Ok sick of pictures of me yet? hehehe…

Anyway, here’s a scarf I made recently. I thought that it would be such an awesome idea to have polka dots but then realized that when I put it together…I look like one of those Jester Clowns. OOPS.

Oh well…I love it anyway. Will think of putting together a few more in different colours and different fabrics now that Spring is here.

Also, if you haven’t heard yet… my Sister is getting married! Weird but cool. She’s still a baby.

So as Maid of Honour (what ever that really means…) I had the privilege of doing a food tasting thingie at her probable venue and this is what I wore. No. Not the baby. She stayed home . But check out her little pout! Too cute.

Happy Happy Joy Joy…. Apparently… I look better when smiling (d’uh). So these are the go at the moment.

HAHAHA…. what you said was KINDA funny.. but I will just be polite and laugh away….

Or…. Hello there….Standing like this is a little awkward….

Or… Hello there…. Do you want to buy something from me?

DAMN IT. OK one thing. I FEEEELL Old. I mean… all these shots.. I look old in.

OK maybe not saggy boobies old but… I am a working woman old. No more… I’m in Highschool look …  Bye Bye Student from Channel Ten Look ….. sniff…. sniff….

NO! I refuse to accept it. You wait… I’ll come up with a few highschool student looks with Dave.

NEIGHBOURS! You NEED an ASIAN High SCHOOL STUDENT! SERIOUSLY!

HEADSHOT! Argh, No, not counterstrike, though I don’t mind running down memory lane again and hit it up at a lan cafe and try playing again…

Sorry, I digress. Ok, I had the pleasure of getting some headshots done by an LA photographer for my acting portfolio, so I thought I’d share one of them with you to see what you think.

To be honest, weird or not… I’m actually not very natural infront of the camera if I’m not making a stupid face. Hence, if you haven’t noticed… I tend to chop half my face in those outfit posts that I put up… when I get the chance. Weird… I don’t know. I think I feel self-conscious in the sense that I don’t want people to think that I’m try to look good. Weird. I’m still knuckling down that brain of mine as to why.

Like I know I aint ugly, but I also know I ain’t crash hot either. BUT I think I could look really good, but I would have to try really hard to do so. AND then here’s the part about the camera… I think that IF I do look goo din a picture, then I’m conscious in the sense that I think people would say… “Yeh, she’s only good looking with make-up on…” Which to a degree, I agree to.

Hmmmm my point? I don’t have one. OK maybe I do. No. Ok, I don’t care. Not much really anyway… so here one of the 127 pics I had taken.

So because there is 127 of them… I’m not sure which one to pick to send out to casting agents. It’s weirder that i’m sitting infront of the computer staring at pics… and acccessing how I look. Is that shallow?? GAHHH I don’t know… WHAT’s WRONG with me!

OK. No. I’m normal. Absolutely Normal. Hmm but its boring being normal. GAAAhh…

I’ll put a few more on later posts… maybe you can help me. But maybe you don’t care… hmmm…. I have issues…. ok I stop.

Missy C is now walking in full swing. She rather walk than be carried which is good AND bad. This is especially annoying when Missy A is running late for school, and Missy C INSISTS of walking to the car from the front door. She forgets anyway once strapped into the car.

GAAAH they are all growing too fast!

What will happen now after this…. should I be worried??

OK, so everyone has gone all quiet on me. FINE. You’ll just have to hear my banter.

I am Chinese, and my parents have brought me up to learn that education is the number 1 thing that will drive your success in life. How many As you get will prove how many Zero’s that follow on in your future income…( 7 As…7 Zeros – 10000000) How well you do depicts how you will do in life. Whether this is true or not, I wasn’t given much room to have an opinion. Anyway…

My parents migrated here so that I would have a better education. IT IS THE PRIMARY reason why we migrated, and I would assume so for many asian migrants. So I can understand when many asian parents expect the school to be EDUCATORs. That is, we are there to learn our ABCs, and 123s. But seriously, tell me that as a kid, all you learnt in school was your ABCs and 123s.

You learn more than your ABCs and 123s at school…heck I know I did anyway… like the birds and the bees…how to socialise (can’t learn that from parents! lol)… how to lead, how to be lead, how to deal with conflict… boys.. girls……etc… etc… and mainly, also How to be me…you. AND I think what newly migrated parents lack in understanding this… Or atleast, they have forgotten, or lost perspective. (Heck, don’t get me wrong on this. Not all ASIANs are like this. I think some Aussie parents think this too but more so a high degree of asian parents think this…Anyway, I speak for myself here so don’t bash me).

Anyway…I remember when Missy A was in Montesorri, and one of the parents kicked up a fuss when asked to be involved in the working bee and to help cut fruit. Her response was “What!? Isn’t that what we pay them for?”. I swear I wanted to bitch-slap her. (note: SHE WASN’T Asian! She was Aussie… just to prove my point above….) LALALA… anyway… Ok, maybe not a good comparison, but this is how I see it.

You send your kids to school and in that 12 hours that your kids are awake, 6 hours of that is at school….which kinda works as 1/2 of your kids life. Is it really SO hard to be involved for some part of it… or are you really more than happy for someone else to be responsible for 1/2 of your kids life???

ANYWAY, I think I digress from THE DISCUSSION. What am I talking about again? I don’t remember!

GAaaH! MY CONCLUSION… I understand why some parents only think that a school is where they are taught their ABCs and 123s, and I understand why they don’t get involved with the school….BUT I just think that IT is a fantastic idea that the school is teaching MY kids the IB PYP Learner Profiles because afterall, the school grounds is an environment in which my kids are going to grow and learn to be who they are and would be in the future AND yes their ABCs and 123s as well.

SO… IF parents think that it is the schools responsibility to teach our kids everything without requiring our involvement because that is the service that they are providing as educators…they need to THINK AGAIN.

Get involved with your schooling community because afterall, it is what’s shaping who your child will be.

NOW, darn it… I think I might have just shot myself in the foot because now MY RESOLUTION to this is that I have to get involved my school’s community.

And here’s some pics for those who have just skipped all my banter just to look at pictures of my life and don’t really care what I think.

Ok, so Missy A’s school holds a monthly craft night where like minded parents meet up and get crafty. My first night we made key fob thingies, which I have to take pics of to show off because its such a handy thing to have, and last week, we make fabric flowers as decorative pieces. Previously, I think they made button hair ties , and printed T-Shirts. Cool huh?

I think so. Anyway.

Other than the crafty get together,  I joined the group for a few reasons…

One is really to make more friends with the school parenting community. Afterall, I will be seeing these faces for the next… 7 years… I should get to know them alittle more than a “Hi, how you doing but I really don’t care to wait for your answer” type of relationship right?

It is an amazing thing how one commonality can bond a group of people, and I have to be honest, that I felt right at home when I first met them. What helped more is that one blogs, and the others read blogs, and well, I was honestly just happy for them to even KNOW what a blog is. SO a special HELLO to my new readers!

Anyway, SECONDLY… I joined yes with the hope that we would ‘click’ BUT hoping that it would be a great excuse to escape my little and BIG terrors so that I could go off for a bitching session about anything…. like … kids… and husbands! Maybe even somewhere in there, have a swag of vodka just to get the conversation happening (hahaha…ok no….).

But  what didn’t occur to me is what MORE I would get out of it. Just last week, I learnt a great deal. The meeting itself sets as a platform to bridge the schooling community and parenting community – afterall, one is a teacher at the school, and another is a PTA member. (Hello again!). We even have a teacher from another school (Hi Hi).

ANYWAY (sorry I digress). What I learnt.

There was THIS DISCUSSION of parent involvement in the kids learning. It was brought up that given our school has a strong ‘cultural’ base (being lotsa asians and indians), parents expectations of the school was primarily to teach them… English and Maths. Education, that’s what its called right? And so, while the school is trying to incorporate and encourage the IB PYP learner profiles for students to be “Inquirers, Communicators, Principled….etc…”, the teacher acknowledged that our current parent community cannot see past that “It is the schools responsibility is to educate the kids, rather than for all that to be brought back home and requiring parents to follow through”.

So here then is the downfall on the system. Parents think that it is the responsibility of the school to teach them everything… and Schools, think that parents need to get involved.

I am chinese, and I was brought up in New Zealand and Australia, so I get both sides. I have an opinion on this but I’d like to throw it in to see what you think….

So stay tuned for my conclusion, and resolution… (still in working progess)… OH and pics of the flowers and key fobs too!

I have been a little slack when it comes to planning our family menu. The past two weeks, we have really been spontaneous when it comes to dinner time. My excuse… Um… I was sick, and I haven’t gotten much sleep. Ok. Fine. PMS. Whatever.

What I have come to realise though is that there has been quite alot of wastage. Food and money. You see, this blog started of really good. So did I. It was about how to save money where and when. But lately, I’ve gotten complacent about our finances (BAD) and just been winging it. REALITY check hit when I finally had a look at our bills. GAS bill particularly, and yes my bank account in regards to transactions at Safeway and Coles.

SO anyway, I have a point. You’ve heard it, and you’ll hear it from me. You would save some mmooolars if you just PLANNED your weekly groceries, rather than purchasing as you go day by day.

Sorry, I digress…I hate wasting food. So this week, it was all about trying to use what was there…and finnishing it…

HAINANESE CHICKEN RICE RECIPE

NOTE: There is a proper way to do this, as in cooking the chicken and then removing it and dumping it in ice to stop the chicken from cooking… etc….etc… but this is a SIMPLIFIED fuss-free version.

Day 1: Chicken Rice. Ahhh… my hubby is a Chinaman so he likes his Chinese food. I can only cook a handful of asian dishes and the rest, so where there is luurrrve, there is a way and Google is my friend.

My mum did own a restaurant and I’ve seen my granmama cook this lots of times so here’s a quick cap of what I did. NOTE: I am not a proper cook  chef, nor am I intending to write a cookbook , so why the heck am I writing recipes???  so bear with me with the instructions.

FIRST: prepare your chicken by chopping off as much its fatty bits as you can. I just use a pair of scissors and cut around its bottom, and around its neck of all the excess skins and fat. Then set aside about 4cm lump for the rice.

1) Boil water in a kettle. Put your chicken into a pot. Once the water is boiled, pour over your chicken until it is covered with water by 2 cm. Drop in a lump of garlic, and some ginger. Switch on your stove, and boil away for about 10 minutes. Put the lid on. Boil for another 3 minutes, then switch off the stove. Leave the chicken in there while you wipe and bathe poopy bum  for about 40minutes.

2) The pot should be luke warm to touch. Remove the chicken, rub a generous amount of salt over the whole chicken, glad wrap it and set aside. Season the stock with 1 tsp of salt, and 1 TBSP of chicken stock powder.

3) In a pan, heat up (2tsp) oil, and fry (3 cloves) garlic, (sliced 3cm)ginger and chicken fat. Stir in 2 cups of (uncooked) rice, and fry it for about 1 minute. Remove and place into a rice cooker. Then pour into the rice cooker about 3 cups of stock, stir and season to taste. Set the rice cooker to COOK!

If you really wanted… make your own chilli sauce by blending:

10 red chillies (seeds and veins removed)

3 Birds eye chillies

7 cloves of garlic

2 TBSP of ginger

Juice from 2 limes

1/2 tsp of salt

1/2 TBSP of sugar

1 TBSP of chilli sauce (Sriracha)

Then when its time to eat, chop up your chicken and serve with a bowl of stock and garnish with white pepper, coriander and spring onions.

We had some stock left over so over to the next day.

PORK BALL NOODLE SOUP

I got inspiration from MyCookingHut, but like I said, I made a simplified version.

1) Mince up in a food processor the pork ball paste- (300g )minced pork, (1TBSP) oyster sauce, (1TBSP) fish sauce, (1/2 tsp) salt, (1TBP) sugar, (1/2 TBSP) sesame oil, (1 TBSP) Cornflour, (1 tsp) baking powder and (1/4 tsp) white pepper. Finely dice some water chestnuts, and mix with pork paste.

2) In a pot, bring some water to boil. NOW, grab a fistful of paste in your left hand, and squeeze it so that it pops up through the gap between your thumb and index finger. AND using your right hand, with a spoon, cut off the ‘ball’ and drop it into the boiling water. As the float up, give time about 2more minutes and take them out.

3) Boil up yesterdays stock. Put in 1/2 can of quail eggs, and 1/2 can of straw mushrooms. Prepare noodles as per the packet instructions.

4) Put everything into a bowl and serve.

YES I had to slot in a pic of Missy A into the background just incase you didn’t think my noodles look appetizing.

Refridgerate left over pork balls for tomorrows dinner…

DAY 3: Tom Yum fried Noodles

OK, this was it. All the left overs needed to be used up.

I soaked some vermicilli in luke warm water. Heated up the pan, fried some garlic and ginger. Added the noodles, added bit of oyster sauce, fish sauce, soya sauce, dried shrimp, and grated carrot. Dropped in a TBSP of Tom Yum paste, stirred, and served.

THE rest of the week…

Well, I planned it well because my hubby got his Chinese food fix, and we will be heading out to the in laws and out laws for dinner, and somewhere in there, we will be hosting a birthday dinner for my brother-in-law.

Plans for that is Alvin’s DRunken and Bruised from Masterchef, and ok I’m done.

MAN, that was exhausting to relive…..

Stay tuned for coming posts on :

• Alvin’s drunken and bruised recipe
• some other money saving tips
• what I learnt at School Craft Group …
• …and yes maybe even a pic of me.

Make LEMONADE! Yes I know, cliche… cliche…

BUT seriously, it is lemon season now, and everyone’s but my lemon tree is in full bloom with golden liquid sour gold bundling off their trees. I tell ya, the neighbours at my parents place have this medium sized lemon tree and it’s got SOOO many lemons. Lumps of yellow hemorrhoids just drooping off… and I bet you they’re just leaving it all there to show off! Grrrr….

Unlike my lovely neighbours, they bagged the lemons, and leave them in a bunch free for people to take. How nice huh? So despite me having a lemon tree… I have no lemons, so I grabbed a bag. Note to self : Write thank you card for lemons to neighbours.

Anyway, so with all our lemons, I thought I’d teach Missy A how to make lemonade – In case she ever wants to set up a lemonade store (random).

Homemade Lemonade Syrup Recipe as adapted from AHandmadeLife

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups water

2 Cups lemon juice

Basically, just put the sugar and water to boil. Then stir in the juice! So simple.

When it came to juicing the lemons, I thought I was going to dislocate my shoulder from all the twisting so as a TIP in juicing the lemons and getting the MAX out of your lemons….cut it length wise…

See all that wastage from the lemon on the left in comparison to the one on the right. OOOohh you say…. go try it . Also I heard that if you stab your lemons a few times, and then nuke it in the microwave for 10 secs, it makes it easier to juice. I was going to try it but cutting them this way was easy enough.

I figured that cutting thing after my 5th lemon… grrrrrrr

Well, I have my lemonade syrup so I’m happy. Into the fridge it goes. I know there’s heaps of sugar in it but at least then you can control the water ratio when you mix it up for the kiddies AND you know for sure what is really in the syrup unlike the stuff you get at the shops that have preservatives, flavouring and colouring… right?

I’ve been trying to document the food us Lee family eat, so stay tuned for a few more of my easy peasy recipes!

And… sorry for the lack of “What I wear each day” because, well I’m sure you probably won’t want to see pictures of me in my 1 week old PJs, and grubby jumper and uggs look. HEY, I have my days too….

Kids are greedy little buggers. They take stuff from you. They throw stuff at you. They puke on you. They poop on you and they eat from you.

Ok, so its not enough that…

• I now have to share Daddy with you
• that my bed has now converted itself into a bunk bed for 4
• that I have to share ME time with YOU making it a YOU time
• that my photo albums are al stocked up with all pictures of YOU
• that my handbag space is divided 94% You, 2% me and 4% food scraps
• that when I shop for clothes, I have to think of what’s practical for you
• that when I shop for shoes, I have to think of what’s practical for you
• that when I’m decorating the house I have to bear in mind what’s good for you
• that the space on the couch between me and Dad is reserved for you…

YOU HAVE TO EAT MY FOOD!!??

The kids just keep eating my food! No, they refuse to eat their own. They have to eat whats on my plate. Its the same stuff!! I thought maybe because they like the ADULT plate that it is on, so I swapped plates/bowls with them. NOPE. They just want to eat off my plate. ERGh.

Mind you. I do love my kids…….

Yesterday I picked up some goodies from my local op shop. Pretty much everything in our house is either thrifted or bought at a really good discount. Much part of me will NEVER pay full price for items… I don’t know why… maybe because I’m asian (??). I love the hunt for a great bargain, and there are some really serious awesome stuff out there if you were willing to be patient.

This I picked up yesterday:

Somebody ask me what the time is so that I can look at my pretty clock! The arms of the clock were a bit bent which was affecting its movement, but nothing a pair of pliers can’t fix.

A nifty new reading chair for Missy A. I’m thinking of padding it up alittle with some vintage fabric cushions…

I’ve been meaning to put up some shelves for our cookbooks but I’ve tiled the kitchen up past my head height. Didn’t think of that earlier, so this little beauty is like PEERRRRFFEEECCT. I LOVE IT! Ok, so I don’t store onions and potatoes in it but seriously, if someone had this solid timber thing, who would want to put it in the dark in the cupboard. It should be showed off!

And a wooden carved tray to keep all our cans in line. I find that because they are on a tray, the space feels a lot more organised rather than for them to just sit on the bench like dwadlers.

All this from one stop! It was a SIGN!