Mimosa for the little visitors

My husband planted the tree just so the tiny humming birds could feed when they come visit every summer from the south.

MY Roo Girl was bitten again

My Roo was bitten by a copper head again last week. Poor girl, her face was swollen so big that she looked like a monster. She drooled and her mouth was kind of flapping. She was in pain and I was advised by the vet to give her benadryl in case she developed an allergy. Praise be to Allah she was alright after a day. Love that dog. She would put herself in front of me and she would protect me when she thinks I am in danger.

Ramadan

We completed our first day of fasting at 7:53pm. The weather was almost good, cloudy and the high temperature for today is 92F.

I did my Tarawih last night, the minimum and InsyaAllah tonight I will too. Surprisingly, I did well on my first day. Usually I would have headache and after breaking the fast i would throw up. Praise be to Allah all went well.

My little kingdom 2

Daun kunyit/tumeric



Okra/bendi or kacang lendir



Tomatoes (leftover dunno what to do with them)



Serai/lemon grass


It is only early August, but my trees are turning colors. Fall is arriving. It has been so hot lately, probably the reason the trees are changing their color to minimize the water consumption.

However today we had a heavy downpour which immediately green my grass and burst or crack whatever left of my grapes on the vines. My plants, I am sure are thankful for the drink and I am thankful too as my water tank is almost full again. (We have a 500 gallon tank collecting water from the roof gutter). Of course, i don't have to water my tress and garden for a couple of days.

I cut some of my tumeric leaves and shred them and dry them in the house, save them for the rainy days when I run out of fresh ones. They keep good dried in the freezer (do not freeze them when still wet). As Ramadan is approaching I am sure I may need them. Since it is fishing time too, I might use them to flavor my ikan bakar, my masak lemak cili api etc.

My little kingdom

The above pictures of my grapevines are for Delicate Flower to see.


People blog about their everyday life, good restaurants to go to, new shoes to buy, office politics, vacations they take. All those gorgeous stuff that make people happy.

People say, once you retire from 9-5 working hours, you will be bored and restless and maybe depress. It did not happen to me. I took my retirement day by day. There was no hurry to get into anything.

Acquiring all those worldly goodies kind of slipped off too once i retired. There isn't any need to buy those branded items to wear or carry or show off. My dogs and chicken will laugh at me I guess if wear or use them. There isn't any pressure to dress up to show off or to brag about where I go to dine, whom I meet or where I go for vacations to keep up with the Joneses. Sound boring huh.

It does not take much to make me happy and contented. I love this little homestead that my husband and I carved. There is nothing much here when we bought it. Whatever we have now are tress and things we grow and create. There isn't much but when you build something with your own bare hands, they sure make you feel good.

My husband built little things for me to be closer to nature. The bird houses to watch what kind of bird come to live. The squirrel houses set up on the huge oak trees for the naughty creatures to keep warm in winter and of course the squirrel feeders and humming birds feeders.

We grow mimosa trees just so the humming birds can come and enjoy the flowers as well as the honey suckles along the fence. My husband also built a small garden patch next to the house so that i can grow my oriental herbs and plants for my kitchen (read: serai, cili api, kunyit, limau nipis, basil etc.)

I get enthusiastic when spring comes, when i get to grow my vegetables seriously. Not so much to eat, but just to see how things grow when you give a little love and care. As usual, I over do it. I plant rows and rows of them and in the end I give them away or just let them go back to fertilize the garden.

Birds having a party

Now I know why every morning when i open the door, i could hear birds singing and sound so happy. They are having an early wine party. They are partying on my grape vines. My grapes have ripen and ready for picking. So yesterday I went and look at them. Indeed they have, but i could not remember which is which, the seedless red Thompson or the black concord as they have twined together. The seedless Thomson has a lighter color and the concord is more purplish. Anyway, now I have them in my big basket. I have to separate them from the raisins though before I turn them into yummy juice.

I plan to turn the juice into jelly later on. For now I am drinking my very fresh grape juice, which is a little tart to the taste buds. I also have fresh tomato juice to drink as my tomato vines are loaded with big juicy ripe tomatoes. For those who have not tasted tomatoes grown and ripen on the vines in Oklahoma's hot summer sun, I cannot even try to describe how fantastic they taste. There is no comparison.

This afternoon while warming my leftover chicken soup, I thought of adding some dumplings into it. I have some round wrappers in the refrigerator, and some cheese plus the chicken meat from the soup. So while my chicken soup was warming up, I threw into the food processor some chicken meat, some onions and some of my squash. I added some ricotta cheese and made into balls and wrapped with the wrapper (wanton). Then i throw them into the boiling soup. They turn out to be tasty.

More fun at the lake

It is the thing for us in the boonies to go out to the water for some fun in the summer. Since we do not have the ocean to jump into, we have many lakes to enjoy. here are more pictures of the Beach clan having fun. Yours truly would not be displayed here as not to invite unsavory comments and menambah dosa org yg menengok.

Rednecks having fun at the lakes

Crayfish,crawfish or crawdad

Cray fish, craw fish or crawdad, they are the same critters. The pond dug out by my husband 2 years ago, are full of those crawly critters. The pond was meant for my dogs to go for a swim especially in the hot summer days. It was meant to be a bigger pond, but due to the ground being wet most of the time and the backhoe and dozer almost got stuck every time, it remains at the original size of 20 X 10 ft.

My dogs do not care for the size, they enjoy it all the time. Buddy will just jump in and out of it a few times everyday when we go for a run. Max just skirt along the side where the water just touches his belly. Roo and Dumdum always swim around it a few times before getting out to shake off the water.

A few days ago, my husband decided to work on the pond again. He pumped the water out to drain the pond to a reasonable level. To our surprise, the pond is full of those yummy critters. I have yet to figure out how to catch them especially those the size of lobsters. Their pincers look mean.

As to how they come to be in the pond, we have a theory. Most probably those migratory birds stop by and drop their food in the pond. Those crayfish eggs must have hatched and create a colony in the pond.

I will post some pictures when I get them.

My garden produce

Early spring vegetables

Strawberry


Collard Greens


Chives


Asparagus


Mint

Clouds

Towering clouds before the storm.

Spring is here again in the boonies

The spring is here.

Shortcut cooking

I am creative when come to cooking my favorite food. I make nasik lemak from leftover rice by sprinkling salted coconut milk and adding slices of ginger and onion. Microwave it for 2 minutes and I have nasik lemak.

I make curry mee by adding coconut milk to maggi instant noodles (curry flavour). Of course I add dried tofu, shrimps and vegetables. If I don't have maggi mee with curry flavor, I just use any instant noodles minus the flavor. I just boil fish curry powder with coconut milk adding to it crushed ginger root and onions. Then i add the noodles plus all the the garnishing that I want.

I grill/bbq my food often. To make sure my chicken or meat does not burn on the grill, I usually cook the beef or chicken first in the bbq sauce. If I am realy really lazy I just microwave the meats in the sauce. Then only I put them on the grill just to get the meat get dried and get the mark on them.

To have nicely cooked baked potatoes on the table at the same time as your bbq meat/chicken. Clean and dry the baking potatoes, then microwave them for 8-10 minutes or until soft. Then take them out and wrap them in tin foil singly/separately. They are ready to eat.

To make your meal look classy, just boil/microwave asparagus and serve it with butter.

How many ways do you eat your cottage cheese

I was introduced to cheese eating when i was still young. My grandfather used to buy them whenever he went shopping at the one and only cold storage in Penang. That was way back in the 50's and 60's. The cheese and butter came in those gold colored cans that I can't remember the brand. It is called iceberg or something. I also remember my father liked melted cheese on his roti bangali but my mother did not like even the smell of it especially when she was pregnant.

Later in that period of time, the cheese and butter were hard to come by and my grandfather did not make many more trips to the cold storage as the estate he was managing had changed ownership. So, I think after the early 60's we did not eat 'western' anymore. Then there was planta margarine.

When I was studying in London circa 70's I hated having to pass the cheese department of Sainsbury on Holloway road to get to the bus stand on Seven Sisters road. The smell could give me a bad headache. I did like the soft cheese and gouda or edam. Back in Malaysia, I could not find any decent cheese to eat. There was cheddar from Australia that sucks and tasted like fermented rubber, so I quit eating cheese.

When I was in Hawaii in the 80's I found that American cheese are yummy. Found that their cottage cheese is not like those imported from Australia. (probably very old imported stock that are sold in Malaysia).

I like to eat cottage cheese in a variety of ways. When I was in Uzbekistan, I bought cottage cheese by the bucket (that was how it was sold then) from the 'secret farmer' who kept his cows and operation hidden from the authority. I ate it in salad, I ate it with salt and pepper, I ate it with home made preserved fruits etc. because that was the only luxury food i could find then. I bought home churned butter too to eat with pon their kind of bread.

My husband eats his cottage cheese with pineapple chunks sprinkled with salt and black pepper for breakfast. I eat mine with cocktail fruits and nuts. I also eat it with sliced fruits sprinkled with salt and pepper. I have yet to try eat it with shrimps.

Baju Kurung

On my last visit to Malaya, I met with my best friend from school days. My friend and I sat next to each other in the classroom from Remove Class until Upper Six. Eight long years. The last time I met her when a friend and I did our round the peninsular drive in 1981 before I went to the East-West Center in Honolulu. She was teaching at this small town by the south china sea. She already started a family. She had three cute babies. We did keep up with each other but not met since then. It was during my last visit me met again after 27 years.

Right, we got to sit and talked about the good old days in a boarding school. We recalled that on certain night of the week we had to wear baju kurung for dinner. Baju kurung hijau. During that time there wasn't any ready-made baju kurung to buy and those tailors never heard of readily arranged pleats for the sarong. So most of us who were not originally from the southern part of the peninsular found it very challenging to make the pleats from the sarong and have the sarong tied securely.

During one of the night outings to see a talent time, a singing contest at the Dewan Jubli Intan, my friend and I wore the baju kurung. One of the contestants for the night was Sheikh Abdullah ( better known as Datuk Sheikh now). I think one of the contestants was my classmates. We went to cheer my classmate. We got all excited and clapped and stood and jumped i guess, and I discovered I was standing with my sarong on the floor. What a shock. Luckily all of us were standing and I managed to scoop up my offending sarong and tried my best to fix it the way the northern people wear, like real sarong. At that time I swore I would never wear baju kurung again for outing. I would stick to my green gingham pinafore school uniform.

My new wheels

We just got this pickup last week. I like it. I feel tall driving it. Have to literally climb into it.

Rombongan

What is wrong with that word? It used to be alright to use it to mean moving in a group. My mother used to go on a rombongan to Kuala Kangsar in the 60's. I used to go on school rombongan to visit educational places. Nowadays that term has a different connotation. That's what I just realized what a BIG mistake I made. I supposed I could have been forgiven by using that term since I belong to that generation that the word rombongan means something exciting to do with your friends.

I was in transit at Inchon, Seoul recently. We boarded the flight that was heading home to KLIA. Flights on the code sharing, called sky team. I was on Delta from Atlanta (DL), and there were passangers on MH and KE whom actually were sitting on KE aircraft KLIA bound.

I guess I was the only one who originated from Atlanta, GA and terminate at KLIA. When we boarded the aircraft, I could hear a familiar language spoken. Unmistakably, it was my mother tongue that I missed a lot. I was excited to talk to these group of people whom themselves sounded very excited with their trip to Seoul. They were loud and talking about their shopping etc. Some were even talking about making a similar trip to the US namely NYC.

In my excitement meeting this group, I turned around and asked in a very friendly manner "You all ni mai rombongan ka or ikut rombongan?" Then to my utter disbelief, everyone went silent. I did not know what I said that was so wrong. I thought these ladies were rude, they did not answer my question. I thought they did not hear me, I stood up and turned and asked the same question again to give them the benefit of the doubt. Again nobody said anything and I noticed nobody looked at me. Then I was confirmed that orang melayu memang rude.

I only learned later that the term rombongan is only referred to those group travels synonymous with makciks on a bus or coach trip. How out of date I am with my language. I supposed I have offended those ladies making their overseas trip sounded very kampong.

You learn something new everyday, don't you.

Some things just get old

Probably it is just me. I get tired of the same old things. I used to enjoy checking the website that brings together all Malays living away from home country. it was exciting to sit and chat and share our different experiences in our lives adopting our new environment. It was then a place where we share our sorrows, praying and comforting each other giving and having a shoulder to cry on. We extend our moral support. We encourage each other. We were a bunch of friends or more like sisters and brothers.

Things started to change when a group started to dominate the website and of course there were those bad apples. Those religious chauvinists with holier than thou attitude. There were then the subtle rivalry to control the website. The website began to stink and I no longer visit that place where i used to be so much at home. I missed those friends that I made and there are still some I still keep in touch.

I use to blog hop quite a bit, but recently i realized that i only go to some selected ones. I no longer want to know what people write or do that has no connection to my thinking. I do not deny though that I learned quite a bit about human behavior.

I realized that I must have had a very protected life. I am thankful that while growing up, I did not have to struggle for survival. I did not feel that i was deprived of love from my parents or my family even though most of my teenage years were spent in a boarding school. perhaps I was not looking for anybody to blame for my failure or shortcomings. It is so easy to blame someone else for our short comings or failure than to ourselves.

Many people blame their parents, their governments, their schools or everybody else rather than themselves for their predicaments. Actually it is an individual choice to be what we are. If we chose a cup instead of the coffee then do not blame the cup if the coffee is stale.

When I decide to marry someone out of my league (i.e. not wealthy), many question my choice. I did not feel I need to explain my reasons. However suffice to say I enjoy a most sensational flavored coffee in an old mug.

Seven Career Killers by John McPhee, Forbes.com

Avoiding these seven deadly sins will also help individuals balance their "whole life" and assure they are ready to take on new workplace challenges as they are presented -- and execute them well.

Deadly Workplace Sins

At least seven "deadly workplace sins" detail key emotional offenses professionals should avoid at all costs to better assure upward career mobility. A few common sense tips will help aspiring pros get on the path to the ever-elusive paycheck promise land.

Pride
First, there's pride. Far too many who experience "workplace wins" take full credit for these achievements, regardless of any support or assistance received in the process. What often goes unrecognized is that people around, and especially below, the serially solo-successful resent the egocentricity, and may actually begin to actively undermine that person's efforts in the future. While one's pride wants all due recognition, a team philosophy can build the grass-roots support that can fast-track a career. Indeed, a dose of acknowledgment of and appreciation for one's peers and subordinates, so they may share in some of the glory, can go a long way to foster one's long-term success.

Envy
Moreover, while it's OK to recognize other individuals or organizations as they achieve, lamenting "what should have been yours" can be destructive and can adversely impact your own ability to focus on the job tasks at hand. Becoming envious of others in the workplace can sabotage your self esteem, which is one vital characteristic of every successful worker or executive. Rather than being envious, let the accomplishments of others become motivational fuel for your fire in working toward your own successes.
Anger
Anger is another motion that needs to be held in check. Begetting nothing but disagreement, dispute, tension or conflict, anger provides no benefit in the workplace. There is simply nothing productive about anger, which impairs one's objectivity, poise and self control. Don't let a bout of righteousness damage your reputation and image in the workplace. It's fine to feel passionately about your job or a project at hand and to disagree with others, but learn how to channel those emotions into actions that will work to your benefit in the eyes of others -- especially your superiors -- rather than against it. Those prone to angry outbursts rarely get promoted; they are seen as being poor leaders who cannot inspire or motivate others.

Short-sightedness
One's selfish desire for "more, sooner" is what motivates many in the Western culture to achieve their career goals. But taking this notion to the extreme can and will be self defeating as core values become misguided and life becomes unbalanced in the process. The road to success requires a long term approach in all aspects of one's job duties. Those laser-focused on quick, short-term gains may do well for the moment, but will be ill-prepared to take things to the next level.
Complacency
At the other end of the spectrum, sloth, or simply put, complacency and laziness have no place whatsoever in the workplace -- especially for those with high aspirations. Expecting one's past achievements and successes to carry them forward in their long-term career is imprudent. Today's uber-competitive global marketplace ensures that only those who continue to grow, evolve and make fresh contributions of value will succeed. In a global environment where outsourcing is becoming a norm, everyone at all levels of the employment "food chain" is now replaceable. So treat every work day and every project as if your job, and your future at large, depends on it. It very well may.
Imbalance
Many individuals move up the corporate ladder so fast that they actually end up failing as a consequence. More isn't always better -- especially if you're not ready for the challenge at hand. It's important to ensure that you are not only professionally ready to take on a new and bigger challenge, for which expectations are equally bigger, but also that your personal life is ready for the new demands and strains to be placed upon it. Achieving career success also includes maintaining a life balance, and a misplaced professional desire can create a backlash both at home as well as amid peers for your perceived obsessiveness.

Lust
At times this can spill over to lust. An overly intense desire for what others have achieved at work, or being chronically dissatisfied with one's own status, is a surefire career killer. Spending an inordinate amount of time fixated on what you don't have rather than what you do will foster a bad attitude and negative overall demeanor.

Above all, one's overall "presence" in the office plays a big part in who gets promoted and who doesn't. No matter how ambitious, it's prudent to be present and make the most out of your current position at this moment in time. Organizations recognize and reward those with a good attitude who make the most of a situation. Winners recognize other's success with sportsmanlike conduct, while at the same time exhibiting an air of confidence that they, and their team, will realize their own great achievements.