for his courage. However this transformation is rather challenging and I almost feel his job pressure in me too.

He would be able to handle it well, I am sure. No point worrying too much, I know but I just couldn’t help it.

And then the boys are facing some changes too. This year, they were separated for the first time in life, to go into different classes to walk their own journey. Not that they are missing each other (they aren’t close to each other anyway) but then their crying episode is coming back daily.

It started off with Didi and he cried *with eyes closed* almost everyday upon waking up from nap. And then now Korkor fuss over little things again and cry his lung out too on daily basis too.

Everyday I am feeling so mentally stress again, having to endure with their cries, like how it used to be when they were much younger.

QQ on the other hand is progressing fine too with her violin lesson and school.

My little Didi, who can now take curry noodle at the Age 5

As for myself , nothing much happened except that I do not feel spending time on my computer.

So Shireen, I am not preggy with No4 yet, although I would rather be preggy than trying so hard to keep myself going easy from all these little stress at home.

The weather has been so humid and hot and I rather spend my afternoon shutting down myself, to hibernate and nap in our air-con room

Few weeks back, the boys attended their best friend’s birthday at Megakids Mid Valley. Believe or not, it was our first time going into Megakids since it opens!

Unlike other indoor playground we visited, the slides at Megakids are more challenging. My kids dare not play most of the spinning tunnels. But this place is really huge and fun. They love this place!

At the birthday party, there were lots of very beautiful “beyblade” cuppies which my friend ordered from Siew Li.

The kids were so excited that they hardly eat anything. Just can’t wait to play and play!

From early noon, they played right up till late evening. My dear friend then invited us to have dinner together at Yuzu with their family before we left that night.

It was really a fun but very tiring day for the kids as we only reached home at about 9.30pm that night.

The boys keep on asking us when they can visit Megakids again, and hub said, wait for another year, for their best friend’s birthday party, LOL!!!

“QQ is a very obedient girl”, is the praise I often hear from QQ’s teachers. Although she a very quiet and shy girl, she is paying 100% attention to teachers in class, she remembers everything teacher said, she answers well when her teachers ask her a question.

But at home, she became the opposite. My advise falls on deaf ears, when we try to guide her in her homework, she demands an answer without putting effort even to read and understand the questions. Perhaps play is her priority and there is nothing more important than play (play = de-stress??)

After all she has to spend all her day time attending tuition upon waking up and then go to school until late evening. As parent, I do understand the need to rest, but what choice do we have? At the very limited hours at night after dinner, she must complete her school homework otherwise she won’t have time to do it the next morning.

And now, she do not even care to practice her violin anymore. Out of seven days in a week, I would only manage to get her to practice once after much of talking to her, which often ends up nagging.

She will usually just keep quiet to herself ignoring me when she refuse to do something. I guess she behaves like that because she knows no point arguing with this “All-Time-Win Mummy”. Keeping quiet and by ignoring me is the only way to win.

Sigh…I really don’t know how to deal with her……

I am so glad we finally got a new washing machine to replace the old one. It is a Toshiba D980 that runs with a direct drive and I am so happy we got a very good appliance discount from an electrical shop nearby.

It is very small in size, with a very compact design, just nice to fit into our corner of the kitchen.

Performance is fantastic as we could not even hear a single sound of the machine washing our clothes. All we could hear is some nice light sea wave sound. Hubby said should have gotten it earlier, hahaha…

Must really pen this down before it slips off my memory.

During CNY, we managed to drop by at Wai Han (who is the owner of hypnobirthing.com.my). Have always wanted to visit her new home after she shifted and finally we were there

There are plenty to play for the kids while we could chat. Can you see a almost headless chicken running around in that picture? Boys, she certainly has many animal pets roaming free around her place for the kids to play!

QQ sitting on a hammock she has in front of her home. Cool isn’t it?

And then there are lots of rabbits and the kids just would not stop catching their poor little babies. Just could not believe she could actually live with so many animals in the corner of a link house, *faint*….

My kids beg us to go there again one day although hubby was fuming red because we stepped lots of droppings into the car, hahaha!

How nice if my dear friend stays nearer to our place…

Korkor developed fever last Thursday and lasted for almost SIX days!

During the first three nights, high temperature was expected but on the third night, it shoot up to 40.5 degree and we were so worry about it. Although it went off after the fourth morning, the fever comes back after he returns from school the next day

I was getting very anxious already because I heard there are many dengue cases recently. Even my own brother was hospitalized for dengue.

Luckily two days of having fever again, his fever subsided.

Thinking back, it was only one FEVER episode and I was having so many days of sleepless night already. And I really cannot imagine how those poor parents who cares for their kids with long term illness spend their moments waiting for miracle to happen, hoping to see their kids well again.

Parenting is really so challenging, sigh….

We have a piano at home, brought up all the way from hometown. Since I hardly plays it and I thought the pitch was fine, I did not bother to have it tuned ever since we arranged it to be transported up years back. Sometimes the kids do play with it. But then when I notice the keys are not bouncing up back to its’ level, I knew something went wrong but I did not pay much attention to it. It did not even cross my mind that the heating element in it wasn’t working anymore due to my faulty electric socket.

Recently I decided to have it tuned again because I will be using it to guide QQ with her violin. Unfortunately I ended up have to spend almost a thousand to fix it to proper working condition. Sigh….I thought it would be so easy to maintain, like the Nord Keyboards our neighbour has.

Looking back at this picture makes me so hungry now!

Our Chinese New Year Eve Dinner that 2nd SIL cooked for the day. And we have been eating those since afternoon so you can imagine how much food leftover we still have at the end of the day!

At by midnight, we had a very simple prayer to receive to God of Wealth. Saw those beautiful cupcakes and wish to know where I got them? Will go into details later

Kids were still wide awake by midnight eve and starting to receiving Ang Pow

It was raining each day starting on the first day of CNY. We managed to visit the Buddhist Temple in Kuantan

This year, we only went back to Melaka on the 3rd day. The weather in Melaka was good and cooling.

Visiting the elderly was only my main purpose to go back to Melaka. My Popo (paternal grandma) is now living in an old folks home

And this is my Ah Mah (maternal grandma). She just celebrated her 92 birthday during CNY and although she has lost 80% of her memories (she keeps on telling me stories of her in her40+), she is in the pink of health

We can’t be happier to be back home here, where all our friends are now.

On our way back to here, we stopped to visit my best friend who has recently moved down to Seremban. Miss her so much, *sob..sob*

Annual gathering of my uni housemates and our family

And then we also visit to the very famous FGS Dong Zhen Temple. It was my first time visit there during day time (we reached there about 6pm) and I think it is even more beautiful to catch pictures when it is bright.

Ah..this year they have some 3D Art Display. I like this one best!

Our world isn’t as safe as it used to be. We need to be so alert and cautious at all time, because at carelessness will put our life at risk. We are worried of people breaking our window when we stop at traffic lights, or being a kidnap victim at any car park or even right outside our home. We equip ourselves all time with gadgets where we will have to also check out where to buy pepper spray and stuffs like that.

This not only affect us directly, but our kids as well.

We always have to remind our kids, “Be careful! …..Don’t run around in public places otherwise bad people will catch you!,…..etc..etc” They as if lost their freedom to play freely as they like in public.

And my dear Korkor always comment, “Noody from Toyland is so lucky, because in the world he is living, there is only TWO BAD GUY??”. LOL!!!

So happy I could come back to blog again!

Can’t wait to pen down my pending CNY posts.

Shortly before CNY, we were all feeling down as we faced some uncertain issues at home.

To boost our mood, hubby painted some exterior walls and I got myself busy and went into excessive baking. I baked almost each night, two weeks before CNY, hoping to bake enough for three homes (Kuantan, Melaka and our own home here).

My very successful home cooked Pineapple Jam 

Although tedious, baking the Chinese New Year tarts and cookies was very mood lifting and soon I found out that I only bake enough for two homes.

This time my Pineapple Jam was a GREAT SUCCESS. I tried by cooking only with two fruits for the first round. It was so good I cooked another four fruits later on.

Butter Pineapple Tarts

I baked the tarts twice, starting by Butter Roll Tarts and then Open Face Nyonya Tarts (with lards, hehe!)

And then I also tried making Semperit Butter Cookies. Unfortunately my very pretty piped out floral cookies melted while baking. Not sure what went wrong ( the dough was soft so it could be too much butter?) but they were so tasty.

Another great successful recipe was this German Butter Cookies. Main ingredient used was the potato starch so I have not idea why they were not called Potato Cookies instead?

I am surprise the melt-in-mouth German Butter Cookies recipe is so easy to bake and this recipe is a sure non failure if you wish to try.

The last successful one this little Peanut Puff (Kok Chai) but with very close supervision from our dear neighbour. We use only lard to make the dough for the skin. QQ was able to help out a lot making this but I got my Kok Chai burnt as I was frying them for the first time. The above batch was fried by our dear neighbour

When we got the above done, it was almost Chinese New Year by then and we were preparing to go back to hometown.

QQ has just started her violin lessons merely for two months and she already gets bored of practicing already. For beginner stage, she only needs to practice her violin one hour per week (which takes about four days out of seven days with 15minutes per practice) but that also she could not fulfill.

I always ended up nagging all time but it only falls on deaf ears.

I remember my mum used to force my siblings and I to practice our piano at least ONE HOUR per day and 15 minutes is really peanut compare to what we had gone through. And now this girl has the nerve to tell me she wants to learn more instruments like glockenspiel some more!

I do have to admit that completing my music for so many years of hard work was difficult but I really have to thank my mum for her persistence  and patience with us.

Wonder how do mums out there make their kids practice their music instruments daily? Sigh…I hate nagging, really!

I was so stress and almost fainted when I found three of my blogs were having problems for the past one week.

For this main blog, www.demoments.net, a report was displayed on Firefox saying that it was attacked by malware and the malware was spreading (or somehow it linked) among some blogs. I reported this issue to my host and they said there were no error found. Ok problem solved for this one.

Then links on my recipe blog www.decuisine.net and another personal blog, www.dejourney.net was gone too. Apparently these two blogs were attacked by some malware but this malware issue was resolved very quickly by my hosting support team. They did something to the htcess file. Unfortunately they messed up some files in the server and my blogs went blank! *sob*

It took them a week to try fix the problem but the support team (ranking from Level 1 to Level 3 some more!) just could not do anything. Got face to ask me to start blogging from fresh some more, crazy!

Thank goodness Chooi Peng helped me to look into the broken files and within one morning, she managed to restore all my three blogs with all WordPress upgraded to the latest version some more. Smart eh…! I couldn’t have thank her more.

Thank you so much Chooi Peng, for all the help throughout all these years.

Exercise class after the festive season? I bet they would have a good number of new students enrolling to shed off some weight after CNY. Ya, I think I should do that too, as I still have most of my Yoga attire I bought online from the best selection yoga clothes for women.

Must start looking out for promotions coming up for such classes now on online coupons from time to time.