things i do when i have nothing else to do

i've been hit by the baking bug and this afternoon i baked brownies...from scratch!! and it turned out darn well!! so much for dieting. hiyooo..how to diet like this?? i can't resist a piece of cake or a brownie or a nice piece of kuih.

here's the recipe that i tried:

1. melt some 60g of chocolate with 125g of butter in a double boiler.
2. sift 60g of flour and a pinch of salt.
3. beat 2 eggs with 160g of brown sugar until you get the "ribbon-effect". that's when your egg and sugar mixture turns into a consistency that when you drizzle a ribbon-like form on the mixture itself, the "ribbon" will stay there for 4-5 seconds.
4. pour in the melted chocolate into the egg mixture
5. fold in the flour and the chopped walnuts and chocolate chip
6. bake for 30 minutes or till the top is shiny

Voila...bon appetite messieurs et mademoiselles!

besides baking, i do other things too...like constantly layan-ing my very very chirpy son nazim through the day. he has this uncanny ability to repeat whatever he is saying for like 10 times (or more, with the same intonation and all until he gets a reasonable response from me). sometimes by the time he gets to his 4th or 5th rant, my ears just tend to turn off by themselves..and then when i realized that he's going to his 10th, i would quickly think of a remark that would satisfy his inquisitive mind...until he goes on again with another round of rants. and one thing that would keep him quiet for a while would be doing his floor puzzle.

him and his muka tak puas hati with something










if you can see closely, he doesn't know yet how to put the pieces of puzzle to make the big picture, but he certainly knows how to put them together :)









my baby girl, on the other hand, is doing well, alhamdulillah. she is such and angel, and forever in slumber land....zzzzzzzzz

haadyai trip

My short trip to Haadyai a few weeks back was just what i needed. Even though i spent most of the time in the hotel room while hubby went to do his work, it was time well spent and I managed to get some rest. In the afternoons, we would take the tuk tuk and went to town for shopping and dinner. Here are some snapshots i took one afternoon. At the time we were there, the Songkran festival was approaching, hence the food stalls along street which would not be there on normal days.

The food look pretty interesting, but i didn't have the courage to buy any of them, except of course this nice cup of Thai iced tea...being the thirsty traveler, I had this drink almost everytime i bumped into it :) It is soo yummy!

hubby's birthday comin up

Amin's birthday is coming up. this friday to be exact. and...as usual, i have no idea what to get him. i know a particular thing he would like to have..but gosh is it expensive or what? anyway, he said he was going to get it himself..(haha yeah, excuses, excuses)...what is it? a membership to CARS International..u know, that car washing service you see at malls and hypermarts. yeah, that one..according to him, it's a pretty good deal, since we can have both cars cleaned and polished at a very very reasonable price. but it's 600 plus ringgit!!! and me here am quite broke.

so what other choice do i have? well, i thought of suprising him with a night's stay at a reasonable hotel some where (yeah, we people like to stay at hotels heheh). at least, it's not as expensive as the first choice.

maybe his glasses need to be changed...he's been wearing the same pair ever since we got married and the lenses are full of scratches and the frames are getting loose.

perfume..nah...
watch..nah...
new pants...just got them a few weeks ago..

have 3 more days to think. but i'll definitely bake his birthday cake!!

updates updates

I don't seem to be able to blog as much as I used to for a number of reasons. Namely, everytime i open up my lap top, my 2-year old will come climbing on my lap telling me that he too, needs to "buat kerja". I also can't seem to sit at one place for a good 20 minutes as there is always something needed to be done to satisfy the needs and wants of this 2-year old who is becoming more and more demanding everyday. *sigh* My ears are so used to hearing among other things: "mummy, nak pasang barney..(that alone is repeated about 10-20 times a day), mummy nak susu, mummy, nak kencing (but he always does it first in the diaper), mummy this mummy that, you get the idea. and everyday, no matter how hard i try to look nice, i always look like shit by mid day, andd smelling like rotten milk too (as i am breast feeding the baby).

and what's more..my maid issues are still unresolved. yours truly has to fill out the paperwork (again) to get a replacement for the new maid who only stayed for 1 week and had to go back to Indonesia for having hepatitis B. for the past few weeks, we have changed a total of 4 maids...one went back to indon, and the three borrowed from MIL. so now, we're still borrowing the maid until we get our permanent one...

in the midst of all that, i managed to get away for 3 days to Haadyai. :) hubby took me for a business trip and it was really what i needed. a few days rest from the kids and house chores. I managed to get two massages and had my nails and toenails done at a very very cheap price. where can you get manicure AND pedicure done for RM20?! and the massage...is always a pleasure.

now it's back to living in reality...hehe..baby is doing well, but big brother is getting naughtier and naughtier...now both me and amin are faced with the difficult part of parenthood..trying to make your child listen to you. This is our new challenge....i never knew it was this tough.