Miri oh Miri

I spent my Chinese New Year holiday with my family at Miri recently. It is a very warm town. Literally. As the city was surrounded by the sea, it is moist and heaty all the time. It reminds me alot of Penang, minus the char keow tiao and the seas of people of course. 

Not many people knew much about Miri, except the fact its the birthplace of Malaysia's petroleum industry. Since the day the Hollanders set their drills at the coast, Miri has grown phenomenally into a buzzing little city. Do you know that the first oil well (The Grand Old lady) was drilled by Shell in 1910? Gosh, that's like 102 years ago.

My sister married her college sweet heart who is a Miri-an 3 or 4 years ago. Since then, the small town has become a place she called home. I cant speak for my sister, but sometimes, I still find it hard to accept the fact that the home I grew up in in Kuching is no longer my first home. Both my sister and I left the home that was full of our childhood fond memories at early age to study at the cities that was completely foreign to us. Over the years, we slowly get used to the new environment and build our life around it. However, our little home in Kuching always have a special place in my heart, its a place where I can forget the fact that I'm a manager and whine like a 12 years old; its a place where I have to hid all my love letters under my bed from my curious parents; its a place where I wrote most of my songs with my faithful old friend named guitar under the moonlight....

Although I have so much love for my home in Kuching, however I enjoyed my Chinese New Year holiday the best when I was in Miri with my family.  It was when time like this when we were having our sweet reunion again, it makes me feel so much loved and homey, and the physical place no longer seems to be important.

Anyway, just sharing with you some of the picture taken during the trip at Miri.

This is a small cove very near to our hotel (like 5 mins walking) which leads to the sea. The sky was so blue in the morning, and the fishermen sells fishes freshly caught from the sea at the docking platform.

The food we saw at the local coffee shop. We tried laksa only (which was so so and cost a bomb) since we were stuffed. But the rest looks tempting - The red wine fried rice (This is the first time i saw this), the famous Tomato sauce noodle and Roti kahwin. According to my brother, it means butter and kaya toast, perfect marriage!!

The famous seahorse - icon of Miri.  

Dinner with my relatives. Our first ever picture with my grandmother. She is so old (nearly 90s) which I don't think she recognizes me anymore. 

Well, that sums up my Miri trip. Hope to visit the town (and see my dear nephew) again soon!

The Undomestic Godess

My oven is fuming and blazing since Christmas. 

Blueberry muffins, oh and my latest addition of dunno-what-plant-is-it to my gardening (with no garden) collection.

During New Year's holiday, i made a batch of blueberry muffin, with FRESH blueberry, impressive or not, hahaha ... The other day, Peter went all the way getting his hand dirty kneading dough and baking bread. Do check out the Basic bread recipe for details.   

According master Jamie Oliver, its just 6 simple steps of :

Stage 1: making a well

Stage 2: getting it together

Stage 3: kneading!

Stage 4: first prove

Stage 5: second prove, flavouring and shaping

Stage 6: cooking your bread

Sounds simple right, but truth be told, its more expensive and extremely time consuming to bake your own bread rather than just went to bakery at the corner of the road to buy a freshly made loaf of bread. Its only cost a penny and is equally good (or even better) with home made. However, its a different kind of satisfaction I would say. To eat from the fruit of your labour, literally. Oh, and it gives you great muscle exercise with all the kneading and mixing too!

We made a grilled chicken sandwich with the bread. hmm..hmmm... delicious. 

I was so into the baking stuff that the other day i bought this chick flick book by Sophie Kinsella named "The Undomestic Goddess". I can totally echo with the main character Samantha Sweating. She is a successful attorney but a total workaholic who did a major blunder in her career and went down all the way to zero. To make things worse, she become a housekeeper by mistake. 

I like the way how the author put this smart women (with flighty thoughts) into a beyond imaginary circumstances and come out better than everyone could have think of. There is this funny scene which describes her first bread baking experience. She had a total nervous breakdown when the kneading is going no where and to make it worse, she has to wait for the yeast to make the bread rise. In her own words:

"I look at the bowl, trying to think miracles. But it isn’t working. I can’t feel calm or serene..... I used to be in control of my time to the minute. To the second. And now I’m supposed  to stand here, in an apron, waiting for a...fungus?"

Yeast = fungus, priceless!

I was literally laughing out loud. but a couple of pages after, i was on the verge of shedding tears. 

".... A yeasty smell is rising up. I open my eyes to see a  loaf of bread in my arms. Proper bread. Real, proper bread like you’d see in a baker’s window. Fat and plump and golden-brown, with faint striations and a crusty, almost flaky top. It smells so delicious I can feel my mouth watering. 

“Tell me that’s nothing,” says Iris, squeezing my arm. “You made that, sweetie. And you should be proud of yourself.” 

Something hot is wadding my throat as I clutch the warm loaf. I made this bread. I made it. I, Samantha Sweeting, who couldn’t even microwave a packet of soup. Who gave up seven years of her life to end up with nothing, to be wiped out of existence. Who has no idea who she even is anymore. I made a loaf of bread. Right now I feel like this is the only thing I have to hold on to."

I guess that's the meaning of comfort food. When you pour all the hard works and love into whatever you cook/ bake, the food will comfort your soul in return. Its almost like a cleansing and rejuvenating process. Anyway, now you know i have a soft spot for stuff like this. ;) 

Post Christmas Blues

Its approaching the end of 2011.

Many had started to write posts such as: 10 most memorable moments in 2011 or 10 greatest achievements in 2011. I don't understand why are people so obsess with the number "10". If I end up writing such a post, I will never limit myself with 10.

Anyway, its two days after Christmas. I'm sitting in the office while my husband went for a shopping spree at KLCC. Thats why i'm blue. Nah, truth be told, am feeling one kind because there were so much of anticipation and hypes building up all the way to the Christmas, and in a blink of an eye, it ended. Don't get me wrong, my Christmas was fabulous. But the fact that it turned into past tense so fast before I can drench myself in the Christmas spirit makes me cant help but sigh.    

In fact, the shopping malls started to play all the "ji ke long dong qiang dong qiang" songs even before the Christmas decoration tears down. Wow, that's fast. I felt i was sorta left behind, while others had started to march towards the new year. 

Often, many feel a sense of loneliness or emptiness after Christmas season. Its like a void deep inside which can never be filled by any Christmas gifts. Some are recovering from the burnt wallet, some are wondering so-what's-next? Some felt a emotion sharp turn which nearly send them into depression. But, my blue was a different kind of blue. 

There were so much to feel, so much to do, so many friends to meet, so much of love to share during the Christmas, but Christmas day is just ONE day in the cycle of 365 days. In fact i somehow managed to stretch the celebration to 4 days by having church Christmas night event on 23/12, Christmas mass and family Christmas dinner on 25/12 and two Christmas gatherings at my home on 26/12. Gosh it was super hectic and I cant recalled the last time I've baked and cooked so much. However, it still felt NOT enough. How I wished the celebration can be extended to the whole year round, and i don't mind listening to Micheal Buble's I'll be home for Christmas for another 365 days. s 

23/12 Church Christmas celebration, all the girls performing mimes for "We are the Reason"

Of course i can still have the gatherings with my friends and families during normal days and not only during Christmas season. But Christmas has this wonderful (and strange) effects on people. I find that people's heart are more open because its the Christmas season. Maybe its the Christmas song, or maybe its white and snowy decoration, or maybe its the peaceful and jolly ambiance. Whatever reason it is, it brought smiles onto people's face easily, it makes you want to skip while walking, it makes your heart felt light and fluffy.

I just wanted this good feeling to go on and on.

2011 Christmas was a special Christmas for me, as I'm celebrating my first Christmas with my 'new' family. Peter and I took up the challenge of cooking the Christmas dinner for the whole family. We had pork ribs, paella, minestrone soup and the cheesecake (which was failed to set, bleh). The food was all gone before I can even take the picture of it. It was a simple dinner with just great conversation and laughters, and I enjoyed the Christmas night with my extended family tremendously. I mean I'm close with Peter's family, but that night, i felt like we were closer than ever. It was finally dawn on me that they are my family now. I guess somewhere along the line after being away from home for 8 years, I've found an anchor and a home here in this city which no longer foreign to me. 

If I sum up one thing which the Christmas this year had taught me, that would be "Cherish the moments of  love". The great moments in our lives are precious, but fleeting. So enjoy and make full use of it when it still last.   

The making of the kitchen

Yesterday Sunday service message was about procrastination and its bad consequences. While listening to the message i made an effort to list down all the things which i supposed to do but ended up in my procrastination list. 

I guess there is no surprise that blogging the back dated events was on the top of the list. SO, out of great shame and deep regret, i wrote this post the moment i went back home. Here comes the making of my kitchen. which occurred a month ago. ;p

Day 1: Basically cleaning up the space and hacking the wall for the electrical plug outlets

Day 2: Things getting intense as the contractor removed the existing build in cabinet and semen top

In between, there were dust everywhere, i nearly die of continuously stepping on dusty floor.

Day 3: Fill in the cement gaps

Day 4: New floor and wall tiles

1st Weekend: The credit of painting the wall solely goes to none other than Peter and myself. The funny thing was we painted the wall at NIGHT. We were running around in the morning buying the necessary accessories and meeting vendors, so for the two consecutive nights during the weekend,  we were in our most worn out clothes, climbing and painting the wall until its glow in white.  

There was more dust. 

2nd week: The subsequent week was all about the carpentry work. We have chosen a C shape black granite kitchen Top and glossy white wall cabinet. The chunk of the moolah went to the Fotile kitchen set which includes the suction unit, the induction electric ceramic cooker and the built in Oven. 

By the end of 3rd week. Our black and white theme kitchen was completed. 

I was in complete euphoric as there was no more DUST!!!
ps: Pardon the picture of the jars of snacks. Gosh I love the IKEA air tight jar!

The study room

Am grinding and squeezing my grey matter over the past whole week trying to to figure out how to decorate my study room. (So now you know that my 2nd favourite room after the bathroom is the study room).

It wasnt a big room to start off with, hence am mighty careful in trying to get the combination of right furniture in order to make it functional yet without choking up all the spaces. Well, the study room serves 3 functions:

1. To accommodate my tons of books and Peter's tons of books, which makes MANY tons of books. Hence a big bookshelf is a must.

2. A nice sofa bed where i can continue to spoil my eye sight by lying down and read my books leisurely. The sofa should also serve as a bed in case my girls decides to stay over for a pajamas party.

3. A good computer table set to accommodate Peter's computer and it should be mighty comfortable that even after he spends hours playing with his darling MMORPG (not me), he wont develop any backache and will still be sober enough to spend time with his darling (that's me)

My thought was having a bookshelf with an attached desk initially in order to maximise the space. And i love the design on the right as the bookshelf blends literally into the wall. However, after surveying through quite a few furniture shops, i have no choice but to abandon the idea. The standard bookshelf-table set which was offered by the shops was too much of office feel to my liking. Custom made is not an option unless you are willing to burn a hole right through your pocket. In the end, i'm placing an order for a simple 5 rows X 3 columns bookshelf without the attached desk.

On the bright side, the sofa bed was finally delivered last Saturday, and it looks exactly what i want. It was sturdy and comfortable and the brown color match well with the Picasso walnut laminated floor.

No picture still, cuz i want to present the entire study room as a whole when the room is finally complete. Finger cross that i'll get it done fast to reveal the final look!

The living room

As promised, here comes the photos.

This is my favorite spot at the living room-the single sofa seater which facing the wide open balcony. Since our apartment is on the highest floor so we really do have a good view. It was nearly 5pm when the workers moved in the last piece of the sofa, and i remember well the satisfaction feeling i had when i sit on the sofa, having the wide view opened before me.

If you compare this against the before-renovation living room. My oh my, i have to say boy we have came a long way.

The marble floor had been polished, new marble skirting (it cost a bomb!), the plaster ceiling was up, new fan, new balcony tiles, new paints, AND.... the seagrass sofa set!

If you notice the striking green wall along the corridor, well, that's the feature wall which we intend to create. However, things didn't turn out well as it happened to be too green to our taste.

In fact i have re-painted one side of the green wall back to lavender white, (It will be good if i can have the song by Celine dion "All by myself" as background now....), which tone down quite a bit of the greens. However, its far from satisfaction and there is still a lot of interior deco to do. Maybe some picture hanging along the corridor will do the trick.

Anyway, that's it for time being. And yes Kim, no house warming yet as the place is far from ready and all other rooms are still empty ;)

My happy bathroom

This is my happy bathroom, i named it in such a way because of all the rooms of our home, i love the bathroom the most.

My happy bathroom is the first room which i've decorated, i felt a gush of endorphin running through my body every time i walk into the room. The sanitation set are brand new; the basin is in table top design (you don't know how much of trouble i went through to get this); the tiles is of my favorite color (black of course), and the flexible 3 arm lamp alone cost us around RM150!

I went to KK Home Deco (Yeah, that's the shop that sells all sorts of white theme furniture /decorative items of flora design) last night, and come out with RM50 less in my pocket. Bought a glass vase and a bunch of white turlip (of course its fake), a white metal rack for my beauty products, a 2 tier metal rack for bathroom sets and a clock.

I know its funny that i felt so attached to my bathroom, but who cares! (its the endorphin which is talking, not me.)

The renovation

Many had asked me how's the progress of our house renovation. "ok.... fine.... progressing ...." was my answer for the past one month. Now here comes the truth.

After the whole excitement wore off (during the first two weeks itself), it slowly become a drag and a pain in the ass. The renovation had been delayed for nearly a month now. The contractor is slow in his job and was poor in his communication skill. His standard answer to all our queries was "ok, ok, can, can, no problem.." but never bother to explain what he meant by saying "can", what is the cost implication. Plus there is issues with old piping etc. which was out of our expectation.

Peter and I have alot of friction due to the disagreement in the renovation work. He was the bridge of the communication between the contractor and myself as most of the time i am not able to monitor the progress of the renovation due to my long working hours. Being the miss fussy pants, i have alot of requirements whereby poor Peter have to become the postman to convey my words to the contractor and vice versa. When things didnt work out, he had to listen to my whines and complains, and at the same time he was frustrated with the contractor's 'chinaman' working style.

That's why i wrote the post "A house is not a home" quite some times back as a reminder to myself that never lose sight of the most important thing, which is US and not the house. I appreciated that Dorcas promptly dropped a concern email to me once she saw the post. It was really sweet for her to do so but i am super bad when it comes to reply email (hehe.. sorry mate!).

I have to say the entire process was thorny and painful, but i am thankful that we have achieved most of our objective for the course of past two months. And i really hope that by this week, the first phase of the renovation will be completed and i can move in on Merdeka day (what a coincidence!). So far, the renovation list includes:

1. New plaster ceiling
2. New bathrooms (I love the master bathroom the most!)
3. Tearing down the wall between the kitchen and living room
4. Re-routing and replacing old pipes
5. Replacing all the old doors
6. Varnishing and painting
7. Polishing marbles, new marble skirting
8. New tiles for the balcony
9. New curtain railings
10. New down lights and sockets
11. Laminated floor for bedrooms (PENDING!!!)

One good thing was throughout the process, after many disagreement, frustration, silent treatment and reconciliation (hugs and kisses, hahaha...), Peter and i had learned to deal with unexpected issues with open mind and even have the guts to laugh about it. For instance, Peter and I went for a check on the new paints last night, to our horror, the lime green color which we have chosen for the main corridor and wardrobe appears to be too GREEN whereby i can even see the reflection of the green color on Peter's face when he stood beside the wall. You can imagine how my heart dropped when i saw the green wardrobe as it looks like some sort of kindergarten room/prayer room (if you know what i'm saying).

To prevent Peter from turning into the incredible hulk everytime he enters the room, we decided to re paint the room, OURSELVES. The funny thing was on our way back, Peter suddenly turned to me and said " Luckily we change our mind about the theme of our house from white-red to white-green theme, imagine how the room looks like in red". And thats when we started to laugh hysterically.... oh my, not to mentioned that yesterday was the day of celebration for hungry ghost festival. No pun intended.

All in all, it was indeed a journey, i will definitely share some picture of the place once its being cleaned up. So till then, i will leave it to your imagination. ;)

A house is not a home

Ever since Peter and I initiated the mega plan of house renovation, I have this constant feeling of being ugly, which further evolved to a certain level of self resentment.

When i said ugly, it was never refer to external appearance because its a matter of relativity and subjectivity. There is a no way a person can be ugly when beauty is in the eye of beholder. No matter how unsightly a person is, he/she is still the perfect person in someone's eyes. So when i said ugly, i am referring to this ugly little monster in me, who is emotional, temperamental, effusive.

When we first get our place, the feeling is like the man in the parable who found the hidden treasure in a field, in his joy went to sold all he had and bought the field. Such a joy came from the longing for a home after I've been away from home for a long long time and moved 7 times in 10 years. Having a home is like the light in the end of this tunnel of never ending nomad life. I have always pictured "home" as the idea of planting myself (with my love one) somewhere, with hard work and aspiration and seeing how life could be build upon solid cemented ground. Although its just 1068 square feet, however, the empowerment from the feeling of 'ownership' is still pretty much overwhelming.

I would very much wanted to sugarcoat the entire process by continue to make statements like owning a house is about building our life dah dah dah.... However in reality, when i am finally in the process of seeing the wall hacking and bricks by bricks it went up again, it strikes me that this may not be as beautiful as painting the castle in the air.

The amount of the details which we need to went through, the endless decision with regards to the choice of contractor, design, purchase which we need to made is wearing us off. It took me off guard that how impatience and how indecisive i am when it comes to housing matters. Maybe its because i am inexperience, maybe it involves a hell lot of moolah, or maybe its a simple fact that i am incompetent when it comes to dealing with adult matters (well, the entire adulthood is nothing but paying bills, loans, getting house, paying more loans isnt?). Who would imagine that Peter and I can argue on petty things like should we have 2 or 3 downlights at the corridor, and reconciled by sending make-peace sms afterthat.

At some point it hit me hard that owning a home was much less about building a life but more about purchasing a living structure on a piece of illiquid asset. or in simple terms, it was just a "house", and we should never see the asset bigger than life as though our entire couplehood or happily ever after is depend wholly on that.

"Home" was never about the house, but more about us. I was listening to the song "House is not a home" from Glee the other day, and the lyrics nearly teared me up. It says:

A chair is still a chair
Even when there's no one sitting there
But a chair is not a house
And a house is not a home
When there's no one there to hold you tight,
And no one there you can kiss good night.

A room is still a room
Even when there's nothing there but gloom;
But a room is not a house,
And a house is not a home
When the two of us are far apart
And one of us has a broken heart.

Yeah, its still long way to go before the house is ready for human inhabitation, but am glad the the process taught me a great lesson.

house reno update

This is how our place looked like since renovation started.

My heart dropped when i first stepped in, it really looked like a run down place. Funny thing is the scenes from "Restaurant makeover" keep flashes through my mind. I can even imagine the contractors who looked and dressed exactly like Igor, swinging his big hammer smashing against the kitchen wall with an evil smile.

A few days later, Peter and I came back. at least the contractor clear up the piles a bit and it looks much more comforting now.

Anyway, will come back with more photos when the work progresses.

The beginning of headache

Am working on house renovation now, plan to engage with contractor by end of this month . Its so much more complicated than what i thought initially. In fact, i stayed up to 1am last night just to figure how the measurement works in the floor plan. This is the design which Peter and i came out.

Looks like my mom's kindergarten kid's drawing

Here come the savior, Ikea Home planning tool. Gosh, i love it! its so handy and convenient. It gave shapes and colors to what i've visualized in my mind. The disadvantage is that you can only use their fittings and furniture, but it still looks marvellous compare to my own drawing.

Ok, now i need to start to work on the rest of the house * Headache *

Home is where the heart is

Went to visit Auntie Jean last weekend as Peter's mom wanted to pick up some berries from her. Since her house is exactly the opposite of our future dream house at Hillside Apartment,(which makes her our future neighbours), I'm pretty curious about their interior design hence decided to tag along.

Auntie Jean and her husband are one warm and friendly couple. i was touched by their generous hospitality as they were eagerly showing us around their house and offered us a nice warm cup of aromatic Saffron mint tea. In their mid fifties perhaps, they have a welcoming home with warm wooden laminated floor and a naughty schnauzer who cant stop biting our fingers (playfully) to express his welcome to the guest of his master. Beethoven (yes, thats his name, cheeky isnt it) is the second dog's of the family. The first one died a year ago and Aunty Jean was devastated. In fact there are still many photos of him hanging on the wall, reminding the family about their precious moments together.

The reality is that animals have shorter lifespan compare to human, and most of the pet owners refuse to have another pet after they lost their first. Its not hard to understand as many of us are not strong enough to face the heartache of letting our dear friend go when the time comes.

Well, auntie Jean thought she can never keep another dog for the rest of her life after the lost, but she did anyway, because of one reason "we had so much of love to give to the doggies", she said. And that touched me deeply.

Miko, my precious girl

All of us are capable to love so much more than we think we can, but most of the time we refuse to live out the capacity. We might not realize it at first, but we will soon discover that the fear of losing is not the great risk of our feelings in caring for someone. As we survive the heartache, anticipate the next, it actually strengthen us and replenish what we have dispersed, and that further expands our aptitude in love even more.

The short visit reminded me of what we want our future home to be. A place where our love can be freely expressed to each other. A place where our love for food, for doggies, for music and movies can be shared with our families and friends. And hopefully one day, our joy can be even extended to some distant friends or any person in need as well.

Looking at Auntie Jean's home made me craved so much for a home of my own. Although we are still in the process of closing the sales and purchase agreement for our place, and yes its still empty and bare, but its amazing that in such a short period of time, we had harbor so much of feelings and love for the place.

And i know for sure that this will be a home where our heart is and we will definitely have rooms for a puppy too.

The dream home project

Am working on a personal project at the moment. well, in this case personal means 'Peter and i' and this is our second joint project together. The first one was our food blog "Alimento Para Todos", which we started eons years ago when i'm still in UK. The whole purpose of the blog is to share our culinary experience in this cyberspace with each other and our friends. In fact, it was an alternative channel of communication for us since we were thousands of kilometers apart. Looking at what each other had for lunch, dinner, hangouts was interesting and torturing at the same time. I remembered myself constantly shouting with disbelief through skype:"NO, How can you go to eat .... without me!!"Anyway, its really fun to see this virgin project that we'd started and nurtured together growing step by step everyday, testifying our love for food along our coupling days.

The second joint project that we had is "dream home" project (run out of ideas on fancy project title). A few months ago, we've bought a sketch book and started to pour all of our interior design ideas for our future home into the sketch book. Its no more secret that Peter and I are in the process of buying our own house. Just to kill your curiosity, we have no plan for marriage as yet, we just think that its good if we can look into properties much earlier so when the time come, there wont be any last minute rushing. When i heard the frustration and troubles Dorcas underwent to sell and buy a new house, i knew exactly how she felt! The process of endless house viewing, dealing with the housing agent, price negotiation, bank loans and purchase agreement can be extremely exhaustive.

Now, one of our favourite past times is flipping interior design magazines and bionic scanning the interior of whichever shops/restaurant we stepped in to steal their design ideas. Just a peek at a random page which i've written/cut/paste in the sketch book:

To be frank, we dont really fancy a luxurious home, but we've always crave for a beautiful color, warmth, small place of our own where our loved ones want to hang out. Currently, i'm living in a christian household while Peter is living with his family. With his two terriers around, its impossible to have any sort of gathering at his house as the doggies will bark like mad from the moment the stranger step in til they step out. Hence, this small home that we visualized will be a place where finally we can invite our couple friends to come over to enjoy a simple drink or dinner together.

Below are some of my favourite images from "Mimoco Decorator". They all inspire me and have pieces that I plan to mix into our home.

My taste is quite extreme, i love the cool black color and elegant design, as well as the touch of apple green in a total white background which give a warm feeling

I am looking forward to the day we can see what we've visualized in the sketch book taking its shape into a place i called home.