Wrap the papaya

If you are wondering why we wrapped our papaya, it is to prevent papaya theft!!

We started growing this papaya tree last year after my mil tasted a good, sweet fruit and threw seeds at the back and soon, it grew flowers and then bore fruits!! And it was so fertile, that many fruits keep popping out of the tree. Then, another papaya tree grew along the side. And another small tree as well. So we have three papaya trees at the back now and the first one give us many fruits 

Then along the way, few fruits started to turn yellow. Meaning it will ripe and we can taste it  we didn't get to taste. But somehow the fruit was stolen!! Yes, it was gone. And not once but twice. Apparently there was a papaya thief in my neighbourhood. Not only stole one papaya, but stole two more on 2 Nd time within the span of less than a week!!! Geez!! My mil was so upset she didn't get the chance to pick and taste when she was here last month.

So an aunt (her sister) suggested to wrap the papaya tree to prevent theft. So we did that and true, no more theft after that. And there was once we spotted an old lady walking at our back, apparently peeking at our tree from a distance. We suspected she was the one. And maybe the same person who stole a neighbour's vegetables!! But no proof and since now we protected the fruits from being stolen, there no longer any suspicious person walking at our back yard. It was very rare to see people walking at the back, outside of our gate. Even we also seldom go out, and when we do, we are trimming our lemon tree, papaya tree and curry plants and others. We know the surrounding neighbours, and they also rarely venture out from their back gate.

Another reason for wrapping, it also speed up the ripen process!!! Now we got many ripe fruits when we checked it out after many days of rain earlier this month!!! 

My papaya tree and its big fruits!! Really good plant; big size, sweet and juicy flesh. Now we need to give some away!! Lol. 

That afternoon, we passed one big fruit to a neighbour and I cut and packed one container for Jan to bring to school to share with her English Club members. She is this year club secretary and had a meeting and some errand with few members that Sunday afternoon. 

On her

My MIL is here. Few days into her stay, she suggested to go electrical appliances shopping. She wanted to get us an air fryer as she heard and seen how convenient it was. My SIL used it so my MIL wanted to get us one.

As you know, I have been contemplating to get one for quite sometime even before MCO. Counted our lucky star, my MIL brought one for us.

Philips Air Fryer HD9270 was our choice. Other than air fryer, she also bought us a new fridge. Midea brand. Our old Samsung fridge has gone, so we had space for one additional fridge. All bills on her. 

Thank you mum for the new fridge and air fryer!! 😘

The very first thing we did when we got our air fryer was testing!! With fries!!!

Not good 1st testing with French fries as we set the time too long. And our 2nd attempt was better as you could see from the above photo. 

Next we tried out on chicken wings. Oh, it was nice. Basically the gadget was automatically set with food  function as well as temperature and time for each food but we could adjust accordingly. 

As we grew confidence in it, we had our air frying pork belly for lunch one day. Turned out just nice. The texture was nice. 

More experiments with my new air fryer. 

Different affair

CNY is this Friday! Are you ready for it?

This year would be a very different affair at home for us. No big celebration, and my mum-in-law is not coming over to Kuching due to MCO in Kapit. 

This year I will be cooking something for the reunion dinner at home. However we will be having a reunion lunch on the eve at my parents' house. 

Hubby bought 2 kg of big prawns home the other day and I had done cleaning and deveining them. If you ask what would be my menu for reunion dinner, I have a menu in my mind. Maybe I will stick to it or maybe not. We will see when the day comes. I promise that I will blog about it then. 

No malls hopping and shopping for new attires this year. All our CNY clothings were bought online.  I even got myself and Jan few footwear from online shop. 

And no, we would not be overloaded ourselves with snacks, cookies and canned drinks this year. We only bought the stuff that we enjoy.  

We received gift of butter cookies and pineapple rolls from a friend last month. I have been enjoying the pineapple rolls since then as I could not resist it. 

Other gifts from hubby's friends. More goodies to munch on! 

And another tub of pineapple roll from another friend. I am overloaded with it this year!! 

I have a thing for pineapple tarts or rolls and I only buy them on CNY so it is an indulgence for me once a year. I bought this (RM30), snowy milk balls (RM28) and cornflake with raisin and cranberry cookies (RM25) from a friend, to show a little support to her.

Not much spring cleaning as I am busy with kids' homeschooling and they themselves have their hands full every weekdays. 

For the coming festive season, we will be staying as much as indoor as possible. Strict SOP on house visiting so we would not be visiting or inviting anyone over. Psst, can save a lot on ang pow money too!! Lol! 

Hope everyone has a safe and as happy as possible a holiday season!

Our CNY 2020

We are on the 3rd day of Chinese New Year today. Hope everyone had a great and joyful CNY holiday with family and friends over the weekend. 

For reunion dinner, we went to my in-laws' house as my BIL cooked the dinner. Sorry, I did not take photos of all the food on the table. We stayed for a while before headed home and waited for midnight. 

We stayed pretty late to lit up the firecrackers at 12midnight. We were joined by hubby's young cousin and Jan's cousin to witness the firecrackers and fireworks display. 

So, we slept and woke up late the next morning. By the time we reached my in-laws' house it was after 9am. 

Mother-in-laws cooked chicken mee suah and we had that for breakfast on the first day of CNY. 

Then we went to my parents' house for lunch. My mum's Hakka specialties that day. How I missed my mum's cooking!! 

Chicken Kacangma

Bamboo shoot soup

Pak lo duck (braised duck) 

On the 2nd day, we visited 2 houses of relatives. In the evening, we invited hubby's side of family and relatives for a steamboat dinner. 

BIL cooked and brought some wild boar meat over. A true Sarawak's exotic dish!! 

The house was very noisy and merry. So many young kids, so that was expected. Lol. 

On the 3rd day (today), we stay at home, welcoming anyone who cares to visit us. Not many guests; my half sisters, half-brother and bil came over. We had few good hours of chatting and drinking. 

Some goodies waiting for guests. Some we bought locally, some were gifts and some were goodies we bought from China. 

These packed goodies were from China. Dried crunchy red dates, tasty sunflower seeds, black sesame cookies and others. I liked that they were individually packed, easy to store and eat. 

These cookies were from a friend. Tom yum goong cookies and Kopi Boy cookies from Breadsman. Not the usual cookies I would buy or taste. 

Hubby is going to work tomorrow. He only took few days leave before CNY. All my kids will enjoy extra few days of holiday before schools reopen on Thursday. 

We are ready

It is all set to welcome the Year of Pig in a couple of days!!

A little corner of my house decorated with vases of cherry blossom and a basket of mandarin oranges.

Also display of this charcoal decoration that we bought recently.

Nian gao holds an important aspect in Chinese New Year. It symbolises good luck and prosperity.  My mini nian gao with pumpkin.

A basket of oranges means abundance and wealth.

Another basket of oranges, pamelo, pineapple and leeks.

New lanterns were up too.

When they lighted up.

This year we received 2 hampers, such a great blessing for the new year.

Wishing everyone a Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year! Happy holidays!

Maid at home

These days, I am a maid at home, preparing and cleaning for the coming Chinese New Year.

I did some dusting and spring cleaning lately. I done a good job in clearing my fridge few days ago. Some were left way inside that I didn't know. Lol. Need to reorganize my fridge more in the future!

Most of the job in the morning when it was quieter with Jan helping me here and there whenever she could.

While clearing my dry pantry, I noticed this cat peeping on me from across the neighbour's house.

It sure enjoyed up there. 

I ordered this sofa cover last month and it came in not long ago. Something to cover my poor torn sofa. 

Still thinking to change or re-wrap the whole thing but for time being, I am happy with this sofa cover for the festive season.

Still more to do and prepare for the holiday. For now, I am doing a little by little every day. Don't want to exhausting myself out.

Snuggle

We had a good weekend over here. There was occasional rains to cool down the temperature. Sunday was much nicer and cooler after the big thunderstorm on Saturday evening.

Few days before the weekend, there was something wrong with the air con in my room; made my room like a sauna room! Since then we have moved over to the boys' room while waiting for the air con to be fixed which they did eventually on Saturday afternoon. By then, we decided to snuggle in the boys' room for one more night. ^^

I love the sleep in with the boys these few nights. We got to chat, argue, tell stories, play pretend and pray.  I am kind of missing Jamie in my room since he moved in with his brother. Actually I am missing both boys in our bedroom. Jay officially moved out from our room this April while Jamie started last month.

Now both stay in their room more, snuggling, grizzling and messing around. I don't know how I handle their brotherly dispute but most of the time, I let the boys settle themselves rather than getting myself involve.

I know. I am being whimsical here but I am slowly accepting the fact that my boys have all grown up!

The kitchen before & after

Hello peeps! Finally, my new kitchen cabinet is fully completed and ready to be revealed!

But first, let me show you my old kitchen cabinet.

Cabinet before 

This white-coloured wooden cabinet has been there since 2012 and now we re-do it to concrete kitchen cabinet with black tiles top finishing.

Cabinet after

I still need time to get used to the colour. At least it brings out some colour to the kitchen space.

Next agenda for the kitchen - new window blind. But that would be after CNY  ^^

Works

It has been a busy week. So for the reason for the lack of posts and visiting your blogs lately.

I have been helping at my dad's shop since Monday. His clerk is retiring soon so I volunteered to help him temporarily till he could find a suitable clerk.

Dad's collection of name cards

The time is flexible; I could go out, run my errands and pick my children. That is one thing about working for family that I like.

Old cabinet

Then came Thursday, I had my kitchen cabinet torn down. The wooden feature underneath has rot due to water over the years so a part of the counter top collapsed. The part where the sink was.

We are going to do a concrete feature. For time being, I would not be able to cook and my kitchen is a mess and dusty. Could not wait for my new cabinet to be ready; should be by next week.

One minute it was like this...

The next hour it was gone

New bones

That's all. A short update from me for now. Catch up with you guys soon, I hope. 

Feel like Christmas + 10 years

It does feel more like Christmas at our home!

The tree is up! Christmas is my favourite time of the year as I get to decorate the house (just that small corner of the house) to make it looks merrier and to get into the festive mood. I feel like a kid again, with my kids setting and decorating the tree.

This year we place the tree next to the piano. I thought the tree stands out next to the piano.

When it is lighted up at night....

We are having the blue and silver theme this year. Last year, we went gold and red and the year before, it was blue and silver. We did purple before but I actually like current colours combination. Very Christmassy.  Simply magical and festive, don't you agree?

May this happiest season of the year fills your home with joy, love and peace.

And my blog is celebrating 10th blogversary today. OMG! I couldn't believe it myself. My first blog entry 10 years ago. To many more wonderful years of blogging (I hope).