Retired Life (3)

2016 March ..

It has been quite a long time since my last post about our (my other half and me) retired life from 2005. Recently, I have been tightly preoccupied with home problems and babysitting  (my granddaughter,now being 8 months plus ). We both are physically and mentally  tired. Watching the little granddaughter grow up with angelic smiles daily is  the only consolation and reward. This is our retired life now...We both cannot afford to send her to babysitter. So, what to do? Take care for the young couple to help in reducing the financial burdens...We had a quiet and low profile celebration on Chinese New Year 2016...(Year of the Monkey !)
Below are photos taken on Chinese New Year Eve 2016 Feb..

Little Silvia sitting on her baby chair..7 months plus...With cute hair bands she looks girlish a little bit...Her face looks more boyish and l m sure none disagrees.

 She is testing her baby walker for the 1st time...

 She is happier sitting on her high baby chair and swinging her legs is the sign of showing her excitement ...waiting for her baby cereal ...

 Her lips action showing her 2 front teeth are soon coming out....

8 months + ....starts learning to sit stably...for short period only....

Retired Life (2)....with photos.

2015 December  16th

Retired Life (2)

Our main purpose to move our son to study in his father's hometown in Perak,Malaysia in the hope that he could complete at least secondary level of education. That was the minimum requirement eligible to apply for enrollment into a vocational college where he could acquire a skill to survive in the society. We would be too old to help him through his own life in the future.

We had to collect information on courses available and suitable for his character and luckily there was this Workers' Institute of Technology (W.I.T) in that town that offered automobiles course. He was a headache to the lecturer after the first semester. We went to have a talk to this kind lecturer who then understood his condition and allowed him to continue the course. He told us he was smart and restless but he was not keen in writing.He only listened to the lectures that he was interested in and could answer questions on the spot. The lecturer used a different way to help him through the course. He really got through and obtained the certificate ! It was strange too. After his course ended and the college closed down one or two years later, due to lack of students ,I guess.
After the course, he told his lecturer if not because of  his kind and helpful nature, he would not be able to get through the whole course.

He worked at a workshop for a year or so. Luckily he could get along well with this workshop owner who also could tolerate his attitude . From there he had gained lots of experience on car work.
The next two years he had tried on other jobs related to car work ie towing cars that broke down on the Highways and did repair work on the spot if the problem was minor one.
It was during this time that he created more  headache problems . We had two sedan cars that we had to ship them over as we needed for transport purpose. A Toyota Corolla and later Toyota Carina (of the 80's) Both these cars eventually had to be sold off to junkyard or foundry ! All because of his couldn't careless and irresponsible attitude. My car was also shipped over later. It was a Toyota Celica 1.6 ,also of the 80's. It was my husband's idea then. I had a feeling it wasn't right time yet for this sporty two-door car to be driven by my son . Really, after one month on the road ,it was involved in an accident and the damage was terrible. It took many months to get the repair work done and we had to pay for car repair expenses many times. The front screen was to be replaced too. The next headache to us was that either he was bored or being influenced by friends,he used the Celica for drifting ! Imagine how much it cost us for repair and towing fees ! The final crazy idea on the car was to do body modification work and spraying the car into dark brown color (last picture) !

We still love this car and feel sentimental. We don't feel like selling off as it is an antique car and its engine is still very good . The car seats are clean and neat. We keep the car because we can use it when we travel to my husband's hometown to visit our relatives.

The car 's original look..at our house porch. in the 90's...

Still in my hometown in the 90's.

pic taken in 2015 April

Retired Life (3) will be the next post.

Retired life (1)

December 4th,2015
 My husband and I had retired 10 years ago ! We were government servants. As such, we rely on our pension allowance for our living today.  Many of my friends and former colleagues expected both of us to enjoy retired life in travelling around places in our homeland or abroad as my two dear daughters have their own married lives away from their hometown.As a matter of facts, we never traveled far from West Malaysia.

We have a difficult person to deal with in our retired live. He is our son,youngest in the family. In
his younger days in school, he never gave us peace of mind. He was not a naught person but lack of focus in doing things. Most of his classwork and homework were never completed.We placed him in Chinese primary school for 4 years and imagine this..every year he was moved from class A to F and the report card showed results in mostly in red ! We realized he was weak and disliked writing in chinese characters when all subjects were taught in Chinese !

So, we decided to transfer him to a national primary school to complete his last two years of  primary education. Because he only learn two languages ie Bahasa Malaysia and English. Though he was the same playful person with no focus, at least the year 6 results were above average. We ever suspected he was ADHD kid. The second psychiatrist tested him and said he should be AD.

Three years of secondary education was completed with  average result. By then we were retiring. We moved to his father's hometown in West Malaysia and let him continue upper secondary education there. We really had hard times and stressful mind  while taking care of him. He studied auto mobile in a college and managed to obtain certificates .Back in our hometown ,there was no college offering courses on Auto Mobile.

After working for a while in West Malaysia and the same time giving us more headache problems, he told us he wanted to move back to our hometown. We did not mind as we missed our own home over there. Many asked why both of us did not just leave him there to survive himself. We just did not have choice...to leave or not to leave him.

Now we have been back for nearly 5 years.He has not changed in attitude and character. He has no stable income and yet he is married with a 5 month old baby girl. We two old parents are to take care of her. I once went to a fortune teller who told me that I felt stressful with my son and later with my grandchild. (2 years ago then.) Guess I got to accept life as we go on....

Homemade kaya jam

2015 November 3rd 
Kaya ,is also known as coconut egg jam,which is a popular toast spread in Malaysia and Singapore.
This sweet coconut nut jam is made with just coconut milk,eggs and sugar and pandan leaves. Pandan leaves are to make the jam taste with fragrance. Later the leaves will be discarded.
My husband had a Google search for the making of kaya and he  chose one that was simple and easy. He tried a couple of times to get the texture he preferred. That the texture is not watery like those shown on videos.
The ingredients are: 250 gm sugar,250 gm coconut milk, 4 eggs,beaten.
The process is
 1. In a pot or mixing bowl, place sugar and pour in the coconut milk.
     Put the pot on stove. Stir the mixture until the sugar melts completely.Add in tied pandan leaves          (not shown because this time he did not use..optional).
2. Meanwhile beat eggs thoroughly. Using a strainer,pour the well beaten eggs into the pot of melted       sugar with the  coconut milk. Stir well for a while.
3. Transfer the pot of mixture onto another bigger and wider pot or a kwali (chinese use it to cook           dishes and food) filled with boiling water (as shown in the picture).Keep stirring on slow fire.
4. Keep stirring with patience until all ingredients mixed well.
5. On the other stove,use a saucepan to melt 5 tablespoons sugar till it turns brown color,not burnt.
    Pour the melted sugar  into the pot and keep stirring again until sugar well blended into the                 texture.
6. Finally the nice texture of  kaya is ready. It takes half an hour only to get the job done.

1. 250 gm sugar place in a pot.

       

2. 250 gm fresh coconut milk  in a glass .

3. Pour coconut milk into the pot and picture shows the mixture.

4. Picture shows the pot of  mixture is placed on stove with slow fire.
Keep stirring until the sugar melts in coconut milk. The mixture turns to this color. 

                                           

5. Beat eggs thoroughly and pour into the pot of  mixture.Keep stirring on slow fire.

6. Stir well until turns into the correct form of mixture.

7. On a saucepan,melts 5 table spoons of sugar till it melts and turns brown then pour into the pot.Keep on stirring until you get the desired texture .

8. Once cool,pour into containers and it is ready to serve.




Editing is done on 4th November 2015.

Homemade Soy milk

 2015-Oct 29th
Hi ! It has been almost 2 months since my last post. Time really passes so swiftly. During the last 3 months my husband and I were busy with the new member at home ! Looking after baby need a lot of energy as we two old folks are over 66 years old already...Now everything is easily handled. So,while time allows, my husband is happy to make soy milk and a jam called "kaya" (next post).

We learnt the method of making soy milk long long time ago from a friend. We used to buy soy milk from market,sold only at weekends. But so unfortunately the uncle has stopped selling since he had a fall and been hospitalized for quite sometime. My son drinks a lot. So,we have to do it ourselves at home. Taste is "not bad" to me and my sister in law said it was nice !

Process  :
Soy beans, any amount you like..we tried with a cup of  soy beans for 1st try and later increased the amount if we need more soy milk.
Soak the beans over night.
Next, I prefer to peel off skins of the beans before blending, so that it tastes better when cooked.
Add some water to the beans in the blender and start blending process.
Pour the blended paste into a cloth strainer as shown in the pictures. Must add water each time you are to squeeze the bean paste to get the amount of soy you want into a pot below the strainer.
If the milk is still thick, add water to it before or while boiling.
Let it boil for a while and turn off fire. Add sugar to taste. Let it cool down before pouring into containers.
Happy trying !

Remembrance Day...Labuan 2014

22-August 2015

Remembrance Day  9 November 2014
World War II Memorial, Labuan (formerly Victoria Town )

I read  about the news and the notice of this event in the newspaper and I went to witness the ceremony on the 9th November 2014. It was raining heavily the night before .Luckily the rain stopped before the ceremony started. This memorial Park on the island of Labuan was a popular place where visitors loved taking photos while walking around the compound.When we were young ,we used to bring our friends from afar to visit this beautiful Memorial.Writing about this Memorial really brings back lots of memories of my school days.

Remembrance Day is an annual event organised by Labuan Tourism Council to commemorate the fallen heroes during the World War II . On that day, many High Commissioner representatives from Commonwealth countries attended the event to offer tribute. Below are some of the photos taken before and during the Prayer service.