blurpenguin

10 days more to our New Zealand Trip and the Kiddos are still in sick land...

sigh... sigh....

Hannah who has relatively recovered from her bouts of stomach/intestine bacterial infection, still has days of eating problems... where she can literally go the whole day feeling not hungry... drives me up the wall... she has also recently started on children multivite with lysine to help improve her appetite and also supplement her not so good eating habits.

Thank God, she could get out of the hospital to be the flowergirl in Ernest & Janice's wedding... note the still wrapped up hand, where the drip/meds go in... we left immediately after the wedding ceremony to make it back to the hospital for her meds.


Phoebe on the other hand, has these past days developed flu... prolly caught in church, just as she was recovering from stomach flu... sigh... so now she's a clingi baby with non-stop runny nose and horrible cough... in a hopeless irritable mood all the time... sigh...

She also recently developed an extreme aversion to medicine... Before this time she would be a super good kiddo and just eat all her meds, but i think this recent cough syrup has gotten her to dislike meds... and kicks and screams whilst we try feeding her the meds

But worse of all... i think i have serious issues to contend... anger.. all these circumstances really stretch my patience & the frustration of getting the kids to obey and the inadequateness of just simply explaining and hoping the kids to obey.... they don't...

Wife also unhappy at my bursts of anger towards the kids, and me feeling hopelessly torn... sigh... but decided... and praying to God to grant me serenity... and i suppose this is the best test, to build patience and a chance to figure out how to overcome without resorting/falling into the pits of anger... which in turn leads to the path of destruction...

PLUS... i've fallen to Phoebe's virus too.. darn! having runny nose and a super almost coughy throat. All doesn't bode well... but... it's still only 10 days more...

ONLY 10 days to NEW ZEALAND! WOO!

Since this was a long weekend... we did manage to go to 2 beaches... saturday was just a simple evening time at Teluk Cempedak... the usual hangout beach in Kuantan... but on sunday... we decided to try a further beach... just about 15 minutes away from Kuantan, along the coastal road... Balok Beach...

It has quite a lot of facilities, like a caravan park, childrens play area, barbeque pits... proper paid toilets and ample car park... but... man! The place is run down... tons of rubbish everywhere... and its like everyone has no civic mindset.

The beach itself is a grey dirty beach... the sand,more mud like then proper sand... sad... i think after our redang trip... we are spoiled by its pure white sand... but truthfully Teluk Cempedak beach is much nicer.

But heh... the children didn't bother... just plonked themselves down and played with sand and water... and tried saving some fishes too (Some mad irresponsible fellas were using nets and hauling the beach... catching some very few medium sized fishes and letting the rest of the tiny ones die in the process by leaving them on the beach)


so in all... don't bother coming to this beach... for whatever money spent facilitating the place... all seem to have been wasted...

Do u know how long it took to blow up this darn pool?!! All the air pumps we had couldn't work... a balloon pump and a bicycle pump both had wrong heads... or the darn pool actually needs to be blown by mouth...

anyways... one of Julie's collegues passed us an unused pool for us to use... u can imagine the thrill in Hannahs eyes when she heard this news. So far in our search in Kuantan, there isn't any public pool at all! so a portable soak pool was like heavenly news.


anyways... it took me almost 20 minutes of huff and puff to blow the pool up! Plus the pool had 2 holes without a stopper in sight... i think it had gotten misplaced... so i had to makeshift 2 stoppers out of baby bottle nipples...

eventually both phoebe and hannah... had a terrific time... my mom did help a lot to keep phoebe from loosing balance in the pool... initially the pool was too full for her to sit down so after a trial error on water reduction, all was well.


hah... after the water play... i didn't deflate the thing... so it's now kept under the porch in its inflated shape... i'm not going to blow that thing again in the near future... :p

well... i'm officially unemployed...

this month is mostly... handing cards and getting as much contacts as possible for me to work wire-lesly as a freelance graphic designer... www.penguinprofiles.com
Past few days has been hethic... sick for the early part of the week... but thank god! it past by... Julie's away in london till the end of this week, so my mum's down with us...

have been clearing up some freelance jobs and still am... but tomorrow must start packing up my study... it's a mess... a hopeless mess... all the stuff from the office is not unpacked or sorted... and I have tons of other stuff in the study itself... + i havent even tested out the new printer we bought ... cool deal in the recent PC fair... a wireless printer/scanner... abeit a year old model... but at 1/2 its retail price... a steal!... +my laptop is arriving FRIDAY!... u know la... when new toy arrives... oogle... oogle...

pack! pack!... i must pack!...

also doing this stitching/merging errand... for the "cutting edge"... was asked by iris to fit 30 Anniversary picturess into one A3 pictorial spread!... major domo headache... i hate merging pictures... but it seems the rage for CE anyway... that must finis tomorrow also... :p

well.... i'm off work for this reason anyway... so should pack...pack...

yesterday... phoebe had her jabs... 2 on both buttocks! after the 2nd jab... i think it dawned on her and she uttered a few whimpers, then stopped crying! BRAVO to both my gals! never feared the needles... only HANNAH now fears doctors... donno why...

but... 2 jabs.... rm250 blown!... phew... talk about rising costs of child upbringing! Not to mention Phoebe gobbles up 1 tin of milk per week! Going rate of milk is RM70!

phew... so busy... so busy...

tons of things have been happening this past 2 weeks... its like a daze...

anyways... the decision on if we will go to Kuantan is still up for guesses... but Julie has put in her E.O.I... heh! yeah... what is an EOI? Expression Of Interest... kakaka! We have indicated our willingness to move provided some terms are met... + IF we do get a favourable indication by the company... we still have 2 months before the CUT OFF point of no return to go to kuantan. LOTS of thing to prepare... thats why the PNR... Point Of No Return (kakakaka!) is 2 months... not 6...

did some upgrade on my home pc too... got a DELL 24" LCD, some internal h/w changes and a move to MS VISTA. Moving to VISTA was enlightening and frustrating... seems some of my hardware conflicts with the installation process... so in the end , i had to disable certain functions inorder to have a functional working computer... abeit a limping system... darno!... but will wait for them so solve the error before i do a re-install... again...

my mum's in town too... to help in the house as Julie's in singapore for the week on training. Hannah's having a field day cuz... can sleep much later, due to bad daddy not going to sleep early.

phoebe's growing much faster now... more smiles, grabbing and finger chewing... chubby too... her happy times are now more then her tantarum times... so a happy baby indeed. no rolling yet partly due to her not wanting to lie down i presume... think she will talk first.

other then that...

BUSY... busy... busy...

tons of stuff to do... and soooooo little time.

yesterday... we went to 1-utama... yep! we know... it's the other end of town... a-kin to the distance of travelling to Taiping from Ipoh... but we wanted to head to a toys-R-us to check out a sitting contraption for phoebe... bad decision... for some reason or other the management decided to still open for public whilst doing renovation to the premises... either the malaysian manager is duh... or worse still orders from above... anyways... we didnt find what we wanted and we will head to the Avenue-K branch later next week...

BUT... we had decided to try out the Ms Read's Deli-cious for dinner! We have passed them before but never went in... after numerous raves by a couple of friends... dang! had to try lah...

upon arrival we headed straight to the restaurant located on the first floor (new wing)... WHOA!... FULL HOUSE! put name in waiting list (1/2 hour wait!)... & off we went to toys-R-us. On our return... the restaurant was now more manageble and we immediately got a seat.

i couldn't figure out what to eat... as everything was, well.... tempting...

after serious contemplation, my end we ordered...(Julie was getting impatient)

what can we say... we are sold! we are definately coming back to try out the rest of the menu (when we are in this side of town) the choice of mains were good... and the desserts... woo hoo... mouth watering!

this was the first time for both me and julie to go to her office in Kuantan... it was like a reconnaissance visit.


after about a 15 minute drive from the hotel we came to the industrial area of kuantan, Gebeng. Whoa... the plant was HUGE... it was the first time i have seen such a plant... clean though... very clean... (what u see coming out is vapour)


after signing in (security is quite tight in such plants) we went to the office or admin block which was a separate building. There we went to all the 3 floors of the office... Julie's collegue showed us around. It was a cosy and nice office. Very modern too.

Overall our Kuantan trip was an eye opener... it's a bit bigger then i expected, but still abit ulu... we did go to the major shopping mall in Kuantan, Berjaya Megamall with Parkson Grand as the anchor. It really felt like Pertama Complex or Maju Junction at its best... trafic condition was as expected... low... but the traffic lights were annoyingly long.

Our main minus for now is the housing areas. Most of Kuantan is made of small/tiny housing developments... ranging from just a row to several rows of houses per patch all slowly growing into a "Taman"... like patchwork... with no playgrounds in the middle... not your proper taman. only the newer ones which are further away are planned as such. Since we had little time, the ones we managed to see left us wanting...

living expences in Kuantan seem like KL prices, maybe just slightly cheaper on certain things...

the Pluses so far is u get BLUE skies everyday and great beaches at a stones throw...

when we arrived at kuantan... "food" was our first agenda... since it was kinda late, we had stopped twice on the way... once to refuel and another cuz phoebe was getting really restless and wailing...

so we decided first to straight head to a restaurant recommended by julie's collegue... it wasn't where it was supposed to be... so we decided just to stop in food court and just eat anything... "Teluk Sisik Food Court" it was... there was a "Tai-Chow" shop and we ordered.

the lunch was good... till the bill came!

RM110 for fish alone! What the whack is "hong-pan" @rm100 per kilo!... we had been "thong-ed"

the total bill was only rm150, meaning the rest were relatively cheap... cuz it included another 6 drinks.

so... our first impression of kuantan... marred...

so..... the news is... Julie's business unit in her company is definately moving to kuantan... weather we will follow suit will depend on the renumeration and other factors...

our deadline for a show of committment is mid-April, Final announcement of details & GO-AHEAD in JULY. So the final "question" of the "status" of the TAN family will be known by middle of the year...

fuuh!... need direction man... (*** Help! God! ***)

anyway... for the meantime, before we can make an informed decision... we are going to kuantan to check the town out and her office in kuantan... so this coming 1st April... we will be off to kuantan... under company expense too! wah ha ha...

heard the coffee and durians are good there... also the seafood... :) makan-makan also lah...

from our initial research, kuantan looks to be smaller then Ipoh!, rental at 1/2 KL prices... and overall a sleepy town...

p/s: did i mention... if we go... i've got to look for a job!

p/ss : phoebe's really growing... all kinda chubby and heavy... and her sleep patterns are really getting better, and more playful... hannah's getting jealous nowadays... some serious feelings of neglect i think... must really need to be more nice to them... oh! Phobe's getting dedicated this weekend!

thursday has came and gone... and little to no news has flown by...

the news regarding Julies standing in the company didn't materialize... so we are currently stuck in limbo... hmmm... sounding familiar, seems lots of our fellow christian bro's and sis's are also stuck in limbo... regarding spirituality and life... so nothing really "new" there... hahahaha...

But the good news is... woo hoo! Phoebe and Hannah were little (slightly terror) angels the whole time... no doubt my Mom handled Phobe during the night... but it is certainly a big step forward... no problems at all!!!

Looks like phobe is growing and getting better ... not so much crying... but can sleep longer during the nights... Hannah, well her usual self... will play till she konks off... :)

WELL!!! Julies going to be back tonight! YAY! Hannah's missing her lots already... I guess Phoebe will be happy too in her own way... (i can't see any expressions yet...)

Next month Julie will be going for another week of training... so we shall see then How far Phoebe has grown...

this coming week, Julie's going to be away in singapore for training...

i'll be with phoebe and hannah for 1 whole week! Thank God, my mom's coming down to help... but... OMG... trial by fire man...

eventhough Phoebe has dramatically improved... but yesterday was scary... 1hr of crying while Julie was in choir practice... ughhh... dying... for no apparent reason too... she did finally dozed of after an hour and a half... (3x improvement on my side... as previously i was about to throw her out after 1/2 hour)

so we shall see if i will survive...

will blog any special baby happenings... :)

another trial would be the outcome of julie's job... this thursday... woo hoo! & we will know if any major changes will happen to the tan family...

THE WEEK OF TRIALS!...

woo... didn't occur to me what kind of year it was till today...

it's a non-leap year... hahahaha... so what! u say... yep... so what!... "saja aje..."

i guess we never actually keep track of leap or non-leap years... only those who are born on the leap day... will really keep track i suppose...

BUT anyways... man... the month sure flew past... soon it will be easter! then the whole year would have gone by... woo...

I recently fast-saw (see movie at 4x speed, reading subtitles) : A Good Year, Man of the Year & The Illusionist - don't ask why... just wanted the story/plot without any of the boring and drama parts... "A Good Year" is not bad... a very dif Russell Crowe... , "Man of The Year"... so so lah... BUT The Illusionist... was quite good... always liked Edward Norton... he was in a funny beard in this movie... and the tricks were nice... go & see!

Hannah & Phobe are growing up fast... Hannah is as cute as ever... now beginning to test our patience on her antics and disobedience... Phobe is getting cuter by the day too...

-finis-

p/s: a nonsensical post... bear with me... my thoughts are jumbled...

BAH!... Even when knowing what the Lord Jesus went through... the graphical description displayed in all gory-ness in the "Passion of Christ"... i still say "crucify them!" All that pain and suffering is an apt sentence for them...

the Tan's took off from KL this morning at around 9.30am...

our journey plan was to drop by ipoh, have lunch and straight to penang in time for a snooze then the reunion dinner at Julie's parents place.

we arrived at 7.30pm...

10 freakin hours!!! a journey that would have taken only 5 hours inclusive of stops... ended up double time!!!

granted, there were lots of cars on the road... lots of them... but the main culprits were the drivers who ignored common decency... incredibly selfish... moronic... totally self centred... those people who INDISCRIMINATELY DROVE ON THE EMERGENCY LANE!!!

CRUCIFY THEM!!! i am mum of any other words to express my utter disgust & rage....

CRUCIFY THEM!!!

CRUCIFY THEM!!!

CRUCIFY THEM!!!

oh no... Hannah's gotten her fever back... Oh Man! & her cough seems worse then ever... pray she doesnt develop dry cough... :(

Sigh! this happened on a public holiday too... hmmm maybe this is what comes about of parenting dilemma... when parents want to do something but circumstances in the family doesnt permit. So, we were stuck at home on a holiday...

We wanted to do some much needed shopping... some for julie, some for Me, quite alot for the house... but we shall see, when all these "sickness" has passed away.

I guess it does happen... when one member of the family gets sick... eventually it goes a full circle within the family... hopefully not so that when the last is well the first gets it again... !!! WOE! More Vitamins! and healthy food!!!!

Oh but I did manage to finish playing FINAL FANTASY XII!... Great Game!The Last Boss Had some ridiculous & impressive moves... but truth be told... abit of a pushover considering the sidequests where the enemies are like super... super... SUPER hard!

Heard from a FAQ... there is a hidden BOSS with 50 Million Hit Points... 50 Million! i kid u not!... which will take almost 8 hours of playing just to beat 1 Boss!... NO WAY I'm gonna do that!

a question to ponder admidst all the mess the world is pouring around us nowadays... a very touching song...

p/s: if you want to know the origins and how to play this song... go HERE!

"oi mai lui lian mou?" asked the durian seller, just as we stepped out of "alex" shop after lunch.

I am an avid durian eater/lover... so sure! why not... and he soon showed us his fruits... we have mo sang, xo, belanda...
blah blah... types of durian... OK lah! still hungry for durian,
even though less then a week ago we had just bought 2 durians to eat...

OMG! i had just bought 5 durians... and it weighed at 11kg! at rm9 per kg... it was going to cost RM99!!! blink... blink... "make it rm100 lah" says the durian seller and, "and i add this 3 not so keng durians"... as i had chosen a mixture of XO and mo sang... hmmm... no lah... too much... "Aya! can lah" ... ok lah.. can... we closed the deal... (the dark side is strong...)

they even had guys to take the durians to my car... wow! good service... they even had great packaging - a nice paper sack... something like the cement kind... tough and had an inner strong lining... + the durians also looked nice...

I WAS CONNED!

Bleh!... WHAT mo sang and XO... most of them were more like "fan seui", the mo sang variant was barely edible... sheesh!CONNED!CONNED!CONNED! even the 3 not so keng durians tasted better... ARGHHHHHHHHHHH! CONNED!

sigh!... a truly sad day...

NEVER EVER BUY FROM THE VAN OUTSIDE ALEX SHOP CLAIMING TO GET THEIR STOCK FROM PAHANG! NEVER!!!!
I will stick to the Old Post Office ... make-shift shop in the car park one... opposite "Deen's" nowadays...

the nice packaging... for durians...

nice looking durians too...

the aftermath...

most of the durian ended up in the tupperware...
where we hope after being chilled it will improve the lackluster taste...

arghhhhh!!!! why did i put the thing in the freezer!!!!! duh! i just wasted my 1/2 hour toil in the kitchen to cook up a serving of konnyaku jelly for a pot bless

Sunday morning... woke up to do some konnyaku for a friends farewell pot-bless... we were to bring some, as part of our portion... I took upon myself to do those nice wobbly pieces of jelly. in theory not exacly jelly... unlike gelatine... or normall agar-agar... konnyaku is kinda chewy...spongey...

anyways... i made my first mistake... i put the darn batch into the freezer! my mistake... it turned out bad... the mixture had frozen separating the water content and the konnyaku so it was horrible... had that for lunch...

observe the horrible mess of frozen konnyaku jelly...

all frozen up with ice on the tops also

semi melting when defrosted... unlike normal konnyaku

so after lunch... i drove by Giant and bought another 3 packs of Konnyaku prepacked mix. After the first round i discovered... u didnt actually need to boil the water in a pot... then stir the mix and water for 8 minutes... according to the instructions on the box... its all messy and such...

So i went on to do it MY STYLE! use a water container... pour in hot water... pour in mix... stir... then pour into the molds... chill... DONE! Ta-dah! Super EASY!

needs 3 packets for 48 jellys - each packet makes 500ml, add longan for added taste!

My STYLE... use a water container to easily pour into molds

see easy to pour! elevate to not break your back!

no more freezer this time round...

all packed and ready for the pot-bless! Woo-Hoo!

yeah... shocking eh! the title!

sigh... I can't stand cries... 1 minute... 2 minutes is fine... 1/2 an hour... it almost was too much...

yesterday was really bad... Julie was having her chinese tuition and i was in charge of taking care of phoebe for 1 1/2 hours... she had just passed Phoebe to me and she woke up! Don't panic... it's fine... she can be happy and be awake for some time... so we happily played... cooed... laughed for a good 25 minutes! Then noticing smacking lips... i asked Hannah to go ask the maid prepare her a bottle of milk...

ready with milk in hand... i hoped to be able to feed her prior reaching the danger zone! alas! the minute the bottle reached her lips... the crying began! When the crying starts... nothing but her mom's milk will suffice...

so began my 1/2 hour torture of patting and trying to get her to quiet down... she was tired and wanted some soothing and sleep... but for a whole 1/2 hour of soothing... and still it went on...

ARGHHH! Why! Why! aren't i carrying u so nicely... aren't u comfortable enough... didn't i try to give u milk but u rejected it... why can't u stop crying... ARGHHH!...

the window was suddenly very inviting... open... throw... and no noise anymore... ahhhhh!

needless to say... i didn't throw her out... only came very close... very very close...

she quieted down about fourty minutes of crying... partially due to exhaustion i presume... then nicely sleept on my chest... why oh why cant she just sleep of quietly... or at least tell me why... sigh... another 2-3 months of torture... before it begins to get better... i h o p e . . . :p

i ponder again... how did i forget how bad this was... when Hannah was 2 months old... & also ponder when will this end... rantings of a dad

Ohh... Darn!... I miss gaming... specifically playing Final Fantasy XII... been up in Penang since Wednesday... of course during the stay "THERE"... truly enjoy la...

But now, stuck in Julie's parents place... i'm beginning to feel the pull to head back and start gaming again... truthfully... the game is kinda scary...

It's HUGE!... so far the locales and immenseness is simply overwhelming...

• If u just stick to the main story line... you will miss quite alot of extras.
• If u try everything... it's way too much... really!
• I just want to try as much as i can... which so far already passes the 40hr mark!

The story... is filled with twists, mind whacking "what was that" scenes & overall solid storytelling + voicing! The range of cast and characters is mind boggling...

The graphics... impressive... bear in mind it's a 8 year old machine/tech...

The fluidity of u playing and how the game moves along as u play is unsurpassed...

My mom was down with us for 10 days prior to our trip to penang... and was asking "why my game was playing like that one"... she meant how come got story - aka. movie/cutscenes... her idea of games are simple hack/slash and brainless romps... she had never watched the beginning intro nor had not followed my progress thus far... so all was all a blur too her... but she was nevertheless impressed... :p

If you want more info u can check at the wikipedia... or a game review at IGN. But believe me, you owe it to yourself to play this game if u have a PS2/PS3 console... go borrow/buy one if you don't have one...

ARGHHHH!... can't wait to get home to play...

Soon... soon...