Pumpkin snack

Got this recipe from The Reader's Digest. Remove the seeds from the pumpkin, rinse to separate them from the stringy pulp, pat dry and cut it into cubes. Toss with olive oil and salt. Bake it at 180C for about 25 minutes until it is slightly puffed and a bit golden. I don't think mine was golden at all, but it did taste nice for a snack.

Since it is going to be a long school holidays (for Malaysians), maybe I should bake this more often and leave it on the table as snacks rather than my kids snack on junk foods.

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy this as much as I do. Happy holidays to some of you and enjoy your Christmas shopping, cooking, baking and preparing for Christmas to all my Christian friends all over the globe.

Sharing means caring?!?

I was listening to the radio the other day and they were talking about mistresses. Most people's perception were mistress is someone who is hot, sexy and most of the time way much younger and better looking than the wife. Most female caller mentioned that if it happens to them, they are not willing to share their man.

This reminds me of a classmate of mine in my teen years. She stays quite near my house and very often for school projects etc, me and some classmates would hang out at her place. She is an only child, staying with her mum in a double storey house. We rarely get to see her dad. Her mum has an intimidating face but she is very nice to us when ever we visits.

One day, at her house, as we were searching for photos for school projects, we came across a photo of a man blowing candles from a birthday cake with 2 ladies standing by his side. One lady was kissing his left cheek and the other lady kissing his right cheek. We recognized the lady on the left as her mum, the man, her dad and she told us the other lady is her dad's wife.

Both ladies look about the same age, not only are they not good looking, both had a fierce looking face. Anyway, all three looks happy in that photo. There were few more photos taken with all of them having dinner, including the wife's 2 other children. My classmate don't seems to mind telling us about all these. She is also quite close to her elder half brother and sister.

Her dad really took good care of both wifes and all his children. Both wifes are staying in double storey houses at separate location, he sends all his children oversea to further their studies and both wifes are housewife.

I wonder what was the wife's first reaction when she found out about my friend's mum. Her dad must possess a lot of charm to be able to get his wife and children to accept his mistress. Long time ago in China, a man's success was measured by his wealth and number of wifes and children he has. During those days, all the wifes and children stays in the same house and more often then not, the wifes always allows the husband to have more than a wife. Maybe they have no choice but to follow the customs.

But in this century, when I hear stories about wife and mistress eating at the same table, it is very odd. Sharing your man openly now a days makes the female feels like her man does not respect her as a wife. Don't you think so?

Thanks for reading anyway. Just some tales that I think is worth sharing. If the above did ever happen to you (touch wood, hope not) would you mind sharing your man?

Fax (joke)

This really did happen to me. It was during my second job. I just started working a few weeks, I was a clerk then. My lady supervisor, a local university graduate, had been working there for almost a year. Since she was a graduate, she joined the company as a supervisor and had never knew what a clerk does. Neither does she knows how to operate the photocopy machine, fax machine etc.

One day she asked me to fax something over to a branch office. Before I start faxing, she ran back to me and said, "Please make a photocopy before you fax, this is the only copy I have"

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Insecticide

Mary went to a store to buy some insecticide. "Is this good for beetles?" she asked a clerk. "No," he replied, "It will kill them."

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How was your day

Sam was waiting in line at the cafeteria of the hospital where he works and he overheard a doctor ask an anaesthetist how his day was. "Good," came the response. "Everyone's woken up so far."

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Just for laughs! Enjoy!

Sometimes I wish ......

Sometimes I wish I was blind so that I don't have to look at those horrible pictures of natural disasters, accidents, murdered victims etc on t.v news and the local paper. Sometimes I wish I was deaf so that I don't have to listen to those sad stories about domestic abuses, famine, abandon babies, cruelty to animals etc from all around the world. Sometimes I wish I was mute so that I can't voice my opinion since my voice alone could not change the world. But then again, if I am blind, I wouldn't be able to see the beauty of what nature has to offer. If I am deaf then I would not be able to listen to those words of wisdoms from inspiring individuals. Guess I should not be so selfish as to not to witness all those horrible unfortunate happenings mentioned above, but to be grateful that I am fortunate enough to just see it in the paper or the news and not experienced it.

Flower within a flower

Look at that. Isn't that lovely. A tiny flower within a small flower. This is the original color of this type of flowers. Occasionally I do see an all white or all pink flower among them. Too bad, so sad that the flowers only open when the sun starts to shine and close once it gets dark. The petal is extremely soft and when watering the plant make sure water does not touches the petals when the flower is at full bloom or else it would look like some wet tissues.

It didn't bloom that nicely lately due to the whether. Now a days it is either cloudy or rainy. It needs hot sun. Hope it will bloom well again during the hot and dry season in January and February, just in time for Chinese New Year, I hope. It was given to me by my neighbor. We exchange plants once in a while.

Thanks for reading. Just want to share photos of some of my lovely plants with you so that you could admire it like I do.

Latest Blog Award

I would like to thank Pinx (http://hazeljlabado.com) for this lovely award. Glad you find my site interesting and worth reading. This acts as another booster shot for me to continue blogging. This is the fun part about blogging, just when I thought my hard work and effect went unnoticed and here pop an award. Thank you very much, I appreciated it.

Now it is my turn to forward this award to 15 others that I have newly discovered. I am passing this love award to:

1) Owen's mum (http://adventuresinallthingsfood.blogspot.com/)

2) Polly (http://angelsinmygarden.blogspot.com/)

3) Diane (http://createdbydiane.blogspot.com/)

4) Christina (http://www.dinneratchristinas.com/)

5) Sofia (http://from-japan-with-love.blogspot.com/)

6) Tami (http://heartsmakefamilies.com/)

7) Jenny (http://www.imafulltimemummy.com/)

8) Jesslynn (http://jesslynnclarissa.blogspot.com/)

9) Sushil (http://sushilkatre.wordpress.com/)

10) Kerrie Riggs ( http://kerrienriggs2.blogspot.com/)

11) Gautam (http://gautam-mywall.blogspot.com/)

12) Bridget (http://brewerfamily8.blogspot.com/)

13) CM (http://www.alittlelilac.blogspot.com/)

14) Ness (http://www.inbetweenbreaks.blogspot.com/)

15) Bonita (http://bonita-purplebee.blogspot.com/)

Hope I get all your names right. I have visited your sites recently and think you all deserves the award. Hope you all will visit me regularly too. Happy Blogging and thanks for reading and visiting.

Take it or leave it

This is a picture of a local dessert. We local called it Tao Foo Fah (not sure of the spelling but sounds like that phonically) It was made of soybeans. Taste like tofu but much smoother and eaten with sugar or brown sugar melted / boiled in water (sugar in liquid form) This is not a food review.

I was told that there was this stall at TTDI market selling the above dessert, was claimed to be the best in town. One fine day I went there to check it out and found the stall. Just a small stall with no table or chair. So either you eat at the nearest bench provided in the middle of the market or take away. Normally there would be a long queue but so happen at that time it was quite late and I was the only one buying.

The lady (the owner) in her late 50s was the only one there at that moment. Normally she has few Indonesian helpers and occasionally her children would helped around. I walk up to her and ordered 4 take away. She filled the container up to the top and when she close the lid, I could see like the dessert is about to burst. Normally they wouldn't fill it up to the top, they would leave a small gap between the lid and the container. So I ask her "Wouldn't it spill later?"

She look at me with her tiring eyes and said "If you are going to take away then don't spill. If you are going to spill, then don't take away." Wow! I am indeed speechless!

She must have reach the stage where she is really fed-up with what she is doing. I was told that this stall had been around for many years. Maybe it is time for her to retire.

Besides her, there was a small sundry shop near my place. Once I went in to buy something in a hurry, so I ask the lady sitting in front where I could find the stuffs that I need. Without looking at me she just point to one of the racks at the back.

These are those self employed, running small business folks who didn't learn the art of customer services, or perhaps they did but as they grow old, and business were too good with customers coming in non-stop, they kinda taken things for granted.

In my opinion, no matter how big or small your business is, be grateful that customers still like coming to you so don't ever take it for granted. Should be thankful. Even if you don't feel like showing your appreciation, at least don't show your temper.

Thanks for reading. Just want to get this out of my chest.

Peanuts anyone? (funny)

A tour bus driver is driving with a bus load of seniors down a highway when he is tapped on his shoulder by a little old lady. She offers him a handful of peanuts, which he gratefully munches up.

After about 15 minutes, she taps him on his shoulder again and hands him another handful of peanuts.She repeats this gesture about five more times.

When she is about to hand him another batch again .... he asks the little old lady, 'Why don't you eat the peanuts yourself.' 'We can't chew them because we've no teeth', she replied.The puzzled driver asks, 'Why do you buy them then?'

The old lady replied, 'We just love the chocolate around them.'

It pays to be careful around old people!!!

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Just for laugh! Thanks for reading. Enjoy.