I am on blog again

Hello again...apologize for my long silence. Its been more than a year I never update my blog. What has been happening to my life?? hhhmmm....after bidding farewell to China in early 2009 I was asked to come again to support the project in July the same year. I was in Malaysia for a brief 3 to 4 months. Again I have to leave the children and my other half in Malaysia and again I have to listen to all bad word that people talk behind my back (potraying me as a vicious mother...) ..I am used to those gossip nowadays and never bother to even think of it (always tell myself not to give a damn). I am very lucky to have Rozi as my life partner...he is so supportive, very understanding and most importantly very loving and faithful. I am bless with 4 beautiful children who always behave and showing their love and support eventough we live thousand miles apart. Mommie will always love all of you!!. It is very hard sometimes to live apart like this but we managed to go through all the hardship togather. I am glad that now I manage to schedule my travel frequently to visit them in Malaysia. I make a point to be home at least once a month. I had a chance to send Adam off to his 1st day at kindergarden. It was a very unforgettable memory. Seeing Adam off to school on his first day is a very satisfying experience...I remember woke up very early prepared some breakfast for the kids and drive Adam to school. This can be a very normal and routine activity for some other mothers but for me it is a very special moment since it is not alway that I had a chance to send the kids off to school. Sometimes I even dream to quit my job, do lots of stitching, cook and bake varies dishes/cookies and spend lots of my time with the kids.

On the stitching front, I had finished quite a number of stitching project in 2009 and for 1st quarter of 2010 I sign in for 3 exchanges - a biscornu, ATC and mattress pincushion. My swap partner are from the UK and New Zealand. I had also pile up my stash collection and bought a few new charts from LHN and CCN (my most favorite designer). I will show and tell some of my stitching project.

I was supposed to continue my story on my backpacking journey to ShangriLa Yunnan but never get a chance to continue writing...I will upload some pictures. I have done quite a bit of travelling with the kids while they were here in end of 2010...we went to visit Terracota Warriors in Xian and spend a couple of days in Beijing. It was not a very good travelling experience since we were rob off our DSLR camera which I only bought for 6 months and Adam's handheld PSP. I feel sorry to the kids because we lost all our travelling pictures in Xian especially the Terrocota Warriors visit.

We will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary this year...I thank Allah for giving me such a good life with Rozi!! We had promised to perform Haj next year insyallah (may Allah answer our prayers and give us more strength to keep up and improve our effort toward reaching our goal). Eventough I am not being able to enjoy my life fully with the children like other mothers do and being around my partner all the time, I am thankful that I am being love by them and the children still appreciate me. Wawa always tell me how proud she is to have a smart mom (which I doubt on her claim!), Uya is proud to have her mom living in China (children are always weird sometimes...)..Adam is always thinking of my cooking...once I told him that I will be flying home soon and ask what would he like....he answered instantly ..I want crab mommie...bestt besttt....i want you to cook crab..and my eldest Nabihah is always being the guidance to all her siblings....eventough sometimes we have our differences as she is more like daddy's favorite girl but she has done a very good job while I am away...I am proud that our family is in a close knit eventough we are living thousand miles apart.....

I had this from them recently during their trip to east coast without me....isn't it sweet!

Rozi had bought us a flight to Melbourne in October to celebrate our 20th anniversary....thanks love for that!! Can't wait for the get away trip with you....

That's about it ...I hope to write and show some pictures soon...thanks for taking your time reading my blog entry. Enjoy your week and Happy Stitching!!

Zhejiang to Yunnan Province

We started our adventure out of the apartment in the evening of 23 March.....

Rozi acted as my special sherpa..... before heading to the railway station...one of the items in the bag.....dried beef rendang and rice cube...LOL....

Waiting for our D109 fast train to Changsha

Rozi insisted that I took the photo to show the train speed...that was at 199km/hour....

We reached Changsha Railway early morning of 24th March....the ticket for early morning train to Kunming was sold out...we gotta wait for 8:30am train and camped out at the McD next to railway station for nearly 7 hours......however, there a a few motels and hotels within minutes walking distance nearby but we decided to wait instead since there were not many people around the station (that was truly backpacking experience!!).....

We managed to get soft bed shared with a local couple from Suzhou......so I have to put on my hijab while sleeping....my first experience but I slept comfortably may be too tired to think of other things!!.......Rozi was on upper deck and it was quite funny since we were chatting in Bahasa Malaysia talking about the couple doing lovveeyy dooveyyy stuffs until both of us fell asleep.........it was a very memorable 22 hours train ride from Changsha to Kunming city........

These are some of the photos taken from the train ride.......some mountainous scenery near Guizhou...

Somewhere near Kunming.....

TBC...........

Mother's Day Card Exchange........

Thanks to my swap partner....this card had safety reached me....I like her creativity....very sweet and simple.......I place it on top of my table in the office and it has been an envy of my colleague.....

Unfortunately I had forgotten to snap the photo of my piece before I mailed it out.....arrrgghh....

Happy Mother's Day to all beautiful and loving mother out there.......hope you have a very memorable day and full of love............

Good bye Hangzhou...

These are my final photos before I bid farewell to Hangzhou on 1st April 2009........

A view from underneath a willow tree at West Lake

Very common view of West Lake, Hangzhou

Me and the spring flowers .....

Will write on my backpacking adventure to Lijiang, Shangri La and Kunming in Yunnan soon.....

Baking local delicacy

I guess you must be wondering why I wrote quite a bit journal updating my latest activity today. The main reason behind it is that it was done while waiting for my "kuih bakar" in the oven....LOL.....On my recent trip back to Kuantan, my mother in law gave me the mould for making this local delicacy since she is no longer using it. I have been wanting to have this mould so much but could not find any near my home. I never knew that my MIL keep a piece in her kitchen. I am so happy that I inherit hers now ....ha....ha........this is the outcome....guess no so bad for the first timer!!

Very simple recipe...I just use 8 whole eggs, sugar, small portion of flour, coconut milk, a small bowl of sugar and pandan syrup extracted from blended pandan leaves. Mix altogather and pour into the mould. Set the temperature to 150-200 then baked it for 15 minutes. That's it!