The muffins were delicious

Earlier today, I was contemplating on whether to make muffins for cell, or just spend the rest of the evening doing what I was suppose to do. As you can see, I hauled my lazy self to the kitchen and started baking muffins.

I didn't taste it this time, but according to my cell members, it was superb. (Thanks to Ruth who gave me the recipe) Even Uncle Chong who almost never eat cakes, took one and had no complains about it.

Maybe I will make some on Sunday, and for those volunteered guinea-pigs (eg - kg, Jian and JoelC), you will get your share, ok? :)

Shoud I or should I not?

I have all the ingredients to make a dozen muffins. Should I or should I not? My spirit is willing but I'm too lazy. Today I vowed to complete the following : -

1) VBA crafts
2) Compiling the Ledang pictures
3) Transfer pictures from the laptop to the new maxtor
4) Blog

So far I have not touched the VBA crafts yet.
Compiling pics - yup, I did a few... enough for the day.
Transfer pictures from the laptop - yup, did what I had to do.
Blog - Am blogging now.

So apart from VBA crafts (yes, I am procrastinating on this), I am free to bake.

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tum ..de... dum
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da-da-da...
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okay, okay... I'm going downstairs now to bake!!! (My cell members had better appreciate my willingness to make muffins on a lazy Friday afternoon).

Sigh.. I'm going now.... I'm gone.

The homemade bread that never rose

2 days ago, we bought a bread maker machine for my mother. She had been looking for a one ever since Aunty Chris lent her her Sanyo bread maker machine a few weeks back. My sister called Thye Hin, an electrical appliance shop to recommend a good brand and model. Sanyo brand was discontinued and they recommended Kenwood BM350, the latest model of the Kenwood range.

So here it is... my mom was so happy with the new addition of kitchen appliance in her house. It looked a little more complicated than the Sanyo bread maker machine but she was willing to learn how to operate this new machine. Her first attempt was a loaf of potato bread. She claimed it wasn't that good. Her second attempt was a loaf of wholemeal bread. It didn't turn out good too. The recipe called for 4 hours 25 minutes total baking time, but even after the stipulated time, the dough still looked uncooked. So she put it in for another hour.

The loaf looked so flat even after baking for more than 5 hours.

Look more like a cake texture. It tasted salty, and sourish..

She's going to try to bake another one tomorrow, and if it still don't turn out good, it's going to be another "white elephant" in her house.

My Maxtor

Maxtor arrived FINALLY! Thanks to Jimbo who introduced me to Terence who went to Low Yat and purchased it for me.

I've been longing for an external hard disk since.... July08 when I was compiling the Mount Kinabalu pictures. Now I can delete this item from my wish list. I only wished for a 250GB hard disk (anything above that will cost a bomb) but take a look of what just came into my possession ..

500GB worth of space. WOW! How long can it last I wonder? There was 160GB (less 20GB for programs) space when I had the laptop 14 months ago. Now I have only 35GB left.. and it would have been less if I didn't save a lot of photos in DVDs to create more space.

I'm going to store all my memorable photos in the new hard disk and my prediction is.. I will have to buy another external hard disk by the end of next year. Sigh...

So many gadgets just to make this thing work. This is actually an External DESKTOP Hard Drive.

So, compare to my sister's notebook-sized portable hard disk, my maxtor looked gigantic. My hard drive is 4 times bigger than hers and it weighs slightly more than 1kg.

Since I'm comparing, let's check the value for money for both hard drives.
Mine cost RM280 for 500GB
Hers cost RM270 for 160GB

Question : Which would you buy?

GLS 2008

What is GLS (Global Leadership Summit)?

To some, it may mean.. a conference for leaders only.
To others...yay! 2 days away from the office.
To the volunteers .. 2 full days of serving the delegates.
To the GLS committee .. a few months of preparation and "sweat" to see this 2 days come to past, with as minimal hiccups as possible.

GLS is basically for everyone who wants to learn from the experience of renown individuals. This year speakers include -

1) Bill Hybels - Senior Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church
2) Craig Groeschel - Senior Pastor of Lifechurch.tv
3) Gary Haugen - President and founder of International Justice Mission
4) Efrem Smith - Senior Pastor of The Sanctuary Covenant Church
5) Catherine Rohr - CEO and founder of Prison entrepreneurship Program
6) Brad Anderson - Vice-chairman and CEO of Best Buy Inc
7) Bill George - Harvard professor and former CEO Medtronics

This year, many people were touched (and some cried too) by Catherine Rohr's experience. Being a lady didn't deter her from helping people who made mistakes in the past. Some were hard-core criminals too.

Yesterday, the volunteers prepared the hall for the event. There were about 40 volunteers all willing to help in this event. Since this was the 2nd time we had this GLS conference in our church, some of us knew what was needed to be done.

Those in-charged of hospitality were busy washing and drying all the apples and pears. Today, someone asked.. "what type of apple is this?" And the reply was, "washed apple".

We bought this uh.. tree trunk for last year's GLS, and we used it again this year. Simon decorated it with orchids. I didn't know he was so talented.

This was my counter. Selling the 2008 GLS DVDs. Thanks to Aaron and JoelC who helped promote and sell.

Agape will also be hosting the GLS for next year. So far, over 400 people have registered for it. Are you one of them?

Mother spending time with daughter

The mother was playing scrabble when her daughter checked what her mother was up to. Why, she was playing scrabble all by herself. The daughter sat opposite her mom and said that she would be player 2.

When the daughter drew out some big letters from the pouch, she exclaimed... "Wah... I am so lucky... no, no.. I mean blessed.."

At one time, she had the letters "Q" and "Z" and 5 vowels. Then later she threw some of her vowels by forming the word "piano". Then she replace the letters with "K" ,"X"and "R". She felt so luck....er....blessed again to have high-point letters.

After a few more rounds, she gave up and ask Aunty Eunice to take over. Aunty Eunice won the game for her by finishing first. Hip! Hip! Hurray! for Aunty Eunice. :)

Flowering at last!

It has been more than a year since my parents planted these creepers (?) in their garden and finally we saw the flowers blooming. It was an awesome sight and I just love the colour. It certainly brightens my mood whenever I look at them. :)

Not a bad baking day

Yesterday, I wanted to try a couple of new recipes. I always wanted to learn how to bake good ginger cookies, and after a few failures (not the right taste), I decided to have a go again.

So, I brought the biscuits to church yesterday to distribute them to everyone. I think I made about 80 or so. Some commented, " Not enough ginger lah". Others asked " what biscuit is this ah?.. Ha... ginger ah, cannot taste the ginger wan..". Some said " Ai yuh.. this one look like dog biscuit".

So, the conclusion is, I should have added real ginger juice to make it taste more "gingerly". The biscuit itself is nice to eat and if I don't tell people that it is ginger biscuit, people will not expect the ginger taste.


I also baked chocolate nut bars. It didn't turn out like the picture below. It fact I thought it was a failure.

See, it turned out like any ordinary chocolate nut cake. I was quite disappointed, but really, it was my fault for not following the recipe to the dot. The recipe calls for 1 can of sweeten condensed milk, and I thought that 1 whole can is too sweet, so I put less than half a can, and added 1 cup of full cream milk to make up for the lost liquid. That was a very big mistake, because the chocolate mixture became very watery. So I added gelatin.

The cake turned out like this. It was really soft when I took it out from the oven. It taste just like a chocolate fudge cake... very chocolaty.. and sweet. So I put the whole tray into the refrigerator for about an hour plus, and volia... the cake hardened a little and I was able to cut them into squares. I brought 1/2 the cake to church and it was gone within 20 minutes. I was so glad the cake did not go to waste. :)

A leaking water tank

Question 1 : What does one do when the water tank is leaking?
Answer : Call the plumber.

Question 2 : What does one do when the water tank is leaking and want to save the cost of a plumber service?

Answer : Repair yourself.

Question 3 : What does one do when the water tank is leaking and want to save the cost of a plumber service but do not have a ladder?

Answer found at the picture posted above.

Homemade bread

Last Saturday, Aunty Chris came (to my mom's house) with her bread maker machine. Mom like the idea of fresh made bread and after baking 3 loaves, she's thinking of buying the machine. So, anyone who have a Sanyo bread maker machine and do not want it in your possession anymore, you can give it to my mom. :)

For me, I always wanted to bake bread in an oven. (very old-fashion.. haha) Ruth has lent me this book and I still haven't made any yet. (Ruth, do you remember this recipe book? Let me know if you want it back soon and I'll mail it to you). One day, ya, one day.. I will try to bake a loaf. :)

Muffins Finally!

I finally bake a batch of nice-to-eat cranberry muffins. Thanks, Ruth, for the recipe. :)

The 2 pictures above are taken just before putting the trays into the oven. I think I may have over-beat them, but what matters most now is, I've succeeded in making muffins!! Yay!

Since it was an experimental batch of muffins, I decided to put it round Sze-En's cake and place a candle on each muffin. The poor girl had to blow 4 or 5 times to put off the flames. We celebrated her real birthday 2 days ago and we celebrated it again yesterday with her cousins.

The New Lake Gardens

Some pictures of the New Lake Gardens. Seems like we took more pictures than we walked. :)

Met Matt And Minch. Minch wanted to take a picture with RachelWong, but Rachel didn't want to.

Space for Starbucks?

A dead end... Nice meeting place for lovers, eh?

The older side of Lake Gardens.

No Muffins today :(

After at least 2 posts on how my muffin didn't turn out the way it should be, Ruth emailed the recipe to me. I'm sure she didn't refer to her baking books and even added " Cooking is mostly a guessing game, in which you are the game show contestant. It isn't always necessary to make it a science by following the recipe exactly."

I must say, Ruth, I do not usually follow the exact recipe.. but I've made so many not-so-nice to eat muffins that I think I will follow your recipe to the dot. (Pause for a moment...) Oh well,... I will add some orange peel for some tangy taste.. :)

So yeah. I finally got all the ingredients... let's see.. cranberries... bought last year, due date's Dec2008, Eggs,flour and oranges, bought last week, butter... sometime back, corn flour and milk.. a few days back, vegetable oil.. pinjam from my sister... haha... mine expired.

But I'm missing something.. the muffin tray!!! Arggghhhhh.... I was at my mom's house yesterday and I took out the trays from the cupboard... but I forgot to bring it back home. Sigh... No muffins today. I will have to do it another day. Hopefully the oranges will last..

Celebrating 2 birthdays today

Happy Birthday girls! Scroll down to check who are the birthday gals...

This is Molly's new dress. (Made by Tusi)

This is Molly's mom.. hidden behind a silly mask.

This is Molly Bear. We call her Molly. She's a sweet little.. um... child. Everyone loves her. She has lovely manners too. Her mom (Sze-En) taught her how to greet everyone. Sometimes she forgets her manners and we'll let her mom know and her mom will discipline her (usually by not giving her ice-cream for dessert after dinner).

So today, we celebrated 2 birthdays. When Sze-En was 2 years old, someone gave Molly to her, which makes Molly 7 this year and Sze-En, 9. Ever since then, they are inseparable... like Calvin and Hobbes.

Sze-En, happily reading one of the Enid Blyton's book given by her mom. She is such a book worm.

Mom and "child" posing for a shot on their birthday.

How did the car get there?

Spotted a car near the Lake Gardens pond last Saturday. Many people were speculating on how the car landed itself there. One of the street lights at the Lake Gardens was knocked down and the grass was littered with a broken side mirror and some parts of the car. What do you think had happened? The actual story can only be answered by the driver.

Wonders of Facebook

I'm really an anti-social person. Unlike my siblings, I find it difficult to talk to strangers unless they are very friendly. Some may think I'm a snob, but really, I'm just shy and sometimes find it too tedious to talk to someone I've never met before or even old friends whom I've not seen for years.

The twin and the older sister on the hand have a flair for chatting, thus making new friends or meeting up with old acquaintances are a norm to them. Sometime ago, the twin created a facebook account for the 3 of us. She had been maintaining it for a few months before I took the effort to check what was so interesting about facebook.

Hmmm.... what's all these requests and poking each other??!! And why are people giving me virtual stuff? I want something tangible. And why is my friend asking me to pet her fluff? Crazy!

Facebook is so childish, I concluded.

But then slowly I began to appreciate facebook. I like to read people's tag line. I'm not so much into seeing the photos of my friends or sending virtual stuff to friends (but I do that sometimes too), but I like to know what's going on in their lives. Our joint account have about 300+ requests yet to be read or open.... and we are all waiting for each other to do the housekeeping. :)

Lately, the twin has been adding a lot friends from our ex-school. Some of them I hardly talk to, but she has also added their names in. Some didn't want to keep in touch after they left the school but they have accepted our request to add them in as our friends.

Just recently I had the opportunity to chat with one of my old school mates. I'm not that close to her in school, in fact, I hardly talk to her at all, mainly because we were in a different stream. But it's great to chat and get to know her in facebook. In 1 hour (or more??), we chatted as if we were old friends.

So I guess facebook scored more points in this area. I have to reopen my conclusion statement and re-conclude that facebook is very useful in keeping touch with old and new friends.

Hurray for facebook! :)

Do I deserve it?

Of course I do!!!!.

Messner handed me the Gunung Ledang climb certificate to me yesterday. I had expected a lousy black and white certificate, and I was very much surprised to receive a beautiful coloured one.

So yes, I've done Ledang and here's my certificate to prove it. :)

Messner then asked me.. "so... Nuang next ya?". I coolly responded, "sure, if you get rid of all the leeches for me". Hehe...I knew that Nuang's full of leeches and based on what I had heard, it was impossible not to get bitten by at least a few.

Sirdar & Messner - Thank you

This post is specially for the organizers of our mountain climbing team.

We do not have a name for our team. It all started with 2 gung-ho mountain crazy climbers who had the sudden interest of wanting to climb Mt Kinabalu. You know, I firmly believed that life begins after 40 for men. They develop a sudden interest on something only after the age of 40, or they change (in thoughts and interest mainly) after this age. Dunno why.

So, yeah, let's see.. they started talking about scaling Mt Kinabalu in Jan 2007. The interesting fact was, they not only TALK about it, but they made it come true. They planned the climb for September 2007, but knowing Messner who like everything well-planned, Sirdar suggested a recce before they lead a team in Spetember07. They had the recce in July 07 and pulled 4 others along this trip. Out of 6 of them, 5 made it to the peak and the one who didn't make it had a second chance in September 07.

They even scheduled training hikes to Gunung Datuk - 825mtrs (2 times), Gunung Angsi -870mtrs (2 times) and Gunung Nuang - 1493mtrs (1 time) and every climber was made to sign a 2-page commitment letter. Every now and then, they would call up or email each climber to check on their fitness level and to encourage them to train more. They even made T-Shirts specially for this climb. There were at least 2 briefing sessions and a get together dinner the day before flying off to Kota Kinabalu.

So September came and they had 20 climbers (including themselves) all eager to conquer Mt Kinabalu. Some were from JB, KL and Lumut while the majority were from Seremban. They went via the Timpohon Trail. Out of 20, 14 summited. And yes, this was successfully organized.

After this the interest died a little because many of climbers were involved in the Christmas musical. But the organizers had another Mt Kinabalu climb scheduled in March 2008. They took advantage of Air Asia's zero fare and booked 1 year ahead.

So in December 2007 , right before the Christmas musical, they began collecting names for the 2008 Mt Kinabalu climb. They had decided to have 2 climbs; 1 in March, the other in July. Messner was to lead the March team and Sirdar, the July team.

March 2008 team - out of 10, 9 summited. They went via the Mesilau Route.
July 2008 team -out of 20, 15 summited. They went via the Mesilau Route.

By July 2008, they had organized 4 Mt Kinabalu climbs, Gunung Datuk -8 times (at least), Gunung Angsi -8 times and Gunung Nuang - 2 times.

One would have thought that their love for mountain climbing was gone, having satisfied their itch 4 times over at Mt Kinabalu, but nooooo... they are now looking at newer heights - Mt Kilimanjaro 2009 or 2010... and their training ground??? No more Gunung Datuk or Gunung Angsi. Too easy for them. They were looking at Gunung Ledang (1276 mtrs) and Gunung Tahan (2187 mtrs).

They did Gunung Ledang last week. They had 38 climbers and only 2 didn't summit. They are planning Gunung Tahan and another Ledang early next year. Rumours has it that they are also planning Gunung Datuk and Gunung Angsi in 1 day and an early morning Gunung Datuk to watch the sunrise. (Mountain madness).

1 year 9 months ago....all these started with just a casual talk. I can just imagine, Messner and Sirdar's conversation..

Messner - "Ever thought of climbing Mt K ah?"
Sirdar - "Yeah, but no kaki (friends of the same interest) lah. Say, you are also keen on climbing meh?"
Messner - "Well, I always wanted to climb Mt Kinabalu, but like you say.. no kaki lah. Eh, why don't we plan a trip there?"
Sirdar - "Hmmm... can also".
Messner - "Let me do some research on it first."
Sirdar - " Okay. We can ask around, see who is interested in joining us".

hehe...just imagining okay?!

Anyway, to Sirdar and Messner, thank you for organizing all these climbs. I had some wonderful moments on these mountains. I may not join you in your quest to Tahan or Kili, and I wish you well in your future climbs with or without me.

I know it's difficult to plan and organize. You guys worry for the group and don't complain much (except for constantly saying that the Tan sisters are not training enough.. haha). And what more , you did it without profiting from any of the trips. In fact, I suspect a lot of time was spent on planning, not to mention the cost of phone calls to arrange for accommodation, transport, etc.

Well done to both of you... and keep up the spirit. :)

Light unto my Path

Yesterday, 6 out of 10 of us wore red to cell. MCTC who dislike wearing red, wore red. It would have been alright if it weren't for a wake service we thought of attending after cell.

Our cell ended early and we made our way to Rahang Garden. No directions were given except that we had to turn left just before the bridge after Ah Seng's Coffee shop. We were told to look out for signs.

Signs?? What signs? I was looking out for tents and cars. When we were approaching Rahang Garden, MCTC suddenly said "there, there's the candle". Suddenly it dawned upon me that the candle was the sign. We passed by another candle and there we were, at the house with a make shift tent.

If it weren't for the candles we would be going round Rahang Garden looking for the house. This reminded me of the verse :

"Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." Psalms 119 :105

Truly, without God, we would be very lost.

Frustrated

Eunice is so frustrated that the printer is not working!!!!! She had to prepare crafts for the Vacation Bible Adventure (VBA) this year and was happily sourcing safari themed crafts from the internet. She spotted a few and wanted to print them for the VBA coordinator but her printer wasn't co-operating.

She is now copying them into Microsoft Word to be printed later in church.

A newcomer in the neighbourhood

Spotted a monkey tied to a tree a few doors away from me. Wonder to whom it belonged to. Poor dear. It was trying to search for food in the rubbish bin when I first saw it.

More Christmas Decos

Yup! The 2nd tree is up. My mother is really into setting up her house for Christmas. Thank God I'm not living next door, otherwise I would have to help.. hehe.