Should I? Or Shouldn't I?

... make cakes for people as a side business that is? What do you think?

BUT, the thing is, I do not want to make the normal cakes that one can find in every single bakery - you know what I mean, the ubiquitous butter cake with (ordinary) butter icing. There are so many places one can get that - though, as far as I know, the so-called butter icing is usually made with margarine!!! Yuk :-(

So, what am I willing to make?

Let's start with my favourite - Breads white or wholewheat multi-grain, or plain white, or plain wholewheat loaves; focaccia (Italian style, with mashed potato. YUM); pain ecossais; soft/hard rolls - with or without raisins, or choc chips, or similar :-); Brioche (loaf or buns); hot cross buns; currant loaf; banana bread; etc.

Then we move on to cookies - Choc chip; or oatmeal and date; or simple vanilla or choc cookies, either plain, or dipped in choc.

Next up, TARTS & PIES - Lemon Meringue (or just Lemon cream without the meringue, as not everyone likes meringue!); Rich Chocolate tart; Tartes Normand; Choux Pastry (cream puffs, eclairs); apple crumble tart; Banoffee pie; Sticky Toffee Pudding; Key Lime Pie; Pumpkin Pie

And, finally, CAKES - NY Cheesecake; Choc Cheesecake; Chilled cheesecake; Opera Cake (my favourite!!); Fruit Charlottes; Caramel Chocolate Cake; Chocolate Mousse Cake; Chocolate Fondant (Lava); Choc Sacher; Le Succes; Fraisier (aka Strawberry Shortcake); Lemon Mirroire; Swiss Roll.

Hmmm, I think that is enough for now!

So, if anyone of my friends based in KL want to give any of these a try, let me know :-). Price varies, depending on the item - just ask me, and I will let you know. I won't be doing a production line (as quality would suffer), but definitely open to orders :-). They will TASTE good, but I have to warn you up front - my decor is VERY simple (some would say non-existent)... so I have to apologise in advance for that shortcoming :-p.

Till next time, have a good day, every day.

It's already March? When did that happen?!

Doesn't it feel like January was just last week? It does to me! I cannot believe we are already into March. Kinda scary how time seems to go by faster and faster each year :-(.

The big topic of speculation in M'sia is still "When will the elections be?" Closely followed by... "If the opposition wins big, will the current govt declare martial law?" Hmmm... worth thinking about! Do we Malaysians have sufficient faith in our fellow Malaysians who are members of the armed forces, that they will NOT turn their weapons on us ordinary people? Hmmmm... also requires thought! Will we Malaysians, including members of the current govt, be mature enough to accept that the opposition can become the govt and the govt become the opposition? Can we have a proper two-party system? I like to think we can! Anyway, elections have to be held before March 2013, and considering we are already in March 2012, and it takes time to get things moving and shaking, there is not a lot of time left. So, fellow Malaysians... be prepared to VOTE, and vote WISELY!

Life has been fairly quiet since New Year. Our cousins from the US (L&R) were here for 5 weeks and it was really great being able to spend time with them. Very therapeutic for me as well, talking about Ken with L. But, sadly, they are back home in the States, and I do miss them. However, I DO intend to visit them in the States, hopefully this year!

I have not done a lot of baking in the last couple of weeks (since my last posting), but did make CHOCOLATE NY Cheesecake for my nephews birthday, as well as chocolate brownie, and 2 types of scones - plain, and raisin. I LOVED how the scones turned out. So light and tasty that they could just be eaten straight off, without any butter or jam or cream or anything! YUM! The choc NY cheesecake turned out surprisingly good - very rich and chocolatey indeed. The choc brownie was OK... NOT the best thing I have made, so I have to try it again, but bake it for a shorter period of time so it is more chewy and moist. Of course, I have been regularly baking my breads, so we always have fresh home-made bread at home :-).

Here's a picture of the cheesecake and the scones, before they got 'demolished'!

I have been very good about keeping up with my exercising, especially as I have plenty of TIME. I go to the gym Mon/Tues and Wed/Thur, and usually do a 5km jog/walk in as short a time as possible. I like the jogging, as it has really helped to build up my lung power (which, due to asthma, has never been particularly good).... but my gym membership comes to an end this week, and I am not going to renew it. Instead I am taking up a one-month "Fitness Camp" series, starting next Monday, every Monday/Wednesday/Friday for 4 weeks. Then, after that, I shall get back to jogging again, around my housing estate, as there are loads of options for where to jog around here. Shall see how it goes.

Nothing else of any note has happened, so I shall stop here before I put my few but faithful readers to sleep.

Till next time, have a good day, every day!

The peace after the 'storm'

I think I am finally coming to accept that Ken is gone and though it is still hurtful, and can still hit really hard at times (particularly when I hear certain songs!), I find myself more at ease inside myself than I have been since he died. And it is no longer a forced 'smiling front' that I put up in front of family and friends. It is even when I am on my own. I still talk to him, but with no tears now. I was talking to a new friend yesterday, telling her about Ken, and I found I could tell her the circumstances without crying! So, my period of suspended animation is coming to an end! Now to get my act together and make a few firm decisions about what I REALLY want to do!

I mean, do I really want to go back to work in the first place?
Actually, this is an easy one to answer - Yes, I do....

The next question is harder: WHAT do I want to do? Do I really want to go back to my normal line of work? If Yes, do I want to get back into that stress? Into the long hours? Into the headaches? Hmmm, and if the answers are still YES, then is there a job out there for me, paying me what I expect to get? Especially since, globally, the overall economy is not doing that well! Europe is still potentially heading into a melt-down with the situation in Greece and other debt-ridden EU members. And let's not kid ourselves that the situation in Europe will not affect Asia! Of course it will!

So... do I want to go into something new? Do I want to take up baking more seriously, on a small scale anyway - breads, cakes, tarts, cookies, etc. I have found that I am a reasonably good baker - at least in terms of the taste of the things I make. I cannot say my 'decor' is great - it is serviceable, and that is the best I can say about it! But, I think, for most of us, unless the item being made is for a special occasion (which is when we want it to look AMAZING), we are more concerned about the taste than the look... and, yes, what I make DOES taste pretty good.

Or do I just switch into a simpler office based job, in KL, where I can have a more relaxed life, get paid enough to cover monthly expenses, and just be able to get out of the house daily, make new friends, and keep myself busy.

I think I will give myself another couple of months to see if I CAN get a job in my normal industry. In parallel, while looking, I will continue to bake, and if anyone has any interest in ordering any breads or cakes from me, well, let me know!

And, in summary, here are the various things I have made in the last one month:
Choc chip cookies; oatmeal/date cookies; spicy cheese cookies; lemon cream tart; lemon mirroire cake; opera cake; caramel chocolate cake; moist choc cakes with coffee butter cream filling and choc ganache topping; Fraisier; Banoffee pie; . And, of course, BREADS - the usual low-GI multi grain loafs; raisin buns; plain white loaf; etc.

So, till next time, have a good day, every day.

Are all govts this strange?

To be fair, the govt of this country is the only one I am really familiar with, as this is MY country, and it makes a difference to me. Whichever other country I may live in, the fact of the matter is that I am not a citizen of that country. THIS country, however, I AM a citizen of, and the policies and practices of this govt, this country, DO affect me.

So, are all govts this strange?

I mean, is it always a case of "Do what I TELL you to do, but don't do what I do". They crap up the local education system (which USED to be very very good) by constantly changing the education policies, without giving those policies enough time to be really tried and tested, before they are changing them again. Insist on teaching in all Malay, which is not necessarily a bad thing if they can also teach ENGLISH well (so at least we do not lose out in the globalised economy), but the teachers themselves are sorely lacking in the necessary skills to teach English, so everyone suffers - teachers and students. And these govt ministers who make all these flip-flop decisions, well, their kids don't get affected - because they can afford to send them overseas to study, and they DO send their kids overseas to study. None of this messed up local education for them, thank you very much!

And coming to the question of AFFORDABILITY.... this USED to be an affordable country even from the perspective of locals. But that was 30 years ago. Nowadays, the cost of living has gone up HUGELY, but salaries have barely budged from those days. So, if salaries have gone up 2 - 3%, but cost of living has gone up MINIMUM of 50%, how can life in this country be affordable for most locals? And how can we compare our country to ... say... Singapore? I go to Singapore, I earn a very good salary, and I can afford to live in Singapore. I come back to Malaysia, and the salaries on offer are really LOW, but the cost of living is not that different between Malaysia and Singapore, so how can I afford to live in Malaysia? And don't go through the process of converting something from S$ to MYR and saying that it is more expensive in Singapore. Hey, if you are going to do that, then convert Singapore SALARIES to MYR as well, and THEN do a proper comparison. Or convert everything, salaries, costs, etc, to US$ and do a comparison. If I use my car as an example - Ken and I bought it in Singapore, for S$53K 2.5 years old. The same car, in Malaysia, 3 years old, was going at that time for about MYR110K. So, if one is earning S$10K, and one is earning MYR10K, tell me, which is more affordable? Obviously, on S$10K, I can afford to buy that car in Singapore, much easier than I can afford to buy it here on MYR10K. And if you want to convert all that to MYR, well S$53K is approx MYR130K, while S$10K salary is about MYR24K. So, YES, I can afford that car better in Singapore than I can here! And, NO, if you earn S$10K in Singapore, NOBODY is going to pay you MYR24K for the same job in Malaysia!! If you are lucky, you may get MYR11K for the same job!

And what about corruption? How is it that for the slightest SLIGHTEST suspicion, all the opposition (or non-supporters of the govt) get hauled in by the cops and/or the anti-corruption agency, and get hauled over the coals by all the mainstream media, but when someone from the main govt coalition gets caught red-handed with their hands in the till (well, usually it is more than just HANDS... they kinda dive in and grab!), with PROOF, they don't even get a slap on the wrist? And they can just continue as if nothing has happened? Hey, this is MY MONEY - I AM A TAXPAYER! This is NOT YOUR MONEY!

Oh man, once you start, you can go on and on and on... so, I shall stop for now.

I hope you all have a good day, every day, despite this crap!

The small things in life

One silly incident that just happened this evening, brought home to me, AGAIN, that the one person in my entire half century of life, who always had me at the forefront of his thoughts, who (in his own words) said "I think of you in all my wishes, even when I'm doing dishes", is not around now, and because of that, I am no longer the first, second, or even LAST thought in someones mind every day. And it hit me SO hard that I just sat and cried my eyes out for a good ten minutes. And as I type this, I am still crying. Isn't it strange, and wonderful, that it is the small things in life that really mean the most in the end, not the grand gestures. And Ken, every single day, in both big and small ways, showed me that I was really the centre of his life. AND I SO MISS THAT!! And I also realised that, for me at least, it is actually easier to be on my own, rather than with family, because then I do not get constantly hit with this realisation. You kinda think when you have your family around you that they at least should think of you sometimes (and more so because I do have them in my thoughts every day)... but the reality is that they have their own lives and concerns and worries and headaches, and you are not part of their thoughts. Fact of life. Get used to it. Yes, I will. Eventually I will develop a thick enough skin to not get affected like this. Eventually.

I have been fortunate

At some point, after being hit with a major happening, one has to make a decision to move on with life. In my case, the 'major happening' was the death of my beloved Ken. I guess we both always knew that he would go before me - given our age difference, and given that women generally outlive men, it was to be expected. But what was difficult to accept was the pain and suffering Ken went through in the months leading to his death. This is not what anyone wants. This is not what anyone expects. But this is what was thrown at Ken and we both had to live with what was given to us. He lived with the pain and suffering for a year, and then made the conscious decision to exit this life when he realised that even one more day of life would lead to being bed-ridden - a situation that he would have found impossible to accept, considering what an incredibly active person he was all his life! And now I live with the fact that I no longer have him in my life, but that I have been hugely blessed because I DID have him in my life!

I am fortunate on many counts - not least of which was that we DID meet, and that we DID have a most amazing 12 years together, and he was as much the love of my life the day he died, as the day we met, and every day in between. Even before Ken got sick, we spent a LOT of time together because we actually enjoyed spending time in each others company. We talked and laughed a lot together. We loved going on walkabouts together. He even took me to join his 'boys night out' sessions, where I got to know his friends and colleagues and, through those sessions, learnt to talk intelligently about FPSO's! With Ken it was Valentine's Day every day - not in the sense of gift giving (how pointless is that!), but in terms of the giving and receiving of LOVE for each other - every day, in every thought, gesture, action.

In the end, I was fortunate also that I was able to quit work to focus on looking after Ken full time till he died - and apart from a few days when I had to go to Singapore and pack up our stuff there to bring everything back to KL - we were together almost every single minute of every day till the very end. In and out of hospital, in and out of ICU, in and out of doctors visits... every day. I was fortunate that I was able to spend that time with him, and that we had the chance to say our goodbyes. I guess, being able to say goodbye, hearing him say that last "I love you" to me... there is closure. So, Yes, I am fortunate.

Now what? I have to move slowly out of my mode of suspended animation. I have to get on with life. I have to make decisions about what I want to do now. Do I want to go back into my normal stress-filled line of work? Do I want to take up something new? Do I want to make use of my newly learned baking skills? No, I don't intend to start up my own bakery, but I am sure there is something I can do in this new line! It may take me some time to make this decision, but, as my dear cousin (L) points out - God has a plan for me, and, one way or the other, I will find out what it is.

So, now, I will have to find my way out of limbo, and I will have to decide what I want to do. No decisions yet. No timeline to this. I just know, it will happen.

Till next time, have a good day, every day!

Still in suspended animation....

Tomorrow will be 2 years since Ken said his last words to me and peacefully slipped out of this world into the next. And in that 2 years I have gotten better at hiding my pain, hiding the hole in my heart, hiding the depression, hiding the hurt. But all the pain, the depression, the hurt, they are all still with me, sitting inside that huge hole in my heart and making the hole deeper and wider.

One of my friends on Facebook said it well - it is like being in suspended animation. Yes, suspended animation just about covers it - kinda like an emotional zombie... going through the motions of life, but not really feeling anything. I get up early in the morning most week days and go to the gym. I go out with friends and family, I laugh, smile, talk, banter. Then, at night, I retreat into my room, into myself. I try to accept the pain, and I try not to cry myself to sleep, and nowadays, most days, I do manage. I still do not sleep through the night, but I've found out that as long as I am tucked up in bed, with the lights switched off, even if I am not sleeping my body seems to get enough rest... so that sorta works out OK.

Most days I prefer spending quietly, by myself - mostly reading, sometimes surfing, sometimes watching movies. I like spending time with my sister and her family, with my cousins from the US, with my brother and his family, with friends and family. I bake, I shop, I go through the normal motions of every day life. I am looking for a job (don't really know if I will get one, given that the older one gets the harder it is to get a decent job!!), though if I don't get a job that is OK too, as I know I can keep myself busy with my baking!

Tomorrow also happens to be my Mum's birthday - and she will be 75. I will try my best to not let the sadness I feel, in not having Ken with me, overshadow the celebration of Mum's birthday. My youngest nephew has already selected the cake I am going to make for the birthday - a Lemon Mirroire - so that will help to keep me occupied once I get back from the gym.

And, I know, one day, I will come out of suspended animation, and I will look around me, and, Yes, I WILL be OK. And, I do know, in my head and in my heart, that my much loved husband would not want me to just continue in limbo. He would want me to live LIFE, as it is meant to be lived. So, to honour him, his love for me, I WILL be fine. It just takes time, and, though his absence in my life will always be there, it will not be what defines me, though obviously it has influence on me. So, I'm hanging in here, and I will be OK.

Enough said for today. Till next time, have a good day, every day.