Goodbye 2009 ....

I realised I've slacked on my blogging...a lot. Have not been posting anything since the last 2 months. But it's ok, I've done many things outside of blogging world :P

Since this is the last day of 2009, I shall look back over the year that had passed...

Jan - Feb: still busy into wedding preparations and invitations RSVPs, busy on my new house renovations. and alot of cleaning, tidying and decoration work and moving things to the new house.

Mar: Had my "GuoDaLi" (bethrothal ceremony), getting married and moving into the new house. And went to Maldives for the honeymoon trip. Work-wise, getting a new line manager and lots of changes in work portfolio, roles & responsibilities and team mates.

Apr: Settling down to married life and changes in work. Adapting to married routine (lots of cooking & cleaning around the house). Frequent visits to in-laws' and my parents' house. Thinking of getting a pet dog, visited SPCA thinking to get a puppy but couldn't get any. Finally bought a cute male chihuahua.

May: welcomed our very first pet dog, Kiko, into our home on the 1st. Toilet-training for the puppy and lots of play time with Kiko. Had our first house-warming party.

June: down with flu. went to Dog's Day event in KL. started some gardening work at home. bought a new blender. experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen.

July: first time brought Kiko to the public park. Taught him some new tricks. First flash flood at the main access road to our housing garden, which stopped us from getting home. Got a new team mate at work.

Aug: first time trying Batik painting in a company event. went for ATV ride with some colleagues. more gardening work at home. Tried making my very first "loh mai kai" (chicken glutinous rice).

Sept: bought new microwave oven, started exploring oven cooking. bought and installed water filter (cleaner washing & drinking water finally!). brought Kiko to neighbourhood morning market. Submitted a winnning photo to the Star's newspaper thumbnails section. 5D4N visit to SiemReap and Phonm Penh with some friends. Totally a cultural visit!

Oct: a.ka. Ikea-month.. why? because we practically visited Ikea every weekend in October! project of the month was decorating the guest room. We got almost everything from Ikea. Though we had a busy and tiring time designing, planning, shopping, transporting and fixing up the room, we were really happy with the results! *you are quite welcome to stay overnight at our guest room :) Finally got my RM50 cheque for the winning photo I submitted. Joined company annual dinner event, and finally got my very first caricature drawing there! Also won a small gift from the lucky draw event :) First time participating in a Dikir Barat performance for a company's event, learnt about the dikir and made new friends.

Nov: work winding down for the year end. Busy planning for year end trip and some more minor renovations for the house. reflections on work and some planning for next year. Planning for all-gals gathering. Invited to perform a 2nd dikir barat performance at company's annual dinner (what a proud achievement for the dikir team!).

Dec: slow month as usual. Had our very first all-gals gathering (totally smashing! Had a great time catching up with everyone). 5d4n trip to Phuket, went for our very first Thai kick-boxing competition show and even got ourselves the VIP seats (just 2nd row from the ring!). "2nd-phase" renovation started for the house.

I've missed out alot of stuffs but generally this had been a great year. Lots of new experiences and learnings. And married life is not that bad as it sounds! It's less than 2 hours away from 2010, and I'm looking forward to the new year with lots of hope for a greater year ahead :D

Steam Prawns with Cucumbers

This is one of my favourite dishes and it’s so easy to prepare especially if you are already planning to cook rice using your rice cooker. I called it steam prawns with cucumbers.

Ingredients (serves 2 to 3 persons):
- De-shelled prawns (10-15 middle size)
- 1 cucumber, cut into wedges
- 1 tomato, cut into wedges
- 1 tsp of oil

- chopped garlic
- Sprinkle of salt
- Dashes of white pepper (optional)

Steps:
1. Arrange the prawns, cucumber and tomato in a bowl / soup plate.
2. Pour the oil over the ingredients.
3. Add garlic, sprinkle some salt and add few dashes of pepper.
4. Put into the steamer plate in your rice cooker.
5. When your rice is cooked, your dish will be cooked too.

If you are not using the rice cooker, then steam the conventional way or do microwave cooking (use your own judgement the cooking duration, should not be too long as the ingredients are easily cooked).

The RM50 cheque is here!!!

The smell of money can't be wrong... I was eyeing the mail delivery man making his rounds in the office, and then he stopped at my cubicle. There's a mail for me, one that I was looking forward to.

Yes, the RM50 cheque from the Star has arrived. Finally I got my cash prize for the candid photo I submitted weeks ago. And here's how the cheque looks like, proving to you it's not fake ok? (of course the personal details have been blocked out) :P

"Kiasu"-ism & me at Ikea

It was a beautiful Saturday, and like any kiasu people out there, I wanted to be the first 100 early birds to register for a free gift at Ikea, and oh my, I got it. Yeah sweet! A limited edition yellow-colour book ends (those that you "kepit" at the end of your books to prevent it from tilting forward). And the day was also the 5th anniversary of N & I being together as a couple (not as married couple, mind you…). So you see, it never occurred to me that I would see my ex on this fine day.

The limited edition book ends

N & I were busy looking around the marketplace hall in Ikea, at the fabrics section. I wanted to skip the section, but N was still lingering around looking for some panel curtains. It was then I looked up to my left while trying to search for N and instead, horror of all horrors, I was looking straight at my ex! Not that I had anything to hide, but I wanted to avoid having to make any casual small talk with him (imagine how fake it would be!) It was lucky that he wasn’t looking at me at the moment.

Somehow, we miraculously avoided each other paths. Perhaps he already spotted me (since I was wearing bright red!) and made a conscious effort to avoid me at all costs. Whatever he was thinking, I was glad we did not bump into each other. I quickly called out to N to hurry off to the next section. And I told him in hush tones what I saw. Trust me, it is an awkward feeling when you see your ex appearing near you when you least expected it.

But I quickly forgot the whole episode, as N & I were busy picking up more furniture for the house and spent our last weekend putting up the new cabinets and installing the shelves, attended two Hari Raya open-house invitations and ended the Sunday night watching the movie “Orphan”.

Chihuahua spotted at the morning market

A colleague told me about some stalls in the local morning market in my neighbourhood, so I decided to check it out two weekends ago. I told N that we shall wake up earlier on that fine Saturday, have dim sum for breakfast then head to the morning market. And we decided to bring Kiko along. We were sure the dim sum place would allow us to sit outdoor with our pet.

Hah! How wrong were we. We told them we were ok to sit outdoors, but nope, the dim sum restaurant’s staff still said no. I mean how troublemaker can Kiko gets? He’s such a small cutie! Anyway, we decided not to let the misfortune ruins our weekend and head straight to the food court at the morning market.

I thought morning market are supposed to be the busiest in the early morning. We reached there around 9am, but the place was not as crowded as I expected. We found a good spot away from the main crowd to have our breakfast. Hey, there was a dim sum stall at the food court! Not bad. And no one was there to say no to Kiko. We even saw another couple bringing their furry dog too. A little boy from the next table was saying to his parents “ee..look mom, there’s a little puppy there!”. That little boy was fascinated with Kiko’s small size.

After enjoying our dim sum breakfast, we walked round the market, towing Kiko along. If you are curious to know how a little puppy like him gets around in the market area, teng deng deng… Yup, in his very own "LD" puppy bag (looks like the LV logo right?) :P