Ombrés

I've been a big fan of colours for as long as I can remember, especially shades and tones of colours. The only part I excel in when it comes to art, are colours but not drawings. To have me draw a human will be like the biggest offense to mankind themselves coz I can bet my ass it'll look like a dog. Stick man, no problem. Growing up my favorite colour was blue. I dislike red probably because I was psycho-ed by my mom to hate the colour. Come to think of it she probably hates colours. Black is usually her first option when it comes to the colour of the clothing. To have her wear red.....well I honestly don't know how I can get her to wear red. Probably in her bible of colours when it comes to clothes, wearing red is like the biggest sin EVER whereas to my papa, it didn't matter. My papa was colour blind. Funny really. Every time we go shopping during Chinese lunar new year, he would ask me to tell him what are the colours of the clothes he picked. When I ask him what are the colour he sees, his answers are usually so random that it feels very much like he's crapping me just to entertain his little girl. It's not like he doesn't know the colours, it's just some colours, his vision recognizes it differently.

So growing up, my choices of colours were usually white, blue and black. Those three become my preferred choice. But as I grow older, I start to appreciate the other spectrums of colours there is. I guess once I got to 16 17 where vanity struck me like it was a freaking disease to every young women out there, with me broadening my fashion style, I opened up my choices of colours and I became a sucker for colours ever since. I started enjoying girly colours like pink. I started liking a certain type of green. I started liking brown coz it suited my skin colour very much. I know I've been crazy about purple coloured flowers since young but in the last few years I've grown so fond of the colour purple that I've added it to one of my favorite colour. So much so that I had a purple themed wedding. Nevertheless, blue still remain as one of my favorite colour till today. It's too bad I don't look good in purple. Red is still very much a no no. I avoided red much like how my mother did. So when the ombré hairs and nails started hitting the scenes, I took an immediate liking to the in-thing. What's not to like? The spectrum of the colour is highlighted and the contrast of the colours match is so vibrant that it creates such beautiful colours and it's so pleasing to see. If I was still back in uni, I would've gotten my hair done in ombré style. I would've gone for crazy cotton candy colours like pink and purple. Being a mom of two and working in a corporate company, I would look like a fool if I dyed my hair pink or purple.

Ombré hair in pink and purple

Ombré hair in green and blue

So the closest I came with was ombré nails. As I don't have the luxury of freedom and time ever since I had kids, DIY is my option, not that I mind since I love DIYs. After a few googling, YouTube-ing, I came up with these and I'm loving it albeit it wasn't as neat as it should be. It took me a few attempts. I gotta say the whole time trying to get them nails done, it felt like I was struck with diarrhea, like the explosion of crap could happen any second if I don't get to the loo soon enough. Simply because I was soooo freaking worried about baby Cadee waking up while I was busy painting my nails for the 100th time, thus I kept screwing it up over and over again. Patience and TIME is strongly required should you ever considering DIY ombré nails. Nail polish are from Elianto at 3 for RM16. I love the pastel striking colours they have. Perfect for ombré nails.

First ombré nails attempt

The colours I used for my first attempt

Second attempt. Nails polish by Elianto

Finger nails done in cotton candy colours pink and purple

Products: Abbott Calcium Milky Chew

I'm a strong advocate for breastfeeding. I breastfed my son, Ezra for 2 years and 8 months long, probably with the last couple months him sucking just for comfort. I gotta say though the last couple months that I was no longer producing milk, the feeling of him sucking for comfort was really really annoying and painful. If you have seen dogs or cats nursing their pups that's getting out of the puppy stage, probably nearing the weaning stage, the mother will start kicking her young ones away when they try to suckle. It felt exactly like that, I felt like kicking my own son away for sucking! That was how annoying it felt only I couldn't coz I knew I was his pillar of security and I told myself I was gonna allow him to take his time to self wean himself off when he is ready to let go of the breast. I didn't want the weaning to be stressful for the both of us. He self wean himself 3 weeks before his baby sister came out to see the world. As Ezra was my first born and motherhood was just a whole new world I was stepping into, everyday is a learning lesson for a new momma like me. Even as a so-called 'experience' momma now for the second time to baby Cadence, I'm still learning something new every now and then. I made a lot more mistakes first time around with Ezra, the sad thing is the mistake has to happen to him. It seems rather unfair that the learning curve for a mother is usually with the first born, but it is what it is. The only positive way to look at it is that we get it right immediately with our second or third. One of the biggest mistake I did with Ezra was that, when he was about a year old plus, we went back to my hometown for about two weeks. During that time, he only direct latch for feeds and after we went back home to KL, he rejected the bottle when I had to leave him with my mother in law. Little did I know that my dilemma would start from there. Since he rejected the bottle, I made the effort to travel back home for lunch everyday to feed him directly. I was left with no choice. I was adamant about wanting to breastfeed for two years so that lasted up till he was two years old, until I had intentions of weaning him off, only I didn't know how. He didn't seem like he was ready to be wean off, so I cut his intake to only night feeds. So came the time to introduce powdered or formula milk to him, that was even tougher. As he had rejected the bottle, trying to introduce cows milk to him was like me trying to understand Physics. As expected, he rejected all of it and I failed at trying to get him to drink milk. The closest I ever got to was him drinking Milo and chocolate milk which was in the tetra pack form. Not the best option, but it's better than nothing. Fast forward to a year later, still no milk, not even chocolate milk powder. Substituting milk with other calcium rich food was equally difficult as Ezra is a really picky eater. Not a day passed by that I don't think about his lack of calcium and the fact that his height and weight often falls under the 25 percentile on the chart, the fine lines on my face starts to become more obvious and not so fine anymore from the worrying. 3 important thing that is essential for a toddler's growth, exercise, protein and CALCIUM, said his pediatrician. Exercise, checked; Protein, checked; Calcium, 'X' EKKK!! Dahiku kerut sekerut kerutnya. Am I suppose to give up trying? Does that mean my 3 year old won't be getting any sorta calcium ever? Is he gonna be ketot forever? I was desperate for a solution. To the point I was contemplating of buying Calcium supplements off pharmacies shelf, crush it and mix with his food. The only reason I didn't do it is I wasn't sure if toddlers can take adults supplements. Just when I thought all hope is lost, my company had a 'Vitamin C' day. It's suppose to be a health day check. They invited some hospitals representative to our company to give out free check ups. There were counters that sells vitamins and supplements. I decided to drop in to check on calcium supplements. I saw it, I asked the sales person if the adult calcium supplements could be prescribe to toddlers. Obviously the answer is no, to my disappointment. But she came back with another bottle, 'These calcium supplements are for children', to my delight! Abbott has a calcium product for children. It was calcium in milky chew form, chocolate flavored. Bonus! I was so ecstatic by the discovery that my face was beaming from the moment I laid eyes on it and my smile was from ear to ear. Words can't describe how excited I was coz I never knew or expected there are such products for children. So I bought two bottles on that very day. RM 36 a bottle. I went to Guardian to check it out, RM28.90 per bottle. I got ripped off, by 8 bucks! Not pleased and I was pissed about it, cussing the sales person away but heck it. I would have bought it even if it cost RM100. So I bought additional two more bottles. That's how much of a kiasu I am. A bottle has 30 soft chews. 2-3 soft chews can be prescribe a day. Ingredients for these soft chews are glucose syrup, calcium carbonate (400gm elemental calcium per chew), sugar, palm oil, cocoa powder, sorbitol syrup, soy lecithin, iodized sodium chloride, chocolate flavor, mono and diglycerides, vitamin D3 and water. And the chews contain edible gelatin from bovine source. Now this may not be as good as milk powder or fresh milk but then again living by the it's better than nothing rule, this is like the best option I have now for Ezra. Kids love these, I remember the sales person telling me. Indeed!! The texture of this chews is exactly like Sugus, except it's chocolate in flavor. I give Ezra 3 chews a day. He has a lot of catching up to do from the prior years lack of calcium! I'm a happy momma.

Motherhood: It's never enough

My company has been undergoing major reno for the past months to revamp the look of the building and work stations. Two years ago when I first joined the company, the "nursing room" was miserable. I can't even call it a room for crying out loud cause it was just some extra space that they turn it into a 'room' for women to express their milk. The 'room' wasn't even in the shape of a square. It was almost like a triangle, except, going back to Trigonometry (I have to Google this), imagine the hypotenuse to be a curve inwardly towards point C as oppose to a straight line. That was the oddly shape nursing room placed at Ground Floor of the building.

There was a small table, placed at point B, an ancient old tech fridge with a freezer that often forms 'ice berg' that you have to defrost every month but knowing how selfish everyone is and that nobody really gives a tiny rat's ass about the fridge unless it's affecting them directly only will they call for the workers to defrost it over the weekend, placed at point A. And four chairs. So obvious how much my company could care less for women who breastfeed. Nevertheless, I express my milk for a year long in that stink hole even though Ezra has never drink from the Expressed Breast Milk (EBM). And among those women who expressed, we became pretty acquainted and enjoyed each others company.

Fast forward to another year later, here I am back to expressing, except that this time the room has shifted to Level 4 since the renovation is still on going, floor by floor. So temporarily, again they partitioned a portion of an extra place and convert it to a nursing room. It was still miserable. It was part store room part nursing room. The picture will explain everything. Despite it being a temporary room, it's frustrating to see some irresponsible users who just litter all over the place when they tear open their storage milk bags. Already the room is so tiny and space is so limited, people still insist on bringing in their laptop which I really don't understand why. Instead of spending an hour in the room, taking your own sweet time to express your milk, hogging all the space why don't you just finish pumping in 30 mins time and return to work. It's way more efficient than having to bring your laptop to the room, expressing with one hand, another hand typing, occasionally facebooking. It's despicable to see.

. My first day back at work after my maternity leave. Imagine my horror. The freezer with 'iceberg' forming

The second miserable looking nursing room on 4th Floor

Moving on, so I guess after numerous request from several women of having a proper nursing room, my company has decided to give us breastfeeding moms a proper room. One that is not made from leftover space from parts of the building. This time, a real decent room, pretty well equipped for which I am very thankful for. It has a built in table top with sink and places to store our bags. It lacks power points since there are numerous women who uses electrical pump. But there's always extension. It's not the best obviously. For the dumbest reason, they installed a door with a see through glass in the middle for a nursing room. What in the world?!?! There's stupid, and then moron and then imbecile. I don't know where to place the person who is responsible for the design of the room! Obviously there are better nursing room. But whatever it is, we have a proper room now. When given what they asked for, and instead of being thankful, requests after requests just keeps pouring in. Already we're given a room that can fit more people, more comfortable, there are actually requests for a TV, a rack space for whatever reason they need it for, a microwave, a new fridge, and more cabinets. As we started using the room this week, and you would think people would be more grateful for a new room but no, I still see stupid habits here and there. I still see women bringing in their laptops hogging the whole damn room! It's reaaaaaally reaaaaally frustrating to see. When they spill their milk on tables, they don't bother wiping. There are those that store their milk in the freezer for the whole week long and only to bring it back on Fridays. Some place their bags of bottles in the fridge. It's not a huge fridge, it's just a single door fridge. And it frustrates me to see that these women can't be courteous enough to be a responsible and considerate user of the nursing room. That's how ungrateful people can be.

New Nursing Room, view from the outside

From the inside with see through glass. At this point, it was already 'covered' with a blurred sticker so that nobody can peek in. Can you imagine? The guy asked, do you want a half sticker or full for the see through portion?What so we can show people our boobs???? Idiot

How it looks like inside

This is where I prefer to express

Useless table that's super flimsy and a bulky chair

Recipes: Chilli crab

My hubby has been hard at work so this dish cooked is my way of showing him my appreciation for all he has done for the family. There's nothing like home cooked food that's cook from the heart filled with love. As the saying goes, 'The way to a man's heart is through his stomach'.

As usual, whenever I wanna cook something for the first time, I usually pick up the phone and dial 'Mummy'. Even though I surf for recipes, at the end of the day I will still rely on my mother for recipes that she knows how to cook. I can't say my mom is the world's best cook as there are definitely way better cooks out there but my mother is of course in my world, the best cook. Since I left home some 10 years ago, I appreciate what she cooks for me more and I'm always looking forward to her cooking when I go back home. Though once in a blue moon I'll be ungrateful and start critiquing her cooking. She always say with me calling her so often asking how to cook one thousand and one things, but not once have I cook for her. My excuse is why would I wanna bother to cook for somebody that is way better than me. Lol, the fact is I miss her cooking a lot and going back home is the only time I get to taste her cooking. But I made a vow that I'll start cooking for her in return when she's too old and tired to cook plus I still have a lot to learn. Occasionally I still screw up the recipes. So this is my mother's recipe of Chili Crab. My first attempt at cooking it. Pretty successful, however there's still room for improvement.

Chili Crab
Ingredients:

A (to blend)
5 big red chillies
1 bulb garlic
1 inch ginger

B
2 tablespoons soy bean or tau cheong paste (minced or smooth tau cheong)
1 big red onion (sliced)
2 tomatoes (cut into 6)
2 egg beaten
1 stalk spring onions
3 medium size flower or mud crab
Sugar
Light soy sauce
Oyster sauce
Oil
Water
Corn flour

Method:
1. Blend ingredients A. Add a little water to make the blending easier and smoother. If your tau cheong paste is the coarse tau cheong, blend together with chili paste. Otherwise, there's no need to blend it together.

2. Clean the crab. Peel the shell off, cut crab into half. Separate the pinchers. Set aside.

3. Heat oil, sauté the blend chili paste and the tau cheong paste till aromatic and the oil break. Add in the sliced onion and tomatoes. Stir fry for a few minutes, add in the crab. Stir fry for another 5 minutes to coat the crab.

4. Add about 2 (+/-) cups water. Add in taste like oyster sauce, sugar, salt or light soy sauce. Adjust accordingly. Beat in the egg. To thicken the sauce, mix water and corn flour and gradually pour in till preferred thicken consistency. If the egg has thicken the sauce, you may omit the corn flour. Simmer another 5-10 mins till crab is cooked. Scoop up, garnish with spring onions and salad and serve. Bon appétit.

* Asian cooking usually relies a lot on estimation. So a lot of the times when it comes to tasting, it depends a lot on the individual preferences. The recipe act only as a guideline.

Chillies, Big onion, Garlic, Ginger, Tomatoes

Top: Flower Crab
Bottom: Blended Ingredient A, Sliced onions, Soy bean paste, Egg beaten, Sliced tomatoes

Soy bean paste

The end result, garnish with spring onions

Motherhood: Full volume hair gloss to thin volume hair loss

Postpartum hair loss is a real bitch. It's unfair to get something so wonderful in life yet there's a whole 9 months of pain and endurance to go through, a couple hours or in some cases 24 hours of extreme pain to suffer through and a traumatized vagina. And as a joke to the women, they prolong the suffering months after we get our bundle of joy, and they reward you with flabby belly, stretch marks, gross looking lose skins, hair loss, postpartum depression, saggy boobies. The men? They get away with everything. No pain no gain they say. Curse you Eve! I think it's depressing that during pregnancy with the increase level of estrogen that gives you great looking hair, vibrant and glowy look only to have it taken away couple months after birth. Articles says there's no need to panic as it won't cause me to go bald. I experienced otherwise. I don't have thick hair to begin with. While I didn't start balding like my old man, the hair loss was so severe that it causes thinning to my volume of hair that some parts of my head the scalp was visible. And since I don't have thick hair, it's impossible to cover it up. That was the case with Ezra. And then to add to the sting, it took more than a year for the hair to grow back. Now for the second time, my hair loss is starting and I'm getting clumps of hair loss every morning. It seems like there's nothing I can do about it but to suffer through patches of 'bald' spots AGAIN. I feel like a dog shedding. I haven't even got to saggy boobies!

When I brush my hair in the morning. Please excuse the dirty sink.

How confusing can 'Jessica' be?

I can't begin to say how many times I have been mistakenly called Jennifer. It's bad enough that you forget somebody's name, but to simply call a person a random name is down right offensive. I don't know if people do it on purpose to annoy me, if they are, it's definitely working. I don't get it, there's A LOT of difference between Jessica and Jennifer. It's not like my name is Fefifer which is easily mistaken as Jennifer. How one make that sorta mistake, I'll never understand and I don't wanna understand. It happened too many times, it's annoying that I'm starting to hate the name Jennifer. My name is JESSICA, NOT Jennifer. And frankly, I don't look like I'm a Jennifer. I'm definitely a Jessica from the root. I swear on my death bed, if I soooo hear another 'Jennifer', I'm gonna give them the death stare and I'm gonna start walking around with a huge tag that says 'Jessica'. Seriously. =.=

House: The story of our first home purchase.

The housing price in Malaysia has been crazy for the past few years and the price is still surging high, climbing dollar by dollar every hour, literally. While initially we were eyeing for landed property but unfortunately, the price for a double storey terrace house with a decent neighborhood would at least cost RM 450k and that would take up about RM2k of monthly repayment back, not taking the cost of down payment, renovation and furnitures into consideration yet. The problem is that we are not one of those who shit money for a living or have families that shit money for a living that could easily sponsor us. The bitter truth is that, buying a house would come from our own account and both our parents could only help a little bit. We couldn't afford one to be frank as financially we would be so tied down and risk the comfort of financial freedom for other matters. We didn't wanna be a slave to the housing loan as we still have other financial commitment so that's when we finally look into apartments and condominiums as an alternative. With a 2 year old kid and a baby on the way back in 2012, we were desperate to get out of our current neighborhood as it really really wasn't ideal to bring our kids up in those shit hole. A pariah neighborhood to be precise. We've had neighbors having parties into the wee hours blasting their stereos, having disco balls, dancing away in the middle of the street. They actually brought their own clubs to the streets! Who freaking does that? Culture shock? You betcha. And every year we can expect a tent be set up. I don't know what is there to be celebrated annually that requires a tent set up but there just is! Not that I'm against that if my neighbors would like to celebrate whatever their occasion is, in a much more grand celebration, but it would be a lot different if the hosting parties can be considerate of other neighbors. Keeping the streets clean and music down after midnight and not have their guests parked their cars wherever they like. A lot more to complain but I shall hold my tongue. ;) Anyways, back to the point. As beggars can't be choosers, we widen our options for our home hunting and good switch indeed as we found an ideal location with pretty good neighborhood for our kids. An old apartment in Subang Jaya. Not too big but not too shabby either. A good start for our little family. SO, the buy was made without my hubby, Kevin seeing the house! Poor hubby was in the hospital with his jaw hanging on the very day we were suppose to view the apartment. Imagine the pressure of having to decide such huge life changing decision alone, only with encouraging words like 'I trust your decision, babe'. Fuh~ Nevertheless, as buying property in Malaysia is like buying underwear in pasar malam, we went for it. Kevin only saw the house in December 2012, two months after the purchase.So as we wait patiently for the keys to be handed over to us, cursing the vendor's lawyers every second for their inefficiencies and their lack of capabilities and intelligence, we're preparing for the next exciting yet stressful? stage of purchasing a home, renovation.