I have been going out of town every weekend since early October. Week one was the Singapore Trip. Week two Nephew’s wedding, week three Picnic in Morib, Week four FIL’s birthday and then last Saturday we was in Sunway Lagoon for Daddy company’s Family Day. Phew… and can you believe this coming Saturday I will be gone again for my cruise trip? *jumping like a school girl*

Suddenly I have too many things to blog but too little time to do so. I have yet to finish blogging my SG trip and after this week, you will see new photos from my cruise trip again. *jumping like school girl*. That is really scary!

Talking about Sunway Lagoon, you should revisit the place. They have a new kiddie water area. Way cooler than previously and wayyyyyyyyy bigger than before. Even the surf pool had sands now compared to previously, they are just pebble stones.

Not much pictures on the kids this time. Don’t know why. Don’t feel like taking pictures of them. I was kinda bored with all those same ole shots. I took more pictures of Daddy’s telematch so that he could share them with his colleagues.

I won’t be updating my blog till I come back from my cruise. *jumping like school girl* I’ve bought some new gear this time. A straw hat! And a dinner dress that I don’t think I will be wearing. You know in some cruise like las vegas nv, people really dress up in dresses for dinner. But then, we are talking about Malaysian. I will feel very uneasy if I overdress but I know I can’t go wrong with ‘underdress’ (don’t bother checking the Dictionary. There is no such word exist!) cos we are Malaysian!

Not many people heard of the term scrapbooking. What is actually scrapbooking? In my own words scrapbooking is where you transformed a dull photo into a piece of beautiful artwork. It is not difficult to start off if you have photoshop software or any other photo editing program that is able to do layering and must be able to run .png file.

Next, gather lots of element for scrapbook. You should be able to start working now. For my project, these are the elements that I am using:

Top to bottom: Ribbons, pin, stitches, flowers and alphabets. Not forgetting you need a paper too for the background.

From here on, you can start to create your master piece anyway you like or make them like a storyline. Not sure about you, I get my inspiration from looking at the elements I have, before putting them together.

I did a simple layout for my 11 month old Nephew.

Happy Scrapbooking.

We are less than three months away from celebrating Chinese New Year. The one thing to prepare myself for CNY is pruning the lime tree now. This is how you should prune them.

1) Trim every branches so that a new branch will sprout out. There is no special skill for doing that. All you have to do is snip every thing like trimming hair.
2) Pluck all the old leaves. This is how you identify old leaves. The colour is usually darker and the texture is thicker.
3) You can go the extra mile rejuvenate the soil with a new one. For my case, I just fertilized them with organic fertilizer.

They should look bare after all the trimmings. Don’t worry as new sprout will appear in a weeks time before the flower starts blooming. If all goes well, everything should go as planned by CNY *keeping my finger cross*.

The result of the trimmings left me with a big basket of limes. I gave them all to the good neighbours on my left and right. And guess what, the neighbour on my left told me, “Sometimes I used to pluck your lime. I love to used them in my cooking.” Ohhhh, the cat is out from the bag. She has been stealing my lime all these while!  Not that I care.  I have too many fruits on the tree. lol.

There’s another thing that I need to do is to set out few brown recluse spider trap in the attic as the spiders have been leaving cob webs in there which can get very irritating to the skin and with the trap I have one less thing to clean up.

As with many old wives’ tales, it seems there is more than a grain of truth - “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” is not a folklore anymore. I do know apple are a rich source of dietary fibre. When it comes to bowel regularity, apple’s fiber tackle the job no matter what it is. All you have to do is make sure that apple is included as one of the five portions of fruit and vegetables you eat each day.

These are the fruits combination I like:

Apple + Cucumber + Kiwi = To improve skin complexion

Tomatoes + Carrot + Apple = Improve skin complexion and eliminate bad breath

Carrot + Ginger + Apple = Boost and cleanse our system

The combination above is also good for acne cures as your body system is now cleansed. Want a Happy Living? Eat Health!

I have been getting this “Error 99″ not long after I purchased my Canon 400D. Thinking it was only a small problem, I just brush them at a side. Fyi, “Error 99″ is a general error. Whenever “Error 99″ shown on the LCD screen, all I need to do is switch the power off and on again or removed the battery and slot them back again. While I was holidaying in Port Dickson, the error was so dramatic. I have to repeatedly switch them off and on for the fifth time before they could function again! A bit worrying, I asked my sifu about “Error 99″. Looks like all along, I was so wrong to take the problem lightly. He had this same problem before and had his camera repair for RM400! I cringe when someone talking about money. As my camera is still under warranty, I decided to send them back to Canon.

Now, these people in Canon sure knows how to boiled my fire (foh kwan - cantonese).

First Visit

When I bring in my Canon 400D, I checked with them if they want me to leave the 50mm lens with them cos the problem might be coming from the body or the lens. They say no need. Just the body will do. In the afternoon, they called me to send in my lens as the computer can’t find any fault in the body. They suspected the error could come from the lens. Of course I have to raise my voice, “TADI KATA TAK PAYAH LENS. SEKARANG MAU LENS. BERAPA KALI KENA JALAN NIIIIII!”

Second Visit

I bring in the lens. And this time I ask them if they want my kit lens. Adding that I rarely use my kit lens at all and the error usually occurred when I used the 50mm lens. After the Babe heard it, conveniently she said no need. So I left the Service Center with my kit lens leaving the 50mm there.

Two days later, I called them to check on the status of my lens. They said they still can’t find the fault in the body and 50mm lens. Now they suspect it could come from the kit lens. But, but, I RARELY USED MY KIT LENS AT ALL! Lazy to argue with them, I delivered my kit lens the next day. I already can’t eat and sleep without my camera so I beg Hubby to be a bit more efficient. Next day must send in!

Third Visit

Since the body and 50mm has no problem, they are ready to discharge from the ‘hospital’. And now, my kit lens that is rarely used was hospitalised. They suspect it could be the culprit. They will change the optical bla bla in it.

But HARLOW!!!!! I have never used that kit lens and the error came out only when I used the 50mm lens. How come Kit lens need to do a operation instead of the 50mm lens or the body? You get what I mean or not? Very not logic right?!

Then hor, story haven’t finish yet. I ask them now how since the error keep on coming out and they all can’t find the problem. What if (IF only! Touch wood!) after warranty period the camera decided to die on me. She say, “oh no worries” as they usually will give one week extended warranty after the service. But then, I have another 4 more months before my expiry date. What is the point you give me one week only! Get what I mean? Huh! Huh!  One week has passed and I still can’t figure out all this thing.

SO NOT LOGIC leh!

My Boss came to me with his month old mobile phone:

Boss: My phone suddenly went on silent mode. Can you help me to switch it on again?

Jess: Ah, Ok. *fiddle, fiddle, fiddle* Nah, finished.

Boss: *pointing at a logo* You know what is this or not? How to switch it off?

Jess: Hmmm… this is Java. You accidentally activate it.

Boss: Me don’t want Jawa. Me want to go Bali.

Jess: HA! HA! *fiddle with phone again*. No la Boss. Java logo is not like this. Maybe it’s your bluetooth.

Boss: I just went to the dentist. No blue tooth here.

Jess: HA! HA! *fiddle with phone again*

Hubby’s friend bought for us a whole red snapper (I could be wrong though) salted fish from Kuantan. My first attempt is to had them (flesh only without the bone) stir-fried with rice. That was something like one month ago and I’ve totally forgot about the salted fish! So I cook them again last weekend. This is my all time favourite dish - Taugeh (bean sprout) with Salted Fish.

Ingredients:

Slices of salted fish
Taugeh (bean sprout)
Tau kua (A harder version of Tofu fit for stir-fry)
Homegrown Chives
Cloves of garlic
Chilies

Method:

Sliced tau kua in rectangular. Deep fried them in oil on high fire till golden yellow. Removed from wok and using the same oil earlier fried the slice salted fish till fragrant or crispy. Removed. Discard the earlier oil. Without washing the wok, saute garlic and chives. Add in taugeh and chilies. Give them a quick stir and pour in 1/2 cup of hot water. The reason why I used hot water so that the water doesn’t take a long time to boil and not overcook the taugeh. Transfer the earlier tau kua and salted fish. Season them with 1/2 tsp of oyster sauce. Once the gravy boiled, removed immediately.

Best served with rice. But I had them with porridge. That is another part of me growing up as a foochow. Old habit die hard - porridge for lunch and rice for dinner.

A personal friend of mine started blogging one year after I started.  He is surprised that I have a steady stream of readers and would like to know how I maintained the traffic.  You see, after 2 years of daily hijacking blog-hopping, I have hence reduced blog-hopping and concentrate at maintaining the quality of my blog so that readers will keep coming back.  I do read up blogging tips from internet marketing blog.  They help me to be a better writer now.  Read on if you are interested to find out how:

1. Update your blog regularly
2. Include a subscribe button for your RSS feed like the one I had on my top right bar.
3. Get to know your readers - what they like or expect to read from your blog.  Sometimes we have not choice but to pleased the readers.
4. Brush up your blogging skills.  Make them more interesting for example include a nice photographs, humour, catchy lines, grammar, etc.
5. Interact with your readers by replying to their comment or make friends with some nice readers.
6. Share your blog on Facebook.  When I do that, I can see my traffic jumps by 20%.
7. Key word is the most effective way to attract targeted traffic.  Visitor from search engine contribute a least 30% of traffic.
8. Viral marketing is something you work once and the traffic will never stop coming.
9. Please don’t cluster your blog with too much paid post!

If you like this post, please buy me a coffee.  Have a great weekend.

My stressed level is up 90% today. Really, really super stressed! Good thing I have friends that is willing to listen and lend a helping listening ear. Thanks mate! This is my stressed antidote for today.

John Potter  - what is wrong with his tongue! Real clown la him.

I am so in love with the new Wii Fit console by Nintendo especially the Yoga component. To start playing the game, firstly you must buy the Nintendo Wii Games console which costs about $250 and the Wii Balance Board retails at $90. Prices could varied elsewhere.

The game consist of 15 yoga poses but only four was ‘unlocked’ for starter i.e. Deep Breathing, Half Moon, Warrior I and Tree Pose. You needed to practise for a certain amount of time before the next 2 yoga pose is available to you. Perfection is secondary here. However, scores will be given depending how perfectly the poses is done. The game could also tell if you are balancing evenly or imbalance. At the end of each pose, the game gave you a ranking of Yoga Newcomer, Yoga Novice, Yoga Trainer or Yoga Master.

However, I do find it weird doing Warrior I pose with one foot elevated on the 2 inches high board and the other on the ground. Isn’t that what we called body imbalance? No wonder the poses is so limited comparing to the original 1000 poses we did at the studio. But then, the console is a good buy as it can be used for other games too like jogging, step aerobics, hula hoop, rhythm boxing, find step, skiing, snowboarding, heading soccer ball, tightrope walk or balance bubble. Hehe… so who is up for a challenge? Athena? Wuching? Kamkuey?